Growing autocratic alliances; Is there hope for a two-state solution?; The Trump’s administration’s upheaval of American medicine; The AI crisis in education

Summary

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Fareed Zakaria GPS – September 7, 2025

Episode Title: Growing autocratic alliances; Is there hope for a two-state solution?; The Trump’s administration’s upheaval of American medicine; The AI crisis in education

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Overview

This episode of Fareed Zakaria GPS examines several of the most pressing geopolitical and domestic issues of the moment. The main theme centers on the shifting global alliances among autocratic powers, the future (or lack thereof) for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine, upheaval in American medicine in the wake of recent political changes, and the existential challenges posed by AI in education. Fareed Zakaria hosts in-depth, candid discussions with leading experts: Anne Applebaum on authoritarian alliances, Rob Malley and Dan Senor on Israel-Palestine, Sanjay Gupta on U.S. health policy, and Derek Thompson on the AI education crisis.

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I. A New World Order: The Rise of Autocratic Alliances

Guest: Anne Applebaum, historian and author
Key segment: [01:02]–[14:15]

Key Points & Insights

• Historic Display of Solidarity
  The episode opens with the striking images of Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un together at Beijing's WWII anniversary, emblematic of deepening ties among autocracies hostile to the West.

  • “A stunning image from Wednesday’s celebration in Beijing marking 80 years since Japan’s World War II surrender…united in their autocracy, have opposition to the West.” — Fareed Zakaria [01:02]

• US Policy and Alienation of Key States
  Zakaria criticizes Donald Trump’s foreign policy as alienating major regional powers (India, Brazil, South Africa) with aggressive tariffs, sanctions, and unpredictable diplomacy — driving them toward China and weakening the U.S.-led order.

  • “It may be the greatest own goal in modern foreign policy.” — Fareed Zakaria [03:02]

• China’s Advantage
  While the U.S. alienates, China courts these countries with infrastructure projects and aid, shifting global allegiances.

  • “China has courted South Africa with trade and aid, and public sentiment in that country has moved to be quite favorably inclined towards Beijing.” — Fareed Zakaria [05:31]

• The Unifying Thread Among Autocracies
  Anne Applebaum asserts their alliance is less about ideology and more about opposition to Western democratic norms of transparency, accountability, and human rights.

  • “What unites them is their dislike of us. And by us, I mean the democratic world, the language of rule of law, the language of transparency, the language of accountability.” — Anne Applebaum [09:00]

• Shift Away from US Predictability
  Key non-autocratic states (India, Turkey, Egypt) are hedging bets with China/Russia due to the U.S. being seen as unreliable and whimsical.

  • “America was a predictable power…now the United States is seen as unpredictable. And the President is whimsical. He might change his mind at any minute. It’s very dangerous to go and see him in the Oval Office because he might attack you.” — Anne Applebaum [10:25]

• Not a Simple Cold War Redux
  Today’s opposition to liberal democracy is both external (Russia, China) and internal (far-right groups within Western democracies), making it more complex than the Cold War.

  • “The opponents of liberal democracy are also inside liberal democracy…It’s actually a more complicated picture.” — Anne Applebaum [11:44]
  • “It’s more complicated than the Cold War because the enemies of liberal democracy are now both outside and within.” — Fareed Zakaria [13:41]

• Counter Movements Exist
  There are also pro-democracy opposition movements within autocratic countries.

  • “There is an Iranian opposition, there is a Russian opposition, there’s even a Chinese opposition…they are interested in changing their own governments.” — Anne Applebaum [13:50]

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II. The Two-State Solution: Illusion or Possibility?

Guests: Rob Malley (former U.S. negotiator and author), Dan Senor (political analyst)
Key segment: [15:38]–[27:43]

Key Points & Insights

• The Death of the Two-State Solution
  Rob Malley argues the notion of an imminent two-state solution has always been more fantasy than reality, and neither side ever truly embraced it as an end goal.

  • “It was an illusion, a delusion. To some extent, it was a lie…realities on the ground have moved so far away from that goal that I think it’s time to be honest with ourselves.” — Rob Malley [16:47]

• Fundamental Incompatibility
  At root, Israelis want security and exclusivity; Palestinians want justice and redress for 1948. These aspirations are incompatible with a true two-state paradigm.

  • “Deep down, what the Palestinians really want…is full justice, redemption…what Israelis deep down want…full security…neither one of them really wanted to go there.” — Rob Malley [17:19]

• US Failure and Status Quo Perpetuation
  The U.S. continues to publicly prioritize two states, but does nothing to advance it. The consequence: a brutal, stasis punctuated by periodic violence, breakdowns, and morally unacceptable alternatives like annexation or ethnic cleansing.

  • “The two state solution as we conceived it, a real two state solution. It’s not going to happen…more creativity is needed.” — Rob Malley [18:29]

• Alternative: Focus on Improving Conditions
  Dan Senor is less pessimistic, suggesting the priority should be creating conditions over time that make future peaceful coexistence possible—like security, safety, and homes for both sides—but not focusing on immediate statehood.

