Special Bulletin: The October 7 Attacks Set Off Three Years of War. What's Next?

Hey Mike Baker here, this week marks three years since the October 7th terrorist attacks on Israel. I recently sat down with the most excellent Mike Slater for a wide-ranging conversation about the attacks, the political and military fallout, and how the past three years since those attacks have fundamentally reshaped Israel and the broader Middle East. Check out the podcast politics by faith with Mike Slater, I hope you enjoy the interview. Let's go to the great Mike Baker host of one of the top podcasts in the entire nation, the president's daily brief, Mr. Baker, how are you, sir? I have to do a well thanks, man. Great to see you again. Thank you. Glad you're here. Thank you. Let's just go back three years. Remind us of some aspects of this attack, the actual physical attack. How it happened and what did Hamas do that maybe they've never done before? How did it catch Israel so off guard? Things like that. Take us back three years. Yeah. Well, I think what they did that was most important from their perspective, right? From Hamas's perspective. And yeah, yeah, something was a big part of this. Was that they spent a lot of time prior to seven-hour talk creating this narrative that Hamas didn't really want to continue this hostilities. They didn't want this war. They just wanted a better life and could, you know, could we just all hold hands. It wasn't quite that simple, but the message they were sending for, really, for a couple of years at least, was this idea that I think it's a new day. And that lulled the Israeli government security services, I would argue, into kind of this sense that the threat isn't what it used to be. And we saw that in a way because we started to see, you know, a lot of infighting, political infighting in Israel. And typically, they're so worried about existential threats, outside threats, that they don't spend a great deal of time, you know, publicly fighting politically, right? They try to keep that tamped down to the degree possible, right? They obviously have it. But anyway, so you started to see more of this infighting, which meant they had more time to think about themselves, rather than worrying about Hamas. And that, I would say, is the number one thing that Hamas did that enabled seven-hottover. Very interesting, I've never heard that before. You would think, because of social media and everything, that, and we can see more of war than a normal person, maybe a scene before, that we'd be more horrified by war. But it's interesting. I must feel like people would become more numb to the evils of war. How brutal was what happened three years ago? It was, it was Genghis Khan. It was Vikings landing on the beach. It was horrific, right? And this video of it, but yet today, because we've all got ADHD, right, because also apparently it's okay to be somewhat anti-Semitic, you know, that's kind of spent set aside. And they don't remember what happened, right? And yes, it's terrible when civilians die and have a lot of Palestinians died since then. Yes, you know, how many would have, probably not very many, if Hamas hadn't decided to do this, that was their plan. They wanted to turn this upside down, right, because they understood what would happen. They understood how Israel would respond. They knew this was going to happen. They didn't care that their own citizens would be killed. That's why they put their command centers underneath hospitals and weapons depots underneath schools. They don't, they don't care. And we've forgotten that because of the passage of time, you know, it's like the 25 year anniversary of September 11th, we just, you know, a lot of people were like, oh, is it September 11th? How about that? Sound. Yeah. Yeah. And so I want to ask that. So Sinwar, who was the leader of Hamas, who planned this whole thing, do you think he miscalculated? Like, if he were to look back on this, would he be like, oh, thank goodness we did this? Or, oh man, really blew it. That was a bad idea. No, he was, you know, he was what he was. He knew, look, there was no misunderstanding. They've been at this game with Israel for decades. They understood what they were getting into. And the brutality with which they conducted the 7 October attacks was designed. It wasn't as, they just said, well, let's see what happens. We'll send some of our soldiers across the border and see, you know, how it goes. It was planned. It was designed. And they were actually around it. So I don't think, yeah, I would, you know, and, you know, I would, yeah, where is Shadybadi dead? I don't really hate to wish anybody dead. There are people that deserve it. He was one of them. Tremendous amount of blood on his hands as a terrorist and a leader of Hamas. So I don't think he would be surprised at where this went. I think if you had pulled all the dozen citizens, if there had been a way, there's not, of course, but there have been a way to pull them, survey them without Hamas being aware of how they cast their vote. They would have said, you crazy. That's what you're thinking about doing. You're going to go do that. And you're going to then create this conflict that's going to destroy Gaza. Absolutely not. But that's not how it works. Hamas is in control. I would argue that in the parts where Israel has an occupy, they still are in control. They refuse to disarm. And there is no international peacekeeping force. That's a bit of a farce. So yeah, I know I sound cynical, but the whole thing is a mess. Look not that, you know, not the conflict in the Middle East is always incredibly complex and layered and messy and horrific. And again, it doesn't discount the fact that it is awful that civilians have been killed in this conflict. Of course not. That is a problem. And yes, there should be transparency around the Israeli defense force and how they conduct their operations. But this old thing kicked off because Hamas wanted it to kick off. So on that point, what do you say to the people who criticize all this because it's genocide? Israel is creating genocide. They've been committing genocide all this time. What do you say to that? Yeah, we throw genocide around like we throw the term Nazi. Right? I mean, we just got it. It doesn't have any meaning anymore. They're not committing genocide. They've killed a large number of people that have destroyed a large part of Gaza in their pursuit of destroying Hamas. Is that genocide? No. Genocide is the intent to destroy an entire civilization. Right? That's not what's happening here. So they actually do make the effort to plan surgical strikes to, they actually do make the effort to war on civilians before there's an operation. They actually do, you don't do those things if you're intent on genocide. So maybe all those people who are horrified by the killing and that's not wrong, of course, they can be come up with a different term because you're misusing the definition of their word. Yeah. Sorry. Three years later now, with military responses, Lebanon and Gaza and some other places too. Of course, Iran, militarily speaking, where would, how would you assess Israel's success in response and in the moment? Yeah. Well, it's kind of a hot mess, isn't it? That's why you have me on, Mike, because I give analysis like that. Yeah. Look, the Gaza situation has almost in a sense, right? It's been because of the Iran conflict. It's been a push to the periphery and it shouldn't be. It needs to be resolved. Can it be? I don't know. We're working on this for some time, just like they've been working on issues related to Khazbullah and the Khutis and others. And so, I think Israel has stepped back. I think they've taken a breath. I think what they're doing right now, they're waiting for the upcoming elections. And they've also been kind of pressured by the US not to get involved to, you know, how we want to refrain from, you know, a major conflict at this point. So in Israel, I think, look, they significantly degraded Khazbullah. They significantly degraded Hamas. They significantly, you know, have degraded the Iranian regime leadership. But has that solved any of those problems? No, they're still there. And in the scope of things, it's all dog ears in the Middle East. I mean, it's like we think in short bites out there, things progress very slowly, but persistently. And so we'll be revisiting a lot of these issues. Not that we're not already need deep in them, but they'll be further conflict, right? Khazbullah, that situation, the Lebanese government has no control over Khazbullah, you know? So the US can talk all the wants about negotiating with the Lebanese and coming up with a new plan. But they're negotiating with the Lebanese government. The government has no control over Khazbullah. So those negotiations, you know, it's nice to have communication, it's nice to have diplomacy, but I'm not putting a lot stock at it. And the Iran conflict, that's a whole separate mess. Mike Baker, he's the host of the president's daily brief, one of the top podcasts in the Italian country. Mike, appreciate it. That was Jerry. Wasn't it Mike? That was Jerry. - What are you doing this weekend? (laughing) - Listen. - I'm gonna go drink now. - It is what it is. It's the truth, it's the reality. And that's what we call for more than anything. Mike, be the man. Next time we chat, it'll be more about sports and fun stuff. (upbeat music)