Middle East Roundtable: Khaos in the Knesset.

Hello and welcome to the Middle East Roundtable here at Fronts.co. This is Evan Maloney, head writer for Fronts, War Fronts, Home Fronts, Defense Fronts, All the Fronts, and I am here with... I'm Kyle Moran, staff writer here at War Fronts, and lately focusing all things Israel as well during the recent election.

And Kyle, speaking of which, we've had a massive election day and week in Israel from what I understand. And then I'm going to turn it over to you because you're our resident expert on all things Israel-related.

But my understanding is right now Netanyahu's party has won a plurality of seats, non-majority the opposition led kind of not only by Eisenhower but not really what it's complicated so on and so forth also does not have a majority and it's these two error parties that are kind of sitting in the center that are preventing each side from gaining the full

Majority that they need to govern.

Is that correct? Yeah, that description of Eisenhower's role can really just be extended to almost everything in Israeli politics, where it really is sort of, kind of, maybe, but not really. It's a complicated type of relationship.

So right now, we have roughly about 96% of the ballots counted. So things are pretty locked in. They might shift slightly, but right now you have the coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu.

So these are the parties currently in government there. They have 54 seats, estimated to receive 54 seats. This will be short of the 61-seat threshold to reach a majority in the 120-seat Knesset.

The Zionist opposition is expected to get 48 seats. this is led by the second place finisher in terms of overall seats which is gadi item classiest shah party and then in a we do have the non-aligned arab parties so they are taking up a record 18 seats which really is just testament to the political skills of one Itamar Ben-Gavir, who has truly inspired the

Arab population of Israel to vote in the highest turnout since 1955.

So kudos to him on that one. That said with heavy sarcasm, of course it's more been good here, of course, being the very, very extreme national security minister under Benjamin Netanyahu, but overall the biggest issue here being, okay, we're back to square one before the 2022 election where nobody can actually get a majority.

Previously, they were able to cobble together various coalitions beyond the coalitions that are already in place. But right now, the coalitions are so locked in, are so baked in that nobody really wants to switch sides. So if you look at Netanyahu's coalition, 54 seats.

Okay, they need seven more or they need eight more to get to 61. Even if they are able to peel off the only party in opposition, I could even remotely see moving it towards him in anything other than a unity government. And we'll get to that in a moment would be Yisrael Betanyu, but that would only get him to 60.

Israel Betanyu is a very hawkish right-wing opposition party, but they've built themselves as a very anti-Bibi movement as well. Many of their voters are very anti-Bibi, and they're also relatively anti-draft or excuse me or anti-draft exemption for the Haredi parties.

Haredi being the ultra-Orthodox have long had a sort of unique relationship with the military where they're able to be exempted from the different the draft requirements that apply to the rest of the country so even if bb is able to get that one party he's still short of a majority the democrats which is the only left-wing party left in the country with

Their eight seats are absolutely under no circumstances going to prop up a Bibi government.

And I don't think Bibi would want, I don't think Bibi would want them either. And even if through some miracle you get the Democrats on board, you're gonna lose the Jewish Power Party under Ben-Gavir for sure, and potentially religious Zionism under Smotrich. So that's a non-starter.

If you look at Be'Yashad, so that's the Together Party, which is this awkward marriage between two men with the biggest bromance I've ever seen in Israeli politics, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, I don't see that happening either. They've both been very, very, very critical of not just Bibi, but also of his coalition partners.

I don't see Biaşov moving into any government with either Smotrich or Ben-Gavir, especially Ben-Gavir.

And so even if you pick up Biaşov's 12 seats, you'll lose at least seven from Ben-Gavir's as well as seven more from religious Zionism. So truth be told, and this is a much more in-depth version of the story we put out on War Fronts. I hope I'm not losing anybody with the intricacies of Israel's elections.

But the math for Bibi, to me, is not there for 61. The only option I could see in which he gets 61 is if he's able to get the grand prize of a model, which would be a unity party, a unity government. So this would involve Likud, this would involve Gadi Aizenkotzi Ashar, and this could potentially include some of the smaller parties.

This would likely include Smotrich's religious Zionism, but not Ben-Gavir's Jewish power. And that would clear the 61. And it could also include B'Yashad.

This is, on paper, it seems like a great option, right? Because you have the two biggest parties in the country, Likud and Yishar. They actually don't disagree fundamentally on that much in terms of policy, in terms of foreign policy. they have strong disagreements over the October 7th aftermath, how that should be handled.

But, and that's sort of why this whole situation starts to fall apart to me.

