DOC MARATHON: 6 Films on The Rise of Netanyahu & The Road to War | FRONTLINE

During the last week, the M East crisis boiled over again. More suicide bombings, Israeli reoccupation of Palestinian towns. Then the American president set forth his vision for peace. My vision is two states living side by side in peace and security. >> But Palestinians and Israelis have tried before. >> We are talking here about the toughest and most sensitive issues that humankind has ever dealt with. >> Can the issues ever be resolved? Will the violence ever stop? >> At the end of the day, I know Palestinians and Israelis can make peace. My heart aches because I know we were so close.

>> Tonight, Front Line examines why the dreams of peace have remained so elusive. Spring 2002. The cycle of violence between Israelis and Palestinians is spiraling out of control. Hundreds are killed on both sides. For several weeks, it is war. >> But only 9 years earlier, everything looked different. In 1993, the Oslo Peace Accords were signed on the White House lawn. Ladies and gentlemen, the time for peace has come.

Palestinians and Israelis agree it is time to put an end to decades of confrontation and conflict and strive to live in peaceful coexistence and mutual dignity and security. and achieve a lasting peace. Soon, Israel begins its withdrawal as promised. Jericho and Gaza are transferred to the Palestinians. Yaser Arafat, Israel's implacable enemy for 30 years, returns from exile to establish the Palestinian Authority. The parties had agreed that the core issues, permanent borders, settlements, Palestinian refugees, and Jerusalem would be addressed later.

In an atmosphere infused with hope, Prime Minister Rabin, his foreign minister Shimon Perez, and Chairman Arafat are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But not everyone embraces the peace process. Some Palestinians want to destroy Israel, not live side by side with it. And some Israelis mistrust Arafat and believe that all of ancient Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, should be theirs. To them, Ravine's policy of exchanging land for peace is anathema.

Then on November 4th, 1995, following a peace rally in Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Rabine is assassinated by a Jewish extremist. 2 days after the assassination, heads of state arrive from around the globe to mourn Nitsakrain. They come to pay tribute to the man who as a general had once conquered Jerusalem and the West Bank and later as a statesman had chosen the path of peace. For most Arab leaders, this is the first time they have ever set foot in Israel. You lived as a soldier. You died as a soldier for peace. And I believe it is time for all of us to come out openly and to speak our peace.

Today, my fellow citizens of the world, I ask all of you to take a good hard look at this picture. Look at the leaders from all over the Middle East and around the world who have journeyed here today for his and for peace. Let me say to the people of Israel, even in your hour of darkness, his spirit lives on. Your prime minister was a martyr for peace, but he was a victim of hate. >> Yaserafat, Rabbine's partner in peace, does not attend the funeral for security reasons and watches from his home in Gaza. It was uh very very difficult and painful for me personally.

But the most important thing >> for the Palestinians and for the Israelis and for the whole Middle East area is to return back to protect the peace of the brave which I had signed with my part in Arabian and to live together as we had decided. Shimon Perez, Rabbine's deputy and foreign minister and the chief architect of Oslo, now takes up the reigns of government. As a young man, he had been charged with preparing Israel for war and had fathered Israel's nuclear program. Now at 72, he faces the challenge of keeping the peace. >> I spent a lot of time with Shiman Bis in these days. He was um under state of grief, deep personal grief, of deep personal loss. I remember driving with him that night of the assassination to Jerusalem and he didn't speak all the way except for saying, "No, I am alone."

A month after Rabbine was killed, Perez and Arafat meet to reaffirm their commitment to the Oslo Accords. >> Israel would release a thousand Palestinian prisoners and withdraw from five major Palestinian cities. Reconciliation seems closer than ever. But within the Israeli opposition, these concessions are seen as a dangerous strategic mistake. >> I listen to politicians talking about strategy and strategy and strategy. The real choice, the profound choice is never a strategic one. It's an ethic one. There is something above strategy and this is a moral choice. It is there where peace and war begins. It is there where the life of people are being decided. You know I remember Shimon Perez a friend of mine Shimon Paris when I negotiated with him and I I get frustrated and angry. He used to tell me sib negotiating frustration for 5 years is cheaper than exchanging bullets between us for 5 minutes. He's right.

The Palestinian people rejoice. The negotiations had led to Israel's withdrawal from the major population centers of the West Bank, handing control to Arafat's authority. When we entered Janine first, I remember I said now we are in the true and real process toward having our own independent state. The feeling of the people, the way that the people received the Palestinian authority was a proof to the new era, a new situation, a new history that we were building with the Israelis. The transfer of power is peaceful.

>> The Palestinians carefully put away the Israeli flag and begin flying their own. >> You know, we have the most important thing that happened in the last 5 years. The withdrawal from Janine, Tulkarim Nablas Kalcilia Ramla Bethlehem. The withdrawal from the Church of Nativity, the place of Jesus birth, that made made me so proud and that made me hopeful. But other voices oppose any compromise with Israel. An Islamic fundamentalist organization called Hamas gained power among Palestinians by controlling the mosques and providing food and education to the poor.

Hamas were in a difficult situation. They've never believed in any kind of understanding or agreement with the Israelis. All the time they were trying to spoil everything. >> The military wing of Hamas, Iadin El Kazam, is already responsible for scores of Israeli deaths. It is dedicated to the destruction of Israel through a campaign of terror, especially suicide bombings. Yahi Aayash is its chief bomb maker and number one on Israel's most wanted list. I went to I told him aash is in Gaza please put your hand on him put him in prison he told me Mr. Paris or she called me your excellency all the time. I'm telling you that he's not in Gaza. I told him, "Look, he's in Gaza and is planning more attacks." Arafat repeated, "I'm telling you, he says, I'm sure that he's not in Gaza, but he is." And Israel takes matters into its own hands. On January 5th, 1996, Aayash receives a call on his mobile phone. It is his last.

The phone packed with explosives kills him instantly. Ayash is declared a shahed a holy martyr and a thousand others vow to follow in his footsteps. Amid this unrest, the Palestinian Authority holds its first elections as required by the Oslo Accords. An Arafat victory would endorse the peace process. Hamas calls for a boycott of the elections in protest. Arafat wins an overwhelming victory. His mandate to pursue peace is stronger than ever.

But for Hamas, peace with Israel is sacrilege. >> At a memorial for Yahi Aayash, 10 new living Shahids, suicide bombers are presented. Two weeks later, they strike. Israel is shattered by three suicide attacks, leaving 46 dead and hundreds wounded. Fear, sorrow, and anger permeate Israeli society.

Many Israelis believe that if Arafat cannot control terrorists, they should not be negotiating with him. The peace process and its principal advocate Shimon Perez come under increasing attack. >> I arrived and I saw Shimon Perez um whom I hadn't seen for 10 days about 10 years older. >> It wasn't an easy experience. They call me traitor. They call me killer or murderer. >> Loneliness is when you face hatred and when you face agitation and you know in your heart that this is unfair. But those are your people. I love you. I love you. >> The next day, another suicide bomber, this time in a Tel Aviv mall, killing 13 and wounding 157 more.

All of the dead are under 17 years old. Everything was crumbling. People killed in Tel Aviv and and Jerusalem. It was also an attempt to further stop the peace process. Arafat orders his security forces to move against the Islamic militants. They arrested Hamas leaders. Some 2,000 were arrested. 2,000 people were sitting in jail. Hamas saw it as the most intense blow to their organization.

>> This showed how well the security coordination between us and the Palestinians could work. >> They killed I think 20 of the leaders of the different groups. They have discovered their keeps. But it was too late. >> Israeli opposition to the peace process coaleses around Benjamin Netanyahu, a brilliant orator who speaks to Israel's peers. As the new leader of the conservative lood party, Netanyahu is poised to challenge Paris and his Labor party in the upcoming election. Fearing the defeat of Shimon Perez and the demise of the peace process, Egypt and the United States in an unprecedented move convene world leaders in the Sinai resort town of Sham Sheek.

The president Mubar contacted President Clinton and then he contacted Arab leaders and he thought that uh it was uh important was vital for saving the peace process to get all these people together. For the first time ever there was a creation of an anti-terror coalition with empathy towards Israel having lost people against Arabs fighting They call it the summit of peacemakers and hope it will influence the Israeli electorate to support Perez. Everybody gathered in char they wanted Paris to win the election and it is this image they hope will do it.

What do you tell Hamas tonight? >> That uh they are not only the enemy, they are doing these terrorists activities against the Israelis. It is against the Palestinians, against peace process, against the Arabs, against the whole region and it is against God. >> Charmeal shape was a beginning. The Middle East is changing. We must not, we will not let terror reverse history. >> Just 6 weeks before the elections, violence erupts along Israel's northern border. Hisbah, a radical Shiite movement based in Lebanon that shares Hamas's disdain for the peace process, fires missiles into Israeli villages and towns.

>> Hisbah created a situation in the north that was in my opinion unbearable. The state of Israel could not do nothing. A reaction was necessary. Israel launches a massive bombardment of Hezbollah bases in southern Lebanon. And then on April 18th, 1996, in a case of mistaken targeting, Israeli artillery hits a United Nations compound near the village of Kana, where civilians seek shelter from the attacks. 102 men, women, and children are killed.

and uh my full support. >> That same afternoon, Perez and Arafat are in the midst of a press conference about security coordination when a military aid brings Perez the tragic news. Please remain with your seat. I took the helicopter with Amn Shahak and we didn't speak one word. I think Shahak was very depressed because this is something he had feared. They look down at the seashore of Israel knowing that that everything would change. >> Israeli Arabs are outraged. They had been among the most fervent supporters of Perez and his Labor party, but now they turn against him.

>> We are not only Israeli citizens. The very prominent factor of us is Arab Palestinians. We cannot see this kind of massacres. We can punish we would like to punish Labor Party leaders or the leaders of this country when they are h committing uh this kind of crimes against us. The punishment comes when Israeli Arabs, 20% of the population, call for a boycott of the election. When the votes are counted, Netanyahu has defeated Perez by a mere 1/ half of 1%.

The Israeli Arab boycott made the difference. Netanyahu, Israel's youngest prime minister ever at 47, now faces a dilemma. He's obliged to implement the Oslo Accords, agreements that he and much of his Lood party oppose. you know the whole world meets in order to prevent Nata's election and then once he's in office these same people come to you and started to look look he's a pragmatic person he's not ideologically committed he's you can make peace with him give him a chance don't rush into conclusions don't and I raise my I say what I told the chairman that he is very radical I said then that I am not sure that he is recognizing the Palestinians as a people as a nation and he is focusing only on the

Palestinian as a terror issue. >> The the LUT party not to forget that they were the majority of them not all of them but a big section of them were against Oslo agreement. I thought it was important to uh lay down the ground rules so that Arafat would know exactly where I was coming from. The twothirds of the public supported Oslo at the time. The international community supported it. They really thought that Arafat meant peace. I didn't think that he meant peace. And I said I would honor it under two conditions. One that Arafat honor it. The second was that I would reduce the dangers in Oslo, reduce the withdrawals, reduce the price that Israel would have to pay. After the election, Mr. Abu Mazan was brought secretly to Tel Aviv. He came along with the um head of the security, the Palestinian security forces, Mr. Muhammad Daklan. And um the two gentlemen simply said the following. You have to help us. We don't know anybody in this new regime. Um we have to start a dialogue with them and we should start immediately.

When the negotiators meet at Arafat's compound early in 1997, the Israeli delegation is made up of fresh Netanyahu appointees from the Lakoud party. >> We walk into his living room and we sit down and I see in front of me a whole group of different PLO advisors, officials, security men all sitting around the living room. two of us are sitting on the other side. Um the PLO spokespeople say to us, "The last time we came this close to somebody from a liquid government was on the outskirts of Beirut, but these were very different circumstances." >> The first thing you know Dory Gold wanted to do that night is to change the agreement signed. Okay, >> this was the very distressing beginning we had with the Netanyahu government.

At the end of this meeting, Arafat was sure that there will be uh a real crisis with this government. >> 3 months after the election, the peace process is stalled. The American Secretary of State Warren Christopher is sent to Jerusalem to pressure Netanyahu to meet with Arafat. >> Christopher is persuasive. The next month, Arafat and Netanyahu meet at the era's border crossing between Gaza and Israel. The meeting is fraught with tension as Netanyahu sits across from the very man he'd condemned as a terrorist only a few months earlier but their handshake though largely ceremonial is still a symbol of hope.

>> Benjamin Netanyahu and I remember two things he said to President Arafat very clearly. The first thing he said we should have met a long time ago and the second thing he said we will make it Mr. Chairman we will make it together Mr. Chairman we will make peace Mr. chairman. >> The harmony is short-lived, disrupted by events in the old city of Jerusalem in an area extremely sensitive to both Muslims and Jews. Where the Alaka mosque on the Temple Mount sits above the Western Wall, Netanyahu changes the status quo. He opens an ancient tunnel that runs along the wall. This action could be seen as provocative, but Netanyahu has a different explanation.

I was actually approached by Palestinian merchants in the Vodosa who wanted me to open the uh the tunnel wall that was abuting the Vodora. about half a million tourists uh a year were going through this tunnel coming to the end touching the vio dea but instead of getting out there they had to go back make a U-turn the merchants said why don't you open the door and we could get the benefit of all this uh all this commerce all this traffic >> but Israeli security officers had foreseen trouble >> there was a discussion in the security cabinet and we expressed a determined opinion that at This time it would be wrong to open the hotel tunnel. >> We warned against the possible consequences of such an action. >> I got a telephone call and BB told me we opened the hotel tunnel.

>> I said what? Why didn't you let me know in advance? >> It was not a surprise that if Mr. Netanyahu opens the tunnel, the confrontation immediately will come as touching Jerusalem will burn everything. Radicals are quick to exploit the situation. Marwan Bargoti, one of Arafat's militia leaders, spearheads the campaign. We organized these uh demonstrations from the Berser University students and other people and I was there in it started 11:00 in the morning. When the Israelis response, they start to shoot. The soldiers were across the road shooting at the Palestinians.

Then another wave arrived and so on repeatedly. >> I saw that and said it's inconceivable to expect the Palestinian police with their Kalachnikov guns to just stand there. You're diminishing their authority. They will shoot back. This will not end well. For the first time since Oslo, the Palestinian police used their guns against the Israeli army. >> I gave an order to move our tank forces into striking positions all across the front. The violence leaves 59 Palestinians and 16 Israelis dead. Hundreds more are wounded on both sides.

Only active cooperation between Palestinian and Israeli security forces brings an end to the fighting. part of Palestinian leadership and Palestinian officials think that everything be achieved only by negotiations without the pressure. I don't agree with that. I don't think that they really understand the situation. They don't. For your liberty, for your freedom, for your independence, you should always fight and sacrifice. In an attempt to prevent further violence and restart negotiations, Arafat and Netanyahu are summoned to Washington by President Clinton. What I was always concerned about in a case like this where you have a a cycle that takes on a life of its own, you have to find a way to give people a reason to take a step back, to pause, to think so that things don't continue to spiral out of control. That's what was happening then. So that's why we basically came up with the thought that we would bring them here.

Clinton also asks King Hussein of Jordan to join the talks. >> Netanyahu when he came did not agree to anything other than a negotiating process. >> I'm a man of peace. I'm not a man of false peace. I'm not a man of suicidal peace that would say, "All right, we sign any peace agreement, any piece of paper in order to say that we made peace." But at the same time, Arafat will continue the terror and continue telling his people to uh that the goal is to destroy Israel. It was so tense atmosphere. King Hussein delivers a speech very very critical of Netanyahu. He told him, I remember that line still. I hope that you will grow up to the wisdom and courage of Rabbin. >> But by the end of the summit, it seems like Clinton's chemistry has worked. Netanyahu and Arafat agree to resume talks on further implementation of Oslo. After 4 months of difficult negotiations, Israel agrees to withdraw from Hebrron, leaving behind only a small enclave of Jewish settlers.

Now, Arafat will control all the major cities of the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinians cheer. But Jewish settlers tear their garments in a ritualistic gesture of mourning. They feel Netanyahu has betrayed them by relinquishing Hebrron. He was difficult to do because it's part of my homeland. It's part of the place where my ancestors, the prophets and the kings of Israel and so many generations of Jews had had walked on and had dreamed of coming back to. But this was an agreement that had been uh ratified by Paris and I was going to carry it out but with one major idea. The idea was essentially to trade the Arab part of Hebrron for the rest of Judea and Samaria or

almost the rest of it. Although Jewish settlements were not mentioned specifically in Oslo, Rabbine had promised no additional ones would be built. But on March 18th, 1997, Netanyahu allows construction to begin for a new settlement on a contested hill near Jerusalem. >> Our commitment to unified Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty is not uh just from uh just a cosmetic commitment. It's not just a verbal commitment. uh and I uh I made it very clear that I would do it that I was willing to face the music and the music came. settlements to Palestinians is equivalent to bus exploding in Tel Aviv to Israelis.

That's the ultimate threat. It's land. It's future. It's people who want to settlements are put there to stop us from having our future, independent state, freedom. >> Tensions remain high throughout the area. In Tel Aviv, a suicide bomber explodes himself in a packed cafe on a busy Friday morning. 4 months later, two suicide attacks rip through Jerusalem's main market within 10 minutes of each other. 16 are killed, hundreds wounded. In response, Israel limits access in and out of Palestinian territories and enforces a strict curfew. Life in the territories becomes more and more difficult. To try to contain the growing crisis, the new American Secretary of State, Maline Albbright, is dispatched to the area.

I >> feel that it's important to try to make this place safer for the people who live here, but I'd like to do anything I can to >> with Arafat. It took a while for me to get so that we could actually have good conversations. He had talked on the telephone um shortly after I became Secretary of State and um he would be so emotional that I had to hold the phone away from my ear because he would just get so bad. And then finally we developed a way that we could actually uh talk with each other. The next day I went to a school for Palestinian students and it was I think of the various meetings as secretary that I had one of the hardest because the Palestinian students were very clear in the way they asked the questions saying we don't understand what our future is and I didn't have very good answers for them. initial pal.

>> The truth is that that meeting really stuck in my head and made me realize that I needed to learn a lot more about the Palestinians needs. >> In September, three more suicide bombers strike at the heart of Jerusalem. Five Israelis are killed and over 200 wounded, many of them teenagers. Netanyahu declares that no more land will be handed over to the Palestinians as long as terror continues. >> Netanyahu knows that the force behind the suicide bombers is Hamas. He orders the head of the Israeli Mossad, Danny Yo, to eliminate a top Hamas officer who lives in Aman, Jordan. On September 25th, two Mossad agents disguised as Canadian tourists arrive in Aman. Their mission to inject Khaled Mashal with a chemical that will cause a fatal heart attack.

I was on my way to the office when two Mossad agents assaulted me from the back. One of them had a sophisticated device which discharged poison. The poison entered my skin and the substance reached my brain and within two hours I started to feel the effects. But the Israeli plan goes ary. The MSAD agents are discovered and arrested by Jordanian authorities. Khaled Mashal is rushed to a hospital. The affair is a major embarrassment for Netanyahu and threatens relations between Israel and Jordan. I must say that uh my uh my memories of this are somewhat kafka-esque because uh the first thing I when I learned about the failure, I wanted first of all to inform King Hussein.

>> The palace was enraged. The king expressed his opinion to me and he said, "It's like inviting a guest to my house and I find out that the guest has raped my daughter. To plate King Hussein, Netanyahu tries to save Mashall's life. >> I sent Dany to the head of Mossad. As he was about to leave, I said, "Danny, I think you forgot something." He said, "What?" I said, "Well, the antidote to the poison." >> By noon, the head of the Israeli Mossad himself is on his way to save the life of a man he sought to kill only 2 hours earlier. Jordan also demands the release of Shik Ahmed Yasin, the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas after 9 years in an Israeli prison. It's a triumph for the extremists. Allahbarb continuing to assert Israeli control

over Jerusalem, Netanyahu allows Jewish settlers to buy and occupy houses within in Arab sections of the city once again changing the status quo. Palestinians demonstrating against Jewish settlers are joined by groups of Israelis who oppose Netanyahu's policies. >> We hope that Mr. Netanyahu would realize that he's really pushing Palestinians and Israelis towards the cycle of violence and counter violence. Early in 1998, Ehood Barack, the leader of Israel's Labor Party, begins to challenge Netanyahu's leadership.

>> I use the metaphor of the Titanic. I said we are, it's clear to me that we are heading into an iceberg and I demanded from Netanyahu's government ministers to open their eyes. They will immediately see the iceberg. If we won't try seriously to solve it, at certain point it will explode and we will be torn from within since at least part of our own society will believe and say that their own government is responsible. October 1998, in yet another attempt to revive the peace process, the Americans call a summit meeting at the Y plantation in Maryland. >> We wanted to work on how to transfer this percentage of land from the Israelis to the Palestinians and work on some of the issues of security that the Israelis had.

Ladies and gentlemen of the pool. Ladies and gentlemen of the pool, if we could please cut out. Prior to the summit, Israeli and Palestinian security officials had held preliminary talks on several issues, including how to cooperate to fight terrorism, collect illegal weapons, and prevent the financing of terrorist cells. The relationship between some on the Israeli side and some on the Palestinian side, especially the security people, was an extraordinary relationship. They got along very well. I mean, I often used to say the security people could talk to each other in a way that nobody else talked to each other. And it was true.

The security agreement is presented to the leadership for final approval, but Netanyahu reopens the package. >> I'm a very tough negotiator and I come in with a specific purpose. My goal was to have a very measured agreement that all the time forces Arafat to pay for what he gets. The reciprocity list of 10 major commitments I think it was was flushed out in very great detail. Security, the the work plan on security, the uh people to be jailed in what order in what sequence, how it would be monitored, the collection of weapons, the sessation of propaganda against Israel and the creation of a monitoring committee which would include uh tripartite Israeli, American and Palestinians and so on. We put real meat on this place. >> Netanyahu also insists that provisions in the PLO charter which call for the destruction of Israel be rescended. >> An active participant at the talks is Ariel Chiron. An ardent opponent of Oslo. Chiron was appointed foreign minister and a delegate to the Y meetings only one day before the talks began.

Chiron was kind of watching over whether Netanyahu would move forward on something or not. >> One of the things that President Clinton tried to do was to get the parties together in various ways. Chiron came to one of these dinners and he would not shake hands with Arafat. Arafod um wanted to and Chiron did not shake hands with him. The trust that had developed between the security officials does not carry over to the politicians. >> We did not get clear answers from Arafat about his willingness to do his part, especially regarding the elimination of terror, arresting terrorists and dismantling their infrastructure, collecting the weapons, and stopping the incitement. We did not get answers. >> What are you giving us? Netanyahu is unwilling to compromise on security. 6 days into the meeting, he orders his delegation to pack its bags.

>> I went back to President Harat and I told him that they leaving. And President Har said, "I knew it. He doesn't want peace. He doesn't want any agreement. He doesn't want anything." >> All the suitcases were set out outside. We heard that they had asked to get the cars and helicopters ready to leave. >> Secretary said to me, "What do you know what do you think we should do?" I said, "Order the plane for them." It's a game. I said, "If someone is serious about leaving, they don't go through the show of putting their luggage out." No, I it was it was uh clear and obvious that it they want to to squeeze me and to squeeze the Palestinian delegation. But it hyper passed and we came back to the negotiations. >> To no one's surprise, it takes little persuasion by the Americans to get the Israelis to unpack their bags.

It is also Netanyahu's 49th birthday. Flowers are delivered for Marafhat who follows up with a personal phone call. >> Hello Uh Mr. Chairman, you're very kind. >> Thank you. A personal basis, it's very very much appreciated. I think if we work together, we could do more than than with the intermediaries. But uh whatever happens, Mr. Chairman, I very much appreciate this gesture and I shall remember it. Thank you. Bye-bye.

The next day, President Clinton thrusts his full weight behind the negotiations. After a marathon 21-hour session, the sides agree to what becomes known as the Y Accords. It really did show what can happen when a president with the kind of knowledge that Bill Clinton had on this issue and a understanding of both sides and his ability to listen and then to kind of take the issues out of the box and rearrange them that that there is a role for an American president uh who to bring the parties together. Then when everything seems to be going well, Netanyahu demands the release of American-born Israeli spy Jonathan Pard. Securing his release would help Netanyahu with his rightwing back home. >> At 4:30 or 5:30 in the morning, as we were concluding, I hear voices and then I see that there was, you know, fingerpointing between President Clinton and Netanyahu.

everything was more or less finished, ready to uh be concluded and signed. And uh I had met the president. And I said, "Well, um what about uh uh Pard, when will he be released?" And he explained that uh he could not uh carry out his promise because he had a threat of mass resignations in his defense establishment. The two of them had a very different impression of their conversation. I mean, I recall talking to Danny Ne and Yikk Moho afterwards when I went down to see them when we were stuck in the morning and I said, "Look, one thing is clear. You can't hold up the whole agreement on Pard. It won't be understandable. It won't be understandable in this country because no one will see the relationship. And even in Israel, you will be sacrificing an agreement that is heavily focused on Israeli security for the sake of pollard. It's not tenable. You can't do it.

And what they said to me was it's BB's in a very difficult political position because he was counting on this to be able to sell the agreement. >> Netanyahu in the end made a very important decision after a lot of difficulty. Um, he really I think we all felt a sense of admiration for him when we arrived at the White House for the signing ceremony. This agreement is designed to rebuild trust and renew hope for peace between the parties. Now, both sides must build on that hope, carry out their commitments, begin the difficult but urgent journey toward a permanent settlement. It was very important. No doubt. Not and they were together there. >> In the end, both of us accepted the agreement.

The Y agreement allows for the construction of an international airport for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. It opens on November 24th, 1998. Israel agrees to pull back its forces from an additional 13% of the West Bank. But only about half of this would be done. Israel also agrees to release 750 Palestinian prisoners without blood on their hands, but only 250 would be released. >> The Palestinian Authority agrees to combat terrorist organizations, to arrest those involved in terrorist activities, and to collect all illegal weapons and explosives. But in fact, little or none of this would be done. 7 weeks after the Y meetings, in an extraordinary gesture, President Clinton comes to Gaza to lend his prestige to the implementation of portions of the agreement.

It is seen as a state visit, affording Arafat and the Palestinian Authority de facto national recognition. In Clinton's presence, the Palestinian National Council takes a historic step. They vote to rescend the clause in the PLO charter that calls for the destruction of the state of Israel. It was a stunning moment. They raised their hands and they stood up still holding up their hands just to be sure that no one everyone could see that their hands were raised. And threearters of that audience responded.

And this sort of brought into focus this incredible sense that here is the beginning of genuine reconciliation. Here is the beginning of those who've rejected the very idea of peace understanding this is over. It's passed. But it is not to be. The very extremists Arafat is supposed to control stage violent protests against the recognition of Israel. And in Israel, the very people that had brought Netanyahu into power see the handover of more territory as an act of betrayal and begin to work for his downfall. On January 4th, 1999, the Knesset convenes in an extraordinary session to decide the future of the government. Netanyahu has a hard time making his case.

Over twothirds of the members of the Knesset from all across the political spectrum rebuke Netanyahu and called for new elections. Opposing Netanyahu is Labour Party head Barack, a former chief of staff, Israel's most decorated military hero, and a disciple of the late Itsak Rabbin. He runs on a platform of peace and reconciliation with the Palestinians. Me neitory.

On May 17th, 1999, Ahud Barak wins a landslide victory, becoming Israel's 14th prime minister. Heat. Kadashi David Shafadash.

I felt great and at the same time very moving since it was clear to me that I'm about to continue the uh legacy of forin that had been cut at this very place a very short time ago. It was clear to me that we have a major interest in trying to disengage ourselves, to separate oursel from the Palestinians, to have two states for two nations. And it was clear to me that without taking active steps, it will erupt. You cannot stretch this reigning of in their people for another generation. That night that just went through the screen of 1996 till 1999, Netanyahu's years, Chiron's years, Mona years, and we're getting rid of this. In a deeply symbolic act, Barack pays his first official visit to Egypt. the most powerful Arab state and one that has been at peace with Israel for over two decades.

Iraq also wants to enlist Egypt's help in advancing the peace process. He said that he's determined to work for peace and that he had the support of the people and he uh although he was uh not quite confident of the intentions of the Palestinian Authority and Chairman Arafat but we told him that we would be with him on the peace process would help with mediate. >> Good morning. I uh welcome Prime Minister Gab Barak as a friend. I know him before. I had great hope since the prime minister took office and we are looking forward but we have to give him some time to make the reshaping of the situation to come to the uh very practical situation. I wish you uh good health and wish you good progress in the peace process which all the people are waiting for that. Thank you.

>> While his mandate is strong, Barra wants to push for a permanent agreement quickly skipping the interim redeployments called for in the Y cords. He envisions a two-state solution that will finally put an end to the conflict. On July 11th, he flies to the Arez Crossing on the Israel Gaza border for his first official meeting with the Palestinian leadership. I remember Barack said great leaders will make tough decisions, courageous decisions. It's we who will make these decisions for your generations and my generations. The Palestinians expect to obtain a commitment from Barack to immediately implement the long delayed third redeployment.

>> And then Barack jumped to say we don't need to waste our times and little issues. We don't need to concentrate on the third phase of the further redeployment. We should go at it to get the whole thing done. And at that moment of history, the third phase of the federal redeployment constituted the most cardinal point in Palestinian politics and Palestinian thinking and Palestinian relations with the Israelis. President Arafad was so much touched negatively by Barak that first meeting >> I told him let us suggest an alternative there is nothing to win by stretching the conflict for another generation we will have to bury our they will have to bury their dead and we will end up with the same topography, the same demography, the same problems on the table and an open way toward Kosovo, Belfast type situation which we don't need.

Okay, >> Gilad Sher is Israel's new principal negotiator. It's now his turn to work with Saab Ericott, who has headed the Palestinian delegation since the process began. Sher represents the fourth Israeli administration Arakott has had to deal with. >> Our first meeting was a meeting of setting our minds together to the possibility of concluding peace agreements with our neighbors. >> I sense a level of trust developed developing between us and I hope that this trust will go to the level of Mr. Barak and President Harat. When you talk eye to eye with your interlocular, with your counterpart and when he knows after a couple of times that even the uh most difficult things that you have to tell him is done with uh sincerity, you never lie to him. Then you gain his confidence and knows that.

I hope that one day, very soon, within a year, we can have a Palestinian state next to Israel. And and this is not a dream now. It's it's a fact. I hope that once I get to this point here, cuz that's what the separate separating line of 987. I hope that I'll go visit my Israeli friends and present my passport at this entrance here going from East Jerusalem to West Jerusalem. After 5 weeks of negotiations, they've agreed on a framework and timetable for the final peace agreement. The Palestinian and Israeli delegations assemble in Egypt at Charmeal Shake to celebrate the fruits of Ericat and Sher's efforts. It's the first time you could have felt the hope in the uh in the air in Jolieville. this this hotel in Shamshek. It seems the peace process is back on track.

As a confidence building measure, Israel agrees to release 350 security prisoners in two phases. The Palestinians for their part agree to enforce the existing security understandings. Then suddenly the very next day three suicide bombers strike in Hifa and Tiberia. Miraculously only the bombers themselves are killed. Despite the terror attacks, Barack releases 199 Palestinian prisoners as planned. the President of the United States accompanied by the Prime Minister of Israel and the Foreign Minister of Syria.

We got to try. >> Barack now shifts his attention away from the Palestinians to Syria, Israel's longtime enemy to the north. >> Good morning. For the first time in history, there is a chance of a comprehensive peace between Israel and Syria and indeed all its neighbors. We'll do everything we possibly can to help the parties succeed for a comprehensive peace in the Middle East. is vital not only to the region, it is also vital to the world. But after two months of effort, the talks between Israel and Syria break down. All the while, Arafat has been suspicious of Barack's overtures to the Syrians, concerned that a deal with Syria will ease the pressure on Barack to compromise with the Palestinians. any agreement with any Arab countries will not stop us.

But uh he he used it to lose time. We're looking around us asking who are our counterparts in the Israeli side for the interim negotiations and for the permanent service negotiations. land and the settlements still expanding under Barack become the main issues when negotiations resume. What will happen to the 180,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza? How much land will the Israelis seed to the Palestinians? How much land will they want to keep? >> The settlement policies continued. We were supposed to start talking about the future of the land and our counterpart the Israeli was determining unilaterally through the confiscation of land the future of this land. >> Israeli negotiator Odran asks Barack to present the Palestinians with a map to show how they propose to divide the West Bank.

