- Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization.

I'm not saying that Israel hasn't made mistakes and won't make mistakes, but why wouldn't we give Israel, our ally, our democratic ally, the benefit of the doubt?

[intriguing music] [air whooshes] - Hello and welcome to "GZERO World."

I'm Ian Bremmer, and today as the death toll mounts in Israel's war with Hamas, we are asking what role should the US government play in the conflict and is that role as clear cut today as it was just after the attack on October 7th.

President Biden made a politically and personally dangerous trip to Israel this week, showing solidarity for America's closest ally in the Middle East.

- I want you to know you're not alone.

You are not alone.

As I emphasized earlier, we will continue to have Israel's back as you work to defend your people.

- But the administration must walk a line between supporting Israel's right to defend itself and preventing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza from spiraling out of control.

Today, I am bringing you the view from both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill.

First, I'm talking with Senator Chris Murphy, the Connecticut Democrat who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and then with Republican representative Mike Waltz of Florida, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Later, citizens of Israel's neighbor to the north, Lebanon anxiously await the next moves in this conflict.

We'll bring you the view from Beirut.

But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

- [Announcer] Funding for "GZERO World" is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Narrator] Every day all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint [inspiring music] and scale their supply chains with a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at Prologis.com.

- [Announcer] And by Cox Enterprises is proud to support GZERO.

We're working to improve lives in the areas of communications, automotive, clean tech, sustainable agriculture, and more.

Learn more at Cox.Career/News.

Additional funding provided by Jerry and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and.

[upbeat music] - Senator Chris Murphy, thanks so much for joining us on "GZERO World."

- Yeah, thanks for having me.

- So President Biden on a snap trip to the region.

Israel came off, the rest of it did not.

Was this the right time for President Biden to make a trip to Israel?

- I think it was really important for President Biden to make this trip.

First, very important for the President to be standing next to the Israeli leader and conveying to the world that we stand with Israel in this time of need and that we are going to help them bring to account the terrorists who perpetrated these crimes.

But second, the decisions Netanyahu has to make in the coming days are really complicated, very important ones that have significant consequences not just for Israeli security, but for American security as well.

And so it's important for President Biden, somebody who, you know, has a real sense of right and wrong, who has a real sense of history, who understands the misjudgments America has made in prior invasions and occupations, to sit with Prime Minister Netanyahu and talk through the potential benefits and potential consequences of a full scale invasion and occupation of Gaza.

The decision to invade a country is relatively easy, especially in the midst of the fury that descends upon a nation in the wake of a terrorist attack.

But the question of what happens on day two is much more complicated and much more important.

- Do you think there are explicit scenarios where US boots on the ground should be involved in fighting?

Could you share those with me in your view?

And also, how much pressure should Biden be putting on Israel in terms of limiting ground occupation, in terms of providing humanitarian support on the ground for Palestinians in Gaza?

- Well, my sense is that Israel is not asking for US combat troops.

It is true that some of the systems we're providing them likely need US backup, but I don't know that we're contemplating US troops on the ground doing the fighting side by side with Israel.

But of course, any operation that we are going to take part in has to comply with the rules of international conflict.

And so clearly a condition of our participation in these operations should be that Israel abides by the rules of war.

- Now, on the other side of this, there's only one other way into Gaza.

It's closed right now.

It's the Rafah border crossing in Egypt.

They have as of now not opened it, and that not only in terms of refugees, but also even in terms of humanitarian support, Egypt gets a lot of military support from the United States, a lot of aid.

If that continues to be closed, should that aid be on the table?

- Well, of course there have to be consequences for our relationship with Egypt if they continue to keep this crossing closed leading to an even worse humanitarian catastrophe than already exists inside Gaza.

Listen, I have long been uncertain as to why we continue to flow a billion dollars of aid to Egypt when they are in some ways one of the most politically repressive of all American partners.

Upwards of 60,000 political prisoners are in jail inside Egypt.

The answer I get from smart foreign policy people is that not withstanding that horribly politically repressive record, we give Egypt money because we need Egypt to be with us when the chips are down in the region.

Well, the chips are down.

This is a moment of crisis.

We need Egypt to be with us and with our friends in Israel and relieve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

And if they aren't willing to do that, then I think we just have to ask ourselves exactly what is the efficacy of a billion dollars of my taxpayer money going to Egypt when they are brutally repressing political speech and they are making it very difficult on us when we make requests that are important to us in a situation like this in Gaza.

