Helen Walters: Hello, everybody.
Two days ago, on October 7,
the Palestinian Sunni-Islamic
fundamentalist organization Hamas
attacked Israel,
overrunning two military bases,
occupying territory,
killing hundreds of Israeli citizens
and taking dozens more as hostages.
It was the most significant
breach of Israel's borders
since the Yom Kippur War of 1973.
The attacks were clearly
long- and well-planned,
and they sent shock waves of fear
and panic through the region
and the world.
Obviously, it's two days later.
It is way too soon to understand
all of the ramifications of these attacks.
But we can try to understand
how we got here
and the implications of this awful moment.
So we asked our community
to share their questions
and to answer them,
I am joined by Ian Bremmer,
president and founder
of political risk research
and consulting firm Eurasia Group.
Hi Ian.
Ian Bremmer: Helen, great to be with you.
HW: Alright, so let's get right to it.
We've had a number of our community
who really want you to explain
the very simple question
of how we got here.
So can you share the historical
context for this moment?
And if you like, give us
a bit of a Gaza 101.
IB: Well, I mean, Gaza,
we've got a population,
a Palestinian population
of just over two million,
2.2 million, exceedingly poor.
And, you know, without sovereignty,
without statehood,
and a part of the Palestinian
occupied territories,
also the West Bank,
more people, 3.5 million.
The West Bank run not very well
by the Palestinian Authority,
which recognizes Israel's right to exist.
Gaza, run really badly,
with very little resources,
run by Hamas,
which does not recognize
Israel's right to exist.
Now we've been talking about a two-state
solution for a very long time.
For the idea that the only way
you end up with stability
between the Israelis and the Palestinians
is if the Palestinians have some ability
to govern themselves,
have some control
over their economic trajectory,
over their foreign policy,
over their borders.
That is not where we stand right now.
And indeed,
the idea of a two-state solution
has kind of lost the collective interest,
imagination, traction, for two reasons.
First, because the Middle
East has moved on.
A bunch of countries around the region
have found that they are interested
in developing direct relations,
some formal, some informal, with Israel,
and that they're willing to do that
irrespective of resolving
the Palestinian question,
the Palestinian problem.
And we've seen that
with the Abraham Accords
under the Trump administration,
where the UAE, the United Arab Emirates,
Bahrain and Morocco all directly
established diplomatic relations
with Israel.
If you go to Dubai or Abu Dhabi today,
you will see Israeli tourists
like you wouldn't imagine.
And they’re having a great time
and they’re spending money
and they're taking in the sites
and they're very welcomed by the Emirates.
Unimaginable that was going
to happen 10 or 20 years ago.
In fact, Saudi Arabia was very close,
not within weeks, it wasn't imminent,
but certainly within months
of signing a deal with Israel
that would allow for them
to open diplomatic relations.
And there's already been a number
of high-level diplomatic
relations informally
between Mohammed bin Salman
and Prime Minister Netanyahu.
So, in other words, across the region,
you had Israel, frankly,
in the strongest geopolitical position
that they've been in decades.
They've been surrounded by enemies.
Well, now they're increasingly surrounded
by countries they can do business with.
In fact, just a couple of weeks ago,
there was an announcement of a deal
where the United Arab Emirates
was investing massively
into solar power for Jordan,
which would then be given to Israel
in return for desalinized water
processed by Israel.
Even five years ago, inconceivable
a deal like that could happen.
So the Israelis, technologically
very sophisticated,
an advanced industrial economy,
are only standing to make more money
by doing business
with all of these countries.
What's been happening
with the Palestinians?
Nothing.
The answer is nothing.
They're not benefiting economically.
And all of these deals for Israel
have happened without any consequences,
any contingencies for the Palestinians.
And indeed in Israel,
you know, there have been
a lot of headlines.
Israel's made a lot of news this year,
but not because of the Palestinians.
