Dan Senor

- In Gaza, a hostage rescue, ceasefire negotiations, and accusations of war crimes, this week on "Firing Line."

Eight months after their abduction by Hamas, four of the remaining hostages were rescued by Israeli forces in a mission that comes as the UN accuses both Hamas and Israel of committing war crimes, and as the U.S. tries to make progress on a ceasefire.

- We're determined to try to bridge the gaps.

- I do not believe Hamas is serious about a real negotiation.

- [Margaret] Dan Senor has served as a foreign policy adviser for Republicans and written multiple books on Israel.

He was the chief spokesperson for the Coalition Provisional Authority that temporarily governed Iraq after the US invasion in 2003.

- Israel is being held to a standard that no other country or no other people in the world have ever been held to.

- [Margaret] As questions mount about Israel's strategy in Gaza, what does Dan Senor say now?

- [Narrator] "Firing Line with Margaret Hoover" is made possible in part by: Robert Granieri, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, The Tepper Foundation, Peter and Mary Kalikow, The Asness Family Foundation, The Beth and Ravenel Curry Foundation, The McKenna Family Foundation, Charles R. Schwab, The Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fund for Strategic Innovation, and by the following.

Corporate funding is provided by Stephens Inc. and by Pfizer Inc. - Dan Senor, welcome to "Firing Line."

- Great to be here.

- We've known each other for some time, and I wanted to talk to you about the latest developments in Israel.

This past weekend, Israeli commandos liberated four hostages in Gaza in a daring raid that it seems had quite an impact on the Israeli population.

What is your sense of how that raid played out on the morale of everyday Israeli citizens?

- I think we have just, Israel has just come out of a phase where they were somewhat stuck in Gaza.

There was about a two or three-month period, kind of late February, March and April, where Israel was in a little bit of a holding pattern.

And I think that was demoralizing for the Israeli public while there were over 100 hostages in the dungeons and the civilian areas of Gaza.

There was a sense that diplomacy wasn't going anywhere.

The war was kind of stuck.

And then, out of nowhere, for most of the Israeli public, meaning they didn't know it was about to happen, the Israelis waged this incredibly daring operation to get into the heart of Gaza and get four of their citizens out.

And I think it reminded the Israeli public that they're actually not stuck.

They still have this capacity to do sort of Entebbe-like operations, like they've done in the past, these incredible rescue operations.

For Israelis to know that their government and their army will do whatever it takes to get those captives, those citizens of theirs that are being held hostage out is just important from a morale standpoint.

- Immediately, Israel faced international criticism and backlash for this daring rescue to free its own hostages that were being held by Hamas.

Accusations that more than 270 Palestinian civilians were killed during the raid.

How do you understand the continuing barrage of criticism and negative reactions to Israel's efforts to free its hostages?

- This issue, Margaret, is, generally, is the most perplexing for me.

And I'm someone who has followed news and events in Israel for a very long time, so I thought nothing would surprise me.

After October 7th, it was, the nature of the massacre against Israel was so barbaric, it was so ghoulish, it was so unfathomable relative to other attacks against Israel over the decades.

And I thought, naively, I, really, I, like, kick myself for this.

I naively thought in the immediate days after October 7th, I was like, okay, finally the world will be with Israel.

Finally the world will get...

I just assumed that the outrage of the world would be directed at those who were massacring Jews.

I did not think within a matter of days the outrage of the world would be directed at Jews for objecting to being massacred.

- Right.

I mean, how do you understand that?

- I will be completely candid with you and tell you, because I've wrestled with and tried to understand this for a while.

Now we're eight months in.

Israel is being held to a standard that no other country or no other people in the world have ever been held to.

This is the most scrutinized war that I have ever seen.

So the question is, why?

Why when they do this hostage rescue-- - Is it geopolitical antisemitism?

- Yes.

What is anti-Semitism?

Anti-Semitism, at the end of the day, if I had to boil it down, it is holding the Jewish people to a standard that you hold nobody else.

That is anti-Semitism.

That is discrimination.

It is questioning the legitimacy of the Jewish state, the sole Jewish state in the world.

And so against that backdrop, in a sense, it's not surprising that everything the Jewish state does is wrong, if that's your frame.

And when you say, "Everyone else can do X, Y, and Z, "but the Jewish state can't," that is a form of discrimination and that is anti-Semitism.

And that is what we're watching now.

And I, you know, I-- - That's what filters into every critique.

- Absolutely.

- On Tuesday, Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander.

This led to another barrage of rockets.

How do you assess the likelihood of the conflict expanding to the northern border?

And frankly, what are the tools or the effective means for deterrence?

- I was surprised that Hezbollah did not join the war in the early days of it.

- To what do you credit that?

- A few things.

One, I think Israel responded appropriately but very aggressively to Hamas in Gaza.

