Israel Strengthens Resolve Amid Losses | Saturday Extra

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Georgia Howe: This week was one of the deadliest for Israeli soldiers, with 24 IDF troops killed in a single day in Gaza on Monday. Despite the losses, reports on the ground indicate that morale remains high and Israeli citizens are united behind their armed forces.

John Bickley: In this episode, we speak to an expert in Middle East politics about what life is like for Israeli troops on the ground. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Saturday, January 27th, and this is an extra edition of Morning Wire. Aryeh Lightstone was a senior advisor to the U.S. ambassador to Israel during the Trump administration. He was instrumental in forging the Abraham Accords, which led to unprecedented agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Aryeh, thanks so much for coming on.

Aryeh Lightstone: Thank you for having me.

Georgia Howe: Now, this week saw the deadliest day for Israeli forces thus far in the war against Hamas. Can you tell us a little bit about what happened?

Aryeh Lightstone: Yeah. The news started Monday evening Israel time, and you saw various different reports coming out of extreme fighting in Khan Yunus. And Khan Yunus is one of the last four or five different strongholds left in Gaza. And there was a major surge to try to eliminate several of the terrorist cells that were there. And the process of trying to eliminate those terrorist cells, it seems as though one terrorist with an RPG was able to activate a series of Israeli munitions that had been spread out to eliminate either a tunnel or some stronghold. And with that one shot managed to endanger the lives of way more than 20 Israeli soldiers. And they fought valiantly. But 21 members of the Israeli Defense Forces lost their lives last night in Khan Yunus, some as old as 37, married with several children. Truly devastating and a horrendous period of time.

Georgia Howe: Now, can you describe a little bit of what things are like on the ground for soldiers in Gaza?

Aryeh Lightstone: Yeah. For the soldiers on the ground in Gaza, there's a mixture of incredibly high morale. I don't even know how to describe it. These soldiers are walking into a mission that they know is more dangerous than it needs to be because they're fighting with an ethic that I don't believe is repeated by any other military in the world, including ours, the United States of America. They're building that could be eliminated from the sky, and they choose to go building by building or room by room, but they go with enormous passion and conviction, primarily because of what they witnessed on October 7th and what they've seen with their fellow soldiers. There's a sense of "we did our mission, but the job is not complete." And that morale now, 110 days into the war, is incredibly challenging.

Georgia Howe: I'll just paint one thing. You've got soldiers who've been inside of Gaza for 75 straight days, some of them with only one change of socks or two changes of socks. The kids who come out not injured and unscathed haven't been eating normally, they certainly haven't been taking care of themselves hygienically. Just imagine what their feet have been looking like. They're podiatrists that wait for them as soon as they clear the Gaza border to be able to treat just the basic necessities that they have. That, you know, is difficult to imagine in 2024 in a first-world country.

Aryeh Lightstone: It really is.

Georgia Howe: Now, how much of Gaza have they assumed control of at this point?

Aryeh Lightstone: Geographically, it's still barely more than half. Maybe it's up to two-thirds. From a battalion perspective, they've been able to analyze where the Hamas capable fighting forces are. And there, I think they're closer to 75 percent complete and degrading the fighting capabilities of Hamas as a force, but not as individuals as terrorists.

Georgia Howe: It's important for the listeners to know that what we call Hamas terrorists since 2006, they've had control of their own territory and have been able to train like a regular military, including seafare and their underground warfare. And they've been able to act with command and control. Israel's primary job over these last 100 days of ground warfare is to eliminate the command and control capabilities of Hamas to act as a normal army.

Aryeh Lightstone: Now, can the IDF and just the Israeli people in general maintain their resolve in light of these losses? It does sound like they have high morale, but is something like this going to set them back?

Georgia Howe: No, the morale, I think, has become stronger. There's a thing that's going around now here on social media with the last letters that the soldiers leave to their family in case they don't come home. And each one is frankly more, I don't know, uplifting than the next in terms of their sense of purpose. To a person, the letters have said, "if captured, do not trade me for a terrorist." And if killed, understand that I went willingly and with enthusiasm to play a major role in the course of Jewish history. And if you can hear that, it literally the dead talking to you from beyond the grave. That gives some sense of solace to the family, certainly not anything that would resemble sufficient solace, but to the people here in Israel, it gives enormous conviction.

