Today is Monday, October 21st, and we're having Colin Jacquebo with us to talk about what's going on in the Middle East. Welcome back, Colin. Yes, thank you.
Thank you for inviting me back in your show. Thank you. Let's get started with what has happened in Gaza. and the killing of Yahya Senwar. How important was that and what do we know so far from this operation?
Well, I wouldn't call that an operation as such because Yahya Senwar was in fact just killed by chance, if I can put it that way. Now, if we look at what happened, it just demonstrates the inability of Israeli intelligence to locate such an important person as Yair Yassin Ouar. And that has an explanation because that's something I described in my book, by the way, that in November 2018 the Palestinian or Hamas counter-intelligence team, the Jihad intercepted a covert team of the Sayeret Matkal, so the Israeli covert team, and the Hamas security managed to get all the encrypted equipment and encryption equipment of this covert team. They started to disassemble that and to study that. With that, they managed to have a good, let's say, insight into the whole intelligence and communication network of the so-called, I mean, the Gaza division.
You know that the Gaza division is this division responsible for the security of the so-called Gaza envelope, which is an area around the Gaza strip that... is responsible for the security of the Israelis there, and to contain or to, let's say, monitor what is in the Gaza Strip. And with the information the Palestinian counterintelligence gathered, they managed to unveil the whole network, including whole security code and access code of various electronic equipment.
And that explains, by the way, how the Palestinians, on the 7th of October 2023, were able to disrupt the whole intelligence network, the tactical intelligence network around the Gaza Strip on that particular day in order to allow the Palestinian operation. And that, in fact, contributed to the blindness of... the...
sorry for that... for the... sorry... this contributed to the blindness of the Israeli that day. And since then, the Palestinians could enforce a very strict counterintelligence discipline among themselves.
And that's the reason why, since... the beginning of the Al-Aqsa flood operation, we see that the Israelis are constantly chasing information because they are not able to trace the Palestinian Qatayeb in the same way they can do that in the West Bank, for instance, or even in South Lebanon. And we see that most of the heads of the major units or Kataeb in Gaza were killed in fact by chance rather than by targeted killing. And that's also the reason why, that explains probably why the Israelis in Gaza use so many mass destruction equipment, bombs, the 2,000 pounds bomb and things like this, the Mark 84 and things like this, because they are not able to locate the individual targets, if you want.
And so they have to destroy much more than... Something similar to what happened to Hassan Nasrallah, because in fact, when we talk about the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, everybody talks about an assassination, and it is one. But the reality is that in order to reach or to kill Nasrallah, the Israelis had to kill 300, up to between 300 and 500 people. meaning that it was not a targeted attack as it was, for instance, for Ismail Hadniyeh or Mr. Haruri in February this year. So these were targeted attacks where you can pinpoint the location, use the proper weapon, and you eliminate the person.
Probably there are some collateral damages, but in essence you had a very a targeted operation. But for Nasrallah, the Israelis were not able to locate him. They knew roughly where he was, and for that reason they had to have some kind of carpet bombing in order to destroy him.
In the case of the Yassin war, even if some people call that assassination, I wouldn't call that assassination because assassination suggests that you are targeting the person. In that particular case, they just encountered Yaya Sinwar by chance, and it was a training team that was there for some reason, and they found this Palestinian group, and they started to engage that group, and it happened that in that group was Yaya Sinwar. So, meaning that the Israelis had a fundamental weakness in locating these people.
And that's because of the counterintelligence measures taken by the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip due to this event in 2018. That's a very important thing. And we see that the Israeli intelligence is usually good to locate individuals to kill them. That's what we have seen in the past. But in that particular case, we see it's no longer the case. The Israeli intelligence has no longer the upper hand.
And we see also, I talked about Nasrallah and all these leaders of the Hezbollah that were killed recently. And that had also some consequence on the Israeli intelligence. Because as I explained on that, on your channel, I think. a couple of weeks ago, when you kill the head of a clandestine tractor, the problem is that you don't know what happens next.
You have no control over what's going on. So we are talking about operations that are mainly PR operations because on the operational side now the Israeli intelligence is struggling to trying to figure out how Hezbollah has adjusted its command structure. So what looks like a tactical success is in fact an operational failure, not strategic as such. We have other strategic failures in Israel, but in that particular case, it's an operational failure because yes, it killed a person, but at the same time, by killing this person, you lose the visibility on the whole command structure.
And therefore, you are not able to trace any decision or to track decisions. You're not able to identify who is in charge of what. And you don't even know if, based on the, and that's very true for the Hezbollah, by the way, since many key persons, or let's say alleged, key person were killed. We don't know if the Hezbollah has restructured its command structure. meaning that to some extent now the Israelis are blind because of their own action.
And I told you that when I was in training in my younger years, I was trained in British intelligence and that was at the time of the IRA, so the Irish war in Northern Ireland. And I remember perfectly that the British had a very exhaustive list of all the commanders of the Irish Republican Army, which was organized very much like an army with regiments, battalions and all that. And it was clandestine, of course, but the British had really every kind of detail on these guys, but really everything. They could know which doctor they visit, in which school were the children.
They knew everything. And I asked them, why don't you kill them? Since you know the chiefs or the commanders, you could kill them. And this British intelligence officer told me, no, but we don't do that. Because if we kill them, then everything we have done is lost.