The Israeli president, as well as the U.S. president, who has enormous political clout in israel have both come out in favor of a unity government but i don't know if either of them have quite enough to make this marriage happen because the whole situation is the whole opposition the zionist opposition iran is the we have to get bb out under all

Circumstances no holds barred you know it's it's very difficult for me to see them just saying, actually, we'll fold and make that happen.

This is further complicated by the fact that any unity government would likely come with a pardon for Bibi, which would only further make it less likely for the opposition to be willing to do business with them because his long-standing corruption allegations have become more and more of an issue in Israel, with a lot of people just being increasingly done

With netanyahu as a as a person i believe the country keep in mind this man first came to office in 1996 so he has been there for so long and not to tip my hat too much but longer than i have been alive now this is not it was not always consecutive he was out of power for a number of years in between those two, but he's still a larger-than-life figure in

Early politics.

So I don't see any great options there. That leaves a few alternatives where you would basically have the Yashar party try to form a government without Likud, without Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition. So there are a few ways to do that.

They could try to work with the Arab parties of which there are two. So you have the joint list and you have ROM. ROM currently has seven.

So if you add ROM and the Zionist opposition together, you're still short of a majority and the Joint List is not going to work with them. So it's just incredible to me how many radicals there are in this country.

But the talk of the town is that if you could get the Joint List, the Arab Party Joint List, to stand down from running or from voting if they can abstain on the prime minister's ballot so they would not be formally in government and Rahm did join Eisenkot's government then that could get you 61.

That, to me, is a very viable path. I just don't know how viable it is and how palatable it is for Eisenclot working with Arab parties. That would be controversial there.

But at the, at a certain point, I'm sort of thinking to myself, I don't really know how many alternatives there are. Yeah. And this strikes me as kind of the fundamental issue of it too.

Like all this talk about a unity government, obviously Trump is into that.

The Israeli question is into that as well at the same time, it seems to me that you can't get this you know growing opposition movement into a unity government with netanyahu after campaigning the promises of accountability for october 7th of all sorts of other you know traditional proceedings whatever that i think were assumed to be coming down the pipe

Correct me if i'm wrong yeah it seems like a really i mean i suppose you could try and force those groups into a unity government and i have to assume spike support for the opposition party in a way that i can't imagine would be recoverable especially not if nanya were received at harden is there any like realistically i know you know, we can't rule out

Anything in global politics, especially not as really quality expert.

Is this a serious composition that could be workable somehow, or is it just a complete non-starter?

So it's the biggest talk of the town because a lot of people want to see it. And it fundamentally makes sense because as I said earlier, they don't disagree on that much in terms of how they would actually run the country. The biggest barrier here being Bibi himself.

What makes Liku different from Y'shaar? The biggest thing being, and the biggest obstacle to any pact there being the man who sits atop the party. If not for Bibi, it would be very easy.

You could have Likud, Yishar, B'Yashad, and perhaps religious Zionism, and perhaps Yisrael Beitanyu, and you would have a clear majority. You would be well past 61. You wouldn't have to worry about anything.

They'd have disagreements, you know, but it would be smooth sailing. But with Bibi sitting on top of everything, it's really sort of elephant in the room. And there is precedent for this here.

So keep in mind, between 2018, 2019, and 2022, Israel had five separate elections. And the only thing that really held the current governing coalition together before it collapsed was the aftermath of the October 7th. There was a brief, really strong unity push, but you can see that sort of fell apart as well, given these scandals that went on afterwards.

Overall, there was one case in which the opposition did what eisenkot is being discussed to potentially do this man being benny gantz formerly of the blue and white party and if you for our sharp listeners out there, if blue and white strikes you as a new name, you are right on that because blue and white is not a factor in this race.

And the reason it's not a factor in this race is because they completely destroy themselves with their own base you can't fundamentally you cannot run a campaign on getting bb out and then prop bb up it doesn't make sense it doesn't work it undermines yourself and keep in mind that was before the october 7th massacre and all sorts of information has been

Coming out.

Okay, not only did Bibi get tipped off by the Emiratis, he was also tipped off by the Egyptians.

He sat on his hands and his excuse was nobody came to wake him because if he had gotten up half an hour earlier, he would have been able to save the country. It's this long tortured nonsense theory that a lot of people did not buy. And I don't think that Eisencott will have much of a political future if he does join with Bibi.

There's not much to be gained other than that you would form a government. And that's not nothing. And there will be increasing pressure.

And somebody, somebody in the early politics I won't name, was mentioning earlier today as a wild card. Okay, imagine, imagine Donald Trump posts on Truth Social. I am coming to Jerusalem to broker a unity government between Eisencott and Netanyahu.

And I would hate to cancel my trip because it wouldn't work. What would happen then? If Trump puts that much pressure on them, I think it actually might.

