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Language: en
the following is a conversation with
Jared Kushner former senior adviser to
the president during the Donald Trump
Administration and author of breaking
history a White House
Memoir he's one of the most influential
and effective presidential advisers in
modern history helping conduct
negotiations with some of the most
powerful leaders in the world and
deliver results on trade Criminal
Justice Reform and historic progress
towards peace in the Middle East on
Thursday October 5th we recorded
conversation on topics of War and Peace
history and Power in the Middle East and
Beyond this was about a day and a half
before the Hamas attack on Israel and
then we felt we must sit down again on
Monday October 9th and add a discussion
on the current situation we open the
podcast with the second newly recorded
part my heart goes out to everyone who
has and is suffering in this war
I pray for your strength and for the
long-term peace and flourishing of the
Israeli and Palestinian people I love
you
all this is Alex Freedman podcast and
now dear friends here's Jared
Krishna we did a lot of this
conversation before the Hamas attack on
Israel and we decided to sit down again
and finish the discussion to address the
current situation which is still
developing if I may allow me to SU omiz
the situation as it stands today it's
morning Monday October 9th on Saturday
October 7th at 6:30 a.m. Israel time
Hamas fired thousands of rockets into
Southern Israel the rocket attack served
as cover for a multi-pronged
infiltration of Israel territory by over
1,000 Hamas militants this is shortly
after at 7:40 a.m. the Hamas militans
went door too in Border towns killing
civilians and taking captives including
women and children in response to this
Israeli Air Force began carrying out
strikes in Gaza also fighting on the
ground in Israel to clear out Hamas
militants from Israel territory and
preparing to mobilize Israeli troops for
potential ground attack on Hamas and
Gaza now of course this is what it
appears to be right now and this along
with other things might change because
the the situation is still developing
the IDF is ordering civilian residents
of Gaza to evacuate their homes for
their safety Benjamin n yahu declared
war in several statements and warned
Israelis to brace themselves for a long
and difficult War just today Israeli
ministers ordered a quote Complete Siege
of Gaza interrupting supplies of
electricity food water and fuel from
Israel to Gaza as of now October 9th the
death toll is over 1,200 people and over
130 hostages taken to Gaza by Hamas
uh so as I said the events are rapidly
unfolding so these numbers will sadly
increase uh but hopefully our words here
can at least in part speak to the the
Timeless underlying currents of the
history and uh as you write about the
power dynamics of the region so for
people who don't know Gaza is a 25 mil
long 6 Mi wide strip of territory along
the Mediterranean Sea it borders Israel
on the east and north and Egypt on the
Southwest it's densely populated about
2.3 million people and there's been a
blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt
since 2007 when Hamas took power I could
just summarize that Hamas is a
Palestinian militant Group which rules
the Gaza Strip it originated in 1988 and
it came to power in Gaza in 2006 as part
of his Charter it's SW War to the
destruction of Israel and it is
designated by the United States European
Union UK and of course Israel as a
terrorist group so given that context
what are your feelings as a human being
uh and what is your analysis as the
former senior advisor to the president
under the Trump administration of the
current situation in Israel and Gaza so
I I think you did an excellent job of
summarizing a lot of the the context but
watching what's unfolded over the last
48 hours has been truly heartbreaking to
see we're still in the early stages of
what's developing but seeing the images
uh on X of um you know militants
terrorists going door too with machine
guns gunting down innocent civilians uh
seeing beheaded Israeli soldiers seeing
uh young 20-year-olds at a rave uh a
dance party to celebrate peace uh with
militants flying in and then you know
shooting machine guns to to kill people
indiscriminately uh seeing uh young
children uh captive and then held
prisoner seeing 80-year-old grandmothers
a holocaust Survivor also being taken
captive uh these are just
images and actions that we have not seen
in this world since uh 911 this is a
terror
attack on the scale of which uh we have
not seen and it's been incredibly hard
for a lot of people to
comprehend um my heart goes out
obviously to uh all of the the families
of the victims uh to the families of
those who are held uh in captive now and
uh to all of Israel because one of the
beautiful things about the state of
Israel is that when one Israeli is
hurting the entire nation comes together
uh it's a shame that it's taking an
action like this to unify the nation but
I have seen uh incredibly
uh beautiful signs over the last 48
hours of a country coming together uh
the Jewish people have been under
oppression before uh the Jewish people
know what it's like and seeing people
rally together to uh fight for their
Homeland to to to try to reestablish
safety uh is is um is a very beautiful
thing to watch I wish it wasn't
something we had to watch but it is uh
with that being said though the backdrop
I've been speaking to friends over the
last couple days I have one friend I
spoke with um last night who was saying
that uh you know a good friend messaged
him saying I'm going in we're going to
do some operations to try to free some
of the hostages held in one of the kutes
messaged him the next morning he was one
of the first through the door to try to
free these hostages and he was killed by
a Hamas militant and sadly we're going
to be hearing many many more stories of
Brave Israeli soldiers trying to uh get
these terrorists out of Israel
trying to free innocent civilians who
unfortunately are risking their lives to
do it and um you know they're all heroes
but some will have a less good fate than
others uh sadly so it's a very very
heartbreaking moment um and I do think