And so Hezbollah kind of watched and they were like, you know, if Israel's gonna urn Gaza into Stalingrad, we don't want, you know, we gotta be careful whether or not we invite that up north, A.

B, I think the Biden administration was very strong in the early weeks.

President Biden himself, and I tell people this all the time, you can't overstate this point enough.

The commander in chief of the most powerful military in the world getting on Air Force One, flying into a war zone.

It's never been done before, flying into Israel and sitting there in the war cabinet with the Israeli leadership, making it clear to the world which side he was on.

He gave a couple very important speeches early on.

So I think all of those factors.

That said, to your question, I think it's just a matter of time before Israel has to deal with the North.

There are some within the Israeli security establishment that want to deal with Hezbollah, and they wanna deal with it sooner rather than later.

I just don't see how Israel avoids a multi-front situation at some point.

- Let's go back to Gaza.

Two weeks ago, President Biden announced a three-phase plan to end the war in Gaza.

As of this week, it garnered the endorsement of the U.N. Security Council.

The gist of it, that Biden said, in phase two Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza as long as Hamas lives up to its commitments, suggests that the plan does not actually account for the eradication of Hamas.

- This is a big gaping hole in the negotiations.

- So, what should the Biden admin... At this point now, we've moved forward two weeks, the U.N. Security Council has signed on.

Seems as though Hamas has not.

What can the Biden administration do now?

What should they do now?

- So let me start with this.

I do not believe Hamas is serious about a real negotiation.

The reason I do not believe Hamas is serious about a real negotiation is because they think they are winning.

And the reason they think they are winning is because over the last few months pressure has been mounting on Israel, not on Hamas.

- How does Hamas agree to a ceasefire that eliminates it?

- Of course.

The idea that Hamas would negotiate a ceasefire that negotiates them out of existence is preposterous.

They're not going to do that, especially if they think time is on their side.

A deal that ensures that they aren't around anymore is a loss that I don't think they're gonna sign up for.

- So, the Biden administration should continue to support Israel in its prosecution of the war is your recommend, is what you would, is your ideal policy-- - I thought President Biden said some important things in that May 31st speech, even though I thought there were some big holes in it.

The important thing the President Biden said is, effectively what he said, is this is Hamas's last chance.

It's the most generous deal you're gonna get.

This is the deal, this is... Now, my advice to President Biden would have been take it one step further and say, in that same statement, not only, "Hamas, this is your last chance," but, "If you do not come to seriously negotiate "and try to reach an accommodation to get the hostages out "and reach some kind of pause in fighting or ceasefire, "we're done.

"America is done.

"We're done trying to facilitate the process.

"Israel has a green light to fight this war "the way it wants to fight.

"Oh, by the way, we've been supplying arms to Israel "from day one of this war, "and we are going to keep "supplying arms to Israel indefinitely.

"It's out of our hands.

"It's in Israel's.

"Good luck.

"Deal with Israel."

I think that was, like, the missing piece that I wish would've been in there.

- So conservative columnist David French wrote, quote, "A modern army like Israel's can absolutely defeat Hamas, "regardless of whether it provides aid to civilians.

"But as we've learned in our own wars abroad, "it cannot preserve the victory "unless it meets Gazans' most basic needs."

I mean, maybe it's not the IDF providing for the most basic needs, but at least providing security for those needs to be met.

Is there, even by others... - Hamas, especially the current iteration of Hamas, meaning the leadership under Sinwar.

One of his great innovations was taking, imposing the cost on any Palestinian that works with Israel, imposing a cost that is so shockingly high.

When he took over Hamas, he was famous for the incredible retribution against Palestinians that work with Israelis.

The most overwhelming majority of Palestinians are terrified of Hamas.

The idea that serious-minded Palestinians are going to step up and say, "Hamas isn't totally defeated.

"In fact, the world is pressuring Israel, not Hamas.

"So Hamas is projecting strength and momentum.

"Hamas may get away with what they did on October 7th, "but we're gonna stand up and work with the IDF "or moderate Arab forces and start trying to govern Gaza"?

Most of them think they'll be dead within 24 hours.

So again, the idea...

I think there's more Israel could be doing, to be thinking, you know, in thinking through post-war.

But at the end of the day, it's actually kind of impossible to imagine until most Palestinians in Gaza believe Hamas is gone and is not coming back.

So long as they think Hamas is sort of, to borrow an American sports metaphor, hanging around the hoop, none of them want to stick their heads up because they are terrified that they will face the same fate that Israel faced, Israelis faced in the South, in southern Israel on October 7th.

They don't wanna take that risk.

And so this is, this world in which Israel is stuck.

Now, could Israel get in these moderate Arab forces to come in and try to govern Gaza?

- Or provide for stability of the Palestinian people.

- I am totally for experimenting with that and seeing where it will go.

