Pickaxe Mountain Is Iran’s Nuclear Plan B — Military Action Can Stop It

[00:00:00]This is what the Iranians do. They create one obstacle after another and by the time you get to the nuclear deal. Uh so much time has passed that they already are working on a substitute nuclear site in Pickax Mountain. They are basically keeping the US busy with a whole host of challenges while they use that distraction to start, and I'm stressing start to reinvigorate their nuclear program. Welcome to this Miriam Institute podcast. And let's start with Iran because we're in a strange kind of limbo period with Iran and everybody's talking about the air strikes and what it means. But I think that actually a lot of commentators might be uh missing the bigger story here. So let's delve into that. For the past 10 nights, uh, SENCOM, which is the American military organization that's responsible for the Middle East, has been launching a series of air strikes. Most of them, the big majority of these strikes, have targeted Iranian capabilities on the southern Iranian coastline. Last night, we had a few exceptions to that. Northern areas like Shiraz were hit, but really most of these strikes are hitting the southern Iranian coastline. Why? Well, because th that's the area where the Iranian regime has the most amount of of capabilities that are designed to enforce Thran's will on the straight of Hormuz.

[00:01:28]missiles, especially cruise missiles, anti-ship ballistic missiles. They're fired from the coastline, radars that are designed to detect targets, uh drone bases, uh control towers, and uh boats that are used by the IRGC to terrorize civilian traffic because the Iranians are trying to stop all civilian traffic from traveling down the Omani coastline uh in that area of the straight of Hormuz. they go down the Omani coastline, then they lose control. The IRGC loses control and Iran has set itself the goal of controlling the straight of Hormuz no matter what. Uh this is part of their uh I would call it postwar um uh objectives and and the goal of this objective is to prove to their own base and to the region that the Islamic Republic quote unquote won the war. This is their sort of strategic messaging by fighting for Hermuz and by trying to force President Trump to compromise on the straight of Hormuz. Uh the elites of the Iranian regime want to broadcast a message of victory. Now why is that so important for them to do? Well, first of all, because they were severely battered uh during this war, during the February, March, April war, known uh in the US as Operation Epic Fury, known here in Israel as Operation Roaring Lion, uh and and we've talked about this repeatedly in past episodes, but really, you know, the Iranian missile program, uh the leadership, uh the weapons industries, the military-industrial complex, the Iranian economy, which lost over $500 billion at least during this war. Uh the infrastructure a and in the the June 2025 war, most of the Iranian nuclear program was uh severely degraded. We'll talk about that just in a second. So when you put it all together, the Iranian regime emerges from these two wars very much weakened. And in order to compensate for that and because they have identified uh what they believe is American impatience in the form of President Trump wanting to end this war, call it a day and move on, concentrate on the midterms, concentrate on the World Cup, focus on the oil prices. They have identified that as a weakness, as a loophole, and they are trying to quote unquote catch a ride on that situation by forcing their will on the straight of Hormuz, sending this message of victory which they believe is crucial to their long-term jihadist hegemonic ambitions.

[00:04:08]They want to take over the Middle East and then they want to get to work on the world. That's the Islamic Republic. Um, and all of this, I think, is uh really proof for those who still need it that Iran cannot be contained, cannot be bargained with, that the whole objective of reaching a deal with a jihadist regime, with this Shiite fundamentalist terrorist regime is is an impossible goal unless you're willing to really compromise to the degree where they end up with the upper hand, the upper strategic hand. Uh, so this is the paradox that we find ourselves in. So these strikes that President Trump has been ordering uh on the southern Iranian coastline primarily but not exclusively uh these are low-level strikes not in terms of their accuracy. The the uh SenCom strikes are extremely accurate.

[00:05:00]Uh the United States has fantastic firepower, excellent intelligence, still the largest uh and most powerful fighting force in the entire world.

[00:05:09]Absolutely no question about that. But they're they're a low level because they're a small percentage of what SENCOM can actually do in Iran. Uh we're not seeing strikes in uh Thran. We're not seeing strikes on the leadership.