  • “We could…try to create the conditions where [a two-state solution] could possibly be possible someday. Even along the way, it will improve the situation…” — Dan Senor [19:36]

• On International Recognition of Palestine
  Senor expresses strong skepticism about UN recognition for a Palestinian state under current conditions, especially with hostages still held by Hamas.

  • “Operating in a world in which the Palestinians are coming to believe that they are going to get a state while Hamas is holding hostages…is the opposite of creating the conditions where you can bring the temperature down.” — Dan Senor [19:36]

• War, Proportionality, and Genocide Debates
  Malley accuses Israel of indiscriminate violence; Senor rebuts by framing Israel’s military actions as essential for survival, arguing that true genocide would be the destruction of Israel if it disarmed.

  • “There’s no military doctrine…that can justify that. There’s no justification for it. And it’s why an increasing number of organizations around the world are calling it a genocide.” — Rob Malley [21:42]
  • “If Israel were to drop its arms today…there would be no Israel. If Hamas were to drop its arms…there would be no Palestinian civilian human catastrophe.” — Dan Senor [23:37]

• Where Does This Lead?
  Both agree a generation is being radicalized, and prospects for coexistence are bleak.

  • “There is a generation of Palestinians who are going to grow up with nothing to lose…their only memory [will be] the blockade or what’s happening now.” — Rob Malley [26:53]

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III. The Trump Administration’s Upheaval of American Medicine

Guest: Dr. Sanjay Gupta (neurosurgeon, CNN medical correspondent)
Key segment: [28:31]–[33:42]

Key Points & Insights

• Pain and Prescription Culture in the US
  The US consumes a disproportionate share of the world’s opioids—at one time 90% of certain prescriptions despite having only 4% of the global population. Zakaria and Gupta discuss how expectations, culture, and healthcare systems shape this phenomenon.

  • “Americans are 4% of the world's population and consume…90% of the world's opioids.” — Fareed Zakaria [28:33]
  • “We’re still five to ten times greater in terms of invasive procedures and invasive medications.” — Sanjay Gupta [28:48]

• The Role of Mind in Pain
  Gupta explains pain is subjective, often amplified or dampened based on expectations, mental health, and past experiences.

  • “Expectations and experience are inextricably linked. If you think something is going to hurt, it’s probably going to hurt.” — Sanjay Gupta [29:30]
  • “The brain is the ultimate decider of whether or not you have pain.” — Sanjay Gupta [30:09]

• RFK Jr.’s Impact on American Medicine and the CDC
  Zakaria raises concerns about RFK Jr. stripping the CDC of key experts and politicizing health. They agree there are issues with the CDC’s mission sprawl, but major damage is being done by the politicized approach.

  • “Our healthcare system has been really damaged by what has happened over the last year. Really damaged. We’ve lost brain talent. People are going to other countries. The US is not viewed as…leader in healthcare.” — Sanjay Gupta [33:15]

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IV. AI and the Existential Crisis in Education

Guest: Derek Thompson (author, journalist)
Key segment: [33:53]–[39:14]

Key Points & Insights

• AI is Upending Written Assessment
  ChatGPT and similar tools make it trivial to produce well-written essays, undermining the value of grades and trust in student work.

  • “If ChatGPT is good at anything, it’s very, very good at writing an A minus take home essay in practically everything.” — Derek Thompson [35:30]

• Consequences for Credentials and Trust
  AI-generated assignments mean teachers and employers can no longer fully trust transcripts or let written grades serve as meaningful evidence of learning.

  • “What does GPA even mean these days?…it might simply be an assessment of your ability to cheat, not your ability to learn.” — Derek Thompson [35:30]

• Shift to Oral and Defended Assessments
  Thompson predicts a move towards oral exams and defenses, noting that people will need to “defend your ideas, not just turn in a written assessment.”

  • “AI can fake the written assessment, it cannot fake your defense of those ideas in front of the classroom.” — Derek Thompson [36:55]

• AI as a Tool for Teachers
  Many teachers are already using AI to save time, organize curricula, and even potentially grade blue-book style exams.

  • “Something like 50 to 60% of teachers surveyed by Gallup say they use generative AI. And the majority of those say that it saves them up to six weeks of work a year.” — Derek Thompson [37:32]

• Potential Upside: New Education, New Skills
  The crisis could lead to a focus on rhetoric, elocution, and oral skills—perhaps more aligned with real-world, white-collar work.

