00:00Are Trump and Netanyahu really on the same page or not?
00:03Do back-channel talks have Israel's backing or not?
00:07Does Israel have any red lines on their talks with Iran?
00:10Is Israel's war on Lebanon to be seen as an act of illegal aggression?
00:15Joining me now is Michael Oren.
00:16He's former Israeli ambassador to the United States.
00:19Appreciate your joining us, Mr. Oren.
00:22Let's start with that first question at the outset.
00:25We are getting from America indications that they are keen on some kind of back-channel talks.
00:31A 15-point plan is being passed on to the Iranians through Pakistan.
00:36But the Israelis are carrying on with their airstrikes both on Iran and on the Hezbollah in Lebanon.
00:42Are the two sides now increasingly diverging in their view of what is the trajectory of this war, Mr. Oren?
00:51Well, good to be with you. Good. Thank you for having me on.
00:54Well, right now we're sort of at a crossroads.
00:57The United States, for the record, is also continuing its attacks against Iran.
01:01It's not involved with the fighting in Lebanon.
01:03That's purely an Israeli Hezbollah fight.
01:06Hezbollah continues to shell the northern part of Israel, and Israel has no choice but to return fire there.
01:12The issue then will be the 15 points.
01:14And the 15 points, as they stand now, address all of Israel's war aims.
01:19These were the common war aims that were set out by Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Trump at the outset of
01:24the fighting.
01:25And they are, and I'll just give you the short version, no more nuclear program for Iran, no more building
01:30ballistic missiles, such as the missiles that are hitting Israel today, no more support for terrorist groups across the Middle
01:36East.
01:37Taking the enriched uranium, there's about 450 kilograms of highly enriched uranium that have been buried underground.
01:45It's enough for 11 nuclear bombs.
01:48Taking that arsenal and getting it out of the country, shipping it out to someplace.
01:53And for the United States, also reopening the Straits of Hormuz.
01:57For Israel, it would be certainly stopping the fire from Hezbollah.
02:00Now, all those issues are addressed in the 15 points.
02:03The question is, the big question that Israelis are asking, does the United States then get into a negotiation with
02:08the Iranians that's going to be dragged out?
02:11And at the end of the day, the Iranians may accept some things in principle, but not implement them.
02:16And the example we had is what happened in Gaza, where the Hamas agreed to give up its weapons, but
02:23to this day has not given up a single rifle.
02:25Now, so while those negotiations, if they take place, you're saying Israel will not be part of the negotiations?
02:32Israel will carry on with its airstrikes in Lebanon and Iran?
02:36Well, they're not talking about a ceasefire just yet.
02:39So if there was a ceasefire, Donald Trump could say to Israel, OK, I'm having a ceasefire, and now you're
02:45going to have a ceasefire.
02:45Because that's precisely what happened last summer, if you remember, during the 12-day war.
02:49At the end of the 12 days, Israel wanted to continue.
02:53We had planes in the air that were going with full, fully armed toward Iran.
02:58And President Trump told President Prime Minister Netanyahu to tell those planes to turn around and come back home.
03:04We're heavily dependent on the United States.
03:06We're heavily dependent on the United States for ammunition, for fuel, for diplomatic cover.
03:10So when the President gives an order like that, the Prime Minister is almost, almost duty-bound to obey.
03:19So let me get this clear again.
03:21You're telling me that if the United States, if Donald Trump rings up Benjamin Netanyahu and says,
03:27look, I have some kind of a deal in place.
03:30I have, we are negotiating the deal.
03:32Till the deal is over, there will be a cessation of hostilities.
03:37Benjamin Netanyahu will agree?
03:39Yes, I don't think I'll have much choice.
03:41And that's been the case in the past.
03:44You know, going back to ancient history, going back to the 1956 Suez crisis,
03:48every single Israeli-Arab war in the Middle East,
03:51every operation we've had against Hezbollah and Hamas,
03:54the United States has told us to stop.
03:56And every time we stopped, we are, you know, we are a small country.
04:01And so we have to take very seriously that what the Prime Minister can do
04:06is he can say to the President, okay, but if Iran violates this agreement,
04:11what is the United States, what guarantees the United States are going to give to us?
04:14Can you give us better weapons, for example, to counter the Iranian threat?
04:19Will you let us continue to fight Hezbollah so we can secure the northern part of the country, the Galilee?
04:24There are ways that the United States and Israel can engage in a dialogue,
04:29which is not just the United States saying to Israel, stop, under no conditions.