Israel has made news
because of their own
domestic constitutional crisis,
an effort by the Prime Minister,
Netanyahu,
and his right-wing coalition
to engage in judicial reform,
an Israeli judiciary
which is very independent,
which has, in the context of democracies,
a very surprising amount
of authority over making
but also interpretation of laws in Israel.
What can and what cannot be considered
a reasonable law to be executed.
And for a country
that doesn't have a constitution,
not surprising perhaps,
the judiciary is so powerful.
And Netanyahu facing corruption charges
and with a very weak right-wing coalition
relying on far right,
extremist right party
as part of that coalition,
was pushing for these reforms.
Now, why am I talking about that?
Because for the last six months,
there have been unprecedented
demonstrations across Israel,
peaceful demonstrations,
but bringing out the entire country.
Because they were concerned
about a constitutional crisis.
Kind of an irony for a country
without a constitution.
If Netanyahu persisted,
went ahead with these reforms.
No one was talking about the Palestinians.
And indeed,
large numbers of troops
that had been in the south
were moved to the West Bank
as the Netanyahu government was expanding
the settlements in that territory
and responding to Palestinian reprisals
against those settlements.
So they weren't focused on the issue.
They took their eyes off the ball.
Israel had other priorities,
and the Palestinians were in a position
not only to lose their friends
around the region
but also increasingly an afterthought
for the Israeli government
and the Israeli people.
That is the backdrop
for where we are today.
HW: So let's dig in a little bit
into the idea that you bring up
of the kind of the troubles
that have been roiling Netanyahu
and the Israeli government themselves.
So I think one of the things
that has been brought up
is the massive failure of intelligence
and defense systems in Israel
that allowed this attack to happen.
What happens next?
Do you see Israel uniting
around Netanyahu?
Do you see this fracturing even worse
with anger at what happened
in the lapses in defense
and intelligence insights?
Or what happens next?
IB: Well, the first point I should make
is just for everyone to understand
what has just happened
to the Israeli consciousness.
It is unimaginable
that, you know, certainly someone
in a developed country
could have any understanding
of what the Jewish people in Israel
are presently going through.
This feeling that, you know,
after the Holocaust and, you know,
the land being provided to them
to have a safe haven
to create an independent Israeli state.
And the need to defend their borders,
the historic fights
they've had with their neighbors,
the war in 1973,
when a number of Arab nations
decided to fight against them.
And, you know, the continual
sense of besiegement
with missiles from Hezbollah,
for example, terrorist operations.
This is not like a bolt from the blue
when the United States
experienced 9/11.
Israel’s 9/11 is both massively greater
in the impact on Israel
but also comes for a country
that was supposed to be prepared for this.
I mean, Israel represents
the gold standard
on border security around the world.
Not like the United States,
where you've got, you know,
all sorts of people running across
and "build the wall"
becomes a clarion call
precisely because nobody understands
how to defend the border, no.
And also, intelligence collection,
surveillance, digital surveillance,
human intelligence collection
on the ground,
especially in the occupied territories.
This is what they do.
And the fact is that right now, today,
Netanyahu's legacy will not be anything
that he has done to date.
It will be this failure
and how he responds to it.
Period, end of story.
Nothing else is close.
So what that means for Israel
is that all of the issues
that have roiled this country
over the past year,
all of the political polarization,
and it's not a two-party country,
it’s a many, many-party country.
You know, the joke is you get
three people together in Israel
and, you know, you form
a new political party.
And if you go to
the coffeehouses and the rest,
everybody's talking politics.
Everyone reads the newspapers.
This is a highly politically literate
and divided population.
But as of right now,
priority one, two and three
for the entire Israeli people
is to respond to these attacks,
these terrorist attacks.
And how are they going to respond to them?
Well, number one,
they've got to find a way
to get their people back.
There are 100-plus, and we don't know
the exact numbers right now,
hostages that are being held in Gaza,
most of whom are civilians.
And they will do everything
to get them back.
And they may well have direct American
support in trying to accomplish that.
And then it will be to go into Gaza,
to remove the leadership of Gaza,
to disarm the militias
in the territory of Gaza,
and to do everything they can
to try to ensure
that this cannot happen again.