He does have, it's hard to overstate how much political clout he has in Israel. He's very popular there. Slightly less so than before the Iran war because of how that went.

But overall, he remains quite popular. And I think that something like that could sort of be the thing that breaks this barrier. But overall, I still am pretty pessimistic about the chance of a unity government, just because of how terrible it was for Benny Gantz back in 2020.

So given that this is so centered on the man here in Netanyahu, rather than any real policy or speed. Is there any chance of some kind of ops law within Likud, because obviously, it doesn't really behoove any of these other 50 on folks who are in seats, it doesn't really move the party to be relegated to the opposition if their hand is so strong.

And I mean, we're both Americans, we're both watching the continued dominance of Donald Trump in the Republican Party, right?

It's, you know, we can look at that and say it will be so difficult for some breakout candidate to make the argument that, you know, you need to move away from Trump in order to focus in on other you know, on other candidates and then get back to the business of governance. But is there any room for that within Likud?

Is there any kind of brave way faction that could pose a challenge to them?

Not that I see so basically we could have a relatively good night they have 27 seats this is slightly down but a lot of the so the current coalition that BB is in is expected to get 54. This is down from 68 seats. So it's a substantial loss.

But a number of those losses are with parties not Likud. So Itamar Ben-Gavir, who really is just winning all sorts of prizes across the political spectrum, and I do not mean that in a kind way, he was in a political marriage with Bezalel Smotrich for the Zionism.

It was working well for them, but Ben-Gavir thought that he had outgrown Smotrich and decided instead of running together, as they had in 2022, Jewish Power would run independently.

And for what it's worth, to his credit, it seemed like he was doing relatively well in the polls before that, and that he was going to make off without having to be tied to Smotrich, who has less support. And that kind of imploded. He only got seven seats.

He had been hoping for double digits there, potentially as many as 14, which would have been literally double what he actually got. So overall, not his finest moment. But that sort of gives Likud the opportunity to say, look, it's not us.

You know, I mean, we may have lost some, but we didn't, like, this isn't really us. We had a strong night. The way that Bibi frames it is a majority of Zionist voters in the country voted for the right wing opposition, excuse me, the right wing coalition.

And you know, to their credit, fair point. So what do you do on that front? The only wild card that I could see happening, and this would really be out there, but it is a potential option, is if, because the caretaker prime minister does not have the ability to stop legislation, Bibi cannot stop this from happening.

The new Knesset could pass something that retroactively imposes term limits on the prime minister's office. This would remove, this would not get Likud vote, by the way, all of the coalition would vote against the Arab parties would join in with the Zionist opposition and it most likely would pass. This would render Bibi ineligible to be prime minister.

And as a result, you would be able to form a unity government between Likud under a new leader with Yishar and B'Yashad, I think that could be the most likely outcome or not most likely, but that could be a viable option, but it's a very wild card one.

And can you speak a little bit to what Israel looks like moving forward with Netanyahu in this chair-taker role until some kind of government is established, whatever that may be? Yeah.

So at first, that could be a while, by the way, because once the Israeli president taps one of their two leaders to try to form a government, they have 28 days with a potential extension, and they can do that up to three times before the Knesset gets dissolved and they go back to voting.

So we're looking at months, potentially, of caretaker Bibi, and he has significant foreign policy powers. He can go to war.

He can do all sorts of stuff. He just can't stop legislation. But on the Iran front, he pretty much does have free reign to do whatever he'd like to do before.

And I think we're going to see some of that in the near future. And just to quickly rule this out. Obviously, Israel has held snap elections in the past.

From what I understand, there is a limit on how often those can happen. Is that correct? Yeah.

So right now the only way that they would hold another election is like a snap election is different as if you have a government in place that falls apart, that would trigger a snap election. There is no government right now, so they can't have a snap one.

So what would happen is they have the first leader that President Herzog taps to try to form a government will have those 28 days with a potential extension.

If he fails, Herzog will likely tap the other one. And if he also fails, there'll be one final round.

And if that fails, the country will simply go back for another round of elections i actually think that the next round if they do another round of voting would favor beady because the his coalition feels a bit more good about results than the opposition does.

The opposition is staring down a very tough math scene where they know they would have to partner with the Arab parties unless they want to work with Bibi.

Bibi, despite also not having a majority, does not have to worry so much about this because he gets to stay on in the meantime as we were discussing and in the event of that second round of voting his coalition would likely be a bit more upbeat about the chances because fundamentally, unless you're willing to work with Bibi, the opposition knows they would

Have to work with the Arab parties, which is not a great turnout mechanism, not exactly a great rallying cry in the country right now.

