Former IDF General Talks Israeli Politics, Says Trump Is Netanyahu’s ‘Dream President’ at HKS

{image id=1372441 align=left size=large byline=true caption=Former Israeli Air Force General Amos Yadlin appeared at a Tuesday forum hosted by the Harvard Kennedy School."}

Former Israeli Air Force General Amos Yadlin described United States President Donald Trump as “the dream president” for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a Harvard Kennedy School forum on Tuesday.

The event with Yadlin was moderated by Middle East Initiative Faculty Director and HKS Professor Tarek Masoud and focused on Israeli politics and the war in Gaza. Masoud, known for his Middle East Dialogues Series, frequently hosts discussions with controversial speakers on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Yadlin — a long-time military leader in the Israeli Defense Force — argued on Tuesday that Netanyahu should have made conditions in Gaza worse during the pandemic, a recommendation Yadlin said he gave the Prime Minister at the time.

“My recommendation to my Prime Minister is to make life in the West Bank much better than before, and make Gaza a miserable place, so that the Palestinians who have to choose will see that in Gaza, terrorists are bullying,” Yadlin said.

He added that while he agreed with Netanyahu’s reasons for not negotiating with the Palestinian Authority, that decision “helped Hamas to build its military.”

“Anybody who believes that we have to solve the Israeli-Palestinian issue has to help the Palestinian Authority to become stronger and to be a partner in this two-state solution,” Yadlin said.

Masoud pointed to Trump’s stated plan to seize Gaza and relocate its entire population — an idea Masoud said would “turn it into an international playground for the wealthy.”

Though Yaldin said the original aim of the Israeli government was to “get rid of the Palestinians from Gaza,” he disagreed with Trump’s idea of annexation.

After joining the Israeli Air Force in November 1970, Yadlin — who earned a Masters in Public Administration from the Kennedy School in 1994 — rose to prominence as deputy commander of the Air Force and head of Israeli military intelligence. He served in the IDF for 40 years, 33 of which were spent as a fighter pilot.

Yadlin was appointed as a senior fellow at HKS’ Middle East Initiative in 2022. Members of Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine, a coalition of pro-Palestine protest groups on campus, protested Yalin’s appointment at his first class in February 2022, arguing that he was “responsible for decades of ethnic cleansing.”

But on Tuesday, no one protested Yadlin’s appearance with Masoud. The pair discussed the consequences of the recent ceasefire and hostage exchange between Israel and Hamas, which started Jan. 19, and is expected to include the release of 33 hostages in 42 days.

Expressing doubts about the ceasefire’s staying power, Yadlin said he does not believe the two sides will be able to negotiate an extended ceasefire after the 42 days expire. According to the BBC, second phase negotiations to extend the agreement have not begun.

Yadlin criticized Netanyahu’s handling of the conflict, accusing him of playing a game of “political survival.”

“He is a real problem,” Yadlin said.

But Yadlin also said Iranian military forces posed a greater threat to Israel than Hamas.

“Iran is the main problem,” he said, adding that he believed Iran did not fulfill its promise to stop developing nuclear weapons in 2003, an accusation Iran has repeatedly denied.

Yadlin said he supported the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria late last year, arguing that with the country’s current leadership, it is “better the devil you don’t know than the devil.” He said Syria’s regime change and Israel’s September attack on Hezbollah in Iran were successful because Russian officials were concerned with the war in Ukraine at the time.

“An American,” Yadlin said, “thinks there is a solution to every problem. This is not the case in the Middle East.”

—Staff writer Will P. Cottiss can be reached at will.cottiss@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X at @WillPCottiss.