Hamas and Israel: What happened, what does it mean, and what's next?

good afternoon everyone I'm Doug gondorf the dean of Harvard Kennedy School welcome to the Kenny school and to the John F Kennedy Jr Forum I'm glad that so many people could be here in the room today and that others are watching over the live stream we're gathered for a panel discussion titled Hamas and Israel what happened what does it mean what's next I want to begin by acknowledging highlighting that this discussion will be very difficult for some maybe many people who are watching Ing and are here today I've talked over the past week with students at the Kenny school um who have had family members who have been killed I've talked with students who have loved ones who are in fear for their lives I've talked with students who have been themselves subject to threats and vitriol for things they have said so the events of the past week have been searing ing for all of us who have been paying attention but especially personal uh for many of our colleagues and friends I think it's the responsibility of universities responsibility of the Kenny school at this time to take on hard issues and to do so with rigor substance and evidence but also with compassion compassion for people for whom these issues are not abstract um they're not things one reads about from afar there are things that are personal that one lives and I hope we can bring that Spirit to today's discussion and to the many discussions that I think we need to have and will have in the days and weeks and months ahead so thank you for that Spirit our moderator today is Professor tar massud Professor massud is the Ford Foundation professor of democracy and governance here at the Kennedy School uh he the co-editor of the Journal of democracy which is published by the National Endowment for democracy Professor Mass's own research focuses on political development in arabic speaking and Muslim majority countries um he is the director of the Canon schools Middle East initiative I'm very grateful to him for arranging this panel discussion on short notice and I'm grateful to the guests whom he has invited for agreeing to be here on short notice we are privileged to have them here here and have this opportunity to learn from them uh Professor massud will introduce them so please join me in welcoming Professor tar massud and our guests thank [Applause] [Music] you good evening ladies and gentlemen thank you Dean Elmendorf thank you everybody for for being here um the events of the last week I think will be forever burned into our Collective memories uh whatever one's take or position on the thorny issues that constitute the uh NeverEnding seemingly never-ending struggle between Israelis and Palestinians the indiscriminate murder of civilians The Taking of hostages the threats to execute those hostages these have caused all of us to shudder in horror but as we mourn the dead innocence of the state of Israel we also fear what is to come for the people of Gaza the Netanyahu government has shut off gaza's water supply and its electricity it's ordered a civilian evacuation of the northern part of the territory in preparation for what one Israeli General called in the early uh days of this conflict opening the gates of hell um neither Egypt nor Israel is willing or able to take in the hundreds of thousands of uh Gins who need to escape the military operations to come and the result is a is potentially a humanitarian crisis of profound gravity with the potential to cost thousands of lives and to inflame blame sentiments across the Arab region and in fact already we are beginning to see demonstrations throughout the Arab and Muslim world it's not however just sentiments that risk becoming inflamed reports are trickling in of the role that the Islamic Republic of Iran may have played or its proxies may have played in enabling what happened last Saturday and it's possible that if those uh reports were verified we could see ourselves uh it f facing a situation where Israel feels compelled to respond militarily to what it would deem as a clear Act of War we're already hearing some Iranian uh proxies in Yemen and Iraq threatening to get involved already Hezbollah and uh Israel are trading artillery fire on the southern Lebanese border and so as horrible as it is to contemplate and as horrible as the situation already today is we may soon find that the theater of war has been widened far beyond GZA far beyond Israel with the potential to swallow up the entire region so to help us understand what happened what it means and what the future has in store for the people of Israel Palestine the Middle East and the world were're joined by three very distinguished individuals who know this region and this conflict intimately they generously agreed on very short notice as Dean Elmendorf said to dedicate some of their scarce time to educating all of us uh about uh this issue and I could not be more grateful the first is Ambassador Edward Jian Ambassador Jian served under George Herbert Walker Bush as our ambassador to Syria he was the assistant Secretary of State for near Eastern Affairs and in the Clinton Administration he served as our ambassador to the state of Israel I'm also so proud to say that he is a senior fellow of the Middle East initiative here at the Kennedy School uh the second person I will introduce is Professor Shai Feldman who's on the very far end he's the Raymond Frankle professor of Israeli politics and Society at brandise University's Department of politics he's the author of several books including Arabs and Israelis conflict and peacemaking in the Middle East with KH shikaki and ABD s Ali finally I want to introduce Professor shami the anir Sadat professor of peace and development at the University of Maryland he is a prolific and award-winning author and the editor most recently of the one state reality what is Israel Palestine we have an hour allotted for tonight's event of which we have already extinguished several minutes so I would like us to dive in and what I'll do is I'll ask questions of each of our distinguished panelists in the hope of sparking a conversation and then I will open it up to questions from you our uh distinguished audience but let me start now with Ambassador gigian so Ambassador you spent your entire life working or most of your life working on this region and in 1992 you gave a speech a very famous speech and one of the things you did in that speech is you offered one of the clearest articulations of American interests in the region you said the two major American goals are a just lasting and comprehensive peace between uh Israelis and Palestinians and the second viable security Arrangements that will ensure stability and the free flow of oil and I want to