Podcast: What's the US role in the Israel-Hamas war? Views from Sen. Chris Murphy & Rep. Mike Waltz

Transcript

Listen: Two weeks into Israel's bloody war with Hamas, the death toll continues to mount, and amidst the rubble of bombed-out buildings, one thing seems clear: things are far from over. On the GZERO World podcast, Ian Bremmer asks what role the US government should play in the conflict and whether that role is as clear-cut today as it was after the attack on October 7. President Biden made a politically and personally dangerous trip to Israel this week, showing solidarity for America’s closest ally in the Middle East. But the administration must walk a fine line between supporting Israel’s right to defend itself, and preventing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza from spiraling out of control.

To get the view from both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill, Ian speaks first with Senator Chris Murphy, the Connecticut Democrat who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and then with Republican Representative Mike Waltz of Florida, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. It's a particularly timely moment to be on Capitol Hill, as House Republicans remain paralyzed over their inability to pick a Speaker. Senator Murphy and Congressman Waltz both comment on what toll that dysfunction is taking on US national security.

TRANSCRIPT: What's the US role in the Israel-Hamas war? Views from Sen. Chris Murphy & Rep. Mike Waltz

Sen. Chris Murphy:

Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization. I'm not saying that Israel hasn't made mistakes and won't make mistakes, but why wouldn't we give Israel, our ally, our democratic ally, the benefit of the doubt?

Ian Bremmer:

Hello and welcome to the GZERO World Podcast. This is where you'll find extended versions of my interviews on public television. I'm Ian Bremmer, and today as the death toll mounts in Israel's war with Hamas, we are asking what role should the US government play in the conflict? And is that role as clear-cut today as it was after the attack on October 7th?

President Biden made a politically and personally dangerous trip to Israel this week, showing solidarity for America's closest ally in the Middle East. But the administration must walk a line between supporting Israel's right to defend itself and preventing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza from spiraling out of control. Today, I am bringing you the view from both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill. First, I'm talking to Senator Chris Murphy, the Connecticut Democrat who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and then with Republican Representative Mike Waltz of Florida, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Let's get to it.

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Ian Bremmer:

Senator Chris Murphy, thanks so much for joining us on GZERO World.

Sen. Chris Murphy:

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Ian Bremmer:

So, President Biden on a snap trip to the region. Israel came off, the rest of it did not. Was this the right time for President Biden to make a trip to Israel?

Sen. Chris Murphy:

I think it was really important for President Biden to make this trip. First, very important for the President to be standing next to the Israeli leader and conveying to the world that we stand with Israel in this time of need and that we are going to help them bring to account the terrorists who perpetrated these crimes. But second, the decisions Netanyahu has to make in the coming days are really complicated, very important ones that have significant consequences, not just for Israeli security, but for American security as well. And so it's important for President Biden, somebody who has a real sense of right and wrong, who has a real sense of history, who understands the misjudgments America has made in prior invasions and occupations, to sit with Prime Minister Netanyahu and talk through the potential benefits and potential consequences of a full-scale invasion and occupation of Gaza.

I think it's important for President Biden to be there talking behind closed doors with Prime Minister Netanyahu about the next steps. The decision to invade a country is relatively easy, especially in the midst of the fury that descends upon a nation in the wake of a terrorist attack.

Ian Bremmer:

We've learned that.

Sen. Chris Murphy:

The question of what happens on day two is much more complicated and much more important.

Ian Bremmer:

You have to hope that Prime Minister Netanyahu has taken at least a few lessons from some of the American decisions in the war on terror over the past decades. I agree with you on that completely. So the US is the most important ally of Israel, has Israel's back to carry strike groups in the Eastern Med, 2,000 troops ready to join in support. US also has more leverage over Israel because of that. How much of both of those should be used? In other words, do you think there are explicit scenarios where US boots on the ground should be involved in fighting? Could you share those with me in your view? And also, how much pressure should Biden be putting on Israel in terms of limiting ground occupation, in terms of providing humanitarian support on the ground for Palestinians in Gaza?

Sen. Chris Murphy:

Well, my sense is that Israel is not asking for US combat troops. It is true that some of the systems we're providing them likely need US backup, but I don't know that we're contemplating US troops on the ground doing the fighting side by side with Israel. But of course, any operation that we are going to take part in has to comply with the rules of international conflict. And so clearly, a condition of our participation in these operations should be that Israel abides by the rules of war.

