What have Arab leaders, Joe Biden's team really said about Israel-Hamas war? - analysis

Bob Woodward’s book War contains several revelations about American perceptions of top Israeli government officials, based on quotes from several high-level interactions throughout the war, as well as the impressions of some top Arab officials’ behind-the-scenes views of the war. Here are some key takeaways.

In the week-and-a-half after October 7, 2023, the Biden administration was convinced that Israel was ready to permanently prevent humanitarian aid to Gaza and that only a threat by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel Biden’s October 18 visit would force the Israelis to allow in aid.

And even that aid was only allowed in after Biden’s visit so that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could present it to his coalition partners, as he had been forced to do so.

Woodward quotes Netanyahu from the early days after October 7 as saying, “We’ll take them all [Palestinian civilians] into Egypt and let them go there.” Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer is similarly quoted saying, “There won’t be a humanitarian crisis in Gaza if no civilians are there. One man, [Egyptian President Abdel al] Sisi, can’t stand in the way.”

Netanyahu then said in a follow-up discussion, “The people of Israel will not tolerate giving these Nazis aid if we have not completely destroyed Hamas.”

Position of top Arab leaders

Top Arab leaders wanted Israel to kill all of Hamas’s leaders and to topple it from controlling Gaza, Woodward writes, but they were worried both about the toll on Palestinian civilians and whether Israel had the patience to do so given how deeply embedded Hamas was in Gaza, including underground.

Egypt Intelligence Chief Abbas Kamel said to Blinken in the early days of the war, “Israel shouldn’t go after them [Hamas] all at once. Sit back, wait for them to pop up, and chop their heads off.” Woodward adds, “He wasn’t joking, the Americans realized.”

Around the same time, Jordanian King Abdullah told Blinken, “We told Israel not to do this; we told Israel not to get close to Hamas [facilitating Qatar funding them until the current war]. Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas has to be defeated; we won’t say it, but we should support Hamas being defeated and Israel should defeat Hamas.”

Abdullah continued, “They should have never have been in bed with them in the first place. They should have actually dealt with the Palestinian Authority and worked with them,” according to Woodward.

The book relates similar comments made by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman to Blinken, he writes.

Comments from US officials

Top US officials, including newly disclosed comments from CENTCOM Chief Michael Erik Kurilla, believed Israel was way too crazy when it nearly launched a major strike on Hezbollah on October 11, 2023, based on erroneous intelligence that Hezbollah might invade.

Kurilla told US envoy Brett McGurk, “Hey, my J-2 says there are no paragliders... There is no sign of this. It’s a phantom,” Woodward wrote.

McGurk thought, “The Israelis always do this. They claim, ‘We got the intel! You’ll see it. You’ll see it. But like 50% of the time, the so-called intel doesn’t actually show up,’” according to Woodward.

Around the same time, according to Woodward, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said, “The sense that they were, that the emperor has no clothes, were lying naked, was so palpable and so profound. It was very raw. The one thing that was in their minds was, ‘Is our nation just existentially at risk right now?’”

Another topic discussed in the book is if the Saudis are closer to a nuclear weapon than people realize. 

In a discussion between top US officials and Bin Salman about normalization, Iranian nuclear weapons, and the US possibly helping the Saudis develop a civilian nuclear program (with concerns that the Saudis might build on that to develop a military nuclear program), MBS responded, “I don’t need uranium to make a bomb. I’ll just buy one from Pakistan,” Woodward wrote.

If not for October 7, 2023, the Saudi Ambassador was scheduled to have a public meeting to discuss normalization with Netanyahu in Tel Aviv in November 2023.

On April 10, US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General C.Q. Brown, sent a direct letter to Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Bagheri, warning him that if Iran attacked Israel, there could be massive consequences. This was one of the few times that the US and Iran communicated directly and without intermediaries, which is the usual manner.

The threat did not work, and Iran still massively attacked Israel on April 13-14 in reprisal for Israel’s killing of senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps official Mohammad Reza Zahedi in Damascus on April 1.

On the evening of the April 13-14 Iran attacks on Israel, there were still last-minute negotiations with the Saudis about whether they would open their airspace to US aircraft to shoot down Iran’s missiles at a distance from Israel.

Saudi Arabia’s defense chief warned Kurilla that MBS had not yet approved it. McGurk sent MBS an urgent message that they needed his immediate sign-off. MBS signed off, and US F-15s entered Saudi airspace to shoot down Iranian aerial threats against Israel.