Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hi, folks, this is Dick Flatz. Welcome you to another episode of Talking Strategy, making history and our particular series on the situation in the Israel Palestine. Duraka and I are joined today by a very special guest. It's Yuri Zaki, who is the leader of the Meretz party in Israel, which is long standing left wing party. He's got a long history of leadership in Israel. He was one of the leaders of Betselim and also an international leader of the World Zionists Organization in his young years, and he is now considered one of the voices of the, let's call it, electoral left in Israel.
Doraka knows him from long standing connections in the international socialist youth world going back several decades. Doraqa will take the lead in this conversation, so let's tune into that.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: Hello, everybody.
[00:01:29] Speaker C: Welcome to another episode of Talking Strategy, making history. And today we're talking with Urizaki. Joining us from Tel Aviv, Israel. And the angry voice you hear in the background is my daughter Ada, who might be speaking up a little bit here. But hey, thanks for joining us, Woody. Really appreciate it. And know that it's difficult time there in Israel and you're a busy guy. I thought before we start talking about the war and the situation in Gaza right now might be helpful, I think, for our listeners to get just a sense, your sense of the general situation in israeli politics right now. I mean, once upon a time, like when you and I met in the 90s, there was a strong electoral left in Israel and something called the peace process. What's going on now? How would you describe the situation for anybody interested in progressive politics and progressive social change? Sure.
[00:02:24] Speaker B: Thanks, Daraka, and thanks, Dick, for having me. Thanks, Ada, for participating. Yeah. So you can't really speak about anything these days in Israel unrelated to the October 7 attack and the war in Gaza that followed. But I will try to give you a bit of a background. We are exactly one year after one year since the current Miltanyawu government took office, he won an election decisively after five rounds, I believe in just over two years, which is very, I mean, Israeli. Unlike in american politics, where presidential elections and other elections are set for every four years in Israel, we have a parliamentary system. So you can dissolve the parliament at any given moment and thus replacing a government. You can even replace a government within a serving parliament. But even in israeli terms, the fact that we had so many elections was unprecedented. The reason for that was Netanyahu became if in the past, the israeli palestinian conflict and how to resolve it was the watershed of israeli politics in the last several years, and especially since Netanyahu himself started his corruption trials, was indicted and was under trial, he became the watershed of israeli politics. He got back to office after just under two years or a year and a half that a very strange government was in power. A government led by a rightist former director general of the settler organization, but having within it both merits my party, which is a very progressive party in israeli terms, and an error party, which was unprecedented in israeli politics. That officially an error party. I know israeli palestinian citizens are about 20% of our population, and this was the first time they joined a coalition.
Error party joined a coalition. So it was a very strange and unique coalition that what held it together was trying to block Netanyahu, obviously, because of the nature of that coalition, also because it had only one vote majority in parliament, it didn't survive. And after a year and a half, the Knesset was dissolved again and went to another elections in which Netanyahu regained position of prime minister, which he held by the longest serving prime minister in Israel's history. Longer even than our own George Washington, David Bedgurian. And we don't have terms limit here in Israel. So altogether, he holds office more than 16 years, and in consecutive since 2009. Apart from that year and a half, he was in power because he had, in the past, he used to form coalitions that had, let's say, a centrist element, like it would take one or two parties that have more centrist orientation. This time, he built a coalition mostly. I mean, he didn't have many options, to be honest, but he did build a coalition that was a combination of the ultra orthodox, the Haredi parties, which are obviously extremely conservative, based on their way of life and their interests. The extreme far right, two parties, one of them more populist, the other just messianic and extremist and settler led, both of them. The most extreme parts of the settler movement. The settler movement is also not.
It has divisions within it. We're talking about the most extreme elements of the settler parties. And the liquidity itself, perhaps following the Republican Party's model, became much more populist of a party, with the main thing is its leader, Netanyahu, and promoting antidemocratic notions and agenda. The past year before, or the ten months before the October 7 attack were one of the worst in the Israel society's history. Again, perhaps similar to the Trump era or something like that, there was an attempt by the government to basically change or to attack, to take control of our judiciary in Israel. On the one hand, unlike in the United States, the judiciary is considered independent and is not. I mean, politicians, the Knesset and the government do have some degree of influence on who would be the justices, both on the Supreme Court and lower courts, but they don't have. It's not like in the United States where you only have the president and Senate, you have their representatives of the judiciary itself, of the bar. So there was an attempt to change the way the Supreme Court justices are elected, to limit their ability to override necessit decisions and legislation.
This was done by the minister of justice that Titaniawa appointed, and he knew very well who is this guy and what his plans are. And he led what they regard as a judicial reform, a judicial overhaul, but was basically kind of a coup against Israel democracy. It was very easy for them to do that because we don't have a constitution. So with a regular majority of 61 out of 120 members of Knesset, you can change the fundamentals of the system. But the israeli constituency reacted.
