 Welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Feindel. This is Keeping the World Company. We're going to talk about 10 myths about the Israel Hamas War. I'm going to say 10 plagues, you know, for Passover, but I'll say 10 myths today. Each one of these myths needs to be busted. However, some of the myths we're talking about, which came from an article in the Jerusalem Post, was it? Some of them have been overtaken by events. So for this discussion, we have Tim Appichella-Cohoes and Jean Rosenfeld, scholar and esteemed guest. Welcome to the show to you both. Thank you. So let's talk about the hot news first, and then we can see how that connects with the 10 myths. So the question, and I put this to you, Tim, the question is, was this deal for the hostage swap a good one for Israel? Well, you know, Israel, traditionally back in the days, said we would never negotiate for hostages, period. I think that even started during the Munich Olympic Games when the hostages were taken. So it's something that Israel now has to deal with and contend with. And do I think it's on the right path? Not unless all the hostages released, but a partial number for release. This is going to go on for quite some time and it's going to get worse, in my opinion. How do you feel about that? Has Israel been played as an open itself to being played in the future? We have to remember that this is not the first hostage release. More hostages have been released previously. That was unacceptable to the Netanyahu government, and I agree it was unacceptable. It was more like grandstanding and trying to sway the world's opinion. So Netanyahu backed off, became very hard-line, sent in his troops, bombed, engaged in urban warfare and punished Hamas quite a bit. Now this negotiation has been going on behind the scenes, even before the military entry, which is the right way to do things, because you want a battleground situation that's going to influence a negotiation. Israel's done very well on the battlefield. It has done not so well in the hybrid war on the narratives and the PR, but on the battlefield that has made an impact, I think, on the hostage negotiations. And now they have made a substantial agreement, partial, but it's the next step. What you will see in a hostage situation like this will be incremental steps. What does that mean exactly? It's supposed to be additional ceasefires or additional hostages at the rate of what, three to one? It's impossible to say, but if you take the first four and then you jump to 50, it's a substantial increase. Why do I feel, Tim, that as we get into more trades of more hostages, Hamas will be asking for a higher ratio, not three to one, but four to one, or a thousand to one, what have you. And it isn't necessarily going to, and the pain and agony of the families and the parents and children and so forth of the hostages are going to be even more exquisite going forward. I don't have a clear feeling about that, but as we go forward, isn't it going to get tougher on Israel to achieve even what has been achieved in this swap? I would agree. That's why I think Netanyahu basically said, I'm not going to accept any negotiations for hostages, period, or come in with a ceasefire until all hostages are released back to Israel. I think that was his initial position. And obviously he's been persuaded or pressured to accept otherwise. It only gets worse from here as far as you're right. The ratio of what Hamas will expect and basically show the world that Hamas has the authority to bend the will of Israel. This is a great PR coup for Hamas. But B as it said, B as MA, the lives of hostages are extremely important, certainly to the families, but also the world is watching. So Netanyahu is really in a no-win position on this. And so you all just have to accept the fact that he moved off his original position of no ceasefire until all hostages are released. And now that he's off that position, he'll have to accept that which comes. Jean, from the article on the 10 myths, when they talk about ceasefire, I read a few words. The call heard around this before there was a ceasefire or an agreement. The call heard around the world for a ceasefire is neither reasonable nor right. The call must be rejected. A ceasefire now, this is like one or two days before the agreement was made or announced. A ceasefire now would be a victory for the radical Islamist attackers and a defeat for Israel. The call for an immediate ceasefire is, in fact, meant to neutralize Israel, to leave it exposed and weakened against the next attack. Attacks were heard to come from Hamas, Hezbollah, and other proxies of Iran. You agree with that? I was at the opinion when she wrote that a blanket ceasefire was a propaganda coup by Hamas in terms of it being adopted by people in this country and elsewhere. And it was not the right thing to do. However, you start a war with zero sum game with adamant attitudes on both sides. And you have to walk back from that in order to end the war. Now, you have to start a negotiation to get hostages. Originally, it was the zero sum game with hostages. It