Writer and researcher Hussain Abdul-Hussain has an unusual story: A Shia Muslim raised in Iraq and Lebanon and taught to hate Israel and the West, he is now a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies living in Washington, and the author of a book called The Arab Case for Israel. 

It was his years in Lebanon that gave him unique insight into the country’s political workings, which now play a major role in its tenuous ceasefire with Israel.

“Lebanon was a thriving state when the Arabs were fighting Israel state-to-state, when it was a symmetric military-to-military war,” Abdul-Hussain told Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov and Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy Executive Director Asher Fredman on the “Misgav Mideast Horizons” podcast this week. 

“What happened is that, after 1967, when the Arab armies were defeated, the Arabs switched from military-to-military to asymmetric war, with armed factions like Hamas, or the PLO before Hamas, or Hezbollah [against Israel],” he said. “They decided when to fight, how to fight, where to launch attacks, and these were in Jordan and Lebanon. … Jordan decided [to say] ‘We are a state and we will not allow these armed factions to run our affairs’ … They ejected them in 1970. Lebanon, unfortunately, came under enormous pressure from all kinds of Arab capitals. … Everyone forced Lebanon to accept [PLO leader Yasser] Arafat and his armed factions to operate out of Lebanon and launch attacks on Israel.”

“Since then, the Lebanese state has not been able to restore its sovereignty to pre-1969 days,” Abdul-Hussain argued. “After Israel ejected Arafat in 1982, Hezbollah inherited the mantle. … We have an issue of chronic weakness of the Lebanese state facing armed factions.”

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun is “probably the only elected Lebanese official to state on the record that Hezbollah is treasonous and wages war on behalf of Iran,” Abdul-Hussain said. In addition, there were reports as talks began last month that Aoun would be willing to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

However, Aoun said more recently that Lebanon would not be able to negotiate with Israel until its fight against Hezbollah ended.

“Hezbollah and Iran don’t want any kind of direct talks with Israel,” Abdul-Hussain pointed out.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia, he noted, have also been advising the Lebanese government not to negotiate normalization, a topic that was one of Israel’s conditions for entering the talks.

Riyadh’s motivation, according to Abdul-Hussain, is for Arab states to line up behind the Gulf state and wait for it to make peace with Israel — a move that Saudi Arabia has conditioned on the creation of a pathway to Palestinian statehood.

“This is leverage for the Saudis; it’s not in the interest of Lebanon,” Abdul-Hussain said. “These are factors that come in so the Lebanese state remains weak and unable to take on Hezbollah.”

Abdul-Hussain credited the Trump administration for “giving Lebanon more attention than any administration since the early days of Ronald Reagan. … I’m happy that someone sees Lebanon as it is, not as we imagine it to be or just dismiss it and say ‘This is too complicated for us and we’re not going to go into it.’”

That attention is “a golden opportunity … to help disarm Hezbollah and live at peace with Israel, Syria, Turkey, Iran, everybody else,” he said. “If the Lebanese don’t grasp it, I’m not sure there will be another opportunity in the coming future.” 

Abdul-Hussain said that Aoun’s recent message that he will not shake hands with Netanyahu at the outset of negotiations does not diminish the major step he took toward peace talks with Israel.

“For a Lebanese president to say that we are parting ways with the Arab League and Saudi Arabia and that we are ready to shake hands with the Israeli prime minister if there is an agreement – that is huge,” he said.

As for France, which has often intervened on matters related to Lebanon, but is not involved in the talks with Israel, Abdul-Hussain said, “France has not paid a penny to Lebanon in a long time … but for some reason they keep sitting at the table deciding Lebanon’s fate. My guess is that they enjoy the spotlight.”

The French and the Saudis try to intervene in Lebanon “for their own ego,” Abdul-Hussain argued, but France is “more dangerous,” because it “tries to curry favor with Iran by taking Hezbollah’s side in Lebanon. The French would tell the Iranians, ‘Listen, we will not go against Hezbollah … [or] whatever Hezbollah policy. But keep in mind that when the time comes and there are no sanctions and you need to give contracts away, the French took your side. The French do this all the time. They did it with Saddam Hussein.”

A more recent example Abdul-Hussain cited was when the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain brought a draft resolution to the U.N. Security Council stating that the Strait of Hormuz is an international waterway and countries should be able to use military force to open it; “The French took the side of the Chinese, Russians and Iran” against it, he said.