I am highly skeptical that governments in the region will want to send their own personnel into the meat grinder that is Gaza and risk the lives of Saudi national and Emirati nationals-- - Until Hamas is eradicated.

- Yeah, do you think the citizens in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia are gonna be like, "We're okay with our sons getting slaughtered in Gaza"?

Israel's gotta live in the practical world.

The practical world is, we live a few miles from where there was this, like, Nazi-like attempt at war against the Jewish people.

So tell us who's providing security.

Tell us who's gonna make sure that's not gonna happen again.

And no one at a very practical level can provide a serious alternative other than white papers and op-eds other than the IDF doing it.

- We talked about the ceasefire plan that President Biden announced two weeks ago.

Phase one of the proposed ceasefire involves exchanging hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for hostages held by Hamas.

Israel has faced dilemmas over these kinds of prisoner swaps in the past.

And one of the most controversial swaps in the past was in 1985, when Israel traded three POWs for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

And one of those Palestinian prisoners that was released was Ahmed Yassin, who later founded Hamas.

Look at this clip of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with William F. Buckley Jr. on the original "Firing Line" in 1986, referring to that prisoner swap.

Take a look.

- You're facing here blackmailers, bullies.

And the only way you can deal with that is to first say, "I am not going to be afraid "and I'm not going to concede.

"In fact, I'm gonna fight you back."

That is really the essence of fighting back terrorists.

It starts with the refusal to be intimidated, which is the only starting point-- - Which has been the Israeli tradition except for that huge exception of last year, right?

Now, what was the reason for that exception?

- The case you're referring to, presumably, is the case in which we had three POWs, not hostages in the technical term, that were held up by a number of terrorist groups, and in order to get their release we agreed to an exchange of several hundred terrorists.

This was a solitary case, or at least considered, in this case, an exception.

- Was it controversial within Israel?

- That is an understatement.

It received the condemnation, frankly, of the public from the left to right.

- Okay, so despite Benjamin Netanyahu's sort of reputation as a hardliner there, he oversaw another controversial prisoner swap in 2011 where one prisoner, Sergeant Gilad Shalit, was swapped for a thousand prisoners, one of whom was Yaha Sinwar, who is the organizer of the 10/7 attack.

What do you make of the evolution of Benjamin Netanyahu's stance and position about prisoner swaps and the consequences?

- This is such a difficult issue within Israeli society.

It's controversial, Margaret, because there's no question that part of the strategy on October 7th was to get as many hostages as possible.

Why?

Because from Hamas's experiences, it works.

The payoff is huge.

You just said for Gilad Shalit, one hostage, look what they got.

Then they get over 200 hostages.

They think they've hit the goldmine.

So there are some Israelis now saying, "Wait a minute, this can't continue."

- And those swaps sow the seeds of the next attack.

- Right, because after every hostage deal, Hamas's takeaway from it is, this is a profitable business.

We grab a few Israelis and we get incredible concessions.

And the reality is, as difficult as it is for Israelis, you see, you saw back in late November, December, they're still willing to do it.

- This week, a UN-backed report was issued that states that both Israel and Palestinian forces have committed war crimes.

It says the "immense" scale of the Gaza killings amount to a crime against humanity.

It says both sides engaged in sexual violence, intentionally targeted civilians.

It says Israeli forces, quote, "Killed civilians who posed no threat."

And it says Israeli forces have "killed and maimed tens of thousands of children."

And the report says Israel's, quote, "Widespread or systematic attack "directed against the civilian population" constitutes, quote, "crimes against humanity."

Israel says the report, quote, "Attempts to draw a false equivalence "between IDF soldiers and Hamas terrorists."

Is there anything about Israel's conduct that does concern you?

- Yeah, well, first, let me respond specifically to that.

The data that is cited by these reports, this one and others, if it is accurate, I don't believe it is, it will be the first time in history that any monitoring agency has been able to produce data with that specificity, in terms of how many killed, what the demographics are of those killed, whether or not they were combatants or not, whether they were deliberately targeted or not.

The information is incredibly unreliable, which is why it keeps getting revised.

I mean, it's just-- - Fair, still, fair, but is there anything about the way that the Israeli military has prosecuted the war that does concern you with respect to civilians?

- So every civilian casualty, obviously, is a tragedy.

But it's a war.

So, do civilians get killed in a war?

Absolutely.

- But this report isn't about civilian casualties.

This report is about war crimes.

This report levels that both Israel and Hamas have perpetrated war crimes.

- Yeah.

- What is your response?

- I would love to see some real specificity on what the actual war crime is.

What is the actual war crime?

Israel warns Palestinians-- - They say Israeli forces killed civilians who posed no threat.

And it says that Israel forces have, quote, "Killed and maimed tens of thousands of children."

I know you doubt the number.

The number's the issue.