[00:05:21]We're not seeing strikes on uh uh so many targets, high value targets uh that are being left out of this. Now, this is all deliberate. Why? Because President Trump told Sencom, "Look, take away Iranian capabilities, but don't cross a certain threshold." Why? Because President Trump still wants to get back to the deal. He's actually fighting this low-level, lowgrade war because he wants to pressure the Iranians to go back to the negotiations table. He still is holding out hope for a deal. Personally, I think this is misguided. Uh it's sending all the wrong messages to Iran and to the entire Iranian access. And when I say Iranian Axis, I'm talking about the whole network of terrorist organizations that they've set up all over the Middle East and and the militias uh you know in Iraq, of course, and Hamas, all of the negative actors in this region that threaten the entire world because they are Islamic fundamentalist forces uh are taking the wrong messages uh I think from this posture uh by President Trump. I think it's a big mistake. Um, so the big question is when will President Trump change his mind if at all and I think a lot of that is up to the Iranians. So he is signaling to uh the leadership of the Islamic Republic which by the way many people now think is being managed by Ahmed Bahidi. He's the commander of the IRGC.

[00:06:52]He was appointed after his pred after his uh former IRGC commander, the predecessor and the one before him and the one before him were all eliminated by Israel. Ahmed Vahidi is somebody who has been closely linked to the terrorist atrocity in Argentina in 1994, the bombing of the Jewish community building. It's called the Amya building uh and the Israeli embassy. This was mass casualty terrorist incident and the IRGC was has been linked uh to this attack uh which was also carried out by this is Ahmedi. He's a butcher. He's a jihadist. He's a war criminal and he in many ways according to Iran analysts is taking many of the critical decisions. I also think that uh the speaker of the parliament uh remains a very important uh uh figure uh because at the end of the day he's linking the IRGC where that he was a member of and the civilian government. So I think that uh you know it's impossible uh to uh understate the power of Khalibuff the speaker of the parliament. He's extremely extremely important. And we also uh have uh Muchaba Kameay. He's of course uh the successor and the son of the late supreme leader. Nobody really knows what his situation is. How important is he?

[00:08:19]Is he being sidestepped? Is he a figurehead? Is he delivering these handheld notes? At the end of the day, nobody knows. But I think that Ahmed Vahidi and Khalibaf, the speaker of the parliament, they represent right now the real power centers and the elites. And they are very determined to send this message of victory. and they're trying to take advantage of what they perceive to be Trump's impatience and and for that goal, they're willing to sustain night after night of American air strikes because they believe that they are more patient and they have more long-term endurance than the American administration and that's what they're betting on. Israel, as we've said in past videos, is being kept out of this war. Uh, President Trump does not want Israel involved and uh, of course, is Iran doesn't want Israel involved because Israel is not prepared to play by these rules. Israel has made it clear that if uh, it is involved in this war, it's going to go all out this time and do everything it can to destabilize the regime. And that means all the targets that I mentioned just now that have not been hit, we can assume that those targets including economic uh targets that are linked to the IRGC, the energy uh targets, the oil export, the the power grid, you know, targets that can really send Iran back to the stone age.

[00:09:40]Uh all of those targets I think uh would be considered fair game uh by Israel if it became involved. And this is the reason why, for those who wonder, uh, that Iran has not been firing on Israel despite being involved in a 10-day conflict with the United States, firing on American bases all throughout the Middle East, uh, Jordan, uh, Kuwait, uh, Bahrain, the UAE, missiles, drones, Israel not being targeted by Iran because everybody understands that once Israel gets involved, uh, this sort of lowlevel uh conflict, lowgrade, lowflame conflict, managed conflict some people are calling this uh would enter a completely different stage and uh neither the United States nor Iran want that to happen. They want to keep control of this situation. So this is where we are now. On top of all of this uh we are uh receiving reports about a nuclear site uh that's very close to the Natan's nuclear enrichment site. It's called Pickax Mountain. Uh it's a very uh uh deep almost 100 meters subterranean site that's been built by the Iranians under a granite mountain which they believe makes it practically impenetrable to air strikes because granite is a very dense thick substance and you're talking about almost 100 meters of it. Uh they think that uh even bunker busters can't reach that. I think that that's uh a very I would call it arrogant assumption because if history has taught us anything it's that anything can be struck with enough determination technology and innovation uh and there are many ways probably not best to get into this here uh that I think that military planners can can reach this site it even if we don't get into you know classified capabilities we can even talk about burying the site uh cutting off all electricity uh trapping anybody inside.

