HOST: JENNIFER (00:03):

Welcome to the Israeli Trailblazers Show! I'm your host, Jennifer Weissman, and you're tuning into episode 45. No matter where you are in the world, your life is likely shaped by the innovative spirit of Israeli visionaries—pioneers who make many things you use daily -- smarter, faster, and better.  This podcast is here to reveal how Israel, a small nation, is making a positive impact globally. Get ready to be amazed and inspired!

In today’s episode, we're diving into some pressing topics in the Middle East. With so much happening—from Turkey and Jordan to Hamas and the Palestinian Authority—we’re here to explore how these dynamics affect you and what role Israel plays. Plus, we’ll take a look at what a potential Trump 2.0 administration could mean for the region.

Joining me is Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and Director of Policy Analysis at the Middle East Forum. His insights will give you a deeper understanding of these complex issues.

HOST: JENNIFER (01:20):

He was a Pentagon official. He's written a gazillion number of books, and Michael broke down how Israel's role will help facilitate some steadiness in the Middle East. And he talked in great detail about how wishful thinking over looking at the reality of the Middle East is very, very dangerous. Lastly, he talked about how Turkey could be looking to renew its Ottoman Empire era influence, and how Mach Abbas, who runs the West Bank is 88, has a very serious smoking problem and no successor. We need to understand what's happening in Israel. We need to understand what's happening in the Middle East. We need our hostages back. Dangers are looming, but the role of Israel in this Middle East is crucial. Spend the next 30 minutes and learn something with my guest, Michael Rubin. This is the strangest time in my adult life when I see what's happening with the weakening of Iran in the fall of Assad. And so my big question for you kind of starting is what do you feel the role of Israel is and why should anybody care?

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (02:37):

Well, frankly, I see Israel like Ukraine, Taiwan, and India, really being on the front line for the defense of Western civilization and the post-World War II liberal order. And when we talk about many of these vacuums of leadership and control opening up in Syria and elsewhere in the world, what the average American needs to understand is that when you have a vacuum, it's seldom the forces of altruism that fill it rather it's retrograde ideologies like the Russians or the Communist Chinese, or in the Middle East you have the Islamic State or the Islamic Republic of Iran. And therefore, I would argue that neither the United States nor Israel can simply sit on their hands and see what happens. We know that the results aren't going to be good if we act disinterested.

HOST: JENNIFER (03:46):

Do you have a concern that we didn't have an Israel, a Democratic ally in the Middle East? What would the Middle East look like to you?

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (03:54):

Well, honestly, if we didn't have an Israel Democratic ally in the Middle East, I think the Middle East would look much the same as it does now. The reason I say that is this, when we look at Israel and when we look at terrorism, it faces many academics and almost all diplomats like to interpret terrorism through the lens of grievance. And that can be comforting, because if terrorism is caused by occupation or poverty or lack of employment opportunities, then you can come up with some diplomatic magic solution, some formula and make it all go away. But the reason why I said Jennifer, that it would look much the same as it looks now, is in 1946, the intelligence office of the Department of War, which was the predecessor of our defense intelligence agency, was charged. Now that the Nazim fascism and the German, um, and the Japanese Army have been defeated determining what the greatest over-the-horizon threats to American national security would be.

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (05:02):

And they came up with two. One was communism, which was a give me given that the Cold War had just erupted with the Azerbaijan crisis. And the second was radical Islamism. Now, what they were looking at was what the Muslim Brotherhood was doing in Egypt. The core of the Muslim Brotherhood was this notion that the reason why Islam appeared to be so much weaker than, for example, the European states, was according to Muslim Brotherhood ideologues, because we, the Muslim lands have been too polluted by western liberalism. And remember the Egyptian constitution, the Egyptian laws were based on the Belgians on the French. And so the Muslim Brotherhood had started whacking the Egyptian Prime Minister, different cabinet ministers, and so forth. The point of this, however, is that 1946 was a year before the partition of Palestine and two years before the creation of the state of Israel.

