A NEW MIDDLE EAST - with Tal Becker and Nadav Eyal

You are listening to an art media podcast.

You know, it's been said before, but it's worth repeating.

Our enemies constantly say that our weakness is that we love life and that they're going to use that love of life as opposed to their love of death against us.

And today, that felt like the greatest strength ever that we love life.

And that was a kind of defiance.

There is something about emerging with this this affirmation of the love of life that it transcends any moment I can remember in many, many years.

These images are images that we didn't even dare to dream about for two years.

And together with this sense of joy, of almost ecstasy or at least catharsis of the Israeli society.

for everyone that's been involved with this or just following the news in the diaspora or in Israel is a deep sense of sadness.

Sadness about those who would not return back home.

Sadness as to the brutality and cruelty and violence that we've been exposed to in the last two years.

Sadness of the time lost, these two years of war that should have never happened in the first place.

And this sadness will also shape the face of Israel in the coming decade.

It's 2 p.m.

on Monday, October 13th here in New York City.

It's 9 p.m.

on Monday, October 13th in Israel as Israelis welcome back 20 living hostages who have been held by Hamas for 738 days.

This also, God willing, will mark the end of Israel's longest war that started on October 7th, 2023.

The hostages reunited with their families as crowds around Israel cheered with overwhelming emotion.

In a violation, however, of the ceasefire agreement, Hamas has only released the remains of four of the deceased hostages rather than all 28, after claiming, quote, complications in locating the rest in time.

Following the hostages' return, Israel began fulfilling its part of the deal, releasing nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners as part of a ceasefire deal.

As all of this unfolded, President Trump landed in Ben-Gurion airport where he was greeted by Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Herzog, U.S.

Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and U.S.

Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.

From there, Trump and Netanyahu drove to the Knesset in Jerusalem to meet with former hostages and hostage families.

Later today, President Trump joined more than 20 world leaders in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, for an international peace summit to coordinate the end of the Gaza War and plan for the day after.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas attended, as regional leaders at least expect the PA's involvement in the reconstruction and future governing of Gaza.

Before we start, I want to play you a few moments from some of the speeches we heard this morning at the Knesset.

This is Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The last two years have been a time of war.

The coming years will hopefully be a time for peace.

Peace inside Israel and peace outside Israel.

I look forward to continuing marching with you on the path we paved together with the Abraham Accords.

Under your leadership, we can forge new peace treaties with Arab countries in the region and Muslim countries beyond the region.

Abraham's children will work together to build a better future.

a future that will unite civilization against barbarism, light against darkness, and hope against despair.

And what is rare in the Knesset to hear speeches of unity and unified messages from both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition?

Here's Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid.

The state of Israel is about to reinvent itself.

The challenges ahead demand not only strength, but a new vision.

It's time to take a new path, to be a nation that is advanced.

and thriving and peace-seeking.

Thanks to you, Mr.

President.

Thanks to our soldiers, our lions.

Thanks to the millions of great Israeli patriots who filled the streets and the square and never, not for one moment, gave up on the hostages.

Thank you very much.

God bless the United States of America.

Am Israel Chai.

And here is President Donald Trump, who delivered an address that I think is safe to say is not only unlike any address a U.S.

President has delivered in Israel's Knesset, Knesset, but unlike one a U.S.

president has delivered in any parliament, in any legislative body, in front of any government around the world.

It's more obvious than ever that the productive and responsible nations of this region should not be enemies or adversaries.

You should be partners and eventually even friends, and that's what's going to happen.

I know it.

Together, you can stand against the forces of chaos that threatened all of your interests, and it's always a big threat, and unleash incredible prosperity and opportunity for all the people of these lands and you've won and now you can build and you can do things that you never even thought possible.

Joining me now to discuss this historic day and the emerging visions for a new Middle East are Arc Media contributor Nadav Ayel and also Tal Becker who's a former Israeli diplomat and who represented Israel on the legal team before The Hague and who's currently with the Shalom Hartman Institute.

Let's take a break to hear a word from our sponsor.