[00:11:44]You know, these are things that that you don't need a lot of imagination uh uh to to conjure up. Uh the site can be attacked. There are there are different ways of doing it. Uh it's not easy. It's it's very difficult. So So why is this site back in the headlines? Because we have received reports from the Wall Street Journal and then CNN. uh they are uh citing Israeli intelligence officials as saying that Iran transferred centrifuges into this pickaxe mountain subterranean site. Um now just to put this in perspective that does not mean that the Iranian nuclear program is about to break out to a nuclear bomb. uh the three main uranium enrichment sites, Natans, Forao, uh Isvahan, Isvahan was a conversion site uh that was used uh to convert yellow [clears throat] cake uh to uranium. This is part of a long process and there's a whole production chain of centrifuges and also the missile program which is part of the nuclear program. All of these have been devastated by the past two wars that I just mentioned and this is not something that uh Iran can fix overnight. It cannot uh simply magically conjure up a new nuclear program with all of these hundreds of sites and and and production chains overnight. But uh I think what is clear uh from these reports and also you know Pickax Mountain has been something that's been tracked both by civilian uh agencies and by militaries uh for for a while now. It's clear that the Iranians mark this out as a sort of substitute plan B. If all the other sites are hit, they're going to bank on Pickaxe Mountain because of how deep it is, because of how protected it is. And so if they did get centrifuges in there and perhaps also some of this uranium that they still have a total of 4440 kilograms of uranium of highlyenriched uranium and they've got more lowenriched uranium uh 20 kg and uh sorry 20% uh which is considered lowenriched uranium and they also have highenriched uranium uh uh all of this is still on Iranian soil. Most of it is considered to be inaccessible. They can't get to it because as soon as they start trying to clear the debris of those three bombed out sites that I described to you earlier, that's going to be picked up by intelligence and that will trigger air strikes 100%. But what uh the reports are saying is that maybe they were able to install some centrifuges. Those are machines that spin around very fast and basically make uranium more and more enriched. And perhaps they even got some of uh the uranium that they had did have access to which is a small uh amount according to these reports. Maybe they got that into pickaxe mountain. So So what does that mean?

[00:14:38]Well, I think it means that a these negotiations are going nowhere. B that the Iranians have no intention of giving up on their nuclear program. Think about the fact that when this war uh entered its ceasefire stage back in April, the whole idea was to take uh uh the situation to a long-term agreement based on Iran diluting its uranium, the uranium that I just described on Iranian soil. Uh how this would be done, it's not totally clear. Um at first President Trump said the uh the dust he calls it nuclear dust has to be taken out of Iranian soil. Then he compromised it.

[00:15:19]It's okay. It can be diluted on Iranian soil. But instead of talking about that, we're talking about a trade of Hormuz.

[00:15:26]And this is what the Iranians do. They create one obstacle after another. And by the time you get to the nuclear deal, uh so much time has passed that they already are working on a substitute nuclear site in Pickax Mountain. Do you see how the Iranian strategists are working? Uh they are basically keeping the US busy with a whole host of challenges while they use that distraction to start and I'm stressing start to reinvigorate their nuclear program. This is not a regime that is interested in any way in reaching a real compromise uh whatsoever. And so just to be fair, you know, I think if we criticize an approach, then we have to provide an alternative. It's not enough just to criticize. I think a a reasonable alternative has to be put on the table. And my view is that the most reasonable alternative right now if if the United States is not interested in going back into full-scale conflict with Iran at this time and that's also a fair position. Uh I think that the most reasonable uh uh policy would be to reinstate the naval blockade on Iran.

[00:16:41]Now President Trump has done that to his credit and that's a very important step that he's taken because in many ways that's the most damaging thing. Why?

[00:16:49]Well, there are certain assessments uh in more than one circle which hold that despite all the bravado and propaganda of the Iranian regime, this regime cannot survive more than a few months, three, four, five, maybe half a year of these kinds of sustained uh uh uh blockade measures. When you mix it all all with the sanctions, the terrible state of the Iranian economy, which you know we can go into, I'm not an economist, but you only need to look at their currency crash. It's almost 2 million uh to the dollar. You only need to look at the inflation, which I've heard varying numbers from 70% to things that are way higher. I mean, you only need to look at the infrastructure.