04:34We are very, very close allies, and especially after this war.
04:38So we can engage in an intimate discussion with the United States
04:41about better ways of reconciling our interests.
04:44But meanwhile, you're carrying on with what many believe is an illegal aggression on Lebanon at the moment.
04:51Israel claims it's targeting the Hezbollah,
04:54but the fact is more than a thousand people have died,
04:57many of them civilians.
04:59Civilian areas have been hit.
05:01A million people have been displaced in Lebanon.
05:03Is this an illegal war being carried out by Israel on Lebanon, opening a new front?
05:11I'm not an international lawyer,
05:13but I'd be hard-pressed to figure out what law would deem this an illegal war.
05:18Hezbollah got an order for-
05:20Killing civilians, killing civilian, Mr. Oren, targeting civilian areas surely is not part of international law.
05:27We're not targeting civilian areas.
05:28Lebanon is a sovereign nation.
05:29We're targeting Hezbollah areas, and Hezbollah embeds itself in downtown Beirut.
05:36So here you have an organization.
05:37What would India do in a situation like this?
05:39If you were being targeted by another country that is sending hundreds of rockets,
05:43not dozens, but hundreds of rockets onto your civilian population
05:46with the express purpose of killing civilians,
05:50they're not like trying to avoid civilians, they're trying to kill civilians.
05:52They killed a young woman last night.
05:55We have to strike back.
05:56Of course we do.
05:57Under any international law, I don't care what definition,
05:59there's nothing remotely, remotely illegal about this war.
06:02In fact, it is the ultimate moral imperative that we strike about against Hezbollah.
06:07That's the nature of sovereignty.
06:08What is the moral imperative in killing civilians?
06:10I come back to it.
06:11What is the moral imperative?
06:12We've seen children being killed in Iran.
06:15We're seeing civilians being killed in Israel and in Lebanon.
06:19And you're saying there's a moral imperative?
06:21Of course there is.
06:22Of course there is.
06:23This was a war that was started entirely, entirely by Hezbollah.
06:28And it's continued by Hezbollah.
06:30And any country, and certainly my country,
06:33has every right under any definition of international law to defend itself.
06:37And if you have a better way of defending yourself against Hezbollah,
06:40which is embedded in a civilian population,
06:42other than striking Hezbollah where it is,
06:45and warning the civilian population to the best degree you can
06:47to evacuate the areas that are going to be combat
06:50and struck by our aircraft or struck by artillery,
06:53which is what we do, we do that.
06:56So how will you respond to those,
06:58Mr. Ambassador, how will you respond to those who are saying
07:00that this is, you're making Lebanon the new Gaza?
07:03We saw the killings that took place in Gaza.
07:06Again, a lot of children, women, civilians killed.
07:09Now it's happening in Lebanon.
07:10How would you respond to those who say Israel is behaving
07:14like an irresponsible, dare one say,
07:16according to one American guest I had yesterday, a rogue nation?
07:21Well, if that's the definition of a rogue nation,
07:24if we have the choice of being told on any television station
07:27that we're a rogue nation or having our country live,
07:30having our civilians survive,
07:32then we'll deal with the criticism on television,
07:36with all due respect.
07:37We actually have no choice here.
07:39And it's interesting, in this war,
07:41we have something of the order of 95% of the Israeli population
07:44are behind this war with Iran.
07:46And with the North, it's even higher.
07:48So if 100% of Israelis are telling you
07:51that this is an absolutely moral imperative,
07:53it is a just war,
07:55then, you know, whatever people say on whatever television station
07:58is not going to make them to change their minds.
08:00Mr. Oren, the fact is the Iranians have responded today
08:04through their state media saying
08:05they are not interested in any negotiation.
08:07They will protect their sovereignty.
08:10How do you see that?
08:11If anything, it seems that the regime
08:13that perhaps you want out
08:14is only becoming more and more hardline in Iran,
08:18and there is a nationalistic sentiment in Iran as well,
08:21just as it is in your country.
08:24Well, I think that I'm not surprised.
08:27I think the Iranians have a different definition of victory.
08:30It's a very similar definition to Hamas.
08:32Hamas didn't care how many civilians were killed,
08:34doesn't care how much of Gaza was destroyed,
08:36as long as at the end of the war,
08:37it can emerge from a tunnel and do a V sign and say we won.
08:41Iran doesn't care how many boats the United States sinks
08:45or how many nuclear or ballistic facilities are destroyed.