that it's very important at this moment
in time for the entire world to stand
behind Israel I think that Hamas has
shown uh the entire world who they
really are I think what they're is what
they're willing to do um and you know
all of the uh strong security that
Israel's put in place over the last
years which in some instances was
criticized I think is now being
validated that um that there was a real
threat that they were looking to deter
so um short answer is my heart is broken
uh praying for peace praying for
strength praying for um praying for
Israel to do what it needs to do to
avoid being in this situation again
which is either eliminating or severely
degrading hamas's capabilities uh there
there cannot be peace in Israel and in
the Middle East while there is a terror
group um that is being funded by Iran
that is allowed to uh flourish and is
allowed to plan operations that are
going to aim to kill innocent civilians
and so as somebody who was formerly in
this position who uh was intimately
involved with Israel with uh the
strategies to to minimize uh attacks
from Hamas and to try to uh turn the
region around and I think we did do a
very substantial job under President
Trump the Middle East went from one of
the most chaotic regions in the world
you had uh Isis uh in 2016 Isis had to
califate the size of Ohio they were
beheading journalists they were um they
were they were killing Christians um
they controlled 8 million people they
were planning attacks um uh all over the
world from their their Cali F they
were uh using the internet to radicalize
people we had the San Bernardino
shooting in America we had the Pulse
Nightclub shooting uh in in in
Orlando and there was real threat and
then you had Iran which was given $150
billion in a Glide path to a nuclear
weapon and they were using their new
found riches to fund Hamas hasbalah the
houthis uh different Rebels uh all over
the the region that were looking to dest
further Syria was in a civil war where
500,000 people were killed Yemen was
destabilized syri Libya was destabilized
and it was just a mess and all of
America's allies had felt betrayed
president Trump came into power we
rebuilt the the trust and the
relationships with all of our
traditional allies and we were able to
eliminate Isis the Cal territorial
caliphate and then we were able to
project strength in the region really go
after Iran's uh wallet uh we were able
to stop uh through through crushing
sanctions a lot of their financial
resources which they were using to fund
all these Terror groups and so we left
the Middle East uh with six piece deals
and and a fairly uh peaceful world so
seeing what's happening I think it was
completely avoidable I think it's
horrible to see that it's occurring uh
and I pray that those in power will make
the right decisions to uh to to to
restore safety but also to potentially
create uh a better Paradigm uh for peace
in the future so I have a lot of
questions to ask uh you about the
journey towards this historic progress
towards peace with the Abraham Accords
but first on this situation to step back
at some of the history uh is there
things about the history of Hamas and
Gaza that's important to understand what
is happening now just your comments your
thoughts your understanding of Hamas I I
think you did an excellent job Lex of of
really giving the summary just a couple
things maybe I'll add to it is that
Hamas was originally found did from the
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt uh which is
a group that's caused a lot of issues uh
in the region um they've uh they've
attacked Israel many times in the past
there's a lot of discussion about how
Israel uh is an occupying power well in
Gaza in 2005 they withdrew from all the
land and then they say Israel's an
apartheid state well Israel then gave
governance of the region to the
Palestinians and then what's happened is
is the Palestinian people's lives have
now gone down not up since then uh I
will say that under uh hamas's
leadership uh in in Gaza the people who
have suffered the most are the
Palestinian people and I see I've I've
watched cries uh throughout my time in
government from people saying we want to
see the Palestinian people live a better
life I agree with those people I think
that the Palestinian people in Gaza are
essentially hostages in uh in Gaza you
have basically 2. you know two million
people that are being held hostage by
30,000 Hamas a terrorists and that's
really the problem and I would just
encourage people to uh to push their
attention and energy in this moment and
their anger towards Hamas those are the
people who are killing innocent
civilians who are uh murdering
indiscriminately and those are the
people who have held back the
Palestinians from having a better life
and just finally what I would say is you
know what we saw with Hamas was that if
you go back to 2007 they basically had
just one plan that they did over and
over and you know we were very careful
to try to monitor very closely and stop
the Iranian money and the resources from
coming in and again we took a little bit
of criticism from the International
Community from keeping the Border tight
but unfortunately every time you'd allow
construction materials to go into Gaza
they'd use them to build tunnels not
homes you would have equipment that
would come in to build pipes they turn
it into bombs so um it was very very
hard to figure out how do you get the
resour resources into Gaza to help
people live a better life while at the
same time the leadership in Gaza was
taking all those resources and turning
it into military equipment to attack
Israel what role does Iran play in this
war in this connection to Hamas it can
you speak to the connection between
Hamas and Iran that's important to
understand especially as this most
recent attack unfolds sure so the
correlation I mean there's reports that
Iran is behind the attack Hamas has has
thanked Iran for their support and um
and it's been very well known that Iran
supports the destruction of the state of
Israel and I won't say Iran as a country
I'll talk about Iran in the leadership
there's actually a beautiful thing I saw
on the internet where at one of the
soccer games in Iran they were trying to