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On this historic day, I am pleased to welcome back to the podcast, Nadav Ayel and Tao Becker.

Gentlemen, thanks for being here.

I want to just say, Nadav, you in the role of a journalist and a columnist and an analyst.

Tao, you in your role as an official in government, dealing with a whole range of issues over the last number of decades, but mostly during this war, representing Israel at The Hague.

But now as a thought leader and also an analyst, I have so much I want to talk to you about.

But at your core, you're both Israelis.

And I just want to ask you both as Israelis, not as analysts, not as public intellectuals, not as journalists, not as former governor officials, but as Israelis, what each of your reactions were today and just describing how you're feeling.

So Nadav, I'll start with you.

Dan, what many feel in Israel, I definitely feel is a sense of immense joy and relief.

These images are images that you didn't even dare to dream about for two years.

I remember the way that I felt towards the possibility that all the hostages would be back home.

And I treated that proposition very carefully as a journalist, knowing that Hamas would want to hold them, knowing that Hamas will want to lengthen the negotiations, to use them as sort of playing cards in its vicious game of the Middle East.

And now you see those amazing images that we've dreamt about of Einav Sangauker hugging her son Martan Sangauker after this lioness of a mother fought so hard for him to be released, basically spending the last two years in the street going from one demonstration to the other.

I see the image of Ariel Cunho hugging Arbelier.

Arbele Yehud was kept in captivity alone 482 days.

Now they are together again.

Henri Mehran just playing with with his daughters and I saw that video of their mother telling them only this morning that daddy is coming back home only after Honri Mehran would probably cross the border just to make sure that she's not making false promises.

And together with this sense of joy of almost ecstasy or at least catharsis of the Israeli society for everyone that's been involved with this, been covering this, or just following the news in the diaspora or in Israel is a deep sense of sadness.

Sadness about those who would not return back home.

Sadness as to the brutality and cruelty and violence that we've been exposed to in the last two years.

Sadness of the time lost, these two years of war and bloodshed that should have never have happened in the first place.

And together with the success of getting the live hostages back home, this sadness will also shape the face of Israel in the coming decade.

Tao, your thoughts?

It's almost impossible to capture.

You know, there aren't enough split screens on television to capture all the complexity of this moment.

Not enough chambers in your heart to hold the joy, the relief, the hope, the uncertainty, the pain, all of it together in different kinds of shades.

And this country has this way of delivering such incredibly poignant and historic moments and few like today.

I'll say two brief thoughts, one very personal.

I mean, we're marking this year as Simchat Torah, where we celebrate the end of reading the Torah cycle.

Last year, I remember, I just couldn't bring myself to go to synagogue.

I couldn't take my children to synagogue.

It felt impossible to celebrate.

And this year, I feel like I can.

I felt, you know, we're one of the smallest countries, but we're also one of the biggest families.

And

that sense that it cut across all of Israeli society, these mix of feelings that Nadav was talking about was very strong.

And the second thought, Dan, is that, you know, it's been said before, but it's worth repeating.

Our enemies constantly say that our weakness is that we love life and that they're going to use that love of life as opposed to their love of death against us.

Today, that felt like the greatest strength ever, that we love life.

It's something we should be unbelievably proud of.

And I felt today something a little more than joy or a little different than joy.

And that was a kind of defiance.

In the face of everything, we were going to love life.

Tomorrow we start the Torah cycle again.

We'll read Bereshit and we're going to say we are starting again.

We're picking ourselves up.

And I really identify with the healing that Nadav spoke about because there is something about emerging with this affirmation of the love of life that it transcends any moment I can remember in many, many years.

Nadav, is that your sense that this moment feels different from anything you've ever experienced as an Israeli or any experience you know of as a student of the history of this country?

Absolutely.

Israel had greater victories in wars, but it never had this sense of catharsis as it had in the last 24 hours.

It's this sense of catharsis of people returning back to their families after so much has been sacrificed for them.

The returning of the hostages in different wars in 1973, for instance, was always a process that was part of the war, part of the agreements.

This time, it was one of two major goals of the war, to get these people back.

