Deal on BRINK OF COLLAPSE, JD Vance Calls Out Israel

Good morning, everyone.It's Friday, June 19th here at Breaking Points.And we have an amazing show, as always, don't we, folks?

That is the plan.Yeah.A lot of a lot of breaking developments right as we're coming on air this morning, too.

That's right.We've got Crystal, Emily, Ryan, and I am so happy to be back.I was gone for two weeks.I was out east coaching a team to a championship 50 years in the making.I, of course, am referring to the IRGC in Iran.

Well played.

Congrats, bro.It's nice to be stateside, but a long time coming.

So, yeah, you were down a bit in the fourth quarter, but yeah, you really pulled it out.

Got to watch out for those refs.But now we're here and we've got a lot of new war updates over the last 12 to 24 hours.Ryan, where are we at in this moment?

So yesterday, the Israelis launched another offensive inside Lebanon, and it was repelled rather ferociously.It looks like at least four Israeli soldiers were killed, many others wounded.It's unclear how many Hezbollah fighters were killed, although it does, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, it seems like at least 28 civilians were killed over the last 24 hours.They started knocking down buildings, I believe in Nabatea, there was a huge civilian residential complex taken down, as well as bombings of other nearby villages.And Israel was planning a massive retaliation for this, which to me is a kind of interesting way of conceptualizing your role in the world.You know, this is an occupying army who is in the

neighboring country trying to push further in, suffers casualties as a result of that, and then announces that it is the victim of a terrorist attack, referring to the Hezbollah as terrorists, and is then going to launch further attacks on civilian infrastructure throughout Lebanon.Iran told the United States, and Jeremy is reporting this for DropSight later today, that if Israel continues the pace with this behavior, they're going to start attacking Israel without warning.They're not going to do this whole, OK, we're mad.We're going to launch a demonstrative strike to show that we are angry.They're just going to start hitting them.And so we had a overnight or overnight here in the East Coast during early morning throughout the day, series of negotiations between Hezbollah, Iran, the United States, Israel, brokered by Qatar.

And they announced a renewed ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah that was to take effect at 4 p .m.local time, which is, as we're recording this, that would be a little bit more than an hour ago.So as we speak, they are in a renewed ceasefire.So by the time you guys are watching this, you can check to see whether or not, you know, kind of hostilities have actually halted.But Israel is claiming that it does not require them to withdraw from the territory that they're occupying, and that it still allows them to what they call confront threats.

And it still also, according to Israel, allows them to continue destroying civilian infrastructure throughout southern Lebanon.They're trying to effectively make southern Lebanon uninhabitable so that when the hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced return, and they are actually returning like now, like once the ceasefire was reached, they started coming back, trying to make it so that there are no homes to return to.And they claimthat they can continue to do that under the terms of this ceasefire.I highly doubt that Hezbollah considers either of those provisions to be consistent with what they understand a ceasefire to be.And so what Iran's reaction to that is going to be remains to be seen.

They're supposed to have talks in Geneva right now.Those aren't happening.And it appears that it's because of this.The U .S.said it was logistical difficulties, I don't know, booking the room.

I guess, you know, they thought, they thought it was, you know, Jared thought it was Witkoff's, you know, job to like book the room.Witkoff thought Jared was supposed to book the conference room.And there's like a, there's like a European dental conference there.And so they got it instead.So, you know, now there's, I guess, scouting for new locations.The Pakistanis were claiming that the Iranians couldn't make it for some religious reasons, completely.

seems made up as well.

Well, it's kind of interesting, though, isn't it, that rather than just saying this is a problem and we're not going forward, they're both trying to come up with some excuses and cover for the fact that negotiations aren't starting today.

Sure, they all still want the things to go forward.

Right.Yeah.Well, I mean, to state what is abundantly obvious, this just underscores how fragile and tenuous this entire situation is and how easily Israel could destroy the whole thing.And we're going to play some of the comments from J .D.Vance, where he is quite critical of Israel.

On the very same day, though, Trump gets asked, oh, if Iran attacked Israel, would you defend them?And he said, of course.So, you know, we've got a lot of we've got tough rhetoric, genuinely tough rhetoric.you know, in public from Trump and J .D.Vance, tough rhetoric vis -a -vis the Israelis.

Is it going to be matched with actions of reining them in?Because otherwise, this is never going to work.And that is exactly what Iran has been testing this whole time.That has been one of the big questions in theheads as well.Will the Trump administration actually do what it takes to restrain Israel?

Because otherwise, there's no possibility of a deal going forward.So needless to say, it is an ominous development that before they could even make it to the locale of the first day one of negotiations, the thing is already, you know, falling apart.A couple of things also.