you know rally support for the Hamas uh
Terror attacks and a lot of people in
the crowds were chanting you know Fu to
the regime because I think the Iranian
people the Persian people generally are
peaceloving people who don't want to see
this focus on destruction and
Annihilation but uh you saw this in 2015
2016 when the Iranian government had
resources the region was less safe and
since you know now uh there's been more
resources allowed to go to the Iranian
regime uh by lack of enforcement of
sanctions and as a result Iran is
funding Hezbollah Hamas um they were
funding the houthis now there's a little
bit of a Daton between Saudi and Iran
which has led to that going down which
only further proves that Iran was behind
the houthis which is what the Saudis had
been saying for years and Iran was
denying so there's a very strong um
relationship between the two and we
always knew that the way that Iran
fights Wars or fights conflicts is never
directly it's usually through its
proxies and in this case Hamas has been
a proxy for Iran who wanted to obviously
see the destruction of Israel but also
does not want to see the Israelis and
the Saudis uh come together for a peace
agreement so the name of this operation
of the Hamas operation ation is alaa
flood referring to the aloa mosque how
much of this attack is about the alaa
mosque in actuality I don't think any of
it is but the aloa mosque is is
something that uh all of the uh Shia
jihadists have used for years in order
to justify their actions that are
aggressive towards Israel so uh this is
something I'll maybe even take a step
back and go through when I was working
uh initially in my first year on the
peace plan I was doing a lot of
listening and quite frankly a lot of
what people were saying to me didn't
make sense and the reason why I was
trying to figure out they were talking
about uh sovereignty over ala mosque the
Ala mosque is a mosque that's built in
the holy of holies the Haram Al Sharif
uh in Israel where the the Jewish betam
mdash the Holy Temple was built in a
very religious place about after the
temple was destroyed um then there was a
big mosque built there and it's one of
the more uh holy places in Islam uh now
so uh so the big uh thing everyone was
saying is what do you do with this land
where you have a mosque built over a
very big Jewish site and I was hearing
all of the experts and you know I always
say experts with quotes because only in
Washington can you work on something for
a decade and continue to fail and then
you basically leave and are considered
an expert um but that's one of the
problems with Washington which maybe we
could talk about later but the notion
here was I went and I said let me try to
understand what the issue is with the
Israeli Palestinian conflict with the
people right I always felt the
politicians were a little disconnected
so I commissioned several focus groups
one in in Aman one in Cairo One in Dubai
and one in rala and I asked you know
people U
Muslims what is the is Arab what is the
Israeli Palestinian conflict about and
time and time again the most popular
thing that they said was that Israel was
not allowing access to the mosque for
Muslims to pray and what was interesting
was is that Israel's policy is to allow
anyone who wants to come and pray
peacefully at the SES to come and pray
sometimes they have security issues when
there's provocations um but by and large
since 1967 when Israel um was able to
take back Jerusalem in a defensive War
just to be very clear they were attacked
um in the South and they were attacked
uh uh from from the East and they
basically were able to beat back the
jordanians and the Egyptians and and
then reconquer uh the old city of
Jerusalem and during that time
immediately after uh Israel then passed
the protection of holy places law which
was they basically took resources they
didn't have and they said we're going to
uh restore the Christian sites the
Muslim sites the the Jewish sites and
they worked to allow everyone access to
the mosque so today um any Muslim who
wants to come can come and pray at the
mosque the mosque is um Israel's
acknowledge that King Abdullah uh the
King of Jordan uh is uh is the custodian
of of the mosque and as long as people
want to come to the country and pray
peacefully they're able to do that but
if you look at a lot of the propaganda
that's been used by ISIS or Iran to uh
to recruit um uh terrorists or to
justify their incursions they often say
they're doing it in the name of
liberating the aloa mosque but from an
operational and pragmatic uh perspective
today any Muslim who wants to go to the
mosque you can book a flight to Israel
now through Dubai because there's
flights between Israel and Dubai and as
long as your country has relations with
Israel and they'll accept your passport
in there you can come and pray and
that's what Israel wants Israel wants
Jerusalem to be a place where all
religions can come and celebrate
together but you have a lot of actors
that look to find ways to use these
religious tensions uh in order to se
Division and justify violent
Behavior I wonder how it's possible to
lessen the effectiveness of that
propaganda
message that a lot of the war a lot of
the attacks about access to the alaka
mosque is there something you can speak
to why that message hasn't disseminated
across the the Arab world so Israel is
good at a lot of things they're not very
good traditionally with public relations
um you know after the Abraham Accords
you know we made the first Abraham
Accords deal in August 2020 and then we
made uh five other deals we first did uh
United AB Emirates then we did a deal
with Bahrain then we did a deal with uh
Kosovo then we did a deal with um with
Sudan then we did a deal with Morocco um
and then we got the GCC deal done as
well the deal the the tension between
Qatar Saudi UAE Egypt and Bahrain and
that was allowing us to create a pathway
to then pursue the Israeli Saudi
normalization so we had so much momentum
then that the goal was just keep getting
more countries to normalize relations
with Israel uh once you create the
connection between people and create the
ability for people to do business
together the ability for flights to fly
between then you would just start
