On This Back Story with Dana Lewis, Invaluable insights from IDF spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner. We examine the intricate strategies of the Israeli military, the weight of international pressure, and the efforts towards mitigating civilian casualties amidst the war with Hamas. A closer look at a battlefield that's as dense with people as it is with political complexity.
And Soufan's Senior research fellow, Colin Clark discusses Israel's duty to protect civilians, the crucial distinctions between Israeli and Hamas actions, and the urgent need for a political resolution, as well increased terror threats globally.
On This Back Story with Dana Lewis, Invaluable insights from IDF spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner. We examine the intricate strategies of the Israeli military, the weight of international pressure, and the efforts towards mitigating civilian casualties amidst the war with Hamas. A closer look at a battlefield that's as dense with people as it is with political complexity.
And Soufan's Senior research fellow, Colin Clark discusses Israel's duty to protect civilians, the crucial distinctions between Israeli and Hamas actions, and the urgent need for a political resolution, as well increased terror threats globally.
Hi everyone and welcome to another edition of Backstory. I'm Dana Lewis.
Colin Clarke/Soufan Center:But the images are devastating that are coming out every day and I think there's growing concern, at least in the Biden administration, to say nothing of this kind of growing chorus internationally, that the Israelis very much risk losing this war in a strategic sense, even as they gain whatever minor tactical victories they think they're gaining by targeting Hamas high value targets.
Lt. Col. Peter Lerner/IDF Spokesman:So the way Hamas has developed over the last 16 years from a terrorist organization to a terrorist government requires a significant I would say substantial paradigm change. With the powers of government, they created a terrorist army that came into Israel on the 7th of October. With the powers of government, they were able to create a terrorist industry that devise, develop and launch huge rocket attacks against Israel, even to today.
Dana Lewis / host :On this Backstory. Gaza, the war rages. 80 to 90 percent of the Palestinians who live there have been displaced. Hamas leadership is hiding underground. Aid is lacking. Some of it has been taken by Hamas instead of going to desperate gasses. 137 Israelis are still kidnapped in Gaza held by Hamas. 1200 Israelis were killed October the 7th when Hamas terrorists attacked southern Israel. So far, as many as 17,000 Palestinians have been killed. How does it end? No end is in sight. No real political dialogue for what happens the day after war in Gaza. On this podcast, colin Clark from the Sufans Center, but first the IDF spokesman. All right, idf spokesman. Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner joins me now from Israel. Hello sir, how are you? How are you doing? Thank you, we're doing good, but can you explain to me why the focus on Han Yunus now? Is that because the leaders were born there Mohammed Diff and Yahya Sinwar and by killing them and I know there's a lot of intelligence effort being focused on that now by Israel by killing them, what can you achieve?
Lt. Col. Peter Lerner/IDF Spokesman:So the focus of our operation since day one has been on centers of gravity. Hamas is governing capabilities and instruments. So, of course, after dealing with Gaza City, after engaging in Jabalia, after increasing our activities in the last few days in Shorjaya, where there are substantial battalions, substantial forces, it makes sense to develop that operation also into other areas. And Han Yunus and the area of Han Yunus and areas in the surroundings of Han Yunus have definite, I would say, elements of that system, of that enterprise that Hamas has developed and, of course, for those leaders like Diff or Sinwar, that is their natural habitat to begin with. So there's definitely reason to believe that there's a reason to operate in those areas beyond the individual needs. So these leaders, if we've identified them as the mastermind and Sinwar is the mastermind of the 7th of October attack and he's the person that financed it and gave the green light to go, and Diff is his partner in crime to devise the plan then it makes sense to hunt them down and seek them out wherever they are.
Dana Lewis / host :And if you're successful and I assume you know long term you have a pretty good chance of eventually eliminating them. What does that say to the rest of their followers and what do you achieve by doing that?
