Biden Tried To 'Smoke Out Netanyahu' By Announcing Israel Ceasefire Proposal: Eurasia Group Chairman

3 months ago

Cliff Kupchan, chairman of Eurasia Group, joined "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss President Biden's announcement of Israel's ceasefire proposal.

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Transcript

00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis with Forbes Breaking News. Joining me now is Cliff Kupchan,

00:07chairman of Eurasia Group. Cliff, thank you so much for joining me.

00:11Welcome. Thanks.

00:13I want to talk about where we are right now in the Israel-Hamas war. As we sit here, we are almost

00:19eight months from October 7th. And last week, President Biden announced that Israel offered

00:23a three-part plan that includes a ceasefire, releasing the hostages and rebuilding Gaza.

00:29Can you talk about the moment that we're in right now?

00:33We're still in a very complicated moment. What Biden's trying to do here

00:37is smoke out Netanyahu. He's trying to force him to implement the Israeli plan,

00:43to go forward with a ceasefire, to take the risk of the government falling.

00:48And that's a big risk. I don't think it's going to work. But we're still in a...

00:52Look, Netanyahu has said, and he said over the weekend, after the president came out with his

00:58peace plan, that this won't go forward as long as Hamas is not fully destroyed. And what that

01:06meant, this won't go forward until Hamas is eradicated from Rafah. So we still have a lot

01:12of fighting left. And what do you think of that strategy of President Biden, you know,

01:17essentially trying to, as you said, smoke Netanyahu out? Because an Israeli official

01:22reportedly told news outlets that this proposal Biden put forth is not accurate. So if that's

01:27the case, why would Biden put it forward? Well, I think Israeli officials have told

01:36other press outlets that it's more or less accurate. I mean, some of the details,

01:40I don't think are accurate. But I think what happened here is the Israeli war cabinet,

01:45you know, Netanyahu, Defense Minister Gallant, and Mr. Gantz,

01:53former head of the military, all agreed on this. The full cabinet didn't. But the war cabinet

01:59allowed this to move forward, didn't tell Israeli people about it. Biden then used it and made it

02:03public. And that was the smokeout attempt. But the flaw in the logic is that he's going to lose,

02:14Netanyahu is likely to lose some part of his support right now. If he loses the far right,

02:19the entire government comes down. If Mr. Gantz, the centrist member of the war cabinet leaves,

02:26he gets weakened, but the government doesn't fall. Bibi's a survivor. He's likely, I think,

02:31unfortunately, from my point of view, to stick with the far right, which leaves us in this war.

02:37So politically, what do you think this does to Netanyahu right now?

02:42It makes him weaker. Bibi is the great ditherer, the great non-big decision maker man. He's known

02:49to be decisive and hard line, but throughout his rules, whether it's attack Iran, make other big,

02:55bold decisions, he doesn't really do it. He's very, very careful, very, very studied,

02:59very kind of chess chess-like in the way he makes decisions. I think right now,

03:04his decision-making ability is very, very weak. He's not going to be able to do it.

03:09I think right now, his main calculation is, how do I get most of what I want politically,

03:15which is to take down Hamas and not face the music for the crimes that I may have committed,

03:22you know, face legal trouble. I do that by doing nothing definitive. If I have to make a choice,

03:30sticking with the right so that my government doesn't fall. And that's the thin gray line

03:36of the many thin gray lines I can walk. That's the one that looks the best to me.

03:41I want to talk about another line, and that was President Biden's red line, which was

03:45a Rafa offensive. And a little bit over a week ago, there was an Israeli airstrike in Rafa

03:52that led to the international all eyes on Rafa movement. It was largely condemned worldwide.

