Lawfare Daily: Digging Deep on the State of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict with Joel Braunold

[Intro]

Joel Braunold: Israel's really in a, in a security question, which is, how do we, how do we push back against this ring of fire? And for many internationally, they'll tell you like, you need more international credit. You don't have it. No one knows what your plan is for Gaza, still. We are a year in. No one knows. You say no to everything. No PA, no Qatar, no Turkey, no Hamas. What do you want?

Scott Anderson: It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Scott R. Anderson, Senior Editor at Lawfare with Joel Braunold, Managing Director of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace.

Joel Braunold: You know, yes, we had a polio vaccine drive that was successful. I think that's really important to point out. But, you know, we're saying it's great that a commutable disease that wasn't there before October 7th is now there, that we managed to do a drive. Oh, and by the way, some of those same kids who get vaccinated the next day have been killed in airstrikes. And so what are we doing here?

Scott Anderson: For today's episode, we sat down to discuss the current state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza and elsewhere.

[Main Podcast]

Joel, we're thrilled to have you back for what I think is the third of a series of podcasts, doing a deep dive into the state of play around negotiations around Gaza and around the whole nexus of other issues that are inevitably closely woven in with the Gaza conflict. That in a lot of ways, the last few weeks, the last few months, we've seen a lot of motion on those other topics, even as Gaza has seemed so stuck or at least stuck in slow motion, kind of more of a, of a war of attrition than it even was earlier in the conflict.

So let's dig into a little bit about what we're seeing happening in Israel and in the Palestinian territories in other domains, because that in a lot of ways is the story of, of the way development seemed to be shifting, even in relation to Gaza, in relation to the broader nexus of relationships that govern all those things. So let's start a little bit with the domestic political scene for the Israelis. Prime Minister Netanyahu is still in office. Still beleaguered, still unpopular increasingly in tension with a number of members of his cabinet, including Yoav Gallant, his minister of defense who we know is in convers-, there, there's rumors and reporting that at some point he may be out of the cabinet soon. Tell us a little bit about what the domestic political scene is looking like in Israel and what the dynamics are around the Gaza conflict and this nexus of related issues.

Joel Braunold: Thanks, Scott. And it's great to be back with you guys. It's sort of like Groundhog's Day. Israel was, you know, before October 7th with hopelessly politically divided and that, you know, having Israel's worst ever security failure happen on the watch of a deeply unpopular prime minister, shockingly did not increase his popularity. I think the background of the setting is that everyone in Israel is deeply frustrated with the failures of October 7th and the expectation is that someone should take responsibility. And by hook or by crook, the prime minister at no point seems to wish to take this responsibility. So you have heads of various commanding units, so Unit 8200, the signals unit, the head of that command just resigned. There's calls for the head of the Shin Bet, for the Mossad, for the IDF all to resign. But there's this fear that if they resign and the Prime Minister doesn't, then he just gets to replace them with people that he prefers. So even though there is this feeling like everyone needs to go, it was a collective failure and they should all leave. If they leave now, they're just playing into the Prime Minister's game of survival. And this goes into the fact that despite the fact that if there is a commission of inquiry, it could actually help alleviate the legal threats that Israel is facing from the ICC and Prime Minister Netanyahu is personally facing. He doesn't want there to be a commission of inquiry until the war is over, and even then it's unclear whether there would be a full commission of inquiry or not. And so this lack of accountability is sort of a backdrop to much of the dispute.

The other thing, before we get into the individual motivation, is, you know, a founding part of Israel's social contract has always been that if you are captured, whether it's a lone, whether it's a soldier and of course a civilian, that we will do everything in our power to bring you home. Even if that's our strategic disadvantage, because in Jewish tradition freeing hostages is a, is an extremely high value. And Israel, you know, growing up anyone who was involved in Zionism or Israel will tell you, they knew the names of all the captured soldiers and everything else. The lack of priority about hostage release that is perceived by this government, the fact that two members, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, have threatened to leave should there be a hostage deal that they think is a surrender deal has shredded the social contract. And with especially the, the killings and the executions of the six prominent hostages, including the American Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg Polin a few weeks ago the, the divisions in Israel that we spoke about on the last podcast, where if you were pro-Israel judicial reform, therefore, on the Prime Minister stuff, you less prioritize the hostages. Whereas if you were anti judicial reform, you wanted to keep the status quo, you were for a hostage deal. That schism has only got wider.

And it's into this place where the political machinations are happening. The Prime Minister feels quite politically stable. His coalition survived the summer session. The Knesset comes back at the end of October. Whereas the polls haven't shown his coalition getting a majority for over a year, and longer than that, he's overcome the Gantz potential challenge. He's already dropped in the polls. Now, Naftali Bennett, the former prime minister, is gaining in the polls, but the prime minister believes that if he can hold on and he can, you know, demonstrate that he's the survivor. And he can push himself as the person who will prevent a Palestinian state and that that's his job. Then he can ride the wave and continue to survive.

And I think another piece of this, you mentioned Gallant. You know, the prime minister tried to fire Gallant before October 7th when he came out against the judicial reform and he fired him. And then 650,000 Israelis came to the streets. They shut down the entire the economy basically with a general strike and the prime minister backed off. So Gallant's been a politically dead man walking for a long time and Gallant lost a key vote on the Philadelphi corridor just four days before the hostages were found executed in a tunnel and many, you know, some people blame the prime minister. And Gallant actually said that, you know, he has the power to call whatever vote he wants, as well as the power to, you know, sign the executions of the hostages, which is a deeply, you know, very strong statement to make that was leaked. And then of course with the hostages actually being executed a few days later. So, Bibi's trying, the rumor is that he'll try and bring Gideon Sa’ar, who was a former Likudnik who left the Likud and was part of Bennett's government, he was the justice minister, as the defense minister. Or maybe they'd bring him in and put him or Ze’ev Elkin, another former Likudnik, as foreign minister and then move someone else into defense minister. The aim is to reshape it so that the prime minister has a defense minister that would be subservient to him.

