One Year Later: U.S. Policy Options in the Israel-Hamas War

As the one-year anniversary of the October 7 attacks approaches, panelists discuss U.S. policy options regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict, including the administration’s proposed peace deal and the ramifications of the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

 

BRONNER: Welcome to today’s Council on Foreign Relations virtual meeting. It’s called “One Year Later: U.S. Policy Options in the Israel-Hamas War.” 

I’m Ethan Bronner. I’m Israel bureau chief and senior editor with Bloomberg, and I’ll be presiding over today’s discussion.  

We have four panelists, all terrific: Elliott Abrams, who’s the senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies here at the Council and a former deputy national security advisor; Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at Carnegie, and a former senior advisor on Israel-Arab—sorry—Arab-Israeli negotiations at the State Department; and, of course, a member of the Council. Mara Rudman, who’s the James R. Schlesinger distinguished fellow at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, and a former deputy U.S. national security advisor, and a member of the Council; and Dana Stroul, who directs research at the Washington Institute and as a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense Middle East.  

So I want to—you know, I want to say a couple of things quickly. One is that I’m sitting in Tel Aviv. And we are told that Iran may be about to launch a ballistic missile at Israel. We shall see if that happens. And if it does, you’ll forgive me if I duck out early.  

We’re here to discuss one year after October 7. And, obviously, Lebanon and Iran are all over this story. But let’s start with two things that I read today. 

The first is from Sarah Leah Whitson of DAWN, who I think might be on the call with us, and as a Council member. She calls the invasion of Lebanon by Israel, quote, “The entirely predictable consequence of the Biden administration’s ceaseless coddling and resupply of weapons to Israel. The administration,” she says, has given, quote, “Israel a blank check to light the entire region on fire, all while disregarding our own legal obligations under both U.S. and international law to halt the weapons flow to them.”  

The second quote is from Walter Russell Mead in today’s Wall Street Journal. He writes, “Mr. Netanyahu had the clarity of mind to ignore Washington’s standard talking points. The result was Israel’s greatest string of triumphs since the Six-Day War. It was also a significant boost for American and Western interests at a dangerous time.” “In the real world,” Meade writes, “Iran is a malign and restless power whose fanatical ambition can only be resisted by force. The international laws of war, like it or not, have limited relevance in a region in which the U.N. Charter itself is largely a dead letter.”  

Dana, I want to start with you. You had a very powerful piece in Foreign Affairs last week. It was before Nasrallah was assassinated. But you argued that Israel and Hezbollah are locked in a dangerous spiral, and that needs to be stopped ASAP. And one of the points you made is that Israel isn’t really able to strike a knockout blow at Hezbollah, given how tired its forces have been from Gaza, and so on. So I wanted to ask you what you feel now about Israel’s abilities, where we stand, and also about Sarah’s lament. 

STROUL: Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. Pleasure to be with you all, especially such an impressive and esteemed panel. So a pleasure to be here today.  

So unfortunately, that piece was written right before Israel actually did challenge a lot of conventional thinking coming from Washington about the possibilities of using military force. So I think it’s important to reflect, first of all, on not just Israel’s obligations to the international community, but the international community’s obligations to Israel. So I’m thinking about U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which was supposed to bring to a close and provide reassurances to Israel about Hezbollah’s disposition in Lebanon.  

And largely, the international community failed to put teeth into that resolution, which allowed Hezbollah to expand its arsenal. There wasn’t pushback from the international community when Hezbollah moved from a terrorist militia to basically a conventional army, with its intervention in Syria. There hasn’t been resolved from the international community when Iran has expanded its resupply, its arming, its training, its equipping, and its direction to a group of non-state actors across the Middle East. And, of course, Hezbollah is the insurance policy there. 

With respect to thinking from Washington, there’s always been a concern about risk tolerance, and that certain actions would tip the region into regional war. And what we’ve actually seen since October 7 is several examples where what we thought the worst-case scenario was going to be didn’t happen. A few examples. After the April 13—or in the middle of the April 13, Iranian-directed attack on Israel, the U.S., even after months of frustration from most of the world about U.S. support for Israel and Gaza, still came together in an air defense coalition and demonstrated that a complex attack from Israel of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones can be defeated through multilateral security cooperation and integrated air defense. 

And Israel, I think, has demonstrated what can be achieved in the short term with military force. It has decimated the command and control of Hezbollah, its senior leadership. It has eliminated a lot of its weapons caches across southern Lebanon. It has taken military action in Yemen against the Houthis that have been considered off the table by the United States for years. And it’s continued to try to intercept and degrade Iran’s ground lines of communication where it’s shipping weapons and fighters from Tehran through Baghdad to Damascus and onto Beirut. And through all of that, we’ve actually seen the Iranians, until the intelligence warnings of the last hour, pause and consider what their next step is going to be. It hasn’t been a knee-jerk escalation to regional war.  

So all of this, I think, Washington does need to reassess and think through how it thinks about using force, and what military force can achieve in degrading Iran’s network. The big unanswered question however, I think, is what comes next. And only viewing this through the military lens is not going to be sufficient. I’ll leave it there.  