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (06:04):

And therefore, it simply is false to assume that the reason why there's instability and conflict in the Middle East is because of the presence of the Jewish state itself. Frankly, I would say it's the opposite. Israel and the states, which have aligned with it most recently with the Abraham Accords, have become an anchor for stability in an otherwise chaotic region. And I go back to this notion that when you have a vacuum, it's not the forces of altruism that fill it, and therefore it behooves Israel and the moderate Arab block to try to fill that vacuum before the ideological-based terrorists can.

HOST: JENNIFER (06:46):

That's an interesting jumping-off point to talk about Turkey and the fall of Assad in Syria, and what does that do to the emerging possible addition of Saudi Arabia to the Abraham Accord, and what exactly does the role of Turkey have now in the new Middle East?

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (07:07):

Jennifer, if you wanna understand how much Turkey has changed, let me cite a statistic that comes from Turkey's interior ministry. Since Regit Erdogan came to power in Turkey more than 20 years ago, the murder rate of women inside Turkey has increased by 1400%. And then, and that number has been reported by Voice of America, it's been, it has its roots in Turkey's interior ministry. The point of this is it indicates just how much Turkey has trans, um, transformed as it's become religiously conservative. And as more religious conservatives have determined that, for example, they can perpetrate honor crimes without fear of accountability, without fear of the law, that's only a point of illustration. Now, to answer your question, before I talked about how diplomats like to see the world in terms of grievance because they can address grievance, the problem is not everything is motivated by grievance.

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (08:15):

Sometimes ideology comes into play. Eptide Erdogan, the president of Turkey, has an ideology which is, um, evolved from the Muslim Brotherhood. He has an ideology that much like Vladimir Putin sees the downfall of the Soviet Union as a great historical tragedy. Erdogan sees the fall of the Ottoman Empire as a tragedy. So this is oftentimes called Neo-Opermanism. The problem is, as Erdogan tries to export his brand of Islam for his ideological reasons, and as he tries to reconstitute in one way or another, the Ottoman Empire, he forgets that the subject peoples of the Ottoman Empire have a much different memory of what that Ottoman Empire was than the conquerors who are based in Turkey. And so this is the core of a lot of the resistance between Erdogan and Turkey, and not just Israel, but as you said, states like Saudi Arabia itself. But here's my other problem with the United States, where on one hand we remain blind to ideology.

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (09:25):

It's a no-brainer among both Democratic and Republican administrations. We stand against extremism coming in the middle from the Middle East, but too often we see that extremism just in terms of the Iranian flavor, the so-called axis of resistance, Iran, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, the problem is Turkey. I mean, extremism can come in different flavors, and Turkey is now the chief engine of this other flavor of Sunni-based extremism. Now, the enemy of our enemy isn't necessarily our friend. And so just because we want to defeat Iran's export of its ideology doesn't mean that Turkey's ideologies are any more peaceful at this point. Again, I circle back to the State Department then too often in the State Department, we want to calibrate our policy to a way a country used to be rather than the way it is now. And so what we need to do is not engage in wishful thinking and base our national security on that when we have Turkey saying that they want to use military force to end Israel to re-con Jerusalem when it's coming, not only from the head of the Parliament but from the president and the president's son.

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (10:45):

We have to assume that's right. And while some people say, Hey, the problem is only Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, this guy who's dominated Turkey for 20 years, more than 35 million Turks have gone through the education system under him. And when you have that sort of incitement, even if Erdogan goes away tomorrow, you're not gonna be able to erase that incitement. It's, I mean, simply put Turkey today for the 21st century is what Saudi Arabia was in the 20th century in terms of the spread of radicalization and the facilitation of antisemitism. So you

HOST: JENNIFER (11:20):

Feel that the movement of Turkey into Syria is about ideology and not so much about petro money and oil and connecting with Qatar and building a new, you know, a new axis of evil, if you will.

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (11:34):

I'd say the answer is yes. The way to think about Turkey, I mean, first of all, Syria doesn't have that much oil. Most of the oil it has is for domestic consumption. But what we see with Hayat ham, which many people just say HTS, this former Al QA group, which Turkey is backed and which has steamrolled through Turkey, um, through Syria, taken over the country.

