Episode Notes:

Aaron sat down again with Michael Koplow, the chief policy officer of Israel Policy Forum, to discuss the latest news from Israel, Gaza, and the latest debates about the timing and scope of a potential ground incursion. The conversation discussed Prime Minister Netanyahu's decision-making process, the status of the hostage negotiations, and the future of the Likud party.

[:27] Netanyahu addresses the nation

[3:50] Hostage negotiations

[5:44] A delayed ground offensive?

[7:54] Netanyahu's popularity

[10:34] U.S. domestic politics

[12:54] Relations with Jordan and Egypt

Episode Transcript

Aaron Stein: My name is Aaron Stein and I am the chief content officer at War on the Rocks. You are listening to the Warcast, the members only podcast for what you need to know, now. Hello and welcome back to the Warcast where we're joined again by Michael Koplow, chief policy officer at the Israel Policy Forum. Mike, it's good to have you back on the show.

Michael Koplow: Thanks, Aaron.

Aaron Stein: So we're just, I guess, making this routine. There's been a lot of news over the past week, since we last spoke, about the conflict raging in Gaza. I wanted to start with Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech to the nation, I believe it was last night. Recording this on Thursday, October 26th. Where he sort of outlined the next phases of the ground invasion. What did he say?

Michael Koplow: Sort of outlined the next phases of the ground invasion, but not entirely. So he gave a speech on Israeli television at primetime, and he said that there is going to be a ground incursion, and he said that the purposes of the ground incursion will be to wipe out Hamas and also secure the return of the hostages, which I think that those two things very unfortunately might be mutually inclusive. But he listed both of these things as his two aims, but he very purposely and clearly declined to say anything about the coming ground invasion. He said that it's coming, but he said that he won't say when or how or how many troops, any of the considerations that are being looked at for when you do it and how you do it. And he did say that the war cabinet and the IDF have unanimously agreed on the timing of the ground invasion, but he did not give any information beyond that.

So I think there are questions today following the speech as to whether this was done to calm people down and really reassure them that a ground invasion is indeed happening. Because I think that lots of Israelis, a majority of Israelis, are indeed waiting and hoping to see this because they want to see Hamas wiped out, and because they want to be able to return to communities in the South, and none of that can be done with the status quo. So that's one possibility. But the other possibility is that a ground invasion actually is not coming and then Netanyahu is seeking to just buy more time and say, "Well, we're planning it, but we're not going to tell you when." And it'll sort of drag on, drag on, and then at some point Israel will perhaps declare some sort of victory and be done.

And I think it's important to note that last night, overnight, Israel did indeed launch an incursion into Gaza. It was small, it was some infantry and some tanks. They only went one kilometer in, they were in and out after a few hours. And they said that that was done to prepare the ground for a coming ground incursion. But I think it's important to point out that in 2014, when Israel and Hamas fought their 50-day war in Operation Protective Edge, Israeli ground troops and tanks went in no more than three kilometers and they destroyed a whole bunch of stuff, mostly tunnels, and then they pulled out. And so there definitely is a world in which that sort of thing can be what the ground incursion looks like, and it takes place over months and months and months. And then at some point Israel says, "We've done what we've had to do and we've degraded Hamas." I'm not saying that that's the likeliest scenario, but I do think it's a possibility.

Aaron Stein: I guess against the backdrop of this we've had continued reports, I think some in the Arab language press, some in the English language press, I'm not sure about the Hebrew language press, about ongoing hostage negotiations I think via the Qataris. Do you see that as a potential check on the Israeli ground offensive, whatever it looks like, whether small or large?