[00:09:03] Speaker C: Not only massive protests, yes, massive protests.
[00:09:07] Speaker B: Throughout the year with not only. It wasn't like in the past, where it was more of progressive or lefty, although Netanyah tried to portray it, to portray it like that. But we're talking about the israeli center. The people know in Israel you have questions of also a strong middle class that also pays taxes and stuff like that, and regards the state as something that needs to be kept against actions like that. So you had exactly massive protests. The Torah party, israeli society, by the way, all the public opinion polls before October 7 already showed that Netanyahu lost a lot of his support and that the former coalition parties together held a majority. But he has this majority so he could go on and continue to try and change the system. I would say in parentheses that given the fact that he was indicted in the midst of a corruption trial, he has a personal interest to change the judiciary and thus getting rid of his criminal trial.
[00:10:23] Speaker C: This seems to be the new normal on the right, right. It's like you have a criminal as your leader and they have to win in order to stay out of prison. So would you say that October 7 has strengthened Nenyahu or weakened him?
[00:10:39] Speaker B: Oh, no, it definitely didn't strengthen him. As I said, he went into this horrific event with, on the one hand, a solid majority in the Knesset that he lacked in the last three years, but with a bad situation, I would say, in the public opinion. But after this attack, the horrific attack that Israel faced, and also the fact that he's not taking responsibility, there is a huge majority thinking that he needs to step down in parties how they're doing in possible elections. His likud party shrinks in half and his coalition loses about 25% of its representation, meaning that the opposition, which again is not, it has elements of right, left and center, but it has a strong majority, very strong majority. I mean, if there'll be elections, it will definitely lose, but it clings to power. I mean, it's very obvious he's just playing politics and doing whatever he can to stay in power. He built his reputation by being mystic security, although he never was. But he's a very strong PR person. And he built this image of a mystic security and the most basic security of human beings, of what you expect your country to do as citizens to residents of a country not to be killed, raped, shot and losing men, women and children all went down during his term. Right.
[00:12:47] Speaker C: So it's like a security failure how they see it.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:53] Speaker C: So when we were talking about getting ready for this interview, you said that you thought that your position or perspective on the war might be different than that of progressives in the United States. You want to talk a little bit about that? And sort of what is the view from the israeli left about the discussion or debate or mobilizations around the conflict abroad?
[00:13:16] Speaker B: So first of all, I don't want to speak on behalf of the left, but I am definitely a known left voice here in Israel, so I can speak on my own. But I do believe I represent many people who feel the same way. And I do see it being reflected, like Kha'aritz, for instance, very known daily here in Israel and other places. I would say that, first of all, we're kind of even insulted, I would say, by the reaction of many progressives both in the United States and in Europe. And I think in the United States it was more obvious because we're not talking about three, over three months into this war, but just the first few days after the attack.
And again, I'm not in the US right now. I haven't been there few months. So I don't know. Last time I was visiting was in July. So I don't know what happened since October 7. But what is being covered from there is, on the one hand, no empathy to the fact that people were attacked, brought together with rallies in campuses, in major cities. And I'm talking about the first few days after the attack, not even now that you can justify it perhaps from, I don't, but let's say I can understand how it can be perhaps justified, but I think it's unjustifiable. Because it started even before Israel actually reacted. And the kind of messaging you hear there, like from the river to the sea, from the river to the sea, that know it means from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean. Tel Aviv, for instance, is on the shore of the Mediterranean. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. The Tel Aviv would be part of Palestine. It would not exist. And maybe we have to welcome a Hamas like regime after what they did to us. That was honestly disappointing, insulting, even very discouraging. And it kind of lacked what I see as the basis of all of our. I mean, if you come from a progressive perspective, you need to respect values such as, first and foremost, human lives. And we're talking about vicious attack that included, really, atrocities that are unimaginable. And basic empathy. Human empathy is something that, there's a famous saying here in Israel that the left likes human rights, but not always likes humans. And perhaps that's the thing. We're talking about slogans and stuff like that, but basic empathy. People were slaughtered, some of them, by the way, devoted peace activists who did their utmost to change things for the better in a very dire ongoing conflict.
[00:16:25] Speaker C: And we've seen that, right, in the conflict between the families of hostages and government. Right, but I'm not talking about the government.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: I'm talking about. Not talking about you personally, but I'm talking about the american left as it's portrayed here, at least. I know there are different voices. But since it started just after October 7, I can't say, okay, look, now, Israel has been fighting in Gaza for so many months, and there are so many civilian casualties. I can understand the calls for a ceasefire. I don't necessarily accept them, but I would have understood them. But it started just after the attack. There was no minute of empathy to the victims here in Israel, as if our casualties, the women that were raped, the families that were all slaughtered, parents that saw their kids being shot in front of their eyes or burned alive, and all those, a music festival that people were slaughtered in. And you didn't hear what you heard, by the way, even from at least one jewish organization, jewish voice for peace, I believe it's called, was a pointing finger, saying, we are to blame for what was done to us. And I think that moral breakdown of the american progressive, by the way, I think it's counterproductive politically in the United States itself. And if you want, I can give you my humble opinion why. But first and foremost, I think it's horrible. I think it's not what human beings who believe in human dignity should.