- On the other countries in the region, I'm sure you've noticed that not only Egypt but also Turkey, Jordan, the UAE, Saudi Arabia have all condemned Israel for bombing a hospital with hundreds dead on the ground in Gaza.

Evidence, as of now at least, certainly is at best uncertain as to who is responsible.

President Biden came out and said it looks like it was the other team, presumably Palestinian, Islamic Jihad and/or Hamas.

What do the Americans do?

How much consequence do you think this has for Gulf States the Americans have worked with closely as partners heretofore, and how do you handle this going forward?

- First of all, I thought it was pretty remarkable that even in this country, there were so many people who were willing right from the jump to believe Hamas' side of the story.

Hamas is a brutal- - Including some of your colleagues in Congress.

Absolutely.

- Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization.

I'm not saying that Israel hasn't made mistakes and won't make mistakes, but when Israel is saying, "We know we didn't do this," and Hamas saying Israel did it, why wouldn't we give Israel, our ally, our democratic ally, the benefit of the doubt?

Now, I haven't seen the intel, but President Biden has, and to his satisfaction, it has proven the fact that Israel was not responsible.

But to your broader question, yes, I was really shocked at the early statements from the Saudis and the Emirates, amongst others, condemning Israel, laying the responsibility for the Hamas attacks at Israel's feet.

And this is a region that is contemplating whether we are going to enter a new stage of good relations between the Suni states and the Gulf and Israel.

And the statement from Saudi Arabia in particular does not sound like a country that is ready to enter into a long-term political partnership with Israel, as was the hope in the days before the Hamas attack.

- I want to connect this with the other major conflict that you and I would've been talking about over the last 20 months, which is Ukraine.

And first of all, say President Zelenskyy, Jewish, by the way, immediately denounced the terrorist attacks and said he wanted to make a trip to Israel this week.

Netanyahu said the time was not right, but did take a call directly a few hours later from Putin.

If you're Biden meeting with Netanyahu this week, do you say, "What the hell?"

- Well, I mean, listen, we have had disagreements with Prime Minister Netanyahu on Israel's Ukraine policy.

As you know, Israel chose not to join the sanctions against Russia.

And so we have unfortunately, not been in the kind of partnership with Israel on Ukraine policy that we have been with our European allies.

But you have to view these two conflicts as part of a very similar story.

Whether it be Hamas or Putin, these are regimes organizations, non-state actors that are trying to destroy the international order, trying to shatter the rule of law.

And it is important to defeat Hamas, but it is equally important to defeat Vladimir Putin in Ukraine and hopefully Prime Minister Netanyahu maybe understands that connection more today than he did prior to these attacks.

- How concerned are you about the future of US support for Ukraine?

- Well, I guess you can tell the story two ways.

You can focus on the hundred or so members of the House of Representatives who have been on the record opposing Ukraine aid, or you can take solace in the fact that it's only 100 and three quarters of the House of Representatives and probably 80 to 90% of the United States Senate continues to support giving Ukraine what it needs to defeat Vladimir Putin.

All we need in the house is a vote, and if that vote occurs on Ukraine aid, it will pass with flying colors, so, you know, I choose to see that as a very thick silver lining.

- Now you said the silver lining, we just need a vote.

Of course, in principle, you also need a speaker.

Usually that's not an open question, but it is right now.

How does it feel to be the responsible half of what's increasingly the most dysfunctional part of the US political system?

- Yeah, well, this has been the case for a while.

I mean, I know people don't want to give the Senate any credit for anything, but, you know- - I just gave the Senate credit.

Come on.

- You did.

You did.

I'm saying besides Ian Bremmer, other people may not believe that there is a mildly functional House of Congress.

The Senate's been working pretty well together, whether it be that series of bipartisan bills we passed in Biden's first two years, the infrastructure bill, the gun bill, the CHIPS Act, or our continued ability to find bipartisan consensus on budgets.

Right now, as the House is melting down, the Senate is sitting by ready to act on Israel aid, on Ukraine aid, on keeping the government open and operating.

I appreciate the fact that Senator McConnell has been working with Democrats by and large over the course of the last few years.

The House is just an absolute nightmare and it's a really bad look for the United States.

It weakens President Biden's credibility abroad.

Maybe that's part of the point for Republicans is that they're weakening America and weakening people's faith in government, but it has national security consequences when people don't know whether even the things we have perfect consensus on, like support for Israel, can actually get a vote and pass.

- Senator Chris Murphy, thanks so much for joining.

