Israeli leaders such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “look like shells of their former selves,” commentator Morgan Ortagus says, following meetings in Israel earlier this month. 

But Ortagus, who was State Department spokesperson under President Donald Trump, says the weariness extends to the people of Israel, many of whom remain “traumatized” from the Hamas terrorist attacks Oct. 7. 

“The very existence of the state of Israel is threatened whenever they are attacked,” she says, adding, “It’s a tiny country. It’s a tiny people.”

“So when they are attacked, it’s existential to their surviva,” Ortagus says. “And we of course know that more Jews were killed on Oct. 7 than on any other day since the Holocaust. So I know that has to weigh with the leadership.” 

As host of “The Morgan Ortagus Show,” a new Sunday offering on SiriusXM Patriot, the former State Department official is using her platform, and her nearly two decades of national security experience, to communicate the history of tension in the Middle East and what America’s role should be. 

Ortagus joins this episode of “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain what she learned after meeting with Netantahu and other senior leaders in Israel and Saudi Arabia, and visiting some of the kibbutzim where Hamas terrorists tortured, raped, and slaughtered Israelis on Oct. 7. 

Listen to the podcast below.

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