ask you on Saturday did Hamas just definitively put the first of those goals peace between Israelis and Palestinians definitively Out Of Reach thank you T what Hamas did is certainly shift the whole political landscape of the Middle East this is one of the most consequential confrontations between Israel and an may call it an Arab entity in case a Palestinian group Hamas in my long diplomatic career and I serve from John F Kenny to Bill Clinton to give you an idea how old I am but uh but there's a saying in the Middle East I'm so old I can remember the Dead Sea when it was only sick but fundamentally in my long experience there have been traumatic events in this region that way the danger is so replete and all the negatives are so rep that we have to live through the horrors and we're living through a great horror right now but these catalytic events often in diplomacy lead to Opportunities and from my vantage point and it may seem like an illusion right now what we're witnessing is so consequential in stirring the chessboard of the Middle East that it may and I this is the only word word of hope I have tonight that it may lead to a shifting of configurations of groups and countries that there may be another opportunity for diplomacy to arrive at an Arab Israeli peace agreement an Israeli Palestinian peace agreement now having said that that requires leadership that requires leadership on all sides I'm going to be very blunt in my opinion I think we have a deficit in leadership ship today I'm not going to name names but there's a deficit of leadership but I have seen When leaders are ready to take the risks for peace things can happen we're far from that now we're going to go through a very troubled and dangerous period And as you indicated tck the risks of this confrontation expanding are real I don't think it's the immediate interest of the various parties to to see that happen but once you enter into the fog of War miscalculations we can get into a regional confrontation that will be quite defining for the future of the Middle East But to answer your question very directly I I think what what has happened has furthered the prospects for for peace because hatred vengeance is in the air and we're going we're seeing that as we speak it's a human itarian disaster on all sides uh and people are not ready to sit down and see the uh political Horizon and let me just say one last thing here when again in my experience when there is not a political Horizon out there that at least is being talked about or aspired to for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians bad things happen I want to come to you professor tilami and ask maybe a question that um is on a lot of people's minds it's not a terribly uh theoretically sophisticated question why did Hamas do this um first of all let me just start U by saying um this is really a moment to uh come to terms with u our common Humanity uh honestly before I even talk about the analysis because I think you know I know that many of you have been watching what's taken place many of you may have lost loved ones or know people who have lost their lives and many of us find it hard to sleep uh watching a child get killed innocent people get killed uh or taken hostages whether they're Jewish or Arab Israeli or Palestinian it's been a devastating week it has been one that where our focus should be on our common Humanity um and I think that um you know for me as a student of War and Peace um of course I know what happens in Wars I know that Hearts darken uh I know that people demonize I know that one is obsessed with their own safety and own interest uh and too blinded to see the suffering of the other and this is the moment where we are uh we've seen the thousands of Israelis who've been killed and wounded and the hostages that were taken we now are witnessing the devastation in Gaza we've already had over 8,000 people in Gaza either killed or wounded as of yesterday 300,000 people uh were made homeless and this obviously is only the beginning not the end and I think this is the moment for all of us uh whether we're Scholars uh whether we're human beings of any any with in any position but especially our political leaders uh to take the moral High Ground to rise above the demonization rise above the hardening of the hearts to take the responsible path uh to speak truth even to friends even to people you want to assure even with people you want to hold hands with I understand the urge we all do we all study War it's not just Israelis and Palestinians we know it but this is a time when we need to rise above that both as Scholars As Leaders anybody with influence to call the wrong for what it is to take immoral position uh there is no avoiding that there is no cause in the world that would justify targeting or recklessly endangering civilians and I don't care whether that's a Jew or an Arab a Palestinian or Israeli an American or an Iraqi uh this has to be a principle that we all uphold and we have to have that as a starting point and what we see now is a total devastation and we need from our own leaders to see leadership moral leadership above the political leadership not just the Strategic thinking that um you know um uh is being talked about with planning ahead uh thinking about the what what Ed said yes there might be an opportunity down the road when they come but so much suffering is on the way and we need to start with that so I I want to I want to make that clear number two let's not let's be careful um let's be careful so no one makes a mistake here because we are academics we explain we're social scientists we're not giving when we are explaining something why it happened we're not saying it's Justified explanation is not justification but if we don't explain then we are doomed if we don't understand the core reasons for things that happened we are doomed we got to differentiate between justification and explanation so nothing justifies what Hamas did and in my opinion nothing justifies jeopardizing thousands of of of civilians in in Gaza and I think those things that we have to be clear morally but when you look at it the puzzle for hamas's attack honestly was not that they're capable of doing it they've done many things in the past not on this scale so the real puzzle honestly was how did they have the capability to do it and how did the Israelis fail a to detect it and to prevent it and that's really the puzzle it's that's the puzzle of the timing now from my point of view if I'm looking at their calculus to the extent that there was a timing related to their action uh I'm looking at what's happening the occupation again remember justification and explanation are not one and the same uh there is no way that you can uh say that the the despair