And the whole structure of the... of the army then becomes totally unknown from us. And the advantage of knowing the commanders is that we know exactly who are their contacts, how they behave, how they would react to such and such situation, how they would react to negotiation, how they would react to how they behave.
And all these aspects are... part of the daily assessments that an intelligence organization must make about the enemy. When you kill those people, then you lose all that. Your enemy becomes unpredictable. And that's exactly what's happening in Gaza and in the South Lebanon.
That's why I find these operations In fact, it's almost self-defeating operations by the Israelis to some extent. It's a huge propaganda operation. I mean, in that sense, it's certainly a success.
But in the midterm, this is probably not so good for them. And that's a very, I think, important aspect of the killing of Yahya. In addition to that, the movie that was released, the footage that was released on the last minutes of this guy when the drone finds him and things like that, it shows, in fact, the death of a combatant.
It shows the death of a hero to some extent. And that's very strange. that the Israeli released this footage because it shows that Yahya Sinwar was not simply a guy hiding in some tunnels or somewhere outside of the Gaza Strip, but he was an actual fighting guy. He was sharing the fate of his combatant.
And that makes him a combatant in the real sense of what I explained already on your channel, of the sense of jihad, meaning that the victory for a jihadi is not the amount of destruction you bring to the enemy, but the victory is gained by your willingness not to abandon fighting. That makes you a hero. So that's... In fact, the release of that footage by Israel indicates that Israel has not understood the way its opponent thinks. They still apply a Western mindset to the Palestinians, whereas they have a very Middle Eastern or even Eastern type of...
mindset that tends to, let's say, make victory a different notion than what we have in the West. But the Israelis are Westerners. underlines, by the way, that they are not coming from this region. They are Westerners, they are Europeans, they behave, they think and they act like Europeans, not like Middle Eastern people. So we have here a very interesting episode that indicates the inability of Israeli intelligence to understand its enemy, the inability of the Israeli intelligence to track the enemy.
That's very interesting. This is an inability that is explained by what just happened. So in essence, even if the West tends to see that as a success, I would suggest...
that killing Sinoir in such circumstances is rather a failure rather than a success. And well, that's the way it is. The Israeli, and that's the reason why the book I wrote in 2003 about asymmetric warfare had a subtitle exactly the same subtitle as the one I used for the Operation Alexa flood. the defeat of the Rankisher because the Israelis, in 20 years since the Second Intifada, never managed to understand the mindset of their enemy. That, I think, is a fundamental weakness.
It's a weakness of all the Westerners because we had the British, the Americans, and others who were involved in the fighting in Iraq. in Afghanistan and elsewhere, they didn't understand either the way, the mindset of those fighters in the region. And that's the reason why they never managed to defeat them. You know, as Sun Tzu said 2,500 years ago, the essence of warfare is that, first of all, you should understand your enemy. And if you don't understand your enemy, then every operation you will lead will be a defeat.
And that's exactly what we are witnessing in Israel. So I don't see that as a success. In addition to that, we can say that killing Yair Sinwar was in fact killing a combatant. And... From an operational perspective, I mean tactical perspective even, it has not much impact because as we have seen and as I have described several times on your channel, we see that even when they are isolated by the Israeli forces, the individual combating structure in Gaza were able to coordinate their activity.
So that means that they don't need, as it is the case for a conventional Western army that you need to have a pyramid of command and control with a commander and then a cascade of commanders, the command structure of the Palestinians is much more horizontal, meaning that you have In each area, they have a general mission to fulfill, and they are able or they have the capacity to assess the best way to achieve their mission. They are not bound by the commander, and that gives to each cell a much more autonomy in conducting the fighting. And for that reason, when you kill the highest person, it will not directly affect the combat activities on the ground.
And if we look at Yaya Sinwar, Yaya Sinwar was in fact considered as the successor of Ismail Haniyeh. Ismail Haniyeh was the leader of the Muslim community. of the political bureau of Hamas.
The political bureau of the Hamas is the bureau that, in fact, manages all political connections between the Hamas and the outside world, if you want. And that's why Ismail Haniyeh was one managing the negotiations or, let's say, the talks with other partners, including the Americans, through intermediaries. Now... When you look at the structure of the Hamas, you have the central political bureau, and then you have four political bureaus.
You have one for the West Bank, one for Gaza, which is obviously the most important one. Then you have one for the so-called diaspora, that means Palestinians outside of Palestine. And you have a politburo for the prison. for the personal involved in prison. And remember that Yaya Sinoir has been 20 years in prison, and that's where he gained this political power.
And when he became, and up to his death, he was the leader of the political bureau of Gaza, which is again a political level, not an operational level. But since there were probably some casualties in the command structure, he assumed also some military functions. Meaning that when the Israelis killed Sinwar, they didn't affect the combat capabilities of Hamas, but they affected its negotiation capabilities.
And that's very much in tune with what we have seen since, in fact, decades, that the Israelis kill systematically the leaders who are in charge of negotiations. And if you read my book on the Al-Aqsa flood, you will see a list of Palestinians who have been killed during a negotiation process. And that's exactly what happened to Nasrallah, by the way. because that was also during a negotiation process, indicating that Israel is a country that will never negotiate. Despite everything it can say, it will never negotiate.