“Why would France do that?” he said. “OK, you don’t like Trump, you don’t want to open your airspace to Trump. But if you are about international law, this is as [legitimate] as it can get. So what do the French do? They hedge against the West. … and this is what they’re doing in Lebanon.” 

Abdul-Hussain said he was “thrilled” to hear Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter say that he “would like to keep the French as far away as possible from pretty much everything, but particularly when it comes to peace negotiations.”

Abdul-Hussain’s book, The Arab Case for Israel, was published in February and features not only his arguments in favor of supporting Israel, but how he came to hold such views after receiving an anti-Israel education.

“My dad is from Iraq, from Baghdad, and my mom is from Baalbek in Lebanon,” Abdul-Hussain recounted this week. “I grew up in both countries. After second or third grade, we left Iraq permanently, during the war with Iran. … Of course, the 1980s in Lebanon is when Israel invaded [Lebanon] and when Hezbollah was being put together, and the days of the civil war.” 

Abdul-Hussain recalled growing up in Iraq “shouting slogans against Khomeini and against Israel, and then … [in] Lebanon shouting pro-Khomeini slogans against Saddam Hussein, but still against Israel.” 

He attended the American University in Beirut, where he was exposed to less conservative Muslim ideas of “all kinds, Marxist, socialist, anarchist, you name it” but still anti-Israel.

Abdul-Hussain became a reporter at the now-defunct Daily Star, a leading English-language newspaper in Lebanon, rising to the position of managing editor. 

When Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, Abdul-Hussain was covering the events and drove to the border.

“At the time, the border was just a flimsy barbed wire. You could see Israelis on the other side, and I stood there and I watched Israeli families in Metula and all these towns … mothers driving their children to school, men working the fields, some guy driving a tractor. This was the first time that I saw Israelis as humans … as people like us, and this made me so curious,” he recalled.

Abdul-Hussain was able to pick up Israeli radio stations from Lebanon, and began to learn Hebrew in that way, because “If you lived in Lebanon, you had no access to anything Israeli. The only access you had is anti-Israel books by Edward Said, [Norman] Finkelstein, [Noam] Chomsky. You can buy Mein Kampf anywhere.” 

Listening to Israeli radio, Abdul-Hussain found that “These guys are not really obsessed with killing all the Arabs and taking all the land and establishing Greater Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates and all the conspiracy theories that I had learned.”

In 2004, he moved to Washington to work for the newly-founded Al Hurra, the U.S.-backed Arabic language news channel meant to support the spread of democracy in the Middle East, and has lived in the U.S. ever since.

“After I came to the U.S., I had unlimited access to everything Hebrew and Jewish and Israeli and I understood this is a totally different story from the one I was taught,” he said.

Abdul-Hussain makes the case that “Whatever happened in the past, whatever injustice has befallen the Arabs and the Palestinians, moving on and seeing Israel as an asset is much more in the Arab interest than trying to wind the clock back to a time when Israel didn’t exist.” 

“I show the numbers, the receipts as we say here in Washington,” he added. “Look at the Abraham Accords countries and their trade and economy. Look at the cold peace with Egypt and Jordan and their trade and economy, which is much less than the Abraham Accords countries. Then, look at Lebanon and Syria, who are still at war and miserably behind the others.”

Abdul-Hussain pointed at a trend by which “The more peaceful you get with your surroundings, the better your economy thrives and blooms. This is the idea of the book.”

Following a report spotlighting Qatari funding in Georgia public schools, the state’s General Assembly became the first in the country to pass legislation requiring the disclosure of foreign government funding in statewide K-12 schools.

The Foreign Funding Transparency and Accountability Act, HB 1379, requires public school districts, public universities and technical colleges to report funding of $10,000 or more from foreign countries or entities, naming specifically Qatar and Saudi Arabia — the two largest foreign funders of American universities. 

The bill — which passed both chambers of the Assembly earlier this month and now awaits Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s signature —  was spearheaded by Democratic state Rep. Esther Panitch, the only Jewish member of the Georgia Statehouse, as well as Rep. Houston Gaines and the pro-Israel Georgia Solidarity Network. 

In January, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies published a report showing that the Qatari royal family’s U.S. philanthropy arm, Qatar Foundation International, had spent at least $281,000 on education in Georgia — including K-12 teacher trainings, Arabic textbooks for young students and student trips to Qatar.

Panitch told Jewish Insider she tweeted the findings, only to be surprised by a direct and hostile response from the Qatari ambassador to the U.S. and his deputy chief of mission on X, who allegedly told her she was spreading misinformation “like you people always do.”