that prevails um in the West Bank not just in Gaza where there's a blockade I was there last week I was in Israel and the West Bank uh the amount of Despair is enormous in part because it's been 56 years of occupation uh and they have not been able to do anything and today the chance of another of an independent state of Palestine is much lower than it was 10 years ago and they're looking at no hope in sight they were hoping that Biden Administration will be different from Trump they didn't get anything on that they were hoping that Arab states would exchange peace with Israel for ending of occupation that didn't look like that was going to happen the opposite was going to happen so there was an enormous amount of Despair taken in place and that's when militant groups exploit it because if there are no peaceful paths and there's no peaceful hope as Ed put it that's the perfect opportunity for militant groups to uh say but you see we can do something about it you see we can do something about it and as you know as I said Hearts hardened in times of War so in Israel after you know the the the attacks uh the horrific attacks uh many people said let's level let's level Gaza let's level Gaza and in the Palestinian areas you have people let them do it you know whoever whatever is so Hearts hardened we have to understand that that's what we have we on the outside world we have to grow uh over it we have to uh our leaders need to speak with with Clarity because vengeance is not a strategy it's not a moral strategy and it's not one that could bring results in the end that can bring genuine and just peace in the region okay thank you so did you want to quickly respond to I just want to reinforce what what Shi is saying here especially for our leaders on all sides if we go down the biblical maxim of an eye for an eye we're all going to be blind um thank you shii I want to I want to uh there's a lot to follow up on there but I want to come to uh Professor uh Feldman so as shibli uh Professor telami mentioned one of the puzzles is how Israel failed to detect this the standard line about uh Hamas was that 10% of Hamas Fighters were on the Israeli payroll that Israel had complete visibility into this tiny 2m x 25 M territory the um operation seemed to have required a lot of coordination and a lot of planning that it seems hard for me to imagine that that evaded detection um so how did the Israelis uh get caught by surprise so first of all thank you for having me um second I I I um completely associate myself with the opening remarks of Ambassador Jan and and Sh talami uh we're we're we we're neighbors over there and uh we've been in the same graduate school um so we're the same product of American academ for me uh this is particularly personal which makes me almost in maybe for the first time in my life difficult to talk because a year and a half ago I returned from a three-year term as president of a college uh that is just outside the town of stot that essentially turned into a killing field and for the first four days after since Saturday I've been mostly just trying to find the the senior your Administration people that worked with me were part of my team were were my team and to find out uh and they are spread in locations that have become Battlegrounds various Kim from zikim to nativ to uh uh and of course the which continues to be a Battleground to uh to this day so so it's it's difficult for me to completely disassociate myself from from the personal aspects but I completely and wholeheartedly um associate with myself with what shii said particularly the real need to make sure that we don't confuse explaining uh with justification I think that uh Israel was surprised because uh it really completely misunderstood it had basically thought that it has constructed some kind of deterrence equation with Hamas and Gaza which uh which comprised of both being able from time to time and there were 8 2009 and 12 and 14 uh major military confrontations established its its uh its military capacity to respond coupled with an attempt to at least at least create some kind of minimal survivability or surviving s situation in Gaza that uh that would allow the gazans to have something to lose but I think that completely misunderstood the nature of deterrence because there is no factor in the deterrence equation that is more important than the issue of motivation and when when you are basically in a what we have to again speak the truth Gaza has been a gigantic jail 2.3 million people who had very very limited capacity to leave uh and and travel and so on and so forth in reality and also by international law whoever controls the exit and entry points to a certain territory is The Sovereign so Israel and Egypt shared in in some ways Gaza sovereignty but the idea that the other side that that the gazans and the Hamas guys would uh would accept uh uh this indefinitely was I think a big Illusion by the way not different from the illusion that and the source of the basic basic source of surprise in 1973 what Israelis underestimated that for Egypt the return of the territory that Israel controlled since the 1967 war was worth the huge costs that President Sadat actually predicted would be associated with the attempt to liberate the territory turned out very well for the Egyptians that the that the level of casualties was much lower than actually president Sadat thought and was willing for his people to pay for the Liberation uh of these territories and when when you're dealing with desperate people you have to expect and and and Israel I think completely I don't think I am this one I'm sure completely completely um uh did not understand the real nature of of deterrence and how deterrence is fragile in a situation where the other side has such strong motivation to to violate that's the basic surprise and when you talk about surprises there are are basic surprises and there are situational surprises and the situational surprise has to do with the fact that Hamas understood or thought that how this is going to turn out in the end regarding that assessment that I think they had we will see but I am pretty strongly convinced that hamash thought that there is a window a window was created and that the window that was created had to do with the fact that Israel and the Israeli governing system was we have to say this distracted for almost a year since the new Israeli government was formed it was distracted because the elements in the new Israeli government was try were trying to implement a Monumental change in Israel governing system uh most people interpret that including myself as an attempt to limit democracy in Israel at the expense of course by doing by limiting the the power of the Supreme Court Visa the other branches of government