BRONNER: So—that’s great. So, in fairness, even the Israelis will say that only a military lens is not the right way. But typically, the sort of Israeli view is that we need more military, and the conservative view, more military, as Mead said, and let’s stop being so delicate, and the need for diplomacy, and so on and so forth. So that’s been an argument. And I want to ask Aaron, because you—I think you’ve been pretty impatient with how the U.S. has allowed Israel to do what it’s been doing over the last year—and ask you whether it you feel the need to reassess the value of Israeli force? Or do you think that, in fact, that we’re headed toward Armageddon? 

MILLER: You know, I pointed out an analytical reality. I’m not here to advocate. And I’ve been beating the same drum now for twelve months. The Biden administration, and there are ample reasons—legitimate some, not so legitimate others—the Biden administration, over the course of the last year, has been reluctant to impose a single cost or consequence on some of the policies, the tactics. The president tethered himself to Israel’s war. And it’s the tactics of the war, in any number of dimensions. But they’ve been reluctant to impose a single cost or consequence that normal humans would regard as sustained or serious pressure. There are reasons for that. And even—we could spend the next several hours debating those. I have a different take.  

My take, and I’m writing a piece on this on the quote, “out here, you’re not so big” problem. If you look at the last 12 months, what you see, I think, with a terrifying and frightening clarity, is the fact that Yahya Sinwar and Benjamin Netanyahu, the two principal decision makers, have pursued their war aims. They are the ones who have controlled the trajectory of conflict. They are the ones who determine when it escalates and when it doesn’t. It is a cautionary tale. We don’t have to talk about twenty years of American policy in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Middle East is littered with the remains of great powers who wrongly believe they could impose their will on smaller ones, particularly when those smaller ones are involved in existential—or, conflicts that they believe are politically, or from a national security perspective, near existential or existential in nature.  

And the Biden administration, like some modern-day Gulliver, has been wandering around tied up by small powers whose interests are not always its own, and driven by diplomacy. I spent a better part of my career with a profound belief that military power is a means to achieve a sustainable set of political objectives. Diplomacy is critically important. But diplomacy requires urgency. And it is the absence of urgency on the part of the two key decision makers, in my judgement, that has prevented the administration from concluding what is an eminently concludable Israel-Hamas deal, at least to begin de-escalating the conflict. And I see no change in Gulliver’s behavior. 

That, to me, is the single greatest takeaway from October 7. And you see it again with Israel’s actions, which in some sense, are quite legitimate. So, again, that’s the key issue here. How does the great power manage the smaller powers when the smaller powers are in the neighborhood and when they deem what they’re doing to be existential or nearly so? 

BRONNER: So let’s pose that question to Mara, because, Mara, that’s a little bit the business you’re in now, is trying to answer that question. How can the U.S. actually get its way here? 

RUDMAN: So, first of all, I want to pose that question to Aaron, since he’s the one kind of laying out the thesis. So I think that’s a little bit unfair here. And I would say that, first of all, that what I agree with in what Aaron said is that Yahya Sinwar and Benjamin Netanyahu are two key decisionmakers here. And they are, as I see it, the two entities in the equation that don’t have an interest in reaching the end that the United States wishes, and that many other actors in the region wish, and that I believe many Palestinians and Israelis wish. And so what do you do when you’re in that dynamic? I think it’s less to do with great powers and small powers and relative U.S. roles, and it is, sadly, a situation that has happened before, not just with the U.S.-Israel relationship. The United States can’t impose. You’ve got to figure out what the different levers you are in every possible situation.  

And here the reality is our—the United States levers for reaching the objectives that I think we seek, and many seek are limited. And it’s a combination of strong diplomatic effort, which I believe the Biden administration has been executing on. And I want to salute here Dana’s fantastic work in the role that she had. I really think that it’s a challenging situation with a lot of different variables, but you have to use a combination of diplomatic and military strength and leverage. And you need to work closely with partners throughout the world, which—all of which I think the United States has been doing. And still, you need to deal with changing dynamics on the ground constantly, which is what we’ve seen over the last few weeks. 

BRONNER: Well, let me bring in Elliott. Elliott, there’s sort of been a general notion—I think, abroad, certainly in the U.S. where you are—that escalation—you know, the escalation leads to automatic regional war. And the question is, what we’ve seen in the last few weeks, or even the whole year, does that put the lie to that? Does that challenge that idea that escalation leads to regional war? What do you think? Are we in a new playbook? 

ABRAMS: Yes. I mean, I think, as Dana was saying, that’s been disproved. There may or may not be ballistic missiles shot at Israel by Iran today. It may be, you know, saving honor by shooting a small number that they know are going to be intercepted. We’ll see. But I would go back to, in a sense, what Aaron said. I do not think the key question here is how a superpower controls lesser powers. I think the key question is, how do we get the superpower to adopt a decent foreign policy? What I see in the recent policy, meaning over the last year, is essentially the same toward Israel and toward Ukraine. We do not want you to lose. We want to help you defend yourselves. But, please God, don’t try to win.  

I think that’s the basic approach. And the Israelis who have, you know, greater power than the Ukrainians do, and are less dependent in a certain way on the—on the administration, have said, look, that’s bad advice, and we’re not going to follow it. As of today—and, you know, things can change. But as of today, I think they’re doing pretty well. Certainly, the United States would not have advised them to do what they have done in the last couple of weeks in Lebanon. But as of today, it seems as if it’s a great triumph. And it’s one that opens the door to the possibility of diplomacy, of, in a sense, going back to Security Council Resolution 1701, to try to keep Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon so that Lebanese can move back south, Israelis can move back north.  