naturally having people coming and
everyone has a smartphone today so they
can then post and combat the uh the
misinformation that's been out there but
this misinformation is not something
that's new you know one of the
characters who played a very big role in
in spreading the anti-Semitism and the
violence and uh in Israel in the 1920s
was a guy named Haj Amin Al husseini who
was a known as the grand Muti of
Jerusalem he was uh very close with
Hitler and melini and he was working
with them to try to get some claims to
the Middle East once the Jewish people
were annihilated and what he did for a
very long time was he did the same
shtick only it was before you had
smartphones and YouTube where he would
say the mosque is under intact these
imperialist zionists are coming in to
try to destroy the mosque and he would
use that to raise money from Indonesia
from Pakistan from all over the world
and then use that that threat to justify
recruiting you know groups of young
vulnerable Muslim men and then you know
getting them in the name of of religious
rights to go and kill people which is
not which really is more of a perversion
of the religion than I think the true
essence of what Islam is I think Islam
at its core is a peaceful religion and I
think that's where a lot of the great
leaders in Islam want to take it but the
people who use Islam or the the mosque
or as a justification for violence uh
those are people who I think are are
really um they are disrespecting the the
Islam religion as you said you helped
make major strides towards peace in the
Middle East with the Abraham Accords can
you describe what it took to accomplish
this and maybe this will help us
understand what broke down and led to
the tragedy this week yeah so you know I
always believed in foreign policy I I
learned very quickly that the difference
between a political deal and a business
deal is that in a business deal you have
a problem set you come to a conclusion
and then if you buy or sell something
you either have you know more cash or
you have uh a company so more to do less
to do political problem set is very
different where
you know the conclusion of a problem set
is essentially the beginning of a new
paradigm so when I would think about how
do you how do you move pieces around the
board you couldn't say let me just solve
the problem you have to think about what
happens the day after the signing and
how do you create a paradigm that has
positivity to it so uh the biggest piece
of what president Trump did during his
uh four years in office was uh he really
strengthened the relationship with
Israel number one and he did things like
uh recognizing Jerusalem as the capital
of of Israel he moved the embassy to
Jerusalem he recognized the Goan Heights
he got out of the Iran deal um we did an
economic conference in Bahrain where we
brought Israelis uh to meet with you
know Saudi and Emira and Qatari
businessmen and everyone came together
and and each one of these instances were
Unthinkable previously and everyone said
that if you did it the world was going
to end and every time president Trump
did one the next morning the sun rose
the next evening the sun set and things
moved on and so by doing that what
president Trump did was he he
slaughtered a lot of the Sacred cows of
these these false barriers that people
had erected and showed people that the
vast majority of the people in the
Middle East whether they're Jewish
Muslim Christian whatever religion they
are they just want to live better lives
and so what we basically did was create
a paradigm where the voices for peace
the voices for together now finally had
a forum in where they were able to do it
and we did that in the backdrop the way
we're able to be successful was we
severely limited the resources of Iran
and they were focused more internally
and they couldn't cause the trouble that
they were causing everywhere else since
we've left obviously the Dynamics have
changed but um the the way you get to
peace is obviously number one through
strength and number two by finding a way
for people to be better off tomorrow
than they are today and what I found was
that most of the voices looking for
violence or trouble were people who were
just focused on what happened two years
ago 20 years ago 70 years ago a thousand
years ago people who are trying to solve
those problems in that context uh often
we're we're looking more to use those
past grievances as a justification for
their power and for the bad behavior
that they were looking to perpetuate so
managing as we have talked about
extensively managing the power dynamics
of the region and providing a plan this
is something you did with the economic
plan titled peace to Prosperity a vision
to improve the lives of the Palestinian
and Israeli people can you first of all
describe what's in the plan sure so this
was something I took on uh I was working
on the political framework between the
Israelis and the Palestinians and trying
to understand what were the issues and
the issues were were not very many it
basically was you had a land dispute yes
you had to figure out where do you put
borders ultimately uh you had a security
uh Paradigm which I was much more
favorable to Israel's perspective on uh
and obviously the events of the past 48
Hours have fully Justified that um that
that that bias um and then uh in
addition to that you had to deal with
the religious sites but I felt
operationally that wasn't actually as
complicated as people made it because
you wanted to just leave it open for
everybody then I went through and I I
felt that the Palestinian leadership was
fairly disincentivized to make a deal
because there was just this Paradigm
where for they had been millions of
dollars coming in from the International
Community and I think that they feared
that if they made a deal they would lose
their relevancy internationally and the
money would stop flowing into the
country so what I tried to do is to say
you know my my Approach when I would get
into a hard problem say how do I
understand all the different Escape
patches how do I try to eliminate them
and then build a golden bridge that
becomes really the the only but also the
most desirable pathway for the uh