  • “Maybe this transition from a written to oral based education could actually help us in the long run.” — Derek Thompson [39:06]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “American foreign policy these days is a collection of the random slights, insults and ideological obsessions of one man.” — Fareed Zakaria [06:31]
• “The idea that you would pivot to say, hey, look, we gotta talk about cardiac disease, we gotta talk about cancer, diabetes…and even dementia, that became under the purview of the CDC…” — Sanjay Gupta [31:47]
• “If Israel were to drop its arms today, period, full stop, there would be no Israel…if Hamas were to drop its arms today, there would be no Palestinian civilian human catastrophe.” — Dan Senor [23:37]

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Important Timestamps

• [01:02] – Fareed's take on the new autocratic alliances
• [08:59] – Anne Applebaum on what unites autocracies
• [15:38] – Gaza, two-state solution debate with Rob Malley & Dan Senor
• [28:31] – Sanjay Gupta on chronic pain, opioids, and U.S. healthcare
• [30:51] – CDC critique and RFK Jr. discussion
• [33:53] – Derek Thompson on AI and the existential crisis in education

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This episode ties together global realignments, the hard realities of Middle Eastern geopolitics, rolling crises in U.S. governance and medicine, and the disruptive power of AI—emphasizing challenges to established orders both at home and abroad. The discussions are rich, often sobering, and essential for anyone seeking deeper understanding of today’s chaotic world.

Transcript

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[Fareed Zakaria]

This is GPS, the global public Square. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria coming to you from New York. Today on the program, Xi, Putin and Kim, side by side in solidarity, united in their autocracy, have opposition to the West. It was a stunning image from Wednesday's celebration in Beijing marking 80 years since Japan's World War II surrender. What does this new world order look like? I'll give you my take and we'll talk to Ann Applebaum about it all. Also, as some European nations prepare to recognize a Palestinian state later this month, is Israel making such a state impossible? I'll discuss with experts with very different views on the subject. Finally, as school bells ring signaling the start of a new academ, students are looking forward to using the latest version of ChatGPT to write their essays and do their problem sets. What can be done to ensure this generation actually learns how to think and write? Derek Thompson has an answer, but first, here's my take look at the pictures that dominated this week's world news. They're vivid illustrations of the failure of Donald Trump's foreign policy. The images that captured most attention were of China's massive military parade and of Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un striding together. Those were to be expected, a reminder that the west faces a determined set of adversaries who see it as their mission to destroy the Western led international order. What was surprising were the images from the days before when the Shanghai Cooperation Organization hosted leaders from India, Turkey, Vietnam, and Egypt, among others. All these regional powers were generally considered closer to Washington than Beijing. But a toxic combination of tariffs, hostile rhetoric and ideological demands is moving many of the world's pivotal states away from America and towards China. It may be the greatest own goal in modern foreign policy. Consider the brics, a grouping of countries originally meant to represent the big emerging markets of the future. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, with several other members now, too. At prior meetings, three of the core countries, Brazil, India and South Africa would generally resist the Russian and Chinese effort to turn the organization into an anti American grouping. For decades, Washington has been building ties with these three countries, each a leader in its region, to ensure that as they grew in size and stature, they would be favorably inclined towards the United States. But Donald Trump has treated these three pivotal states to some of his most vicious rhetoric and aggressive policies. He unleashed the highest tariff rate in the world against India. He punished Brazil with equally high tariffs and levied sanctions and visa bans against Brazilian officials. South Africa faces 30% tariffs, a total cutoff of foreign aid, and potential sanctions against government officials. The governments and people in these countries are outraged at their treatment. India used to be overwhelmingly pro American. Now it is rapidly shifting to a deep suspicion of Washington. In Brazil, President Lula's sagging poll numbers have risen as he stands up to Trump's bullying. In South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa gained stature when he politely responded to Trump's Oval Office hectoring. It's worth remembering that other countries have nationalist sentiment, too. There's no strategic rationale for these policy reversals. Trump is punishing Brazil because that country's independent courts are holding accountable Trump's ideological soulmate, Jair Bolsonaro, for his efforts to reject the results of free and fair elections. South Africa faces Trump's ire because of a land reform law that is an attempt to address some of the vast disparities in landholding and wealth caused by decades and decades of apartheid. These reasons have nothing to do with restoring America's manufacturing base or reducing trade deficits. The US Actually runs a trade surplus with Brazil. While Washington has been alienating these countries, China has been courting them. It has outlined a plan with Brazil for a transformative railway network connecting its Atlantic coast to Peru's Pacific one. Xi managed to get Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit China for the first time in seven years. China has courted South Africa with trade and aid, and public sentiment in that country has moved to be quite favorably inclined towards Beijing. We're often told not to worry, that Trump likes to talk tough just to get the best deal. But his policies now are producing real pain and misery on the ground. People losing their jobs, many being pushed back into poverty. That's why even if these deals are renegotiated and things settle on less brutal terms, the memories will linger. Countries will always know that Washington could treat them as it has, and they will want to hedge their bets and keep strong ties with China and Russia, just in case. American foreign policy these days is a collection of the random slights, insults and ideological obsessions of one man. In general, Trump likes smaller countries he can bully or ideological soulmates who cozy up to him. He doesn't enjoy dealing with large, messy democracies with their own internal dynamics, pride and nationalism. Thus, America under Donald Trump has befriended a strange collection of strongmen in El Salvador, Hungary, Pakistan and the Gulf monarchies. It is meanwhile at odds with the democracies of India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, Canada and most of Europe. Does this make any sense? Watching this week's antics, an incensed Trump grumbled on social media that China, Russia and North Korea are were conspiring against the United States. But if you consider the effects of his policies, it might be more accurate to wonder why the president himself seems to be undermining U.S. interests and values over these past months. Go to CNN.com fareed for a link to my Washington Post column this week. And let's get I just gave you my take on this week's events in China. I wanted to bring in Anne Applebaum to hear hers. She's a Pulitzer Prize winning historian, a staff writer for the Atlantic, and she has been warning for years about this very alliance of autocracies and their growing diplomatic and financial ties. Her most recent book, Autocracy Inc. Has just been released in paperback. Ann, welcome. So as I say, you've been talking about this alliance. When you watched those pictures of Kim, of Xi and of Putin, what strikes you as what keeps them together? Because there is fundamentally the shared opposition to a Western led world and American power.