And making that happen
is a very, very tall order.
It might be a taller order
than the Israelis can accomplish,
and certainly the knock-on consequences
will be grave even for just Gaza.
And that is before we talk
about any potential expansion of the war.
But for now, the Israeli people
will stand together.
And there's already talk of a government
of national emergency
that would bring together Netanyahu
with the leader of the Israeli opposition
for the purposes of fighting this war
so that everyone in Israel
is together collectively,
ensuring the national security
of the people of Israel.
And I think that for the course
of the coming months,
and let us remember,
this is not just, you know, an attack
against Israel and now they respond.
It is very likely
there are Hamas operatives
on the ground inside Israel right now
that the Israeli government
has to find and neutralize.
It is also true that, you know,
you're still actively expecting
that there are going to be
additional attacks,
whether those are missile attacks
or whether those are direct incursions,
nobody knows,
but given the level of planning
that was required by Hamas
to make these strikes over the weekend,
which nobody in Israel thought
was possible, no one expected it,
right now, that level
of concern would be higher
than anything else
on the political agenda.
And again, that will not move
for the foreseeable future.
HW: So I want to talk more
about all of that
and expand this to obviously the broader
geopolitical implications of this.
But I want to just play out the 9/11
reference a little bit if you can,
because obviously 9/11
happened some time ago
with the attack on the United States.
But we know with retrospect,
with hindsight,
that some of the decisions
that were made after that
were misguided, they were misjudged,
they actually led to terrible harm.
How and who is going to make sure
that these types
of decisions are not made?
And how can Israel avoid making decisions
that will be bad?
IB: As someone who was in New York on 9/11
and saw the second tower go down
and saw how the city rallied together,
how the country rallied together,
President Bush, over 90 percent
approval in the country
a couple of months after 9/11,
how the world came together
to support the United States,
the coalition of the willing,
well beyond NATO.
I mean, poor countries
that had no business caring
about what the United States was up to
providing troops on the ground
and support for the Americans.
Russia, Putin's Russia, calling up Bush
and offering, you know,
the former Soviet republics
in Central Asia
as bases to support
for logistical operations
for the war in Afghanistan.
I mean, the level of support
for the United States after 9/11
was singular.
And there's no question
that the outpouring of concern,
I mean, when I saw in Berlin,
shining on the Brandenburg Gate,
the Israeli flag with the star of David
in Germany, in Berlin, in Germany,
and given the history
and given what that means
and given the Alternative für
Deutschland doing well in East Germ --
all of that, I mean,
this is a singular moment
in the relationship between
Germany and Israel.
The European Union suspending
aid to the Palestinians,
the support for Israel is extraordinary.
Narendra Modi In India.
It is not universal for every country,
but it is absolutely wide-ranging.
And I got a readout,
I spoke to several of the folks
involved in the Emergency
Security Council meeting
at the United Nations this weekend.
The condemnation of these attacks,
everyone but Russia.
And again, so in that regard,
this is very, very similar to 9/11.
Now, the broader question
that you're asking, Helen,
which I'm also very sensitive to,
is in 2023, looking back on 9/11,
the Americans made some horrible,
horrible, long-lasting mistakes.
And some of those mistakes
were in the United States.
I mean, if I think about how much money
was spent and wasted
in the Department of Homeland Security,
on personal security
and safety in the airlines,
how much money was wasted,
how much economic inefficiency
as a consequence
of overstating the terrorist
threat in the US,
everything else secondary to that.
But also, the rights
that were stripped back
for, in some cases, all Americans
in terms of surveillance
and the Patriot Act.
But also targeting Muslim Americans
across the country
and so much mistreatment
of American citizens
as a consequence of that.
But that's nothing compared
to the mistakes made internationally.
A war of choice in Iraq,
responding to 9/11
with trillions of dollars wasted
and lives, millions of lives destroyed.
Afghanistan, 20 years on, a failed war
with the Taliban returning to power
and a failed state.
