Unprecedented Attack on Israel …Ground Game Revealed by Military Officer/Strategist ~ Elliot Chodoff.

Unprecedented Attack on Israel …Ground Game Revealed by Military Officer/Strategist ~ Elliot Chodoff

With breaking news and political commentary from a public servant, serial entrepreneur, community leader, philanthropist, and American patriot, and a darn nice guy, it’s time for the GrassRoots TruthCast and your host, Gene Valentino.

Gene Valentino: Hi everybody and welcome to another episode of Gene Valentino’s GrassRoots TruthCast. I’m joined with Elliot Chadoff. Elliot is an Israeli defense force consultant on security and national security for the state of Israel as a consultant and advisor to the Israeli forces. and Israeli government in general.

Elliot, thank you for joining me at this very critical time. It’s a pleasure. Good to be back with you. Elliot, we met just a few months, a month and a half ago, it was around the 1st of [00:01:00] August. You were here in Pensacola, Florida. You were my guest on Gene Valentino’s GrassRoots TruthCast. We talked about your concern about and you warned us about Iran being an absolute power.

That could possibly take over the world, Israel, if not the United States. You warned about a complete political and terroristic type of meltdown because of changing standards and a lackadaisical attitude that was existing with the disciplines of authority and control over the management of our government.

You broadcast live with me right now at 6 a. m. Central time on October the 8th which is about 2 p. m. your time in Israel, where my understanding is you’re buried somewhere away in the northern portion of Israel not far from the West [00:02:00] Bank and not far from Lebanon. But the intensity of the activity today seems to be more towards the Gaza Strip in the southern portion of Israel.

As an officer, as a consultant, a man at the ready for Israel right now, where does it stand and what is going on at this moment?

Elliot Chodoff: Okay, well Gene, first of all, I think it’s important, you mentioned all those different areas and yes, I’m in the north. I’m actually in my, my office. My private office home far away in Gaza is a two hour drive.

So,

Gene Valentino: yeah, it’s relatively shorter. Yeah,

Elliot Chodoff: you know, the scale, the scale here is very, very different from the American scale of far away. The, the furthest north rockets that have fallen this week fell about a 45 minute drive from where I’m sitting now. So, it’s all [00:03:00] very close. In Israeli terms, it’s far away, but in real terms, it’s not.

The latest news is, in the context of this catastrophe is starting to look a little more positive. The army has reported that there are no more areas in Israel under control of Hamas. Places were taken, there was fighting going on as early as this morning, as late, as recently as this morning in places like Sderot and a couple of other villages.

And that’s been shut down. I will add, and they’ve put in a caveat as well, that doesn’t mean that every last terrorist who’s crossed the border is taken care of. They might still be hiding out in buildings and in open areas, and we’re likely to see, and this is my, my approach, my opinion, we’re likely to see flare ups on a small scale over the next few days as, as we find them or as they come out of hiding.

But on the scale of what we [00:04:00] saw a couple of days ago, it’s essentially been reduced to zero. The,

Gene Valentino: Elliot, you mentioned, you mentioned it reduced to zero, but I’m seeing that Israel is sending over 100, 000 troops. Wait a minute.

Elliot Chodoff: That’s, that’s the, that’s the next phase. Okay. We are now preparing for a major ground offensive.

In Gaza, the Air Force has been striking ever since Saturday and it continues to today. We’re talking about thousands of targets being hit by the Air Force. But I will tell you first of all, as a military professional and as a ground forces officer, the Air Force, much as I love those boys and girls, they don’t finish the job.

The job is finished on the ground. And we’ve called up at this point some 300, 000 reservists and they’re still being called. This, there are no military secrets here that I’m going to give away. We have four divisions [00:05:00] poised to go into Gaza.

Gene Valentino: Near Sderot at the north. Around

Elliot Chodoff: Sderot and all the way down to the Egyptian border.

Again, Gaza is a very, very small area, heavily populated, but a small area. And four divisions is the, if we’re, if for those who are not familiar with the size of military units. We’re talking about something in the order of 50, 40 to 50, 000 combat troops that are poised to go in. And my guess is that is going to happen sometime in the, within the next 24 hours.

And I would say on the shorter end of that, not on the long run.

Gene Valentino: Elliot, you’re first, you’re up close and personal with not only the intelligence related to military strategy, but you’re also a consequence of the policy that’s supposed to be enacted. Thank you. Fair enough so far? Fair, absolutely. Okay.

We all are. What is… Yes, indeed. What’s your knowledge [00:06:00] of the direct American impact now that we see Americans at least four Americans as hostage, probably more, not to mention others dead. Not to mention your 700 that are dead. What do you anticipate America’s direct involvement with Israel to be in

Elliot Chodoff: this event?

Okay, so first of all, the number 700 is passé. The hints, they haven’t officially stated it. is that the number is over 1, 000 killed so far. And I’m going to guess that that number is going to go higher. That’s just the nature of official countings and estimates. I would say that the American involvement in this is powerful but indirect.

In other words, it’s, it’s not, there are certain actions and for example, the, the handing over of 6 billion to, to Iran recently certainly has an impact. But not in [00:07:00] the direct sense that that money greatly enhanced Qamas’s capabilities now. It was too recent, okay? In other words, the money that Iran got from the United States happened too recently for that to have been a major driving force behind this operation.

This operation’s been in planning for two years.

Gene Valentino: Well, it was accused of being part and parcel of it, not, but there is other direct or indirect sources of funding outside that six billion. For

Elliot Chodoff: sure. Iran is funding Hamas. Iran funds Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah is part of the Iranian the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran.

So they’re funding terrorism across the region, the Houthis in Yemen, militias in Syria and Iraq. There’s plenty of money to go around, but let’s understand a few things. The six billion that went to Iran gave them more of a moral boost in the short term. In the long term, it’s gonna, it’s gonna come back and hurt [00:08:00] all of us.

But in the short term, much more of a moral boost than an actual… Material one, simply because it hasn’t happened long enough ago for it to be translated from cash into operational capability. We’re going to see that and feel it six months down the road, a year down the road. That’s first and foremost. It gives them a huge slush fund to generate terrorism around the world, not just, not just in the region.