“Why did they care what a legislator from Georgia thinks? It was weird. I started engaging back and this went on for days,” said Panitch. The back and forth eventually resulted in her involving the FBI. “The moment he responded to me was the moment I knew FDD was on to something right,” she said. 

“We were all caught off guard after [the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks]. I think Qatar had a lot to do with the responses on college campuses. Parents had no idea that some of their kids were being radicalized. I hope we get more answers, but this will definitely help,” continued Panitch.  

The Georgia Solidarity Network, a two-year-old bipartisan political action committee supporting pro-Jewish and pro-Israel causes, proposed legislation crafted by co-founder Alli Medof, which Panitch filed a couple weeks after the report’s release. 

“We didn’t want to make it loud and attract the attention of people who might object,” Panitch told JI. “I didn’t want Qatar to come in and hire a lobbyist. We went to committees and didn’t get much pushback.”

There was, however, some pushback from colleges and schools “in an operational sense, asking how they are supposed to carry this out,” said Panitch.

The bill also faced scrutiny in the state Senate, according to Panitch, who said some lawmakers “didn’t seem to care that Qatari money had seemingly resulted in teachers saying that [late Hamas leader] Yayha Sinwar was to be commended or that suicide bombing is okay.” 

Ultimately, the bill passed the Senate 31-20 and the House 139-16. Kemp has 40 days to sign the bill into state law. If he doesn’t veto it, it goes into law automatically. 

“I wouldn’t presume anything” in terms of whether the governor will sign the bill, said Panitch, adding she has not heard anything that implies he would veto it. 

A second bill establishing a K-12 statewide Title VI coordinator, also crafted by the Georgia Solidarity Network, simultaneously passed. The bill authorizes the withholding of state funding from institutions that fail to correct violations within 30 days — an enforcement mechanism absent from comparable laws in Tennessee, Oklahoma and California.

The legislative session also secured $3 million in state security funding for the rest of 2026 for nonprofit organizations at elevated risk of attack, with an additional $5 million budgeted for Fiscal Year 2027. 

“The Title VI bill was kind of similar because we were also dealing with schools and universities,” Panitch told JI. “There was a part that mentioned antisemitism that we ended up taking out. The preamble still mentions antisemitism but we didn’t want anyone to think this was only for the Jews. It was the Jewish community that brought it forward because we’ve been dealing with this, but essentially it’s a civil rights bill for kids and everyone wants to protect their kids, so it passed, not difficultly.” 

Six months ago, foreign funding transparency was “not on the roadmap or priority list” of many Georgia legislators, GSN co-founder David Zalik said. There was already evidence of foreign funding in university systems, he said, but “when we went back to the legislators and showed them documentation [regarding the same for K-12], they were stunned and surprised.”

Following the legislative session, Zalik sees the bill as “a model” for adoption beyond the Peach State.  

“Other leaders in other communities reached out,” he told JI. “We crafted new language that other states want to emulate. Georgia is a state that clearly takes this very seriously.”  

Medof added, “We’re incredibly proud of the impact this is going to make, and not just on the Jewish community. I think every one of these measures are going to improve the quality of life of students and Georgians. Foreign funding impacts curriculum, ideology, faculty and research [for all students]. It’s not just anti-Jewish or anti-Israel, it’s anti-American ideology that’s coming in. The more we can do to shine a line on that, the better it is for all Georgia students.” 

Jewish and pro-Israel organizations were invited to a meeting with the Saudi defense minister in Washington on Friday afternoon, four sources familiar with the invitation confirmed to Jewish Insider.

Invited groups included the American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and Republican Jewish Coalition, though as of Thursday morning it was not clear which invitees would be accepting the invitation.

Foundation for Defense of Democracies is meeting with the defense minister in a separate sit-down Friday morning, FDD CEO Mark Dubowitz confirmed to JI.

Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman, the brother of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is in Washington holding meetings with U.S. officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff on Thursday and Friday. 

The invitation comes as some Jewish organizations have expressed concerns about the recent rise in antisemitic and Islamist rhetoric out of Saudi Arabia, but they’ve been relatively cautious in their language as they seek to maintain their support for the long-sought but elusive goal of bringing Riyadh into the Abraham Accords.

“This meeting will be complete window dressing,” one Middle East analyst familiar with the invitation and with the larger Saudi pivot in the region told JI. “The Saudis may try and rationalize their way out of their new alignment with Pakistan, Qatar and Turkey and say everything is fine with the UAE when evidence says otherwise.”

