Two Fronts in The War Against the West
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FDD, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, was established soon after the attacks of September 11th, 2001. The founders of this policy institute, or think tank, recognized that America and other democratic societies were taking a holiday from history, not understanding and certainly not responding adequately to the threat posed by those groups and regimes committed to the destruction of the West, what they used to call the free world.

All these years later, America and other free nations are threatened by more enemies. What we at FDD have been calling an axis, an axis of tyrants, of aggressors, of authoritarians, of revanchists. All those terms are apt. The response of Western leaders remains woefully inadequate. The most imminently endangered democratic societies, Ukraine and Israel.

Vladimir Putin is waging a brutal war to subjugate Ukrainians, to destroy their independence and to deprive them of their freedoms. Iran's rulers, strategically utilizing proxies, are waging a multi-front war not to subjugate Israelis but to exterminate Israelis, to destroy their nation-state and kill as many Israelis, both Jews and those Jews adjacent, as they possibly can.

Bernard-Henri Lévy is a world-famous French Jewish public intellectual, writer and filmmaker. He's reported extensively both on the war against Ukraine and the war against Israel. He's made films about the war against Ukraine, three I believe. His most recent book is Israel Alone. It's an honor to have him with us today here in FDD Studios.

Aleksandra Matvichuk is a Ukrainian human rights lawyer and leader. She's based in Kyiv, but she heads the Center for Civil Liberties, which was awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize. I'm honored that she's with us too. And I'm pleased you're joining this conversation here on Foreign Policy. Thank you both for coming in. It's marvelous to see you. Bernard, since you've been on the ground and not just in hotels covering both these brutal wars,

Perhaps just spend a minute kind of comparing and contrasting these wars for us. Comparing more than contrasting. It is two existential wars, existential for Ukraine.

which is targeted by Russia and Putin in its very existence. Don't forget that Ukraine has been invaded under the pretext that it should not exist and it will not exist. It's a real war of annihilation, an attempt of annihilation of Ukraine, of the Ukrainian culture, of the Ukrainian identity.

Israel, same, invaded by Hamas on October 7, attacked by Houthis, attacked by Lebanon. Behind them, a sponsor who is Iran, and behind Iran, a sponsor who is an unusual suspect for you, ExxonBar, who is Putin. He's back, the war in the back side, behind the curtain of the war against Israel too. And

Same, it's a war of annihilation. If you listen to Hamas and to the supporters of Hamas, what do they say? From river to the sea, Palestine will be free. It means two things. Number one, Palestine will not be free. It will be under the boot of dictatorship. But number two, Israel has to be eradicated. So it's two existential wars and two wars

Wails of annihilation. That's why Ukraine and Israel are more than ever on the same side of the barricade.

Alexander, I want to address something that I heard from a lot of people, a lot of smart people who I would think we should know better, but they don't. So it's an important point. And it has to do with Putin's motivations. And what they say is, oh, well, you know, Putin, he felt threatened by NATO expansion. This idea that he looked at NATO and it's coming at him. And again, not stupid people saying this. And I know this is wrong, but I could explain why. But I want you to explain why this is nonsense.

Let me remind how this war was started. Because this war started not in February 2022, but in February 2014, when Ukraine obtained a chance for the quick democratic transition after the collapse of the authoritarian regime due to the Revolution of Dignity.

It was a time when millions of Ukrainians stood up their ways against pro-Russian corrupt authoritarian regime and they peacefully demonstrated just for a chance to build the country where the rights of everybody are protected, government is accountable, judiciary is independent, and police do not beat students who are peacefully demonstrating.

And we paid a high price for this chance because more than 100 peaceful protesters were gunning down in the center of Kyiv.

But when the authoritarian regime collapsed and we got our chance to build a democratic country, Russia invaded. Russia occupied Crimea, part of Lugansk and Donetsk regions, and two years ago extended this war to the large-scale invasion. Because Putin is not afraid of NATO. Putin is afraid of the idea of freedom which came closer to Russian borders

And this is the main point. I agree. There's two points I want to draw out, too. One is that the reaction of the U.S. and of Western Europe to Russia's, Putin's seizure of Crimea was so inadequate. It was so early encouraged. By the way, I'd also go back to 2008 when Putin seized two provinces of Georgia. One other point that I want you to respond to that relates to that.