I would just add one other thing that it doesn't get discussed much, but there are Iranian politics at play here.You know, we had a story yesterday over at DropSite, which I recommend people read from Maz and Reza Saih, who's reporting from Tehran, about, and if you're just listening to this headline, internal debate rages in Tehran over deal with Trump.There is a huge faction inside of Iran who does not trust the United States, thinks that this is a giant kind of round of theater that is just aimed at allowing the U .S.and Israel to kind of restock and rearm, get some oil into the global economy, and then restart the war on them.And so that faction inside Iran is going to be looking for any opportunity that presents itself from the U .

S.-Israeli side to say, see, we told you, forget about this.We never should have agreed to this.This is always fake.What we need to do is inflict more pain on them.Uh, so, so that's, that's in the background of, of, and, and shows, I think, why kind of a, a Ragchi and Ghalibaf have to be a little bit delicate in how they, they can't just show up in Geneva with these insults being carried out, you know, in front of them.

Otherwise it empowers the others.And Mojtaba Khamenei put out this very interesting statement yesterday, which is in that story, saying that he doesn'tagree with the ceasefire, the MOU, that he personally doesn't like it, but he has deep respect for his civilian leadership, Pozeshkin, Rogzhi, Galibov, and he's going to allow their judgment to override his.And then he says, they have complete responsibility for this.So he's holding on to...

That's their J .D.Vance, huh?

Yes.He was like, wait, he saw Trump do that.He's like, oh, you can do that?He's like, OK, I'm doing that.If this works, I'm good with it.If not, it's on these three guys.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu doesn't have a J .D.Vance and is getting...You're seeing the ratcheting up of the rhetoric from the Ben -Gavirs and the like, Israeli elections coming up as well.And just to Crystal's point, it's kind of a question for everybody.Looking at the Gaza ceasefire deal, I have a sort of soft theory that I think is, it's probably not going to sound ridiculous, but it's basically that Trump likes to do these almost like ribbon -cutting style signing ceremonies, and he'll say he ended eight wars, he was trying to get the Nobel Peace Prize, and then he understands media enough to understand that something goes to the back burner, and it's burned into the public's mind as a ceasefire deal, it's burned into the public's mind as the end of a conflict, and then he's really angling for the public relations element of the war being over and him being the person to bring us, even though he was also the person that started the war, but him being the person to have ended it.

And so it is interesting to compare it with what happened in Gaza, because that has essentially been meaningless after the first, like, what, five days?Maybe not even five days.So it's a question, because I haven't followed that as closely as you guys have, but it seems entirely plausible to me.It'll be hard todo with Iran, but it seems entirely plausible to me that what he thinks he can do is set this on the back burner, essentially.

Well, perhaps we can find some answers with our friend J .D.Vance, who has been on a book tour for his new book, Communion, but also some harsh language for the Israelis.Let's start with this clip right here.

And this does bother me, is that you've seen people within Bibi's cabinet who have come out and attacked the deal, and in some ways, very personally attacked the president of the United States.And I guess my message to them would be twofold.Number one, Donald J. Trump.is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time.And he happens to be the head of state of the world's superpower.If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.

And the second message I would give to some of those cabinet members, Bibi, to his credit, has not gone down this path.But to some of these cabinet members in Israel who are attacking the President of the United States, the other thing that I would say is that over the last three months, two -thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected your homeland have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars.The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump.And anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the president of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in.

Emily, what do you make of that?Are they going to wake up and smell the reality?

Well, it's been framed as the Tucker Carlsonification of J .D.Vance in the last 24 hours, which is really amusing, by the way, because J .D.Vance has had foreign policy opinions like this basically since after he came back from the war, he startedshifting on these types of things.

And it's been known to everybody.This is why J .D.Vance and Tucker Carlson got along.So that is just a particularly, I think, cynical and weird way to belittle J .D.

Vance, who's expressing what a lot of younger conservatives definitely believe and is going to be the position of the Republican Party in 10, let alone like 20 years.as younger people start to take over more and more control in the party.So just to watch the backlash to that, we are in, what month is it?I don't even know, June?We're in June right now, and he's talking like this now.Um, that is mild.

That is mild.Uh, and to see the, the Marklevin freak out has been, uh, I guess amusing, but it's also really annoying because they have no idea what they're talking about and they're being so cynical and they're so obsessed, uh, with their own pet projects.

Yeah.I mean, it is head spinning.It is head spinning to see the immediate 180 shift in rhetoric from Trump.You know, J .D.Vance has just kind of kept quiet around the Iran war, let Marco Rubio take the lead, you know, in much more comfortable selling the war and much more comfortable ideologically with it.

But, you know, J .D.Vance told Trump, OK, I've got my issues with it, but I'm going to support you.And he has done that.So it is head spinning to see the abrupt shift, especially given that this is the administration that has, you know, criminalized even to a greater extent than the Biden administration did pro -Palestine protest and has had a complete crackdown on, you know, anyone expressing very similar sentiments to what the vice president of the United States is now expressing.So I have to put that out there.