Yes, bin Laden was killed,
and I think people
around the world cheered that,
not just in the United States,
and Al Qaeda was destroyed
at the highest levels
and in many cases uprooted completely.
But no one can look back
on the 20-plus years since 9/11
and say that the American response
with the war on terror was successful.
You can't do that.
And Israel is not the United States.
The Americans have extraordinary
strength and resilience
in its national security capabilities
and the size of its economy,
also in where it's located geopolitically.
Israel certainly has the military
strength in the region,
but the the country is small.
The territory is small.
And certainly it is not in a geopolitical
space that is comfortable.
And so I think the danger here
is that as the Israelis
respond against Hamas,
as they should and as they must,
and as they work to destroy the leadership
of that terrorist organization
and disarm the militants that are involved
in the attacks against Israel
and pose an ongoing threat.
But that is certainly not the only
knock-on consequences
of Israel's decision making.
And the potential for this
to become a broader war
that would envelop
the Middle East in conflagration
and that ultimately could even end Israel
is real
in a way that the war on terror
could not have threatened
the United States existentially.
And I, as a consequence,
I certainly believe
that a unity government
will make it less likely
that the Israelis overreact in that way.
I certainly believe
that the United States,
in providing very strong
and committed support,
but also notes of caution
in what can be done
and what should not be done,
will hopefully restrain
the worst impulses.
And, you know,
in the early moments, again,
we all understand why Israel
would feel the need to react
in the harshest possible way.
But I certainly worry
when I see the Israeli defense minister
refer to the attackers as inhuman animals
and announce a siege
on the entirety of Gaza,
which means no food,
no electricity, no water.
And this is a territory
that already has 50 percent poverty,
already has fewer
than half of its population
with access to clean water.
I worry about what that is going to mean
for the Palestinian people
as well as for Israel long-term.
You know, I think
it was Golda Meir who says,
"I won't hate you
for killing our children.
I will hate you for making me
kill your children."
Ultimately, the Israeli population
is most threatened
by what the terrorists of Hamas
unleash from Israel.
HW: So do you think that was part
of the incentive for Hamas in doing this?
Because surely they knew
that the response would be swift.
And surely they knew that the world
would rally around such atrocities.
So what do you think was their motivation,
and do you think that they
underestimated what might happen?
IB: Oh, I don't think they
underestimated what might happen.
But it's a compelling question.
It's really hard
to put yourself in the mindset
of someone like a Hamas leader.
But, you know,
I had to do that just a few months ago
when Yevgeny Prigozhin was marching
with his Wagner forces on Moscow.
And people were asking me,
"What is going through this guy's mind?"
Because it's clear
he's going to get killed, right?
I mean, you turn
against the Kremlin and Putin,
you’re not walking away from that.
And when he cut the “deal”
and everyone said,
"Oh you know, he cut a deal" --
He's dead man walking.
Like, literally, that was the reality.
And as soon as the Hamas leaders decided
that they were going
to commit these atrocities
against Israeli civilians,
they're dead.
There is no future for these people.
So I think there are two
different things going on.
The first, and this is
analogous to Prigozhin,
is that Hamas felt themselves
in an increasingly untenable environment,
that they were losing
their support in the region.
And even the Saudis
were about to normalize
their relationship with Israel.
They had no influence in ability
to get anything done,
no leverage with the Israeli government,
which was only becoming harder
and harder lined against them.
And in that regard,
they were increasingly in a corner.
Their options were increasingly all bad.
And, you know, we know
that people that find themselves
only with horrible options
frequently do irrational things.
And I would not underestimate that
in driving the decision of Hamas
to take that action.
It's kind of like why would 77 percent
of a Gaza population
in the last elections they had,
which was some time ago,
why would they vote
for an organization like Hamas?
Well, I mean, they wouldn't
if they had economic opportunities.
They wouldn't, if they had education,
they wouldn't if they could come
and go from Gaza as they please.
But the worse the situation gets,
the more they are willing
to vote for an organization
that is prepared to burn it all down.