And it must not be taken as granted that Israel will find to any problem a negotiated solution. They will never. And in the some cases where they were forced, especially by the Americans, to go to the negotiation table. At the end, they didn't comply with what was decided. So Israel is a country that will never negotiate.
Regardless of what they say, they will never. And I think Palestinians and others, I mean, I mentioned Hezbollah and so on, they understand that. They know that the Israelis will never. negotiate, because they don't want to, and for a simple reason. They feel that the whole thing about Palestine is precisely about Palestine.
It has nothing to do with religion. It has nothing to do with politics. It has only to do with territory, and for several reasons, mainly religious.
the Israeli assume that the region, not just the country they have, but the region in which they are, belongs to them. And that's what the Israeli called the Eretz Israel, which is the big Israel or the extended Israel, that has different... let's say, understanding the one I have here, a small leaflet, by the way, that was given by the Irgun.
The Irgun is the predecessor, I can show that here probably, and you see the map here. This is the predecessor of the Likud. This part of the Irgun is the part that, in fact, collaborated with the Germans and the Italians before World War II, just to say. And when you look at the map, you can see exactly that it goes beyond the Israel that we know today.
And in fact, it takes into account even Jordan, what at that time was called Transjordan. And that's the minimalist variant, in fact. And this is where the Likud of Benjamin Netanyahu, especially the branch of the Likud of Benjamin Netanyahu, comes from. So meaning that for them, this territory belongs to them.
So there is no matter of discussion. And for that reason, all people who think or portray Israel as an entity willing to talk, they are wrong. They will never negotiate.
And for that reason, that explains also... why, it doesn't explain why Yaya was killed, but it explains that in fact the only impact on the killing of Yaya Sinwar will be just on negotiation and for Israel that will not even have an impact. So in fact, we are talking about a victory which is It's the appearance of a victory, but it's not an essential victory.
But I think that was important to be said because only few people have realized the importance of the structure of Hamas and also the inability of Israeli intelligence to assess the enemy in order to find a solution to the conflict. Just saying. And how about right now the conflict between Iran and Israel? We know that there were leaked documents.
It seems that the Biden administration leaked these documents. Nobody knows what is the source of these documents about the Israeli attack on Iran. And Israelis are not happy with the situation of these documents.
And in your opinion. What was the reason behind this act? If somebody wanted to put these documents out to inform Iranians, just to avoid Israelis from attacking Iran?
And how did you find the whole situation with these documents? Well, it's very strange. And you can see the glass half empty or half full in that case.
Because if you read the document, you will see that they are not providing essential information. I mean, obviously, we see in those documents that the US is collaborating very strongly with Israel in providing weapons, providing training, and a joint operation, or I'd say a rehearsal of operations, and things like this. But there is no essential indication, with a few exceptions.
If you look at this document, this one, sorry, the next one is, when you look at this document, it says that the US intelligence says we cannot definitively predict the scale and scope of a strike on Iran. and such a strike can occur with no further during. So they are not able, based on this document, to assess the scope of such an Israeli reaction.
And they add at the end of the text, we have not observed indication that Israel intends to use a nuclear weapon. So in fact, It shows that this document doesn't provide key information, because the fact that the US intelligence has not detected nuclear weapons doesn't mean that the Israelis do not prepare some covertly, clandestinely, and things like this. So it doesn't bring much. Now, it can be interpreted in two ways. One is, and that's probably the way the Israeli interpreted it, and probably with Dried, that within the intelligence, the US intelligence community, you have people who do not support the US policy in supporting Israel.
And these documents, even if they are top secret, and if you want more details about the classification, I think Larry Johnson on his blog Sonar21 has made a very good assessment of the... issues related to the classification of the document. And I advise people to look at his blog.
His blog is owner21.com. Yes, exactly. Yeah.
And so we have here two documents that are probably accessed by a very, very small number of people. Because when you add the different type of classification, you will... probably see that it's a very limited number of people who can access that.
As a result, it may indicate that some people at a very high level do not agree with the US policy or the Biden's policy towards Israel. And that's probably a source of concern for Israel, because as I said, the documents don't show much in terms of Israeli preparation, in fact. If you read that, the activities described in the document are, in my view, benign in some sense, but it indicates that some people do not agree with unlimited support to Israel.
I think that's probably what Israel is interpreting. The other way of interpreting that is because the activities in these documents are quite benign, it can also be a way to show Iran, well don't worry so much because the Israelis are not preparing for something substantial and we have no indication that they are preparing something very important and that could probably push the Iranians to be less cautious, let's say. So that's the other way of interpreting the release or the leakage of these documents. I don't know and I think we need probably to have further inquiry. Apparently the US and FBI has launched an inquiry to identify who leaked this information.
So we'll see. I don't know at this stage, but you can interpret this both ways. My view is that probably someone, and I say that because, as I told you, in my military career, I have been very often in touch with defense attaches, U.S. defense attaches.
And when I was in NATO, I was in touch with... my peers, I mean US colonels and other colonels, by the way, or other countries, obviously, and I have never seen, when we were talking between four ears or four eyes, I've never seen a US officer who was supportive of Israel, never. They are disciplined and they were probably abide by orders they will receive, but in their Saul they are not supportive of Israel, none of them.
