Will Chamberlain talks with Yonah Jeremy Bob, Senior Military Correspondent and Intelligence Analyst at The Jerusalem Post, and Elliot Kaufman, a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, about their book, In the War Room: The Inside Story of Israel's Fight Against Hamas and the Iranian Axis.

In this episode:

Yonah explains how Netanyahu, Gallant, and Gantz, three men who could not stand one another, had to run Israel's war together for its first eight to thirteen months.

Elliot argues that Netanyahu, often caricatured as the ultimate Israeli hawk, was one of the most cautious voices in the war room after October 7 and only later became the leader willing to make the riskiest military choices.

Elliot walks through the case Gallant and the IDF high command made for striking Hezbollah first, and how Netanyahu used American opposition, along with the support of Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, to hold that option off.

Yonah reveals that the exploding beepers and walkie-talkies were already part of the war room's debate in October 2023, and that Netanyahu later refused to give Washington a veto over the strike on Hassan Nasrallah.

On Rafah, Elliot recounts how President Biden planted his flag against the operation, then went quiet once Israel evacuated the city's civilians in less than a week.

Yonah credits the IDF with moving well over a million people out of Rafah without mass casualties and reports that Hamas, eager to booby-trap more houses, inadvertently helped the evacuation.

Yonah says Biden was the pro-Israel wing of his own administration until Rafah, and Elliot explains why the Rafah fight ended up strengthening Netanyahu at home.

Yonah explains the dispute between the Mossad and the IDF over when to use the pagers, and says the concern was not imminent discovery but that Iranian inspectors might eventually find them.

Elliot describes the Nasrallah decision, in which Netanyahu warned that American officials would "jump out of their skin" and Washington was told only once Israeli warplanes were in the air.

Elliot reports that Ron Dermer told the war room after meeting Trump in November 2024 that there was an 80 percent chance Trump would allow or join a strike on Iran, and that JD Vance played a crucial role in bringing the United States in.

Yonah recounts how IDF chief Eyal Zamir won over Vance by telling him Israeli aircraft were flying over Fordow unopposed, and argues that nobody drags Donald Trump into anything.

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

Yonah Jeremy Bob: The Jerusalem Post · @jeremybob1

Elliot Kaufman: The Wall Street Journal editorial board · @ElliotKaufman6

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain

Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

00:00 Cold Open

03:02 How In the War Room came together

06:39 Who ran Israel's war: Netanyahu, Gallant, and Gantz

08:47 Was Netanyahu really the hawk everyone assumes?

10:13 Should Israel have struck Hezbollah first?

19:48 The fight over Rafah

27:52 What was the Biden administration withholding?

32:15 Did Biden himself turn on Israel?

36:27 The pagers and the Iranian inspection risk

38:24 The Nasrallah strike and what to tell Washington

43:13 Did Israel drag Trump into war with Iran?

47:57 How Zamir sold JD Vance before Midnight Hammer

49:02 The UAE warning and the failures before October 7