Transcript: Webinar – Three Years Since October 7: Reflections and the Threats Ahead
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PANELISTS
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror
JINSA Distinguished Fellow; Former Director of the Israeli National Security Council
IDF MG (ret.) Amikam Norkin
JINSA Distinguished Fellow; Former Commander of the Israeli Air Force
MAJ John Spencer, USA (ret.)
Executive Director of the Urban Warfare Institute
John Hannah
JINSA Randi & Charles Wax Senior Fellow
The discussion was moderated by JINSA President & CEO Michael Makovsky, PhD.
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TRANSCRIPT
Transcript has been lightly edited for flow and clarity.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Thank you very much for joining us today. I’m Michael Makovsky. I’m the President and CEO of JINSA, and we’re here to talk about the third anniversary of October 7. I don’t think I need to tell the audience about October 7, and there’s been so much that has happened since then. Let me first just introduce everybody. We have General Yaakov Amidror, a Distinguished Fellow with JINSA and former National Security Advisor to Prime Minister Netanyahu. We have General Amikam Norkin, a previous commander of the Israeli Air Force, and another Distinguished Fellow with JINSA. We also have retired Major John Spencer, who’s the head of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point, and we have John Hannah, who’s the [Randi & Charles] Wax Distinguished Senior Fellow here at JINSA. So, I’m actually going to go reverse rank here. I’m going to start with the retired major, John Spencer, because John is one of the signatories of a letter that JINSA put out today that has been signed by [originally] 76 [and] a 77th this morning. [They are] retired former senior U.S. military commanders and also some military lawyers, JAGS, who signed a letter rejecting the accusation that Israel is committing genocide. I hope all of you have already seen that letter. It’s already gotten a great deal of play on social media. [At] JINSA we care a lot about what, and I think most Americans do as well, senior retired four-star, three-star, two-star, one-star U.S. generals and majors thinks about what is genocide and what is not. It offers both legal refutations as well, and just frankly, [a] common sense rejection. So, John, I’m going to turn to you because you signed that letter, and I’d like you to address it. You’ve been in the trenches, so to speak, on this issue for a long time in a very prominent way. First of all, thank you very much for signing that letter, and thank you very much for all your work on this issue. I’d like you to first talk about this anniversary on that issue and how you see things. We’re going to talk about what’s happened in Israel and the region-but [also] what’s happened outside has been very important. So, thank you very much.
MAJ John Spencer
Thank you, Michael, and thank you for allowing me to be on such a distinguished panel. I signed the letter based on a lot of my work as the Executive Director of the Urban Warfare Institute, my seven trips into Gaza observing IDF operations, [and] also over a decade of study of like scenarios, based on analyzing the veracity of the claim. What the genocide lie has spread around the world is founded on supposed statements and what’s called effects-based numbers. I’ve been into Gaza enough to clearly state that Israel has done more to prevent civilian harm. It’s almost an anti-genocide. And why I signed it is [because of] how the letter ends, because I think it’s very dangerous [to call it a genocide]. Basically, if Israel’s operation in Gaza is a genocide, then every war that’s ever happened is a genocide. When a military like the IDF can take such extraordinary precautions and civilian harm mitigation measures, and then a lie is made that they’re intentionally trying to harm civilians or even target civilians, which is the opposite of the truth, I think it’s really dangerous for U.S. forces, for the United States, [and] for any Western military. That, despite the mountains of evidence that I’ve seen [with] my own eyes, but really that anybody can see, I mean, the data is in the letter as well [as] the historic aid and services that Israel has provided to supposedly the population they’re trying to genocide. As you said, I mean there’s an element of common sense, but the letter actually analyzes the accusation: what is the definition, what is required, but there’s a whole lot of common sense that needs to be approached, and I’m very proud to sign it.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Thank you very much, and I encourage anyone who hasn’t seen it yet to go to JINSA.org to see it. We also sent out an email blast this morning, and it’s been [seen] a lot on social media. Even I appreciated RFK Junior’s response to your tweet there, John, but Mayor Mamdani thought it was important to put out a statement that he tweeted out today. He didn’t mention Jews, but he did cite what happened on October 7th. 1,200 people were killed, and 251 were taken hostage. Then he went on to call this a genocide. What Israel is doing in Gaza. I mean, it’s really something that you actually have to, and many others have to respond to this.