[00:17:29]There's no water there. There's hardly any electricity uh to understand that this regime cannot survive uh uh years of an economic blockade. So, why might Trump still walk away from the blockade scenario? Well, he's also facing pressure because the Iranians know that even if they, let's say, keep this conflict going with their limited capabilities, that will keep oil prices high. And that's a pressure lever that they are applying right back uh against the United States. And so this is a a test of patience. This is a competition of patience. Who has the most amount of patience? Who is going to blink first?

[00:18:14]This is what it's about. It started with Hormuz, but this is actually about a lot more than that. And so from Israel's perspective, I think, you know, I shared with you the new Israeli security doctrine post October 7th. Jihadists cannot be allowed to build capabilities.

[00:18:30]uh were throwing away all concepts like deterrence uh um trying to affect the behavior of jihadists uh uh carrot dangling, economic carrot dangling. All of these approaches failed in the most disastrous and catastrophic manner on October 7th, which was a war that was launched not just by Hamas, but also by Iran, which was well aware of Yehi Senoir's plans to launch October 7th. We're going to talk about Gaza a little bit later in this broadcast. Uh, and so, uh, all of these concepts apply to all of the adversaries that we're talking about. And first and foremost, of course, is the head of the snake, Iran, the Islamic Republic. Uh, so Israel from the beginning was extremely skeptical uh, of these negotiations because they didn't talk about Iran's missile program. They didn't talk about proxies. Uh, Israel understands that the nature of this Iranian regime is not to ever negotiate in good faith, but to use negotiations as a weapon of war. That's what the Iranians are doing. They're not out for the art of the deal. They are out to dominate the Middle East, to destroy Israel, to overrun Sunni states that are allies of America, to threaten America.

[00:19:47]They're building missiles uh that will soon be able to reach the United States and they want to be part of uh a worldwide challenge to America. They want to inject the Islamic revolution all over the world. That's their goal.

[00:20:03]This is an extremely dangerous force and I think that's obvious to everybody at this stage. U and yet we're still uh you know looking at attempts to reason with it, to hold a dialogue with it. it's doomed to fail, I think. And uh the worst thing that can happen in my view is that the situation goes back to the diplomatic track. Uh because that in my view would represent an Iranian achievement. They would use that diplomacy to regroup and to slowly start to rebuild their capabilities. Uh and they would run around and declare it as some sort of victory to mask all of their damages. So that's more or less what we're seeing with Iran. Watch this space. It's extremely um I would say unstable. I think Israel is watching the pickaxe mountain situation very very closely. Uh I think if it was only up to Israel, the site would probably have been bombed by now.

[00:21:00]Um but uh but we are working with a coalition here and President Trump officially publicly threatened to bomb it. But the the problem here is that this is still a threat. Why was a threat made? Why was the action not taken?

[00:21:12]because it's all designed to get the Iranians back to the negotiations table.

[00:21:18]So if it does go back to negotiations, I think the bare minimum that we can expect is a demand for inspectors to arrive at Pickax Mountain and to investigate what's going on there, exactly what's going on there. And if that's denied, the next step has got to be military action against that site. I think that's critical. In Lebanon, we had what some people call a historic day. I'm not calling it that. I'll tell you why in a second.

[00:21:42]There are basically two areas in Lebanon, three villages uh in these two areas in which the Lebanese armed forces uh moved in today. Now, out of those two areas, one is on the very uh edge of the reestablished Israeli security zone. If you're curious about why I'm saying it's reestablished, just Google the Israeli security zone in the 1980s and 90s.

[00:22:08]uh 15 years, 15 plus years uh the IDF has been in these areas. This is nothing new for the older uh Israeli veterans, this presence here. Um but that's probably a topic for another podcast.

