in the 20. 24 annual threat assessment report issued on monday, united states intelligence agencies point at the risk of broader 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 jeepardy. welcome to the spotlight. i'm your host berrus najafi. stay with us and we'll review and discuss different aspects of the israely failures in the deadly onslot against gaza india. of us intelligence apparatus, now

let me introduce our guests. ray mcovern, former cia analyst says a joining guest from riley, north carolina. also what is george zamueli, senior research fellow with global policy institute, london mchweld university out of budapest, good to see you gentlemen, both, let's begin with ray. according to this a uh us intelligence report, tel aviv seems adamant 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 quoting 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 you know 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, the good news is that of there was no middle east section to the annual threat assessment last year. uh jacob sullivan, the national security advisor, who pretty much is very smart guy, knew what was going to happen, and so he had a 7,000 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 crises in gaza and quote, 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 and 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. okay, now uh, george, this report, what's interesting is that they're kind of actually alluding to the military and commit wititness of the hamas movement, and that this will going to take a long time uh for israel, 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 there's really very little that's new here or very little that's surprising. um, the one thing that i found, maybe surprising isn't quite word, but that the the the cia evidently um doesn't believe that there's that there's much likelihood of a war between israel and... iran, you would have

thought that they want to maybe hype up the possibility of of a confrontation, the 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 a military confrontation, and indeed, the report then also says it's unlikely that israel and hezbollah will go lead to a greater confrontation than just simply skirmishes across the border, so i though that was... surprising that you would say that's reasonably optimistic assessment, however, 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. work developing anyt soon. okay now ray, another aspect, the media coverage of the destruction and loss 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 the hatred? and indignation of the people of many countries by what is doing in gaza? well, it has of course, and this is again a symptom of playing down 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 you iran had nothing to do with the october 7 attacks, matter of fact, it goes further and it says iran didn't know about the october 7th attack, so that that was big, the other thing, and this is not negligible when you're talking about iran, israel, israel of course always says that israel is iran is working a nuclear weapon, the us intelligence community to it. 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 - more than just looking for something favorable. this is significant, and the fact that the rest of it is pretty much pedestrian, well this included as a positive sign. all right, george, the report also. warns that the conflict in gaza highlights the potential for a spillover into a larger and more dangerous conflict, this is what terrana's warned on multiple occasions. what's your assessment? well, it does say that, but as i said, it 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 wants to get into a military confrontation, i does talk about iran's proxies and and possibility of you know increased skirmishes 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, he doesn't seem to say that, and above all where you might have been uh thinking, well, what about his bolah, because that that's obviously the the the big enchilada, there somehow again

they says, well you hesbollah is very wary of israel knows that it it will lead to the destruction of lebanon, hezbollah is unlikely to want major confrontation with israel so it's it's not that pessimistic as far as the wider war goes, it's quite pessimistic about gaza, however 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 the testifies to the prosaic aspect of this briefing, and that is the big question, whether is israel will attack lebanon as it said it would? uh, what's missing here in a word is any realistic appraisal of the

situation, because the united states of america is key 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 business about hisbollah 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, hezballah, you want to

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 shut. away from that, because to be too blunt on that is 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 now, uh, on the streets, people are expressing their views, they are standing by palestinians, that they condemn israely crimes, but to arab's... so the authorities do not necessarily share the same views and some of them uh even you know they already uh

signed the so-called deal of the century to normalize relations and some of them of course regretted 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 condemning every now and then well that's that's right it's it's very unfortunate that 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 is signed to as kind of alternative to china's belton road initiative which will involve kind of a big uh structure project you know going from india and then through uh the gulf states and into israel

and then on into the mediterranean and then onto uh greece um this is this is the way they're thinking w this is fantastic you know we can we can make lot of money and this is obviously also the way netanyahu is thinking if you recall when netanyahu was uh stood before the um 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 into 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 arab states, all looking to make some money out. of this now r another aspect uh mentioned this report is has to do

with the resistance front with hezbollah in lebanon iraqi 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 foresees that's those operations uh by these uh three friends will be going on so do you also agree with the same prediction? yeah, i do, and you know it's interesting that they always use the term 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 intelligence officer who is also implementing and forming policy, so this kind of document under the the hand of william burns and his nominal supervisor abril haynes, really is hostage to what the director of the cia is actually doing operationally as well, and ipsofactor cannot be cannot... be viewed as totally objective briefing from intelligence. okay now george, this us intelligence report also argues that the this trust of netanyahu's ability, i'm quoting, this trust of netanyahu's ability to rule has deepened and broadened across the public from its already high levels before the war, and that they expect large protest

demanding his resignation and new elections. different, more moderate government is a possible. 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 was always found, a bit of an embarrassment, even going back to the days of manah and 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, even though these israeliber... was actually like - you know ganz who's also was member of netanyahu's government, even though they pursue exactly the same policies, so uh, but they think, okay, well, at least those 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 u.s. is fixated on the united states presidential election right now, "biden and his his rival need money, the israel lobby has the money, that's what they're fixated on. now as for the israelis, you know, 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 supporters number?" what we do, that's absurd, end 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 i have to deal with. george, if the us really doesn't want somebody like netanyahu, why does it keep supporting uh uh 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 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, and it is clearly very worried that uh, many people, particularly muslim americans, arab 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... 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 leak 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 netanyahu, and netanyahu contemptuously said the other day, aprop of biden's red line about going into rafa and he said, hey, you know what my red line is, no more october the 7th attacks, so... rightly treats uh the us administrations with disdain, right? now ray, what, what do you see on the horizon, 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 asked red l, well, that's a 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 a big game but don't do anything? i don't know, but hisb is not going to wait forever, and if the israelis hitballah, there will be a war on the northern front as well, israel not will not be able to continue and 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 and rally, north carolina, george samley in budapest, and thank you for watching this edition of the

spot, i've been your host behrus, and i'll see you next time, this is for. in this week's show we'll be inspecting the role of zinus spirings on us university campuses who are using covert methods to stamp out criticism of israel and crush pro- palestine student groups, directly recruiting students on campuses to spy for hostile foreign state to pass the information back to israel so it can then be weaponized and so in particular uh people are docs the personal details are given out they try and stop getting careers or jobs or or the to... moving from their their posts in universities for example, so it's it's very much a um covert intelligence involvement in in campus politics, the growth um of the numbers of

students from all backgrounds who are joining these movements, but this the growth in their strength and bravery and in their willingness to confront and challenge in a more sophisticated way than i'd seen in 23 years.

"we must not become part of south africa's problem. we must remain part of their solution. we must not aim to impose ourselves our solutions, our favorites in south africa. damn it, we have favorites in south africa. the favorites in south africa are the people who are being repressed by that ugly white regime. we have favorites. i also want to say a word about the situation in israel, the

more. the more we learned about the attack, the more horrifying it becomes. more than 1, 1,0 innocent lives lost including at least 27 americans, these guys make, they make al-qaeda look pure, they're pure, they're pure evil, but i said from the beginning, the united states, make no mistake about it, stands with israel, united states stand.

depressive headlines, the head of unra says, more children have been killed during israel's genocide in gaza, then in over four years of conflict around the world, about 100 european academics condemn israel's genocide in gaza, saying the regime is systematically. racing the territory's education system and a group of human rights ngos are filing lawsuit against denmark to force the country to end its arms exports to israel amid the gaza genocide.