And we see leaks on an almost daily basis from the heads of the security services, at least rumoredly, you know, saying that the prime minister's changed the rules of the game. And this and that, and that he's at war with a security establishment. And I think the challenge for many Israelis is sort of twofold. One, it's not like they trust a security establishment. If you ask people, do you believe the prime minister who you don't like when he says that the Philadelphi Corridor is necessary for security, despite the fact for 15 years it was not a priority, nor at the beginning of the war was it a priority. Versus the security chiefs who say, we have technological solutions for this and this are the same security chiefs who were literally asleep at the switch on October 7th. It's sort of like a, who do you mistrust more? And the way the prime minister, who is a master of politics and creating a public mood, it, it, it seems logical to your average Israeli that you need to be on the border because you weren't on the border on October 7^th, at least it felt like you weren't. And like you've been told this whole time that smuggling happened and even if you know the security service says it didn't come this way it came that way, the political mood it's far easier to understand and makes sense of things. And so the prime minister you know is creating that political environment. So that's one in terms of that sort of fight backwards and forwards.

The other thing is there's a reason we have conflict of interest policies in everything we do in life. Like if you're on a board and you're conflicted, you need to opt out. If you're a judge, you opt out. And the reality is that even if the prime minister is correct, he's hopelessly conflicted. He's conflicted because A, his own personal, you know, seeing that he's on trial, he has a conflict of interest vis-a-vis his desire to stay in office. Two, he is conflicted because on a hostage deal, he knows he will lose his coalition should he go for a hostage deal. So is he making a political judgment or is he making a security judgment? And this inability to disentangle this question of conflict of interest is driving the question about, can he make decisions putting the nation and security first. I think many Israelis will say that Netanyahu was correct on the threat of Iran. And as we go to the other arenas, you'll see that for many Israelis, it's really about the Iranian ring of proxies far more than just what's going on in Gaza. Even if he's right in his argument, is he still the correct person to make it? You know, can you disentangle his own, his own situation from that?

And I'll finish with this. The prime minister has been criticized significantly for not calling hostage families, on people when, when they haven't got the hostages out. And he, sometimes he's tried and the hostage families said no. But there was one that he spoke to Rabbi Danino, who was a Shas you know, I think he votes for Shas and therefore right wing, and they recorded the call with him. And Rabbi Danino just demolished the prime minister who was on the call with his wife, Sarah. And at times, Sarah said, you know how hard it's been for us, you know, that the army lies to us. And Rabbi Danino just sort of cut them off in their tracks and said, you keep worrying about your Knesset seats. You know, it was you who was in charge when they built the tunnels. It was you who was in charge when Qatar gave the money. You know, my son died because of you. And instead of being contrite, the prime minister was sort of just being like, you don't know how hard it's been to be me. And that was portrayed across Israel. And that sort of really set the setting of sort of the domestic strife that we're constantly seeing. It's sort of the same story again and again.

Scott Anderson: This whole question about the stability, the durability of Netanyahu's coalition really gets to the heart of a lot of the dynamics and expectations around this conflict, around the approach to negotiations around Gaza, everything else, because we know Netanyahu has been a pressure point. A big part of U.S. policy, a big part of a lot of other drivers, is this idea that he's going to be under political pressure at some point. He's going, we can, kind of get him to make concessions. And foundationally, that seems like it's been a bad bet so far. He's just been able to navigate this, maintain his political position. How durable is this and what's going to break? What are the factors and contributors that might lead to a bigger debate, whether a breakdown of coalition, call for new elections, something that might undermine this foundation he's been able to hold together? We've seen, particularly the last few weeks, big flashpoints, kind of traditional flashpoints in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict coming back to the fore. One of the leaders, in one being debate over the Temple Mount, how it's handled, deployment of troops on the Temple Mount, access to the Temple Mount. How does, is that a flashpoint or are there other flashpoints we should be looking at to say these are the things that are going to decide the stability of this coalition moving forward?

Joel Braunold: I'll get to, to Temple Mount and Haram al Sharif second. But to your first question, if you're trying to play politics against the prime minister on his own turf. It's very difficult. Let's start there. He's really good at it. I mean, there's a reason he's been the prime minister for so long and he understands how to play the game better than basically anyone else. The, the next potential flashpoint is actually our election. And like so many things in the Middle East, everyone's waiting to see what happens in our presidential election. The Israeli Knesset comes back sort of late October which is the next opportunity for there to be a no confidence. I think there's a, you know, I don't think anything will happen that first week. I think there's a big question about what happens on our November election. And should President Trump win, you know, does the prime minister feel like I've dealt with Trump and tries to convince everyone just to surround him, saying, you know, we just need to make it through the lame duck together and we'll be fine. And if it's Vice President Harris, does that put pressure on the prime minister and people be like, you know, it's, it's all going to go to hell so let's go for elections now. Does the prime minister himself feel the only way that I can get out of a lame duck punishment session with Biden, without the promise that Trump's coming is that I call an election now. And so I have 90 days to try and get me through the lame duck cause we're in elections. And then utilize Vice President's Harris's commitment to the two-state solution to basically utilize that as a jump point as my campaigning point and saying, you know, I survived Obama, you know, this is how we're going to survive. So that, that's sort of, for me, the next big challenge. But until that point, I don't see.

The, the other traditional one, of course, is the budget. A government can't survive if it doesn't pass a budget. Israel's economically reeling. It's been at war for a year. It's Israel's longest war. It's been downgraded. It's facing, you know, a lot of at least now, just on the West Bank, settler sanctions and a few other things. And the rating agencies haven't been positive. And if the ICC, ICJ stuff keeps going, what does that do? And of course you've got the conscription issue that has not been settled. And I think yesterday one of the heads of the ultra-Orthodox parties came out and said, if we weren't at war, we would have collapsed the coalition over this, but we're at war. You know, Bibi, the, the, the, the fact that this is a solidly right wing government, despite its massive security failure, also is a, what do you call it, a forge or a cortex that pulls everything together. I can't think of the right word, but it, it, it's centrifugal forces is pulling it together, right? So even in traditional coalitions where multiple times people would have dropped out, they don't because they realize that by leaving they'll get less votes and that they're particular interest will be worse off and so Bibi stays at the top. Other things that could challenge that, yes, the U.S., you know, if there's a worry there should the conscription really go in a specific way? Or, should Ben Gvir realize that he could, you know, basically do better if he leaves and, you know, enjoys not being in charge rather versus the responsibilities?

