No More Free Cease-Fire for Hamas in Gaza
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Enterprises have an opportunity to position cyber resiliency as a catalyst for innovation and growth. But how is it done? What type of leadership and skills are required? Learn more on the fifth episode of Techfluential, a podcast from Deloitte and custom content from WSJ. From the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch. Israel is back to fighting in Gaza with both airstrikes and land forces again. What prompted the resumption of fighting and what comes next?

Meanwhile, President Trump vows in a social media post that the Houthis in Yemen will be, quote, annihilated as the U.S. continues to strike the terrorists that have been holding global shipping hostage. Welcome to Potomac Watch. I'm Kate Batchelder-Odell, and I'm honored to be back again filling in as your host. I'm joined today by my colleagues Bill McGurn and Elliot Kaufman.

Both are first-round draft picks to help you understand the latest in the Middle East. One of our core aims today will be to help our listeners connect the dots between the fighting in Gaza and the U.S. strikes in Yemen. The common thread is Iran, the conductor of this terrorist orchestra across the Middle East. And the real question is what the Trump administration plans to do about it. With that, we will turn to Elliot to give us the lay of the land. Elliot, some of our listeners may have a dim sense that a ceasefire was in place and now seems to have broken down.

What is the latest happening on the ground and what prompted this latest round of fighting in Gaza? Let me start with the second part of that first. What prompted it? What prompted it is that for two and a half weeks, Hamas had a free ceasefire in exchange for nothing, not giving up any hostages, merely sitting down at U.S.-led talks, but saying no to U.S. offers, Israeli offers, and

dragging out talks. And that, I think, was simply untenable. Israel was not going to be able to sit back and let Hamas talk in peace and quiet without using its leverage, which

which is military force. And the ceasefire deal that Israel had signed previously allowed it to more or less break off the deal at the end of phase one, rather than move into a more permanent phase two, so long as it and Hamas couldn't agree on larger questions. And of course they can't agree on larger questions. So Israel had this right.

It chose not to exercise it for two and a half weeks, which is kind of incredible when you think about it after what Hamas did to start all of this on October 7th. And Israel resumed. So what's happening now on the ground, Israeli officials that I talk to describe this.

Israel's new campaign as a modular campaign. And what they mean by that is they are putting into place piece by piece actions that can be advanced but also withdrawn when or if Hamas comes to terms again for another hostage deal, releasing more hostages in exchange for more terrorist attacks.

It's been only a few days so far, but we've already seen three of these initial pieces. The first one was targeted crime.

airstrikes, hitting senior Hamas political figures. I'm talking Politburo members, a de facto Hamas prime minister of Gaza, also senior internal security figures and military commanders of Hamas brigades, airmen.

and companies. There have been a steady stream of these successful assassinations, and that wasn't happening so much before this latest ceasefire. So what I take from that is that even though the ceasefire may have been

demoralizing for Israelis to see Hamas members suddenly put on uniforms, come out of tunnels, come out of the humanitarian zone and parade around. Israeli intelligence was watching and it picked up a new target bank. The second piece has been retaking perimeter positions north of Gaza, the south,

of Gaza, and also retaking this crucial Netsarim corridor, which Israel built to cut Gaza in two and sort of control movement between northern and southern Gaza. And then third, most recently, is a light ground invasion, really putting Hamas on the defensive in some parts of northern Gaza and southern Gaza. It's not what it once was, but it's expected to keep

increasing the pressure with individual steps that can be withdrawn fairly quickly. Elliot, that's helpful. I'm going to stick with you for one second before we turn to Bill. I mean, how much leverage do you think Israel is gaining here? We do read that Hamas is in a degraded condition, that it is having to recruit new fighters who are far less trained, that they have a fraction of the rockets that they once had. Is Hamas now an integrated enough state that you expect this Israel pressure will be effective in short order?

So Hamas has certainly been weakened. And one sign of that you might look to is that the first day the war restarted, Hamas fired no rockets. The second day, no rockets. And I believe now on the third day, it fired three rockets at central Israel.

Now, on the first day of the war itself, October 7th, 2023, Hamas fired several thousand rockets at Israel. So Hamas capabilities are not what they once were. I would also point to Israel retook that Netzarim corridor I mentioned, retook about half of it in a matter of hours.

