Ep. 166: Israeli colonel has chilling message for the West
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I think that we should do a simple thing. It's an ultimatum. Dear Hamas, we will stop everything to Gaza. Whatever we supply, you will not be able to get. And we will enter back to Gaza unless you return all the hostages back. But there's no other way. Hello, and welcome to Think Twice.

This week, we have an important conversation for you with strategic analyst Grisha Yakubovich, a former IDF colonel with expertise about the Palestinians. But before we start today's program, I want to remind you, as always, to like this video and podcast, subscribe to JNS, and click on the bell for notifications.

Also, you don't have to wait a full week for more of our content. There is a Jonathan Tobin Daily podcast where I share more news and analysis with you about the most significant issues we're facing today. You can find The Daily Show under Jonathan Tobin Daily on the JNS channel wherever you get your podcasts.

Also, JNS's inaugural International Policy Summit will be held this April in Jerusalem. Click the link in the description below to request registration in order to attend. And now to today's program. What does the future hold for the conflict between Jews and Arabs in the land between, as Israel's enemies like to say, the river and the sea?

In the last 16 months, the world has been laser-focused on Gaza and the post-October 7th war, in which Israel has sought to eradicate Hamas in order to prevent more barbaric attacks on the Jewish state, as well as the threat from Hezbollah in the north, as well as Syria from Iran. But what about Judea and Samaria?

What is the situation on the ground there? If you read or watch mainstream corporate media outlets, the only thing you hear about is what they insist on calling the West Bank, is that it's a place where Jews are attacking innocent Arabs.

But the incidence of Arab terrorism against Jews in that area vastly outnumbers those still relatively rare instances of Jews attacking Arabs. And most of those involve situations where the supposedly out-of-control Jewish settlers are seeking to defend themselves.

But the question to ask is not, as the Biden administration tried to do, how best to stigmatize those who live in the Jewish communities across the Green Line. Rather, it is whether Hamas is gaining ground there, even as it suffers defeats in Gaza. How has the post-October 7th war impacted the always simmering struggle between the Jews and Arabs in the territories, as well as that between Fatah and Hamas and other extremist groups like ISIS?

that's a topic that most of the media seems to have no interest in. If, due to the ceasefire hostage release agreement, Hamas survives in power in Gaza, how does that impact the ability of Israel to cope with security threats in the territories? Will another front in the century-old war against the Jews open up? And how will that impact any hopes for any sort of coexistence between the two peoples in the region? To discuss that with us today, we have one of the keenest observers of the situation,

Colonel Grisha Yakubovich is the former head of the Civil Department for the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories that oversaw economic and infrastructure projects and the facilitation of humanitarian issues in the Palestinian territories.

As an IDF colonel with 30 years of experience in facilitating cooperative efforts between Israelis and Palestinians, he concluded his military service in the IDF in 2016. He currently serves as a policy and strategic consultant to various international NGOs, private companies, and research institutes, and implements cooperation projects.

and among international business sectors in the public and private sector. Colonel Grisha Yakubovich, welcome to Think Twice. Happy to be with you guys. Well, thanks so much for joining us today.

I want to start by asking you to comment on one of the major stories of the moment, the American administration's proposal for removing Palestinian Arabs from Gaza as part of a process of rebuilding it after the war that Hamas started on October 7th, 2023, and to ensure Hamas's removal from power. As someone who has spent his career working with the Palestinians and around that problem, what impact do you think this will have on them? And do you think it is even remotely realistic?

even if other ideas like Palestinian statehood could be said to be just as if not more unrealistic. I'm sure Jonathan that he saw the videos from Gaza last weekend when they released the three hostages and one of the things that I noticed there was a big poster of Senwar looking towards Jerusalem and it was written there in Hebrew immigration only to Jerusalem. It's a respond

to President Trump's idea of if you expect us to immigrate from Gaza to who knows where, maybe Egypt, maybe Jordan or I don't know, Islamabad or whatever, our answer to that will be that the only place that we will immigrate to is to Jerusalem. It means for us as Hamas, Palestine from the river to the sea, it means we do not accept the existence of the State of Israel,

It means we will fight you, that we will not allow you to implement your plan. And they are using also religion motives by showing al-Aqsa as the answer to that. It means we will do our best that our Arab countries, the countries that you are trying to gather against us, that will accept us, will not be able to do it because of Jerusalem. It's a religious motive. We need to be aware of that.

And it's also an eye and a finger. It's like, you know, I want to explain a small, short thing, how a victory looks like in the eyes of the beholder. So Hamas claimed that they won this war. If you ask me personally, as a guy that deals with that, we brought or we offered them the victory on a plate. That guys take it. How? The moment we stated here in Israel that our goals...

in this war is to achieve two things. One, to release all the hostages. Have we? No, not yet. Number two, to eliminate Hamas. Hamas is there. So the moment we failed achieving that, it means they won. So this is how a victory looks like. Now we can laugh, we can say it's Job, but this is how they see it, okay?