Let’s also keep in mind The terrorist actions, even on the scale that we saw this week on Saturday, is very, very cheap. We’re talking about guys in pickup trucks, hang using hang gliders, carrying AK 47 assault rifles, RPGs this is cheap warfare. I’m I would be surprised if the cost of this whole operation on their part came to more than the value of one or two tanks, [00:09:00] okay?

So so, the money The money in and of itself is only a very small part. It’s a part. Obviously you need money. You need it for equipment. You need it to pay salaries. You need it for all sorts of things to build infrastructure. But I wouldn’t focus on the huge amount of money on that in the specific sense.

As I said, I think it did have two effects. One is it gave the Iranians a great cover, a great sense that America is weak vis a vis Iran. And I’ll come back to that in a moment because I think that is significant. And it also gives them the ability to plan strategically over the next year or two or three.

Now they’ve got the money in their pocket to do a whole different level of planning. It’s significant that this was done by Hamas and not by Hezbollah because Iran is willing to waste Hamas. It’s not willing to waste

Gene Valentino: Hezbollah. But, but I understand the stockpiles with Hezbollah to the north are huge.

Are, are [00:10:00] thousands of weapons of Hundreds,

Elliot Chodoff: hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands, not thousands, hundreds of thousands. And we are interdicting them every night, convoys in Syria that our air force is taking out on a nightly basis. But they’re building up potential, they’re, they have not launched an attack in conjunction with Hamas.

I’m not saying they won’t. I, if I had to bet, I would bet no, but I wouldn’t bet a lot of money on it. My

Gene Valentino: friend, you’re a long bike ride to that border where those thousands of missiles are, from outside the window

Elliot Chodoff: behind you. I’m, I’m a 12 minute flight. I’m sorry, 12 second flight of those missiles to my house.

Gene Valentino: Is the Iron Dome in place to protect up your area as well?

Elliot Chodoff: The Iron Dome is in place. The Iron Dome is not going to work as we see. It’s not working in the south. The Iron Dome is incredible technology, [00:11:00] but, and I want to talk a bit about technology in general about what’s happened over the past few days.

It’s incredible technology, it’s near miraculous technology, but it’s easily defeated by flooding it with cheap weapons, what we would call in sports, flooding the zone. There’s a limit to how many batteries, there’s a limit to how many interceptors, there’s a limit to how many targets it can lock on, and if Hamas is firing 12 rockets, Iron Dome can deal with it.

If Hamas is firing 300 rockets, Iron Dome can only deal with the first 10 or 12. And Hezbollah even worse. Did,

Gene Valentino: Elliot, did Ukraine offer weapons to Iran, ergo Hamas or Hezbollah in any way, shape or form from your intelligence sources point of view?

Elliot Chodoff: None whatsoever. In this one, I think the lines have to be very, very clearly stated and [00:12:00] seen.

Iran and Russia are in cahoots. Russia actually came out in support of Iran and obliquely in support of Hamas this week, and Ukraine came out solidly on the side of Israel. So, Don’t forget Iran is supplying Russia with drones that are being used against Ukraine and Ukraine is in its own mess. And without getting into that whole story, they’re not really in a position to start giving weapons to anybody else.

They’re weapons short, nano short on their own. Well, then

Gene Valentino: are they coming? Is Russia, have you identified from the fire that’s already occurred, any of that being Russian made? Look,

Elliot Chodoff: almost all the weapons that have been used against us now, the small arms, are all Russian AK 47s and RPGs. If not made in Russia, certainly Russian design because the AK 47 is made in lots of different places [00:13:00] today.

It’s, it’s Russian style equipment. The rockets are either homemade in Gaza, and when I say homemade, I mean, I mean in workshops, not, not in people’s backyards. Or they’re from Iraq. And the rockets themselves are also originally Russian designed Katyusha rockets. So virtually everything that we’re facing in terms of combat value is of Russian origin, at least in design, if not manufacture.

Gene Valentino: Getting past that, and I do want to come back to it, here’s something I see we have in parallel. The Americans right now dealing politically with their own internal strife, political dissension. And the impotence of a leader the gridlock that’s occurring in the House of Representatives to move Speaker McCarthy, which would have been in place to move Speaker McCarthy forward faster with help and support for Israel, is missing right now because he’s not there.

And then you have [00:14:00] Prime Minister Netanyahu if I may, correct me if I’m wrong, but caught up in a political Firestorm of his own. Yes. I see something very admirable going on in Israel. I see, hey, you and I may have differences, but let’s lock arms right now and solve this problem. Right. Protect Israel.

Good for Israel to do that. I wish we did that to the same degree here in the States, but you know, we were standing down and we were going to be at aid and assistance to you because this was, we want, Israel wanted to handle it. However, we see American lives lost, not to the degree or percentage, relatively, as you’ve suffered, but we see now Americans being taken down as well.

We see innocent people in a concert in the open areas near the Gaza Strip being massacred, as you said, with amateur ultralights of different sorts coming in and landing and killing these And Innocent party goers in [00:15:00] the open, open field. I, I, I’m, I’m concerned about the policy that you’re directing Israel.

Are you prepared to go all the way and take out Iran, not to mention Hamas?

Elliot Chodoff: Okay. So first of all let me go back to something that you said, because I think it’s very important. The perceived weakness of the United States on the part of Iran in part because of the administration, in part because of all sorts of things have gone on for decades in America.

It’s not just, this didn’t just start yesterday. But if you add to that the, the conflict that’s going on in Congress, I think it’s all part of the strategic backdrop. In addition, I think that they made a, an enormous strategic error. And it’s one that I can understand, and I can even explain it, in thinking that the mass demonstrations in Israel against Netanyahu and the government and the [00:16:00] judicial reform would play out the way demonstrations would play out in Iran if an invader launched an attack during that period.

If There were an attack on Iran during a massive demonstration period like, like we’ve seen over the past few months in Israel. Those demonstrators would probably join the attackers to try to overthrow the government. What happened here is that the minute the attack started, the demonstrations ended.

Everybody, you know, there was a whole movement, we’re not going to serve in the reserves because as part of the protest disintegrated, it evaporated instantaneously. Everybody showed up for reserve duty. The demonstrators, demonstration leaders themselves made a public statement that everybody should show up for reserve duty.

