Cable. Washington journal continues. Host we are back and we are joined by matthew koenig, who is the Vice President and senior director of the Atlantic Council center for strategy and security and the councils director of studies. He is with us this money to talk about the latest in the israelhamas war. Matthew, thank you for being with us this morning. Guest always a pleasure. Im happy to talk with you this morning. Host talk to us about where the conflict between israel and hamas stance. Guest over the past couple of weeks, israel has been conducting air strikes into gaza, and it is also preparing for a Ground Invasion with the goal of eliminating hamas. They are amassing tanks on the border. In the meantime, you have conflict in the north of israel, has blood from a different terrorist group, is conducting rocket attacks. Israel is taking steps there, including airstrikes into syria, probably meant to prevent iranian shipments to hezbollah. And also just yesterday, there was a strike into the west bank. But a major front is with gaza, but there is a risk of things escalating to a broader conflict. Host tell us more about this planned Ground Invasion. What exactly does israel plan to do, and what are they, i guess, pitfalls and consequences of sending troops into gaza . Guest israel has says it will conduct a Ground Invasion with the goal of limiting hamas, capturing and killing hamass leadership, and that goal i think is understandable, given the attack they had just suffered. But as you point out in your question, there are real challenges, so conducting a Ground Invasion like that is going to be bloody. The Israeli Defense forces, the ids, will likely take heavy casualties. Hamas has dug in, it has a war in tunnel, it is preparing for this. Its going to be urban fighting in gaza cities, slightly block to block, house to house, so israel will likely take heavy casualties. In addition, the palestinians will take heavy casualties, and there are many innocent civilians caught up in this, already 4000 palestinian deaths from the airstrikes is the estimate. And as i mentioned before, there is the risk of broader escalation. Does it stay confined to gaza, or is there a new front opened to the north or in the west bank . And finally, theres a big, strategic question of ones israel goes in and succeeds in limiting hamas leadership, which i think they can do that, what happens next . Do they occupy gaza, which has real rest . Do they pull out which also has risk . They think about these longer term, strategic questions as well, but the focus now is on the Ground Invasion. Host hamas, when they attacked israel, i think around 200 hostages, if not more people. Will these Ground Invasion to be part of a rescue plan, or are these people considered expendable at this point in the face of this Ground Invasion coming . Guest its a good question, and there are americans and other International Citizens believed to be held hostage as well, so this is a priority for the white house and also for the israelis. But it is difficult, so there have been efforts to negotiate with the government in qatar, that has ties to hamas. Two americans have already been released. Realistically, it is unlikely that all these people will be released. Hamas wants to hang onto than to have leverage, so i think that is part of the military objective, may be to try to rescue them, but there are real risks, and i think it is unlikely, unfortunately, that they will make it out alive. Host if you are a palestinian and you are not a member or supporter of hamas, and you are in the gaza strip, where do you go . Guest so the israelis have said they will concentrate their activity in the north of the country, so they have asked palestinians to move to the south, and you have many of near this Border Crossing with egypt. They are hoping the egypt and will open the Border Crossing and let them leave gaza. The egyptians have so far been unwilling to do that. Real challenges with doing that. Up to one Million People displaced leaving their homes moving into Southern Gaza and so just another one of the humanitarian downside consequences of this con conflict. Host viewers can take part in this conversation. We will open up our regular lines. Republicans can call in at 2027488001. Democrats, your line is 2027488000. Independents, you can call in at 2027488002. You can always text us at 2027488003. We are always on social media on x and on facebook. Where does the United States stand in all of this . President biden visited israel last week and gave a major address from the oval office on thursday night do you see the u. S. And the troops President Biden wants to send more foreign aid, but where do you see the u. S. Going as far as this israel Hamas Conflict right now . Guest President Biden has come out strong on the side of israel and says it has the right to defend itself and if it does and it does back israel to go after hamas. They are also clear israel needs to abide by the law of armed conflict. It doesnt prohibit military operations to defend oneself but requires combatants discriminate between civilian and military targets and are proportional in their use of military force and thats what the Biden Administration has requested of israel. The Biden Administration is providing military aid to israel and in the past couple of days in a speech you mentioned announced a new aid package that would combine aid to israel, ukrainians, there is money for humanitarian relief in the indo pacific as well. The idea would be to provide munitions to israel so that it has the munitions it needs for the operation. The Biden Administration has been clear the u. S. Is not going to provide troops to israel. The Biden Administration does not want the United States to be directly involved in the conflict. The support will be limited to providing israel with military assistance. Host where do you see the u. S. Going overall when you talk about the middle east . A story from fox news this morning where we are apparently sending another Aircraft Carrier into the region. The secretary of defense announced the u. S. Department of defense plan to further bolster deterrence efforts in the middle east amid the ongoing conflict between israel and hamas, reiterating the departments depends defense of israel. Following detailed discussions of president joe biden. The secretary said the u. S. Uss dwight d. Eisenhower combat strike group will join the Gerald Ford Group which has recently moved into the Eastern Mediterranean