The same thing is with leaving Gaza or implementing the plan. President Trump, this is what you want? No, no, it will not happen. More than that, we will show you that we will immigrate only to Jerusalem. So they are actually challenging President Trump. They are challenging Bibi by playing a very small game, by throwing a bomb between Bibi Netanyahu and Trump. It's like President Trump said...

If they will not release all of them until 12 o'clock noontime last weekend, we will open the gates of hell. And what they actually did, they forced Bibi Netanyahu to continue with the plan and to do things against what President Trump, I would say, announced. Even though President Trump is largely responsible, or one of those responsible for Israel having to accept the plan. Yes, exactly.

Yes, but they understand us so good. They understand and know the West and the way that the West thinks and the way that here in Israel we have those dilemmas and conflicts that they know how to play with it. Okay, in a very, very impressive way. I have to say, yes, it's my enemy.

We would probably kill each other on the battlefield or somewhere else. They would try their best to kill me. They tried to do it in the past. They failed. As you can see, I'm here with you now. And they know how to think and they understand something about strategy and they understand something about how to lead and how to build a narrative.

And it's, you know, they are calling, they are actually challenging President Trump. They challenged him. Like small, tiny Hamas. Who are they comparing to Egypt? Who are they comparing to Saudi Arabia? Who are they comparing to Jordan? And yet, they call for a challenge to the greatest nation in the world by telling them in a way or in a way

It's a sentence that says a lot. It's like, you have a plan that we will leave Gaza? Uh-oh. Our plan is, your plan will fail, and we will immigrate to Jerusalem. That's the thing. And this is how we create heroes. This is how we build heroes together as the West, not only Israel. Well, then basically Hamas is obviously doubling down on perpetual war.

So I guess nothing changes since October 6th, 2023, in that we're still stuck in this same situation where Hamas is there and they're just going to keep trying to kill Jews, trying to keep the war going, even if they have as little chance of immigrating, as you say, to Jerusalem as Trump has of getting them to move to Egypt or Jordan or somewhere else.

Well, you know, there's a book named Catch-22. I'm sure you've read it. Hamas are writing the new book. It's called Catch-24. And they know exactly what they are doing. They know exactly what they want to achieve. And they are working hard to achieve it. Now, we could win this war a long time ago. A long time ago. The problem is that we are fighting according to Western values. And they are fighting according to their terror values.

So how the world expects us to win when we are actually supplying aid and food and all the logistic needs of our enemies? Can we stop from aid to be donated to Gaza? No, we cannot because then innocent people will die. It's a different question, are there innocent people in Gaza? Let's not enter into that. We can later. But the enemy...

is dependent on our goodwill, so they will have food. But if we will stop that aid from being donated to Gaza, they will also make sure that our hostages will starve to death. So they understand our dilemma, and as a society, as a Jewish society, as an Israeli society, that we are obligated to bring them back home, alive, not dead.

I think that if we would not state too much at the beginning of the war and actually do things like we stated without stating them, like for example, we stopped supplying electricity to Gaza and we renewed it. There's a line that we connected to the El Balach and we stopped the supply of water to Gaza.

Let's just talk about the facts. We, as Israel, supply only 12% of the consumption to Gaza. This is what Israel stopped at the beginning of the war. The rest of the water are, I would say, homemade. It's from the underground aquifer in Gaza. The water from Israel only improved the water inside Gaza.

So we stopped it, and then a few days after, we just returned or renewed it. So we continued supply. And what about internet? This is also something that we supply to Gaza. And food that enters through crossing that we control. I've been today in two tours in the Gaza envelope, and I've seen trucks full of aid, bringing the aid to Gaza from the north, from the pedestrian crossing areas that Hamas conquered,

during the October 7th massacre. So how do you expect us to win when we supply aid to our enemies? How do you expect us to win when we supply them fuel so they will be able to fuel the generators and to continue building rockets? It's like it's an impossible, impossible war that I'm sure that any country around the world would behave differently. Well, I guess you're saying basically Israel can't then win. What can Israel do then about Gaza?

Well, I think that this is what we are obligated to do. We need to be honest with ourselves. We need to explain the world that this is the enemy. They use the people of Gaza. They use them as human shields. They use them as a... They use the suffer of those people. I'm not saying that they're not suffering, okay? There is suffer in Gaza.

I know that. I have friends. I had friends in Gaza. I had people that I know in Gaza. I'm in touch with them. I'm talking to them. Some of them are in Gaza. Some of them are in Egypt. The situation there is very difficult. But the ones who brought it on them is Hamas, not us. And I think that what we should do is a simple thing. It's an ultimatum.

