On Saturday afternoon, a Hezbollah rocket fired from southern Lebanon struck a soccer field in the village of Majdal Shams in Israel’s north, slaughtering 12 children.
For the last 10 months, many have warned that Israel is on the brink of a major war with Hezbollah. But the truth is that Hezbollah has been fighting—and winning—in Israel’s north since October 8. For the past 10 months, Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy terror group that controls southern Lebanon, has essentially redrawn the northern border of Israel by pummeling the border towns daily with rockets, leaving 225 square miles unlivable for Israelis and displacing around 80,000 Israeli citizens.
Israel—pounded by Iranian proxies from all directions—now faces one of the most perilous moments in recent history. The prospect of an all-out war with Hezbollah, which could very well spread to a larger, more dangerous regional war—perhaps directly with Iran—seems closer than ever.
What is Israel going to do? Will Israel choose to confront Hezbollah, or will they respond in a more limited way to avoid the regional escalation that the Americans so fear? How does U.S. policy, and the upcoming presidential election, influence Israel’s strategic calculation? Is Kamala Harris equipped to bring calm to the region? Or are Israelis just waiting for Trump to return to office? Is America’s current policy—which is the containment of Iran—backfiring and inadvertently creating a regional crisis? Most importantly, should we be thinking about the war with Gaza and the war with Hezbollah as discrete fights, or are they all part of a broader war that’s already underway between Israel and Iran?
Answering those questions today is Haviv Rettig Gur. Haviv is a journalist and writer for The Times of Israel, and he is one of the most important and insightful thinkers of our time on Israel and the Middle East.
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Another great pod. That is until you seemed to have confounded Gur to express a view as to how to stack up Harris/Biden against Trump as it related to who might be best for Israel. He seemed oblivious to the irony of complaining about U.S. politics and social policy and him going right there as an excuse for deflecting. He did not give the air of self-importance that afflicts some journalists so I think an accusation of him thinking his own opinion on abortion , etc. would be to impactful to share would be unfair. That said, he clearly suffers from the other malady of even some great journalists who can’t discriminate between their personal views and delivering professional journalistic content.
I think It speaks to a great opportunity for TFP in Israel. Sad to say but I don’t think Gur would be up for being a contributor.
I've been liking this podcast, and Haviv gave some phenomenal insight. Yet I was quite disappointed that the Russia-Iran-Hamas connection continues to be ignored here. Particularly when connecting the dots to any future American POTUS this podcast also ignores that Trump and the Republicans have acted on behalf of Putin to alienate Ukraine and cut off their support funding. Yet they are stalwarts for Israel?
It's because they serve at the whims of demagogues.
Israel is better off knowing a predictable Harris POTUS vs a mentally unstable psychopath. Jews and Israel should be reminded of why Trump's was impeached the 1st time. It was a quid pro quo attempt at Zelensky.
Do you think that all those military secrets stored in a bathroom at MAL didn't make it into the hands of the Russians, Chinese, and Iranians? Trump is purely transactional and frankly there is no deep moral commitment to anything let alone Israel. As the Republicans move more to isolationism, I don't see any strong national security policy coming forward. Only one that starts pointing its weapons internally towards its own political enemies.
It will be not be if but when Trump threatens to hold up some critical Israeli military need in return for ... Fill in the blank.
Thus Israel is better with predictable policy from a Harris administration even if it is not giving it's full support and too timid to act. The pendulum swing and mental instability of Trump would be a nightmare for the entire world, let alone Israel.