Hundreds of Israeli soldiers sacrificed their lives literally so that Omri Mehran will be able to hug his daughters again.

This was done for them.

There was no other phase in Israeli history in which the notion of

all for one and one for all was more powerful than in the last 24 hours.

If I can add to that, then, you know, it's so interesting that we had the slogan for the hostages, bring them home, rather than release them now, right?

And why did we say bring them home?

I feel that what we felt on October 7th was a basic loss of agency.

It felt like we were no longer in charge of our destiny.

And the essence of Zionism Zionism is the Jewish people get a chance to shape their future.

And that felt like it was lost.

And bring them home was almost this message inwards to us.

We need to reclaim that agency.

So in a way, the hostage story this time was about the story of Israel itself.

It was about the raison d'être of Zionism itself.

And the success, almost unimagined, in releasing the hostages, is a mark of our capacity to reclaim that agency.

Yes, we're not going back to where we were.

Somehow, the hostages became equivalent to Zionism itself, equivalent to Jewish agency and the purpose of having our own homeland.

If we couldn't release them, then we had almost abdicated that.

And since we have released them, we have somehow reclaimed that story.

And we can move to this phrase of Michadim Miasdim, which means the founding generation of the grandchildren, that we do feel like we can pick ourselves up now because we've reclaimed that which we lost to some extent even though it's different.

Nadav, you said sort of buried in your comments a moment ago that this is the end of something, but it's also the beginning of something too.

I want to dwell on that for a moment.

What is beginning now?

So if you listen to President Trump in the Knesset, and I guess we're going to discuss this speech, what's beginning is a new era.

And I think that the message there was you have used your military force.

It was legitimate and needed, and now you need to use other tools at your disposal and with the help of the United States in order to achieve your goals.

In other words, the era of bombing sometimes four Arab countries in a week is over as far as the United States is concerned.

And I think as far as the region is concerned, I also think that this is what the people in Israel want right now.

It's a different state.

And, you know, only retroactively, Dan, can we write the chronicles of an era.

I don't know what's starting right now.

I do know that there is a big desire in Israel for change.

This change can manifest itself in many ways.

People automatically think about politics.

I'm not sure.

People are talking.

Families of the hostages are saying, now we need to rebuild Israel.

Now we are whole again.

We have got back our in this case, our sons back, home.

Now we need to rebuild and build back better.

Whether or not this is achievable, what does it mean in terms of politics, I do not know.

I think right now it's a mixture of the past, the old era, and the new era trying to be born.

And this would be the case in the next few weeks.

Be very difficult to see.

I'll just give you one example out of the news.

We're now hearing that Hamas is only releasing today four bodies of Israelis out of 28 that they were holding.

And the families of the hostages are demanding that Israel sees this as a violation.

It is a violation of the agreement, and that it immediately announces that it's not going to continue on the withdrawals.

So I think we should be very careful in saying what exactly is the time that we are now beginning.

It's very clear that there's going to be a lot of pressure internationally by the United States and others for Israel to try to solve issues from now on, like the one that we are seeing through political means, diplomacy, leveraging power, wise regional considerations, using its economic power, maybe using some of its soft power to the extent that we have the soft power across the region in order to get our goals regionally.

I'm talking in Lebanon, in Gaza, maybe also in Iran.

Taul, any comments on this or reactions to what Nadav is saying?

Yeah, I mean, when you listen to the speeches today in the Knesset,

there was a theme that essentially cut across them, and that is that, you know, the sword is a critical tool but we need now with all the uncertainty to kind of move beyond it there's been a phrase that has been so popular in israel the last two years and that is al-charbechatiche you will live by the sword which is described as a kind of inevitable destiny in the middle east for israel to live by the sword And if I can inject some Jewish thought into this, it's worth remembering that that phrase, you will live by the sword, was actually stated by Isaac to Esau, not to Jacob.

And it would be a stunning thing if the people of Israel embraced the blessing to Esau rather than to Jacob when they returned to their ancient homeland.

