Strategic Planning in Chaos: The Future of the U.S.-Israel Security Partnership

BOWMAN: Welcome and thank you for joining us for today’s event, hosted by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. It’s Tuesday, September 10th. Today’s panel will discuss the U.S.-Israel security relationship, including challenges ahead.

I’m Bradley Bowman, Senior Director of FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power. We’re pleased to have you here, some in person, some tuning in live, some listening to our podcast for this conversation.

The title for our event today is, “Strategic Planning in Chaos: The Future of the U.S.-Israel Security Partnership”. Chaos is certainly one word for what we’re seeing in the Middle East. I might have also chosen the word uncertainty. We are witnessing an extraordinary degree of uncertainty when it comes to fundamental questions related to Israel, U.S. interests in the Middle East, and the path forward.

On October 7th, Hamas terrorists, who harbor a sick Islamist ideology that is simultaneously antisemitic, anti-Israel, and let there be no doubt, anti-American, conducted a surprise terror attack against Israel, systematically assassinating and murdering men, women, and children in the most depraved ways imaginable. It was the worst single day for Jews since the Holocaust. Along with our Israeli allies, Americans were killed and taken hostage, and some remained locked in Hamas terror tunnels in Gaza these many months later.

In retrospect, with the benefit of hindsight, Hamas’s actions should not have been a surprise. One need only read Hamas’s original charter and the propaganda its terrorists left behind on October 7th to understand that the terror group’s goals were and remain, nothing short of murdering Jews and the extermination of the world’s only Jewish state, a country roughly the size of New Jersey in a land where Jews first made their home more than three millennia ago. How did Israel respond to this October 7th terrorist atrocity?

Israel has gone after those who committed the atrocity to ensure they could never do so again. That should sound familiar. Israel responded in the same way Americans would have and the same way Americans did after another surprise terror attack, 9/11. A terrorist atrocity that we especially remember tomorrow.

In the months since October 7, Israel confronted an adversary entrenched in hundreds of miles of terror tunnels that were systematically hiding and operating under or near civilians to save their own terror skins so they can kill again. Meanwhile, Hamas took deliberate actions to increase civilian casualties that could then be used as fodder in a political warfare campaign for the purpose of demonizing and isolating Israel, and the United States and Europe, and thereby trying to deprive Israel of the means of self-defense.

Now, despite long standing efforts, not surprisingly, a ceasefire in Gaza remains elusive. It remains to be seen whether this administration will use its leverage with Cairo to ensure that Hamas and other terror groups in Gaza cannot use armed smuggling under and over the border between Gaza and Egypt to rearm.

There’s a fundamental American interest in ensuring such an outcome. Let’s see whether this administration understands that reality and uses its leverage with Egypt. We also see uncertainty with Hezbollah. Hezbollah started attacking Israel on October 8th. In Israel’s north, tens of thousands of Israelis remain displaced from their homes, even as the Israel Defense Forces and Hezbollah continue to trade attacks in a low scale war that has been increasing in intensity.

For now, at least, both sides seem to want to avoid an escalation to a major war. But such conflicts resist indefinite management and can easily spin out of control. But the status quo in Israel’s north seems untenable, both from a political and security perspective.

Israelis must be able to return to their homes, and that means pushing Hezbollah back. If the International Community, the United Nations, UN peacekeepers, and key capitals fail to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1701, Israel may have no choice but to resort to a major war in Lebanon. Such a war would be far worse for Israel than we have seen with Hamas, and the devastation in Lebanon could exceed some of what we’ve seen in Gaza.

Any American visitor to Israel in recent years has been accustomed to hearing Israelis start a briefing with saying they have three top priorities, Iran, Iran, and Iran. These days, however, most of the talk is of Hamas, Hezbollah, and now the Houthis. That is a serious mistake.

Iran wants to use its terror proxies to distract, wear down, and bleed Israel, even as Tehran inches toward a nuclear weapon. And between the American presidential election in November and the January 20 inauguration of the new president, there is a particular window of danger. As Orde Kittrie, I, and Behnam Ben Taleblu detailed in an FDD monograph published on August 29 [2024].

If the United States does not pursue specific deterrent steps in the coming weeks, Tehran could pursue significant additional steps toward a nuclear weapon or even a sprint to a nuclear bomb to present the next American president with a fait accompli. The essence of strategy is establishing priorities. And the number one threat to Israel, and the number one threat to U.S. interests, and then Middle East is the Islamic Republic of Iran. And its progress toward a nuclear weapon. Yet our conversations, our policies, and our allocation of finite resources sometimes does not reflect that fact. So lots of questions and lots of uncertainty.

But a few things, at least from my perspective, are certain. The United States and Israel enjoy a uniquely deep, broad, and enduring relationship that transcends parties and administrations.

Israel is the United States’ closest and most reliable ally in the Middle East. And the United States is Israel’s indispensable ally. All of Israel’s enemies are America’s enemies, and Washington has no more capable or determined ally than Israel when it comes to going after that subset of U.S. adversaries, including the Islamic Republic of Iran and its terror network. Some of whom have repeatedly attacked us forces in the Red Sea and in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan.

At a time when China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are cooperating in troubling new ways to target the United States, our allies, and its interests, it is good and necessary to have friends. And Israel is among America’s best friends.

What’s also certain to me is that helping Israel is not charity. It is a wise investment in our own national security interests. And the capabilities Israel is developing today, in many cases, are exactly the kinds of capabilities that American forces will need in the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere in the coming years.

That is why efforts such as the U.S.-Israel Ops-Tech [Operations and Technology] Working Group are so important. So where do we go from here? We have an extraordinary panel of colleagues, experts and friends to discuss these issues. They include, from left to right, I believe, Major General Retired Amir Eshel. He’s a senior fellow here at FDD and an accomplished fixed wing and rotary wing pilot, and commander who served in Israel Defense Forces for more than 40 years.

Previously, he served as Director General of the Israel Ministry of Defense, Commander in Chief of the Israeli Air Force, and led the formulation of National Security Strategy for the Israeli Government as the Head of the Planning Directorate in Israeli General Staff.

Eyal Hulata is a Senior International Fellow at FDD and the first foreign visiting fellow at FDD headquarters.

Previously, Eyal served as Israel’s National Security Advisor and head of Israel’s National Security Council under Prime Minister Bennett and Lapid. He coordinated the national effort on Iran, the Maritime Border Agreement with Lebanon, and co-headed the strategic consultation group with his American counterpart, Jake Sullivan.

Rear Admiral Retired Mark Montgomery serves as Senior Director of FDD Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation. Mark served 32 years in the U.S. Navy before serving as a policy director for the Senate Armed Service Committee under the leadership of Senator John McCain, coordinating policy efforts on national security strategy, capabilities, requirements and cyber policy.