I was surprised to see that most of the US officers I've seen have a very, very, very critical approach of Israel. And even a sense that it's not the right ally in that sense, in the sense that these guys, you know, I said that already on your channel, when you are a military, when you are trained as a military, in a real military, and when you see what's going on in Gaza, if you are... a sincere and people who have been trained and educated in the military with a sense of honor. you cannot support this.
No way. No way. And I think this is the posture of all the officers I've met. And I mentioned here the US because we are talking about the US leaked document. But in fact, when I talk to other officers from other European countries, I've never seen an officer who approved Israeli action, even if a lot of those officers have been in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and in fact most of them had been in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and elsewhere combating Islamists and all that, none of them considered that the way Israel is fighting the war.
is the way that a normal military would do. And I think that's a very important point, and probably this leaked document is in fact just the tip of the iceberg of this kind of perception of the conflict. I cannot, as a military, even if you hate Arabs, you cannot accept the idea that your enemy can be extended to every single civilian. And in that respect, by the way, I would like just to show here something that struck me, that came out just a few days ago, and that's the declaration of Annalena Baerbock.
Minister of Foreign Affairs, and she said in front of the German Bundestag, which is a German parliament, she said self-defense means, of course, not only attacking terrorists, but also destroying them. This is why I have made it so clear that when Hamas terrorists hide behind people, behind school, then we end up in very difficult waters. But we are not shying away from that.
This is why I made it clear at the United Nations that civilian sites could lose their protected status if terrorists abused their status. That's very interesting because that goes exactly against the conclusions of the Nuremberg trials in 1946. that were in fact the basis of the modern international humanitarian law, or the law of war. Meaning that when you are in a situation where you fight and you have the problem of combatants in a civilian population or in a very highly populated environment, you need and it's an obligation, by the way, by international law, it's an obligation to engage your weapons only once you have made a distinction between the two.
And I remind you, I mentioned that on your channel, but I remember that to everybody today. In the international humanitarian law, there are three basic principles. The first one is to be able to distinguish or to discriminate between military or armed combatants and civilians.
And if you are not able to do that, then you should abstain using your weapons. Then you need the second principle, the principle of proportionality, meaning that if you have identified a military objective, then you are bound to use a proportionate type of attack. in order to reach the military objective, but to avoid casualties or civilian casualties.
And that's the principle of proportionality. And the third principle is that when you are not able to distinguish between civilian and military, then you abstain using your weapon and you try to use another mean to achieve your objective. And that's exactly what Miss Annalena Baerbock is contradicting or denying. And incidentally, she's just repeating exactly. Exactly.
What the Germans used to say in Second World War, especially in the Eastern Front, where they were confronted to a very strong partisan movement that was affected their logistical lines. And this partisan movement happened because at that time, Eastern Europe was probably the most... heavily Jewish populated area.
As a result, when the Germans considered that there were terrorists among them, they just killed the whole population, because they were not able to discriminate between the partisans and the civilians, and so they killed everybody. That's what we call this Shoah or Holocaust by the rifle. in Eastern Europe. And Annalena Baerbock is repeating exactly the same thing today.
So that's why I think we are back to the origin. And I find this extremely shocking from a military point of view, that we are, especially in Western Europe, and after what the experience of World War II. and after the Nuremberg trials in 1946, that the Germans are back to principles that are exactly those who led them in front of the court in 1946. That's just shocking, and that hurts definitely my sense of military and the sense I have of conducting combat and managing the battlefield when you have political leaders who, in fact, repeat exactly what we have been fighting for for more than 70 years, or fighting against, sorry, for 70 years.
So that's something I wanted to mention, and that kind of behavior is exactly the reason why probably you have... people in the West more and more opposed to Israel, because we see that this kind of behavior, this kind of thinking, this kind of mindset is exactly the kind of mindset that drives the operations not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank and in South Lebanon, obviously. And with the Lebanon and the conflict that is going in the southern part of Lebanon, we see that Israel is bombing the buildings.
They're talking about the banks that are related to Hezbollah. And on the other hand, we've seen that Hezbollah is able to just penetrate the air defense system of Israel, reaching the resident of Netanyahu. This attack on Netanyahu, in your opinion, in terms of the intelligence that they're capable of gathering the information, it's not just penetration, gathering information for the future attacks. And how important is this? And why the Israelis were not capable?
Why were they capable of tracking these drones? Are they some type of new drones that are not? that the air defense system is not capable of tracking them?
Well, this is not new, because I think I have mentioned a couple of times on your channel that the Hezbollah made public a few footage of drones overflying the northern part of Israel, and especially identifying possible targets in Haifa and so on. And apparently these drones were able to fly over the whole territory of the northern part of Israel without being intercepted. And in reality, this is not so, let's say, we can explain that. It's not just the incapacity of the... iron dome or similar system.
The thing is that these drones can fly very close to the ground. And in fact, they are below the level where radars can detect them. And in addition to that, these drones, and especially the one that hit the house of Netanyahu, was a very small drone.
And these very small drones are... could be easily confused with birds, for instance, by a radar. As a result, in order to avoid the detection of every single bird, the radars are calibrated to identify bigger drones, or bigger flying objects, if you want.
And therefore, you have here, as long as... I made it very simple, of course. But as long as you keep your drone smaller as a bird, then you can hide electronically behind birds, if I can put it that way.