HOST: JENNIFER (11:59):

I think I read that and this, correct me if I'm wrong, but the US has a $10 million bounty on his head. Is that right?

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (12:04):

The United States had a $10 million bounty on Akmal Shada, or nom de plume Abbu Muhammad, Alani, who was the head of HTS. We have removed that bounty. And again, that's the prioritization of wishful thinking over reality.

HOST: JENNIFER (12:25):

Who removed the bounty?

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN(12:26):

The US State Department. Under the Biden administration.  In December 2024, Assistant Secretary of State Barbara Leaf went to Damascus, met with him, and lifted, or at least suspended the bounty.

HOST: JENNIFER (12:39):

Intriguingly, they made that move.  Considering the timing—right when they took office—removing the Houthis from the terrorist list raises questions. What could be the underlying motivation for the Biden administration to swiftly extend an olive branch to Syria's new leadership?

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (12:59):

I honestly, Jennifer, I think it's naivete. It may be wanting to claim credit, although then they will deny responsibility when it turns bad. Because remember, a reformed Al-Qaeda group isn't a democracy. A reformed Al-Qaeda group is a group that only tortures Christians to death rather than simply beheads them. The other thing, first, about the recognition and the delisting of the head of the HTS, remember that there's gonna be about a $7 billion United Nations program to rebuild Syria after these years of civil war. And that money traditionally gets channeled through the government. So if we rush recognition of HTS as the government of Syria, we are giving them access and decision-making ability over how that $7 billion is going to be spent. So would you want to trust that they're truly reformed after just one week of rhetoric?

HOST: JENNIFER (13:56):

So what's going on there? I mean, Michael, boil this down for the average listener, why would a Biden administration, and I mean, I think you said it beautifully, that he sees the world the way he wishes to see it, and not at all how it is in reality. Who would make that kind of strategic change after overthrowing a government and only seven days later and rushing that kind of money to them? There's gotta be another reason.

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (14:21):

I disagree with their logic, but I believe the logic of Barbara Leaf, the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, would be that if we have our foot in the door, maybe we can influence people by talking to 'em. And that tends to be the underlying philosophy of most of our diplomats. "It never hurts to talk." The problem is sometimes it does. And what many of our diplomats don't realize is the legitimacy we bestow upon some of our adversaries by having discussions with them. And in this case, that comes with, as we said, access to a $7 billion pot.

HOST: JENNIFER (14:57):

Let's put a pin in that for a minute. I wanna tie this back into Israel, because we see Israel has now taken the other side of the Golan Heights, uh, and has a buffer zone. What does the Donald Trump presidency do? He comes in on January 20th, 2025, and there is a huge raging fire, a huge mess in the Middle East. Would you agree that he wants to resurrect the Abraham Accords bring Saudi in and start to stabilize the Middle East? I mean, that would be an obvious yes. 

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (15:29):

Yes. I agree with you on that. He's willing to break diplomatic China to negotiate with people that others wouldn't negotiate with, but unlike many diplomats, so we saw this, for example, with North Korea in the last administration, the last Trump administration, unlike other diplomats, however, he'll see if there's a willingness, and if there's not, he's not afraid to walk away. And that itself can be a strength that many of our diplomats have lost touch with a willingness to walk away, a willingness to say, uh, if you're not interested, fine. We're not gonna keep begging you for a willingness or recognition that for many of our adversaries, look at diplomacy as an asymmetric warfare strategy. They're more interested in gathering concessions through a process than ever really making a piece. And so I do believe that Trump is cognizant of that.

HOST: JENNIFER (16:28):

Trump comes on January 20th, what do you think his first strategic move is in the Middle East, given Hamas has our hostages, given a multi-front war, given a weak in Iran, and now the Houthis are shooting missiles into Tel Aviv and other places almost every night.