[Interjecting Commentator/Guest]

Right.

[Fareed Zakaria]

Is there more to it?

[Anne Applebaum]

No, I think that's exactly the point. These are powers that have very different ideologies. Nationalist, communist, theocratic. In the case of Iran, which is sometimes part of this group, what unites them is their dislike of us. And by us, I mean the democratic world, the language of rule of law, the language of transparency, the language of accountability. Because of course, that's the language of their own internal oppositions. And China and Russia in particular, but the rest as well have been working for many years to delegitimize that language, to get the idea of human rights, for example, out of international documents, international institutions, and instead promote an idea that using the word sovereignty, which by the way, is a word that the Trump administration also uses, by which they mean you can't, no one can criticize us and we get to decide what happens inside our own countries. And also if we feel like invading other countries, nobody can object.

[Fareed Zakaria]

And you know, again, to me, the surprise was to see the Indias, the Egypts, the Turkeys, Indonesias, and very high level representatives. It does feel like all of these countries are in some way or the other, you know, dismayed by America. And what they had thought of was a reliable America has gone.

[Anne Applebaum]

So America was a predictable power. It stood for long term investment. It stood for of rules and institutions, which if you liked them or didn't like them, at least they were predictable. And now the United States is seen as unpredictable. And the President is whimsical. He might change his mind at any minute. It's very dangerous to go and see him in the Oval Office because he might attack you. I know foreign leaders who've avoided going for that reason. And so the idea that if you want stability and you want security, then it looks to a lot of countries that are not necessarily autocracies themselves, it looks like maybe you need a good relationship with Russia and China. And it's also a form of hedging, you know, if the United States falls through, well, then we're going to need some other friends.

[Fareed Zakaria]

And, you know, you talk about the, the, you know, the way I see it is there's this geopolitical balancing against American power, but there's also an ideological balancing against democracy, the rule of law and things like that. Do you think, you know, are we returning to almost a Cold War like situation where there are countries now that are increasingly standing in opposition to, you know, liberal democratic values, international rules of law, things like that?

[Anne Applebaum]

Yes, although it's a littleit's even more tricky than the Cold War because the opponents of liberal democracy are also inside liberal democracy. And there is a clear alignment between the German far right, the American far right, the British far right, and sometimes with Russians and with others in the autocratic world. And they are also seeking to undermine liberal democracy. So it's not as straightforward. It's not like there's one block of Democrats versus one bloc of autocrats. It's actually a more complicated picture.

[Fareed Zakaria]

And the right wing populists in one country support those in others. So I look at Trump and you know, what is his anger with South Africa? It's about the treatment of white farmers. Or you look at what he's doing in Poland, where he's reaching in and celebrating and fetting. The president of Poland, who is a titular figure, doesn't have that much political power because he's a right wing ally. Right.

[Anne Applebaum]

But you can see that in other countries as well. I mean, this favoritism shown to Nigel Farage, favoritism shown to the AfD, that's.

[Fareed Zakaria]

More by Bolsonaro in Brazil. Right?

[Anne Applebaum]

Well, Bolson Bolster in Brazil is actually almost an extreme case because you have the US Actually sanctioning Brazil because Brazil has its own political system and its own rule of law, and it's punished its equivalent of January 6, an uprising to overthrow the election. The Brazilians have continued to punish the people responsible for it, and the Trump administration is now angry at Brazil for doing that.

[Fareed Zakaria]

How do polls react to the president, in effect, picking a side in a domestic political debate?

[Anne Applebaum]

I mean, it would depend which kind ofwhich side of the political spectrum you're on. I mean, I think that's true in almost every country. You know, the effect of a US Intervention in a democratic country is really further polarization because it makes, you know, it just divides people more deeply.

[Fareed Zakaria]

That's a very important point, that it's more complicated than the Cold War because the enemies of liberal democracy are now both outside and within.

[Anne Applebaum]

Yes, but I should also say that people who admire and want liberal democracy are also on the other side. There is an Iranian opposition, there is a Russian opposition, there's even a Chinese opposition. And they also have relationships with one another. And they are also interested in changing their own governments or in changing. So it's not as if they're, you know, even Russia is a clear picture either.

[Fareed Zakaria]

That's a nice uplifting note to end on. Ann Applebaum, thank you so much. The book Autocracy Inc. Is in paperback. With everything you write, it's fantastic. Next on gps, an end to the war in Gaza has never seemed further away. How did we get here? And can we get out? I'll explore with two experts next.