in Israel and a large chunk of the Israeli population rebelled and and went to the streets and we have now we've had until last Saturday 40 Saturdays where about a quarter of a million Israelis went to the streets that's equivalent to 8.4 million Americans protesting Saturday after Saturday after Saturday after Saturday and the strongest element or the most sequential element of the protesters were Israeli reservists of the best units of the Air Force and the special forces and the intelligence and so on and so forth saying if you guys continue with this we are going to we are going to rethink because much of this Reserve service is also voluntary and they said we are going to rethink this and so on and so forth and then the top echelons of the IDF actually were in were because of this had to deal with for the last 10 months with the issue of the Readiness of the IDF now guess what was proven in the first Saturday that the IDF Readiness was seriously seriously damaged and this had to do something with what happened uh in Israel on top of that this new government that Israel had since in the last 10 11 or 12 years months had elements that are President Biden I think correctly said this is the most extreme right-wing government that Israel's had we had two ministers in the government that were beyond the pale and my test for Beyond The Pale is that no right-wing governments in Israel had ever thought it even of including them in the government and they had played a role in in in in the skirmishes and the conflicts that ex that that developed between settlers in the West Bank and and uh uh and Palestinians in the West Bank and if you want there is no starkist evidence of how what were the consequences of this that two days before last Saturday the southern command of the IDF essentially gave the green light to moving three battalions from the south to the West Bank leaving essentially most of the most of the of the settlements or the towns in in in in the South uh defenseless so it was a combination here of of of of essentially the the components of a basic surprise with the situational surprise that was was resulted from the particular circumstances that developed after 10 months of internal struggle in Israel now what is the problem that Israel has and and and here again we I go back to just emphasize again and again and again don't take anything that I said until now as justification but it's but if we run away from looking the reality in the face and understand the the causes we will not understand how to get out of it and here I go back to this to to to to to the the last point I wanted to make which is there is a lot of resemblance as I said between the Strategic surprise and by the way its magnitude that Israel suffered now and the Strategic surprise that isra suffered in 73 but there is a Monumental difference between the two situations because and the big difference between the two situations is that even beginning two years before 1973 before the war before the Egyptian forces crossed the Su Canal president Sadat began to present Israel with an alternative Israel at but at that point still occupi the Sinai until the sus canal and when President Sadat went to Israel to make the point in November 77 his major point was we understand that you have a legitimate security concern let's talk about how we meet your legitimate security concerns in a way that's not at our expense this is a Monumental difference because s because because Hamas is still committed to Israel's destruction so even when the the the the state of demand is not you know go go commit suicide but end The Siege then Israel was basically asked to end the siege by the way they operationally defined the end of the SI end the siege for example is a port so Israel was supposed to accept the idea of ending The Siege and allowing an entity that stated purpose of which is the destruction of Israel to allow and look at how much how how much they managed to to to smuggle into s into into Gaza without having a port and without having their in in a field so the in in a situ and this is where Israel is right now Israel is in a predicament it doesn't have an Egypt solution that that oh please go ahead to pick up on Shai I think you very well described that Hamas perceived an internal weakness in the Israeli body politic because of what you described the government I think the other factor is the perception that the Palestinian issue in the region as a whole was being diminished and you know what the Trope is for the last five odd years and more that the Palestinian issue is no longer a central issue in the Middle East we have to get on with it we have to get Beyond it I have said I'm not talking about this retroactively I have argued that the Palestinian issue remains a central issue in the Middle East and that transactional Arrangements like the Abraham Accords if they translated themselves and putting influence on the parties to come to an agreement is one thing but it's purely transactional Accords are not going to bring forward Israeli Palestinian peace and the other factor is that the so-called expansion of those Accords to include Saudi Arabia and Israel with the active diplomacy of the Biden Administration uh that was also a signal to Iran that there was a geopolitical strategy to marginalize Iran from the region and I can't prove this but I think that must be part of the calculation because as you know Hamas is fully supported by by Iran so I don't know if you agree with me or not should well let me say something about that I I have obviously um uh you know thought about that I talked to a lot of people in Washington about no question they're supported by Iran Hamas obviously gets I'm not saying operational but I'm talking the real question is not whether they get support of course they get support I mean they're they're open about it the Hass is open about it and and they get a lot of equipment from them training Etc no question they're they're close supporter the real issue is not that in there is whether Iran was behind the attack and there is no evidence of that the US has said that uh Israel intelligence I understand uh have have not disputed that uh so I think we have to be careful why do we have to be careful uh because some we don't want to be dragged into a war with Iran and we do know there are some people who wanted us to be dragged into a war with Iran and we have to be very Mindful and worried about that we also know that we're now involved in a domestic political season and the Iran issue is very hot and so uh the you know Republicans are attacking the president for the prisoner exchange and releasing the funds and everything else I'm not going to talk about politics here this is not our issue but remember there's