decision makers to walk through and it
wasn't always hard and sometimes have to
go and you know hold their hand or you
try to pick them up and walk them across
but but but a lot of these leaders are
very reluctant to change um and the
Dynamics of the Palestinians also were
such that uh I think they were fairly
stuck where they were so we developed a
business plan for uh Gaza the West Bank
uh we threw in some some uh improvements
for Jordan and Egypt as well I was based
it off of the vision 2030 uh that they
did in Saudi Arabia which I thought was
a Visionary document I went back through
this process and I studied uh basically
every um economic project in the post
World War II period so we looked at what
they did in South Korea why it was
successful with some strong industrial
planning we looked at Japan we looked at
Singapore we looked at Poland why it was
successful we spent a lot of time on the
Ukraine uh plan for the country and why
it wasn't successful and that was mostly
because of governance and Corruption
which actually resembles a lot of what's
gone wrong uh with the Palestinians
where there's no property rights there's
no rule of law and what we did is we
built a plan to show you know it's it's
not that that hard right in the sense
that between the West Bank and Gaza you
had 5 million people and um and we put
together a plan I think it was about $27
billion uh we got together a conference
I had the head of AT&T we had Steve
schwarzman from Blackstone came which
was very gracious of them with had all
the leading Arabic businessmen the
leading Builders leading developers and
the general consensus of that um of that
of that uh of that conference was that
this is very doable you know we think
that for Gau in particular cost maybe
maybe 7 to to8 billion doar to rebuild
the entire Place uh we felt we could
reduce the poverty rate in half we can
create over a million jobs there um the
only thing that people said was holding
it back wasn't Israel what was holding
it back was governance and people
wouldn't have confidence investing there
with uh with the rule that uh that Hamas
was was perpetuating so I encourage
people actually to look at the plan it
was very thoughtful it was 181 Pages we
went project by project uh each project
is costed out
uh it's a real plan that could be
implemented but you need the right
governance and all of the different
Arabic countries were willing to fund it
the International Community is willing
to fund it because they've just been
throwing so much money at the
Palestinians for years that's never been
outcomes based or conditions based it's
just been you know entitlement money and
unfortunately it hasn't really achieved
any outcomes that have been successful
so it's a great business plan it just
shows too rebuilding Gaza you know could
be easy but like I said you know the
problem that's held Palestinian people
back and that's made their lives
terrible uh in Gaza has not been Israel
it's really been hamas's leadership or
lack of leadership and their desire to
focus on trying to kill Israelis and
start war with Israel Over improving the
lives of the Palestinian people in the
current approach of Hamas the more
violence they perpetrate the more they
can hold on to power versus improving
the lives of people so they as you said
maybe can comment on they do not propose
an economics plan I mean Hamas has been
running it now for 16 years um and they
don't have a lot to show for it and you
know our posture with them was basically
a very simple deal you know if you think
about what's the end state in Gaza um
it's actually not that complicated it's
you know there's no territorial disputes
right the border is the Border there's
no religious issues uh there as well you
know you're not dealing with Jerusalem
uh you're basically just dealing with
the fact that um you know Israel wants
to make sure that there's no threat from
Gaza so it's a demilitarization or some
kind of security guarantee um from a
credible Source where Israel doesn't
feel like Gaza can be used to Stage
attacks into Israel or to uh fire
Rockets into Israel and by the way these
are things I was saying you know three
four years ago uh that that was the
objective and that was really the fear
now that's been proven you know
unfortunately the fear has has
manifested um and in exchange you can
rebuild the place and you can give the
people a much better life but Hamas has
not shown a desire for that or a
capability for that and I don't think
there's enough trust to allow them to do
that which is why you know under the
Karm circumstances if you do want to
have peace there Hamas has to be either
eliminated or severely degraded uh in
terms of their milit military
capabilities I would love to ask you
about leadership especially in the on
the side of the United
States what is um the current
Administration the Biden Administration
done different than the Trump
Administration as you understand uh that
may have contributed to the events we
saw this week so all I can talk about
are are where we left them right we left
them a place where they had tremendous
momentum in the Middle East uh I met
with them during the transition and said
you know look you know we even got the
um the Qatar Saudi conflict done which
was a big no peace between Israel and
Saudi would have been possible without
that so we even got that done uh in in
our lame duck period and um and they
came in and they said look we want to
focus on the three C's which is coid
climate change and China and I said
that's that's great but you know the
Middle East we have an amazing place
right now at stable there's momentum uh
Iran is is basically broke uh we put
such crippling sanctions on Iran that
they went from about I think it was 2.6
million barrels a day of oil they were
selling uh to um to about 100,000 under
Trump so their their foreign Cur foreign
currency reserves were basically
depleted and they were broke uh same
with the Palestinians we stopped funding
to uh to to to the to to unra the UN
agency which is totally corrupt it's
it's you know we've put $1 billion in
there over time I did a poll um in the
Middle East in uh Gaza to say okay we've
invested $1 billion do here as a country
are we popular right uh the US had a 7%