The other thing, and Ryan, I'm curious for your take on this, that's interesting, is he's actually lying because there has been a total free, and we're going to have an Israeli journalist on actually shortly who can give us some more insights into the political dynamics within Israel.There has been a totala total meltdown.There is no doubt about it.There are a lot of strong things being said about Donald Trump.The public, Israeli public, who loved him five seconds ago is now turned on him.

His approval rating has fallen off a cliff.But actually, no one in Netanyahu's cabinet, to my knowledge, has said anything personally detracting Donald Trump.To me, Ryan, it seems like J .D.Vance is trying to give Trump that impression that there are personal insults coming at him from the Netanyahu government to try to stiffen his resolve to have a harder line with him.I don't know what you think.

Yeah, even Ben -Gavir, and I can put up his post that Emily was referencing, is doing the like, so this is one of his more genocidal remarks.For every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep.All of Lebanon must burn.And then he says, With all due respect to the Americans, Israel must make it clear to the entire world that the blood of our sons and the security of our citizens are not forfeit.All of Lebanon must burn.And then, you know, to obliterate, to crush the terror.

And then Arauchi said, this is not a rant by a random lunatic.It's a public post by the national security minister of the Israeli regime.The genocidal death cult headquartered in Tel Aviv is a threat to all of humanity.So even in his genocidal death cult phase, he's you're saying with all due respect to the Americans.And yes, you're exactly right that they're trying to like kind of put it on Vance.They call it the Vance M .

O .U.It's it's the same thing that a lot of Republicans have done throughout the last decade when they've been upset with Trump.They'll say it's his advisers, you know, that his and it's an ancient thing.The king is never wrong.He just it's his advisers.

From my watching and curious how, Crystal, if you're seeing the same thing, it's it's kind of On the one hand, it's like always.to see this kind of thing unfold.At the same time, I feel like I'm watching in real time the Republican Party that was anti -war in 2024, won election, launched a bunch of wars, reclaiming the anti -war mantle again.And it's like, I don't want them to stop their anti -war rhetoric.I don't want them to stop with this restraint.I want the JD Vance wing to like, prevail in their intramural contest.

But also, I'm like, you guys already did this whole thing.And then as soon as you were elected, you launched a war of choice against Iran and have not really restrained Israel and Gaza or much in Lebanon.I hope they do.I'd like to see it, you know, escalate, see their rhetoric escalate to actually stop this.But it's like, it's a little frustrating.It's like, really, we're going to do this again?

Like, at some point, you lose some credibility on on your ability to say this.At the same time, just music to my ears.So, you know, I'm a sucker for it.

I mean, I'm just skeptical of, like, I think we all should have a lot of skepticism that this is all going to go off without a hitch, that we're going to get through 60 days of flawless negotiations, that some new red lines aren't going to be inserted.Because, I mean, how many times are we going to be Lucy with the football with this idea that Trump is going to be anti -war and he's going to stick to literally any principle that he has ever articulated?So, yeah, of course, I share that skepticism.And I also share, like, a little bit of I'm enjoying the Shapiro, the Levin tears.I'm consuming that as much as anyone.I'm certainly I loved what you guys did putting the sad music with the with the tears the other day, but I also in the back of my head are like, yeah, but they had that.

of the day, I'm probably going to win.Like, they're probably going to get the last laugh.At least in this administration, it's very likely.

Yeah, I agree.And before the guest jumps in, I just want to say, like, that's actually what's so insane about the people who rallied around Trump for the last four months is that they were saying, trust the president, trust the president, the president knows best.And they were the ones who any time you're projecting an ideological idea on a Donald Trump, you're going to end up with egg on your face every single time because the man is not ideological.His view is pragmatic.Now, we can disagree on whether it's actually pragmatic, but it's what he believes is pragmatic.at any given moment, like first term, he was going to do a deal with Nancy Pelosi on DACA, you always end up with egg on your face.

So for the last four months, for the people who have been agitating for a war with Iran, literally for decades, to bear hug Donald Trump so flamboyantly, and then to turn around, they were saying, don't criticize Trump, you're ruining the coalition.But first of all, Hilarious.Second of all, it's so funny because they were the ones that made the mistake of acting like it wasn't just that Trump had pragmatically sided with them, but he had given them a decisive ideological victory.And now they're left holding the bag with egg on their faces and trying to pin it very desperately on J .D.Vance.

So it's just anytime you're trying to project an ideological victory, if you're seeing the mirror image of your ideology and Donald Trump, it will change.And not learning that lesson 10 years in is just Unbelievable.

And the reason why J .D.Vance is allowed to pick up the anti -war football and make these statements, in a sense, or why it's still wide open for him, is because on the other side, the Democratic leadership has completely abdicated any kind of ground here.I mean, their concerns are processed concerns at the head of Democratic leadership that they just didn't do this the right way, but they were very happy to have this war.And, you know, with Joe Biden over the years,two years of his presidency, gave them everything they wanted short of this war.

