In terms of what we heard today,
I'd love to know first what you think of the
timing and the fact that it was Joe Biden who
made this announcement and not Israel,
right? I mean, well, the timing comes on the heel
of incredible international pressure,
Joe, on Israel to halt this offensive in Rafa of
the pressures coming from the International Criminal Court where of
course,
Israel is not a member.
But still, you know, it,
there is some weight there
having coming from that High Court.
On top of that, our administration,
the US administration, the Biden administration has been putting pressure
on Israel also publicly to halt the effort in Rafa
and declaring a red line that we wouldn't provide any
assistance to Ukraine that would that would be in,
in Rafa, proper. So I think the president felt like
he had to do something.
He may have been worried that the Israelis were not
going to actually take the ceasefire or propose the ceasefire
to Hamas,
and so he was trying to get out ahead of
them.
Or maybe this is actually helpful to Netanyahu to have
the US government come out first and propose it publicly.
Well, it becomes a question of incentives,
Evelyn, after just a few days ago,
earlier this week, we were hearing Israeli officials say it
was going to take them another seven months to finish
the job
with Hamas. What incentive does Israel have to make this
offer and what incentive does Hamas have to accept it?
Well, there is a great incentive,
as I mentioned, on the side of Israel,
because they're really losing the public relations campaign,
if you will. Public pressure on them is intense,
including from the United States,
their number one ally globally.
And the the reality is that the Israeli government,
they have internal pressures as well.
The families of the hostages want to have their family
members home
of the Israeli people, of course are being called up.
The longer this goes on,
it's been 8 months, the more resistance there will be
probably economically from business leaders,
etcetera, especially if Israel doesn't seem to be making progress
on achieving their stated objectives which are getting the hostages
home and destroying Hamas.
The pressure on Hamas is obvious.
It's physical. You know, the Israelis in going into Rafa
and closing that Rafa crossing,
they have essentially made it harder for Hamas to smuggle
materials.
According to the Israelis, that was an area where they
were smuggling materials
into Hamas fighters. So there's increased physical pressure on them.
They're probably, they're probably have been attacked successfully.
We're reading a little bit about that in the media.
But I think, Kelly, the,
the overall problem for most of us watching this is
that we're not really sure how much progress Israel's making.
We don't know what the strategy is.
So we can't measure even any progress that they that
they tell us about
against a strategy. And so it just looks like there's
a lot of human suffering and it's been going on
for too long.
And so the pressure on both sides has mounted.
And hopefully this means the ceasefire agreement will actually hold.
Well, Evelyn, it seems that Joe Biden has had an
evolution
once again when it comes to Ukraine.
And I'd love your thoughts on news from the White
House now that the US will allow Ukraine
to launch US provided munitions against military targets in Russia.
This idea of taking the fight to Russia was seen
as escalatory.
It's limited in scope though.
This will only be around Kharkiv were obviously we've seen
intense fighting and some trouble for Ukraine.
Is it the right move now?
Should it cover the entire country?
What are you making of this?
So I'm gonna sound like John McCain.
It's the right move, you know,
a year ago, years ago.
And it so I'm saying it's overdue.
And the other thing is that we keep drawing these
red lines.
I mean, Russia has drawn some red lines and they
threaten nuclear means all the time,
you know, nuclear, some kind of nuclear retaliation.
But the reality is that the red lines that we
hear about,
you know, we don't want to give this weapon system
or that weapon system,
don't use the weapon system inside Russian territory,
don't use the weapon system in occupied Crimea.
All these lines have been drawn,
frankly, by us because we're so afraid of escalation.
So I'm happy to see that the Biden administration made
this decision.
But Frank, hopefully it's long overdue.
People have been losing their lives and Ukraine is in
danger of losing that city if they aren't able to
take action very soon.
But Evelyn, that fear of escalation you speak of,
is that not warranted? Does the risk of escalation move
higher as a result of this decision?
I don't think, Kelly, it does.
It does move higher as a result of this decision.
You're right that there is always some danger of escalation.
And the the the reward of
taking on the risk has to be balanced against the
potential escalation.
But in this case, I think we all understood those
of us who have watched Vladimir Putin that he wasn't
going to use a nuclear weapon because the weapons we
were already providing to Ukraine would now be allowed to
target military
assets inside of Russia proper.
The Ukrainians have already been hitting refineries and other targets
using their own munitions,
and that didn't cause the Russians to lose their minds
and use nuclear weapons.
So I think the nuclear threshold is still pretty high
in Moscow.
And of course, you can never rule anything out.
But I don't think that Vladimir Putin is suicidal.