And in my mind, there's a huge difference between saying you will live by the sword and saying you will live with the sword.

When you say you live by the sword, that kind of sense that you're under siege and a warrior nation and so on defines who you are.

And there isn't anything else.

There's just the struggle for survival.

And I think if I could borrow a phrase, Dan, one of the geniuses of Israel has been to live in the Middle East, but not cross that line from living with the sword, which is absolutely necessary in this part of the world.

If you are weak, you will be destroyed.

You need to be able to defeat and deter your enemies, but not turning that into the definition of who you are and your identity.

And I think after these very difficult two years, I kind of sense a readiness that was evident in what President Trump said, but more especially evident in Prime Minister Netanyahu and Yair Lapid's remarks as leader of the opposition.

We need to make sure that living by the sword is not the story we tell about who we are.

As Zionism has always imagined, of doing much more than that and aspiring to much more than that.

You know, there was the speech by Prime Minister Netanyahu that mentioned Sparta.

And of course, Prime Minister Netanyahu made his clarifications as to that speech.

But I heard President Trump speaking today in the Knesset.

And his vision to the entire Middle East and for the state of Israel.

And by the way, also the Prime Minister's vision, to be completely fair, from his speech, was so far from Sparta.

It's such a difference between what you say during wartime.

It's not even a month since we heard that.

And suddenly, the vision is very much a vision of the Athenian League across the Middle East.

And you could really hear where the president was saying to Israel, you've been so magnificent in your military abilities.

Just imagine, I'm paraphrasing what you can do with these abilities regionally, talking also about the power of countries around the region, the Arab countries, a wealth of these partners that can be used to rebuild Gaza, and how inroads could be made between different countries in the region.

So we're definitely hearing these signs and we are hearing this.

We heard this from the prime minister himself.

I'm focusing on the president simply because it was the president's show today in the Knesset.

But the prime minister himself was also making the same kind of rhetoric as to the future of the region.

I found it remarkable that the president did not make any threat, militarily speaking.

No, even vis-à-vis Hamas or Iran.

He was calling on Iran, and this was both scripted and unscripted.

You could see that it's in his speech, in his written speech.

He was calling on Iran to join the agreements with the United States.

He did not say, you know, if they break the ceasefire agreement, the gates of hell will open again.

He could have said that.

He chose not to do that.

And the general messaging is that things need to really change in the region.

That's the reason that why we're recording this.

President Trump is making his way to an important meeting in Egypt with leaders not only from the Muslim and Arab world but also from around the world as to Gaza.

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i want to ask you both a question

i'll start with you toll and then come back to nadav my my son is totally coincidentally working on a paper right now for school he's in high school and about what matters most more in history the man or the moment whether you know as marx talked about that there's just sort of a natural trajectory to history there are these forces at work in history and the forces of in history shape moments and shape singular moments and that the man, if you will, the man versus the moment, the leader, the statesman in history actually doesn't matter that much.

And obviously, this is a debate that historians have.

And I couldn't help but think today, regardless of what anybody thinks of President Trump, really, I don't want to get into a debate about what people think about President Trump on this issue or that issue.

I just couldn't help but think about this, what my son was working on, that there was something singular about President Trump's role here in truly changing the course of history.

What is your reaction to that?

I mean, it's a perennial debate amongst historians, but

it feels kind of impossible at the moment to think that the person doesn't matter, especially when we're close to it.

It's hard to imagine the diplomacy that led to this, the power of the president in the way that he operates, the moment the man and the message kind of in the way that they aligned.

It seemed in a strange way that Hamas's calculus about the hostages hostages and holding them actually flipped on its head as a result of a whole set of things that I think President Trump and his team set in motion, but also decisions that Prime Minister Netanyahu made that were highly criticized and you couldn't tell at the time.

So I'd be surprised if you could make a strong case in these events that it just didn't matter which people were in office and their characters and their personalities.

I've been involved in lots of peace processes and over the years, lots of negotiations.

One of the things I've learned from that is that it's not about some grand plan as to how you produce change.

It's really the kind of people who have the capacity to generate the belief in the possibility of change.

