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- [00:04]
Abe Greenwald
Hope for the best, expect the worst.
- [00:11]
Matt Ebert
Some preach and pain Some die of thirst no way of knowing which way.
- [00:18]
Abe Greenwald
It'S going Hope for the best Expect.
- [00:21]
John Podhoretz
The worst, Hope for the best. Welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. Today is Tuesday, July 29, 2025. I'm John Pod Horace, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
- [00:38]
Seth Mandel
Hi, John.
- [00:39]
John Podhoretz
Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.
- [00:41]
Abe Greenwald
Hi, John.
- [00:43]
John Podhoretz
Social Commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.
- [00:46]
Christine Rosen
Hi, John.
- [00:47]
John Podhoretz
And joining us today, our contributing editor, Honcho Voice, big cheese at the foundation for Defense of Democracies, Jonathan Schanzer. Welcome, Jonathan.
- [00:58]
Abe Greenwald
Hi, Jon.
- [00:59]
John Podhoretz
We're going to talk about Gaza and a very innovative piece that Jonathan Schanzer published on our website over the weekend. But before that, we have to make note of the shooting on Park Avenue Last night around 6:45pm we don't know much about the shooting. It is it hits a little home for me because one of the victims, Wesley lapatner, whom I, whom I don't know, a parent at, at the Jewish day school that my son goes to and was on the board of the school. And so she was apparently just caught unawares in the lobby as the shooter sprayed gunfire. I don't know, it seemed like a potentially much larger a story with a much larger valence than it may end up being, simply because of the nature of where he went and into a building with a famous hedge fund in it. But the stories and the things that the mayor of New York, Eric Adams, have been saying suggest that he might have had a much smaller footprint here, that this was some possible revenge spree against the NFL because he himself didn't either get into the NFL or has a brain injury from playing football or something like that. And Adam said that he has mental health issues. So it's, you know, it may be just a sort of singular event about, you know, violent America and people, you know, using the weaponry that they have to take revenge for reasons that are entirely interior. But I do think it's interesting that we are 24 years, almost 24 years after 9 11. And of course, the minute that there is anything functionally like this, even in in New York, everybody kind of snaps back to the New York City terrorist target that, that we we've been through wars, we've been through changes administration, we've been through all kinds of things, but we're still living in the post 911 era. The fact that it was such news a couple of weeks ago that Homeland Security secretary announced that you were no longer going to have to take off your shoes at the airport. 20 years since we started having to take our shoes off at the airport in response to the shoe bomber, Richard Reed, who tried to set his sneaker on fire because he had a bomb in his shoe. We still living there.
- [03:56]
Seth Mandel
Although I agree, you know, I mean, I definitely agree and, but I think also my head goes to, when I hear a story like this, there's a wider array of possible motivated gunman now because, because violence has entered aspects of our domestic politics too now. So when I hear there's a shooter and they go, could be terrorism of the old sort, could be crazy left winger, could be a crazy right winger. I don't, I don't know. You know, there's a, there's sort of more pathology to choose from now.
- [04:41]
John Podhoretz
Right. And obviously the thing that this evoked, the minute that anybody heard about it wasn't 9, 11 precisely, but Luigi Mangione shooting the healthcare executive about half a mile from where this shooting took place, actually, oddly, on the Same Cross Street, 53rd street, this was at park, that shooting was between 6th and 7th. That's, you know, not really, not very far. And that was obviously a politically motivated assassination of a, of a capitalist. And so if you thought that it was Blackstone that was being targeted, you would say, well, this is, this is the first post Luigi Mangione event. But I'm just talking about muscle memory almost or sort of emotional memory. Like there was a reason that this was covered for four hours without let up on cnn. Although I will tell you that when I switched over to MSNBC around 11 o' clock Eastern, they were talking about why Trump can't get away from the Epstein story and not about this actual news event which is three blocks from their headquarters. Of course, the answer being Trump can't get away from the Epstein story because MSNBC wants to cover the Epstein.
- [05:59]
Christine Rosen
Well, an even more cynical observation might be the fact that the shooter's demographics didn't match, you know, angry white right wing male, which MSNBC then would be covering that story still, if that were the case, if it were politically motivated right wing killing of someone on the left. As we know, even CNN in its initial coverage was calling the perpetrator likely white. And this was called out on social media. And I think the reason isn't to be glib about the circumstances, which are horrif, but to point out that the framing, the way these instantaneous framing speaks to Abe's important point, which is people are very confused when something violent happens over the weekend. There Was a guy went on a stabbing spree at a store in Michigan. Again, what are the motives? I mean, there were some slogans shouted. Is he left wing? Is he right wing? We're so quick to want to code each horrible episode that it has become kind of a knee jerk reaction. The media's role isn't supposed to do that. They're supposed to do the opposite, which is follow the facts, you know, withhold saying anything until they have those facts. And of course, that's. That ship has sailed. But it was noticeable. I had the same feeling you did about terrorism, John. And then I instantly thought it might be a targeted anti Semitic attack. And then I thought, is there a political event? I mean, you. Now, Abe's right. You have to go through a roster of likely targets. And that's not. That doesn't speak well of our particular cultural moment.