I agree with what you're saying. Putin could not stand the idea of a democratic state on his border, especially one speaking a Slavic language. But there's something else that I believe. And I say this as somebody who, I first went to Russia, Soviet Union in 69. I was an exchange student there in 72. So here's what I think. Putin sees himself as a czar. And a czar's job in a bad time like this is to restore the Russian empire.

And Belarus is part of the Russian Empire, not a problem because it's a vassal state at this point. It's under his thumb. But if he's going to restore Russia, he has to restore all the Russians. And that to him means Ukraine. And so the restoration of Russia means to him, I have to subjugate Ukraine. By the way, he'd like 40 million additional Russians because the population of Russia proper has been diminishing.

He'd like all that farmland, the breadbasket. He'd like a lot of things, but that's also part of it. In other words, this is neo-imperialism, neo-colonialism, as well as his revulsion at a democratic possibility in Ukraine. Do you agree with me on that? I agree and to think to add.

All this hell which we now face in Ukraine, it's a result of total impunity which Russia enjoyed for decades, committing horrible crimes in Chechnya, in Moldova, in Georgia, in Mali, in Libya, in Syria, in other countries of the world.

It's the same war crime playbook which Russia used against civilians in order to break their resistance and occupy the country. Russia have never been punished. And that is why Russia believe they can do whatever they want. And second, Russia is empire.

Empire has a center, but has no borders. And this is not my words, it's Putin's words, who say that the borders of Russia have never ends. So it's a nature of empire. When empire has an energy, empire always strive to expand it. Putin claims that Ukraine is not a real nation, that these are just borders.

rebels, rogues, what would you call them? Separatists, tools of the West, Nazis, whatever. They're not, they're really Russians. They won't acknowledge it. Israel's enemies say there's no such thing as a Jewish nation. These people are colonials. They're settlers. They're not from here. They're from Germany. They're from Austria, whatever they are. They have no right to be here. They are not a people. It's an interesting question. What qualifies you as a people, as a nation?

Who gets to decide? And it's complicated because once upon a time we talked about the Yugoslavs. The Yugoslavs decided they're not Yugoslavs. They're Croatians. They're Serbians. They're Montenegrins. Once they were Czechoslovakians. Decided or not, we're Czechs. We're Slovaks. Let's talk a little about the concept of nationhood and people. Nothing to do with Czech and Slovak. For Israel, Jews are indigenous of this area. They were here before.

Two, three thousand years ago, number one, they have always been in this place of the world. They had kingdoms there, they had their holy place there and so on. They have never stopped to be there. And don't forget something. When Israel was created, when Israel was decided by the UN in 1947, then created in 1948,

There was already one third of the total surface of the Palestine where indigenous people

Jews born there. There was already one. And in the place which was due to become Israel, half of the population, more than half, was Jew. So nothing to do with colonialism. And colonialism means

An empire bringing by force some settlers, stealing the earth of people being there always. The Jews were there always when they purchased some...

some fields and some houses. They did it in a regular way under the law of the empire of that time, who was Ottoman and then British. So this story of Israel being a colonial state is a pure bullshit. It's a pure moronic thesis. It makes no sense. And...

Moreover, in 1948,

When Israel was created, there were some Arabs there, but they never defined themselves at that time as Palestinians. They defined themselves as Syrians. They defined themselves as Arabs, certainly not as Palestinians. After that, of course, the Palestinian movement took birth, developed itself, and so on. And it is...

If it was not mixed with terrorism, it would be respectable as such. But it came long after. So this is the real story about Putin. He is not only a czar. He wants to be a czar.

He wants to be Stalin, and he wants to be a fascist. He wants to be that. He's a real model. If you listen to him, his pictures at the Valdai Center every year, if you listen to his advisors, the models are the ideologues of the fascism of the 20th century. So it's a mix between one-third fascism

Tsar, one-third Stalin, one-third fascist or Nazis. This is Putinism. And is there not a kind of fascism also in Israel's enemies and the anti-Zionists? Because what do you want if you're Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader? What do you want if you're Al-Qaeda? You also recall...

A great period of history that you think, that you imagine, that you want to restore when you and the people you identify with were most powerful in the world. And by the way, anti-Semitism almost always is part of it, right? Kill the Jews. The paradigm of the world into which we are living is five former empires

who collapsed at a point and who tried to revive today. Five former empires. Five. Let's name them. Ottoman Empire. Right. Collapsed, wants to revive with Erdogan. Right. Russian Empire. Right. Collapsed, Putin said that it is the biggest catastrophe of the 20th century. He wants to revive it.

