Inside Israel’s War Room: What Really Happened After October 7

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

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Coleman Hughes (0:30)

Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Coleman. My guest today is Elliot Kaufman. Elliot is an editorial writer and member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, where he focuses primarily on Israel and Iran. He joined the journal in 2018 after graduating from Stanford University. He is also the co-author with Yona Jeremy Bob of the 2026 book In the War Room, the inside story of Israel's fight against Hamas and the Iranian Axis, which is the subject of today's conversation. In this episode, we talk about why Hamas invaded Israel in October 2023 We talk about the recent Haaretz article alleging that Prime Minister Netanyahu ignored warnings of an attack, including from Mohammed bin Zayed, better known as MBZ. We talk about why Israeli intel agencies have been much more competent at fighting Hezbollah in Iran and less competent at fighting Hamas in Gaza. We talk about how Israeli decision-makers, including but not limited to Netanyahu, made decisions at crucial turning points during the war.

Finally, we talk about how October 7th has changed the balance of power in the Middle East for good.

Without further ado, Elliot Kaufman.

SPEAKER_1 (1:54)

Hey y'all, Kelly Clarkson here with Wayfair. You know my favorite compliment during the holidays? Your house feels so cozy. That's when I know everyone's comfortable enough to kick off their shoes, grab more dessert, and stay a little longer. Wayfair makes it easy with everything from dining furniture to festive guest room essentials all in one place. So whether you're hosting for an afternoon or all weekend, everyone feels right at home. Get holiday guests ready at wayfair.com or on the Wayfair app today.

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Coleman Hughes (2:24)

Okay. Elliot Kaufman, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Elliot Kaufman (2:27)

Thanks for having me.

Coleman Hughes (2:28)

I've known you for quite a while. You are one of the best editors in the game. I know I've told you this privately before, but you should teach a course on it at some point in your life, because you have a true gift. But we're not here to talk about that today. We're talking about the book you've written called In the War Room. What you've done here is essentially write the first draft of the history of the October 7th War.

That's an incredibly ambitious project. It's a difficult project. The first thing I want to ask you is, how did you do this?

Who did you interview? What was your method as a first draft historian, essentially?

Elliot Kaufman (3:11)

It's a great question, and my co-author and I, we saw that there were already a few books coming out. We knew even before there were already a few books about the October 7th Massacre itself. What we said is, let's tell the story of what happens after, of the war that followed.

So I work, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, my co-author, Jerusalem Post, military correspondent. Between the two of us, our daily work was essentially focused on one story for two full years. Now with this Iran War, you could say almost three full years.

So building off of that, we realized together we could tell the inside story based on behind the scenes material from all of Israel's top leaders, and I really mean that, political, military intelligence plus senior US officials, Biden and Trump officials. But in Israel, really, it's Bibi, Gallant, Gantz, Halevi, Zameer. And if you don't know those names, that's what the book is for. So please don't worry.

Coleman Hughes (4:32)

Yeah. Okay. So let's get right into it.

Why did Hamas invade Israel on October 7th? And let me put a little more meat on the bones of that question. Initially, what we heard is that Sinwar chose to attack on October 7th because Saudi Arabia and Israel were on the brink of a major normalization deal of bringing Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords, which would probably be the biggest piece of news coming out of the Middle East in decades, and a major piece of good news. Obviously, the background fact here is that Hamas wants to destroy the nation of Israel. So in that sense, why did they attack Israel is an easy question to answer. The real question is, why did they do it when they did it?