approval rating us Aid had a 70%
approval rating but it just felt like a
waste of our taxpayer dollars and again
we wanted to make it conditions based
the Biden Administration came in uh
number one uh they they they they
started insulting uh you know Saudi and
Russia oil prices went up at the same
time what they did was they stopped
domestic production of oil uh they made
it they disincentivized a lot of oil and
Shale uh uh production uh with
regulations they they stopped pipelines
oil prices went up um they stopped
enforcing the sanctions against Iran
probably to get the oil prices lower to
make up for what they were doing they
ran to Iran to try to make a deal uh
they started funding the Palestinians
again right away and I even said you
know if you're going to fund them if
that's your policy I I respect that
again elections have consequences and uh
you can take a different policy but what
I would recommend is get some conditions
make them do some reforms make them uh
give property rights to people make them
you know do real economic Investments
for people but they just went right away
so they were funding the Palestinians
not enforcing the sanctions uh and then
overall just projecting a lot of
weakness uh in the region so uh one of
the the most um embarrassing examples is
what happened in the United Arab
Emirates again an amazing probably one
of America's best allies over the last
you know 20 30 years uh they fought with
us in in Afghanistan they were the first
Muslim country to stand up and do that
after 911 because they didn't want it to
be a war of the West against uh against
uh the Muslim uh Muslim religion so they
joined the fight because they saw it as
a fight between right and wrong uh they
have rocket shot into their country uh
from from from uh from uh from from the
houthis and they basically don't get a
call from the US for 17 days they need
their equipment that they buy from the
US which creates job in the US they need
it restocked we don't call so they've
severely degraded the trust that we had
to rebuild with our allies I think
they've been working now to get it back
they after two years started working
with with Saudi and Israel uh which I
think was good you know I think that
they realized after uh stint that maybe
the the process that President Trump had
created in the region was the right
policy and keep in mind you know
president Trump's policy was uh that I
was working on was very strongly
criticized uh during the first three
years before we're able to achieve the
results because it was departure from
the failed policies of the past and so
first there was Return To those policies
appease Iran um let's criticize Saudi
Arabia then they started embracing and
working on the Israel Saudi deal which I
was was was really exciting I think
we're all very excited about it um but
they did it in public and I think that
that also was something and I didn't
have access to their intelligence so
assumed that by doing it so publicly
they thought that they'd either had to
deal with Iran because they were letting
them get all this Revenue where Iran
wouldn't be a problem but one of the
reasons with the Abraham Accords we kept
it so quiet during the whole time was
because we always felt like the
troublemakers in the region particularly
Iran who we thought would would be
disadvantaged by having uh UAE Saudi
Israel altogether Israel's uh nuclear
power you have you know other strong
economies it Iran seeks instability they
seek looking to create uh division in
the region and if you can create that
economic sphere where you have security
from hia to Muscat from Israel to Oman
all the way through with Saudi Jordan
UAE Qatar um Egypt that's an incredibly
powerful block if you can make it secure
and then get economic integration that
really could be a Middle East that
thrives so Iran obviously wanted nothing
to do with that and that's why they've
been working to disrupt so I think the
Administration has they took an
incredibly stable situation with
momentum I think they
underestimated um the uh the the way
that Iran would approach the region to
undermine I think they gave way too much
rope to Iran and I think that they
didn't seize when they had an
opportunity of strength with the
Palestinians to try to drive to a
conclusion that I believe could have
prevented uh us being where we are today
not to mention that you know even just
three weeks ago I mean it's a bad look
that they uh they just you know
basically gave $6 billion doar to Iran
uh in exchange for hostages and then
Iran's basically funding these Terror
attacks are killing American citizens
you have uh in Israel and um and it's
just it's a heartbreaking situation
again totally avoidable and one that I
think has been uh very badly mismanaged
to date if Trump was currently president
you were still working with him on this
part of the world
what actions would you
take what conversations would you have
what ideas would you be working with in
order to unite the the various allies
that you mentioned in the Middle East
over this tragedy and um not let it be a
thing that divides the Middle East but
uh make it a thing that catalyzes
progress towards peace further progress
towards Peace So I want to say one thing
Lex I have a lot of friends who are fans
of trump we not fans of trump but one
thing I want to say with absolute
certainty is that if president Trump
Trump was in office this never would
have happened and uh when President
Trump was in office anyone who supports
Israel uh or who wants to see you know
Jewish people not be innocen slaughtered
uh he would never have allowed that to
happen it did not happen when he was in
power and I hope people recognize that
um as as something that's that's very
very true um how I would play the ball
where it lies right now keep in mind we
we transferred the ball it was on the
green now it's almost like it's gone
back you know 15 yards and it's in a
sand trap I think the way that I would
play the ball right now is uh number one
is you have to show strength I actually
think uh President Biden's words were
the right words I see that they're
moving uh aircraft carriers to the
region again the purpose of having a
strong military uh I believe obviously
you know if you get into a war you want
