Gadi Taub: I believed in Oslo [the 1990s Palestinian-Israeli peace process] because I imagined the Palestinians to be like us. I imagined their national liberation movement to be a national liberation movement just like ours. Then reality just exploded outside my window. Tel Aviv is small. So from where I lived back then, when a bus exploded, you could hear it. You’d hear an explosion and from the sirens, you could tell if it was some fireworks or if it was a terror attack.
I supported the [2005] Gaza withdrawal and I still believed that in the end their [the Palestinians’] desire to improve their living conditions would trump their murderous ideology. But that was wrong too. Now it has again exploded in our faces.
As you know, I wrote a book about the [West Bank] settlers, trying to understand them. It was not just an attack on the settlers. I still don’t share their theology, but I do share their political plans now because we have to defeat the Palestinian drive to annihilate us. It’s not a Western-style national liberation movement striving for nation building.
Then you go all the way back to the way they understand Islam. And then you understand when [on October 7, 2023] a terrorist calls his mother in ecstasy telling her, I just murdered 10 Jews with my own hands, mom. Call dad, I want to tell him.
We have imagined them in Western terms and these are completely irrelevant. The West is in bad shape. It keeps talking about the Other, but it cannot imagine anything different than itself. It’s completely narcissistic.
The Other [for the West] is just an excuse to purify yourself morally. The Other are not actual human subjects with their own agendas. Once you respect that they are human subjects with their own agendas and you realize how horrendous and inhuman this particular Nazi agenda is, then it’s a serious wake-up call.
Robert Silverman: How do you see the US role in supporting Israel? What should Israel be doing to maintain the relationship with its key ally?
Gadi Taub: I don’t think that describing the behavior of the United States as “support” is very accurate, although they have done a lot of things for us. But what is most dangerous for us is the US policy in the region, which Israelis don’t pay attention to. They only consider the US role in bilateral terms.
October 7th never would have happened if Biden had not been elected. Because the policy of the past two Democratic administrations is based on the idea: you need to reach an accommodation with Iran rather than defeat it. This was the Obama philosophy. This was the Biden philosophy. In a way, it’s not a big exaggeration to say that this is a policy that’s hostile to America’s allies. Because both administrations want to pull out [of the region]. They don’t want another Iraq. They don’t want another Afghanistan.
But they have two philosophies to support [a withdrawal].. One says to strengthen your allies and they serve as your proxies against your enemies. And the other philosophy says your allies are already your friends and so you need to find accommodation or reach out to your enemies. That leads to thinking of your allies as actually dragging you into unnecessary wars so you need to restrain them, and show your enemies that that’s what you do. And this is what the Obama Administration did, and this is what the Biden Administration did.
The Biden administration, the very first thing they did was take the Houthis off of the terror organization list and stop sending certain weapons to Saudi Arabia which was trying to fight them [the Houthis].
From the first moment of this war, from the “Don’t” speech [during Bidn’s October 18, 2023 visit to Israel], the “Don’t” was directed against Israel, not just against Iran and Hizbullah. If you remember what President Biden said, he said if there is any country or organization which thinks to take advantage of the situation, I’ve got one word for them: “Don’t.” And we read, country: Iran, organization: Hizbullah, oh, very good. But the minute he came here, he made absolutely clear “don’t” includes us. Our press even reported it in a puzzled tone: Where did that come from? “Don’t dare escalate against Hizbullah.” Why? Because any escalation of Hizbullah would lead to a complete collapse of US Middle East policy, which supplied Iran with about $100 billion since they came into office.
Now they’re trying to stop the war without victory, without an Israeli victory. And there’s a plan. At least the chronic anti-Bibi protestors [in Israel] are saying that they’re coordinating with the White House. If I understand the plan, the plan is something like this. Israel will be chastened by not winning this war. Something will remain of Hamas, but it will be weak enough to bring back the Palestinian Authority [to Gaza]. And then a weakened Israel and a united Palestinian leadership would be ripe for American imposition of the two-state solution.
Robert Silverman: Good things happened on April 14 when the Jordanian air force deployed against the Iran missile attack. The Saudis also did a few things. That didn’t happen without coordination from the US. Doesn’t Israel need in this long war you describe a US coordinating role? Israel can’t do it on its own, can it?
Gadi Taub: What happened on April 13, 14 was terrible for us. The United States more or less allowed Iran to attack, and said to Israel, you will fight this war with a shield, without a sword. It is unthinkable for an American ally to be left in the lurch like this. Iran paid no price. Iran changed the rules of the game. Now it is legitimate under these rules for Iran to attack us. And the Americans just said, according to what we know from intelligence sources, they said [to Iran] via the Turks, “don’t exaggerate.”
They keep signaling to Iran that Israel will not be protected. Now they’re telling us that if we make concessions to the Palestinians then the Saudis will come around for a normalization agreement and then we’ll have a grand coalition against Iran. That’s a lie. Because they’re not organizing a coalition against Iran. They’re not even organizing a coalition against the Houthis. Even in the Red Sea what they’re doing is a protective umbrella for the shipping. So it’s all shields, no swords.
Robert Silverman: So your plan then, in order to prosecute this long war that you describe, is for Israel to go it alone, regardless of what happens in November in the US?
Gadi Taub: No, it’s not. I think we have room for maneuver. First, because the American administration is lying to the American public about its Middle Eastern policy. If there is a war with Lebanon, which they are trying to prevent, there is a good chance that they won’t be able to maintain their policy, which confusingly they call regional integration. Who are they integrating? They’re integrating Iran. But if there is a direct war with Hizbullah, you can either expose yourself as supporting Iran against Israel, which would be extremely unpopular with the American public, or admit failure and change your policy.
Robert Silverman: Does Israel have a large enough size of military to occupy Gaza, engage in a war in Lebanon and do other things to deter Iran? Does it have the force structure to do all that?
Gadi Taub: No, not yet. These same generals who are still running the show here have, for the past 20 years, prepared the wrong army for the wrong mission. They’ve cut down on ground forces, which we now desperately need, especially armor. And they have a philosophy that technology will solve everything. They also have a defensive philosophy that we will hide behind technological walls which they can never penetrate. And they should know from any serious study of military theory, defense cannot win wars. In the end, no wall of China will protect you because you sink into a routine and the enemy studies it, and in the end knows your vulnerabilities. And that’s what happened on October 7th.
We need to plan our steps carefully vis a vis the United States, vis a vis other powers, too. And we need to change our lines of supply. We need to manufacture our ammunition ourselves. And we need to get used to the idea that Israel will not be able to maintain a Western standard of living in the foreseeable future. If we are to survive this, we need to be an armed nation and we need to completely change our frame of mind.
This is why I’m in a way optimistic despite what I told you about the completely corrupt military establishment, which is not to the task, which is still trying to find a way to promote the two-state solution, which would never fly with an Israeli electorate. Never. Never again.
Nobody on the right or left is going to put their children near a border where on the other side you think are people like Hamas terrorists. It doesn’t matter if they call themselves the Palestinian Authority or they call themselves Hamas. We now know that the majority of Palestinians in both regions [Gaza and the West Bank] are happy and proud of what happened on October 7th. It doesn’t matter whether or not you are leftist. Are you going to live in Kfar Saba and put your children in a bedroom that’s five minutes away from Road 6 [on the border with the West Bank] and Qalqiliya [West Bank city]? The answer is probably no.
Israelis want to pursue this war to the end. If the American administration thinks it will remove Netanyahu and then get a moderate government, it’s dreaming. Israel is moving to the right. And we will look back at this most right-wing coalition we’ve ever had as a moderate coalition.
