Transcript: The Untold Story of the Gaza Ceasefire – Thomas Small on TRIGGERnometry

Because I don’t know how to do that about this conflict because it’s so incredibly complicated.

Both sides have reasons to hate the other side and the egregious injustices perpetrated by both sides going back decades, maybe centuries. You know, the ledger is read on both sides. So that’s my first thing to say. I’m not here to celebrate one side winning over the other side or anything like that, because frankly, it’s early days.

We don’t even know if this war is over. I mean, I know, I saw, my heart was moved to see the images from Tel Aviv, from Jerusalem of the hostages being returned. You know, it’s great. The Israeli people are rightfully very pleased to get their hostages back. Rightfully pleased that at least for now, the war is over. I think everyone was very war weary there.

The Gazans, some of them were celebrating as well. We saw why, I’m not quite sure. Gaza is rubble. And now for them, especially in a way, a new chapter of their suffering will begin as everyone decides what happens to Gaza. So I just don’t want to be in that space of, you know, who knows what’s going to happen.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: He left his Palestine flag outside. No, no, no, no.

THOMAS SMALL: I don’t fly any flags.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: I’m joking. Your point is you’re not on the team, which is why we are.

The Background of Ceasefire Negotiations

THOMAS SMALL: Yeah, I’m not on a team. So where did this start, this ceasefire? Well, from the very beginning of the conflict, there have been negotiations about how to end the conflict from the, you know, literally within the first week of the conflict.

Qatar mainly acting as a mediator, sort of more or less trusted mediator, trusted by the United States, more or less trusted more and then maybe less by the Israeli government, acting as a mediator alongside other mediators or patrons of Hamas’s political wing on one hand, like Turkey and Egypt and its sometimes kind of allied backers, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates.

So all of this has been going on from the beginning. So this ceasefire now that’s happened, this hopeful, this peace plan, it’s not like it came out of nowhere. Donald Trump, the president Trump likes to think that he kind of pulled this piece out of his hat like it was his to give.

FRANCIS FOSTER: I give you peace.

The Doha Attack: A Turning Point

THOMAS SMALL: But it’s been negotiated constantly in the background. From the beginning, this specific plan, where do we start? I think it would be good to start with the remarkable attack that Israel launched against top Hamas leaders in the Qatari capital of Doha on 9th September. So just over a month ago, because that really changed everything in a big way when it happened.

I mean, it was kind of remarkable. The Israelis used these stealth jets. They flew down the Red Sea and then they launched these missiles. And I’m not a military guy, but apparently they launched them sort of over Saudi Arabia. They launched them so high that they technically were not going over Saudi airspace, so they could deny violating that airspace.

And then they struck Doha, killing a Qatari official, you know, security officer, and I think five others, none of them top Hamas leadership. From what I have been told from friends in the region, the top Hamas people had actually left their mobile phones on the table of the room that had been targeted. So they were thought to be there and had gone to a mosque to pray. It was prayer time. So maybe God saved their bacon, I don’t know, but probably the wrong way to describe that.

Now, the reason that those Hamas leaders were there is because they were participating in negotiation, a ceasefire and peace negotiation with Israeli counterparts mediated by Qatar. So when this attack happened, it caused a tremendous uproar, outrage, because it really did sort of cross every recognized line of international law and diplomatic kind of manners, if you like, to attack, to try to assassinate the men that you had agreed to negotiate with, you know, to negotiate something like the end of a war with. That just doesn’t happen. Not supposed to happen.

It outraged everyone. It obviously outraged the Qataris, but it really outraged the United States. It really outraged the White House because they did not know that this was going to happen. And from what I understand, the Israelis designed this attack precisely so that the White House would not know in advance of the attack enough to warn the Qataris.

And because they knew, I mean, Israel, I don’t know if you know this, it’s a close ally of the United States, a very close ally.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: They have a…

Israel’s Strategic Calculations

THOMAS SMALL: They have a special relationship and they work very closely on security things and military things. So the Israelis know the United States military architecture, its ecosystem in the region. They knew which way its radar systems are pointed, and they chose the Red Sea and they chose precisely that route of attack so that the White House would not know about the Pentagon or the CENTCOM would not know about it in time to warn the Qataris.

The Qataris say that when they did get the call from the White House saying, by the way, there’s a, you know, it was happening at the same time. So at some point the White House, or the CENTCOM realized this was happening. They called the Qataris, but it was too late.

So Donald Trump was extremely upset about this. And I don’t know, you know, you recently had Prime Minister Netanyahu on this program. Maybe he explained to you what he was thinking. The people I’ve talked to in the region cannot for the life of them understand why Israel did it, especially given the fallout. So do you have an idea? I’m actually, this is me turning the tables. Can you, do you have an idea of why they did that?

KONSTANTIN KISIN: No.

THOMAS SMALL: Just, no.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: No.

The Attack on Doha and Its Strategic Consequences

THOMAS SMALL: Okay. So, well, I don’t know. Israeli policy over the last eight months or so has become increasingly difficult to understand. I mean, everyone knows the allegation that Netanyahu, desperate to stay in office, fearing that the minute he leaves office, he will be pulled off to prison, or at least subjected to a humiliating court case or three court cases that are pending.

People alleged that, you know, he was extending the war, postponing the war, doing what he could to make sure the war wouldn’t end in order to stay in office. I used to think that that was maybe just sort of conspiracy theorizing, but frankly, I do wonder now.

For whatever reason, he launched this attack, which failed, and for the first time ever, Israel struck a GCC capital, and not just any capital, the capital of the country in which the largest US military base in the world is housed. They did that without warning the White House, so that the missile struck 30 km away from that base, Al Udeid Base, without warning.

And it has, in the last five weeks, set in train—America’s alliance system in the region is on life support now, which is strange. You’d be surprised to hear that, because yesterday, the day before, we saw Donald Trump in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, sorry, in Egypt, acting for all the world like the great world king that he thinks that he is.

But behind that is an American administration extremely worried that Israel’s reckless attack on 9th September has permanently altered the perception of American power in the region, which was already very much on shaky grounds since the Biden administration had come to power and had reneged on some weapons contracts, weapons deals that the first Trump administration had arranged with the Emiratis and the Saudis.

Do you remember when Biden was running for office, he called Saudi Arabia a pariah state, and they very much hauled the Gulf countries over the coals for the Yemen war. The situation in Yemen, which, you know, of course, latterly has been proved to have been foolish given the reckless behavior of the Houthis in the last two years, holding Red Sea shipping to ransom and firing, you know, weapons, missiles at Israel and things.

So the relationship was already sort of under strain. A pivot was occurring in the direction of China and other, you know, growing powers in our multipolar world. But the attack on 9th September really made people sit up and think, okay, we have got to do something about this.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia’s Nuclear Agreement

Eight days later, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia announce a new military cooperation agreement that includes extending Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella over Saudi Arabia. Quite a remarkable thing.