03:58Do you think this Biden smoke out attempt had anything to do with what could have been the

04:05crossing of his red line? I don't think that it crossed the US red line. I mean, the US red line

04:14to me is as clear as mud. It's, you know, when John Kirby has explained it, it is, you know,

04:22no massive troop formation here. No combined armed formation there. It's got this list of,

04:28you know, really hard to meet criteria. The main thing implicit in Biden's red line is no

04:35massive frontal assault on Rafa, the way you did Gaza City and Han Yunis, where you leveled the

04:42cities. That I can't help you with, that I can't defend, that I'm going to hold back more US

04:48weapons systems on. Israel, you know, they're not, they're smart. They're, this is a much more

04:55gradualist, a much more targeted, a much less, less dramatic takedown of Rafa. And that's what

05:02they're going to continue doing. So I don't think this breaks the red lines. I think that the,

05:08just like with the kitchen workers, this strike last week was a massive PR and humanitarian

05:17setback for the United States. Every time Israel hits a tent city or a bunch of aid workers,

05:26it's a nightmare for the US and for Israel, both of whom are taking an unprecedented and

05:31historically unprecedented beating in international public opinion. So it doesn't break the red line,

05:38but it breaks the hearts of Americans and it puts Biden, you know, even further in the tank,

05:44and I think he's in a bit of a tank, in the race against Trump for the presidency.

05:49President Biden had some comments on Israel and Netanyahu in a Time interview that was

05:54released today. I want to read the question answer bit and get your take. The question was,

05:59some in Israel have suggested that Netanyahu is prolonging the war for his own political

06:03self-preservation. Do you believe that? And this is how President Biden answered.

06:07I'm not going to comment on that. There's every reason for people to draw that conclusion.

06:12What do you make of A, his comment, and B, what do you make of US-Israeli relations going forward?

06:18I'm no fan of Netanyahu. I think the President, from what you just read to me, I haven't seen it

06:24before, agreed with the assertion that he's doing it for his own personal reasons.

06:33Again, as something very critical of Netanyahu in this extremist Israeli government,

06:37I don't think that's fair. I just don't think it's fair. The majority of Israelis

06:43The majority of Israelis support Netanyahu's war goals. This is very much of a fortress Israel

06:51bunker mentality. Bibi Netanyahu, for the first time in months, is now pulling ahead of Gantz

06:59as far as preferred next leader. He just pulled ahead over the last week.

07:05So Netanyahu is on the rise. Many Israelis support his war policies.

07:09So it's hard for me to argue, unfortunately, that this is only because of his personal goals.

07:18It would likely be partly on behalf of his personal goals. But I can't get from here to

07:24there on the only thing. And what do you think the United States' relationship with Israel

07:30looks like going forward? Even let's say there is a ceasefire deal that's reached.

07:35What does that look like?

07:40Well, a ceasefire, one could envision. The first six weeks, you get most of the hostages out.

07:47Israel moves away from population centers. A lot of aid goes back in. You get, you know,

07:54a number of prisoners released for hundreds of hostages released for hundreds of Palestinian

07:59prisoners. You know, you can kind of get from here to there. What I have trouble envisioning

08:06is what comes next, because I think war probably comes next again. Netanyahu would want to finish

08:11the job. The Israeli public would probably want to finish the job on taking down Hamas.

08:16And I'm not sure that Sinwar, that Hamas, is a lot more interested in this ceasefire

08:21than Netanyahu is. There are these two right-wing extremists kind of feeding each other right now,

08:26this really, really bizarre kind of political formation. I think that Hamas is gaining immensely

08:37by this unthinkable, unthinkable before the war, global reputational takedown of the state of

08:44Israel. And I don't think that Yair Sinwar cares deeply about Palestinian lives. I think he cares

08:54about himself as an historical figure. I don't think that they would agree to the ceasefire.

09:01So it's kind of where we are. So saying all of that about Hamas, about Sinwar,

09:07you don't think there's any indication Hamas is going to accept this proposal?

09:13Any indication? I mean, you know, this is how many days we've been through? We've seen this movie

09:18dozens of times. I see nothing new about the Hamas response, first. Secondly,

09:24I was just in Qatar, I don't know, three weeks ago. And the Qataris tell me, and some of these

09:30are the guys, you know, in the room where it happens, or close to the room, that every time

09:35one of the sides, every time the sides get close to an agreement, the side that thinks it's got

09:40something to tactically gain by walking away, walks away. So given the pattern, given the history,

09:46I am leery about a ceasefire. So Cliff, what do you think is missing from this

09:53international conversation? Because it's a conversation that's been going on for now

09:58eight months. I mean, this conflict has been going on for much longer than that.

