INTERVIEW: Live from Tel Aviv, Rep. Darrell Issa surveys Israel, Egypt, Iran, and the broader Middle East post-October 7th

THE LOWDOWN:

• Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) told the Washington Reporter in an exclusive interview in Tel Aviv that the changes on the ground are extensive since the October 7th, 2023 terrorist attacks;

• Despite the horrors of that day, Issa believes that Israel is rapidly approaching a normalization with Muslim countries like Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, which would be the crown jewel of the Abraham Accords initiated by the first Trump administration;

• Issa’s CODEL included high-level meetings with leaders from across the Middle East, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who Issa has known for decades;

• Issa added that during his CODEL, he saw reports of Egypt amassing its army in the Sinai Peninsula, which could jeopardize the at-times fragile peace the country has with Israel.

TEL AVIV, Israel — The Middle East will never look the same, following the barbaric attacks on southern Israel by Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists. Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), the Vice Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has had a front row seat, both to the changes since October 7 and over the past several decades.

Issa — who on that fateful October 7 day was set to fly to Israel from Saudi Arabia — told the Washington Reporter in an exclusive interview in Tel Aviv that the changes on the ground are extensive. “What we've seen is the vulnerabilities that we were told existed come to pass,” he said. “We've seen Syria fall. We've seen Hamas be diminished. We've seen Iran in free fall, looking to others to prop them up. We've also seen during that period of time a reluctance by President Joe Biden and his administration to weigh in.”

Issa’s latest visit to the region finds him leading a Congressional Delegation of six other members that includes stops in Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon. His visit in Israel coincided with the 500-day anniversary of the terrorist attack on southern Israel. “We've seen Israel, to a great extent, taking the lead, diminishing Iran's anti-aircraft capability, creating a situation in which the collapse of Hezbollah, the collapse of Hamas, and a recognition that the status quo does not have to continue,” he said.

Despite the horrors of that day, Issa believes that Israel is rapidly approaching a normalization with Muslim countries like Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, which would be the crown jewel of the Abraham Accords initiated by the first Trump administration. Issa, who will return to Saudi Arabia in a few months, added that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told him in the past that “we have a deal. It's a question of when.” Issa added: “That timing would have been long ago, had the weakness of the Biden administration not led to a belief by Hamas that they could act. They were wrong, but it has caused a delay.”

While Issa noted that “no one in the Arab or Muslim world is bypassing the Palestinian situation,” he added that, practically speaking, “the leaders of Arab and Muslim nations have decided that they will sit at the table with Israel as a partner to help solve that problem, rather than staying on the outside, saying ‘solve the problem, and then we'll talk.’”

Issa’s CODEL included high-level meetings with leaders from across the Middle East, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who Issa has known for decades. He told the Reporter that Netanyahu’s “leadership since October 7 has been rivaled only by Churchill and by a handful of other leaders throughout history. He focused on not the immediate counterattack and not on simply reestablishing a border, but on changing the dynamic so that it couldn't happen again. He has been unambiguous in his statements. He has been bold in dealing with many around the world who wanted to point out that this was an ‘overreaction.’ It isn't an overreaction to decades of underreaction. It is the proper response when you say enough is enough.”

“Prime Minister Netanyahu has a goal, which is to not have the status quo of another two or three or four decades of minor attacks and the people of Israel living without the peace they deserve,” Issa said, while added that the facts on the ground may lead to the “neuter[ing of] Iran in just a few months.”

“I think the recognition that in October 2027 the Obama-era JCPOA, the actual agreement itself, will expire,” he said, referring to the controversial Iran deal struck by the Obama administration. “At that point, Iran is free to fully nuclearize. That deal was terrible in the beginning. It is terrible now, but after October 2027 there will be no option for Israel to stop the attack except to go to a much larger attack. So acting when he did really sets the stage for us being able to hopefully neuter Iran in just a few months.”

In America, Issa has led groundbreaking investigations over the years from his perches on the House Oversight, Judiciary, Foreign Affairs, and Weaponization Committees, focusing on the abuse and weaponization of the government — and he sees similarities to how President Donald Trump was taken off the campaign trail by activist judges and prosecutors and to how his friend Netanyahu has been taken off the war path by a controversial and much-maligned case against him.

“There's no question at all about the similarity,” he said, adding that the trials are “not only distracting [Netanyahu] from his best ability to do as many hours as he would do, but it also is putting in peril the very direction and unity of his government.”

“If Prime Minister Netanyahu were to not be able to serve as prime minister, the coalition that has been put together to defeat Hamas could well not be possible to keep together and his leadership would be sorely missed,” Issa said, offering a solution Israel should adopt that would render all of this unnecessary.