Now, you know, everything I know about the inner workings of Gulf diplomacy and military come from my friend and co-host on the Conflicted podcast, Eamon Dean, who I spoke to at length this morning to pick his brains so that I would help to help me understand better what’s been going on. So everything I say is really, I have to say, I have to credit him with the insider knowledge.

But he told me a remarkable story that for five years now, he believes, he speculates with a wink, he believes, based on what he has heard, but it’s speculation. But he believes that for over five years now, there have been nuclear weapons inside Saudi Arabia, certainly earmarked for Saudi use. Earmarked, it’s not clear, but that.

And this was precipitated originally by the Biden administration’s change in policy, by earlier than that, some attacks that Iran launched against Aramco facilities in the east of Saudi Arabia, which were devastating and really limited the amount of oil that could come out of the kingdom for about 20 days, something like that, severely shaking, you know, the industry there, which is its lifeline.

So, you know, the kingdom was already thinking, we need to protect ourselves. And since it had funded the Pakistani nuclear program starting in the 70s, and it had always had a very close relationship with Pakistan on this level, this idea kind of, the idea being you make 10 nuclear warheads, we get one of them, you know.

So they have about 18 now, maybe with their name on it. But the idea being now that those are actually physically going to be transferred to Saudi Arabia and may have been transferred there as early as 2020.

Now the announcement eight days after the attack, the Israeli attack on Doha in Qatar, was a major, major change to America’s security arrangement in that part of the world. It’s saying, we don’t trust you because you don’t have control of your most important ally.

Netanyahu’s Apology and Trump’s Peace Plan

For that reason, at the end of September, on the 29th of September, we saw this remarkable scene of Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House, in the Oval Office calling the Qatari Prime Minister, his counterpart in Doha, and giving him a public apology, a kind of groveling apology, promising never to do it again.

Basically the same day that Donald Trump announced his 20-point peace plan, which over the next week or so then came into effect on the 10th of October.

So that is the immediate context of what’s happened. On the one hand, war weary, not making many military strategic gains inside Gaza, you know, not really. Since last summer, July-ish, 2024, have the IDF really made significant strategic gains on the battlefield in Gaza.

It’s been kind of just a kind of horrible status quo, maintaining a certain degree of destruction, you know, reminding everyone what they can do, what they do do, you know, participating in negotiations, possibly not always in good faith, possibly, you know, who knows?

Certainly trying to assassinate the negotiators in Doha suggests that the accusations before that, that the Israelis were not negotiating in good faith might be true, maybe in an attempt to extend this war, I don’t know.

So war weary on the Israeli side? Israeli people are very war weary. They’re increasingly Netanyahu-wearied. He’s sort of, you know, his coalition is weakening starting in the summer when some of these right-wing partners drifted away from him.

So on the one side, on the other side, you know, Hamas totally under pressure. The United States, given what Israel did in September, just said, okay, we’ve got to stop this war and we must do something about the very destabilizing effects that this war has now had.

The Strategic Fallout

FRANCIS FOSTER: And one of the things I read, and it’s interesting that you’ve given so much time to the attack on Doha because one of the things I read was that in some ways it was foolish and everybody, you know, even lots of Israelis thought it was a big mistake. But it’s in some way precipitated this resolution as far as we’ve got.

And we’ll talk about your point about whether this actually is the first step towards peace or a temporary thing, that there’s a setback later. But one of the things I read was that what happened was that attack happened. Obviously the Qataris were very pissed off. Trump was annoyed. But at the same time, he used it as an opportunity to say to the Qataris, we’ll protect you, but you have to deliver the hostages.

THOMAS SMALL: Well, not you have to, you know, you have to put pressure on Hamas to deliver the hostages. There has been this idea that maybe even the White House colluded in the attack to put Qatar under that kind of pressure. But from what I understand, that is not the case.

FRANCIS FOSTER: Interesting.

THOMAS SMALL: And though, yes, in the end, because of the attack and the fallout, the strategic fallout, the shifting alliances. And it’s not just Saudi Arabia, Qatar itself, the Emirates, Turkey, lots of powers who had already been preparing the ground for diversifying their military arrangements as American power weakens relative to the rising powers of China, India, you know.

Basically going back to the beginning of the Cold War, America has sought by hook or by crook to maintain control over what’s known as the Rimland, that part of the Eurasian continent that kind of rings from the south, the, you know, Russia, to contain it. If we can kind of create enough networks of alliances to contain the big beast at the center of the continent, then we’ll be okay.

Well, in the meantime, because of economic growth, the different civilizational states of the Rimland are more and more powerful and more and more assertive of their independence, especially as politics, the economy of America, the culture of America, it’s all quite wobbly and they don’t know how much they can trust it.

So there was already a rethinking going on, but the attack on Doha is totally changing. It changes everything. America was there. You know, it is insane. It is crazy that this has happened.

And I think one thing that should make us doubt the idea that the White House was sort of part of the plot in order to put pressure on Qatar is that it’s assuming that what Netanyahu or what the Israeli government was trying to do is stop the war. You try to stop the war by trying to assassinate the people negotiating the end of the war. You know, it doesn’t really add up.

And from what I understand, it put America in such an awkward and embarrassed position and so rapidly led to a changing geostrategic reality there that the Americans just shouted stop. First and foremost to the Israelis, but also putting pressure on Qatar and Turkey to just, let’s stop this now so that we can regroup.

Trump’s Praise for Qatar

FRANCIS FOSTER: Yeah, it was really interesting because I was watching a press conference that Donald Trump did on Air Force One, flying, I think, from Israel to Egypt, and he spoke about the Qataris, and he was effusive in his praise for them. He was glowing in his praise. I was actually quite taken aback. Really helped us with this deal. And the emir is an amazing man.

THOMAS SMALL: Who really helped us.

FRANCIS FOSTER: “You have to understand, his country is right in the middle of everything. More so than any other country. More so than UAE, where you have to fly an hour and a half to get there. More so than Saudi Arabia, where you have to fly an hour and a half to get there. His country, you walk across the line and you’re there. So he’s in the middle of this unbelievable hostile territory with people on all different sides of the opinion and the question.

They were a tremendous help. Qatar was a tremendous help to getting this done. I hope people could realize that. It was very tough and very dangerous for Qatar. They were very brave, and their leader, the emir, was very, very brave. And Qatar should start getting some credit.”

So do you think that they have essentially played a crucial role in these peace, Qataris?

Qatar’s Complex Role in Middle Eastern Politics

THOMAS SMALL: Absolutely. No, no, they definitely have. They were always both a media—I mean, the role that the Qataris play in regional politics and globally is very interesting and weird and difficult to suss out.

Because on the one hand they have positioned themselves as the place that talks to everybody. If you want to talk, the Americans want to talk to the Taliban, the Americans want to talk to Al Qaeda, if Iran wants to talk to Saudi, you can do it in Qatar. It’s like the Mos Eisley cantina of the world—scum and villainy, they’re all there. You can find everyone there.