[00:18:15] Speaker C: So I really appreciate you saying that. And that's part of the perspective and dialogue we want to build in this season of this podcast, Dick. And I think when we conceived of this, we just saw a very toxic discussion in multiple directions and an inability of the american left to articulate something with nuance. Right, to be in sympathy and solidarity with victims of Hamas's attack, to condemn Hamas as an organization and as a movement, and then also be able to put pressure on both the Biden administration and the government in Israel to respect palestinian rights, to get back on track for a just solution to the conflict, these sorts of things. It's been very difficult for people to juggle all of those things while at the same time, I think there's a very large constituency, I think the vast majority of the progressive constituency in the United States that are absolutely not represented by the more bloodthirsty sloganizing that rises to the top. And I think one thing in our last episode in talking with the editor of jewish currents and someone who's very active in the jewish community, a very sophisticated and determined campaign to scare jewish people into thinking the left is far more hostile, far less compassionate than it actually is. So it wouldn't surprise me at all that the coverage of the palestinian solidarity movement in the United States, that what you're going to get in Israel is going to be one that's going to maximize that insecurity and that fear and so forth. Because I guess I would say from one friend to another, that if you didn't hear or feel that compassion, that's a sad fact. But I would tell you that it's very much there and that we've had, Dick and I have talked about this, that you got all these activists who have never known anything except Netanyahu and the post oslo chaos of the last couple of decades, they've never known any kind of hope for peace or dialogue or anything. And so a whole generation of left activists have sort of come to consciousness in that context. And so, yeah, it's made a very sort of narrow discussion. It's meant that being not just pro Palestinian, but explicitly anti zionist has become a kind of litmus test on the left because there's no other position. There's no other.
We're, Dick and I have argued and we're agnostic about big questions like, or ambivalent, I guess I should say, about big questions like Zionism. But where we want to get to is a point where wherever you stand on that big question, we can sit down and talk about a path to peace and justice and normalcy for everyone. So, yeah, buck up.
Don't take what you see being sort of transmitted or filtered in order to make you feel insecure. Don't take that too much to heart. There's a lot of compassion and sympathy and empathy here and confusion, and that's what we're trying to sort through in this discussion.
[00:22:03] Speaker B: But I'm going to turn it over.
[00:22:04] Speaker C: To Dick to ask a couple of questions.
[00:22:07] Speaker D: Yeah, Duraka just said a lot of what I would have started to say in response, Yuri, to what you were saying. It seems to me that part of one thing to pick up on is the fact that this generational divide in the left about what Israel is. I'm old enough to remember the founding of the state of Israel. I was in high school already, or junior high school in 1948. To me, Israel was the haven for the oppressed jewish population in the aftermath of the Holocaust. And it was a socialist oriented society, and the kibutzim were the model of a possible future. So that was my founding view of Israel. And I think I was typical of progressive types of my generation. And as Duraka said, the young people of today see Israel in a very different way because of not just Netanyahu and the current government, but because of the occupation, I would say apartheid like situation in the occupied areas and so on. That's one of the problems that exists in terms of perception of Israel. I think that the immediate aftermath of October 7, there was. Many of people were appalled by those statements that seemed cold to what had happened in October 7. And you should that many people on the american left were trying to figure out how to respond to the perception that there was a pro Hamas sentiment among the pro palestinian movement. I actually think from the beginning there was a lot of misreporting and a lot of misunderstanding on the part of some of the student groups that were making their statements. They didn't necessarily know what had happened on October 7 in fullness when those first statements were released. But I think my feeling is we shouldn't keep arguing about what happened three months ago. A lot of people have had a lot of discussion.
What I've been most impressed about in this country, people on the left, is people are struggling with trying to figure out in fullness what is going on and what the meaning of all this is and what are the ways out of it. And I think even the activist pro palestinian students have changed their rhetoric. The first days it was support for the palestinian cause. Now the primary slogan is ceasefire and release of the hostages and moving toward full equality from the river to the sea. That's what the river to the sea slogan now means. It doesn't mean eliminating the jewish people in any way. I haven't really met anyone or heard anyone in my experience interprets river to the sea now in any terms other than full equality for all people living between the river and the sea, that kind of view. So I think the thing that Yuri can do most for us, not just us on the podcast, but for people who might be listening to this, is to what are the prospects for that? I mean, I assume you agree with that ultimate vision as a goal. So how does Israel and palestinian world evolve from here on? I should have emphasized what I'm about to say now. The reporting we are getting is of a horrifying attack on the people of Gaza in every single way. That this is coupled with reports of major figures in the israeli government advocating ethnic cleansing of Gaza. So whether or not we call this genocide, and of course it is horrendous to accuse the jewish people of genocide, but whether or not, whatever you call it, ethnic cleansing, is an accurate description of what is the goal of some of the people in the government, and all the actions on the ground seem directed at that goal. Driving people out of Gaza en masse is what seems to be the purpose of the war.