following the unprecedented assault on the israel hamas area. Its out that we are sending people to the region. Even though they are not particularly going to be involved in the actual fighting. As i mentioned before even as israel concentrates on the ground operations in gaza there is the concern of this escalating into a broader conflict with conflict. Would iran, the country that backs both hamas and hezbollah get directly involved. The show force from the United States with the Aircraft Carriers is meant more as a deterrent message, reminding them the United States is a military power with a presence in the region and they would be better off not to get involved in the conflict. There is the possibility that if iran or someone else attacked u. S. Forces in the region that the United States could get dragged into it but thats not the Biden Administrations intention now. The show force is meant to be a deterrent. We saw at least two of the american hostages held by hamas released earlier in the last few days. They are supposedly other americans that were kidnapped by hamas during their attack on israel. Is the u. S. Government doing anything beyond negotiations to get those hostages back. Administration has been reluctant to go into detail about what their plans are which makes sense pray theres a concern if they reveal the state of the negotiations or plans that might spoil them, but i think the negotiations are likely continuing and will likely 60 seed succeed. I would be surprised if theres not some kind of military planning going on in conjunction with the israelis, how might we be able to rescue these people with a special Operations Forces raid for example so i suspect thats going on but if so the Biden Administration has not publicly said that. They are keeping their cards close to the chest. Host lets let some viewers take part. Lets talk to sarah calling from westchester new york on the democrats line. Caller good morning. On friday there were two young women on the program who were talking a lot about the palestinian issue and their comment was one of the comments was and i think they both agreed was that many of the palestinians support the support hamas. And if thats the fact that they support hamas basic premise that they want to destroy the state of israel. So how can there be a solution, how can there ever be a solution when the people i feel terrible for people who are innocent in this, but if there are majority of people in gaza who support hamas and this premise, then there will not be a solution. What do you say about that . Guest good question and i would make a few points. Hamas was elected to govern gaza but this was back in 2006 and since then have run its not as a democracy so we dont have elections or Public Opinion polls so it certainly the case that a large number of palestinians to support hamas. I think its also likely that many of them do not and we do not have good public polling data on that. The other point, the longterm solution is a great one. The United States and others have been trying to negotiate israel he Palestinian Peace for many decades. And we have always come up short. Theres questions of what is a longterm solution. There was a statement from the israelis a few days ago that may be Something Like what pertains in the west bank where the israelis would conduct this operation and then once hamas is eliminated turn control of gaza over to some kind of palestinian authority. A nonhamas governing Authority Like you have in the west bank. I think we are months and maybe even years away from that because this ground operation that israel will conduct is unfortunately not to be over in days or weeks. It will take longer than that. We have mentioned qatar and its releasing the hot roll it in releasing the hostages. What other players should be looking into. Guest qatar is an important one and the top leader is in delhi or is believed to be in delhi and so thats a big policy issue right now. Should the Biden Administration be asking them to extradite the leader of this terrorist organization. He currently has safe haven there. The broader regional picture is interesting because before this the Major Development in the region was the socalled abraham record Abraham Accords negotiations. You have a number of countries beating to normalize so it started under the trump administration, recognizing israel between the countries opened up. The Biden Administration negotiating between israel and saudi arabia about a possible normalization of israel and saudi arabia ties. So that could have really been transformational and so why does this attack happened now. We are not quite sure but one theory is that iran was worried about israel normalizing relations and so conducted this attack to throw this off. That is a big question. Whats good to be the future of that deal. Is it definitely dead or can it be revived even after this attack. I would ask where iran fits in. Starting big picture, iran has been an enemy of the United States since the Islamic Revolution and the state department has long recognized iran as the worlds biggest state sponsor of terror. So around created the Hezbollah Terrorist Organization to threaten israel in the north. We know provides hamas with weapons and support. There is debate about whether iran directly planned and had hamas execute this attack or not. Hamas leaders themselves said it did help. The Biden Administration said its not clear evidence of that. This is another big policy issue. You have some republican lawmakers saying the fact we know iran supports hamas conducted an attack that killed 26 or so americans, that thats enough for the United States to hold iran accountable but the other big issue with iran is their Nuclear Program and the Biden Administration has been negotiating a nuclear deal with iran, a major piece of their middle east strategy. Thats what the administration is trying to balance now. How do you hold them accountable but also keep the possibility of the Nuclear Program alive. Host lets talk to kent from illinois on the republican line. Good morning. Caller the main thing that biden is concerned with is to keep loosening so they can keep pumping more and more oil rather than use the oil that loses out of the ground here in the United States. These greedy fanatics that biden is in charge of think that they can control the weather and destroy our oil energy, but will use the dirty oil from venezuela. Biden has already said the most critical thing in the world