Rounding off our panel on the end there is Jonathan Schanzer, Senior Vice President for Research at FDD. Previously, Jon worked as a terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he played an integral role in the designation of numerous terrorist financiers. Jon’s latest book, Gaza Conflict 2021, Hamas, Israel, and 11 days of War, challenges and corrects some of the wildly inaccurate news reported during the conflict. Today’s conversation will be moderated by Katie Pavlich, editor for townhall.com. She is a Fox News contributor.

Before we dive in, a few words about FDD. For more than 20 years, FDD has operated as a fiercely independent, nonpartisan research institute exclusively focused on national security and foreign policy. As a point of pride and principle, we do not accept foreign government funding. For more on our work, please visit our website, fdd.org, and follow us on X @FDD.

That’s enough for me. Katie, over to you. Thank you.

PAVLICH: Great. Thank you, Brad, for the introduction. And we have limited time, so we will jump right into our conversation. We have a lot of members of the media here today, so thank you for being here.

Now, given the title of this discussion is Strategic Planning in Chaos: The Future of the U.S.-Israel Security Partnership, and I emphasize the word partnership. Why should the U.S.-Israeli relationship matter to everyday Americans? And what makes it unique to other relationships or alliances?

Mark, we’ll start with you.

MONTGOMERY: Well, first, I mean, I say the obvious, which is that Israel is a democracy in the Middle East, and the United States has a, you know, that’s under threat from a lot of angles. And the United States has a strong track record of backing beleaguered democracies. If you look around the world, we support Taiwan, we support Ukraine, we support the Republic of Korea, we support Israel. I mean, I think this is in our bedrock principles. So I’d go further and say Israel is an entrepreneurial economy that mirrors ours in a lot of ways. Certainly, they punch above their weight. They’re the – behind the United States, the second largest software IT, software developer in the world, and they help push our system to do better. I mean, they truly are, you know, a mirror image of the United States in terms of their commitment to democracy, to capitalism, to – and entrepreneurial way of thinking.

So from my perspective, it makes complete sense for us to support them. And I think I’d go back and just say that, you know, we look at countries that are kind of under threat from authoritarians. And the real question would be, why wouldn’t you have them as your strong ally? And so we treat Israel – we call them, you know, a non-NATO ally, but they’re more than that. They are our strongest partner in the Middle East. And very few countries have that level of commitment.

One last thing I’d say is if you look at – if you say resources and – are what matter and you put your money where your mouth is, we give about 40 percent of our foreign military financing every year to Israel and to help guarantee its security and freedom. So I think in all those ways, the United States is clearly aligned as a strategic partner to Israel.

PAVLICH: And from the Israeli perspective, Amir, would you like to provide that?

ESHEL: I would say that the Middle East right now is in a threshold of major change. Since October 7th, Israel has been fighting in seven different fronts, complicated, linked, how do you – we talked about strategic planning, which is – looks impossible.

By saying that we are in a threshold of major change in the Middle East and in a minute, I would come to the Israel-United States partnership. Right now, Israel is busy fighting those seven fronts. But we should not – we should keep our eyes on the ball, as you say. And the ball is Iran. It’s the major threat to Israel and not just to Israel. And Iran possesses the potential of this major change, I would say, even a turning point in the Middle East related to its nuclear ambitions, related to its terrorist support. Iran is all over. It’s all over.

And Iran should be bring back – should be brought back to the top of the list, top priority, because it’s easy right now to deal for Israel, to deal with each front, to define what are the desired achievements of, whatever, the goals. Iran is there. Iran is the source of all those evil activities. And Iran is running to acquire a nuclear capability.

And by getting there, and I hope it will never happen, getting there, it will create a major change, not just regionally, I think globally. Globally, it will hurt U.S. interests all over. It will initiate, I think, a global nuclear jungle. The other countries in the Middle East, outside the Middle East, will try to acquire the same capabilities. First, it’s a kind of insurance policy for a regime having a nuclear capability. And then under the umbrella of nuclear capability, to be more provocative, more aggressive, etcetera.

Israel and the United States, both of us is in the same boat here. And the threats to Israel and the threats to U.S. interests, I would say Mark mentioned all the – based on the relationship, the special relationship, partnership between us, I think this is – I think would be the major test for those – for that partnership.

PAVLICH: So Jonathan…

MONTGOMERY: Can I ask one quick thing? One other thing I say, I agree – I attached myself to what Amir said. I would say that Iran is the number one problem for Israel. And we’ll probably discuss this. But, you know, letting that not be the number one problem has probably been to Israel’s detriment over the last 18 months. But the – it is not the United States number one strategic challenge. And we have to put this in a balance with China, Russia, even North Korea.

And so that makes it hard and it makes it even the more important that we work closely with Israel, for whom it is the number one challenge. The fact that it’s not our number one strategic priority does not mean it’s not a priority. And it doesn’t mean we – in fact, it augurs more for working with key allies and partners to check Iran.

In the past, we’ve allowed ourselves to get distracted in the Middle East. And, you know, China’s ability – where China sits today with us is a large part of product of our fixation on al-Qaeda and ISIS in the 2000s, and even Iran in the 2010 to 2014 time period. So I’d only say that actually makes it more challenging. That it makes it more important that we have a deep partnership with Israel because Israel is focused on Iran as its overwhelming dominant challenge. And we have to support them in that while recognizing we’re taking a balanced approach to all the challenges in the world.

PAVLICH: So Jonathan, given that Iran’s aggressive behavior over the past 10 months, but prior to that as well, has not only been directed Israel, of course, it’s been horrific, but there have been a number of attacks on U.S. troops, including casualties, over the past 10 months. So what is your assessment of the relationship the United States has with Israel and their partnership against Iran who is overseeing all these proxy groups carrying out these attacks on U.S. troops and on Israelis?

SCHANZER: You know, shockingly, it’s been a policy of restraint. We have held Israel back from, I think, doing what it needs to do in order to counter these many threats. It doesn’t mean that the US hasn’t been providing Israel with the weapons that it needs and some of the guidance that it needs, and advising and sharing intelligence, and all of these sort of, you know, the deep aspects of this relationship that I think we can all say has been, you know, very successful and has benefited Israel and the United States over time. But for example, take what happened on the night of April 13th and 14th when Iran began striking Israel with hundreds of missiles and drones. The response from the US was, don’t be too provocative. Don’t respond in kind. Israel, as we all know, fired off one or maybe a handful of weapons and it was supposed to be a message rather than, you know, perhaps, holding the line as it were.