Stopping that. It's now a worldwide demand. There are people within the White House staff who are demanding within the White House a change of american policy, let alone throughout other parts of the government, and mass demonstrations. This is not good for Israel. It's not good for the jewish people of the world to be in this position.
That's my passionate feeling. This is not good for security. It's not good for the future of our people as Jews on the planet or in Israel. That's my heartfelt view. So how do we get out of this, and what do you think? Are the prospects? Is it truly grim, or are there rays of hope? That's all.
[00:27:49] Speaker B: There's a lot there.
[00:27:52] Speaker C: Why don't you start with responding to this question of what kinds of prospects there are or hopes there are for this not just being a permanent situation, a permanent war. How do we get to peace?
[00:28:09] Speaker B: I will get to that. But I do want to say, although I deeply appreciate Dick, first of all, your empathy and speaking from your own personal identity, it's even stronger. And I appreciate it deeply. But I strongly disagree with some of the conclusions you got to specifically about what's Israel's goal in Gaza, right now, what I'm about to say is hard because of these crazies know, obviously have a political goal and have ministerial positions with microphones stating what they want to do, but they don't have any on the ground influence on what's going on in the war in Gaza. What's going on in the war in Gaza is the following. You have an islamic fundamental, vicious terrorist organization over Gaza that has no restraints when it comes to the Gaza population itself that built a whole network of tunnels underneath the most usually protected and off things that we do not use as military facilities, such as schools, hospitals, mosques and so on and so forth that are using their own population as human shields.
And the fact that Israel pushed huge, the masses you talked about to the southern part of Gaza was exactly the opposite of a goal of ethically cleansing it. It was. Listen. Yeah. You're going to be affected in the area where Israel lives, where Israel is at. You can argue on Zionism whether it was a good idea or not a good idea to form the state of Israel in the ancient land of Israel in Palestine, whatever you want to call it, but this is a given. Okay. And in our neighborhood, after you're attacked like that and you don't retaliate, it's a matter of few years at the most of our actual survival here.
If we know you can do that and get away with it and you don't react. And by the way, I think any country, let's say if Canada tomorrow would invade California and slaughter and rape and kidnap and all that, the US will attack us, attacked Afghanistan after an attack in New York. We're talking about our.
[00:31:02] Speaker C: But that was horrible, right?
[00:31:05] Speaker B: I don't know whether it was horrible or not, but I'm talking about our neighbors next door.
You saw what they do. If we don't have a defense against these people, I'm talking about Hamas, not about all Palestinians.
And now I'll go to the future.
[00:31:24] Speaker D: Yeah. Just let's stipulate there's no question that Israel has the right to try to end Hamas's ability to do anything like that.
But that's the question is whether the wholesale attack on the people of Gaza.
[00:31:41] Speaker B: What do you mean the people of Gaza? What can you mean? We can, in theory, talk here in a podcast about, let's use chopsticks to take out the Hamas activists from the population. By the way, Israel tried to do that. It said if you're not involved with Hamas, and by the way, many of the Hamas activists themselves, the militants went to the southern part of Gaza. Israel helped them to survive. Right. But he had to do that in order not to affect as few people as it could, given the fact that in order to topple the Hamas regime, and we can't afford having a Hamas regime there, by the way, if we want some kind of a better future. And I'll get to that in a sec, you can't have Hamas as a player. Hamas proved itself, and by the way, that was on October 7. Attack was on the background of trying to give more working permits to Palestinians. Netanyah himself, by the way, who at least he's a kind of a Churchill and a warmonger in his rhetorics, but in practice, he's not somebody who. He let Hamas. He used Hamas, by the way, to refrain from talking with the more moderate elements of the palestinian politics. We know.
But he did help them in a sense, because they provoked this attack. This attack was perhaps because of our weakness due to the judicial. Overall, we talked at the beginning of this conversation, but it proved that they want to kill us. That's what they want to do. They want to kill us. They want to kick us out. I don't see any other examples of countries that are facing such a threat, such an imminent, very visible threat. So, yeah, Israel is attacking Gaza. It's attacking Hamas. It's trying to do its best with the most fortified force in human history, more even than in Berlin or Moscow and places like that during the 20th century. We're talking about an underground city with, again, using civilian facilities as shelters, by the way, also using families. Many of the hostages that were free eventually talked about how they were held in gazan families, houses with their kids and everything. So it's very easy to speak about, oh, you have to attack Hamas, but not attack Gaza? But to do, it's almost impossible. And that's the reason Israel tried to push the civilian population as much as it could to the southern part of Gaza.