And that's exactly what happened. And that's the reason, by the way, why this attack failed, because this drone was not powerful enough to penetrate the bulletproof glass of Netanyahu's house. But at the same time, it indicates a capacity of the Hezbollah to hit in the very heart of Israel.
And that should be a matter of concern for Israel. So we see since the beginning of this, I mean, since the 7th of October, increased capabilities of Palestinians. and Lebanese to penetrate Israeli defenses, to bypass Israeli intelligence, as we have seen with Yahya Asinwar, by the way.
So, in fact, the bottom line is that we used to think that Israeli intelligence was so powerful that it could protect Israel from every kind of threats. And today we see that this intelligence is just able to locate some individuals who killed them, but it's not able to protect Israel. And even if it locates some individuals who killed them, it doesn't add to the protection of Israel because it increases the uncertainty that... that is around Israel.
So we see a total failure of the use of intelligence in Israel, but it's not new. In fact, as I said, of course, when I talked about the drones, I was talking about what happened since 7th of October, 2023. But when we talk about the misuse of intelligence, this is something that we had. already during the 1973 war, that we had during the 2006 war.
Remember that after the Israelis withdrew from Lebanon after the 2006 war, there were some inquiries in Israel to assess the capabilities of the Israeli intelligence, because apparently The Israeli intelligence had not been able to assess the capability of Hezbollah at that time. So history is repeating itself. The problem is that Israel, and we are always coming to the same point, the problem is that Israel is overconfident about itself. It feels that it's a superior race. It feels that it's a superior kind of individuals.
The others are human animals and things like this, subhuman, if I quote some Israeli politicians. And as I said many times, and as I quoted Sun Tzu 25, 100 years ago, the Underestimating your enemy is the worst mistake you can do. And that's exactly what the Israelis are constantly... doing because their mindset is the one of a superior type of entity. And that's their weakness at the same time.
Feeling superior pushes you into some kind of weakness because then you are overconfident. And that's exactly what we have seen in Gaza. The overconfidence of the Israeli Defense Forces led to their defeat to some extent because Again, this is the kind of warfare I think Henry Kissinger used to say that.
It's a kind of warfare, if you don't win, you are losing. And in order to win for the Hezbollah or whoever, if you want to win, you're just necessarily not losing. You see, this is a kind of a nuance type. of thinking, but it explains exactly the kind of warfare in which we are.
And the Israelis have not understood that yet, after almost 80 years. That's their weakness. So we are just witnessing today fundamental weakness that have already been identified in the past within the Israeli establishment, but they never, in fact, drew the lessons of that. They've never been able to understand the lessons of that. And so they repeat the mistakes.
And you know, everybody makes mistakes. Only the stupid one repeats them. When you look at Iran, IRGC recently, one of the commanders of IRGC said that if Israel uses nuclear bombs, we have...
a weapon much more powerful than their bombs that we can use. And do you think they're talking about their hypersonic missiles together with a nuclear bomb? And I don't know how we can interpret the way that they're talking about. They can answer to Israel. They can respond to Israel.
Well, I don't think Iran has a nuclear bomb. nuclear capability. I'm not sure Iran so far has tried even to have this capability.
The hypersonic missile, and by the way we see a very similar, although Russia is a nuclear power, but we see that for instance the Russians don't talk about tactical nuclear weapons because they have the hypersonic weapons that in fact, have the same devastating effect. I mean, it's not the same kind of explosion and all that. But at the same time, it gives an edge at tactical level.
And I think for Iranians, we have something similar. They don't need nuclear weapons because they probably have enough hypersonic missiles that can go through any type of... air defense system.
The advantage of nuclear weapons is that it can destroy all air defense, in fact. But if instead of destroying them, you have the capability of penetrating them, you can reach the same effect. So I am not familiar with the Iranian leadership. I don't know what they have in mind.
Probably they might have an idea of having nuclear weapons at one time, but I don't think they do, yet at least. And even if they wanted to have nuclear weapons, this would require, according to the New York Times and many intelligence persons, and I used to work in NATO with the disarmament. a unit. And I think people understood that Iran had not... and if Iran would like to have nuclear weapons, it would require at least months and if not years to have a working nuclear bomb.
So, by the way, we have the same thing with Ukraine, which is claiming today that they could have in a few weeks a nuclear weapon. So we have the very similar... situation, but it's another discussion. In any case, no, I think Iran has very powerful supersonic or hypersonic weapons.
And that's probably what they mean. I don't think they mean nuclear weapons. Also because using nuclear weapons against Israel might provoke some international outrage and even probably some unexpected or let's say...
disproportionate reaction from the United States, let's put it that way. So I don't think that Iran is aiming at it. At the same time, we have to remember that this idea, as I said many times, Israel sees Iran as an enemy, but I'm not sure that Iran sees Israel as an enemy as such. Obviously they are opposed and they are really ready to oppose militarily on any provocation. That's definitely so.
But Iran has absolutely no interest in destroying Israel, absolutely none. There are no territorial issues, there are no economic issues, they are not neighboring countries. We don't see exactly why Iran would consider Israel as an enemy.
From Israeli perspective, it is different because Israel is misusing the fact that Iran is the enemy of the United States. That's different. Iran has become the enemy of Israel because Israel is the enemy of the US.