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (16:48):

First of all, we're gonna see a return of maximum pressure. It will take a little while to work. It's arrogant to believe that all strategies need to work according to the American political calendar. And what didn't make the headlines is two days after Trump beat Kamala Harris, the Biden administration unfroze $10 billion worth of Iranian assets. Now, what Trump is going to do, Trump does not, and I think we can all agree, Trump does not want American boots on the ground. He doesn't believe that the American military should take on the role of the security of European states, or for that matter, Israel. But unlike the Biden administration and previous administrations, Trump isn't going to interfere. If Israel is willing to defend itself, Trump will likely provide Israel with the means to defend itself,

HOST: JENNIFER (17:39):

Not continue to slow, walk the much-needed tanks and artillery and stuff.

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (17:45):

Israel is doing what Trump wants, which is taking responsibility for itself, itself. And so perhaps Israel will then become the model for the Trump doctrine. And that same model can apply to Poland or Taiwan, or perhaps even to Ukraine if Vladimir Putin, Trump decides, isn't negotiating in good faith.

HOST: JENNIFER (18:04):

Going back to Israel. So Trump would essentially fast-track all military equipment, all aid intelligence, and all the things that Israel would need to be successful in taking out the Houthis like they are right now. Is that what you're saying?

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (18:22):

That's what I'm saying, but I'm not simply talking about the Houthis, I'm also talking about the Iraqis and so forth. And you know what the threat of Donald Trump coming back into power is what has led the Iraqis and Prime Minister Sudani in Iraq to be restrained in all this recent chaos when we've had Houthis missiles flying when we've had Hay sha in Syria when we've had Hezbollah. You haven't heard a lot about the Iraqis launching things at Israel. There may have been one or two cases, but the Iraqi government has stayed on top of it, which is also a positive manifestation of the Trump doctrine because the Iraqi government knows that they are going to be held responsible for what happens. None of this good cop, bad cop crap, and none of this, we're not accountable for what happens within our territory - nonsense. The Iraqis get it, and that's a positive sign that perhaps Trump's no-nonsense approach mixed with his lack of predictability may actually work.

HOST: JENNIFER (19:22):

I wanna talk for a minute about Jordan because it seems like Jordan could be a concern.  With the Hashemite family ruling so many Palestinians. Is there a concern that Jordan's government could be overthrown?

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (19:36):

I certainly have a concern. I worry much more about Jordan now than I do about Israel and the ability of Jordan to survive this mess. Remember King Abdullah, the Hashemite king of Jordan, and the Hashemite just means he, he traces his descent back to the family of the Prophet Muhammad. So the king of Jordan is very, very popular outside his own country. It's sort of like Mikhail Gorbachev was in the Soviet Union, what many Americans forget though, is that popularity outside his country is not matched by popularity inside Jordan. Inside Jordan, people don't particularly like the king. He's seen as corrupt. His wife is seen as a prolate spender, and as you say, 70% of Jordan is Palestinian. Now you've got a situation where Hamas, or at least Hamas leaders seem to have been kicked out of Qatar and they've relocated to Turkey.  But Turkey may not want them to stay in Turkey because if Turkey can push them into Syria, it's sort of like Hezbollah with Iran. Again, Turkey can have plausible deniability, but at the same time escape the accountability. So if Hamas as Arabs go into Syria, they can incite not only the Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and not only the Palestinians in the West Bank but also the Palestinians in Jordan itself. And when you want to go back to October 7th, 2023, a lot of people would say:  "Oh, that date was chosen because it was a Jewish holiday, or that date was chosen because it was the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War." But there was something else going on there. Mahmoud Abbas, the chairman of the Palestinian Authority is 88 years old. He's in the 20th year of his four-year presidential term.

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (21:32):

He's a chain smoker. And unlike Yaser Arafat before him, he hasn't appointed a successor. So when we saw Hamas use this great violence, the single, um, the single daily greatest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, what Hamas was trying to do was seize leadership of the Palestinians ahead of mammo Abbas's death. Now, with Hamas coming from the other direction, they're thinking they can win the trifecta. They can win not only the Gaza Strip and the West Bank but Jordan itself. And that really is the danger that's looming. And you know what, the King's wife, when she came to Congress just about a year ago, she was all pro-Hamas. She was all populous. She was a moral coward. And the fact that she was, be, um, in Congress saying that Israel was committing quote-unquote genocide, and we needed to do more for Hamas, really kneecaps the ability of the Jordanian monarchy to ask for assistance once Hamas comes after it.