That sort of brings us to the Temple Man question. So remarkably, despite the fact that this has been called the al-Aqsa Flood by Hamas, Jerusalem's been pretty calm. During Ramadan, it was actually miraculous. And I would argue that Israel, the PA, the people who work behind the scenes, got nowhere near enough credit for keeping things calm during Ramadan when people thought the whole thing was going to implode. We've seen a shift with Itamar Ben Gvir, who is constantly trying to push the envelope on Temple Mount, and it technically is his respons-. He's in charge of the police, though the cabinet has removed some responsibilities from him, trying to push the envelope. Now, Ben Gvir's not actually a religious figure, and the rabbi, who's his number two, a guy called Amihai Eliyahu, who's the heritage minister, you know. His father does not approve, who's a prominent rabbi in Israel, of people going up to Temple Mount for religious reasons.

But Itamar's been pushing the envelope and more and more people have been going up and he's been pushing the status quo. And he's, he's gone up there and basically declared, you know, we've changed the status quo. And every time he does that, the prime minister's forced to say, we haven't changed the status quo. But we're now seeing like AI images of, of al-Aqsa burning being spread on social media networks. And it's not just the Ben Gvir crowd, there seems to be this push from parts of the religious community to, to make in Jewish terminology, Temple Mount, in Palestinian or Muslim, Haram al-Sharif, you know, a bigger issue. And so there's a question of what's driving that after a year that it wasn't.

And one interesting thing that if you look on religious social media networks and others that we're seeing is that a lot of religious soldiers have been in Gaza. Everyone's been in Gaza because of the conscripts. And they've gone into Palestinians homes and these are people who often don't go into Palestinians homes and have no interaction with Palestinians except for when they see, you know, in very, are conflicting terms. And they're seeing, if anyone's been in Palestinians homes you'll see a lot of imagery about Haram al-Sharif. You'll see paintings of it. You'll see other things. And they are recognizing that they care a lot about Haram al-Sharif and that this is driving them. And in response, they're feeling like, well, we need to care about it more. And they're now pushing it more, saying we need to show dominance there to show that we're in charge because they want to take it away from us. They want to deny us. And so you've got this cycle that they're now pushing it. And in response, Islamic authorities, so like in Al-Azhar theological university in Egypt, they're now teaching global courses about how al-Aqsa's under threat and they want to build a synagogue up there.

And so you've got, which distributes to all of the religious elites in the region. So you've got this escalatory cycle and this is deeply dangerous because there's nothing that ignites the Palestinian street more than al-Aqsa. The, the intercommunal violence that happened in May 21 was because of perceived threats from al-Aqsa. You know, the thing that kicked off the Second Intifada was Ariel Sharon's visit up there. And it has huge regional implications including for Israel's new Arab nations in the Abraham Accords who will not participate or put up with threats on al-Aqsa. So tomorrow, Tuesday, which is the 17^th, there is a, a well reported on security meeting where the prime minister is having a security meeting with a slightly smaller part of his cabinet where he's laying down new rules about visits up to al-Aqsa.

It was reported already that you now need permission, if you're a minister, to go up there through the military secretary. And so if Ben Gvir keeps pushing this, and wants to demonstrate that he's, he's the guy and he's telling the prime minister what to do. It's going to force a confrontation in a very significant way that has gigantic security implications. And I think that the prime minister's heard from every security aspect that if this is continued to push, the consequences will be dire and people will die. You know, there's the ‘Boy Who Cries Wolf’ challenge, you know, it hasn't exploded, so why can't we push it further? But you're basically cutting the fuse each time, even more and more, and again, it's playing directly into Sinwar's hands, who has called this the Al-Adsa Flood, and wants this to be the symbol. And if you make it the symbol, you enrage the street in a way that will guarantee this spreads even further into more areas. And so this is a real area that bears significant watching and we should all be on panic stations.

Scott Anderson: As scary of a vision as that is, we've also seen Ben Gvir and folks from the Interior Ministry and other kind of fellow travelers pushing another front as well or at least according to some reporting, according to some accounts. And that is in the West Bank where we've seen a kind of range of measures really that have been ongoing since in some ways before October 7th, certainly escalated and amplified since October 7th, but the last few weeks seems to be a new cresting wave of efforts to clamp down on activities in the West Bank. Tell us a little about these activities, what's driving them and the political ramifications they might have.

Joel Braunold: I'll take you no further than one of Bezalel Smotrich’s members of Knesset, who's a minister for national priorities, Orit Strook, who said that this is a miraculous time. It's the year after October 7th. It's a miraculous time because there's an opportunity to, to utilize this to fulfill, what I hate using extremist right because, you know, where do you put the extreme? What the settler right and the Ben Gvirs and the Smotriches want, which is to foreclose the Palestinian Authority. And to, you know, cleanse, let's be honest, like push as many Palestinians off the land as possible and foreclose any possibility of a Palestinian state. And they see this opportunity in the West Bank.

So whereas the focus is for much of the international community has been in Gaza, this has been the most violent year for many, many years in the West Bank with the amount of Palestinians who have been killed. And this desire to push the envelope in the West Bank. At the beginning, there were significant challenges of extremist violence by Israelis, some settlers, some not on Palestinians. You saw as a response the, the president creating this new executive order and the sanctions regime that we spoke about last time that continues to add more and more people and get, you know, further up the political echelons and as well as they try and push for enforcement. We've seen the army and the police basically be at war with each other about who is responsible, the police reporting to Ben Gurion and the army trying to enforce discipline. And really to no, to no avail. The, the violence in the West Bank continues to get worse.

And now we see the Iranians as well as Hamas the Israelis assassinating not only Haniyeh, but also Arouri earlier on in Lebanon, who was the head of Hamas in the West Bank. And the new head of Hamas in the West Bank wants there to be a war in the West Bank. And so he's trying to push it. Palestinian Islamic Jihad through Iran and others and smuggling from Jordan, all in terms of weapons. And so we've really seen places where the Palestinian Authority has already been weak in sort of the refugee camps up in Jenin and Tubas and others really try and blow up the situation. And the IDF has gone in pretty hard to try and now take out some of those elements to prevent there being an October 7th coming from the West Bank. And it's a difficult security situation, you know, for those who want the PA to eventually return to Gaza, they firstly need to do their job in the West Bank.

And there's debates within the PA about, you know, at this time, should we be the ones killing other Palestinians? And some say, look, if we're a state that needs to be one person, one gun, they need to follow commands. And other people say, no, let's let the Israelis do it. We don't need to do it. And that ongoing debate completely debilitates this question about if the PA could ever be strong enough to go back into Gaza, if they can't control their own territory in the West Bank. I will say that despite attempts to kick off Hebron, it hasn't kicked off. And in many ways, if you want to look at what could truly collapse the West Bank into an intifada, like as a traditional sense of intifada, many people will say we're already in one. It’s really what happens in Hebron, which is the commercial capital of the West Bank. It's the largest city. And so far the clans who don't hold much love for the PA have, have really held it together saying, we don't want to see what happened in Gaza happen here. We also saw in Nablus some calming down of things as the business community has got involved. And that, that's still keeping the peace in some ways and stopping massive reprisals.