[00:22:21]Now, at the edge of this reestablished security zone, which is in place to preventah from ever again threatening massacres, rockets, anti-tank missiles against the northern civilian communities of Israel. That's why this security zone is back in place. At the very edge of that and also beyond it are two pilot zones where the Lebanese army is being tested. And what's happening here is that Israel and the United States are telling the Lebanese army, look, you want to be sovereign, prove your ability to do so. What does that mean? Move into these areas. You're going to get you the in the the Lebanese army uh are going to get information about wherebalah weapons storage sites are. Now, this is important because stores most of its weapons in civilian homes, basements, children's bedrooms, also of course hospitals, charities, schools, you know, and then when these sites are are struck, you've got all the propagandists running around saying, "Oh, look, Israel struck civilian homes.

[00:23:28]Israel struck hospitals." and they will do everything humanly possible to uh censor out the fact that these were weapons storage and also weapons activation sites. These were literally military bases uh which turned them into totally legitimate military targets. Now this is where's weapons are stored. Now back in 2024 for those of you who will remember we had a ceasefire with Lebanon. This is somewhat ironic. Once again we have a ceasefire with Lebanon.

[00:23:59]We were never fighting Lebanon.

[00:24:01]The ceasefire in reality is withaha. Um but of course uh you know we can't negotiate with there's nobody to negotiate with. These are jihadists who are dedicated to Israel's destruction.

[00:24:16]So is willing to observe a ceasefire now. That's what Iran has told them to do. Um as Iran tries to, you know, push the envelope with the United States.

[00:24:25]They also tried to link Lebanon to their own negotiations with the United States.

[00:24:30]I think I mentioned that in a previous episode. So now what the Iranians and Kbella are trying to do is to basically make sure that these pilot programs, this whole attempt to get the Lebanese army sovereign and in charge and keeping out of southern Lebanon, they are intent on making sure that that will fail. Now, why are they confident that they'll be able to to cause this pilot program to fail? Because first of all, the Lebanese army, half of it is made up of Shiites, the officers and the soldiers. And Kisbala is a Shiite terror organization.

[00:25:08]In practice, what that means is that these people come from the same villages, sometimes from the same families. They know the Lebanese army incredibly well. They have infiltrated large sections of the Lebanese army, including its intelligence units. Uh the chief of staff of the Lebanese army has been sympathetic toah and has been very reluctant to act against it. And the Lebanese army doesn't have the will or the ability, which is how you measure an armed forc's effective uh ability to act. It's a combination of capability and determination. The Lebanese army has neither when it comes to being willing to take onah.

[00:25:52]So that gives Iran and a lot of confidence. So they're saying, "Okay, go ahead. Move into these two pilot zones.

[00:25:59]Let's see what happens when tells the Lebanese army, you can't go into this house. You can't go into that house." Don't even think about it. The last time that this happened, we don't have to look far back in time. 2024, the ceasefire that I was just describing to you, what happened? The Lebanese army said, "Okay, we can't go into these houses, so let's just declare all of these villages in southern Lebanon demilitarized." They lied because it's easier for them to lie and sell a fake story about disarming southern Lebanon or disarming and southern Lebanon than fighting. It's much easier. And that's the route they went down. Okay. Declared southern Lebanon uh to be demilitarized and disarmed. This was a complete lie.

[00:26:47]Within a few weeks of these declarations, when the war resumed and on the 2nd of March, Kbalah started firing rockets into northern Israel.

[00:26:55]That's why there was the war uh extended from uh Iran back into Lebanon. Uh thousands of rockets and and anti-tank missiles and and mortars were fired from southern Lebanon. half of them from south of the Leitani, from this exact area, the Leitani River, uh, from the area that the Lebanese army claimed that it had demilitarized. So, the lie was completely exposed.

[00:27:20]What all of this means is that the Lebanese army right now in my book has zero credibility. I attach no credibility to what it's saying. None.

[00:27:30]I'm only looking at the actions. Now, I'm more than happy for them to try and prove themselves in these two areas.

[00:27:38]Why? Because these are lowrisk areas.

[00:27:40]One, the IDF was not even in that area.