So I think that could favor his base's turnout a bit.

Also the fact that there were tens of thousands of Israelis who flew home to cast their ballots in this round. I don't know how many would be willing to go back and do it a second time. And so Netanyahu is not that popular abroad with Israelis living internationally.

And so I think that vote skewed heavily towards the opposition. So I think on that front, he would also be pretty helped by a second round. And you mentioned them.

I want to go back to these two Arab parties. Can you speak a little bit more to, like, the way that they're seen as real? Why working with them is seen as so toxic?

Because at least for being there's force that I've been making from. There's very little selection. It seems like that is kind of common belief on both sides.

This is not really, like, a political coalition that anybody is willing to make under ordinary circumstances. Yeah, so different parties there are slightly different views of them. So the two Arab parties are Ram, which is currently estimated to be getting seven and then the joint list, which is estimated to get 11.

ROM is fundamentally seen as more like palatable to work with. So the government in 2021, that was the brief period when BB actually was ousted from the PM's office and it was led by Naftali Bennett. That did include Rahm.

But, so it's not, like, unheard of. It's not impossible. But that was the first and only time so far.

And that was before October 7th. And to be honest, the Arab parties have not necessarily played their cards super well For any chance of winning over willingness from some more Zionist parties So one of the two the other night dedicated their victory to Gaza I believe Mansour Abbas, the leader of Iran, was unwilling to call Hamas a terrorist organization.

It's just like a bunch of things that we're like stacking up that sort of scream, this isn't going to work to me. but we'll have to see where that goes so it's not completely unheard of like i said given the past precedent and it's honestly like if eisenhower really wants a government then he could go that route The problem being that of the groups in the

Zionist opposition, one of them is much more dead set on not doing that than the rest.

So that being Yisrael Beitanyu, that's Abedor Lieberman's party. Very hawkish right wing. They don't want to work with our parties, period.

And I don't know how Eisenkant could square that circle. The only potential, there are two potentials here, actually. So if they lose, if they lose Yusrael Betanyah's seven seats and gain Ram's seven seats.

That's a complete, you know, I mean, you're not getting anything. So on that front, you could do a few different things. You could swap out Yisrael Betanyah's seven with Shas, which is one of the two Haredi parties.

But this would be also very unpopular because the Haredi parties were sitting with Netanyahu and very strongly against the draft being applied to Yeshiva students in the country and so eisenkot would likely have to make concessions to them in terms of what would actually like what they would have to do in terms of being able to be exempted from the draft

That was partially but if you're if he's willing to go down that route he might also win over united torah judaism the other faridi party so that's plus 14 for him But again, that's quite unpopular.

So we'll have to see. And this coalition map is just crazy.

I tried to keep this a very slimmed down version on war fronts. But I appreciate you questioning and listening to all my different coalition scheming here. Very happy to.

And I think it's worth going back to the conversation about Netanyahu's time in the caretaker role as well, because in the run-up to the election, as we talked about in prior weeks, there had been some concern that Netanyahu would find a way to reopen his closet with Iran and the broader Middle East.

We've seen kind of these stereotypics around Turkey then that new kind of rising period of tensions over Syria we also had seen them personally I think we should talk about greater land about Africa allegedly some kind of action that the IDF per insider sources, I believe it was Haaretz, who came out with yours, I think it was right there from home,

Essentially saying, you know, the IDF is not willing to carry out whatever orders that they were giving because they wanted it to be equal in some way.

Now the time pressure for Netanyahu has eased a little bit because he has this time in the critical role but the false set of renewed conflict is not has not gone away and arguably with the u.s midterms coming up on Tuesday, the risk that we could see a return to conflict, I would guess, is only increasing because obviously you have Trump headed into a phase

Where he'll be more willing to take potentially holistic damaging actions like a resumption of the war.

So, before we get into kind of the meat and potatoes of the prospect of leading violence in the Middle East, do you see any room for Netanyahu to kind of use that to his political identity during this deal-making process as Israeli parties are trying to build a coalition against the outcome of that in a way that favors him.

That's sort of a million dollar question. So there is certainly concern about this because in the lead up to the election, there was a report as we were talking about that Netanyahu had ordered some various form.

We don't know exactly what extent of a military operation against Iran.

I do think it was relatively limited because the concern was reportedly that this could escalate into another all-out war with Iran rather than being that type of thing, but ultimately it didn't come to fruition, because the head of the IDF, Yael Zamir, was basically told him to go pound sand, and it didn't happen.

This has pissed off Bibi, though, and there have been reports that Bibi is discussing wanting to fire Yael Zamir after the election.