Lt. Col. Peter Lerner/IDF Spokesman:So the way Hamas has developed over the last 16 years from a terrorist organization to a terrorist government requires a significant I would say substantial paradigm change. With the powers of government, they created a terrorist army that came into Israel on the 7th of October. With the powers of government, they were able to create a terrorist industry that devise, develops and launches huge rocket attacks against Israel even today. With the powers of government, they created what they call their naval forces or air forces, which is drone capabilities, naval commando unit capabilities. So that is why taking out the leadership, the planners and the operatives is key to eliminating Hamas from the governing capabilities of Gaza. If we deal with all three levels of those, it will create a better security situation for Israel. It will create an improved security situation for the Palestinians of Gaza that have been living under this regime. So, from our perspective, the end state needs to create that improved security situation for everyone.
Dana Lewis / host :No pressure, no time pressure. I ask that facetiously, because under the international community, the pressure is huge on Israel, whether it's coming from the Americans. Then you have people like French President Macron, who has said that the destruction of Hamas is at cross purposes with protecting civilians. Quote the total destruction of Hamas question mark. Does anybody think that's possible? If it's that, the war will last 10 years, what would be your response to that?
Lt. Col. Peter Lerner/IDF Spokesman:So obviously I don't communicate with presidents and prime ministers, but I do agree that there are ways to fight this war and I also see that the vast global leadership are supportive with the idea that Hamas has to go.
Lt. Col. Peter Lerner/IDF Spokesman:There is no fairy godmother that can wish away Hamas and hope that they just disappear. That can only be done through military force. That military force is being utilized in accordance to the laws of armed conflict in, I would say, an unprecedented battleground. Even the battles conducted in Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria against different, similar jihadi type enemies did not take place in the density, densely typed locations that we have in the Gaza Strip. So of course there's a huge challenge to that. But if we want to achieve our goal in making sure that Hamas never have that power of destruction and death against Israel again, there are no other opportunities, no real options than use of military force. We do acknowledge and do realize that the humanitarian effort goes hand in hand with the operational effort. We do realize and operate in accordance to the laws of armed conflict, which means we are distinguishing between terrorists and civilians. We devise a whole evacuation plan to get people out of Hamas way, specifically because we operate within the laws of armed conflict. There is no indiscriminate fire.
Dana Lewis / host :I mean, can you take me there? Because it's one thing to say that, but how do you actually do it? I've been in Hanunas, gaza City. Those dense streets, potentially some of the walls, like they did in the West Bank and Genine, can be booby trapped. There are people popping up out of tunnels, firing RPGs. How do you mitigate civilian casualties? I understand you're trying to move civilians out of there, but how do you mitigate that and how, under all of these calls for the IDF to be more humanitarian, to pay more attention to the numbers of civilian casualties, how do you protect your own troops on the ground?
Lt. Col. Peter Lerner/IDF Spokesman:So there is a balance. Obviously and primarily, we need to identify and acknowledge that it was Hamas that chose and chooses, continued to choose the battleground where to fight. They don't come out and fight against us. They hide beneath hospitals, they hide beneath schools, they hide in the kindergartens and mosques, they hide in and around UN facilities and they've built this massive hundreds of kilometers they say 500 kilometers of tunnels, tunnels between beneath Gaza, gaza. The Gaza Strip is 365 square kilometers, so that just goes how they perceive their own force in this capability. So once they've chosen this battleground and we're left to fight against them, we have to operate that in an extensive evacuation plan from the specific locations we intend to conduct our battle. Are you thinking more losses or?
Dana Lewis / host :are you in danger? More of your own soldiers now trying to fight a war. That I mean you could do with artillery, you can do with tank fire, but understanding civilian casualties caught in the crossfire, you're obviously trying to mitigate that, but you risk your own soldiers' lives at the same time. You lost what seven yesterday, I think, on one given day.
Lt. Col. Peter Lerner/IDF Spokesman:We have, I think, almost 80 soldiers and officers that have been lost since the ground offensive commenced In Gaza. The reality, of course, is one where we are operating in, in the progress and the advance of the forces is very, I would say, strategic, but also systematic, in a way that maximizes force protection. It is all conducted under the cover of aerial support, it is all conducted with the assistance of engineering units in order to dismantle explosive devices, the tunnel network we found just in the north of the Gaza Strip so far, more than 800 tunnels and access points to tunnels. We've destroyed and dismantled 500 of those, but everywhere we go we're finding more and more, because that is precisely the modus operandi of Hamas.