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[Fareed Zakaria]

There'S been some talk from both Israel and Hamas of a comprehensive peace deal to end the war in Gaza, but at the moment, peace has never looked farther away. The Israeli army is readying a full scale invasion of Gaza City, and right wing voices in Israel are calling for increasingly extreme steps. The Israeli finance minister this week called for an annexation of most of the west bank, telling reporters the main goal is to remove once and for all this idea of a Palestinian state. Joining me now to talk about what all this means is Rob Malley, a longtime U.S. negotiator between the two sides. He is the co author of a new book, Tomorrow is Life, Death and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel, Palestine. And Dan Senor is a political advisor, analyst and author and host of an excellent podcast. Rob, your book is fascinating because what you say in it is that you think looking back, the entire premise, the narrative that we were all moving toward a two state solution was fundamentally wrong.

[Rob Malley]

And I think the onus now would be on those who claim otherwise. It's been 30 years, perhaps more if you go back historically of attempts to have a hard partition between Israelis and Palestinians. And what Hussein Aga and I argue in the book is that that was an illusion. It was an illusion, a delusion. To some extent it was a lie that is still being bandied around today in order to feel good about doing something, saying something. But realities on the ground have moved so far away from that goal that I think it's time to be honest with ourselves.

[Fareed Zakaria]

And to put it bluntly, whose fault is it?

[Rob Malley]

You know, we could spend a lot of time. What we argue in the book is that it was never the natural landing place for either Israelis or Palestinians. Neither one of them came up with the idea of partition. Neither one of them came up with the idea of two states. Deep down, what the Palestinians really want in their view is full justice, redemption. They want to erase what happened in 1948. That's what their real aspiration, their yearning is. And that's fundamentally not compatible with a Jewish state. And what is really is deep down want. They want full security, they want full safety. They don't want to see another people there that could in any way potentially present a threat. Some of them want all of the land and that's fundamentally not compatible with a Palestinian, a sovereign, genuine Palestinian state. So neither one of them really wanted to go there. And ultimately it was up to the United States. And there the failure, I think is unmistakable. Administration after administration, including those that I worked for and I worked for, several claimed that it was a priority and did nothing to make it happen.

[Fareed Zakaria]

So what does that leave you? You know, do you end up just saying what's going to happen? Because on the ground you do have these 5 million people who are on lands governed by Israel.

[Rob Malley]

So that's why Hussein and I entitled the book Tomorrow is Yesterday. Because what we're going to see tomorrow is very much what we've seen in the past. It's nothing new. We're going to see the status quo, we're going to see breakdowns, we're going to see worsening of the status quo. And then there's going to be attempts to think up other ideas. Some of them are going to be morally repellent, at least to me. Annexation, ethnic cleansing, trying to get rid of one side or the other. And then hopefully, as happened in the past, some Israelis and Palestinians will come together and try to think courageously, creatively, of an outcome in which they could coexist, even if it's short of full peace, but some form of coexistence, because it's time we get our heads out of the sand. The two state solution as we conceived it, a real two state solution. It's not going to happen. The two people are going to have to coexist. You just said it. It means there's going to have to be more creativity. And the straight jacket of the two state solution has prevented so many people about thinking of different ways of coexisting.

[Fareed Zakaria]

So Dan, you come at this in some senses from politically from a very different place. But I suspect that some of this resonates for you because I'm guessing you think the two state solution is also on its deathbed. I'm not as pess.

[Interjecting Commentator/Guest]

Pessimistic as Rob, so that's where I part ways with him. I didn't expect this to be the conversation. I think we should have a little bit more humility about what's possible and what's not possible and just ask the question. If we want to bring the temperature down between Israelis and Palestinians, whether they can get to a two state solution or not. The one sure thing we know we could do is try to create the conditions where that could possibly be possible someday. Even along the way, it will improve the situation if the conditions are, if both sides feel that they have some semblance of a home, they can live with some semblance of security and safety. And I think right now, operating in a world in which the Palestinians are coming to believe that they are going to get a state while Hamas is holding hostages, while Hamas has arms and while Hamas says it will do October 7th over and over and over again is the opposite of creating the conditions where you can bring the temperature down. And I think that is the folly, the catastrophe of what you're watching play out right now with all these European countries rallying later this month at the UN to recognize a Palestinian state.

[Fareed Zakaria]

Stay with that. When we come back, I'm going to ask what does that mean for Israel's invasion, planned invasion of Gaza City when we come back. And we are back with Rob Malley and Dan Sino. So Rob, when you listen to Dan, and I think the Israeli perspective here would be, look, if Hamas were to surrender, if they were to return the hostages, we can then move on. But right now we can't. And there are lots of people who think Bibi Netanyahu is just prolonging this war to stay in power and such. But there is a large constituency in Israel that feels that something has to change. We're not going to go back to the same old dynamic between Hamas and Israel. And so we need to do something. Is that reasonable? Where does this invasion of Gaza City leave?