a political thing there also in Israel you've got a government the right-wing government that obviously has uh you know failed to to to detect the attack or respond to it uh Point pointing finger is very easy um for distracting from the responsibilities so I think we have to be really really careful about just saying you know Iran I was saying it's another factor I did I I wasn't saying that understand that no I I agree with you on that I agree factor and let me put myself on the line here I think the Shai you may not agree with me on this but I really think that the existential challenge that Israel faces is the Palestinian issue much more than the Iranian issue I I think geopolitically Iran is a threat to the region and to Israel but it could be handled in other ways but the existential threat to the very nature of the state of Israel as a democratic Jewish state is the Palestinian issue and one thing that this crisis has brought to the four that that issue Is tragically alive and well and again how the pieces are picked up are going to determine the future I don't disagree with you former prime minister is Barak once said that not having a border between Israel and the Palestinians is a greater existential threat to Israel than Iran but having said this I want to just give a Twist to what you said because I agree with almost almost everything you said um it's not just okay first of all where are we we are at at this point in a situation of about 10 years where the gap between the Arab Israeli conflict and the Israeli Palestinian conflict has increased tremendously we have peace with two Arab countries we have the Abraham Accords and so on on on the verge of and none of this of course resulted in any uh progress in Israeli Palestinians this is the reality but I would put one Twist on what you said I think the real problem is not that the Arab countries have forgotten about the Palestinians I think there was there is a general fatigue in the region about the Palestinian issue and I think part of that fatigue results from the fact that Arab states one after the other said to the Palestinians if the struggle with Israel is so important to you then how come you're spending 90% of the energy fighting among yourselves and Hamas contributed to this and we have to remember everybody was involved in reconciliation efforts especially the Saudis every one of these Rec reconciliation efforts among the Palestinians completely failed and and basically you have a situation where the the emiratis and the baharen and so on and so forth said you know it's it's is this really important you come to us every time that that you have trouble for our help and we've been helping you and helping you and helping you and this is how important this issue is that's a that's a very valid point can I we we have only a couple of minutes before I do want to open it up to our fantastic audience so I want to ask each of you a question uh and I'll ask you to answer it briefly even though each of these questions I'm about to ask were my main questions of each of you so um I'll start with you Professor talami because something Shai said there was a contradiction almost in something Shai said where he talked about as U you know an open air prison um a a a very grave situation in GZA and but then later pointed out that Hamas has made no bones about its aim to uh eliminate the state of Israel hamas's aim is not to open up some uh uh ports and open up some uh border checkpoints it is its stated aim is to make Israel uninhabitable for Jews to recapture the entire thing and so the the the question I have for you is it's no doubt that GZA was under siege the question is is hamas's behavior due to the siege of gazah or is the 16-year siege of gazah born of a recognition that if Hamas has an opportunity it will engage in this kind of catastrophic terrorism which after all we have seen before this we we saw this in the '90s we saw it during the the second so how would you respond to that argument and witness that he wants me to answer that in 2 minutes so uh actually I said 30 seconds we only have 30 seconds um two minutes is after the negotiation just let me just say uh a couple of things about that um Hamas obviously is a problem both in terms of the methods it uses and and its objectives for sure and and that is a dilemma as as uh you know um Shai put it he put it as it's a dilemma how do you deal with that um It's Not Unusual right it's we've had conflicts in the past so we have rules and and and and laws of war about what's legitimate even when you have enemies that you think are out to get you related to civilians so keep that in mind this has nothing to do with the intensity of attacks in which we results in civilians so that's number one number two um uh Gaza was not Paradise before Hamas took over Hamas took over in 20 2006 it was still under occupation a terrible occupation and it was doing even worse than uh the West Bank and and West Bank isn't a wonderful place right now obviously for Palestinians and Gaza is not in control so let's keep those things in perspective okay so and number three I mean the Oddity of it is that um is Israel Over time number one helped create an islamist group as a as a as a a a a response to uh PLO and PLO was seen to be the national movement and natany has been saying um more recently even about how useful Hamas is for him politically not knowing that they have the escapability that they obviously came to so you know it's complicated that's why there's a dilemma it's very complicated but it doesn't at all excuse number one uh you know the reckless endangerment of civilians under any circumstances and it still doesn't take away from the big elephant in the room which is 56 years of Israeli occupation I love sh yeah I love shivy so do I but I disagree with him because the issue the real issue for us right now I mean yes there will be an issue about the intensity of the Israeli response I agree with that but that's not really the big issue the big issue is how do we how do we how do we come out of this predicament that results from this contradiction the issue I gave the Egyptian example earlier but the problem with that Israel has with Kamas is that Kamas was completely unwilling to travel the road that the PLO traveled from the from the 74 interim interim to the 1988 Declaration of Independence that talked about two states all the way to Oso Hamas by the way did everything conceivable to to to destroy the oso agreement netanyahu's election in 1996 was the result of a massive terrorist a a series of terrorist attacks to which prime minister Paris who succeeded the been after the assassination was subjected and after that series of terrorist attacks it was clear that Netanyahu is going to win the election