to win the war but the purpose of a very
strong military primarily is to avoid a
war um I don't know what kind of
credibility the Biden Administration has
uh to show the strength but right now
you have to um support Israel completely
you have to really um let people in the
region know that there'll be
consequences if they uh if they if they
try to escalate again we saw a little
bit of Rocket Skirmish from Lebanon from
Hezbollah um but again this is the type
of thing that they have to know there'll
be severe consequences if they make this
a multi-party fight uh and I think
sending a strong message to Iran I think
that they have to see some consequences
from this and know that they're not
going to be allowed to have a free reign
to cause instability and that you know
Iran doesn't usually fight face to face
they usually do it through proxies um
but let's just all be honest about where
this is coming from and let them know
that there will be a consequence if they
um if they instigate these actions and
again at least with the Biden
Administration they've had contact with
Iran they've been talking with Iran uh
but they've allowed Iran I mean again
the number I saw last year I think under
Trump the number was maybe like four or
five billion dollars of oil revenue and
in total I think last year it was
something like $45 billion in Revenue
this year I think it'll be even more
that's a combination of them driving up
oil prices but also allowing much more
sales uh you would think that they would
find a way to get them to behave and
allow them to to have this happen or if
that's not the case then be tough go
back to being tough that's what you have
to do building off of Abraham Accords as
you mentioned uh Israel Saud
normalization there's been a lot of
promising progress towards this what
does it take to uh not allow this
tragedy uh damage the progress towards
Israel solity normalization I think
right now it's probably not the best to
think about that I think that we want to
think about that after whatever is going
to happen is going to happen now I think
right now the number one priority for
Israel has to be to uh fully regain uh
Security in the country and then number
two is to figure out how you can like I
said eliminate or degrade uh the Hamas
capability or other Iranian threats to
make sure that you have your security
apparatus I think that the Israeli
leadership right now should proceed uh
with that and I don't think that they
should be thinking about normalization
with Saudi at this moment um my instinct
and I've been watching this Israeli
Saudi uh normalization play out
obviously just speaking with people and
seeing what I've been reading um and
watching with great excitement I think
it would be a game Cher for the region I
think it's uh it's one of Iran's worst
nightmares to have Israel and Saudi uh
Interlink together I think it'd be great
for the Saudi people from a security
perspective what they're discussing with
America would be uh very strong the
ability to you know get uh different
elements across would be incredible so
what I would say with it is that the
industrial logic um held yesterday and I
think it will hold again tomorrow so um
you know I always expect countries to
act in their interests I think that uh
the deal that's on the table right now
between Saudi Israel and America is in
saudi's interests it's in America's
interests and it's in Israel's interest
uh what's going to happen now though is
uh the political Dynamics are going to
shift and I think that you know as we've
seen with political Dynamics they come
and go I think um let's get through this
moment um and then I hope at the right
time that those talks will be able to
resume and conclude in an appropriate
way and you know it's funny Lex when I
was working on the US
Mexico uh agreement for the trade you
know we would have every day there'd be
a you know TW that would go out or there
would be an issue I mean people forget
how how intense it was between um
America and Mexico and I would speak to
my counterpart of Mexico after a rough
day and you know we're working on
something we're making progress it'd get
blown up and I'd speak to them and say
you know what look they're not moving
America they're not move in Mexico let's
just you know let's stop for today let's
pick up tomorrow and let's find a new
way to bring this forward so I would
just encourage everyone working on that
not to give up uh to keep working hard
at it um and to find a way but like I
said I would take a little bit of a
pause for the for the time being let's
let the current situation play out and
then hopefully uh there'll be a way for
it to move forward I just hope there's
still people on the US side picking up
the phone and
calling uh UAE Saudi Arabia just as
human beings as friends as allies and
just keeping that channel communication
going cuz I uh maybe you can correct me
but I just feel like there's just simple
human dynamics that play out here the
divisions can form and just run away
from you over simple
misunderstandings over
um just inability to see a
tragedy uh from the same perspective
because of conversations that could have
happened but didn't happen I think
there'll definitely be communication but
you know words on phone calls is is only
worth so much it's really you know trust
between people and power and obviously
when you're in a position of power you
represent your country country and your
country's interests but the ability to
have trusting relationships where people
feel like they're okay taking you know
more risks to help each other uh that's
actually what's most important so
communication I hope for but uh you know
deepening and trusting relationships uh
that's what I believe makes progress and
keeps people
safe and we talk quite extensively about
the value of trust and negotiation and
just working with leaders which I think
is a fascinating conversation and you've
taught me a lot about that
let me ask you about the end here what
are the various trajectories this war
can take in your view uh what are some
of the end States as you've said which
are
desirable and are
achievable I I mentioned this earlier
but whenever I would get a problem set
in government I'd always think through