MAJ John Spencer
Yeah, it’s pretty disgusting. And I responded to his post that’s been seen by millions. [First,] to call it an ongoing genocide. He’s putting not only American Jewish communities in danger [but putting] American soldiers in danger by propagating this lie about military operations, which he clearly has no clue about.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Let me just stick to the American side, and then we’ll go to the Israelis because what’s happened in the region has also been very dramatic. But let me go to John Hannah. John, if you look back three years ago, and I remember the first Zoom webinar we did, I think on October 9th, that included you and General Norkin, General Amidror, and also General Ayish—could you have imagined that there’d [be] this kind of response where you’ve had not only the surge of anti-Semitism, but things [also] like the genocide accusation? Would you have predicted that or did you remember thinking that you knew this would be the response here in the West? I’m not talking about the official response, not what President Biden did, but I’m talking about [how] many people in the West [responded to the attacks]?
John Hannah
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t shocked by how far this has gone. How it started after October 7, and the way it’s really taken off, particularly on college campuses. But obviously, as you say, the explosion of anti-Semitism and what’s happening to Israel’s standing in the United States, more broadly, particularly in the Democratic Party, the support for Israel looks like it’s almost collapsing, and in the Republican Party we also see signs of worry. I knew on October 7th it was going to be brutal; that the Israeli response to this was going to be extremely tough and aggressive, that the coming war would be brutal because Hamas would ensure, and in fact wanted and welcomed, a brutal war in which its own people and population would be the primary victims, and they would be able to exploit and make use of that amongst the useful idiots of the West, and they’ve done that extremely well. That’s one thing Sinwar was able to succeed in: he destroyed his own people and he destroyed Gaza. But [in doing so] he certainly changed the dynamics in a significant way internationally regarding attitudes toward Israel and toward Jews and the issue of anti-Semitism. But of greatest concern to me is what it’s done here in the United States to support Israel in what was obviously such a just war. You know the fact that I don’t think any of us anticipated on October 7th, that we’d be sitting here three years from now, with the situation better strategically and operationally, both in Gaza and on Israel’s other fronts, [including] with regard to Iran, but still in so many ways unresolved on many of these fronts, in any kind of strategically conclusive way. I think that the length of this and the sense that it’s gone on and on for an American population that was already tired of the Middle East and our own involvement there to have to continue to think about it, look [at] it, and devote resources, military and people, to the wars of the Middle East. I think it is taking its toll.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
I’ll just add [that] we have a mayor of New York who puts out this [letter calling IDF operations in Gaza a genocide], [in] the city with the biggest Jewish population outside of Israel. We have a Senate Democratic candidate in Michigan [named Abdul] El Sayed [who] says Israel is committing genocide, which I consider blood libel, and yet you have all these prominent Democrats endorsing Sayed, as they did [Zohran] Mamdani. I mean, you have the Jewish senator of Michigan, [Elissa] Slotkin, [who] just appeared with El Sayed and thought the optics would look good to have a Jewish senator and a Muslim senator in Michigan. He makes Jews, certainly in Michigan, feel very nervous. And then of course you have President Obama [who’s] going there tomorrow to work to campaign with him as Kamala Harris did a few weeks ago. Then you have on the right these populists, certainly these populist podcasters, like Tucker Carlson and others, who also are perpetuating various lies about Israel and blaming all the world’s ills on the Jews. I personally didn’t expect that to be the case three years after October 7th. Let me turn to the Israeli side and [I’ll] start with General Amidror. General, I remember in our first webinar on October 9th, three years ago, I believe you said that on this awful day, the worst day I think in Israeli history, certainly in Jewish history since the Holocaust, that Israel had to restore its sense of security and deterrence in the region, and obviously a great deal has changed since then. And Israel has looked at it as kind of adopting a new doctrine. It seems like [it’s] for its own security. I’d like you to kind of address that. You know how things have changed, particularly how Israel is looking in these wars of what we call the wars of October 7th. They’re not over yet, right? Even though I think the world would like them to be over, and a lot of Americans, but it’s not over yet, is it?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror
I think that this is a war that we are still in, and this is why we cannot conclude it. We have to remember that we are in the process when you are under the wave. It’s almost impossible to give a good assessment of the situation. What we can say for sure is that we succeeded in this long war, [in destroying] the main part of the Iranian strategy, and if you look at it from this point of view, the Iranians had a plan on how to destroy Israel. The plan does [now] not exist. Here, there is an element that we have to take care of in the future—what remains [of] the nuclear project. Here, we have to take care [of] what remains from the missile project. We have to finish the job in Lebanon and in Gaza, but the strategy as a whole, the whole idea that the proxies [waged] the war to [make] Israel crumble when Iran is far away. The Iranians will [slowly] build the nuclear umbrella under which they can control the Middle East and push [anywhere] when they decide [it] is in their interest. [There was the] belief that at the end of the day Israel will not have the ability to compete with the number of missiles that the Iranians have, and under the nuclear umbrella the Iranians will [lead] to the destruction of Israel. [However Israel is working against this plan, Iran’s] missile stability is almost gone, and the destruction of the land bridge between Tehran and the Mediterranean, because Syria was moved out of the axis thanks to Israeli efforts to not let the Iranians build independence capabilities in Syria since 2012, gave us the fruits during the war when the regime collapsed under the pressure of the rebels coming from Turkey. So, I think that one thing is very clear: this strategy that the Iranians built since the 80s and involved many elements around Israel and far from Israel – the Houthis, the militias in Iraq, and so on – they invested probably between half a trillion [and] a trillion dollars. We [haven’t] finished the job yet, but the strategy as a whole [no longer] exists. I think that from a strategic point of view, it’s a huge achievement. If we had one huge mistake before the war, maybe the biggest one is that we didn’t understand the level of threat the Iranians [built] under this strategy. The vision of the Iranians [was] to have enough capabilities around Israel – the proxies [of] Iran, the missiles, and the nuclear project – [so] that Israel will be destroyed when the Iranians decide that the time is ready. That collapsed, and they will have to find another strategy if they want to continue the Iranian project of controlling the Middle East. So, if you look at it only from this point of view, it’s a very long war, three years. The number of casualties is very high. Inside Israel, we are facing now elections in which we are still fighting with each other about responsibility and who should be blamed and so on and so forth, but we should not ignore the huge achievement of destroying the Iranian vision and strategy to destroy Israel, in which they were very efficient, and they had been very close to have this capability. And Sinwar made a huge mistake by [doing] what he did, and the Iranians are paying the price in a way. I think this is the most important conclusion from the war. And yes, we can speak [about] what should be done against Hamas in Gaza, and what should be done against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and how to deal with the terrorists in Samaria and the West Bank, and so, relating to that, I want to make two remarks that I think are very important. One, Iraq became maybe the most important country in the Middle East if you want to isolate Iran. It is the only Arab country with which Iran has good relations. It is very close to Iran. It is, in a way, the only gate that Iranians still have towards the other side of the globe. And after the retreat of the American forces from Iraq, Iraq should be under pressure from the Americans, because if they don’t disarm and/or dismantle the militias in Iraq, you will see Iran going slowly, slowly into Iraq, and the combination of Iran and Iraq under the control of Iran is a different Middle East. [There is also] the question that all the audience used to ask about Israel’s capability to deal with Iran without the United States of America. I think that after the fantastic cooperation that we had with the Americans, I was surprised by the level of trust that both sides had in each other. The answer to the question is clear. Yes, we need the technology coming from the United States of America. Yes, we need the support of America in the international community. Yes, we are. It is much easier to fight [alongside] America in some areas. It’s even crucial for us, but at the same time everyone will have to admit that Israel succeeded to deal with Iran, at least in the first round, without America. The Americans joined the war [on] day 12, I think, just to hit Fordow. We had a plan for Fordow. Nobody knows it. I know it. It was not as good as the American one. We don’t have B-2s. We don’t have nice B-2s, but we had capabilities, and we have capabilities that we didn’t use, because the Americans took part of the job, and they finished for [us]. So, I think these three remarks are very important. It is about the Iranian strategy. Now you have to focus on Iraq, which became, after the collapse of the Iranian strategy, more important for the Iranians, and the ability of Israel to fight over Iran and to do what we did in Iran without Americans, and for sure with the Americans is very significant for the future of the Middle East. And yes, in spite [od] all the success, there are some missions that we didn’t fulfill yet, and how it will be fulfilled in the future is a big question. Part of it related to American diplomacy: what about the 20 points of the president in Gaza, the efforts of the Americans that the government of Lebanon will do its job and dismantle Hezbollah, and so on and so forth? So, we understand that our mission that we will have to fulfill in the future. But after three years, [this] very hard and complicated three years in which we suffered many casualties and all of them should be remembered, Israel can look back and say yes, it was a great success of our military forces. But the job is not done yet.