And all of a sudden this attack took an extremely divided Israel and unified it in [00:17:00] enlightening speed. Which I think they didn’t anticipate. I’m sure they didn’t anticipate. And now they’re surprised that it unified Israel. Now to your question about going after Hamas and going after Iran. First, first things first.

If we let Hamas off the hook in any way, shape, or form, the leadership of this country is bankrupt. Okay. Can I

Gene Valentino: say, can I say specifically is this going to be America’s Vietnam? Are you going to be, are you going to get in there and decisively put actions in place in the next two hours, two days, two weeks?

Or are we talking 10 years like Vietnam?

Elliot Chodoff: No. So first of all, we don’t have that kind of time. Remember, this is A reserve military, I mentioned 300, 000 have been called up. Remember, this is a country with a population of about 10 million people, men, women, children, elderly, everybody. 300, 000 men, primarily, some women, but [00:18:00] primarily men, being called up from civilian life and put into the military means that the economy of this country is coming to a screeching halt.

Okay, in other words, a stopwatch has been started, and we can’t sit around for weeks figuring out what we want to do with ourselves and what we want to be when we grow up. This has got to be an operation, as I mentioned before, my belief is that it’s going in the, within the next 24 hours, and I think that’s, that’s a long estimate.

I’d be very surprised if it’ll be that long. And it’s an operation that has to be over in days, not weeks. Now when I say days, I’m not saying two or three or five, it might take a week, it might take 10 days. It’s a time frame that will be measured in counting days, not in counting weeks.

Gene Valentino: It’s October 9th, 2023, so you’re talking [00:19:00] about some time here before the end of October.

Yes.

Elliot Chodoff: I think if we’re still messing around in Gaza… By the middle of November, this operation will be a failure. Do you,

Gene Valentino: Do you anticipate heavy forces coming in of Israel, Israeli forces, or are you anticipating the help of the United States with, I’d call, heavy forces?

Elliot Chodoff: No. First of all, we have more than enough force.

Israel’s policy has always been, and I’m a staunch advocate of this, we will do our own fighting. What we want from our friends, and primarily our, our, our main friend in the world, which is the United States, we’re way beyond allies, I think, is cover our backs, provide us with the wherewithal, and with all due respect, get out of

Gene Valentino: our way.

I’m very concerned that the extraction of hostages that [00:20:00] are in place now has obviously, the speed at which you move must be tied to the speed at which the extraction of hostages occurs if you’re going in there to obliterate them.

Elliot Chodoff: That would be in a perfect world. I am afraid that that’s not going to be, and I say afraid because I, I think it’s, it’s the only way to do it.

The hostages have to be protected as best possible, but within the context of a military operation. In other words, if the military goes in there primarily to rescue hostages, it will fail.

Gene Valentino: I believe you are absolutely correct. My only concern is what role did we, if we’re your friend, which is more than an ally, did we screw up, Elliot?

Did the Biden administration get too close to Iran? Did, were we soft peddling our negotiations with them, which gave license to [00:21:00] them to move with more confidence and speed and deliberation against Israel? Yes,

Elliot Chodoff: I believe so. Any, any. Even the slightest moral assistance you give to a murderous, fascist style regime will always have disproportionate impact on their behavior.

Because they’ll take even the slightest hint of weakness or support or cozying up as saying, okay, they’re giving us free reign to do anything we want. And I would say that can, that certainly contributes to it. But I, but I think we need to be clear on something. They are the epitome. The, the, the textbook example of evil in the world today and the best we can do is mitigate it [00:22:00] and ultimately eradicate it.

You cannot negotiate with evil on that

Gene Valentino: scale. We agree. The question is response and proportion. I don’t, I think Israel has been very effective in, in the past with proportionate responses. Yes. Is it possible? Whether Iran actually has the nuclear bomb in place now, is it possible, is it probable, that Israel will use nuclear, put a nuclear response in place to eradicate it literally like we did with the the atomic bomb over Japan?

I wouldn’t

Elliot Chodoff: rule it out. I don’t think that that’s the preferred option. First of all, I don’t, I don’t believe that Iran has a deliverable nuclear device at the moment. But if we want to go forward in the hypothetical, and [00:23:00] I’ve said this for years, for decades, that if Iran does ever have a nuclear weapons delivery capability.

In other words, the weapon and the delivery system, the likelihood of nuclear war goes up to near certainty, and not necessarily because they’re going to use it first. Because at the point that you’re threatened with nuclear weapons I have a number of iron laws. One of them is never strike a nuclear adversary and miss.

And nuclear weapons give you the, the ability To reduce your miss factor considerably to near

Gene Valentino: zero, basically. What is your take on the status of the citizens? How are Israeli citizens doing?

Elliot Chodoff: On the one hand, I think there’s a wave of understandable depression running through the country. On the other hand, morale [00:24:00] is very high.

In other words, it’s, it’s the kind of depression that you get when you, when you get hit in the face and you, you know, you’re, you’re still shaking it off and like, where did that come from? And how did that happen? But it’s not on a level of, Oh my God, now what are we going to do now? It’s okay. Now it’s time to pack up, go to, go to the service.

The volunteers are stepping in where, you know, people have been called up. My wife now is baking cookies for the children of families in our community whose fathers are called up to service. In other words, there’s a huge civilian stepping in as well. But there’s, it’s a, it’s a, there’s a bitter determination.

We can’t afford to lose this one and we’re not going to.

Gene Valentino: Yeah. Well, that, that, you know, the past peace treaties going back to Clinton and, and Carter that set the, set the Gaza Strip in place for occupation, a big compromise for Israel right on your board, right on your waterfront there. I mean, my [00:25:00] words it, it, it, it, it.

If mass annihilation of Hamas and Iran are in place, and that’s the mission, it doesn’t seem that a ground game alone is going to do it. That’s my point about nuclear.

Elliot Chodoff: Ah, okay. So first of all, once again, I think we have to separate. A ground game alone will take care of Hamas. It’s going to be messy. It’s going to be bloody.

We’re, I think that people are not fully understanding. That what used to be proportional response has completely changed the proportions. They murdered a thousand people on Saturday, men, women, children, elderly. They went into people’s homes. They wiped out families. They’ve taken the official number is 150.