“I really believe that Israel has made a terrible mistake by not looking at the U.S.’s standard, which is that a sitting president may not be tried, period. That should be the situation,” he said. “He should have the ability to do what he's doing. We were with him late one night earlier this week, after another long day, and he spends three days a week, typically, in court, and that will go on for a long time based on the length of this trial. The fact that he's been willing, like President Trump, to double up, to work 20 hours a day, so that before court and after court he's working, so that every day he's giving the people of Israel, quite frankly, a lot more hours than Joe Biden ever gave the United States, is the only reason that the government is still standing.”

Issa added that during his CODEL, he saw reports of Egypt amassing its army in the Sinai Peninsula, which could jeopardize the at-times fragile peace the country has with Israel. He noted that “there is a degree of inherent paranoia by the Egyptian people that there's going to be a mass out-migration. That alone creates a situation in which the military feels they must act.”

However, he added that “for 40 years an agreement has existed to keep this zone fairly demilitarized with a mutually agreed on amount of troops. That agreement has to hold. And our message to the Egyptians was unambiguous: that the numbers may rise or fall, but it's by mutual agreement, and that we would not tolerate any going back on that agreement.”

The trip also included a homecoming of sorts for Issa, whose family hails in part from Lebanon — another country drastically remade in the wake of Palestinian terrorism. While he’s not “going to get to see any of my extended family or my grandfather's birthplace,” he will “meet with the new president, one who only got elected because of the fall of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, only because Iran is no longer allowed to call the shots, because Hezbollah has been so diminished.”

“I'll meet with a prime minister who's trying to put together a government that isn't run by Hezbollah,” Issa said. “I'll meet with a Speaker who was never going to allow an election Hezbollah objected to of a president until the facts on the ground change. In many ways, it's a celebration.”

Below is a transcript of our interview with Rep. Darrell Issa, lightly edited for clarity.

Washington Reporter:

You were in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, you were here to mark 90 days since the terror attack, and this week you were in Israel for the 500 day mark since October 7. How have you seen the changes in this region since then, both between the countries, and in terms of the difference between having Biden and Trump in America?

Rep. Darrell Issa:

What we've seen is the vulnerabilities that we were told existed come to pass. We've seen Syria fall. We've seen Hamas be diminished. We've seen Iran in free fall, looking to others to prop them up. We've also seen during that period of time, a reluctance by President Joe Biden and his administration to weigh in. We've seen a great deal of the effort being either pushed by Congress in the way of support for Ukraine and, more importantly, for Israel. And we've seen Israel, to a great extent, taking the lead, diminishing Iran's anti-aircraft capability, creating a situation in which the collapse of Hezbollah, the collapse of Hamas, and a recognition that the status quo does not have to continue, all happen. And most importantly, after November when President Trump was elected, we've seen changes come because they knew that change was coming. And that includes the hostage exchanges, that includes people coming to the table and frantically trying to unwind what had happened over the last four years.

Washington Reporter:

You were just in Egypt, you're heading to Lebanon and Jordan as well on this CODEL. What's been your sense of the tenor of among the Arab leaders to Trump's win?

Rep. Darrell Issa:

There’s a recognition that change is coming and that you've got to get on board. We've seen a willingness by the Egyptians to make a proactive plan and not wait, because they've seen President Trump's leadership to say ‘if you don't have a solution, I do,’ and they may not like President Trump's solutions, but there will be a solution, and that solution will be one that America buys into with its allies, including Israel. Our meetings here have been extremely productive and at the highest levels, and what we've seen is a country that knows what it must achieve, has suffered for decades waiting for this opportunity, and they're seizing it — as they should. I'll also be going to Saudi Arabia in a couple of months, because when we were in Saudi Arabia with MBS, literally on the eve of that, the Crown Prince wasn't saying that we may or may not have a deal. He was saying we have a deal. It's a question of when. That timing would have been long ago, had the weakness of the Biden administration not led to a belief by Hamas that they could act. They were wrong, but it has delayed the mutual defense agreement, more commonly called the Abraham Accords by us that MBS has agreed to, that Israel has agreed to, and that will lead to Indonesia and other very large countries recognizing Israel and beginning a new era of trade and a safer world, one in which Iran's nefarious activities become irrelevant, and perhaps one in which regime change finally comes to the people of Iran.

Washington Reporter:

Do you still see a willingness by these Arab countries to bypass the Palestinian problem, which we saw in the first Trump administration? Or has that changed since October 7?