I wonder about the genocide. It is the only genocide in the world in which the number of those who are the victim of the genocide, the number of people in the area, is growing. Today there are more Palestinians in the Gaza Strip than were [there] before the beginning of the war. So, it’s a very peculiar genocide in which the number of your victims is growing and not going down.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Yeah, well, Israel isn’t very good at [committing genocide]. Let me just ask one more thing to you, General Amidror. Elliot Abrams wrote something this morning that I just want to mention now. You know, Israel’s doctrine seems to have changed before. It might have been focused on what it thought were intentions, and on what it perceived as deterrence, and now since October 7th, it is focused on capabilities and preemption. [Do] you look at that the same way?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror
I very much agree about preemption. I think that was one of the mistakes: that we ignored the preemption as an alternative. It was not within our tools, and what was a big mistake, you know, and I know that I tried to preach and to convince that we should make a preemptive operation in Lebanon before the war. I thought that we should not deal with Hamas in Gaza at the end of the war. We will have to ask ourselves the question that we are asking today. Okay, what’s next? And I didn’t have an answer, and I said to you and others, and I preached it publicly, and I even wrote about it in one of the publications of the IDF that we should focus on the preemptive operation in Lebanon. So, I think that should be part of our tools in the future, no question. About the tension between intentions and capabilities, and so on and so forth. At the end of the day, you cannot economically [support] any system that we built only on capabilities. Look at the capabilities of countries in the Middle East. All of them. You have to be prepared to evolve tomorrow morning. It will not work. You have to make a combination between capabilities and intentions, and the key point for that is how you build yourself on the defensive lines. On the defensive lines, we have to be built in more flexibility [with] more capabilities. Not like Gaza, in which the whole forces were very, very, very weak according to every standard around the world. We didn’t have in Gaza even one gun, one gun on the defensive line. If you go to such [an] extreme situation, of course you are endangering your ability to defend yourself. And the conclusion is not that you have to be built for capabilities. The conclusion [is] that you have to be built according to the doctrine of defense, which we didn’t. So, I think it will be a huge mistake to build our forces and all our operations and our defensive structure and positions based only on capabilities. That will be [a] waste of money, and at the end of the day, you have to take the budget issue into your account. There is no unlimited money for defense and security, and you have to take into account both intentions and capabilities. But more important, to be built according to the doctrine, a new defense structure, something that we didn’t make before the war. I can tell you, I met one of the commanders of the Northern Command [a] few months before the war, and he asked to ask my advice about the new position that he is going to be in, and I analyzed for him the structure of his defense forces, and I told him it will not work. It will not work. It doesn’t matter how strong [you are] and how smart you are. If this is the structure of your defense forces, it will not work. I visited him [a] few months ago, and he mentioned this meeting to me and said we were lucky that our system in the north was not tested by [a] surprise attack [on] Israel because we were not prepared for such an attack, and it is not because of the tension between capabilities and intentions. It is because we didn’t fulfill and we didn’t act based on what was written in our books, let alone the international knowledge about it; our books, and this is the bridge between intentions and the capabilities [it] is the doctrine. There is no way to prevent surprises. You will be surprised, no question, but it will prevent you from [collapsing].
Michael Makovsky, PhD
By the way, I’ll just add to an earlier point you made, General Amidror. One of my favorite subjects [is] Winston Churchill, and I was thinking—in the U.S. [and] in the West, we often think of clear ends to things. There was a VE Day. There was a Victory in Europe Day. There was VJ Day. On VE day, you had Churchill and others out on the balcony. Of course, Churchill himself was actually already depressed because he was worried about the Soviet threat. But there was a clear end to that war. Here, this war may be more like the Cold War that is going to go on for a long time.
