Ami Magazine: Congratulations on the publication of your latest book, Israel Victory. It's courageous to release anything about the Middle East when the region is in such flux.
Daniel Pipes: Well, I did write it before October 7. I had to adapt it slightly afterward, but not much.
Ami: But hasn't the world changed so radically since then that you would have to scrap all of it, or are things more or less the same?
DP: I think they're more or less the same. In the immediate aftermath of October 7, up until the end of October, I thought to myself, Who needs this book? The Israelis had reached the same conclusion that I had, on their own. The number of voices and the vociferousness of those voices calling for victory made me feel that the book was superfluous.
But by the next month I saw that the Israeli security establishment had gone back to its old ways, something I would describe as brilliant tactically and incompetent strategically. The Israelis can execute an enemy in Tehran. That's extraordinary. I don't know of any other military or intelligence that can do such a thing. On the other hand, when it comes to the larger picture, they have it all wrong, and they've basically had it wrong ever since the Six-Day War.
Ami: You're saying that the fundamental argument you're making hasn't changed. Can you summarize the crux of that thesis?
DP: The crux is that, historically, wars come to an end when one side gives up. This notion has been generally abandoned in the West in the aftermath of the atomic weapons that were used in 1945, and also in Israel. Instead of winning, the goal has become management and controlling the situation.
Ami: People say that Israel isn't allowed to win any of its wars. You seem to believe that this applies to any Western nation.
DP: I do. Look at the United States. It basically won all of its wars up until 1945, and it lost all of its wars afterward, meaning in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. All of the major undertakings were failures because the general sense was that you have to manage the situation. Iran, China, and Russia don't take that approach.
Ami: Can you describe what you would consider a victory?
DP: It's convincing your opponent that he cannot attain his war goals.
Ami: Meaning that it shouldn't just be another war of attrition or a cold war; it has to be definitive.
DP: Yes. I don't know how old you are, but I'm old enough to remember the Vietnam War. In May of 1975, the Americans gave up. We were far more powerful than Vietnam in every way—money, arsenal, population—but we gave up, and no one has ever raised the possibility of going back. It was over; we lost. That made a big impression on me. It's pretty extreme when a small country like Vietnam can defeat a great power like the United States. It's a matter of losing faith in your war goals.
Ami: Do the goals always remain the same, or can they shift?
DP: War goals can certainly change and the situation can become very complex. As one analyst pointed out, if you compare Great Britain's war goals in 1939 and look at what it achieved in 1945, it did not attain those goals. Nonetheless, it was a victory. I would also like to point out that Israel did attain its war goals in defeating the Arab states between 1948 and 1973, something that often goes unnoted. The Arab states were the major enemies of Israel for 25 years.
Ami: And then came the Palestinians.
DP: The Palestinians didn't really count then. At the time, the Arab-Israeli conflict was seen in terms of tanks, planes, ships, and artillery. It was a conventional war, and the Arab states pulled out one by one—Egypt, Jordan and Syria in particular—to the extent that they haven't been militarily involved since 1973, with only a couple of minor exceptions. It was an extraordinary Israeli victory.
The Arab states were actually much weaker than the Palestinians; their armies only lasted for six days and then 23 days. Here, we have a war that has been going on for 310 days. The Palestinians are far more resolute and have much more international support. Although they don't have tanks, planes or ships and they lack a serious economy, they are doing a far better job against Israel than the Arab states ever did. The states talk sometimes, but they don't do much more than that. They really just want to be done with it. But the Palestinians go on and on.
Ami: Is the key to this the difference between having a state and being a terrorist entity with nothing to lose, so that even losing is a quasi-victory?
DP: The Arab states didn't have to fight Israel. They joined the wars voluntarily, and when they got fed up, they just walked away. These are unitary states ruled by dictators, so they could do that. Sadat could simply decide that it was over. So could King Hussein. Assad can also decide not to pay attention to Israel. I argue in my book that the Palestinians have developed a mentality that is without parallel in the world. It is a unique genocidal rejectionism that has gone on for a century. Not only is it weird but it's also counterproductive.
Ami: Can you decipher it?
DP: I've tried to explain it, but I'm not sure that I have done so fully. Take, for example, the Turks and the Armenians. Yes, there was a genocide, but it was a century ago and it's over. There are still tensions between the two countries, but Turkish children aren't going to summer camp to be taught how to hate Armenians, and there aren't institutions around the world that are deprecating Armenians, and so forth. The same thing applies to Germany and the Jews. Yes, it was horrific, but it's also over. I compare the Palestinians to the French Revolution and Soviet Russia. These were new phenomena without precedent. People were totally confused. There was nothing like them before, and they were very hard to understand. I would argue that Palestinian genocidal rejectionism, in its own way, is equally original and difficult to understand.