was release all the hostages by Netanyahu and it was release all the Palestinian prisoners by Gaza. They both walked back from that. So we're in a process where the battlefield has hurt Hamas and they've made a substantial beginning in this negotiation. But it's always an interplay between the battlefield and the hostage negotiation. I don't think people understand that. So when you call for a blanket ceasefire at the beginning of a war, before you get any concession with hostages, that's just wrong. But you can use a notice they're calling it a truce, not a ceasefire. And it's what you call things that counts. Oh, yeah, you bet. A truce is much more than a ceasefire. And so there had to be something substantial that Netanyahu was getting in order to agree with this. And there had to be an estimate on the part of the military that this wasn't going to hurt their battlefield position. So I'm OK with it right now. I'm holding my breath, but I'm OK with it. Tim, what about that battlefield position? What's your view of how this will play out on the battlefield? So we have the Israelis are really all over Gaza City. They've they've looked far and found tunnels. They found tunnels under hospitals and the like. They've had a problem of credibility because the press hasn't really treated them fairly. And that's exacerbated the situation and undermined their negotiating position. But right now, the battlefield, if you froze it in amber right now, where would it go from here? Would the Israelis, you know, retire, withdraw to the Gaza boundary? Or would the Israelis just stay in place with a bivouac in the rubble? What would happen? And will and will that work if they have to start up again? Well, if I were to put myself in Netanyahu's shoes, remember Israel had already occupied Gaza in the past and they wanted nothing more than to get out of there. And they did. So I don't think that environment has changed. I think that it's a no win situation for Israel to stay in Gaza. And I think a lot of their their their mission, if whatever that want to call it to dismantle Hamas simply by just destroying every building that, you know, is there, that's a that's a start for not in Netanyahu's eyes. So I think he wants to get out of there. I think and I didn't know that the word truce was being used. But semantics, you're right, Jean, semantics is critical. And if truce is not a media word that's been interjected, but truly the word that's being discussed in this ceasefire, that is monumental. So let's look at stability as a hopeful side effect of all of this. Myth number three in the in the article that was negotiation, meaning negotiation will have a positive effect ultimately, and I read a couple of sentences to you, Jean. Believe it or not, the same Middle East experts in quotes who brought us the failed approach to handling Hamas are once again, advocating negotiations with Hamas because it supposedly is rational and can be bargained with to achieve stability, magic words, stability. Hamas has an interest in quote, economic peace. They tell us a desire to reach understandings on the release of all hostages and to rehabilitate civilian gods and neighborhoods if only Israel would play ball instead of bombing. The obtuseness now that the author gives opinion, the obtuseness and blindness of these experts is astounding and their shilling for Hamas must be repulsed. They blabber away as if the October 7 massacres never happened as if Hamas's true true intention have not been revealed as if any compromise with Hamas is possible or advisable. Will this lead to stability and economic peace? What are the how the chances of that have been changed by this agreement? Well, you're familiar with the argumentative concept of the straw man. This is a straw man argument there. Who are these experts? Are they actually saying this? This is a this is a written that the writer is trying to put into the mouths of the experts. I don't know any experts that would console trying to negotiate stability and peace with the terrorist organization. That's not the way you deal with it. Do you negotiate? Absolutely. You always put negotiation first in a situation where lives are at stake and you wait and you use patience. But you also use the iron fist at the same time. You can't get anywhere with a terrorist organization by total negotiation and you can't get anywhere with a total iron fist except where we wind up wound up in Munich. And that was not good. So you have to do a very interesting dance between the two of them. And this is what is being done as again, I'm holding my breath. I'm waiting to see so far. I am encouraged from other cases that I have known about. Well, call me an idealist. But I would hope negotiations lead to peace. I would hope that negotiations lead to a new world for Gaza and for the Palestinians also. I would hope that it means rebuild Gaza, come to terms with living together, stop, you know, Hamas would stop threatening to kill all the Jews. And, you know, a new time, a new time in Israel in the Middle East. But I think what you're telling me is now, Jay, you're an