But the administration would not have been in favor of that. So I think that has been—here I’m, in a sense, echoing Walter Mead. I think that’s been the problem. Our policies have been overly defensive. We have thought that the most terrible thing would be confrontation or escalation. That’s the thought you want the guys in Tehran to have. You want them to be scared of us, not vice versa. 

BRONNER: Right. So, I mean, do you—the question—the Israelis feel that the U.S. sort of doesn’t understand that this is a difficult neighborhood that—you know, and there’s this kind of desire abroad for calm. Please, let’s not make it worse. Which, you know, is understandable. But here the view, as I understand it, is: If we don’t make it worse, it will never get better. Worse, in the sense that more violence occurs. Now, of course, there are an awful lot of people suffering from all of this, both in Lebanon and, of course, in Gaza. We haven’t had a chance even to get to Gaza because we’re so overwhelmed by what’s happening in Lebanon in the last few weeks.  

And I mean, we really do need to talk about Gaza. So why don’t—let’s go back to Dana for a second. So are—what are you feeling can happen now, Dana? I mean, we are—we’re—you know, they’ve—the Israelis have killed an awful lot of leaders of Hamas. And they say that they have taken apart twenty-three of twenty-four brigades, or some version of that. But, of course, there’s Yahya Sinwar still there, and, of course, the hundred hostages still there. And it doesn’t—and there was always this notion that there could be a deal to get them out, but it doesn’t look like Sinwar wants one. At least, that’s what the Americans are saying. What should happen, in your view, Dana? 

STROUL: I’m going to give two responses to that because I know the other panelists are going to have views as well. First of all, the theory of the case up until the last few weeks of Israeli action in Lebanon is that you start with the ceasefire in Gaza and the release of the hostages, and that opens up all of the other lines of diplomatic effort that the administration wanted to pursue. So you get to the hostage release, the Gaza ceasefire, you ramp up humanitarian aid, and then you work to de-escalate in the northern arena between Hezbollah and Israel. You begin to think through possibilities for a political horizon for a Palestinian state. And then you bring Saudi-Israel normalization and the suite of U.S.-Saudi bilateral agreements back onto the table.  

And what’s happened in the past couple weeks, I think, is that’s been flipped on its head. And the question is, is there now—can we decouple de-escalation in Lebanon and northern Israel from Gaza? And that was what—you referenced my piece in Foreign Affairs. The trap for Nasrallah is that he tied his organization to the machinations of Yahya Sinwar, hiding in the tunnels under Gaza. I worry—so that’s number one. Is there a possibility that if Iran or Hezbollah fundamentally delink or decouple, does that open up new possibilities, leave Hamas more isolated, and more conducive to making that agreement? I’m very skeptical of that. I actually worry the opposite happens, that Hamas digs in even further and thinks, well, the difference between me and Hezbollah is that Hezbollah didn’t have Israeli hostages. So I better hang on to that, because that’s my leverage, to not agree to any sort of agreement.  

And then, number two, I want to refer to something in terms of the way ahead that Elliott said, which is we need to help them win. And I think the challenge here, and this is the other piece I wrote for Foreign Affairs several months ago, is that winning is not a military end state. There has to be political vision for what a post-Hamas civilian governance looks like in Gaza. There has to be a plan for more than humanitarian aid. What happens next? How do we get people back to their homes? How do we get the lights back on, water running, people back in schools, et cetera? And it has to be a vision that’s not Hamas. How do we ensure basic security that’s not criminal thugs or Hamas?  

We know that there are Arab militaries and leadership in the region that are willing to entertain the notion of boots on the ground, but only if there’s Israeli openness to a political horizon for a Palestinian state. And it’s this—it’s this issue where I would agree with Mara completely. The administration has absolutely leaned in on diplomacy. I can’t imagine another year with so many visits by the secretary of state, the CIA director, the national security advisor, and all of the Senate-confirmed officials underneath, all across the region trying to work on these very arrangements.  

So the next step in Gaza I think is ambiguous. One, because I don’t know that Hamas actually is going to feel more pressure. And, number two, the Israeli political system looks to me very locked in not getting to even an openness to the things they would need to agree to in order to bring in that regional and international support. 

BRONNER: So let me take the conversation again to Aaron then, because I think you’re right. I think that, from what I can see here, the likelihood that anybody who could run a government here would talk about a Palestinian state is pretty close to zero. So the question is, what do you do, right? In other words—and you have two very, very complicated problems. One is the growing power of Iran and its militias. And the other is the terrible treatment of Palestinians in all directions here. That is not likely to change soon. Aaron, I mean, what can be done? 