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror
No, I think that this is one of our mistakes. We thought about this war in terms of the Second World War, and for that you have to reach Berlin or use two nuclear bombs. We cannot reach the Berlin of the Middle East, and we don’t have the nuclear bomb. So, it is out of our reach to think that we can do something which was done in the Second World War-a totally different way of how to define what we want to achieve. And in one of the papers that I wrote about Lebanon, I was very specific about it because I understood that if someone is taking the example of the Second World War, it is beyond our capacity. We cannot reach the Berlin of the Middle East. It is impossible from our point of view. Remember the number of Israelis. It is less than the number of people entering Manhattan in the morning and going out of Manhattan in the evening. So, we have to understand our limitations. We cannot reach the Berlin of the Middle East, and we have to be very humble and very precise [about] what should be achieved, what can be achieved. Otherwise, we will be surprised by the reality.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
General Norkin, thank you for being so patient. I remember sitting with you in Israel a few weeks after October 7th, and you were telling me, if you don’t mind mentioning, aside from all the tragedy, how stunned you were about the breakdown in the IDF on October 7th. You retired, [in] April of ‘22, and you know, by all accounts, as everyone knows, we did a tremendous job in building up the Air Force even further. How do you see that day and where we are today, and what you’ve seen also with the Air Force? You don’t have to just talk about the Air Force, but certainly the way the Air Force, the performance they’ve done in Lebanon, in Syria, and especially Iran, has been rather spectacular. After, it seemed like such a breakdown on October 7th with the whole IDF.
IDF MG (ret.) Amikam Norkin
Yeah, well, there is a prize to be patient. I will start with some thoughts, and then I will answer your question, Mike.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Please, thank you, thank you.
IDF MG (ret.) Amikam Norkin
First of all, I think that JINSA should start such a session by remembering all the people that lost their life.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Yes, you’re right.
IDF MG (ret.) Amikam Norkin
This is October 7th. The families are there. We lost many children, babies, wives, women, men, and it’s a very tough period of time in Israel. We should remember them all, and we should understand that this is something that still impacts Israeli society, that we still assess the pain. So, before we [speak] about strategy, we should speak about those issues. Second, as a [retired] military general, we should start [with] that we failed. We failed. The military failed on October 7th to protect the citizens, to protect the border, and to defend the state of Israel. And I was part of the team that investigated the military failure, and the failure [has] three layers: strategy, tactical, and professional. And I think that once Amidror mentioned, and he is completely right, and he spoke about the doctrine of the Northern Command. Some of our commanders—they lost their profession. How to be a military commander, and what is [your] the responsibility, and how should you prepare your forces, your border, and your team? So, this is something that we might speak about maybe in another session. I think that what John mentioned in our first Zoom on October 9th that we didn’t imagine that we are going to be in a war after three years, but I think today that once we understood what happened on October 7th, the Middle East cannot remain the same Middle East. The Middle East cannot remain the same Middle East after such an attack on October 7th. This is something that the state of Israel understood, maybe a little bit, not in the beginning. Not all of the people understood it, and you cannot change the Middle East in two months. Why? Because of what Amidror mentioned, we are 8 million people. We need to do it one by one. We need to do it: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran. And yes, now the Middle East is a different Middle East. There is no military threat from Lebanon. The Lebanon front was the highest threat in Israel: Hezbollah. And today there is no military threat. There is a terror threat. There is no military threat from Gaza. There is a terror threat from Gaza.
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror
Even that is very manageable.
IDF MG (ret.) Amikam Norkin
Yeah. There is no military in Syria, so there is no military threat from Syria. As a pilot, as a commander, it’s hard to understand that there is no military threat from those fronts today, and of course, the threat from Iran is completely different today because of the two campaigns. So yes, we cannot get into Berlin, and we [do] not [have] the two nuclear bombs, and we cannot finish the war like Great Britain and the United States did in the Second World War. But we must finish the war, or at least [we] need to move from military activities to strategic and diplomatic activities. And [we need] to stop to organize and wrap up each of those fronts. I think that the best opportunity for Israel now is the north border. Gaza, it’s a long story. In Gaza it will take years, but [in] Lebanon and Syria, we should move forward. And [for] Iran, I think we should do some other activities to push the Iranian regime to the position that we can close the war with Iran. So, this is the situation. After three years, we changed the Middle East, and without changing the Middle East, Israel cannot exist for the next tens of years. And this is something that we didn’t understand [in] the beginning, and I am happy that later on the government understood.
I would like to speak about the American support. First of all, the brave pilot that flew with the Israeli Air Force together above Tehran. You know they are not flying from Tel Aviv. They are not flying, and they are not defending Haifa. They are coming from Texas and other states of the United States, and they are flying above Tehran to protect Israel and to protect the United States and the Western world. They are brave guys, and we all saw how the American Air Force [rescued] the two pilots. But this is a tactical issue. The strategic issue is that we should know that the Israeli military dropped 100,000 bombs. Is there any other military in the world that dropped 100,000 ammunitions? No one. No one. And as we all know, the logistic is the queen of the war. Without the American support, we cannot do it. We got less than 20 percent in the beginning of the war in Israel, in the Israeli storage. So, the American support is not just to fly shoulder to shoulder; it’s the logistic support, the maintenance support, and other equipment that, without those capabilities, Israel cannot change the Middle East like we did, and we should appreciate it, and we should keep it because it’s very important for our national security.