[Rob Malley]

So first I'd say I'm not a military expert. I don't know how Israel should have dealt with and should deal with the issues that whatever it faces in Gaza, I do know what it should not do. And what we've seen so far has been a pattern of indiscriminate killing, of transferring population, targeting, killing of health workers, you know, killing, destroying mosques, schools, education centers, that there's no military doctrine. I think that can justify that. There's no justification for it. And it's why an increasing number of organizations around the world are calling it a genocide. So that's where we can't go. And the notion that Israel now has to defeat Hamas, I'm not even sure what that means. At the end of the day, the constituency in Gaza that's going to be strongest no matter how long this war lasts, is almost certainly going to be Hamas. So that concept is a recipe for endless war. I don't agree fully with what Dan said about where we go in the future. I do agree that you need to find a way to lower the temperature. I think ultimately you need to find a way for all Israelis and Palestinians to have equal rights, regardless of one state, two states, three states. But that's not going to happen if you have a generation of Palestinians, which you already have, who have suffered the most atrocious form of warfare. If now Israel continues that, who knows where this leads. So again, I'm not going to say what Israel should do. I think the war needs to end now. But certainly if they try to go into Gaza, it's going to be just sort of more what we see.

[Fareed Zakaria]

So a lot of people who I think supported Israel on October 7 supported a lot of the war Doof feel like, you know, it feels like it's just going on and on. It's not really a war anymore. You have one of the world's most powerful armies against what look like women and children, you know, the occasional militant hidden amongst them. No question. What is the strategic purpose at this point? And you know, where does it lead you?

[Interjecting Commentator/Guest]

I'll answer that. I just want to come back to one thing. Rob said. The talk of genocide, which is a term that has been grossly manipulated over the last few months. To me, the single question, you want to know which party is responsible for a genocide or attempted genocide, Just ask this simple. If Israel were to drop its arms today, period, full stop, there would be no Israel. All Israelis would be wiped out. If Hamas were to drop its arms today, there would be no Palestinian civilian human catastrophe. That Rob is worried about the Palestinian civilians being collateral damage. That's just the reality. So ask yourself that question. Israel drops its arms, it's wiped out. That's the answer to the question as to who's attempting a genocide as it relates to Gaza City. Look, I think there are two things going on. One, Israel has stayed out of Gaza City. It is a Hamas stronghold. There's a reason why. There's a number of reasons it's stayed out of Gaza City, one of which is expected. It's understood that that's where a lot of the hostages are. But there's increasingly a view among the Israeli leadership, mostly the political leadership, that unless Gaza City is taken, it's sort of like the Berlin or the Moscow for Hamas, that Hamas will climb out of the rubble in any post war situation and live to fight another day. And that's Just unacceptable. If Israel really wants to crush Hamas, it has to take Gaza City.

[Fareed Zakaria]

My sense is, correct me if I'm wrong about all this international criticism that Israel is getting. The Israeli view, particularly on the right is who cares? We are going to win and then they'll have to deal with us.

[Interjecting Commentator/Guest]

I have been frustrated by the Israeli attitude and what I think is the times incompetence in dealing with what I feel like the walls closing in internationally and Israel's ham handed way of telling its story and explaining its position. I think there's a sense that as you said, Israel win, this will pass. Israel's popularity plummets whenever Israel's fighting wars. We saw that in the Second Lebanon War in 2006. We saw that in the First Lebanon War in the early 80s. Always happens and then Israel rebounds. Israel will get through this and it will rebound. Two years is different from a the 2014 Gaza war.

[Fareed Zakaria]

Two weeks.

[Interjecting Commentator/Guest]

Yeah, this is, this is, we're in a different arena now. And I just, I will say to both of you, when you say there's no strategic reason for Israel to go into Gaza City again, I think this.

[Fareed Zakaria]

Is what Israel's own generals, I know there's former prime ministers, there are disagreements.

[Interjecting Commentator/Guest]

I mean within the Israeli security. There were disagreements in the Israeli security establishment about a whole range of these geopolitical issues. So I just think the majority of Israelis, even though they want a hostage deal, they want the war to end. If you ask a majority of Israel Israelis, what will it mean for the end of the war if Hamas is still in power and able to pose a threat to Israel again? And that's a much different question. And that is why when there was a vote in the Knesset not long ago, just a couple months ago about saying no to a future Palestinian state, period, full stop, Israeli political leaders from right to left voted for that. Benny Gantz voted for it. Yair Lapid, these are leaders of the opposition, they voted for this. And I think that is reflective of the consensus in Israel. Israel is a real country that has real threats and it has to. Its view is it's got to eliminate those threats.

[Fareed Zakaria]

And I assume that a Palestinian looking at the situation feels a somewhat similar view.

