STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Now, we have a voice from Israel, where we have reached Alon Pinkas. He is a former Israeli diplomat who advised two former Israeli prime ministers and four foreign ministers. Ambassador, welcome.
ALON PINKAS: Thank you.
INSKEEP: OK.
PINKAS: Good to be with you, Steve.
INSKEEP: So I'm looking at numbers from this poll released by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the top line is that 92% of Israelis believe that Iran won the war. I'm thinking about the old joke about the impossibility of getting any Israelis to agree about anything. Ninety-two percent...
PINKAS: (Laughter).
INSKEEP: ...Have the same opinion that you lost the war?
PINKAS: (Laughter) Yeah. But they each come, I would imagine, from a different angle.
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
PINKAS: And they each have three angles to explain why they reached that unity or unison. Yeah. But that's not the only interesting number. Seventy-two-and-a-half percent of Israelis do not believe Netanyahu when he boasts about the achievements of the war. And 85%, roughly - I think it was 85%, I recall, from memory. You probably have the poll numbers ahead of - in front of you. Eighty-five percent think that no significant gains have been made. And so 92% is not that far away.
INSKEEP: Ninety-two percent feel that Israel...
PINKAS: Yep.
INSKEEP: ...Lost. Did people feel that way, though - I don't know - a month ago when the...
PINKAS: No.
INSKEEP: People felt that they'd won before the peace negotiations, is what you're telling me.
PINKAS: Well, exactly. You just nailed it in terms of the timeline. When this war began, and there was all this bravado about, you know, these monumental, heroic, glorious military achievements that both Israel and the U.S. bragged about, Israelis were certain that this is going to be a decisive victory. And the weeks went by, and it was less of a decisive victory. And then came April 4 - reminding our listeners that the war began on February 28. So by April 8, when Trump - President Trump announced a ceasefire that was then extended every two, three weeks. And there was talk and chatter, although not necessarily...
INSKEEP: OK. I think we're starting to lose the ambassador, Alon Pinkas, but let's just listen for a moment and see if he comes back. He is a former Israeli diplomat telling us about overwhelming Israeli opinion that Israel feels that they lost the war. And let's see if Ambassador Pinkas is back on a backup line. Do we have you there, sir?
PINKAS: Yeah.
INSKEEP: There we go. Excellent.
PINKAS: Yeah.
INSKEEP: OK.
PINKAS: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
INSKEEP: Please continue. You were saying.
PINKAS: I'm sorry. Someone cut. I said that when the war began, Israelis were infatuated with this - you know, with the bravado and the bragging about a decisive victory and monumental and historic. And people actually bought into the unfeasible scenarios of a regime toppling, regime collapse, pockets are uprising, so on and elimination of the missile program and complete destruction of Iran's nuclear program. Well, that hasn't happened.
And when the ceasefire talk - when the ceasefire took place on April 8, and then there was talk and chatter about a possible MOU taking shape and form - that's when those 92%, Steve, began to form. That's when people started to think that Trump wants out and the job hasn't been completed. And they can't believe Netanyahu's bragging, and they certainly don't believe Trump's bragging. And if you cut that 92% figure, a lot of people are dismayed and dejected and disappointed. And oddly enough, they don't believe Netanyahu, but they blame this on Trump.
INSKEEP: Interesting. Now, are you telling me, then, that in that 92%, there are a lot of Israelis who think, we should continue this war - we didn't get to the end?
PINKAS: Yeah, but they're also realistic. I mean, you know, people don't walk around in the streets thinking about geopolitics and grand strategy. But those who do are those who are inundated by days and weeks and months of television and radio talking heads. They understand viscerally, intuitively, that Israel can't do it alone. In fact, Israel and the U.S. could not do it combined. And that led them to think that, OK. It's a war that began with Trump calling for unconditional surrender and Netanyahu more or less guaranteeing a regime collapse. If it ends with the Strait of Hormuz closed and with an MOU that allows Iran access to billions and billions and billions of dollars, then they won the war. They upended the strategic equation. They may have lost militarily, but that doesn't matter in the grand...
INSKEEP: Yeah.
PINKAS: ...Scheme of things. It's the strategic balance of power that you said they've got (ph).
INSKEEP: Just got about 20 seconds. You've got elections coming up - legislative elections by the end of October.
PINKAS: Yep.
INSKEEP: What are the political implications...
PINKAS: All right.
INSKEEP: ...Of this in a sentence or two?
PINKAS: Oh, they are huge because Netanyahu is carrying an accumulation or accumulative burden of being responsible for the October 7, 2023, catastrophe - the Hamas attack - an impasse leading nowhere in Lebanon and now this, which is nothing short of a strategic debacle in Iran.
(CROSSTALK)
INSKEEP: Alon Pinkas, former Israeli diplomat, thanks so much.
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