Hezbollah, take that, for example, I mean, this is, of course, Iran’s most powerful proxy. It has fired nearly 7,000 missiles and drones and rockets at Israel since October 8th. And the U.S. response has been to hold Israel in place. Israel has actually wanted to go on the offensive against Hezbollah.

Now, we could make the argument, by the way, that it wasn’t in Israel’s interest that Israel perhaps didn’t have the weaponry or it was not fully prepared for the battle that might come, and that Israel maybe needs more time to prepare for such a battle. But one gets a sense right now that the strategy is really one of restraint and not one of strategy. And this is my concern right now. And I will say this, I think it’s a criticism that we need to level on both sides of the relationship.

I do not see a strategy on the part of Israel or the United States as it relates to countering Iran in the region. I think there is an alignment and there may even be an understanding here in the United States that, you know, Israel needs to be empowered, to be able to counter Iran and all of its proxies. But I have not seen a piecemeal approach to addressing each of the proxies, nor have I seen a direct approach to countering Iran. I haven’t seen an economic approach to countering Iran. I have not seen really a full-throated diplomatic or political one for that matter. So I think as important and as positive as things have been for both Israel and the United States, this relationship is not firing on all cylinders right now.

There’s a lot of room to run. And I’m hoping that we start to see movement in the right direction.

PAVLICH: So Eyal, do you agree with his statement that there isn’t a clear strategy from either government on these issues?

HULATA: Well, unfortunately, the answer to that is very simple, because Jon is absolutely right. I mean, you know, I cannot – and won’t be critical on the policy here in the United States. But I think that, at least from an Israeli perspective, the fact that for almost a year, we’re embedded in a war that, of course, was imposed on us, and nothing is more justifiable than Israel’s urge, and I think successful pushback, in choking Hamas, hopefully successfully until the end.

On the list of Israel’s strategic threats, this is either the least or one above it. And we need to be cognizant. As the FDD saying goes, Iran has successfully deployed a weapon of mass distraction to keep both Israel and I think also the United States from focusing on what’s really there.

Of course, that does not mean that we do not need to succeed and to come out victorious against Hamas, though it’s very difficult to do that and the hostages, and many things that are on the plate. But when we look at it from a strategic standpoint, we need to remember what are the priorities. And from an Israeli priority and for the American interest in the Middle East, which maybe are in a different level than the global strategic ambitions and goals of the United States, we’re not dealing with the most important nor the most dangerous issue.

And if our enemies using this time to be even better in its ability to threaten us and your interests while it’s at it, then I’m worried about the strategy as a whole.

PAVLICH: So you talk about dealing with this. Now, Iran, of course, is an octopus. It’s a big issue. It’s not just one thing. So can you get a little bit more specific about what dealing with Iran really means?

HULATA: So first, it always gives me pride when people use the term octopus. I’m very proud to have been Prime Minister Bennett’s National Security Advisor as he sketched this octopus doctrine because indeed, it was clear, I think, in the establishment in Israel that if we deal with the tentacles, we don’t put the effort that is necessary to fight the underlying cause of those issues, which is a revolutionary regime that, you know, they lead, Iran, that is – it was a revolution that made them there, but still they lead. The fact that they do not have a majority of support in Iran means nothing because this is their nature. And this is what we’re facing.

Now, you know, there were years where we said, that if it wasn’t for the Iranian nuclear program, Israel wouldn’t care so much. I think what’s happening over the last decade makes us understand that the threat posed by Iran, that is immediate because Iran does not possess a nuclear weapon. And if it’s up to people like Amir and me and others in our cohort, they will never possess a nuclear weapon. But they’re able to do so much to damage Israel’s national security interests through their proxy strategy, the ring of fire they build around us, the funding, and the arming of all of those seven fronts that Amir said before. This is imminent. It’s happening right now. This will be so much worse if, God forbid, they become nuclear. I mean just, you know, we need to have that as a given.

So when I say that, the immediate thing is to make sure that Iran never possesses nuclear arms and to degrade the immediate threat coming from all of the other threats – ballistic, proxies, terror, drug money, all of the things – that they do to destabilize not only Israel, the entire region, but we are talking about us.

And I have to say, I think that given the nature of the regime and the way that they use every opportunity that they are given to do this, I don’t think that we’ll be able to fully solve this as long as there is a revolutionary regime in Iran. But this is not a contest between leaders. It is very, very direct in the things that are risky for Israel. Nuclear has always been and will be the number one threat, but it has become so much more complex over the last decade.

PAVLICH: Jonathan, you want to add?

SCHANZER: Yeah, you know, just getting back to this question of strategy and how we look at it, I mean, you know, the way I’ve tried to explain this to folks over the last 11 months, if not before that is, Iran likes to think, you know, they’re big fans of chess, right? And so if you think about what’s going on right now in the Middle East, think of a chess board and you think of all the different assets that Iran has in play, the Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria, we can call those pawns. And you can maybe call the Houthis a knight. You could call Hamas a rook. You could say Hezbollah is a bishop and the nuclear program is the queen.

What they’ve done over the last 11 months is they’ve taken over the middle of the board, which means they’re winning. And the question then becomes, what is the strategy to respond to all of those things? Now, you can address this by taking out each piece one at a time: long, painful, challenging, uncertain about winning. Or at the end of the day, you can make a fait accompli stroke that takes out the king.

And this is, I think, ultimately the challenge that Israel is wrestling with, that the US is wrestling with. It is the fundamental nature of the regime and the continued threat of it. We’ve not yet come up with that strategy. And I think that, you know, we can dissect all of these different pieces, but it’s important to remember that we need to have that big picture in mind. And I think that’s what’s been missing.

PAVLICH: So Amir, from the Washington perspective and the Biden administration, they have said they don’t want this to escalate into a, quote, “regional war” despite Iran continuing to escalate their attacks on U.S. and Israeli citizens. Is this the correct approach or is this just delaying the inevitable as Jonathan just laid out?

ESHEL: First, I don’t want to criticize the U.S. administration policy here, but this is not the only factor that was not – actually was opposing kind of escalation because I think all the three major players – Iran, Hezbollah and even Israel – after 10 months, 9 months of fighting, none of those players was, I would say, anxious to escalate. And it helped us – the de-escalation helped us first to focus on Gaza.

Gaza, in my mind, is the key to resolve, not totally, but to resolve this complex strategic situation that Israel is within right now. So it helped us to focus there and not to initiate another front in the north, which probably – not probably, for sure – would be more challenging, more demanding, more, more, more. And of course, you have to consider that a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah, it won’t be a kind of a bilateral war.