[00:27:43]And the second area is far from the border. So, Israel is not taking many risks here. In fact, I think that this is a good approach. Why? Because it's actually based on performance. It's no longer based on faith. It's no longer based on uh Israel telling or sorry, Israel being told to trust promises uh the Lebanon the Lebanese army will be able to take care of this. It will keep out. You take your soldiers out Israel and we'll you know meet back up in in the next war. Those kinds of dangerous and I would call them suicidal delusions are a thing of the past and the Israeli security doctrine demands evidence uh that the actors who claim that they can fill the vacuum on our borders that they can actually do it. And that's why I think that this pilot program is not a bad thing because I think it's going to quickly emerge uh that the Lebanese armed forces is in fact incapable of filling this vacuum. It's incapable of dealing withaha. It's not going to be able and very likely not going to be able to properly take onah, keep them out of the sites, go into homes that doesn't want them to go into. Sooner or later, they're going to have to decide either they're going to fight or they're going to go back to claiming that an area is demilitarized when it's not. Now, if it's the latter, Israel has all of the intelligence. is going to be able to turn around and tell the United States, well, here here are the sites. Here's a uh home with that's filled to the brim with with missiles and rockets and kalashnikovs and you know, you name it.

[00:29:25]Uh and look, they're not going in. Now, once that happens, it's critical that Israel stands its ground and no more pilot zones. It stops there until they can prove until the Lebanese state can actually uh put its uh money where its mouth is. So, so this is actually a good thing because I think it's going to demonstrate once and for all for everybody uh that the idea that the Lebanese army can actually take onah is is fiction. Now, look, if I'm proven wrong, just for the record, I know that this is a video going out to a lot of people. If I'm proven wrong, I will be the first to welcome that. I will be the first to come on on a video and say, "Guys, I was wrong. The Lebanese army can do it. Nobody will be happier than me to be wrong about it. Really, I I don't want to be proven right. Uh but from everything I know, and this is something I've been researching for a while, the Lebanese army does not have the will or the capability to do this job. And that's why the IDF is going to stay in southern Lebanon for a very long time. So, I think that's a good roundup of uh Lebanon. Let's talk about Gaza.

[00:30:30]Gaza's become the the forgotten arena.

[00:30:33]Uh it's very uh interesting that the arena that actually started this war, Kamas and Gaza, has become quote unquote the forgotten arena because we've been so busy with Iran and it makes sense because Iran is the head of the snake.

[00:30:49]Is far more powerful uh than kamas. And that's why the nation's resources and the headlines have been focused on these two arenas. But sooner or later, I promise you that this war is going to come back to focus on Gaza. Now, in the meantime, some very interesting things have been happening. Let me update you.

[00:31:09]Not a day goes by, literally not a day, when we military analysts, reporters, uh, researchers, not a day goes by that we don't receive a message from the IDF about who is being limited on a daily, nightly basis. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists, many of them uh took a direct role, played a direct role on October 7th in so many of these messages we are hearing about kidnappers, people who held civilians, people who crossed into communities and would see in villages and carry out atrocities eliminated. Now, the interesting thing here is that every single one of these people was still active in terrorism when they were eliminated. In other words, it's not just about closing the circle and catching up with uh genocidal jihadists who took part in October 7th. They continue to pose a direct uh and clear and present danger right now, today, this moment. They never stopped their activities uh in terrorism for a single moment after October 7th. So, we've got battalion commanders, we've got operational uh commanders, we've got intelligence chiefs, we've got security uh in other words, uh uh terrorist operatives who are in charge of securing Hamas within the Gaza Strip. Uh you name it, and they are being eliminated. If you go on to the IDF's uh ex account or or uh Facebook account, you will see a daily update of the people that are being eliminated. And and it's incredible because it shows that Israeli intelligence has made a massive recovery from its blindness before October 7th in the Gazan arena. You know, unlike Gaza, Israeli intelligence invested very heavily in building its resources in Lebanon and Iran. And we saw the fruit of that. We saw uh the fruit of those efforts in the pager attacks, in the air force strikes, and Gaza was neglected.

[00:33:10]Now that's no longer the case. Very good news. uh you know Hamas clearly infiltrated, Palestinian Islamic Jihad clearly infiltrated. These terrorists cannot raise their head uh without being struck and it's really on a daily basis.

[00:33:26]So this is out of the headlines.