The fourth topic that I would like to speak about is prevention. You know, the decade between 2010 to 2020 was the best one in Israel economic[ally]. So, you need to look at a holistic situation. You cannot start a war every two years as a state, and there is a reason to start a war in Israel every week. Unfortunately, any prime minister needs to think, “Okay, what should I do?” So, I think that yes, what Amidror said is the right thing. But we should balance between prevention and strategic agreements with allies around Israel, with more nations that should come to Abraham Accords, and by that we might have a better strategic depth. And yes, we cannot spend such a budget [on] defense.
[Lastly,] we lost our legitimacy, unfortunately. We can do more. We didn’t manage a campaign about the Israeli legitimacy, and this might come as a strategic issue. It’s already a strategic issue, but today, it might have some impact also over the Israeli economy, and we should care about our legitimacy around the world.And now to your question, Mike. I’m ashamed about October 7th, but I’m very proud about what the IDF and the Air Force did since October 7th till today. All the plans and all the capabilities that we built in the last 20 years—we demonstrated a very high level of military activity and air dominance above the Middle East. But it’s very hard for such small military to fight for three years. There [is] less training [and] education. The routine of the military is not a normal routine, and if we would like to have the best military in the Middle East for the next 10-20, years. We must support the military to go back to some normal routine and to rebuild itself and to take care about the operational discipline. There are too many accidents, operational accidents in the military, and we lost more than 150 soldiers because of operational accidents in the war. So, there are many gaps, but yes, today the military is ready, and the commander [has] a lot of experience. But the IDF is a small one; it’s very hard for him to fight for three years, and we need to move forward with some strategic and diplomatic actions, and by that to reduce military activity in some of the forms.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
First of all, thank you, General Norkin. I appreciate what you said. I should have started with that about the individuals. You know, three years later, it’s easy to say these were the numbers of people killed and taken hostage. And you know, out there, I’ve been looking, especially in the last few days, as Israel commemorated its three-year anniversary. There have been a lot of postings on X, for instance, reminding people what happened to this family and what happened to that family and that individual or that soldier.
IDF MG (ret.) Amikam Norkin
This is the exact issue. Once I mentioned, we didn’t assess the pain. You know, we [are] still learning the stories of those families and people.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Yeah, the savagery was really unimaginable. I think, at least to a Westerner, and I think even to Israelis, to fully appreciate what happened to the Bibas [family]. There’s a new book I think that just came out by one of the hostages. It’s hard to imagine how these people survived in these tunnels. By the way, Brett McGurk’s book that just came out, which I’m eager to read, called Brink, [is] about his experience of trying to free the hostages. When you think about what’s happened to these individuals, the barbarity that was committed to these individuals, we don’t know everything, and there was a lot of heroism It’s hard to even stomach, honestly, [what happened] to just one of these families. How whole families were wiped out. How children were killed in front of their parents. Parents killed in front of their children, people raped, men and women, and so on. For the Americans listening—one of the big news stories recently is what happened at Cornell, and we don’t know fully everything. But it was kind of a reminder that people actually care about rape because they certainly didn’t, the Western world didn’t seem to care that much about the mass rapes that happened on October 7th when it happened to Jews. But anyway, but I appreciate what you said, and ultimately that is the most important thing. General Norkin as you know what happened to these individual people and individual families—it’s just really unimaginable. But I encourage everyone to read up about these individuals. And again, there’s a lot of this on X right now, which I encourage people to read. So thank you, General Norkin. We don’t actually have much time. We only have a few minutes left. But John, I’ll go back to you. And I guess maybe we have a few minutes if you want to talk about where things are as you see [them]. You mentioned you were in Gaza, and I agree with General Norkin. There may have been opportunities in the north. Certainly, with Lebanon, there was. I don’t know if we missed the opportunity in Syria. There was progress on that sphere. I’ll mention that our colleague Ron Dermer, who’s a distinguished fellow with JINSA, has talked about this recently. About, you know, there isn’t a lot of internal pressure in Israel to withdraw from everywhere, but that’s the time you really start needing to settle some of these fronts, and he was focused, for instance, on the north, like General Norkin was. But how do you see [this], John? I don’t know if you wanted to comment on anything that has said since you spoke, or if you want to just talk about where things are and how you see the Gaza situation. Things could stay the way they are, or perhaps there could be a little progress on that front, but there will be more focus on Gaza, I think, soon after the Iran issue is maybe dealt with a little more.