Iran will not, for sure, won’t sit aside and want [to] signal. They’ll do more, and of course, the proxies. So for the effort that started at October 7th, after this vicious attack, de-escalation in order to focus on Gaza, to achieve the goals there, I think it was the right policy. Is that will last forever? No, because look, if there would be a ceasefire in Gaza, it doesn’t matter for what reason, probably there will be a ceasefire in the north. Ceasefire in the north won’t satisfy Israel because we won’t be able to bring back the population to their villages and kibbutzim in the north.

We won’t be able to regain sovereignty along the northern border. It won’t be enough. And there, there are three options to continue to exchange punches across the border like the current situation, and maybe a miscalculation will lead to a full-scale war. This is one option.

The second option is, if there will be a ceasefire in the south, in Gaza, so a political effort should be made in order to roll back Hezbollah from the border. I’m skeptic[al], but we should give it a chance if it will happen. And if it will fail, Israel will be reloaded by legitimacy. And the third option is a full-scale war in order to regain back – to regain our sovereignty in the northern border.

So right now, the de-escalation was right for several phases of the current war, but we cannot continue. Is there like an automatic pilot? No.

PAVLICH: So, Mark, has Israel achieved their goals in Gaza? If not, what is left to do? But in terms of the north and what could happen, what do the US and Israel need to do? Should there be a large-scale conflict with Hezbollah today, tomorrow, over the next 12 months?

MONTGOMERY: Yeah, thanks. First, I do want to comment, you know, on the U.S. policy, because I think I don’t like restraint when it’s used by Quincy Institute or Stimson, and I don’t like it when it’s used by the Biden administration. And I think they’ve been pretty delusional in the idea that they could – that we could somehow, you know, focus on Hamas and Gaza, and not recognize that we absolutely had to support Israel in its broader fight in every front. And that means shipping them a metric butt ton of munitions to take care of this problem.

I mean, I think Israel started the war out with too few munitions. They’ve got some internal problems in their budgeting that have to do with paying for very expensive weapons and don’t – they didn’t have enough munitions at the start of the war. I think they’ve had to spend a lot more than they thought they would on what was arguably their sixth or seventh biggest challenge, and third, they are dependent basically on one country to really help them keep that that the arsenal is full. We are the arsenal of democracy, and we should have been pumping them weapons as fast as we could have.

And it’s clear to me that while the Biden administration only blocked some shipments of 2000 pounds and maybe an accidental – accidentally blocked some 500 pounders. They have intentionally slowed down the progress of munitions flow since they took a very aggressive position in October, November, December of last year. In 2024 they have slowed down that flow, and that works against U.S. national interests, because the US needs Israel to be the strong force in the Middle East to hold Iran in check, and that gets to Hezbollah.

I don’t think we’re ready. I don’t think Israel’s ready for the right campaign in Lebanon right now, the right campaign in Lebanon is one that is inherently an air-ground campaign, with the Air Force leading. If they don’t have enough of the right precision guided munitions, if they don’t have a right enough of the right defensive systems to protect their, you know, this is in David’s Sling and Iron Dome, this will be a slog, and a slog will mean more IDF casualties, more Israeli civilian casualties, and inevitably, more Lebanese civilian casualties for which we will hold Israel accountable somehow. So we absolutely have to push aggressively, getting them the right first air munitions, but also some ground munitions, so that they can, if necessary, they can execute a campaign in a way that minimizes casualties for all three of those groups. I think the United States, by practicing this restraint, is actually harming U.S. national security interests, and clearly harming Israeli national security interests.

PAVLICH: So Eyal, do you want to comment on that from Israeli perspective and the partnership there?

HULATA: So first, I think you asked also an important question about whether Israel is close to fulfilling its goals in Gaza, so I’m putting it out there so I don’t forget to respond, but…

PAVLICH: Go back.

HULATA: … but I will to Mark’s point. I mean, clearly, Israel was not stockpiled well enough or prepared well enough for the challenges that came. Israel never, never fought a long war of the sort we’re fighting now. Never. Even the Independence War, 75 years ago, was not as consuming to Israel right now, and at the time, the entire population of Israel was 600,000 people who are now population of 10 million Israelis. So there is no comparison between those issues. But definitely, we did not prepare for this, and were as surprised as can be in the start of this war. This is to Mark’s point. Like my friend Amir here, I think that the decision not to go, not to open another front was a justified one. Israel should not go into, should not start or embark on a campaign or a war when we’re not fully equipped, planned and with a proper understanding not only how we started, but also how we end it, and how our strategic positioning is better when we finish this.

So this is about the war in the North, as for the strategic alliance, when I was National Security Advisor and President Biden, came for a visit in July of ‘22, I think the single most important deliverable that came during this visit was a document that we call the Jerusalem Declaration, which Biden in it, in his own signing, put in words in signing it all of the commitments that the State of Israel ever wanted and wished for an American President with full commitments to the security of Israel, with full commitments to the continuations of the memorandum of understanding over time, with recognition that Israel has the right to defend itself by itself, with everything that associated with it, and with a commitment the United States of America will use all of the national security powers to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear country.

I think there is nothing wrong with the commitments given by the administration. So I’m just putting it out there because I think, as an Israeli, if we could be in a position to know that any American administration, any, you choose whoever we want, right? We have our issues with our politics, you deal with yours, but if any administration would continue to fulfill, first to believe in those commitments and then to fulfill them, we’ll be fine. And this is definitely a point of challenges on all of those fronts. Just going back to Gaza briefly, when the war in Gaza started, the War Cabinet at the time put three goals for the war.

The first is very, very militaristic in its nature, and that is to create conditions where Hamas or any other organization in Gaza will ever be able to conduct another October 7 ever, and I’ll talk about that in a second. The second was to create conditions where the governance in Gaza is not controlled by Hamas. And the third, and I carry this pin with me all the time, we need to bring back all of the hostages, the first one is militaristic in nature, I think, as the Ministry of Defense said himself, we’re pretty much done in degrading all of the battalions in Gaza. I’m not sure there was a street in Gaza that the IDF didn’t either march in or drive through. We still have an issue with making sure that there are no ability or conditions for Hamas, or any other extreme group in Gaza, to replenish the capabilities in the future, and this has to do with whether or not we need to be in Philadelphi or other solutions. I’ll put it aside for a second.

The other two goals are political. Who needs to rule Gaza afterwards start with the premise that it’s not Israel. And I have to say there are components in the Israeli government would rather see Israel in full control and rebuilding of settlements in Gaza, in itself. Historic conditions that are very difficult for any government, let alone this one. To conclude it, so to your question, I think on the on the achievable military goals we’ve done – I think the IDF – has done a substantial job. Could have been shorter, could have been less casualty, could have been less Israeli casualty, but I think by and large, a phenomenal job, and all the rest are still to be decided upon.