Dear Hamas, you have 48 hours. After those 48 hours, we will stop everything to Gaza. Everything. Whatever we supply, you will not be able to get. And we will enter back to Gaza unless you return all the hostages back after 48 hours. This ultimatum that President Trump shared with us is a window of opportunity that we probably lost.

But I understand why, okay? Because we need to rescue as many as possible. And maybe later we will do that. But there's no other way. There's no other way, number one. Number two, one of the basic reasons for the failure, okay? One is humanitarian aid, okay? Because the idea did a great job, okay? Inside Gaza, fighting terror, killing 20,000 terrorists. An amazing, amazing...

I would say operational achievements that were not translated to strategic achievements. And sometimes we need to choose the worst case scenario. It means we were supposed to ask the PA, not to ask, but actually to tell them, the Palestinian Authority go to Gaza because this is the only thing that will challenge Hamas' civilian role in Gaza.

They know each other, they hate each other, they know the culture, they have an interest, they have something very deep planted in them, they have the desire to revenge after Hamas butchered 700 Fatah officials when they conquered Gaza in June 2007. So why not use it? The only thing that will challenge Hamas is somebody else that will be there to replace them.

And politically, this government could not do that because how can this government ask the PA that are considered by some ministers as the enemy in the West Bank to do the job in Gaza? So I would say the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And we need to be smart and not be right. But who am I to take those decisions? Okay.

Well, much of the international community has responded to the October 7th war as if it changes nothing about the future of the region, in particular, their belief that there must be a Palestinian state. But do you think that the war has changed everything about the conflict? Or is it just another in a long list of outbreaks that have characterized the struggle between Jews and Arabs over the last century? And are we still going to be talking about a Palestinian state going forward?

I don't know if in the next four years somebody will talk about the Palestinian state. I think we all know why. And I think that nothing has changed, if you ask me. Nothing has changed. One of the things that we need to change together, all of us, especially the state of Israel, we need to state the following. Whoever donates money to Gaza or to the West Bank, to the P.A.,

must take responsibility on the money that they donate. What do I mean by that? You know, we are the West. We believe that we should give because as the West, we are stronger, we are better, we are, I would say, we have more morality. And there is this desire that we should donate to the needed, to the ones who need.

And I would say the following, if you want to donate, no problem. Send your people, boots on the ground, inspectors that will make sure that every dollar that you donate reached the destiny that it was donated for. And if not, you are not allowed to donate money. So, you know, when it comes to money, I have a lot to say about it. And this is actually what Hamas did.

since 2007. It's like if you would be the minister of treasury of Hamas in Gaza, you would make a lot of money. Let's count the money, okay? And let's see how the Dash community is so amazing. Do you know how many workers worked in Israel until the war, Jonathan?

It's not an exam, okay? I'm just asking. Something like 20,000, right? Because I want people to know, to be aware of the facts. All right, go ahead. Tell us how many. So it's 17,500. We were supposed to reach... I would have said 20, so I was slightly... No, no, you were right. You were right because the number that we stated that we are reaching to 20. Yes, that was the whole idea. You're absolutely right. But let's translate it to money.

You know, in Gaza, if you would be a worker and you would have a job in Gaza, you will be paid 30 shekels a day. Okay? I would say less than 10 dollars.

But if you were lucky to win the lottery and you got a permit and you are one of those 17,500 employees, you will be paid 450 shekels a day. Meaning, 17,500 workers every day, each one of them makes 450 shekels, five days a week, four weeks a month, 12 months a year. Check me. It's half a billion dollar cash from Israel into Gaza. Number one. Number two.

Qatar sent on a monthly basis $30 million to Gaza. $10 million for salaries, $10 million for the needed, and $10 million for fuel. The fuel they bought from Egypt. Why from Egypt? Because it's cheaper. So if you buy from Egypt for

I don't know, half a cent or I would say 2.4 shekels. And in Gaza, they sold it in a double price. So they made an income in the gap between what they bought and what they sold. Okay? Using the money from Qatar. Number three, there was a crossing in, there is a crossing between Gaza and Israel. It's called Kerem Shalom. And this crossing served or provided services to 1,000 trucks a day.

Who is the sovereign government in Gaza until the war? Hamas. Who taxes the goods on those trucks? Hamas. How do I know it? Ask me how they're not. I will tell you. I've been the manager of the Palestinian market at the biggest cement company in Israel. And I sold cement to my clients in the West Bank and to my clients in Gaza. My clients in Gaza sent me receipts.

And in the receipt they wrote what they owe me, what they paid for that, and 8 shekels per ton for Hamas. 1,000 tons a day, 8 shekels per ton, just count the money. And it's only trucks. And I sold 1,000 tons a day. What about flour, water, medicines, blankets, etc. We're talking about millions. Number four.