idealist. Forget it. It's not going to happen. We only go step by step here and we we don't have grand visions like that. What what's your thought? No one knows how this is going to play out. However, Hamas cannot remain in its current situation. You know, it withdrew from governing Gaza. That's why it left the protection of the people up to the UN. Most of the people in the world didn't know that before this war, Gaza stepped down from government. Nobody was really consciously governing Gaza. They did that because they are totally dedicated to their terrorist tactics and objectives, and they are also in lead with three other terrorist organizations, proxies of Iran. And I've walked this back before saying Iran is, in essence, a ally and proxy of Russia. So we can't negotiate with Hamas, except in terms of the hostages themselves. But we have to work Hamas into a position where it is a weakened terrorist organization and something else has to take its place. You know, Tim, they've been saying that Hamas will regroup. That's the term of art that the media has been using. We'll regroup during any period of ceasefire or truce, what have you. What does regroup mean, do you think? And will they regroup? And what effect will that have should this war need to continue after? Well, I don't think you can kill an idea. And Hamas has an extreme idea. So until negotiations take place where that idea no longer is warranted or has the proper place at the table, there is no regrouping of, excuse me, I said Sinn Féin, there is no regrouping of Hamas in this whole conflict. They're not going to, you know, they're still going to be there. And you can bomb all the buildings you want and kill the people you want. But you're not going to kill the Hamas extremist idea. And I thought of the word Sinn Féin because look at that negotiation between Ireland and England. And Jean, you're right, it took so long to get to that point. Yet there was success with a terrorist organization. And that truce, and we'll say truce, that truce has held on now for quite some time. That agreement, that accord is in place. And I think recently renewed, if I'm not mistaken. So let's learn from other examples. Let's take some other examples and bring them to the table in this Hamas-Israel mess. Exactly. Jean, you want to respond? Yes, I have argued for quite a long time, well before this. We don't look at Israel as a apartheid situation, as a colonial situation. We look to the IRA. We look to the long struggle between England and Ireland. It is the most emblematic of what's going on in Israel, although it's not the same. And so we can't expect exactly the same outcomes either. But we have to look upon this as a very long war. It's been going on already for, what, 75 years? Now, that's time too. And maybe we're getting to the end of it, Tim. Maybe this is end game. We don't know what's going to happen. You never, never predict the future. It has a story and I have enough trouble working with contemporary or near contemporary events, but I do that by applying the principles of my social science field and religion and violence. But I can't do that for the future. I can only say these things have worked in other cases. Let's apply them here. They're most applicable. Let's make the right analysis. Yeah, but you have to look at the dynamic. You have to look at the change and you have to determine whether that change is long term or not. And so in this case, you know, Israel's had a number of wars. In each case, it's been attacked over the past 70 years. And now we have, let me count the ways we have Iran coming out against it and helping everyone who wants to fight with Israel. Hezbollah and Hezbollah is integrated with the government of Lebanon. We have, you know, we have Hamas and the West Bank and now Yemen. And then we have, you know, the public is inflamed all over the Middle East against Israel. There has never been a moment where this dynamic has not been more clear. And that is Israel is a minority. It's being attacked from all sides. It's being attacked with modern high tech weapons. And there's been a coordination of plan among all of these countries and organizations that are attacking it. You'll have to agree with me that it's never been quite like this before. This is new. And the question I put to you is if we draw a line from where it was to where it is, where I know you don't want to make predictions. But where is it likely to go? And it's not like this multi-worldly front war is going to disappear and go back to the way it was in 1948. First of all, this has been going on with Hamas itself for 18 years. Hamas has been bombing Israel for 18 years. There have been three wars with Gaza. So this is long term going on. We have to take that perspective. Secondly, there are bigger players in this. There are a lot of dogs in this one. We can't forget about Hezbollah. We can't forget about Palestinian Islamic Jihad or the Fatah terrorist organization. And we can't forget about Iran and we can't forget about Russia's objectives. I see this as a skirmish in a much larger war that we're undergoing right