But the level of activity that the IDF is using in these places because of the IEDs and others, they're ripping up the roads. And so then there's nothing really for people to come back to in terms of the infrastructure is broken. The PA is bankrupt. I mean, it's, it's, it's hanging on. The EU has just given it some assistance to, to keep it going, but it's a very challenging situation. But there is a political agenda by some members of the cabinet who want to collapse the PA. And yet the cabinet decision still remains that the goal of the government of Israel is not to collapse the Palestinian Authority. They passed that before October 7th. Now, today, tomorrow, the UN is going to be debating a Palestinian sponsored motion by lots of countries around taking the latest ICJ decision about occupation and moving that up the agenda.

And then Israel will, in response, take moves against the Palestinian Authority and punitive steps. And so how does this play into that is also a big question. And for those on the right, this is what they want. They want to utilize the multilateral moves that the Palestinians are appealing to international law in order to create bilateral environments to collapse the PA so that they can foreclose a Palestinian state. And they see this as a historic opportunity, as everyone's focused on Gaza, to finish it off. And make sure that, you know, that no candidate can stand on the debate stage in America and promise a two-state solution. You know, Yisrael Katz the Israeli foreign minister, you know, accused Borrell, the EU head of foreign policy of being an antisemite for talking about a two state solution now. So, yes, two states is not popular in Israel, but to claim that you're antisemitic for pushing it is, is quite the stretch. And so the, the West Bank is sort of on edge and it has been all year. And it's, it's another arena that the IDF has to concentrate on.

And we haven't even spoken about the north. And what's going on with Hezbollah and the fact that 60,000 Israelis have been evacuated from the north. Or the fact that the Houthis shot a missile, a ballistic missile at Tel Aviv. Or that we're waiting on an Iranian response. And so, you know, this, this, the, the reality has been that whereas for much of the international community, and the hostage families, the focus is Gaza. I think for many in Israel, the focus has now been about the Iranian ring of fire of Hezbollah in the North, the Houthis shooting ballistic missiles whenever they seem to want, direct confrontation between Iran and Israel and what would, could that look like. Iranian backed militias in Iraq, what Iran's doing in the West Bank. The potential for foul play in Jerusalem. And these are additional arenas that are now being put up. Whereas they feel like they might have pacified Hamas militarily. There's also a reality that Israel said to its own high court just a few days ago, because they don't want to take responsibility for humanitarian distribution that they're not in control, but Hamas is still in control. And the government's saying that to their own high court. And so Hamas could just pop back up.

So, you know, to what extent we're in whack a mole in Gaza. And the fact that the security situation in Israel is dire still, and the West Bank's on the verge of imploding, and Temple Mount might implode, and there's no solution so far in the north, and Amos Hochstein is there today on the 16th to try and prevent a war in the north. You know, it's a, it's a pretty complex situation with an, with an army that's based on conscripts that's been serving for over a year. That are still dealing with the emotional trauma and what that means for commanders in the field and their ability to follow orders. For example, yesterday, there were leaflets dropped in South Lebanon calling for evacuations in South Lebanon that the IDF was coming. And it was reported that this was an individual field commander who did that without the permission of his higher ups. I mean, that's insane. And we're seeing this again and again where individual field commanders are taking decisions. And this is a result of everyone feeling like they need to do the thing to make sure that they win. And them feeling like there is no strategy and no one's really sure what's going on. And the, the lack of discipline that that involves is deeply troubling in any army, and especially in a conscriptial army where people also then go home and try and go back to their work afterwards.

Scott Anderson: So you've already previewed the security environment, which was the next direction I want to take this because those do seem to be the stories that are both dominating kind of Israeli discussions to a strong, strong extent, at least kind of like the front page or the lead editorial pages and a lot of Israeli publications that I follow. As well as in the United States media. I mean, that's where we see this pop up. Gaza conflict rarely rises to the front page these days, but we do see Houthi missiles landing in Israel just this past week. We know we had several week period where we were waiting on an Iranian response that ultimately proved fairly limited in response to the assassination of Haniyeh. We know that we saw, you know, an exchange of hostilities with Hezbollah in the North of Israel that was serious but not of a scale that people feared it might have been or that the next one might be.

How do these things knit together beyond, you know, what you just noted? Because an interesting feature of this is that while it seems like you are under extreme security duress to some extent, by Israel. They are clearly at a difficult position and one with a lot of flashpoints domestically and internationally, that has not stopped them from acting quite provocatively. Like we've seen them pursue an aggressive series of assassinations, including one of at the, of a, you know, one of their main negotiations interlocutors in Ismail Haniyeh during the you know, while he was in Iran attending the inauguration of the new Iranian president. It's hard to imagine a more provocative maneuver. How do we account for that? And, and, and this level of brinksmanship, how does that fit in into the Israeli security view? Or, or is that mischaracterizing? Is there something different happening here?

Joel Braunold: It's a complicated question, Scott, but let's start here. I mean, what you just laid out shows the, the, the two-sided nature of Israeli capacity. On one hand, October 7^th is like, Hamas did not use that much technology in order to basically commit the darkest day in Israel's history. It just, and it destroyed this image of Israel as this incredible security giant and everything else. And destroyed deterrence. And on the flip side, they can kill Ismail Haniyeh in the IRGC guesthouse on the inauguration of the new Iranian president. They can, just last week it was reported by Axios, go into Syria and get rid of an underground weapons facility that I'm sure the Iranians have put tens of millions of dollars into. It's like this, you know, there's a phrase in Hebrew, shimshon ha nabeach, like Israel’s strong but cries about it. And it feels like the security services at one hand like, James Bond, Fowler, like craziness. And the other hand, you know, the, the standard we didn't listen to the watchers and then we all got killed. And this duality is something that's also really difficult for many years. There's this huge sense of pride that we managed to get them and humiliate them and this huge sense of, of insecurity that are we safe? And, and, you know, to be fair to Israel's political leadership, that's really complicated to navigate.