There is a crossing between Gaza and Egypt. Actually, there are two crossings between Gaza and Egypt. One is a Rafah crossing, and two is, it's called in Arabic, Bab Salahuddin. It's another crossing that was operated by Qawas. Assisi, the Egyptian president, with Haniyeh, that we killed in Tehran during the war, agreed that 65% of the goods to Gaza will be imported through Egypt.

Why? Because there's a nice guy named Al-Arjani. He is the owner of a company named Abna Essina, the Sons of Sinai. His partner is Assisi's son, and they taxed the goods, and Hamas taxed the goods, and Hamas made an income of $700 million a year.

Let's continue. We supplied electricity to Gaza, 38% of the consumption. We supplied 12% of the water to Gaza, 20 million cubic meters of water. We supplied the internet connections to Gaza. Who pays for it? Not Israelis, not the UN, it's the PA. How? We are collecting the revenues for the PA, and before we deliver the money to the PA, we deduct for what we are supplying to Gaza.

How many refugees in Gaza? 1.3 million. Who pays for all their needs en route? The UN. By the way, by your taxes. By the taxes from the West, okay? Now what about KFW that fed 300,000 people? What about KFW from Germany that implemented projects? What about the USAID that sent also money through NGOs to help and to build projects?

And what about the donations that Turkey made, the donations that Qatar made to build neighborhoods? It's like if I will be the minister of Treasury of Hamas, I will sit at a table, I will plan my budget here, and I would say, okay, the UN will pay that, and Saudi Arabia will pay that, and Israel will pay that, and the PA will pay that. So what is left for me? Nothing. So all the money that I collect...

Collect, it's by taxes, in Gaza also. Because if workers work in Israel, they bring this huge income, they can buy more. If they can buy more, I can export and import more to Gaza. So I can increase my tax collections inside Gaza. So actually, we helped Hamas to become millionaires

And the money that they made was used, first of all, to their own leaders. So they also are billionaires, like Mashal in Qatar and Haniyeh. They both sit on each one of them, something like $4 billion. This is their fortune. They prepare themselves to this war by digging and building 500 kilometers of underground tunnels, knowing that why should we invest as Hamas? We have somebody else to do it.

The whole Western world will donate and help us. There is a water crisis. We should not deal with that. We have the World Bank to deal with that. There's a, I don't know, a sewage crisis. Oh, we have Germany to deal with that. We are not worried about it. We can continue doing what we did. We will continue planning how to free Palestine from the river to the sea or to immigrate to Jerusalem because we have the West...

that will donate the money for us and do everything for us. As simple as it sounds. They can do all what they need. They can provide themselves all the luxury that they will dream of. They don't need us as the West.

Well, that's a pretty sobering economic picture, which just shows, you know, Hamas is set up to make money. That's, you know, I suppose it's easy to say, well, Israel can just cut it off. But what are the prospects of that? How can it cut it off?

That's my question. Yeah, I know. So how can you? Because Hamas will show a picture. They will send you a video as somebody from the West and you will see people suffering. Starving children. They are also confiscating the aid into Gaza. Why? Because they want to hold the aid. They want to hold the money. And they will decide who will get it and who will not. And those pictures of

of destruction, of people standing in line for food is something that serves them because it makes the West the ones that care for people to open their hearts and their pockets. They know exactly how to do it. And if we will stop it, I don't think that we will be able to stand or to be able to hold the pressure of the international community. That's the problem.

Yeah, which falls for their Hamas's act. Exactly. By the way, why nobody, why nobody, nobody behaves the same way in Sudan when there are 17 million people starving to death? Why nobody behaved the same way in Syria after Bashar al-Assad killed one million of his own people? Why? Why is it only good for Gaza and the West Bank?

Why nobody cared about the thousands and thousands that were killed in Iraq, in Afghanistan? Why nobody condemns it? Why nobody runs and sends aid from airplanes with parachutes that will fall into Gaza? Why? Because people want to feel good? People want to look good? That's the thing? We are the West. We sent aid to Gaza. Oh my God, we are amazing. Yes. You know, I have an idea. I had an idea.

And I had a debate with some Egyptians in Arabic, okay, in some studios. And I told them the following: "I blame you as Egypt. You are responsible on the massacre on October 7th exactly like Hamas." Why? Where do you think Hamas got all the weapons? Through Egypt. And who made the money on their back? The Egyptians. Why? Nobody saw it in Egypt?

They have no officers, they have no secret service, they have nothing. It's like just somehow, just a period in Gaza. So if they would implement the responsibility in this peace reality between us, Hamas would not have this ability inside Gaza. And how to refer to that? It makes me also angry.