now that we really haven't seen the forest for the trees yet. And so what these other major powers do is going to weigh into the whole equation. And when you have that many variables, it's very hard to make a specific prediction, except we can say this, Israel is not going to tolerate having Jihadists in control of Gaza. It's not going to tolerate another pogrom or possibility of a pogrom. It's going to strengthen its borders. Unfortunately, it's going to crack down on the West Bank. And that's another totally different situation to be discussed. But in the meantime, for right now, Israel is in defense mode and justifiably so. How about Israel's relationship, Tim, with the U.S.? I can't say that this drives off the list of myths, but it certainly is of great concern to make the assumptions that Israel is strong enough to deal with this multi-front war. We have a good number of people in the U.S. don't agree with Israel. They take it out as anti-Semitism or whatever. This election coming up could determine what the government does or doesn't do to help Israel. It still hasn't been funded according to what Biden wanted to do. And I'm not even talking about Ukraine, just Israel. And so, you can say that we have ships in the Mediterranean, and we're taking the rest of the steps to deal with attacks on Americans in Syria and Iraq, I guess. But the question is whether the U.S. is a reliable partner or whether this affects or will affect Israel's strengths as a military force and as an economy, because all its soldiers are on the front line right now and they're all civilian soldiers. Where does all that go? The U.S. has to be a factor in our appreciation of the situation. Well, I think the United States and I don't know what the polling is on this, and I know we've had previous shows where we don't pay attention to polls or we don't like to pay attention to polls, but I think there's a silent majority that supports Israel versus what the images you see on the campuses of certain colleges in the United States. Certainly pro-Hamas, although it appears they're pro-Hamas, but pro-Palestinian, which are hard to distinguish nowadays. But the bottom line is this. There is a silent majority in this country that adamantly supports the continuation and survival of Israel. And I think President Biden has done more than any other president to carry that flag forward supporting Israel in this effort. I think it will cost them a lot of votes in Michigan. I think it's going to cost them a lot of votes with the under-25-year-old age crowd. And I think it may ultimately cost them his reelection. Who knows? But I think that Congress is a strong supporter of Israel still, and despite the MAGA GOP and their position, I think they'll continue to do so. Dean, one of the myths is about the bona fides of Qatar as a negotiating venue. And that goes for other countries, too, in the region. There seems to be two levels of facade. One is that we really want to see a peace agreement. We'll be a venue. We'll facilitate them for negotiations. Another is we have to deal with our own population, and they don't like Israel. They don't like Jews. And it's kind of an inconsistency to have Qatar negotiate or facilitate the negotiation, but also be the home base for Hamas. What kind of real sympathy can we expect from these other countries? Arab countries and Turkey is a good example, which is sort of like a two-faced foreign policy kind of country. Iran only has one face. And I think Russia has only one face. I'm not sure where Egypt is. I think I like Jordan. I think Jordan is more OK. You know, there are two faces to the Middle East. How is that playing now? And how is that supporting the Palestinian cause for land, if you will, now? And can we rely on it if it appears to be constructive? There are different ways of looking at this and the way I look at it professionally is analytically. And I know from the cases that we have seen before and the principles we've derived from those cases that one of the important players in a resolution of a religious terrorism conflict is a mediator who can speak to the terrorists. And that may mean they have some sympathy for the terrorists. But as long as they're working for the side that's trying to resolve the situation, more power to them. The FBI has utilized people like this in negotiations in situations where they've avoided where hostages are, where they've avoided bloodbaths. It's really essential to have Qatar in the mix. And I said right at the get-go before anything, get Qatar involved. The fact that there are some Hamas leaders seeking refuge in Qatar and staying there, they have to be able to talk to both sides. It's not a question of who you sympathize with. Geopolitically, we have to be realists. We have to deal with the cards we're given. And Qatar is an important mediator. Yeah, I'd like to jump in on that for a second. Jeanne Zapps, I think she's spot on about the importance of Qatar, but Qatar has kind of been compared to Pakistan when Pakistan had full knowledge that Osama bin Laden, the architect of 9-11, was well within their borders