Initially, it took Israel much longer to fight its way through there. And from that Netzerim corridor, Israel can operate into northern Gaza and southern Gaza on fairly short order. So being able to retake those positions suggests to me that Israel won the last battle.

ceasefire and hostage deal, it didn't end up making those larger strategic concessions of leaving territory for good, of permanently ending the war. It just had to give up more terrorists, which is painful but can be dealt with. Now, to your question about whether this new pressure will be enough in short order to bring Hamas back to another similar deal,

I have my doubts because everything that I just laid out, Hamas sees that as well. It doesn't want to be played in the same way. If it thought that Israel might not be able to restart its campaign after a couple months

It has a lot of doubts about that now, having seen Israel restart on the ground. So I think it's going to require a lot more pressure than what Israel is currently doing. And for that, I would look at the humanitarian aid, which Israel is no longer allowing in.

They may resume it once they have the civilian population in a designated humanitarian zone run by Israel, but Hamas is being steadily squeezed. That's where I would look for the pressure that gets results. Thanks, Elliot. Let's take a quick listen to what Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu had to say about this latest round of fighting. In the past two weeks, Israel did not initiate any military action in the hope that Hamas would change course.

Well, that didn't happen. While Israel accepted the offer of President Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, Hamas flatly refused to do so. This is why I authorized yesterday the renewal of military action against Hamas. Israel does not target Palestinian civilians. We target Hamas terrorists. And when these terrorists embed themselves in civilian areas, when they use civilians as human shields, they're the ones who are responsible for all unintended casualties.

Palestinian civilians should avoid any contact with Hamas terrorists. And I call on the people of Gaza: get out of harm's way, move to safer areas. Because every civilian casualty is a tragedy. And every civilian casualty

is the fault of Hamas. Bill, that strikes me as a pretty compelling moral case of who's responsible for the civilian casualties in Gaza. Now, obviously, there's a new sheriff in town now that Donald Trump is president, and it's been a pretty big change in the U.S. posture toward Israel versus President Biden. How do you think the U.S. is looking at this round of fighting, and what do you expect President Trump to do in the weeks to come? Well, first of all, I want to say I agree entirely with Elliot on the tactical

decisions that are made on both sides. But fundamentally, the larger strategic issues remain the same. Israel has a position, rightly, I think, that Hamas has no future in Gaza. It cannot be allowed to exist and run Gaza the way it did before. That has never changed.

And they will do tactical things as necessary. I think agreeing to cease fire helped Israel make clear that Hamas is a sticking point. Hamas, for its part, they have hostages. That's their only real leverage. And I think one of the problems is they trickled them out because the day the last hostage comes home, they have nothing to hide behind.

So that's their incentive. Their incentive is to keep them and drag it out and hope, like Elia says, if you drag it out so long, the Israelis are no longer in a position to attack. You mentioned the Americans. That is a big change. Joe Biden second-guessed Israel all the time. You know, when October 7th first happened, he went over to Jerusalem. He said, "With you all the way," and promised support. It really gave some good statements.

But over the years, it was clear he thought the problem in Gaza was Netanyahu, not Hamas. And I think he sort of crimped Israel's style. Now, Donald Trump has clearly understood what's going on and I think clearly backed Israel.

Israel and Netanyahu for what they're doing. He realizes, I think, that Hamas can't be allowed to have control in Gaza after this. How we get there is another question. But it's a big change for Israel to be able to engage in things and not be publicly second guessed by America. Because remember, in the international community, there's so many countries,

scoring Israel for what it's doing in Gaza. So it doesn't have many friends, and it's good to have America as a friend. Hang tight. We'll be right back with more Potomac Watch. Okay, business leaders, are you here to play or are you playing to win? If you're in it to win, meet your next MVP. NetSuite by Oracle. NetSuite is your full business management system in one convenient suite. With NetSuite, you're running your accounting, your finance, your HR, your e-commerce, and more, all from your online dashboard.

Upgrade your playbook and make the switch to NetSuite, the number one cloud ERP. Get the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com slash wallstreet. netsuite.com slash wallstreet. Welcome back. We're going to go now to a different part of the Middle East and talk about the Trump administration's strikes on the Houthi terrorists in Yemen. The Trump administration has been running a pretty intense set of strikes on the Houthis, which have been

targeting commercial shipping, and also for about 15 months fired at U.S. Navy ships in the region with impunity. I mean, when you tally up how many air defense missiles the U.S. Navy was using to deal with these drones and missiles that the Houthis were shooting at them, the U.S. Navy used more in 15 months than it did in basically the 30 years prior to the conflict in the Red Sea. So this is a big deal for the United States, and the U.S. president has basically decided that it will not stand.