On the other hand, Qatar, particularly through Al Jazeera—both Al Jazeeras, the Arabic Al Jazeera and the English Al Jazeera—in different ways to some extent communicate radical politics to the world. Arabic Al Jazeera tending towards radical Islamist politics, English Al Jazeera tending more towards radical liberal politics. I think Trigonometry might call woke politics or in general, you know, left-leaning metropolitan elite internationalism, that kind of politics.

So it’s both a mediator trusted by everyone and it seems to have its foot on the pedal of its own politics. Its money, of which it has huge amounts because of the largest natural gas fields in the world, is spent on endowing NGOs that again seem to be politically slanted, endowing departments in universities across the West that seem to be the same departments that encourage students to think very critically of the more widespread conservative, liberal Western tradition.

So Qatar is a funny thing. You would think that Donald Trump wouldn’t like Qatar that much, at least on that level of politics. So another indication that Benjamin Netanyahu really, really pissed off Donald Trump is precisely that effusive praise for Qatar that he gave.

I don’t know, Donald Trump, you know, maybe he has something like a narcissistic personality complex, I don’t know. But you don’t stab that guy in the back. He does not take that kind of chicanery lying down. So I think Netanyahu was put in the naughty corner and Trump went straight to his other closest ally in the Middle East, where the military bases are, where all the NGOs are, where lots of politicking is done—Qatar—and was able by forcing it to get this deal done. And then it came into effect a few days ago.

Trump’s Praise for Turkey and Erdogan

FRANCIS FOSTER: It’s been fascinating watching Trump’s rhetoric. If you see his speech that he delivered at the nascent, but also with this particular press conference, not only did he praise Qatar and he was fulsome in his praise, but another thing that shocked me is he came out and celebrated Turkey’s role in this and was saying… you know, Erdogan, you know, he played a fundamental part in getting this deal over the line.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: He’s a tough cookie, but he’s been my friend, and every time I’ve ever needed him, he’s been there for me. So I just want to thank President Erdogan because he is difficult. They called me, they said, would you do me a favor if we just speak to Erdogan? And I do. And he never fails us, right, General? He never fails. He’s amazing. So I just want to thank you for the pressure. Thank you very much.

The Abraham Accords and Regional Integration

THOMAS SMALL: It’s very surprising. You know, I think I may have talked about this the last time I was here, but if not, I should have. So, you know, before the terrible events of October 7th, 2023, before the beginning of the war, beginning with the signing of the Abraham Accords between the Emirates and other Arab countries and Israel, which seemed to be creating a new regime, a new order in the Middle East, a new Middle East, one in which Israel would be integrated economically.

And something that’s called the India Middle Eastern and European Economic Corridor was going to be created, a sort of riposte to answer to, rival to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which is much bigger. But nonetheless, by linking India, the Middle East and Europe in this big trading network, free trade, whatever, you know, lots of new infrastructure going to be laid down. So that was on its way.

Saudi Arabia had its ear to the ground, was gently, gently, probably going to be signing up to the Abraham Accords. The Palestinian issue was part of the reason why they were taking their time. They did want to see some movement from the Israeli government towards some kind of recognition that eventually a Palestinian state would emerge. This is not something that Benjamin Netanyahu or the Israeli right have ever wanted, but it seems that they were actually willing to think about this in exchange for this economic integration.

Well, the thinking goes that Hamas, in collusion, to some extent, at least strategically, with Iran and Hezbollah and the rest of the axis of resistance, so-called, launched the October 7th attacks in order to destroy that so that that economic integration would not take place.

Now, in the meantime, you know, following the terrible attacks, there was the war. Hamas took hundreds of hostages, refused to give them back. Israel invaded, launched devastating attacks. The war has gone on and on and on.

In the meantime, Israel took the war outside, started cutting off the heads of the axis of resistance, one after the other. Quite amazing to watch from the sidelines. Changing everything, changing everything. Climaxing earlier this year when they attacked Iran, destroying its ballistic missile capability. And then with the United States in that phenomenal display of American military wizardry, attacking the nuclear program there.

So it was like this incredible thing Israel was doing. At the same time, the other states in the Middle East, all of whom were very enthusiastic about this economic integration plan and kind of remained so because they know that there’s money in economic integration, trade growth and you know, they’re Middle Easterners, they know how to make money. They love it. Right.

So they’re basically, in theory, they still want this to happen. And they’re watching as Hezbollah is taken out. Well, that’s quite good. Maybe that can sort out Lebanon. So now we have access to, you know, Lebanese capital, Lebanese banking know-how. That’s good.

FRANCIS FOSTER: Oh, wow.

THOMAS SMALL: The Assad regime falls. That was to some extent facilitated by the removal of Hezbollah from the scene, which allowed Jolani, as he then was, to—as we talked about last time. So Syria is now maybe Syria can be brought into this new plan.

FRANCIS FOSTER: Oh, wow.

THOMAS SMALL: Our biggest geostrategic rival, Iran, who’s been trying to stymie these efforts for years. It’s totally hobbled. So on the one hand they’re watching this happen and that’s good. On the other hand, they’re watching an extremely powerful Israel behave in increasingly uncocked or half-cocked ways, behaving with an aggression culminating in the Doha attack, where they didn’t even bother including the United States in their thinking. This was so, you know, and they’re also—

THOMAS SMALL: I imagine, watching their own population that people talk about the Arab street becoming increasingly radicalized by the horror that they’re seeing out of—that’s happening as well.

The Saudi Dilemma

THOMAS SMALL: And so, you know, if you are an Arab state with the responsibility of governance, especially in the Gulf, especially if you’re Saudi again, the biggest one, you know, the most important one, you’re in a bind. You do want that economic rally.

The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, you know, Mohammed bin Salman has just staked everything on economic growth, on normalizing Saudi society, on making it an ordinary place that gets along with people that has put, you know, religious fanaticism behind it, all those things. He wants this.

So on the one hand, Israel’s actions to attack the axis of resistance is good. But on the other hand, in the context of the war, Israel’s entrenchment, its sense of itself as alone, its sense of itself as in an entirely defensive position, not able to trust anyone, returning to older strategic models of weakening, destabilizing the region. So if, you know, if the region is not united, we’re safe, behaving in ways—and you know, imagine if you’re Saudi Arabia.

So in June, you see the Israelis attack Iran, destroy all of its ballistic missiles capabilities. Well, if you’re Saudi, you also have a sophisticated ballistic missile capability which you’ve gathered over the decades from China, from other places, including the ability to maybe launch these nuclear weapons, which you don’t have. And you think, oh my God, if they can just in a day or two destroy Iran’s capability ballistic, what about ours? Well, I guess they probably won’t, right?

Then Doha attack—oh my God, they’ve just attacked a GCC capital. Then they could, they might attack us. Who knows what they will do?