And that's a kind of another thing that has opened up here because of the sheer will of different actors operating here.

And not just from Israel's perspective.

If you're a Lebanese today, if you're a Syrian today,

if you're an Iranian today, if you're an Israeli today, and maybe even if you're a Palestinian today, you might believe in the possibility of change.

It's still a lot of uncertainty, but two years ago, you thought everybody spoke with such certainty as to the trajectory we're on.

And we all have learned a huge amount of humility, but also the power of personality, I think.

I think that there's absolutely no doubt as to the importance of President Trump.

I think that no one else would be able to do what was done here.

And it actually became clear, I think, in November of 2024 10 days after he was elected i wrote something on twitter based on five sources five sources not only on twitter on my in my newspaper in idiot five sources israeli and arab and they told me that's a quote only president trump can bring the hostages back home and that was on november 15 2024 and and when

and there was a scent of disbelief in the comments you know why only president trump how will President Trump solve the problems that no one else can solve?

You know, it was more than a year of a war.

And just look at this agreement.

TAL has much more experience in those rooms in which they don't allow journalists in during the negotiations.

Look at what happened here.

At a certain point, they needed to make an agreement.

The President of the United States wanted to have the agreement on a specific date last week.

And even though there was no agreement on the identity of the Palestinian prisoners to be released from Israeli jails, a paramount issue for Hamas and for Israel, they basically announced the agreement before the names were set.

Why?

Because the president wanted the agreement.

And then the president authorized, according to a Barack Ravid story, he authorized Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to go into a room for the first time and and actually have a sit-down with Hamas officials and make them the promise in the name of the President of the United States that they, according to the story, will be treated fairly and that the agreement will be met.

Why?

Because of this result, because of this willpower, because of this ability that Trump as a deal maker knows that is at the essence of success to not only sign an agreement, but reach the closing.

have the closing done what was happening today dan was what we call closing what you guys in business call closing right it's not the signature of the agreement but actually transfer of money or in this case transfer of our hostages back home and they are get and they got their their prisoners and

you know i saw the way that President Trump reacted in the Knesset to his own team.

First of all, I think Israeli politicians have so much to learn from President Trump as to give him credit.

Everybody's talking about Trump.

Trump, you know,

American media would say he's always talking about himself.

And, you know, most of the words that he spent in the speech was giving credit to other people.

And he was continually talking about the city.

Members of his team and actually members of his Israeli team by name.

By name.

Everyone from the Israeli chief of staff that was given credit to Miriam Edelson to Ron, you know, and if he forgot someone, he saw someone in the room.

Netanyahu and Lapid too.

That was also a great thing.

And Lapid.

And Lapid,

he was graceful and generous in victory, which is something you don't usually see in the Middle East in general, not only Israeli politicians.

In general, you don't see this kind of grace.

And when he was speaking about Steve Witkoff, he was saying this is a Henry Keith Singer that doesn't leak.

But I was watching Witkoff, and the president described why Witkov was the person he chose for the mission.

He was telling a really long story about Ukraine, about Russia, their first meeting with Vladimir Putin.

And he was saying about Witkov that,

you know, everybody loves the guy.

I'm paraphrasing, but not exactly paraphrasing.

Everybody loves Witkov.

And he also said very kindly, he didn't know anything.

For instance, about politics, about Russia.

People knew that he was speaking for the president.

That was the most important thing.

And when the president sent his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, they knew that, as one source told me, Jared and Steve are not going to Sharmasheikh to spend two weeks negotiating in Sharmashekh.

They're coming to get a deal in like 24 hours.

And this is really an amazing achievement.

I'll just say on that, I met with President Trump, although at that point he wasn't sworn in yet in December of last year in Florida.

And there were two things on this topic that I was struck with.

One, this is before we saw Steve Witkoff at work.

And he was telling me and the couple people I was with in the meeting about Steve Witkoff and why Steve Witkoff was great and why he everyone, same thing.

He said, everyone loves him.

Everyone loves the guy.

He's a great guy.