PAVLICH: So Jonathan, Israel is obviously the most important partnership in the Middle East for the US, but we do have other relationships there. We have them with Jordan, Egypt, of course, other surrounding countries, and there has been a lot of tension with the Egyptians, given how much Hamas was able to smuggle in, somehow, into the Gaza Strip and use in this current war, but also the previous 10 years of war, and this issue of the Philadelphi Corridor has become one that has at least publicly driven a wedge between the United States and Israel in terms of people telling them what should go forward in terms of how to deal with this smuggling in the future and whether they want that to continue to happen.

SCHANZER: Yeah . I mean, look, Egypt is the problem. But I actually do want to briefly touch on Jordan because of what happened over the weekend. I think it’s important to address there was obviously the murder of three Israelis at the Allenby Bridge and I think there’s a problem in Jordan as well. Jordan, look, first of all, internally, the rhetoric has just become poisonous, toxic. And I actually would first put the blame at the feet of Ayman Safadi, the Foreign Minister of Jordan, who has been utterly vitriolic from the moment this war started. And I think he’s been counterproductive. I would say he’s anything but a diplomat right now. I mean, he really does not function in that way.

Obviously there’s a large Palestinian population, and that speaks to their sensitivities, and I suppose we need to understand that. But that doesn’t mean that we need to be OK with it here in the US, and I think there needs to be a serious adjustment. We also have a problem of smuggling. We know that the Iranian axis has been smuggling in drugs, cash, and weapons by way of Syria into Jordan, and from there, it finds its way into the West Bank, where we have seen a significant uptick over the last several weeks to several months, of Iran-backed terror activity. And if the US is interested in preserving the American-led world order, and specifically preserving the peace agreement that we forged in the 1990s with the Jordanians. We’ve got some work to do. We’ve got to work on the border security. We’ve got to work on the rhetoric. We’ve got to work on counter smuggling capabilities. The Jordanians, I think, are in rougher shape than anybody realizes right now, and so we’ve got our work cut out for us there.

Then you come to Egypt, the other peace partner, the preexisting peace partner before the Abraham Accords. And I will say that, look, I spent some time in Egypt in the late 1990s and it was not exactly a Zionist kind of place to hang out. It’s certainly not this, not that way today, either. The rhetoric is still rather nasty. Culture is just inculcated with anti-American and anti-Israel invective. We’ve got a problem there, but I think the problem has now become more acute, and we can see this. I think we’ve always known that there’s been a smuggling problem. You’ve got Sinai Bedouin that have been profiteers since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip by force in in the mid-2000s but there was that moment, I think, where we all assumed that Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the strongman in Egypt, that he had solved that problem, that he flooded the tunnels with sewage water, and he destroyed them. And there are all these sort of stories about how he was anti-Muslim Brotherhood and anti-Hamas.

Well, fast forward to where we are now, and we see a very different story. There are as many as a hundred maybe even a hundred and fifty tunnels going back and forth between the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza. They are, the Egyptians are the logistical hub for the replenishing of Hamas weaponry, the rockets, the cash, by the way, the people that have gotten out and are getting medical attention in Turkey right now. Where do you think they got out from? I mean, they got out through Egypt. Where do you think the people left Gaza to go train for the 10/7 attacks? They got out through Egypt.

We’ve got a serious problem. Now, the debate in Israel is really interesting right now. There’s this fierce debate over whether Israel should or shouldn’t be in this stretch of dirt called the Philadelphi Corridor, which runs astride the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza. And there are those in Israel that say, no, we need to stay until everything is solved. And there are others who say, you can’t stay. We need to have some kind of a political agreement that allows for the hostages to leave and Israel to vacate the corridor.

I actually try to split the difference. I don’t know if this is resonating in Israel or not because everybody’s already kind of stood their ground. But the answer, in my view, is to force the Egyptians to acknowledge the problem and to fix it. And that’s on us. That’s on the United States right now, that if they’re going to keep taking a billion dollars in aid or whatever the number is right now, then we need to adjust our expectations, and they need to be held to account. Now, there are people who fear that Egypt may go the way of China or Russia because we’re going to start putting pressure on them. We need to figure out how to handle this delicately, but they also need to acknowledge that this cannot continue, and I have yet to see the US turn up the pressure on this. And again, I would put that at the feet of the Biden administration.

PAVLICH: Would it be helpful?

MONTGOMERY: To have a piece of Egypt on this – be clear, we get. We’ve been giving them $1.3 billion a year in aid. If I gave my kid $1.3 billion to go to college, and I found out later on, they didn’t even show up in the city, that it was there, I’d be pretty pissed off. And this 1.3 billion was purely comes from Camp David. It’s based purely on them supporting the security of Israel, and they absolutely failed in this. Those tunnels weren’t built once. They were built twice, once, and then they were destroyed in a second time and rebuilt. They absolutely – they Egypt is itself, if not the Egyptians has been the logistics hub that $1.3 billion needs to be cut. I can think of a small East Asian island I’d send some of it to. But you know that FMF [Foreign Military Financing] money needs to be cut back. I’ll say one other thing a case we think this is a Egypt-Israel thing.

Egypt also, behind our back, tried to transfer former Soviet weapons to Russia to aid their fight against Ukraine, and we only – the administration withheld this from the public. It was only when Air Force kid up in Massachusetts released some top-secret documents that we found out about it. Egypt does not look out for United States national security interests. United States national security should not make Egypt the second largest recipient of FMF, behind Israel, and by a good deal, number three is well behind. You know, based on this lack of support and concern for United States interests.

PAVLICH: Do our Israeli friends want to weigh in on the Philadelphi Corridor and the Egyptians?

ESHEL: Well, I think that the – there’s a great debate about Philadelphi Corridor. There are three channels. There are three channels of armed transfers to Gaza. One is above Philadelphi Corridor in Rafah Crossing. The other one is below the Philadelphi Corridor with the tunnels that I don’t know the number. Nobody knows the exact number of tunnels. And the third one was through Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel. Dual-use materials, et cetera. So there are three channels. Philadelphi Corridor was not defined in this current war as an objective or goal to block it. And then after 11 months, it became an issue. And it’s an issue. I don’t want to undermine that, but it is one – this is, as I mentioned, there are three channels there. In order to, to address that in a kind of holistic approach, I agree that this, this is a US, Egypt and Israel task.

The pressure from the US and the Egypt is important. Technology, we need to build an underground wall along the corridor, the Philadelphi Corridor like we have around Gaza. That wall didn’t fail in October 7. The upper wall, yes, down ground, no. It must have, because if you flood the tunnels with sewage, so somebody recovered those and this is, I don’t want to say this is 100% proof of this or carrying between the Gaza Strip and Sinai, but I think that this is a kind of an obstacle that is hard to overcome. And Rafah Crossing, and Rafah, the Egyptian Rafah should be focused and controlled, not just by the Egyptians, because was a plan in order to circle Rafah – the Egyptian Rafah from the west, to create two corridors in order to get in around from everywhere. This is the better control of what’s going on into this, this area, and of course, in Rafah crossing, we cannot allow ourselves that this would be kind of a highway to armed transfers.