And I believe that the future has to be, first of all, without know. Oslo and Araka mentioned Oslo. Oslo failed because of a bizarre coalition, or perhaps not so bizarre, between Hamas and the extremist part of the palestinian political arena in society. And extremists, many people talk about in Israel about the terrorist attacks, and they say that's the result of the Oslo accords. The terrorist attacks were the opposition to the Oslo courts by Hamas, the suicide bombings, and again, crazy things that later were adopted elsewhere against western targets. This culture of suicide bombings, which is horrific and eventually did kill Ozo, it weakened. The Ozo coalition, was joined by, by the way, only one suicide attack was done by a jew, but it did happen in the tomb of the patriarchs by Dr. Bark Goldstein, by the way, an american jew originally, and ultimately the assassination of.
So that created a kind of coalition of the extremists that took Oslo off course and was very hard to regain trust between the peoples. But having said all, you know, I have many friends in the left who say they are now, in Hebrew, we call it sober. I'm sober of my leftism, all right? Of my being a lefty. I know now I can't believe in peace and everything. I don't share that. On the one hand, I do.
As you can hear, I believe we have to topple Hamas, and we have to do it thoroughly, because Israel has to come to the table to regain at least a lot of its position as a strong force here. We can't allow ourselves to be shown as too weak because we're surrounded. The Hamas's multiples are existing also in Egypt, in Jordan, in Lebanon, you name it. They're part those muslim extremists. Not all Muslims, by the way. My old grandfather was a Muslim, okay? I'm not talking about Muslims or Islam as a religion, but this fundamental extremist and many times terrorist organizations are part of arab societies all around the know. They watch. So we have to topple Hamas. But, and if you take history, whenever there was a catastrophe in the israeli arab relations, it followed by a political deed. And I do think that Biden's doctrine, as it was called, I do believe it's a good plan because we need to take this catastrophe to a political track. And the fact that Hamas grew so incredibly big, of course it has palestinian reasons. And I hate some of my colleagues in the left, both here and abroad, kind of saying, no, the Palestinians don't have any responsibility because they're, the weaker. Palestinians should take responsibility on their side, too.
[00:38:00] Speaker D: Sure.
[00:38:00] Speaker B: But Netanyahu, while strengthening Hamas and allowing it to be such a strong force, did so in order to dry out the Palestinian Authority and the fat movement. And Muhammad Abbas Abu Mazan in particular, is not a zionist.
He's a proud palestinian leader. He's old now. He's involved in corruption and many other things. That's a palestinian issue. But this is a guy who refrained of using violence throughout his career. And instead of using that thing, you have someone here who does not believe in violence as a tool. We isolated him, weakened him, and strengthened the militant force. There is an opportunity to change that. And we couldn't agree more.
[00:38:59] Speaker D: Sorry.
[00:39:00] Speaker C: I want to try to reframe a little bit of this to tease out a question that you've. Yeah, because I think Dick and I would agree completely that this is a war between, or the present fighting in Gaza is between the forces on each side that killed the Oslo process. Right. It's like the recalcitrant sides in both communities are now in charge, and that's a tragedy for everyone and everything. But I think going back to the analogy of September 11, one thing that I learned a lot was that even though the United States had a right to respond and to use military force to respond to the horrific terrorist attacks of September 11, and I broke with other people in the left to articulate that, to say, no, look, this was a fascist enemy that attacked civilians, and we can respond.
Clearly, the response that we did did not work. I mean, we lost 3000 some civilians on September 11. We were responsible for the deaths of many times that in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We were against one terrorist network. And in not even destroying it, but just disrupting al Qaeda, we helped create ISIS. We strengthened. And then after the longest war in american history, afghan war, we withdrew and the country has been taken back over by the horrific reactionary forces that we supposedly overthrew in the beginning. So what I take from all of that is not that Israel can't defend itself or that you shouldn't try, or that Israel shouldn't try, know, even eliminate. Like, it's a great goal to eliminate Hamas. It's more that I don't think this will do that. And that a lot of just an unconscionable number of palestinian civilians are being killed and are suffering. And it's not even going to accomplish the goal of eliminating Hamas or eliminating support for Hamas or Hamas, or creating something possibly even worse than Hamas in a vacuum. So I just want to make it clear that I think where we're coming from is not a rejection of Israel's right to defend itself. It's a rejection of this strategy of.
With that in mind, if we can agree to disagree about that, about the tactics here, how do you get to peace without negotiating with.
[00:41:59] Speaker B: You?