He agreed and um I was authorized to show the Palestinians a scheme. It wasn't a map. It was just a general outline. >> The Palestinians had constantly been saying, "We need to see a map. We need to see a map." Oded had not been allowed to show a map by Barack. He was allowed to show a drawing basically. And what happened here was the what the Palestinians saw was a an approach that basically would have in their mind carved up the West Bank. >> Cutting West Bank into three. Even inside each one of these small cantonons there will be holes of settlements. So if this is if this situation they know that we will not accept it. We will not accept it at all.

>> They were enraged. Uh they were really really angry. Uh and one of them opened a barrage of almost 10 minutes of of cursing and and and in Arabic and in English in Hebrew. And the Palestinians walked away from the room. And I went to them and I said, "You want to be angry with him? It's fine. You don't like what he presented, it's fine. But you don't walk out on me. You walked out on me. You want me to be here for negotiations, you stay in the negotiations." >> Said, "Why? Why did you leave?" I was going to ask him questions about it. Told him, "Okay, you can ask him question bilaterally, but not in front of us." And what kind of question? He said, "One question I wanted to ask is why the Israeli area here is so big? Why it's not smaller?"

Thank you very much for this question. Keep this question for yourself. Uh I will not accept this question even to be asked in my presence. Meanwhile, a secret negotiation in Stockholm deals with another contentious issue, the Palestinian refugees. 3 million displaced people who demand the right to return, a number equaling roughly half the population of Israel. Their return would alter the nature of the Jewish state. >> We felt that we were making progress. We were in the managing to turn the highly uh emotional and uh historically awesome uh problem into a mechanism. We were differing about numbers. We say that is we Israel will be ready to absorb a minimal number in fact symbolic number of refugees but only within a scheme of uh family reunification humanitarian purposes.

I know how difficult it is for them but they should know how it is difficult for us. We cannot go for any agreement supported by half of our people or less than half of our people. Any agreement should be supported from the majority of the Palestinian people. And without solving the refugee problem, there would be no agreement. >> The refugee problem would continue to haunt the negotiations. Meanwhile, Barack moves to fulfill a campaign promise and end Israel's 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon. He had hoped to do it as part of an agreement with Syria, but now he decides to act unilaterally. Under cover of darkness, Israeli forces withdraw.

Hisbalah, the Shiite Muslim fundamentalist militia that had been fighting the Israeli army in Lebanon for years, sees Israel's flight as a massive victory. A few ill-armed guerillas have made the mighty Israeli army retreat. Many Palestinians now believe they too can achieve their aims by fighting rather than negotiating. >> The minute the Palestinian people see your soldiers running away and allowing the Lebanese to liberate themselves, they ask, "Why don't we do it their way?" Abah came to see me. They said, "Listen, with us, the Israeli negotiated the deal. Four years we gave them security, killed Palestinians in cooperation with them for Israeli security and virtually got nothing except a postponed redeployment in terms of land.

Balah killed Israeli soldiers and now they're measuring the force of June 67 line." He says, "The message to every Palestinian will be clear. kill and get the land. >> We were very worried that violence would come and we wanted to avoid it and maybe by going into the permanent status issues we were going to be able to um to do that. >> Rafat said I want them to deliver things to me. don't talk about resolving everything. So, we focused on trying to create a package of things that would allow us to address Arafat's concerns on the one hand and pave the way to a summit on the other. >> At home, Barack faces intense political pressure. He is under fire for his lack of success with Syria, for his withdrawal from Lebanon, and for being ineffectual with the Palestinians.

He urges President Clinton to hold a summit to resolve everything once and for all. >> Barra's strategy before Camp David was either there will be an agreement that will bring peace and the end of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians or it will be a failure that will lead to violent confrontation. I remember I asked him, "What if there's only some progress but we don't have an agreement? Audac held a pencil in his hand. He told me, "Gatti, do you see this pencil? It stands because I'm holding it. Either we'll find a way to anchor it because there's a peace agreement." Or if not, I take off my hand and the pencil falls. On July 10th, 2000, the leaders head off to a hastily prepared summit at Camp David.

I am now leaving for Camp David to join Prime Minister Barack and Chairman Arafat in their effort to reach agreement on the core issues that have divided Israelis and Palestinians for half a century now. The two leaders face profound and wrenching questions and there can be no success without principled compromise. Both leaders feel the weight of history. But both, I believe, recognize this is a moment in history which they can seize. The road to peace, as always, is a two-way street. Camp David broke open the the the nut that had never been opened before. The final status issues, Jerusalem, statehood boundaries security refugees, those issues had never been discussed at senior levels between Israelis and Palestinians. And suddenly there are sitting there out there on the table.

>> Early in the negotiations, Israeli Foreign Minister Schlommo Ben Aami presents a map showing Israel's opening position. They want 11% of the West Bank which is the same figure I heard on June 25th in San. It was a shock and a big surprise to see the same map in Camp David. In Camp David the leaders is there, President Arafat, Prime Minister Barack, President Clinton is there and to bring the same maps. Abu Allah didn't like what he saw, but he didn't want to talk about it. And so he got pretty angry. Uh and then President Clinton got quite angry at him. >> He told him, "Listen, this is not the general assembly. I I I didn't come here to to waste my time. Let us be pragmatic. Let us put ideas on the table. Do you accept the concept of of uh of border modifications?" You do not have to uh to accept the map that Mr.

Benamy put on the table. come with an alternative map, negotiate, work on the on the subject, don't give speeches. President Clinton at that room, he was a mediator or a facilitator and therefore the mediator or the facilitator to show any support to one side against the other is not fair. To break the impass, Clinton suggests a land swap since Israel wants to keep part of the West Bank for settlers. Arafod accepts border modification in principle but wants other usable land in exchange. I accept but to make swap in the value and in the area not only to give me desert. Barack said, "I'm ready to explore these ideas subject to Arafut's similar acceptance."

>> Prime Minister Barack was a man with great vision, but also a man who played things very close to his vest. We did not know going into Camp David where Barack's bottom line was. >> After listening to both sides, Clinton proposes a compromise. Israel would return almost all of the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians. They would swap small parcels of land important to each other and they would agree to share control of Jerusalem. Barack uses Clinton's proposal as a starting point and suggests several changes. Arafat never replies. Barack then refuses to negotiate with him directly. Arafat had asked in front of me three or four times, where is the other guy? One of these dinners, he shook hands with Arafat in a very uh uh I would say it bluntly unpolite way. And when we sat at the table, he put his hands over his face and he took his hands away from his face only uh to eat.

>> We are talking here about the toughest and most sensitive issues that humankind has ever dealt with. It's not only nationalism, statood, refugeeism, colonization or settlements as it were, holiness sanctity religion Islam versus Judaism. And what holiness? Jerusalem. And not only Jerusalem, Temple Mount. Is anybody going to change his positions because of personal relations? 9 days into the summit, President Clinton has to leave for a meeting in Okinawa. And Barack, having heard nothing more from Arafat, tells his people to prepare to leave. Delegates on both sides are distraught. They fear that the collapse of the Camp David talks will lead inevitably to war.

Some team members thought we hadn't explored all the options for continuing the dialogue and that we're about to return to the people of Israel with a negative result when we can't honestly claim to have tried everything. It was a very strong sentiment that we should stay and continue the effort. And the dramatic efforts of Clinton going back and forth between Barak and Arafat around midnight of that evening eventually led to the fact that uh they reached some kind of understanding. They allowed us to stay in Camp David. >> By that time we were all very hungry. Yeah. >> So all of us walked down to have a late night dinner. When we got there, the Palestinian team was already there and those on our side and those on the Palestinian side that felt uh that felt that we should have stayed practically hugged each other. It was a very emotional moment.

But in Israel, antiarack protests boil over as news from Camp David hits the street. A quarter of a million people gather at Rabbine Square in Tel Aviv, the largest right-wing demonstration in the history of Israel. And in the West Bank and Gaza, unrest grows among Palestinians as news spreads that land compromises are being considered. When Clinton returns to Camp David, Jerusalem is again put on the table. Immediately, there is a problem. Arafat argues that the Jews have no claim at all to the area of the Temple Mount. They had excavated everywhere and no one single stone from the temple had been found. Only some stones of Heridos temple. This is not something that we've invented uh in light of the negotiations or or put as an sort of an argument in front of um in front of our friends the Palestinians. This is a fact today that there is no such a thing as a temple mount in existence today.

There is a mosque. This is the most ancient, holiest place that we have in our history. And uh we do not reject the Palestinians management administration religious custodianship over the mosques and over the esplanad. But we do think that our proposal to have a shared sovereignty to have a spiritual sovereignty to have sovereignty by God to have uh anything that is that is together. We're dealing with realities. There is no such thing called sovereignty over history. History is in our books, our memories. Okay? On the last night of the talks, Clinton offers a new bridging proposal that covers all the issues, including the main stumbling block, East Jerusalem.

But Arafat refuses any compromise over the Temple Mount. That last night Saab Schlommo Benami the president and I sat for two and a half hours and you know we tried coming up with every conceivable approach. Saab to his credit was quite honest. I told him this is not this not going to this is not going to fly. He said Sab I'm not negotiating with you. I'm asking you to carry a message to your leader and to come back with an answer. And I replied him in details about what uh can be done from our side which will be accepted by the Arab nation and by the Christians and by the Muslims. Arafat said clearly well look do you want to attend my funeral? This he said to Clinton, "You want me to be a traitor, are you serious?"

>> The problem with our fight David, whatever criticisms I have of Barack, Barack in the end was prepared to confront history and mythology, and you can't ask more of a leader than that. He was, Arafat was prepared to confront neither history northern mythology. And he created a new mythology by saying the temple doesn't exist there. It was the only new idea he raised in 15 days at Camp David. >> Arafat basically, for whatever reason, walked away from what is one of the best deals he could ever have. And it always brings back to mind the Aba Iban statement is that the Palestinians never lose an opportunity to lose an opportunity. >> Arafat sees major problems. He's concerned with limits on sovereignty for the new Palestinian entity. There are some points which which can if you are in my place you will not accept it. I will give you the control the control of the airspace.

What's the meaning there? And also they are insisting to have big military bases uh with all armaments in Jordan Valley under their control. What's the meaning of that? And also the borders between us and the Egyptians. Who can accept that? is David. Fore Arafat returned. to a hero's welcome. In the streets, calls for an uprising, a new inifat are heavy in the air.

official demise of the talks. Arafat and Barack approve a new series of secret meetings between the negotiators. Today will be our 34th secret meetings. you're the only one uh who managed to get us uh tape and I believe we this fragile peace process is the only vehicle to bring about to earth. The Israelis need an end of conflict from us. They need an end of claims from us. They cannot have an agreement without the these two elements. These are the two cards in our hands. Since David, we are trying to uh bridge uh whichever gaps are still existent in uh the different issues on the core matters between us. >> There is a lack of confidence between the two leaders. Lack of trust, but I don't think that either of them object to meet the other.

It's really possible. At this meeting, they agree that Arafat will visit Barack at the Prime Minister's private residence the next day. There was a meeting on the 25th of September. Barak was there. He was the host. His wife was there. Nava. And comes Arafat with all the Palestinian leadership. Abu Allah and Abil Shad Abu Mazim Aricad all of them there. >> We had the most congenial friendly meeting between Palestinians and Israel. You can ever imagine with Barak and Arafat behaving like two lovers. Barak and Arafat went on Gaj and sat together with no notetakers, with no no one else present except for the two of them.

And in the middle of this delightful meeting and delightful dinner, they speak on the telephone with Clinton. And Barack says to Clinton, I'm going to be the partner of this man in a way better than than Rabin did it. They've kind of blessed us as negotiators. Go with Allah and make the agreement. Make it possible. Do it and we'll come and sign. At the end of the evening, Arafat makes a request of Barack that Ariel Chiron, the head of Israel's right-wing party, be denied permission to visit the Temple Mount as he'd planned. >> I told him that this visit will make a big story, not only with us, with all the Muslims all over the world.

He didn't listen to me. Barack cannot prevent Chiron's visit to the Temple Mount. >> He coordinates with the Palestinian Authority who agree to try to keep peace in the area. >> I came here with a message of peace. I believe that we can live together with the Palestinians. I came here to the holiest place of the Jewish people in order to see what happens here and really to have the feeling that how will to move forward. Mr. Shaon is a provocator. He and all the people who joined him, he came here in order to burn up the area.

Well, I landed that morning in Israel from New York. The chief of police in Jerusalem was hit by a stone in his head and he was taken to the hospital. his second in command ordered his people to confront the mob. The next day, Friday, the Muslim day of prayer, the Alexa inifat is born. By day's end, seven protesters are dead and 160 wounded. Arafat decided to turn back to violence after King David. This event on the mount temple mount especially the second day fell into his hands as a ripe kind of fruit becoming a very kind of natural excuse for him.

You know that we are now in this century the only people who are under occupation who can accept this. Arafat has a very hard time seeing himself actually as the president of a country that in his own head he is always the liberation fighter. Arafat for whatever his reasons has not really taken the steps to condition the people for peace. The riot spread quickly throughout the West Bank and Gaza. >> This footage of 12-year-old Muhammad Aldura shocks the world and comes to symbolize the inifado. Nothing. Our people saw these pictures in the TV, saw the picture of Muhammad Dura directly killed.

We decided to demonstrate. Riots engulf the Israeli Arab community as well. >> The reaction of the Israeli police was unprecedented. They shot 13 of us and killed them. >> After a week, 50 Palestinians and five Israelis are dead. October 12th, 2000. Two Israeli reserveists accidentally stray into Palestinian territory and are arrested by the police. Soon they are lynched by a Palestinian mob. Israel blames the Palestinian Authority for the murders and within hours attack helicopters destroy the police station.

Israel also launches massive attacks on other targets in Gaza and the West Bank. >> What is your response? >> My response is our people is continuing their road to Jerusalem, the capital of our independent Palestinian state. >> To accept or not to accept, let him go to to hell. Each new day reaps its crop of victims. Oslo has never seemed more remote. In Israel, Barack's policies are blamed for the rapidly deteriorating situation. The political pressure on Ahoud Barack mounts. Even among his staunchest supporters, many now distrust Palestinian intentions.

On December 9th, Barack announces his resignation. This will give him a window of 60 days to try and regain support before standing for reelection. But the violence has made his pro-negotiation stance difficult to defend. His people blame the Palestinians. >> You've destroyed the peace camp in Israel. That's unfair. Torn it apart with these four months of violence. It's 4 months now. >> Yeah. But we've been crying for the last month. What do you think we can do? >> We have stopped it a week. A week after it started, two weeks after it started, one month after it started, >> a Greek tragedy. >> Yes. >> You know, but you're one of >> It's a chapter. It's a chapter. Barack now is a new chapter in a Greek tragedy. >> And you're playing the principal role in it. >> Oh. Oh, yes. >> Oh, do we have a a sheet list of mistakes? You want to do it? >> No, but that's the main one.

>> Basically, the main one. Lood leader Ariel Chiron, a hardline former general, is running on a platform of security and is far ahead in the polls. Barrac's only hope is to conclude a deal with the Palestinians quickly. Then he might win the election. He still believes the Israeli people want peace. >> In a desperate attempt to reach agreement before the election, the negotiators meet in the resort town of Taba. Are you having dinner? >> In taba. The most important progress is being achieved there. In the negotiation, when you are stuck on the principles, there are no progress. When you accept the principle and move to the details, there are a tangible progress. They move rapidly toward reconciling the differences allowed for in a framework created by President Clinton. We have made substantial progress. Today, we are closer than ever to the possibility of strike of striking a final a final deal between us and the Palestinians.

By late January 2001, they've run out of political time. They'll never be able to conclude an agreement with Clinton now out of office and Barack standing for reelection in 2 weeks. My heart aches cuz I know we were so close. I know we needed six more weeks to conclude the drafting of the agreement. On February 6th, 2001, Ariel Chiron is elected prime minister of Israel, defeating Barack in a landslide. Now, two leaders who harbor deep mutual animosity and mistrust will shape the next chapter in the tumultuous history of the Middle East.

The political process stops. The old cycle of violence and counterviolence continues. Palestinian suicide bombing becomes an almost daily event, sometimes twice a day. Israeli retaliation leaves hundreds of Palestinians dead. Then on the eve of Passover, a suicide bomber explodes himself just as people sit down for the holiday meal. 30 are killed, including entire families. On March 29th, 2002, Israel launches Operation Defensive Shield.

With overwhelming force, Israel re-enters Palestinian cities and refugee camps, hunting down terrorists and their infrastructure, often leaving massive destruction in their wake. And in Ramla, Israeli forces enter Arafat's compound and hold him captive and isolated for 31 days. Chiron had taken the war to Arafat's doorstep. when Israeli forces eventually pull back. The peace process lies in ruins. The dream of Oslo is shattered. >> How can we live like this? All the world is opening to each other. The world had become one one entity. Europe is becoming one entity. The cultural barrier are breaking. Everybody is becoming is living with everybody. So why don't we become one thing together? One one whole thing together. And all these stupid religious barriers or national barriers or all these nonhuman barriers will

disappear. I'm not a political person, you know that. So I'm not saying we don't have a partner. We have a partner. It's a Palestinian people. We have a We have a partner. It's a Palestinian leadership. And let me tell you, I don't know if you know that, I believe that we that with any one of the members of the Palestinian leadership, 6 7 8 10 people, there could have been an agreement. Maybe what we lacked is not only time. It is also a fundamental readiness, ripeness of the parties to reconcile themselves with the most vital myth of the other.

At the end of the day, I know it's doable and I know Palestinians and Israelis can make peace. If it's not next year, if it's not in 10 years, the day will come when Palestinians and Israelis will build on what I, my colleagues and the Israelis achieved in the negotiations of perma status. I don't think they will ever reinvent the wheel. And the difference between this moment until the moment of reaching an agreement will be how many names Palestinians and Israelis will be added to the lists of death and agony. At the end of the day, there will be peace. To obtain a VHS copy of Shattered Dreams of Peace, The Road from Oslo, call PBS Home Video at 1 800 play PBS. Yes.

Heat. National corporate funding for Frontline is provided by NPR >> in Denver, >> Scopia, >> in Thyron, >> Omaha, >> in Istanbul, in Hong Kong, >> Belgrade, >> in Decar, >> in Seattle, >> Beijing, in Pittsburgh >> in Johannesburg. This is NPR News >> and by Earthlink Frontline is made possible by the annual financial support of PBS viewers like you.

Thank you. >> History will not give the Jewish people another chance. >> Benjamin Netanyahu at war. >> He is at war. He's under siege >> in conflict with the president of the United States. >> It's not going to happen. Everybody knows it's not going to happen. >> I've never seen a foreign leader speak to the president like that. >> Outrageous. Outrageous. He is so convinced that he's right. Equally so convinced that Obama is dead wrong from the battles that shaped him. >> Palestinians were fed up. So everything unravels >> and boom, it exploded.

and his political rise. The >> country's political system was superheated. >> He was able to translate the horror of suicide violence into political power. >> An epic story of Israel, America, and the life of Benjamin Netanyahu. >> March 2015. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Jerusalem. >> At the Prime Minister's residence, Benjamin Netanyahu was determined to stop President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran. >> Benjamin Netanyahu has accused the US and others of giving up. Prime Minister has a messianic notion of himself as a person called to save the Jewish people. He was about to deliver a speech to the American Congress.

>> He never made such an important speech, but he felt he had a historic role to play and he cannot make a mistake. >> He wants to be the Winston Churchill who stops the new evil power, Iran, the way that Churchill stopped Nazi Germany. The prime minister left Tel Aviv this morning. He is scheduled to address Congress. >> He wants it to be clear that he made the most powerful statement possible to warn against this deal. So when the deal turns bad, he'll go down in history as the person who warned us all from what's about to happen. >> Benjamin Netanyahu has arrived in Washington DC. Washington. >> Netanyahu came as Israel's right-wing leader vowing to keep his country safe from its arch enemy Iran.

>> Netanyahu was invited to speak by John Boehner. A round between the Obama administration and Israel's >> it's rarely somebody who comes to say your president is wrong and you the congress in effect need to stop it. adding to growing tensions between the US. >> Yahoo will speak to >> it was extraordinary for a foreign leader to come into the United States Congress and use it as a platform to try and undermine uh administration policy. >> Prime Minister angered the White House by not >> it was a really audacious thing to do. America. >> He's definitely willing to sacrifice Israeli US relations in order to do what he thinks is proper to fight off the Iranian challenge. >> His audience, the Republican controlled Congress, the president's fiercest critics. >> The days when the Jewish people remain passive in the face of genocidal enemies, those days are over. We must always remember the greatest danger facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons.

There was no other time when the Israeli prime minister let himself be so deeply involved in American politics, recruiting, reddrafting American politics against the American president. >> America's founding document promises life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Iran's founding document pledges death, tyranny, and the pursuit of jihad. Netanyahu did it and run around President Obama. >> Thank you, America. Thank you. >> With even some Democratic supporters of the president calling the speech powerful and Netanyahu did not mix words about US-led nuclear talks with Iran to bring relations between Israel and the White House to a new low. >> President Barack Obama's anger was no secret. >> They seem to hate each other before. >> This was the height of the White House's animosity towards Netanyahu. I think they viewed this almost as a uh usurppation as a as a as a coup d'etata and they were livid.

>> It was a direct attack on his foreign policy legacy. >> He very much wanted to recast the United States as a friend of the Islamic world. Part of that narrative uh is that we've been associated with Israel too closely. >> Obama summoned the press into the Oval Office. Wait a minute. >> Barack Obama is furious. Furious. >> Everybody's all set. >> It's a humiliation for him. It's humiliation in the midst of a very delicate negotiation with with Iran. >> And the alternative that the prime minister offers is no deal. In which case, Iran will immediately begin once again pursuing its nuclear program. >> The president was angry. He thought this was an affront >> without us having any insight into what they're doing >> and it was deliberate and he wasn't going to try to u make nice and pretend it wasn't what he thought it really was.

>> All right, thank you guys. >> Clearly reveals a degree of dysfunction on both sides. This in some respects was a train wreck waiting to happen even from the beginning. For Benjamin Netanyahu, the clash with the American president was only the latest in a lifelong battle. >> Three armed Arabs today hijacked a Belgian airliner flying from Vienna to Tel Aviv. >> In his early 20s, Netanyahu saw military action >> after being hijacked by three Arab. >> Palestinian militants had hijacked a plane bound for Israel. the plane and its occupants would be blown up. The >> world watched to see how the Israelis would react. >> The basic news is that armed persons who claim to belong to a terroristic organization which is called the Black September took over a SA plane.

>> Lieutenant Netanyahu would be part of the special Israeli strike force. >> Mr. was a member of the Sat Matkal unit which is the it's like Navy Seals. It's the fabled unit of the Israeli army. It's the one that uh anybody who was anybody wanted to belong to. Netanyahu and the others dressed in airport mechanics white overalls. The decision was to act as a mechanical and technicians you know who is coming to take care about the airplane. Quiet >> and then they penetrate very quick into the to the airplane. >> Are they shooting? >> Yes, >> they're shooting. They're inside the aircraft. Suddenly, they burst through the doorways and escape hatches, guns blazing. Passengers leaped from the plane while the Israelis duled with the hijackers.

>> Netanyahu charged to the front of the plane. >> Gunn down the male hijackers, captured the Arab women, and freed the passengers. >> This was a an unbelievable success. two of the terrorist dead and some of the Syat Mkhal team injured including Benjamin Netanyahu who was injured in his hand because of his friend's bullet that was fired in the the wrong direction but you know minimal cost >> the passengers many of them Israelis got a jubilant welcome as they trooped into the airport building >> in the days after the raid Netanyahu received praise from Israel's president >> I think there was an element of right of passage during Netanyahu to be in such a unit. There was nothing grander than being in Seatka. He had earned full-fledged Israeli status, essential experience for a young man who spent his formative years in America.

When he was seven, Benjamin, who was called BB, and his two brothers, Yoni and left Israel. >> He spent some of his best years in the United States, and Nathaniel truly admires America, uh, the American culture, the American language, um, uh, everything about America. He attended elementary school in New York, high school in suburban Philadelphia. He picked up flawless American English. He's so American. When you have a conversation at where it really gets engaged in it, he switches from Hebrew to English. >> The move to America was not voluntary. BB's father believed he was forced to leave Israel because of his strident right-wing politics. Ben Zion Netanyahu did not get tenure at the Hebrew University as a historian and he considered it a great defeat and humiliation to have to leave the country and find his academic way in the United States.

>> As a history professor in America, BB's father, Benzion, drew a dark picture of the threats facing the Jewish people. He sees a world that is fundamentally hostile. A world that is afflicted by an eternal anti-semitism that that the Nazi Holocaust was part of a long series of acts against Jews. >> It was a worldview passed on to BB and his brothers. The outlook coming from is that there will always be a hostile world that would not care for the security and welfare of the Jewish nation. And the one thing that we should do is do it ourselves. >> The brothers were told it was up to them to protect Israel. >> They're out to get us. They might kill us. Israel is fragile. My role is to save this people who are like childish.

They don't understand history and world politics. And my role is to try to save them from their own mistakes and from these terribly demonic evil forces surrounding them. This is basically the Netanyao Gestalt. >> And in 1967, >> Jordanian King Hussein signs a military pact with NASA. BB watched as his father's dire warnings were transformed into reality. Arab armies had massed on Israel's borders >> to learn there were more than a quarter of a million soldiers. >> Thousands of tanks from Egypt, Jordan, Syria surrounded the Israelis. >> Hundreds of rocket launchers. The feeling here in Israel is that uh we look at uh a very close and clear danger of being exterminated. >> The head of the Palestine Liberation Army, Amed Shukeri, calls for a jihad, a holy war.

We shall slaughter you. We shall wipe you out. Kill the Jews. Wipe out Israel. >> At least for Nathan's father, this was, you know, history. uh uh repeating itself >> by lowflying Israeli jet which swooped in from the Mediterranean avoiding radar. >> Following a surprise air attack, Israel defeated the Arab armies. >> As air force, infantry, artillery, and tank force combined to sweep across the Sinai Peninsula. >> The 1967 war lasted only 6 days. Israel saves its own life. The victory was so profound and so sudden that it had a destabilizing effect. It set in motion a lot of what we're dealing with today. The war has created new refugee camps. More than a million Arabs have been displaced, homeless and helpless. They struggle to survive while the search for peace, lasting peace, goes on.

By the end of the ' 67 war, Israel occupied the Golan Heights, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Sinai. Israel had more than tripled in size. The occupation of land inhabited by Palestinians would ignite decades of conflict. But for the Israelis, it was an historic victory. >> That's the story of the Six-Day War. It shows you have to be alert. You have to have good intelligence and if your country is threatened, you have to respond quickly. >> A senior in high school in America, BBE had skipped his graduation to return to Israel for the war to dig trenches. He would witness a turning point in Israeli history. >> You can understand why it's so intoxicating. And if you're an 18-year-old who was raised in the household of Benio Netanyahu, who has a fatalistic understanding of the nature of the world, you assume the worst. You assume the worst thing is going to happen. Then this miraculous best thing happens and it has to sort of set you on a course for the rest of your life.

That course would lead him to fight in yet another war with Israel's neighbors. >> And then to the devastating loss of his older brother, Yonyi, a national hero who was killed in action. >> Lieutenant Colonel Yonathan Netanyahu of Israel. >> Yi in Israel is one of the line of mythical heroes of Israel's independence. People named the children Yonyi after Yoni Antonio. His book Letters of Yonyi became one of the most read books rivaling the diaries of Anna Frank. Uh so Yonyi is certainly a national hero. >> The death of his brother affected him immensely as the the violent death of anyone's brother would. But it also enlarged his sense of purpose, his his self-regard, his sense of destiny, his sense of mission and purpose. There's there's no question about that.

>> From Faniel Hall in Boston, The Advocates. >> Not long after his brother's death, Netanyahu began a new life on American television. The first thing that happens is that Benjamin Netanyahu begins to present himself as an expert on terrorism. >> I call now as my first witness, Mr. Benjamin Nati. >> Having graduated from MIT and Americanized his name to Ben Nitai, he would fight for Israel in his own way. >> We have peace in the Middle East. >> Waging the battle for public opinion. >> Look, I'm 28 years old. I've had to defend my country in two wars and in many battles. Nobody wants peace more than Israel. But the stumbling block to the road for peace is this demand for a PLO state which will mean more war which will mean more violence in the Middle East. >> Net was one of the earliest people who brought up this message that there's a war going on and it's a war between good and evil. >> And as I said I'm talking about the Arabs in Israel. I'm talking about the Arabs on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

>> If you let me, I'll answer your question, Mr. Arjang, please. >> And that you have to stand up in that war and you cannot just run away. Uh you have to fight it and win it. Israel wants to live in peace and wants to be secure. If that is co involves maintaining our own military guarantees against the destruction of people who surround us, yes, I believe we should fight for our survival. If I have to, I'll fight again, but I hope not to. >> Thank you. Thank you, Mr. >> By the 1980s, he was appointed an official spokesman at the Israeli embassy in Washington as Benjamin Netanyahu. Benjamin Netanyahu begins his Israeli political career in the United States. He's unknown in Israel in the 1980s. >> I cannot imagine the growth of international terrorism in the last 15 years without the pivotal role played by Asser Arafat's PLO. What we are doing is trying to stop this kind of terror from spreading. >> The idea of BB being a performer on television goes way back. You represent your country. you sell your country. And that is what he did. And he did it with enormous pride and confidence.

>> The Arabs tried regular war, they failed. They tried terrorism, they failed. They have now embarked on a new strategy. It's called anarchy and trial by media. >> He has a perfect American accent. What he thinks is a fingertip feel for American sensibilities and and and touch points. And he's great for CNN. make them. >> And in Ronald Reagan's America, Netanyahu was a rising star. >> He's already a celebrity with the Jewish right in the United States. >> He cultivated from the outset Jewish rich people, Jewish millionaires who would pay almost any sum at the time to be near him um and to you know to sort of get a whiff of his uh what's it called? Stardust. Diplomats here were gathering a short time ago for their third anti. >> At age 34, Netanyahu was appointed Israeli ambassador to the United Nations.

>> He became Israel's chief defender against criticism of its ongoing occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. >> The ambassador was in action immediately. >> What the Security Council is doing is sending a very clear message. It's saying basically this. It says, "We condone all Palestinian violence against Israel. We condemn any Israeli counter measures. >> That's what he was built for. That was what he was designed for. It was Reagan's America 1980s. Terror is the danger. And at the heart of the world view is seeing Israel as the the fortress facing forces endangering Western civilization. During that period >> in 1988, Netanyahu resigned. He returned to Israel to build his own right-wing political base. >> Preparations are underway. We expect to see the president shortly >> for what he called an historic and honorable compromise.

>> By the early 1990s, Netanyahu's hardline politics were out of fashion. The talk was no longer of war, but of peace. Negotiations were underway with their Arab neighbors. >> It's a day for optimism >> and now with the Palestinians >> in secret by the principles by the PLO and the Israelis. >> Israeli Prime Minister Yeets Sakraim, a former general and hero of the 67 war represented Israel >> now agreed to lay down their guns and solve them. representing the Palestinians, Yaser Aarat, the chairman of the PLO. Peace agreement designed to put an end to 45. >> This is historic breakthrough between Israel and the PLO. Two national movements competing for the same space. And for the first time, they're prepared to recognize each other. Known as the Oslo Accord, it was designed to end years of violence by laying out a peace process, a deal that could give Palestinians their own state and land captured in the ' 67 war.

>> Once the agreement was done, it was the White House as the venue agreed for the signature. President Clinton felt this was his baby. >> But that day, things were tense. to the last minute there were issues. Rabbine is insisting that Arfat can't come in a uni anything looks like a a uniform. We're telling Arfat don't you can't come with a you don't bring a weapon. You He's always always had a pissy. You don't bring a weapon to the White House. >> They're confident. >> Then at a point the president looks at Rabbine. He says, "You're going to have to shake his hand." >> And Rabine looked like someone had punched him in the stomach. And he stood there for a moment. This is man he considered a terrorist all his life and he said to okay but no kissing. So we then went down to the Oval uh office and we we worked out maneuvers with Clinton of how if I'd like to kiss usually three kisses and we worked out sort of football basketball movers of how Clinton could step in various ways if if Arafod made a lunge toward how Clinton could could break them up.

>> Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Arabatim, the president of the United States. >> The ceremony was carefully scripted. There were speeches, the signing of the Oslo Accord, and all eyes were on Arafat and Rabbine. >> Bean is very uneasy. The idea of personally shaking hands with this guy is physically difficult for him. He couldn't hide his feelings and that comes through. is the first agreement ever signed between >> and then the handshake >> and the state of Israel. >> An image that would become iconic. These hands that shook knew nothing but to shoot the trigger, the bullets, the bombs, the fight. And the question to me is, can this hat shake lead to the culture in the minds of Palestinians and Israelis that coexistence is possible, that peace is possible, to live and let live >> during that period.

Now in Israel, Netanyahu was building a coalition of the ultra-ligious right and security-minded conservatives. They strongly opposed the Oslo agreement and in no time protests began. The world celebrated that handshake, that historic handshake on the White House lawn. But in Israel, there was a fair degree of skepticism. >> Week after week, Netanyahu watched the protests build. The people on the right in Israel were not happy about the Oslo process and recognizing the pe terrorists was a bitter pill. We're demonstrating against the inability of the government to maintain order in this country and to protect the rights of Jews living in their own land.

>> With an election on the horizon, Netanyahu maneuvered the growing anger into a political force. >> He did not believe in the possibility of a deal with the Palestinians. He didn't trust them. He didn't like them. He doesn't and he doesn't want to have a deal with them. He didn't want to have a deal with them. As head of the conservatively coupooded party, Netanyahu himself became the face of the opposition to Oslo. >> Netanyahu saw a moment of betrayal and peril and an agreement that would never and could never work. >> There's a really ugly character to it. the level of vitriol, the anger, the scope of these demonstrations, the kind of incitement, the portrayal of Rabbine, dressing Rabbine in Nazi uniforms or putting a kafia on him.

>> Netanyahu found himself at the center of the anger. >> In most cases, he doesn't do anything about it. I think Netanyahu even in some ways benefits from this association with the rabble rousers on the right. >> I think the country's political system was superheated. It was like a car riding on a highway that had no water left in the radiator. And you could look at the, you know, the temperature gauge and it's all the way in the in in hot. The intensity grew, culminating in a massive protest. Tens of thousands crammed into the center of Jerusalem. He was genuinely outraged, but he knew how to channel that outrage. and that coincided with his uh rise to power >> in Netanyahu's conservative lood party.

There was concern about the growing tension in the crowds that night. >> There were moments when Netanyahu was advised that you know there are real nut cases in the national religious camp that we see that we need to calm down even gesturally. Netanyahu never did that. He never did that to his enormous discredit. >> The crowd was with him as he attacked Arafat. And then the government of Ysakim. All liquid leaders and especially Benjamin Netanyahu they have used very strong language against Prime Minister Rabine.

>> They didn't use any kind of condemnation against the violence that was starting to take place. Netanyahu would later say he never saw the ugliest moments that night. Throughout Israel, the anger boiled over. I was there. and um a lot of other people my age were there. This was such a volatile um atmosphere at the time and the and the writing was on the wall. >> Night after night, the crowds masked across the street from Prime Minister Rabbine's apartment in Tel Aviv. >> I'm there one about evening. We're talking. It's just the two of us. And there's a demonstration outside. And I said to him at the time, I said, "Don't you worry about some of this?" He goes, "No."

I mean, he was, it's not that he was, you know, it's not that he was completely dismissive of it, but he took it as kind of a given. He knew in a sense what was coming and simply accepted it. >> Rabbine responded with his own rally. More than 100,000 supporters singing of peace. Then as Rabine was leaving, that's him coming down the ramp.

The man in the blue t-shirt approached. Three shots from behind. >> The Israeli Prime Minister Yitsak Rabin, the architect of the Middle East peace process, has been assassinated. >> The assassin, a right-wing Israeli Jew, Yalamir. >> Truly shocking news from the Middle East tonight. Israel's Prime Minister Yitsak Rabbine has been assassinated. An evening spent dreaming of peace turns into a national nightmare. >> Outside the hospitals, the crowd began to chant is a murderer. >> The sign says BB Rabine's blood is on your hands. An assassin has taken yet another world leader away from us. It was just after the biggest peace rally in Tel Aviv.

>> Rabbine's widow blamed Netanyahu for contributing to her husband's death. >> Yet Rabine has also produced shock in the Palestinian community >> and said on worldwide television. >> Your husband pointed the finger at Mr. Netanyahu and said, "You must stop this incitement." To what extent do you blame Mr. Netanyahu and the Lakood for what has happened? I do I do blame them in a rally in Kikartion in Jerusalem that showed him in the uniform of a Nazi. So Mr. Bib Netanyahu now we can say from here to eternity that he didn't support it and didn't agree with it but he was there and it didn't stop it. >> Netanyahu's close advisor at the time vehemently disagrees. The attempt to pin on him the murder of the prime minister is a cheap political propaganda trick that was taken by his political opponents mostly from the left in order to delegitimize Netanyahu as a political public and to delegitimize the positions of Likood uh in the Israeli open political debate.

As the nation mourned, BB Netanyahu faced the political consequences of Rabbine's death. The American ambassador says they spoke about it the day before the funeral. >> I remember Netanyahu saying to me, "Look, you know, look at this. He he's he's a hero now, >> but if he had not been assassinated, I would have beaten him in the elections and then he would have gone into history as a failed politician. Netanyahu was thinking, well, politically um he's he's he was on the ropes before he was assassinated. >> And Netanyahu had a new and powerful opponent, the American president. President Clinton was really affected by Rabbin's assassination and he viewed I think uh Netanyahu through the eyes of Rabin as the person who would bring down Oslo if given half a chance. Your prime minister was a martyr for peace but he was a victim of hate. Surely we must learn from his martyrdom that if people cannot let go of the hatred of their enemies, they risk sewing the seeds of hatred among themselves.

He felt a real responsibility to rub in a personal responsibility to see through his legacy and the Oslo Accords was Rabin's legacy. establish a dire. >> But Rabbine's legacy was in jeopardy. His successor Shimon Perez would have to win an election and that meant facing BB Netanyahu. >> BB in the election is running against Oslo. So the choice seems so clear. Clinton wants to do everything we can to help Paris. Uh and he probably goes overboard in terms of that >> we assemble here today. I mean, if there's ever a time where we tried to influence an Israeli election, it was Perez versus Netanyahu. Clinton's political operatives opened a back channel with the Perez campaign. Clinton authorized hundreds of millions in additional military aid and returned to Israel to personally campaign for Shimon Perez. Israelis love Clinton. if he ran here for prime minister win easily no matter the which brother uh Israelis loved Clinton Bill Clinton.

>> The week after the assassination Netanyahu was behind in the polls by 31 points. >> People who spoke to him on those days have said that he thought that his career was over. Then as election day neared, >> 10 kg of explosives were used this commuter bus. >> It was the number 18 bus right through the heart of Jerusalem. A symbolic act. The Palestinian extremist group Hamas claimed responsibility. There were some Palestinian groups trying to make sure that the sabotaging of the peace process. Rabin was assassinated. Let us stop the whole process. >> And it was just the beginning. easy to forget that actually Robin's great heroic act ended up with with terror in our streets and people dying and and we we were all driven nuts by you know you had peace ceremonies one day and terror the other day and drove drove people crazy >> for Netanyahu it was an opening and so Netanyahu is naturally a return to center stage as the uh person who had warned about you know the terrorism um and slowly starts to recover.

>> This morning, the sound of sirens again interrupted the morning commute. >> 6 days later, the number 18 bus again. >> Police the hellish wreckage. >> Victims were hurled from the demolished bus. Only body parts could be recovered. >> Over 9 days, four bombs, 59 dead, hundreds injured. >> Did not could not believe the warning news. Another bloody Sunday. >> A suicide bomber has once again blown up a >> and Israel's lost faith in the process in that process. >> One of the slogans that came from grassroots was this peace is killing us. >> Paris go home screamed these Jews opposed to the peace process. They taunted him chanting the name of Prime Minister Raven's assassin Eolamir. I will never forget this in Tel Aviv once. There was a um a horrible terrorist bombing and I drove by about 3 days afterwards and somebody had written graffiti on the wall and they wrote that we could was right.

Netanyahu started to climb in the polls. >> He was able to speak to the masses and translate the horror of suicide bombers into political power and say I will be able to solve this. I am strong. I come from um military background. Uh, I have the experience and the spirit to stop suicide bombers. >> But by midnight on election day, it looked like Netanyahu's surge had fallen short. >> The entire country went to sleep convinced that Paris had been elected and woke up with Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister. The Arab world and the United States will now have to deal with a much more conservative >> Netanyahu had promised security to the growing number of Israelis scarred by the violence is a mere fraction of 1%.

>> I walk into his suite at about 5:30 in the morning and basically I didn't leave it. He said you you you all three or four of us were there. You're the core team and that's how it officially started. Netanyahu is on his way to the United States for his first visit since becoming Israel's prime minister. >> Benjamin Netanyahu's dealings with the president of the United States will be of intense interest among Arabs who have already begun. >> Just over one month later, Prime Minister Netanyahu was at the White House. >> President Clinton and Prime Minister Netanyahu will hold a joint news conference after waiting alone for a face-toface meeting with Bill Clinton. When he came in as prime minister to beat the president of the United States, he knew that he was dealing with another young guy just as smart as he was. But as president of the United States, Clinton had his set of responsibilities.

Netanyahu as an Israeli leader has his responsibilities and they were in collision. >> They were of very different minds. BB just been elected. The president had intervened against him. That was a kind of, you know, not a very good way to start a meeting. >> Well, I got an update yesterday. >> Behind closed doors, Clinton would demand Netanyahu continue the Oslo peace process and personally meet with Yaserafat. >> It didn't take long for the meeting to become contentious. He came in pretty full of himself and he was pretty much telling president how to deal with the Arabs. He understood how to deal with the Arabs. His sort of posture was let me tell you about the Middle East and he then proceeded to lecture the pro the president on the realities of the Middle East. Here's the way it is.

>> The beginning of a of a big effort. Netanyahu did not hold back on his feelings about Oslo. >> Netanyahu wanted to make clear that, you know, even though the previous government had signed the agreement, that he had some real reservations about it. And so, you know, I think that that that's why it got off to a bad start. And so, you know, when the meeting's over, Clinton turns, he says, "Who does he think the superpower is? But Clinton wouldn't give up on the peace agreements and Netanyahu couldn't ignore him. The US was Israel's biggest supporter. And I think there's a moment where Netanyahu has to decide, can he try to block the actual implementation of the agreement, but concede some things that Clinton was pressing for in terms of an on camera, for instance, handshake with Arafat. I think that was the calculation.

Netanyahu decided to go along with one key Clinton demand. He drove 50 mi to the border of Palestinian territory in Gaza. At the Arez Crossing, he met his enemy, Yaser Aerafat. >> And and that day, I was there and I was thinking, how how will this happen? I was trying to do whatever I can to make sure that if needs to, I will employ every damage control mechanism, every crisis management, everything. And >> it was a meeting Netanyahu had insisted would never happen. >> Very, very hard. Very hard. We swore he will never shake Arafat's hand. We will continue our >> but now he was in the same room with a man he had called a terrorist. >> He is in some ways in many ways a reality based politician. He had to meet with Arafat. He had to work within the context that had been created, but he didn't want to work within the context that were been created.

Bill Clinton got what he wanted, the handshake. Netanyahu said he feared his father would disapprove of the gesture, but once started, the handshakes just kept on coming. And he took other steps. He pulled Israeli troops out of the West Bank city of Hebrron and signed a treaty agreeing to further implement Oslo. But close observers say he was slow walking the peace process. Antonio made life very very difficult for the American administration and for those Israelis who wanted peace. He was really difficult. He was he was slow. He was uh stubborn. He he he he made life very difficult for all the peace, Americans, Europeans, and Israelis. >> The United States relationship with Israel. >> And behind the scenes at one peace conference, Bill Clinton let BB Netanyahu know how frustrated he was.

One morning, I think it was 4:00 a.m. in the morning, I hear shouting, real shouting, screaming. 4:00 a.m. in the morning, President Clinton shouting from the depth of his stomach and head and ears and eyes and nose and mouth and legs at BB. Ericott and others say BB's maneuvers could be maddening. I've seen the frustration of many people. I've seen the frustration of Israeli negotiators. I've seen the frustration of American presidents. I've seen my frustration. >> Before long, Netanyahu's political support began to erode.

>> Nobody was happy with him. The left weren't happy with him for what he was doing to undermine Oslo, and the right wasn't happy with him for what he was doing to keep Oslo. He was in a sort of impossible balancing act. >> At that point, the prime minister's conservative base folds and some people on the conservative right work with the Israeli left to bring down Prime Minister Netanyahu. by election night, it was clear Netanyahu was headed to a decisive defeat to Ahoud Barack. >> I remember that night of elections. You know, it was a total disaster. He uh stood up and said, "I'm taking time off from politics." And I remember saying, "Okay, I'm not going to see him again."

Israelis and Palestinians in a lastditch pitch for Middle East peace. >> Summit at Camp David, a summit the Clinton administration. >> Now with Netanyahu out of the picture, Bill Clinton tried to personally push through a final peace deal. A >> summit that's been declared make or break. And that seems to be >> at Camp David, he brought together Yaser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ahoud Barack for the highstakes negotiation. But coming to any agreement proved elusive made a a farreaching offer I think went further than he was planning to do. Uh but for Arafat it was unacceptable >> and he said if I accept this you'll be you want to walk behind my casket. That's what he said. among the most contentious issues, the future of Jerusalem.

>> Elba comes with the help of the American team and a lot of American support and Bach does everything. He's a courageous guy, bit too courageous, but he tries everything and boom, it explodes and there's no Netanyahu around. You cannot blame when the Camp David peace summit fails. You know, Netanyahu is not there. Palestinians launched a new round of violence, a sustained uprising, the Antifa. >> Palestinians were fed up. There were years of failed negotiations. Security for them went backwards. Freedom of movement went backwards. Freedom of religion went backwards. The economy went backwards. And there was a point at which Palestinians said enough. We are done with this process of negotiations. So everything unravels.

Everything unravels. >> Amid the turmoil, Netanyahu worked at rebuilding his political support and found a receptive audience. >> The conclusion on the Israeli right certainly is this is what you get for weakness. This view spreads from the Israeli right really rather more broadly in Israeli society. The view that um there's no partner for peace. To his supporters, the continuing violence seemed to be evidence that Netanyahu should be returned to power. We warned beforehand that this is exactly what's going to happen. If you put yourself to be in a situation that the other side sees you as such a weak leader, the result is not going to be reconciliation. It's not going to be an historic shift, metamorphosis of the Palestinians. It's going to be war.

As he rebuilt his political coalition, Netanyahu would watch as terror struck beyond the Middle East. An >> apparent terrorist attack. >> Very large plane just flew directly over my building and there's been another collision. >> September 11th, the year 2001, a day unlike any other. >> Muslim extremists struck America. >> I can hear you. The rest of the world. A new American president used rhetoric that would resonate with Netanyahu's view of the world. >> There's no neutral ground in the fight between civilization and terror because there's no neutral ground between good and evil freedom. >> And in Israel, >> the violence continued as even more efforts at peace collapsed. >> Another suicide bomb, more violence. >> By 2008, Netanyahu was on the rise. >> One Israeli air strike hit the home of a Hamas member. Once again, the head of Luz >> protesting Israel's continued military incursion >> and preparing to run for prime minister >> there's been a bloody environment.

>> The political culture has has shifted >> is now in power. >> In fact, he is one of the main political forces that's helped move the entire Israeli political spectrum to the right. >> He is a great politician and he has understood the DNA of the Israeli public. He understands that you have to look him in the eye and you have to say, "I'll keep you safe." >> By that summer, he was ahead in the polls. And as his advisers began to prepare for the future, they say they were worrying about a different election. In America, it looked like the Democrat might win. >> Fire up. Ready to go. Fire up. Barack Obama came pretty much out of nowhere. He was a senator for about 10 and a half minutes and suddenly he was running for president.

This is this is a pretty alien creature to to Netanyahu and to a lot of Israelis. They met in Jerusalem in the summer of 2008. You know, I was at the first meetings between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama before each was elected. >> And what I sense were two individuals who come from different parts of the political spectrum. One very liberal in his foreign policy assumptions, the other conservative, national securityoriented >> and Netanyahu himself was concerned. I happened to be on a reporting trip in Jerusalem and I went into the coffee shop at the King David Hotel. There was one other person there and it was Netanyahu sitting in a corner by himself reading newspapers. There was one thing in his mind. Who is this guy Obama?

Who is he? What is he really like? and he wanted very much to point out to me as if I didn't know it that Obama's middle name was Hussein and that his father was a Muslim. What kind of objectivity could this man bring to bear on Israel? >> I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear. >> It's the inauguration day of the nation's first Africanamean president. Hundreds of thousands of people are >> the new American president's first moves would do little to reassure Netanyahu. He >> spoke of no less than remaking America. >> In his inaugural address, Barack Obama reached out directly to Muslims. >> To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward based on mutual interest and mutual respect. He very much wanted to break certainly with the Bush legacy from the Iraq war and maybe the longer legacy of America's estrangement from the Arab world from the Muslim world as he would call it parties to resolve these issues.

>> On his first day in office, he set a new tone. his first phone call to Yaser Arafat's successor, the Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas. >> He started off by sending the right signals to Palestinians and I found that um very sincere because he didn't need to make that phone call. >> Mr. President, thank you for this opportunity. later his first television interview. He chose an Arab TV network. >> I have Muslim members of my family. Uh I have uh lived in Muslim countries. My job is to communicate the fact that the United States has a stake in the well-being of the Muslim world. >> It is my privilege to come here. >> And he decided to send a signal to Palestinians and Israelis. He wanted to restart the peace process.

>> This history shows us that strong and sustained American engagement can bridge divides and build the capacity that supports progress. >> I think Obama really believed in 2009 he could sit down with rational people and come up with a rational solution. All we have to do is get them together and of course we can settle this thing. We all know it can be settled. I can be the one to do it. afraid. >> Obama had built his political career on his ability to bridge differences. >> The history of Obama is a a belief in his own ability to bring people of disperate views and cultures and backgrounds together uh to solve difficult problems. >> Blacks, whites, Hispanics. In his 20s, Obama had started his political education in Chicago, not long after the city had elected its first black mayor, Harold Washington, have joined hands to form a new Democratic coalition.

>> Washington's election really is Chicago's version of the civil rights movement. And like the larger civil rights movement, it is an alliance in many ways between African-Americans and a lot of progressive Jews. medium and long-term. >> As a candidate, Obama forged an alliance with the city's powerful progressive Jews. >> Obama identifies with the Jewish community as the community that stood with the African-American community in those very difficult fights back in the 60s. >> Newton Mow and Judge Abner Mikvah were two of his closest Jewish supporters. He bonded with these leaders in the Jewish community here because they shared this powerful commitment to social justice work. My father describes Barack Obama as having a Yiddish shama, right? A Jewish soul. >> The man has been surrounded by Jewish influences, the law professors, the law colleagues, the fellow community organizers, his early backers in Chicago. And he has a vision of an idealized Israel. Israel's, you know, this this chance to get it right, to build a nation state, but to do it right in a progressive way.

He would be elected with more than 70% of the Jewish vote. Many of them shared his belief that Israelis and Palestinians could sit down and resolve their differences. By and large, their politics was liberal, progressive, and that extended not only to their views of say social policy in the United States or um any other issue, but also having to do with Israel. >> It was a vision that was very much at odds with what Benzian Netanyahu had taught his son. >> What Obama is admiring in the Jewish tradition and in the Jews that he knows is exactly what Netanyahu fears. It is the sense that Jews have this instinct towards making the world better that may make them in Netanyahu's eyes too idealistic to deal with the actual threats that they really face especially in a place like the Middle East. The deeper clash here is really if you wish like between two versions of Judaism.

One is the universalist liberal progressive Judaism and one is the the under siege fortress Judaism which Netanyahu is all about. >> And now as president, Obama sought to make those progressive ideals a reality, doing what no other president had done, creating peace between Israelis and Palestinians. I think in a lot of ways the president and the people around him were caught up with Obama being a transformative figure. They were caught up in the moment that he represented such a transformation, such a change and that that that in itself had a kind of power and it created a kind of leverage and I think it created a set of expectations about what they could produce as a result. >> To help bridge the differences between Israelis and Palestinians, Obama turned to veteran conflict negotiator George Mitchell.

Just 48 hours after he had been inaugurated as president, he said to me, "I'm serious about this. I want to do something and I want you to go there right away." As an indication of my seriousness, I said, "Well, I can't leave tonight." I said, "Because I got to go home and pack a bag." But I left a couple of days later. >> We begin tonight with breaking news. Explosions in Gaza, fresh Israeli air strike sirens warned of another round. >> But on the ground in Israel, Mitchell quickly found that Obama's hopes did not match the stark reality. In Gaza, the extremist group Hamas was in charge. >> Hamas security forces the target in a third day of Israeli missile strikes in Gaza. While the timing for the potential for success in early 2009 could not have been worse. President Obama was sworn in just 4 days after the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas had come to a conclusion.

>> Emotions were very high and very negative. There was a lot of hostility uh a lot of uh feelings of of victimization on both sides. Uh the circumstances were not conducive to moving forward. >> Food leader Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have locked up the prime minister. >> Netanyahu returns >> and there was a political challenge. Israel elected a new prime minister. Now Barack Obama would have to deal with BB Netanyahu >> second term as prime minister. >> They are completely opposites because it's deep. It's not only a progressive and a conservative. Barack Obama has Martin Luther King in him. He has Nelson Mandela in him. But the world is moving in the right direction and his role is to accelerate that.

And Netanyahu is profoundly a pessimist. Profoundly a pessimist. So it's not only the clash between the progressive and the conservative. It's a clash between the optimist and the pessimist. At the White House, the president's staff were anxious about Netanyahu's victory. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, a veteran of President Clinton's clashes with Netanyahu, warned Obama. Rahm Emanuel in particular has these vivid memories of Netanyahu trying to push around Bill Clinton and comes to Obama essentially and says, "We're not going to do that over again. Don't get played by this guy. This guy is going to do X, Y, and Z, and we're not going to allow him to play his game." And so there was an instinctive feeling that BB will never do what he needs to do unless you pressure him. And I think that was basically Rahm's attitude. At least it's the way I understood Rahm's attitude.

>> The strategy would be to show the Arab world that Obama could take a hard line on Israel, could create some daylight. >> Well, that's the expression, the daylight, the the imposing of daylight in the relationship. There's a belief that you win friends in the Arab world by distancing yourself from Israel. That May, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at the White House. >> All right, everybody. Just tell me when everybody's set up. Great. Uh, well, listen I I first of all want to thank uh Prime Minister Netanyahu for making this visit. Obama is in the difficult position of dealing with an Israeli prime minister who has now from the American point of view regressed to the point of view where it's hard to see how you're going to have any meaningful negotiations with the Palestinians. >> Obama insisted that Netanyahu stop the construction of Jewish settlements on lands captured in the ' 67 war which were claimed by the Palestinians.

>> It wasn't a request, it was a demand. And I think that this shocked uh Netanyahu, shocked the people around Netanyahu and sort of gave proof to the people who had been whispering in Netanyahu's ears that this guy's up to no good. A settlement freeze, a recurring demand of American presidents, but it was a deal breakaker for the right flank of Netanyahu's fragile political coalition. >> The freeze notion was was a difficult one. Uh so it had a very sharp point and and it came at Israel uh in the first instance with uh with a knife. >> Netanyahu is surprised by that and feels that in a sense he's kind of walked into a trap. >> Netanyahu found that outrageous. The Palestinians weren't doing anything as far as he was concerned. So why should he? So, u there was already some real scratchiness there over what Obama expected Israel to do and what Israel expected out of Obama.

>> It will not be easy. It never has been easy. >> And in front of the press, Obama doubled down, >> making the demand in public, >> saying publicly what I I said privately that settlements have to be stopped uh in order for us to move forward. That's a difficult issue. I recognize that. Uh but it's an important one and it has to be addressed. >> For Netanyahu, his first meeting with the president couldn't have gone worse. >> I think Netanyahu recognized in Obama suddenly a person who was hellbent on setting up a Palestinian state. >> They were better behaved than before. >> And I remember him coming back from his first meeting with President Obama. something that tells him that it's going to be a different president. Super intelligent lawyer who is probably a brilliant, brilliant man. He has ideas.

He has goals. He has a vision. And something in what we in Hebrew called an ashy. The soul is too cold to be connected to Israel. Whatever happened in that traumatic meeting, he came back, >> angry, suspicious, hostile, and he came back from Washington feeling that he's at war, that he's under siege. And that shaped the entire religion because people like Natao, you don't get a second chance. The president of the United States was now an adversary. >> President Obama today delivers one of the most important speeches of his young administration.

>> Two weeks later, >> a major speech to reach out to the Muslim world. >> The Obama campaign to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world continued. president turns his attention to a much larger Arab audience in Cairo and beyond. The speech was to try to reset relations with the the Muslim world and send a message that uh the United States was not anti-Muslim. >> Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States. >> During his first days in office, he had signaled a change in tone with the Netanyahu meeting. He had tried to show he could get tough with Israel. And now in Egypt, he would personally make the case >> and he believed that he could make an overture to the Muslim world and the Muslim world would believe him. >> Thank you very much. >> He meant to be a good soldier, a good guy, a middleman, an honest broker, an American president you could deal with, an American who is sympathetic to you.

Thank you very much. >> It was build as an unprecedented address to the world's 1 and a half billion Muslims. >> I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world. >> But Israelis were watching too. >> Among them, Michael Orin, Israel's ambassador to the United States. first time to my knowledge as a as a historian that that a president of the United States addresses the world adherence of one faith. So let there be no doubt the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. >> Israel had no advanced warning of the Cairo speech. Complete shock. And there are many aspects of the speech which have direct impact on Israel. The most obvious which is the condemnation of settlements. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. It is time for these settlements to stop.

>> He addressed the Palestinian issue in a way that was not a political issue, but a just issue. And I think that was a hard um point for the Israeli public to swallow. >> For many of the Israelis watching, the message was clear. We live in in a world of images and perceptions. And for some uh it gave the impression that in choosing between Israel and the Muslim world, the choice was the Muslim world. >> And may God's peace be upon you. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. immediately after the speech. Clearly, I remember talking to an Israeli journalist, very senior journalist whom the the White House cleverly had invited to Cairo to hear the speech and uh he called me from Cairo. He said, "It was a disaster. This is a disaster." I said, "Tell Ram, tell him because you know they need to do something about this. This is this is really going to lose the Israelis.

The president then left the Middle East to the surprise of many. He did not stop over in Israel. >> Soaking it in the message of President Barack Obama's historic speech in Egypt. >> Worse than anything while he was there. A 45minute plane ride to Israel. He didn't stop there. He just went on his way. >> The Israelis were insulted. I mean, you're coming into the neighborhood. Can't you drop for coffee? We're just so close. I mean, Cairo to Leviv, come on. say hello. We'll be nice to you. >> Not only go through all the detail, >> don't forget he went to Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. He didn't go to Israel. >> For Israelis, the combination of not visiting and this speech sent him a very strong signal that he didn't like them. >> If we do not, >> the decision to skip Israel had been advocated by the president's senior foreign policy adviserss. Ben Rhodess and Dennis Mcdana strongly argued against going to Israel because it would look like business as usual. And if he was going to show it was different this time, he had to act in a way that was different this time. He had to break the mold. That was the reason.

>> Always made the >> Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodess insists it was the right move. >> I've lived in this job for 7 years and have learned repeatedly that you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. Frankly, I see it as uh a lose-lose proposition. Um whatever we were going to do was not going to be the right thing for this particular Israeli government. >> Other Obama advisers now admit it was a mistake. >> Disagree. >> I personally think it would have been wise had the president gone on to Israel from there and made a comparable statement of reassurance. I regret that. I I I think if I were if we were to do that all over again, I think we should have added a stop there. >> Netanyahu capitalized on Obama's decision not to stop in Israel. Netanyahu was the first Israeli prime minister in a way to run against an American president to sort of go to his base and say, "You got to vote for me because I can keep this American president at bay."

>> Right-wing newspapers fanned the flames, increasingly portraying the president as an enemy of Israel. The messaging has been consistent that this guy is a danger to us and the only thing stopping him from having his way with Israel is Benjamin Netanyahu. >> Obama's reputation took a hit. >> Just 6% of Jewish Israelis said they considered him pro- Israel. >> Obama is is very unpopular in Israel and he's the first prime he's the first American president in a very long time to be very unpopular. We talk about how popular Clinton was. That's not the case for Obama. >> Once he lost the Israelis, he couldn't move the Israelis cuz he didn't have the trust that Clinton had. Netanyahu figured out that he had the backing of his people, the backing of his government. He was perfectly comfortable to to stand still.

>> President Obama immediately dispatching his special envoy George Mitchell. >> Mitchell visits Israel. His envoy George Mitchell has been sent to Israel in hopes of bring >> despite the obstacles. Obama sent his envoy George Mitchell to Israel 19 times over 2 years. >> Says that he will be going back to the region in the next few days, hundreds of meetings. George Mitchell has it was tough going many times. Neither side was ready to do a deal. >> Back again in Israel. >> Mitchell gave up. He submitted his letter of resignation in 2011. to their lowest. >> I withdrew. >> I concluded that the level of mistrust between both societies made it highly unlikely that they would be able to overcome that level of mistrust and reach agreement. >> Make sure that >> the president had lost his point man >> and his Middle East policy was in trouble.

The president asked his staff for a report card about how well they had done on executing on the 2009 speech and it was basically a series of D's and Fs. They had done an extremely poor job >> and there was mounting criticism by Jews in Israel and America. You know, I remember a uh time when I worked in the White House and I uh went to find the president and he was just staring at especially it's very contemplative. I said, "What's on your mind?" And he said, "You know, I think I'm the closest thing to a Jew who's ever sat in this office. You know, I feel very close to the community and it hurts to be depicted somehow as hostile to the community. It bothers me. >> Then this man in Tunisia lit himself on fire.

>> Muhammad Buazizi sets himself on fire and within a very short period of time, you know, he sets the whole Middle East on fire. >> Thousands of angry demonstrators marched through the streets of Tunisia's capital this morning. >> Tracking this very serious development. Within weeks, protests had broken out in Yemen. >> Broke out in the cities of Bahrain, >> Libya, >> and in Cairo's Ter Square, hundreds of thousands turned out to protest President Hosni Mubarak. >> At the White House, President Barack Obama watched the protests on television. When Obama sees these insurrections in North Africa and the Middle East, he is very excited by them. Now, suddenly it looks like the forces of history are in the in the squares, not in the presidential palaces. And now the president wants to be on the right side of history.

>> For three decades, Mubarak had been an American ally. >> The Arab street is rising up against these dictators. Uh and I think Obama faced this moment, uh this decision. Obama is very enthusiastic about what's happening in Tar Square more than many people in his own cabinet and he wants to put America on the side of that. >> The president decided to get involved. He would tell Mubarak to leave. I >> mean I was with him in the oval office when he does this phone call to Mubarak. He was trying to nudge Mubarak in a certain direction and Mubarak was in a state of complete denial. >> Mubarak is telling the president, "You don't understand. I understand my people." And in front of the cameras, Obama repeated his demand. >> Good evening, everybody. Over the past few days, the American people have watched the situation unfolding in Egypt. What is clear, and what I indicated tonight to President Mubarak, is my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful, and it must begin now. Thank you very much.

>> He had issued his ultimatum >> in Israel. Netanyahu expressed amazement at what Obama had done. >> The Arab Spring is a perfect example of where Netanyahu believes that Obama was colossally naive. >> Israel had made peace with some of its Arab neighbors, including Egypt. Now, Netanyahu was worried those regimes would fall to Muslim extremists. >> Netanyahu's reaction was the tragic realist reaction, which is, "This ain't going to work out, guys. Democracy is not going to take root. You're going to have the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo in a year or two." Israelis are slapping their heads and saying, "Oh my god, what a disaster." Because what they see is not an outbreak of democracy. They see an outbreaking of chaos that's going to be quickly snatched and dominated by Islamic extremists.

