Marc Lynch

I think now October 7 is a very good kind of rationalization justification of a trend that has already taken place.

No, I agree.

I think that's true.

I think there was something in terms of the permissiveness of what is happening on a scale that we had not seen.

I agree with that.

I mean, I think there's no questions October 7th intensified it.

What I've been pointing out to is that there is an implicit assumption of biblical legitimacy, even among Christians.

And it's very hard to think about this biblical legitimacy without entitlement to the West Bank.

I mean, you know, Hebron is more biblical than Haifa.

I agree with what you're saying.

I don't agree actually that Israel had worked with deterrence.

I think the Israeli strategy from day one has been to have what they call escalation dominance.

Escalation dominance is not mutual deterrence.

It is one-sided deterrence.

It is that whenever there's a fight with any party in the region,

Israel can escalate it to the next level until it has the upper hand, and it will always have the upper hand.

In my opinion, that is why Israel doesn't want Iran to have nuclear weapons, not because they fear Iran is irrational.

I think that if North Korea doesn't use them and Maoist China doesn't use them, Stalinist Russia doesn't use them, the Ayatollahs of Iran is not gonna use them.

I think the reality of it, though, is that it neutralizes their upper hand, and that increases the chance of attrition for them.

And I think the problem when you have that, in effect, you're saying you have to have strategic dominance over every conceivable party in the Arab world and the Middle East.