So Israel’s policy, you know, and we can understand why this happened. I mean, I have some sympathy to the Israeli position. You know, they’re in war. They do face enemies from all sides as a result of waging this war. They have seen this remarkable global upsurge in anti-Israeli activism sentiment, increasingly anti-Semitic activism sentiment. They understand in their minds old historic norms are coming back. You know, they have that sense of being embattled. You know, they have fortress Israel.

Well, America wants that economic integration. They want that plan. They want it. So they want Turkey and the Saudis and the Emirates and the Qataris and the Syrians—this is a big thing. They want the Syrians. They want that for the region. It’s part of America’s strategy for responding to the rise of China. They’re trying to do what they can to maintain that Rimland strategy, bringing India in, et cetera. And so that’s why we see why Donald Trump is praising precisely these characters.

The Future of the Peace Deal

THOMAS SMALL: Which brings us very neatly onto the future because one of—we recorded an episode, just me and Francis talking with no expertise whatsoever, just, you know, but if you read the Trump 21-point plan, I mean, one of the obvious things that’s not there at the moment was the disarming and the dismantling of Hamas.

THOMAS SMALL: It sort of says it’s going to happen, but—

THOMAS SMALL: Well, that was kind of part of the package and thank God the hostages are now back with their families, all of that. It’s a great first step. But I did say at the time, I don’t know if we have any evidence that this is necessarily, you know, done and the Abrahamic Accords 2.0, which is really what you’re talking about. This regional integration, Israel becoming one of the many countries working together, not just economically, but also, let’s be honest, a lot of the Gulf countries care more about the threat of Iran than they care about Gaza or Israel. Right.

THOMAS SMALL: That’s a big driving—they have. But certainly Emirati dignitaries that I’ve spoken to recently, you know, they say that very quickly it went from the Gulf seeing Iran as the primary threat and happy more or less to work with Israel behind the scenes to counter that threat to Israel being the threat. Israel behaving like Iran was destabilizing the region. So they don’t want that. They want the region to be knitted together.

FRANCIS FOSTER: Sorry to interject because from what I’ve been reading and the people I’ve been talking to, a lot of people and a lot of leaders within the Arab world. When you say Israel, do you more specifically mean Netanyahu as in they can’t trust him?

THOMAS SMALL: I suppose, yeah. I mean, that’s the problem. But you know, because Benjamin Netanyahu has been in power for so long in Israel and you know, he’s a survivor, who knows what the hell, how’s he going to slip through this one? You know, it’ll be fascinating to watch. He is Israeli policies.

THOMAS SMALL: I’m making the distinction between Russia and Putin. Well, he’s been in power since 1999. He kind of is Russia. Yeah.

THOMAS SMALL: And to do justice to Benjamin Netanyahu, you know, he is there because the people have actually voted in such a way that he could cobble together coalition. So he’s not like Putin, a dictator in that way. But he has put his stamp so firmly on Israeli policy that it would be hard to disassociate Israel as a state and practicing statecraft from his own personality and his own policy preferences.

The Challenge of Hamas’s Survival

FRANCIS FOSTER: So coming back to the future then, Hamas have handed over the hostages, which was their only leverage as far as I understand. Right. So is it now inevitable that we see them disarmed and dismantled?

THOMAS SMALL: I wish I could say that that was inevitable.

FRANCIS FOSTER: Yeah. And also you mentioned that the suffering of the Palestinian people, the next phase of it is about to begin. You know, I’m sure you have very good reasons to say that, but there’s loads of celebrating now, which is not the first time people have celebrated something without knowing why. But what is your concern? What are the immediate threats to this peaceful…

THOMAS SMALL: If I said about to begin, I should have said it’s already begun. So immediately Hamas…

FRANCIS FOSTER: Yes.

THOMAS SMALL: And remarkably, based on a clip that is circulating with Donald Trump’s approval, like apparently Donald Trump said, well, yes, Hamas are now kind of reestablishing their authority so that they can, you know, end the chaos, which is kind of amazing. Again, a sign that maybe Donald Trump is really annoyed with the Israelis. But already Hamas is trying to re-establish a monopoly, a force on the territory that the Israelis have withdrawn from.

FRANCIS FOSTER: What you mean is they’ve come out of the tunnels and started killing all their opponents, which is what they’ve been doing.

Hamas’s Re-emergence and Tribal Conflicts

THOMAS SMALL: Exactly. They are killing other Gazans now, executing so-called collaborators with Israel in public and also entering into fights with clan militias. So Gaza, like most of the Middle East, particularly the Arab Middle East, is very tribal and there are hierarchies and established families that over the course of the war some of them established kind of local ruling networks of their own armed militias to support that, often working with the IDF.

And so now there’s fighting going on and Hamas it seems to me, is not going to… Well, it’s not likely to just stop existing. They’ve existed for a long time, they’ve survived this war, which in their, I think quite perverse way of thinking, they will think that they have won simply by surviving by discrediting Israel to the degree that they allowed in a way or they manufactured the discreditation of Israel knowing very well the kind of response that 7 October would elicit from Israel.

You know, the first point in the 21 point peace plan, the first point is, you know, a de-radicalized Gaza where everyone can live in peace, joy and harmony or something. You know, then that de-radicalized lie. I mean, and that’s the kind of, that’s the nub of the problem to some extent from let us say the Palestinian side.

The Deep Roots of Radicalization

The Gazans, even before this war were very politicized, very radicalized really. And their political perspective was one in which the state of Israel was an enemy, a kind of total enemy and should not exist. And let’s say should not exist, which is, you know, it’s funny, it’s one of these things, it’s like a, it’s like almost like a truism because obviously if Israel didn’t exist, this problem would not exist. You know, that’s the, so you can’t really argue with it. But that would, you know, how many, about how many, you know, conflicts could you say that? Let’s solve the problem with Iran by Iran shouldn’t exist? Well, yeah, that’s true. If there was no Iran, then there would be no Iran problem.

But in general, you know, over decades of propaganda, not just from Hamas, predating Hamas in the good old PLO days when Fatah and Yasser Arafat, drawing on a more secularist, left wing, third worldism, anti-colonial kind of way of thinking, that kind of radicalism convinced the Palestinians to think of the Israelis in that way, not wanting any really not, not ultimately feeling that a just solution would involve a solution that benefited both sides.

And of course on the Israeli right, which became increasingly prominent from the 1970s onward, similar ideas were, you know, grew and became entrenched as regards the Palestinians, especially within Benjamin Netanyahu and the coalition of partners that he’s had for many years now. So it’s kind of balanced in that way. Neither side really believes that the other one should exist or it would be better if they didn’t exist, you know.

But how do you de-radicalize the Gazans? I have no idea how you would even begin to do that. They’re going to be more radical now. Although, you know, Eamon, my co-host and friend, you know, he said there is hope possibly that the only people that the Gazans in general hate more than the Israelis now after this war are the Hamas people. They might actually just hate Hamas even more when they begin to realize that none of this was necessary. It was a war of choice. There was no need to launch 7 October. It has achieved nothing for the Gazans.