And yes, we should sit with Israel and offer them our guidance and our advice on the question of full-scale invasion and occupation. And ultimately, that decision is Israel's. But I think that we can provide them with some wise counsel about what exactly the status of Gaza will be after the invasion. And if you can't answer that question, if you don't have a good answer, a realistic answer that works not just on paper but on the ground about who controls Gaza two months from now, four months from now, then you have to think about whether that full-scale invasion and occupation is actually worth it.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, on the other side of this, there's only one other way into Gaza. It's closed right now. It's the Rafah Border Crossing in Egypt. They have as of now not opened it. And that not only in terms of refugees, but also even in terms of humanitarian support, Egypt gets a lot of military support from the United States, a lot of aid. If that continues to be closed, should that aid be on the table?

Sen. Chris Murphy:

Well, of course there have to be consequences for our relationship with Egypt if they continue to keep this crossing closed, leading to an even worse humanitarian catastrophe than already exists inside Gaza. Listen, I have long been uncertain as to why we continue to flow a billion dollars of aid to Egypt when they are in some ways one of the most politically repressive of all American partners. Upwards of 60,000 political prisoners are in jail inside Egypt. The answer I get from smart foreign policy people is that not withstanding that horribly politically repressive record, we give Egypt money because we need Egypt to be with us when the chips are down in the region.

Well, the chips are down. This is a moment of crisis. We need Egypt to be with us and with our friends in Israel and relieve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. And if they aren't willing to do that, then I think we just have to ask ourselves, exactly what is the efficacy of a billion dollars of my taxpayer money going to Egypt when they are brutally repressing political speech and they are making it very difficult on us when we make requests that are important to us in a situation like this in Gaza?

Ian Bremmer:

On the other countries in the region, I'm sure you've noticed that not only Egypt but also Turkey, Jordan, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, have all condemned Israel for bombing a hospital with hundreds dead on the ground in Gaza. Evidence as of now, at least, at best uncertain as to who was responsible. President Biden came out and said, "It looks like it was the other team," presumably Palestinian, Islamic Jihad and or Hamas. What do the Americans do? How much consequence do you think this has for Gulf States the Americans have worked with closely as partners heretofore, and how do you handle this going forward?

Sen. Chris Murphy:

Well, I mean, first of all, I thought it was pretty remarkable yesterday that even in this country, there were so many people who were willing right from the jump to believe Hamas' side of this story. Hamas is a brutal-

Ian Bremmer:

Including some of your colleagues in Congress. Absolutely.

Sen. Chris Murphy:

Right. Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization. I'm not saying that Israel hasn't made mistakes and won't make mistakes, but when Israel is saying, "We know we didn't do this," and Hamas is saying, "Israel did it," why wouldn't we give Israel, our ally, our democratic ally, the benefit of the doubt? Now, I haven't seen the intel, but President Biden has, and to his satisfaction, it has proven the fact that Israel was not responsible. But to your broader question, yes, I was really shocked at the early statements from the Saudis and the Emirates amongst others, condemning Israel, laying the responsibility for the Hamas attacks at Israel's feet.

This is a region that is contemplating whether we are going to enter a new stage of good relations between the Sunni states in the Gulf and Israel. And the statement from Saudi Arabia in particular does not sound like a country that is ready to enter into a long-term political partnership with Israel, as was the hope in the days before the Hamas attack.

Ian Bremmer:

I'll also note, you spread a lot of responsibility there. A lot of American media institutions that we typically rely on also came out with headlines immediately, blaming Israel for those strikes. They didn't change those headlines, but that was about it. And so, I mean, if you were Saudi and you were watching or reading the news, you would've heard the Americans saying that this was Israel. What do we do about that?

Sen. Chris Murphy:

And not just American media outlets, but as you mentioned, political leaders around the globe were making statements that may not have formally pinned the blame on Israel, but certainly fed into this narrative that it was Israel's bombs that were responsible for the carnage there. Listen, what happened in that hospital is horrific, and we are all grieving for that immense loss of life. I think it probably does make sense for Israel to make public, to the extent they can, the intelligence that proves that they were not responsible. I think that will help settle that question. So maybe in the coming hours and coming days, that's the most important thing that Israel can do.

Ian Bremmer:

I want to connect this with the other major conflict that you and I would've been talking about over the last 20 months, which is Ukraine. And first of all, say President Zelensky, Jewish, by the way, immediately denounced the terrorist attacks and said he wanted to make a trip to Israel this week. Netanyahu said the time was not right, but did take a call directly a few hours later from Putin. If you're Biden meeting with Netanyahu this week, do you say, "What the hell?"