[00:33:29]Now also um the IDF controls approximately uh 60 some would say 65% some have even claimed 70 I don't think it's that much yet percent of the Gaza Strip. This is also dramatic and it's all part of that same doctrine that I keep talking to you about. No jihadist actors will be allowed to operate freely anywhere near Israel's borders. And if no responsible actor can enter the vacuum, it's going to be the IDF. You're seeing it in Lebanon. You're seeing it in southern Syria. You are seeing it all over the Gaza Strip. Uh now, we also had reports about earth mounds being built in Gaza.

[00:34:09]This is not as dramatic as some of these reports claim. These are tactical mounds that are designed to protect the IDF uh keep them in a sort of low visibility mode against Hamas terrorists. Uh this is a standard uh oper operating procedure uh for the IDF uh which is designed to enhance the security and protection of the forces inside. But it's part of something much bigger.

[00:34:31]There are all the posts, the military posts that the IDF has set up across Gaza. There are roads that the IDF has paved across Gaza. The IDF is in Gaza for the long term. Now, as all of this is happening, we also had reports about Morocco agreeing to join uh the international stabilization force. This is the sort of vision of an international force that's going to enter Gaza, train the next generation of Palestinian police. Let me just say that until any of this actually happens in a meaningful way, uh we might be waiting a while. There's a lot uh a lot of I would call historical processes that need to be complete before we can seriously look at a role uh for an international force.

[00:35:17]I think the most that can be realistically achieved in the near term is some sort of you know police force that's made up uh and trained and has to be very very closely vetted to make sure that kamas is not part of this future police force because let's remember that most of Gaza is Hamas you know this is a very inconvenient fact for many people want to pretend otherwise but most of Gaza is pro- kamas part of kamas everybody has family members in kamas Muslim brotherhood indoctrinated, brainwashed jihadists from birth. That's most of the population of Gaza. Um, so that's that's the situation. So when we're talking about setting up a a police force, you really have to uh make sure and and vet that police force to make sure it's not Hamas. Uh, and we also have, you know, the big question of what will happen in the Israeli controlled part of the Gaza Strip. Uh there are all kinds of reports uh about an intention to start bringing Gazan civilians into this Israeli part of Gaza, giving them first of all mobile homes and then more uh uh long-term structures. And the whole idea here is to start stripping away Kamaza's control of the civilian population. Now, I don't know uh anything about timets, when this would happen, whether this would happen alongside or instead of an IDF push into the rest of Gaza. I personally think that whatever happens, the IDF is going to have to push into the rest of Gaza.

[00:36:49]It's inevitable. I don't think Hamas can be allowed to control a single millimeter of Gaza, of any territory between the river and the sea, as people like to say, after October 7th. But it's the last in the priority uh pyramid right now. most of the resources are focused on Iran. It makes sense. It makes strategic sense. We don't have endless resources. We've got reserveists in this country uh you know serving for hundreds and hundreds of days and every time they go home uh within a you know short amount of time they get a new call up for another 100 days. That's 100 days they don't see their families. It's 100 days uh that they're not at work. they are compensated but it's extremely difficult and the entire country rests on the shoulders of these people really I mean we we wouldn't be here without them so when we're talking about military and fronts and we've got Judan Sam the West Bank which we don't talk about much because it's even lower in the priority than Gaza but there's been a 70% actual drop uh in terrorism in Samaria which is the northern west bank uh so IDF achievements really incredible achievements all around in every every arena and all of this requires lots of personnel. And so it's not very logical to assume that we're going to be able to deal with all fronts at the same time.

[00:38:10]It's just not not within, you know, the reasonable limits of of uh of the personnel availability uh and the strain that's on the reserves. And that's one of the reasons why Gaza right now is in last place. But I have no doubt that at some point that's going to change. and how it's going to change. Well, we've got competing scenarios. I've raised a few of them. We'll have to see, you know, how how this plays out, what Washington will desire. That's also something that Israel is going to take into account when it plans its next steps. Uh but sooner or later, this war is going to come back to where it started, and that is the Gaza Strip. So, I think I'll leave it here. Thank you so much for your viewership. I keep getting your messages, and really, it means the world to me. So, keep them coming. uh share the video so that people can hear the facts about what's happening here in this part of the world in the most uh uh I would say misunderstood and the most lieled country on earth. Let's help get the facts, the truth out there uh so that we can inject some sanity into the discussion about Israel and the Middle East. Thank you so much for your viewership and I will see you in the next video.