00:00 Thank you very much, Shirley Sitbon,
00:02 taking us through that press conference there.
00:04 Let's speak now to Hussein Ibisha,
00:06 senior resident scholar
00:07 at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
00:10 Hussein, thank you for waiting patiently.
00:12 I'm not sure if you got to hear that press conference
00:14 with Lloyd Austin.
00:16 - I heard the whole thing.
00:16 - Yeah, it sounds like both sides
00:18 are sharpening their swords
00:20 rather than looking for a diplomatic,
00:22 peaceful way out of this war.
00:23 - All right, well, so the United States has not,
00:27 this is a very familiar dance, okay?
00:30 When Israel feels it needs to respond
00:34 to Hamas or Hezbollah in recent decades,
00:37 initially, the United States offers strong support.
00:41 In this case, it's stronger support than usual
00:43 because of the size, scope,
00:45 and the brutality of the Hamas attack.
00:47 There is this hint of ISIS.
00:50 I think there were some ISIS members
00:53 who actually ran across the border and participated.
00:55 There were a couple of ISIS flags found,
00:58 and I think some of the worst atrocities
01:01 may actually have been done by guys
01:02 who see themselves as ISIS, but more to the point.
01:06 We are in the support phase right now,
01:08 and in the United States, that's gonna be very popular.
01:10 On the other hand, what happens is the United States shifts
01:14 as these things go on to calling for restraint,
01:17 and when some kind of definitive atrocity takes place,
01:21 the US demands an end to the fighting.
01:24 And I think that's gonna happen here.
01:26 Israel has a wider remit to kill and destroy
01:29 and even to be cavalier with the Syrian population
01:33 because of what Hamas did.
01:36 And you can see already the disaster emerging in Gaza.
01:39 I think it's going to be very terrible,
01:41 but eventually, the US is going to call for restraint
01:43 and then for an end.
01:45 - Where's that red line?
01:46 At what point do they do that?
01:47 Because we heard from several international organizations
01:50 at this point already that a large-scale evacuation
01:53 would be a catastrophe.
01:55 They're denouncing this move,
01:56 the US standing resolutely behind Israel, though.
01:59 - Yeah, no, that's right.
02:01 I mean, I think, look,
02:02 issues involving Israel and the Palestinians or Lebanon
02:11 are really domestic political issues in the United States.
02:14 They're not really foreign policy issues
02:16 the way Israel's links with China or Russia are,
02:20 or Israel's response to the Ukraine war has been.
02:23 Those are foreign policy issues.
02:24 But when it comes to what is seen
02:26 as part of Israel's domestic defense,
02:29 the United States operates more
02:32 on the register of domestic politics.
02:34 And pro-Israel sentiment, Jewish groups and others,
02:39 many others, liberal groups in the Democratic Party
02:42 remain very pro-Israel,
02:44 even if they're for a two-state solution
02:46 and they don't like Netanyahu necessarily,
02:49 but they're still very pro-Israel.
02:51 So there's a lot of shock in the United States
02:53 and Israel's going to get a bigger remit from Washington
02:58 in this case than is healthy for Israel
03:01 or than is justified or than is traditional.
03:05 That's the way it is because of domestic politics.
03:09 - Hamas is so deeply embedded politically,
03:11 economically, socially in life in the Strip.
03:13 Can Israel destroy Hamas without destroying Gaza?
03:18 - Well, no, and Israel cannot destroy Hamas, first of all,
03:22 because Hamas is not a bunch of equipment or fighters.
03:25 It's a name, it's a brand.
03:27 So as long as there's anyone
03:29 who wants to call themselves Hamas, Hamas exists.
03:31 And they can emerge from the rubble and claim victory
03:34 and point to last weekend as some kind of great thing,
03:38 which it wasn't, it was a horrible atrocity,
03:41 but they can say that they took the fight
03:44 into Israel and blah, blah, blah.
03:46 Now, Israel cannot destroy Hamas.
03:48 Israel, even as you were noting before,
03:52 doesn't have an alternative to Hamas leadership
03:54 unless they want total chaos in Gaza.
03:56 So right now, Israel is in the untenable position
03:59 of either swallowing the bitter pill
04:01 and allowing the status quo ante,
04:03 the old situation to reemerge with a battered, bruised,
04:07 and beaten Hamas emerging from the rubble
04:09 and resuming control of Gaza in some way,
04:13 or Israel has to control it on the ground
04:16 and reoccupy the cities and towns of Gaza,
04:19 and then Hamas is ready for them.
04:22 Have already obviously planned an insurgency.
04:27 They wouldn't have meticulously planned the attack on Israel
04:31 without also planning to deal with Israeli military
04:34 when they come, and their deepest wish, I think,
04:37 is for Israel to come for a long time into Gaza
04:40 and turn Gaza into an abattoir,
04:43 not just for Palestinian civilians and Hamas cadres,
04:46 but for Israeli soldiers as well.
04:47 And I fear Israel's about to fall into that trap.
04:51 - Hussein, I wish we had more time,
04:52 but we have to leave it there.
04:53 Hussein Ambish speaking to us from Washington.
04:55 Thank you very much for your time.