>> At the time, Dan Meridor was the deputy prime minister. >> The uh quick pace with which the American administration started to push Mubarak off the cliff, he has to go, he has to go now, he has to go now amazed me. The thinking that if Mubarak is out, a new Thomas Jefferson is going to be born on the Nile and build a new republic was was miserably naive. >> The president Mubarak has stepped down. The sound of freedom. >> 10 days after Obama's phone call, Mubarak resigned. >> Tonight, the people of Egypt have toppled their leaders. When will he fill? I think that the amazement of Mubarak and his people that America in a way deserted them openly and the amazement of many allies of America leaders in the region that America seems not to be a reliable ally and pushes you and when they need at least not to interfere. I think this was a big mistake in countries.

>> At the White House, the president seized the moment. >> Obama wanted a reset of his approach to the Middle East. He told his staff to prepare a new speech. >> The president wanted to speak and lay out what the US principles were going to be uh as we dealt with uh a region that was going through seismic change. >> The president of the United States, Barack Obama, >> he delivered the speech in front of a room filled with staffers at the State Department. For 6 months, we have witnessed an extraordinary change taking place in the Middle East and North Africa. He spoke for nearly an hour, >> but the speech would be remembered for just one line. >> We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps. >> It was a familiar demand, but one never endorsed so publicly by the President of the United States.

became the headline. The headline of the New York Times was President Obama endorses the 67 borders. The rest of the speech about the Arab Spring went virtually unreported. Now, for Israel, this was um this was a major development. >> Netanyahu's reaction was immediate. He summoned his closest advisers for an emergency meeting. My secretary comes rushing in and she goes, "Dory, the prime minister's on the phone." I get on the phone. and he goes, "Dory, where are you?" He says, "I need you to come here right now." I walk into his office where his desk is, and he's surrounded by his top adviserss. He's on a speaker phone to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And while I won't go into what was said in detail, I'll just say roughly he was not happy. What set Netanyahu off was that the president had made any mention of Israel's borders before the ' 67 war.

>> Everyone says go back to June 4th, 1967. As if that will solve all the problems. Here's the problem. June 4th, 1967 were not lines of peace. Those were lines of war. A noose of death was placed around Israel in those June 4th, 1967 lines. The White House had not briefed Netanyahu. And as it turned out, he was planning a trip to Washington the next day. From Netanyahu's point of view, he was convinced that this was an attempt to ambush him, embarrass him, and put him in a situation where u you know the president was was from Netanyahu's point of view weakening Israel's negotiating position by declaring a a stance on the 67 lines. And so he was furious about it. >> When Netanyahu landed, his ambassador could tell there would be trouble. I'd never seen him like that coming out of the plane. There was there was no smile. There's no wave. And uh you can almost imagine steam coming out of his ears. His team of advisers tried to calm it down, but he had things he wanted to say to the president.

>> At the White House, Obama and his top advisers had heard from Hillary Clinton that BBE was angry. >> President asked me, "Why did BB react so negatively to the speech?" And I said, "Because he was surprised by it." and he felt he was being put in a corner. You were trying to jam him in front of his own constituency before he came here. >> But one of the president's top advisers says Netanyahu overreacted. >> If you look at the principles that we identified, uh the notion of 67 lines with mutually agreed swaps is not at all a controversial idea. That's been the basis for every negotiation that is neared uh neared a resolution over the history of this conflict. Just as in their first meeting, the press was summoned. >> All right, everybody set up? All good. >> Let me first of all welcome once again uh Prime Minister Netanyahu and I want >> But this time, BB Netanyahu would lecture Barack Obama, >> taking a hard line on the peace process.

>> It's not going to happen. Everybody knows it's not going to happen, and I think it's time to tell the Palestinians forthrightly, it's not going to happen. I've never seen um a foreign leader uh speak to the president like that. Um and certainly not in public. Um and I've never certainly never seen it happen in the Oval Office. >> Israel obviously cannot be asked to negotiate with a government that is backed by the Palestinian version of al-Qaeda. >> You're watching President Obama there with his face in his hand and you can tell it's not going over well. This is this is his house and to be lectured in his office um wrankles. >> It cannot go back to the 1967 lines >> because these uh these lines are indefensible. >> Watching it unfold. Chief of staff Bill Daly. >> Bill Daly standing next to me and he's going outrageous. Outrageous. And he's just I mean it's like he's almost levitating >> not negotiate with a Palestinian government that is backed by Kamas. That was intentional.

>> That was done for political u for political effect. I think he came with a mind toward inflaming uh inflaming the the relationship. >> Mr. President, history will not give the Jewish people another chance. >> Obama was treated to a lecture >> on Jewish and Israeli history that just went on and on and and and deeply offended deeply offended Obama and his people. the ancient nation of Israel. And you know, we've been around for almost 4,000 years. We've experienced struggle and suffering like no other people. >> There was a sense of >> Gaul. What G? >> And now it falls on my shoulders as the prime minister of Israel. >> I think Netanyahu frankly had given up on Obama. He felt this administration from day one has disliked me, has wanted me out, has wanted me gone. So what's the point of holding back?

>> The decision was made uh to come directly at us. I mean, if imagine the president of United States going to uh Jerusalem and saying things like that next to the prime minister. I mean, it was a fairly dramatic moment. The president had a choice. Try to push Netanyahu even harder or walk away from the peace process. I >> think Obama realized at that time that the price that he was paying for trying to ram something down Netanyahu's throat that Netanyahu didn't want to have rammed down his throat was not worth it wasn't worth it for him. >> With the president's re-election campaign looming, the Obama White House was keenly aware of the political costs of confronting Netanyahu. The Obama bill didn't want to give the Republicans a weapon by having open fights at this point with Netanyahu because it becomes a talking point. You know, this is a president who's not supportive of our great friend Israel. How can he do this to our great friend? They were looking to negate that as an issue that might come out uh or be used by Republicans against him.

>> Israel's prime minister telling President Obama exactly what he thought of the president. Palestinians who had once cheered Obama's election >> now watched with disappointment. >> His approach has been to send signals but to never follow up his signals with actual action. He didn't back up his statements against settlements with actual actions and saying to the Israelis, you have to make a choice now. Do you want these settlements or do you want the money that we sp that we give you every year? It's always just been one signal after another signal after another signal. And this isn't an an area that deals well with signals. This is an is an area that requires concrete action. >> Indeed, under Obama, the United States has continued to provide Israel with as much as $3 billion a year in military aid. Netanyahu had stood up to the American president. The peace process was on hold.

Now he could focus on an issue he believed was more pressing. The fear that Iran was building a nuclear weapon. BB Netanyahu has said a thousand times if once that Iran not only is an enemy of of Israel but would literally use those nuclear weapons against us. Never again are we going to put ourselves in a position of allowing an outside force to use overwhelming power to kill us to try to wipe us out. It's not going to happen. >> We are thinking Iran a regime which represent the extreme Islamic ideology that would not accept our right to exist at all that denies the Holocaust trying to achieve a nuclear weapon. I mean, >> and in meeting after meeting, Netanyahu's military and intelligence services delivered the bad news. >> We're seeing Iran racing ahead to produce the fistal material necessary for nuclear weapons. They had uh had not only lowenriched uranium, but they were starting to pile up more and more bombs worth of low-enrich uranium. And we could see that month after month that number was getting higher and higher.

Understand the >> His defense minister Ahoud Barack once arrival was now on his side. >> Iran Barack said was entering the zone of immunity. The zone of immunity was that place on the on the timeline after which the Iranian nuclear sites are going to be immune from Israeli firepower. >> The council is >> there were a number of clocks ticking. One clock was the rate at which Iran was enriching uranium. Another clock was the rate in which they would complete the enrichment and move underground at which point it would be too late. Israel is not obliged. >> They ordered the Israeli military to plan for a direct strike on Iran's nuclear program. >> The first 3 months of 2012, everything was ready. huge military buildup including land bases in other countries, intelligence corporation, um advanced weaponry.

>> Breaking news. All right, there's breaking news about the possibility of an Israeli attack on talking about a socalled zone. >> Secretary Benetta believe Israel will strike Iran in April, May or May. >> Say Iran has already produced enough uranium to build. >> But in the White House secure basement situation room weapon, >> they were receiving no word on when or if Netanyahu would order the strike are mounting tonight that Israel is ready to attack. Communications had broken down between the president and prime minister. >> American military planners were assuming every night, you know, when they went to sleep that they would wake up to an Israeli attack. >> The Israeli government certainly looked like they were practicing an attack. They did a military exercise in which they flew from Israel out over the sea, exactly the distance you would have to go to to hit Natans and the other major nuclear sites in Iran. And that really set off a lot of alarms in the United States.

>> As the tension mounted, the president's top advisers warned that an Israeli strike could ignite a war in the Middle East. any military action would have precipitated in our view a much broader conflict with Iran. Uh Iran would have been likely to respond with proxies and that likely would have led to a chain of events where the United States is at war with Iran. >> You can imagine Israel attacks Iran in order to uh do damage to its nuclear program. Iran now fires missiles at Israel. There's a large casualty toll. It continues. What does the United States do? >> For Barack Obama, the decision to initiate a war with Iran was now in the hands of Benjamin Netanyahu. >> I think the president was resigned to the idea that if Israel went and attacked and then needed help finishing the job or protecting itself, that there wasn't any real choice that the president United States was going to go in and help.

>> But as the possibility of a strike grew, Netanyahu had a problem. The Israeli military was nervous about attacking Iran on its own. There are all kinds of figures in the Israeli security establishment, the big military figures who all all think that it would be crazy to say nothing, you know counterproductive dangerous ruinous for Israel to attack Iran. With his military wary about a unilateral strike, Netanyahu reluctantly asked Obama for upfront assurance that if Israel went ahead, the US would back them up. What Netanyahu wants is either a green light or a yellow light to go bomb the Iranian program. and the knowledge that if the Iranians retaliated against Israel, Obama would be right with him to get into that conflict.

And Obama wasn't going to give him that. >> Employment is in such difficult shape right now. >> At just this time, the president's re-election campaign was beginning. >> President Obama's approval ratings have hit an all-time low. >> Obama is under 50%. >> In the early going, he was in trouble. >> No president has been reelected with this type of So Netanyahu decided to take his argument for striking Iran directly to the American voters. >> We've seen his approval ratings on the economy dip. >> Netanyahu had his maximum leverage in this summer and fall of 2012. This is the point of maximum Israeli power on the issue. The White House and the president comes to believe that that BB is using an election year to try to leverage him on the on the Iran issue. And if you're not going to let us go militarily, then you have to go. >> This morning, a special hour of Meet the Press, an exclusive network interview with a key player in the Middle East, the Prime Minister.

>> On TV show after TV show, he urged Obama to commit to military action if Iran crossed a red line. >> I think it's important to place a red line before. I think it's important to delineate a red line for Iran. >> A red line should be drawn right here. He is so convinced that he's right on it, >> equally so convinced that Obama is dead wrong. And if he can persuade more and more people, America can somehow change its life. >> Don't let these fanatics have nuclear >> puts enormous pressure on the president, enormous pressure on the White House for >> But Netanyahu's media blitz did little to persuade the president. When Netanyahu pushes Obama, it causes Obama's neck to stiffen further. And when Obama pushes Netanyahu, it sends him toward his corner. So, it's it's all wrapped up in the dysfunction between these two men.

>> By the fall of 2012 at the United Nations, Obama wouldn't even sit in the same room with Netanyahu. There was an attempt to set a meeting between uh the prime minister and the president in September at the UN with the both of the general assembly and and the the president won't take the meeting. >> Netanyahu decided to do something no other Israeli prime minister had done. Appear to actively support the president's opponent. >> How are you my friend? Good to see you. >> Thanks so much for making time to say hello. You're very kind. >> It was a remarkable scene. You've never seen an Israeli prime minister get as directly involved in a political campaign as this one. >> Governor Romney, Mitt, it's a pleasure to welcome you in Jerusalem. Um, we've known each other for many decades. God, we were so young then and for some reason you still you look young. I don't know how you do it. >> It's a real gamble for Netanyahu to re embrace Mitt Romney the way he does. I mean, it's a relatively brazen interference in effect in American elections.

>> And Netanyahu's conservative, wealthy Jewish supporters in America initiated a media campaign. >> The world tells Israel, "Wait, there's still time." >> The ad targeted Jewish voters in Florida. >> Say, "Wait for what? Wait until when?" The world needs American strength. >> At the White House, administration officials said Netanyahu had crossed the line. >> It was, I think, pretty clear that Netanyahu was now working with the Republicans to try to defeat him. There's no doubt in my mind that he was he and Durmer had placed their bet on the Republicans winning in 2012. The voters vote, the counters count as the candidates and their on election night. Netanyahu watched with anticipation >> campaign 2012.

>> We're closing in on the first results in the battle for the White House. >> I know for a fact that on election night there, you know, the champagne bottles metaphorically were on ice. They were waiting. They were absolutely convinced that the world could not fail to see things as they did and therefore Romney would almost certainly win. >> This is an ABC. >> But as the results came in, Obama won state after state. >> Mark the time here we are. Ohio is in. We are projecting the battleground. >> The Israeli government analysis was that Romney was going to win. You are looking at the president of the United States. >> Obama received an overwhelming Jewish vote in Ohio. It is >> 69% >> and that Netanyahu was one of the last people really last people like midnight US time on election night to sort of say, "Oh, I guess he really didn't have it. He was like a Fox News bidder ender in in that sense.

In victory, Obama decided America would handle Iran without Israel. >> I think in that period the air went out of the balloon. I think that president has essentially written off Netanyahu. Obama wanted to talk with Iran and saw an opportunity to show diplomacy would be more effective than Netanyahu's confrontational approach. Obama comes to office on the theory that we should talk to our enemies, right? And Iran is among them. Uh yes, Iran is a hostile country. Yes, Iran is sponsoring terrorism. But if we don't find ways to connect with them, there's no way to uh counter them. And sitting down to talk to him is a is a is a rational reasonable thing to do. consistent despite >> Obama told his staff to engage in a series of secret negotiations with Iran >> and he ordered them not to tell Netanyahu.

>> There was concern that there were enough Israelis hostile to the very notion of a channel with Iran that it wouldn't remain private and it would get blown up politically uh before we had a chance to explore whether it would work. >> The secret meetings continued for months in the Gulf state of Oman. But Israeli intelligence soon found out and they were monitoring the travels of William Burns and Jake Sullivan, the US negotiators. >> Israeli intelligence learns that the United States has a secret back channel of negotiation with Iran in Oman in Muscat. And when it learned about this, of course, Benjamin was furious. It was a type of an implosion. We're confronted with this reality in which our principal ally has negotiated behind our backs for 7 months with our worst enemy. Now that is hard to square.

>> Benjamin Netanyahu sees this highly sensitive secretive intelligence coming from Iran. The Iranians are happy. The American delegates are making concession after concession and it leads I think naturally to harshen the line against the US government and say this is a very bad deal. You are going to make a very bad deal. >> Secretary of State John Kerry arrives in Israel today in an effort to Israel in the >> next stop Israel. >> Just as outlines of a secret deal became public. >> Secretary of State John Kerry made a stopover in Israel. Netanyahu rushed to Bengurian airport for a face-to-face meeting with Kerry. >> We felt it's ridiculous, unjustified, immoral. It's going to be more of the same and worse than the same. >> While Carrie waited in the first class lounge, Netanyahu stopped for a word with the press. I understand the Iranians are walking around very satisfied as well they should be because they got everything and paid nothing.

This is a very bad deal. Uh and Israel utterly rejected. >> Then Netanyahu headed for Kerry. He did not hold back. It was just Carrie and Netanyahu. But I was outside the room and I could hear it. I could hear it. That's for sure. He had a really strong sense of betrayal. He was furious. When Bivby gets upset, he starts screaming and pounding the table. Uh and and so it was one of those moments. But he was not done. Before leaving, Netanyahu went before the cameras one more time. >> This is a bad deal. A very, very bad deal. It's the deal of the century for Iran. It's a very dangerous and bad deal for peace in the international community. >> Later that day, Netanyahu summoned Obama's former adviser, Dennis Ross.

>> BB asked me to to come and see him on Friday evening at his, you know, at his at the prime minister's residence. So, it's it's Shabbat evening. and um and I get there and I have to wait about, you know, close to an hour because he's on the phone with the president. >> We would be in a better position. >> In an emergency phone call from Air Force One, Obama tried to calm Netanyahu down and persuade him that a deal with Iran would make Israel safer, >> but it didn't work. >> As many times as I have dealt with BB, I had never seen him this way. He wasn't angry, but he was the only way I can put it is that he was feeling alarmed. Not angry, but alarmed. And he first thing he says to me is the president's decided he has no choice but to do a deal with Iranians forces off the table. And I said, "He didn't say that to you."

He said, "He did." I said, "No, he didn't say that to you." He said, "He did. attack. >> Netanyahu believed the Iranians would only respond to the threat of force. >> To him, if that was not an option, Obama was surrendering to the Iranians. >> I have no recollection of the president ever telling Prime Minister Netanyahu that the military options off the table. The president was saying, "Look, um, we have an opportunity here to get more through diplomacy than we could accomplish even through taking military action." Um, and that was that's an argument he's had with the prime minister multiple times over the course of the last uh two years. Now, >> BB was convinced of what he'd heard. He wasn't say he wasn't saying he said those exact words, but he interpreted what he heard as if the president, you know, there's too much war weariness in the in the States. I don't have the option of of using force. This is the only option I have.

>> Ross reached out to Secretary of State John Kerry. I actually contacted Carrie and said, "Look, you have a problem here. It has to be fixed." He said, "I'll I'll call him." I said, "You know, it shouldn't be you. The problem isn't you. The problem is what BB thinks where the president is. This needs to be fixed by the White House." And it wasn't. He didn't get a call. >> President Obama began the selling job for the nuclear deal with Iran. administration is giving it the hardest. >> Instead, Obama went to the American people to sell a deal that would impose limits on Iran's nuclear program and allow international inspections in exchange for lifting sanctions. >> From the perspective of US interest, it is far better if we can get a diplomatic solution. For the first time in a decade, we halted the progress on Iran's nuclear program. Key parts of the program will be rolled back. a comprehensive agreement that prevents a nuclear armed Iran, secures America and our allies, including Israel, while avoiding yet another Middle East conflict.

>> A tough talk as the president of the United States is trying to pull a major sales ch for Obama. This is his chance at a legacy in the Middle East, which has been very, very frustrating for him. Iran is so central to his legacy and his perception of American national interest. is agreeing to temporarily freeze key parts of >> in March 2015 as the president and Iranians were on the verge of signing a deal historic deal with >> Benjamin Netanyahu running out of time arrived in Washington to make that controversial speech urging Congress to block the deal. >> See him walking by him. Maybe he'll stop. >> See Netanyahu has already given up on Obama. He looks at Washington says, "Well, who can I find as an ally?" Well, the Republicans now control both houses of Congress. And in effect, he decides to make common cause with them. >> It's a big day on Capital Hill. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address. >> Mr. Speaker, >> the Prime Minister of Israel, >> he could count on the Republican party to be against the president and enlisted Apac, the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee to go on the attack. For him to to go on such a tear and denounce it and line Apac up to spend $20 million to try to defeat it was a huge mistake.

If he loses, the president will have shown that he can stand up to Israel and the vaunted Israeli lobby and that will be a lesson for for a long time. >> I want to thank you all for being here today. I know that uh my speech has been the subject of much controversy. >> A large number of Democrats boycotted the speech, choosing to stand by the president. >> You have this great drama of American politics. You have the drama of a Republican Congress who almost seems to want to have BB Netanyahu as its leader rather than Barack Obama. Today the Jewish people face another attempt by yet another Persian potentate to destroy us. >> I think this is for him the fight of his life.

He he's no longer rational about it. a rational uh prime minister of Israel understanding the importance of the US-Israel relationship would not confront the president on the most important uh agreement that he's managed to negotiate in his presidency. >> We must all stand together to stop Iran's march of conquest, subjugation, and terror. >> It was rhetoric he had perfected over decades. delivered to a receptive crowd. 26 standing ovations, but in the end it would not be enough. >> May God bless the state of Israel and may God bless the United States of America. >> Without the Democrats, the Republicans alone could not stop the deal. On the one issue he cared most about, Netanyahu would fail. If, god forbid, it goes bad in 10 years time or 20 years time, I think that we will all go back to these years from 2009 to 2015.

And we will be deeply saddened by the fact that there wasn't the ability to rise to the challenge to work together to get over the bad blood to get over the mistrust. There's been yet another attack in the violence between Israelis and Palestinian >> in an upurge in violence in occupied territory and in Israel themselves >> in the months that followed. Violence returned to Israel and the Palestinian territories >> once again pushed tensions between Israelis and Palestinians to a boiling point. You do not have an Israeli or Palestinian leader right now or an American president, frankly, who is prepared to pay the price of what it would take to lay the basis for a conflict ending agreement of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. >> No place is safe. Every bus station, every street corner is the scene of potential attack.

>> The president, who had sought to bridge differences, can do little now but watch as the conflict continues. and they're just the latest victims in a wave of violence. >> The great dream he has when he comes in office that he'll be the president who finally solves this. He basically tosses that aside and he admits it. He thought that if he simply sat people down at a table that they would be reasonable and that they could figure this out and that that was just obviously not going to be the case. >> Israeli officials are stepping up security measures. >> Netanyahu had promised Israelis security through strength. >> Soldiers are now on >> but still presides over a fearful country. uncertain about its future. >> It was so needed that the president of the United States and the prime minister of Israel will work together in an intimate way. >> The peace process has been dead now for more than a year. >> The fact that this never happened, that it was all bitterness and suspicion and and and and political boxing. It's it's a very sad chapter of history.

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rockets >> before October 7th had anyone intruded. Have they come into the kibuts or was that the first day that that >> this is the first >> I met Israel lender in Kafar Aza near the border with Gaza in the weeks after the Hamas massacre that left around 60 of his neighbors dead. >> This is my house. You see now they covered all the glasses was broken. From here they can see all the streets. >> So they came here, they went on your roof. >> Yes. so they could have a a view of the rest of the kibut. >> He told me her mass gunman stormed his house shortly after sunrise and turned it into a sniper's nest. He hid with his wife in a nearby room for 36 hours. >> The door was closed, the windows was closed, and the glass was open, so I could hear everything.

Wake up. >> Terrible. You can't you can't you can't uh think about it. You can't believe it. >> You can't believe it. You can't imagine it. >> What they did here, >> nobody can. >> They build a big wall. >> Mhm. >> They said to us 40 40 m in the ground with a sensors that nobody can and 6 m up. >> They said this will protect you. >> Yeah. We believe that that this can protect us. >> They just broke through. They came through.

>> They came through. On the morning of October 7th, more than a thousand fighters from the Palestinian militant group Hamas broke through the 20ft high barrier that has long separated Israel from the Gaza Strip, a densely populated enclave that is home to more than 2 million people. The 40-m long barrier is outfitted with cuttingedge surveillance tools, a deep underground concrete layer to block Hamas tunnels, and remote control machine guns above ground. After a billion dollar upgrade in 2021, Israeli officials dubbed it the Iron Wall.

But in a matter of minutes, Hamas was able to breach the fence in around 30 locations. The start of what would become the deadliest single assault in Israel's history. Around 1,200 people were killed, 240 taken hostage. The attack triggered a catastrophic war in Gaza that has killed thousands of Palestinians so far. Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, which has controlled the territory for years. >> Broadly, the fighters entered at 6:40 a.m. >> Uh-huh. And that's the same incident just from the other side of the street. >> Exactly. Soon after the October 7th attack, the Washington Post began investigating how the so-called Iron Wall could have failed so spectacularly. Our team of reporters analyzed hundreds of videos, photos, and audio recordings from before, during, and after the attack. With Front Line, we spoke with witnesses on the ground.

>> We got hit with the first RPG. >> We examined maps and planning documents recovered from Hamas fighters. We took the visual evidence from October 7th and mapped it across southern Israel and inside the Gaza Strip. Sometimes using the position of the sun to estimate when key events occurred. What we found was a fragile barrier that gave Israel a false sense of security, leaving it blind to its own vulnerabilities and to the meticulous plan taking shape on the other side of the fence. The attack began at dawn around 6:15 a.m. >> Videos recovered from Hamas fighters show them setting off from Gaza and heading towards the fence, which has long been resented by Gazins who've been penned in by it. >> People along the road cheered them on.

Around 6:30, as fighters made their way to the fence, Hamas began firing a barrage of thousands of rockets at targets across the barrier. In just the first 5 minutes of the attack, there were red alerts for more than 30 communities near the Israeli side of the wall. In Kibut's areas, less than a mile from the barrier, Ben Sadan, a member of the community security, had just woken up for an early morning bike ride. So over there we can see Gaza >> there. >> Yeah. And the the security fence. You can see it running along there. And there's the towers with the machine gun. >> Yeah. This this the border. >> Yeah. >> On the on the left side it's Gaza. On the right side is >> And I think some of the earliest rockets came over just around all around.

From this hilltop, the next wave of Heramas's attack became visible. Reconnaissance fighters on paragliders soaring over the wall undercover from the rockets. Videos we obtained show them landing in communities inside Israel. the culmination of a plan that had been years in the making and that as we discovered had been brewing in plain sight. >> When I first saw this video, I was like, "Oh, this is video from the day of like how did they get this produced out so quickly?" And then once you look closer, go, it's obviously a training video. >> Our investigation found multiple videos recorded by Hamas detailing their planning measures. Some were posted on social media before the attack. visible to all. We found videos of militants training for attacks on mock-ups of Israeli compounds. Videos posted soon after the attack showed they had also been practicing the use of paragliders.

Hamas had also been expanding their training camps, activity that was visible in widely available online maps, but this evidence was largely ignored or dismissed by Israeli intelligence and the military. Our investigation found Michael Milstein is a former head of the Palestinian department for Israel's military intelligence. He has been strongly critical of their missteps leading up to October 7th. Israel knew about about the whole plans because you know Hamas didn't hide them. It was on on public on their internet sites on their TV everywhere from the operational tactic point of view. October the 7th we we Israel IDF didn't h face any any surprise over there. >> Were there specific warnings that something like this could be coming? Well, according the reports in Israeli media, there was a very focused uh reports about the whole plan, the the whole offensive plan that promoted and uh actually uh the data, the reports itself were known even to senior ranks, senior figures in IDF intelligence. But the basic assumption, the basic assessment in uh in the intelligence was that uh those are only trainings or a a theoretic theoretic attempts. But we are

not speaking about something which is very physible. The heart of Hamas's operation on October 7th was the stage that their videos called the blinding plan, aimed at severing the connections to Israel's surveillance and security system. Israel uses seven Skyar surveillance balloons to monitor hotspots along the Gaza fence. The balloons carry a long range 360° camera, but the model of camera that Israel uses on the balloons is relatively old and is no longer made. On the morning of October 7th, we found that three of the seven balloons were in need of maintenance and out of service. Video from the attack shows one of the remaining balloons. We were told it had been cut loose by the militants. The balloons are part of a system that includes surveillance and weapons towers.

Visuals and other data from the towers are fed into monitoring centers inside Israel, including one near Raim. >> It doesn't matter how many combat soldiers they are. If they don't know where the enemy is, they can't fight the enemy. Rom Horowitz spent two years monitoring the camera feeds at Raheem before completing her military service last spring. Three of the balloons were out of service on the day they weren't working. The cameras needed to be repaired, but they're old and out of production. >> Yeah. So, >> is that a big problem? >> I personally think it is. They were first brought into use in 2006 and ever since then it's kind of been the same system. It doesn't work very well during rough weather like only when weather conditions are perfect. >> Do you remember people sending up warnings that you know these balloons are getting out of date? Some of them aren't working. They're not working in bad weather.

>> Yeah. Um, I know that the surveillance operators on the balloon have, as long as I've been there, you know, I served there, um, we've been complaining about how the balloons see and like in general their quality, >> ever since I can remember, >> the balloons are supplemented by surveillance towers containing HD cameras, laser and infrared sensors, and radar, and can see people for almost 6 miles away, according to the manufacture. mfacturer. Other structures called sentry tech towers are topped with Samson weapon stations which feature machine guns and sensors. They're positioned every few hundred yards along the barrier and outside key military facilities and are nicknamed ROE ure Hebrew for seize fires. Once the sensors send an intruder alert, IDF personnel can fire the 50 caliber machine guns by remote control.

We have to really make sure that we can firmly see a weapon and a threat before we can actually do anything with it. So, usually like if someone's getting close to the fence, we use it to kind of not shoot at them, but shoot near them to kind of like scare them away, like don't come close. You know, we're not going to touch them if they don't come close. The moment they're showing that they're a threat and they're coming close, that's when we start to act. Video from one of the sentry towers on October 7th shows it firing on a group of Hamas fighters as they approached the fence near Nick Isuim. But that's not what happened elsewhere. Hamas fighters had come prepared to evade the towers and documents recovered after the attack reveal a deep and detailed knowledge of Israeli defenses. In this one, they specifically note the locations of surveillance systems. Fighters also carry with them open-source satellite imagery annotated with coded locations of key structures along the wall.

Armed with this information, Hamas carried out their blinding plan using unmanned drones equipped with cameras to drop explosives on installations like this surveillance tower near the community of Bahri. of the sentry tech towers marked on the map. We verified videos of at least two of them being attacked. This one located near Kafar Aza was attacked twice by Hamas drones. Incendiary explosive devices with fuses were dropped on the camera and weapon system. Some of the training videos we found posted online show that these drone maneuvers had been well rehearsed. Other videos from the seventh show towers being attacked with rocket propelled grenades and gunfire. It's hard to tell just from the video evidence how badly damaged the installations were. >> Hi, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you coming and seeing us tonight. But retired Colonel Danny Tiza, the former head of the Israeli military's defense administration, told me Hamas's blinding plan drastically undermined Israel's ability to respond to the attack.

>> That was a real a real failure because they succeeded to cut the command system. The command system of all this area >> was built on one control system and they succeeded to cut it and therefore we couldn't use helicopters because according to the Israeli system the helicopters cannot shoot if there is no someone on the ground that showed them where are your forces where the other side forces so they came but they couldn't shoot because they didn't know who and what is going on there. >> In 2021, when the latest upgrade was unveiled, some of the political and military leaders made very firm, quite bold claims for the barrier. They said, "This will protect the residents in the south. Hamas will not get in." And was that a mistake to to promise those things?

>> Of course, it was a mistake. We really thought that we are building a very good infrastructure that will help to save the lives of the Israelis. Unfortunately, it didn't work. >> He said the attack exposed a fundamental misconception about the fence. >> It was built against people that will try to cross it. It wasn't built against army or against a lot of people that are coming in one time. >> Were you surprised? you personally surprised at how quickly they were able to blast through and and make it into the bases and and beyond? >> I myself was not surprised that they cross it so quickly because the fence is not built for such frightening. It was built for another thing. If you want to stop an army, you are doing it with army tools.

If you want to stop one, two, three terrorists, you're doing it with soft tools like what we did. We didn't thought that they will come a third army from the other side. They were crossing at the same time, big groups, and we were not prepared for that. The Israeli government says Hamas broke through the fence in around 30 locations. We obtained videos from 14 of them. The videos show trained Hamas fighters using explosives and munitions to blow holes in the fence and its concrete barriers. It took them only minutes. By around 6:40 a.m., Israel's iron wall had largely crumbled. In the weeks that have followed, Israel's military and intelligence establishments have come under intense criticism.

A spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner, agreed to speak with me at a military base in Tel Aviv. Hamas has published several training videos which appear to show fighters in the months before practicing specific tactics that were then used on the day blowing up fences, powerliding and so on. Did Israel not see this? I mean, we're looking at what exactly transpired before the 7th of October and there will be a time when the IDF will be doing that soularching that is required. The IDF will review that and those that need to take uh responsibility will have to take responsibility. >> What do you think October 7th says about the integrity of that barrier? So the barrier itself is a concept that was uh perceived to be a strong line of defense but any line of defense can only withhold a certain amount of pressure. I think the question is not necessarily what is the barrier but what was the threat assessment and these are the types of questions that we will be asking. These are the types of questions that the the answers to the residents of those towns of the kibutim. We owe them u clarification and and and you know accountability for the failure of not defense but the whole concept of

operations and this I think is what the IDF will be looking into when we when the war is over. The Hamas fighters that broke through the fence that morning were bound for the military bases and communities along the border. >> One group headed for Gibbut's Arez, where Ben Saddan and the rest of his security team had already armed themselves and watched with dismay as the fighters kept coming. And they're carrying weapons. >> What kind of things are they carrying? >> AK-47, RPG, grenade. How many of them were there? How many of your men were there?

