Special Bulletin: The October 7 Attacks Set Off Three Years of War. What's Next?

Mike Baker (0:07)

This week marks three years since the October 7th terrorist attacks on Israel. I recently sat down with the most excellent Mike Slater for a wide-ranging conversation about the attacks, the political and military fallout, and how the past three years since those attacks have fundamentally reshaped Israel and the broader Middle East.

Check out the podcast Politics by Faith with Mike Slater. I hope you enjoy the interview.

Mike Slater (0:33)

Let's go to the great Mike Baker, host of one of the top podcasts in the entire nation, The President's Daily Brief. Mr. Baker, how are you, sir?

Mike Baker (0:42)

I'm doing well. Thanks, man. Great to see you again. Thank you.

Mike Slater (0:46)

Glad you're here. Thank you.

Let's just go back three years. Remind us of some aspects of this attack, the actual physical attack, how it happened, and what did Hamas do that maybe they've never done before? How did it catch Israel so off guard? Things like that. Take us back three years.

Mike Baker (1:02)

Yeah.

Well, I think what they did that was most important from their perspective, right, from Hamas' perspective, and Yaya Simo was a big part of this, was that they spent a lot of time prior to 7 October creating this narrative that Hamas didn't really want to continue to do this hostilities. They didn't want this war. They just wanted a better life. And could, you know, could we just all hold hands? It wasn't quite that simple. But the message they were sending for, really, for a couple of years, at least, was this idea that I think it's a new day.

And that lulled the Israeli government, security services, I would argue, into kind of this sense that the threat isn't what it used to be. And we saw that in a way because we started to see, you know, a lot of infighting, political infighting in Israel. And typically, they're so worried about existential threats, outside threats, that they don't spend a great deal of time, you know, publicly fighting politically, right? They try to keep that tamp down to the degree possible, right? They obviously have it. But anyway, so you started to see more of this infighting, which meant they had more time to think about themselves rather than worrying about Hamas. And that, I would say, is the number one thing that Hamas did that enabled 7 October.

Mike Slater (2:31)

Very interesting. I've never heard that before. We, you would think, because of social media and everything, that, and we can see more of war than a normal person, maybe you've seen before, that we'd be more horrified by war. But it's interesting. I almost feel like people would become more numb to the evils of war.

How brutal was what happened three years ago?

Mike Baker (2:55)

Oh, it was Genghis Khan. It was Vikings landing on the beach. It was horrific.

And this video of it. But yet today, because we've all got ADHD, because also apparently it's okay to be somewhat anti-Semitic, that's kind of been set aside. And they don't remember what happened. And yes, it's terrible when civilians die, and have a lot of Palestinians died since then. Yes, how many would have? Probably not very many if Hamas hadn't decided to do this. That was their plan. They wanted to turn this upside down, because they understood what would happen. They understood how Israel would respond. They knew this was going to happen. They didn't care that their own citizens would be killed. That's why they put their command centers underneath hospitals and weapons depots underneath schools.

They don't care. And we've forgotten that, because the passage of time. It's like the 25-year anniversary of September 11th. We just, a lot of people were like, oh, is it September 11th? How about that?

Mike Slater (4:08)

Yeah. And so, I want to ask you, so Sinwar, who was the leader of Hamas, who planned this whole thing, do you think he miscalculated? Like, if he were to look back on this, would he be like, oh, thank goodness we did this?

Or, oh man, really blew it. That was a bad idea.

Mike Baker (4:28)

No, he was, you know, he was what he was. He knew, look, there was no misunderstanding.

They've been at this game with Israel for decades. They understood what they were getting into. And the brutality with which they conducted the 7 October attacks was designed. It wasn't as if they just said, well, let's see what happens. We'll send some of our soldiers across the border and see, you know, how it goes.

It was planned. It was designed. There was architecture around it. So I don't think Yaya would be, you know, and, you know, I would, you hate to wish anybody dead. I don't really hate to wish anybody dead. There are people that deserve it. It was one of them. Tremendous amount of blood on his hands as a terrorist and a leader of Hamas. So I don't think he would be surprised at where this went. I think if you had polled all the Gazan citizens, if there had been a way, there's not, of course, but if there had been a way to polled them, surveyed them without Hamas being aware of how they cast their vote, they would have said, are you crazy? That's what you're thinking about doing? You're gonna go do that and you're going to then create this conflict that's going to destroy Gaza? Absolutely not, but that's not how it works. Hamas is in control. I would argue that in the parts where Israel hasn't occupied, they still are in control. They refuse to disarm. And there is no international peacekeeping force. That's a bit of a farce. So, yeah, I know I sound cynical, but the whole thing is a mess. Look, not the conflict in the Middle East isn't always incredibly complex and layered and messy and horrific. And again, it doesn't discount the fact that it is awful that civilians have been killed in this conflict. Of course not. That is a problem. And yes, there should be transparency around the Israeli Defense Force and how they conduct their operations.