In that sense, having a war with Iran could serve the interest of Israel in having a regional war. And we have seen that the Israeli leadership is apparently, I mean, it doesn't want to do that probably now because the US doesn't want to have a regional war before the end of Biden's mandate. But otherwise, Israel would be keen starting a regional war because then they expect the US to come to help them and therefore for them it's almost an assured destruction of Iran and probably other powers in the region so that they can expand their own territory. So the interest is from the Israeli side. but not from the Iranian side.
So I think Iran has always kept a very defensive posture and bound to that a kind of deterrent type of position. And that's how we should understand the strike of the 13th of April and the strike of the 1st of October. These were not... designed to destroy Israel or making major destruction in the Israeli capabilities, but it was just there to demonstrate the ability to strike and probably assume that if Israel would start a war with Iran, then if Iran would launch everything it has and probably they are prepared for that, that it would not be 200 missiles, but probably much more. I don't know how many, but that could be significantly much more than this.
And then that would lead to, let's say, a functional destruction of Israel, probably not the destruction of the population, because again, I don't, the Iranians, and I think everybody in the region. has not this idea, I mean all the surrounding countries, better said, do not have this idea that the population should be hit by a distraction. This is only Israel who sees that as a non-distinction between combatant and population, because at the end of the day they want the territory for themselves.
Again, it's a fight, a war about territory, not about anything else. And therefore, The aim of the Israelis is to just to remove all the Arabs from the territory they want, period. But from the Arab side...
This is not the idea. They would prefer to destroy the military capabilities of Israel. And that's exactly what Iran has demonstrated in its two strikes. That was an attempt, or let's say, a show of force against the Israeli military capabilities, but avoiding, very carefully avoiding... any civilian losses.
And I think that demonstrates exactly the nature and the symmetry that you have between Israel and its neighbors. I think it's very important to highlight this. When we look at the list of soldiers who have been killed in the southern part of Lebanon, Israeli soldiers, we see the Most of them are 23, 24, 22 years old.
And how can they use these people, these young, and how trained are they, in your opinion? Because on the ground, you have to have a lot of experience to go on the ground to fight a country, at least Hezbollah, which is so powerful on the ground, so trained in... Syria, in Iraq, they know how to fight. And sending these young men to fight in the southern part of Lebanon, how do you find it? What's the mindset of the Netanyahu administration?
Well, it's interesting if you look, for instance, at what happened in 2003 in Iraq, as the US attacked Iraq. The first, the attack operation with the tanks and all that, the enduring freedom and all that, that was led with, I mean, you had tanks and it was conventional battle and you had young guys. When they started the occupation of Baghdad, they noticed that these guys were not suited for that because they were too psychologically fragile. And they had to bring in National Guard people, people much older, who had probably more psychological stability or more stable psychologically to cope with situations where the danger is in your back, on your side, in the front and everywhere.
Israel. has a conventional army which is designed and trained for conventional warfare. That's by the way also the reason why it failed in Gaza, because it's not trained for this kind of warfare.
And the conventional warfare put emphasis on the use of units, so it's not the individual combatant. but it's mostly units who fight. The problem becomes tricky when you go into urban warfare, because then you need to fight with very small units, and then it's almost kind of individual combat. You're almost alone with the enemy.
Because of the geography, you're isolated. from each other. You cannot work in a platoon or a company level, whereas when you are in open field obviously you fight in units. But counter-guerrilla warfare and counter-insurgency and urban warfare imply that you work at very, very in very, very small units or small groups, or as I said, even at the individual level.
And that requires an extremely high level of experience, and that requires an extremely stable psychology. Because since the enemy is everywhere, you're not allowed to panic. You should keep in...
control every minute. I'm not sure that Israel is able to provide such kind of combatants for Hezbollah in its unit. It is made of units, I mean the tank units and mechanized infantry units and all that. They are made with very young people who are fit physically, but they may not be very stable psychologically.
And that's a challenge that you have when you go into counterinsurgency warfare. And I worked when I was in Switzerland, working on the military doctrine, and I was studying, I mean I was in the early stage of defining or establishing special forces in Switzerland. And at that time we studied the different type of special forces. Today everything is special. But if you look back in the 50s or 60s, where you had a lot of counterinsurgency and all that, you could see that those guys who were sent behind enemy lines or fighting in counterinsurgency or fighting against guerrillas, they were not the youngest guys.
They were guys in the late 30s, the 40s, who are still fit physically, but above all, who could have a very stable psychology and could sustain the situations where you have an enemy that can be anywhere. And this is the kind of... operation that we have forgotten a little bit in the West, because we tend, what we call special operation today, and that includes, by the way, what Israel, what we call special operation tends to be what we used to call during World War II commando operation. But when we, commando operation is a small group, okay, that goes and fight, and then it's a raiding.
type of combat. But when you are in enemy territory, isolated, and advising guerrilla movement as the special operation executive in Yugoslavia, for instance, or in Greece during World War II, or even in France or Italy, then you need people with much more experience, extremely stable and people who can very cope with, I mean, every minute is a crisis in that sense. So, and that for a very long period.
It's not just a raid that you go and you fight a few hours and you go back. You stay in the enemy rear and you stay there and you fight against guerrilla or with guerrilla, depending. on the situation, but I mean it requires a totally different type of mentality. If I were Israeli, I would probably do the things totally differently, but I would be winning.
