INSIDE THE ATTACK ON IRAN - with Nadav Eyal
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You are listening to an ART Media podcast. There is a consensus in the country that now after October 7, if you have regimes or terrorist organizations that are saying on the record, we're going to destroy Israel and are actually starting to act this way, you simply do not have the time and the resources.

And neither you should have the patience to just wait it out and choose a wait and see policy. And I think that the Supreme Leader of Iran, he didn't understand that. And Hassan Nasrallah didn't understand that. And Yahya Sinwar didn't understand that. So they're dead. The chief of staff is dead. The commander of the Al-Quds Force is dead. The leader of the Revolutionary Guard is dead as well.

The commander of the Iranian Air Force is also dead. The scientists that were leading this secret plan to develop nuclear weapons, they're also dead. And I think that one of the reasons is that they didn't understand how serious Israel is with this doctrine.

It's 1 p.m. here in New York City on Friday, June 13th. It's 8 p.m. on Friday, June 13th in Israel as Israelis begin their Shabbat while they anxiously await an Iranian response to yesterday's attack on Iran's nuclear infrastructure.

Since 3 a.m. Israel time today, this morning, on Friday, the Israeli Air Force has been conducting ongoing strikes targeting nuclear enrichment sites, including the Natanz nuclear facility, as well as military sites, the IRGC leadership, including Hussein Salami, the head of the IRGC, and the army chief of staff, as well as other officers in the high command of the Iranian army and leading nuclear scientists.

The Israeli Home Front Command has since banned educational, social and workplace gatherings as Israelis wonder what an Iranian attack will look like and when it will take place. Throughout the day, more and more has been revealed about the preparations for and the execution of the attack. Although the U.S. initially denied involvement, it is now clear that there was some kind of

coordination, some kind of involvement, and that President Trump ultimately gave Netanyahu the green light. We've also learned that Mossad agents stationed inside Iran managed to set up a drone base near Tehran, which launched drones that struck missile launchers aimed at Israel overnight. The ongoing military operation, which Israel has dubbed Rising Lion, is relying on decades of preparation in the technical and intelligence spheres. We've also learned that

While the story of this war is rapidly unfolding, what's clear is that we are currently witnessing the paradigm of power politics in the Middle East shift dramatically. Thankfully, we have Nadav Ayal, senior analyst at Yediot Akhranot and a Call Me Back regular joining us from Tel Aviv to unpack the historic developments taking place in Israel and Iran.

Nadav, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me, Dan. Before we dive into the play-by-play of this attack, and as more details have been revealed since the emergency episode we taped last night, can you just give us a short recap of what happened, what it means, and what we know? I can definitely not give you a short recap. All right. I can say that Israel is

is now in the process of a historic attack against not only the Iranian nuclear installations, but also its ballistic missiles and many other endeavors of the Iranian regime. This attack has been planned for about two years by the IDF chiefs of staff. It's a complex attack and

we have definitely not seen the end of it as far as Israel is concerned. In these last 16 hours, we have seen these tremendous series of success well beyond what was expected within the defense apparatus. And they are surprised by the way that the Israeli Air Force has managed to maintain the sky of the entire Islamic Republic,

right now with no actual resistance. Everything that Israel attempted to do up until now has been a success. But this is merely the first day. And one of the reasons they're talking to me is to say that they are expecting a ferocious Iranian response, a lethal Iranian response. And they're saying this is a completely different response

situation than the one that we have had with Hezbollah. And they want me to deliver this message to the Israelis that they should not underestimate the type of response we shall see from the Islamic Republic.

And Nadav, you have been clear in correcting analysts and journalists who refer to this as an Israeli operation or as an Israeli strike. You've been saying, no, this is a war. The war against Hezbollah on the fall of 24, that actually, I think by your account, was not a war. That was an operation, maybe a sustained operation. What Israel is doing right now, what is engaging right now with Iran is something much different. Can you explain? Yeah.

Yes, Israel is, first of all, fighting against the country, not against a well-armed terrorist organization such as Hezbollah or Hamas. It's fighting against a civilization. This country is much bigger than Israel. It has a few times the number of civilians that Israel has. This operation is so wide-scale.

so ambitious that it's actually a declaration of war. And you know what? If I need to compare it to any other war in Israel's past, what we're seeing is the six days war. Not in the sense of the results. I don't know how much time it's going to last. And from what I'm hearing, you know, the IDF is saying this could last for months. We don't know. We hope it's going to be short, but we have no idea.