Sen. Chris Murphy:

Well, I mean, listen, we have had disagreements with Prime Minister Netanyahu on Israel's Ukraine policy. As you know, Israel chose not to join the sanctions against Russia. And so we have unfortunately not been in the kind of partnership with Israel on Ukraine policy that we have been with our European allies. But you have to view these two conflicts as part of a very similar story, whether it be Hamas or Putin. These are regimes, organizations, non-state actors that are trying to destroy the international order, trying to shatter the rule of law. And it is important to defeat Hamas, but it is equally important to defeat Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. And hopefully Prime Minister Netanyahu maybe understands that connection more today than he did prior to these attacks.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, I feel strong bipartisan support in the United States for Israel, notwithstanding the couple of blips that you and I just talked about a bit ago, but that is not what I'm seeing right now, at least in Washington. Public opinion, particularly on the Republican side, is turning against continued strong levels of support for Ukraine. And certainly in Congress, we're hearing stronger voices opposed continued support. I know that the Americans should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, but these are two major conflicts. They involve a lot of money and we're in electoral season. How concerned are you about the future of US support for Ukraine?

Sen. Chris Murphy:

Well, I guess you can tell the story two ways. You can focus on the hundred or so members of the House of Representatives who have been on the record opposing Ukraine aid, or you can take solace in the fact that it's only 103 quarters of the House of Representatives and probably 80 to 90% of the United States Senate continues to support giving Ukraine what it needs to defeat Vladimir Putin. All we need in the House is a vote, and if that vote occurs on Ukraine aid, it will pass with flying colors. So I choose to see that as a very thick silver lining.

I don't love the fact that half the Republicans are contemplating handing Kyiv to Russia, but hopefully the outcome of this Speaker's contest in the House is a commitment by the new Speaker, not to guarantee the passage of Ukraine aid, but to just put a vote on the floor. I imagine many of the more moderate pro-Ukraine national security-minded Republicans are in fact making that a condition of their support for the new Speaker having a vote on Ukraine aid. And if that vote happens, then those a hundred who are supporting Putin's goals won't matter.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, you said the silver lining is all we need. We just need a vote. Of course, in principle, you also need a Speaker. Usually that's not an open question, but it is right now. How does it feel to be the responsible half of what's increasingly the most dysfunctional part of the US political system?

Sen. Chris Murphy:

Yeah, well, this has been the case for a while. I mean, I know people don't want to give the Senate any credit for anything, but we-

Ian Bremmer:

I just gave the Senate credit. Come on, man.

Sen. Chris Murphy:

You did. You did. I'm saying besides Ian Bremmer, other people may not believe that there is a mildly functional House of Congress. The Senate's been working pretty well together, whether it be that series of bipartisan bills we passed in Biden's first two years, the infrastructure bill, the gun bill, the CHIPS Act, or our continued ability to find bipartisan consensus on budgets. Right now, as the House is melting down, the Senate is sitting by ready to act on Israel aid, on Ukraine aid, on keeping the government open and operating. I appreciate the fact that Senator McConnell has been working with Democrats by and large over the course of the last few years. The House is just an absolute nightmare, and it's a really bad look for the United States. It weakens President Biden's credibility abroad. Maybe that's part of the point for Republicans, is that they're weakening America and weakening people's faith in government, but it has national security consequences when people don't know whether even the things we have perfect consensus on, like support for Israel, can actually get a vote and pass.

Ian Bremmer:

Has this affected your working relations with any of the Republicans in Senate? Have you experienced that or not really?

Sen. Chris Murphy:

Well, no, it does. I mean, there are Republicans who would be willing to work together on issues, but they don't want to step out on a limb if there's no hope that what we do will ever see the light of day in the House. Immigration is an example. I mean, we could probably come to a bipartisan consensus product in the Senate on immigration reform, not as big as the 2013 bill, but something significant. But my Republican colleagues understandably say, "Well, why would I sign on to a gang of six or a gang of 10 when the House is such a mess that they're never going to take up this piece of legislation?" So that's the primary consequence.

Ian Bremmer:

Senator Chris Murphy, mild and functional, thanks so much for joining.

Sen. Chris Murphy:

Thank you.

Ian Bremmer:

And now to that other chamber of Congress, the one that doesn't seem to work, and the other side of the political aisle. Here's my conversation with Republican Congressman Mike Waltz of Florida. Congressman Mike Waltz, thanks a lot for joining us.

Rep. Mike Waltz:

Yeah, good to be with you and thanks.

Ian Bremmer:

Lots going on. I guess I want to start with one topic that I did not hear President Biden address directly while he was in Israel, which is that there are apparently US hostages still on the ground in Gaza, taken and held by Hamas. Congressman, what do you think the Americans need to do in response to that?