He told me the combat lasted 3 hours. After these few hours of fighting, what happened next? Saddan and his team had avoided the potential massacre. >> Breaking news out of Israel. >> Chaos erupting in Israel as a >> but other communities were overrun. Hamas militants currently attacking citizens, shooting at people on the streets, attacking troops and cases. >> At 7:01, the first Hamas gunman broke through the gate at Kafar Aza. >> We are in Katar Aza. >> More than 250 others would follow throughout the morning. >> You can see this massacre. Smells of death here. >> Some of the fighters wore body cameras and the videos recovered later showed the rampage through the kabuts.

So this is my place. >> Yeah, that's what it left from my house. >> We don't have a roof. And look, everything's black and burned. >> Yuri Leven witnessed the violence that day and told me he barely escaped being kidnapped and taken to Gaza. A fate that befell many of his neighbors. >> He is kidnapped. He is also kidnapped. >> These are all friends of yours. You knew everyone. >> They kidnapped. >> She kidnapped. He is moderate. He is also kidnapped. murdered and two of them kidnapped I think. Yeah. >> Yes. Now I think I know and this is friends of me. >> Across the street a group of his friends were returning home for the first time since the attack. Smell up.

Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Amen. Shim. Amen. Yeah. >> Ezra, can you tell me about who these people are in the pictures? >> These pictures, >> this is our village team, football team.

They called uh the fox of the village, >> the the young Aza village. Some of them die. >> Show me. >> Some of them are kidnapped. He is die. And uh this is in Gaza. This two brothers has in Gaza. His parents house was destroyed. He's lost his mother and father and his brother. You know, almost everyone has a connection for was murdered, was kidnapped, was injured. Everyone from here has touched the whole community. Yeah. Heat.

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>> Holocaust survivors, women, children taken hostage, young people at a music festival murdered in cold blood by the radical Islamic terrorists of Hamas. The world has witnessed >> Hamas unleashes a shocking assault on Israel leaving hundreds dead. >> The barbarism and the savagery stunning mankind. Hamas taking hostages. >> Israel responding saying Hamas will bear the consequences of the attack. >> It was 11 days after Hamas's attack on Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's longest serving prime minister, was at Bengurian airport to meet the American president. You could see that he was lost. He was lost. He understand that this is huge, huge tragedy for Israel, but also for him as a part of Israel's history. BB Netanyahu has always sort of prided himself on being Mr. Security. So for the worst day ever, for the most severe suffering of fatalities and casualties in Israel itself, for this to occur on his watch, if it is a tragedy, >> he is now descending the stairs.

>> See, President Biden come down the stairs from Air Force One onto the tarmac and he heads straight for Netanyahu and he wraps his arms around him. It was an expression of America's solidarity with Israel, but it also carried a warning. >> It's called a bear hug, but in Hebrew, a bear hug can mean wrapping your arms around somebody in order to restrain them as much as to comfort them. And that captured, I think, the dual goals of this trip, right? Hug them. Yes, we are with you, but caution at the same time. Be careful. >> This is an extremely delicate journey now. Um, >> Israel had just begun its retaliation against Hamas. And later that day, Biden and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken took the unprecedented step of joining Netanyahu's war cabinet to discuss their plans and the escalating civilian toll in Gaza. The fact that State Secretary Blinken and President Biden insist on sitting inside the Israeli war cabinet, which never happened in the history of the relations between the two countries, this is the clearest example. They just don't trust them. They want to be there and make sure that things are not getting out of control.

>> After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes. >> It was a warning to Netanyahu and to the Israeli people. Don't make the mistake that we Americans made after 9/11, which was to overreact, to do what our enemies wanted us to do and to unleash a military conflict that causes us all sorts of additional problems. >> Two months later, Gaza is in ruins. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to push back against international calls for a ceasefire. >> The problem is that no one knows what will need to happen for Israelis to feel satisfied that they've achieved their stated objective of having destroyed Hamas. >> Gaza has become a graveyard for children. >> Thousands of Palestinians are dead. And so all that's left is to just keep killing and bombing and killing and bombing until when >> prioritized the hostages rather than >> with Hamas still holding hostages.

Netanyahu has pushed ahead >> from the Israeli perspective. What matters right now is what happened October 7th and there's less and less talk about what would happen in Gaza, about the consequences, about the world's criticism. And now tensions are mounting between the Israeli prime minister and the American president who'd hugged in solidarity. >> Hugging Netanyahu turns out to be a very risky strategy. There are many people who look at the situation and say, "Well, what has this bear hug got us?" The US is pressing Israel to shift to precise targeting of Hamas leaders rather than widespread bombing and ground. For Benjamin Netanyahu, this moment of crisis is the culmination of a 30-year conflict, over a failed peace process he has long resisted over American pressure to come to terms with the Palestinians. It's >> not going to happen and over the security of his country that he vowed to defend. >> With all of this death and destruction, it's hard not to look back and say, where did the, you know, road turn? When did it become inevitable that we would head to this cataclysmic conflict? The second guessing is haunting.

>> Preparations are underway. We expect to see the president shortly >> for what he called an historic and honorable compromise. >> 30 years ago, a hopeful moment in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. >> It's a day for optimism. >> Two sworn enemies arrived at the White House to sign a peace agreement. >> The deal was struck in secret by the principal. Israeli Prime Minister Yeetszak Rabbin, a former general represented Israel, >> have now agreed to lay down their guns. >> Representing the Palestinians, Yaser Arafat, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Years of armed conflict, >> this is historic breakthrough between Israel and the PLO. Two national movements competing for the same space. And for the first time, they're prepared to recognize each other. known as the Oslo Accords, supported by President Bill Clinton. It was designed to end years of violence by laying out a peace process, a deal that could give Palestinians their own state and land captured by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

>> President Clinton felt this was his baby. >> It charts a course toward reconciliation between two peoples who have both known the bitterness of exile. On the White House lawn, the tensions were visible. >> To the last minute, there were issues. Raine is insisting that Arfat can't come in a uni anything looks like a a uniform. We're telling Arfat, don't you can't come with a you don't bring a weapon. You know, he's always always had a pissy. You don't bring a weapon to the White House. >> Then at a point, the president looks at Rabbine and he says, "You're going to have to shake his hand." And Rabbine looked like someone had punched him in the stomach and he stood there for a moment. >> This is man he considered a terrorist all his life agreement >> and then the handshake. >> An image that would become iconic.

These hands that shook knew nothing but to shoot the trigger, the bullets, the bombs, the fight. And the question to me is, can this hat shake lead to the culture in the minds of Palestinians and Israelis that coexistence is possible, that peace is possible, to live and let live. But in Israel, an outcry against the peace process had been building among the ultra-ligious right-wing and security-minded conservatives. The face of the opposition, the 43-year-old leader of the Lood Party, Benjamin Netanyahu, known as BB. A PLO Islamic State 15 minutes from Jerusalem or 5 minutes from Tel Aviv is a prescription not for peace but for dangerous and renewed conflict.

>> Week after week, Netanyahu watched the protests build. >> We're demonstrating against the inability of their government to maintain order in this country and to protect the rights of Jews living in their own land. Concerned a Palestinian state would pose a security risk to Israel, Netanyahu maneuvered the growing anger into a political force. Netanyahu saw a moment of betrayal and peril and an agreement that would never and could never work. >> He did not believe in the possibility of a deal with the Palestinians. He didn't trust them. He didn't like them. He doesn't >> and he doesn't want to have a deal with them. He didn't want to have a deal with them. >> Suicide bomber boarded the bus. >> At the time among the Palestinians, there was also a rising faction opposed to the peace process. >> The car bomb was aimed at killing the maximum number of Israeli school children.

>> A recently formed Islamic militant group started setting off suicide bombs inside Israel. Its name Hamas. When the Oslo agreement is signed, most Palestinians said, "Let's give this a chance." But there was that core constituency um among Palestinians who said, "The peace process is a sham. It can never succeed. Only armed struggle can liberate Palestine." And Hamas became the embodiment of that sentiment. >> Hamas's founding declaration called for the destruction of Israel and condemned all attempts at negotiation. It was another test for the already strained Middle East peace process. >> Their increasingly brazen attacks would fuel Israeli opposition to the peace talks and the rise of Benjamin Netanyahu is a very weak read indeed. He gives cover to the kamas. He makes a pretense of fighting them but effectively allows them to attack us with impunity. >> Protest reinforced opposition to the accord from right-wing groups.

Netanyao's opposition movement reached a fever pitch in October 1995 when tens of thousands crammed into the center of Jerusalem from a balcony overlooking Zion Square. He addressed the crowd. The >> crowd was with him as he attacked Yaserat. And then the government of Ysakra, >> there's a really ugly character to it, the level of vitriol, the anger, the scope of these demonstrations, the kind of incitement, the portrayal of Rabbine, dressing Rabbine in Nazi uniforms or putting a kafia on There were moments when Netanyahu was advised that you know there are real nut cases in the national religious camp that we see that we need to calm down even gesturally.

Netanyahu never did that. He never did that to his enormous discredit. Then a month later, at the end of a rally of his own, Gitsakrain was gunned down. The assassin, a right-wing Israeli Jew. >> One lone gunman was taken. >> Gigal Amir. >> Truly shocking news from the Middle East tonight. Israel's Prime Minister Yitsak Rabbine has been assassinated. An evening spent dreaming of peace turns into a national nightmare. >> Outside the hospital, the crowd began to chant, "Be is a murderer. Sign says BB Rim's blood is on your hands.

>> An assassin has taken yet another world leader away from us. It was just after the biggest peace rally in Tel Aviv. >> Rabine's widow blamed Netanyahu for contributing to her husband's death. >> Yak Rabine has also produced shock in the Palestinian community >> and said so on worldwide television. >> Your husband pointed the finger at Mr. Netanyahu and said you must stop this incitement. To what extent do you blame Mr. Netanyahu and the Lakood for what has happened? >> I do I do blame them. The rally in Kikartion in Jerusalem that showed him in the uniform of a Nazi. So Mr. Bibin Netanyao now we can say from here to eternity that he didn't support it and didn't agree with it but he was there and it didn't stop it. >> Netanyao's close adviser at the time vehemently disagrees. The attempt to pin on him the murder of the prime minister is a cheap political propaganda trick that was taken by his political opponents mostly from the left in order to delegitimize Netanyahu as a political public and to delegitimize the positions of Likood uh in the Israeli open political debate.

Your prime minister was a martyr for peace, but he was a victim of hate. >> After Rabbine's death, the peace process he had championed was in jeopardy. >> Shalom. >> His successor, Shimon Perez, would now try to win an election to keep it alive. That meant facing Bibby Netanyahu whose standing in the polls had fallen in the wake of the assassination. >> People who spoke to him on those days have said that he thought that his career was over. >> Then as election day neared 10 kg of explosives produced this commuter bus. >> Hamas had struck again. A number 18 bus right through the heart of Jerusalem. Arms packed with nails and shrapnel exploded in Israel Sunday, killing >> There were some Palestinian groups trying to make sure that the sabotaging of the peace process.

Rabin was assassinated. Let us stop the whole process. >> This morning, the sound of sirens again interrupted the morning. >> 6 days later, the number 18 bus again. Police combed the hellish wreckage for clues about a suspect. >> The bus bombings were part of a series of Hamas attacks that killed more than 60 people and injured hundreds. >> Did not could not believe the warning news. Another bloody Sunday. >> The suicide bomber has once again blown up a city. >> Israelis lost faith in the process in that process. One of the slogans that came from grassroots was this piece is killing us. You see terrorism exploding in our streets literally. So the only thing that we can do uh is not to continue on a failed course. This is bound to lead to more and more terrorism. And that's exactly what's been happening. >> Netanyao began to climb in the polls.

>> He was able to speak to the masses and translate the horror of suicide bombers into political power and say I will be able to solve this. I am strong. I come from a military background. Uh I have the experience and the spirit to stop suicide bombers. >> There are many ways of fighting terrorism, but the first decision is to fight it. >> Netanyahu had railed against the Oslo Accords and promised security to the growing number of Israelis scarred by the violence. >> The difference between Mr. Netanyahu and the current Mr. Shimote Perez is a mere fraction of 1%. >> Vinyamin Netanyahu is on his way to the United States for his first visit since becoming Israel's prime minister. >> Benjamin Netanyahu's dealings with the president of the United States will be of intense interest. >> Just over one month later, Prime Minister Netanyahu was at the White House. Clinton and Prime Minister Netanyahu will hold a joint news conference after they meet Tuesday.

>> Behind closed doors, Clinton would demand Netanyahu continue the hostel peace process and personally meet with Yaserfact. >> It didn't take long for the meeting to become contentious. >> He came in pretty full of himself and he was pretty much telling the president how to deal with the Arabs. He understood how to deal with the Arabs. His sort of posture was let me tell you about the Middle East and he then proceeded to lecture the pro the president on the realities of the Middle East. Here's the way it is. >> Nahu wanted to make clear that you know even though the previous government had signed the agreement that he had some real reservations about it. And so, you know, I think that that that's why it got off to a bad start. And so, you know, when the meeting's over, Clinton turns, he says, "Who does he think the superpower is?"

Under pressure from Clinton, Netanyahu agreed to a compromised gesture. He would meet with Yaser Aerafat. And I think there's a moment where Netanyahu has to decide, can he try to block the actual implementation of the agreement, but concede some things that Clinton was pressing for in terms of an on camera, for instance, handshake with Arafat. I think that was the calculation. That day I was there and I was thinking how how will this happen? I was trying to do whatever I can to make sure that if needs to, I will employ every damage control mechanism, every crisis management, everything. And >> it was a meeting Netanyahu had insisted would never happen. >> Very, very hard. Very hard. He swore he will never shake Arafat's hand.

Once the handshakes started, they kept coming. And he took other steps. He pulled Israeli troops out of a key city in the West Bank and signed a treaty agreeing to further implement Oslo. But close observers say he was slow walking the peace process. Nate was an ideologue very deeply. in every step of his premiership starting in 96, everything he's doing, he's thinking, how do I limit this thing? How do I make sure I don't have to give back more land? And if I do, what's the the smallest area of concession uh that I can make? >> The compromises would prove fateful for Netanyahu. >> Nobody was happy with him. The left weren't happy with him for what he was doing to undermine Oslo and the right wasn't happy with him for what he was doing to keep Oslo. He was in a sort of impossible balancing act.

At that point, the prime minister's conservative base folds and some people on the conservative right work with the Israeli left to bring down Prime Minister Netanyahu. In 1999, he'd lose his bid for reelection, but he'd take with him some key lessons. >> One, his view of democratic, liberal American presidents as the rival, if not the enemy. Two, the fact that concessions on the peace process could lead to his downfall. Netanyao would spend the next several years working his way back into power. >> Israelis and Palestinians in a lastditch pitch for Middle East peace. Netanyahu watched as Clinton brought his left-wing successor Ahood Barack and Yaser Arafat together at Camp David >> for another peace effort that would have created a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank.

>> Among the difficult issues left unresolved was the control of Jerusalem. When Camp David happened, the Palestinian team said, "We don't think the parties are prepared. The groundwork has not been done." I think the problem with Clinton was that he believed that everything could just be undone with some magic wand. >> Barack made a a far-reaching offer. I think went further than he was planning to do but for Arafat it was unacceptable >> and he said if I accept this you'll be you want to walk behind my casket that's what he said I had a dinner with one of the former Palestinian negotiator and I won't name him because this was done in confidence and he said to me we and the delegation all wanted to accept it and RFAT just sort of blew us away.

And he said, "Can you imagine where we would be today if we had said yes?" Uh, and you know, I think about that conversation often right now. The failure of the deal at Camp David set in motion a new round of frustration and violence on both sides. Palestinians were fed up. There were years of failed negotiations. Security for them went backwards. Freedom of movement went backwards. Freedom of religion went backwards. The economy went backwards. And there was a point at which Palestinians said enough. We are done with this process of negotiations. So everything unravels. Everything unravels. That cycle of violence in which there were fairly high casualties on both sides that definitely soured both publics uh Israeli public and the Palestinian public against the notion of a peaceful resolution.

We see a rightward shift in Israeli politics happening around that same time. And we also see a shift happening on the Palestinian side where opponents of the peace process, violent opponents of the peace process like Hamas are emboldened by the violence uh on the one hand but also the failure of negotiations. By 2005, Netanyahu was back at the center of the Israeli government. He was finance minister in the administration of Prime Minister Ariel Chiron, who had a new plan for dealing with the Palestinians. No negotiations. Instead, a unilateral withdrawal of Israeli settlements and troops from the Gaza Strip. The Israelis concluded a long time ago that they didn't actually want Gaza. You know, they weren't planning to annex it. They wanted to actually pull out of it. They're gonna get the heck out and it's up to the Palestinians what they want to do with it at that point.

>> Netanyahu grew uneasy about the implications of handing over Gaza to the Palestinians. He consulted a former military intelligence chief. >> Netanyahu asked me what is my view and I was totally against it. By evacuating all our forces, we allow Gaza to be an extreme country which will be controlled by Hamas. >> A week before the pull out, Netanyahu resigned in protest. >> I cannot be a partner to a move that I think compromises the security of Israel. Jewish settlers have until midnight tonight to get out of Gaza or be removed by force. >> When the pull out happened, the army had to forcibly remove many Israeli settlers from their homes, deeply dividing the country. >> This is just a trauma for the nation of Israel, dividing their country, pitting the right wing against the army.

In Washington, President George W. Bush had been pushing the Palestinians to quickly take advantage of the moment and hold democratic elections. >> Mr. President, we will work with you to help realize the dream of a free and democratic Palestine. >> The Bush administration threw its support behind the Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas who taken over since the death of Yaser Arafat. Welcome back to the White House. >> Abbas and his Fata party were unpopular among many Palestinians who saw them as corrupt and ineffective. Hamas decided to run against them. >> In 2006, when Hamas runs, they run a disciplined campaign. The slogan was, "We'll provide good governance. We'll fight corruption." And Islam is the answer. That's how they ran. It was open free elections which were promoted by the United States of America, not by us. We didn't like the idea, but under the pressure of the Americans, we did it. And Hamas won.

>> The sweeping victory by Hamas is being described as a political earthquake. Already those shocks being felt in Gaza in the city of >> Hamas's election victory in 2006 was a surprise to everyone, including Hamas. Hamas was designated by Israel, by the United States, and by many European countries as a terrorist organization. So this was not a government that they could deal with. Showed the fraught consequences of of a democracy agenda. Sometimes democracy doesn't lead to the results you actually want. >> As we've been reporting here, there's been a bloody and violent takeover of power in Gaza. Having won the election in Gaza, Hamas soon took complete control, driving out its rivals in a violent civil war, Mahmud Abbas's Fata party retreated to the West Bank city of Ramla. Gaza would be Hamas's stronghold. Gaza becomes a fortress for an organization whose founding charter talks about killing Jews and eliminating Israel. and they are now not just a terrorist organization in Gaza, but the governing organization in Gaza. And that means that the Israelis have to figure out how to deal with them.

>> The error's crossing point between Gaza and Israel is now barred to almost all Palestinians. >> The Israeli government imposed a blockade on Gaza. >> It said it was trying to stop the group from bringing in weapons and prevent its fighters crossing into Israel. >> The civilian population are facing increasing desperation and misery. But it also trapped the population. >> Israel says that gas will not starve on a more basic diet. >> The notion that you could keep 2 million people locked up indefinitely with no real economy who are entirely dependent on Israel opening and closing the border to allow movement of goods and people in where majority of the people are now impoverished I think was not only absurd but also quite cruel. because it depended on periodic predictable eruptions of violence that from Israel's standpoint were acceptable.

As Netanyahu had predicted, within a year Hamas was firing rockets and mortars into Israel. Israel responded with air strikes. It would become a recurring cycle. By 2008, Netanyahu was once again running for prime minister with a campaign slogan of strong against Hamas. He is a great politician and he has understood the DNA of the Israeli public. He understands you have to look him in the eye and you have to say, "I'll keep you safe." >> Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have locked up the prime minister's office. >> He was reelected amid growing fear of Hamas attacks. >> But during the run-up to his victory, a new president had entered the White House.

>> Netanyahu was concerned. I happened to be on a reporting trip in Jerusalem and I went into the coffee shop at the King David Hotel. There was one other person there and it was Netanyahu sitting in a corner by himself reading newspapers. There was one thing in his mind. Who is this guy Obama? Who is he? What is he really like? and he wanted very much to point out to me as if I didn't know it that Obama's middle name was Hussein and that his father was a Muslim. What kind of objectivity could this man bring to bear on Israel >> to resolve these issues in ways that are >> from his first day in office? President Obama had set a new tone. His first phone call was to Mahmud Abbas.

>> He started off by sending the right signals to Palestinians and I found that um very sincere because he didn't need to make that phone call. >> Mr. President, thank you for this opportunity. >> Later, for his first television interview, he chose an Arab TV network. I have Muslim members of my family. Uh I have uh lived in Muslim countries. My job is to communicate the fact that the United States has a stake in the well-being of the Muslim world. >> It is my privilege to come here. >> And he signaled to Palestinians and Israelis that he wanted to restart the peace process. As history shows us that strong and sustained American engagement can bridge divides and build the capacity that supports progress.

>> In May 2009, he invited Netanyahu to the White House. >> All right, everybody. Just tell me when everybody's set up. >> Great. Uh, well, listen. I I first of all want to thank uh Prime Minister Netanyahu for making this visit. Obama took a hard line with Netanyahu. He pressed the prime minister on a key issue. Stopping the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank on land captured in the ' 67 war and claimed by the Palestinians. >> It wasn't a request, it was a demand. And I think that this shocked uh Netanyahu, shocked the people around Netanyahu and sort of gave proof to the people who had been whispering in Netanyahu's ears. situation that this guy's up to no good. >> Settlements have to be stopped uh in order for us to move forward. That's a difficult issue. I recognize that. But it's an important one and it has to be addressed.

>> The signal he was sending to the Israelis was one of I believe that this has to come to an end. They need to hear that they can't build Israeli settlements any longer. That there has to be an an end to it. For Netanyaharu, his first meeting with the president couldn't have gone worse. >> I think Netanyahu recognized in Obama suddenly a person who was hellbent on setting up a Palestinian state. >> They were better behaved than before. >> And I remember him coming back from his first meeting with President Obama. Something that tells him that it's going to be a different president. super intelligent lawyer. He has a vision and something in what we in Hebrew called an ashy. The soul is too cold to be connected to Israel. >> Once again, Netanyahu was at odds with an American president.

Obama's peace efforts over the next few years wouldn't be able to break the cycle of violence that had been raging between Israel and the Palestinians. >> Israel is carrying out brand new air strikes in the Gaza Strip today. >> Explosions in Gaza, fresh Israeli air strikes. Sirens warned of another round of Hamas rockets since the fighting. >> Obama would send his veteran conflict negotiator George Mitchell to the region more than 20 times. Hammer security forces the target in a third day of Israeli missile strikes in Gaza. >> Emotions were very high and very negative. There was a lot of hostility uh a lot of uh feelings of victimization on both sides. uh the circumstances were not conducive to moving forward. >> Mitchell says that he will be going back to the region in the next few days.

>> Neither side was ready to do a deal. >> Mitchell back again in Israel. >> Eventually Mitchell gave up. He submitted his letter of resignation in 2011. >> I withdrew. I concluded that the level of mistrust between both societies made it highly unlikely that they would be able to overcome that level of mistrust and reach agreement. >> The president of the United States, Barack Obama, >> with his Middle East efforts in trouble, Obama doubled down. For 6 months, we have witnessed an extraordinary change taking place in the Middle East and North Africa. >> Amid the Arab Spring, he delivered a speech at the State Department that lasted nearly an hour, >> but would be remembered for just one line. >> We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps. That Israel should return land it captured in the ' 67 war to form a Palestinian state was a familiar demand, but one never endorsed so publicly by a US president.

>> Became the headline. The headline of the New York Times was President Obama endorses the 67 borders. The rest of the speech about the Arab Spring went virtually unreported. Now for Israel, this was um this was a major development. Netanyahu believes if you have a Palestinian state in anywhere approximating the 67 borders, >> the potential for peace is zero, that the capacity for Israel to maintain its security even in the state it's in now will be radically diminished. The White House had not briefed Netanyahu, and as it turned out, he was planning a trip to Washington the next day. From Netanyahu's point of view, he was convinced that this was an attempt to ambush him, embarrass him, and put him in a situation where uh you know the president was was from Netanyahu's point of view weakening Israel's negotiating position by declaring a a stance on the 67 lines. And so he was furious about it.

When Netanyahu landed, his ambassador could tell there would be trouble. >> I'd never seen him like that coming out of the plane. There was there was no smile. There's no way. And uh you can almost imagine steam coming out of his ears. >> Just as in their first meeting, the press was summoned. >> All right, everybody set up all good. >> Let me first of all welcome once again uh Prime Minister Netanyahu. And I want to >> but this time >> indicate and appreciate >> BB Netanyahu would lecture Barack Obama on the peace process and Hamas. >> Israel obviously cannot be asked to negotiate with a government that is backed by the Palestinian version of al-Qaeda. >> You're watching President Obama there with face in his hand and you can tell it's not going over well. This is this is his house and to be lectured in his office um wrankles. Israel cannot negotiate with a Palestinian government that is backed by Hamas. Hamas is the president. >> Watching it unfold.

>> Chief of staff Bill Daly. >> Bill Dailyy is standing next to me and he's going outrageous outrageous and he's just I mean it's like he's almost levitating >> and because Mr. President history will not give the Jewish people another chance. Obama was treated to a lecture on Jewish and Israeli history that just went on and on and and and deeply offended deeply offended Obama and his people. >> The ancient nation of Israel and you know we've been around for almost 4,000 years. We've experienced struggle and suffering like no other people. >> There was a sense of What go? >> After the public dressing down, Obama faced a choice about how to respond. How hard to push Netanyahu. >> I think Obama realized at that time that the price that he was paying for trying to ram something down Netanyahu's throat that Netanyahu didn't want to have rammed down his throat was not worth it wasn't worth it for him. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling President >> the Palestinians who had once cheered Obama's election now watched with disappointment as the peace process not only faltered but Israel continued to build settlements.

>> His approach has been to send signals but to never follow up his signals with actual action. He didn't back up his statements against settlements with actual actions and saying to the Israelis, you have to make a choice now. Do you want these settlements or do you want the money that we sp that we give you every year? It's always just been one signal after another signal after another signal. And this is an an area that deals well with signals. This is is an area that requires concrete action. He proved to the Israeli public, look, when I defend you, even against the strongest person in the world, the president of the United States, we still get what we need in defense terms, and we still get this huge check from the United States. >> He managed to prove that Israel didn't pay a price. >> Israel has many friends and allies, but when they're mistaken, it's my obligation to speak out clearly and openly and say so.

>> Definitely. Now, as expected, continues to be the prime minister. We can expect continued tense relationship with the Obama administration. >> Netanyahu would capitalize on his defiance of Obama as he ran for reelection in 2015. He publicly lashed out at the president over his deal with Iran to curtail its nuclear program. >> The deal currently on the table is deeply flawed. instead of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, this impending deal will facilitate that development. >> He said it was a grave security risk to Israel that would also fuel Iran's backing of Hamas. It played well to his base on the Israeli right. He took an even harder line on the Palestinian issue. He came out plain and simple and said there will not be a Palestinian state.

And that was the true face of Netanyahu. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Lakood party has won what's being called a stunning re-election victory. >> Netanyahu's election victory emboldened his approach to the Palestinians. He would take advantage of the fact they were divided between Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. He wanted to divide and he wanted to make sure that he doesn't have to negotiate any deal where you would connect between the territories and Gaza. >> From an Israeli standpoint, it makes sense. Divide and rule. Keep the West Bank and Gaza separate. That's the best way uh to prevent a Palestinian state. Keep them both weak, but not weak enough where they collapse. Netanyahu made a particularly fateful gamble when it came to Hamas. With Gaza under blockade, he allowed the wealthy Gulf state Qatar to give Hamas hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance.

>> He allowed Qatar to pay Hamas massive bags of cash in dollars to buy quiet to buy carners from Kamas. This money was spent on digging tunnels and buying rockets and producing weapons now killing Israelis. While Netanyao was telling us that he was our great protector, he was actually contributing not directly to building Hamas and making it a regional power. >> Israel has responded to a rocket attack from Gaza with three punishing air strikes. >> Israel's military said the strikes were a response to a rocket fired into southern Israel. Netanyahu has denied he was empowering Hamas and pointed to repeated military offensives in Gaza against the group, a containment strategy known as mowing the grass. this notion that every so often there would need to be predictable rounds of violence mowing the grass as Israelis call it only to result in reinstating the status quo that existed before the violence was an untenable situation. I and others had argued that eventually something's going to give. there's going to be an escalation that spirals out of control.

The situation becomes so dire in humanitarian terms in Gaza that there's a bigger explosion than anyone had anticipated. And that's precisely what happened. With the Palestinians divided and Netanyahu pursuing a strategy keeping it that way, a new president with a new approach to the region came to power. >> Thank you. >> I speak to you today as a lifelong supporter and true friend of Israel. Donald Trump boasted he'd be the first US president to broker an Israeli Palestinian peace deal. Donald Trump neither knew nor cared about the history of the Middle East or the failed efforts at Middle East peacemaking. What he knew or what he thought he knew was that there was a big deal that was looming out there and that if you could make it, you'd get a Nobel Peace Prize and the deal of the century.

>> Trump surrounded himself with a team that included his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who was a family friend of Netanyahu and David Freriedman, a controversial figure who supported Israeli settlements. You had these advisers on Israel, all of them Jewish, all of them strong supporters of Israel, none of them with any particular background in negotiation in the region in terms of peace talks, but with very very uh uh developed uh positions and points of view. >> He was anxious to see if there could be a peace deal reached between Israel and the Palestinians. I will tell you candidly, I I was skeptical of that from the beginning. to the White House. Netanyahu has been full of praise for the president. >> Just one month into his term, Trump invited Netanyahu to the White House to discuss the possibilities. >> For Netanyahu and his adviserss, this was first and foremost a moment of opportunity. >> Trump seemed to them volatile, unpredictable, but perhaps unpredictable in ways that would benefit Israel.

>> BB and I have known each other a long time, a smart man, great negotiator, and I think we're going to make a deal. That might be a big >> Trump gave Netanyahu an early nod in his favor, >> saying he would be open to something other than a two-state solution. >> I'm looking at two state and one state, and I like the one that both parties like. I'm very happy with the one that both parties like. I can live with either one. >> It shocked a lot of people. I mean, Trump was not of the conviction that there needed to be a two-state solution. He thought that there could be any number of ways where this, you know, conflict could be resolved. Uh, and the two-state solution was one of them. But he he was certainly not pushing it. >> That is really a sea change in American policy because basically going back for multiple presidents, the idea of an independent Palestinian state as part of an ultimate solution, a resolution of this conflict has always been the idea. And he's thrown all that out the window.

We expect President Trump any moment now to >> Trump would soon follow that up with an even more surprising announcement fulfilling a longtime wish of Netanya. >> Today we finally acknowledge the obvious that Jerusalem is Israel's capital. I am also directing the State Department to begin preparation to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Both Israelis and Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital. If you put the American embassy there, you're seemingly putting your foot on the scale saying we take Israel's side in this. >> This is a historic moment. >> We told him from the day he started doing all that from the first day, there will be no contact policy with you. You are completely and utterly boycotted. You shall not be a a trusted mediator in this. You are disqualified. Palestinians took to the streets to protest.

>> The US knows that Jerusalem is the most sensitive issue. That was a move by the US in a way to tell Israel that it has Jerusalem and deciding to have Israel pocket this before starting negotiations, then you definitely do not want to have negotiations in the first place. You do not want to see a peace process ignited in the first place. and you ain't interested in a two-state solution altogether. >> Please join me now in welcoming Ambassador David Freriedman. >> In May of 2018, Freriedman Kushner Netanyahu and nearly a thousand guests gathered in Jerusalem for the official ceremony marking the move of the US embassy. >> Jerusalem is the heart and soul of the Jewish people. Even the most left-wing Jewish prayer books contain a prayer that God will restore the Jewish people to Jerusalem. So for the most important country in the world, the most powerful country in the world to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the fact that that hadn't been done for so long was just an open wound.