And not even in terms of success, because we're just in the first day. And I know that people back in America, those who care about Israel, are so enthusiastic right now as to the results that the IDF has been showing. But talking with the IDF, they're very modest as to this. They understand it's just the beginning. So I don't know if this is going to be a success as the Six Days War, but it is.

and can be compared to the Six Days War in one important notion, Dan. And that notion is there's a threat out there and what we have learned about this threat. And the Israeli Air Force and the entire IDF was sent to take out what Israel sees as an existential threat, specifically after October 7. There are many people in Israel who might say, "We don't trust this government. We have criticism."

But there is a consensus in the country that now after October 7, if you have regimes or terrorist organizations that are saying on the record, we're going to destroy Israel and are actually starting to act this way, you simply do not have the time and

And neither you should have the patience to just wait it out and choose a wait and see policy. And this is an Israeli consensus and doctrine. And I think that the Supreme Leader of Iran, who's speaking as we are making this recording, he didn't understand that. And Hassan Nasrallah didn't understand that. And Yahya Sinwar didn't understand that. So these two names I just mentioned in the end, they're dead.

The entire chiefs of staff of the Iranian army, the chief of staff is dead. The commander of the Al-Quds Force is dead of the Revolutionary Guard. The leader of the Revolutionary Guard is dead. The entire chiefs of the Iranian Air Force, they're dead and

the commander of the Iranian Air Force is also dead. The scientists that were leading this secret plan to develop nuclear weapons, they're also dead. And I think that one of the reasons is that they didn't understand how serious Israel is with this doctrine. What are the key developments over the past year that led to this moment? So we actually need to begin with about

January to March 2024, slightly more than a year when the Israeli intelligence services start learning that the Iranians are not only enhancing their enrichment, something that they did almost immediately after the JCPOA collapsed, and some would say more so after President Biden was elected and sworn into office, but something else is happening beyond enrichment, which is worrying as of itself.

And that is that the Iranians have started to try and purchase or get to specific ingredients that you use for the weapons group. And the weapons group is the label that you use when you actually assemble a nuclear weapon.

So there are two things you basically need to do. You need to have enriched uranium to a military degree. And when you reach some degree of enriched uranium, let's say 60% or 40%, which the Iranians have reached, it's very easy to go much closer to 90-something percent, and that's enriched uranium in weapons grade. You don't need it for anything beyond a nuclear weapon, Dan.

Now, the other thing is that you actually need to take that uranium and you need to mold it and put it in a warhead or in a bomb. And you need this thing to actually explode in a very synchronized manner to create the chain reaction of an atomic explosion.

And what Israel has been seeing since about January 2024 is that they're trying to get the ingredients more and more. And suddenly the weapons group, which was something that the Iranians kept very quiet about, and they actually, it was a very limited operation, although it always existed.

it suddenly started working. And that, together with public statements with the Islamic Republic, talking about the possibility, playing with the possibility of allowing, religiously speaking, to acquire nuclear weapons, breaking the fatwa of the Imam Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, that said that nuclear weapons are illegal, and this is something they take seriously.

Together, this led senior Israeli defense officials to say that they're extremely worried and that there are these kind of pathological developments as to the Iranian nuclear program. OK, so Nadav, I can't think of another journalist that is more dialed in to how Israel is

may have prepared for this kind of attack than you. Can you tell us what you know in terms of the preparation, how a military and intelligence community prepares for something like this? So it begins when you prepare to something like this, it begins really with the branch of operations within the chief of staff.

So this division of operations is responsible for preparing wars. There's a general there, his name is General Oded Basiuk, and they prepared the attacks against Hezbollah.

And together with these attacks during the war, at a certain point when this troubling information comes in, they are being asked to actually prepare the war plan as to taking out the Iranian nuclear installations alone. Now, you probably remember, Dan, we spoke about this on this show.

that at a certain point, what I hear from the IDF is we can do it alone and we can be effective. And I sort of mark this as the first moment that I heard that the IDF is saying we can do it without the Americans. We need their coordination. We need their backing. I think I said this sentence so many times in conversations with you, Dan, that

but we can do it alone and be effective. To reach that conclusion, you need the intelligence branch and you need the Israeli Air Force. So you have here two divisions of the chiefs of staff and they're working together, basically led through the plans of their operation division. And now here comes the questions.