When I talk about it, it's not about emotions, okay? It's about being naive. It's like, how naive can the world be? Why? I'm asking this question, why? And it's like, I think it's a double standard, maybe?

Well, I think obviously, I think the easy, quick answer to the question that you pose, which is slightly rhetorical, is that in those other conflicts, the people fighting were not fighting the Jews or Israel. And obviously, Israel is judged differently than any other country. Well, you know, I prefer usually in my lectures and tools not to use that because this is something that the moment you use, it's like people stop listening to you.

Well, if you've got a better explanation, you know, I'm all ears. I don't have it. That seems to be obvious to me. I don't have it, but I know it's obvious. I know that. I know. But I want to believe that this is not the reason, okay? You know, for me personally, I'm the son of both Holocaust survivors. My dad passed away three years ago. He was one of the last living Auschwitz camp survivors. By the way, his best friend just passed away an hour ago that also survived Auschwitz. They are going to the funeral tomorrow.

And I refuse. Well, I have no choice. I have to. But I don't want to believe that this is the reason that because of the fact that we are Jews or we are a Jewish state. I hope it's not. Otherwise, it will prove me that nothing has changed since Second World War. Well, all right. Well, we'll leave that topic for the moment. I'm not going to try to talk you out of that. Let's go back 16 months.

To October 7, how much do you think the perception of daylight between the Biden administration, Israel's government, as well as the political divisions within Israel influenced the decision of Hamas and/or Iran to attack on October 7? And do you think they were wrong to believe that Israel is so weak that the attacks could succeed and change somehow the military equation in the region?

Well, Jonathan, this is the first time that somebody asked me a question that contains my whole lecture. Okay. I will try to... Give us a little microcosm of it. Yeah, I will try to conclude it. I will try my best, okay? We went through four rounds of escalation with Hamas.

2008, 2012, 2014, May 2021. The last two rounds, 2014 and 2021, Hamas won. We can say whatever we want to say, Hamas won. This is what they believe in. It doesn't matter what we think, by the way. The victory is we, small, tiny Hamas, succeeded to stand against the strongest military in the Middle East. That's how a victory looks like. In May 2021, we, Hamas, succeeded...

to lead to unification of the arenas and riots in the mixed cities in Israel. The Arab Israelis, it's another piece of the puzzle. And they led a narrative, and in this narrative, they are spreading their philosophy. In Arabic, it's called Muqawwaman. In translation to English, it's resistance. It sounds good to the Western ear. In Hebrew, it's terror.

It sounds horrible to the Israeli ear. And they showed themselves as the ones who succeeded to force Israel to kneel, to get on their knees and to beg for a ceasefire and to give them whatever they want. Actually, they also created an equation that if you want to get something from Israel, you should use power. Simple as it is. You kidnap a soldier, prisoners are released. You launch rockets, you get more money.

You continue launching rockets, you get more water, etc. So after each round, they got something more. Until June 2013, the Egyptian side was under the Muslim Brotherhood, I would say president, that supported Hamas, that helped Hamas. And then came al-Sisi in June 2013, and he changed the Egyptian policy towards the Gaza Strip.

and he stopped the flow of cash to Gaza by closing the tunnels on the ground. Only later on he renewed the crossing that started to work with Deguz, etc. There was a process between them. And there were also three rounds of escalation between Israel and Pij, Palestinian-Islamic Jihad. May I ask you to guess

What do you think, who won, Israel or Pitch, at those three rounds of escalation? Hamas, by the way, were not involved. Hamas said, and they said, we are not going to be part of it. It's between Pitch and Israel. Palestinian Islamic Jihad, P-I-G-H-A, yeah. So will it surprise you that I will tell you that actually the ones who won are Hamas by doing nothing? Because Pitch wanted to achieve the same achievements that Hamas achieved.

The heroes of the Palestinian street. The ones who launched rockets to the holy places of Al-Aqsa, to Jerusalem. They earned the title of the defenders of the holy places. They are the ones who released the prisoners from Israeli jails. They are the ones who succeeded to lead to unification of the arenas around Israel. Rockets from Lebanon, Gaza, Syria. Amazing. They are the ones who led to riots in the mixed cities in Israel.

So when you ask the people who did it all, they will tell you Hamas. Hamas are the heroes. So Hamas wanted Pitch to fail against Israel. So people in the street will say Pitch could not. The Palestinian Authority? They? They are the ones who collaborate with the enemy, with the Jews? Eh, they are nothing. The heroes are Hamas. Number two. After al-Sisi changed the policy towards Egypt, he actually pushed Hamas to Iran.