Ami: You're a great scholar who has studied the subject for a large portion of your life, yet even you admit that it's hard to comprehend. Doesn't that put Israel in a quandary? They're facing an enemy that's so abstruse.
DP: Broadly speaking, the revisionists in Israel, the heirs of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, have always understood that the end goal must be victory, as personified by politicians like Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. I have my differences with them; I'm not a Kahanist. But I think that in terms of analysis of the problem they basically get it. In theory, Benjamin Netanyahu should be part of that camp. His father was a close aide of Jabotinsky's, and he has that heritage. But somehow, as soon as politicians get into power, they switch over to the hopeful, conciliatory, and appeasing approach, and nothing ever changes. That's what happened after October 7. It looked like there was a radical change, but it was back to business as usual within a matter of weeks.
Ami: Israel is facing Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in the north simultaneously. Do you believe that the end goals of these two conflicts are one and the same?
DP: I have a big argument with analysts I respect like Ephraim Inbar and Michael Oren. In Inbar's colorful formulation, he called the Palestinians a "strategic nuisance" and Oren calls for fighting Hezbollah because it's a far more serious military entity and must be dealt with first. I disagree profoundly because there is no global support for Hezbollah. There is no existential threat to Israel politically from Hezbollah. The threat to Israel is specific to the West Bank and Gaza, and to a lesser extent eastern Jerusalem. Right now, there is a vast worldwide rejection of Israel, particularly on the Left, as we are about to see in Chicago over the next few days. That has to do with the Palestinians and is the reason why I see them as an existential threat to Israel, due to their unique hatred.
Ami: But there are many others who reject Israel's existence.
DP: Yes. There are other sources of anti-Semitism, but I think it's important to focus on the Palestinian genocidal rejectionism that has tapped into something that Hezbollah, Iran, Turkey, Jordan, Syria and Egypt have never been able to tap into. From 1948 to 1973, you never saw this global leftist hostility. And while the military threat from Iran and its proxies is very serious, there's another threat that isn't that serious militarily but is quite serious politically, which is the delegitimization that comes from the Palestinian issue. Hezbollah and Iran are military problems, which are conceptually very easy to deal with and have to be approached militarily. The Palestinians, by contrast, are primarily a political problem because their rejectionism leads to this worldwide phenomenon of hating Israel.
Ami: You said that not much has changed in your thinking after October 7. Do you feel that the global leftist rejection of Israel is something new, or is it just being exacerbated?
DP: I see it as growing and as part of a series of events that have happened ever since the Kuwait War in 1990. The following year, in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed. In 1992, the European Union was founded. In 1993, there were the Oslo Accords. Perhaps most important of all, apartheid ended in South Africa and Nelson Mandela came to power in 1994. All of these things led to the left abandoning the Soviet-American issue and the Arab states and focusing on Israel instead. Not coincidentally, this international hostility toward Israel had its coming out party in 2000 in Durban, South Africa. October 7 doubled and tripled this sentiment, and it continues to grow.
Mind you, that's not the only phenomenon. There is an almost parallel turn in favor of Israel on the right. If you recall, the right didn't used to be so friendly, but it has thrown off its anti-Semitism to a great degree. I like to point to Argentina and Chile, which are both very geographically distant from Israel. Chile, under its far-left president, Gabriel Boric, is the most hostile to Israel of the non-Muslim countries, and Argentina, under Javier Milei, is the friendliest. So not everything is negative.
Ami: And let's not forget about Venezuela.
DP: Sure. I like to point to these two because they're more obscure. Everyone already knows about Venezuela. In fact, over the past week or so Maduro has been blaming the Zionist influence for his problems. But the left wasn't always so hostile. You can even argue that there would be no Israel if not for Stalin, who played a crucial role in its creation that was possibly more important than Truman's. And the Democrats were the key friends of Israel for the first two decades of its existence.
Ami: I've seen posts on social media from people who claim to have been pro-Israel before October 7 but have since "seen the light." That seems to be counterintuitive. Do you think that this phenomenon is one of those things that are unique to this conflict?
DP: It is, and it follows on the heels of another unique phenomenon. While there are many dictatorships that exploit their populations for their own purposes and use them as cannon fodder like Putin, what Hamas has done in Gaza is extraordinary and I would argue historically unprecedented. Even Hezbollah and the Palestinian Authority don't purposely seek to starve their own people, but Hamas does. In fact, the more Gazans suffer by their hand, the greater their international appeal. It is brilliant, perverse, disturbing and successful. They are now claiming 40,000 dead, although no one knows the real numbers. But the bigger they are, the more people there will be protesting in Chicago, the more encampments will be set up on college campuses, and the more anti-Israel resolutions will be passed in the UN.
