the press these boiling cover of this assassination of bsimmani now entering its uh uh fourth day we're looking at some.

in the 2024 annual threat assessment report issued on monday, united states intelligence agencies point at the risk of water conflict related to the israely war against gaza. the report also notes that netanyahu's viability as leader as well as his governing coalition of far right parties may be in jeaperdy. welcome to the spotlight. i'm your host bery with us and we'll review and discuss different aspects of the israely failures in the deadly onslaught against gaza in the eyes of u.s. intelligence separatists. now let me introduce our guests. ray maccuvern, former

cia analyst says a joining guest from riley, north carolina. also what is george zamueli, senior research fellow with global policy institute, london michael university out of budapest, good to see you gentlemen, both uh let's begin with ray, according to this uh us intelligence report, tel aviv seems adaman to want to destroy hamas, that of course enjoys great. public support in gaza, it predicts that the israeli regime could face a lingering armed resistance from hamas for years, i'm coding it directly, so and as you see they're already running short of their soldiers, they have to pass this legislation the other day to recruit alter orthodox jews who've always enjoyed exemptions from, doing military service, let's have your take on that, you said tel aviv in speaking of the israeli. government, this assessment,

unfortunately says jerusalem, things have changed, the cia used to be lot more objective. let me start with the good news. of the good news is that there was no middle east section to the annual threat assessment last year. jacob sullivan, the national security advisor, who pretty much is very of smart guy, knew what was going to happen and so he had a 700 word essay in foreign affairs and it concluded five days before the october 7th attacks the middle east i quote the middle east is quieter than it has been in decades serious frictions have decreased and we have quote this deescalated crisis. in

gaza, so this is small praise, but at least they have section on gaza, and atypically they have section on israel, now what does that section section amount to? not much at all, we have fifth grade son who is exposed to 10 minutes of cnn every morning at elementary school, cnn, 10 minutes for grade schoolers, could have written and it sounds very much like what was written here, main the main issues are not addressed and when the when they are mentioned, the fact that netanyahu may be in trouble and that a more moderate government might come in, well that's not very helpful, you can clean that from any newspaper, so again i'm not surprised, but i am disappointed except for a couple of things which are more positive and i can mention those later, mhm. okay, now uh,

george, this report, what's interesting is that they're kind of actually alluding to the military and commit witness of the hamas movement, and that this will going to... take a long time uh for israel uh and also some other aspects which we'll also discuss a later time. let's have your perspective of this. well, i agree with, ray that's really very little that's new here, very little that's um surprising. um, the one thing that i found um, maybe surprising isn't quite word, but that the... "the the cia evidently um doesn't believe that there's there's much likelihood of a war between israel and iran, you would have thought that they want to maybe hype up uh the possibility of of a confrontation, they're always warning about

the the dire threat posed by iran, but here they kind of minimize this, they say that no, no, no, israel and iran are unlikely uh to..." reach military confrontation and indeed the report and also says it's unlikely that israel and hezbolah will go lead to a greater confrontation than just simply skirmishes across the border so i though that was quite surprising that you know you would say that's reasonably uh optimistic assessment uh however you overall, one can one can say that this war is likely to go on for quite some time, and i think they the the threat assessment does confirm that that there is not likely to be any resolution or

any prospect of some something a workable framework developing any time soon. okay, now ray, another aspect, the media coverage of the destruction and... of life, that's the reports as being amplified by social media is roiling public reactions by both neighboring countries and other countries elsewhere in the world, and instances just we had netherlands the other day, vienna rally, for instance, and many other places, even inside the united states. now do you agree that israel has gained a hatred and indignation of the people in many countries by what is doing in gaza? well, it has of course, and uh... "this is again a symptom of playing down uh controversial issues. it's not very revealing that social media are playing major role in this conflict. i would add one thing that george and i have not yet mentioned, there are two rather positive things here. one is

the reiteration that iran had nothing to do with the october 7 attacks, matter of fact, it goes further and it says iran did..." the you're talking about iran, israel, israel of other thing, and this is not negligible when course always says that israel is, iran is working working a nuclear weapon, the us intelligence community to its credit, okay, for the 17th 17th straight year says, let me read: this so i don't paraphrase it, quote, iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device, that's big, the us intelligence

community has resisted all kinds of pressure, not only from the likes of netanyahu, but from the likes of the neoconservatives in the united states, to change that reading, it was in. 2007 that an honest system was done in that, the fact that it's reiterated here is more than uh more than just looking for something favorable, this is significant, and the fact that the rest of it is pretty much pedestrian, well this is included as a positive sign. all right, george, the report also warns that the conflict in gaza, the potential for a spillover into a larger and more dangerous conflict, this is what terrana's warn done. multiple occasions uh, what's your assessment? well, it does say that, but as i said, it uh, draws a line um on on the possibility, which is clearly the one that everyone's afraid of, which is that there could be a war between israel and iran,