Everyone loves him.

I mean, completely untested, by the way, in this world that we all inhabit.

And yet Trump was talking about him like that in December the way he was talking about him today.

Only now, Witkoff obviously has something to show for it.

But I'll never forget that.

He kept saying everybody loves him.

That was the first thing.

And then the second thing is I was struck in that meeting, and I will never forget it.

And I think I may have told Ilan about it after

the way President Trump talked about the hostages.

It was like no other topic he talks about.

He talked about the day of October 7th and the images of it.

And he was describing them.

He was describing them in such graphic detail as though he was telling me and the others in the meeting, like telling us about something we hadn't seen or didn't know about.

Though, of course, he knew we knew about it, but it was just clear that it was, it was so seared in him and in his mind that he just described it in such detail and he kept talking about the hostages.

And I was struck then by the impact that the story of the hostages has had on him.

And I've only heard, as I know you know, Nadav, from these hostage families who've met with him over the last few months, that they, on this issue, and he's not someone who apparently, you know,

expresses a lot of emotion about a lot of things, but the issue of the hostages genuinely,

genuinely, in a very deep way, moved him.

If I could add, Dan, and I just want to point to one moment that I think was really critical in this respect, and that was really the moment when Hamas essentially said yes, but.

And it was just taken as a yes, at least for now.

Yes, there is uncertainty about phase two and a lot of questions about how we get to real disarmament and demilitarization and so on.

I think you're seeing now Turkey and Qatar are kind of trying to position themselves quite effectively to kind of translate the influence they were given to deliver Hamas to kind of move now into a role of positioning themselves as kind of indispensable in the future of Gaza.

All those things are right.

But the decision to say, we'll take the yes for now to get the hostages and kind of force a success onto this story rather than focus on the butt, in my view, was a real game changer and speaks to the way success creates its own kind of momentum.

At the end of the day, optimism is a kind of practice.

It's a way of being that says, I have the capacity to take the positive and move it and expand it.

I see the difficulties.

I'm not blind to the difficulties, but I refuse to allow them to define who I am.

And I think that that moment, at least from an outside observer's perspective, but with some experience in negotiations, was the thing that kind of pushed the the needle here.

Nadav,

what is your sense of what President Trump plans to try to do now?

How do you expect all the leaders in the region, including Netanyahu, will respond and navigate this next chapter?

Because as Tal just said, it's like Trump kind of took the optimism and said, now I'm going to earn the momentum or the opportunity and expand it.

So now what?

That's a huge question, Dan.

And

I don't have a great answer to that, but I do want to give you a hint.

So, Prime Minister Netanyahu, as we know, was invited by President Sisi of Egypt to come to the summit.

Now, this is again a master stroke of President Trump.

He said that he didn't know that Prime Minister Netanyahu was not invited.

I don't know.

I guess he did know.

But traveling the presidential limousine from the airport to the Knesset, he actually called President Sisi of Egypt and he bent his hand to invite a Prime Minister Netanyahu.

But before that, there was a first phone conversation between the President of Egypt and the Prime Minister of Israel, something that hasn't happened since October 7th.

Now, there's a story there, and I don't know the full extent of that story.

The reason that these two gentlemen didn't speak for two years is still not completely clear to me.

And of course, people would

jump up and say, I know exactly why.

I don't think we know exactly why.

And I think it's still a sort of a mystery because Egypt and Israel have had sometimes strains in their relations, but they're very close in terms of their security cooperation and have been very close during the last two years.

And I do not understand how it is possible that they didn't speak since October 7th.

As far as I know, Israel is not blaming Egypt for the October 7 attack.

I don't know what happened on the Egyptian side.

I know that they've been condemning us.

They've been super aggressive against Israel in the last at least year or year and a half.

And then he forces Cisi to invite Netanyahu to this summit.

And the news bulletins in Israel, the push notifications, are very dramatic.

Dan, the hostages are out, and the Prime Minister will make his way to a historic summit with the entire Arab Muslim world, including countries we don't have relations with, like Saudi Arabia.