Obviously nothing has happened on that front yet. He might just be waiting until... I mean, keep in mind the votes haven't even been finalized yet, so we're still pretty early into this.

But I could definitely see that happening if he really wants to return to war.

I could also see him using this as a way to pressure some form of unity government to happen as you can see after october 7th there was broad consensus that a unity government was needed led by yours truly mr security so i think this could be something we're looking at in the cards.

The difference being the opposition might not go for it still, because someone like Yair Lapid has been pretty clear that, I mean, he outright accused Netanyahu of trying to extend the elections by going back to war with Iran and the joke in the Zionist opposition circles was Likud is trying to extend the extend the election by four years and you know I mean

Fair point because I think that if Didi had the option to do it, I think it happily take it.

And what do you make of that whole situation with Zemir, you know, not allowing this straight to happen or whatever it was, it does, we see it probably as cry or Israel carried out this large kind of show of force where I believe it was like in the multiple dozens of warplanes kind of flew over Syria and Iraq right up to the Iranian border and then turned

Back.

Some conversation about whether that was like kind of a demonstration of here's what we can do, whether it was an attempt to get Iranian air defenses to light up and kind of show where they were located.

My personal suspicion is that there may have been some kind of desire maybe not even to have Israeli warplanes hit or shot down but at least to have Iran kind of fire back at what was supposed to be this quote unquote Israeli staging action that wasn't going to be legitimate then how dare you fire back at us and now we have to go to war because you tried to

Hit us, you know?

But what do you make of the recourse around the satin situation and what do you suspect happened there, if anything? I think a lot of this... I mean, I'm going to try to be conservative in my prognosticating here.

Overall, I think it's pretty clear that Bibi wanted something prior to the election.

It's going to be, it's something only time will tell in terms of how much the fact that Samir stood up to him tells me that there's a significant concern in the military establishment in Israel over politicization of the army so the army is very cross very like it's nonpartisan. It's a national unity thing.

And it's not even just like Jewish exclusive. There are many, there are Arabs who serve in the army. There are Druze with a D not J who served in the army significant numbers of them as well.

And it has become like the cross sect entity in which save for the Haredim, if you are Israeli and you serve in the army all of the politicians we're discussing essentially have served. They've done their time, including Netanyahu himself. Eisenhower used to run the army.

Lapid, Bennett, all of the above. So this really does all come down to keeping the military out of this political fight.

And I think that's gonna be something that despite being literally known as Mr. Security, he does have some vulnerability there, because I think a lot of people really would not like to see the military politicized, especially when it's like so transparently about the election.

But now that we're posting election, I think he does have much more rain on that to sort of do as he pleases. And continuing on that subject, we have the U.S. legislature split up. Well, like we said, stronger likelihood that the U.S. would re-engage in conflict over Iran if those midterms, or once those midterms complete, less about the result even.

And in fact, I would argue that there's a real case to be made that if the midterms go against Trump, Frank, this is a leader who, you know, in addition to anything else he could have served is very, very interested in kind of demonstrating the power that he does have and demonstrating the authority that he does have.

And even in a world where debtor cash, we're getting control of the house and the Senate, the president still has broad, unilateral authority to go and come to a reaction around the world.

That's something that the House and the Senate could certainly try and get in its way, but it's going to take a lot of time, especially in the brief main-about session where this outgoing Congress is still seated and where the new incoming folks have not arrived yet.

We've seen obviously lots of news over the last two weeks about the U.S. kind of a little backup, as well as our air forces sending a new missionary unit, a third aircraft carrier to the region. And right now, it seems as if the U.S. is laying the foundation to return to conflict.

So curious to know what you anticipate happening there after the midterms, whether this would be a really close exercise between Trump and Netanyahu in this political moment.

And then also, what do you make of the U.S. election results, whichever way they could end up biasing to that influence Trump's reaction to his steps yeah to be honest on the especially on the U.S. side of things I just don't think Trump really cares at this point he knows he's gonna lose seats he's gonna lose both chambers of Congress and it's he's just

Sort of moved on he's just gonna get through it suck it up and get back to what he wants to be doing and while not exactly a banner political strategy I think that there's going to be precious little as you were saying a Democrat Congress can actually do about that the one thing, of course, being like War Powers Act, I'm still quite, I have a long time been

Bearish on any party being able to really use it.

It's dubiously constitutional. It's never been challenged before because it's never really been invoked, but the idea that it's, it sort of sets up this awkward in between phase where the president does have some power to do this, but not really.

But we can save that conversation for another podcast.

But overall, I do think I do think we're going to see some return to connect strikes because I the current situation, the current stalemate has just grown old for many and there are people in both the administration here as well as in Jerusalem who do think that a return to connect strikes would be helpful.