Hamas would counter, “Oh, it’s achieved a whole lot, I can promise you in the long term, Israel’s standing in the world…”

FRANCIS FOSTER: Turkey has promised us a state.

The Saudi-French Initiative

THOMAS SMALL: All of that’s happened. But that’s a whole interesting sort of another story that is part of this peace plan because in, I think it was August of 2024, around that time the Saudis eventually working closely with the French, developed their own strategy for peace and they launched something called the Global Initiative for the Two State Solution or something.

And it was this process, often called the Saudi-French Plan, that culminated in July in the New York Declaration, at which many states said that at the UN General Assembly meeting in September that they would formally recognize the state of Israel, which happened. Now that was a whole other means of putting pressure on Netanyahu, on Israel basically to stop in its tracks any talk of annexing Area C of the West Bank or Gaza.

They were just basically saying, you may, this is, we will not allow this, especially if you want this big opportunity of economic integration. So that was a part of the way in which this peace plan, the one that is now in effect came about. The Israeli right was being checked by this initiative that the French and the Saudis, especially the Saudis, put forward to make it clear that Palestinian statehood of some kind remained their preferred goal, their preferred outcome.

The Question of Hamas’s Destruction

FRANCIS FOSTER: Well, come back to Hamas though. Right. Because if we’re talking about de-radicalization, it would seem to me the very first step of de-radicalization, whatever the process is, would be to not have the people who are doing the radicalizing in charge of that territory. Yeah, not only that, I would imagine it remains a war goal of the Israeli government to destroy the people who did October 7th. And that’s kind of fair enough, right?

You would think I also, from what I understand, there’s not a lot of love for Hamas in the Middle East among the Arab states. I mean, they hate the, they hate Hamas almost as much as the Israelis seem to do. From what I gather, if you’re an…

THOMAS SMALL: If you’re an Emirati, you hate Hamas more, way more, because you hate the Muslim Brotherhood, you hate Islamism, you hate that whole, that whole 50 year litany of horrors that in your mind as an Emirati or as a modern secular inclined middle class, Gulf Arab stroke, Arab that knows what’s going on. You just sort of see the Islamist decades as tremendous number of lost opportunities resulting in only destruction.

So yeah, you hate Hamas, but how are you going to get rid of them? The IDF has failed to get rid of them in two years of really relentless war. The IDF, who, I mean, who had a better…

FRANCIS FOSTER: How much of Hamas is still there, though?

The IDF’s Limited Success

THOMAS SMALL: I don’t know. I mean, I wish I knew. I don’t know. I mean, the last time, from my knowledge, the last time that the IDF itself mentioned its sort of, the degree to which it had degraded Hamas’s military capacity was last July, at which point they had said that something like 20 of 24 brigades had been sort of smashed, meaning they were, they had just, they were limited to just kind of like chaotic insurrection. They weren’t like an actual brigade linked properly to Central Command, and 14,000 fighters had been killed or wounded.

And you know, so that. But from what I understand, they haven’t really announced anything more like that since. So that’s why I said at the beginning that from what I understand the Gaza situation as a military adventure, a military operation has been kind of stuck. You know, Hamas is in its, has been in its tunnels and, or wearing civilian clothes, kind of, you know, infiltrating or just blending in with the populace.

You know, the 7th of October caught the Israelis really with their pants down. You know, they didn’t. And it was in the way that the war has been, has unfolded shows that they actually didn’t possess the level of intelligence that they had for Hezbollah, for, you know, for Iraqi Hezbollah even, it seems, for the Houthis that their eyes were on those enemies and they thought Gaza was under control.

They did not see that threat there. They thought that the relationship that had been built up between the Netanyahu government and Qatar and the civil society elements of Hamas that were being funded by Qatar money through the Israelis, even though everyone knew that Hamas, military wing of Hamas was probably getting some of that money, but technically it was to pay. So they thought that was all working, you know, and they just kind of didn’t have their eye on the wall.

So when they decided, what, we’re just going to degrade Hamas? Destroy it, defeat it, destroy it, they didn’t have the intelligence. They didn’t even know where all the tunnels are. To this day. There are tunnels that they don’t know where they are. And now we see soldiers coming out of those tunnels or fighters at these. So Hamas is there. I don’t know how big it is, but it’s there. And it’s now trying to take over Gaza again.

Who’s going to get rid of them? I don’t believe that some kind of quote unquote, international peacekeeping force or whatever, made up of Jordanians and Emiratis and Saudis are going to get involved in…

FRANCIS FOSTER: Well, they don’t get killed or they’d…

The Challenge of Lasting Peace in Gaza

THOMAS SMALL: Be attacked, of course. That’s what I mean. They’re not. No one is willing to lose their boys fighting in Gaza, which would invariably involve killing civilians because of the demographic situation, the density and the very real strategy of Hamas to use civilians in such a way that they will definitely die.

So no one wants that blood on their hands, especially in the Middle East when the feeling on the street is still very pro-Palestinian in a general sense and in a general sense anti-Israel. So it’s hard to be seen to be doing things that benefit Israel in that way in that conflict, but also get you stuck in Gaza.

So I don’t know. I’m pretty myself pessimistic about this. I think America will be able to put the pressure that would take on the Israelis to kind of keep that, to keep them from reigniting hostilities. I don’t know that I think that’s possible. Israel is very dependent on the United States.

As for Hamas itself, maybe they just do build up, maybe a civil war breaks out inside Gaza and that results in the defeat of Hamas from amongst the Gazans, maybe helped by Palestinians in the West Bank and other groups. But it’s a really… Everyone was very happy yesterday, and I was happy, but I also thought, I don’t see how this is really going to end.

I mean, the sixth point of Trump’s plan is a general amnesty offered to any Hamas member who swears to change his ways, basically, who is committed to coexistence and gives up all his weapons and there’ll be an amnesty. In general, Hamas has been told that if they do that, they lay down their weapons, that they will, without Israeli reprisals, they will put on buses, bused to Egypt and then sent where, Iran, I don’t know, Algeria, wherever they want to go.

So that offer has been made. They know that’s kind of on the table. They can just get the hell out. Will they? I don’t know. And even if they did, then you have the Gazan population. They’ve been through the wringer. Their own willingness to be friendly towards Israel is really up. I don’t know. I don’t know if I would feel particularly friendly towards Israel at the moment if I was Gazan. So I’m pretty pessimistic about it.

The Iran Question

FRANCIS FOSTER: And it’s also as well we’ve touched on this country, but it’s Iran. And I mean, the question is, how do you solve a problem like Iran? Now, Trump has been fairly bullish in some of his interviews saying, in particular in his speech that he did at the NASA where he goes, I think they would want to make a deal. We want to, Iran to make a deal and so on and so forth. I mean, is that realistic?