And Iran approached, and Hamas approached to Iran and met them and they told them the following: "Your proxy, Pitch, tried to win for the first time. They failed. The second time, they failed. The third time, they failed. The next time you want to do it, you do it with us." And this is a public servant. All planned by Iran. All Iran hands-made. And they built a narrative that the day after, not the day after the war, the day after Abbas, if there will be elections,

Who will win the war? The weak ones or the heroes? The heroes. And who will back them? Not the West, not Egypt, actually Iran. So I think what they did, and we need to remember that, this is something that I took from the theory of chaos. You know, the butterfly that moved the wings somewhere in the atmosphere and somewhere else there is a tornado created by that. This is what happened.

When Hamas started the war in Gaza, they led to a tornado that led us to hit Hezbollah in an amazing way. It led to the collapse of Syria. It led to, I would say, a new era in the Middle East that will probably be more dangerous than what it used to be. Because

The worst terror organizations in the Middle East and in the world were not organizations that were Shia. The horrible ones were actually Sunni, Al-Qaeda and ISIS. They are Sunni, Salafi, jihadist organizations. And this is the impact of October 7th. We need to think twice before we attack Iran. Maybe we need Iran. I'm just offering my

something to think about. Maybe we need Iran to stay strong enough as Iran, weak enough against us as an enemy, but strong enough as a country that we will be able to use against the new domino effect led by the Sunni Salafist jihadists, you know, this Al-Julani that the West already, all of them, took airplanes and flew to Syria.

Like he's the new hero of the West. The leader of the group that has now effectively replaced Assad into... Yes, but this is the same guy that four months ago still butchered people. This is the same guy that burned villages not so long ago. And now he's the hero of the West. We need to think in a Middle Eastern way of thinking.

You know who are the ones who told Al-Julani, you fly to us, we don't fly to you? Saudi Arabia, MBS, and the Sultan, Erdogan. They know how to behave in the Arab world. We should learn from them.

Well, that's a sobering conclusion. Let me move to a different question. In your military career and in your work since leaving the IDF, you've been an advocate of efforts to boost cooperation with the Arab population in the territories, projects to make Judea and Samaria more livable for its inhabitants regardless of

of the hostility and the lack of interest in the peace on the part of the Palestinian Authority. How much has October 7th changed your thinking or your analysis of the future of coexistence between Jews and Arabs? Or is it as necessary today as before? And how does the Western media narrative about alleged settler violence figure into this? I have to be honest with you, really honest with you, because this is... Please do. This is me.

Two weeks before the war, I was about to close a huge deal with a company from Gaza. I was supposed to import cement from Egypt with them and to sell the cement to clients in Israel, in the West Bank and in Gaza. I had a dream. I still have it. And the dream is that let's build bridges for a better future because they are here to stay. We are here to stay.

So let's make money, let's make businesses, let's talk to each other, and let's build bridges for a better future. Not for peace. Let's put peace aside. Let's not talk about peace. I think it's a huge challenge for both societies. We are not there. Even before October 7th, we were not there. And when people asked me, do you think that there will be peace between you and the Palestinians? My answer was, it will take at least one to two generations. So we will be able to start peace.

implementing certain peace between us. But there's a long way till we get there. We need to stop incitement on both sides, especially there. We need to educate the new generations to accept the other and to accept the existence of others. And it's like they also need to do that. And only after they would educate one to two generations, we will be able to get there.

Assuming they were being educated for coexistence rather than against it. Of course, of course, of course. Now, after October 7th, I think that it will take three to five generations to get there. I think that we are still a country in shock. We are still a country that we need to understand what we went through. It will take us time to heal as a society, as a country, especially as a society. I'm still in touch.

with my friends in the West Bank. Today, one of my best friends is a Palestinian businessman from Ramallah that I hosted in my house. Him and his family and his employee, a Muslim guy from Tulkare. If you'll excuse me, I will not share the names because somebody will listen to this podcast. They will probably be executed or something like that. I don't know what.

And yes, I'm proud that I have, I'm proud to be a friend of them. We worked together, we traveled together, we had whiskey together, we made businesses together. So yes, I can call them friends. About Gaza, this is a different issue. So I'm the only IDF officer that was honored by a family in Gaza. There's a kid named after me in Gaza. His name is Grisha. I used to visit once a year, escorted by the Hlan's people, you know, to give him a birthday present.

If you get that honor from a family, a Muslim family in this culture, it means you are a good person in their eyes. Although I was an officer of the occupation and as a medic, I saved people's life with my hands.

you know, here and there, if people are falling in the street or whatever. And I saved personally 5,000 Gazans during Protected Edge, the roundup escalation of 2014, by negotiating the ceasefire for them with the ICRC and the forces on the ground. So I know something about negotiation. I know something about the people. But after October 7th, I don't know what happened to my feelings. I feel nothing to those people. Nothing. Nothing.