Rep. Darrell Issa:

No one in the Arab or Muslim world is bypassing the Palestinian situation. One of the three holy sites of Islam is here in Israel. It’s important to those people, just as it is important to me and to my fellow Christians. Peace and access is important to Christianity, to Islam, and to Judaism. And that goal includes an end to the kinds of attacks on Jerusalem that we saw for decades, and that means there has to be a Palestinian solution, to use a word, but the idea that we're going to wait for a small group of Palestinian leaders, now headed by Mahmoud Abbas, or for Hamas, to come to the table to form a country, that time has passed. The leaders of Arab and Muslim nations have decided that they will sit at the table with Israel as a partner to help solve that problem, rather than staying on the outside, saying ‘solve the problem, and then we'll talk.’ That reversal doesn't change the goal for people of faith around the world, for this small country, but the home to three religions, to be free and open. When I was at the Western Wall earlier this week, there was a recognition that 12 million people already come here. This is already second only to a good year of the Hajj when it comes to real tourism. But unlike Mecca and Medina, this is the home that half the world wants to come to, wants to see as important, and wants to see without strife. I think a lot of people misunderstand that the Abraham Accords were a clever way the Trump administration said ‘we have the same goal, which peace and solutions that work for all the people, we simply are not going to continue to have a step that hasn't been taken in decades be the first step that must be taken to peace.’ And when I met with MBS, with others who had signed on, the Crown Prince and Bahrain and so on, that was the recognition: they were putting themselves at the table as part of the peace process, rather than putting them behind the Palestinians who did not seem to be able to elect leadership that would actually act.

Washington Reporter:

There are now reports that the Egyptian military is mobilizing towards southern Israel; you just met with the Egyptians; what do you make of these reports?

Rep. Darrell Issa:

I don't want to conjecture overly, but there is a degree of inherent paranoia by the Egyptian people that there's going to be a mass out-migration. That alone creates a situation in which the military feels they must act. At the same time, for 40 years an agreement has existed to keep this zone fairly demilitarized with a mutually agreed on amount of troops. That agreement has to hold. And our message to the Egyptians was unambiguous: that the numbers may rise or fall, but it's by mutual agreement, and that we would not tolerate any going back on that agreement, one that has kept these two countries at peace for four decades.

Washington Reporter:

You've known Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for over 20 years; what's your assessment of his leadership since October 7?

Rep. Darrell Issa:

His leadership since October 7 has been rivaled only by Churchill and by a handful of other leaders throughout history. He focused on not the immediate counterattack and not on simply reestablishing a border, but on changing the dynamic so that it couldn't happen again. He has been unambiguous in his statements. He has been bold in dealing with many around the world who wanted to point out that this was an ‘overreaction.’ It isn't an overreaction to decades of underreaction. It is the proper response when you say enough is enough. While we've been here, we've carefully asked the questions of the numbers, the ratios, trying to understand what the collateral damage is, and it's admitted that not everyone who died was a combatant or was in any way responsible for their own death, but at the same time, that occurs in all wars. Prime Minister Netanyahu has a goal, which is to not have the status quo of another two or three or four decades of minor attacks and the people of Israel living without the peace they deserve. And lastly, I think the recognition that in October 2027 the Obama-era JCPOA, the actual agreement itself, will expire. At that point, Iran is free to fully nuclearize. That deal was terrible in the beginning. It is terrible now, but after October 2027 there will be no option for Israel to stop the attack except to go to a much larger attack. So acting when he did really sets the stage for us being able to hopefully neuter Iran in just a few months.

Washington Reporter:

In America, we saw that Trump was taken off the campaign trail for court. In Israel, Netanyahu has been taken off the war path for his trials. Between you work on the Oversight, Judiciary, Foreign Affairs, and Weaponization Committees over the years, exposing the weaponization of the government in America, do you see similarities between these two cases?

Rep. Darrell Issa:

There's no question at all about the similarity to what Prime Minister Netanyahu is facing is not only distracting from his best ability to do as many hours as he would do, but it also is putting in peril the very direction and unity of his government. If Prime Minister Netanyahu were to not be able to serve as prime minister, the coalition that has been put together to defeat Hamas could well not be possible to keep together and his leadership would be sorely missed. I really believe that Israel has made a terrible mistake by not looking at the U.S.’s standard, which is that a sitting president may not be tried, period. That should be the situation. He should have the ability to do what he's doing. We were with him late one night earlier this week, after another long day, and he spends three days a week, typically, in court, and that will go on for a long time based on the length of this trial. The fact that he's been willing, like President Trump, to double up, to work 20 hours a day, so that before court and after court he's working, so that every day he's giving the people of Israel, quite frankly, a lot more hours than Joe Biden ever gave the United States, is the only reason that the government is still standing.

Washington Reporter:

You’re also going to Lebanon on this trip. What does that mean for you given your family's ties to the country?

Rep. Darrell Issa:

It means I'm not going to get to see any of my extended family or my grandfather's birthplace, but it does mean that I'm going to get to meet with the new president, one who only got elected because of the fall of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, only because Iran is no longer allowed to call the shots, because Hezbollah has been so diminished. So in many ways, it's a celebration. I'll meet with a prime minister who's trying to put together a government that isn't run by Hezbollah. I'll meet with a Speaker who was never going to allow an election Hezbollah objected to of a president until the facts on the ground change.

Washington Reporter:

Congressman Issa, thanks so much for chatting — and enjoy the rest of your trip!