THOMAS SMALL: I don’t think so. I think that speech was actually, he was saying the word Iran, but I think he was talking to Netanyahu. I think Trump was making it clear what he wants for the Middle East, which is this big, happy, peaceful economic cooperation agreement. And he’s making it clear that he agrees with those other allies in the region, in the Gulf, in Turkey and elsewhere that are telling him the biggest obstacle to that now is Israel. Trump believes that. He agrees and he’s making that clear.

Of course, if Iran wants to sign up, that would be great. I mean, that’s extremely unlikely. But Iran is still licking its wounds from what happened to it over the last two years. So there’s this very precious moment really with a peace agreement being negotiated right now between Israel and Syria, negotiations in which Israel has been playing a very interesting game, not really wanting peace, intervening in the south of the country, that whole business in Sueda with the Druze, and not just welcoming the opportunity to participate in a new regional geopolitics that is one of economic growth and sort of respect of borders and all these things.

Despite what the new Syrian government is saying and agreeing to, this new Syrian government has been bending over backwards to get Israel to agree to recognize them and to be at peace with them. And the Americans are totally behind the new Syrian government, totally behind. We all saw how Donald Trump sort of talks about the new president, Shahra, and he loves him. And it’s just kind of remarkable, everything that’s happened and it’s…

Well, the White House and its other partners in the Middle East would like Israel to get on board that train, like, soon. Whether it will happen, I don’t know.

Peace Through Strength or Prosperity?

FRANCIS FOSTER: Because in that speech, he talked about it was time for the war to end. He made that particularly clear. It had gone on too long. My only concern… Well, there are many concerns. But can you really have peace in the Middle East when you have the Ayatollah and his ilk in charge of Iran, when you have that extremist rhetoric, when you have them willingly funding terrorism? Or can you get to a point, like Trump says, where you have peace through strength, where you basically say to him, if you step out of line, you’re going to get a bloody nose?

THOMAS SMALL: I think economic growth and the opportunity to watch your own personal wealth go up as business and other commercial opportunities, employment levels go up. And I think that if that region, if the Sunni whatever, if the main heart of the Arab Middle East with Israel attached and Turkey at the top, can be knitted together in a powerful economic cooperation arrangement that also integrates India, this exploding market, and Europe, a dying market.

But if that can happen, then with prosperity will come a neutralization of the attractiveness of that radical Islamist worldview. We’ve seen it happen in the Gulf. The Gulfies, they’re not radical Islamists anymore.

FRANCIS FOSTER: Which is, and whilst I’m agreeing with you, but you look at some of these Hamas members, let’s take some of the head of Hamas. Some of them are literal billionaires. They have more money than you would be able to spend in a million lifetimes. Yet it didn’t stop them from being any more radical, Thomas.

THOMAS SMALL: Well, but the leadership, I mean, come on. That’s true. How much money do you think that Khamenei and his family have in Iran? How much money did Bashar Al Assad, how much money does he have now? And he’s, I don’t know, in his spa in Moscow, wherever he is.

So at the top, of course they’ve got money. I’m talking at the bottom, that kind of radical way of thinking appeals to people who have nothing to lose. And there have been a lot of people in the Middle East and in the Muslim world for the last hundred years that have kind of nothing to lose because of bad governance, because of all the sorts of historical inheritance and all that sort of stuff. But with prosperity will come less willingness to listen to those voices.

The Young Generation’s Perspective

KONSTANTIN KISIN: And of course, the demographics of the Middle East are interesting because you have a very young population who, as I understand, a lot of them don’t want to fight their granddad’s war. They just quite like to make money and be comfortable. If for people who are listening, you’re nodding along vigorously, whatever your face there means to what I’m saying, you agreeing with me?

THOMAS SMALL: Absolutely. Sorry. 100%. No, I think that, I mean, I don’t know the Arabs that I know, the Muslims, I mean, in the Middle East, they just would like normal lives, please.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: So that being the case, you’re making me very pessimistic about this, because everyone, whole hands sing Kumbaya, Abraham Accords 2.0, Abraham Accords on steroids, whatever you want to call it. That seems like an amazing thing. And I think Jared Kushner has been instrumental in all of this, orchestrating all this. And when I speak to Arabs, when I speak to Israel, everyone respects him, and he’s clearly had a huge part to play in this.

So that, the fact that he’s involved is great hope, I think. But you can’t build this castle on a rotten foundation. And if Hamas remains in place in Gaza, you’re going to get more terrorism. And if you get terrorism, that makes the economic cooperation impossible, because the moment Israel starts bombing Hamas, they kill Arabs. And the moment you kill Arabs, the Arab world naturally feels upset, and then all of this breaks down. So you can’t do this until you get rid of Hamas. And that’s where maybe, perhaps we can ask a little bit of a more optimistic question is, given that Hamas has no leverage left, is that where maybe some of the solutions are now lie?

Potential Solutions to the Hamas Problem

THOMAS SMALL: Absolutely. I mean, if I had a solution to the Hamas problem, I would be one of those billionaires at the top of the tree. I don’t know. I don’t have a solution. But I say I’m pessimistic by temperament. I’m optimistic in general in my life. So I sort of want to believe that maybe Gulf money, more American, Egyptian, Turkish, Qatari pressure, I don’t know.

If you saw the extremely warm greeting that President Trump paid to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, yesterday, the hug, the embrace, the warmth, President Trump very much signaling that he is not against the Palestinians, that he wants the Palestinians… The plan calls for the formation of an apolitical, technocratic Palestinian committee to oversee Gaza during the transition. I don’t know. I’ve never met an apolitical Palestinian. I don’t know where you’re going to find one of those.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Find one of those.

THOMAS SMALL: But there are technocratic Palestinians living in Amman, living in Dubai, economists, business people, and apparently the Gulf partners to this deal are already recruiting, reaching out, finding the figures. We all heard it said that Tony Blair might chair the supervisory committee that oversees that committee.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: I’m sure the celebration, up and down.

THOMAS SMALL: I know it does sound crazy. Maybe what happened, maybe Tony Blair will get some… His soul will be at rest for the mistakes he made in 2003, if he can bring peace to the Middle East, at least that corner of the Middle East.

So it’s possible, it is possible that Hamas will be convinced in the same way that the Fatah, the PLO, was convinced in 1982 to leave Beirut and fly to go to Tunis and all that. It’s possible that that might happen with money and a promise of amnesty, a promise that the Israelis won’t hunt them down and kill them. All the sort of promises that they might… Maybe it will work then.

Maybe money will flow into Gaza, the school curriculum will change, it will no longer emphasize all the things that it has emphasized. Rebuilding will come, employment opportunities will come, and a Gazan generation will just say, you know what, let’s let bygones be bygones. Especially if there is a Palestinian state, however Frankenstein’s monster-ish. It’s like, it’s going to be strange. Any such state like that will be strange.

But if they have something like sovereignty, something like self-determination, and are supported now by France, the United Kingdom, the United Nations resolution. So I don’t know. Maybe there is some optimism there. Then it’s not all, but you have…

KONSTANTIN KISIN: To get rid of Hamas.

