It's 3 p.m. on Friday, February 7th here in New York City, it's 9 p.m. on Friday, February 7th in Israel.

If there is one person who has a 360-degree view of the story of this war, of this seven-front war, from the battlefields of Gaza, Lebanon,

Iran, and Yemen through the complex geostrategic and geopolitical map and all the way through

the domestic political landscape inside

Israel. It is former defense minister, General Joav Galant. So he has quite a story to tell.

This 16-month-long story, of which he was a central character for 13 months, with its

enormous and numerous, dramatic, and complicated twists and turns

cannot possibly fit into your average 45-minute TV interview.

So, Joav Galant decided that a long-form podcast might be a better format to tell that story.

And so over the course of multiple episodes, General Galant

will tell us the story of this war as seen through his eyes. Each episode will focus on a different

aspect or period of the war. Now, in order to give this story the space that it needs,

we will resist the temptation to react

to recent events, as dramatic as they may be in real time.

Today, we will focus on the first four days of the war with an emphasis on one day that could

have changed the course of this war, October 11, 2023.

Former Defense Minister General Joav Galant, welcome to the Call Me Back podcast.

Thank you very much. You can call me, Yoav. It will be easier and shorter.

Easier. Easier for you, easier for me. So, Yoav, welcome to call me back.

So, Yoav, you just did an interview in Hebrew on Channel 12

in Israel. This is your first English language interview. So you're out speaking now. It seems more

freely in Hebrew and English. Yesterday was 16 months to the day of October 7th,

...