MAJ John Spencer
Sure. So, I was just there. It’s about a month and a half now with the IDF; I also got to go all the way up to the Belfort Castle in Lebanon. But specific to Gaza, I just came back from the high-level meeting of the Peace Board, got an update from people like General Jeffers and others. They’re part of the stabilization force with the plan there. While some people may like it or not, but it’s actually a very sound plan with a lot of lessons learned from even U.S. military operations on doing what the 20-point plan said and making it conditions-based. Full disarmament, full demilitarization can be done sector by sector, and that’s their plan. They’re moving pretty aggressively forward. What they’ve done in the last 12 months, forming the NCAG [National Committee for the Administration of Gaza], already having schools with de-radicalized curriculum, I see a lot of hope. Although I trust nobody. Verifying everything is a very big part of the plan, and having that leadership there. Of course, the future is always unknown. I agree with a general that said that this will take years—the Gaza situation [like] all post-conflict operations. But this enemy still has some guns, and that being a key part of the movement forward, it will take years. But I actually see a plan, not a settlement on status quo of anything like the past, so I actually am pretty hopeful on the Gaza situation.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Hey John, maybe we’ll say quickly, and then we’ll go to Amidror on this. Look, you led The Day After [Gaza] project. Maybe we were a little early on that, though we did seem to have some influence on [it], some help. You led it with Elliot Abrams and the Vandenberg coalition. [It] was a JINSA Vandenberg coalition effort, and you’ve obviously focused a lot on Gaza. How do you see [this situation]? Are you as optimistic as John is?
John Hannah
Well, I agree with John that there’s a reasonable plan on paper. I do think it’s on paper primarily. And it is a situation where it’s going to take a lot of time. But I just [think] back to last October [when] we had a lot of momentum. The president was deeply engaged, and it wouldn’t have happened except for the president’s deep personal involvement in getting that ceasefire done, getting those hostages all out—something nobody thought could be done, but we’re here a year later. Hamas is recruiting again. Doesn’t have the same military capability to threaten Israel, but it certainly retains an ability on the political level, the terror level, [and] the intimidation level, to control nearly all of Gaza’s population still, and we haven’t made really any progress on building some kind of alternative to Hamas. So, you’ve got two million people still living in abject misery, with no prospect on the horizon of developing any kind of alternative to Hamas. Hamas earns millions of dollars every day from humanitarian aid that is flooding into Gaza, taxing it, stealing it. So, the ISF [International Stabilization Force], yes, is great on paper, but we got a couple of 100 guys signed up, none of whom want to do any of the hard-edged work of maintaining or replacing Hamas as the force that can impose order in Gaza. We’ve got no real Palestinian police force that can replace Hamas that’s being trained anywhere in Egypt or otherwise, so just no economy that’s running and giving people who might think of signing up for Hamas any kind of alternative. Let me just also say [that there are] no real resources now to back this plan and to move it into action, because nobody wants to throw money into this, knowing that Hamas is still there rebuilding some of its power locally, without any serious prospect yet of how disarmament is going to happen.
So, I think there’s a long way to go, and I don’t know if the president can reengage on this. He’s obviously got a lot on his plate. There may be more attractive opportunities once he’s done dealing with the Iranians in Lebanon and Syria. Gaza maybe looks less like an opportunity, but it is perhaps the most significant diplomatic accomplishment of his administration—the miraculous ceasefire that he achieved last October, a year ago, getting all of those hostages out, both alive and dead, and getting Hamas to surrender them, which is something that I’m not sure anybody, I’m not sure Brett McGurk, thought was even possible at that point in time.