Persian Empire collapsed, wants to revive under the Ayatollahs. Chinese Empire collapsed, wants to revive under Xi Jinping. And the Arab Empire, the Ummah, wants to revive through people like Qatar, like people like that, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Muslim Brotherhood, and so on. So this is what we have to face. Democracy is...

America, Ukraine, Israel, Baltic countries, is this axis of former empires having collapsed and wanting to take revenge or to take advantage

of the recession, of the way in which America recedes, America and Europe. They see that we are receding and they want to take the place. They want to occupy the empty space. This is the situation of today. And Putin would never have invaded Ukraine, full-scale invasion, if he had not seen that Biden, a few days before,

who said, why not? If he had not seen that Barack Obama in Syria had said there is a red line, use of chemical weapons, and when the red line is crossed, he does not do anything. If he had not seen, Putin, that Trump betrayed the Kurds under the let them be policy,

destroyed by Erdogan and by Bashar al-Assad. Putin saw all of that. And Afghanistan, I would say, too. Do you not agree? The betrayal of Afghans by us. And the big signal for Putin was Trump and Biden leaving Afghanistan. The program was conceived by Donald Trump and was implemented by Joe Biden. So all these signals...

made possible this full-scale invasion of Ukraine and made possible also the attack against Israel. Iran would never have taken the risk which she takes without these bad signals that us democracies have sent. Yeah, it's not a coincidence, comrade Tavarishi, that exactly one year after

And you're right. It was the path was laid by the Trump administration. So Biden surrenders to the Taliban in the most chaotic. I mean, it showed incompetence and fecklessness. And if you are Putin, you say, well, this is and that's one year later. He debates and all that in Qatar. Why did the American administration decided suddenly to discuss with Taliban in Qatar about what the Taliban?

You are winning. The war was over. The Talibans were hiding. Hiding in the countryside, no urban areas. The women were free. Free. The veils were off. The civil society was building. The free press was blooming. Yes. And suddenly, Mr. Trump decided to start negotiation with Talibans in Qatar. This is one of the most...

absurd, crazy mistakes of the free world since long. And the result of that is the martyrdom of Ukraine and the existential threat on Israel. A lot of things I want to get through today. Alexander, you're a human rights lawyer. You believe in international law. I have to say I'm increasingly skeptical of it. I see the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice in the U.N.,

As absolutely corrupt beyond way beyond what I ever thought they would be. We see that in particular in regard to Israel, which somehow there are international laws that are meant to apply to Israel, according to the UN, according to the ICC, according to the ICJ that apply to no other nation at all. You've talked about, I think that's very much. It's in your, in your book, Israel alone. Um,

I'm not saying it's not impossible to reestablish international law as meaningful, but right now it doesn't really apply to Putin. He goes to nations that belong to the ICC and they don't arrest him, they celebrate him. And Israel is told it's genocidal and apartheid. It's neither of those things, but those who are genocidal and apartheid

They have no worry about international law. You know, Yaya Sanwar in his tunnel doesn't worry that international law is going to hurt him. Hezbollah doesn't worry about international law. Are you not a bit disconcerted at how international law has evolved? It's a wonderful idea. As a human rights lawyer, I have been applying the law to protect people and human dignity for many years. But now I found myself in a situation when the law doesn't work.

Russian troops are deliberately shelling residential buildings, schools, churches, museums and hospitals. They're attacking evacuation corridors. They're torturing people in filtration camps. They're forcibly taking Ukrainian children to Russia to bring them up as Russians. They ban Ukrainian language and culture. And they're abducting, robbing, raping, killing civilians in the occupied territories.

And entire UN system of peace and security can't stop it. And that is why... It doesn't try. It's not that it just can't. It doesn't try. I don't see...

I don't see him really trying. Now, of course, Russia has a seat on the Security Council and China, its ally, again, part of an axis, as you said and as I said, is on the Security Council. As for the General Assembly, it's largely a collection of dictatorships. It's largely a collection of banana republics. It's largely a collection of envoys for dictators who are going to do – who really don't care about internationalism.

The problem is that all this international architecture was built in past century. And this architecture was built by victorious states after the Second World War, and the states provide for themselves irrational indulgences. And that is why now we have a situation that the work of Security Council is paralyzed.