Lt. Col. Peter Lerner/IDF Spokesman:So we are maximizing force protection on one hand, but also operating under the understanding that we are operating in an urban area. That means we need to safeguard and minimize the civilian casualties by evacuation, by temporary evacuation, to telling specific neighborhoods in specific areas, in specific towns to evacuate, where to evacuate to, but, more importantly, where to evacuate from. Yes, there is a challenge in that. It is a challenge faced, I would say, by most professional militaries today, and I would also say that we are learning from our American colleagues how they conducted their battles and wars in the region in Iraq, afghanistan, in Syria and I would say we are improving on those, precisely because we are trying to minimize the civilian casualties but maintain and indeed achieve our military goals of dismantling Hamas, destroying their operational and terrorist capabilities and their governing capabilities, but also bringing back the hostages.
Dana Lewis / host :And I ask you, the State Department says one of the reasons that Hamas won't turn over women hostages is because of the very fact that they may have done to them what they have done in other areas where, like the music concert, like some of the kibbutzim, that they systematically abused women, they systematically raped women, even though the UN and other international organizations were slow to speak out on that and some still haven't. That may be one of the very reasons that Hamas is slow to turn over those hostages. Can you just quickly address that?
Lt. Col. Peter Lerner/IDF Spokesman:The issue of hostages is a national priority and, of course, a priority for the IDF.
Dana Lewis / host :I can't really elaborate on the reasoning or why Hamas is not handing it over, but addressing the fact that the international community so-called human rights groups, were very slow to acknowledge the human rights crimes against Israeli women when Hamas left the Gaza Strip and attacked southern Israel, and is an extension of possibly the holding of female hostages in Gaza, because of the very reason that some of those women have been abused and raped, and worse.
Lt. Col. Peter Lerner/IDF Spokesman:So there are two questions here. First of all, the treatment of hostages. I would say, first of all, we're demanding that the international humanitarian organizations, and specifically the international committee of the Red Cross, have access to the hostages in order to assess their well-being. So the well-being is a top priority. And the second is how the international community have responded to this brutal massacre against Israel, against Israeli society, Israelis on the border, whether it's men, women, children, elderly and that has absolutely been very slow and there are questions that need to be asked on that. But that's definitely not the military's responsibility to address that issue.
Dana Lewis / host :If I can ask you one more thing, that is that, and you retweeted it, so it goes a little outside of what you're doing on the ground in Gaza and your role as the IDF spokesman. But many people will say that Israel is responsible for elevated terrorist threats in Europe now in Canada and America because of the war in Gaza. Yesterday you had this very dramatic exchange with Congresswoman Stefanik against what she's questioning Harvard and other university professors about whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates their codes of conduct on bullying and harassment, and the president's essentially declined to label such calls as bullying harassment, stating it depends on the context and whether it translates into actionable behavior. Does not the language of annihilation whether you wanna comment on that directly or not does not the language of annihilation of Jews not feed the threat levels? And it is something that, whether it's there, whether it's here, responsible people have to step forward and stop that violent language. That includes everything from annihilating Jews, pushing them into the sea and much more than that.
Lt. Col. Peter Lerner/IDF Spokesman:I probably overstepped on my retweet this morning on that subject. There was a very, very serious concern about what is happening. To connect the rise of violence or antisemitism against Jews to the actions of Israel is, in itself, an anti-Semitic action. So, of course, as a Jew, I feel connected to the family of Jews around the world, and that is why it is, of course, extremely concerning. We have to do better, I think, in the world of identifying, differentiating. We have to do better at accepting that Israel has responsibility to the people of Israel, but also have responsibility to the Jewish people around the world, and I think we try and weigh out those two very important goals together. Israel needs to be able to live in safety and security. The Jewish people around the world need to be able to live in safety and security as well.
Dana Lewis / host :And condemning violent language against Jews obviously is an important thing for political leaders. You don't have to say it, I'll say it and people should be more willing to step out and speak out against it, and I really do appreciate you even attempting to address that question. I know it's some of its politicals. So, lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner, peter, thank you so much for your time and explaining what's going on as best you can, and I really do appreciate it.
Lt. Col. Peter Lerner/IDF Spokesman:Thanks very much, Dana.