and probably would have done anything to dissuade the United States from going in there. And that's why Pakistan was not informed as the raid against Osama bin Laden took place because they couldn't be trusted. Yeah, let's go to the issue, and these are myths also, that the Palestinian people are not all that much integrated with Hamas, that you've touched on this before, Jeanne. They don't necessarily support Hamas, but some people, including the writer of the myths article, believe that they're very closely integrated. And part of that also, I'll hold my next question after your answer to this one. There are some people that think that the Palestinian people are very close to Hamas, and will continue to be close to Hamas. And whatever happens here, they offer a great auger plate for the redevelopment of Hamas because they don't like Israel, they don't like Jews and they do like organizations. We see that they do like organizations and terrorist activities and governments like Hamas. Is there a degree of separation or not? Well, I'll let you know the only two poll results that I know of, and I don't know how stable they are. 73 to 76% of the Israelis don't like Netanyahu. And 73 to 76% of the Palestinians in Gaza do not like Hamas. Now, I can't understand or see how all of this, Hamas's attack on Israel on the blowback, is going to make the Palestinians in Gaza love Hamas more. I think what I have read of Palestinian views and what the Palestinians I've spoken to over the years, they have a common theme. We want our land back. We want our people to have their own self-determination. We don't want the Israelis controlling us and we want them to just get out of the way. But they are not poor square behind either the PA or Hamas. Both regimes have very, very low support among Palestinian people because they have not been effective. They have not been helpful. In your everyday life, you need clean water, you need sewage, you need education, you need your children to have hope. None of that is available for them today. Well, what kind of structure could be in place to provide those things? If not those organizations, what organizations? You know, I don't know the answer to that question. It used to be when the UN was young and it had some clout. It would go into a situation like this with its forces and establish a peacekeeping force, they call them. I'm not sure the UN can do that anymore, but that's one possibility. If it got in front of the Security Council, we know what would happen. Both China and Russia are trying to undermine Israel. You notice that Biden is trying to play nicely with China and trying, that's the right thing to do because we've got to get those two a little farther apart. But the fact is that we don't know who will step into the breach. Initially, of course, it'll be Israel. Yeah, I guess so. Tim, the second question I was going to ask Gene, but I'll ask you instead, is what comes out of this in terms of war crimes? You know, we dwell in the present or the past, but we don't necessarily dwell in what happened on October 7th, which was really horrible. And, you know, as Gene mentioned, Netanyahu is looking at least in part for vengeance as well as to stop Hamas from future attacks. But what about war crimes? Have we forgotten what happened? Is there a mechanism? Could there be a mechanism? You know, we know there's a lot of places in the world where war crimes have taken place and there's been zero accountability for those war crimes, zero. I could make a list for you. And the question is whether we will ever see accountability for war crimes for the individuals who organized the October 7th attack and carried them out. What do you think? Well, I'm going to go with Gene's answer. I don't want to make a prediction of the future on this one. Let me look at the Ukraine war crime mess. Where is that going? Maybe it's still under investigation, but will we actually see arrests and convictions associated with the war crimes committed in Ukraine? Maybe, but, you know, it's the old adage, can you walk and chew gum at the same time? How many war crimes can you handle at any one given time? And so I think this gets passed down to the memory and the foggy memories of the past and it doesn't go forward. The fog of war. The fog of war, I think they call it. Fog of war, but also the fog of memory. It's like we deal in what's happening today. It's very important that they made it some kind of settlement yesterday. At the same time, we haven't heard really much about accountability at all. We don't even think about October 7th much. We talk about what... I think that gets in the way of negotiation, does it not? That's it? Sure. Is that a part of the negotiation, Jean? Not at this point, but interestingly, the UN, I think his name is, they're starting to record war crimes on both sides. They have a list. They do want to pursue it. It is difficult because depending on the outlines of the final agreement of cessation of hostilities, war crimes can also play a part... War crime prosecution can also play a part in negotiations for the end game. If you're