HOST: JENNIFER (22:35):

So you think if Hamas were to be successful in grabbing the West Bank (or Judea and Samaria), Syria and taking over Jordan, is that what you're saying?

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (22:47):

I'm saying they would use Syria as plausible deniability. They would use it as a base like they're using Qatar.  

HOST: JENNIFER (22:54):

Oh, I see, I see. Okay.

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (22:56)

Syria has been listed by the State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism for a reason. They were hosting all numbers of terrorist groups. Just because Bashar Al Asad is gone doesn't mean they're gonna stop. They may just change the flavor of the terrorist groups that they support.

HOST: JENNIFER (23:15):

Which is why Israel has gone in very aggressively blowing up their naval ships....

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (23:23):

Yeah, going after the chemical weapon stockpiles. Basically, the difference between Trump version 1.0 and Trump version 2.0, whether you like Trump or dislike Trump, is that Trump is gonna hit the ground running. One is because it's not gonna take so long to get his team in place. After all, they don't need to go back far for security clearances. And number two, Trump understands how the levers of power work in Washington. He doesn't need to reinvent the wheel.

HOST: JENNIFER (23:52):

And do you see that Israel under the Trump administration, Israel could be a major regional power in the Middle East? 

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (23:58):

I mean, I don't know whether it's gonna be a major regional power. I would settle just for a, um, major regional fact of life, which everyone accepts, and this goes for the future of the Palestinians as well. Look, I think it's naive to think there's gonna be a democracy around the Palestinians. I would settle for a dictatorship post-Hamas. A dictatorship may be like Egypt's dictatorship under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi that is a dictatorship, but at least one that's not dedicated to killing Jews. If we can have that as a first step, the Middle East can truly advance. People can start turning towards business towards integration, and we can put the tragedy of the last decades of needless war behind us.

HOST: JENNIFER (24:44):

Given all the headlines, what would you say in a sentence why it is imperative that Israel be strong and thrive in 2025 and beyond?

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (24:55):

Let me end this by quoting Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden said, "Everybody likes the strong horse." If you depict yourself as weak, if you're constantly begging for peace, then ultimately you're only gonna encourage more war. We've had any number of US presidents who have tried to remove the United States from the Middle East only to have to come back as things got worse. The only antidote to this is to defeat terrorism a hundred percent. To have Israeli victory, like we had victory over the United States had victory over Germany and Japan over World War II, we've gotta stop snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. And when that happens, we can rebuild a much better region, one in which people can live together. I mean, ultimately, however, if the Palestinians learn the lesson, that they're always gonna be bailed out, and that there's no accountability for their genocidal ideology, well then ultimately, we're gonna be back there for years to come.

HOST: JENNIFER (25:56):

Michael Rubin, American Enterprise Institute, thank you so much for spending your morning with me. I learned a lot, and I appreciate your time.

GUEST: MICHAEL RUBIN (26:05):

Thank you so much, Jennifer.

HOST: JENNIFER (26:08):

The threat is real, and it extends far beyond Israel and the Middle East. The tragic terrorist attack in New Orleans on New Year's Eve serves as a stark reminder: radical Islam poses a global danger. Israel often acts as the canary in the coal mine, signaling broader risks to the world.  As we look ahead, let’s hope a potential Trump 2.0 administration can bring a measure of stability to the Middle East. Regardless of your stance on Trump, the leader of the free world has a critical role in fostering a more peaceful region, which ultimately benefits us all, no matter where we live.  If you found this episode of the Israeli Trailblazers Podcast valuable, I encourage you to share it with a friend and spread the word on social media. I'm your host, Jennifer Weissmann. Until next time.