which would of course drag the united states into it, but the report rather minimizes that, it really doesn't think that that either israel or iran to get into a military confrontation, i does talk about iran's uh proxies and and possibility of you know increased um um skirmishes um between israel and these proxies um, but it doesn't really go where you would expect a threat assessment to go, which is that well there could be a massive war in the middle east, it doesn't seem to say that, and above all where you might have been uh thinking, well what about hisball, because that that's obviously the um the big enchilada uh, there somehow again they says, well you bolah is very... wary of uh israel knows that it it will lead to the destruction of lebanon, hisbollah is unlikely

to want major confrontation with israel, so it's it's not that uh pessimistic as far as the wider war goes, it's quite pessimistic about gaza, however now ray, what's your opinion about this spillover, how likely is that and what could be repercussions be in that case? well the likelihood of spillover is very, very great, the fact that it sort of dusted off, just testifies to the prosaic aspect of this briefing, that is the big question, whether is israel will attack lebanon as it said it would, what's missing here in a word, is any realistic appraisal of the situation, because the united states of america is a... the player here right, and what you get here is not the question that is

really to be posed, and that is, what would it take netanyahu to stop the genocide? how much us pressure would that take? would it take just a telephone call? my view is, yes, that's all it would take, and that would end all this buses about hisb coming in, so you have instead of this addressing the key question, "you have things pitched at the, as i said before, the fifth grade elementary school level, which i suppose is appropriate for most congress people, i, i regret to say, but it's a kind of a briefing for for them. yeah, this is the state of the world, and this is way it looks, it doesn't really help the president or the congress to say, well, how do we stop this thing before it evolves out of control, hamas, uh, hezballah, iran'. trying to control it, it's israel that's the main problem, and we have hold over israel

because we are enabling the genocide with our weapons and with our political support, our vetos at the security council, etc. etc. all we have to do is change our policy, and of course intelligence people have to pretty much shy away from that, because to be too blunt on that, it's to expose yourself to charges of politicization and worse. okay, now george, let's not turn to number of arab states in the midst of this, and this gaza war is said to be posing a challenge to many them, you know, uh, on the streets people are expressing their views, they are standing by palestinians, that they condemn is reality crimes, but arab states, the authorities do not necessarily share the same views and some them even, they already uh signed. but so-called deal of the century to normalize relations, and some of them of course regretted uh at this point, but you see that

number of them are just sitting there doing nothing or maximum what they're doing is simply giving the l service and condemming every now and then. well, that's that's right, it's it's very unfortunate that the number of the arab states are mostly concerned with how can... they make more money and they're uh thinking of those, well we can make um deals involving israel, so we have the the plan that the united states has signed to as kind of alternative to china's belt and road initiative which will involve kind of a big infrastructure project, going from india and then through the gulf states and into israel and then into the mediterranean and then to uh greece, um, this is this is the way they're thinking, w this

is fantastic, we can we can make lot of money, and this is obviously also the way netanyahu is thinking, if you recall when netanyahu was stood before the un general assembly last september, basically just few days before the 7th of october, and he pointed to map of the new middle east, in which there was no room for palestine, um, that's what he was thinking about, he was thinking about hey "this is fantastic, we're going to have this great infrastructure project, you linking israel to the to the wealthy gulf states and to the mediterranean, no room there for palestinians, but unfortunately, and this is why netanyahu" thought, hey, i don't have to worry about the palestinians, he has the support of these uh, arab states, all looking to make some money out of all this. now, ray, another aspect, mentioned this report is has to do with the resistance front, with hisballah and lebanon, iraqy resistance, and also the yemenis that are operating in the red sea and arabian sea,

targeting israel link ships and recently us and uk uh ships, and this report uh force. interesting that they always use the term that those operations by these three fronts will be going on, so do you also agree with the same prediction? yeah, do, and it's resistance, well resistance to what, like maybe genocide, like maybe oppression for 70 years, so that's the resistance, and unless the the causes of the... resistance are addressed, there will be resistance forever. one one puzzling part of this thing or one complicating part is that the head of the cia is member of the cabinet making decisions and also trying to negotiate exchange of of hostages and so forth. that is really, really

koxious because nobody can take seriously an intelligence officer who is also implementing. and forming policy, so this kind of document, under the the hand of william burnes and his nominal supervisor, abril haynes, really is hostage to what the director of the cia is actually doing operationally as well, and if so factor cannot be cannot be viewed as totally objective briefing from intelligence. okay, now george, this us intelligence uh... report also argues that the distrust of netanyahu's ability, i'm quoting, this trust of netanyahu's ability to rule has depend and braudened across the public from its already high levels before the war, and that they expect large protests demanding his resignation and new elections, a different more moderate government is a possibility, well this is this is the us intelligence