And then

something happens, and the Prime Minister's office notifies the reporters that because it's Simchat Torah, the Prime Minister can't come to Egypt.

That sounds very strange to me.

Then a journalist from Israel, Ayom Danizakin, publishes that it's all because of Erdogan.

Erdogan was already on his way.

His plane was basically over the Sinai desert already, preparing to land when he heard that the Prime Minister of Israel was invited.

And Erdogan basically made an ultimatum that if Netanyahu comes, he's taking his plane back to Ankara.

And because of that, Israel sort of gracefully decided to use the excuse of the Jewish holiday in order for this not to blow up.

There were speculations in the Israeli media before that that it's all about Netanyahu not wanting to shake hands with Abu Mazen because there's absolutely no doubt that if he would have come and Abu Mazin is there and the president would have wanted them to shake hands, there would be no going around it, right?

If the president would say, this is peace in the Middle East, now we shake hands.

And for Netanyahu, that would be politically speaking with the far right, the kiss of death.

And I'm serious, the kiss of death after this agreement.

The far right is having huge problems digesting this agreement anyhow.

But shaking hands with Abu Mazen in an Arab summit, you know, in Sharmashekh is too far for them.

And the reason I'm telling you this story, this reportage, is because it tells you something about the future.

Erdogan is still Erdogan.

Netanyahu's political calculations are still there.

The drive to change the region still has this constant opposition of reality of politics.

And it will continue to be this way in the near future.

So it's going to be a struggle.

Everything in the Middle East is a struggle.

If there's a breakthrough in Kim David in 1977, 1978, it leads to a struggle.

And after this struggle, you have a real peace treaty with Egypt.

You know, 1973 ends.

It takes Henry Kissinger, I don't know, Tal knows how much time, to get to agreements that aren't peace agreements, just separation of forces.

Everything is a struggle in the Middle East, and this is going to be a struggle too.

You know, I want to say to what Nadav just said, first, that today really is a day to kind of embrace that mixture of joy and pain that we're feeling.

So I don't want to go too heavy into the analysis, but Nadav made it impossible for me not to kind of chime in a a little.

I remember a meeting I once had with a former head of Mossad Mehrdagan.

I had the opportunity to talk to him and I asked him one time, on whose side is time?

And he answered a real Mossad-like answer.

He said, time is on the side of those who use time well.

And, you know, it's almost, it's trite to say these days that we've had a military success, but we need to translate it into a political success.

In the longer term, what matters in terms of whether our success success in pushing back the capabilities of our enemies is going to translate into lasting success are really the trend lines that you're and the dynamics, the momentum you're able to create.

If we can move in the direction of normalization, that in my mind is the ultimate statement against Iran and its proxies, right?

If we can heal Israeli society internally and not allow us to elevate our differences so much that we forget the unity of purpose we have, that will be a trend line.

And the battle over Hamas's disarmament or not just create these dynamics in Gaza where it becomes too hard, just too hard to kind of push Hamas back, or whether we create a momentum for an alternative to Hamas and to marginalize Hamas, maybe not make it disappear, but force it to be in a corner, delegitimized, maybe even transformed to some extent.

Those are the trend lines that require a lot more than the sword to determine whether we're going to move forward.

And a final challenge worth mentioning, it's hard not to feel as an Israeli after these last, especially this last year, that we are challenged in the West, not less than we're challenged in the Middle East, maybe a little bit more.

And that's another area where time will be on the side of those who use time well

and embracing our agency, our capacity to articulate a vision for the region, for the U.S.-Israel relationship, but also, in my view, absolutely critically, a vision for the Israeli-Palestinian relationship that isn't just an endless zero-sum contest.

All of these things will determine whether the successes and the pain of these last two years can be translated into something that can last.

Okay.

I think we're going to wrap there.

I just want to ask you each for any final words in terms of what to be looking for in the days ahead.

Anywhere as you're processing all of this.

I know there's so many topics we could hit, but I'll let each of you just tell me where you're thinking about the days ahead.

I'll start with you, Nadab, then go to Tal.