The main problem of Israel is that it doesn't have the same resources that the U.S. has. The best case scenario is just to attack all of these targets all at once.

take out their air defenses, take out their ballistic missile stockpiles, take out, of course, the nuclear installations, take out some of the military leadership all at once. But Israel can't do that. The U.S. can do that. But it was quite clear that the U.S. is not too interested in doing it completely by itself. And then it's a question of efficiency and ingenuity. And here comes the startup nation. And this is exactly, and I'll give you one example.

So one of the biggest problems that you know all about is the fueling jets, right? You need fueling jets.

It's not that you don't have enough airplanes to attack, enough bombers to attack Iran. You don't have B-2s like the U.S. has, but you do have F-35s, F-16s and the rest. The problem is that you need to fuel them in the air in order to reach Iran. How do you do that if you want bigger and bigger sorties? And one of the conclusions is maybe you can use drones, right?

physically in Iran. Maybe you can have a small base there of drones. Maybe you can have other installations that will be automated and you somehow manage to import them secretly into Iran. And on the D-Day, someone will push a button and they will automatically attack the targets that they had destined to attack beforehand. And this is something that the Mossad did.

and we heard about this. Now, was this a substantial part of this attack? On the greatest scheme of things, not too much. This isn't the pagers operation. But

But this gives you an example of the kind of thinking. Now, there are things out there that I can't say about how Israel actually did it. But one of the things that they understood is that they need to prioritize. And strategy in these kind of operations and preemptive strikes is all about prioritizing where do you begin. Do you begin with Natanz?

Or do you begin with something else? And one of the smart things I think that Israel did here is it decided to decapitate the entire military leadership. So one of the things that the Islamic Republic had as part of its deterrence mechanism is that it had ready launchers with people very much on alert, ready to be given the order to shoot at Israel. These are ballistic launchers and they are also, some of them are also mobile.

And the entire idea there is an idea of deterrence. If you even think about it, we're going to shoot these barrages of ballistic missiles. And the Iranians were very encouraged by their 2024 October on Israel, which was, as far as they are concerned, extremely successful. The October attack, the Iranian attack against Israel on October. Yeah.

Of 24, yeah. In which dozens and dozens of ballistic missiles landed in Israel. They were not intercepted because the Iranians saw that there is a capacity to the ARO and THAAD defensive systems that Israel has. So they understood that considering that Iran is such a big country and Israel is such a small country, it's very condensed in terms of its population centers, that this could be a soft spot of the Israelis.

And they were banking on it. So what did Israel do? First of all, it managed to basically strike, assassinate, kill all the people that could give the order to these launchers to actually shoot at Israel and do this in a synchronized manner.

in terms of time, so that there would be simply no one there to give the order, shoot at Israel the ballistic missiles. Isn't that a version of what was done against Hezbollah? This similar kind of sequencing? Well, not exactly, because in Hezbollah, you remember, it was escalating. So you had the chief of staff of Hezbollah, then you had the leaders of Hezbollah in the south. Only at the end, you got Hassan Nasrallah.

And by the way, Israel is signaling right now, and it's interesting, that it's not aiming on Iran's political leadership, including the Supreme Leader, Hamin Ayi. So when the Israelis did that, because Iran is not a terror group and someone needs to give the order,

When they suddenly woke up and understood they were under attack, all the people that could give the order were dead. And then when they had replacements, these replacements discovered that they don't have launchers anymore because in the meantime, the Israeli Air Force went to priority to take out the launchers.

OK, so this is the kind of prioritization that was done throughout this operation. They also understood that they need to begin with the assassinations of the nuclear scientists, of these kind of military leaders, because they would go into hiding. And I think one of the biggest questions around is why were they in their homes?

or in their bases, knowing that the President of the United States has ordered non-diplomatic staff and family members out of the Middle East. Alright, so what's your explanation for that? So the answer is that Israel has been investing and employing a sort of psychological warfare

and the seat against Iranian leadership. And it planted what one Israeli general said to me was the conception. Do you remember this idea? The conception. So that was the idea that led Israel to the failure of October 7th. So that Israeli general said, we made sure they had their own conception as to when we can attack. And that concept was that Israel will never attack

before the U.S. will allow it to. And since there are negotiations that were due to be held in Oman on Sunday, nothing will happen before Sunday.

