Signs of growing rifts among top Israeli officials over war strategy
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00:00 And as Netanyahu doubles down on his calls for total victory in the Gaza Strip,
00:04 there have been reports of growing rifts both within the Israeli government and Israeli society.
00:10 We're going to talk about that with our Doug Herber who joins me on set.
00:13 Doug, what more can you tell us?
00:14 Well, these rifts are more than just speculation.
00:17 They're growing more and more apparent even in the words of war cabinet members
00:21 and one retired, you know, top military official on Israeli television in the past few days,
00:29 Gadi Eisenkaddi is his name.
00:31 He lost a son in the war in Gaza.
00:34 He's very credible and he's very respected in Israeli society.
00:37 He basically said that there's, you know, a contradiction.
00:40 His words really reflect in a sense what we're hearing from other top generals and war cabinet members.
00:47 There's a contradiction between Netanyahu's repeated pledges, as you said,
00:51 to fight, to wage this military offensive in Gaza until, quote, "total victory"
00:56 and his promise to the families and relatives of the hostages being held,
01:00 the Israeli hostages, to secure their release that these are competing prerogatives here.
01:07 You know, you cannot totally say you were going to keep going after eradicating Harass
01:11 without putting at some point those hostages' lives in danger and jeopardizing their release.
01:16 Hamas itself has said, at least publicly, officially, that there is, quote,
01:20 "no chance of the return of hostages until Israel agrees to wind down, to end its war, to withdraw its forces."
01:28 So both sides really digging in their heels, doubling down in their official statements.
01:34 Netanyahu obviously caught in a very tough bind because, you know,
01:38 some would argue he made his bed, he sleeps in it.
01:40 He made his bed in the sense that he, you know,
01:42 is doing business with the most far-right coalition in history,
01:45 a far-right coalition that wants absolutely no business negotiating, speaking to Hamas in any way.
01:51 They're going for brokenness.
01:53 So Netanyahu is, in a sense, doing the far-right coalition's bidding at this point,
01:58 even though for them he's not even going far enough.
02:02 Unofficially, you do have reports, and one notably over the weekend in the Wall Street Journal
02:07 in the United States, that both the U.S., Qatar, and Egypt are stepping up
02:13 or mounting the pressure on both parties, both Israel and Hamas,
02:16 to do exactly what each side says they're not about to do,
02:19 which is to engage in serious negotiations.
02:22 Negotiations which presumably would lead to, in some way, shape, or form,
02:28 the release in a first phase of some civilian hostages,
02:31 not all of them, but the civilian hostages,
02:34 followed by, in a final stage, according to this sort of preliminary plan,
02:38 the withdrawal of Israeli defense forces from Gaza
02:42 and a formal declaration of the end of the war.
02:44 Obviously, that is not happening tomorrow, not on the horizon,
02:47 and this is right now just reports of pressure and prospective talks.
02:51 But what we are seeing is that this contradiction,
02:54 the rifts that I was speaking of in this Israeli government and Israeli society,
02:58 the Israelis backing the military offensive,
03:00 but also at the same time wanting those hostages released,
03:03 it's leading to a situation where the question must be asked,
03:06 can Netanyahu hold this absolutist until total victory position for very long?
03:11 Something has to give at some point.
03:12 And from an international standpoint, Doug,
03:14 there's still a lot of diplomacy underway, obviously.
03:16 The EU and the US are really working at trying to find ways
03:20 to bring peace to the region in any way they can.
03:22 Yeah, right now what you have today is European Union's foreign ministers
03:27 are going to be meeting with several officials from Arab countries,
03:32 from Israeli and Palestinian officials as well,
03:34 their foreign ministers. And what are they looking at?
03:37 Well, the same types of things that I was just speaking about
03:40 with respect to the US, Qatar and Egypt,
03:42 they're going to be looking at a way to wind down this war,
03:46 to wind down the military offensive, to secure the release of those hostages.
03:51 And they're also looking at the roadmap in the endgame,
03:54 the creation of a Palestinian state.
03:56 Remember, formerly, as of this hour, Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said,
04:01 he has repeatedly said he rejects Joe Biden's vision
04:04 of a two-state Palestinian solution.
04:06 At the same time, Joe Biden is trying to sort of tamp down their differences,
04:10 even though he said privately to be infuriated with Netanyahu.
04:13 He's trying to hold out the prospect that there are many different ways
04:16 you could reach a Palestinian state.
04:18 And perhaps Netanyahu would be open to some of them.
04:21 Biden trying to suggest he's not ruling them all out.
04:24 There's definitely a rift there, but this European plan
04:26 would envision the creation of some sort of a vision for a Palestinian statehood,
04:31 but perhaps more importantly, within the framework of that, a peace process,
04:35 putting, laying the groundwork for what would be called
04:38 a comprehensive regional plan and a regional peace process
04:42 that would draw in the Arab regions of the area, the UN, the US, Israel,
04:48 so on and so forth.
04:49 We're far from it. It's not happening yet.
04:52 But at least we have right now the diplomats on all sides of this conflict
04:56 ramping up their efforts to try to hammer out some sort of vision
05:02 for a compromise that could see this war, this horrific war,
05:05 wind down at some point, despite the very militaristic,
05:09 even belligerent, you might say, rhetoric coming from both sides.