from a first principles perspective
what's the logical outcome right and
forget about all the reasons why it
can't happen that's what everyone in
governments always rush to talk about
but I do think here number one Israel
has to have a secure environment where
they don't feel threatened from uh from
from Gaza and number two is the people
in Gaza need to have an environment
where they feel uh like they can live a
better life and have opportunities so
that's the end State and so I think that
the International Community should come
together I do think that uh the people
who are usually putting blame on Israel
should now realize that maybe they've
been a little bit of harsh here and that
Hamas has been as big a threat if not an
even bigger threat than Israel has been
saying and I do think that if the
International Community comes together
and unites behind Israel and really
forces Hamas and their Iranian backers
to stop hostilities to stop saber
rattling to stop um misrepresenting uh
the history uh in order to justify their
violent behavior and if they say instead
we want to hold you accountable no more
money and they all say that they're
going to stand behind Israel's efforts
to eliminate uh their National Security
threats um and then we will all come
together and only fund again into a
framework that we believe can be a
long-term solution where the Palestinian
people really have a chance to live a
better life that's really the best way
to get there there's tons of complicated
factors uh but that's the end state that
the global Community should be looking
to come together and it's very
achievable it's very very achievable so
there's uh as we stand here today
there's a lot of different ways that
this war can evolve if a ground Invasion
happens uh by Israeli forces of Gaza and
if the number is correct of 100,000
Israeli soldiers do you worry about
various trajectories that can take uh of
the consequences that might have of of
an
unprecedented ground troop attack yeah
so I think as a leader you know you
can't change yesterday but you have the
ability to change tomorrow and that's a
very important uh fundamental I mean
that that's true for all of us not just
leaders but you know we saw with uh with
911 how America was caught off guard uh
by terrorist attack we acted um you know
somewhat rationally somewhat emotionally
uh which led to a 20-year war with
trillions of dollars lost you know that
I think almost a million lives lost not
just American but all lives and it was a
total tragedy what occurred um I think
right now the Temptation is to to be
strong I think that that's that's a
necessity I do think eliminating risk is
the right objective I think the goal
should be to stay very clear about what
the objective is but also um this attack
was very well planned uh not to walk
into another trap I think you have to be
very smart very cautious I've been happy
to see that uh what they've been doing
uh in retaliation so far has been uh
somewhat measured and they've taken
their time to try to assess uh what's
achievable again I don't have access to
the intelligence and you know we're
talking at a very early stage uh in this
conflict so a lot could happen even by
the time this is published but um but my
My Hope Is that um they'll just stay
very focused on what the objective is
and try to make sure that they're acting
appropriately in order to do that and I
will say this too that this has been
different than what I've seen in the
past and that the uh the the attacks
were so um heinous and so um so
disgusting that I've seen the
International Community rally around
Israel more so than I ever have and I
hope that Israel continues to keep the
moral High ground and continue to
communicate what they're fighting for
why they're fighting um and I do hope
that the international community
supports the objective and they can work
together to achieve
it Benjamin and yahu BB somebody you've
gotten to know well in negotiation in
conversation uh he has made statements
he has declared war he has uh spoken
about this potentially being a long and
difficult War uh what have you learned
about the mind and Benjamin and yahu
that might be important to understand
here in this current War BB is
definitely a historic figure you i' meet
with a lot of different world leaders
and some of them I would say they're
they're very very special
transformational figures and some I
would say how the hell is this person
running a country um and BB somebody who
has has done a lot for the state of
Israel he has a tremendous understanding
of the security apparatus he has
tremendous Global relations so for a
crisis like this I think BB's the leader
you want if you're Israel to be um to be
in that seat I think he's um he's
ambitious in what he's going to look to
achieve um he understands his role in
history as somebody who's helped
strengthen Israel economically
militarily and I don't think he wants to
see his legacy
be somebody who left Israel more
vulnerable than it had to be so I think
in that regard he'll be incredibly
strong but I also think that he'll
hopefully be calculating in the risk
that he takes um and not um create more
risk than than needed and that's easy to
say you know the two of us sitting here
having a conversation when you're
sitting in that chair as a leader um in
the fog of War it's a very very um it's
a very hard decision to make uh he's
been here before he um he he knows the
weight of the situation I'm sure he
knows the moment and I pray that uh that
he'll do uh what's right here to bring
the best outcome possible I wonder if
you can comment on the uh internal
political turmoil that BB has been
operating in and how that relates to the
uh the tragedy that we
saw on the one hand the political
turmoil is um
it's a sign of a vibrant democracy I
think it's been um actually nice to see
how people have fought for their country
and their beliefs in a democratic way
you compare that to the Palestinians
where there's no democracy there's no
free speech there's no Free Press um you
know you can't disagree with uh with the
leadership um you know in Israel um if
you want to you know be uh you know if
you want to be homosexual you can have a
uh you can have a go to a parade and
live y