I think that one of the things that the Israelis like to talk about the breaking of the conception of October 7^th. Of course, they won't talk about the, some of the political parts of what that could look like vis-a-vis, you know, debilitating the PA and Fatah and strengthen Hamas, but that's, we can get to that in another question. But one of them is like, we're not waiting anymore. We're not just going to allow Iran to build up its proxies and dictate terms to us. And so we're going to take the fight to them, because if we sit back and wait, they will dictate the arrangements. Like if you just look at Israel's strategic framework over the past year, for political reasons, for security reasons, whichever one you want to say, they haven't managed to get a ceasefire in Gaza. And so we've already foreclosed, well, if we get a ceasefire, we'll get normalization with Saudi, to you need to do a ceasefire so that you can focus on the north. So already you've taken away a gift and it's just more fighting that's promised. Or we got to get a ceasefire so that we don't blow up stuff with the Iranians. Like, so already the gifts that you can get are already lessened comparatively to what the gains are.

When it comes to the north with Hezbollah, Benny Gantz has been saying this and was far more hawkish than Bibi and Galant apparently. He's been wanting there to be a focus on the north since he joined the security cabinet. One thing is that he lives in the north, in Be'erotayim, in Rosh Haayin, sorry, not Be'erotayim and today you've got 60,000 people in Israel who have been evacuated from the north. And they can't have Hezbollah just basically have a buffer zone that they pushed them back. And, and so what do you do? Now, if you're Amos Hochstein, who's been the negotiator for the Americans on this, he's like, look, you could have a massive war, but in the end, what you will get is basically the same as what you will get now, which is pushing Hezbollah back to behind the Litani. You're not going to destroy them all. And that's what you're going to have to live with. And the Israelis are like, no, we can destroy a lot of their capacity. And you know, maybe that's what we need to do. Maybe deterrence needs to be recreated and Lebanon needs to be in ashes. And that's how we're going to create deterrence again.

The Lebanese don't want Hezbollah to do this. They've already done that. So to what extent will you push the population onto Hezbollah's side? To what extent will you not? And so much of this is you need your allies in order to help push back. So on one side, you've got the West and people saying to Israel, look what happened when Iran tried to hit you in all in April. And then again, when people decided to try and stand up, there is a regional missile defense alliance that you can rely on that will help you insulate against Iran and that that is your future. It is dependent on allies and allies want things and won't have you just basically do whatever you want on the Palestinian file. You're going to need to give a little in there in order to gain a lot on your security file. And this Israeli coalition is like no, they'll be there anyway, because they hate the Iranians and we know better. We'll deal with the Palestinians on our own terms and that's none of your concern. And we're gonna knock Hezbollah out, like we're gonna we're not gonna have them sit there and threaten our throats. And yes, the Houthis shooting stuff in Tel Aviv is really annoying, and we will bomb Yemen and do what the Saudis have done and try to change that dynamics. But we're not living like this. We're not going to have these proxies strangle holding us and also changing dynamics.

And when we look at the, what we, a lot of analysts call the escalatory ladder, right? What's an acceptable step and what's an unacceptable step?  I mean, the Iranians have now done direct hits in Israel on Israeli targets. That is a gigantic escalatory step. Iran and Israel are now functionally in a shooting war. We might be in between the shooting wars, but how you put that back is very unclear. In addition the Israelis thought they knew the rules of the game. You know, you don't, you know, and to be fair to them, when they did the targeting in Tehran, they didn't kill any Iranians from reports. They killed two Palestinians. And they're like, okay, you know, if we killed Iranians, that's an escalation. We didn't kill any Iranians. We humiliated you by killing one of your honored guests and one of your people, but. And then there's another thing in Israel that there's deep frustration saying, the only time we can go off the Hamas target is when they leave Western allies, we're not allowed to target them in Turkey. We're not allowed to target them in Qatar. Cause if we do the diplomatic consequences will be very dire because they're allies of the U S and everything else. But when they're on Iranian turf, well, it's fair game. Probably also Algerian, one would argue. So, there's this weird thing where when they're in places where you could add to the escalatory cycle, that's when they're available for targeting, and when they're not.

So, I think that many people in Israel, despite the fact that it will be a deep cost, feel like we need to, the people in the north need to go back. And they're only going to feel safe to go back if they're not seeing Hezbollah sort of do what they're doing. Hezbollah's basically said, we don't want to do this, but we will and we'll do a ceasefire when you've got a ceasefire in Gaza. And the Israelis are basically refusing that conditionality, saying what you do on our northern border has nothing to do with what we're doing in Gaza. You started shooting at us on October 7^th. You decided to get involved, okay? We had nothing, we didn't do anything in Lebanon, and you decided because you wanted to back Hamas. We want to break that. Hamas, of course, wants to bring Hezbollah in, and have been disappointed that really only the Houthis have really been doing stuff. And Hezbollah's been doing stuff that's annoying, but haven't really unleashed their full arsenal. And it's, Sinwar is desperate to get other regional actors involved on attacking Israel, because for him, that's the plan. That's the al-Aqsa Flood, everything happens. And so Israel's really in a, in a security question, which is how do we, how do we push back against this ring of fire?

And for many internationally, they'll tell you like, you need more international credit. You don't have it. Right? No one knows what your plan is for Gaza. Still, we are a year in. No one knows. You say no to everything. No PA, no Qatar, no Turkey, no Hamas. What do you want? You said yes to the UAE and the UAE has already just told you, AbZ came out yesterday and said we will not do anything on the day after until, you know, without the PA, basically. You know, Palestinian state, whether it's before or after. We're not doing it without the PA. The PAs invite is the gateway into doing something in Gaza, or it's all on you. And the Israelis at the moment have not taken charge of distribution of humanitarian aid. They do not want that responsibility. But should they take it, then they'll be the governors of Gaza with all the responsibilities. And they will bore the cost of that financially, as well as security alone. And can their economy take it and can it not? So their desire to break apart the Palestinian angle from the region and the Palestinian desire to reattach it on the PA side diplomatically on Hamas's side militarily is really the push and pull what's going on right now.

And again, how Israel can rebuild its international credit because there's a lot of support I would argue internationally even with the frustrations with Netanyahu and everything else for pushing back against Iranian influence. And that's true also in the region. They don't want to see Iran triumphant. On the other hand, the, the Palestinians, and especially going back to Temple Mount and Haram al-Sharif is something that is a lodestone on Israel's argument about how it can move forward. And so these are some of the pushes and pulls that the security establishment is trying to work out. They need the weapons that they need. They need the army to be refreshed and do what they need in order to take out the enemies that they need to, to push on. And yet their international credit card runs thin and the thinness, many in the security will point to the intransigence on the political level for having any plan to do with the Palestinians.