And Netanyahu was openly campaigning, it should be noted, on toppling the Iranian regime, which, look, I mean, I don't know what he has planned.

I don't think that it would necessarily go much different than the first time, but he's certainly made it his rallying cry. And by the way, before the election, posted an AI generated image of Tel Aviv getting nuked by an Iranian missile, saying that, look, if I don't win, this is what's going to happen to you. So certainly not backing down.

Yeah, the same seems to be true for the US side as well. And this is not limited only to Iran, I think, too well. Obviously, there's something we should really be looking at, because the U.S. has kind of enforced lock-in there for quite a while, and the Cuban military is at a state that

So the War Powers Act, from my understanding of it, really is much easier to invoke after kind of a stand of, like, we still have...

Cuba can be wrapped up and done within that time i mean it's not going to be easy per se but it's it's certainly somewhere between the you know one night zero packages of venezuela and the several months no capitulation of iran and i don't argue much closer to the venezuela side but you know that notwithstanding that all is to say just you know i personally

Expect that you know trump especially if he is hand-showing congress which now looks more likely than ever they will be is going to interpret that as well a way to continue demonstrating attitude and continue to kind of act as a narrative and she did to evolve the world stage would be to you know go in and resume hostilities in a rhyme and certainly it seems

Like the atreides are making the case for that as well of that being said I think it is worth noting the story that's come thus far from the U.S. out there trying to get a read on what the Pentagon is thinking about what North America is really trying to just boils down to.

There is an element in the U.S. military and the U.S. Pentagon that believes that by kind of going through all this one more time during the airstrikes, doing a, you know, the degradation of, of Israeli so not, not as really Iranian war fighting capability from the air alone, that doing this again in pretty much the same way, one more time will be enough to

Tip the scales.

That to me seems somewhere between preposterous and foolish. It really, I mean, you would have to have some really telling intelligence behind the scenes to indicate that is a viable strategy moving forward. I think it's worth noting as well.

Today, the news broke that he takes us the U S for now, although more on that's the midterms possibly has just fired the military's top planning officer so with the high-ranking military officer Ruben in charge to military planning for a very long time is now the latest you essentially on a test we know that from hash rounds at this profit that tends to

Happen when somebody is not telling this administration what they want to hear about the viability of kinetic strikes to achieve some kind of a result.

So that is something that to my eyes and ears would look like takes up in trouble laying the foundation for pretty swift return to conflict and again just thinking about timing because you know really the countdown of days and lots of matters so swash in a situation if there's any kind of conversation about invocation of the war powers act in the u.s that

Conversation will only begin once the congress has seen it may or may not be particularly salient, depending on how much of the majority of the Democrats are able to secure if they are.

And it seems like they will in the House, but again, the Senate is still more of a toss-up.

But the sooner Trump starts, the less votes are cast, the longer he has to put that seat back in consideration. So I would expect, I mean, today's the 29th of October, so we're recording this.

What do you think, a two-week turnaround is that you know too swift or is that kind of where we should be anticipating something that happened i would say like two weeks or sooner i mean once you're post-election i mean there's really not much holding you back on Pete Hegseth.

I am concerned by how many people he's firing. This has become more of a concern with some. So Senator Tom Tillis absolutely flamed the guy last month.

I think he I think the way he described him was quote, allergic to competence, which is one of the greatest, and one of the greatest of that but it's probably your life I know but oh man so we may be in for it ultimately and I know this is not a US politics podcast but I do think that looking at some of these races is relevant here so I have to think Texas

Is going blue I think Syed takes his seat I think i don't know about alaska i'm like right on the cusp there i think susan collins pulls out maine and i think i think that's probably the most predictions i'm going to make for this midterm but what say you on all that well i think we certainly have also falling Georgia oh you have I mean the Republicans have

Abandoned most parallel at that at this point so a Cougar shouldn't I got so that is a net one and then if you add no, if you add if you add Tallarica that brings it even I do suspect that Toto will be able to pull it out in Alaska this is not a US politics podcast but just to do a brief detour we're trying to go after her for her campaign supposedly having

Played a fairly major role in getting this, So, okay, so she's running against a Republican named Dan Sullivan and there's another Dan Sullivan on the ballot who's not that Dan Sullivan, but a different one who was on the ballot.

You know, he denies this, but pretty obviously to pull off votes wherever he can. Just based on the Republican voter confusion.

There was a reason the New York Times reported where the allegation is that Aloha had a much more direct role in not necessarily overseeing this, but certainly she was aware of it and approved of it.