08:49At the end of the day, what they care about is survival.
08:51And right now, what can I say?
08:53They have survived.
08:54And so they feel that they can go into these negotiations
08:56from a position of strength.
08:59And I can't speak to that.
09:00I'm not a spokesman for the White House,
09:02for the Trump administration.
09:06But in Israel, we would hope that the United States
09:10would continue to adopt a very strong military position
09:13in the Middle East, even as it negotiates.
09:15It has to negotiate from a position of strength,
09:17not from a position of weakness.
09:19So what is the end game then, Mr. Ambassador?
09:22Because you've got seemingly America ready to negotiate
09:26based on the Straits of Hormuz being opened,
09:29plus, of course, Iran agreeing to certain nuclear conditions
09:33that are put on their nuclear program.
09:37Israel seems to want, if not regime change,
09:39the decapitation or the decimation of the Iranian leadership.
09:43So is there, I come back to it,
09:46what, according to you, is the end game
09:47that will actually end this war?
09:50The end game would be the elimination of the Iranian threat.
09:53You have a regime in Tehran, the Islamic Republic,
09:56which, from the very first day it came into power, in 1979,
10:00has not missed a day when it has not sworn to destroy this country
10:03and to kill everybody in it.
10:05And not just swear, it's not just rhetoric.
10:07They act on it.
10:08They act on it all the time.
10:10And so what we want to do is eliminate the threat.
10:13If there's a government in Tehran...
10:14Eliminate the leadership or the threat?
10:15Let's get that clear.
10:16Eliminate the leadership or the threat, Mr. Ambassador?
10:19That's an excellent question,
10:21because it's almost a philosophical question.
10:24If the Iranian regime gives up its nuclear ambition,
10:27gives up its ballistic missiles,
10:28gives up its support for terror,
10:30well, okay, that would be fine by us,
10:32but it won't be the same regime,
10:33because support for terror is in the DNA of this regime.
10:37So it may have the same name,
10:39but it will be a very different regime.
10:41So I'll repeat, the goal for Israel,
10:43and I think it's not so different than the goal of the United States,
10:45is to end the Iranian threat against this country,
10:50against the United States, and against the world.
10:52But I will press you one last time.
10:54Therefore, do you agree with Donald Trump
10:56when he pushed the pause button,
10:58said I'm doing a five-day pause
11:02on the strikes on Iran's power plants,
11:05or do you believe that this is only buying time?
11:07Do you believe the United States
11:09wants to prosecute this war any further?
11:12We are saying there's high support in Israel for the war,
11:15but that's not the case in the United States.
11:17Do you see an early end to this war,
11:19or are we in a prolonged conflict, Mr. Ambassador?
11:22I don't know.
11:23You'd have to ask the Iranians that,
11:24and whether they think they can hold on for even longer.
11:27Clearly, the United States wants to end the war.
11:30We'd like to end the war, too,
11:31if the war ends with the elimination of the Iranian threat.
11:35That's the best we can say right now.
11:37I think we have a fear in this country,
11:39and I'll be very honest with you,
11:40that the Iranians are very, very good negotiators.
11:43And once you get into a negotiate with them,
11:45they will drag their feet.
11:46They'll try to water down America's demands.
11:49And our big fear is that, you know,
11:51if the Iranian regime emerges from this war
11:54and can rebuild all of its military capabilities,
11:56we'll have to fight the war again
11:58in 10 years, maybe five years,
12:01and perhaps not with the same ally we have in Donald Trump.
12:04Is there a possibility of a ground affair?
12:07Would Israel support a ground offensive in Iran?
12:10There's been talk that the U.S. is sending in more troops
12:13into the area, possibilities of a ground offensive.
12:16Would Israel support that?
12:18The issue of boots on the ground is not an Israeli issue.
12:21It's an American issue.
12:22We have boots on the ground.
12:24We have hundreds of thousands of soldiers
12:25fighting in Lebanon right now.
12:26It's not the issue for us.
12:29These are not forces sent overseas.
12:32They're sent, you know,
12:33a couple of hundred yards over our border.
12:35And so we will support any measure
12:38that the president deems necessary
12:40to prosecute the war and to achieve its war aims.
12:44Okay.
12:45I'm going to leave it there, Mr. Oren.
12:47Former Israeli ambassador to the United States
12:50for giving us your perspective.
12:52Appreciate you joining me on the show tonight.
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