So I would not advise too much the Israelis because I don't think they deserve winning. What they do, in fact, is applying conventional structures for unconventional warfare. And we see, and there was a report that came late last year about the number of Israeli soldiers in in psychiatric establishments because they needed some psychiatric treatment. because they were not able to cope with the situation. By the way, if we look at the number of US veterans who committed suicide after they came back from Iran or Afghanistan, it's just amazing.
The number of people killed on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq, I mean US forces, is a tiny number. They didn't lose a lot of people. in combat.
But when these guys went back to US, Then these guys started to fall into depression and all that, and they started to commit suicide. There are thousands of soldiers who died committing suicide back home because of the war. And we have a similar process happening in Israel. So these guys are not ready for the kind of operation.
While on the other hand, when you look at Hezbollah or the Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank, these guys have been so much subject to bombing, to indiscriminate shelling and killing of all sorts, that these guys are psychologically better prepared for long period warfare than the Israelis. And... That's probably an advantage, and that's why we see that despite having been one year in the tiny territory such as the Gaza Strip, the Israelis have not been able to achieve any substantial success. I mean, unless you count the number of buildings destroyed as a success, okay?
But unless you take that as a success, the Israelis have... not achieved anything. That's exactly, by the way, what the CNN report in August this year, what this CNN report indicated, that Israel has not achieved much because, precisely, they are not ready for this kind of warfare. They are able to strike with bombs so they can destroy a... complete neighborhood in Gaza or in Dahiya in Lebanon, but they are not able to sustain a protracted combat in enemy area in both or Gaza or elsewhere.
And yes, that's I think what you pointed out is a perfectly right. Israel has not the right army for the kind of war it wants to perform. That's probably good that way. And let's just to wrap up this session, Colonel, I'm going to play a clip that Netanyahu is giving his definition of terrorism.
I want you to comment on that if what Israel is doing is... definitely was Netanyahu is giving us as the definition of terrorism. Well, the problem of...
Is target the innocent deliberately. And therefore, my definition of terrorism is the systematic and deliberate attack, the murder, maiming and menacing of innocents, civilians for political goals. You can tell a lot about terrorists, but what happens when they come to power?
Those who fight for freedom and come to power do not impose terrorism. Those who do, who fight in terroristic means, end up as being masters of terrorist states. Well, there were some debates on French TV on the same question. And incidentally, the guy who came up with the definition of terrorism was stopped by the journalist because, in fact, he describes exactly... what Israel is doing in Gaza and in Lebanon.
So this is the problem of terrorism. It has never been. And that's the reason why I think it's the first attempt to have an international definition of terrorism that was started in the 30s, probably 1935 or something like that. That was in the League of Nations at the time.
and they never managed to find a definition. Then you had World War II, and after World War II, the issue came back, especially in the decolonization process and all the guerrilla warfare we had in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. And the UN never managed to have a sound and an agreed definition. The main... If I can put or let's say summarize the basic posture is that the Western countries tend to see terrorism as the use of indiscriminate force against civilians, while on the rest of the world, they tend to see that they don't accept this definition of terrorism because they say that if you are not able to defend yourself against a more powerful enemy, then it remains only the use of...
bombing and things like that, that will create, let's say, collateral damages. So, yes, it's indiscriminate against civilians, but it's for a purpose, which is liberation. And therefore, we see a difference.
The Western countries tend to focus on the means, while the rest of the world tends to focus on the objective, in terms of definition. Let's put it that way. This is a fundamental problem.
You know, my uncle used to be in the French resistance during World War II, and he fought against the Germans in France. Of course, the Germans called him a terrorist, but himself, he never defined himself as a terrorist, you know. So you have this...
inability to define what terrorism is. That's the reason why I would discourage people to use that word because at the end of the day it just allows countries, in that case Israel, to use whatever means to combat themselves. And we are exactly in the midst of how Annalena Baerbock said, and I just presented a few minutes ago, that if they're terrorists, then you can even give up with the idea of protected civilian zones. The word terrorist allows everything.
This is a very perverse way of understanding. By the way, if we apply the principles or the agreed let's say, even by Western standards, the agreed definition of terrorism by Western standards, then Israel would be defined as a terrorist state, simply. So then, you know, we are in a kind of conundrum that is, we cannot go out of it when we use the word terrorist. So we need to be more factual.
If there are war crimes committed, then call them war crimes. Because war crime is something that is defined by international law. We know how to define them and we know how to punish them. So let's use the word war crime.
And there are other expressions that are also defined on the... international humanitarian law that we can use. But terrorism is something that everybody can define its way. And I remember when I wrote my first encyclopedia of terrorist movements in the mid-90s, I came across a document in the US where in the US you had 400 different definitions of the word terrorism used by different administrations. So the word terrorism, even within a single country, can have different meanings depending on if you are police, if you are foreign affairs, if you are minister of defense and things like this.
For instance, if you look at the definition from the US Department of Defense, they would not consider the use of bombs or IEDs against military forces as terrorism. while Israel tends to consider that as terrorism. But by U.S. definition, or U.S. military definition at least, that would probably not be a terrorist activity. So we are talking about something that is just used to justify the disproportion of the reaction. And that's why I think it's...
perverse and we should avoid to use these terms, especially in the West. And Israel, I think we, I mean, we... They will always use that because it justifies the misuse of force against civilians.