Some questions about how legitimate that report was, it was for a Black staffer, which they were floating around the u.s political circle of all stripes also this is not like an illegal thing it's it's kind of an ethics-based argument it's perfectly legal to do this and certainly you can defend it also on you know free speech grants travel the same way that

Like you can defend a parity vote and in that sense i don't anticipate this being wide enough this late in the game so for that reason i suspect the last fool will go i agree with you collins is a toss out i do suspect between kansas south carolina and where is where's hillary is that kansas i couldn't call you or no that's mississippi i apologize i believe

One of those like between those three and it's greater than not odds that at least one of them flips.

But then again, obviously, you know, I have some traffic coming back in the opposite direction.

Yeah, I think my forecast, if we're, you know, if we're forecasting the week before the U.S. elections, I would say Democrats end up with 51 to 52 in the Senate. And then, like, Florida, 25 seats, flip in the house. But curious to know, do you want to put down hard numbers?

Should we keep ourselves accountable? No, no. Cause I there's too much up in the air.

So when it comes to presidential ones, I do like an all out prediction, but when it comes to Senate stuff and especially the house I mean, there's so many local things and like because each district will have their own two candidates with their own two scandals and it becomes it becomes too much of a guessing game for me but if we're on the podcast the next

Presidential election please put me down i will have a state by state breakdown i did that in 2024 and 2020 2020 i got the winner right i got a few states wrong 2024 i got the winner right in 49 out of 50 states correct so it makes me very unpopular it which makes me very unpopular in both circles by the way yeah i can imagine it but yeah so it's i think

We're going to have a lot to talk about next week the more recent reports that i've seen on conversations between the israelis and the americans suggest that they are currently plans in place to be able to stand up overshadow offensive operations kind of within 96 hours of a goal war, right?

So US and Israel agree, hey, we might go back to do this. That starts to count down to about four days, and then probably hostilities can resume around then. But for the next reason, I do want to pivot to a couple more spots before we finish.

First one is going to be Yemen, where we've seen over the past week or so, this hop has just kind of settled into a predictable rhythm at this stage. So we're seeing the Houthis continue to strike into Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabian fences do seem to be getting a little bit better on the margins, but it's still kind of a marginal improvement certainly the Houthis are still able to strike also hitting the port city of Aden which is the de facto capital of the internationally recognized Yemeni Yadam they're going after that much more frequently now and really although it

Seems like the Houthis are kind of just entrenched in their accentuated abilities to continue to produce and launch long-range trapped-in missiles, whatever the Saudis are doing, they are not interrupting the corruption and tenacity that the Houthis have been able to develop, which is tough to do.

Granted to the Saudis, the Houthis have really been able to decentralize their corruption in a way that not a lot of nations and certainly not a lot of Nazi actors can replicate.

And that does make it much more difficult that being said it still will be very difficult for the Saudis to kind of break through and really issue a change in this conflict at the same time the siege of Taiz is ongoing Medicine continues to run out. Food continues to run out.

A really dire situation for folks there. The Saudis are attempting to break through, and the Saudi forces are attempting to break through.

They have not had a lot of success in doing that it seems like they do have the combination of kind of local disciplinary fighters and number of fighters to hold the city for a while but I mean it's totally in struggle there's no real shot at a breakthrough and what that will mean functionally speaking is just a lot of siege that could bring really

Devastating humanitarian consequences so that's Yemen for you I do have a little breaking news out of israel so this is coming from moshe schwartz so this is a ywn network overall the haredi situation may be shifting in eisencott's favor so the two haredi parties i was discussing earlier shas and united tourists judeism shas has a bit more in common with

Eisenkot.

Eisenkot would be the first Mizrahi Jewish PM. They have all been Ashkenazim before him. And Shas representing Sefer Din would be pretty happy with an Eisenkopf premiership, I think.

But we also now see UTJ, which represents Ashkenazim, seems to be considering supporting a government led by Gadi Eisenkopf, basically saying that the way that Moshe puts this is signaling a possible breakthrough in the long-extending alliance with Netanyahu.

Some UTJ officials believe their political partnership with him has run its course and are exploring alternative coalitions. So basically, these two parties are like they were working with Bibi, but there's not a whole lot holding them together.

The only thing they really care about is, perhaps not the only thing they care about, but the biggest issue for them is draft exemption as well as social spending for their respective communities. Overall, this means that they're not really entrenched in either side. They just, they sit with anybody.

They sat with Yitzhak Rabin back in the nineties for a brief period of time as well. So they certainly flip sides whenever it's whenever they think they can get a good deal. And if Eisenkot's willing to play ball with them, it might not be super popular, but it might be more popular than going to Benny Gantz room.

So, in a say or a play, can you kind of map out, in that case, the easiest path to a coalition for either side? Yes. So that would be he would clear 61 easily.