You know, it's not about only public statements. There were probably things made here that are still not published. I'm just speculating. To give them the type of intelligence that will lead them to believe that nothing can happen and they don't even need to be in any sort of an alert status. And this is the reason why they were caught off guard in their houses, in their bases, everywhere.

Now, there are other elements that Israel did. One example is what happened to the entire Iranian chiefs of air force. So Israel began the attack. And because of its infiltration as to intelligence in Iran, Israel knew where would the chiefs of its air force would go.

And it made sure not only that they will go to a specific place, it also made sure through some sort of ploy that these chiefs, the Iranian chiefs of its air force, will remain in that house or bunker so that Israel could take them out together.

So what you see here is the result of a huge intelligence project. And the people to be credited here are really the soldiers and the officers of the Israeli intelligence branch, the same branch that failed miserably in October 7th. There was a treasure trove of intelligence that Israel obtained at some point during the war since October 7th.

revealing Iran's plans to some degree. What did that intelligence reveal and what role did it play in Israel's planning? So during the war, two things happened. The first one I already mentioned, we discovered that the Iranians have actual plans as to the weapons group. But the second one is that

Data, information and documents found in Gaza and also in other places showed that the Iranians have an actual plan to what they label the destruction of Israel. You know, death to Israel is a slogan in mosques across the Islamic Republic since the revolution. But this was not seen as an actual plan.

And what the Israelis discovered during the war is that it's very practical and that the Iranians have discussed this with Hamas before October 7 and after October 7 about how this actually will happen.

And these two elements, together with another element, led the chiefs of staff of Israel to be basically in agreement, which doesn't happen too much, as you would expect in a Jewish-majority country. They don't agree on many, many things all the time, but there was an agreement that you need to act now. And the third element that led them to this is that the Iranians decided to be a ballistic missiles empire.

Again, they understood that this is a soft spot of the Israeli society in public and country, state, because of how close is infrastructure to base army bases and of course to civilian populations. And they made huge orders around the world and they decided not only to be an empire of drones, which we know because of Ukraine that they are, but also to be an empire of ballistic missiles.

And basically, the Israeli intelligence branch, led by a general called Shlomi Binder,

came to the cabinet and said, look, there's a window of opportunity here and it's closing. And here's why it's closing. They are developing so fast with their nuclear program and the arms or the weapons group and the enrichment and all the rest that at a certain point, we will come into an area in which we will tell you, look, we don't know what we don't know. We have lost control of the Iranian nuclear project.

And because of that, you need to act right now or this window would close. So to some extent, it's the military brass in Israel that said you need to do this. And I need to credit to that extent, of course, the government that said,

decided to go for it, although the military brass was very clear that, I don't know if I need to credit them, let's see the result of the war, but the military brass was very clear that there would be here, there could be substantial casualties, and they decided to do that. Now, the biggest success here of the government and Prime Minister Netanyahu is the coordination with the United States. And this is something we really should delve into. Okay, so let's get into that because I wanted to get to the U.S. role here. So walk us through what you know.

OK, so first of all, they needed to convince the Trump White House with all we know about who's there, who's not there in recent months, that they would agree and green light this attack. And I want to be absolutely clear about this.

There is no way that Prime Minister Netanyahu would have ordered, together with the cabinet, this attack without President Trump saying you can do it. Because it's the U.S. that we need to coordinate with intelligence, ammunition. You know, if this lasts for three or four months, who's going to supply us the ammunition? We're flying American jets.

And you need, of course, the backing of the United States. And maybe you need them to join. And you also need them to supply an exit strategy. So it's all about the U.S. And the credit goes to Netanyahu. And of course, there's a lot of criticism. I'm voicing some of the criticism about the way that sometimes the war is handled.

Here, Netanyahu did something that every Israeli leader would have wanted to do after October 7. He managed to convince the Americans that they should allow us to do this and they should be involved, but from the back and be ready to go through an agreement or to end this in a certain way or maybe to join in. And as President Trump has said in recent hours, to assist Israel in defending itself against an Iranian retaliation.