And by the way,
there's a lesson in that,
even for those of us in very wealthy,
very stable countries.
So I think that's one set of motivations,
but another set of motivations certainly
is an ideological effort of Hamas
to insert themselves as more dominant
in the conversation,
to radicalize the Israeli population,
to undermine the Palestinian
Authority in the West Bank.
Because if this fight,
you know, gets the Israelis
to kill huge numbers
of Palestinian civilians,
and by the way, Hamas
will facilitate that, right?
I mean, Hamas is absolutely going to be
engaged in operations, you know,
in residential buildings.
They do that intentionally.
They're not going to make it easy
for Israel to take them out.
They want to make it bloody.
They want to paint the Israelis as just
as bad as Hamas, if not worse.
They will take human shields.
The IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces,
usually gives warnings about when
they're about to attack a building.
They ask the civilians to leave.
Well, Hamas tells those civilians
that that's disinformation.
They do everything they can
to make the Israelis seem complicit
with the kind of indiscriminate
attacks against civilians
that Hamas engages in themselves.
They want to bring
the Israelis to their level.
And they also want to radicalize
the Palestinians in response,
not just in Gaza
but also in the West Bank.
And they want to radicalize
the Arab street.
They want people across
the region to be, you know,
in uproar against Israel
and in solidarity with the Hamas cause
and in solidarity
with the destruction of Israel.
They want Arab leaders to be saying
what the Iranian supreme leader
was posting on social media this weekend,
calling essentially for a genocide
against the Zionist regime.
That is ideologically what Hamas
is trying to accomplish.
And again, Israel must do
everything in its power
not to allow Hamas to drag them there.
HW: It’s interesting, in your talk
in Vancouver this year at TED2023,
you were talking about the rise
of different orders,
and I do just get the sense
that everything is connected.
You have Russia,
you have Ukraine, you have Iran.
There are these ideological battles
that are now becoming real-world wars.
And so I wonder if you can,
especially the mention of Iran,
I don't think it's confirmed yet,
the intervention of Iran in this,
but certainly the "Journal" was
reporting that Iran had been involved,
deeply involved
in setting up these attacks.
What does this mean?
What does this mean
for the world at large?
And then I also have
a follow up question, which is,
what do you think the US should do?
IB: So let's talk in terms of the world
at large and starting with Iran,
certainly that "Wall Street Journal"
piece over the weekend
drove an enormous amount of news.
It was saying, hey,
the Iranians basically planned this.
I will tell you, that was a very
lightly sourced piece, relying on Hamas.
And I would not have gone
to print with that
if I had been "The Journal."
HW: Yeah, the US has not
confirmed that at all.
IB: In fact, the US has actually said
that there is not
hard evidence at this point
that fingers Iran
as having directly orchestrated
or ordered these attacks.
Now, let's be very clear.
The Iranians have publicly
expressed strongest possible
support for Hamas.
The Iranians have historically funded
and provided military support
directly for Hamas.
So they clearly are not innocents in this.
And I would be surprised to learn
that the Iranians had no idea
that this was going to happen.
I suspect that they were aware.
But awareness and orchestration
are two very different things.
Now, since the attacks occurred,
Hezbollah, which of course,
is also very much aligned with Iran
and gets a lot of direct military support
and training from the Iranians,
they have, I say only,
but in this context, is only,
they've only engaged
in some missile strikes,
some rocket strikes
against an Israeli military --
not base, but military outpost.
A soldier’s outpost.
And the Israelis, in response,
immediately engaged in strikes
back against Hezbollah.
That's it.
If the Iranians were behind this
and wanted to be seen as behind this,
Hezbollah would be involved
in these attacks.
They are far more capable than Hamas.
The Iranians have claimed
that they have had no role,
that this was an autonomous
Hamas operation.
And indeed, Iran has been doing
better geopolitically of late.
The Chinese facilitated a breakthrough
in Iranian relations with the Saudis.