It is now my great honor to call upon the prime minister of the state of Israel, Benjamin Netanyaki. What a glorious day. Remember this moment, President Trump, by recognizing history, you have made history. >> I was actually there. I was anchoring our broadcast from the embassy in Jerusalem and uh I remember I uh looked around at the crowd. It was just the crowd from one part of the political map. You didn't see there a lot of people from the opposition. You didn't see a lot of people from the peace camp or people who are used to working with with the administration. It was a party of the right. >> We are in Jerusalem and we are here to stay. And our brave soldiers, our brave soldier are protecting the borders of Israel as we speak today. We salute them all.

That day, around 50 mi south at the border with Gaza, tens of thousands of Palestinians had gathered to protest the embassy move and Israel's ongoing blockade. Hamas urged protesters to break through the border fence. Israeli soldiers responded with rifle fire, killing more than 60 people. What the embassy move symbolized to Palestinians was that they were not going to have a state with its capital in Jerusalem because now the president of the United States had said that only Israel had a legitimate claim to Jerusalem and that it would remain eternally uh Israel's capital. >> Unfortunately, there was violent activity that day and and it ran its course. So, we didn't focus on that. We focused on our ceremony >> for Netanyahu. It was a high point in his relations with an American president >> when President Trump came in and started to give all the gifts to Netanyahu's administration and to the Israeli public. It was like, you know, every day was Boxing Day.

>> Netanyahu's government began a rapid expansion of settlements in the West Bank. the very move Obama had personally warned against >> because I can tell you that Israel does want to make peace. >> The Trump administration backed it, reversing the US's 40-year position that the settlements were illegal. >> The establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law. >> These settlements are not the impediment to peace. And I believe as a matter of law and as a matter of right and I believe as a matter of the Bible, which didn't drive my views in office, but certainly drives them now that I'm not a a public figure anymore, as a matter of biblical law. This land is is is is biblical Israel. That little piece of land was given by God to the Jewish people. Seeing the US performing, behaving, acting this way to the majority of the Palestinian people was definitely a source of hopelessness. And you know what?

Hopelessness is a very dangerous feeling. Uh and when hopelessness accumulates over decades, it's not it's no longer just dangerous, it's catastrophic. the president of the United States and the prime minister of the state of Israel. >> Adding insult to injury for the Palestinians, Trump and Netanyahu convened at the White House to announce what would be called the deal of the century. >> I was not elected to do small things or shy away from big problems. >> So, there's this announcement in the White House and Trump comes out and he's very proud. I've got this great deal. It's going to solve the Middle East. peace problem here. No sign of the Palestinians. They want nothing to do with this. >> That scene was the most vulgar expression of what the Trump administration and the Netanyahu government were all about. They were about liquidating the two-state solution, liquidating the Palestinian issue and cause.

>> Under this vision, Jerusalem will remain Israel's undivided, very important, undivided capital. The deal offered Netanyahu much of what he wanted. >> But that's no big deal because I've already done that for you, right? >> We've already done that. But that's okay. It's going to remain that way. >> The deal of the century was a fantastic blueprint from the perspective of the Netanyahu point of view. No settlements to be removed. A rump Palestinian entity that they might call a state but was not really a state would have no control of its borders, no control even of its own water. uh no control of its airspace. It would not be able to function as a state. It would be a collection of municipalities. >> It is only reasonable that I have to do a lot for the Palestinians or it just wouldn't be fair. Now, don't clap for that. Okay. But it's true. It wouldn't be fair. >> To try to lure the Palestinians into the deal, Trump promised international investment worth $50 billion.

An American president stands next to an Israeli prime minister and tell them, "We will buy you off with some money." That scene has hit the heart of every Palestinian, the heart of Palestinians who have been struggling for 100 years. Then Netanyahu took the podium and went even further than the terms of the deal. >> I hope that the Palestinians embrace this. >> He announced Israel was about to annex almost a third of the West Bank. >> Netanyahu announces that he's going to proceed with annexation in the West Bank >> that can create for all of us. >> It's a unilateral claim on on territory and it really throws a lot of sand in the gears of what's going on here. Because if you start unilaterally claiming sovereignty over sections of the West Bank without having made any concessions, >> what is the incentive for the Palestinians to come to the table and may God bless us all with security, prosperity, and peace? Thank you.

>> The Palestinians were now effectively sidelined. But unexpectedly, it set the stage for a major shift in the Middle East. In the summer of 2020, Ysef Alotiba, a friend of Jared Kushner's and the United Arab Emirates ambassador to the US, saw an opportunity to propose a different kind of peace deal to Netanyao, not between Israel and the Palestinians, but between Israel and some of its Arab neighbors. By this time, many of the Arab governments are eager to have relations with Israel. And the Palestinian issue is a nuisance on the way. And for some of them, they felt that they were always putting their interest second to the Palestinian cause. And when Israel speaks of annexing parts of the West Bank, the Emiratis in particular, the United Arab Emirates, see an opportunity to prevent that annexation in exchange for a peace deal. Alotiba said that the UAE and other Arab nations would consider normalizing relations with Israel if Netanyahu stopped his planned annexations.

>> The fact that the UAE would even consider signing a normalization deal with Israel um without consulting Palestinians was pretty remarkable. Um it's really a sign of just how much the region has changed in the past decade. uh and how much lower the Palestinian issue uh was now on the on even the priorities of Arab states. >> I think they saw annexation as an opportunity for them that if they were able to prevail upon the US and Israel to suspend that annexation, that would give them sufficient political cover with the Palestinians to then move closer to Israel. they could say to the Palestinians, look, we're moving forward with Israel, but just so you know, if it wasn't for us, the annexation would have occurred. So, you know, we we have we have certainly uh considered your interest as well during this process.

>> At the White House, Trump's team jumped on the idea, which played into a long-held gold of Netanyahu. This was Netanyahu's theory of the case that the world was moving on from the Palestinians. That in fact Israel could achieve meaningful and lasting stability without having to trade away land for peace to the Palestinians, which had always been the premise of the two-state solution. After talks facilitated by Trump's team, Israel and two Arab countries, the UAE and Bahrain, announced they would normalize relations. Netanyahu dropped his annexation plans. It was the first peace treaty between Israel and any Arab country in almost 30 years. >> We're here this afternoon to change the course of history. Ultimately, the deal that Trump announces with great fanfare at the White House is not a deal between Israel and the Palestinians. It's not the M East peace you were looking for.

It's a totally different issue. It's a step forward. It's a significant step forward. >> This day is a pivot of history. >> They've doing all this without any real movement on the Palestinian issue. For Nathaniel, this was the crown jewel of his legacy to a certain degree. It's a wakeup call to the Palestinians to say, "Guys, you know what? Everybody's got their own issues. Not everybody is laying up at night worrying about yours." >> The Abraham Accords were definitely seen as a betrayal by Palestinians and Palestinians in general felt that the Arab states had had abandoned them. >> The Palestinian Authority called the accords despicable. Palestinians did not take advantage of the opportunity the Abraham Accords made. If the PA had gone to the to the Emirates and said, "Okay, you're going to do this. It's okay. We appreciate no annexation, but here are some other things that you should be asking for."

And the Amiris would have done it, but they were so quick to sort of condemn them. You betrayed us. There's a constant theme of betrayal in the Palestinian narrative and there isn't a constant theme of responsibility on the Palestinian side. >> Iran sees the Abraham Accord as a threat. It's >> the Abraham Accords would incite Israel's enemies and seed conflict to come. >> What you see if you're Hamas is the world is moving beyond you. They no longer care, it seems like, about the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza. And this is a a deal that is essentially marginalizing Hamas, marginalizing the Palestinians, marginalizing their grievance. And they're left to wonder, well, what becomes of us? You know, what do we do to get some attention to our cause? You cannot ignore the Palestinian people no matter how much you try by the power of the missiles and the tanks as we have seen throughout the years and now or by the power of the complete capsulation of a US administration like a Trump or by the power of getting some Arab countries to normalize without a real solution.

All that's all that does not work and shall never ever work. >> May 2021 in Jerusalem, violent protests erupted over the potential evictions of Palestinians from their homes. The conflict escalated when Israeli police raided the Alaka mosque, one of Islam's holiest sites. From Gaza, Hamas retaliated, firing rockets toward Jerusalem. And in response, Netanyahu launched multiple air strikes. It was just 4 months into President Joe Biden's term and the Israeli Palestinian conflict was suddenly front and center.

>> Early in Biden's tenure, he has sort of a test case of what's going to happen in Israel and Gaza region. >> And the question for Biden as the American president is, okay, what are you going to do about it? >> He'd known Netanyahu for more than 40 years. And as Israeli forces pummeled Gaza, he picked up the phone. >> He basically is not willing to restrain Netanyahu at first. He says, "We're with Israel. They have a right to defend themselves." >> He thought, "We don't criticize Israel on the world stage because they get enough of that, but we hold them close." And that way when we pick up the phone and we say, "Time's up. Your military operation has run its course," that they'll listen. As the violence intensified, Biden pushed Netanyahu for a ceasefire.

It ended in a sort of a miserable draw. A ceasefire was reached. >> As usual, the Israeli leadership were saying, "We've won this round again, and Kamas is weakened and deterred. We're stronger. We proved our military might. Hamas is deterred. >> But for Hamas, the conflict was a breakthrough. They used it to tout themselves as fighting not just for Palestinians in Gaza, but in Jerusalem as well. They bombed Jerusalem. They bombed Tel Aviv. They saw themselves as a regional leaders, not as a local organization that is fighting Israel over the border between Gaza and Israel. Hamas now is not just protecting its thief in the Gaza Strip, but now vying for leadership of the Palestinian struggle as a whole by being the only party that is responding to events in Jerusalem.

In contrast to the impetence and ineffectiveness of the Palestinian leadership in Ramla >> in the wake of the conflict, a photo of Yahwir, Hamas's leader in Gaza, sent a foroding message. >> What Sinwell did, which was quite interesting, is take a picture of him sitting on an armchair. The destruction around him was quite clear. This was saying, "Okay, you're maybe stronger right now, but I haven't lost anything. I'm willing to go for another round whenever I choose." At the same time, Hamas was also beginning to prepare its plan of attack, something that it implemented so horrifically on October 7th, 2023. Netanyahu's go-to strategy toward Hamas, containment in Gaza, was beginning to crack, but his focus was elsewhere.

>> Netanyahu is currently on trial for corruption, >> allegedly accepting bribes and a breach of trust. He had >> he was embroiled in scandal, facing charges of bribery and corruption. He and his coalition government were briefly toppled. >> We'll be back soon. His own personal affairs lead eventually to three different uh indictments on criminal charges including bribery. Charges that he has always claimed are bogus and our intent to persecute him. >> To regain power, Netanyahu courted Israel's most extreme parties. And so for Netanyahu, he felt I have no chance but to go to the right, even the very far right. Even parties on the extreme far right that his own liquid party had always shunned. >> Some members of Likood warned him that this would be very dangerous, that the whole government would take a very dangerous ideological direction. >> Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has inaugurated the most faright government in the country's history. recently reelected and now the head of a new farright government.

>> Controversial plans to overhaul the justice system. >> Netanyahu started pursuing a dramatic overhaul of Israel's judicial system that would weaken the court's power over the executive branch. >> It was a sudden outpouring of rage. >> Protests erupted across Israel. >> BP is not here for the democracy. Thank you very much. We see hundreds of thousands of Israelis in the streets which is pretty amazing for a country of just 10 million people and they are there week after week after week protesting Netanyahu's efforts which they see as a threat to democracy. They see it as a power grab by the prime minister. He's facing trial for three different counts of corruption and for him it was uh a life ordeath moment. He needed to change Israel's legal system so he could somehow stop the trial. That led to I would say the biggest wave of protest in the history of the country and probably the most severe political crisis and social crisis in the history of the country.

Looking at this now after October 7, that seems like a sweet dream for Israelis. But back then it was the country being on the brink of civil war. >> Inside Netanyahu's government, intelligence officials worried that the political unrest was leaving the country vulnerable to its enemies. In many meetings, the chiefs of Israeli intelligence warned Netanyahu that the political crisis and its effect on the military are perceived by Israeli enemy as the time to take more aggressive initiative against Israel. There were actually quite a lot of warnings saying, "Look, we're creating here the perfect storm." And at one point or another, one of our enemies would use that to start a war because they would feel that we're weak and that we're consumed with our own domestic political problems. >> But those protesting say that this is escalating into an existential battle for Washington. President Biden watched the situation with alarm >> and urged Netanyahu to reverse course.

>> They cannot continue down this road. And uh I've sort of made that clear. I hopeful hopefully uh the prime minister will act in a way that he can try to work out some genuine compromise, but that remains to be seen. >> The president's meeting with Crown Prince Muhammad bin >> for Biden, the unrest in Israel threatened to disrupt a plan he'd been nurturing to take the Abraham Accords to the next level in the Middle East. >> He and Netanyahu had been quietly courting Saudi Arabia. They did push and try to expand on the Abraham Accords in particular with a vision of Israeli Saudi normalization that would offer a dramatically different vision of the Middle East and one that would fit in well to their vision of creating alliances in particular in competition with China and Russia. >> By late September 2023 at the UN General Assembly in New York, a deal was taking shape. Netanyahu met with Biden for the first time since forming his far-right government.

>> There's a lot of anticipation leading up to this meeting. You see the friendly version of Biden and BB, right? You see the boname, you see the collegiality or we've been friends for decades and yes, we can disagree, but on the important stuff, we're on the same page. And it's an important moment. >> Biden used the meeting to discuss how to bring the Palestinians into the deal. when he sat down with Prime Minister Netanyahu, the main topic of that meeting, which lasted almost two hours, was about the Palestinians and and and how they fit into the Saudi deal. Now, I'll say uh Gaza uh was not a part of that process, and that's because Hamas is in charge of Gaza. Prime Minister of the State of Israel, I invite him to address the assembly. >> Less than 3 weeks before the October 7th attacks, Netanyahu would make a fateful speech. >> He said, "We are going to have peace with Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinians should not have a veto on that." I've long sought to make peace with the Palestinians, but I also believe that we must not give the Palestinians a veto over new peace treaties with Arab states, >> which is in a different language. From my point of view, the Palestinians can off excuse my French.

>> Now, for years, my approach to peace was rejected by the so-called experts. Well, they were wrong. peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia will truly create a new Middle East. >> The leaders of Hamas, as they explained to us, they see this and they understand that in a moment the Palestinian issue will be completely taken off the world agenda. Now they came to the conclusion, a jihadist conclusion of blood, of murder, of massacre. They wanted regional war. There's an Israel before October 7th and there is an Israel after October 7th. the barbarity, >> the hate, the raping, the burning, the killing of children, the ruthlessness, those atrocities are second only to what the Jews met in the Holocaust.

After October 7th, every single Israeli I know is asking themselves one question. Is this a place where I can have a tomorrow? Is this a place where I can live? >> Israel is at war. We didn't want this war. It was forced upon us in the most brutal and savage way. >> Hamas had carried out the deadliest single assault in Israel's history. that it had happened on Benjamin Netanyao's watch. >> He saw himself as the greatest protector of the state of Israel and persuaded himself and his supporters that Israel was safe and that he could handle everything. >> Kamas will understand that by attacking us, they've made a mistake of historic proportions. >> He would manage the Palestinian conflict without attempting to solve it. he would keep Hamas as an enemy entity but a weak one.

>> The problem of course is that he refused to accept the fact that actually some of his actions were pushing Hamas in the worst direction possible. >> Israel will win this war and when Israel wins the entire civilized world wins. In Washington, President Biden was visibly shaken by the killing and taking of hostages. >> This was an act of sheer evil. More than 1,000 civilians slaughtered, not just killed, slaughtered in Israel. >> I was just a few feet away from him. You could just see in his face and see in his mannerisms that he really was viscerally outraged. >> Moss offers nothing but terror and bloodshed with no regard to who pays the price. I don't think I've ever seen a president quite as angry in a speech as Biden was that day.

>> Let there be no doubt. The United States has Israel's back. We will make sure the Jewish and democratic state of Israel can defend itself today, tomorrow, as we always have. It's as simple as that. These atrocities have been sickening. We're we're with Israel. Let's make no mistake. Thank you, >> Mr. President. What was your reaction? >> But despite his fullthroated public support >> as Israel began air strikes in Gaza, behind the scenes, Biden was concerned. >> Their position was no humanitarian assistance should go into Gaza until the hostages come home. That was the unanimous view. when the president wanted to go face to face and say we we cannot accept that we cannot accept that policy. >> Within days, the president arrived in Tel Aviv.

>> President Biden really wanted to make a statement with this trip. It was really a very dramatic moment. >> He is now descending the stairs of Air Force One, making this historic visit to Israel. the famous bear hug with its dual message of solidarity and caution. >> He doesn't want to look like that. He is telling the Israelis how to respond, but he's just giving them the caution of a friend is the way he would put it. We're with you here, but but be careful. There are limits to how far you should go. >> The bear hug approach. Hug Israel publicly. uh show no daylight with Israel uh while privately delivering messages uh to show restraint and to be more cautious and and so forth. That approach doesn't work. It's never worked. There needed to be a more stern message about the need to operate within the constraints of international law.

We are seeing unprecedented levels of civilian casualties. >> The vast majority of people who are killed in Gaza right now are women and children. And for what? What is the upper ceiling? >> Is it 20,000 killed? Is it a 100,000? What is the upper limit? >> The bloodshed has played into Hamas's hands. They blessed, they prayed, they wanted this to happen so Israel will react with force. The whole region is destabilized and according to them the Palestinians are not forgotten.

They were willing to sacrifice Gaza and all the Gazins in exchange of their jihad. >> A very intense few days of protest around the world. >> The humanitarian crisis from Israel's military response has brought widespread condemnation. >> Israel is a terrorist. >> Israel is a terrorist. But with Hamas still holding hostages, Netanyahu has been pushing forward. If you go to Israel, uh this is a country that is united and mobilized behind this campaign. the mounting isolation of the United States as a >> in the US. There has been increasing pressure on President Biden to do more to restrain Israel's response. We all want this war to end uh yesterday. If someone says, "Do you want the war to continue or stop?" the answer is of course stop. But recognizing that uh if Hamas is fully intact, it simply creates the conditions for the next conflict.

This is an incredibly difficult uh dilemma uh and it's something we are confronting uh really even at this hour. >> In the face of the criticism, the president has been trying to turn attention to the day after. >> We're working very hard uh to bring it to a point of conclusion to which something better and more durable can be established uh including ultimately a Palestinian state. And we've said that very clearly. I think the only ultimate answer here is a two-state solution that's real. >> I've been really struck by the extent to which Joe Biden and some of those around him have immediately revived the language of the two-state solution. >> What Biden seemed to want is to use this tragic moment for something bigger for two-state solution for negotiation. And this is where he and Netanyahu are like in total different worlds.

>> Now the two men who'd embraced on the tarmac are increasingly at odds. >> Netanyahu needs to change. >> Last week for the first time since the war started, >> Biden criticized Netanyahu directly for what he called indiscriminate bombing. He stepped up the pressure for Israel to scale back the military campaign and he called on Netanyahu to support a Palestinian state. Netanyahu staked out his own hard line. BB now here in Israel behind the scenes is already talking to members of the liquid party and white right-wing camp that I am the only one who will stand against the two-state solution after this war ends. If anyone can stand against Joe Biden and block the two states, it's me. BB, we have a leader who's mistrusted by most of the Israeli voters and yet he's leading us through our worst crisis since this country was established 75 years ago. And this is part of the tragedy. We may be facing not only our worst security situation, but also a huge political crisis with no kind of solution on the horizon.

>> There is no going back. Everyone agrees. Israelis Americans Palestinians Gaza West Bank, anywhere you you ask, everyone agrees. There's no going back to the October 6th status quo. The question is, where do we go from here? Is it a pathway to something less awful, or is it more destruction and death and and something considerably worse than what we've had before? Those are still open questions. Heat. Heat. For more on this and other frontline programs, visit our website at pbs.org/frontline.

Front lines Netanyahu, America and the Road to War in Gaza, and Failure at the Fence are available on Amazon Prime Video. This program contains mature content which may not be suitable for all audiences. Viewer discretion is advised. >> Rounds of strikes have been launched at Gaza as Israel warns of a long and difficult war that the fighting has intensified. air strikes as well as ground fighting near many of us. >> I arrived in the region weeks after the October 7th Hamas attack as fears were rising that the war in Gaza could spread.

>> Nothing untouched by the fury of Israel's hunt for Hamas. The streets here crushed. >> Israel was launching operations against militants here in the Palestinian areas of the West Bank, which many were concerned could explode into a second front. Israeli forces have continued their raids in the occupied West Bank, killing at least six Palestinians. >> I headed to Tulkarum, where there had been recent clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters. Before October 7th, Hamas didn't have much of a presence in the West Bank, which is dominated by their bitter political rivals, the Palestinian Authorities Fat Party. I wanted to investigate how support for Hamas and other militant groups was changing. There was an Israeli raid here in Tokum yesterday. Seven Palestinians were killed and we're about to join a funeral procession up ahead. I was told the number of Hamas fighters here is small, but many of the young men in the crowd were armed.

They were members of the Tulkaram Brigade, one of the new locally based groups that have emerged in the West Bank over the last 2 years. In the procession, they carried the bodies of two fighters who'd been killed the night before. In a show of solidarity, they waved Hamas's green banner, and the dead fighters were wrapped in Hamas flags. After the funeral, some of the fighters from the Tulkaram brigade agreed to talk to me as long as we didn't identify them. They spoke admiringly about Hamas's military strength. They said the war was galvanizing them. Can you tell me what's happening in terms of the differences between the armed groups since the October 7th

attacks. One of the fighters, a 22-year-old called Muhammad, took us through the streets to show us where three men had been killed the day before. He said they were civilians. The Israeli military said they were hurling explosives. I wanted to find out what residents thought about the militants. The streets had been torn up, the electricity and water lines cut by Israeli bulldozers, which the military says it uses to destroy explosives.

>> We have no water. We have no electricity. What is their justification to damage the street? >> Abdul Rahman Abdrao is an English teacher. He told me that during their raids, Israeli forces routinely leave neighborhoods in ruins. >> What do you think of the young men joining these new militias here? >> For me, it is a reaction to the Israeli occupation and to the suffering we are undergoing every day. If the Israeli violence against Palestinians continues, more and more people will join the violence. What I heard in Tulkum was echoed across the West Bank. Land captured by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. It's still under Israeli military control, but widely seen as the basis of a future Palestinian state.

It's now home to some 2 and a half million Palestinians and half a million Israeli settlers. Under the far-right government of Benjamin Netanyahu, the settlements have been expanding and adding to the tension. Since October 7th, there have been hundreds of reported attacks by extremist settlers against Palestinians. One incident that sparked outrage happened on October 11th in Kasra. Masked settlers entered the village and began shooting. Over several hours, much of it captured on video. Four Palestinian residents were killed. Abdul Hakeim Wadi lives in Gusra. He says this video shows his brother and nephew being ambushed and killed by settlers the next day as they took the four bodies for burial.

Fore! Foreign! Foreign! The Israeli military, which has outposts less than half a mile away from Husra has said they're investigating the killings. Ramla, the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority. The PA governs over a third of the West Bank under interim agreements with Israel. But since October 7th, Netanyahu has ruled out working with them towards establishing a Palestinian state. And among Palestinians, the PA has long been seen as ineffective and corrupt.

A recent poll in the West Bank shows increasing support for armed struggle. >> Khalil Shaki conducted that poll. He's tracked Palestinian public opinion for decades. invite people to come to >> the level of support for arms struggle in the West Bank. Before October the 7th stood at about 54%. Today uh it is almost 70%. Uh we've seen therefore about 14 15 percentage point increase. The perception is that there is today no political or diplomatic uh option available to Palestinians. If Palestinians are unhappy with the status quo, the only way to change it is violence, arms struggle, formation of armed groups. That is a fundamental reasoning that the overwhelming majority of the Palestinians today fully endorse.

While most Palestinians don't agree with Hamas's radical Islamist agenda, their support in the West Bank has also grown from 12 to 44% since October 7th. How can you square the increase in popularity for Hamas with the brutality of the October 7th attacks? Those who saw the videos uh were 10 times more likely to come to the conclusion that Hamas committed atrocities. 10 times more likely than those who did not. The majority of Palestinians today, however, does not buy into the Israeli narrative of what happened on October the 7th. As the death toll in Gaza has reached into the thousands, Friday prayers in Ramla have often been followed by demonstrations.

One of the chants here has been you say Hamas are terrorists, we say the whole of the West Bank are Hamas. And what's interesting is that there are lots of different political groups here, some secular, and they're all demonstrating side by side with Hamas supporters. On the fringes of the protest were the Palestinian Authorities security forces. Hamas violently ousted the PA from Gaza 16 years ago. A demonstration like this, chanting support for Hamas would never have happened before the October 7th attack because it would have been met by violence from the Palestinian Authority. And what's extraordinary is that they're letting this happen. and they're just standing by because they know opinion here has changed and the tensions are so high. Mustafa Bouti is an opposition politician who's been critical of the Palestinian Authority and its leader, President Mahmud Abbas. They're frightened by the fact that they are so weak and that the public is angry at them because of their passivity and the lack of initiative when their people are slaughtered in Gaza. The Palestinian Authority was already weak before the 7th of October. They're mostly weak because Israel weakens them because Israel humiliates them every time they

invade cities that are supposed to be under the Palestinian Authority. Support for Hamas is growing in the West Bank. Why do you think that is? >> You shouldn't mix between two things. The support to Hamas and the support to the principle of resistance. People want to end occupation and they want to have the right to resist occupation. And that's why they support anybody who resists occupation. I went to the Palestinian Authorities headquarters to meet with the president's spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudaina. >> He blamed the rising support for militant groups on Israel. >> They are invading our country since October the 7th. Two more than 280 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank. 280 Palestinians were killed. Hundreds of houses were demolished. If they are ready for peace, we are ready. If they are not, things will change and nobody will live peacefully. And we keep saying peace for everybody or no peace for anybody. Security for everybody or no security for anybody.

>> He denied that Hamas is a threat to the PA's authority. >> Why do you think support for Hamas is growing here in the West Bank? >> Don't don't listen. you I know you have the right to ask any questions and I am ready to answer it but I have to tell you don't listen to this to many things around you here and there once we have elections elections will decide who has popularity or who doesn't have >> not far from the PA headquarters one night I attended a demonstration protesting the war in Gaza During the march, I met Afesa, a women's rights activist. Several days later, in late November, Israel and Hamas agreed to a temporary ceasefire.

One night during that ceasefire, Hamas said it would release 24 of the estimated 240 hostages it was holding. In exchange, Israel would release 39 Palestinian prisoners. >> Just up there is offer prison where some of the prisoners are going to be released. And you can see that people have started to gather here. And as you can see, loads of people here are holding up Hamas flags. And just 100 meters in front of them are Israeli soldiers who are at war with Hamas. >> We climbed a hill overlooking the Israeli prison. Suddenly, an Israeli drone dropped tear gas canisters. >> We ran to the town below. >> There was more tear gas and live fire which wounded several people.

>> The crowd's just being dispersed. I can hear my tear gas. I can start starting to feel it now. Near Ramala, a crowd waited to welcome the prisoners who were women and teenagers. When they arrived, they were paraded through the streets. I traveled to Tel Aviv. The public displays here are of the hundreds of people killed by Hamas on October 7th and the hostages still being held in Gaza. I met a former Israeli ambassador to the US, Michael Orin. >> Hello. He said Israelis see the ongoing military campaign in the West Bank as a matter of survival.

>> What's the rationale for the widespread Israeli military incursions in the West Bank? >> Security. Security. We forget that in the months leading up to the events of October 7th, Israel lost some 40 citizens and soldiers to Palestinian terrorist attacks. And there were reports of very large scale terrorist attacks that were planned within say Israel proper including Tel Aviv that were thwarted. We're sitting here in south Tel Aviv. If you go up to my upstairs uh office and look out the eastern facing window, you see Hebrron. That's how close we are. We won't be in rocket range. We'll be in rifle range. >> I asked him about the role of settler violence in the rising tensions in the West Bank. >> And I want to be unequivocal about this. This is unacceptable and again causes us strategic damage. It's a danger to our security. Again, it's you cannot generalize about the settlers. You're talking about close to 500,000 people. The vast vast majority of them are law-abiding. Do not support this violence. But yes, there are elements there and they have uh support within the government.

Since October 7th, the IDF have arrested thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank, including around 1,300 they say are affiliated with Hamas. But Palestinian sources say that many of those arrested aren't linked to any crimes. I met a former senior intelligence officer who specialized in the Palestinian territories. Or Misrahi said Hamas and other militants aren't just a threat to Israel, but to the Palestinians, too. Hamas groups, militant groups, terrorists as we see them, they want the collapse of the PA, the collapse of the more moderate Palestinian uh uh leadership in the in the West Bank. This is what they their their goal was and this is what the IDF is fighting against. >> But many civilians are being killed in these incursions. >> There is not intention in doing it. But it happens. Sometimes it happens. And I tell you as one who is coming from the army that there were there is a big effort to prevent this uh accidents but sometimes the they happen >> in the West Bank. The IDF have repeatedly targeted the Janine refugee camp looking for wanted militants.

and walking around. There are so many houses that have been destroyed by rocket and drone attacks. >> Hamas fighters have largely stayed in hiding here, but one of them agreed to talk to me. We've just been told that a member of the Alpha Sound Brigade, that's Hamas's military wing, is prepared to meet us. And people here are saying that's really unusual. The man tells me he's helped lead Hamas's recruitment efforts in Janine. He said his men were abiding their time and gave a veiled warning to the Palestinian Authority.

for while I was in Janine. Israeli forces launched another raid. Israeli forces are coming. It's going to be a race. >> We got to run now. >> The streets emptied. I can see a column of bulldozers and they're working their way to the refugee camp.

There's thick smoke all around us and that's tires burning and that's stopping the drones from being able to see what's going on down here. In the morning, we went to investigate. The fighting hadn't stopped. We were at the camp entrance and then gunfire started. >> The Israeli military said it killed two high-ranking terrorists in the operation. Two boys, a 15year-old and an 8-year-old were also killed. Two months later in January, I returned to the West Bank amid a new wave of violence and major IDF operations. >> Fears of a regional war in the Middle East are growing after attack.

>> Tensions across the region were reaching new heights. >> Been killed in an explosion in the Lebanese capital. >> A Hamas leader with ties to the West Bank was assassinated in Lebanon, sparking protests and violence. military wing of Hamas. >> Clashes with Hezbollah militants backed by Iran had led thousands of Israelis to evacuate from the north. >> Evacuations in the wake of the October 7th attacks >> while Houthi rebels in Yemen fired missiles to protest the war in Gaza. >> Punishing series of US and British strikes the first sign of retaliation. >> Back in Tulkarum, I found Muhammad, the fighter who had showed me around. He told me one of the other fighters I'd met had recently been killed by an Israeli drone. Two days later, Muhammad was also killed in Jerusalem. I went to see Sari Nusaba, a well-known Palestinian scholar and philosopher.

How critical is the point we've now reached? >> Critical. It's uh I hope it's we've passed the critical stage between the Israelis and the Palestinians with the war that's raging in Gaza. And I hope that after this, you know, uh the world will open its eyes to the need to step in and do something here. If it doesn't, you know, if there's no solution, if there's no solution to the conflict, I think it will just get worse in time. You never know how a situation of war can actually drive people to act. Things are boiling, simmering. And I think, you know, the wise thing to do for everybody concerned, local and international players, is to try and contain this before it explodes. For more on this and other frontline programs, visit our website at pbs.org.

org/frontline front lines Israel's second front and failure at the fence are available on Amazon Prime Video. the United States military began major combat operations in Iran.

>> The Israeli army and the state of Israel set out to thwart existential threats to Israel and great threats to America and the entire world. >> It was the second time in less than a year that Israel and the US had attacked Iran. >> This combined force of more than 400 fighter jets, two aircraft carriers, all these destroyers, refueling capability. They'd never seen anything like this before. >> Explosions rocked multiple cities. >> The Vetican saying US air strikes have destroyed hundreds of Iran's ballistic missiles, launchers, and drones. >> Within 24 hours, Iran's Supreme Leader and other top officials had been killed. >> His removal obviously creates a massive power vacuum. >> Earthshattering moment for the Middle East. >> As the conflict spreads, >> we're seeing the Middle East absorb a wave of Iranian retaliation. There is now a second front that has opened up in Lebanon. >> An updated presentation of the long road to war. >> We're ready to roll.