Rep. Mike Waltz:

Well, that's an incredibly tough question, Ian, and Hamas knows that, and that's why these terrorist organizations deliberately take hostages. I think, frankly, the best hope would be an intermediary like Egypt, who has been a traditional negotiator between Hamas and Israel, and frankly, the international community. It's not just Americans that are held hostage. My understanding is it's literally dozens of countries. So I hope that's actually leverage for support for Israel and support for aggressive action against Gaza or against Hamas and not the other way around, that some of these countries began backing away for frankly, support for Israel doing what it needs to do to secure itself because of the hostages, if that makes sense. But either way, they're going to be a major, major leverage point.

Ian Bremmer:

That's right, Mike. There are over 20 countries who have civilians that are presently being held captive by Hamas in Gaza. And so what I hear you saying is that the Americans should at least to start, use countries in the region they have better relations with, like Egypt, to act as intermediaries with Hamas. Of course, Hamas leadership, we know where they are. They're not in Gaza, they're actually in Qatar. So, you would favor that level of direct diplomacy?

Rep. Mike Waltz:

Well, look, I could just tell you as a former Green Beret that a hostage rescue, successful, down in the tunnels where it is incredibly difficult to intercept any type of communications, GPS doesn't work. I mean, there is a reason Hamas has built this massive tunnel network. It's incredibly difficult to get to. They will constantly be moving them around. I mean, this is just a Gordian Knot in terms of trying to get these folks militarily. So at the end of the day, we have ...

Look, we have historic intermediaries. I have my issue with Qatar. I have my issue with essentially providing a sanctuary to a terrorist organization. I'll remind everyone, Hamas and Hezbollah are designated foreign terrorist organization in the same category in US law as Al-Qaeda and ISIS. So I do have real issue with some of our allies providing that support. But at the same time, you got to do what you need to do to save American lives.

Ian Bremmer:

Let me widen the aperture a little bit, and we talk about President Biden who's just suggested that lessons need to be learned from 9/11. Israel is of course, presently thinking about how they can destroy Hamas. And we're not just talking about a few fighters. We're talking about 30 or 40,000 fighters on the ground, potentially a ground invasion that everyone now expects, and even a long-term occupation. If you could be offering the Prime Minister of Israel, the government of Israel advice at this precipitous moment on how to respond militarily for the short and the long term, what would you say?

Rep. Mike Waltz:

Well, look, let's go to the lessons from 9/11 and the subsequent wars. We thought through the military operation, but we didn't think through how to win the peace. So, what I would be advising both the Prime Minister and his military staff is you completely degrade Hamas, you take down their leadership, you kill a number of their fighters. And then what? What is that aftermath and how do you prevent that void from being filled again? I don't think the Israeli government wants to reoccupy Gaza. So, are we talking some type of UN peacekeeping operation? Do we get the Gulf Arab states to step in some way, despite the fact that they historically have not wanted to? But that's the part you have to think through in that lesson. But, Ian, another lesson to learn from the Middle East wars post-9/11, in that a terrorist organization that enjoys state sponsorship, a terrorist organization that enjoys sanctuary. Right now, Hamas absolutely is funded, trained, and equipped by Iran. It's the head of the snake that you have to ultimately go after or at least dry up the funding.

One of the metrics that I always watched under the Maximum Pressure campaign under the Trump administration was the fact that Hezbollah, the militias in Iraq, Hamas and others were all universally complaining that they weren't getting the money that they used to, that the funds had dried up, that their coffers were dry, that they couldn't pay their fighters in Syria and elsewhere. So that's another lesson that we have to learn. And then in terms of maybe a model is how we degraded ISIS to the point of irrelevancy from a military standpoint in Syria. We did it through local partners. We did it through precision strikes. We didn't, the United States, necessarily invade and occupy portions of Syria, but we did it through different types of military techniques. And that's what I would be advising them to look at as a model.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, Mike, you're right that Iran has been funding Hamas and certainly funding Hezbollah for a long, long time, even if they weren't in any way involved in orchestrating these attacks on October 7. Now, the 6 billion of Iranian assets that were set to be unfrozen, I suspect you strongly oppose that. They are now still frozen. But there's also a lot of money that comes from Iran acting as a gas station and pumping energy and selling that energy to countries that the US has a hard time sanctioning, like China for example, like India for example. I mean, people think through how you can squeeze the Iranians economically, but they haven't seemed to come up with very good answers to that question. What do you think should be done?

Rep. Mike Waltz:

So, two points I push back on there. One, I think you're taking it as gospel that Iran wasn't involved. We know that they handed them the gun, they handed them the bullets, they trained them on how to use it, and there were a series of meetings to basically unleash what the Ayatollah calls the Ring of Fire around Israel, that what he calls a national and international resistance campaign. And we know that there may have been some surprise on the timing perhaps, but we also know that Hamas executed incredible operational security on this.