MILLER: I mean, what seems so elemental to me—it’s not a question of how many trips Tony Blinken takes to the region. Former Secretary James Baker took ten to get to the Madrid peace conference. It was about leadership. And this is the fundamental missing ingredient. We can have discussions all day long about U.S. policy, what it should be, how we should construct it, what the future of Gaza can be. The reality is, you need partners who are willing to entertain both tactics and strategies that are at least reasonably coincident with your own. And, to point out the obvious, the Middle East is now in the hands, literally, of Yahya Sinwar, the preeminent Palestinian decisionmaker in Gaza, the new leader of Hezbollah not yet confirmed by the advisory council, Hachem Safieddine, Benjamin Netanyahu, Mahmoud Abbas—I shouldn’t even mention him as a player—and the Supreme Leader of Iran the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  

And I would submit to you that when good things happen in this region, it is because there are leaders who are masters of their political houses, not prisoners of their ideologies. They are not fighting the United States every step of the way. They are not extractive leaders. They are interested in moving things forward. You don’t have, as best I can see—with the exception of the Gulf, and Mohammed bin Salman is another story—you don’t have in this central pocket of this region the horses to pull the kinds of end states to which the United States is aspiring. This has been clear from the beginning. And I don’t want to identify Benjamin Netanyahu. He doesn’t belong in the same category of the others, to preside over foreign terrorist organizations which, by statute and law, we have designated as FTOs. The other one is the leader of a country that is a state-sponsor of terror.  

But the reality is, as best I can see having spent a lot of time trying to persuade Israelis to do things, the Israelis end up, in many respects, being the key to this. They really do. What the Israelis do and what they don’t do is critically important to getting any of this done. You have a prime minister who is on trial for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in a Jerusalem district court four years running. He’s due to testify in December. The organizing principle of his world view is survivability. Most every decision he takes in some way or not is related. His decision to bring in Gideon Saar, which is an additional four seats into the Knesset. And he’s waiting patiently, the Knesset comes back at the end of October, to determine who the next president of the United States is. And he will adjust his tactics and strategies accordingly.  

Ethan, to the question of what we should do, the honest answer is, in my judgment, if you want to make fundamental changes to produce stability in Gaza, implement 1701, pursue a political horizon, you cannot get there with the leaders with which we are dealing.  

BRONNER: OK. So in other words we need to wait or not have as ambitious a goal as we had set out? 

MILLER: No, we—no. 

BRONNER: No? What do we need to do? 

MILLER: We can’t—there’s no—there’s no extrication for the United States. But there’s no transformation. It’s the middle ground. It’s smart transactions, is what I would argue. And the Biden administration has been trying to do this. It’s just proved incredibly frustrating. And we need to keep at it. But my expectations here are extremely low.  

BRONNER: So, Mara, I mean, I don’t know if you share those low expectations. But I one thing I would like to say is that, despite whatever Aaron says about Netanyahu, he’s not really taking the country in too many directions that it doesn’t want to go. I mean, at the moment the entire leadership, the opposition and otherwise, is quite happy with what’s happening in Lebanon, quite happy with what they’ve done over the last few weeks. And really, never really objected to what was being done in Gaza. There developed, of course, a dispute about how much focus to put on the hostages as opposed to—as opposed to continuing the war. But I don’t have the sense that, despite all of the sturm and drang in this country, Benjamin Netanyahu has really done—carried out a policy that is objected to by the vast majority of people. What is your sense of what could be done here? Because I think that there will not be open talk of a Palestinian state. Is fighting Iran important enough for Israel to be—to get the U.S. support? Or is the human rights of Palestinians more important, Mara? 

RUDMAN: I wouldn’t pose the question the way that you did, Ethan. So I’m going to answer— 

BRONNER: It’s unanswerable, right? (Laughs.) 

RUDMAN: No, no, because I don’t think it’s a fair juxtaposition. 

BRONNER: OK, fine. Push back. 

RUDMAN: Because I actually believe that the interests—it’s what I do naturally, Ethan, so. (Laughs.)  

BRONNER: Believe me, I know. 

RUDMAN: I think that—(laughs)—so I think that the interest that the United States and Israel, and many other countries in the region, share about countering the very real threat that Iran poses is a driving force for U.S. policy, as well as for Israeli policy. That makes sense. I think the challenge is having Israelis understand and appreciate that having—committing to a pathway to a Palestinian state—because, to be clear, Dana’s words were very careful on that. You juxtaposed her words to talk about a Palestinian state tomorrow. That’s not what she was talking about. What I heard her say—what I heard her say was getting the entities on a path towards—and towards how you do that.  

And to Aaron’s point, I would say tactics without a horizon, without a political horizon, are ineffective. And so having to think through what the steps are—and so part of the challenge for the United States in in dealing with Israel and Israelis, and for many other countries in the region and in the world, for Israelis and Palestinians both, is bringing both peoples along to the fact that they’re going to be more secure and more able to defend and counter the threat that Iran poses in the region if they are working towards a Palestinian state—a Palestinian state that does not have access to military means as well, that is certainly not Hamas, and is a reformed in one way or another—we can debate what that means—iteration of the Palestinian Authority that we have now. And that those two things need to go in parallel— 

BRONNER: It’s clearly what we think, yeah. That’s how I understand this. 

RUDMAN: The one thing I want to do, because I’m very—and I get that you’re the one asking questions. I’m really curious to hear from Elliott, though, who sat in the White House between 2006 and 2008—which were key times for both Hamas and elections that occurred in Gaza, and for 1701, and for what was happening in Lebanon. Because I’m really curious about how you view what the United States did then, and what its role was, and what we’re doing—what the United States government is doing now, and what you learned from that, and whether or not you think the government now is applying lessons learned from that time. Because it’s a fascinating period of time, and I want to make sure that—I’m very curious to hear your take on that.  

BRONNER: I was also going to turn to Elliott. Elliott. 