>> Drawing on interviews with officials, insiders, and experts on all sides. >> This film is going to cover a large swath of history. >> Yep. >> Correspondent James Jacobe traces the roots of the conflict. >> You've just come out of the bomb shelter. >> Yeah, just out of the shelter. Yes. From the rise of Iran's regional proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas, >> it was a huge threat >> to the diplomatic efforts to contain Iran's nuclear program. >> The leaders of Iran must recognize that now is the time for a diplomatic solution. >> The October 7th attacks, >> there's an Israel before October 7th and there is an Israel after October 7th. >> To the fighting in its wake, we will not allow those threats to come to our borders. Annihilation, extermination. Do I need to give you numbers? >> We faced an aggression by Israel and by America and then we resisted. >> Leading up to the current war, >> dozens of young girls were killed in air strikes that hit an elementary school. >> The US and Israel pummeling Iranian missile bases >> and uncertainty gripping the region.

>> Intensifying military conflict which has spiraled into a full-blown regional war. >> The old order is broken. The new order is emerging. Now on Front Line, >> we've unleashed all kinds of forces that we cannot control. >> Remaking the Middle East, the US, Israel, and Iran. >> This program contains graphic imagery. Viewer discretion is advised. When I last stood here, I spoke of the consequences of Iran developing nuclear weapons. Now time is running out. The more Iran believes that all options are on the table, the less the chance of confrontation. The roots of the war with Iran go back many years to a long campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

>> And this is why I asked you to continue to send an unequivocal message that America will never permit Iran to develop nuclear weapons. I don't think I had a single meeting with the prime minister where he didn't raise his concerns about Iran and certainly the fact that Iran uh was pursuing a nuclear program that might enable it to have a nuclear weapon. Uh he was single-mindedly focused on that uh and he would never let me forget it. Uh that that was his number one priority. >> What was often your response to that? >> My response was that the United States largely shared that analysis and that understanding of the Iranian regime. The only question was how would we deal with it? How would we deal with the most significant and most dangerous threat that Iran could pose, which is if it ever required a nuclear weapon, and how to make sure that didn't happen? Netanyahu had reason to be concerned. Western intelligence services had recently uncovered a dangerous new phase in Iran's nuclear ambitions.

>> Western leaders in Pittsburgh this week were unhappy, but they weren't surprised. President Obama and the leaders of France and the United Kingdom revealed uh what intelligence had shown was that Iran was uh building an underground enrichment facility at a place called Foro. >> This is not the first time that Iran has concealed information about its nuclear program. >> There were a number of clocks ticking. One clock was the rate at which Iran was enriching uranium. Another clock was the rate in which they would complete the enrichment and move underground at which point it would be too late. >> Iran denied it was building a bomb and insisted for was for its civilian nuclear power program. >> Never Iran was after nuclear bomb. >> Hussein Musavian spent years as an Iranian diplomat and nuclear negotiator. Why would Iran build a nuclear facility in the side of a mountain 80 m underground if it were only for peaceful purposes?

Why why do that? >> The answer is very very simple. It is because of the US because every US president repeatedly said all options are on the table. It means the US may attack Iran. When you threaten a country for military strike, why they should not have their nuclear facilities under the ground? They would be crazy if they would not have done it. >> New sanctions are designed to slow Iran's nuclear ambitions. President Obama is expected to sign those penalties into law. I'm pleased to sign into law the toughest sanctions against Iran ever passed by the United States Congress. >> The Obama administration had already imposed crippling sanctions on Iran and behind the scenes pursued a series of covert cyber operations against its nuclear program.

>> You know, for them you're the great Satan, we're the little Satan. For them, we are you and you are us. >> But Netanyahu wanted to go further. a military strike. The prime minister did not believe the Iranian nuclear program could be contained and prevented from producing a nuclear weapon without military action. So for him, it was a matter of when and who and how. >> There is strong likelihood Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June. >> In early 2012, the Israeli military was planning for an attack on Iran's nuclear sites. But as the possibility of a strike grew, Netanyahu's own cabinet and intelligence agencies were divided on whether to attack. The issue was whether right now they're building a bomb and this is the right time to do it. >> And usually >> Zohari, head of Mossad's intelligence directorate, was arguing against it. >> You are not coming and starting a war with a huge state like Iran without those discussions.

And if somebody is pushing you as a professional, I want to do it. I said, okay, but you have to understand right now at that moment, the Iranian are not building a bomb. The head of the Mossad was against it. The chief of staff was against it. And around the table from the professionals, I think that I was the the only one who thought that this is the right moment and we should do it. >> We will not. >> Yakov Ahmed was Netanyahu's national security adviser. We are asking ourselves every morning one question. Will tomorrow will be too late? If it is not, we don't do anything. If it is, the answer is yes. Tomorrow will be too late. We have to decide what we do. >> With his cabinet divided, Netanyahu turned to Obama and asked him for assurance that if Israel did go ahead, the US would back them up. What Netanyahu wants is either a green light or a yellow light to go bomb the Iranian program. And the knowledge that if the Iranians retaliated against Israel, Obama would be right with him to get into that conflict.

And Obama wasn't going to give him that. He couldn't imagine how you bomb Iran without triggering a general war in the Middle East. In the end, Netanyahu stood down. >> The animosity between Iran and Israel goes back almost 50 years to 1979 when Iranian revolutionaries overthrew a repressive monarchy supported by the US and allied with Israel. Toumeni who was the chief ideologue of the Iranian revolution had written a lot about Israel in his proclamations in his writings. He saw Israel as a aggressive uh outside force which had taken Palestinian territory exiled Palestinian from their land. >> And was part of this actually enshrined in the revolutionary Iranian stance on Israel? Yes, he was part of the ideology.

Eradication of Israel, restoration of land to the Palestinians was an aspiration of all Arabs, all Muslims at that point in time. And it would be the Islamic revolution that would fulfill that aspiration. >> The new Iranian regime was heavily sanctioned by the US, which backed Iran's rivals in the region like Iraq and Saudi Arabia. >> Iran is Shia. Iran is Persian speaking. The Arab world as consciousness is Sunni. It's Arabic speaking. Iran in the region is an absolute loner. >> Iran would bolster its standing in the region through its support of the Palestinian cause. >> No other issue gives Iran a role a say in the Arab world. Right? No other issue speaks to Arab hearts and minds than Iran's support for the Palestinians. The devastation in the west of the city is appalling as my dear. >> Initially, Iran backed Yaser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization, the PLO, which was engaged in an armed struggle against Israel from its base in Lebanon.

In 1982, Israel invaded and occupied southern Lebanon to drive out the PLO. Iran went on to train and fund a Lebanese Shia group to fight against Israel. It would become known as Hezbollah, Arabic for the party of God. >> 120 Americans killed today. >> Soon after, a massive suicide bombing at a US Marine barracks in Beirut would be widely attributed to Hezbollah, acting as a proxy for Iran. >> It left really, really bitter taste in American mouths. It really hardened America's views on Iran. >> These deeds make so evident the beastial nature of those who would assume power if they could have their way and drive us out of that area. >> But it also taught the Iranians that there was a strategy here that you could actually extricate the West by using call it terrorism, call it asymmetric behavior, etc. A huge explosion apparently caused by a bomb shattered the Israeli embassy in Argentina today.

>> Then Hezbollah units or those militias Iran was training started suicide bombing against Israeli targets. >> We shall look for the people who are responsible for this terrible crime. By the 1990s, Israeli intelligence was growing increasingly concerned that Iran was escalating and trying to develop a nuclear bomb, a red line for Israel, the only nuclear power in the Middle East. There's already very deep animosity between Iran and Israel, and it's a very ideological animosity from Iran's perspective. So if we do the oneplus 1+ 1, we understand that there is a nuclear weapon being developed to be put on a missile that is probably destined to end up in Israel. >> Netanyahu began calling for international action against Iran.

>> The most dangerous of these regimes is Iran. If this regime or its despotic neighbor Iraq were to acquire nuclear weapons, this could preage catastrophic consequences not only for my country and not only for the Middle East, but for all of mankind. >> Prime Minister Netanyahu has been after bombing Iran from early 1990s. He he doesn't care about enrichment or nuclear bomb or even nuclear program. He just want to drag the US in a war with Iran. That's it. >> Throughout this time, Iran's proxy strategy was evolving. Today, we are preparing a whole new generation which will fight the state of Israel in the future. With Arafat and the PLO negotiating the historic Oslo peace accords with Israel, Iran began backing a new, more extreme Palestinian group, Hamas.

>> The car bomb was aimed at killing the maximum number of Israeli school children. Militants belonging to the Islamic group Hamas said they carried out the attack. >> When the Oslo agreement is signed, most Palestinians said, "Let's give this a chance." But there was that core constituency um among Palestinians who said the peace process is a sham. It can never succeed. Only armed struggle can liberate Palestine. And Hamas became the embodiment of that sentiment. Hamas's founding declaration called for the destruction of Israel and it violently opposed a two-state solution. In this decade of the 1990s, there's only one country. And since then, effectively, there has been only one country that continues to arm militias against Israel that continues to not accept the two-state solution, and that is the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In 2003, after the US invasion of Iraq, Iran seized the chance to expand its regional influence even further. >> This starts supporting, arming, funding, and in fact cultivating militias and political groups in countries around the region. And it defines that as part of what becomes known in the security lingo of Iran as forward defense. The idea is that we will fight in Lebanon. We will fight in Syria. We will fight in Palestine so that we don't have to fight in Iran. In time, this network of militias would become known as the Axis of resistance. From the Houthis opposing Saudi influence in Yemen to Shia fighters in Iraq, the Iranian government denies the groups act as proxies, insisting they are independent organizations all fighting against Israel, which to this day it says is an illegitimate state occupying Palestinian land.

>> We have supported, you know, the Palestinian people in their struggle to end the occupation in Palestine. Majid Tak Raanchi is Iran's deputy foreign minister. >> Iran has supported with both training and military support and money certain regional actors, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis. The Israelis and the Americans describe this strategy as building an axis of resistance. They see it as an offensive strategy. I mean uh the access of resistance you mentioned the access of resistance access of resistance against whom? Against against against the occupation. I mean the the Israelis and the Americans have been uh you know floating this this idea that the access of resistance is against America or against Israel. They they do not say the fact that access of resistance was in response to occupation in response to more than uh 70 years of of of Israeli occupation of Palestine. If they want to to to see an end uh to to resistance, they should end the occupation pure and simple.

The Iranian objective and it was not only a propaganda was to remove the great Satan which is the United State from the Middle East and to wipe Israel off the map. So death to America, death to Israel. Amos Yodlin was the head of Israeli military intelligence in the years the proxy network was expanding >> and basically as chief of intelligence I saw three main effort. One is the proxy supporting supporting the Palestinian terrorist the Houthis the Assad regime the Shia militia in Iraq second ballistic missiles and then the nuclear. Now, the professor was killed by a remotec controlled bomb. >> Israel began engaging in a shadow war of its own. >> Two of Iran's top nuclear scientists were targeted by hit squads >> against Iran's nuclear program. Two men on a motorcycle stuck a magnetic bomb to the door, then detonated it as they pulled away. If there is someone who is very important in the process and without him it will be delayed for a while it will be eliminated.

>> Cyber attacks, assassinations, >> cyber attacks, assassinations, blowing some tools inside the system, agents which are going in and putting explosives here and there. Uh it was understood it cannot destroy the but it can delay it and and you when you buy time in the Middle East you you buy everything. The leaders of Iran must recognize that now is the time for a diplomatic solution because a coalition stands united in demanding that they meet their obligations and we will do what is necessary to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon. By 2013, having refused to support an Israeli military strike on Iran the year before, President Obama was now pursuing his own strategy. He wanted to negotiate. When we set up the early stages of the negotiations, it was very secret. It was a very small group. I was chief of staff to the president at the time. There were half a dozen people who knew that the conversation was going on.

Israel was not included in the talks. It found out through its own intelligence. It was a type of an implosion. We're confronted with this reality in which our principal ally has negotiated behind our backs for 7 months with our worst enemy. Now that is hard to square. And when it learned about this, of course, Benjamin was furious. He sees this highly sensitive secretive intelligence coming from Iran. The Iranians are happy. The American delegates are making concession after concession. And it leads, I think, naturally, to harshen the line against the US government and say this is a very bad deal. you are going to make a very bad deal. >> This is a bad deal. A very, very bad deal. It's the deal of the century for Iran. It's a very dangerous and bad deal for peace and the international community.

>> President Obama is going to speak today at 7 a.m. on the Iranian deal. Today, after two years of negotiations, the United States, together with our international partners, has achieved something that decades of animosity has not. A comprehensive long-term deal with Iran that will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon. In the summer of 2015, the joint comprehensive plan of action, JCPOA for short, was signed by the US, Iran, and five other countries over Israel's furious objections. >> What a stunning historic mistake. >> It restricted Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for lifting economic sanctions and put in place intensive monitoring by international inspectors. The objective of the agreement inside the Obama White House was to make sure that the Iranians always were at least a year away from being able to produce a weapon on the theory that if they ran for it, we'd see them and there would be political time to react.

>> It cuts off all of Iran's pathways to Obama. >> There were problems with this agreement. The provisions expired too early. The Iranians demanded that they get dwindled down over time. By 2025, as we speak today, they were supposed to be allowed to produce more and more uranium. By 2030, the agreement would end at some point. The question is, if you want to stop something as significant as Iran getting a nuclear weapon, is that a worthy objective? Are you better off with no deal or the best deal you can get? We thought, and I continue to believe, that the best deal you can get was something that left the United States, Israel, and the world safer. I mean, to those who would say that a deal was better than no deal, how do you respond to that? >> Always deal is better than a war, but it should be a good deal. That wasn't a good deal.

The Israelis were upset that the deal also gave Iran access to billions of dollars by unfreezing its bank accounts and allowing it to sell oil. Money they said would embolden the regime and its proxies. The notion that Iran got the money uh as a result of sanctions relief and spent on on on certain groups or certain parties in the middle Middle East that is that is far from the truth. In fact, uh we spent lots of money that we received from the sanctions relief on our economy. JCPOA was welcomed not only in Iran but uh by the whole international community as a success story of of diplomacy. In spite of Iran's denials, the so-called axis of resistance grew in the wake of the deal. At the center of the axis was Iran's most powerful military strategist, General Kasumsmani.

Kasamsmani was a truly irreplaceable guy. He did something that is actually rare in modern history. He was able to build a multinational army of tens of thousands of people of Afghans, of Syrians, of Iraqis, of Palestinians who would all fight under the command of Iran. This is not something that you learn in military school. It's not something that you learn from a book. It was something that Solmani had been able to bring about through years of experience. >> The most formidable force of all was Hezbollah in Lebanon. It came to be considered the best armed non-state actor in the world. >> Militarily speaking, Hisbala is a bigger threat. It has a lot more fighters, more advanced capabilities than other proxies, but it is more, I'd say, controlled by Iran and also more deterred by Israel. Hamas is a different kind of proxy. Hamas is more independent, is a Palestinian resistance organization and terroristic means, but it has its own ethos and is more independent in its decisions.

It's is accepting funding and training and equipment from Iran because Iran is willing to support it, but they have their own motivations and their own decision making. >> Palestinians will vote for a new parliament and the results could have a major impact on relations with Israel and matters of war and peace. >> By now, Hamas was a political force as well as a military one. >> The sweeping victory by Hamas is being described as a political earthquake. In 2006, it had swept national elections and then seized control of Gaza in a civil war. Mass has done a lot of damage to our prospects, including the coda they done in Gaza, and that did really undermine uh Palestinian national uh uh unity and Palestinian international standing. Of course, >> Hamas gunman seized control of the rival Fatah government and security offices. The Palestinian Authority, heir to Arafat's PLO and longtime participants in the peace process with Israel, retreated to the West Bank.

Gaza becomes a fortress for an organization whose founding charter talks about killing Jews and eliminating Israel. And they are now not just a terrorist organization in Gaza, but the governing organization in Gaza. And that means that the Israelis have to figure out how to deal with them. The error's crossing point between Gaza and Israel is now barred to almost all Palestinians. >> The Israeli government imposed a blockade on Gaza. It said it was trying to stop Hamas from bringing in weapons and prevent its fighters from crossing into Israel. >> The civilian population are facing increasing desperation and misery. >> But it also trapped the population. >> Israel says that gars will not starve on a more basic diet. The notion that you could keep 2 million people locked up indefinitely with no real economy who are entirely dependent on Israel opening and closing the border to allow movement of goods and people in where majority of the people are now impoverished I think was not only absurd but also quite cruel.

Hamas with support from Iran fired rockets and mortars into Israel. Israel launched air strikes on Gaza. >> I don't suggest that the number of casualties be the determinant of what is proportionate and who's in the right. >> Benjamin Netanyahu used the violence to amplify his long-standing concerns about prospects for a Palestinian state. far exceeded the number of Germans. >> Netanyahu believes that if you have a Palestinian state in anywhere approximating the 67 borders, the potential for peace is zero, that the capacity for Israel to maintain its security even in the state it's in now will be radically diminished. That Hezbollah to its north will be stronger. The problem of Gaza will not be in any way remotely solved. Syria, Iran. Shall I go on?

>> Rockets are still being fired into southern Israel. >> But Netanyahu also thought the threats on Israel's borders could be contained without engaging in allout wars. >> Whole building demolished. A member of Hamas lived there, but had left a day before with his family. >> For years, most notably in Gaza, he would pursue a fateful strategy known as mowing the grass. So the idea was from time to time there will be a round of hostilities. Kamas will be beaten hard. This will establish deterrence. Let's keep them on a very low level of capabilities. this notion that every so often there would need to be predictable rounds of violence mowing the grass as Israelis call it only to result in reinstating the status quo that existed before the violence was an untenable situation.

The philosophy was that Israel doesn't want to go to a big war. Most of the decision makers in Israel with uniform and without uniform thought that to go to war is a mistake. I thought that the mistake is not to initiate a war and that was the biggest mistake. We allowed Hamas and to be very strong organizations. After the 7th of October, it was understood by the establishment in Israel that we made a huge mistake allowing the beast to grow close to Israel. Thank you. >> The volatile dynamic in the region would begin to shift with the rise of a new American president. I speak to you today as a lifelong supporter and true friend of Israel.

My number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran. >> Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with President Trump today. That was welcome news to Benjamin Netanyahu who was one of the first world leaders to meet with Trump at the White House. >> Netanyahu says he's looking forward to a stronger alliance between the US and Israel. >> Netanyahu arrived with the plan to create a unified front against Iran. A vision for a new Middle East where Israel made peace deals with its Arab neighbors. >> Netanyahu felt very strongly that that's something we should pursue. we can seize an historic opportunity >> and I would say, you know, pushed it pretty hard. >> And I believe that under your leadership, this change in our region creates an unprecedented opportunity to strengthen security and advance peace.

>> It was a radical idea that challenged decades of conventional wisdom about the Middle East. The dogma was basically there'll be no peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors unless and until you solve the Israeli Palestinian conflict. >> And I believe that the great opportunity for peace comes from a regional approach from involving our newfound Arab partners. >> Trump liked the idea and on his first trip overseas courted Iran's rivals in the Gulf. Very happy to see you. >> Until the Iranian regime is willing to be a partner for peace, all nations of conscience must work together to isolate Iran. Deny it funding for terrorism cannot do it and pray for the day when the Iranian people have the just and righteous government they so richly deserve.

>> He had a receptive audience. We focused on the Iranian threat which our Gulf partners felt very acutely. They had viewed the Iran nuclear deal as a betrayal. And the president comes in and says, "We're going to stand up to Iran together. We're going to counter Iran together. We're going to get out of the Iran nuclear deal." And this is what our Arab partners and Israel were waiting to hear after eight years of the Obama administration. President Trump is reviewing whether the US should stay in the Iran nuclear deal or cancel it. >> President Trump's efforts to get out of the deal would get a boost from an Israeli intelligence operation inside Iran. It >> was about 2 years in the making by the MSAD until the night of January 31st, 2018. This heist was like the most brilliant moview worthy operation.

There's this warehouse in a nondescript part of Tehran. The Israelis figure out that it houses the entire nuclear archive and they do a raid on it. They ship this stuff out when they figured the Iranians wouldn't be looking. Then they begin pouring through it. I was leading the team that analyzed the findings of the nuclear archives once it arrived, providing us with a comprehensive understanding of Iran's past nuclear weapons activities. >> Iran lied big time. >> Netanyahu seized on it. >> This is where they kept the atomic archives right here. Now, from the outside, this was an innocent looking compound. It looks like a dilapidated warehouse, but from the inside, it contained Iran's secret atomic archives locked in massive files.

>> The idea behind the press conference was that we have this amazingly important information to tell the world about Iran. >> 55,000 pages, another 55,000 files. What was the bottom line? Prior to 2003, there was an active bomb project. After 2003, not so much. >> Incriminating blueprints. >> It left you with very little doubt that the Iranians were trying to deceive the inspectors about past nuclear activity. But that didn't tell you very much about the present day. >> Again, you don't have to read Farsy to understand this. This is U235. That's enrich uranium. >> Netanyahu spun this very skillfully to say to the inspectors, "The Iranians are pulling your chain." >> Was there any evidence in this trove of documents that the Israelis obtained in Thran, that the Iranians were out of compliance with the nuclear deal that Obama had struck with them?

>> Well, Iran was in technical compliance with the deal. But if the Iranian regime was serious about its nuclear program being peaceful, then what are they doing? Keeping a warehouse full of tens of thousands of pages on how to build a nuclear weapon and not disclosing it to the Obama administration. Iran continues to lie. >> The Iranian government called Netanyahu's press conference childish and ridiculous. >> Said this, >> "We never wanted to produce a bomb." >> Yes, you did. Yes, you do. in the atomic arch >> and claimed that the documents were fake, >> the nuclear deal. >> With all due respect, sir, what was the purpose? What was the reason Iran would have a warehouse in Thran in which there were documents about how to build a bomb? I can I cannot I cannot uh you know concur uh with the news that that you know that warehouse was uh was full of uh you know documents uh uh related to uh so-called uh Iranian nuclear weapon program. The Israelis needed to to create certain documents uh so that they they could persuade President Trump in terms of leaving the JCPOA. The most important value of of the press conference was a way of giving more ammunition, adding fuel to fire to say that this was an awful deal.

>> The nuclear deal gives Iran a clear path to an atomic arsenal. >> In that press conference, Prime Minister Netanyahu's most important audience was President Trump. >> President Trump will decide, will make his decision on what to do with the nuclear deal. I'm sure he'll do the right thing. >> It happened a week after the press conference. >> I am announcing today that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. >> He'd go on to impose severe sanctions and boast about it on Twitter. >> After we got out of the deal, we reimposed economic sanctions. Trump called it maximum pressure. >> What was the strategy of maximum pressure? What was the actual aim of it? >> If you put enough pressure on Iran economically, uh the hope was, at least my hope was, the people would rise and say, "We're not going to put up with this anymore. You spent billions of dollars on nuclear weapons, on supporting terrorist groups. People of Iran have not benefited at all, and we're done with it.

>> America will not be held hostage to nuclear blackmail." President Trump made a very big mistake. He destroyed the mutual trust, mutual confidence, uh, backing of the negotiations, our endeavors, not only Iranian endeavors, but also all of the international community because after the JCPA, all of the international community welcomed it and President Trump destroyed all of the this achievements in international arena >> inside Iran. Trump's move emboldened hardliners in the government and military. >> I think what the Revolutionary Guard took away from Trump coming out of the deal was that their belief that the United States never intended to make peace with Iran was validated. So the wing of the regime that argued that the only way to back the United States off is by being aggressive had won and they became empowered and that would continue all the way to eventually the Israel Iran war.

>> From Iran's president in an ominous threat, Hassan Rahani delivered an almost instantaneous response. Thrron warns it may restart its uranium enrichment program on a quote industrial scale. >> No longer constrained by Obama's deal, Iran would start increasing its uranium enrichment. When the US withdrew, I wrote and I said many times that more sanctions and pressures using the Iranian nuclear issue would lead to more enrichment and Iran will increase the capacity and the level of enrichment to show to the US that they are not going to capitulate. under pressure and they will resist. After we left the Iran nuclear deal, it wasn't a surprise that Iran started increasing its enrichment levels. We expected that to happen, but we thought that that illustrated the problem. What does it say about the Iran nuclear deal that Iran is able to restart it so quickly and to increase its enrichment levels to such a degree?

During the first Trump term, Iran's nuclear capabilities continue, if not accelerate, the proxies grow stronger. So, what was the net effect of maximum pressure during the first Trump term? I >> I don't think we applied maximum pressure. I think it's great rhetoric, but it didn't really work. We had to do more. We should have done more to undermine the regime in Iran. >> Iran's top general, Kasamsulammani, taunted Trump. We had a clash of personalities. The bombastic Solmani with his global fame, certainly regional fame, and President Trump, his favorite word is the tough guy. They start posting memes about each other, Games of Throned memes. And Solmania starts giving his speeches. He calls him Trump the gambler >> and he used this phrase. There's kind of a bit of a cheesy line. It's almost like a bee movie in Hollywood, but the Iranian military leaders love to repeat it, which is you started this war, we will finish it.

The heated words turned into action. >> US intelligence indicates the unprecedented attack on Saudi oil fields originated from Iran. >> Iran and its network of militias launched a wave of attacks in the region. >> And this intelligence over recent weeks had led them to believe that Iran or its proxies may have had >> Sulammani was also stepping up his support for Hamas. Solemani used money, guns, effectively an unlimited blank check, giving them suitcases full of cash, giving them advanced military equipment, not just any military equipment, logistical military trainings, which at the time didn't all look to be relevant. Some of these trainings included attacks from the sea. They included paraglider attacks, tactics that they later used in October 7, 2023. >> The Trump administration was growing increasingly concerned about Sulammani.

>> He was a threat. He was a threat to us and he was a threat to US citizens across the region. And that threat rose as we went into the final months of 2019. >> There came a time when the intelligence was fairly clear that General Sulammani was plotting a mass casualty attack against American troops in the Middle East. President Trump's national security cabinet concluded that the risks of not taking action outweighed the risks of taking action. Iran's military commander, General Kasims Sulammani. >> Kasims Sulammani killed in a US drone strike outside of Baghdad's international airport. >> Missiles from the US drone hit their convoy as it left the airport. >> We elected ultimately to strike him in Baghdad because we could strike him there with minimal collateral damage, which was always of concern to us.

Last night at my direction, the United States military successfully executed a flawless precision strike that killed the number one terrorist anywhere in the world, Kasam Salammeni. >> I was the officer responsible for it. It was a Sentcom controlled operation using special operations task force. Some of the reaction pouring in today, big threats towards the United States from senior Iranian officials, including Iranian President Hassan Roani, who called all of this a heinous crime committed by the United States. >> We won that round. >> We took a major asset off the table, an asset that the Iranians miss to this day as you and I speak. And it has affected their planning in every way that you can affect a nation's planning. In the wake of Sulammani's death, the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasallah, was widely viewed as the most powerful figure in the Axis. this as a as a alliance or network of likeminded groups who would basically create an arc of fire around Israel. So you have Hezbollah something in the West Bank maybe down the road in Jordan, Hamas in Gaza, and then you have Iranian militia presence in Syria. You have these militias in Iraq. You have Houthis that are being armed to the teeth with

long range missiles who also were being trained and mentored by Nasra and Hezbollah. But as Iran and its proxies were strengthening their arc of fire >> at the White House today, Israel and two Arab nations signed a >> Israel was making alliances of its own. >> Normalize relations and bring them closer together. >> Trump and Netanyahu's vision for the region was becoming a reality. Two Arab countries, the UAE and Bahrain, announced they would normalize relations with Israel in what was known as the Abraham Accords. >> After decades of division and conflict, we mark the dawn of a new Middle East. Thanks to the great courage of the leaders of these three countries. >> This day is a pivot of history. It heralds a new dawn of peace. The interest of the Gulf countries to come to the Abraham Accords is very much connected with Iran's influence in the region. They feel threatened by Iran.

They want security asurances from the United States. They see how Israel is a gateway to the American public and to the American administration. And they are being pressured by the influence of Iran and by the way that Iran is sometimes attacking. And now they understand that they might need this alliance with Israel. >> It was the first peace treaty between Israel and any Arab country in almost 30 years. They've doing all this without any real movement on the Palestinian issue. For Nathaniel, this was the crown jewel of his legacy to a certain degree. >> Left out, the Palestinians, abandoned by their Arab neighbors, powerless to do anything but protest. It was primarily a confirmation to us that Israel is truly truly not interested in peace that the only agenda is to completely undermine, avoid, bypass the issue which is the issue of Palestine by almost working that is Netanyahu like a magician you know abracadabra you here you go you see I'm normalizing and I'm opening new relations. I'm going all over the Middle East and the Arab world without having to resolve the issue, which is the Palestinian issue.

It's a perfect opportunity for to come in and say, "Don't worry. There is a state that will continue to champion you, that will continue to fight Israel, that will buck this regional trend that is not motivated by material interests. There's nothing that they could give Iran that would have it give up the cause of Palestine or to become friends with the Jewish state." Hommin takes his mantle um and uses it to expand the axis of resistance against the Arab states and Israel. >> The International Atomic Energy Agency presented its latest report. >> Iran has been openly breaching these limits for some time now, apparently in retaliation for the US withdrawing from that nuclear deal. >> The consequences of leaving the nuclear deal continued to rack up. uranium stockpile is now 12 times its limit under the agreement >> and would soon confront a new presidential administration. One more inclined to re-engage with Iran. >> The US has said it is ready to restart nuclear talks with Iran.

>> We're prepared to re-engage in negotiations on Iran's nuclear program. >> Iran's foreign minister saying that the US must lift all sanctions before Iran will make any move. President Biden began trying to get Iran back to the negotiating table. He would eventually ease some of Trump's so-called maximum pressure sanctions. I mean, by not enforcing sanctions, though, wasn't the Biden administration basically empowering Iran during this period of time? President Biden was trying to demonstrate his willingness to return to uh an agreement uh that would lift some sanctions, lift additional sanctions. uh but Iran would have to abide by certain commitments. Iran wasn't willing to abide by those commitments. So at the end of the day uh there was no agreement. >> With the US and Iran at an impass, Israel was consumed by crises at home >> for allegedly accepting bribes and a breach of trust. >> Netanyahu was embroiled in a corruption scandal that would reshape his government.

>> His own personal affairs lead eventually to three different indictments on criminal charges, including bribery. charges that he has always claimed are bogus and are intent to persecute him. >> To survive politically, he formed a coalition with Israel's most extreme right-wing parties. >> Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has inaugurated the most faright government in the country's history. >> The appointment of Bales Smotri as finance minister and a minister in the defense ministry and Itmar Bengir as a minister of national security was a real sea change. Itar Ben Menir supports relaxing open fire rules against Palestinian riers. >> Beng actually pulled out a gun while on a recent visit to a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood. >> We had never seen those extreme parts of the Israeli political system present in the Israeli cabinet before. And because Prime Minister Netanyahu was so dependent on them for his political survival, it raised the question of whether these two extremist figures would really be the ones pulling the strings of Israeli policy.

The new government faced push back as it tried to consolidate power. Plans to overhaul the justice system. It was a sudden outpouring of rage >> triggering weeks of massive protests of democracy. That led to I would say the biggest wave of protest in the history of the country and probably the most severe political crisis and social crisis in the history of the country. In many meetings, the chiefs of Israeli intelligence warned Netanyahu that the political crisis and its effect on the military are perceived by Israeli enemy as the time to take more aggressive initiative against Israel. There were actually quite a lot of warnings saying, "Look, we're creating here the perfect storm." And at one point or another, one of our enemies would use that to start a war because they would feel that we're weak and that we're consumed with our own domestic political problems.