So yes, it’s in Egypt, but that should be kind of a combination of different or several players in order to control that. It’s true that we should create kind of a disconnect between Gaza Strip and Sinai related to arm transfer. Without that, it would take years, because Hamas was hit hardly, but we won’t repeat the mistake that we have done in the north from Syria to Lebanon, which is used to be highway [of weapons transport], is less than a highway. It doesn’t matter. That should be cut.

PAVLICH: So, Eyal, it seems, from an observer, and I know that these things are complicated, but from a more simple perspective, if you don’t want something like October 7 to happen again, you don’t want the reconstitution of Hamas or another terrorist group in the Gaza Strip, you would have to cut off this corridor so they cannot smuggle these arms in. So how do they – is that an accurate study?

ESHEL: I missed I missed one explanation, sitting in Philadelphi Corridor above the ground doesn’t resolve the challenge underground, and we have been there for 38 years before the disengagement.

So it’s not enough the Israeli presence above the ground. It might, might resolve the Rafah Crossing, but not the underground. So there isn’t a kind of a silver bullet to do this, and you get that outcome. So it’s more complicated, this multinational effort should be put and decrease dramatically, or degraded dramatically, the ability to get arms or rearmed from Sinai.

HULATA: Yeah. So I think, of course, I agree with what Amir says about Rafah. I want to expand this a little bit, because I think the question of what’s happening in Jordan Valley to the West Bank and what’s happening from Sinai into Gaza are very similar in principle. We just think very differently around them, right? But again, since we try to, to take this conversation to a more strategic level, let’s look at it from a more wider Israeli perspective, right? We have an Iranian entity who’s pushing in, as Jon said, money, drugs, arms, people into everywhere they can around us. And as we said before, Gaza is the smallest of those problems, right? We’re talking about 8.7 miles of border between Gaza and Sinai Peninsula.

Israel is in full control of the entire Jordan Valley, from the Golan Heights all the way to Eilat, which is very long. So the ability to prevent smuggling from there just by mere presence of the military along the border isn’t enough. We know that. We have to accept that Israel is building a very sophisticated barrier on the northern border for years. Will that solve the problem? Well, as we know, Hezbollah’s dug tunnels. It’s way more difficult to do this in the Lebanese border because it’s rocks, not sand and soft soil, but they did.

So, when Israel looks at that, while we focus on this 8.7 miles of how did you call it? “A piece of dirt,” which is crucial, it is we have to be cognizant that we need to lay the foundation that will allow us to solve the entire thing. And I think Mark said something that is very important in this regard, both Egypt and Jordan are countries that Israel signed peace agreements with. Now, you know, I won’t get into the debate whether or not they are complicit with it or not. And does Sisi want Hamas to succeed or not? And does King Abdullah want Hamas to be in the West Bank or not? I won’t get into that. It’s very complicated. None of those neighbors of ours like to lose face, and I’ll respect that, but they have a responsibility. They need to have a responsibility, the same as Israel has a responsibility to promote the security and stability of the Kingdom of Jordan, right?

We won’t say things we shouldn’t, but if I could, I’ll tell you stories about my friend here [Eshel] and his capacity as a commander of the Air Force to make sure that the current King of Jordan is alive. OK, of course, and with Egypt, we stood on Sisi side to protect – if I stood on their side to push back against pressure as they tried to explain to Washington that they have a right to run Egypt, and it’s way better than the Islamic Brotherhood they were there before. I think Israel understands our responsibility to promote their interest, and if we want a fundamental solution for that, this has to incorporate their participation in this. Now we cannot just put our faith and trust in that.

This is where, from an Israeli perspective, Washington steps in. If we want stability in the region, if we want less wars in the region, we need to use the opportunities where – and Israel will do it. You need someone to punch? We’ll be there to punch. We’ll punch in Gaza, we’ll punch in Lebanon, we’ll punch in Iran. We’ll punch wherever is needed, wherever we need it. But there has to be a set of underlying mechanisms and agreements that ensure that those punches transform into a strategic gain that promotes stability for a long period of time, and not just for what we have. OK, this is, this is my angle on the on the debate in Philadelphi. It’s a distraction. It’s important, but it’s only a small part of the problem.

SCHANZER: So one thing or two quick things that I want to add to this. First of all, when we look at Jordan and Egypt, it’s part of a broader problem, actually, which is that American allies are not acting like American allies. I mean, I’ll expand it out, right? It’s not just Jordan and Egypt. Look at Qatar, look at Turkey. They are also countries that have allowed for Hamas to exploit their territory, and they themselves have become part of the problem. Our contract with our allies needs to be revised. I think if there’s one big takeaway right now, other than the Iran issue, which I think we all know is crucial, it’s that we have not figured out how to bring our allies into the fold in a meaningful way to promote peace and security in the region. We’ve got a lot of thinking to do.

And by the way, this is a bipartisan issue. Yes, the Biden administration, I think, has fallen down on this. But it’s not like, you know, the Trump Administration or even the Bush Administration addressed this back in the day. This has been a consistent problem, one President after another, Democrat, Republican, we’ve let our alliances become less accountable. And so I think that’s, that’s one. The other thing is, when we talk about overland and Amir mentioned, you know, Rafah Crossing, Kerem Shalom, it is a problem. And there was smuggling that was going in over land, from Israel and from Egypt. There’s now an answer to this that I think people, for whatever reason, were not focused on, and that is that there is the shipments coming in from Cyprus. You have Israeli customs agents who are there with US overseeing what has been brought in the aid that’s going into Gaza.

They’re looking at it. They’re X-raying it. They’re checking it for chemical compounds, for biological compounds, they’re looking for all the things that you want to flag. And then once it’s done, they send it by ship. It’s monitored by satellite. No one can interrupt it, and if it is then it turns back around and goes back for more checks. We have a system that’s now being put in place. The question is, can we implement it properly and make sure that nothing gets into Gaza that shouldn’t, and that’s going to be primarily underground.

And so, yes, I do, I think Eyal’s right, that it’s, you know, eight or nine miles that we need to handle here, but it needs to be addressed now. The Egyptians need to agree to that underground barrier. If they don’t do it, then I can’t see how Israel should leave. It doesn’t make any sense that Israel should leave.