And now the Israelis are kind of like a dog that has caught the car and don't know what to do about it with Trump.So that is also why J .D.Vance is allowed to make statements that you could never see Chuck Schumer or any other part of the Democratic leadership say on these issues.So until they start saying that stuff, The lane is wide open for JD Vance to be the anti -war candidate in 2028.And I think that leads us nicely.

Yeah.Yeah.That reckoning is definitely unfolding.in the Democratic Party.As we speak, though, right now, I saw the establishment Democrats notched another loss up in Maine now that they've done their ranked choice tallying in one of the congressional districts there.And you see the ascent of the Graham Plattners, the Abdul al -Sayed, and a new poll came out that shows him leading their chosen candidate, Haley Stevens, Mallory McMurray, really falling off a cliff after she attacked Hassan and positioned herself on that side of the party.

So that is definitely unfolding right now as we speak.

Yeah, McMorrow's at like zero percent with people under 44.That's like not a cliff.That is like a, I don't know, some sort of chasm that she's at the bottom of.But Ryan, we do have a guest that we're going to let in right now.Why don't you introduce our guest for us?

All right.So to get a little bit more of the perspective from the Israeli political and media class, we're joined now by Noga Tarnopolsky joining us from Jerusalem.Thanks, Noga, for being here.

My pleasure.

All right.So we earlier we played a clip of J .D.Vance saying, look, President Donald Trump is the last world leader who has any affection whatsoever for Israel.So I would suggest to the Israeli cabinet and Netanyahu's ministers that maybe they don't trash the last guy who likes them.He had even more pointed remarks.

if you can believe that, on the Raz Duthat podcast with the New York Times.I want to play this and get your reaction to how the kind of Israeli classes, political classes, are responding to this.Here's J .

D.Vance.Yeah, you've seen people in their system, Ben -Gavir and Smotrich, who've attacked the deal.And I guess my response to them would be, what is your exact proposal?And, you know, you're a country of nine million people.You can't just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have.

Pretty sharp and direct comments.Sorry to sound like me, almost.So, Noga, what has the response been among either the government and also the media class there?

Well, it's a complicated question, actually, and I think that J .D.Vance's comments are more sophisticated than they may appear at first glance.He's using every possible tool to provoke and to put down you know, these really outrageous figures that Prime Minister Netanyahu appointed to top ministries in a desperate effort to shore up his hold on power.In case you think I'm exaggerating, Ben Veer, the guy we're talking about now, and Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, no less, and a few others, were defined by the former head of the Mossad, Tamir Pardo, as, quote, like the KKK.So we have to keep that in mind.

And what JD Vance is doing is doing by even putting down, you know, the real number of the Israeli population, saying you can't just murder everyone, is telling these KKK guys, basically, your time's up.You can't just keep saying whatever you want, as they have for the lastAlmost three and a half years.While Joe Biden was president, this didn't seem to bother the Republican Party very much.But now that it's Donald Trump who's getting under the skin of the extremists, they don't like it very much back in D .C.

And what we're hearing, I think, is that the Israeli political class, it won't surprise anyone to hear, has basically been mute.They have nothing to say in response.And when I say they, I'm really talking about saying he, the Prime Minister of Israel in this crucial and critical time, hasn't shown his face in public in days, hasn't even put out one of his favorite pre -taped videos.I think he doesn't know what to do.And the Israeli media class, I have to say, Across the board from Netanyahu fans who are in absolute apoplectic and sort of profane shock right now, all the way across the board to Netanyahu's opposition, they also seem in shock.It appears that everybody in Israel in power bought Netanyahu's line that he was, you know, Donald Trump's bestie, somehow his unique bestie.

Donald Trump, you know, was going to be the one to treat Benjamin Netanyahu differently somehow.And I think what we're seeing is a real moment of almost numb shock.And among the Israeli population, there really is a lot of fear and confusion.I think most Israelis are not particularly knowledgeable about the States.They're not particularly knowledgeable about the English language.They hear this stuff.

I think they feel frightened by the security situation, very confused by the diplomatic kerfuffle.

Noga, I'm curious for you to help us understand where the largest political fissures lie in Israel, because, you know, wehave talked a lot on on our show about Ben Gavir and Smotrich.We put up his, you know, insanely genocidal comments about how for every Israeli soldier who's killed a thousand Lebanese mothers should weep and all of this and how Lebanon should burn.But I'm curious.how much their ideas have purchased throughout society.Because, for example, in a poll that was published by Haaretz, they found that 82 % of Jewish Israelis support the forceful expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.

56 % actually support expelling Palestinian citizens from within Israel.I know there have been protests against Netanyahu in Israel, but they tend more to focus around tactics versus the the brutality or the morality of what is being done to Palestinians and or on Netanyahu's own corruption.So where do you see the most significant political fissures lying right now between the Netanyahu government and, you know, a public that you described as sort of scared and confused?

Well, first of all, those are pretty shocking figures that you just quoted.And in order to be able to respond to them, I'd have to know a little bit more about which poll you're quoting, because Harris has published all manner of different polls put out by different, put in the field by different institutions with different intentions.And I'm just not sure what I'm referring to there.