that's the problem that we have we have a situation in which a in a in a in in an adversary that's not giving you that's not giving you an alternative you're stuck and the problem you see here is that this is not Israel this is not Israel is not in the US in Vietnam okay Vietnam the Viet Kong had no claim on America we are not the situation of the NFL Inn in Algeria okay they did not have a claim on France they wanted Independence in Algeria the problem with Hamas is it has a claim on Israel so Shai that's and and as I understand it the Israelis are saying consequently that their plan now is to eradicate Hamas they're not just going to mow the lawn to to Echo that heartless euphemism but they're actually going to rip out the roots how are they going to do that in 20 seconds well it's not just H how how they're going to do that by the way is not the bigger problem yeah the big and not even the not even the costs involved in doing that it's not the bigger problem the bigger problem is that if you is that is that to prevent the the catastrophe of last Saturday yeah return repeating itself you need to establish some kind of an equation with whoever is going to be in Gaza now then the question is and that's called in our professional life called deterrence now the there is a problem with deterrence is you need an address so the real dilemma that Israel faces is not what does it take what are they the real dilemma is what's the alternative to Hamas that's the that's the that's the the predicament in which Israel finds itself in and and frankly nobody and I don't I really nobody has an answer to this question however okay and there is a however the however actually the ceeds to the answer and there is an answer is what Ed jigan started with the only solution that I see is that the the Arab the Arab states would say this is too important for the protagonist to leave it to the protagonists we have we are dealing here with kinds of children and we the responsible adults have to get involved and it's possible that at least for a period Arab states would say okay you know we're taking this over okay until we have an alternative leadership in in in Gaza and so on for I can see that if if if the AR if Arab states LED Now by Saudi Arabia that certainly has the financial capabilities to fuel this and Egypt with its military capacity has the ability to provide defense would would would would substitute for a party that sticks to its ideological positions it's unwilling to travel the road that the PLO traveled and therefore it's not a party yeah a lot to say what sh say yeah go ahead what sha is basically saying is that deterrence with a group like Hamas simply has failed and deterence with a group like Hamas is bound to fail if we look at this from 33,000 ft down the solution is the end of the 56-year occupation and that can only be done through political negotiations and I'll just say one thing a man who I admired a great deal when I was Ambassador of Israel was Yak Rabin he was the prime minister at the time and he told me this privately he obviously said it publicly he said Ed I'm a military man I fought all of Israel's Wars there is no military solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict we have to get to the negotiating table and if we don't get there repat repeat of the horrors we're witnessing today went the extra mile and decided on the negotiation with an an organization that he felt for years and years and years was a Bastion of terrorism and the and the reason he could do that is because it was an address and it was willing to transform and to reinvent itself and there is not the slightest indication indication that Kamas is willing to travel this road age right AG so then yeah who who do you negotiate with so we we now I want to open it up uh to questions so I'm uh in inviting uh uh members of the audience to please uh cue behind one of the four microphones we have strategically placed um around the Forum and I want to ask you when you ask your question if you could briefly introduce yourself with your name your school and your class year if you're comfortable because this uh is being recorded and I would also like to ask you uh to keep your question brief so that we're able to field more than one question and I would humbly say if you're if you're thinking about something that starts with this is more of a comment than a question let's you know reformulate it to be a short question designed to illicit information and I will start over here hello my name is izy yuman sandz I'm an mpp2 student here at the Kennedy School um my question is so the Israeli government has ordered over 1.1 million people to evacuate the northern area of Gaza you're speaking a bit a bit too fast for for me Engish is not my first language uh and if you could also come closer to the microphone so that you take full advantage of our first class AB system sorry is this better in so the Israeli government ordered over 1.1 million people to evacuate the northern area of Gaza which includes 500,000 children this is an act of War but besides that Palestinians Israelis and even the UN are starting to call what's this an impending genocide do you not think it's time for the world particularly the US who is a strong Ally and Military funder of Israel to step in and stop something that could be a genocide thank you okay is the question clear yes it's clear it's clear and and yes the uh Israel um ordered 1.1 million uh people to evacuate within 24 hours um I just want to say something about that um number one to call on civilians to leave and then Target or attack in a way that jeopardizes them does not absolve you responsibility under national law we should be clear that's not enough to to say get out and if they don't they get hurt number one number two um it is impossible um it's just absolutely impossible um why is it impossible well look I mean um in Israel the Israeli government asked on the people in the settlements around Gaza to to leave to evacuate and and many of them didn't know how to do it there was there were no buses the the cell phones were closed and this is in small towns not very heavily populated in a very developed country with an infrastructure and they couldn't get out very quickly and they were blaming the government for not doing it when we call on people to uh you know evacuate for hurricanes uh we we find we can't even get them out in two or three days even when we have a real infrastructure in place so just to think about that you're going to be able to do that with the blockade and no electricity and N transportation and destructions and and you know um Vehicles can even get to the victims ambulances are not able to get there I I mean that that is just just absolutely impossible even if they