for more analysis on the war in Israel we're joined by shibli telhami he's a senior fellow
at the Brookings institutions Center for Middle East policy and the anoir Sadat Professor for
peace and development at the University of Maryland uh shibl thanks so much for joining
us and we begin with o and hope that your loved ones and family uh in the Middle East are safe
and well after yesterday thank you you and I have talked a lot in the past few years about how the
Palestinian Israeli conflict was a Tinder Box but this seemed to come out of nowhere why now
why did this did Hamas act now uh that's a really good question um the surprise honestly is not why
they acted now the surprise is that they had such a capability to do what they did uh frankly that
is the big surprise and that's the Shocker uh and the and the Israeli military inability to
stop them that that's the Shocker now the timing when you look at it there are a number of things
that are going on at the same time the first is uh that there is a lot of dis spare in the West Bank
particularly but also in Gaza because nothing has changed 56 years of occupation they exploit that
to their benefit politically Palestinians feel there's no one uh paying attention to them the
international communities ignore them uh ignoring them the uh there might be peace between Israel
and Saudi Arabia that ignores them further uh so they exploit that they get attention uh as and
credit um as well as marginalize their opponent the the Palestinian Authority uh so they have the
timing really is not particularly surprising there also been talk of possibly Israel and many of the
farri U ministers in Israel had been calling for a large attack on Gaza in fact um Hamas itself
um claimed that they had information Israel were going to do it anyway after the holidays whether
they're using that as an excuse or not it's hard to know but nonetheless there was some
expectation of that you say the capability was surprising do you think they got help from their
backers in Iran well obviously Iran supports them and Iran is clearly a menace to America's
interest and have supported um uh Hamas but I sincerely doubt that this is uh being done
for Iran in fact I I you know the US has already said there's no intelligence that that says that
and um they you know it's it's improbable the the relationship between Hamas and Iran is very close
and Cooperative but it's not like hisbah and Iran where where hisbah can get um instructions from
Iran I'm not even sure this is a perfect time for Iran honestly because they want to perhaps
use their allies in case they go to war with Israel and the US um down the road and I think
H you know hisbah isn't eager for example to enter into this fight right now although they might be
drawn into it nonetheless you mentioned the uh talks about normalizing relations between Israel
and Saudi Arabia what does this do to that well it reshuffles the deck there's no question that
the Arab governments have had their own strategic interest and that have not been in necessarily in
harmony with the interest of the Palestinians that has being taken place and and the Saudis
obviously have their own strategic interest that they were intent on uh moving forward but what
they didn't expect is that this issue would Rise um uh to the up of the agenda in the Middle East
the reshuffling of the deck in ways that were unanticipated and uh their public even if the
governments don't care about Palestinian is our public cares in the Saudi public particularly
cares a lot about the Palestinian issue and and and uh this obviously puts it Right Center Stage
so it limits the possibilities and freedom that governments have with regard to making
a deal with Israel especially knowing now that as Israel has declared war we're likely to be at
this for unfortunately many many many uh weeks why do you think Israel missed this they the
intelligence didn't pick up the planning they seemed unprepared uh they Hamas seemed to get
PE their men into into Israel very easily why do you think that is um well you know I I think
this is something that everybody's going to be asking and frankly I think part of the finger
pointing you know Iran or or something like that in this particular case is intended to you know
divert attention from the failure I mean there's been an incredible failure that had taken place
uh and it's hard to um to understand I mean I've been watching Israeli television very closely the
last two days and and I think this is this is not a question they want to get into now because they
have business to do uh it's fully understandable there's a lot of innocent civilians that have been
hurt they have a a major um uh you know challenge that they the likes of which they haven't U seen
in in years uh so they need to deal with this now and they're putting off the question of trying to
investigate what went wrong but I think there is you know I've I've um investigated the 73 War this
is as you know this happened the day after the 50th Anniversary the 73 um Arab Israeli War were
in fact Israel was shocked uh by the Egyptian and uh the Syrian attacks uh to try to liberate
their territories and that attack was happened in part because Israel felt secure and uh these
countries had been thoroughly defeated by Israel just six years before and uh Israel was seen to
be strong and in command and yet obviously uh it it happened in this particular case this
conference the Israelis have uh perhaps not taking seriously the the capabilities of of
of their opponents uh may have uh played a role in this shibl telami thank you very much it's my pleasure