And that is why now we have a situation how Iran, China, North Korea, Syria, other autocrats watching how Russia is still enjoying impunity, which has encouraged them to do the same in different parts of the globe. So it's very easy to predict. So if we will not start a cardinal reform of international system of peace and security,

Such fires, like wars, will emerge more and more often in different parts of the globe because the whole international wiring is faulty and sparks are everywhere. But as a human rights lawyer, I know that the law doesn't work

But I believe that it's temporary, that with our joint efforts, we'll be able to restore international order, to deliver justice, and to stop this dangerous world which is approaching. You know...

I mentioned that Israel is being accused of genocide when its enemies are openly genocidal. Israel could carry out genocide against the Palestinians. It hasn't. The Palestinian population has increased. People accuse Israel of apartheid. There is no place in the Middle East more diverse than Israel, no place where Jews, Muslims, Arabs, Christians, Druze, and others have more rights and freedoms, majorities. And I'm reminded, interestingly, and I think both of you, of Vasily Grossman.

Now, people may not know who's listening, but you know who Vassily Grosman is. He was a Ukrainian, Jewish, novelist, and journalist. Among his books were Ukraini bez Jewreyev, Ukraine without Jews, right after the Holocaust. He was award-winning, Krasnaya Zvezda, Red Star journalist. Here's what he said, this quote, very apt. Tell me what you accused the Jews of. I'll tell you what you're guilty of.

That seems to be what he said. And then he was writing that during World War II and just after. That seems to be exactly the case. About genocide, I would, if I could, I would encourage strongly Israel to reverse the process and to accuse, of course, to sue Israel.

Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran for genocide. Because again, when they say from river to the sea, Palestine will be free, it is a statement of genocide. When

When the official press in Iran says that Israel should be eradicated, it is nothing but a genocide. So I don't understand why Israel does not launch a campaign denouncing the genocide of which they are the proposed victims. About the UN, I agree with Alexandra. I believe in law. And I would add two remarks. Number one,

We should make it possible, and you have the moral authority for that. The Commission for Human Rights, for example,

Anyone should not be. Today, Goebbels or Mussolini would sit in the Commission of Human Rights if they existed. Goebbels would be on the Commission of Human Rights. So there should be some processes, some laws, some preconditions before entering, being admitted in the Commission of Human Rights or the Commission for Women. Iran was member or vice president of the Commission for the Rights of Women.

This is a pure Orwellian world. About the blockade of the Security Council, there is one detail. There is one reason why it does not work. It is that Russia, who blocks the system, has stolen her seat at the Security Council. And you know that well.

Russia has no right to sit in the security country. You know how it happened. In 1991, December something, there was a gathering in Alma-Ata, I think, of all the republic of the former Soviet Union, all the independent state of the former Soviet Union. It was like a meeting of gangsters.

you know, in Chicago in the 30s, meeting of gangsters. And they decided to share the treasury. So who will have that? Who will have that? Who will have the nuclear weapon? Blah, blah, blah, blah. Ukraine was deprived, by the way. And who will have the seat in the, it was USSR, the seat in the Security Council was belong to the Soviet Union. So who will inherit it?

and Russia, by a mix of intimidation, blackmail, and so on, corruption, took the cinch.

And there was never any legal process in the UN authorizing the shift from Soviet Union to Russia. If you look, make an investigation here in this house, go to the UN, ask for the documents of that time, ask for the minutes of a meeting of the General Assembly, ask for the trace of a vote.

endorsing, accepting this transfer of responsibility. It does not exist. You have no legal trace of Russia being member, by the way, of the UN. That's another story. But

of Russia occupying the seat of the Soviet Union. What I mean is that it could have gone to Kazakhstan, to Belarus, or to Ukraine. Well, especially to Ukraine because Ukraine was a member of the UN. Or to Ukraine. A campaign, if I had the energy and the organization you have, I would launch a campaign for

for the seat at the Security Council to go to Ukraine. Ukraine is entitled for that. Ukraine has a democratic culture and Russia has lost any rights, any legitimacy for sitting in the Security Council. This is a real point. It looks like a joke, but it is.