So, Bill, I want to ask you about the president's latest comments on this. He posted on his Truth Social that Iranian support to the Houthis must stop immediately. The Houthis will be, quote, completely annihilated. Bill, he seems quite serious about this campaign against the Houthis, which is

again, very different from the Biden administration, which basically would sometimes launch minor strikes, but give so much advance notice and make sure everybody get out of the way, essentially. This seems quite different. Bill, how do you square what Trump is doing in his campaign with the Houthis with some of his views, his different views in the rest of the world? What do you think is animating his special stance here against the Houthis? I don't know, except probably animus toward Iran and recognition that Iran is behind this

and directly threatening American interests. You mentioned Navy ships coming under Houthi attacks. It's really incredible that we've allowed them to get away with it for so long. And it's not just Navy ships, as you mentioned, commercial shipping. So the Houthis are a real threat, not just in the region to Israel and so forth,

but to American ships right now, the Red Sea and so forth. So I think he thinks it's ridiculous that this little group should be able to hold the U.S. hostage. And I think one of the differences between Trump, whether you like him or not, and Joe Biden is Joe Biden never seemed to want a resolution.

to any of the conflicts around the world. He kind of maintained it, like maintained general support for Israel, but a lot of carping whenever they threatened to do something. Trump is more like Reagan in the sense Reagan came in,

and told Judge Clark when they were talking about the Cold War, "I have a simple idea. We win, they lose." I think Trump wants some resolution. In Iran, I think he wants a nuclear deal, and that's a whole separate thing whether we'd get a good one

with Iran, but I think he's not afraid to change the status quo. And Biden was. I think Biden always saw these conflicts as things to be managed, like Ukrainians. Yes, he gave them weapons, but never enough to prevail, just enough to keep fighting. And a lot of windows of opportunity passed because of that.

I mean, again, just to give Trump credit for, I think, starting a campaign here, that was the right thing to do. I mean, there's one, first, the principle of you don't shoot at us with impunity and expect no response. That is a really important message to send to our adversaries all over the world. And two, also, that a small terrorist group can't simply take hostage a global shipping lane and shut down the freedom of trade. So I think that's first to give him credit for that.

Because I am going to ask Elliot, well, look, the attacks haven't stopped yet. The Houthis are firing back. It looks to me like the Trump administration may have to be willing, for instance, to target some of the Iranian spy vessels that have been helping the Houthis launch some of these attacks. And it may not simply be sufficient to just attack the Houthis' radars and weapons stores without getting at really who is enabling these attacks, which is Iran. What do you think? I think that is the key question, really.

And I would frame it this way. Is Trump escalating, intensifying the same Joe Biden strategy, or is he breaking from it? Escalating the Biden strategy is where Biden hit the Houthis lightly, Trump will hit them hard. Okay, maybe that'll work, but maybe it won't. I mean, how much can you do from the air alone?

Do the Houthis have these large targets or are they smaller, difficult to stop a few guys, a few missiles at a time? Do the Houthis care if already poor Yemen is further impoverished? I don't think so. And I don't think that the Houthis' Iranian masters care either. Or will he break from that Biden strategy and say, we're not going to chase after an Iranian proxy?

Maybe that's what Iran wants us to do. Iran arms the Houthis, trains them, finances them, provides them real-time intelligence and guidance. But don't touch us, Iran. Only attack our poor Yemeni proxies. In a way, that's playing Iran's game. And so Trump has threatened on Truth Social to break from that strategy. He said, this is all Iran's

in essence. Our war isn't with Yemen or a Yemeni faction. This is Iran attacking America, Iran violating and restricting U.S. freedom of navigation. Iran will be held responsible for Houthi attacks. Well, saying that on Truth Social is one thing. Acting on it is another. And I like that Trump is saying it,

But until he acts on it, it looks to me like Tehran and the Houthis are calling his bluff. Already, the Houthis have launched several dozen or have claimed to have launched several dozen missiles and drones at a US aircraft carrier, which is an escalation.

On Tuesday, they launched one ballistic missile at Israel. On Wednesday, they launched another. Both were intercepted, but they say they're going to keep firing. In a way, they're daring Trump to make good on his word. And as you said, Kate, as I think National Security Advisor Mike Waltz has said, there are some intermediate options like taking out those Iranian spy ships directly involved in the Houthi operation. Will Trump do it?