they had a place to go and so that's number one number two there is an incredible fear in the Palestinian areas I mean Gaza you know a majority of gazans are are descendants of refugees from 48 from what is now Central Israel Palestinians as you know have become refugees more than once uh and and many of them you know after 67 and so there's a terrifying they're terrified by the idea that they would become Refugee again to leave the territory and there's opposition to it by the way politically not just by Hamas people say well Hamas doesn't want them to leave um yeah of course Hamas doesn't want them to leave but to talk to secularist in the West Bank who are opponents of Hamas talk to um you know other Palestinians they're all terrified of the idea of leaving even if it were possible and it's not likely to be happening so I honestly this is not something on the horizon now we need to think about right now the immediate issue is is humanitarian we need to figure out a way to help people we got you know hundreds of thousands of homeless people hospitals U you know uh uh doctors uh uh uh organizations have have been saying it's a catastrophe in the hospitals um without without the electricity um we need to International Organization has to find a way to get there and there has to be a little bit of a pause at least in the bombings for people to get to get help to to people who need uh immediate help so that's really the issue right now and I think we shouldn't you know get get distracted by by these bigger ideas that are not on the horizon anytime soon let me take some more questions just so that we uh over here please my name is hi my name is Ivana tunang and I'm an MPP student here at HKS um how do you think the Israeli public will react that now that the Israeli extremist government led by Netanyahu who has several corruption claims surrounding him has ignored the safety of captured CI civilians and instead focused on intensifying Air Raids on Gaza killing numerous of them how do you think the Israeli public will react once the war ends that's a question for you I think that U Israel uh would experience a major major major Reckoning uh and it's at the at the at the very least would be the kind of Reckoning that went on that took place in Israel uh after the previous strategic surprise that I mentioned which is 73 um in initially uh Israel has a kind of a very strong institutionalized uh system of in a way of uh examining itself uh it's perfected the art of national commissions of inquiry and the national Commission of inquiry that was created after the 73 War basically sacked the entire top echelons of the Israeli defense uh community and not the political leadership and that didn't hold for more than 4 or five months because the public demanded that the people all the people that are responsible for the surprise for the Strategic surprise in all its aspects political and economic and Military would would would would answer and and and and that led to the the the fact that the Prime Minister Golda Mayer and the def and the defense minister mosan basically had to end their political career so I don't see and I and I think to some extent um because so much of this was at least affected by this window of vulnerability that was created and created by the political leadership of Israel who were warned Time and Time Again by the the Israel's defense Chiefs that take they cannot continue to sustain a an attempt to change Israel's democracy and diminish Israel's democracy given the level of opposition that this created without it going to result in a major cost in a major risk to Israel's survival and and and security and so and they and they of course ignored all the warnings and all the so the the idea that somehow they will not they will not have to pay for the mistakes that they've done over the last 10 months by the way in the media the reconing is already begun big time the rest of the system is not going to deal with with this as long as the fighting is taking place and as long as nobody nobody has come up with a solution to what Israel is going to do with Gaza but after that after even some measure of stability of course there will be major major Reckoning yeah I mean it's a very interesting uh question I mean because Israel today is so different from Israel in 1973 it's a legitimate question to ask whether in fact um Israelis the kinds of Israelis who vote for uh Benjamin Netanyahu and Ben and smotrich would actually punish them for this given what their the Electoral alternatives are but we saw that by the way after 73 it was the same I mean in the end of the day labor was able to follow some kind of a government but three years later they paid and the could came to power and all the public opinion polls already show that out of the0 members of knesset that they are now the the Coalition has 64 members that if elections were held today 53 54 is maximum what they would have yeah okay we have very little time left please ma'am hello thank you for coming and speaking with us professor thami said that nothing justifies the Israeli government decimating Gazza and causing thousands of gzen Deads my which I agree with wholeheartedly it sounds like the whole panel agreed with that wholeheartedly my question is coming from my position as an American taxpayer why is it that when we know that nothing justifies Israeli government's actions in Gaza quoting the panel again um why is it that the US continues to fund billions of dollars into Israel even now when Israel has told 1 million Gins to leave the North like what the heck are we doing as a country I'm trying to make sense of why are we funding this even now thank you so much thank you so can I also take the other question so that we can so question about why the US uh continues to support the state of Israel yes please yes uh thank you so much for coming out today and having this conversation uh the posture of most diplomatic conversations is that Palestinian governments do not act in good faith but in fact the Israeli government has repeatedly failed to uphold International Peace treaties uh such actions include allowing illegal settlements to expand uh such examples of violated violated agreements include the Oslo Court Camp David Summit and the taba to name of you does Israel need to be held accountable for also acting in violation with agreed Norms thank you okay and let's take one more question over here hi my name is Barack I'm from Israel um I have dozens of uh relatives and friends and people I know who are directly harmed the past week in World War II Pearl Harbor sent the American Army into war against the Nazis and America paid with 400,000 lives um to defeat the Nazis I'm asking people on the panel they were advisor to Israeli government