Ami: I see Netanyahu as being between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, I believe that he wants to attain victory, but on the other hand, he sees the tremendous international pushback.
DP: I do think that he agrees with my vision, at least since October 7. I have a blog where I keep a count of every time he or his office talks about victory. I think I'm up to 66 statements that include 182 mentions. Look, allied and friendly governments don't want a Middle East crisis. They don't want the Iranians to be on the warpath, so they're saying, "Just reach a deal." No less important is the domestic opposition, which is demanding that the hostages be brought home at any cost. So you're absolutely right that he's between a rock and a hard place. I interpret the execution of Ismail Haniyeh as Netanyahu saying, "I'm going for victory, and I don't care what the consequences are."
Ami: Do you think he's also looking for a fight with Iran, or is that not on his agenda right now?
DP: It's been 16 days since Haniyeh was executed and there has yet to be an Iranian response. I'm not entirely surprised, and I don't think Netanyahu is either, because while the Iranians have many strengths, conventional war isn't one of them. They tried the drones and the missiles, but they didn't work. They can attack Israeli embassies and Jewish community centers, but that's not what they really want to do right now. I think they're a bit limited in what they can actually do, which is why they've done nothing. They even said that they won't retaliate if there's an agreement. Plus, this new president doesn't want any trouble. I think the Iranians are in a tough spot themselves.
Ami: But as you said, Netanyahu has opponents both inside and outside Israel.
DP: He's fighting his security establishment, including Gallant, who just two days ago called total victory "rubbish." Since when does a defense minister attack the prime minister like that? But he did, and he represents the defense establishment, which thinks that the whole notion of victory is nonsense. The way I've been putting it for years is to ask my friends, "Guess who I consider the biggest opponent when it comes to an Israeli victory?" After they guess Meretz, Labor or the Arab parties, I say, "No, it's the security establishment. They hate the very idea, and they're ready for a confrontation. That's how deeply they feel about it."
Ami: Is Netanyahu's definition of victory the same as yours?
DP: I think so. As I said, he's spoken about it many times, but he usually doesn't go into detail. I'm happy to note that a few months ago there was a lot of discussion about the "day after." A whole range of ideas was floated, including having the PA or the Arab states in conjunction with international soldiers take over in Gaza. Even annexation by Israel has been mentioned. My idea, which I believe is similar to Netanyahu's, is that Israel should set up an authority made up of Gazans who are ready to work with Israel. I envision this "decent Gaza" as comparable to Egypt or Jordan.
At the same time, I see it as a tough police state that is firmly under Israeli oversight. I do not see it as a democracy; perhaps one day, if everything goes well, but not initially. However, after the passage of ten months, it doesn't look like it can happen, because Hamas has intimidated those Gazans who are willing to work with Israel. They're scared, and I worry that it is now out of reach.
Ami: Going back to where we started, do you think that October 7 was a turning point in any way?
DP: It was a momentous date in that it shattered various assumptions and began a new era in Gaza and for Israel. At the same time, it played out the way one would expect. Hamas had never reconciled itself to Israel. It had never become merely an economic-minded governing authority. That was an illusion in the minds of the Israeli security establishment. It was implicit not in detail but in outline that Hamas and Israel would be having further confrontations. Such confrontations are likewise to be expected in the West Bank. The PA is just as hostile to Israel as Hamas; it just uses craftier means. It tries to win support in the West and in Israel itself, so it approaches things in a more calculated way. But I wouldn't be surprised if there was a similar rampage or attempted rampage in the West Bank. It's all about murdering Israelis.
Ami: We know what Israel needs. It needs security.
DP: Of course. But Israelis—and non-Israelis—need to come to terms with the nature of the Palestinian mentality. Think back a century to when the Soviet Union came into being. It took a while to realize what a perverse, horrific, maniacal system of government it was—far worse than anything that had ever existed before. There were evil rulers, but there had never been a system that killed tens of millions of its own people. These days, we're used to it. The Germans did it, the Chinese did it, and so did the Cambodians.
Ami: What's the next step after understanding the need for victory?
DP: I don't want to go into detail because I don't want to get into an argument, and that's not what I want to emphasize anyway. I want to stress the notion of victory rather than the mechanism of how to achieve it. That said, I have two main ideas.
One is to abolish both the PA and Hamas. These two authorities came into existence at the sufferance of Israel, and Israel should now get rid of them. They are evil and should be replaced. Second, Israelis have always been concerned about the perception of Israel—what they call hasbarah. Hasbarah is good, but it has always had a blind spot in that it's focused on Arab states and Western populations rather than the Muslim residents of the West Bank, Gaza and eastern Jerusalem. It gives up on these key populations in advance, and I believe that after all these decades there is a significant number of Palestinians who are ready to do business with Israel. Israel should be helping and funding those voices and supporting their work, but it has never done so.