[Rob Malley]

I mean it is a real question to ask, you know, if you say how could Israel not have responded to what happened October 7th? You asked the question earlier how Palestinians are not going to respond to what they've endured, whatever you want to call it. That's what's really frightening about the current situation, which is there is a Generation of Palestinians who are going to grow up with nothing to lose. Their only memory is going to be either of, you know, in Gaza, the blockade or what's happening now. The west bank we haven't spoken about, but things are really going in the wrong direction, too. I don't see how what you set out at the goal at the beginning, Dan, which is to create the conditions where the two peoples could live together again. How do you do that when the memory of what just happened is going to be so stark? The memory of October 7th is not going to go away either. But let's not forget generation of Palestinians who've lost mothers, brothers, sons, daughters. What are they going to do?

[Fareed Zakaria]

All right, we got to unfortunately close on that. I do have to say, whatever you think on the subject, it's a very rich and interesting book. Thank you both. Next on GPS, I will talk to Sanjay Gupta about RFK Jr and the damage that is being done to American medicine. More than one fifth of American adults suffer from chronic pain. For decades, modern medicine has tried to address this with opioids and other interventions that often don't work or in the case of opioids, actually make the problem worse. In his new book, it doesn't have to hurt, Dr. Sanjay Gupta gets to the root of chronic pain. He's a neurosurgeon and CNN's chief medical correspondent. He joins me now. Always a pleasure.

[Sanjay Gupta]

Such an honor to be here. Thank you for having me.

[Fareed Zakaria]

So, to me, the most fascinating part about the general way you think about this is you point out that Americans are 4% of the world's population and consume, what, 90% of the world's opioids. That's right.

[Sanjay Gupta]

Some of the things like Vicodin and Percocet, the numbers have changed a bit. But there was a point where we were taking 90% of those medications. We were also performing a lot of surgery. And to give you context, I found this fascinating. 1.2 million spinal operations, most of those done for pain. And to give you context, Great Britain performed 50,000. They're about a quarter of our population. But even if you do that math, we're still five to ten times greater in terms of invasive procedures and invasive medications.

[Fareed Zakaria]

What does this tell you about pain? Is it something that we actually have much greater ability to bear or not bear, based on the culture, the expectations, the system?

[Sanjay Gupta]

I think, look, we're all humans, so we all have the same physiology, similar pain tolerance overall across societies. I think this gets to cultural expectations and this idea that I really struggled with a bit in the book. But expectations and experience are inextricably linked. If you think something is going to hurt, it's probably going to hurt no matter what. And if you think it's not going to hurt, or if you don't need pain meds or a procedure, then you can do almost anything within reason to the human body and you really don't need those medications, which I found really interesting.

[Fareed Zakaria]

So it's really. I mean, so there's a very powerful sense in which the pain is in your head.

[Rob Malley]

Yeah.

[Sanjay Gupta]

Yes is the answer. And the reason I hesitate is because I get criticized for saying this, as have other people. You're just saying it's in my head. You're saying I'm making it up. I'm malingering. It's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that the brain is the ultimate decider of whether or not you have pain. There's these receptors in your periphery that will send signals to the brain. And the brain is then trying to make sense of it. And it's trying to make sense of the insult that you've just experienced. But also, are you depressed? Do you have anxiety? Is there an adverse childhood experience? Did you experience something like this in the past? And if so, what happened? At that point, all these things sort of get commingled. Then the brain has to make a decision as to how much this hurts, if at all.

[Fareed Zakaria]

Since I have you, I gotta ask you about what's going on in the news. To me, the interesting question is not, is Robert Kennedy stripping the CDC off some of its most important experts and politicizing it? It seems obvious he's doing that, but is there a kernel of truth or maybe more than a kernel of truth to his critique? When he says, and he lays out in an op ed in the Wall Street Journal that, you know, the CDC started as an infectious disease fighting outfit. It then grew. It's taken on all these other roles as mission creep. It can't do a lot of the things it used to do very well because it's lost some of that flexibility. It doesn't know what its mission is. You know, Michael Lewis talked about this about the CDC kind of observing Covid rather than really asking itself, is it meant to fight it? So is there a value? Is there a kernel of truth and is there a value to what he's doing?

[Sanjay Gupta]

Look, I don't think there's a lot of value to the way that he's approaching it. Even if there is a kernel of truth. In what he's saying, look, CDC started off as a malaria control organization, and this is in the 1940s, I think it was called the center for Communicable Diseases. At that point, I think, as happened in many places around the world, chronic diseases became the primary driver of illness and death. So the idea that you would pivot to say, hey, look, we gotta talk about cardiac disease, we gotta talk about cancer, diabetes, and even dementia, that became under the purview of the cdc, where I think he has a point, is that that just sort of happened. And still the Centers for Disease Control, they add and prevention at some point. But I don't think the mission was as clear. And I think we probably had a hard time with this during COVID because the focus on infectious diseases wasn't as great as it once was. So, yeah, we have to be talking about these other things, Fareed. I mean, you know, if you look at cardiac disease, it is still the biggest killer in this country. What organization is going to oversee that? And, you know, the irony, I think, with RFK is that he talks about Maha making America healthy again. And I think everyone agrees with that, and they agree that the United States is not very healthy. But how is he going to do it? So far, if you look objectively, measurably at what he's done, it's been a focus on seed oils and food dyes. How is that getting us to where.