ABRAMS: OK. First, I do want to just put the obvious on the record. None of this was happening on October 6 of last year. Sinwar chose a war and chose the most brutal and vicious attack possible. And then Nasrallah chose, on October 8, to jump into it, to force Lebanon into it. Neither of those decisions were Israeli decisions. Now, Mara’s question is a great question, I think, because the United States made real efforts with respect to a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, including helping Sharon get out of Gaza. And then there was the aftermath of the 2006 Lebanon War, Resolution 1701. 

The aftermath, I think, proved in essence what I think most Israelis, including Netanyahu, would today say, which is force beats diplomacy. Now, the Israelis left Gaza, and the PA was in there, and the PA got tossed out by force—by a stronger force, named Hamas. And 1701, which was supposed to have UNIFIL and the Lebanese Army in southern Lebanon, they got essentially pushed aside by force, by Hezbollah. So I think the lesson for the Israelis was, the stronger horse is going to win here. It isn’t just a matter of diplomacy. Too much weight was put on diplomacy. And the diplomacy couldn’t bear that weight. 

BRONNER: Yes. And we’re here again. I think it’s time for us to ask the members and others in the—who are listening if they have questions. Carrie, do you want to start that process? 

OPERATOR: Thanks, Ethan. 

(Gives queuing instructions.) 

We’ll take our first question from Sarah Leah Whitson. 

Q: Hi there, everyone. Thank you for your presentations today. 

I want to make a comment and ask a question. My first comment is that I’m deeply disappointed, as I’ve already told some of you, in the gross lack of diversity in the views represented here, in the identities of the speakers. And I really wish for such an important conversation CFR would have made the efforts to at least have some broader representation of various views of this heinous war that has unfolded in Gaza over the past year. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, therefore, and it stands to follow, that not one of you mentioned Israel’s ongoing illegal occupation. The International Court of Justice’s orders, not just to Israel, to end its occupation and to remove its settlers and its forces from occupied Palestinian territory. And, by the way, Gaza remains occupied territory under international law, regardless of the withdrawal of some of its forces.  

And, you know, how you see America’s compliance with international law, including the ICJ’s order to stop assisting Israel in its ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories, how you see the potential liability for American officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity, which Netanyahu and Gallant have now been indicted for. How do you see America’s continued military support to Israel, notwithstanding whatever handwringing over diplomacy, all failed diplomacy, in terms of America’s standing and reputation around the world as a so-called leader of the international rules-based order? 

BRONNER: Who’d like to take that question?  

MILLER: I’ll take it.  

BRONNER: There you go, Aaron. Good.  

MILLER: I’m not going to comment, Sarah, because I know you feel very strongly and passionately about these issues, on the issue of identities. I don’t know what you meant, but, well, let’s just leave it at that.  

Look, the hypocrisies, anachronisms, inconsistencies of U.S. foreign policy are one of the least acknowledged and noticed features under Democratic and Republican presidents. We could spend another hour. I could give you my explanation as to why the Biden administration chose not to impose a single cost or consequence on Israel, with the possible exception of pausing a shipment of heavy bombs. And you and I can have that conversation. As far as international law is concerned, I think—and other panelists can correct me if I’m wrong—the U.S. abides by it when in fact it serves its interests. Ignores it, seeks to argue or modify it when it doesn’t.  

And I had experience in both Democratic and Republican administrations with this. And I think that’s a feature of U.S. foreign policy. And, frankly, it hasn’t changed. It’s the same with human rights. The Biden administration sought to reinject ethics and values after its predecessors had taken a kind of values holiday. But the Biden administration found itself in the beginning identifying a certain individual as a pariah, and now that individual, despite its serial human rights abuses, repression, is now a partner, on the cusp of receiving quite extraordinary benefits from the United States, should an Israeli-Saudi normalization proceed. So that’s my answer, Sarah. I mean, I’m not going to—I’m not going to argue the point further. We’re not consistent, and we’re very self-interested. 

BRONNER: I’ll take another question, Carrie, maybe now. 

OPERATOR: Take the next question from Joe Cirincione. 

Q: Good morning. Thank you for this excellent panel. 

The Vice President Harris has been successful in dodging this issue on the campaign trail, but it’s unclear how much longer she can do that. The administration’s policy for the last year has been one of three objectives—to get a ceasefire, to free the hostages, to avoid a regional war. It has failed in all three of those now, with the Israeli incursions into Lebanon. Do you believe that if Harris was to be elected president, she would make any adjustment in U.S. policy? 

BRONNER: Do you want to direct that to someone in particular?  

ABRAMS: Direct it to a Democrat. 

BRONNER: (Laughs.) That makes sense, not to Elliott. Ladies, anyone want to say something here, or Aaron?  

RUDMAN: Well—Dana, do you want to? 

BRONNER: No, Mara, please. 

STROUL: I’ll bat clean-up after you, Mara. 

RUDMAN: Sure. So, first, Joe, do not agree that she has been dodging. I think what she has—what Vice President Harris has been doing is laying out the balance that’s required in this, and the navigation that’s required on this. And has talked about, for those reasons, Israel’s right to defend itself, and supporting that. And goes back to some of the points, frankly, that Dana made at the opening, about getting assistance into Palestinians, getting hostages out. And while things are certainly not where the United States would want them to be now, I believe they would have been—we would have been in a far worse place in terms of the region, had the United States not been pursuing as aggressively as they have both Israel’s ability to defend itself and strong diplomatic efforts. And I believe that Vice President Harris will continue—would continue, as president, along that track, finding that balance. And I think she’s articulated that actually pretty clearly, both in her speech at the Democratic Convention and in the course of the one debate that she had with Donald Trump. 