I've got one poll here for you.It's from Penn State.

It's from Penn State University, this this particular one and understanding that you haven't had it.I didn't send this to you in advance to have a chance to take a look.

Yeah.There's also this poll right here from N12 News is a poll on Trump after the MOU with Iran.Seventy one percent of Israelis do not trust Trump to preserve Israel's interests in a final deal with Iran.Just 13 percent still believe in Trump.So where is that distinction for you?

Well, I have a lot to say, but first of all, I want to address Crystal's questions about the fissures in these rocks.polity just as a general question without addressing the polls specifically.That's OK.And then I'll come back to the polls.Israeli society right now is really falling apart.And so it's very hard for me to respond in any kind of scientific precision to what the fissures are, because what you're seeing in Israel is a country that was a fairly confident, very prosperous, fairly successful, small country in a difficult neighborhood that had really prospered over the last 10 or so years.

leading up to October 7th.And that social fabric has simply collapsed in a way that I think has happened much faster than most people could imagine possible and has had so many shocking aspects that it really is difficult to address.But the first thing that happened before the war is that on January 4th, 2023, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced a coup d 'etat.flat out Latin America style.His justice minister announced a live press conference, which wasn't a press conference, and simply said, I'm announcing the first phase of a reform in the administration of the state.And really, it didn't remind me of anything more than, you know, some Argentinian colonel in the 1980s.

And that simply tore open Israeli society, when you talk about the protests, the massive protests, hundreds of thousands of people on the streets in a country of 10 million, that was during that period in which Netanyahu simply made explicit his efforts to really take control of all of the levers of power in the state.And since then, for Netanyahu, things have just gone downhill in the sense thatyou know, October 7th was a repudiation of what was even called the Netanyahu doctrine, right?His theory of how to keep, how to stave off any grappling with the Palestinian issue.Everything blew up in Israelis' faces.And what you have now is simply a fractured society.

in which a coup d 'etat launched by the government has been, I would say, somewhere over 50 % successful. The former Chief Justice of Israel, Aaron Barak, he says that Israel can no longer be considered a democracy, that there is now one -man rule in Israel. And Israelis are not adapting happily to one -man rule, and they're not adapting happily to forever wars. And the polling, to go back to that, has been I would say particularly unreliable and I don't know, you know, infelicitous, however we want to put it, because first of all, I have no idea about any Penn State poll. I don't know who they have working for them in Israel. By and large, the quality of polling in Israel, of public polling, is very, very low. And the only way to really know what's happening, I think, with any clarity is to see trends.Like if you look at polling over a period of two years, public polling, you can see where the trends are going.The polling on this war, both if you think of this war as the two -year, eight -month war since October 7, or this latest bit of war since the 28th of February, is particularly fraught because Israelis were asked, in a way, something that I consider trick questions by and large.For example, they were asked in most polls, do you support fighting to keep the northern border safe?And then that was translated in much of the book.including much of the foreign media, as, you know, 98 % of Israelis support war.

It's not actually true because when you asked Israelis, as other more internal polls did, how do you feel about Israeli strategy in the war in Lebanon?those numbers were not even half.And so what you actually see when you try and go in depth in Israel is a very confused population.When you talk to people here, when you talk to people in the North, whoever's still left there, what you get is rage and confusion.And I want to just underscore what I just said.One of the reasons that these polling is to a great extent crap, when residents of the Israeli North are being polled, At least half of them are no longer residents of the Israeli north.

The most important, the largest Israeli city on the very northern border, Kiryat Shmona, a city, I don't want to say and make a mistake, but I think it was a city of about 20 ,000 people before the war, has less than half of its population right now.And the reason you're not hearing about it in the media is a successful effort by the Israeli government to basically cover it up, cover their failure not to provide security for the northern border up.They allowed no formal evacuations, no compensation.And basically it's a situation in which anyone wealthy enough or with enough family has escaped the North.It's unlivable there.There are drones hitting every day.

There are images of kids, of those families who don't have where to flee, kids throwing themselves on the sidewalk trying to get to school while air raid sirens sound.It's like scenes out of World War II movies.But very few people are getting killed, in part because so many have fled and in other part because the population is well -trained and they either are staying at home, not working, keeping their kids at home, falling into poverty, orthey have bomb shelters nearby.And so, you know, Donald Trump hearing that there was a double drone attack in Northern Israel says, you know, it's nothing.Why is Netanyahu overreacting?

Like it was just a little tiny attack.It doesn't count.What he's saying isn't completely ridiculous, right?Because no one was killed.But the fact that no one was killed covers up the primary fact, which is that life is unlivable on the Israeli north.

Can I ask how the upcoming elections, in a way that Americans might not fully understand, could be influencing the reactions of Ben -Gavir Smotrich, also Netanyahu himself, and people who are anti -Likud in Israel?Could you break down some of the dynamics surrounding the MOU, but within the context of electoral politics, Noga?