There was a leaked conversation that took place around a year ago between Ben-Gvir and his police chief in which the police chief referred to the Arabs as animals. He said, "They will always kill each other. That's who they are." He thinks they are animals and that they are programmed to fight and kill Israelis. But I'm saying no. They are human. They can be influenced, so we should try to influence them.
Ami: Do you think Israel could really succeed in doing that?
DP: I think Israel could achieve quite a bit in that area. There's a tendency to see Israelis and Palestinians as lions and hyenas, perpetual enemies until the end of time. But I don't think they are. I believe that there's a lot of rethinking going on, especially in recent years. There are some Palestinians who appreciate Israel and talk about it in positive terms. Those are the voices that need to be encouraged. A somewhat facetious way of putting it is that I want to hear the voice in Arabic of an Israeli-Muslim like Khaled Abu Toameh, who is a very good journalist, piped into the Israeli security jails 24/7. I'm not serious about that, but it's symbolic of what I would like to see.
Ami: I'm surprised that you don't seem to attribute any of this to the religious fanaticism of radical Islam. Why is that? After all, you're considered a leading expert on Islam.
DP: That's a good point. I've written a whole bunch of books and articles about Islam and Islamism, but there are only a few paragraphs about Islam in my new book. I see the radical mentality as having foundations in Islam, but it's distinct from Islam. Islam is one component of the mix, but it really has to do with the nature of Palestinian life. As I admitted before, I'm not fully confident about my theory, but I've explained it as having to do with the Bedouin background, the events surrounding World War I and its horrors, as well as the Armenian genocide. It also has to do with Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who is credibly said to have convinced Hitler to implement the Final Solution rather than simply expelling the Jews, because he didn't want them to come to Palestine. He was even more anti-Semitic than Hitler. He was a dominant figure from the day he was appointed the grand mufti in 1921 until his death in 1974.
Ami: How would you describe the ultimate Palestinian goal?
DP: I would estimate that the overwhelming majority—perhaps 80%—are devoted to the destruction of Israel, the murder of Israelis and Jews, and the obliteration of Judaism. I take hope in the 20% minority, and I believe that that number can be increased to 30%, 40%, 50%, 60% or even 70%, but right now the overwhelming majority would love to see our eradication.
Ami: Do you see the anti-Semitism of post-October 7 as signaling a new era, or is it simply a continuation of everything that preceded it?
DP: I wrote a piece as early as 1992 about what I called the "new anti-Semitism." The original anti-Judaism was religious, then it was racial and now it's national. Israel is the Jew of nations. This does mark an increase, to be sure, but I think it also marks an increase in support for Jews. I have no patience for comparing the current situation to the 1930s. One favored example is that when Mike Johnson became speaker of the House, the very first bill he insisted on passing was in support of Israel. That was his most important priority. And just look at Elise Stefanik.
Ami: She has taken on your alma mater, Harvard.
DP: Right. There are so many conservative leaders, politicians and intellectuals, who have taken up the banner of Israel. I see it fundamentally as a left-right development. There are now five members of the UK Parliament who are there because of their anti-Israel platform. That's all they stand for, nothing else.
Ami: Donald Trump has gotten himself into hot water by saying that any Jew who votes for a Democrat should have his head examined. Do you agree?
DP: No. I don't think it's a psychological condition. I think that American Jews who are liberal don't like what has happened to Israel over the last few decades. I was in college with Chuck Schumer; I've known him for over half a century. I have a lot of problems with him, but he isn't psychologically impaired. He doesn't want the state to disappear; he's not a rejectionist. But he wants it to be different from the way it is.
Ami: I find it hard to be analytical right now. We can't even predict the next 24 hours as we continue to anticipate a potential attack from Iran. The world is truly in flux. Where do you see things going in the future?
DP: The Arab states are aligning more closely with Israel. The Saudis haven't done it officially yet, but it's happening gradually. That's a big development on many levels. The left is hyperbolic in its antagonism toward Israel, which is having an impact on moderate liberals like Biden and Harris. But I wonder if their tactics, such as the desecration of US war memorials or getting in the way of people going to the airport and getting to the hospital, will win them friends in the end. I think there's a good chance that the kind of antics they engaged in on campuses and elsewhere will ultimately prove to be counterproductive. So, in all, I'm somewhat sanguine. Assuming that Israel has the military means to protect itself, which I think it does, and that its allies and especially the US are supportive, as demonstrated in the recent $20 billion arms deal, Israel will be fine.
Back in 1973, with the oil embargo and the breaking of relations around the world with what was then a rather weak state with a much smaller population, economy and military, Israel was in far greater danger than it is today. ●
