Call Me Back - with Dan Senor Unlocked FM

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Today during one of our regular check-ins with Haviv Rettig Gur, we had some big questions:

I) How is the war actually going? What do we know?
II) Following President Biden’s announcement last Friday, was the proposal he revealed the official proposal that Israel is offering Hamas? And if it is, why did the war cabinet approve it?
III) As for Egypt, do we now have a clearer picture of why Egypt was so hysterically opposed to an IDF operation in Rafah?
IV) And, finally, Prime Minister Netanyahu has been invited to address the U.S. Congress? What’s likely to happen when he comes to the nation’s capital?

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Since October 7, there has been a debate inside Israel about what cost Israelis should pay as a society to get their fellow citizens home, or, what the cost would be to Israeli society if their fellow citizens do not return home.

One perspective we have not heard is that of a professional who led the debriefing of every single living hostage upon return, including children, women and the elderly; those who were held in underground tunnels and those who were held in apartments above ground by Gazan families; those who were held captive alone and those who were held captive with other Israelis; those who were medically treated, and those who were tortured.

Glenn Cohen is that person. He made aliyah to Israel from the United States as a young man and joined the IDF. He had an impressive and improbable career in the military (which we chronicle in Chapter 12 of THE GENIUS OF ISRAEL - https://tinyurl.com/4hpxsx2x).

Glenn was an air force pilot, a Mossad officer, a hostage negotiator, and a special forces psychologist. He served in the Mossad for 25 years, retiring as the Chief of Psychology with the equivalent rank of Colonel. During the current Israel-Hamas war, Glenn served for over 100 days in reserve duty as the head psychologist of a team that debriefed the hostages upon their return.

To reach Glenn Cohen or learn more about his work, visit: https://www.glenn-cohen.com/

Rachel Goldberg Polin's speech that was featured in the episode, can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZX79M3k-L4

To learn more about Hersh Goldberg-Polin: https://m.facebook.com/BringHershHome

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IG: Bring.Hersh.Home

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Earlier this morning, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to immediately halt its military operations in Rafah.

This comes less than a week after the ICC announced that it is considering arrest warrants against Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant, and days after three European countries announced that they will formally recognize a Palestinian State (that doesn’t yet exist!)

In this special episode, recorded just minutes after the ICJ announcement, we were joined by Nadav Eyal (journalist with Yediot in Israel) and by Matt Waxman (Columbia Law School professor and former national security legal official in the George W. Bush administration) to unpack each of these developments.

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In recent days, we have had three persistent questions:

One, how is it that – in just a matter of approximately 10 days – the IDF managed to move anywhere between 850,000 to a million Gazan Palestinians from Rafah to other areas of Gaza so Israel could conduct its operation against remaining Hamas battalions in Rafah? Weren’t we repeatedly told by the Biden administration that it was impossible?

So, our first question is, how did this happen? And what does it tell us about other gaps between the Biden administration forecasts and that of Israel’s when it comes to war-fighting in Gaza?

Our second question is about Egypt. Given what we have learned in recent days, why has Egypt escaped any real scrutiny or pressure over the past 7 months?

Our third question is whether all the heat on the Israeli Government for a lack of a “day after” plan really about the pursuit of a “day after” plan, or is it about deflecting scrutiny from other failures?

To help us answer these questions and others, we are joined by Amos Harel, who has been the military correspondent and defense analyst for Israel's Haaretz newspaper for 25 years. He is among the most well-sourced and thoughtful journalists and analysts covering Israeli security affairs inside Israel. Prior to his current position, Amos spent four years as night editor for the Haaretz Hebrew print edition, and from 1999-2005 he was the anchor on a weekly Army Radio program about defense issues.

Along with frequent "Call Me Back" guest and Fauda co-creator Avi Issacharoff, Amos co-wrote a book about the Second Intifada, called "The Seventh War: How we won and why we lost the war with the Palestinians", which was published in 2004 and translated into several languages, including Arabic.

Amos and Avi also co-wrote "34 Days: Israel, Hezbollah and the War in Lebanon", about the war of 2006, which was published in 2008.

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Haviv Rettig Gur returns for a regular check-in, in which we analyze the emerging political scenarios that might emerge from the moves being made by Yoav Gallant, Benny Gantz and Naftali Bennett.

We also discuss the implications of the crash of the helicopter transporting Iran's president -- what does it mean for Israel and other stakeholders OUTSIDE Iran and what does it mean INSIDE Iran?

Jared Cohen is Co-Head of the Office of Applied Innovation and President of Global Affairs at Goldman Sachs. He also serves on the Management Committee of the firm. Jared is also the most senior Goldman executive to visit Israel since October 7. But Jared did not just visit Israel – and meet with a range of senior Israeli political leaders and security officials – he also was in Ramallah, in the West Bank to meet Palestinian Authority officials and Jordan – just before Jordan participated in the extraordinary multi-national defense of Israel, despite tense relations between the Israeli and Jordanian governments.

And since then, Jared has traveled extensively throughout the Persian Gulf States, where he has a long history of deep relationships.

It was interesting to get a fresh take from Jared on this region in transition.

Prior to joining Goldman, Jared was an executive at Alphabet, before which he was Google’s first Director of Ideas and Chief Advisor to Google’s then CEO and Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. From 2006 to 2010, he served as a member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff and as a close advisor to both Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton.

Jared is a New York Times bestselling author of six books, including "One Hundred Days of Silence: America and the Rwanda Genocide," "Children of Jihad," "The New Digital Age: Transforming Nations, Business, and our Lives," which he co-authored with Eric Schmidt, and, most recently, "Life After Power: Seven Presidents and their Search for Purpose Beyond the White House," which you can order here: https://tinyurl.com/5xm8v7ft

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Paper discussed in this episode: "The rise of geopolitical swing states" -- https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/the-rise-of-geopolitical-swing-states.html