Michael Koplow: Those reports haven't indeed also been in the Hebrew language press, and it's absolutely a check because, as I said earlier, I think Prime Minister Netanyahu's two goals may not be congruent with each other. And certainly we know, at least as has been reported, that the United States has been leaning a bit on the Israelis to play out the situation of negotiating for hostages, especially because there are Americans in that group of hostages. And there was this interesting episode yesterday where the Israeli National Security Advisor, Tzachi Hanegbi, came out and he tweeted in English thanking the government of Qatar, described the Qataris as I think he said something like an essential party and thanked them for their diplomatic efforts. And there was pushback right away from some folks in the Israeli coalition who said, "What the hell are you doing? The Qataris support Hamas and they're still sheltering Hamas leaders and they are the enemy. They're not an essential partner." And the only possible reason for Tzachi Hanegbi to tweet something like that is indeed because there are still negotiations going on and they recognize the role that Qatar played in the four hostages who've already been released. So I'm sure that part of what's going on is indeed an effort to try and make sure that the hostage negotiations are exhausted, and that can also play out for a while.

Aaron Stein: One of my theories is that there's no... Other than the international condemnation, and that's really where this question is going. No reason to stop the air campaign, because it degrades Hamas infrastructure, which I think obviously doubles down as a lot of civilian infrastructure, and so that's where things get pretty squishy. And that gives these IDF reservists who were called up some time to actually train, because it is a reservist army and that that could be another reason for the potential delay for the ground offensive. Perhaps the military wasn't ready. What do you make of my theory there, and is there any talk about that going on in Israel as well?

Michael Koplow: There is. And it's been reported in the Hebrew language press... I don't recall now if I've seen it in the English language press. That President Biden has indeed advised the Israeli government just that, that it should continue airstrikes but hold off on a ground invasion because clearly all sorts of American leaders, both political and military, don't believe that Israel has a viable plan for ground invasion or is prepared for it. So I think that's definitely a viable theory. The one thing I would say is that, anecdotally from what I've heard from folks who are reservists down on the Gaza border, is that they are indeed training for an hour, two hours a day, but they're spending a lot of time just sitting around on their phones. They started to go back to their homes on leave for a day or two to visit their families or do whatever. So if the idea is to buy time for them to train, doesn't seem as if an intense amount of training is going on. I do though think that, certainly from a military perspective, leaving aside what it does to Israel's image and international opinion and pressure that comes, certainly from a military perspective you would probably want to continue airstrikes as long as humanly possible in order to eliminate as many Hamas targets from the air without risking sending in ground troops.

Aaron Stein: The anecdotal evidence you talked about, it raises questions about something you discussed in the last podcast, which is basically the competence of the government. Netanyahu, again, fill in the gaps here, appears to be extremely unpopular. Benny Gantz, who's now I guess his wartime cabinet coalition partner appears to be pretty popular, at least in the eyes of Israelis. Is there a possibility that Netanyahu could be ousted from power and you have a transfer to Gantz during a conflict?

Michael Koplow: Anything is possible, but the real answer to that is no. And there are a few reasons why. First of all, Netanyahu himself is not going to resign, has shown no inclination to do so. In fact, in his speech yesterday, there was a moment where he said that he takes responsibility, but it wasn't actually for what happened. He said he takes responsibility for Israel's security going forward for whatever happens in the future. So he's being criticized across the board for this, but he's shown no inclination to take responsibility, and certainly not to resign. So anybody who's hoping that he'll do that out of shame or political pressure I think will be waiting for a long time.

Second, replacing an Israeli government is exceedingly difficult, because in 2014 the Knesset eliminated the option of a vote of no confidence. The only option now is what's called a constructive vote of no confidence, which means two simultaneous votes, one right after the other. One is you need 61 members of Knesset or more to vote no confidence in the government, and then you need an immediate vote of 61 members of Knesset, or more, to form a new government from the current Knesset. If the first one happens and then the second one fails, government stays exactly where it is. That's going to be also... It's impossible to envision in this Knesset that you've got 61 people who are going to agree to form a new government out of the current Knesset when you have a coalition of 64 that obviously doesn't want to give up power. And then the other way is for the Knesset to pass a law that dissolves itself early, which would trigger new elections. There too, and this goes to the unpopularity part, if you are in this coalition that has 64 seats and the polls show that you'll get 41 seats, and if you are in Likud where you have 32 seats and the polls show that you will get 18 or 19 seats, you're probably not going to vote to dissolve the Knesset and trigger a new election.