as moderate Muslim Arabs how do you that is Israel respond to a movement like Hamas a terrorist organization that massacred innocent children civilian and elderly after the violation of our sovereignty and as women and children as their target is it fair for Israel to compare what the Americans did to Isis in mul what would you advise what would be a just reaction for Israelis to protect their sovereignty thank you okay so a lot of uh questions there so well my my my fundamental response is by having to get through the extremely dangerous period that this Hamas attack has caused not only between Gaza and Israel but the region as a whole which is having geopolitical implications beyond that including the great powers of the world containing it so that it doesn't become a regional war and and then really getting to the point where there are leaders who can work for a peaceful settlement the only answer to your question is to resolve this issue through a peaceful settlement anything else is going to be temporary it's going to be kicking the can down the road and we're going to be here having a session like this again so can I ask you shi just to frame the question a bit more provocatively you know obviously think we're not the the the the the Ambassador I think the Ambassador is ultimately right that all conflicts have to end at some point in in a negotiation but it seems surpassingly unrealistic to me to think that you can have a negotiation at this point in time given the mindset of Hamas has revealed by its behavior and so the gentleman is asking what would you have Israel do well first of all let me just answer those first two questions related to what uh what could be done uh let's have Clarity okay so what I said was that um nothing justifies targeting or recklessly endangering civilians whether it's a just cause or retaliation uh just not justify it doesn't mean that Israel has no right to self-defense everybody recognize that it does uh our president went and T talked to the prime minister of Israel on day one when they Israel felt Ultra vulnerable when the the seemed helpless they they were watching to see the Paradigm was completely disrupted about their security uh that's that that's a the expression of empathy that's important that's when you hold hands when you also assure and you say people have a right to self-defense self-defense doesn't mean you have the right to violate international law we have rules uh and it doesn't mean that you you don't uh uh uh show restraint in trying to save civilians uh uh so that's the that's the thing that you have to do and I I think that one uh one of the things that I um um uh sort of criticize our government posture so far is given this massive civilian casualties in uh in Gaza that we haven't said a word about restraint we haven't said a word about uh you know intern obligations under international law even if you so there's a difference between uh you know uh self-defense and going beyond self-de plus it's hard to know with this Israeli government you know what is the objective is it really just self-defense or is it more right we know that in the Israeli government there are people who say Gaza quote belongs to us and Palestinians should go somewhere else BV said that now maybe he's not any more a factor in the decisions that are being made on the war okay that that's a good thing but we we don't we we have you know there was the Israeli people are not having having confidence in in the government right now is it do we do we should we have complete trust that the right of self-defense gets a blank check uh when in fact we need to you know it affects American interest it's not just our own moral posture in the world but ultimately it affects whether we get drawn in or not and so do we want to give a blank check uh on this issue uh without weighing in that's a mistake for the United States of America well I will just say two things about this now one I I I want to remind all of us of what shii said in the beginning we're not here when we say we're not uh we're not talking about who's just and what's just and so on and so forth and now we're trying not trying to to just to justify anything we that means also that we are not saying certain options are unjust and therefore they can so we have to be a little consistent with what we say that's that's that's that's number one the the number two is uh we have to remember that international law to the extent that they even apply to non-state actors who maybe pretend to have had a state called Gaza was not exactly adhere to last Saturday and and then that and when when when when a civilian population turns into a killing field then it's not then as of that point what really works is not the head but the anger okay and I I I agree that some of Israeli reaction is the result of the fact that the scenes are so horrific that people are are reacting for their from their heart as much as from their minds now finally to the question of what can be done what can Israel do I think Israel can do something I think Israel should in in fact initiate now a conversation with all the Arab states with which Israel has already established a a a real relationship which is begins with Egypt and Jordan and and the Abraham Accord States and also with Saudi Arabia about the issue of what can they what can what can Israel contribute to to to to essentially motivate them to come in okay and and help with this issue help with with with substituting substituting for for for an entity that is resolved to to destroy Israel Israel cannot do I stress again and again it cannot do in ow with an organization that's still committed to Israel's destruction okay we're we're going to have to leave it there we're already 5 minutes over time unfortunately we're five minutes over time and so I I want to First say I want to thank our panelists for sharing your wisdom we probably could have gone uh uh five more hours um I hope that we can count on you to uh come back and and help us understand this uh conflict although the other part of me hopes that that won't be necessary and that this conflict will end and that the people of Israel and Palestine and the broader region will finally get the peace that they deserve I finally want to thank you the audience you've been a tremendous audience you have really given all of us reason to be proud of the University tonight and I very much hope uh that we'll see you at other events that we will be holding to cover this important issue thank you everybody and good night [Music]

Channel: Institute of Politics Harvard Kennedy School

Views: 94,159

Keywords: Harvard Institute of Politics, Harvard University

Id: FPt1rltBVGQ

Length: 77min 10sec (4630 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 13 2023