Aryeh Lightstone: That's really powerful.

Georgia Howe: Now, I understand Israel is politically divided in a lot of ways. But how do the Israeli people feel about this war? Are they divided about that? Or is the war somewhere where they have a lot of consensus?

Aryeh Lightstone: No, the war has got to have 85, maybe 90 percent consensus. Certainly in the first several weeks, they had a 98 percent consensus. Right now, the divide in Israel internally is over two different factors. It's number one is the families of the hostages. Notice their slogan for one of the groups that's organized them is "bring them home." Now, that's a funny slogan if you think about it, because who does bring them home talk to? It speaks to the Israeli government. The phrase should be "let my people go." The Israeli government is most certainly not holding these people. The Israeli government is doing everything in their capacity to bring these people home. "Let them go" is directed to the people who are holding them. So there is a component there, which is advocating within the government or at the Israeli government, please make sure that you're considering the fate of the hostage, perhaps over the fate of the army and the young men that you're sending into Gaza. That tension exists. You have mothers and fathers and family members of soldiers who are saying, "don't tie a hand, a proverbial hand behind our children's backs as they're going into battle." They're willing to sacrifice, but don't make it harder for them than it should be. And all of them have moral and ethical high ground. It just becomes a debate. That's where leaders have to make very difficult decisions.

Georgia Howe: And where do things stand with regards to the number of hostages? How many people are still being held, and where did the negotiations stand?

Aryeh Lightstone: There are more than 130 hostages that are still being held by Hamas. Amongst them, unfortunately, are many bodies. The exact count of how many hostages are still with us is not known specifically, but it's not the full number of the hostages that Hamas has. Israel just made what I thought, what many people thought, was a very forward offer to Hamas through Qatar and Egypt, offering for a two-month pause in the war, which two months is forever in the Middle East in exchange for all the hostages to come home on a staged approach. That was rejected by Hamas. They really put a very strong foot forward in favor of trying to bring meaningful cessation to the hostilities. If Hamas won't accept that, I don't know what they will accept, in which case I think Israel will have to pivot to its original strategy, which is the only thing that will bring hostages home and accomplish the goals of the war is incredible military pressure.

Georgia Howe: Speaking of pressure, there's been significant pressure from the U.S. and the EU for Israel to adopt a two-state solution. Netanyahu has rejected that outright. What are your thoughts on the two-state solution?

Aryeh Lightstone: Well, as previously conceived, I think it's one of the greater failures of Western policy in the entire history of the world. To double down on that right now after October 7th doesn't make very much sense. You also have a challenge, meaning Hamas themselves said they're not interested in a two-state solution. And the polling in the West Bank says that 86% of the Palestinians there support Hamas. So with whom are you looking to make a two-state solution with today? And that would be ignoring the fact that you truly want to reward a people that perpetrated one of the worst crimes, certainly against the Jewish people, since the Holocaust. So there needs to be a sense of when is the right time to talk about peace. I know the Israeli people well. They want peace, but they need to have a partner for peace. And that rolls in the second piece, which is why is that conflated with regional peace, which makes no sense.

Georgia Howe: All right. Now, last question. There have been a lot of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel demonstrations here in the U.S. What's your message to those protesters?

Aryeh Lightstone: The message to the protesters, you're marching on behalf of raping women and beheading children. I don't believe anybody out there is really in favor of that. They may be in favor of anarchy. They may be in favor of anti-Semitism. But if you see race as a weapon of war and you're actively in favor of that, it's an illness. I mean, this isn't a thing that you can be right or wrong about. This is a question of evil. And if you're choosing to be on the side of evil, just understand where that puts you in the context of all of humanity. I truly don't believe that the American people are anywhere near there. There's a sense of picking a cause that you want to join because it's the oppressed against the oppressors. And that type of mentality is simply insane.

Georgia Howe: Well, Aryeh, thank you so much for coming on today.

Aryeh Lightstone: Thank you for having me.

Georgia Howe: That was Aryeh Lightstone, former senior advisor to the U.S. ambassador to Israel. And this has been an extra edition of Morning Wire.