Israel stops playing games

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Thursday the 9th of May, 2024. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Up first, red lines in Rafah.

On Monday, Israel’s military seized control of Gaza’s southern border crossing into Egypt. That prevents the terrorist group Hamas from seizing humanitarian aid that comes through the corridor.

MAST: But the United States and others are concerned that Israel may end up blocking aid to Palestinian civilians, more than one million of whom are in Rafah. The U.S. responded by pausing some of the military aid it previously promised.

What does Israel’s new offensive mean for the war in Gaza and relations with the U.S.?

BROWN: Joining us now is Richard Goldberg. He was a member of the White House National Security Council under President Trump, and previously advised Congress on U.S. foreign assistance. He’s now a Senior Advisor for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

MAST: Rich, good morning

RICHARD GOLDBERG: Good morning.

MAST: Earlier this week, Hamas rejected a cease-fire proposal from Israel, but then on the same day the Rafah offensive began, it reportedly agreed to a cease-fire deal. Was that the same deal Israel offered, or something different?

GOLDBERG: It was not. It was materially different. This was a little bit of a head fake and information warfare play by Hamas, as Israel had said, you know, time is up, we've been negotiating here now literally for months, offering negotiating against ourselves offering everything we can think of as many terrorists out of prisons in Israel to be released in exchange for a certain number of Israeli hostages. Then the number of Israeli hostages started going down because Hamas said, well, we don't think we have enough that are actually still alive. And all of these kinds of machinations and negotiations kept going.

And Israel finally said, you know, we look like a desperate party here, and we're not. So we're going to go into Rafah, we're gonna begin a campaign to encircle the city, take control of the Egyptian border, and put more pressure on Hamas to let the leaders know, this can be your endpoint. We can go forward in this operation, or you can do a deal right now. We're not continuing to negotiate any further. Hamas said, No. The Israelis started the offensive, and certainly just, you know, six hours later, [Hamas] suddenly said, Oh, actually, we've accepted a deal. And it was wow, it worked for the Israelis. They got them. They've accepted a deal. Will Israel stop the offensive now?

And nobody asked the question of what deal did they accept? And it turns out, they had a deal in mind where Israel withdraws all of its forces from Gaza permanently, commits to end all military operations against Hamas permanently, doesn't even have to have people who are alive get released out of other hostages can be dead or alive. And for Israel, it's saying, Well, no, we're accepting a temporary cease-fire to do a deal to get more hostages out, but we're not ending the conflict. We are committed to removing you from Gaza. And we're not going to do some deal where it's like a crackerjack box, and we don't know who we're getting. If they're dead or alive. We're gonna wait to open the box. We want proof of life. We want our people back if they're still alive, and we can get them home.

Hamas is playing games. And so Israel's moving forward very methodically and precisely, with their operation in Rafah, not yet a full scale operation that we have expected in the past but slowly starting to get first neighborhoods evacuated, tried to get civilians out of harm's way and cut off any escape routes through Egypt.

MAST: In the past, Rafa has come up a lot. President Biden has reportedly warned Prime Minister Netanyahu multiple times against launching an offensive there. So, Rich, why is Raffa such a point of contention? And has Israel actually crossed the line with this latest move?

GOLDBERG: It's hard to understand exactly why the Biden administration has decided that removing the final battalions that are in place for Hamas, removing its final major command and control centers in Gaza, hard to understand why they are so opposed to Israel doing that. They hide behind the facade of, well, we believe a lot of civilians are going to die, and Israel has no way to do this without massive civilian casualties. That doesn't have the air of truth to me. Because throughout this campaign as they moved from Northern Gaza on southward, the Israelis have always started any offensive by first facilitating the departure of civilians to safer areas, and then taking steps to try to mitigate civilian deaths as best they can, as they pursue Hamas, infrastructure, Hamas leadership.

And so what doesn't make sense to me is why not help Israel accomplish its goals in a way that mitigates civilian casualties and harm as much as possible? Actually doubling down and supporting Israel in a Rafah operation would likely be the fastest way to get Hamas to accept a cease-fire deal.

MAST: A question about the weapons shipments: How does the White House pausing some weapons shipments to Israel—as it’s been reported—square with the fact that Congress just approved spending several billion in aid to Israel?

GOLDBERG: It doesn't square, unfortunately. I mean, it's a $95 billion emergency supplemental that the president pushed Congress for, a lot of money in there for Israel's security, particularly for the replenishment of munitions, the very munitions that the President is now holding back from Israel. Unfortunately, the President is bending to political pressure and his base. And he's he's ignoring—and quite frankly—violating the will of the majority of Congress that just sent him a bill that he signed to ensure Israel has all the munitions it needs.

MAST: One last question, Rich. Is there any other aspect of this story that you think warrants more attention?

GOLDBERG: Well, the one thing I would just remind people is, we're all very distracted right now, in some ways by the various fires that Iran has set in the Middle East. We're hyper-focused on neighborhoods in Gaza, losing focus on broader regional threats like Hezbollah, that is escalating in northern Israel's border; Jordan that's getting flooded with arms from Iran and being destabilized; the threat from the Houthis that continues on a daily basis to the Red Sea. But ultimately, we're being very distracted from Iran's quest for weapons of mass destruction. And I am very worried about it's advancing towards that nuclear threshold line under cover of a weapon of mass distraction, which is all of these fires that it's been setting. And we need to make sure we're not taking our eye off the big ball, off the head of the octopus, and that we are prepared to do what's necessary to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Because if you think we're deterred in the region right now, by Iran and its terror proxies, you won't like what the region looks like and what the rest of the world looks like if Iran acquires nuclear weapons.

MAST: A lot to consider. Richard Goldberg is a former national security advisor and current senior advisor to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Richard, thank you for your time and analysis!

GOLDBERG: You bet!

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