And as you, Dan, said in a previous episode, and I think I'm the guy there who agreed with you. We're not going to talk about the other guy. We're going to have him on a different... We can talk about it. It's Amit Sehgal. It's Amit Sehgal. You and Amit were on two weeks ago. Yeah. And you said, Dan, that you just raised the possibility, which I think you knew more than you said, that there might be an agreement between Netanyahu and President Trump to present, to give the appearance of...

arguing over Iran while there is much more of an agreement there. And I thought you were right because I kept on hearing, and I gave that example, I think, I was talking with sources and I was hearing in different media groups that the conversation was extremely tense as to Iran. President Trump sort of warned Prime Minister Netanyahu not to do this and that. And I'm not talking about the last conversation, just last week. I'm talking like three weeks ago. And then I was talking with sources and the sources would go,

We don't think that this is what happened.

It was an excellent phone call and they're very coordinated. I would say, but everywhere people carried this story and they said, well, we don't know why. And this happened again this week, by the way, after you had that episode just a few days ago. Yeah. And then I heard in a news outlet that Trump warned Netanyahu not to do it. And now we know that they were playing this game together. And the end of the game is that it's a very reasonable strategy because

Israel is taking away the nuclear capabilities of Iran. And the U.S. is saying, you want me to join them? I might join them. I don't know. But if you wanted to get an agreement and stop this war, we're here for it. And we're willing to stop this war. So this is a classic good cop, bad cop strategy. And I think it's extremely reasonable for the U.S. and Israel to do.

I don't know if it's going to work. It's very much dependent on what the Iranians are willing to sacrifice. I should say, as we are speaking, that the Israelis are warning the Iranians. As we are speaking, this is coming out. And they have delivered a message to the Iranians that if they're going to shoot ballistic missiles to population centers in Israel...

Israel is going to hit national infrastructure of the Iranians, meaning oil. Yeah. So I want to just regarding something you said a moment ago, I do think there was this heated debate within Israeli journalist circles, American journalist circles, too, that, oh, my gosh, as you're saying, president's not allowing Trump to do it. And there's all this distance and daylight and et cetera, et cetera, which was all nonsense. I think there was a debate between Iranians.

whether to just allow Israel to do it, basically green light, give Israel the green light versus supporting it and really backing it. But that was the basic difference. It wasn't about whether or not the U.S. was going to red light or green light, no matter what Israel was getting the green light. And then it was just a matter of what role the U.S. played. But as it relates, Nadav, to what you just said,

Is the reason Israel did not hit economic oil infrastructure last night and, oh, by the way, the reason it didn't take out the supreme leader, is that largely because – because it sounds like they could have taken out the supreme leader. Is that partly because they want to give Iran a set of incentives to think twice – about which to think twice in terms of their retaliation? Like you now see what we can do.

We've left some assets, both human and physical, that you value highly. You must believe now, Iran, that if we choose to take it out at a time of our choosing, we will. So think twice about how you retaliate. Absolutely. I think this is the message. I'm going to choose my words very carefully now. Israel has a lot of options to escalate, much wider than people anticipate, I think, globally speaking, and also in Iran.

And it's not only about national infrastructure such as oil. Israel has prepared a few alternatives of escalation.

And at the end, after taking out as much of their abilities as Israel can, it wants this to be over and to the Islamic Republic to have some sort of a real agreement with the world now having much less of uranium to negotiate about. This is what Israel is aiming to. And here comes the U.S. And I'm going to say an important sentence, which I'm going to stand behind, I think, in the weeks ahead.

What Israel has begun, only President Trump can end. Explain what you mean by that. I mean that we have started this war. It's definitely, for me as an Israeli, it's a just war. But only the United States as a superpower can lead to restoration of stability and security in the region and make sure that the Iranians understand that this is not going to be the Iran-Iraq war.

They're not going to drag the entire region to some sort of a crusade trying to salvage their national honor because they just lost a lot of their nuclear military capabilities. And the Islamic Republic, I should say...

The Islamic Republic is known to conduct this kind of long-term operations. This is the type of proxy campaign they have been having against Israel for the last 20, 25 years. The Iran-Iraq war lasted for eight years.