- "Pose no threat."

Okay, so we started this conversation by talking about the hostage rescue situation in recent days, in Nuseirat, in Gaza.

The hostages are being held in a civilian refugee camp, in a highly dense civilian area, in basically, like, in apartment buildings in a civilian neighborhood.

So, is it true that there are some Palestinian civilians who probably got killed while Israel was trying to extract hostages from these civilian areas?

Is that possible?

Absolutely.

Is that a war crime by Israel trying to extract its hostages from civilian areas?

Israel didn't ask or choose for Hamas to locate them in civilian areas.

It is a war crime by Hamas because they're taking civilian areas.

They're taking mosques, they're taking hospitals.

We're talking about UN-run schools, and we're talking about refugee camps.

They're deliberately choosing to use these areas, as Sinwar himself has said, because it results in Palestinian bloodshed, so that it can produce these kinds of reports that you're citing.

- And "The Wall Street Journal" had an expansive report this week about exactly how that is Sinwar's strategy.

And that these are "necessary sacrifices" was a quote from one of his messages related to civilian deaths.

You interviewed a woman named Sherry Mendez, who was a reservist in the IDF who was tasked with preparing the bodies of female victims from the 10/7 attack.

Actually, it was, I couldn't even listen to the whole thing, it was so difficult.

But look, these crimes of sexual violence and rape as a weapon of war.

Women whose genitals had been mutilated even after they had been murdered, have been well documented.

This UN report says that Israel was also perpetrating sexual violence, and points to, quote, "forced public stripping" by IDF soldiers of Palestinian civilians.

Your response?

- So I have not seen any evidence of that anywhere.

I think the important question here, with all these issues you're raising, including the one you're citing, are there incidents of individual Israeli soldiers doing stupid things?

Of course.

Is that the strategy of the Israeli government?

Is that the goal of the IDF?

Absolutely not.

It is an aberration-- - You think of moments like Abu Ghraib.

- Abu Ghraib is a perfect example.

So Abu Ghraib, I was in Iraq during Abu Ghraib.

It wasn't the policy of the US government to do that any more than it is the policy of the IDF to try to fight this war in the most responsible, humane way possible, while still achieving its goals, and trying to minimize suffering of innocent Palestinians.

So is it possible that some Israeli soldiers do stupid things?

Yes.

Is that the government policy?

Is that the strategy of the IDF?

Is that what the majority of Israeli people want?

No.

What is Hamas's strategy?

Hamas's strategy on October 7th, among other things, was to engage in a campaign of sexual warfare against young Israeli women and to do it in the most ghoulish, like, impossible to fathom way.

And, you know, I have three nieces that live in Israel who are in their 20s, who, any one of them could've been at that Nova music festival on the night of October 6th into October 7th.

This was not isolated Palestinians acting outside the-- - It was the strategy.

- It was what...

There were playbooks on how to do this, literally.

The IDF found directions, guides on the bodies of Hamas soldiers and how to explain in Hebrew to Israeli women to tell them how to take their clothes off.

This was not some like, oh, by the way, someone got out of control.

This was the strategy.

This was the war.

And they wanted it, shockingly, broadcast to the world.

- So I think the follow-up question that critics say, is that if we know, if the Israelis know that putting civilians at risk is part of the strategy, is it incumbent on some level on Israel to be aware of that and operate at some degree of higher standard in order to try to minimize it?

- Which is, yes, absolutely.

And which is why I think Israel does things at times that undermines their own, the security of their forces.

Which is to say, before they go into most civilian areas, when they know that there are Hamas cells, they alert the civilian population to say, "We're coming in."

So they drop millions of leaflets, they send millions of text messages.

They do all the communications possible to tell these civilians to get out because they're coming to target a specific military leader or military unit, and we wanna clear as many civilians out of the way as possible.

In the lead up to the Rafah operation, Israel moved about 950,000 Palestinian civilians in a 10-day period out of Rafah so it could begin its operation in Rafah.

The easiest thing to do for Israel, if they had no care for civilian casualties, is to just flatten the place, basically do to Gaza what the Western allies did to Dresden in World War II.

We are fighting this war at a higher standard than any other country has in the world.

We're trying to fight this war as humanely as possible.

- Dan Senor, thank you for joining me on "Firing Line."

- Great to be with you.

[upbeat music] - [Narrator] "Firing Line with Margaret Hoover" is made possible in part by Robert Granieri, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, The Tepper Foundation, Peter an Mary Kalikow, The Asness Family Foundation, The Beth and Ravenel Curry Foundation, The McKenna Family Foundation, Charles R. Schwab, The Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fund for Strategic Innovation, and by the following.

Corporate funding is provided by Stephens Inc. and by Pfizer Inc. [upbeat music] [upbeat tune] [gentle music] - [Announcer] You're watching PBS.