- Thank you.

[air whooshes] [intriguing music] [air whooshes] - And now to that other Chamber of Congress, the one that doesn't seem to work and the other side of the political aisle.

Here's my conversation with Republican Congressman Mike Waltz of Florida.

Congressman Mike Waltz, thanks a lot for joining us.

- Yeah, good to be with you and thanks.

- Lots going on.

I guess I want to start with one topic that I did not hear President Biden address directly while he was in Israel, which is that there are apparently US hostages still on the ground in Gaza taken and held by Hamas.

Congressman, what do you think the Americans need to do in response to that?

- Well, that's an incredibly tough question, Ian, and Hamas knows that, and that's why these terrorist organizations deliberately take hostages.

I think frankly, the best hope would be an intermediary like Egypt, who has been a traditional negotiator between Hamas and Israel and frankly, the international community.

It's not just Americans that are held hostage.

My understanding is it's literally dozens of countries.

So I hope that's actually leveraged for support for Israel and support for aggressive action against Gaza, or against Hamas, and not the other way around that some of these countries began backing away for, frankly, support for Israel doing what it needs to do to secure itself because of the hostages, if that makes sense.

But either way, they're going to be a major, major leverage point.

- That's right, Mike.

There are over 20 countries who have civilians that are presently being held captive by Hamas in Gaza.

And so what I hear you saying is that the Americans should, at least to start, use countries in the region they have better relationship with like Egypt to act as intermediaries with Hamas.

Of course, Hamas leadership, we know where they are.

They're not in Gaza, they're actually in Qatar.

So you would favor that level of direct diplomacy?

- Well, look, I could just tell you as a former Green Beret that a hostage rescue successful down in the tunnels where it is incredibly difficult to intercept any type of communications, GPS doesn't work.

I mean, there is a reason Hamas has built this massive tunnel network.

It's incredibly difficult to get to.

They will constantly be moving them around.

I mean, this is just a Gordian knot in terms of trying to get these folks militarily.

So at the end of the day, look, we have historic intermediaries.

I have my issue with Qatar.

I have my issue with essentially providing a sanctuary to a terrorist organization.

I'll remind everyone, Hamas and Hezbollah are designated foreign terrorist organization in the same category in US law as Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

So I do have real issue with some of our allies providing that support.

But at the same time, you got to do what you need to do to save American lives.

- If you could be offering the Prime Minister of Israel, the government of Israel, advice at this precipitous moment on how to respond militarily for the short and the long term, what would you say?

- Well, look, let's go to the lessons from 9/11 and the subsequent wars.

We thought through the military operation, but we didn't think through how to win the peace.

So what I would be advising both the Prime Minister and his military staff is you completely degrade Hamas, you take down their leadership, you kill a number of their fighters, and then what?

What is that aftermath and how do you prevent that void from being filled again?

I don't think the Israeli government wants to reoccupy Gaza.

So are we talking some type of UN peacekeeping operation?

Do we get the Gulf Arab states to step in some way despite the fact that they historically have not wanted to?

But that's the part you have to think through in that lesson.

But Ian, there's another lesson to learn from the Middle East Wars post 9/11 in that a terrorist organization that enjoys state sponsorship, a terrorist organization that enjoys sanctuary, right now, Hamas absolutely is funded, trained, and equipped by Iran.

It's the head of the snake that you have to ultimately go after or at least dry up the funding.

- Now, Mike, you're right that Iran has been funding Hamas and certainly funding Hezbollah for a long, long time, even if they weren't in any way involved in orchestrating these attacks on October 7.

Now, the $6 billion of Iranian assets that were set to be unfrozen, I suspect you strongly oppose that.

They are now still frozen, but there's also a lot of money that comes from Iran acting as a gas station.

I mean, people think through how you can squeeze the Iranians economically, but they haven't seemed to come up with very good answers to that question.

What do you think should be done?

- Under the Maximum Pressure campaign, Iranian oil exports went from several million barrels per day to less than 400,000.

I mean, it was essentially dried up, and that was through very aggressive enforcement.

It also was withholding a number of waivers that have now been released by the Biden administration.

So in many ways, there's kind of been a blind eye turned to exports.

A lot of that had to do with aspirations of a JCPOA 2.0- - The nuclear deal.

Yeah.

- that I hope now is completely dead.

So I do think there's a lot more we could do to actually enforce the sanctions on the books in terms of oil.

And in terms of the $6 billion, what we were assured repeatedly was that the administration at any time could pull back what it calls assurance letters.