Michael Makovksy, PhD
Yeah, let me just conclude with General Amidror. Look, I think it was appropriate to talk about Gaza now because this is where it obviously all started, even if it was part of a ring of fire. But General Amidror, do you have just a couple quick comments on, from an Israeli’s perspective, where things stand and where things might go in Gaza?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror
In Gaza, the situation is that Hamas, as was said by General Norkin, is not relevant to Israel, and there is huge exaggeration about the rebuilding of Hamas. Hamas cannot rebuild itself. They [are] using the explosives which remain after our operations, and we will find more explosives prepared to stop the IDF if the IDF tries to go in, but the ability to produce weapon systems, missiles, rockets, anti-tank missiles, and so on and so forth is close to zero. Some [were] smuggled by drones from Egypt and Israel, but it’s [a] very little amount. Hamas today is more [of a] problem for the Palestinians in Gaza than for Israel. It is far from the Jewish communities around the Gaza Strip, and without the hostility, just if the IDF decides to go in the 35 percent of the Gaza Strip, which is still under the control of Hamas, is not going to be a huge problem for the IDF. Our hands were tied when the kidnapped Israelis were there, but now after all of them have been released, I think it will be much easier for the IDF. The decision here is to give the administration, the White House, the space and the time to implement the 20-point plan of President Trump, and this is why we are not going to [go in]. We continue to kill commanders. We are eliminating all those which had [invaded] Israel on the seventh of October. Out of 6,000, only 2,000 remain still alive in Gaza, and slowly, all of them will be killed. But Israel is not moving on with the full force to wage war in Gaza because we want to give the White House the ability to implement the 20-point plan. I am very pessimistic about the ability to do it, but I was pessimistic when the Americans said that they would release all the hostages, and they did it. So, I have to be very humble and to say I don’t know, but the formal decision is clear. We are giving the Americans the chance to do it. As you know, Nicolay Mladenov made [a] huge plan, but up till now, it is more [of a] plan than something had been implemented. And how long [can] the whole system work without having any real ability to implement it? It’s a good question that I don’t have an answer for. How long will they have the support of those who promise to contribute money for that? I don’t know. It very much depends [on] how much pressure America can put on Hamas and isolate Hamas from Turkey and Qatar, which are the biggest supporters of the organization. Hamas is now very active in Turkey; operations against Israel in the West Bank are handled by people in Turkey. Turkey, by the way, is one of the only countries in the world still helping economically the Iranians bypass American sanctions. So, it very much depends on the efforts of the United States of America, and we understand that without Israeli military pressure, there is no chance that Hamas will fulfill the vision of the president. The only way is a combination of Israeli military pressure and American pressure on the supporters of Hamas, mainly, as I said, Turkey and Qatar. How can America and Israel [agree on how to proceed]? Now both have immediate elections, so I’m sure that people, even those who are supporting it, are not rushing to another war. But in the end, only a combination of Israeli military pressure, which would be strong and clear, and American pressure on the supporters of Hamas, in Turkey and Qatar, can change the situation in the Gaza Strip. For today, it is less relevant for us. It is more relevant for the Palestinians. By the way, it’s very interesting. There was a research and polled by Shai Zakin and the Tel Aviv Strategy Strategic Center, and both came to the conclusion that the support of Hamas within the Palestinian society was degraded because of the results of the war and the situation in Gaza, and the support decreased from 75 percent at the beginning of the war to 25 percent now. It’s a huge change, and ironically, all these pictures which make Israel pariah in the West are making the change within the Palestinian society. They understand that Hamas led them to a disaster, to a new Nakba, and they blame Hamas, and they don’t want Hamas’ resistance against Israel as a way, which they can see was a huge mistake. So, ironically, unlike what we had been told, this war led to more radicalism within the Palestinian society. On the contrary, it led to a huge decrease in support of Hamas. Will it stay with us? Is it for a long time? I don’t know. This is a good question that I don’t have an answer to. So, to sum it up, we have to have the ability to put pressure militarily on Hamas. That, with American determined action, can change Hamas’ attitude towards the 20-point point plan of the president. Will it happen? I don’t know. I’m very pessimistic.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
All right. Thank you, General. On that note, we’re going to conclude. I want to thank all our panelists. There’s obviously a lot of issues we didn’t touch on, for all the national, regional, and international consequences of October 7th, that General Norkin reminded us of. It’s ultimately an unimaginable human tragedy; it’s important to remember all of those: who fell that day, were killed that day, were injured that day, and responded heroically that day. I encourage all of those to read up on those stories as much as possible. I want to thank John Spencer, John Hannah, General Amidror, and General Norkin. I want to thank everybody for joining us. Obviously, we are going to be talking about a lot of the regional issues here at JINSA going forward and thank you very much, and have a good rest of your day.