National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir<\/a> as \u201can outlier\u201d who does not have authority over the issue and whose posture reflects his political agenda \u201cin election season.\u201d<\/p>\nStill, what matters, he argued, is the practical framework: a continued Israeli military presence in southern Lebanon until the situation is fit for withdrawal, and a phased handoff in which the Lebanese Armed Forces move into selected areas just beyond the \u201cyellow line,\u201d take responsibility, and dismantle what remains of Hezbollah\u2019s capabilities.<\/p>\n
He described it as a \u201cpilot program,\u201d with the possibility of expanding if it works, and said plainly that if there is a chance of peace between our two sovereign states, \u201cthen I think it\u2019s definitely worth taking calculated risks in order to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n
Israel-Lebanon peace tentative, to be built as Hezbollah weakens<\/p>\n
That is the core of his Lebanon position: not an immediate peace, but a tentative one built on the weakening of Hezbollah. Before October 7, he said, the group was \u201cvery, very powerful,\u201d armed with \u201cmore than 130,000 rockets,\u201d advanced missiles, and the ability to strike deep into Israel. After the fighting that followed, after what he called the \u201cbeeper attack,\u201d after the elimination of Hassan Nasrallah and other senior commanders, and after the elimination of the Radwan unit, Hezbollah\u2019s military weight had been reduced enough to create room for something else: the chance for the Lebanese state to reassert itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have now kind of turned the tables in Lebanon,\u201d Conricus said, arguing that Israeli military action\u2014\u201cforced upon Israel,\u201d as he put it\u2014unexpectedly opened the door for Lebanon to act like a sovereign state rather than a battleground for outside powers. He framed this as a rare strategic opening not only for Lebanon but potentially for Saudi Arabia too, though he said that Riyadh is unlikely to move under the current Israeli government and that normalization would probably come only after Israeli elections because of the \u201cpolitical baggage and weight\u201d attached to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n
Even then, he warned, the \u201cso-called Palestinian issue\u201d will remain the familiar wrecking ball, with actors trying to \u201csidetrack and ruin\u201d attempts at regional normalization.<\/p>\n
Conricus suggested that a Saudi move under American leadership would work \u201cvery well\u201d for the Iranian regime\u2019s opponents, but he was deliberate in separating the strategic possibility from the political mess accompanying it.<\/p>\n
If the Lebanon discussion carried a note of guarded possibility, the exchange on Iran was far more pessimistic. Asked about the 60-day ceasefire and the broader US approach, Conricus said the region is living in \u201ckind of a twilight zone.\u201d His main complaint was that the memorandum of understanding with Iran does not confront the central problems at all. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t address their nuclear weapons aspirations. It doesn\u2019t address their ballistic missiles,\u201d he said, adding that it also sidesteps Iran\u2019s proxy activity and support for terror across the region.<\/p>\n
What the MOU does do, in his view, is hand Tehran a diplomatic and economic victory. He called it \u201ca very frustrating document,\u201d then \u201cvery generous,\u201d and said it provides sanctions relief, access to the dollar system, and permission to sell oil, all \u201cwithout really getting much in return.\u201d That, he said, is not only a policy error but \u201cquite a betrayal to the Iranian people,\u201d especially after those who took to the streets believed help was coming and instead found themselves facing a strengthened regime with more money to feed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and terror networks. He sounded especially bothered by the mismatch between rhetoric and reality: a campaign that seemed aimed at weakening the regime now producing a financial windfall for it instead.<\/p>\n
His critique of the US posture was blunt. Washington, he suggested, is focused more on oil prices, gas prices, midterm elections, and domestic politics than on what is happening in the Middle East. And the assumption that money appeases extremist regimes, Conricus said, is one that history has already rejected. \u201cThat never happens,\u201d he said. \u201cYou give money to terrorists and terror supporters, they will use it exactly to continue to promote that agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n
Conricus draws distinction between reality in Gaza and anger towards Hamas\u00a0<\/p>\n
Switching to Gaza, Conricus drew a sharp distinction between visible anger on the ground and the structural reality of life in the Strip. He described Gaza as an area where the civilian population is squeezed into a shrinking space under \u201cHamas oppression,\u201d with \u201cno freedom of expression, … no freedom of assembly, and … absolutely no right for anybody to criticize Hamas or to pose an opposition to what Hamas does.\u201d Hamas, he said, rules by force and cruelty, using \u201cthe power of the AK-47\u201d and a \u201cmedieval\u201d system of punishment to keep people afraid.<\/p>\n
That is why, he argued, demonstrations against Hamas should not be dismissed lightly. He called them courageous acts that can carry \u201ccapital consequences,\u201d because in Gaza dissent can mean torture or death. Even there, Conricus kept returning to the same position: Nothing substantive can change until Hamas disarms. The first item in the agreement, he said, is that Hamas must \u201clay down their weapons\u201d and hand power over to a civilian body that can begin rebuilding. Until then, there is no real way forward, and no use pretending otherwise.<\/p>\n