I’m going to place it at closer to 250 hostages. Once again, men, women, children. I don’t know how graphic you want me to go on this, but [00:26:00] rape, mutilation we’re talking about. Seriously, utterly barbaric, disgusting behavior that is… Off the charts of civilization.

Gene Valentino: Yeah, we saw some stuff coming through on social media, and we know it was tempered.

We could also see some ladies who were seriously victimized, bloodied, and moving from vehicle to vehicle by these animals. Yes, correct. The…

Elliot Chodoff: Oh no, no, don’t insult, don’t

Gene Valentino: insult animals. Don’t insult animals. It’s barbaric by any standard. And so you gave a number before, 1, 000 people dead, up from 700.

Correct. And you’re talking 250. These are my estimates. Estimates involving the

Elliot Chodoff: hostages people, or hostages. Let’s put it this way. The official, the official number is one 50, but there are over 250 total that are considered missing. And my. estimate is that the majority of those missing are [00:27:00] in Gaza unaccounted

Gene Valentino: for.

Folks, we’re talking with Elliot Chadov. He’s with Israeli Defense Forces. He serves as a consultant and an advisor to the Israeli government. He has dual citizenship, both here in America from New York and Illinois, Chicago area. And return to Israel where he’s talking from in the northern lands of Israel.

And as he accurately points out you know only 40 miles away from him is a border of Lebanon where Over 2000 rockets are poised and aimed toward his home. Two,

Elliot Chodoff: two,

Gene Valentino: 200,000, excuse me, 200,000. Rockets are poised to aim toward Israel and and to his home. What you see in view right now Elliot, what that, that drives back to my point, decisive, impactful response to over to, to, to thwart this extreme [00:28:00] level of of, of force against you pointed at you must involve a level of response that’s that’s unprecedented.

Again, so nuclear is still in the, a nuclear response is possible.

Elliot Chodoff: Not to Gaza. Gaza doesn’t require that.

Gene Valentino: So you think the forces of Israel will quickly annihilate the the the, the force, the, the Hamas forces in Gaza. And to your point earlier, there’s a little bit of, of sensitivity toward the the human condition of number of civilians that you’re trying to eliminate minimize the The loss of.

Yes. Where is this going from Netanyahu’s point of view? Does he, does he expect, does he have any specific expectations Prime Minister Netanyahu of America in their, in how we collaborate with you in this response? [00:29:00] Absolutely.

Elliot Chodoff: First of all, let me interject something because you introduced me in a way that I want to clarify.

I am a reserve officer with the IDF. Right now, when I’m dressed like this in civilian clothes, I speak for myself, not for them, and I don’t represent the system. And I don’t want that to be misunderstood. I’m not speaking in any official capacity. Having said that, As I said earlier, I think that what we need from America now, and Netanyahu has spoken to President Biden at least a couple of times, and I know that there have been other conversations on very high levels between Israeli officials and their American counterparts, is, one, to cover our back, because the UN is already making noise about the suffering in Gaza as a result of the Israeli actions.

The UN is, it’s not so concerned about a thousand Israelis getting murdered, but, you know, but, but Palestinians in Gaza is under their, under their bailiwick. [00:30:00] And there’s no question that within a very short period of time, certainly as soon as we go in there in force on the ground, the UN Security Council and the Human Rights Council and all of their councils are going to start holding meetings and to condemn Israel’s aggression and disproportionate response and killing civilians and all of that.

So. The Security Council is the only one that really matters, and there America has a veto. America has often vetoed anti Israel resolutions in a council, but not all the time. And making clear up front that it’s going to, that the United States is standing with Israel, meaning it is going to keep the UN off Israel’s back, is a major, major important step that Israel needs from the United States.

There’s also America announced they’re moving an aircraft carrier close to Israel’s shores. Now, it’s symbolic. But it’s important symbolism. It shows that [00:31:00] America’s willing to move a major naval unit, because an aircraft carrier isn’t just one ship, it’s a carrier task force, close to Israel’s shores in solidarity.

As we mentioned earlier, symbols matter, signals matter. These are important signals. And last but not least, if we go in, when we go in modern warfare has a voracious appetite for Equipment and ammunition. And we’re going to need support from the United States on that because we frankly can’t manufacture

Gene Valentino: it fast enough.

You also had another symbol that’s also very important is the one you’ve established with Jordan. You made peace with Jordan and then more recently about almost near conclusion, very optimistic from your prime minister, was the success you were having with Saudi Arabia. And with two wins in your scorecard, I can see why Iran, ergo Hamas, [00:32:00] today, Hezbollah tomorrow, I can see why they launched some sort of response to you immediately.

To you, I don’t really see from a State Department point of view, how Saudi Arabia would buckle and say, this child’s play. Is child’s play. We’re not going to let that thwart the good deal we’re putting together with Israel. What do you say about that?

Elliot Chodoff: In the grand scale, I agree with that. But in the net, in the, in the short term, remember the Arab world in general is cheering this.

The Muslim world is cheering this. They love seeing Israeli bodies being dragged through the streets of Gaza. They’re, they’re cheering in the streets. And the Saudi government has to be sensitive. to its own people’s opinion, and if it’s played up the way it’s being played up in the Arab world, I don’t think it’ll [00:33:00] cancel any sort of an agreement that’s in potential, but I, it’ll certainly delay it.

There’s, there, it’s unlikely, I can’t say no way, but it’s unlikely that Saudi Arabia or any other Arab country could stand up the following day and say, okay, now, now we’re gonna, gonna make a deal with Israel. I don’t know if you remember a

Tunisian foreign minister met with the Israeli foreign minister in Italy and the word got out and she was immediately drummed out of office. She had to flee the country. The impact of that was such that when there was the massive earthquake in Morocco, Morocco refused help from Israel. Because the Moroccan government was afraid that if it accepted help from Israel, they would be rioting in the streets there.

In other words, the impact of this across the boards of the Arab world has to be taken into full account, not just what the leaders would like. [00:34:00]

Gene Valentino: Do you find that there is but, but, but, but let’s face it, the new generation of Saudis, is aware that they’re going to have to play in a bigger league, in a bigger economy, in a bigger community, and these isolated kingdoms are not going to be as while they hold on to their culture like most nations do, there’s got to be a new generation of integration or interfacing going on with these different cultures throughout the world.