Why? I will tell you why. You know, since the first day of the war, I gave between three to six to eight interviews a day in English, in French and in Arabic. And I heard so many testimonies. I've seen so many pictures, so many images. I've been on the boots on the ground and I've seen scenes that, you know, I've seen things in my life, but not something like that. It's a trigger alert. OK, I just just want to give an example.

I heard the testimony of a guy that saw his girlfriend being raped by 25 nukhba terrorists. Twenty-five. And while doing that, they cut her breast and they played football with it. And when they were done, they just shot her in between the legs. People found boys tied to trees after they cut some things, okay, to those boys. And they pushed it in places that I don't want to mention.

They cooked the baby inside and all of it. They burned whole families. Who does something like that? It's... I think even the devil kills faster. You know, if people tell that they are animals, no, it's not animals, because at least an animal would bite you, kill you, and then eat you. And I don't know what is that. Now, it's not something that surprised me. I've seen things inside Gaza.

I've seen them killing each other, okay? I've seen the things that they did to each other. So it's not something that surprised me that they are so cruel, that they can do things that you cannot even imagine, okay? You know, during my service in Gaza as a civil administration officer, as the mayor, you know, everybody that somebody killed in Gaza, they called me, hi, Captain Grisha, there is a body somewhere there. So I went there with the police and then you find somebody, you know, in a situation that...

The mind cannot even understand. I was shocked from the scale. It's not one or two. It's 3,000 Nuhba terrorists that entered in three waves. And after them, another 5,000 Gazes that came, that looted the kibbutzim, the moshavim, and did all those horrible things. You need to hate. The hate must be sold.

so high to be able to do what they did, you know, and I even cannot imagine, I can't even imagine if I would hate somebody so much that I would be able to do things like that as a human being. So it made my thoughts, my feelings, my heart cold,

And I do not belong to the right wing in Israel. I don't even belong to the left wing in Israel. I'm a normal human being that knows Gazans, that spends time with Gazans, that talks to Gazans. Even now I talk to Gazans, okay? In Gaza and Egypt. The mind is blocking me from... It's blocking my feelings, okay? Because of what they did to my kids.

to my parents, to my babies. This is how we see it. They killed 1,200 people in Israel that we consider them as our kids, our babies, our parents. That's how we see it. You know, I've been with the tour this morning with pastors, and they asked me about the numbers. So, you know, just to let people understand what is the meaning of that, you know, in September 11, 5,000 Americans were killed.

during that horrible attack. Actually, 3,000, even less. 3,000. I'm sorry. Okay? I'm sorry. I remembered somehow 5,000. Okay? My mistake. You know, if you take the numbers in Israel, 1,200, comparing to the size of the society, 10 million, it will be like 60,000 to 70,000 Americans that would die that day. How will America respond to such numbers?

Well, I can tell you how America responds. We went to the other side of the world to go after the people who did it. Only for 3,000. If it would be 50,000 or 60,000, this is what happened to us. It's like, just imagine that in America, 50,000 people would be killed by evil. I think that America would probably, I don't know, smash them like cockroaches. Absolutely. And what? We have no right to defend ourselves?

They started the war and we need to provide the answers. What is wrong with this war? Yes, I do agree and accept that we are not them. And I don't want anybody to compare us to them. That's why we will do it in a Western way, with our values as Westerns.

but we need to change it a little bit. We need to be not a Western democracy, we need to be a Middle Eastern democracy, a little bit different. And this is the time to change it and the world should understand it because if we will not stop it here, it will reach to each one of your neighborhoods in the future. Yeah, I think that's very true. I want to talk a little bit more about what's going on in Judea and Samaria

How has the October 7th attacks and the subsequent war changed our calculations about what Hamas's goals are, as well as its ability to challenge Fatah and ultimately control the Palestinian Authority at some point in the future, you know, in Judea and Samaria? Well, I will be short at this time. Hamas are leading a narrative that they are the heroes of the Palestinian state. So in any survey, what you will see that if there will be elections, Hamas will win the elections easily.

People love heroes. Well, that's why Abbas is serving in the 20th year of the four-year term to which he was elected, right? Yes, but he's also 87. Eventually, he will leave us naturally or somebody will help him. You know, when I want to make somebody really angry in the West Bank, you know what I tell them? Guys, did you know that his dad lived to the age of 102? And they say, oh my God, no way. And the grandpa till 103, I think.

and they are very disappointed from him. 1. They are very disappointed from the PA. 2. The PA are very corrupted. 3. They consider them as collaborators with Israel. 4. Hamas are the heroes. They created and built this narrative. The ones who brought the achievements to the Palestinian society are Hamas, not the PA.