The plan he described is simple in structure, if not in execution: Once Hamas disarms, the civilian side takes over, aid flows more effectively, and the situation can begin to improve. But he is skeptical that the transition will happen anytime soon.<\/p>\n
He said plainly that Hamas is violating the agreement, refusing to relinquish control, and continuing to oppress the civilian population because it wants to remain in power. That is why, in his view, international coverage often misses the point: It focuses on suffering but not enough on \u201cwhy are they suffering, what brings this suffering, and most importantly, how can it be stopped?\u201d For him, the media\u2019s emotional emphasis becomes a kind of avoidance if it is not tied to the root cause.<\/p>\n
The conversation then moved to one of the most pointed questions in the exchange: If civilians in Gaza are afraid, and if Hamas will not disarm, should ordinary people be armed so they can defend themselves or resist Hamas?<\/p>\n
Conricus acknowledged the comparison with Iran, where many millions are alienated from the regime, but he stressed that Gaza is different in both scale and political culture. He noted that Hamas has had \u201cgrassroots support\u201d in Gaza and that, up until October 7, it enjoyed \u201cvery substantial levels of support\u201d from the population. After the devastation of war, support has fallen, but he remains unconvinced that the underlying mindset has changed.<\/p>\n
That uncertainty is central to his caution. He said he does not know whether Gazans have truly renounced the jihadi dream or accepted coexistence with Israel as a permanent reality.<\/p>\n
He conceded that they are suffering and unhappy, but that alone does not prove a deeper political or ideological shift. On weapons for anti-Hamas clans, he said there are reports of Israel providing arms to some local groups in places such as Khan Younis and Rafah, but he emphasized that this is still \u201cvery sporadic\u201d and not yet a strategic tipping point. His gut feeling, he admitted, is that while many Gazans are angry at Hamas, \u201cdeep down, they\u2019re still jihadist\u201d and still believe in \u201ctaking what they call Palestine by force.\u201d It was a stark statement, but one he presented as a judgment rather than a finding based on scientific evidence.<\/p>\n
Turning to Egypt, Conricus described Egypt\u2019s closure of Rafah as \u201cvery, very cruel\u201d and \u201ccold-hearted,\u201d accusing Cairo of refusing to allow Gazans out for medical, family, or humanitarian reasons.<\/p>\n
He argued that Egypt could have shortened the war by allowing civilians to evacuate into a temporary humanitarian zone outside Gaza, leaving only Hamas to fight. Because it did not, he said, the war became longer and deadlier than it needed to be. That criticism broadened into a sweeping indictment of Egyptian policy. Conricus said Egypt does not look at Gaza with compassion but as a tool to use against Israel.<\/p>\n
He pointed to school curricula that he described as indoctrinating its children to \u201cthe worst levels of anti-Semitism documented in the Arab world,\u201d to a military he sees as oversized for a country without obvious land threats, and to exercises that resemble old war plans from 1973. He argued that Egyptian authorities enabled Hamas to stockpile weapons by allowing transfers through Sinai and Rafah, effectively letting \u201cpowder\u201d accumulate in a \u201cpowder keg.\u201d He also blamed years of Israeli complacency\u2014especially under Netanyahu, though not only under him\u2014for allowing weapons to keep flowing into Hamas\u2019 hands.<\/p>\n
At the same time, he did not reject the peace with Egypt. He said plainly that he prefers peace to war and wants peace over conflict. But he thinks the agreement is \u201cvery, very superficial,\u201d and he believes Israel needs a reset in how it deals with Cairo. That means demanding more transparency, pushing for changes in education and public sentiment, and being far more forceful about stopping weapons transfers into Gaza. He also argued that international humanitarian law should have made Egypt the place where civilians could flee from Gaza during wartime.<\/p>\n
Conricus recalled that in 2004, when he was a company commander in Givati, he saw \u201cbig Hamas tunnels under Rafah\u201d already large enough for small trucks and cars. \u201cWe allowed it to fester,\u201d he said, a line that seemed to carry both an admission and a warning. It was also a reminder that the Gaza crisis he describes did not appear overnight, and that the structures now dominating the Strip have been building for years.<\/p>\n
His final comment on the subject was as blunt as it was simple: \u201cGaza is a mess.\u201d Across Lebanon, Iran, Gaza, and Egypt, Conricus kept returning to the same basic framework: Military realities create political openings, political openings require calculated risks, and real change depends on confronting the actors he sees as blocking it. In his view, the region is not short on plans. It is short on the conditions needed to make them real.<\/p>\n
The mood, then, is not one of either optimism or despair so much as conditional possibility. Lebanon might open. Saudi Arabia might follow later. Iran may yet be forced to confront the consequences of its own weakness. Gaza could improve if Hamas disarms. But each of those futures is suspended on a first step that Conricus repeats almost like a refrain: \u201cFirst things first\u201d\u2014a hard-edged belief that diplomacy only becomes meaningful after power changes on the ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jonathan Conricus, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank and a former international…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5543,51,42,46,88,43,7991,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-517461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-egypt","tag-hamas","tag-headlines","tag-israel","tag-lebanon","tag-news","tag-the-media-line","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}