Isolation only breeds contempt. And if you notice, Hamas and Hezbollah are very isolated in their culture and in their training from the reality of what’s going on in the world. I mean, some don’t even know there’s been a man that’s landed on the moon. They have no cognition of any of that stuff, let alone an Iron Dome.

Elliot Chodoff: On the population level, that’s true. Don’t underestimate the leadership. [00:35:00]

Gene Valentino: My un no, you are correct. Keep the, keep the, keep the PLE side dumb and stupid. That’s right. And I, as the leader will, will be in charge. Exactly. I, I, I I’m amazed at how how audacious they are and how, how how threatening they are.

They come to the United Nations right here in New York and, and threaten Americans. On American soil. I find that so, and our leadership, the Biden administration, just rolls over and looks the other way like the statement didn’t matter. A lot of the Democrats in our Congress actually look the other way as we did some amelioration with the, not only the The Saudis, but really the Muslims, the Iranians and Iraqians we, we did things that gave them the feeling that it was okay for them to move in this direction and you’re the victim for it of it.

[00:36:00] And for that, I apologize. I think our stupidity in the United States led up to some of your problem. And in the same sentence, we say you’re, we’re your allies and close friends. I can see why you might say you want to go it alone. Any comment?

Elliot Chodoff: Well, I always say, God save me from my friends. I know how to deal with my enemies.

Even, even friends can have different sort of narrow interests. They can have disagreements over philosophy. I don’t think there’s any question part of Israel’s policies toward Hamas over the past decade and a half. which were much softer than they should have been, were in part because of American, I’m going to call it intervention more than pressure.

You know, in other words, not a direct threat, but more like, you know, we would like it if you didn’t cause [00:37:00] too much destruction.

Gene Valentino: Yeah, it’s a friendly suggestion that allies and friends do with each other that’s normally not able to, it’s not a conversation with adversaries. No.

Elliot Chodoff: And, but that has had an impact and it’s had a cumulative impact that brought us to the point of this week where the Israeli government, and there was an intelligence failure here, there’s no doubt about it.

I think its impact is overstated, but total intelligence failure. In other words, nobody saw this coming, who should have. But an Israeli government’s attitude was, well, we’ve issued more work permits for Gazans in Israel than we ever have before. Their economy is doing well. We’re providing them with electricity.

We’re providing them with, with medical goods. We have an open import. policy they can bring into Gaza, pretty much anything they want. Why on earth would they want to ruin all of that by attacking us? And that’s, that’s the [00:38:00] flaw in the thinking, that why on earth? Because it starts from a very understandable place.

If I were them, I wouldn’t do that. Well, guess what? You’re not them.

Gene Valentino: Well, if I may, Elliot, how did Israel miss the arms and munitions buildup?

Elliot Chodoff: Okay, so we didn’t miss that. We didn’t miss that. Any, any intelligence estimates, I don’t know what a strategic estimate, is ultimately based on two factors. I’m oversimplifying, but it boils down to this.

It’s capabilities and intentions. And we know their capabilities, more or less. We certainly didn’t know their material capabilities. We totally misread their intentions and misread them on a grand scale. Now part of that also, and I can tell you, I’ve, I’ve studied strategic surprise As part of my, my strategic studies, Pearl Harbor, the Yom Kippur War of 50 years ago, 9 [00:39:00] 11, and they are almost all accompanied or preceded by a surprised side saying, they wouldn’t dare

Gene Valentino: do that.

Nuclear. They wouldn’t dare do it. Right. That’s my point when I asked you earlier. The

Elliot Chodoff: Japanese wouldn’t dare attack our fleet in Pearl Harbor. And guess what? They dare. I personally, when I hear they wouldn’t dare, I say, all right, where’s my helmet? You know, because they dare, they do. And they dared, they dared beyond anybody’s estimates.

And we failed. We, we simply, frankly, failed. On the ground.

Gene Valentino: Was America part and parcel of that failure? Could we have done more to help you?

Elliot Chodoff: No, I don’t think so. Was this strictly

Gene Valentino: Israeli intelligence with specifics at the border? It wasn’t just intelligence.

Elliot Chodoff: It was intelligence plus doctrine. We have, and by the way, this is a problem I think that’s common to us and America, and it’s one that I have argued against also [00:40:00] for decades.

We over relied on technology. We allowed technology to replace common sense. We put in a 1 billion dollar, super sophisticated fence barrier system, which they knocked down with tractors. We had highly sophisticated automatic firing systems along the border with sensors and computers and electronics and, and whatnot.

And they took them out with Simple drones and they blinded the entire Israeli front simultaneously with a bunch of drones. I don’t want to over, over exaggerate this, but that you could probably pick up and best buy for a few bucks. You know, we’re not talking about, you know, the super sophisticated high

Gene Valentino: tech stuff.

You’re talking about the smaller drones, not the military drones.

Elliot Chodoff: Exactly, they went, they went in with smaller drones, [00:41:00] they dropped munitions from them, but I’m talking about, you know, hand grenade sized munitions, onto the sensors of these super, super, super sophisticated high tech weapon systems, and knocked them out.

And what was missing were the infantry on the ground backing them up, so that when all the systems fail, you’ve got the guys there with the rifles and machine guns to do the job. There were tanks, but no tank

Gene Valentino: crews. Folks, we’re talking with Elliot Chadoff. He’s a political military consultant and strategic analyst for the for Israel.

He works on his own. He’s also a a what do you call it? A volunteer? A a non reserve officer. You’re a reserve officer with the with the Israeli IDF. And You know, I picked up from this interview today, oh, hundreds of thousands of rockets at the ready to the northern border. It’s not about just what’s in the Gaza [00:42:00] Strip and Hamas attacking.

No. We’ve got Hamas in Israel’s sights right now. That’s what I picked up. With respect to getting our getting our hostages out of there first, American and So that Israel can exercise its true intentions in short order. Elliot talks about two days, two weeks, but not a month. I hope you hope yes.

And we also hear about the fact that there’s over a thousand that have been killed. Now the number is no longer 700 and thousands more injured that are unaccounted yet. Elliot. What really drives me to this point in the discussion is the fact that I’ve used this term with you on past interviews when you were here in Pensacola and that’s the deep state issue.