PAVLICH: So we have about three minutes. We’re going to open it up to audience questions, but I wanted to get to two more questions, which are not easy to answer quickly, but we’re going to try. So what does the future of this partnership look like? We have a presidential debate tonight. There will be a new President in November. What does that look like on either side? And then I’d like each of you to pick an issue or a topic or a fact that isn’t breaking through in American media that you wish were over the course of the past 10 months. So we’ll just rapid fire. Amir, you can start.

HULATA: What I’ll say about the future of the relationship is and again, naturally, it’s a wishful hope because we’ve been in such a devastating period and a lot of rifts. We shouldn’t be in this position. It should be taken for granted. It’s not, but it should be that the Israel-American strategic alliance is the single most important thing in Israel’s relationships. I think it’s also the best relationship that the United States of America has in many of its partners. But it’s fine. You know, you can have others as well. Definitely, the only one in the Middle East that provides intelligence, posture, positioning and all the rest. This should have been taken for granted. The fact that it isn’t taken for granted is a problem in itself.

If I need just, just to put a vision to the future, is to reverse this curve. To reverse this curve, the existence of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people should not be questioned in the land of the free that was built by immigrants from all over the world. We are back in our homeland after 3000 years. This should have been taken for granted, and I think that once we understand that everything else will fall into place. This is the question I’d like to pose tonight. If I were to anchor the presidential debate.

MONTGOMERY: I’ll go next, I’ll just say Katie. That’s great to ask Israelis to do rapid fire.

HULATA: Hey I was quick.

PAVLICH: Well they wore jackets today.

(LAUGHTER)

MONTGOMERY: S o I think one thing that’s been very interesting and not covered is, I think Israel’s carried out a very deft air campaign in Lebanon over the last eight months. They’ve been quietly striking senior leaders, commanders, you know, colonels, lieutenant colonels. Hezbollah is an army. They need those people. They’re a terrorist army, but they need those people, and they’ve been striking the talent, such as it is, that Hezbollah has. They’ve also been striking long range missile launchers. This is critical because the – we want this air – eventually, there’s going to be a fight to push – like Amir, I don’t believe there will be a negotiated political settlement to the border. I think it’s going to be eventually a military one.

And so I think they’re doing the right thing there in this air campaign. No matter what Hezbollah strikes in Israel, they go take care of that business. That’s important because we’re going to need, as I said, an aggressive air-led campaign, because a ground campaign is going to get ugly fast, but an air-led campaign over two or three months to push this back. And so the thing that’s happened is that Israeli kind of subtle pre-campaign preparation of the battlefield. What has to happen now is the stockpiling of Israel.

So when it’s time to carry out that three-month campaign, they have all the right tools to do it efficiently and effectively with the least loss of life on all sides.

PAVLICH: Amir?

ESHEL: I want to follow on that. As you said, look at the future or the near-term. I think the war or potential war between Israel and Lebanon, I don’t want to say it’s imminent, but it’s here. It might be not dragged to that, won’t be any other option and other, as I said, to regain our sovereignty in the north.

The United States and Israel should enhance cooperation, coordination, force buildup, a lot of things to address that. But if we just focus on Lebanon, it’s only part of the spectrum that we should prepare ourselves. And I don’t, you know right, now proposing that we initiate tomorrow a full-scale war with anybody. But we might be forced to do that.

And if we just focus on Israel-Hezbollah front, we can’t neglect the Iranian issue because Iran would be part of that. And political pressure, economical pressure, and other things that – to address Iran are massive because it’s all included. I don’t see that isolated. The Israeli war with Hezbollah-Lebanon isolated from the rest of the Middle East. So that should be, first understood, and then we need actions to take, not just military actions. Military actions are the last resort, but we need to do it together, maybe with some others. It’s crucial.

PAVLICH: Jonathan, 30 seconds, because we got to go to Q&A.

SCHANZER: OK. Look, things that we’re not watching. I think the fact that the US is a target in the region. 170 plus attacks on American soldiers and bases. We’ve responded eleven times. We’ve lost three soldiers. We’ve got dozens of others injured, some that have actually been held captive. This is not making the news, and we are very much a part of this. This is not just Israel’s war, it is ours. We’re still fighting to keep the Red Sea open for 10 percent – 12 percent of the world’s maritime shipping. We have a challenge as well. And it’s not just for the Israelis to handle. They’re going to handle the bulk of it, but they can’t – they shouldn’t handle it alone. It’s just as much or in part our battle as it is theirs.

As for the future of the relationship, look, I got to say, we could look at the mechanics. We could look at the military, you know, platforms. I look at our politics. We’ve got isolationists versus internationalists. We’ve got Republicans versus Democrats. We’ve got progressives versus conservatives. We are not on the same page here. And we continue to sort of go in fits and starts with the support that we provide the Israelis.

We give them the weapons they need one day, and then the next day, we imply that they could be carrying out war crimes that never materialize. We warn of humanitarian disasters that don’t actually play out. We are not on the same page here. And I hope – not going to bet on it, but I hope that the next president can help solidify much in the same way that I think we saw China now. I mean, it’s a bipartisan issue. The threat of China, the need to deter aggression in the Taiwan Straits. We need to get on the same page here as it relates to Israel because it’s no less important.

PAVLICH: OK. We are going to take some questions from the audience. So if you have one, please raise your hand and we will bring you a microphone and state your name and where you are working, if you have questions. Anyone? Here?

LAFAVOR: Hello, thank you very much for fielding our questions. I’m Lydia with FDD here at the CMPP [Center on Military and Political Power]. I had a quick question about forms of technical cooperation between the respective defense industrial bases. Which form, in your opinion, for any of the participants, which particular project or form of cooperation do you find has been most valuable to date within the past 11 months? And then which would you like to see accelerate?

ESHEL: Industrial cooperation is right now in part of the highlights because there’s a deep understanding in Israel that we should extend our industrial capacity, relate to defense necessities and capabilities. And I don’t see that as a kind of single channel, specifically for Israel. I think the US faces some challenges related to its industrial capacity, relates those kind of wars that we’ve seen in the Middle East, in Ukraine, long wars, huge amount of munition and other stuff, technologies, whatever. Europe is way behind the needed industrial capacity. So this is not just an Israeli challenge, I think it’s a global challenge.

And when I look from the Israeli perspective, I see cooperation between Israel and the United States relate to industrial cooperation. It’s not just manufacturing. It’s also developing, emerging technologies, whatever, which is Israel in some parts is quite advanced, etcetera. So I see a variety of tracks, potential tracks, to cooperate and to enhance both countries, in this case Israel and the United States capabilities that will, I think, affect and reflect all over the world.

MONTGOMERY: I’ll pick up on that. Say, first, there are some great examples that are not that germane last day much. I think the Israeli sharing the Trophy technology for the protection of our armor – for our tanks is, you know, has changed, you know, the viability of U.S. tanks on the battlefield. And I think we’re seeing in this war some of the fruits of our missile defense cooperation, both in aero and in standard missiles, and our ability to do that integrated mid-tier defense.