[00:42:00] Speaker C: How could we even do that if you negotiate with someone else and amas is still there on the outside, know, it's like northern Ireland, South Africa, any of these processes, you had to have the bad guys, the actual bad guys in the room to make it an actual meaningful peace process. What do you think about that?
[00:42:20] Speaker B: I will say the follow no, it's a difficult question because I don't see how we can right now negotiate with Hamas. And especially what we can't afford is having Hamas staying in power in Gaza after he did what he did to us. We can't afford it. We just can't afford it. For the sake of peace, we can't afford it. We have to negotiate with the official leadership of the palestinian people, which is the PLO and the.
These guys, you know, as we speak now, while Hamas is probably the peak of its popularity within the palestinian society because it showed might against Israel, Abu Mazin, the palestinian president of the Palestinian Authority, I hate calling it president because it kind of portrays him as if he's a leader of a nation. Unfortunately, he's not. Unfortunately, it's mean. I believe that Israel's survival interest is to have a palestinian state, and that's what we're lacking. And that's the reason that got us here so far. Even when we went out of Gaza, it was a unilateral disengagement instead of having an agreement that would be promoting a palestinian state, and that's having more responsibilities on the Palestinians to create security and to strengthen the moderates instead of Hamas. Hamas got after a wave of what is known as the second Itifada between 2001 and, let's say, 2003 and four, and they got Gaza. I remember my friends from the fat movement saying, campaigning right now in Gaza, saying, ten years of negotiations brought us nothing, and four years of intipada brought us Gaza. Vote Hamas. And they did. So we need to talk with the Palestinian. There is a palestinian partner.
There is a Palestinian. And again, these people are not. They're also not the bad guys. Some of them, by the way, are.
Let's talk about Marwan Baruti. Okay?
The imprisoned leader, the former leader of the Shabiba of the Fatak, the young wing of the Fatak, and later on became the secretary general of the Fatakh's more militant organization. This is a guy who was imprisoned for being responsible for the deaths of many Israelis. But this is someone I believe we can talk to, because with Hamas, you can't talk even if you would have wanted to. They come from an ISIS like, al Qaeda like perspective. Their whole ideology is don't. By the way, when they went into. Stormed into the kibutzim, they didn't say free Palestine. They said, allah Akbar. Their concept is not free Palestine, but a much larger struggle and war against the infidels from the west. Okay? It's not a palestinian struggle. It's part of a regional, even international movement of their similar organization. But with Marwan Baruti, for instance, who again, is a bad guy in israeli eyes. He's responsible. He was in our court system, which is independent, and we can count on it. He was found guilty in numerous, being responsible for numerous murders of Israelis. But this is a guy who comes from a perspective of we need to compromise. And this is someone you can talk to, and him in particular, and others. I'm not saying let's not talk to the bad guys. You make peace with your enemies. You don't make peace with your friends.
[00:46:04] Speaker D: Okay, we're going to run out of time to, I want to sharpen this so we can get really important things out that we haven't yet mentioned. So you said that, which was very interesting, that what Thomas Friedman called the Biden doctrine is something that you think is a path that's promising, just as my understanding the elements of it are to create some framework for governing Gaza of the kind of palestinian leadership that you're referring to being constituted. This is all in the context of a ceasefire having been achieved and instituted, that Israel relationship with arab countries would be normalized and that those are key elements, and that the palestinian leadership that would emerge would be nurtured toward the establishment of a palestinian state. It's even been mentioned that the Biden might actually recognize a palestinian state early in that process, as some of the other countries in the world have done. So I have two questions that I'd like to hear you talk about. They're separate questions. One is, I assume that what you would suggest to american progressives is help push and support Biden toward that kind of set of goals that I just outlined. Of course, the freeing of the hostages would be part of that resolution. So that's one question, what you would hope american progressives, jewish and non jewish, would to bring a promising outcome in this whole situation. The second has to do with you and others on the left. Are you fearful of your own safety in a way, from the right wing in Israel? Is there some possibility, internal civil escalation of civil strife within the israeli jewish world? That's a serious question because I've heard people worry about that. So what should american progressives do in this context, in your view? Second, what is the situation of the israeli left liberal? Is there a precarity there that we should be supporting, that you need support from us on that score?