To what extent is this a deep state issue that’s pervasive now on a world level? [00:43:00] Is there some deep state world order that America’s being impacted by? We talked about our southern border. There’s a lot of people here screaming that Don’t talk to us anymore about taxes to fund Ukraine when you can’t take care of our own southern border, and now here we are putting billions of dollars mobilizing to help Israel, which I’d prefer to do before Ukraine in the first place.

Your comment.

Elliot Chodoff: Okay, so first of all, I don’t know if I would call it deep state, but I’ll go with the term, for lack of a better one. I don’t think, I don’t see it in terms of a world order. Organization or conspiracy. What I do see, and I think it’s, it’s common and goes back in almost every system is that the deep state impact of ossified thinking.

In other words, you’ve got people [00:44:00] who, first of all, bring in people of their own type to replace them. In other words, the system regenerates itself. They see the world in a very specific and narrow way, and they are going to, for their, their own, what they consider to be the benefit of all, they’re going to do things the way they see is right.

And this goes back many, many, decades in the United States. And I think in, in any country with, with Any longevity to it. Call it the civil service, the high, you know, the high end of the civil service system. These are the people who really make the day to day decisions and they have a huge impact on the decisions made higher up because quite frankly they’re the ones doing the briefings.

You know, it’s not obvious and here I don’t want to get into the American politics of who’s sitting in the Oval Office, but whoever’s in the Oval Office doesn’t know everything. The person sitting in the Oval Office knows what they’re told by [00:45:00] their briefers. That’s

Gene Valentino: true. You’re only as good as the folks around you.

Elliot Chodoff: That’s right. So your, your briefers have, meaning your staff and your staff officers in the military, have enormous power over directing what decisions are going to be made, and then ultimately enormous power over how those decisions will be implemented. Because very often decisions coming from on high are not specific in terms of do it this way, there’s, they’re on the level of do it, take care of it.

So, I think that the system in America has decided that the southern border should not be closed for whatever reason, and I don’t want to go into the, the reasons can as in most of these things, from the naive to the nefarious so, you know, I, I don’t want to nail that one down, but, but it’s, it’s there.

I’ll also say that, that in terms of what, what you talked about [00:46:00] in terms of funding the southern border versus Ukraine versus Israel frankly, America has enough, enough money to do all of it. We’re, we’re not talking about, you know, huge sums. Considering the American budget overinflated as it might

Gene Valentino: be.

Let me tell you what I do know. Whatever it’s going to cost us to fund whether it’s the southern border or Israel, it’ll be less than what we dropped off on pallets of cash under the Obama administration on the tarmac in Iran and Iraq. Yes. That I agree with you. We, it was six the hundreds billions of dollars empowered them at a period of time.

I don’t understand why this happened. It’s as much before I point the finger at you and blame you for the wrongdoing. I’m reminded I got three or four fingers pointing back at me. I better do an analysis on what happened here first. And I think that’s what makes us good friends. Israel [00:47:00] looks at themselves first and sees what they can do better before they go pointing the finger anywhere else.

Even during this crisis, I’ve noticed that. And I’ve really, I’m very proud of you, Elliot and Israel in general, for the way they’ve handled themselves during this crisis. A few humanitarian things. Do you have any websites or numbers you can give us to get some resources out to, that we can contribute and help with the resources?

Aid. I, I

Elliot Chodoff: don’t off the top of my head, but they’re easy enough to, to

Gene Valentino: find yeah, we can, we can Google them and yeah. There’s a one that was out on the news recently regarding blood bank issues and can’t, can’t deliver our blood, I don’t think from here to there. No, but we can certainly contribute money.

That’s support. Yeah, we can, we can financially support.

Elliot Chodoff: That’s the Red Magen David or the Magen David in Israel, which is the equivalent of our. American Red Cross. Huh. The Israeli version of that.

Gene Valentino: [00:48:00] As a, as a military, as a strategic consultant on military affairs right now without asking you to compromise anything you have underway, Can I get you to, like, confirm or deny my following points?

You’re focusing on Hamas and Gaza today and the hostages. Tomorrow you’re talking about the complete eradication of Hamas in Israel and, might I add, the taking back of the Gaza Strip. That the Gaza Strip becomes impotent as a separate governing entity and becomes part of the Jewish the, the Israeli state.

Elliot Chodoff: Not necessarily. Taking it over militarily, I would say virtual certainty. Keeping it as a whole different story. It involves a very large, hostile population that we don’t want to incorporate into our [00:49:00] citizenry. Controlling them is, over any, any length of time, will be very, very difficult, if not impossible but certainly taking it over and cleaning it out of its military capability, its radical capability, you know, there are no permanent solutions on this level but if, but a long term one is certainly Reasonable to expect.

Well,

Gene Valentino: we talked about, we talked about what has been in the news worldwide, and that is an unprecedented response by Israel to take back the the Jewish state as, as we’ve known it from days gone by. And I’m concerned even back to the crises that Golda Meir was handling just a generation ago, that we go back to that what she was fighting for and everything that was at that time was pr was before [00:50:00] Israel had agreed to the establishment of a Palestinian Gaza Strip and that, that Gaza Strip, or Gaza, has has been the source, why feed, why pour more gas on the fire and let it exist?

How about that for a question?

Elliot Chodoff: Okay. Okay. Because. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t. But in our imperfect world, it leaves open the question of how do you rule a hostile population of, let’s say, one and a half million people. Let’s be clear. We are not willing to be Nazi type occupiers. They weren’t terribly successful, but we’re certainly not willing to do

Gene Valentino: that.

You mean as they’ve done to you?

Elliot Chodoff: Well, first of all, let’s be honest. If we become like them,

Gene Valentino: they win. Well, I didn’t suggest you become like them. No, no, no, you know what I’m saying. I know what you meant. You understand what I’m saying, right? What I’m saying [00:51:00] is the ground fight doesn’t really get you to the final win that I’m suggesting.

Okay,

Elliot Chodoff: so let’s take it one step at a time. The ground fight destroys the organization, scatters its survivors, destroys its infrastructure, destroys its military capability. If we succeed in that over the next few weeks, that will put us ahead of where we’ve been for the past 40 years. Okay. You know what?