Everyone's waiting to find out. Well, it is, I think, notable that Mike Waltz even put that on the table, given that there are certainly elements in the Trump administration that don't want Trump to go after the real source of this terrorism. So we'll have to wait and see. But it's looking pretty clear to us that Trump will have to make good on his promise that Iran will be held accountable for the behavior of their terrorist proxies. We'll take a quick break and we'll be right back with more Potomac Watch.

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See if you qualify at oracle.com slash wallstreet. Oracle.com slash wallstreet. Don't forget, you can reach the latest episode of Potomac Watch anytime. Just ask your smart speaker. Play the Opinion Potomac Watch podcast. From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

Welcome back. While we're on the subject of Iran and talking about the ways in which Iran is responsible for all of this terrorism that we're discussing in different parts of the Middle East,

I do want to turn to Bill and ask Bill kind of your impression of the Trump administration's latest efforts to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. One thing that comes to mind immediately from the discussion that we're having is imagine if all of these terrorist groups in the Middle East had a nuclear umbrella in Iran, how much more difficult of a problem it would be for the United States to deal with. So we know that

Trump has basically set some kind of two-month deadline and wants a real disarmament from Iran. Bill, how do you rate the possibility of those talks? What do you think the president should do to make that a reality? You know, this is an old story. When I was in the White House in 2007—

I remember that we had a big discussion about a speech Bush was giving, and the debate was, which is stronger as a statement? Iran must not be allowed to have nuclear weapons or cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons.

Big debate on the language. So we're still worrying about that question almost 20 years later. I think we really can't have it. I mentioned before the thing the conflict in Gaza shows for asymmetrical warfare is that if you're really outclassed by your enemy, like Hamas is by the U.S. and also by Israel, hostages can level up to score.

And the other one is nuclear weapons. There's a reason Russia is treated differently from Iran and so forth. So it would be a huge difference, a game changer in the Middle East. The other thing when I was in the administration was, you know, everyone thinks of the Middle East as dominated by the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. The real conflict is between the Shia state's

and the Sunni states. And Iran, which is not Arab, is probably the biggest Shia state. And that's a real deadly battle. And the Arab leaders who talked with Bush when I was there, they were always concerned about Iran. I mean, that was their big worry. And I think that hasn't changed. So I want to see...

What Trump does, the Israelis on one of their strikes took out, I think, Iran's air defenses. I would like to see a follow-up strike that really took out, you know, what we think is their weapons program or something. I think now they're weakened. That's the time to hit them, really. Elliot, we're going to have the last word. Why don't you give us the intel you're hearing? I think Trump has been remarkably consistent that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

And so how do you read his latest attempts to bring that a reality? It's very interesting. You know, Iran's supreme leader comes out and says, no negotiations, no talks. That's it. However, the people under him, like his foreign minister, are constantly hinting that if Iran could just get some sanctions relief, then it would come and sit down at the table. It's clear they want relaxation of the pressure, a bribe just to sit down and talk.

And then once the U.S. has sort of shelved or holstered its leverage, then Iran can talk and not make the kinds of concessions that would make a deal worth having. Now, from Trump's own comments and from things you hear from all over the Trump administration, they want real Iranian concessions this time, not just concessions.

arms control, Obama-style deal, setting limits on an Iranian nuclear program that can be easily broken should Iran choose, but actually take away, dismantle Iran's nuclear infrastructure. And to get those kinds of concessions, Trump appears to be starting a serious maximum pressure campaign. A couple quick examples.

Trump has imposed more sanctions on Iran in two months than Joe Biden did in 20 months. And that includes the latest tranche really targeting Chinese and Hong Kong-affiliated entities, which have been doing 90% of Iran's oil export trade.

That's huge. The other thing I would say is going after Iran's proxies and potentially linking them to Iran itself. The Houthis and then Israel simultaneously back to fighting Hamas. Those two campaigns done simultaneously acts as a kind of force multiplier, putting pressure on Iran for nuclear negotiations, which both sides have been dancing around.

I would just finish by saying Obama-style appeasement isn't the only way to conduct negotiations. And it seems like Trump wants to try out a different way. I hope he does. Me too. Thank you both, gentlemen, for joining me. This has been Potomac Watch, and we'll be back tomorrow with more.

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