“They may also want to send a message to Jewish organizations with absolute clarity that they will not be joining the Abraham Accords until there’s a Palestinian state, especially ahead of a rumored visit by [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu to Washington in the next 30 days,” the analyst added. 

“If these Jewish organizations do attend the meeting, they should give a stern message to Saudi leadership that their new strategic alliances and promoting antisemitism and being destructive in the region regarding Israel are not helpful.”

Rich Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, this week concluded a monthslong stint in the Trump administration as the senior counselor for the White House’s new National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC) and a senior advisor to Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum.

Goldberg helped launch the NEDC, which he compared in an interview with Jewish Insider this week to a “[National Security Council], only for energy,” coordinating with the White House, Burgum and Secretary of Energy Christopher Wright to build domestic production of energy and exploitation of oil, gas, coal and nuclear resources, as well as critical minerals. That effort includes moves to speed up approvals for energy projects.

He said that the council is particularly focused on the energy demands of the growing AI space, which are “so enormous that we truly have a national emergency on our hands.” He said the U.S. will “lose the [AI] arms race to China” if it can’t increase its capacity to generate power, in partnership with U.S. allies.

He added that the NEDC is also focused on exporting American energy to allies, with the goal of de-linking them from U.S. adversaries and using U.S. energy to promote stability amid potential global energy crises.

As part of the NEDC’s efforts, the U.S. and Israel signed a memorandum of understanding on U.S.-Israel energy and artificial intelligence cooperation during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s July visit to the U.S.

“This has huge potential for the future, when you think about combining the Israeli tech and innovation ecosystem and having the smartest people in Israel and startups focused on power generation, focused on advanced energy solutions, focused on AI applications for energy, and combining that with U.S. infrastructure, U.S. know-how, U.S. leadership,” Goldberg said. 

He said that the program could be expanded to include the United Arab Emirates, which is stepping up its investments in the U.S. and in AI.

Goldberg argued that the administration’s “energy dominance” approach can help offset the impacts of global instability, pointing to the Israel-Iran war as an example. He said that the U.S.’ lack of dependence on Middle Eastern oil gave it “flexibility” in taking action against Iran, including imposing primary and secondary sanctions on Iranian oil, and carrying out strikes.

He said that expanding U.S. energy production will also allow it to respond quickly and assist allies and partners if their supplies might be interrupted. Goldberg noted that the administration had reached out to Egypt and Jordan when the war began to ensure their energy supplies wouldn’t be impacted.

“I think we have a lot of flexibility right now, if we wanted to, to curtail Iranian energy flows dramatically,” Goldberg said. “But obviously what [President Donald Trump] directed and accomplished at the end of the 12-day war, combined with what the Israelis accomplished, has given him far more tremendous options and flexibility than any sanctions ever could.”

Goldberg argued that the setbacks to Iran’s nuclear program from the U.S. and Israeli strikes have also “dramatically improved the energy shipment picture and our national security picture” in the Middle East, making it more risky for Iran to threaten maritime shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, which he also called a blow to China.

Goldberg also highlighted the fact that the administration recently stopped providing waivers that allowed Iraq to continue purchasing energy from Iran. He said that increased U.S. production allows the U.S. to work with Iraq to de-link its energy supply from Iran.

“The energy sector, the financial sector has been the financial pathway for Iran, along with its terror militias … to maintain effective control and influence over Baghdad,” Goldberg said. “This is not in the U.S. interest, it’s not in Iraq’s interest.”

He said Iraq is “Iran’s Alamo” — one of its last strongholds outside its borders, aside from the Houthis in Yemen — “and we would be committing policy malpractice not to seize the moment.” He added that Iraq also has “tremendous natural resources” that could be developed if the influence and threat of Iranian-backed militias could be eliminated.

As for the Houthis, Goldberg said that there will need to be “creative ways” to address that threat, involving Gulf partners and Israel.

He said that the Middle East also provides great opportunities for growth in the energy sector, ultimately through the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC) — a proposed pipeline, rail and shipping corridor that would run from Mumbai through the Gulf states and Israel to Greece. Saudi-Israeli normalization would be critical to advancing the IMEC vision.

The IMEC proposal would also sidestep the Houthi threat in the Red Sea, Goldberg noted. 

“This is where IMEC presents a real game-changing opportunity through energy infrastructure,” he said. “It’s absolutely conceivable and something we should be putting all of our energy behind, politically, to have a Saudi-to-Europe pipeline connection that runs straight through Eilat. The infrastructure is largely mapped out. It would take a relatively modest infrastructure investment upgrade.”