That’s a reasonable step forward as far as I’m

Gene Valentino: concerned. But as a military analyst and expert, and I know you can’t speak to everything, my friend, we don’t want you to repeat history. Right? The problem, the Jews have been very good at reminding us about the Nazis and Hitler. That’s right. And let’s not repeat it.

We’ve got memorials up in several key places and venues to go visit to look at the atrocities of the [00:52:00] past. Do we, we don’t want this to be another venue memorial, somewhere to visit for atrocities of the past. I’m talking about the eradication of it, which it are terms used by Israel, not me. So once

Elliot Chodoff: again, you can eradicate an organization, you know, that, let me, let me use the your, your Nazi analogy analogy, ’cause I think it’s a good one.

Nazi Germany was defeated in May, 1945. Nazim was not. Good point. Accepted. Yeah. It’s still around. It’s coming back. We’ll get, at one point or another, we’re probably going to have to do it all over

Gene Valentino: again. Yeah. The human condition, we open ourselves up to a level of softness and I think these creep back into our our way of life.

And I suspect that’s where you’re going.

Elliot Chodoff: So I think if we can get a few decades of quiet out of it, what does it say in the scripture after, after [00:53:00] David finished his job? And the, and the land was quiet for 40 years. Okay. I’ll go, I’ll go with that.

Gene Valentino: Yeah, I, I hope, I hope we can, well, I guess I’m being too Pollyannish and hoping for more.

We, we need a state of a nation. We need a state of the world where there’s more respect for the different cultures within those different states and realizing we’re part of a more global community. It’s certainly economically, and with trade has always been the common bond, but But I, I, I’m concerned about people who are so brainwashed and controlled by their, and their minds, minds so controlled that their only purpose is to carry a bomb and walk into your living room and blow a, blow you up with no regard to their own life.

If that mentality is out there, not to mention the hundreds of Thousands of missiles pointing at you right now at the north. I, I’m concerned about a [00:54:00] measured response. I’m concerned about when do you dial it up? When does Israel think it’s appropriate to go to that uncalculable level to eradicate it completely forever?

Elliot Chodoff: Once again, I think forever is, is, it would be nice, but I think it’s optimistic. And I think that you, you ratcheted up. When you have no other choice. I think that that’s what makes us, and when I say us, I mean us Israelis, us Americans. What makes us different from the people we’re fighting. We don’t do it because we want to, we do it only because we have to, and we pay a price for that.

And I think it’s a price that we have to pay in order to be

Gene Valentino: who we are. I, I don’t know how, you’re a better man than me then, because you’re 40 miles away from a border that has, according to Jennifer Griffin on Fox News, over [00:55:00] hundreds of thousands of missiles pointing down at you. And clearly you’re in reach of those missiles.

And I. I don’t know how you sit there and say, I’ll just provide a measured response and bring it up a notch. I didn’t,

Elliot Chodoff: I didn’t, I didn’t say a measured response. Okay. Help me out. I, okay. I said the response that is necessary based on what is happening. In other words, if the measured response or the the, the appropriate response is the ultimate response, then that’s what it should be.

But if it doesn’t need to be that, then whatever is required, and I’ll use required rather than measured. What we’re about to do in Gaza, I believe, again we’ll see when the decision is actually made and the orders are given, is not going to be measured by any stretch of the imagination. The amount of Israeli military force that’s going to go into that area is going to be greater [00:56:00] in terms of concentration than what was used by by militaries in World War II.

Gene Valentino: So I, in that context, I, I, he, I now understand what you mean that nuclear is not off the table, but it’s measured.

Elliot Chodoff: It’s, until it’s required, it’s not used.

Gene Valentino: Okay. Okay. I gotta go back and make sure I’m using my vernacular correctly. To me, it’s measured. To me, it’s measured. I gotta make sure we’re look, look, I just don’t want to be, I don’t want to be reporting next week that Elliot Chadoff got hit with a missile from Lebanon and I can’t even talk to him because there was no measured response and my good buddy on this video interview is no longer available.

Elliot Chodoff: First of all, they’ve fired missiles at me before, so far they haven’t caught, gotten

Gene Valentino: me. God bless you, my friend. I, this is a historic time for America and, well, for Israel and America. It brings to light [00:57:00] governments, both governances, the, the, the importance of good leadership. in the ranks to make sure that we respond accordingly to these issues that are facing us from our adversaries.

Elliot Chodoff: Gene, if I may for a moment step away from the camera, I want to show you something.

Gene Valentino: Okay, go.

Let’s see where Elliot… Oh, here he is. You’re back.

Elliot Chodoff: This is a missile they fired at me once. Let me go full

Gene Valentino: screen.

Wow. Well, I have all sorts of…

Elliot Chodoff: What kind of missile is that? That is a Hamas fired Qassam rocket fired from Gaza when I was serving [00:58:00] down there. And let’s just say that I’m in better, better shape than the guys who fired it.

Gene Valentino: Can you hold it back up again? Can you, can you hold it back up?

Is this the focus here? Let it take a second to focus. And who made that missile? Hamas. Hamas themselves. Wow. And, and they’re not here to talk

Elliot Chodoff: about it. You know it’s Hamas because it’s green. Green is their color. I see.

Gene Valentino: It’s and they’re not here to talk about it, I can take

Elliot Chodoff: it. They were sent to a better place for all of us.

Gene Valentino: I see. And how long ago was that? In which war? That

Elliot Chodoff: was in two thousand and five or six.

Gene Valentino: Folks, we’re talking with [00:59:00] Elliot Chadoff, he’s a political and military consultant and analyst for the Israeli Defense Forces. He’s here on his own with us today, talking candidly about the issues of how Israel has been responding to this surprise attack from Hamas originating today in the Gaza Strip.

Elliot, what do you see, in recapping, what do you see the future here? What, what, what’s the, what’s your military plan of attack in the next two weeks to, to the extent to which you can reveal? And where do you, where do you see this going? Well,

Elliot Chodoff: let me start by saying that, that on, on the ancient and often repeated principle that no plan survives contact with the enemy.