So the long and short of it is that, even leaving aside the optics of replacing a prime minister in a government in the midst of the worst crisis Israel has ever faced, the mechanism for doing so is essentially non-existent.

Aaron Stein: It's quite clear that the Biden administration is starting to feel some pressure, particularly from the Democrats as a political block more broadly, but I also think from niche constituencies in certain places, that the support for Israel is too open-ended. And that, particularly with the images that are coming out of Gaza, dead kids never play well on social media, is Biden will have to play a role in rolling back Netanyahu because of his own domestic political considerations. What's your take on that?

Michael Koplow: So I think that that makes sense logically, and we're obviously seeing signs of lots of discontent in various quarters on the left and among Democrats. On the other hand, the White House messaging has not wavered. One of the things that Biden is taking an enormous amount of heat for yesterday and today are comments that he made yesterday, and that John Kirby has made also, casting doubt on even the number of Palestinian casualties. Because he points out, which I think is correct, that every single casualty figure is provided directly by Hamas. And so it doesn't mean that there are not thousands of Palestinians who have tragically been killed in Gaza, but taking the exact numbers at face value I think is a mistake. But he's been taking enormous amount of heat for that, and he hasn't wavered. And then yesterday, as soon as Mike Johnson was voted in as the new speaker, there was immediately a vote on a resolution in support of Israel and only 10 members of the House voted against it, another six voted present.

So there isn't a lot of evidence to me that the political pressure, even though we see it bubbling up among the grassroots, is yet being felt. Over time, of course, that very well may change, but I think that people shouldn't discount the fact that when Biden talks about support for Israel and that it's rock solid and that he is deeply influenced by the Holocaust and millennia of Jewish suffering, that's not an act. He deeply, deeply believes it. And so there certainly are political incentives, but I don't think we can discount the president's own real feelings and emotions here.

Aaron Stein: I completely agree with you on that. Sometimes the president is, I think most times just... This is any president. Just telling the truth. And so when he speaks, you just listen. Final question here. There's a lot of focus on sort of the Abraham Accord countries, but let's talk about the two core ones, Jordan and Egypt. Those are the two I'm more worried about, to be completely honest with you, because the sentiment at least coming out that you can see, that you can gauge and feel. And a colleague of mine was actually in Jordan and could testify to directly, but anti-Western sentiment is up. What's the feeling in Israel about their two treaty partners here about the future of these relationships?

Michael Koplow: Yeah. I have not been in Jordan since this conflict started, but in speaking to Jordanian friends and Saudi friends and Emirati friends, they all tell me the same thing. That anti-Israel sentiment and anti-Western sentiment is up in a noticeable way, and in a way that to them also seems unprecedented in previous rounds of Israel-Hamas fighting. I don't think that the Israelis at the moment are worrying about Egypt and Jordan all too much. They have bigger fish to fry. They're obviously first and foremost concerned about the operation in Gaza, they're concerned about keeping Hezbollah out of it. When push comes to shove, I don't think that anybody's really worried that the Israel-Egypt peace treaty is going to fall apart, particularly given the tight security cooperation between those two across decades. But yeah, the messaging we're seeing from the Egyptians, and in some ways even more so from the Jordanians, is real deep anger.

And the relationship with Jordan has always been more precarious, given both the Hashemite monarchy's more precarious political position, the fact that it is not quite as authoritarian and... I don't know what the right word is, perhaps brutal as the Egyptian regime. It's generally more sensitive to political trends. People have always, in Israel, worried about the Jordanians a lot more and the risk of that treaty falling apart. And I think here too, obviously there's a lot more pressure right now in Egypt given that this is going on in Gaza. But if I'm looking at Egypt versus Jordan and worried about which one of these two relationships is perhaps a bit more tenuous at the moment, I'm always more worried about Jordan and I haven't seen anything yet that leads me to think that that's incorrect.

Aaron Stein: All right, well we've come up to the end of the Warcast time here. I guess we'll probably have you on again next week, regardless of a ground invasion or not, for an update. So thanks for being available.

Michael Koplow: Thanks Aaron.