The cost was one million people died. The only reason that the Islamic Republic stopped the war, led then by the Imam Khomeini, was because he, and this is his quote, drank the cup of poison and decided to stop the war. And the idea there, why did he use that expression? He said that he did this to save the republic.

So if you really want to make sure that the Iranians stop, reach a ceasefire, reach an agreement and not go into this kind of never ending campaign of response, then

It's the survival of the regime that needs to be on the line. And for that to happen, only the U.S., by suggesting that it could escalate, only the U.S. could be helpful with that. And generally, because the U.S. is the U.S. and because President Trump has said, I'm willing to reach an agreement.

Nadav, what do you think the strategy is now for Israel? Like, talk about the next few days. Are we talking about days and days of waves of attacks by Israel, regardless of whether or not Iran responds?

So the strategy is, first of all, that there are a lot of targets in Iran. The Israeli Air Force has loads and loads of targets that it can take out of the military army. It can do this for weeks on end. It will still have quality targets to hit. But in terms of the nuclear installations, I should say that Fardu is still a huge issue. So I should explain something about this. Natanz is a nuclear installation. It had centrifuges there and

And some of it was underneath the ground. Israel has hit it. It hit it hard. Even before this strike, in the last year or so, when I speak with Israeli defense sources, everybody tells me we know how to handle Natanz. First of all, by the way, it's taking out the Iranian air defenses. We didn't even discuss this. There was this conversation, Dan, we sort of assumed that the country this big as Iran that has air

what was alleged to be the best air defenses in the world, besides those of the Americans, Russian air defenses, they don't, let me put it this way. Again, it's a quote from an IDF officer. They don't know what hit them. They still don't know what hit them in terms of what Israel was preparing here.

So they don't have real air defenses to speak with. The Israeli Air Force is basically right now, until this time that we're speaking, is operating above Iran as it is operating above Lebanon or above Gaza. OK, not above Gaza, but above Lebanon and Syria.

So that's a huge achievement as of itself. Meaning it has freedom of movement. It could just roam there. It can do whatever. I mean, it has a lot of freedom of... For now, it has a complete freedom of movement. For now. So Natanz, that was the challenge and it was taken out. Now you have Isfahan. Isfahan was attacked two hours ago.

As far as I know, it's another nuclear installation. As far as I know, again, it's more for research, less of centrifuges. And as far as I know, it was hit very hard and successfully. Now there's Fordew. Iranian press is reporting explosions near the holy city of Qom, which is where Fordew is. And just explain the nuclear capability or the nuclear assets involved.

or related assets in Fordow is that they're very difficult to penetrate. They're buried deep underground. The understanding is that Israel does not have the capabilities, or so the theory was, to hit the nuclear assets in Fordow. Yeah, exactly so. Fordow is a challenge.

And let's say, Dan, that there is a plan as to for do. Israel knows what's the plan. The people I'm speaking with hope it's going to be successful. But this is one of the challenges that still lays ahead. Maybe some of it tackled already.

already, but there are some challenges there for Israel that are still technical. I simply can't talk about this too much at this point. The bottom line is this. If the Islamic Republic wants to continue on fighting, the Israeli Air Force will have enough targets. The question is, how hard was their ballistic ability hit and their nuclear installations? And I would specifically point you to a speech made by Steve Witkoff.

The night before, he was in Hatzalah fundraiser in New York, if I'm not mistaken. And I was listening to that speech.

And I was already in Israel, had my reasons to be in Israel at the beginning of June. And I was listening to the speech and I was struck by Witkow saying that not only the nuclear enrichment is an existential threat to Israel, but also the Iranian ballistic ability.

And I was taken aback because it was the first time I heard any American official in history saying the ballistic ability. And this was definitely something that the Israelis were pointing to as to the threats on them. And by him signaling that this is also a legitimate target of such a campaign,

It gave me more clarity, let's put it this way, than an attack is imminent. So here's the question. When the chiefs of staff convene tomorrow morning, the day after, and they're going to ask Chief of Intelligence Romy Bindel, you know, how much did we take out? How many years? You know, give us the bottom line. How many years did we take them back? You know,

I guess that it's a few years. It's a few years. But here's the thing. And now I'm turning to be less optimistic or I would say content because this is what my security sources are saying. Could they rebuild? They can. Can they rebuild much quicker? They can. Can they break to a boom in the next couple of years, two, three, four years, even after this attack? The answer is yes. Yes, they can.