It is absolutely accurate. There's a bunch of, we have limited time, but I want to go through a bunch of things. I do want to explain to people why Ukraine had a seat in the UN, because at the time of the formation of the UN, the Soviet Union thought it would be outnumbered actually by its adversaries and wanted extra seats in the General Assembly. So now I probably need you to say just a few words about why it, and I would come back to this, why it is that

That Ukrainians are not Russians, that they are a different nationality. Obviously, there is overlapping of history. Kievan Rus historically, I mean, one could say Russia came out of Ukraine rather than the other way around in a certain way. But just say a few words about the independence and nationality of the Ukrainians and why they are not Russians any more than, say, Serbians are, who are also Slavs or Bulgarians.

We are an ancient nation, but we are a very young democracy. Because only after the collapse of the Soviet Union, we have a chance to restore our independence. And for centuries, Ukrainians have been fighting for independence. So it's a long-lasting story for us.

And that is why Putin openly says that there is no Ukrainian nation, there is no Ukrainian culture, there is no Ukrainian language. Russian propagandists openly say on Russian TV that Ukrainians have to be either reeducated as Russians or killed.

And that is why for 10 years we have been documenting how these words converted in horrible practice on the ground when Russian troops are deliberately exterminated active local people. Mayors, priests, journalists, children writers, teachers, businessmen, environmentalists, any active people of community. How they destroyed and robed Ukrainian cultural heritage.

And even when we speak about this kidnapping Ukrainian children to Russia,

Let's look deeply. These children were put in Russian re-education camps. They were told they are not Ukrainian children, they are Russian children, and then they're supposed to be adopted in Russian families? Who has to bring them up as Russians? It's a genocidal policy. We are a different nation, and if you go to any social survey, when Ukraine evaluates their values, they always put freedom in the first place in the hierarchy of values.

We're totally different from Russians, even from the value mindset. I don't claim to know who will be in the White House next year. I do think I can predict that whoever it is, is likely to say, we need a diplomatic solution, certainly to Ukraine. What's your feeling about the possibility of negotiating with Putin and coming to an agreement, a peace deal, a ceasefire? What's your...

People in Ukraine want peace much more than anyone else. But peace doesn't come when country which was invaded stop fighting. That's not peace, that's occupation. And Russian occupation is horrible. It's a war, but just in another form. Because Russian occupation means torture, rape.

Denial of your identity, enforced disappearances, forcible adoption of your own children, filtration camps and mass graves, and Ukrainians don't want all this stuff.

And we know for sure that Russia wants to restore the Russian Empire. This means that Russia doesn't want peace. Russia wants to achieve this historical goal. And we can't allow ourselves such wishful thinking that let's believe Russia, who betrayed multiple times all peaceful agreements in all different centuries. Like recently, when Russia occupied Crimea and eastern regions,

and conclude Minsk agreement, Ukraine has a zero chance to return these territories. But how Russia uses these eight years? Russia built powerful military base. Russia prepared their economy for the next wave of sanctions. Russia produced artillery shells, designed the plan of attack, and started large-scale war. So we can't afford this wishful thinking because the price is

It's our lives. The Biden administration seems to have almost as a mantra the phrase, don't want to escalate. Don't escalate. De-escalate. The problem with that is I think it ends up to be a euphemism for appeasement. Now, I understand, and maybe you should address this, that, okay, Biden is very fearful that he doesn't want to provoke Putin. So he's making the Ukrainians fight with one hand behind their back.

The Ukrainians can defend themselves, but they can't make this war real hard on Russians as it should be. By the way, the same with the Israelis. You can defend yourself from 300 missiles and drones coming from Iran, but don't escalate. Don't punish them for it. I think that's fatally flawed as a strategy. If you want to deter, you have to not just deny your enemy the ability to hurt you, but you have to hurt your enemy in exchange and you have to –

But address the idea that Putin using nuclear weapons and why everybody is so – and I'll just say this. If you agree that – and you let Putin establish that nuclear blackmail works, then China will use it and North Korea will use it and Iran will use it. Talk about that. You'll talk about – answer that as well and talk about the endgame here and then I promise I'll let you both go within five minutes.

President Reagan told about Soviet Union, that Soviet Union tried to govern the world not with nuclear weapon, but with a threat of nuclear weapon. And Russia continued this policy. And this put us in a very ridiculous situation, because we have the right of self-defense.

And we can't fulfill this right in a proper way. Like a boxer who came to the ring and his hands are tied under his back. And how it's resulted on the human ground. Let's speak about this dimension. It takes 42 seconds for Russia to hit a residential building in Kharkiv.

to hit hospital in Kharkiv, to hit school in Kharkiv. And when you have 42 seconds and your children in the school, you know for sure that 42 seconds is too less to hide in bomb shelter. And probably in 42 seconds, your children will be dead.