BRONNER: I want to ask Elliott to address it, if you’re willing, Elliott. Because here the view has been that all of the diplomatic effort, all of the attempt by the United States to slow down Israel’s activities in Gaza—the view on the right in this country, I think I should say—has actually extended the war and made suffering worse. That is the view here. Elliott, do you have a view? 

ABRAMS: Well, I share the view that—for example, I don’t know what was accomplished by delaying by one or two or three months the Israeli incursion into Rafah, just as an example. I think that delay was largely at the behest of the United States, and I don’t think it really helped Israelis or Palestinians. We do have the vice presidential debate coming. And there is one question I wish they’d both be asked, but I really wish it had been asked at the presidential debate. President Biden has said Iran’s not going to get a nuclear weapon on my watch. Will you make the same statement? Neither of the people running has said that in this campaign. And I think it’d be an interesting question to ask, because one of them may have to act on it in the next four years. 

STROUL: So, just to respond on the Rafah point. There’s actually—I understand the accusation that that led—that prolonged the IDF’s military operations. But there was a real reason why. Because, one, there were concerns from the administration that the Israelis didn’t have a credible, implementable military plan that was prioritizing mitigating civilian casualties. And, number two, was the humanitarian concerns. So this is actually, you know, to refer to Aaron’s earlier point about policy with partners who don’t share your views—actually, that’s U.S.—that’s diplomacy. It’s working with partners who don’t necessarily see or follow exactly U.S. preferences, who see their interests being served by other actions, and where you find space to bring people towards what you think is in the interest of regional security and stability.  

In the case of Rafah it was a series of terrible decisions. How do you safely evacuate civilians? Where do you send them in Gaza? What do you do when you know the enemy that the IDF are going to confront celebrate loss of civilians, deliberately embed their weapons and fighters in civilian infrastructure, hiding it in U.N. facilities, schools, mosques, et cetera? When you face that kind of adversary, it is important to take your time, slow down, and make sure you have a solid concept of military operations, so you can do your utmost to avoid civilian casualties. And I should say here, the U.S. military doesn’t have the best record, which is why it was only two years ago that the Department of Defense put out its own policy for mitigating civilian harm, and then had the companion piece about how you work with civilian partners—with partners on how to mitigate civilian harm. 

And on Harris, look, it’s not worth revisiting all the history, but there’s a reason why Iran is on a one-week threshold of deciding that it should have enough weapons-grade uranium to go for a nuclear weapon. And under the Joint Comprehensive Plan—the Iran nuclear agreement, that was a one-year breakout timeline. So we are where we are. And I think that the strategic environment for either a President Harris or President Trump is going to be incredibly difficult in terms of what you do. One, because there is no military option that completely eliminates all of the infrastructure and all of the knowledge that Iran has spent working on its program for as long as we know that it has. And diplomacy is going to be very difficult because we can’t recreate the diplomatic structure around the original Iran nuclear agreement because of Russia, China, Iran and their increasing axis of strategic cooperation.  

I do think with a potential President Harris administration there are certain things that will continue. The fundamental belief that diplomacy should be prioritized over military force, that integration among our partners in the region and with Israel is in the interest of long-term security and stability, and that agreements and other kinds of activities should be prioritized so that it’s not always U.S. forces that have to be going in to stabilize the region. 

BRONNER: Carrie, another question, please. Thank you, Dana. 

OPERATOR: Take the next question from Raghida Dergham. 

Q: Yes. Hello. Good morning, everybody.  

I never thought I’d agree with Sarah Leah, but, honestly, it’s rather offensive of CFR never to think of people like me who have been members of the Council for the last thirty years, a Lebanese American writing a weekly column, and never to even invite our point of view to explain what’s going on there. So I wanted on the record that I feel the same way as Sara Leah on the issue of exclusion by CFR.  

And so now to my point. Dana, the decoupling of the Lebanon and Gaza situation, yes, I mean, it’s a de facto decoupling now that could happen, will happen, if we succeed in implementing 1701, practically and by enforcing both UNIFIL and the Lebanese army. This is an opportunity that should be taken advantage of. And I think it’s about time to be serious about it. The euphoria of the Israelis should not lead them to occupying southern Lebanon again, because that is definitely not the wish of the—hopefully, it’s not of the administration, definitely not the wish of the Lebanese. Nor should it—is it in the—to the advantage of the Israelis. So euphoric as they are, they need to step back and count, you know, the consequences—look at the consequences.  

By the way, news is coming now that Iran is preparing for a missile attack. That, as you all know, that the Iranians have probably in the next twelve hours, allegedly, they are planning to have ballistic missile attacks. So that it’s not over. It’s not over. We can’t conclude that Iran is totally out of the picture, but I’d like to know from any of you what do you know about the Iranian-American conversation that has been taking place for the last—well, for the last year, maybe, but now the last two weeks here, from New York onward? Will Iran stay in its restraint mode, even when it is launching missiles? And, you know, what is going to happen if they don’t stay put? 