Ian Bremmer:

Absolutely.

Rep. Mike Waltz:

So that they may have been surprised at the timing, or we may not have hard evidence of the Ayatollah on the phone with the fighters or on the radio, but come on. So I think we really need to take a hard look at direct involvement and how we're defining that. And you could say that some people just want to fit the facts and the narrative that Iran was involved, or you could say that the administration doesn't want to admit it's been wrong, horribly wrong, on its Iran policy, and they're trying to fit the facts the other way. And that jury is still out. The other point, under Maximum Pressure-

Ian Bremmer:

But nobody is saying-

Rep. Mike Waltz:

Under Maximum-

Ian Bremmer:

Just to be clear, just to be clear, nobody is saying that the Iranians are innocents here. Even if you believe that they did not orchestrate, they have been critically involved in funding, in providing military support and training. So wherever you fall on that spectrum, there is complicity. I think you and I clearly agree on that.

Rep. Mike Waltz:

There's absolutely complicity, and unfortunately I can't get into the details, but there may be ... Well, I just can't get into the details. That is still of some debate in terms of-

Ian Bremmer:

Mike knows some secret stuff. Okay, I'll get back to this offline. So, now talk about the funding please.

Rep. Mike Waltz:

But the other piece, again, under the Maximum Pressure campaign, Iranian oil exports went from several million barrels per day to less than 400,000. I mean, it was essentially dried up, and that was through very aggressive enforcement. It also was withholding a number of waivers that have now been released by the Biden administration. So in many ways, there's kind of been a blind eye turned to exports. A lot of that had to do with aspirations of a JCPOA 2.0-

Ian Bremmer:

The nuclear deal. Yeah.

Rep. Mike Waltz:

... that I hope now is completely dead. So, I do think there's a lot more we could do to actually enforce the sanctions on the books in terms of oil. And in terms of the 6 billion, what we were assured repeatedly was that the administration at any time could pull back what it calls assurance letters. These were letters that assured the international banking system they would not be sanctions, the sanctions wouldn't be enforced, and therefore that's what effectively unfroze the money. We're calling on the administration to pull those letters back, given what we at least agree on is Iranian complicity in these atrocities.

Ian Bremmer:

So, Mike, the other side of this. Thank you for a bunch of coverage on the region. We know that at least as of now, there is still not a House Speaker. How much does this constrain the ability of the United States to effectively support the policy it wants to conduct in the region with Israel as well as for Ukraine?

Rep. Mike Waltz:

Well, look, what I've repeatedly told my colleagues is, first of all, I didn't support removing Kevin McCarthy and I voted against that. He was living up to what he had promised the conference in terms of cutting spending, getting after our debt, securing the border, and supporting our military. So that's one. Two, we need a Speaker. It does matter, I believe that Republicans in the House are the only entity in Washington that have been a check on the Biden administration's policies, whether it was the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan or what I believe is a completely failed Iran policy, and I could keep going down that list. But for me, this war changes everything. I do believe this can become existential to Israel if Hamas, the Iraq Shia-backed militias and Iran dropped the other shoe, so to speak, and-

Ian Bremmer:

And the war expands.

Rep. Mike Waltz:

Our adversaries smell weakness in Washington right now, we need to get our act together and move the country forward.

Ian Bremmer:

Does that make you more optimistic that we're going to see a breakthrough of this logjam in the near term? Do your Republican colleagues see it the way you do?

Rep. Mike Waltz:

Many of them do. That's why you had 96% vote to keep Speaker McCarthy in place, and that's why you've had a majority get behind ... over 200, get behind Jim Jordan. My argument has been the differences amongst Republicans pale in comparison to us and the progressive left and certainly pale as Americans in terms of our differences with these terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran. So again, we need to put it in perspective, get our act together and move the country forward.

Ian Bremmer:

Mike Waltz, thanks for joining us on GZERO World.

Rep. Mike Waltz:

Thank you, Ian.

Ian Bremmer:

That's it for today's edition of the GZERO World Podcast. Do you like what you heard? Of course you did. Well, why don't you check us out at gzeromedia.com and take a moment to sign up for our newsletter. It's called GZERO Daily.

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The GZERO World Podcast is brought to you by our lead sponsor, Prologis. Prologis helps businesses across the globe scale their supply chains with an expansive portfolio of logistics real estate, and the only end-to-end solutions platform addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today. Learn more at prologis.com.