is Climate Change. So he jumped through hoops to get irans oil and if it means may be a few Million People have to die to further his green agenda, so be it. Guest Climate Change is a major priority of the Biden Administration and several officials have said Climate Change is the biggest threat facing the country. And ensuring the free flow of oil and Energy Resources out of the middle east has been a u. S. Priority for some time. As it relates to iran i think the biggest priority the administration seizes the Nuclear Program and coming in they wanted to reenter the 2015 joint comprehensive plan of action. That proved more difficult than they expected. But it seems like theyve reached some passive agreements with iran where iran is voluntarily selflimiting the program. And you are right that in exchange the Biden Administration has used some eased some of the financial pressure on iran so there Oil Production is up from what it was a few years ago. The administration has also released some frozen iranian funds. The bigger priority is the Nuclear Program and less on the iranian oil. Host lets talk to dennis from stone mountain, georgia on the independent line. Caller good morning. In defense of what israel is doing in reference to protecting the territory. My question to you guys is does the palestinian have a right to set up defense like israel and since the United States packs israel why cant the palestinians also have people or other countries back them . We look at the difference between the west bank and gaza. Israel israelis continue to bulldoze and take land and not give the palestinians any rights. The question is what is the difference. Peaceful in the west bank but still being killed. Whats the proportional response when israel killed palestinians. It seems like we here in the west think that because this issue arise to now its not what was in the past. We continue to support israel blindly, give them our tax dollars. We expected palestinian to just lay down and rollover . My question to the guest is what are the palestinians to do . Just lay there and be killed each and every day . Guest thank you dennis. The real challenge of course that we face in gaza that the Palestinian People face is they are led by hamas, this terrorist organization and so i think the Palestinian People have been some of the major the people who have suffered the most under hamas and so given that hamas launched this brutal attack i think there is widespread agreement israel has the ability to defend itself. I would take issue i dont think the u. S. Supports israel has been blind if you go back to before the attacks, relations between biden and netanyahu were pretty frosty and biden was complaining about netanyahus attempts to reform the judicial system within israel, raising concerns about the state of israeli does not israeli democracy. Also putting pressure because of the settlements in the west bank. I think the United States has tried to balance supporting what is our closest partner in the region with also trying to behind closed doors nudge israel in the right direction. And then of course act after this horrific attack two weeks ago that really change things. I think the administration calculated that now is not the time to complain about the differences we have with israel but given that israel just suffered this horrific attack to support israel as it takes steps to defend itself. Host what type of support for the palestinians not connected to hamas is there out of the white house . Is President Biden pushing for humanitarian aid, for israel to evacuate the innocence out of the way . What is the white house saying if anything about the palestinians not connected to hamas. Guest the Biden Administration has said we want to get aid to the palestinians. The first trucks have been let through it the costing crossing with egypt. The spending package biden announced in his speech earlier this week there was one hundred Million Dollars for aid to the palestinians. I think thats the Biden Administrations goal is as israel is taking steps to eliminate hamas that we can abide by the laws of our conflict and provide support to the palestinians. One of the challenges is how do you get that in. Israel is besieging the gaza strip as part of its wartime strategy. Egypt has tightly controlled its Border Crossing with gaza for a variety of reasons. I think there will be real questions and logistical challenges of getting that aid in. The Biden Administrations hope is that they can provide aid to the public. Host is this something the strategy is through the united nations. Guest there is the u. S. Support but i think there will be broader International Support efforts to get aid into the palestinians as well. As long as it is food and medicine, i think there is support for that. But there have been questions if theres other type of aid, how do we know thats not going to be taken by hamas and used in the war effort so this becomes a controversy in washington. But again i think the Biden Administration is hoping we can get basic food and medical aid to the palestinians. Host lets get back to our phone lines and talk to robin on the democrats line. Caller good morning. A few quick questions, once israel enters the northern part of gaza and how long it takes for them to accomplish their objectives there . Does he have any insight about what they will do with the southern part of gaza, all the people who are migrated there . What kind of agreement does israel have with hezbollah . It doesnt seem like much of an agreement because hezbollah is shooting rockets over israel as well. Guest good questions. Israel hasnt made clear what its plans are for Southern Gaza. Once they go into the north and the goal is to focus on gaza city where the hamas leadership is believed to be and the goal is to eliminate hamas, so do hamas fighters go to the south if they have safe haven. I think that is likely. I would expect israel will then have to have some kind of plan once its achieved what it wants to do in the north they have not been clear about what that is. Hezbollah was founded by iran really to threaten israel from the north and so thats what they are doing. There have been rockets attacks. You talked about an agreement with israel. Theres no real agreement. They are rivals. The challenge hezbollah has is on one hand they do need to strike against israel, thats why iran founded them. If they didnt they would kind of lose face. On the other hand they are worried if they go too far