Finally, I want to also, again, you know, this notion isn’t that, you know, you want to conclude that, oh, this Palestinian state, oh, nobody wants to talk about it. It’s nonsense. This is really nonsense, because the Palestinian state is a precondition for the Saudis and for any further normalization with Israel. Don’t fool yourselves. The Saudis cannot go normalize with Israel until there is some sort of a Palestinian state. And do pay attention to the initiative that was launched just this last week by the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, along with, you know, Islamic and Arab foreign ministers to say: You know what? We’re not going to wait for your “yes” for a Palestinian state. We are going to do the building blocks. We’re going to start now by making it sort of, like, in your face, de facto Palestinian state. Because without it, we’re not going to be able to normalize, nor are you going to able to have the bonanza of the Saudi normalization with Israel. 

Sorry I spoke too long. But, yes, for the record, CFR, please correct the course. 

BRONNER: So thank you, Raghida, with regard to the correcting of the course of the panelists. We got you with regard to—I don’t want to make—I don’t want to give you the impression that I’m saying it’s OK to not talk about a Palestinian state. I’m telling you that sitting in this country, no one’s talking about it. And the question I’m trying to get the panelists to focus on, if nobody will, and everyone else insists you must, where do we go? But we can leave that aside. Does anybody want to answer Raghida’s question about what Iranian-American dialog existed in recent weeks? I don’t know. 

ABRAMS: I don’t know what, you know, the secret dialogs. We did have—we had a speech by the new President Pezeshkian in the General Assembly that was talking about diplomacy, that wasn’t saber rattling. Now we’re apparently going to see Iran shoot some ballistic missiles at Israel. And, again, we don’t know. Is this performative because of Nasrallah? Or is this a major attack that’s meant to kill people in Israel? And then we’re going to get into the same round where the administration, if the missiles are shot down, the administration—Biden administration is going to say to the Israelis, take the win. And the Israelis—(laughs)—I mean, you know, we’re back where we were in the middle of April, except that the—to the extent that Hezbollah was a very effective shield for Iran, as a deterrent against Israeli responses. Hezbollah’s a lot weaker now. 

As to the Palestinian state, which was, I guess, supposed to be our topic— 

BRONNER: Sort of. 

ABRAMS: I just don’t—I mean, you are right, Ethan, in saying that nobody in Israel is talking about it. And I would ask, how could they be? In the sense that no one has a formula for Gaza. No one. I participated in a group, there have been ten other groups, trying to come up with postwar plans for Gaza. It’s a wicked problem. And then you turn to the West Bank, which is supposedly in much better shape. But no one believes the Palestinian Authority at present would be able to be an effective, honest, competent government of a Palestinian state. I think that’s why people aren’t talking about it more realistically. It isn’t realistic today. And no one has really charted a course for how it gets to be realistic tomorrow. 

BRONNER: Thanks, Elliott.  

MILLER: Can I just— 

BRONNER: Please. Please, Aaron, yeah. 

MILLER: At the risk of sounding hopeful. You know, every breakthrough— 

BRONNER: (Laughs.) Doesn’t become you, Aaron. 

MILLER: Every breakthrough in the Arab-Israeli conflict, with the exception of the Abraham Accords, was preceded by terror, violence, insurgency, or war. Sadat’s ultimate peace treaty came out of 1973. Baker’s Madrid Conference came out of Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait. Oslo came out of the First Intifada and Rabin’s calculation that there was no military solution to the Palestinian problem. You know, I asked the question, and I don’t have an answer. I suspect when in fact Gaza evolves to some other state, you’re going to end up with two traumatized communities—Palestinians and Israelis. I won’t speak to the leadership crisis and problem with respect to Palestinians, the absence of what most successful national movements have achieved—one gun, one authority, one negotiating position. 

Without one gun, one authority, and one negotiating position on the Palestinian side, the prospects of any meaningful negotiation to create a Palestinian state, which I still believe is the least-bad option to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem, is a thought experiment. So the real question, again, is on the Israeli side. Will, in fact, October 7, over time—remember, after ’73 it took four years for the political earthquake in Israel to be manifested. And then it was the election of the Likud and the beginning of its dominance of Israeli politics. But you elected a leader who—Menachem Begin—who could respond to Sadat’s peace overture. 

So I think that’s the real question, to me. I want to remain hopeful, because we can’t see what’s in front of us. The last— 

BRONNER: I think that’s an interesting point, actually, Aaron. And I would say that there are those who would say that the killing of Nasrallah and the exceptional Israeli military activities of the last two or three weeks in Lebanon have created a kind of Six-Day War sense here, that could allow them—one might dream—to be a little bit more generous in their outlook in the future. So, I mean, I hear you about the notion that after disaster could be a moment of hope.  

Carrie, we’ll take another question, please. 

OPERATOR: We’ll take the next question from Barry Posen. Mr. Posen, you may go ahead. I think we’ll move on and take our next question from Donna Shalala. 

Q: In addition to the implementation of 701, I’m wondering whether you see this as an opportunity for the Europeans and the Americans to continue to pressure Lebanon to elect a president, and whether that would make a difference. 

BRONNER: Who wants to take that? I mean, I’d say it’s more than electing a president ahead of us. But, yeah, go ahead, please. 