So what did you do here? And the answer is you made sure that they understand that we're not going to agree to it and we're not going to live and see what happens if they are marching slowly towards being a threshold country, not in terms of enrichment, but in terms of the actual weapon to enrich.

And now it's not only Israel's problem. It's the world's problem. It's the international community's problem. And Israel is not going to agree to that. And it's showing its power and it's building its credibility in the region and its deterrence. And everything that happened since October 7 is about deterrence.

Tal Becker, who was on the podcast most recently, but he was a couple earlier this week, but he was also on a couple months ago, made the point that Israel, he believes, had overly relied on deterrence in the past. And one thing that has transformed since October 7th is now Israel, I mean, relies on deterrence to some degree, but it's also sent a message that it's not solely going to rely on deterrence, that it's actually going to actively go and remove threats.

And that's the other thing. Hezbollah, Hamas hitting the Houthis, obviously moving with tremendous ease, shall we say, in Syria. And now what it's done to Iran is sending a message that we're not only going to rely on deterrence. We, Israel, are going to actively go remove threats. And that is that is a new world. I think so. And I agree, of course, Tal is such a

His insights are just brilliant. I do agree that it's not only about deterrence, but also on capabilities. And this is, by the way, one of the conclusions of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. You can't go only with the intentions of the enemy and deterring the enemy. You also need to take a hard look at what they actually have and operate as to that. But considering the neighborhood that we are at, Dan...

We can't work only with taking capabilities all the time or we would be in an endless war. They need to understand what happens if you fund for so many years an international and regional campaign against Israel. That's the bottom line, you know, and sometimes when talking with just I've never talked to anyone in the regime in Iran, but I did talk with the Iranians.

And sometimes I would get this, you know, it's only slogans, death to Israel, death to America. Ordinary Iranians or elite Iranians would tell you, we'll never open a real war against Israel. We don't mean it and all kind of this kind of stuff. And of course, they were either lying in the sense that they knew that their country is having this widespread campaign aimed at destroying Israel and killing as many Israelis as they can.

or they weren't aware of it. But the bottom line is that Iran is now paying the price

not only or mainly even for enriching uranium, but for what they did, for their on-the-record support for the October 7 attack, for their on-the-record policy. Who defends them today in the world, even with Israel being so isolated, so criticized around the world? Look at the response, for instance, of President Macron in France.

That's a great example. You know, he issued a statement basically supporting Israel. And he also canceled his... His little summit on a Palestinian state, yeah. Yeah, and of course, some Arab countries across the region, including Saudi Arabia, condemned Israel and...

And some people took seriously the Saudis and the UAE reproachment with Iran. Well, I can tell you from my own private sources that the only thing they're not doing in terms of their happiness as to the Israeli attack is dancing in the streets on the record.

But they are just overjoyed by this as long as it doesn't hit them. This is really important for them, right? That the Iranians are not going to respond against Saudi Arabia. They're not going to respond against the UAE. By the way, some of the commanders that Israel took last night were the commanders that ordered the attack against Saudi Arabia in 2019.

And Israel was very deliberate in mentioning at the IDF spokesperson announcement as to these assassinations that we have killed the people who ordered the attack against Saudi Arabia. And that was a message to MBS. Yeah. All right, Nadav, we will leave it there. I'm sure we'll be having you back on in the next few days. But until then, thank you and stay safe. Thanks very much, Dan. Shabbat shalom. Shabbat shalom. Shabbat shalom.

That's our show for today. If you found this episode valuable, please share it with others who might appreciate it. Time and again, we found that our listeners are the ones driving the growth of the Call Me Back community. So thank you. And to offer comments, suggestions, sign up for updates or explore past episodes, please visit our website, arkmedia.org. That's arkmedia.org, where you can deepen your understanding of the topics we cover.

Call Me Back is produced and edited by Ilan Benatar. Sound and video editing by Martin Huérgo and Marianne Calis-Burgos. Our director of operations is Maya Rakoff. Research by Gabe Silverstein. Our music was composed by Yuval Semo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor. ♪♪♪