He said that the vision goes beyond simple normalization: “What we’re looking at is complete economic and energy integration and a transformation of global supply chains.” He said that makes him “optimistic” about the future for the region.

Asked about his inside perspective on the Trump administration’s decision-making around the Israel-Iran war and the U.S.’ decision to bomb Iran, Goldberg praised Trump, saying that “you could not have scripted how everything played out better” and lauded Trump for his “willingness to defy, truly, a crowd of idiots out in the Twitter-sphere that were screaming of all kinds of crazy things that might happen if the U.S. did the obvious and removed the Iranian ability to cross the nuclear threshold in any short amount of time.”

Goldberg said that the U.S. strikes were a response to a “core national security interest” and a “clear and present national security threat” that “bogged us down in the world,” “distracted us from longer-term strategic threats” and “increased price premiums” for energy and shipping supply chains.

He also argued that the Israeli military campaign against Iran could not have seen the success that it did unless Trump had been elected president, arguing that the weapons shipments that the Biden administration withheld from Israel were critical to the Israeli operations, as was Trump’s willingness to deploy U.S. military assets to defend Israel. He dismissed the notion that the Trump administration had prematurely forced Israel to cut off its military operation against Iran.

Goldberg said that reimposing United Nations sanctions on Iran through the snapback mechanism would be a critical step toward “enshrining the policy of no reconstitution at the Security Council,” and prevent a future president — he named left-wing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) or right-wing podcast host Tucker Carlson — from attempting to revive the Obama-era nuclear deal and granting sanctions relief once again.

“The president, from everything that I have seen, is fundamentally committed to ensuring Iran does not reconstitute its nuclear program, dismantles it further if he can achieve that diplomatically, and is not allowed to continue to foment wars, sponsor terrorism,” Goldberg said. “The Iranians now have to fear Donald Trump using force at any given moment,” he added.

Goldberg said that media reports of breaches between Trump and the Israeli government were “false” and “politically motivated in some sort of disinformation campaign.”

“The one truth I know is that the Trump administration — the president, the prime minister — are closely, closely coordinated,” Goldberg said.

Regarding the future of Gaza, Goldberg emphasized that Hamas has not negotiated in good faith to release the hostages, and said that “at some point, we should have a question of what value the Hamas leaders outside of Gaza present to us” if they are not being helpful — or are actively harmful — in achieving hostage-release deals.

He added that Trump’s proposal for the mass relocation of the population of Gaza for rebuilding and anti-Hamas operations is still on the table if other efforts fail. Goldberg suggested that the existing Israeli strategy of clearing areas but then withdrawing, rather than setting up new governance, had not been successful, but that a new Israeli occupation strategy could provide space for such an approach. He said there are other options that could be “in between those two.”

“[The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation] is fundamentally the greatest assault on the Hamas-international aid humanitarian apparatus that could possibly exist, which is why they need it to die,” Goldberg continued. “If they lose the fight against GHF, if GHF evolves further into something that actually goes into communities … and the IDF facilitates that in some way, and it proves to be successful and [non-Hamas] people are willing to step up” to take on leadership and civil service roles, “you have a hope for Gaza.”

He said that abandoning the GHF or an equivalent effort would be a major victory for Hamas.

Sebastian Gorka, the White House senior director for counterterrorism and a deputy assistant to the president, said Wednesday at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies that the U.S. is not seeking regime change in Iran, but will maintain its maximum-pressure campaign on Tehran.

Gorka also said that he supports efforts to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, suggested that he’s pursuing efforts to convince Qatar and Turkey to cut ties with Hamas and said the U.S. wants to see Syrian minority groups come to the table and join with the new Syrian government.

He said that the Trump administration views Iran as the paramount threat and focus in the Middle East, and that its strategy toward Iran is “max pressure, no regime change,” with the goal of stopping Iran’s nuclear program and ending its support for terrorist proxies.

“We are not in the business of deploying the 82nd Airborne to do regime changes anywhere. We don’t believe in that,” Gorka said. 

In the long term, he added, “we would like the people of Persia, including the minorities of Persia, to eventually liberate themselves.”

Trump had publicly floated the possibility of regime change in Iran after the U.S. strikes on the country last month, but subsequently said he does not seek regime change. Some administration officials had also floated the idea of sanctions relief for Iran.

Gorka said he backs efforts to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, describing the group as the “granddaddy” of all of the terrorist organizations that have attacked the United States and its allies for decades. 

“If we can designate, as we have, Hamas, which in its founding charter from 1984 says, ‘We are a chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood,’ then why haven’t we designated the Brotherhood itself?”