The Iranians have engaged
with the United States,
and six billion dollars of Iranian assets
are set to be unfrozen,
have not been unfrozen yet,
but are set to be transferred to Iran.
Five American civilians
that were held unjustly
as hostages in Iranian jails
have been released
and sent to the United States.
The Iranians have reduced
the top level of uranium enrichment
and some of their stockpiles,
allowing inspectors in.
Now, this is not a return to the Iranian
nuclear deal, the JCPOA,
but certainly on the basis of all of that
and even some high-level discussion
that the Iranians might be willing
to engage directly
with the United States diplomatically
through the good offices of Oman,
none of that seems aligned at all
with the Iranians pulling the trigger
on an attack against Israel
that would almost certainly lead
to massive retaliation
once the Israelis found that out.
So I am sitting here saying
I would be surprised,
not with a high level of confidence,
and, you know, the Iranian regime
has a very old supreme leader
who is also dealing
with internal instability
and a transition that is coming.
So never say never.
But I would be quite surprised
if we found out
that the Iranians directly ordered this.
Now, it is useful
that the United States
has both sent a fleet
off of the Israeli coast
to show stalwart support
and will be providing a level
of at least military coordination
and operational intelligence,
may well do much more than that.
We can get to that when we talk
about the United States,
but is also very publicly saying
"We do not yet have any evidence
that the Iranians are involved."
In other words, the message
from the United States is very clear:
do not expand this war into Iran,
because the consequences of that
are 150-dollar crude at a minimum.
The consequences of that is the world
goes back into global recession.
The consequences of that
are conflagration in the region.
And I think, I do believe
that the Israeli government
is quite aligned with the United States
in not wanting to go there.
HW: I keep coming back
to the human cost of this
because the reality is
that people are suffering,
people are being killed,
and many more people
are likely to be killed.
If, indeed Hamas has kind of
hijacked this story
with extremist action,
I wonder what you see
from the Palestinian side
of kind of a more moderate type of push
towards trying to get understanding,
trying to get peace in this nation
or trying to get peace in this area.
IB: I mean, that's the most
tragic piece of this,
is the ability of Hamas
to successfully hijack big pieces
of the political spectrum
for the Palestinians.
I mean, there are so many people
in the West right now
that view the Palestinians
as equivalent to Hamas,
and nothing could be further
from the truth.
But that reality,
that perception is going
to make life so much worse
for the people
that have suffered the most.
They are the powerless.
The Palestinians are the stateless.
They lack resources.
They lack a proper military.
They lack the capacity
to defend their own territory
and to defend themselves.
And we've already seen,
even over this most tragic
weekend for Israel,
that the number of deaths
and casualties for the Palestinians
are almost as much
as they were for the Israelis.
And when you go back
over the past 20 years,
who've had the most deaths,
who've had the most casualties,
consistently, it's been the Palestinians.
Who's going to suffer
the most going forward?
Consistently, it will be the Palestinians.
Who suffered the most
from the US war on terror?
It was, of course, the Iraqis
and all of the tribes in Afghanistan.
This should not surprise anyone,
but it is the unfortunate reality
that of course, Hamas leadership
will be destroyed.
But the biggest damage
that they will have done
would have been to their own people.
To the Palestinian people,
who now will face almost
unfathomable deprivation.
And there’s very little that the rest
of the world is going to do about it.
HW: Do you see a movement within Palestine
to step up if Hamas is done?
IB: I certainly believe
that the Palestinian Authority
will try to see this
as an opportunity to push
for more international engagement
from the region
to take seriously a cessation
of illegal Israeli settlements
in the West Bank,
a rolling back of the territory
that is presently occupied
and a revival of peace talks
that would bring about
a two-state solution
where the Palestinians, less land
than perhaps they would have gotten
in the days of, you know,
Arafat and Rabin, but nonetheless,
something that feels sustainable,
a country that one might be able to raise
children with a sense of hope.
There is no one in the occupied
territories of Palestine
that could say that for themselves
for their children today.
So I think that is the hope.