[00:48:50] Speaker B: Thanks, Dick. On your first question, I would say that the Biden administration, I think, gets it right. On the one hand, it does not push for a ceasefire, an immediate ceasefire, because it understands that we can't afford having Hamas staying in power. The Biden administration understands this, and perhaps also from american national interests and regional ones. It is said that many of Israel's neighbors say that for their own sake, Israel has to topple Hamas, because if not, they have Hamas alike in their own societies that can rise and threaten such regimes. They are referred to as moderate regimes. Many of them are very problematic regimes. But it is true that they're not taking more violent and militant approach in international, to a certain degree, also domestic policies. So the Biden administration gets it totally right. I think that should be the path. It's not easy because of Netanyahu. Nanya is an obstacle. Netanyahu, both personally and even if not politically, is a hostage of the most radical elements in the israeli politics right now. And to be honest, Netanyahu's biggest. This is a guy who's been in power for so long, he doesn't have many achievements. The way he saw it, till October 7, his biggest achievement was to prevent a palestinian state. And that's his main thing. Okay? So he cannot be part of such a solution. It's not easy to any israeli prime minister right now to promote a palestinian state which might be portrayed as a prize to the most horrific attack we ever experienced. But if I look into history, all of the big, the major political progress we made with the Palestinians and with arab states were after disasters. And if you take the Yom Kippur war that led to the israeli egyptian peace treaty, if you take the first Itifada, which led to the Oslo course, and the second Itifada, which led to the Gaza disengagement and any of other examples. So the israeli public opinion, I believe, is more mature than what many of its politicians think. And if there'll be something concrete on the table that would first and foremost promise a strong security element in it to Israelis, definitely a non militarized palestinian state, but also with other reassurances that something like October 7 can't happen, even if a different political party would go into power in the future, Palestine and so on and so forth, I think Israel would end up following it, of course, with a strong american leadership. It has to come with a strong american leadership in parentheses. I would say that I can imagine the Biden administration does that. But doing that. But if it's the alternative that at least now might emerge, then we're talking about a completely different story, referring to a possible, God forbid, Trump victory come November 24 24th, when it comes to our own safety. Look, things are not like that right? Now in Israel, it's not like, yes, if you take israeli history, when you had violent attacks, it was from the right towards the left or the center. Of course, there have been assassination we mentioned before, and there were also some attacks on Jews and Arabs from righteous militants. But it's not the feeling right now in Israel, there's a strong sense of unity. Many people serve together right now in reserves. Our military is based on reservists. To be honest, many of the hostility many Israelis felt in the last year are now being when the perspective is what happened in October 7 and the kind of things we're now going through. Many people talk about against this mutual attack and the attacks of the left, so on and so forth. Having said all that, the Netanyahu poison machine is still active. I mean, you have people who are blaming the left for there's a Knesset member from his own Likud party who only last week used her parliamentary immunity to use this crazy conspiracy that one of the leaders of the protests against the judicial overhaul, her husband met with Sinoir, the leader of Hamas, and portraying her as a traitor and so on. So you have those elements. But unfortunately, our fears are also, even here in Tel Aviv last week, we had missile attacks from Gaza on pure civilian areas. We have a strong defense system which was able to prevent it, but that's our biggest personal threat. Still, I don't think there's anybody in Israel doesn't know someone who was killed or who was, or lost a family member was a, that's, and being of, I'm sure you probably have similar, know you have family stories and all of them all of a sudden come to life. And, yeah, it's also about the jewish psyche and how we sense such attacks. We have an extra, I would say fear of survival, fear which played a part in October 7.
[00:54:55] Speaker C: In the interest of time to sort of wrap up, I want to give you a chance to talk about how to get the two state solution back on a real agenda. And one of the things you talked about, the slogan from the river to the sea, which has risen in popularity and ubiquity in protests here in the US certainly over the last 20 years. And I find myself sort of somewhere in between you and dick on that sort of the meaning of that slogan, because I don't think that it means genocide of the jewish people or ethnic cleansing of the region of Jews or I don't think that people mean it to mean that when they're shouting it on college campuses here. But I do think that it means dismantling or replacing the state of Israel. Right. It is about having a new polity, a new state, a new entity in that area that is not Israel. That is something else. And again, something you said I really agree with is we could have that debate again. But after so many wars and two fadas and the Oslo process, I was at the point of, it's a settled question, historically. Now let's talk about two states and two good know, two just democratic states.
And then on the other problem we have is, I don't think you correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like we in the United States don't hear anything coming from Israel, from israeli society, from israeli civil society, or certainly not the government that says what you just said, uri, that israeli security depends on there being a palestinian state. We hear the opposite. And so the only times that we hear two states or people saying, yes, I support having two secure states anymore, it's sort of in order to derail a conversation or excuse saying something really horrifically jingoistic. I mean, I just know this from within democratic party circles that you hear people, you know, I support a palestinian state, which is why I think we should arm Israel to just turn Gaza into glass.
[00:57:19] Speaker B: But I support a palestinian state.
[00:57:20] Speaker C: So I can say, know, nobody is actually articulating, we need two states. Here's how we get there.
That means a palestinian state. That means defeating Netanyahu. Like, this is sort of how you put it. How do we together sort of left in the United States and a left in Israel, as well as Europe and throughout the arab diaspora everywhere, how do we get actual steps towards a palestinian state on the agenda in a way that includes Israelis, rather than making it a sort of us against them trap that we're in now.