Yes, I can.And I'm going to apologize ahead of time, but I want to take a step back before I respond to you, because Israel is really, really in like critical life support type situation in which To my knowledge, all of the leaders of the opposition, certainly former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who gets intel briefings on the level of the Prime Minister, former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, all of these are right wing guys, nothing radical about them, kind of the old school solid right wing.They have said that they have information that the Likud, Prime Minister Netanyahu's party, is attempting to either postpone or or cancel or manipulate the upcoming elections.And so when I answer your question, what you have to know in the background is that there's immense anxiety in Israel relating to these elections or what the hell is going to happen.I hope I can speak this way.So, for example, under Israeli law, which this government

explicitly and overtly tramples on, but under Israeli law, elections have to be held by October 27.In other words, the government does nothing.That is the date set for elections.The government is doing nothing, despite really significant efforts by many of Netanyahu's coalition partners to try and bring the elections up.not to have this kind of horrific October 27th date with all of its terrible echoes for this government.Netanyahu is just pushing and pushing and pushing the election away, and there are real fears about what kind of manipulation or worse he may be attempting.

In this context, What you have right now is Netanyahu as Israelis have never before seen him, right?He's really the most dominant figure, I think it's fair to say, in Israeli political history.He's never been a beloved politician in Israel, ever.He has been feared.He has been respected.He's been ignored.

For a lot of the time that he was prime minister, in part thanks to him and in great part not, Israel was doing well enough that people could ignore their leaders.And if he made, you know, like antics internationally or embarrassed Israel at the UN, even people who never voted for him and never liked him were happy to ignore it for a long period of time.That's become impossible.And today, everything he does and everything he doesn't do is seen in the prism of what does this mean for elections and will we have elections?Now, What I'm saying to you, I think other Israeli analysts who you might speak to would say, I'm exaggerating, right?Of course, there will be elections.

And it may well be that there will be elections as there must be.However, I know for sure that he is trying for there not to be regular elections.So that's one of the dichotomies.here.Prime Minister Netanyahu domestically, politically, inside Israel, is simply trapped in a spiderweb, a sticky spiderweb of his own making, and I don't see what his way out will be.So he has this reputation of being a magician, right?

But what he has done is promised Israelis, let's say in the last year, two things.One is he's Mr. Security.He is back to presenting himself as the only guy who can guarantee Israeli security, border security, national security.And he has adopted this pose despite having been prime minister on the day of the worst security catastrophe in Israeli history.And I think I think it's fair to say one of the worst terror attacks in known history, in modern history, since we have this concept of terror.Right.

A thousand two hundred people killed in Israel.in a single day.It's an astonishing failure.But nonetheless, he has promoted himself this way, and this is because he assumed that he was going to get a victory shot, right?He kept touting what he called total victory.He even had it emblazoned on, like, Trump -like hats.

He took one as a gift to Donald Trump.Total victory.And when you look at what's happening now, there is total non -victory on the southern border with Gaza.Hamas is resurgent.There is absolutely no victory.There's something very close to defeat on the northern border with Hezbollah, where four soldiers, these are drafted soldiers, so basically 18 year old kids, got killed today in a tank that was blown up by Hezbollah, where people can't live normal lives.

And then now this catastrophe with Iran, and that dovetails with his second promise to Israelis, which is, I've got Trump in my back pocket.I'm Trump's best friend.It doesn't matter that the rest of the world hates us because I have Donald Trump.I bring you Donald Trump.And I just heard today, incidentally, that the Likud party had planned, has already like you know, filmed and put into some drawer an entire campaign, like a video campaign, electoral campaign, that hearkens back to the 2019 Netanyahu campaign in which he had these massive banners that covered entire skyscrapers in Tel Aviv, showing him shaking hands with Donald Trump.And the logo at that time was, I'm in another league, right?

So if there are elections, Now, it seems like there are people to the right of Netanyahu in the Likud party.And then there are some more liberal people to the left of Netanyahu that say very similar things about the war, about Gaza.Is there a candidate that you see in Israel that would actually create a meaningful political difference if there are elections?

I think any other candidate right now leading a party were he to win, unfortunately I say he because there are no women leading any parties in Israel right now, I think would make a significant difference, a difference that could be really astonishing in fact.And I don't know what exactly you mean when you say to the right of Netanyahu because Netanyahu has very happily adapted himself to the most extremist, racial supremacist, theocratic, narratives, threats.Netanyahu has not castigated any of his ministers for saying any of the outrageous things they've said.Netanyahu and his Likud partylaunched their first, what looked like a campaign video a week ago, and it is an overtly racist video.I mean, there's just nothing else you can say about it, that it's racist fear mongering.

