‘Denying Someone Their Freedom as Leverage for Negotiations is Unacceptable, and Yet, it’s Hamas’s Strategy’ – Discussion with Colonel Christopher P. Costa Part 1

In this special episode of Reflections from Budapest, we had the honor of having Colonel Christopher P. Costa as our guest for the second time in our podcast series. Colonel Costa was a former US government official with 35 years of experience, including 25 years in military counterintelligence, human intelligence (HUMINT), and special operations forces (SOF). He also served as the Special Assistant to the President & Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the White House from 2017-18. Since 2018 he has been the executive director of the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. This time we focused our discussion with Colonel Costa on the ramifications of the war in Gaza. Colonel Costa shared his insights on how the attack on October 7th and the subsequent war in Gaza have affected American policy and security concerns and discussed the possible reasons for the Israeli intelligence failures on October 7th. To conclude,we asked Colonel Costa about the brutal tactics employed by Hamas on October 7th.