So yeah. So he's at 48. If you add those 14 you're sitting comfortably above 61.

Yeah. I did not realize I had that what y'all Charity doesn't like you won't yeah, sorry, so you'd have 62 apologies. I'm not I'm in the right field on a map made if there's certainly but so you'd still be above 61 so you'd have a majority of one it wouldn't be that far above, but you wouldn't even need the Arab parties if you can get the two Haredi ones.

The problem being is the longevity of that.

Most of the opposition figures ran against the Haredi draft exemptions, but if they're able to work out even some form of negotiated process where they slowly start phasing in something I could see this being progress and among we built it up sign is there had a perception that the draft issue is a place where they can continue to hold out or is it more just

Like this is a losing battle and we kind of have to figure out how and when we lose it so when you say it by orthodox you mean like Haredi?

Right.

Okay. It's like, I'll say a little bit like template turns. No, no worries.

So the Haredi themselves are sort of waking up to the fact that they can't necessarily pulled out on this forever, at least their parties are issue is that the Haredi men themselves are pretty gung-ho about not serving. They are willing to go to jail for this. There are Haredim in jail today.

Those who are convinced they will not serve, will not serve. So any like crackdown on this is gonna be tough. What I think it should probably be partnered with is a cut of social benefits to those who are draft dodgers combined with a slow, gradual integration of this, including through Haredi specific units and IDF, of which there are some.

It's worked okay, but basically the concern being is a lot of Haredi communities see the army as hating religion, and they see the army as being something that takes their sons away from studying Torah, studying Talmud, so it's a concern for them to be drafted and forced integration is kind of a problematic route for this and the only reason I mentioned them

Versus Orthodox at large, that there are also many Orthodox who serve in the army, so Haredi the other term in English is ultra-Orthodox, but some of them find that to be a bit offensive, so I typically instead of ultra-orthodox because it sounds like so strict you know ultra-orthodox but they are their own little thing in the country and not so little

Anymore either and then one final item before we kind of start the wrap-up sequence I know you have some thoughts on this.

So recently there were some commitments made by the Hezbollah organization in Lebanon not to restart Kaffa in the Middle East. Can you speak a little bit more about that and kind of what you make of it?

Sure. So you can honestly compare this, honestly, to U.S. presidential campaigns. You really know somebody's running for president when they come out and declare that they will not be running for president.

And that really is the same type of dynamic that Hezbollah has in Lebanon when it comes to promising not to intervene in any future war on behalf of Iran. So they have done this many times. They did this before October 7th.

You know, they were just saying they would not be willing to destroy the country for Iran. It was a lie. They did so anyway.

And then after the 2024 war, before this one, they repeatedly swore up and down they would not join in to save Iran and put Lebanon at war and that lasted about, I think it lasted 36 hours before they started going at it again.

And so the other day we had rumors and reports that Hezbollah had made communications via the Speaker of Parliament, Nadia Barry, who is the other Shia party, Amal, that they wouldn't in no uncertain terms not jump in and save Iran if kinetic strikes return.

So that is about as good an indication as any to me that they will do exactly the opposite well then that'd be conclusion of today's middle east trap table i think we can say we are really just kind of staring down slowly approaching return to war in the middle east and yeah here we are on that though let's just briefly wrap up so on my end the i think the

Biggest thing I'll be watching in the coming week is obviously the EOS elections, and it's easy to have it, but it's been a vision.

I think it is worth keeping an eye on troop movements, and specifically airlifter and refueler movements.

You can see those on flight trackers, usually a flight radar to and fro is one that I particularly enjoy using for all of our kind of like background a little source of observational stuff that we do i won't get a chance to find that kind of stuff so if you want to go track us those very current flags is a true or slow world trying to bring things for middle

East you know munitions and people and so on and so forth you can certainly do that so i'll be keeping an eye on that, and I'm sure I'll keep folks chit-list and advise on whether or not we observe any change over there.

So that's me.

And then how about yourself? What are you looking at for the coming week? One of my monitor series just permanently glued to Israeli news outlets here.

So that will certainly be a primary thing that I'm keeping track of. Second one, of course, as the midterms are on the air, I will also be covering that. I think you're taking a warfront version of it.

I think I'm taking a homefront, at least one of them, version of that.

So it's going to be quite a quite an interesting week yes then fully coverage so it goes and you know check more folks check all of us get the main channels we'll be talking about everything that happens in the e-mails veterans quite a bit so on that note we're going to say great to add you to and what you're listening to us from the podcast it offends you

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This has been Adam Maloney for the Middle East Roundtable here with Kyle Wren. We'll see you next week.