So I'm not sure that there are a lot of people to the right of Netanyahu right now.I think Netanyahu is either much more to the right than people thought, including myself, during many years in which he appeared to be a sort of standard issue right -wing prime minister.Or, like other people say, he's beholden to these extremes because he's on trial for corruption.His trial is not going well.He has basically cut off Israel's diplomatic ties, including, you know, to the EU, which is Israel's number one trading partner.He now appears to have lost Donald Trump.

at least in the sense of public diplomatic support.I don't think that J .D.Vance would be speaking the way he is without an okay from the president.And so I consider Netanyahu the face of the ultra right wing in Israel.And I do think that any other one of the candidates, including pretty significantly right wing candidates who oppose him, would changed the panorama in Israel completely, among other things, because everyone who is running against him, first of all, believes in rule of law.

Netanyahu overtly no longer believes in rule of law.When we see him sort of unfettered on the diplomatic stage, you have to know that in the domestic Israeli stage, he is much more unbound and unleashed.His government openly disobeys Supreme Court rulings.openly uses racism as a tool.And I think that anybody else, whether we like them or not, or agree with them or not, would just be a major qualitative shift.

So Naftali Bennett is, you tell me if I'm wrong, probably his primary opponent at this point.Can you walk us through what he meant?So this Jerusalem Post report, and he said this publicly, so it doesn't matter where it was reported.He said, quote, the clock for Iran regime change to start as soon as government in Israel changes.And you know, the term of the Netanyahu government began with the civil war, continued with the massacre of the 7th of October and ends with historic failure against Iran said Bennett.So what does he mean?

And what would a, what would a Bennett government mean for it?Like, what does he mean he's going to continue to do regime or he's going to start regime change?You know, if he takes power, does that mean the next prime minister is going to be trying to get us to go to war again with Iran?Or is he talking about kind of stoking internal unrest and doing some type of a coup?in Iran?And how in general would Israel look under him if he came back to power?

He had like six months in 2021 or something as prime minister.

He was prime minister for a year and a half, and he was surprisingly, I would say, middle of the road.standard issue responsible prime minister, given what was known about him ahead of time.Before I answer your question, Ryan, if you forgive me, I just want to point out something in that Jerusalem Post headline that you showed, which is that this is an AI -translated translation of a Hebrew language article, I believe from Ma 'ariv, that's a fairly right -wing outlet that partners, you see, of the seven in October.

Yeah, I noticed that too.

So the reason I'm bringing this up is look at the Jerusalem Post.The first tab it has are conferences, right?The Jerusalem Post used to be a real media outlet.language newspaper in Israel.Today, I don't think we can really consider real media.It's sort of a right -wing conference organizing platform that still has a media outlet.

And the reason I want to point out the translation is I can tell you what I think Naftali Bennett said from my knowledge of him, but this is the kind of mistakes that often happen when foreign journalists try and cover Israel.The only people they know are kind of Israeli techies who speak English and they read what looks to be like English language media.And much of it is really problematic.And most Israelis are not that sophisticated and are much more provincial.So I just want to point that out because it's a, it's a nice hook seeing that mistake there.My guess of what Naftali Bennett was trying to say.

there is something quite different than the way it's interpreted, I think, in English.My guess is that he's speaking internally to Israelis who are terrified of Iran and want to see regime change in Iran.And what he is saying to them is, remember, I was a responsible prime minister.He's, I don't think he's talking about either an internal, fomenting an internal coup in Iran or another war.I think what he's talking about is war.rebuilding Israeli diplomatic ties, trying to reestablish sanctions, which are now gone, against Iran, trying to reassure Israelis that he will be able to create, again, circumstances in which the Iranian Islamist regime will appear weak and fragile, as opposed to powerful and victorious, as it is appearing this week.

So one thing I've been asking people, Israelis on social media, and I haven't gotten an answer, a satisfying answer yet, so I'm curious if you could answer it.There's been so much rage at, and Griffin put it this way,the poll of the Israeli public, who knows if the poll's right or not, but the Israeli public turning on Trump and feeling betrayed and feeling like, and you described the shock and the fear.My question has been, okay, but what?Like, what did you think was going to happen?Like, you don't want this agreement.

I understand that the Republicans and Democrats here in the United States don't like the terms of the MOU.They don't like that sanctions are being lifted.I understand they don't like those things, But what is the alternative?Like, how did the Israeli public and the Israeli political class see this unfolding in a way that led to something different?Like, do they really want us to go back to war?Like, do they think that renewing the war effort was a smart thing to do and would actually lead to a better situation?

We had reported a couple of weeks ago at DropSite that Israel's ballistic missile interceptor capacity was down to double digits, that they were extraordinarily reliant on the U .S.Navy ballistic missile interceptors, which themselves were significantly depleted, and that the Iranians retained a significant number of their hypersonic ballistic missiles.And that's just on that front.That's before you get to the drones.And that's before the Houthis kind of enter the fray and shut down Bab al -Namdad straight.

So that's the question.What alternative path that has any rationality to it would lead to a better outcome, that they feel like Trump betrayed them by not going down.What am I missing here?Because I don't see any other path.Apart from boots on the ground.They tried the war.

War didn't work.Like, why would it work again?