But, you know, clearly right now
is not the time for that.
Not because we don't want it,
but because events
will overtake it immediately
and have already overtaken.
Now, the hope is that the violence
that will spread in the West Bank
can be contained.
That we do not see a war in Gaza
become a war in the West Bank,
that we do not see an occupation of Gaza
become an occupation of the West Bank.
That is, I think, the priority now.
You have to know sometimes
when you actually have
a trajectory for peace,
and when you have to do
your best to avoid war expanding.
We do not have a trajectory
for peace right now.
We are at war.
There were plenty of opportunities
over the past years
to take off ramps,
to engage more seriously.
They were ignored.
And it is precisely that reality
that has brought us to a point
where we now are on defense,
where we are hoping that this
does not get much, much worse.
That is the story
of the Middle East today.
HW: Do you think Israel will annex Gaza?
IB: I think the Israelis don't know.
Again, don't underestimate the shock,
the emotional shock
that all of the Israelis are facing today.
They are not making long-term strategic
decisions right now.
They are making immediate,
short-term decisions.
What can we do to make sure
the country is still defended,
our borders are still secure,
that terrorists are not, you know,
right now running around in our midst,
planning further atrocities?
That is priority number one.
And very close to it
is getting those hostages back and safe
and I'd say unharmed.
They've already experienced a lot of harm.
That's beyond the realm
of possibility right now.
There will be, in the coming weeks,
and there's also some shock and awe,
you know, Netanyahu immediately posting,
some buildings getting demolished in Gaza
and saying we are, you know, at war.
That is, I mean, they’ve engaged
in these sorts of airstrikes before,
and we already know of families
that have gotten killed,
entire families in some cases of nine,
of 13 people, lots of children,
this sort of thing.
We will see that.
But in terms of what's the nature
of the long-term objectives,
the occupation,
the Israelis are not close
to making that decision.
And I also think that other countries
that Israel trusts and Israel needs
will have some ability
to have influence over Israel
in making that decision.
I'm not just talking about the US now.
I'm also talking
about countries in the region
that Israel would like
to maintain relations with.
So there needs to be very active
multilateral diplomacy behind the scenes,
quietly, high-level,
with the Israeli government
in the coming days and weeks.
HW: I want to talk a little bit
about the media coverage of the attacks
and of what is happening right now.
A lot of the people who had
written in with questions for you
are really confused
by the rhetoric that they're seeing.
They're not sure what to trust,
who to trust, what to believe.
And I want to get your sense,
you're a very online person.
And so what is your take on this,
and how can we think about how
to understand what's happening,
especially in such a kind of,
real-time situation?
IB: Well, first of all,
there's always the fog of war.
There's always disinformation
from both sides
actively trying to promote a narrative
that is more effective for them,
that they're doing better
than they otherwise are,
and that the other side
is engaged in greater atrocities
than they actually are.
You see lots of that, lots of immediately
fake videos putting out
of buildings that are being destroyed,
people that are being killed, you know,
sort of, people that are providing,
you know, sort of, support for,
sort of, "kill all the Jews"
and "kill all the Palestinians"
that actually came
from previous conflicts,
not from the present one.
There's plenty of that.
This time around,
there's also so much more hatred.
There's, on social media especially,
there's so much more willingness
to promote, algorithmically,
opinions that you would never
hear in your family,
that you would never hear
in your community, in your school,
but it's being bombarded.
And this is very different
from the so-called mainstream media,
whether it's the BBC or the Deutsche Welle
or it's Fox News or CNN.
No, no.
Social media has become a far more greatly
polarized and hate-filled space.
I've received at least 30 death threats
over the last 48 hours
from complete randos.
A few people that I actually
could track if I really needed to,
most anonymous accounts.
But clearly people
that are writing me directly,
some of whom are really,
really pro-Israel,
some of whom are really,
really pro-Palestine
and some of whom are probably
just trolling for the lolz,
as they like to say.
It is increasingly very hard
to navigate this space
without becoming incensed and deranged.