And that's why many of the security establishments, when they retire, all turn into two-staters. Because they're like, look just do, I know that parts of your coalition don't want there to be a Palestinian state. Cool man. The bigger issue is Iran and Hezbollah and the Houthis and a nuclear weapon and all of this stuff. And your theological visions of, of winning is going to cost us on our strategic security in a way that you can't imagine. But the right pushes back and says, look, it's all about them trying to collapse us as a population and as people who deserve to be in the region. And we need to demonstrate once again who is the master of the house. And that has been Ben Gvir's argument from day one: Who is the master of this house? And you know what? I'm gonna, I'm gonna clown you on Temple Mount and I'm gonna show you that I'm in charge and you can rage as much as you want but until you accept it, that's going to be the plan. And the reality is, as uncomfortable as this is for a lot of people, a lot of Israelis agree with him on that. They do. They're like, we need to show who's in charge.

And all of this Western, you know, you're trying to fight to a stalemate. You're not trying to fight to win. And like, when I was in Israel last, I was having a meeting and a conscript came up to the person I was meeting with, who was a minister, and interrupted our meeting. And basically said, I served two terms in Gaza and I'm not going again. And they said, why? And he said, because you're not allowing us to win. And he started shouting and basically being like, you have no vision of victory. There is no vision of victory. I was not in a, you know, and it was interesting to hear in this and this was not a staged interaction. There was this feeling like the, the, the, the having the two handedness and Gallant pulling back and Bibi pushing forward and no one believing anyone and that Bibi was in charge for 15 years. There's this feeling like there's no strategy about how this ends and what is it, if we're going to put all this cost in, what are we doing?

And we haven't even talked about the Palestinian side of this. Right? This is all the Israeli dominant narrative because they're the ones with more asymmetric power vis-a-vis the Palestinians and at least equivalent vis a vis the region. The Palestinians are like, this is what we've always told you they wanted. It wasn't about killing Hamas. It's about wiping us out in Gaza, ensuring that we can't return. You know, Gaza has been flattened, like, there is, there is little, if anything, left in most of it and the infrastructure is basically gone. And now they want to do it in the West Bank. And listen to them when they tell you, when someone tells you who they are, listen to them. And as much as they say, oh, it's one minister and this and that, these are ministers in the government who have made statements that the ICJ have pointed out are genocidal. And that even if it was at the beginning of the war, there's been no pushback. Today, Prime Minister Netanyahu has still not assured President Sisi that the aim is not to push Gazans into Egypt. He has not said it. They have not had one phone conversation. The Egyptian-Israeli relationship is completely in tatters. Also because Israel is accusing Egypt of not having done its job and allowing massive smuggling through the tunnels, some in the security establishment, push back.

But again, you've got this complete divide between the security establishment and the political establishment. So if this all seems very chaotic, it's because it is, and that's how people feel. And it feels like who's in control and where are we going on this? And for the Palestinians, no one cares. We are, we are the butt of everyone in the region. You know, the PA can't seem to get anything under control. Like, the UN might feel good, but it doesn't change anything for us on the ground. You know, yes, we had a polio vaccine drive that was successful. I think that's really important to point out. There was an ability. And it's interesting to delve into why that was successful, whereas other things weren't. But, you know, we're, we're saying it's great that commutable disease that wasn't there before October 7th is now there, that we managed to do a drive. Oh, and by the way, some of those same kids who get vaccinated, the next day have been killed in airstrikes. And so what are we doing here? And, and again, the international community, as you said, has lost Gaza from its front pages that we've all moved on. And that we're still getting killed every day.

And okay, we're not pro-Hamas. Now what, what, what's our future? What do you offer up? You know, we talk about how Israel can get over the trauma of October 7th, and that's a very important thing. How the Palestinian society even begins to deal with the trauma of what the war has been like for them. And you can blame whoever you want for voting for whoever you want or whatever else. They lived under an oppressive terrorist regime, according to the U.S. of Hamas. And now they've been bombed to smithereens. They've been penned in because by leaving Gaza, they basically abandoned their claim because they're worried the Israelis won't let them back in. And staying in Gaza has been almost a death sentence. And so, what is it that they can do? And, and how as policymakers we can even begin to start piecing this together is a gargantuan challenge. And this is why you hear UN statements and others talking about the utter disaster that is Gaza and the total exasperation that there is no political movement.

Scott Anderson: So that's an incredible scope of all these issues pulling together. But it strikes me like there's one, particularly as we talk about this international aspect, there is a keystone about Israel's relationship with the rest of the world, which it does bear in, perhaps arguably should bear in more to how they're beginning to think about some of that. And that is the United States. And we have seen this trajectory in the U.S. -Israeli relationship, particularly under the Biden administration from the bear hug after October 7th. And frankly, before that as well, the Biden administration very consciously going and saying, we're not gonna repeat the mistakes of the Obama administration and openly, you know, contesting Netanyahu, building antagonistic relationship. We will embrace the Israeli government, but try and exercise influence behind the scenes more effectively, something that they thought was successful in kind of prior models and prior Gaza conflicts. And we've seen the administration more or less abandon that, I think it's fair to say, or at least move harsher away from it. More open criticism in Netanyahu, more open pressure for some sort of ceasefire arrangement, which they have really, the Biden administration more, particularly Biden now, more than Harris, but to some extent both of them, are bought in on ceasefire being a big political aspect of their platform. It's how they square the circle with their party and disconcert within their party over the approach to Israeli policy generally and the treatment of the Palestinians and their emphasis on a ceasefire was a big part of that.

And we hear the discussions of that contrast with the discussions by former President Trump where you look at the party platforms, you look at debate, conversations, debate exchanges. You have a lot of engagement with the idea of a two state solution in particular, doubling down on the Democratic side. And that conversation really has fallen out of the Trump side. I don't know if they say they're opposed to it, but it's just not on the agenda. It's not something they're talking about. Really their agenda just boiled down to backing Israel and opposing Hamas, at least in terms of party platform. And I think Trump's statements more or less back that up. So how does the U.S. relationship figure into that? Well, how does that political divide figure into it? And what does it mean both for, for Gaza and frankly, this broader relationship and all these issues that are not going to go away, even if Gaza is miraculously solved in the next couple of weeks.