And that's why Ukraine have to get permission to strike back to these military facilities in Russia, from which Russia sent drones, airplanes and rockets to kill Ukrainian children, to hit hospitals, to hit churches, to hit residential buildings.

And final words, of course, people, a lot of things we didn't cover that I would like to cover. A lot of them are, of course, in your book, Israel Alone. People should read that book. But Israel needs is going to need to at some point strike back much harder, not just at the tentacles of the octopus, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, but at the head of the octopus. I'm stealing from Naftali Bennett, which is in Tehran and sleeps soundly at night in Tehran.

Although I think what the Israelis did in Lebanon, the grim beeper, as some are calling it, the exploding pagers, sends a message to Tehran. We know where you are. We know what you have on your belt. We can get you to it. And that may come. At least it makes them a bit nervous about what's to come. And I hope the Israelis...

I hope, are planning for next steps. They can't just continue to fight defensively. They're going to have to go on offense at some point, it seems to me. Yes? My question is, what is the next step? Is it a two-state solution? I don't think so because I don't think Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, or Iran wants that. What does Israel have to do to end this war? My dear, the real point is what Alexandra said.

The real point in Ukraine and in Israel is that we have there two democracies. They are not authorized to win.

They are not authorized to win, period. They are authorized to defend themselves, like Nicaragua or like any country in the world, like Liechtenstein, but they are not authorized to win. I was on the battlefield for, during two years, for three films in Ukraine.

I saw, I was among the soldiers, I was in the trenches, I have some experience, I saw exactly the weapons which we, the West, delivered to Ukrainians. We delivered them with a subtle dosage. We delivered just what they need not to die,

but not what they would need to prevail. This is the exact calculation which the free, the supposed free world does regarding Ukraine. Enough not to disappear, but not enough in order to win, which means that we have today some democracies with a sort of Munich spirit ever,

where we are betting on the war forever. We are betting, we are making possible the martyrdom of children, of families, forever. The only way to get out of this war, there is only one way, no compromise, no negotiation. It is capitulation of Putin. That's it. When you are in front of such a guy, when you are in front of such a system,

There is no common language possible. It's impossible. You say ceasefire. Ceasefire would only make the war even worse within two or three years when Putin reinforces his system, buys more weapons from North Korea and so on. Putin must be treated like Hitler was in 1945. Capitulation. For Hamas and Iran, same thing.

I see that the Biden administration pleads for a ceasefire in Gaza, asks the Israelis not to enter in Rafah. What does it mean? It means that Hamas should remain in charge.

It means that Hamas people should become heroes of the Palestinian people and champions of the Arab world. And it would mean again for Iran and Russia a huge victory and for you, America, and for us, Europeans, a huge moral defeat. So same then for Ukraine. There is one option.

in this situation, which is capitulation. Capitulation of Hamas, humiliation of Hezbollah, and retreat

and hope, I hope, change of regime in Iran. That is the only option. When you have these sort of wars, the war in Ukraine and the war against Israel are not normal war. They are not just war with, you know, a dispute about territory. It is war. That's what I said at the beginning of this conversation. They are war of annihilation.

They are words of extermination. The target in the two cases is death.

It will not work. They will never genocide the Ukrainian people and they will never genocide the Israeli people because both people are strong and proud and will prevail. But this is the intention. So when you have this sort of guy in front of you, one option, capitulation, period. I will only add this. I have to leave. You have to leave. I'm so moved to speak with you, Alex. We already met in a...

in Kyiv at the First Ladies and Gentlemen Summit. And it's my honor to sit with you and to have the discussion with you. Truly.

I'll add this one last point and let you both go. I agree with everything you say. We also need to understand that the Ukrainians and the Israelis are fighting a common enemy, members of this axis of aggressors, which I agree we should support our allies who are fighting our common enemies. And by the way, neither the Israelis nor the Ukrainians are saying you must sacrifice your soldiers. Just give us the weapons we need to get the job done.

BHL, if I may call you that. Thank you so much for being here. You're invited anytime. Alexandra, it's just an honor and a pleasure to meet you and great to talk to you. And thanks to all of you who have been with us for this conversation here today on Foreign Policy.

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