Everything that I’m saying now is, is with that caveat within the, within the next less than a day, I [01:00:00] would say, I think that we are going to have a full scale ground invasion of Gaza. The purpose is to destroy Hamas as an organization, eliminate its military capability, and that will require a huge amount of force, a huge amount of violence I don’t believe that we are going to show the…

particular care that we’ve shown in the past. They, they, they’ve crossed all the lines in the last few days and we’re, we just, the lines just aren’t there anymore.

Gene Valentino: My observation, my observation is that you’re so calm and resolute about something that has such serious historic significance and impact to your country, your, your neighborhood, your family.

Where does it come from? I see such a calm or a deliberation[01:01:00] within you. To me, a military person might be a little bit pumped up with a few extra Red Bulls and you know, jittery, ready to go into action. Oh, it’s coffee. It’s coffee here as well.

Elliot Chodoff: Yeah. Look, I’ve, I’ve been an officer since 1985.

I’m, I’m a little old. To get terribly excited by this but I think most of us at this point and I’ve spoken to, to friends of mine who are, who are up now much, much closer to the front and colleagues, there is a resolution. You, you, you have to be resolved to do it am I, am I going to tell you that there’s no anger?

Trust me, we’re angry, we’re furious, but you put that on a low, slow burn, because if you let your emotions run control your actions, you’re going to make mistakes, and mistakes are going to get people killed. Yes. Who [01:02:00] shouldn’t be getting killed. That’s true. So, so there’s a point where you just sort of, you know, crank that down, say, okay, it’s there, the burn is there, but now we have to settle down and do what we need to do professionally, with discipline, with resolution, as we said and get the job done.

Because that’s

Gene Valentino: really what’s needed. And professionally, what’s the news headline for tomorrow? Wow. Israel invades Gaza. Do you see it do you see it as a ground force effort? A combination of water and air and ground?

Elliot Chodoff: First of all, I don’t, I don’t foresee amphibious landings. Gaza is too, too narrow to require that.

The Navy is offshore and I’m sure they’ll take part. The Navy is very capable of providing, providing support and it means it’s coming from behind them. The Air Force, of course has [01:03:00] been, has flown thousands of sorties over the past few days. From what I understand, and I’m not an Air Force guy, but I try to keep track of it we’re talking about strikes of dozens of planes at once, which is unprecedented.

on the Gaza front and taking out targets on a much grander scale. In other words, targets that we knew about. And this is also, this, I think this is part of the, the grand strategic picture. We know that they’re using mosques as military bases, but you think twice before you attack on a mosque, partly for ethical reasons, but even when you get past the ethical reasons, you know, it’s not going to play well on CNN.

You know, that public opinion is a front in the war. Because let’s face it, with all due respect to our friendship in the United, with the United States, your members of Congress are more interested in their constituents than they are in me. And if their constituents start calling and [01:04:00] saying, why are we supporting Israel, blowing up mosques and schools, the UN already complained that we destroyed a school this morning.

You know, Israel’s bombing mosques, schools and hospitals, killing women and children and all of that. Why are we backing them? And if you, you know, if you, my member of Congress, don’t listen to me, you don’t get my vote. What’s more important?

Gene Valentino: Well, I, I beg to, I, Elliot, I beg to disagree just a bit. The atrocity in social media and in the news has been so well reported, again, the atrocity against Israel, that there’s a lot of that second thought thinking going on that says Oh, wait a minute.

If they go ballistic and really pull some counter attack that’s unprecedented gee, maybe I can understand why now. Yes, we’re doing that now. That was my point. And there is collateral damage with the mosques and the schools. I get that. But that comes on the heels of an obvious intention on your part to [01:05:00] clear out the hostages and the innocents.

Elliot Chodoff: Gene, that was my point. We’re doing that now. We hadn’t done it in the

Gene Valentino: past. Well yeah, I don’t, so for the news story headline tomorrow, I don’t see a response against Israel criticizing your inhumanity considering the annihilation of what’s occurred against you already by most inhumane people.

Elliot Chodoff: Correct. Which is why I’m saying that what we’re seeing already today in our airstrikes is qualitatively different from what we have done in the past.

Gene Valentino: Well, if you anticipate a very short fuse, or a short timeline, I should say, for Israel’s response, first against Hamas, what do you think the timeline of the response is against Iran?

Elliot Chodoff: Can’t even guess that. We are operating against Iran, we’ve been operating against Iran in Syria, in Lebanon, [01:06:00] and in Iran for a number of years now.

Gene Valentino: Yeah, but you didn’t have this as a backdrop. This is unprecedented. Right.

Elliot Chodoff: No, for sure. But I, I don’t see us launching a massive attack against Iran over this.

I do see us doing this and then turning to Iran and saying, saying, did you enjoy that? Would you like to see one up close and personally yourselves? Whether that works or will work, you know what, I think those are the, those are decisions that are made down the road based on, on whatever. Data info you have.

We certainly right now are not in a position to choose to fight a multi front war. We can do it if we have to. But, you know, let’s take care of one problem at a time and then when one is taken care of, note I didn’t say solve, but taken care of. Then go on to the next one. With

Gene Valentino: your permission, I’d like to report back in [01:07:00] with you in a few days or a day or two.

Absolutely. What so as not to interfere with your schedule, what is acceptable to you?

Elliot Chodoff: Send me a message and we’ll coordinate as best we can. If I’m called up, we may have to do it just audio because I may not have video capability, but let’s, you know, stay in touch and touch base. And if I can, if, if, when and how I can do it, my pleasure.

Gene Valentino: Folks, you’ve enjoyed the last hour with Elliot Chadoff here on Gene Valentino’s Grassroots Truthcast. Elliot, thank you for joining me today, today, October the 9th about 8 a. m. Central Time, 3 p. m., 2 or 3 p. m. Israeli time. I thank you, Elliot, for your time. Elliot Chadoff! A political military consultant and strategist providing insight and advice and counsel to the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, and I [01:08:00] think he’s going back to work now.

We will follow you in the news, Elliot. God bless you and God bless Israel. God bless America and our ability to The

Lord is with you. Thank you. Amen. Thank you. You too. Take care, everybody.

Thanks for joining us for Gene Valentino’s Grassroots Truthcast. Be sure to like and subscribe and God bless America.