willing to forgive something in order to get an end game and a settlement, you will. You can dress it up in any way, any terms you want as reconciliation or a bargaining point or whatever you want, but it's still up or it's in play among all the things that could be offered or given up. If there is no accountability, Jean, doesn't that allow for the repetition of this kind of attack on October 7th or worse? Accountability is great in a world that is primarily ruled by ideals. The ideals that we have supported for 80 years are under attack right now, and you wouldn't see such brutality if that were not the case. And some lack of discipline in our own societies, the death rate just from domestic crime and all of these things that are happening right now are part of a breakdown of idealism and standards and norms. We can't expect to have accountability under these conditions. What we really want is a cessation of the brutality, a resolution of the ongoing repetitive crisis, and we'll just about give up anything for that. Well put, Jean, that's at the core of our discussions over the past several weeks, actually. So time for final comments. You want to leave a message with our viewers and synthesize our discussion, Tim? Well, this topic was about the 10 myths that's currently occurring in between Hamas and Israel. Before the show, I'm not quite certain that I agreed with all the things stated, but the 10 myths certainly have a place in the discussion and hopefully a peaceful outcome of this conflict of this, and there are war crimes involved here. And it's not comforting to know that these might all be forgotten. And to Jean's point, yeah, it could be on the table for reconciliation, these war crimes, but that's kind of hard to swallow. War crime is a war crime, and to think that it could be negotiated away is, for me, it's upsetting, but nevertheless, this is the world that we live in. And to Jean's point, that ideals are soon being displaced by, I don't know, might makes right. And so I just hope that as we move forward that these things are all considered. Oh, wow. I'd like to add one other thing about the myths. The myths in the Jerusalem Times are overtaken by events, a number of them, but they're still worth looking at from the point of view of how people feel about what has happened and where we are in terms of the various inflection points that are in play in the Middle East. And a lot of that has to do with information and misinformation and disinformation and media gaps, if you will. And so it's really important for the media, including us to be as fair and as accurate as we can possibly be because these myths are created by misinformation. That's how you have a myth and what the author is saying it's not true and people apparently believe it's true. And the other thing that comes to me out of this is it's a moving target. These myths are a moving target. If we made a list of myths next week, it would be 10 different myths because the misinformation keeps going on and the story keeps unfolding. So we have to be careful with identifying myths and trying to find resolution for them. Okay, Jean, your summary then, your final comments to our viewers. I think I would like everyone to keep in mind that Russia wants us out of the Middle East. While we're talking about Gaza, Iranian militia in Iraq are stepping up attacks on American service people and bases in Iraq, which have not happened before. It happened in Syria, but less so in Iraq. And there have been people in the military and state department who have said that we need to strike back harder against Iran. But Iran is just like the proxy of Russia. So they want to get us out of the Middle East. What we need to do is keep in mind that we have to solidify our pact with our allies in the Middle East to stay there. One of which is Israel, we cannot give up Israel. Another of which is Saudi Arabia, and that may be unpalatable to people, but we need to keep an alliance with Saudi Arabia because they are the chief enemy and target of Iran. And they control the oil right now. So there's bigger stuff at play here. And it isn't just that we have to support whatever government is in power in Israel, but also try to talk to them and modify their approach where it's not acceptable, such as on the West Bank. But we just need to keep in our minds the larger geopolitical objectives here, that Ukraine and Gaza are related, that Russia wants us out of Eastern Europe, Russia wants us out of the Middle East in order to become more powerful and dominant and to take us out of our position of influence in the world. So, you know, myth or not myth, we still have our objectives. Let's keep that in mind. And feelings, yes, are perfectly legitimate and we have to make whatever concessions we can for hostages or civilian casualties, for hospitals and water. But short of that, we have to keep in mind we have a very, very vicious and persistent enemy at our backs and we're allies with Israel. There's no other way. And we have to see it in those terms. Thank you, Jean Jean Rosenfeld, Kim Appatella for a great discussion. Aloha.