[00:58:02] Speaker B: Does that make sense?
[00:58:03] Speaker C: It was a little rambling.
[00:58:05] Speaker B: It makes sense in the sense, listen, it won't, how do I put it? I don't think, to begin with that there is a better solution than a two state solution. Okay.
We tried avoiding Netanyahu's policy was to manage the conflict instead of solving it. Right. And kind of divide and rule and everything that blew up in our face. On the other hand, I don't think binational state is something that can be perceived by anyone.
You saw the amount of hostility you have between the two peoples. And by the way, I'm not talking about kind of a John Lennon style imagine two state solution that we're a day after we all hug each other and love each other and go hugged towards the sunset. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking more something similar to the peace treaty where with Egypt where you have diplomatic relations, where you have open.
You can visit Egypt, they can visit here. But there's much of hostility towards Israel in the egyptian elite, by the way, and cultural elite, I would say not the military elite, but it's normal relations, a cold peace, but there's peace. And peace is better than war. And we shed a lot of blood. Both our nations similar also we can say that about Jordan. So I'm talking about a peace treaty that would not make us all one happy family, but set borders. And the borders have to be based on the 67 borders. June 67, June 4, 67, a day before the six Day war started. Meaning that the old armatist lines of 48 where Israel was established on and still are even after all this time are the official sovereign. Israel, although Israel and Dick related to that before in practice controls the West bank as if it's, at least most of it is part of the state. Legally it's not.
They're not part of it. They were, never became part of Israel. So the two state solution have to be based. We know the general line, we know the territorial element. We know what the other elements of the agreement would. We have to find a solution in Jerusalem which is partly palestinian, partly jewish israeli. We know also there won't be an open gate to palestinian right of return of fourth and fifth and 6th generation refugees coming back to Israel.
Like I won't claim my father's being a refugee from Egypt right back to Egypt. No, in general, what we're talking about, it's been on the table since 93, since Oslo started and we know that, but we never got to it. It was never tested. Many people stay around the world peace was tested and failed. No, it's not the case. We never tried. And I believe the guideline and it has to have a strong american leadership. And I believe what President Biden is doing, he understands the israeli people. He showed true commitment to us. By the way. He was much warmer in his leadership than Netanyah was after October 7. This was a kind of father like or grandfather like figure who hugs us while Netanyah was distant and not emotional at all. And I think there's lots of respect to President Biden right now in Israel. And I believe, I hope he won't be affected by the.
[01:02:25] Speaker C: That's a whole other thing.
[01:02:27] Speaker B: I hope not because I think he's, by the way, and I do think that also, and I kind of hinted to that when we first started, I never forget, in a sense, you also reflected that I never forget Nixon's famous silent majority line, and he won his presidency because of this silent majority that couldn't handle the some of the university cactuses acted back then. That's more of a problem to Biden than supporting Israel. How some of the margins, perhaps, but the very vocal margins of democratic side is acting right now for sure. It happens in Europe. You saw that the far right after Wilder in the Netherlands won an election. I'm almost positive that he got kind of a boost because of the anti Israel demonstrations in the Netherlands as one example. Right?
[01:03:37] Speaker C: Yeah, we'll check in on that for sure.
[01:03:43] Speaker D: So, folks, we really are beyond time, and this has been very good for us to hear and to share the perspective that you have. Uri.
[01:03:56] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[01:03:57] Speaker D: I guess what I kind of feel in terms of your last comment is that Biden's reelection would be greatly strengthened if the path that we just outlining could be fulfilled, that the war itself could come to an end, and that he could be seen as someone who made a contribution significantly to some new path. So what I like, in conclusion, you're being able to see possible rays of hope coming out of severe crisis and tragedy. That's the history that you were saying is represented in Israel's past. And so maybe that's what we can hope for now. I certainly hope that myself. So I'm going to say thank you very much and hope maybe we will come back together at a later time as well. Meanwhile, send us your little biography, if you can, and also keep in touch with us, and we'll try to do the same.
[01:05:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:05:08] Speaker C: And stay safe.
[01:05:09] Speaker B: I appreciate it. And thanks, Ida, for being so.
She was great throughout the last hour and a half.
[01:05:18] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:05:19] Speaker C: She's been lulled into a nice, deep sleep by our droning on.
[01:05:26] Speaker B: We're boring.
[01:05:29] Speaker C: Absolutely. All right, man. Thanks so much.
[01:05:31] Speaker B: Really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.
[01:05:33] Speaker E: Thank you. Some nights I stay castle some nights I wish they just fall but I still wake up I still see a ghost oh, lord I'm still not sure what I stand for oh, what do I stand for? What do I stand for? Most nights I don't know anymore oh, jump, jump, jump oh, dum, dum, dum not good. I don't want tight stand to.