“So what I’ll say right now,” Gorka said, clearing his throat, is, “I like the idea,” he finished in a whisper.

Asked by Jewish Insider about whether the administration is working to end Turkey and Qatar’s sponsorship of Hamas, he said that he is “imminently traveling to that part of the world, so that should tell you something.”

He added that Turkey is an “important nation, it’s a geopolitical nation, it has a role to play with us as a NATO nation, but there are things I will be discussing with Ankara that I find leave me with a sense of unease,” including the Turkish government’s relationship with Hamas as well as reports that ISIS terrorists have been moving through Turkey.

“There has to be a balance between their conceptualization of the PKK threat,” Gorka said, referring to the Kurdish militant group, “and threats that we share, such as ISIS. I think that’s where the rebalance has to come.”

“With regards to Qatar, Qatar has … a very simple choice it has to make. Do you give any kind of succor to those who do not help in the stabilization of the region? That’s all I’m going to say,” he continued.

In Gaza, Gorka said that there “are a lot of good things happening at a tactical and operational level” on the ground, in that the U.S. is working to train anti-Hamas police and security units and that those units are “working quite closely with Israel.”

But, he said, “as far as I’m concerned, none of that goes anywhere until the political leadership changes,” saying that the “cultural issue” of widespread support in Gaza for Hamas and the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel is a problem that cannot be solved by a police force. “We need some brave men and women to say, ‘I am here to help fix Gaza.’”

Gorka framed President Donald Trump’s proposal for the U.S. to take over Gaza and relocate the Palestinian population as a negotiating tactic to motivate Middle Eastern countries to step up to take responsibility and invest in Gaza — though that investment hasn’t yet come to fruition.

Gorka, who said he regularly watched videos of ISIS and Al-Qaida’s brutal torture and murder of their victims, described footage of the atrocities committed by Hamas on Oct. 7 as far beyond anything he had ever seen before. “Nothing I’d watched in my two decades prepared me for what I saw that day.”

“I praise the government of Israel. I praise the IDF because what they have done in response is a redrawing of the map of the Middle East that will change your politics for at least a century,” Gorka said. “One of the greatest things they have done is to ensure that the strategic threat of Iran is now incapable of resupplying its proxies in the territory of Syria. God bless Israel for doing that. Now we have to finish the job. We have to make sure Iran stops supplying its proxies. We have to stabilize Syria.”

He added that, “despite the ideological way it has been exploited by certain actors here and elsewhere, the response to Oct. 7 has actually benefited us, because people have woken up to the horrors of modern … Jew hatred.”

The White House advisor said that the administration has told Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa that the U.S. “want[s] him to make Syria great again,” and that doing so will require bringing all elements of Syria to the table, including Kurds, Christians, Alawites and Druze. Additionally, the U.S. has told those minority groups, including Kurdish allies, that it does not support them making pushes for autonomy.

“Come to the table, because this is your shot,” Gorka said. “Get in on that deal, because it’s the only time it’s going to happen.”

In the short term, he said, the administration wants to make sure those minority communities can protect themselves and to “make sure the state sees an end to the massacre of whichever confessional community.”

Asked by JI about the possibility of Iranian retaliatory attacks in the United States, Gorka said that “because of how we boxed in Iran, they are basically forced to use surrogates. … They can’t deploy their own assets, which is a good thing. Beyond that, we take it very seriously and that’s all I can say right now.”

He highlighted other recent intercepted plots, including one in the United Kingdom, where Iran has attempted to utilize Iranian expatriates to attack the Israeli Embassy, adding that the group has also sought to employ domestic criminal groups to carry out operations on its behalf.

Gorka praised Israel’s operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and noted that the country’s new president, Joseph Aoun, studied under him at the National Defense University.

“The relationship is positive but it could be improved in terms of matching verbiage to actual results,” he said.

Gorka previewed U.S. plans for a “series of short efforts, high-intensity efforts to make the leading terror threats to America combat-inneffective, at which point our friends, our allies, our partners in the Middle East and elsewhere pick up the terrorist suppression operations.” The goal, he explained, is to prevent terrorist groups from being able to carry out operations on U.S. soil.

He said that the U.S. does not want to maintain a global presence permanently to counter terrorism, though he added that the U.S. is willing to maintain a “small footprint” in certain locations to address specific threats.

He also emphasized the need for the U.S.’ Muslim partner nations to lead efforts to counter jihadist narratives and recruiting efforts, and poke holes in jihadist ideology.