Welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. This is Adam, Senior Producer, and I'm joined today by Dr. Robert

Satloff. Satloff is the Segal Executive Director of the Washington Institute, and it's Howard P.

Burkowitz Chair in U.S. Middle East Policy. He is a prominent expert on Arab-Israel relations

in U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East. He's also the best-selling author of Among the Righteous.

He joins me to talk about how the massacre of October 7th changed the geopolitics of the region,

Israel's strategy towards Hamas and the Palestinians. What can we expect from a land invasion

and is there a plan for the day after the war?

Dr. Robert Satloff, thank you for joining me.

Pleasure. Let's start with how we got here. My immediate reaction to the October 7th massacre was

horror at the thought of what Hamas was thinking, because they understood the retaliation that they

are inviting, given the scope of the butchery that they have perpetrated. So my thought was

are they being suicidal? Is this suicide attack? What was Hamas thinking?

Well, look, I should say that I always tried to avoid getting into the minds of people. We don't

really know what people think. We know what they do. We know what they say. But exactly what

motivates them is the realm of psychiatrists, not political analysts. What the impact of what

happened on October 7th was to transform the strategic environment for Israel and for adversaries

of Israel, because October 7th was the first time in the 75-year history of Israel that in

enemy attacked and took territory, even if briefly, for a couple of days, within pre-67 Israel,

within the internationally recognized boundaries of Israel, they said nothing to do with the

occupation of the West Bank or Gaza. They said nothing to do with protest about this or that

Israeli policy. This was a targeted assault against the civilian population of the state of Israel

within Israel proper. So let's clarify what you just said there for the sake of people who might

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