So, very plainly, I'm looking at Gaza, and I suggest that

we all try to steer away from self-delusion.

What's happening in Gaza is that right now, Hamas controls Gaza.

Hamas is armed in Gaza, and it is basically killing the adversaries, the opposition.

It's trying to kill every person and every group that has cooperated with Israel in that time in Gaza.

The IDF is in Gaza.

It gives Israel leverage.

It also gives Hamas a banner to fight against Israel, to release that occupied land as far as they are concerned, of the Gaza Strip.

So optimistic as I am, I always need to say that in the first few weeks after an agreement like that is signed, it's a dangerous time.

It's a dangerous time because any violations of this agreement can lead to the sort of conversation and discourse that we had before.

And as Tal said, and I want to underline that, the way to win against Hamas, it was said on this show, Dan, in many of our conversations, the way to win, to make sure that Hamas does not control the strip is either by the Palestinian community of Gazans to reject Hamas, something that seems right now impossible, or for Hamas to have some sort of political competition in Gaza that will weaken it.

We don't have that right now.

And I am not going to go through what we had before of buying quiet, of saying, you know, everything's just going to be fine.

And now they're deterred.

No, we shouldn't go down that route.

We need to have the U.S.

support if we need to, to use force.

And long term, we need to encourage a competition within the Palestinian society that will lead to either a rejection of Hamas or a rejection of the violent streak in the Hamas ideology, something that seems to me right now quite impossible.

This would be our strategic victory, because it was not achieved through force of arms.

We did not install a different government there yet.

And we're looking for that government and for the entire 21 points made by the president to be implemented.

And this is what I'm going to be looking at as a journalist, but not only as a journalist, as an Israeli in the coming weeks and months ahead.

Tao?

I want to capture one little image from today that really struck me.

And that was a split screen of Israeli forces driving hostages out of Gaza, while on the other side of the screen, Air Force One was coming to land in Israel.

And it seemed to me to kind of encapsulate this combination of what is possible through the sacrifice and commitment of Israel's soldiers under the cover of the leadership of the United States.

And in my view, we are both each other's force multipliers.

That partnership has produced the potential for a Middle East that is to the benefit of America and Israel for sure.

in terms of their prosperity, their security, and the ability to have peace, but also all of the peoples in the region.

Israel is a regional power.

It is probably the most powerful actor in the Middle East today with a capacity to project its power across the region.

And one of the big conversations we need to have today is what kind of regional power are we?

How do we craft a vision?

for security, prosperity, peace that benefits as many of the people across the region and the US and Israel and the West.

How do we craft that language and that vision in order to be in the contest with our adversaries who are set back and make sure they're set back for a long time?

I've said to you before, Dan, that victory in the Middle East, in my view, is really about who has the momentum and who is trying to spoil who.

We are in an amazing moment where the momentum has flipped back potentially to the forces of coexistence, prosperity, peace, stability in the Middle East.

And now we need to capitalize on that without the delusion that the enemies are going away, but with a kind of optimism and energy that rejects that vision of living by the sword, embraces the idea of living with the sword, but doesn't allow us to be defined by that and really aims as much as we can with a strategy of abundance to benefit all of us.

That's, I think, a real moment of opportunity that we need to be savvy, not naive, realistic, but also to dream a little.

All right, gentlemen, thank you for this.

Thank you for your voices today, the last couple years, and God willing going forward.

I want to end today's episode with with a song from the iconic israeli singer arik einstein this is a song after a war someone has sung it before but it always does remind me to hope

call me back is produced and edited by alon benatar arc media's executive producer is adam james levin already sound and video editing by martin huergo and marian khalis burgos our director of operations, Maya Rakoff.

Research by Gabe Silverstein.

Our music was composed by Yuval Semo.

Until next time, I'm your host, Dam C.

Ushir Sheba Achre

Girzama

Utamidlaskiri Tikha

I mecha

Aukra

Farfose

Zehushir Sheba

Girza

Shir Yasha Lon Sha,

Shir Shecha Yali,

Shechozri Achre Hakra

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