And this is exactly the justification we have for the destruction of the Gaza population and things like this. Well, they are just terrorists. And it goes further because the president of Israel, Mr. Herzog, said that the whole population is responsible. You know, and you have that also in the French media, journalists and commentators saying, well, the Palestinians, all the Gazians or Gazaoui, I don't know, you say that in English, but all the population of Gaza is responsible because they voted for Hamas.
So they are responsible. Therefore, there is no problem if you kill them. And that's exactly what, in fact, Annalena Baerbock says. We are in this kind of situation where, because we provide a blind support to Israel, we tend to accept an interpretation of the international law that allows everything.
And that's why I think it's important that the International Court of Justice comes up with a final judgment on the issue of genocide. Because then that would probably make people think about the support they provide to Israel regarding this kind of definition. Because everything is linked to that at the end of the day.
Because that's the reason why when we see, especially last year, when you had a UN... the Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs of the UN, saying that you had 30,000, 40,000 dead in Gaza, people were saying, well, but you know, the Israeli or the Palestinian, or the Hamas, better said, started with the 7th of October. And that's also something which is quite odd, because in law, Generally speaking, regardless of international or national law, a crime cannot justify another one.
It's not because somebody bumped into your car that you are allowed to destroy his car. It's not because people give you a slap that you are allowed to kill him. So a crime doesn't allow for other crimes. But surprisingly, with the 7th of October, this has been the Western and Israeli narrative on that.
Because they started the 7th of October, then everything is allowed. And you can even destroy a full population. That's no problem because they started, they committed the crime.
And even if you explain that the hostages, the so-called hostages, that... By the way, today are prisoners of war because they are military personnel. All the civilians have been liberated or released. The purpose of having those hostages was to be able to negotiate the release of the 1,300 hostages that Israel detains. I mean, all the people...
who are detained without charges are in fact hostages, because just detained in order to make pressure or to exert pressure on their families to leave their home or to leave an area or whatever. And these detainees are factually can be considered as hostages, even if nobody used that word for them. But...
That's the problem. If you have a detainee with a charge, okay, then he has a charge because he tried to kill someone or he killed someone and all that. Okay, that's a charge. But when you detain a child, an old woman or whoever without a charge, just for the sake of exerting pressure on his family, this is a hostage.
And that's exactly the reason because the... the ultimate reason for the 7th of October for the Palestinians. was to have to resume the negotiations about the release of the 1300 people.
And because Israel stopped the negotiation about this, that the Palestinians decided to take some military, to take them as prisoners, in order to negotiate, to force Israel to come back. to the negotiation table. So we see that Israel's policy tends to induce a vicious circle in which you are, or the Palestinians, were pushed or pressed into action in order to have negotiations. But this is the continuation of of the policy of Israel since 1948. And as I said before, Israel is not a partner for negotiation, cannot be a partner for negotiation. Regardless how you look at it, they will never be a partner for negotiation.
They might be dragged forcefully to the negotiation table, but eventually what is decided will never be applied. because they have never done so. I remind you that a condition, and I highlight this, condition for Israel to join the United Nations was to grant the right to return to the Palestinians.
That was in 1949. And Israel committed itself In order to enter the United Nations, it committed itself to grant the rights to return for the Palestinians. But in reality, it never applied it. So we are exactly in this kind of issue. You can take all the agreements or treaties or accords or whatever that have been.
Israel has never applied them. Never. So it's a country that never wants to discuss and therefore when you want to reach something, you need to go with other means and that's exactly what led to the 7th of October.
And that's also the reason why Israel is systematically killing all the people, the political leaders of the armed groups, systematically because They don't need them because they don't need to negotiate. It is in warfare when you try to, and that's also something, it's interesting, by the way, that in the West, we have this mentality also. We have seen that in Iraq and Afghanistan and with Bin Laden and all that.
This is this idea that you don't negotiate. And for that also the word terrorist is useful because you don't negotiate with terrorists. Nobody cares about the fact that Israel was in fact a terrorist state and that Isaac Shamir was the head of the Lehi at the time when Folke Bernadotte, the special envoy of the UN, was assassinated in September 1948 in Israel. That was under a terrorist group at the time.
It was a terrorist group. And Israel is born out of terrorism. And today, most of the international community accepts that Israel is in the United Nations.
So we tend today to have a more, let's say, extreme understanding of the word terrorist that allows us not to talk to people. And... Although in conventional warfare and even nuclear warfare, if you look at the strategy that was studied in both countries like Soviet Union at the time and US, one of the aspects of the nuclear strategy was to avoid destroying the leadership because you want to keep someone to talk at one point.
Otherwise, you have this. so-called mutual assured distraction. And to avoid that, you need to make sure that you spare the enemy leadership. And that's also the reason why, for instance, we had or we heard this discussion about Ukraine, and Russia said very distinctly that they don't plan or consider killing Zelensky, for instance.
because they need a leader to talk to. But that's exactly how the others, namely the West, and in that particular case Israel, doesn't want to engage. They don't want to engage into any discussion, and therefore they don't need to have a partner for negotiation, and therefore you kill the heads. That's exactly what's happening.
Thank you so much, Kamal, for being with us today. Great pleasure as always. That was my pleasure.
Thank you very much for inviting me again. Thank you.