ABRAMS: I certainly hope so. I mean, why don’t they have a president? There’s a one-word answer to that. It’s Hezbollah. And maybe with Hezbollah weakened, there is a—there certainly should be a push to try to get that done. It’s not going to happen tomorrow, but over the next few months, let’s say. The other question, I guess, with respect to the Europeans, is whether there’d be any European help in south Lebanon. Example, would the French be willing to put some troops in to help UNIFIL more? It would be, I think, very useful, and would move the ball forward on a on a negotiation over what happens in south Lebanon, if Hezbollah’s willing to move north. After the 2006 Lebanon War, Secretary of State Rice tried to get the Europeans to be helpful and to put assets in, for example, border police. She got no’s from everybody. So I’m not all that optimistic, but we should try. 

BRONNER: Anyone else on Lebanon before I move on? 

STROUL: This is an opportunity to reimagine possibilities for Lebanon. So, for example, before the recent month, the conventional thinking—for example, Saudi Arabia. We’re not—we’re not going to throw any money after bad money. Lebanon is lost to Iran and Hezbollah. There are opportunities right now. So I think there should be urgency and creative diplomatic thinking, consulting with the Europeans, consulting across the region on what could be done to support the Lebanese army in moving into southern Lebanon, on how we can add teeth to what UNIFIL could do to implement its mandate, on how we can support Lebanese civilians who both are going to need to recover from the last several weeks of kinetic activity.  

Also all of the communities from southern Lebanon that had to leave as a result of Hassan Nasrallah’s decision to escalate on October 8, and Israeli responses there. As well as what we do to support if Lebanese political parties are able to elect a president or put together a Cabinet that actually would commit to meaningful economic reform in the interest of the Lebanese people, what the United States working with others could do to flow in, support that through international financial institutions and other forms of assistance. This is an—this is a time for bold, creative reimagining of what we could do to support a better outcome for the Lebanese people and the Lebanese state. 

BRONNER: I would say that if you were to improve and increase the strength of the Lebanese state, that would help Israel in its—in its attitude that it could maybe be a little bit less rigid in how it deals with Hezbollah, for example. 

Carrie, another question, please. 

OPERATOR: Take the next question from Rodolphe Costanzo. 

Q: Yes. Hi. Thank you very much.  

A question for you. If we take the longer-term view, we’ve seen in the Arab world an increase in—a step away from political Islam among the younger people, and more and more towards nationalism and secularism. If the success of Israel against political—forces of political Islam were to continue, do you think this would accelerate this process? Or should we expect, in the opposite way, a backlash, so that we’re—essentially Israel is creating more future terrorists? Thank you. 

BRONNER: Great question. 

ABRAMS: Really interesting question. I would just throw one line in to respond. I think leadership is very important. You will have, for example, in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, an effort to make sure that that it doesn’t increase a kind of violent form of nationalism. In other places, you’ll have the opposite. And I think this is not just a natural phenomenon. It depends partly on what people are hearing from their own national leaders, from their religious leaders, and in their educational systems. 

MILLER: I’d also offer a comment on Gaza, if I may. You know, the notion that you can’t kill an idea, and Hamas is the organizational embodiment of an idea, which is the replacement of Israel from Islamic state, it may be true. But you can make an idea less relevant. And I think that’s one of the problems over the course of the last year. The decisions that would have been required to offer an—to begin to create an alternative—when we talk about a reformed Palestinian Authority, I think Palestinian politics is going to have to be rebuilt, probably from the ground up.  

There may be new leaders. There may be not. But I think to offer the people of Gaza a different future, security, prosperity, it’s critically important to—stemming the tide of what the last twelve months has wrought, which is an entire generation of young people who have been subjected to loss of a profound nature. And while most will not join the jihadi ranks, we are—I think we will witness a resurgence in in that direction. So, again, military power as an instrument to attain political objectives. And that’s what’s been missing, I think, in certain quarters. 

RUDMAN: I would just add a little bit onto what both Aaron and Elliott have said. I actually think it goes to—and I think what you’re talking about, both the questioner, I hope, implicit in it, and what my colleagues have said, is giving people something to be for, as well as the things to be against. And I think doing so requires a combination of having the strategic vision of where you could go, where the region could go, what I think there are opportunities for. Yes, it requires leadership. And it also requires having a tactical way forward. So, Elliott, being able to double down on what it takes to get to that future Palestinian state, and in doing so be delivering in real time for the people who are on the ground there.  

Because, Aaron, while I agree that killing and idea is impossible, I also see many Palestinians in Gaza speaking out against Hamas, because of what’s gone on there, in a way that they would not have, even though they desperately disagreed with what Hamas was doing in Gaza. But things have gotten so bad that it is poised in how terrible things are to have a real opportunity. And I think this is what, Aaron, you were talking about in terms of hopefulness. But it requires both smart tactics and an overall strategy. And it could be—you could use it to be a turning point for the region, for sure, but with a lot of work that combines, as we’ve been talking about for the past hour, both strong military components and strong diplomatic components. 

BRONNER: And I would add that there remains the need to maybe rethink education in Israel as well, because it’s moving in a fairly religio-nationalist direction, which is going to be very difficult the other side to handle.  

This has been a great discussion, you guys. I’m very grateful to you. Timeliness is close to godliness at the Council, and I believe we’ve reached our end. So I want to thank you all, all four terrific folks. Carrie, thank you for organizing this. And thanks to all of you for being part of this.  

MILLER: Thank you, Ethan. 

ABRAMS: Thank you. 

(END) 

This is an uncorrected transcript.