Having said that,
as much as I find Twitter/X a space
antithetical to civil society,
I also know, as someone who does analysis,
that some of the best real-time
information from sources on the ground
is being passed through on X
and is not found in other places.
It will not come through
in mainstream media.
So for the average person,
you need to spend a lot more time
filtering and figuring out where to go
and who to follow.
But it still is the one place
that you can go.
And you know, it really does,
the whole thing profoundly worries me
because when you're in an environment
that you can no longer know what is truth,
what is real information,
it is really hard to maintain
a society that is human.
When you have people that are saying
that all Israelis are X
and all Palestinians are Y,
and that is where much of social media,
I mean, a strong majority
of social media is there right now,
you cannot have dialogue,
you cannot have solutions,
and you can very easily tilt into war,
into radicalism, into fascism.
This is something we all need
to be guarded against.
And I truly believe
that the social media companies
need to be regulated on this.
They are acting as if they have no
responsibility for what's on their sites.
That, you know, it's just
like the phone company.
That if you and I, Helen,
are having a conversation
about blowing something up,
well, we're responsible for that.
But the phone company
isn't responsible, and I accept that.
But, Helen, if you and I are having
a conversation about blowing something up
and then the phone company
takes that conversation,
identifies everyone else
that might be interested in blowing
something up or has considered it,
and takes that conversation
and promotes it to them,
then you, the phone company,
are responsible, you are liable,
you should be taken down.
And we are in a war right now,
and the social media companies
are actively fanning the flames.
They are spraying fuel on the flames,
and they’re doing it globally.
Globally, so much so that countries
like China that are authoritarian
and control their media space
actually have sort of an intrinsic
political stability advantage
in "information warfare"
over open societies
that should be the most resilient.
That’s crazy, and we can’t keep
going down that path.
HW: The ironies are writ large.
OK, so we are coming on our time,
but I wonder if you can
leave us with a sense
of what should we be watching for next?
What should we be looking for?
IB: First, we need to look for Lebanon.
This is the issue of Hezbollah,
which so far has been the dog
that has not barked.
Is that going to continue?
It is the place that you are most likely
to see tipping point escalation
if it were to occur.
And you have Hezbollah operatives
of many different stripes.
They are loosely organized,
they're well-trained.
But that doesn't mean
that they're all following, you know,
marching orders from one direct leader.
The potential that this could --
you could see escalation with some
Israeli farmers getting killed,
and then the Israelis respond.
And before you know it,
you're in a much bigger firefight.
Lebanon's involved, Hezbollah is involved,
and then it knocks on to Iran.
That is sort of the gateway drug
in the Middle East
even if nobody wants that fight.
That's one thing to watch.
Second thing to watch, of course,
imminently is what happens
with these hostages.
Do the Israelis get them back?
Historically, that has always
been the top priority,
and it is today.
But Hamas has control over that.
And, you know, if the Israelis
are not prepared to negotiate with Hamas
to release militants presently
in Israel prisons,
and it's very hard for me to imagine
in today's environment
they would be willing to do that,
well, how exactly do they get them back
and how many of them
can they actually free?
Again, you know, the Israelis
and the Americans have far,
far better tradecraft on the ability
to get these hostages out
than Hamas have to take them.
But Hamas has exceeded expectations
over the past 48 hours,
and I would worry very much about that.
That would be the second thing
I'd watch most closely right now.
And then finally, the nature
of the Israeli government itself.
Do we have success in putting together
a unified national emergency government,
in which case we will have more
stability in governance
and decision making that comes from Israel
and also greater willingness to consider
longer-term engagement
with those Palestinians,
particularly in the West Bank,
to start, at least,
that might be looking
for a more constructive path
now that they are back on the agenda.
I don't have a high amount of optimism
that that's going to happen.
But you asked me for something hopeful,
that would be something hopeful.
HW: Ian Bremmer, we are so grateful
for your time and for your insight.
Thank you so much
for joining us, stay well.
IB: My pleasure Helen.