Joel Braunold: All right, let's do it this way. Let's go to the presidential debate that just happened. Let's listen to both of the candidates responses. Now, for foreign policy watchers of presidential debates, it's always disappointing, right? So we're not going to get anything big, but it was interesting what was said. So let's firstly go with Vice President Harris. She started off by saying this started on October 7th, so she started the story there. Which again, you know, for Trump, who then accuses her of hating Israel, that doesn't seem to track. But what was interesting is that she included Iran in the same thought and statement. It wasn't like a paragraph break, it wasn't like a different sentence, into this entire thing. And so at least for her, it seems like she understands and she sees Iran as part of this bigger picture with the Israelis and Palestinians, which is something that I don't remember a Democrat pre, you know, since Obama, at least, connecting these things in a very specific way, especially on like a quick debate stage. And that actually from an Israeli perspective, is something they would want to see. Of course, she then says, two-state solution, points out the horrible loss of life in Gaza. And, you know, the Israelis seem to be on this death match to try and humiliate Kamala Harris. I don't seem to understand. I mean, I would make the argument that even if you are upset with her, you hold your tongue for six weeks just in case. But what do I know now?

Now let's contrast that to President Trump. President Trump said, I want people to remember, he said that if she's elected in two years there's no Israel exists. Now, that's a huge statement, a huge statement coming from a former president who's running again. That speaks directly to what the Iranians want, saying it's not going to exist in two years. So he's basically saying that the Iranians can destroy Israel in two years. If you're Israeli, that is a terrifying statement from someone. Now, you can say, oh, it's Trump, and you can dismiss it, flip the roles. If Kamala Harris said that in two years, Israel won't exist. The discourse will be completely different. You know, he also said that there'll be a lot of dead Arabs and a lot of dead Israelis. I mean, I, if Israel doesn't exist, I'm sure there will be a lot of dead people in the region. And I'm not one who just criticizes Trump. Just, I think that, you know, Trump's strong madness plays very well in the Middle East. It really does. And I think many in the region, when I travel, very much understand how to deal with the President Trump. They understand him. And the, the inability to pin him down is a bonus in the Middle East because you can't predict what his next move is going to be. He hasn't closed off two-states, as much as many on the Israeli right like to believe he has. At no point has he ever said there wasn't.

And more than that, after his first assassination attempt, the fact that there's been more than one is just the chaos of our country today. After his first assassination attempt, President Abbas sent him a letter that he then tweeted saying thanks so much, Mahmoud, everything will be well. This isn't someone who's attacking the head of the Palestinian Authority. This is someone who recognizes thanks and moves on. I think President Trump feels like he can help push the parties. He's been very clear that he wants the war in Gaza to end and to end quickly. That's his whole point. Finish it and finish it quickly. I don't, and I think that the Israelis in, you know, quietly worry about what President Trump would insist of them. You know, you know, he's not gonna withhold arms or anything that they've seen from the Democrats. But would he make a regional deal that he'd impose on Israel? He's before said he wanted Iran to join the Abraham Accords. That none of this would happen because of the respect they would have for him. And for Israel who wants to knock Iran out or at least knock the regime out what does that mean if he's deal driven?

And Trump speaks to an isolationist wing of the Republican party that goes against what Israel somewhat wants about U.S. deterrence in the region, whereas Harris will need to craft the Middle East policy. You know, in the last podcast we spoke about when president, I think we just did it after President Biden had made a speech and then moved at the United Nations for the ceasefire. And we asked, was that a Hail Mary? And I said, no, it's like, you know, the last, minute of the game and you know, they throw the ball and then there might be another option. I think right now they threw the Hail Mary and it fell short. And the game's over and sort of the coaches are looking at, are looking at each other and that, that's kind of how it feels. I don't think anyone believes, sadly, that, you know, and I hope I'm wrong. There is no one who hopes they're wrong more than me. But I don't see anything happening before a presidential election. I just don't. I don't, I don't see it.

You know, there was a big conference last week in D.C. called the MEADs Conference, and coming out of that, a lot of people said that the administration was very clear that they're putting the onus on Hamas. That, you know, Sinwar upped the amount of hostages that needed to be evacuated, the amount of prisoners that would need to be released. And, you know, coming off the executing six hostages, like it's Hamas fault and they're putting pressure on Qatar and Egypt, but the Egyptians are furious with the Israelis. And to the extent that now that the, Haniyeh is dead, Hamas's leadership now fully moved to Gaza. So the Egyptians have a far better connection than Qatar does. So, like, the amount of pressure the Qataris can put on has now changed after you assassinate Haniyeh because Mashal wasn't, wasn't appointed the leader. So they're not the leader, so it's no longer relevant. Like, you can speak to someone who's the deputy. Great, man. The guy, you know, the Egyptians have a, have some line of contact with Sinwar, and he's in charge. You could argue he was in charge all along, but now, formally, he's in charge. He's the head of Hamas now.

So, so, so, the administration is trying, at the moment, Amos is out there trying to prevent the North kicking off. And again, when we talk about conflicts of interest, there's a question, is the administration just trying to get through November and then there's the lame duck or are they not? I don't think that's a fair accusation, given that President Biden has made his entire presidency about rescuing American hostages. So now that he's a lame duck, I genuinely don't think he cares about the political calendar when it comes to this. Whether people in Harris's campaign feel differently, I wouldn't care to comment. I don't think that's, again, a fair critique. But in Israel and in the region, that's the feeling. Like, you know, in, in, you know, it's interesting when you listen to Israelis, and the region, they point to many of Biden's moves, you know, in the context of the real two state solution is Pennsylvania and Michigan. And you know that all the moves were for those. Again like, having worked up close with the administration and others, I just disagree. I don't think that President Biden created a sanctions regime in the West Bank because of Michigan. And if he did, he got no credit for it. So that was a terrible political move if it was. I don't think he created, you know, I think that President Biden has been frustrated and furious with the lack of enforcement in a security regime and is making that known.