>> That summer, Hamas dispatched officials to Iran and Lebanon. Hamas is pitching an idea to Tehran and Beirut. And the idea is we can destroy Israel. we will invade Israel and then Hezbollah, you'll shoot in the north and you'll invade Israel. Then Iran will join and then we'll have volunteers coming from across the Muslim world. The Iranians did not know the timing. They may have known the overall intent but not the timing. And that was mostly for operational security on Hamas's part. There's no question the Abraham Accords. >> Throughout that summer, Iran and its proxies were also hearing of other plans that Netanyahu and Biden were preparing to bring Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords. Hom was certainly very worried that Saudi Arabia could establish ties with Israel. Not only because the fact of the relations because that would have further isolated Iran would have opened Israel presence in the Persian Gulf even more but part of that deal would be the deepening of American Saudi relationship of Israel.

>> By late September Netanyahu was talking about it on the world stage. He said, "We are going to have peace with Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinians should not have a veto on that." >> I've long sought to make peace with the Palestinians, but I also believed that we must not give the Palestinians a veto over new peace treaties with Arab states, >> which is in a different language from my point of view. The Palestinians can off excuse my French. Now, for years, my approach to peace was rejected by the so-called experts. Well, they were wrong. Peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia will truly create a new Middle East. The leaders of Hamas, as they explained to us, they see this and they understand that in a moment the Palestinian issue will be completely taken off the world agenda.

Now they came to the conclusion, a jihadist conclusion of blood, of murder, of massacre. They wanted a regional war. This morning, Hamas opened a murderous surprise attack against the state of Israel and sent dozens of fighters across the country's heavily fortified border area of the Gaza Strip. >> We failed. >> We failed. The IDF was built in order to prevent such incidents. the militants infiltrating multiple cities in Israel. >> Since we saw raping and killing Jews for the sake of being Jews, >> we were thinking that we can contain this threat. We can live our lives and they will live their lives and that's it.

And we allowed this threat to grow and grow to the extent they launched the attack on October 7th. The architect of the attacks was Yaya Sinir, the Hamas leader in Gaza. It became clearer over time that Senoir had really jumped the gun. Now, it's not to say that Hamas had not discussed such prospects with Hezbollah, with Iran, but on the day of, it appears, you know, from everything we've seen that he really decided to go for broke himself without coordination. >> October 7th would transform Israel's security strategy and the region. It was understood in Israel that we have to change the old sentiment and the way that we are acting in our neighborhood. >> We will not allow our enemies to build capabilities that might endanger the existence of Israel.

And it was very important lesson from the 7th of October. But we will take it on about the future of the Middle East. The mistake that we did before the 7th of October will not repeat itself. It's been a day that has shocked this country. Their defenses breached with ease. >> The scale of these attacks, waves of attacks are absolutely stunning. >> Israel is at war. We didn't want this war. It was forced upon us in the most brutal and savage way. But though Israel didn't start this war, Israel will finish it. Israel says it's on war footing. Now the mission is to destroy Hamas. >> Israel itself is striking back, launching its own air strikes.

Within hours, Israel began bombing Gaza and Hamas called for the rest of Iran's axis to join the fight. lead. >> Netanyahu feared an all-out attack was imminent. >> So, the prime minister and I spoke that day. He laid out his concern about how Iran and its proxy forces beyond Hamas would try to take advantage of this situation and hit Israel hard at a moment when Israel frankly was reeling. Now ask from the B administration was first and foremost to send deterrent messages in words and deeds to both Iran and Hisbala. Our senior leadership were concerned about Hezbala leisbala follow Hamas.

>> The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has gotten involved in the fighting. On October 8th, Hezbollah began to fire rockets into northern Israel. >> There was an exchange of fire between Hezbollah and Israel. >> A senior Hezbollah official pledged solidarity with the Palestinians who carried out attacks on Israel. >> The nation is with you. Our heart, minds, souls, our history and guns and rockets and all that we have is with you. >> An escalation along one of the most volatile borders in the region. >> October 7th really was a point at which this circle of fire went into offensive action against Israel. The balance seemed to be in Iran's favor. I mean, his axis was ascendant. had Israel on his back heel.

>> It seems clear we are heading for a wider war. The US is moving a carrier strike group and more fighter jets to the region. I have to say we came perilously close to a much broader regional conflict in that first week in the fog and the friction and the unknowns. The lack of clear information of exactly what was happening honestly in Israel, in Beirut, in Thran, in Washington. It's a classic security dilemma where one side sees another side moving and believes the worst is coming and might act preemptively to stop it when in fact the other side might just be moving to more defensible positions or they're moving because they're uncertain >> in Thran. The Ayatollah praised the October 7th attacks. But he denied Iran was involved.

>> We totally reject the notion that Iran was aware of the attack. We we totally reject the notion that there was there were meetings between Iranians and others on this. With the violence threatening to spiral into a full-scale regional war, President Biden warned Israel's enemies to stay out of the fight. >> To any country, any organization, anyone thinking of taking advantage of this situation, I have one word. Don't. Don't. Biden referred to Iran though even not saying this. He said, "I'm saying to anyone, be aware. Do not dare to join this this fight because then at the end of that, you'll find the mighty firepower of the United States." In the weeks that followed, the Houthis fired on Israel from Yemen. Shia militias in Iraq hit US bases, and Hezbollah and Israel continued to exchange fire. But the clashes didn't escalate further.

We kept the engagement between us and in a very low fire. That was the interest of as well. Nasa and Hezbollah wanted to support Hamas symbolically as well as put pressure on Israel on its northern border in order to prevent IDF to fully focus on on Gaza. But Nasallah also had to think about what does it mean for his community if Israel began to hit Lebanon with a lot of missiles or invaded Lebanon. Nasall believed that actually he could contain the level of engagement. >> Israel's ground war has started. Their mission to root Hamas and also to find hostages. More than 200 hostages are still being held. >> Hamas says its fighters are involved in clashes with Israeli forces. >> For the moment, Israel was focusing on Gaza.

>> They have moved on more than 600 targets and trying to target Hamas infrastructure, in particular the network of tunnels. >> The IDF has said repeatedly there are command centers stationed underneath hospitals in Gaza. For people in Gaza, a growing humanitarian crisis. >> Israel has cut off all food, water, and health. >> A panel of UN experts is warning of the potential for war crimes. >> Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called those comments hogwash and said Israel doesn't target civilians and any innocents who die in Gaza are quote collateral damage. More than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war. By December, amid mounting civilian casualties and international criticism of Israel's campaign. Biden's team was growing alarmed about Netanyahu's strategy.

What was the vision? What was the war aim as Netanyahu was stating it? >> None. I mean it was basically total victory without definition of what total victory actually was. We have to go in we have to destroy and you try to have that next layer of conversation like to do what right and you know he would publicly make the case total victory. We can't talk about the day after until we've achieved total victory. >> There is no substitute for victory and our victory will be your victory. Peace and security require total victory over Hamas. >> What does total victory actually mean? >> H I don't know what it means, but I will tell you that uh the fact that we did not present a coherent strategy was not because we did not discuss it. I think it was more due to political reasons. Some far-right members of Netanyahu's coalition fiercely opposed any ceasefire or compromise that would leave Palestinians running Gaza.

We knew that uh Bengavir and Smodrich, the two most extreme ministers, ultimately did not want the war to end, or at least for them the war meant total victory and then Israeli reoccupation and settlement of Gaza. That was not the position of the government. That was not the position of the prime minister. And that was not the position of the defense establishment and all of us who were involved in this process. But it created all pressures in our government. Netanyahu we believed was concerned that if he agreed to any postconlict option that didn't allow for Israel to maintain control over Gaza to establish settlements, he would risk seeing them bolt the coalition and collapse the government. >> Thousands of Palestinians have been killed, wounded or are missing.

These are disproportionate attacks that could be war crimes. >> With no end in sight, some of the president's advisers argued he should break with Netanyahu and publicly criticize how the war was being fought. There was some openness both at the State Department and at the White House to this idea and they did discuss it. I think ultimately the concern was that if we demonstrated daylight with Prime Minister Netanyahu, it would embolden Israel's enemies. So uh Hamas uh would be uh encouraged because they would think the USIsrael relationship was breaking up. Hezbollah would escalate. Additional proxies would get involved. Iran might see an opportunity. 6 months into the Gaza offensive, it appeared that a full-scale regional war had been averted.

Then in April, Israel made a provocative move against Iran. >> Iran is accusing Israel of attacking its embassy complex in Syria, >> eliminating one of Thrron's most senior military commanders. killed in what he described as an Israeli air strike which targeted >> Israel attacked Iranian embassy in Syria. They killed high level IRGC commanders. It was an attack on Iranian uh territory. The Iranians took it as we hit their own sovereignity because they claimed it was an their embassy building. It wasn't. It was a building next to the embassy. and we made our calculations and we were ready for uh any uh implications for this action. >> Iran's Supreme Leader Ali K has led Eid prayers in Tehran. He used his speech to call for retaliation against Israel. Were you concerned that basically Israel had just escalated the war?

>> I was concerned that as a result of what Israel had done, there would be an Iranian reaction and that could set off a chain of events that could cause uh an explosion into a wider war. And I think one thing that now sitting here in 2025, it's hard for people who weren't living this dayto-day to appreciate is we were picking up the paper every morning and there were headlines, you know, all out Middle East war on the horizon, you know, on the edge, region teeters, on the brink. We were living through a period where the possibility that the United States of America would be dragged into another major war in the Middle East was real. Within days, intelligence reports showed the Iranians were preparing a major response. Biden and Netanyahu got on the phone. Prime Minister Netanyahu said to the president, you know, we'd like your support. We'd like your help to be able to defend against this. And the president said, "I think you misjudged the consequences of your strike. You didn't think Iran was going to gear up for a big attack, and they are.

Nonetheless, I, Joe Biden, am going to tell my military to make sure that we help defend you so that an Iranian attack on Israel does not succeed. >> Tonight, we are in uncharted, unprecedented territory. Iranian drones on their way apparently to attack Israel. In April 2024, Iran finally does something that it had never done before. It attacks Israel directly. It finds a justification to say since Iranian diplomatic territory in Damascus was attacked, Iran could now attack Israeli territory directly. >> Israel's air defenses call to action. Fighter jets battled waves of Iranian drones and missiles. This is the first time that Iran has done a direct conventional military attack against Israel. They had used their proxies. They had used terrorism.

They had used every dirty trick in the books. But never had they directed their military to load up a bunch of missiles and drones and fire them from the territory of Iran to the territory of Israel. So this was a watershed moment. Almost all of the drones and missiles were destroyed before they reached their targets by a military coalition including Israel, the United States, and several Arab countries. The regime tries to claim that this operation through promise one was a grand success, that it had given Israelis a lesson, that it had pushed the Zionist back, that it has shown that Iran was this heroic state that would stand up to the Israelis. They did not want to kill Israelis. They do not want to create big mess. They just wanted to give a message that if we are attacked, we would reciprocate.

>> The Iranians have said they didn't intend to kind of inflict damage in that April attack and that it was really just more to send a message. What's your response to that? You don't launch 200 projectiles including ballistic missiles into a state for not making damage because they failed. They said that they didn't intend to make any damage. You don't do it if you don't want to make damage on the other side. >> Once again, President Biden urged restraint. The message from the US administration was, you know, you're very successful defensively. Take the win and don't strike back. >> The Israelis decided to retaliate, but they were very careful not to strike the Iranian nuclear program. >> Sources characterizing the early morning strikes as limited.

>> Iran was dismissive, saying this was just a tiny drone attack. They hit key cities and areas around it, but not at military bases that were nuclear related. You have to think of these as warning shots of saying, "We can reach you when we want to." >> In Gaza, the war ground on. 7 months after October 7th, Hamas continued to hold hostages. Tens of thousands of Israelis rallied in protest at delays in getting the hostages out of Gaza. >> And the Israeli military had killed more than 30,000 Palestinians. >> Breaking this morning, the International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders, including >> Prime Minister Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. >> Mr. Netanyahu described the move as absurd. The Biden administration's concerns about Israel's campaign were intensifying.

>> Israel is facing backlash for a deadly air strike. >> They killed dozens of people in a designated safe zone for displaced Palestinians. There were incidents that were deeply questionable and you could see the possibility that it it did violate international law in one way or another. And I think that concern was widely shared throughout the administration, including by um US government lawyers who tend to be pretty conservative in making such judgments. Yaya Sinoir, the military leader of Hamas, is suspected to be hiding out in the tunnels under Gaza. There are new reports that Sinoir has said that he has the upper hand over Israel and that the civilian casualties seen in Gaza are quote necessary sacrifices. >> Israel defended its actions, accusing Hamas of using civilians as human shields, which it is denied.

Innocent people died in Gaza. Nobody's saying otherwise. This is war and war is ugly and that's things happened. But there was not a a policy of deliberately targeting people there. We made mistakes. We are responsible for the mistakes we made. Many many civilians were killed in that war. And that's tragic. The loss of life, any life, Israeli or Palestinian, is tragic. But pressure was mounting on the US to rein in Israel's assault. >> The US should revoke the license of exporting arms to Israel. There has to be an arms embargo and then Netanyahu will listen. Ambassador Husam Zumlot was making the case in the international media. >> I was so looking for a word, a phrase to coin what is happening. What is it? apocalyptic Armageddon.

The US is capable to dab on their shoulder and tell them change course enough. It's the US that provides all these weapons and arms to Israel. We all know that the US could stop this and the fact that it didn't uh is is is a stain in the history of our international community and certainly is a state in the US history. >> Protests against American support for Israel were spreading across the world. You're a dictator. Do genocide Joe. Tens of thousands of genocide has got to go. >> Demonstrators demand an end to US support for Israel amid the humanitarian crisis and devastating death toll in Gaza. To those who want to know whether the United States used all of its leverage, you know, it's the superpower in this relationship to basically avert a catastrophe, civilian deaths, humanitarian disaster in Gaza. What do you say to those who say that the president did not use all the tools he had at his disposal to basically avert a catastrophe? I think the main argument that people make in saying President Biden should have exercised more leverage on the prime minister is that he should have stopped the flow of weapons to Israel. That was

the main source of leverage that people tend to focus on. Stop sending weapons to Israel. And I understand the logic of that. I have my doubts about even if we had done that, it would have stopped Israel from taking the actions they did. But set that aside. President Biden decided he was not going to cut off weapons to Israel because they weren't just fighting Hamas. They were fighting Hisbala, the Houthis, the Syrian militias, the Iraqi militias, and they were taking attacks from Iran itself. And President Biden wasn't going to leave Israel high and dry when it was facing a multiffront war. The US is ramping up diplomatic pressure surrounding hostage release and ceasefire talks involving. >> Throughout that summer, the Biden administration was focused on diplomacy, trying to get Israel and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza. But Israel was planning to take the conflict to another level.

At a certain point in the summer last year, Defense Minister Galant said to us, "I have plenty of bullets, but I've run out of targets." He didn't have large targets to go after to achieve this breaking down of Hamas's military organizational capabilities. Behind the scenes, the IDF believed they had made enough progress against Hamas to take on Hezbollah. When we felt enough confidence that we can contain the situation in Gaza and to move enough forces to Lebanon, we did so and we acted and we acted very sharply, very precisely. >> Israel's Mossad spy agency placed explosives in thousands of Hezbollah pages before they detonated. >> They were carried by members of the Iranbacked Hezbollah terrorist group. A funeral for those killed a day before is disrupted by another explosion. A wave of walkietalkie blasts across Lebanon killed more than a dozen and injured hundreds.

For around a decade, Israeli intelligence had been putting in place a covert plan to attack Hezbollah with booby trapped pagers and walkie-talkies. After the group became suspicious, the plan was activated. The problem was use it or lose it. If you don't use it, you might lose it. And the decision was use it. >> Once again, the United States was caught by surprise. >> Basically, I think they sensed a window of opportunity and they seized it. And the president's thought on that was what? First, it was wait, why did you work with us on this whole ceasefire thing? So we did feel that they veered off down a different road than the one that we had been coordinating on and working together. But at the end of the day, in short order, dismantling the effective capability of a murderous terrorist organization that also has American blood on his hands um is a good thing for the United States and a good thing for the region.

All in all, about 30 people died, including two children. Around 3,000 were injured. With Hezbollah reeling, Israeli forces went after the group's missile capabilities. The Pagers attack is of course a story for James Bond movie, a 007. They captured the world in terms of Israel's military abilities. But the real story is how Israel through the Israeli military branch of intelligence, the same branch that failed on October 7th. And the Israeli Air Force that also failed on October 7, managed to basically destroy most of the infantries of missiles and rockets held by Hezbollah in their silos in their bunkers without those being launched against Israel. Israel's air force could now take out Hezbollah's commanders.

They got precise intelligence about the group's leader, Hassan Nasalla. >> 15 minutes before we hit Nasarala, I called Secretary Austin and I said, "The plans are on the air. We are going to kill this bastard." and uh he said it's going to to create a major event in the Middle East. I said, "Mr. Secretary, this guy is a bad guy." A stunning escalation in Israel's fight against the Iranbacked terror group Hezbollah. Tonight, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country had settled the score with the killing of the group's longtime leader, Hazen Nezra.

The Iranians threatening that the Israelis had opened up the gates of hell. This was a major momentum shift across the entire Middle East. The Biden administration message to you was don't escalate. Let's not risk a regional war. It doesn't seem as though the Israelis really heeded that advice. >> Uh Israel felt that it had to do what it had to do. Again, you have to understand the psychology of Israelis after October 7th. I think the main psychological gap between us and the administration was that we felt this is an existential situation. After October 7th, we cannot end this war with Hamas standing with any of our neighbors being able to hit us this way. Nowhere, no more. After Nasalla's death, there was no major response from Hezbollah. >> If you would have told me in 2022 that in the days that we will assassinate and send Nasala to hell, that there will not be one missile over Tel Aviv. I will ask you, what have you drank? What have you smoked? It seems like not possible.

>> The collapse of Hezbollah was possible not just because Israel was very clever, but also because Israel was willing to carry out the kind of operations that other countries might not do. The kind of impunity with which Israel operated in Gaza without getting any push back from Europe or the United States carried into Lebanon as well. There are large numbers of civilians who were killed. For instance, in the killing of Hassan Nasella, which happened with a very massive bomb dropped on South Beirut. So the assassinations, the pager attacks, etc. were successful largely because Israel was willing to accept the civilian casualties and the collateral damage that it would involve. We are not aiming at civilians. We are not aiming at innocent people.

>> But civilians are dying. James, you are right. This is the environment we are living in. I would prefer to fight an enemy who who prefers to fight me with his weapons and not using his own civilians as human shields. 4 days after the assassination of Nosala, the retaliation came direct from Iran. Iran has just launched a retaliatory missile attack targeting Israel. >> The Supreme Leader decides to order the Islamic Republic to enter the war again and attack Israel full-blown. Israel says its air defense is taking out most of the incoming missiles. The world is now waiting to see how Israel responds.

>> This time the Israelis went much further. They took out Iranian missile defenses around Thran and around some of the nuclear sites. They took out Iranian missile operations. And by taking out the air defenses, the message was we could own your airspace, so don't tempt us. Iran's ring of fire was disintegrating across the entire region with a major setback in Gaza. >> One of the world's most hunted men is dead. Hamas military leader Yaya Sinir, the mastermind of the October 7th attacks, was killed by Israeli troops in southern Gaza. And in Syria, where Iran's ally, the dictator Bashar al-Assad, was forced from power. Assad has fled to Moscow, and it is now a coalition of rebel groups that are in charge.

>> The whole ring was broken. Hamas was destroyed by us. Hezbala is now isolated within Lebanon. It doesn't have any connection to Iran because the bridge was broken. The Iranians cannot send him through land anything. And without the ring, Iran became much weaker. A number of factors all in the span of just a few short months completely upended the game in the Middle East when it came to the shadow war between Israel and Iran. Iran's proxies are on their back. Iran's client Assad is gone. Iran's air defenses are gone. And so this is just a different moment in the Middle East than what we inherited when we walked into office. >> For Benjamin Netanyahu, it was an opportunity to do what he'd been advocating for decades. >> Deterrence must now be reinforced with prevention, immediate and effective prevention. This is not a hypothesis. It is fact. They're 6 months away from being about 90% of having the rich uranium for an atom bomb. Weeks away from having the file material, Iran lied.

>> The path was finally clear to attack Iran's nuclear program. >> The horizon opened for Israelis and suddenly realized that, you know, having hit hard on the Iranian axis on the tentacles, we can now aim at what many people call the head of the snake, which is Iran. Now, if you listen to the Israelis, they will tell you that as soon as Hezbollah fell, they began receiving a new stream of intelligence, suggesting that the Iranians had made a decision to race for a bomb and had built a separate cell that most Iranian leaders didn't even know about that was reviving the old bomb project. They informed the Americans of their intelligence. I have yet to find any American officials who believe that Iran was racing for a bomb.

In November, Netanyahu issued a secret directive to his military to begin planning for an attack. But they needed help. Only the US had bombs capable of destroying Iran's underground nuclear facilities. With 2 months until a new US administration, Netanyahu decided to wait. >> So, I want to thank you all for being here. Thank you very much. And >> thank you, >> Benjamin. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, D. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to uh first thank you for uh inviting me again to uh the White House. You've been a remarkable friend of the state of Israel. Uh you stand by us. You're standing with us. >> Then Trump went in a surprising direction. >> Wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait. We're having direct talks with Iran. And uh >> Trump announces that he is going to open up negotiations with the Iranians to see how it goes. And I think everybody agrees that uh doing a deal would be preferable.

>> You can just see Netanyahu's discomfort in the seat. Wasn't supposed to happen like this. He was supposed to have in the Oval Office the great Iran hawk. But it's uh getting to be very dangerous territory and hopefully >> you don't have to be a great psychologist to see how unhappy Netanyahu was with the idea of another prolonged negotiation. >> Officials from the US and Iran holding high stakes. >> A few days later in Oman, negotiations began between the US and Iran. side said going into these talks that they were looking for some sort of deal. The Iranians want those crushing economic sanctions lifted. The Americans want to see restrictions on Iran's nuclear program. You know, we we started negotiations in good faith and Iran was sincere in its desire to arrive at a conclusion in terms of uh the nuclear its nuclear program.

From the American side, they were also showing signs that they were also eager to find an agreement with Iran. >> Give us the readout on the Iran talk, sir. >> I think they're going, "Okay, >> what was your because it doesn't nothing matters until you get it done." >> From Rome, where this morning Iran and the United States are sitting down for a new round of talks on Iran's nuclear program. A lot is at stake and there's every sense that time is ticking for these sides to reach a deal. >> Trump had given a 60-day deadline to agree to a deal. The Israeli government was absolutely convinced that the Iranians are just trying to stall the negotiations. They're just playing for time, said the Israelis to their American counterparts. The president means what he says, which is they cannot have a bomb. >> As talks progressed, Trump's chief negotiator, Steve Witoff, suggested a compromise was possible.

>> So, this is going to be much about verification on the enrichment program. Wickoff publicly said, "Well, maybe the Iranians could go back to the same kind of enrichment levels they had in the Obama deal." Well, everybody leapt on that, me included, and wrote stories saying he's talking about reviving the Obama era deal. This was not what President Trump wanted to be reading. The administration took a hard turn and said no enrichment, zero enrichment in Iran. >> For the Iranians, this was a red line. >> Dismantling of all Iranian enrichment facilities, which was impossible. They knew is not going to happen. Trump is telling Iranians, a nation with 7,000 years of civilization in history, he tells them, "When you negotiate with me unconditional surrender."

Of course, Iranians would not accept it. >> The sixth round of Iran US nuclear talks is planned as the two sides remain locked in a standoff. >> Trump gave the Iranians 60 days. And during those months, I heard from people here in Israel around the prime minister. They kept on saying, "Watch out for the 60 days." >> Israel's military was now preparing an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. >> During the discussions and deliberations in the cabinet, the closed cabinet and with the chief of staff, Netanyahu was very clear. He said, "Go do your stuff. make sure it's a stunning success and on upon that success I will bring President Trump. So he knew his thought, gamble, whatever is if Israel succeeds, if it is indeed a stunning operation, President Trump would want to be part of the success.

Moments ago, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel's very survival. >> More than 200 fighter jets were aimed at Iran's main enrichment facility. >> Iran State TV says the strikes killed several top military leaders and nuclear scientists. We took them by surprise and we attacked all these targets simultaneously and repeatedly for two weeks. They caught many of the military leadership, the head of the air force and others asleep in their own beds. The Israelis put missiles right into their bedrooms and killed them. >> It was a war which was based totally on intelligence. Israel succeeded to to kill probably more than 12 very sophisticated the hardcore of weaponization group scientist. >> We will not have a second holocaust, a nuclear holocaust.

Iran's retaliation has begun. >> This time when Iran retaliated, some of its missiles got through Israel's defenses. >> At least five people have been killed and dozens injured in the latest round of missile strikes launched by Iran. Iran accused the US of using the negotiations as cover. And I could hear people are chanting death to America, who they say enabled the war. When the Israelis attacked us, that showed that the Isra the Americans have approved this. Now we have realized that they have uh been cooperative in the course of aggression from day one. How can anybody else trust the Americans when they say something?

No current Trump administration officials would agree to be interviewed. At the time, the president said that the US had nothing to do with Israel strikes. >> I've never found any evidence that the Israelis got a green light in the White House. I think they got a yellow caution light which was you go do this, you may be in it for yourself. As the Israelis were increasingly successful, Trump began in that usual Donald Trump way to want a piece of the victory. >> Doing pretty well right now. We're doing pretty well. Remember, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. It's very simple. Uh I gave Iran 60 days and they said no. And the 61st you saw what happened. And meanwhile a back channel developed about whether the US would now be willing since the Israelis had cleared the way to go after Natans and Fordo.

>> On June 19th, President Trump's spokeswoman said he was taking time to decide whether to join the war. I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks. >> From the beginning, that two-week utterance from President Trump was tactical deception. He had already approved the plan. He signed the execute order the next afternoon and the planes were in the air the next day. The United States has entered Israel's war with Iran. American stealth bombers and submarines launched a massive coordinated attack. >> Unprecedented strikes against Iran's nuclear enrichment sites. >> Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace.

President Trump and I often say, "Peace through strength. First comes strength, then comes peace. >> For decades, Iran thought that it could say def to America and deaf to Israel without actually fighting these countries. Now, it knows how fighting Israel looks like. It also knows that even Donald Trump who had banked so much of his political career on not wanting um to start forever wars or not wanting to wars, he would that he would not hesitate from attacking Iran. After the US air strikes, Iran and Israel continued fighting despite Trump declaring a ceasefire. >> We have we basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the they're doing. Do you understand that?

You have you had to rely on this. >> But soon the war came to an end. >> That bombardment is a crime. We are for dialogue. Uh we want to engage. But the Americans have uh you know failed the test. They have failed the exam. So they have to come and explain to us as to why uh they chose uh you know war instead of diplomacy. >> The extent of the damage to Iran's nuclear facilities remained unclear, but Israel was confident the program had been set back. >> It will take them, I don't know, years to rebuild it. And if the Iranians decide to rebuild a facility which we will be sure is connected to their nuclear military um project, we will destroy it.

As simple as that. In the months that followed, Israel would agree to a ceasefire with Hamas and bring home the remaining hostages. Around 90% of Gaza's population had been displaced. Tens of thousands killed and the Israeli military was occupying more than half the territory. The threat from Iran's proxies Hamas and Hezbollah had been pushed back. But it would soon become clear that Netanyahu was not done with Iran. In late December, Netanyahu arrived at Mara Lago with fresh concerns about Iran. Israeli intelligence claimed that the regime had been rapidly replenishing its ballistic missile stockpiles.

This is what became BB Netanyahu's obsession because some of those missiles had made it through during the 12-day war, hit Tel Aviv and so forth, and he did not want to let that inventory build up and he begins lobbying on that point. >> We've never had a friend, even close a friend, uh, as President Trump in the White House. Netanyahu makes a very strong case that he needs to go after the missiles, that he loved to do it with the United States. It's not clear to us yet whether Trump was sold on this at that time. >> Iran may be behaving badly. It hasn't been confirmed. But if it's confirmed, look, they know the consequence. You know, consequences will be very powerful, maybe more powerful than the last time. Then in January, >> the protests in Iran have grown. The crackdown more deadly.

>> Dramatic developments inside Iran started moving Trump towards taking action. >> President Trump is now warning that if Iran kills peaceful protesters, the US will intervene. The administration all of a sudden begins a huge military buildup around Iran and the topic matter turns from human rights to the nuclear program. Again, although neither Trump nor Netanyahu were presenting new evidence of an imminent nuclear threat, satellite imagery was showing cleanup work at sites that had been bombed in June. Along with an aircraft carrier, Trump once again sent Steve Witkoff as well as his son-in-law Jared Kushner armed with even bigger demands than the last time. They were putting absolutely maximalist goals on the table and unless you come to the table urgently and sign, I'm going to attack you. And there was absolutely no evidence that anything of consequence has had happened with Iran's nuclear program between June of 2025 and January of 2026, which would warrant this kind of urgency.

I'd rather make a deal. It's got to be a good deal. No nuclear weapons, no missiles, no this, no that, all the different things that you want. But some people worry that uh they've been very dishonest with us over the years. Right >> behind the scenes at the White House, Netanyahu continued to press for going to war. Netanyahu comes with a message to the president, which is, "We're going to go ahead." And by the way, when we go ahead, go ask your own guys what's going to happen to you because the Iranians are going to respond by hitting US bases. So, you might as well join us at the beginning because you'll end up joining us in the first 12 hours anyway. Donald Trump's answer was essentially, "Okay, we'll do it together." >> Israel's defense minister has confirmed it's launched an attack on Iran. US strikes on Iran are now underway. Within the first 24 hours, the strikes had killed Iran's Supreme Leader and other top officials.

>> The Supreme Leader of the Iranian terrorist regime is dead. US and Israel pummeling Iranian missile bases deep underground. >> A reported air strike hit a girl school over the weekend. >> The regime began launching missiles into Israel and at US bases in the region. strikes in Doha where the Aludade air base is located. Six Iowa Army Reserve is killed in Sunday strike home to the US. >> Intensifying military conflict which has spiraled into a full-blown regional war. >> We are defending ourselves. We have not started this war of aggression. This war has imposed on us and we will continue to defend ourselves to the best of our abilities. With the fighting intensifying, the Trump administration has offered differing justifications for the war. >> The more you listen to the ration, the more confusing it gets cuz the rationale keep changing.

>> Iran's a very powerful country. They were going to take over the Middle East. If we did not hit them, they were going to take over the Middle East. >> The imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believe they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us. Iran had a conventional gun to our head as they tried to lie their way to a nuclear bomb. >> This all raises the question, is this a war of opportunity or of necessity? >> This is a war of choice. We don't have any evidence that the Iranians were preparing to strike Israel or the United States. This was a preventive, not a preemptive war. And in international law, that is considered completely off limits because if you had a world of nothing but preventive wars, you'd have war all the time. >> So there is this question here whether this is in fact a war of choice. >> Yes, I I I I know I know all these slogans. If it's not imminent, it's a war of choice. No, this notion that if the other side is not killing you, you don't kill him and you let him the time to prepare you be killed in the future and you don't do anything because it's not imminent. It's stupid. This is the mistake that we did before the 7th of October. It was not imminent. So, we let them to be stronger and they when they felt they are strong enough, they surprise us.

At least Israel is not going to behave that way in the future. >> I mean, doesn't that fly in the face of what international law is all about? >> Maybe, but we know what is the alternative. >> In recent days, Israel has begun a new offensive against the remnants of Hezbollah in Lebanon. >> Dozens of people, more than 50 in fact, have been killed. >> Hundreds of thousands of people have been on the move. >> At what point does this war end? When both sides, the Americans and the Israelis will sit together and say they're weak enough, the regime, whoever will be the regime, cannot harm not Israel, not the neighborhood, not America for sure. What we want to destroy is the ability of the Iranians to attack others. >> Speaking on American television, the Iranian leadership has remained defiant. They have, you know, started this war unprovoked, unwarranted, illegally. And what we are doing is is an illegal is legal act of self-defense. And we have every right to do that.

>> President Trump is now threatening Iran with complete destruction and has promised a new regional order. There isn't new Middle East being made because the series of wars since October 7th has actually broken the old Middle East. But the result of these wars has not been satisfactory. There is not a peace treaty or an endgame for Gaza. There's not an end to Lebanon that all Lebanese see as good closure. There's no end to Syria yet and there was no end to Iran yet. You're not going to end up with peace and prosperity without actually laying the political foundations for it. The military foundations is fine. Many people are celebrating it. The the destruction of the axis of resistance, but what is coming instead? What's the political settlement that's going to heal these wounds? It doesn't exist yet.

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