10:02So what do you think is missing here?

10:07I don't think much is missing, because there are a lot of smart people saying a lot of stuff,

10:10so when that happens, it's hard to miss things. I think what

10:18people are missing is the reality that this is likely to go on until Netanyahu and his

10:26government believe that Hamas is more or less destroyed. Less than total victory,

10:31which again, over the weekend, if you watch the details, he didn't repeat

10:35a bunch of kind of unclear statements coming out of Netanyahu over the weekend. He didn't repeat

10:41his total victory mantra, meaning he might have climbed down a little bit in his goals.

10:46But unless Bibi believes that Hamas is operationally incapable of doing another October

10:527th, which Biden claimed, the Israelis don't agree with that, they're going to keep going.

10:58So where this is headed is Israel facing a pretty severe insurgency,

11:08at least in the near term, Israel providing the general security environment, call it occupation,

11:14call it whatever you want, but Israel controlling Gaza until there's some kind of handoff,

11:20not going to happen that quickly, I don't think. We're heading towards a much less bloody,

11:25but still bloody, highly unstable, and highly escalatory in the sense that it will keep,

11:34you know, the Northern Front, the Israeli fight with Lebanon going. It'll keep Israel-Lebanon

11:38going. It'll keep the Houthis shooting. So we're not heading for an equilibrium in Gaza

11:44that will allow either Gaza to calm down, or will allow the myriad of other conflicts that are being

11:50driven by the Gaza conflict to calm down. To me, that's a sad reality.

11:55And so what are you looking out for next, especially when it comes to the United States'

11:59role and relationships in all of this?

12:07The United States is going to have to, I think, continue to selectively withhold weapons from

12:14Israel as violence. If it escalates again, that's got to be a tool that can't just be a one-off.

12:24I think more broadly, though, what the US has to do is devise a strategy

12:31towards the rest of the world, but especially towards the global South, where we're way on a

12:35step on how to re-engage, how to build back some kind of diplomatic connectivity, which is lacking.

12:49I think we can make the comeback with Europe because we're structurally very close. I think

12:54India is a structurally close ally, Northeast Asia, Japan, structurally close allies.

12:59Where we really need to gain ground is with Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, some of the critical,

13:07emerging, rising global South powers that are going to be really important in tomorrow's world.

13:14That's where we're terribly weak right now and where the Israel conflict has really hit us hard.

13:20And how diplomatically did we get there and how long will it take us to get stronger relationships

13:27there? How did we get there? We got there by having blindfolds on for a very long time.

13:40Look, in fairness to the US government, I've been in US governments and it's hard. You've

13:43got a windscreen out there and when it gets full of stuff from China, from Russia, from other

13:50big conflicts, Middle East, it's hard to see what you're not doing. That being said,

13:57when the United States put sanctions on Russia for what it did in Ukraine, the global South said,

14:04no, no, no, we're not going to pay higher energy prices and higher food prices for a war that is

14:09not our war. And the United States was caught way off guard, caught way off guard and has been sort

14:17of, and then began trying to catch up from behind. By the time of last year's G20 in Delhi in India,

14:24the United States was back in, I think, really caught up with the global South, you know,

14:30multi-level development bank reform, making the Organization of African Unity a member of the G20,

14:36some really kind of cool stuff that we actually supported and led.

14:39Now, that has been totally squandered with a war in the Middle East. So, we seem to have

14:46to fill the bucket and dump it, fill the bucket and dump it. That's the pattern so far. How we can

14:54fill the bucket and keep the water in it is a task that we haven't succeeded in yet.

15:00And if I were in the Biden administration, I would be kind of focusing on, if I was at a

15:05policy planning in the Biden administration, that would be probably my top issue.

15:10Cliff Kopchin, thank you so much for your insight, your expertise.

15:14I enjoyed the conversation. I hope you can come join me again soon.

15:18That was fun. Anytime. See you.

Biden Tried To 'Smoke Out Netanyahu' By Announcing Israel Ceasefire Proposal: Eurasia Group Chairman

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