These were letters that assured the international banking system they would not be sanctions.

The sanctions wouldn't be enforced, and therefore that's what effectively unfroze the money.

We're calling on the administration to pull those letters back, given what we at least agree on is Iranian complicity in these atrocities.

- So Mike, we know that at least as of now, there is still not a House speaker.

How much does this constrain the ability of the United States to effectively support the policy it wants to conduct in the region with Israel as well as for Ukraine?

- Well, look, what I've repeatedly told my colleagues is, first of all, I didn't support removing Kevin McCarthy and I voted against that.

He was living up to what he had promised the conference in terms of cutting spending, getting after our debt, securing the border, and supporting our military.

So that's one.

Two, we need a speaker.

For me, this war changes everything.

I do believe this can become existential to Israel if Hamas, the Iraq Shia-backed militias and Iran dropped the other shoe, so to speak and- - And the war expands.

- Our adversaries smell weakness in Washington right now.

We need to get our act together and move the country forward.

- Mike Waltz, thanks for joining us on "GZERO World."

- Thank you, Ian.

[air whooshes] [intriguing music] [air whooshes] - As the world focuses on Gaza, fear is growing that fighting will spill over into Lebanon.

GZERO brings you this report on the view from Beirut.

[air whooshes] [weapon bangs] - [Fin DePencier] Along the Lebanese-Israeli border, increasingly intense fighting is broken out between the Israeli defense forces and Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group that dominates southern Lebanon and is a regional power in its own right.

[protesters chanting] Across the Middle East, a day of rage was declared to condemn Israel's actions in Gaza.

[explosions booming] So far, the war is confined to the border, [siren wailing] but an Israeli ground defensive in Gaza could trigger Hezbollah to fully enter the fight.

Lebanon can't afford another war.

It's a country reeling from its own internal struggles, including a devastating economic collapse in 2019, and a paralyzed government.

Lebanon's divided Parliament hasn't been able to elect a president since Michel Aoun's term expired in October of 2022.

These conditions have allowed Hezbollah to become a major military and political power here.

[rocket whooshing] Daily rocket fire has caused Lebanese residents who live near the border to flee north.

Hussein Fawahz's family recently fled southern Lebanon and is now staying with him here in Beirut.

[Hussein speaking in foreign language] [Hussein speaking in foreign language] - [Fin DePencier] Fawahz's sister-in-law, Mariam Fawahz, described the fighting near her village.

[Mariam speaking in foreign language] [Mariam speaking in foreign language] - While the Lebanese population is enormously divided, almost everyone I talk to agrees that Israel is a common enemy.

[man speaking in foreign language] [man speaking in foreign language] [man speaking in foreign language] - [Fin DePencier] But not everyone in Lebanon considers this their war.

Lebanese Armenian Hago Pavartian sees himself as entirely separate from the conflict.

- Lebanese people, it's divided between the Christians and non-Christians.

The Christian, they don't care what happens in the south of Lebanon.

They don't give anything.

They don't even ask, including from myself.

I don't care what's happening in the south of Lebanon.

- [Fin DePencier] So you're advocating for a partition of Lebanon, breaking up of Lebanon?

Is that what you're saying?

- Yes.

I think that the Lebanons must be divided.

- [Fin DePencier] But Avo Buenyarian, another Armenian Lebanese man, says that he'd defend Lebanon if push came to shove.

[Avo speaking in foreign language] [Avo speaking in foreign language] [Avo speaking in foreign language] - Few people in Beirut want to go to war, but as the violence intensifies, the Lebanese people are bracing for the worst.

For now, all eyes remain on the southern border and on Hezbollah.

For "GZERO World," I'm Fin DePencier in Beirut.

[intriguing music] [air whooshes] - That's our show this week.

Come back next week, and if you like what you've seen, or even if you don't, but you're saying, "Hey, who else am I going to talk to to focus on horrible, horrible news?"

That's right.

Check us out at gzeromedia.com [upbeat music] [upbeat music] [upbeat music] [upbeat music] [light music] - [Announcer] Funding for "GZERO World" is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Narrator] Every day all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint [inspiring music] and scale their supply chains with a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at Prologis.com.

- [Announcer] And by Cox Enterprises is proud to support GZERO.

We're working to improve lives in the areas of communications, automotive, clean tech, sustainable agriculture, and more.

Learn more at cox.career/news.

Additional funding provided by Jerry and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and.

[upbeat music] [dramatic music]