Dana Lewis / host :Colin Clark is a senior research fellow at the Sufans Center and focuses on terror, and he's been on this podcast many, many times. Colin, thank you so much for coming back. Thanks for having me. First of all, as we speak, I just want to start with the kind of the latest news. And UN Chief Gautares is trying to invoke a largely unenforceable clause, Article 99, I never heard of it demanding a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. That's what's important about it the outcry over the displacement of Palestinians 80 to 90% of them the hunger, the thirst, the homelessness, the number of civilians dead, over 15,000 now. It seems that Israel cannot continue to hunt Hamas with such a high toll on Palestinians, and yet it is doing just that.
Colin Clarke/Soufan Center:Yeah, you're right, but the images are devastating that are coming out every day and I think there's growing concern, at least in the Biden administration, to say nothing of this kind of growing chorus internationally that the Israelis very much risk losing this war in a strategic sense, even as they gain whatever minor tactical victories they think they're gaining by targeting Hamas high value targets. So international public opinion is very much turning against what Israel is doing and I think the fact that we're seeing images on a daily basis you mentioned 15,000 civilians killed and so the number of dead figures higher than that death displacement it's really just painful to watch what's happening on a daily basis.
Dana Lewis / host :All right. So six weeks ago, when all of this started about that, a military affairs correspondent in front of mine in Israel said we've only got the moral ground for so long and we know that. We know that the window is narrow. This can't go on a long time. So this is not news to Israel either. I mean, they understand the international pressures of this, but do you think that Netanyahu himself and his right wing spouses in his convenient power marriage which allowed him back into power some of them have been shifted now with this war cabinet? Do you think that he is somebody that cares or registers with? And why is that important?
Colin Clarke/Soufan Center:My sense is that Netanyahu, as he always has been, is out for himself. First and foremost, he's been called Teflon, a survivor, all these things, which are almost positive connotations. But why is he needed to survive? Because he's been tarred with corruption allegations and all sorts of other kind of accusations of infor priority. In fact, I wrote an article for El Monitor a few weeks ago. My assessment is that Netanyahu's power grab attempted power grab with the Supreme Court and the judiciary is largely one of the main factors that led to the intelligence failure. And if you watch TV and interviews with Israelis that were protesting week after week after week, including active military members and reservists, they said as much. They said this is impacting military readiness. This is negatively impacting us, and I think we saw that with the response to October 7th.
Dana Lewis / host :What's the danger if Israel responds to public opinion, international pressure and stops this, leaving Hamas in power in Gaza?
Colin Clarke/Soufan Center:Well, I think it's going to be impossible to completely eradicate Hamas. I mean, there was a Washington Post article the other day that said 5,000 Hamas militants out of 30,000 have been killed. My sense is that the group was preparing for this and likely sent out some operational commanders out of the country, perhaps beforehand, maybe to Lebanon, maybe to Iran or elsewhere. So they're preparing for the aftermath, the post-conflict setting. I don't know that the Israelis are. I don't see a military strategy or approach that's tied to concrete political objectives. And again, another factor in a lot of what brought us to this point is the fact that Netanyahu was trying to balance Hamas off of Fatah in the West Bank and to deny both the opportunity for anything tangible. Hamas was in many ways, artificially inflated. In some ways Netanyahu was playing footsie with them and keeping this going, thinking that they were content to deal with the economic benefits and gains and totally misread what this group is about.
Colin Clarke/Soufan Center:It's hard thinking through what a political settlement looks like, but I would say, if you take a step back and look historically, we have to be prepared for some fairly unpalatable figures, including potentially some within Hamas, to be part of a future Palestinian state. People would have said, it's impossible for Jerry Adams, a former member of the IRA Army Council, to ever be in a future British government right where he was with Sinn Féin. Same thing with Nelson Mandela at one point. So look, insurgents to say nothing of the Irgun and Minakam Begin right. The Israelis should know this. Insurgents and terrorists and rebels, and whatever you want to call them guerrilla movements, do transition to politics, and that, I think, is one of the few ways that this is going to be sustainable. If Hamas is totally shut out of a political process, you're essentially condemning to a lifelong splinter group that the Israelis are going to be fighting against.