THOMAS SMALL: Of course you have. Everyone agrees. Nobody except Hamas disagrees with that. Everyone agrees with that.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: I know, but how, but the problem is, how do you do it?

THOMAS SMALL: I don’t know.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Right, because you can… I mean that the route that you were talking about seems like the most credible, which is you incentivize individual members of Hamas to stop fighting, basically, and you give them a golden bridge out somehow. But if it’s not a carrot, it’s going to be the stick. And we’ve had the stick for two years.

The Challenge of Hamas’s Resilience

THOMAS SMALL: And it’s, I know, Hamas, you got to hand it to them. They’ve never been, you know, they took a weaker situation and they have maximized its potential. And there they are two years later. The whole enclave is, well, not the whole. In fact, it can’t be exaggerated. But a lot of the enclave is in rubble. There are people, you know, very much impoverished, maybe a hundred thousand of them dead, and they’re still there.

FRANCIS FOSTER: It’s amazing what you can achieve when you don’t give a damn about your people.

THOMAS SMALL: It is amazing what you can achieve when you give a damn about radical dreams that you think are inevitable. You know, radicals are a funny people. I’m just not a radical. I don’t understand those politics. I’ve never understood the animating daemon, you know, that fills people. And it’s not just Hamas. I don’t know if you’ve noticed. It’s kind of everywhere, and I just don’t understand it.

You know, it’s easy for me to think, am I just a cowardly person? You know, every time you ask me to be on TRIGGERnometry, I don’t want to. People will hate me. So maybe I’m cowardly. Maybe I just know too much to be radical, because radical politics tends to clash with reality a lot of the time. So I don’t understand it. But Hamas is definitely radical. They don’t live in the real world. They live in a fantasy, and it will be hard to get rid of them.

The Palestinian People as the Solution

FRANCIS FOSTER: Do you think part, I think from everything that we’ve spoken about, the solution to this really is the Palestinian people. It’s the people in Gaza. I think if hopefully there’s enough of them to say no more. We do not want Hamas. That’s a moment. I think things will really change.

THOMAS SMALL: They will have to fight, though. Hamas will not allow that to happen. Right, Hamas is a totalitarian institution.

FRANCIS FOSTER: Yeah.

THOMAS SMALL: So they will have to fight.

FRANCIS FOSTER: So which puts the countries who want this problem solved in a bind, because then what are you going to do with those people? Are you going to arm them? Are you going to help militarize them? Are you going to help them become some kind of fighting force so that they can take on Hamas?

THOMAS SMALL: We have to remember that when Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and in 2006 there were elections across the Palestinian territories and in Gaza, Hamas won those elections.

FRANCIS FOSTER: But how fair were they?

THOMAS SMALL: The PLO, aided by Israel on the one hand and America on the other hand, did arm anti-Hamas factions inside Gaza. There was a war in order to overthrow Hamas and remove them from the scene and those factions lost and that increased Hamas’s power. What it had to do to win that civil war that was aided and abetted by outside powers, made them more powerful.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: And also, who is it that’s doing the fighting? We have a saying in Russian, “clean them we bewildered,” which means you remove a wedge using another wedge, right? So if you’ve got these jihadis of Hamas, it’s not going to be grandmothers with scarves that’s fighting them. It’s going to be other people who are radicalized and other people who have their own very powerful ideology. Are they going to lay down the weapons even if they win? Do you see what I mean?

THOMAS SMALL: It may not be. I mean it’s possible and maybe, you know, the massive kick in the balls that the last two years has been for Gazans, it may be that it kicked, it could have been, it might have kicked the ideology right out of them. And it may be that like these clan militias which are much more old school patrimonial, you know, maybe in an Italian context we might call them mafia kind of arrangements, you know, the old school way in which in lawless, stateless zones, power structures are formed.

It may be that that takes and that more of the youth of Gaza will be organized through these clan networks that might join forces and fight Hamas. It’s possible maybe the Emirates or Qatar or Egypt send in their own special forces to help organize those efforts. At the moment, you know, anything’s on the table. And right now phase two of the peace plan is being negotiated by both sides, by all sides, all parties. Part of phase two is to determine how to get rid of Hamas.

Maybe Donald Trump is a miracle worker. Maybe he can bring, you know, maybe he can convince Hamas to go off and become beach rats, you know, on an Algerian beach somewhere. I don’t know, maybe you can do it.

Pro-Palestinian Activism in the UK

FRANCIS FOSTER: Today, moving over to the UK, particularly, something that I found very interesting is the rhetoric by the hard left, the Jeremy Corbyns, the Zara Sultanas, where there has been no mention really of a ceasefire. And if it has, it’s begrudging. And they’re still saying that they’re going to march for Palestine every week. And according to Zara Sultana last week there was a march on Saturday in London. Half a million people turned up. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but let’s just say she’s accurate with her assessment of the numbers. Does that surprise you?

THOMAS SMALL: If you are a Palestinian activist or a pro-Palestinian activist, you know, your primary goal has always been, your primary stated goal has always been that Israel withdraw from its occupation of the West Bank before the Gaza war. That’s what pro-Palestinian activists were seeking, that Israel stop its illegal occupation of the West Bank and withdraw to the 1967 border. That’s the demand. So that demand doesn’t change just because the war in Gaza has stopped. So, I mean, the pro-Palestinian activists will continue their campaign to get Israel to withdraw from the West Bank.

FRANCIS FOSTER: But if you think about it, half a million people weren’t on the streets before this war started. Did you not expect just a little bit of the kind of lessening of the tension, the heat being taken out of these demonstrations?

The Reality of Israel’s Strategic Position

THOMAS SMALL: I mean, I guess unless you sense, you smell that, the opportunity for what you hoped, so you hoped that this war was going to result in Israel withdrawing from the West Bank and the Palestinians having a properly sovereign state with full autonomy. That’s what you want. Now, at the radical fringes of the pro-Palestinian activist movement, you might also dream of the state of Israel going away and all the Jews being kicked into the sea or slaughtered. But most pro-Palestinian activists would be more happy if Israel would withdraw from the West Bank.

Now, I don’t see that happening. I don’t. I know, you know, this opens up the conversation to, you know, Israel as a reality. When in 1947, the UN submitted its sort of partition agreement, the Zionist leadership in Israel, well, in Palestine, as it was then called, seeing the land that had been allotted to them and it was like 55% of the whole, although a lot of that was empty and, you know, kind of desert. But when they saw it, they knew that that was not a practical solution, that they knew that in time if that state was to survive, they would have to get more strategic parts.

So it helped that immediately the Arabs who rejected the plan, ganged up, invaded the country and in the course of a war, Israel was able to shift the dial a bit beyond the 1947 borders to get a little bit more strategic bit. And every time the Arabs have foolishly tried to, you know, be anti-Israeli in a militant way, Israel had launched a war, ’66, ’67, ’70, and kept increasing its strategic advantage and having it, they’re not going to get rid of it. So this is, I think, just a kind of a brute fact.