could it lead to a major war with israel. That would be very destructive to hezbollah. If they go too far they will lose their heads and so usually what hezbollah tries to do is calibrate the response to strike back but not to hard but do they have the ability to calibrate. We will see because thats what it looks like they are doing. Distracting israel with these rockets attacks in the north. Israel has announced it will move israelis living in 14 towns and villages near the border, move them out of the way to a safer locations and so essentially hezbollah strategy is succeeding in forcing israel to worry about it security in the north even as it conducts this operation into gaza. Host President Biden gave a major speech on thursday where he linked foreign aid for israel with foreign aid for ukraine. A topic that is not exactly popular amongst republicans in the congress right now. Do you think connecting those two conflicts will delay money getting to israel in its current conflict . Biden gave this address correctly to the American People a few nights ago and i would i think its good for the president to make that case for the American People why do these things matter to you. I think he was right to connect to them so we know that iran is providing weapons and drones to russia as it wages its war against ukraine. There is closer collaboration between russia, iran, china and north korea. A new access of authoritarian. I think the president was also right. He said america is the glue that holds the world together and i think American Power and allies and partners in europe in the middle east have on balance been a source of stability. So i think he was right on those points. I wouldve liked to see him make the case more directly to the average american, why does this matter to you sitting at your Kitchen Table in missouri where i grew up. I think he couldve taken a step further. Overall it was a good speech. Directly to your question, the president has decided to lump these together. I think in part to make it difficult for republicans to vote against him because of some republicans want to vote against aid to ukraine does this force them to vote against aid to israel which would politically be more difficult. You already have republicans saying no, we need an up or down vote on each issue. So we will see how this plays out. To your question is it possible that could delay aid to israel unless republicans and democrats in Congress Fight this out. We just had two republican and democratic pollsters in here who said the normal American Voter doesnt yet care about whats going on in israel and its fight against hamas. Why should American Voters care about this conflict . Guest i think they should care and the United States has a lot of interests in the middle east. One is just Kitchen Table pocketbook issues. The United States is trying to transition to green energy but the reality is we still depend on fossil fuels to heat our homes, the power of modern economy. The middle east is one of the greatest sources of oil and gas and so the Global Economy does depend on the free flow of Energy Resources out of the region. When those are disrupted prices go up and hit the pocketbook of average americans. Second we have seen in the past that terrorist groups in the middle east have attacked the United States, u. S. Interest abroad and so countering terrorism is an important u. S. Objective. Supporting israel has been a long time u. S. Bipartisan objective. The United States does have supporting interest as i pointed out. We dont have a lot of great partners, a lot of our Security Partners in the region are autocracies. We Share Interests but we Share Interests but we do not share values. Israel is may be the region. So the fact we Share Interests and values makes that an important partnership. For those security reasons and economic reasons the average american does have a stake in what happens in this conflict. Lets talk to naomi calling from baltimore on the independent line. Caller good morning gentlemen. Good morning cspan and the viewers. Just seeking clarification on some things. I did a simple Google Search the other day to find out exactly what israel stands towards the palestinians had been prior to this atrocity committed by hamas. What i found was quite shocking. Israel had committed war crimes. I wont detail any further. But theres a question whether they are truly a democratic nation state. Or whether there is Something Else going on there. There are blockades, there had been blockades and still are now. For good reason. But i question why palestinians dont even have Free Movement within their own little tiny area where they are packed in so tightly. I think 100 million per square mile. They have, they have no freedoms. Thats all at israels command. Im wondering whether netanyahu has intentionally provoked this response in order to actually take over palestine. People were told to flee to the south and then israel bombed the south. Guest thank you for that question. Its a Good Opportunity to talk about the bigger kind of strategic picture and what are the longterm options for the palestinians. The International Effort for many decades has been a two state solution. There were negotiations to that. Two sides were never able to reach an agreement. The other possibility and fear a theory would be a one state solution where israel would just grant citizenship to the palestinians to the israeli state. The problem with that is israel was founded as a jewish state after the holocaust. Israeli leaders want to preserve the jewish character of the state and the palestinians were granted citizenship into israel would become a majority muslim state. That scene is a nonstarter. With that solution hitting difficult two state solution becoming difficult, the strategy for israel is been to manage the status quo with the palestinians and then focus more on peace with its southern neighbors through the normalization of relations through the Abraham Accords. To the heart of your question there really is unfortunately no good longterm solution that i can see. Netanyahu provoked this intentionally . I think not. This was a horrific attack. 1500 israelis killed. The israelis held hostage. I think this is a tragedy for netanyahu and not something he wouldve wished on the israelis. Host we would like to thank matthew, the Vice President director of the Atlantic Council scott croft center for strategy and security and the director of studies for walking us through the