And Iran is a challenge because they are trying to lead to that chaos using Jordan as the weak spot, the smuggler weapons in Judea and Samaria. And this is the reason why Abbas is trying to collaborate unofficially with Israel and to fight terror in the West Bank. He's trying, but with lack of success. The problem will be when he will leave us. And when he will leave us,

What will happen in the West Bank, this is what I predict. I wrote it in articles. I have it in my presentations. What we predict is that there will be a civil Palestinian war that actually started in June 2007 in Gaza and continues until now because they execute Fatah officials still during the war in Gaza. And the same thing will happen in the West Bank.

Because the narrative that Mahmoud Abbas leads is a narrative that says no to violence. By the way, I met him a few times and I do believe him that this is what he means.

And he said, I have to say, a brave leader, and he said, the biggest mistake that we did as Palestinians is that we used power. It's about time we change it, and we used the international community, we used the legitimacy, we used negotiation. Let's be a modern, I would say, society. But people look at him and they challenge him and they ask him, what did you achieve, Mr. Abbas? Have you freed some prisoners? No. You freed some land in Area C? No.

Israel gave you something big? No. I don't know. What did he achieve? He achieved zero, nothing. Nothing. And he's corrupted. Hamas are also corrupted, but people forgive them because they are the heroes. So the day after Abbas, his own people will also adopt the narrative of mukawwama, resistance, like Yasser Arafat in the past. And then we have jihad, Hamas, and Fatah, the whole tree,

adopting the narrative of mukawama resistance, terror, and they will fight each other. And to buy the hearts of the people, there will be a competition of who will kill more Jews. This is the reality as I see in the West Bank, unless something big will change and happen.

Well, I guess that leads to my question. Many people in the international community and the United States and even some in Israel still talk about the importance of strengthening the Palestinian Authority, Fatah, against at the expense of extremists from Hamas or ISIS or anybody else. Is that possible or is this just another leftover failed paradigm from the Oslo era?

I think that we are about to enter, or we already entered, to a path that leads us to one tragic event, another round of escalation in the West Bank, like the third Il di Fada. And only after that, and after we will hit them hard, only then we will be able to maybe start with new arrangements. I don't see...

Any other option. Again, it's not that I want war. I hate it. It will also harm my business, as I mentioned. Of course, I want it not to happen. I want peace. I want to see a strong PA that will stop the incitement in schools and fight terror. But they cannot fight terror on one hand and continue the incitement in schools on the other hand. It doesn't work like that.

And maybe, maybe, maybe there's a small, small chance that we will be able to change it. Only if the international community will demand from the PA to lead a huge change in schools, in universities, in the streets, and be brave, loud and clear to say, we support Israel, we are part of this process.

We want to see that the people in the West Bank and Gaza, we want to create a better future for them, not like Hamas. But I don't think that they are brave enough to do it. Well, there seems to be forces pushing them in the other direction, obviously, as anti-Zionism becomes more fashionable, certainly in Europe and to some extent in America as well. So maybe it's about time, Jonathan, that the international community will stop donating money to the P.A.?

To explain them that if you don't do that, you will not get even one dollar. It's about time. Well, I agree with you about that. I don't think we're anywhere close to persuading the Europeans to do it. Although certainly the Trump administration is there. Let's see. I think that there's no other way. No other way. Because what we did in Gaza, I invented it in the West Bank.

with Brigadier General Avi Gil. We did it together when we both commanded the Tulkaven, we call it the Efraim district. And we implemented what Avi learned in the Marines, it's called soft power. So we succeeded by soft power to change some huge things in the West Bank, creating new interests.

So we succeeded to lower the amount of investment by the IDF with battalions, using the other side as a party that works with us together. The Palestinian Authority, the governors, you know, incomes, money, interests. And the same thing was adopted towards the Gazastrik. You know, soft power. Hamas, they will have a lot to lose. I explained at the beginning of this podcast about the money.

And they had a lot to lose. And Hamas understood that this is our strategy. They made us think and feel that this is exactly what they want. And meanwhile, preparing to the attack. That made us believe that they will never, never lose all this fortune that is falling on them. And yes, fortune. In Gaza...

People have big, big money. How many people left Gaza during the war to Egypt? 100,000. Who said it? The Palestinian ambassador in Egypt. He forgot to mention one fact. Each one of those people, each one of them paid $5,000 per head. Just a minute. 100,000 people in Gaza during the war could afford to pay $5,000 per head? What is wrong here?

You know, people in Gaza during the war paid for one cigarette, one cigarette, 120 shekels. People can afford that in Gaza? It's like, who said that Gaza is a poor place? Who said it? Why the World Bank published reports, or the UN, that are not reflecting the right situation in Gaza? That people have millions of dollars inside Gaza.

So what happened here? I think there's been a lot of misinformation, and I think you've really given us some sobering facts about what's going on, what's happened in Gaza as well as in Judea and Samaria. Colonel Jakubowicz, thanks so much for joining us today, and we really appreciate it.

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