[Fareed Zakaria]

We need to be?

[Sanjay Gupta]

I mean, I think it's very concerning, and I don't want to be hyperbolic about this, but, you know, I'm a doctor, and I think that our healthcare system has been really damaged by what has happened over the last year. Really damaged. We've lost brain talent. People are going to other countries. The United States is not viewed as sort of that leader in healthcare, I think, in many places around the world. And I think we're going to feel that impact for a long time to come.

[Fareed Zakaria]

Sanjay Gupta. The book is really fascinating and I have not finished it, but strongly recommend it to everyone. Thank you.

[Sanjay Gupta]

Such a pleasure, Faree.

[Rob Malley]

Thank you.

[Fareed Zakaria]

Sanjay also has a new documentary on pain. It's called Dr. Gupta Reports. It doesn't have to Hurt. And you can watch it right here on CNN tonight at 9:00pm Eastern, next on GPS. AI is changing the way students learn and the way they present their results to professors. My next guest says it poses an existential threat to education. Summer break is over, sadly, and educators around the world have an ever worsening headache to deal with. AI. It's changing the way students learn and poses a potential crisis for schools and universities. I spoke about it with Derek Thompson. He is the co author of the best selling book Abundance and has an eponymous substack. So one of the ways AI is changing the world that we can see right now, we don't have to predict, and is slightly disturbing, is one you dealt with in a recent podcast of yours. You can tell that college papers and exams and almost any kind of work that is being given to college students increasingly is pretty good. The problem is it's not clear it's been written by them. It seems to be written by AI. What you know how to think about. This seems like if education is at the basis of, you know, of an advanced economy and at the heart of education, you have essentially widespread cheating, which is the only way to describe it. What do we do?

[Derek Thompson]

Look, this is an existential crisis right now. I think for many schools. We have a very particular way of assessing learned intelligence in high school and college. That's the written take home essay. And if ChatGPT is good at anything, it's very, very good at writing an A minus take home essay in practically everything. If you want to write a review of a freeze Zakaria book, a review of Abundance, a history of the Habsburg Empire, the answer to some mathematical test or challenge, AI is quite good at doing all these things. And that makes it very difficult, I think, not only for teachers to understand what students are learning, but also for employers to understand. What does GPA even mean these days? If the 4.0 that I'm looking at on your transcript might simply be an assessment of your ability to cheat, not your ability to learn. So one thing that schools are thinking about right now is moving from written assessments of intelligence to oral assessments of intelligence. My wife just finished her PhD in clinical psychology. And at the end of your PhD, you defend your dissertation. You don't just turn in the paper, you defend it to professors. And I wonder if you're going to see many, many schools, high schools, colleges, universities, move toward this style of defending your ideas, not just turning in a written assessment. Because AI can fake the written assessment, it cannot fake your defense of those ideas in front of the classroom.

[Fareed Zakaria]

And you could imagine also the old blue books where you'd write. I mean, that's how I went through most of college. The problem of course, is professors right now, I think like the system because the work comes in well, they can give everyone an A minus. This puts a huge burden on the examiners. Can AI be used to help with the Examining, I mean, presumably AI can listen to these defenses, could read even the handwriting in the blue books and help the professors so that rather than helping the students cheat, it helps the professors outsmart the cheaters.

[Derek Thompson]

We're already seeing many teachers using AI to structure their curricula, decide what to teach, work out certain administrative functions. I think in one Gallup study it was revealed that something like 50 to 60% of teachers surveyed by Gallup say they use generative AI. And the majority of those say that it saves them up to six weeks of work a year. I mean, it's a six week holiday given to you by ChatGPT. So there's a way, I think, to be optimistic about this from the standpoint of some teachers, right, they're finding ways to use this technology. But I really do think that it's going to be difficult to replace, take home tests without changing the way that teachers value the assessment of intelligence. Right now we lean on the written exam for a lot, right? It is the staple of how we tend to assess whether you've learned anything from your history class, your English class. I think it will take a while. It might be a little bit of painful adjustment period for us to sort of go back to, you know, BCE ancient Greece where you really did have people standing up and defending their knowledge rather than, you know, inscribing it on a piece of papyrus. I do think this is going to be a bit of a painful adjustment for period. But my hope is that we can come at the other side with something superior. A lot of the work that people do in a white collar economy is akin to talking, defending, not just writing a memo, but then in the meeting saying, this is why my memo is right. So there's a way in which maybe this transition from a written to oral based education could actually help us in the long run.

[Fareed Zakaria]

So the killer subjects to major in in the future, according to Derek Thompson, will be rhetoric and elocution. Derek Thompson, pleasure.

[Derek Thompson]

Don't forget theater.

[Fareed Zakaria]

Theater. Pleasure to have you on. We'll have you on again soon. Thank you. Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week. News fatigue. Have I got news for you Is the cure and also the disease. CNN's Comedy Quiz show is back. Making sense of the mayhem and definitely adding to it. Have I got news for you. Saturday at 9 on CNN.