And so that’s the case like when people, when people say that Israel has a right to exist and it has a right to exist, of course, whatever that means. I don’t, sometimes there’s like an atavistic caveman inside me who says no country has the right to exist. You just got to hold it. If you can hold it, it’s yours. You know, that’s how it is. The world is a kind of dog eat dog world. But let’s say it has a right to exist. But if it’s going to exist there, this conflict is going to exist as well. It’s built in because they are too vulnerable down on the coastal plain and they cannot trust their neighbors. It’s a big problem.

Israel’s Future Diplomatic Viability

FRANCIS FOSTER: It is. And one other problem is, is you see all these people coming out and coming on these demonstrations and you see the particularly young people’s opinion and view of Israel. I mean, it’s plummeted to the point where you thinking to yourself, 10, 20, well, not 10, maybe, maybe 20, 30 years time when these young people get into power and become the future leaders. Like how viable is Israel diplomatically on the world stage?

THOMAS SMALL: I don’t know. I don’t know. I mean, I’m sure I have a lot, I have Israeli friends, some of whom I love dearly. And I’ve watched them really struggle for the last two years. You know, people who in a stupid way, just hate Israelis, don’t really understand the degree to which a lot of Israelis, especially those who we’re likely to meet, you know, kind of from our point of view as Westerners, ordinary centrist, educated people.

Israelis tend to be educated, they tend to be smart, you know, and they tend to be garrulous. They like to talk about it, argue, debate, you know, they’re not happy with the situation. Some of them, you know, whatever, are obviously right wingers and things. But in general, Israelis are not. And they, you know, they have done so much soul searching, they don’t know what the future holds for them.

Most of them, I think, would really like Benjamin Netanyahu to leave. I think they would look out now at the situation they’re in and wonder if his leadership over the last 18 years or however long was particularly wise and useful to them as a state. I mean, you had him on the show recently. I know. I don’t want to insult a friend, but I wonder, you know, I mean, Eamon today said it was very interesting.

He told me that if, as he speculates, based on things he might know if in fact the Saudis have had effectively a nuclear arsenal that they could draw on from 2020 to the present, and this happened without the Israelis knowing it or doing anything about it, that that is yet another example of Benjamin Netanyahu failing to deliver his promise to secure the state of Israel. So maybe that persona that he’s projected for so many years, you can trust me because I’ll keep you safe. I’ll do what has to be done. Maybe that was all just nonsense.

And now Israel finds itself in a much weaker position after all of these years of his leadership. So I think they want him to go. I don’t know how they’re going to do it because he’s a survivor.

Israel’s Strategic Victories and Challenges

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Much weaker position. Is that fair? I mean, Hezbollah is dismantled. Right. Hamas is not still there, but severely weakened. Iran is down in the dumps.

THOMAS SMALL: In the process, he has scored many, he has won many battles. He has won many battles. Israel wins wars. At least it has. I’m not sure in this case that it has.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: I see. I think Francis’s point is incredibly apt, which is Israel, to the extent that, I mean, if I were, if I were the Israeli prime minister or within the government, what I’d be thinking right now is how do we become self-sustaining? Well, that’s what I’d be thinking. Right, because you’re not going to be like, Donald Trump may well be the last pro-Israel president America has for a long time.

THOMAS SMALL: Right.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Just objectively speaking, if you look at left and right in America and the extremist directions that they’re both trending in, you know, AOC and Nick Fuentes or whatever, whoever is shaping the debate, those are not two groups of people who are pro-Israel. That’s true. Right. So, and then Europe is already gone from an Israeli perspective. Right. So I’d be thinking, you know, we need to get some of our own ballistic missiles and some of our own defenses and some of our own hard as that may be, yeah.

THOMAS SMALL:

I mean, I would like to think that, like, other Middle Eastern countries, because Israel is a Middle Eastern country, one of the things that I’ve enjoyed over the last two years is watching people aghast that Israel behaves in the way it behaves. And of course, I think, well, it’s just behaving like a Middle Eastern country. That’s how they all behave.

Are you telling me that if on 7 October, Houthis had stormed the Saudi border en masse and raped and killed and slaughtered, like, if you’re talking about equivalence, like 4,000 Saudi civilians, that the Saudis wouldn’t have just gone for it? Of course they would.

So, it’s a Middle Eastern country, so hopefully it will behave like other Middle Eastern countries, which is arm itself to defend itself, but also make friends with its neighbors.

KONSTANTIN KISIN:

Well, right. That’s a big hope. And if the Trump administration, together with his partners in the Middle East, can orchestrate Abraham Accords 2.0, you just have to get rid of Hamas.

THOMAS SMALL:

You got to get rid of Hamas, and you have to have a solution to the problem of Palestinian statehood.

KONSTANTIN KISIN:

Well, there we go. You thought it’s all good, but actually everything’s… Welcome to TRIGGERnometry.

FRANCIS FOSTER:

That’s why you watch.

KONSTANTIN KISIN:

That’s why, basically, that’s what TRIGGERnometry is about. You thought everything’s fine. No, no, no, no, no.

THOMAS SMALL:

Sorry.

The Value of Deep Analysis

KONSTANTIN KISIN:

Yeah. But, Thomas, it’s always such a pleasure to have you on the show. I think, actually we joke, but I think the depth of analysis that we’ve heard from you today is probably more sophisticated than anything people have heard on this issue in the entire week.

THOMAS SMALL:

Well, I know what I know, but I also rely on people that I know in the Gulf, especially.

KONSTANTIN KISIN:

But that’s the value.

THOMAS SMALL:

Who knows a lot.

KONSTANTIN KISIN:

That’s the value of it. So, of course, the Conflicted podcast is brilliant.

THOMAS SMALL:

Everyone watch it. Everyone listen to the Conflicted podcast.

The Eclipse of Christianity

KONSTANTIN KISIN:

Thomas, we’re going to head over to Substack, where our audience have amazing questions for you. Before we do, though, what is the one thing that we’re still not talking about that we really should be?

THOMAS SMALL:

Oh, dear.

KONSTANTIN KISIN:

It’s an increasingly difficult question for you, given your…

THOMAS SMALL:

I’m going to say the same thing I always say. We’re not intelligently discussing the eclipse of Christianity from Western culture enough. That is the salient problem of our age. We are in the midst of this historic experiment of creating a thriving civilization without any transcendent or contemplative center and it’s not going very well now.

KONSTANTIN KISIN:

The cruises are coming back, man. I don’t know if you noticed. It’s making a resurgence in the U.S.

THOMAS SMALL:

Yeah, I watched some of that. I’m not sure if contemplative is what I would…

KONSTANTIN KISIN:

Yeah, reactionary and contemplative are different things. Fair enough. Well, there we go. Head on over to Substack, where we’re going to ask Thomas your questions. The Architect of 7 October was released in just such a hostage deal. What are the chances of the newly released batch of prisoners leading to another generation of Hamas?

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