Dana Lewis / host :I guess the only difference in this case is that we've already been through this. There was a piece of cords the Oslo piece of cords, and Fata largely. But the DFLP, the PFLP, the Islamic Jihad, Hamas were invited into some of that and in some ways did participate in the Palestinian parliament, to begin with, after some of them were jailed by Arafat for blowing up buses in Tel Aviv and elsewhere. So why isn't it morally right and militarily feasible and there's two questions there for Israel to say that's it, Hamas has got to be removed from running Gaza? Whether they can wipe out every single fighter, of course not. But why isn't eradication of them as a ruling authority in the Gaza Strip that is bent on attacking Israel and never participating in any kind of peace process? Why isn't it feasible?
Colin Clarke/Soufan Center:Well. So it's not feasible militarily for the reasons you just alluded to. They're going to remain. They've run a vast tunnel network. Whether it's morally right, I have no problem morally with eradicating a terrorist group, it's more the operational realities. Secondarily, maybe primarily, can something be morally right attacking this group? When you look at the byproduct, when you look at the second order impact of 15 plus thousand civilians killed? You also said what's calling?
Dana Lewis / host :sorry and I don't mean to interrupt, but just before you move on, for that, what's the alternative? Because you can't suddenly put in motion a political process and say, let's talk about a two-state solution, which, by the way, the Israelis, after 1,200 people, are dead and over 200 of them are kidnapped. And how would you suddenly move to a political process that would involve this group that attacks? This group is not after a two-state solution. This group, hamas, is after the eradication of Israel from the river to the sea.
Colin Clarke/Soufan Center:Yeah. So again, if you were to tell me that Jerry Adams would be part of any kind of future government. And there is multiple attempts there too. I mean, we can go back to the Sunningdale agreement in 1973, Angle Irish in 85, Downing Street Declaration 93,. Multiple attempts, multiple failures. We did a study at RAND where we looked at 71 insurgencies from the end of World War II to 2009. The median length of these conflicts was a decade. So it depends how you want to start measuring when this conflict began, when it ended and I agree, If I was in Israel I wouldn't want to even consider that as a possibility. I'm not even making it as a policy recommendation. I'm saying, historically, when we look at these conflicts and how they actually end, the sustainable ones are ones that actually bring bad actors into a government and make those actors responsible for governing in some kind of fashion. Again, not always they're often unsavory actors. But I would ask you, what's the alternative? To fight forever, I mean, if the Israelis haven't eradicated?
Dana Lewis / host :them why? Sorry, if you've asked me, isn't the alternative to bring the more moderate and many ways secular Palestinian authority, FATA and those on board with them, back in to rule the Gaza Strip, even though Prime Minister Netanyahu has said that's impossible and he would never allow it? But isn't that the real solution? That Hamas is pushed out and that Abu Mazen and FATA are invited back to retake Gaza and, if necessary, jail members of Hamas? That won't go along with future peace accords and future agreements with Israel.
Colin Clarke/Soufan Center:Again, if we're talking about feasibility, you're looking at a time now where Hamas is probably more popular than it's been. If you look at the recent exchange of hostages and prisoners, alongside those yellow FATA flags, you saw many green Hamas flags in the West Bank. So I would ask you, is this a democratic election? I mean, who's responsible for this? Will the Palestinians be able to vote? And if they do, is it Hamas or FATA that wins? So look, I haven't seen a clear explanation of what the right solution is here in terms of political settlements. I've been reading a lot, listening to a lot of people much smarter than me, but I think if we don't at least start hammering out the contours of what a future political settlement looks like, then we're already behind the eight ball.
Dana Lewis / host :I agree, somebody has to start and they should have started yesterday, and Netanyahu probably is the only guy that is unwilling to start some kind of political process. But can I ask you just about the threat of terror attacks? Europe is warned of a high threat warning now, and Christopher Wray from the FBI has said red lights are blinking everywhere. He's never seen it like this. And obviously and Soufan, by the way, I think you already know has written a report recently, this week, talking about the manipulation, even using AI, on some of the social media platforms. But the fury, the anger certainly could fuel an attack from extremists and people are are pretty well expecting something to go bang here.
