Joining us now is retired Admiral James Stavridis, former NATO
supreme allied commander.
Thank you for being with us.
We keep saying this is a region on edge and
tensions keep flaring, but it's been somewhat contained Despite that.
Do you see this as maintaining this current level of
simmering containment or are we headed somewhere else?
I think we're going to be OK, OK being defined
as this is not going to explode into a wider
war, Katie.
But the operations now being conducted in the West Bank
kind of draw a line under the fact that Israel
is facing terrorism from Hamas in Gaza, from Hezbollah to
the north, and all the way from down in the
Red Sea by Houthis.
This is yet another axis of threat for the Israelis.
And the second point to be made here is the
Iranian connection.
Looming over all of these threats to Israel is the
specter of Iran.
And that, I think, is why the Israelis are very
focused on getting into the West Bank and rooting it
out to the degree they can.
What is the, I guess, political damage of them doing
this?
I understand they're arguing there is a safety need to
go in there, but what is the political damage of
them doing this at this moment?
It's tactically significant.
What I mean by that is even as the Biden
administration continues to try with immense energy to get the
ceasefire talks landed, here's yet another obstacle that'll be thrown
in the face of it.
Because let's face it, Katie, you can.
You can get to a ceasefire conceivably in Gaza.
But Step 2 is governance is turning it over somebody
that's ultimately got to be the Palestinian Authority.
And when you're the Israelis and you're attacking inside the
West Bank against targets in the vicinity of the Palestinian
Authority, just going to be much more difficult to breathe
life into the ceasefire and above all, to get to
that next step beyond the initial ceasefire.
How do you read Benjamin Netanyahu right now?
There are folks within Israel, former prime ministers, we're writing,
really scathing op eds saying that he doesn't want a
ceasefire.
He he wants this to erupt into a wider war
because he wants to be seen as the Winston Churchill
of Israel.
They say that his future and his ambitions are so
tied to this war that he can't be trusted to
be in charge of it.
I agree with that assessment, which is to say, from
all that, I can see what Benjamin Netanyahu has done
initially responding to the attacks against Hamas, quite understandable.
But the way in which this now goes on and
on and on, the level of strikes, for example, launched
against Hezbollah to the N 100, Israeli aircraft pounding away
up there.
Add to that going into the West Bank in the
middle of what ought to be a period to try
and close the ceasefire.
When you put all that together, that that's not the
defiance of a Winston Churchill.
That's somebody looking for a fight.
And I think it is tied to domestic political concerns
and legal ones that the Prime Minister has.
So Ehudo Merritt, one of the former prime ministers, I'll
bring up his op-ed in particular, is arguing that Netanyahu
is so not to be trusted and and will not
come to a ceasefire agreement.
And because of that, what needs to happen is that
his government needs to step down.
And these are the people that you wouldn't want to
step down.
He wants you have Gallant to step down.
He wants Benny Gantz to step down, walk away from
the government to, I guess, make a point to the
Israeli public that this isn't working any longer and to
put Benjamin Netanyahu under more duress.
Is that a good idea, given who he's currently aligned
himself with already?
That is the far, far right in Israel.
I think that ultimately the Netanyahu government is going to
fall.
Benny Gantz has already left it.
I know him well.
He was their chief of defense when I was in
charge of US Israeli military to military cooperation.
He's already voted with his feet.
I think the key individual that the former Prime Minister
is really directing this toward is Yoav Gallant, the current
minister of defense, former chief of the IDF.
I think it is getting very close to time for
him to step away.
And yeah, the point is well taken.
Won't that simply play into the hands of the right
wing?
I don't think so.
We won't know, Katie, until the Knesset comes back from
its break, probably toward the end of September.
So we've got a month to continue to watch this
bubble.