assessment, what's yours? well, it's it's very interesting, because of course that is the... view of the us government, which has always found netanyahu a little bit of an embarrassment, just as it has always found licud a bit of an embarrassment, even going back to the days of manahem begin, one shouldn't take any of that too seriously, um, the united states is obviously more comfortable with the so-called liberals of israel who really don't uh disagree with netanyahu very much on the issue of palestine, they don't disagree. with his policies in in west bank or in gaza, they do disagree on other issues which are basically about internal israeli politics, it's not really important, but somehow american liberals feel more comfortable embracing uh people they deemed to be israeli liberals uh, even though these israeli liberals actually like you know gans who's also was member of

netanyahu's government, even though they pursue exactly the same policies, so but they think okay, well at least the... policy will have the same policies, but we'll have nicer people uh running it, so i don't take that terribly seriously, right? yeah, ray, how do you look at it? does the us really want what they call more moderate government? uh, the us is fixated on the united states presidential election right now, uh, biden and his his rival need money, uh, the israel lobby has the money, that's what the... on now as for the israelis, in 2001 when netanyahu thought he was off the microphone, he said, and i quote, i know the americans, they're easily moved in the right direction, would you believe it, 80% of the american support us, no matter what we do, that's absurd, and quote, now it's no longer 80%,

maybe 50%. but it's still an appreciable majority because of our press and because of the congress people who need the money, of which george spoke before, so that's what the us faces in terms of its political structure. netanyahu is writing high, he's very vulnerable, but until the war ends, he's the guy you have to deal with. george, if the us really doesn't want somebody like netanyahu, why does it keep supporting his regime, saying stop uh? the killing, protect civilians and all that jazz, but on the ground, you see it's us made weapons taking the lives of civilians, of course it is uh, that's why all this uh talk about how they don't like netanyahu, that biden's patience is running thin, that they're supposedly putting pressure on netanyahu behind the scenes, all of that is just lot of nonsense.

uh, the biden administration has a problem, as alluded to by ray, there's an election coming up, he saw what happened in michigan uh, and it is clearly very worried that many people, particularly muslim americans, americans are not going to vote for him and so he has to put on this uh this front that somehow he's terribly terribly unhappy with what israel is doing when if he was true that he was unhappy with what israel was doing he could bring it to an end mean you know it's it wouldn't be hard mean you know it really would take a phone call to say that's it we're cutting you off you're not getting another penny from us he's not going to do it so therefore his only resort is to... things to the new york times or the washington post to tell them how very unhappy is and he's really getting very tired of uh netanyahu and netanyahu contemptuously uh said the other

day aprop of biden's red line about going into raffa and he said hey you know what my red line is no more october the 7th attacks so you know rightly treats uh the us administrations with disdain right now ray uh what what do you see on the horizon? uh, where will all of this end up in? let me try to put some threads together here, sure. we we have the the palestinian people, huge populations in jordan, in lebanon, even in saudi arabia, in egypt. when will the rulers of those countries give appropriate head to their wishes? well, they aren't... doing it yet, but let's say biden's non-existent red line, which he said to msnbc, they ask red, well we have some red line, but not a red

line, and if 30,00 more palestinians are killed, my god, that's no red line, so there is is there no limit to the patience of these cowardly arab countries and turkey that talk about big game but don't do anything, i don't know, but hazbil is not going to wait forever, and if the israelis hitbil, hesboolah, there will be a war on the northern front as well, israel not will not be able to continue, it's genocide in gaza much longer, in my view. okay, on that note we come to the end of this show, thank you my guests ray my govern, rally, north carolina, george zamarily in budapest, and thank you for watching this edition of the spotlight, i've been your host najf and i'll see you next time.

"the israeli occupation demonstrates its heartrage on houses of the lord. this mask was reduced to rubble by f-16 warjet. their way led to the destruction of the houses around the mask, causing the fall of martters and injuries amongst neighbors of the mosk. the palestinians did not stand the..." the romans of the masks idly, but they created temporary moss that don't protect them from neither the cold of winter nor the heat of the summer.

what guy? of people do they think we are, is it possible they do not realize that we shall never sease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget. now i am become death, we now have a name for the disease, and it is covid, 19 a statewide order for people to stay at home, that's why comes from ch really deeply that if people are sharing

more then the world will be a more open place where people can understand what's going on with the people around them, and that's really what we want to get towards. did you appear on the on the um and give a presentation to the launch of leave.eu? yes, did.