So, you know, lots of people are waiting for the Americans and I think there's a, there's an entire game in Middle Eastern politics of, well, it's America, you know, if the Americans want it too much, it's their fault. If they don't want it enough, it's their fault. It's always our fault. So, you know, take a lot of the critiques with a, with a, with a bucket of salt. And the Americans dominate the international arena. Everyone's waiting for the Americans. You know, we'll wait on the American ceasefire deal. We'll wait on this. And it really does just feel like we're spinning our wheels. You know, right now it's Hamas's fault, when it was Philadelphi was it the Israelis fault? You know, Blinken goes and says he's got the commitments and it flips and, and Bill Burns is out there and the hostage family. It's just, it just feels rudderless. Like, we're floating without exit and it's just, we're so dangerously close to the rocks and we're smashing into them and coming out. And just to add complexity, the next two weeks at the UNGA are going to be nightmarish because there will be moves on internationalization. There will be bilateral consequences for the Palestinians from the Israelis. There will be questions about when the administration will veto, will they do something at the Security Council when it comes to the lame duck. And again, whenever it moves to the international arena. It can feel very satisfying for those pushing human rights and accountability. And I take nothing away from that.

If you feel like there is, that's the only way to move the Israelis. Now, I don't think that that pressure thesis will change them, but if you think that it will create long term differences and changes, that's your, that's what you're pushing. This is a very important couple of weeks for you. But in the short term, what will happen is that the Israelis will punish the PA because of it. The Americans will try and almost human shield themselves in front of the PA to prevent as much of that as possible. And we will further exacerbate the tensions and we will further get two parts of the right wing coalition pushing. None of that is to say that the PA is wrong to try and put pressure on the Israelis internationally. They feel like it's the only way we can get a reaction. It's the only way we can get them to take us seriously. It's the only thing they care about. Because everything else we try, they just ignore us and they humiliate us. All right, we're going to do this instead. And, you know, you saw this week in Spain, there was a meeting with Spain and Norway, and the Saudis, all trying to push Palestinian statehood, and all trying to work out how to pressurize Israel internationally.

You know, the irony is that the PA is going to be punished, whereas it's all these other countries who are pushing it, including Saudi, who the Israelis want to go after, you know, including European allies. The biggest conflict Israel has diplomatically right now, I'd argue, is with Norway. They are so mad that the Norwegians recognize the Palestinians and also chair the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, which is like a donor committee, that the Israelis are boycotting the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee as long as the Norwegians are in charge. Like, this is the level of like, just burn all the bridges. You know, the Israelis will approve a new settlement for every country that that recognizes the state of Palestine. They're at war with the UN, they're at war with UNRWA, they're at war with, there's a constant like, we will take down all of these entities. We will push them out, and we will say it's unfair. And it's like fighting a thousand fires. And again, going back to what we just said like 10 minutes ago, Scott. Israel needs international credit on their credit card in order to have the legitimacy to prosecute the war against Iranian proxies that much of the West wants them and understands that they need to prosecute. Yeah, they don't want to wreck Lebanon, but they don't want to see Iran ascendant. It's not in their business. No, the Iranians and the Russians are now speaking and have the Russians given them nuclear technology in return for ballistic missiles that are going into Ukraine. This bleeds into so many other things. So I think many Western policy makers are pulling their hair out being like, what are you doing?

I'll give you an example of the British. So the Brits famously, on the same day that six hostages were executed, revoked arms licenses, I think 50 of them from, and they tried to downplay it, but the symbolism was huge. And when asked what they could do, one of the steps that they had to fulfill is that you need to allow the Red Cross and human rights monitors to into detainee camps. Israel had this huge issue that in Sde Teiman, which was a detainee camp in the Sinai, there were human rights abuses. There were people who, you know, reportedly were sodomized by soldiers. And you know, you had a mini January 6th where ministers from the government along with protestors break into a military base. The police don't stop them. The army have to get it under control and then they break into the military court where the soldiers are being prosecuted. There's, and so that leads to a diplomatic consequence, which leads to a lessening of this, which leads to this. The, the domino effects of all of this stuff are happening. And the Israelis will constantly say, you know, we bring in military experts from the West and they say, no one's dealt with a bigger complex situation than what we're dealing with in Gaza, you know, and everything else. And they, they think deeply unfair that they're accused of starving Gaza when they are taking politically uncomfortable moves to ensure that humanitarian aid does get in, at least according to their, what they're doing. You know, it would be very easy for them to shut it all off, just make it a siege, and many in the country, and many in the government want that to happen, but that hasn't happened. And they feel they get no credit for that.

And on the flip side, you've got what you’re seeing in Sde Teiman, you see what's going on in the West Bank, you see this, the attacks on the PA, you see, you know, the attacks on Norway, the attacks on Spain, that we will not let any slight go without a punishment. That takes its toll. And that's sort of, again, like, it is, it seems rudderless. It seems like we are lashing out and we are doing this stuff and no one is in charge. And I think that the theme of, of, of where we are right now, we are, we are 18, 19, we're probably like, we're just under a month from a year anniversary of, of this kicking off. And it doesn't seem like anyone's got a way out and that when you look at the strategic environment and what opportunities still exist, it's very easy for political leadership to say, we're going to wait for the Americans to sort out their presidential and then we'll reassess. But that for me feels like a giant cop out, but it seems that's where we all are. We're all just waiting and then we're going to have to wait till transition. And then it's going to take three months. And before you know it, basically, Bibi has five months, seven months left before it's his actual election date, and he's made it through, you know, if that's the sort of thinking that people are going for. And so, on one side and on the other side, you've got, what, an 89, 90 year old President Abbas, who's not in good health, or he could be in good health, but he smokes a lot, and that's like a potential collapse, and you've got everything else. So this is why it feels so fragile, because even as you try and put pieces back into the puzzle, the puzzle's collapsing under you as you're doing it.

Scott Anderson: Well, I think on that note, we are out of time today but I have no doubt we are going to have much more to talk about both before and after the election in the weeks to come. Joel Braunold, thank you again for joining us here on the Lawfare Podcast.

Joel Braunold: Thanks so much for having me, Scott.

Scott Anderson: The Lawfare Podcast is produced in cooperation with the Brookings Institution. You can get ad free versions of this and other Lawfare podcasts by becoming a Lawfare material supporter through our website at lawfaremedia.org/support. You'll also get access to special events and other content available only to our supporters. Please rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Look out for our other podcasts, including Rational Security, Chatter, Allies, and the Aftermath, our latest Lawfare Presents podcast series on the government's response to January 6th. Also, be sure to check out our written work at lawfaremedia.org. This podcast is edited by Jen Patja, and your audio engineer this episode was Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Our theme song is from Alibi Music. As always, thank you for listening.