Colin Clarke/Soufan Center:Yeah, I mean, if you look at the warnings from Director Ray here in the United States, if you look at some of the warnings in Europe around soft targets and I just returned from Europe over the weekend, I was there for a week and the chatter among law enforcement professionals, there's a very heightened alert, especially around soft targets and Christmas markets. We've even seen groups like the Islamic State and Al Qaeda attempt to take advantage of the conflict in Gaza, even as both of them have consistently denigrated Hamas as an apostate regime or group for A sitting for elections and B cooperating with a Shia group or a Shia country in Iran. So at the same time they denigrate Hamas, but they're attempting to leverage and take advantage of the collective rage among individuals throughout parts of the West to spur them, to radicalize them and push them over the edge to conduct an attack. In fact, if we don't see some kind of an attempt over the coming weeks, I'll be surprised. There was a 15-year-old in Germany who has recently rolled up for planning to blow up a Christmas market. There was a recent attack in Paris. I think I was reading about another stabbing this morning. So these things are probably inevitable.
Colin Clarke/Soufan Center:The question is, is there something larger. But I would say, if you look at what happened here I think it was maybe the day before Thanksgiving on the US-Canadian border there was a car that crashed and blew up and the immediate concern and really obsession was that it was a car bomb and terrorism. So I would say that terrorism works Psychologically. People are scared, they're skittish, they're on edge, they're looking at things and very worried. So we're already in that kind of phase, we're in that paradigm. I would be really shocked if we don't see some kind of an attempt. Let's hope nothing succeeds. But emotions are high, I think, on all sides. So it's likely that we're going to see something in the West, please be wrong.
Dana Lewis / host :I hope I am. Last question to you You're watching all your internal politics in the United States and the fourth Republican debate last night just doesn't seem to deal with foreign affairs and really what's going on in the world. But how do you see the policy and pressure on Israel playing out as we roll into 2024 under a Biden administration but with a Trump presidency possibly looming out there as well?
Colin Clarke/Soufan Center:Yeah, it's kind of a mess here in the US in terms of domestic politics. Look, the administration has signaled support for Israel as both. It's one of the few bipartisan agreements in this country, particularly in an election year. But at the same time, some of the polls are worrying for the administration Demographically. When you look at Gen Z, when you look at Arab and Muslim Americans who have voted Democrat in the past, who are now saying they're going to sit out the election, and I think there's a perception among the younger generation that the Biden administration has written Israel a blank check and there's American blood on the hands. There's Palestinian blood on America's hands for supplying weapons to Israel that have killed civilians.
Colin Clarke/Soufan Center:That's one of the big narratives and themes that's driving a lot of the protests here in the United States. So I think the administration is in a very tough position and is going to have to really work magic to thread that needle and, of course, with a potential Trump presidency looming in the background, it's a really time of great tension here in the United States and I think you're right, and I watched the debate last night we're not really talking about real issues there. We're fighting over identity politics and transgender and all sorts of things that are. I mean again, I'm a foreign policy expert. That's what I tend to focus on, but I'd say 80% of the things that these candidates are arguing about are really not major issues to most Americans.
Dana Lewis / host :And the candidate wasn't there.
Colin Clarke/Soufan Center:Yeah, which is just bizarre.
Dana Lewis / host :Yeah, colin Clark with the Siobhan Center. Colin, great to talk to you, good to see you.
Colin Clarke/Soufan Center:Thanks, Dana.
Dana Lewis / host :This week was notable when three university professors in America testified before lawmakers about their handling of anti-Semitic incidents on college campuses. Lawmakers Tuesday questioned Harvard University President Claudine Gay, university of Pennsylvania President Liz McGill and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbou about efforts to combat anti-Semitism since the Israeli Hamas War began in October. After the House Committee on Education and the Workforce Hearing, the presidents were widely condemned for refusing to say whether calls for the genocide of Jews violate school policies on bullying and harassment. Calls for genocide are hate speech. Hate speech creates acts of violence. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom to hate and harass. I thought society figured out this a long time ago. It seems we haven't. Not in the case of Jews, but if the same standards were applied to any other ethnic minority, there would have been no doubt in the minds of those university presidents. They had to condemn calls for genocide, and that's a sad state of affairs and clearly illustrates what is rampant anti-Semitism in America and in Europe.
Dana Lewis / host :Now I'm Dana Lewis. Thanks for listening to this week's podcast. Please share it and I'll talk to you again soon. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.