And I think Israel has dirigibles up, aerostats that I think are going to contribute and let us learn how they can help in missile defense. If I could pick up on one other thing, I do think it’s an important lesson, munitions for our defense industrial base. A great example is we, about four years ago we cut back, or three years ago we cut back our small diameter bomb production by 90 percent because we were rolling out of the Middle East. We had no thought as arsenal democracy, which we weren’t thinking we were.

We had no concept that, ‘hey, you can’t do that’ to your critical allies, who – and Israel is probably the U.S. ally that expends the most munitions besides ourselves. You know, that you– when you do these kind of cuts, you put everyone in extremis. So as Israel was approaching its floor of weapons and these small diameter bombs, the United States was not in a great position to push them aggressively.

And so now we are. But, you know, that was, you know, a – that’s really been. And the saving grace there was the Ukraine war. You know, the Ukraine war taught us this so that we were able to ramp it back up. But that’s one of those areas where if we’re going to be the arsenal of democracy, we have to be the arsenal of all democracies.

PAVLICH: Jonathan, do you want to pick up? And then we’ve got another question.

SCHANZER: Yeah, I mean, just want to give a quick shout out to my colleague, Brad Bowman, who gave our introductory remarks today. He was the brainchild behind the Operations Technology Working Group, which is a congressionally mandated working group where Israelis share developing technology with the United States early stages. And the US, if they find it attractive, can begin to invest in it and jointly develop it, scale it, and actually have it benefit both countries.

This is a relatively new initiative, but one that I think really underscores the importance of the alliance that we share in value.

PAVLICH: There’s another question back there?

DE LUCE: Thank you, Dan De Luce from NBC. I missed the beginning, so I apologize if this has already been covered, but are there lessons to be taken from what the – how the October 7th attack happened, intelligence or military failures or mistakes? Or is that just too long a conversation?

PAVLICH: The next – our next breakout. Who wants to go?

HULATA: Is that for lessons for Israel or lessons for the United States of America? I’ll cover the former and I’ll be quick. I mean, first of all, you know, I mean, think the fact that Israel is not engaged properly in delving deep into how this happened, why this happened, is a missed opportunity because it’s been a long while since this happened. But by and large, I’ll say that Israel over-reliance on Intel detection with a paradigm that they cannot – they – the collective enemies, cannot surprise us was a fundamental problem and flaw. Israel should have known better.

We need to be well-prepared to defend our civilians, even under surprise. And we weren’t. Of course, there are many components into this. Why didn’t we know? Why didn’t we defend? But at the core of things, this is something that we knew all along for decades and we failed to perform.

PAVLICH: Jonathan?

SCHANZER: Look, I’ll just say this from the U.S. side. Obviously, it was not our threat. It wasn’t our, you know, this was not looming in ways that necessarily threatened us directly. But you can see now how it’s impacted us significantly. Right?

It’s forced a major shift in foreign policy. And I look at some of the folks that I’ve talked to over the last 11 months, and there was a clear decision, and maybe our Israeli colleagues can share exactly when, but there was a decision for us to relinquish the responsibility of collecting on Hamas, for example, stopped doing it, right?

I mean, going into the Treasury Department, there weren’t people that were looking at financial targets the way they once did when I was there, you know, 15, 20 years ago. That’s a problem. I don’t know what the collection was like in some of the other agencies, but there needs to be a safety net among allies. There needs to be duplication of effort. There needs to be backstopping of allies so that things like this don’t happen because it’s not just an Israeli problem anymore. We’re looking at a potential regional war right now, Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis, all the militias. It’s not Hamas, right?

And so we could say, well, we’re going to have a gentleman’s agreement and just let Israel cover Gaza. What happens in Gaza doesn’t stay in Gaza. I think that’s become very clear.

PAVLICH: Do we have any more questions? We can squeeze one more in. OK.

ABONYI: Sarah Abonyi with Dcode. My question is around – I’ll back up. Eyal, as you mentioned, this is the longest war of this kind that Israel has fought. The Israeli people are arguably tired and probably not interested in a multi-front war to come. To what extent does the United States have a responsibility to put boots on the ground if this turns into a multi-front war in the Middle East, given how strategic Israel is to the United States?

HULATA: I’ll give an Israeli angle on this. And I think I’ve been known to have quite a stiff position on this. Israel will need to defend itself by itself, full stop. This is our history. This is our lesson. We never asked, and hopefully we’ll never need to ask, the United States of America to put boots on the ground to defend us. And I challenge you, if there is any other partner, strategic or not, that will take that position as it comes to us.

We need this alliance a lot. We cannot stand alone with everything that is coming around us. But if we come to a position that we need boots on the ground, we’re in deep trouble. I hope, plan, and intend that Israel will never be in such a position.

MONTGOMERY: I will say the Ukrainians have come to accept that position, whether that was one they wanted or nothing. So, the one other thought, look, I don’t think there’ll be U.S. boots on the ground. I think there’ll be U.S. participation. There is one way, I think the US should participate. I don’t know that Israel would take it. I don’t know we’d offer it. But the truth is, with a couple B-2s flying every night, we could provide literally hundreds of precision targeted PGMs [Precision-Guided Munitions] from our own inventory each night on a shared target set over – in a Lebanese campaign.

I don’t think we’re willing – zero risk to U.S. forces. It’s more dangerous for us to drive on I-95 than for these pilots in these B-2s. Having said that, I don’t think that’s in the offering. But there is ways we could help. I don’t think they’ll be asked for. I don’t think they’ll be given.

But there is a way you could do it. We do not need U.S. boots on the ground. There is not a mission other than that that we provide that is necessarily a redundant requirement for the Israelis so that, you know, that isn’t already a redundant requirement for the Israelis.

So I think it really is a question if they want us to strike a few extra targets for them. I know we can do it with very low risk, with specific aircraft.

PAVLICH: All right. Amir and Jonathan, quick final words to both of you.

SCHANZER: I’m opting out.

PAVLICH: OK. Amir, final word to you?

ESHEL: We need the support. We need the backup. We don’t need any American, even a single American soldier to fight on the ground for us, period. We don’t want any – even a single American mother to mourn their son or daughter because they died fighting for us on the ground. No.

PAVLICH: There you have it. All right. Thank you, panelists, very much for all of your insight and input. And thank you all for attending today. We encourage you to visit fdd.org for more information and research. Thank you for joining us both in person and online. And we’ll see you guys at the next event.

HULATA: Thank you.

PAVLICH: Thank you all very much.

ESHEL: Thank you.

END