So, I mean, this is a question we could discuss for hours.right?In part because we are, all of us living in an era of, I think, irresolvable political paradoxes and also non -rationality.You're asking for a rational response.And in this case, you really are like screaming up the right tree because I have gone berserk in recent weeks.And I've even, you know, something I never do, gotten into some Twitter tiffs.

with Israeli right -wingers who are advancing this notion that to me was clearly a fantasy from the start, something cheap that they were trying to sell the Israeli public as they desperately cling to power, which was the U .S.is about to strike again.Israelis have been living in a bubble that is very cartoonish and that is not at all rational, in which I think I think certainly what I call the BB block, right?I don't consider this particularly right -wing.I don't think that the Netanyahu government has any right -wing achievements that it can show in the last three and a half years it's been in power.

So it's become kind of a cult of personality, a little bit like the Republican Party.And they sold Israel a fantasy.Now, it's entirely possible that Netanyahu himself was not lying.When I've observed Netanyahu, the few times I've managed to observe him up close, mostly those days that I've attended his trial, Netanyahu appears to me more and more a figure who genuinely has drunk his own Kool -Aid, who genuinely inhabits a kind of alternate reality.And so I think that's one of the things that may have made him quite persuasive because he's not lying, because he's sharing his deep belief, right?

It's not a lie if you believe it.

Yeah, that's right.But there's something to that.

When it comes to presenting your vision.

So again, I'm trying to explain something to you without making excuses because this really is a matter that has enraged me.And the reason I have been enraged as a journalist working in Israel is because I think that politicians in the ruling class, and really an astonishing swath of the Israeli media, just have collapsed into jingoistic, superficial, tinpot, narratives, right?I think that the Israeli media, with significant exceptions of excellent journalists who have very bravely done a really good job, but the overriding narrative in Israel has been Donald Trump loves us and he's going to fly in like Superman and he is going to save our asses.And it doesn't matter.This is the Netanyahu line.Doesn't matter if Emmanuel Macron hates us, screw him.

We've got Donald Trump.I mean, to say that this is an irresponsible line doesn't begin to explain it for a country whose catastrophic vulnerability was revealed on October 7th.I mean, think about it, right?The betrayal of Israeli national security by putting all Israeli interests just in the hands of Donald Trump when he is known to be someone who betrays his closest allies.And he's known to be someone with very fickle opinions, even on matters of global import.It almost leaves you without words, right?

So there have been all along extremely prominent Israeli voices saying from the start, there's no strategy to this war with Iran, there's no strategy to the war in Lebanon, and our national security's beenendangered by this fantasy.And some of them include some opposition leaders, Yair Golan, a former deputy chief of staff of the Israeli army, who was head of the largest sort of mainstream center left party, and others.Certainly people, former intel leaders, former IDF chiefs of staff, and the former prime ministers, not just Naftali Bennett, but Ehud Olmert, who really has gone out on a limb.So all along, there have been voices in Israel, important voices saying, this is ridiculous.There's no strategy.

And those voices have been amplified more and more as the weeks went on.But again, Israel is stuck, I think, in a way that many Americans can relate to, because Donald Trump is in power in the White House, and he has for now a majority in both houses of Congress.So even if a majority of Americans disagree with him, or if some people feel kind of voter's remorse.At this moment, I know for many Americans, there's this feeling like there's nothing we can do.And that is something, first of all, real in Israel.Netanyahu still holds on to his tiny but powerful majority that he won back in December, November 2022.

And he has stoked this narrative of inevitability of my way is the only way and anyone else is a traitor.And I mean this using the word traitor against the media.He's called the media enemies of the state.He calls his opponents traitors.He can't stop talking about a candidate that you didn't mention yet, Ryan.Gadi Eisenkot.

He's someone I would suggest keeping an eye on.He's less well known.He doesn't speak polished English.In a way, he's an anti -Netanyahu.He's a former chief of staff of the army.And he's one of these two guys along Benny Gantz who kind of disappears.

shoulder the burden and they joined this national, this government, emergency government on October 11th, 2023.But he, he was the first to leave it.And Guy D 'Azincourt, sorry.

No.So, yeah, I think we're going to have to probably leave that there for the day.Maybe we can have you back on and talk more about the elections that we hopefully occur, that we hope occur in Israel soon.But thank you for how illuminating this was, Noga.Noga, where can people find your journalism?

Well, I appear very often on France 24 TV in English.I'm on Twitter at nternapolsky.I'm on The World on NPR fairly often, and I write articles in different outlets.

OK, we'll definitely link to that in the description.Thank you so much for joining us today, and we definitely hope to speak to you more in the future.

Thank you so much.

Thanks, Noga.

Hey, if you liked that video, hit the like button or leave a comment below.It really helps get the show to more people.

And if you'd like to get the full show ad -free and in your inbox every morning, you can sign up at BreakingPoints .

com.That's right.Get the full show, help support the future of independent media at BreakingPoints .