- [07:20]
John Podhoretz
To be sure.
- [07:21]
Jonathan Schanzer
There was a very telling moment was on that point, was that yesterday someone tweeted, a reporter tweeted that, you know, because there were a couple people arrested in the vicinity who were not part of the shooting, but, you know, people who either were acting strange or whatever at the moment, you know, cops pulling people off the scene. And a reporter tweeted that one of them was wearing a Palestine shirt. They showed a picture of him and they tweeted that he said, free Palestine, but I'm not the shooter. And that was like a, that, that to me was like, that's our moment right now. It's like, wait, you know, we don't know. It could be anything. Could be anything with the shooter, could have anything, you know, but you're still going to hear free Palestine, but just know that I'm not the shooter. The shooter was mad at Roger Goodell, I'm mad at Israel, but I see a camera and, and I have handcuffs on. And so you have no idea what's going on because the police arrested. You know, how suspicious is it when you say, you know, I'm not the shooter, by the way, you know, so police arrested the guy and you're seeing people in handcuffs and you go, all right, there's a Palestine stalker shirt and there's, you know, this. And there's. There's like a whole lineup of possible people and you really have no idea what's going on because people sort of jump into these situations and it's kind of like, will the real shooter please stand up? Will the real motivation please stand up? They're all believable.
- [08:50]
John Podhoretz
I think that's true. We had, speaking of the screaming Free, Free Palestine had this remarkable moment, which I guess, Seth, you're going to write about later with the singer, songwriter Regina Spector appearing in concert. I'm having a little trouble finding maybe. Seth, you know where the concert was? Portland, in Portland. So Regina Spector is a. Has, I don't know, 12, 13 albums, great favorites of my family. She's born. She's a Russian Jew, born in the Soviet Union, I believe, and then raised in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. And her music and her songs are not about politics, they're about relationships and what it's like to be a woman and stuff like that. But she's known to be a Jew from. And she gave this concert and people started yelling Free Palestine from the floor while she was singing. And she had them. She had one person thrown out of the concert. And then the concert became this kind of debating for at least 10 minutes, this people saying, you're not. Why can't you say it? You get. Throw her out. And then she kept basically throwing people out. And at some point she said, you're all just yelling at me because I'm a Jewish. And then she said, I'm being othered and it sucks. Which I thought was interesting because othered is, of course, the word that is used by feminists and the left to say you're trying to describe me in a fashion that puts me outside the mainstream of society and treats me as though I'm a freak. And she was right. She was being othered. And so in the world.
- [10:58]
Christine Rosen
Can I just add, she also said something that just really warmed my heart. She kept saying, this isn't the Internet. Stop. This is not the Internet, she said, not a chat room.
- [11:08]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, but I bring this up that.
- [11:10]
Jonathan Schanzer
With John.
- [11:10]
Christine Rosen
That.
- [11:11]
Jonathan Schanzer
That other. That the part of the other comment that she made was very interesting because she said that was the full. The full comment is. The only reason I even speak English is because I came here to escape this shit. Sorry to the sponsors, right? I only speak English because I came from a country where people were treating Jews as others. And now I'm being othered here, and it sucks. It'll be nice if one of my family's generation didn't have to go to a new country and learn a new language. So it was very. The other part was, you know, we came here because of you people. You're the version of you people in Russia, and you're just following us, us Jews around the globe. And it's like we came here because we were being othered somewhere else. And now, you know, we're being made to feel the others in America. And it's a very poignant point, I think, also, just because it's, you know, it, it. Regina Spectre, as you can tell by the language that she used, and John, as you mentioned, she's not of the political right in any way, shape or form. I was at a concert of hers.
- [12:23]
Abe Greenwald
Not yet.
- [12:23]
John Podhoretz
Not yet.
- [12:24]
Jonathan Schanzer
Not yet.
- [12:25]
Abe Greenwald
Right.
- [12:25]
Jonathan Schanzer
I was at a concert, you know, during the Romney Obama election. And she gave this whole steal from the stage on how Obama was obviously the cool candidate and Romney was obviously uncool and all this other stuff. She is politically of the left, but she's also Russian. And so there's a, you know, there's near term institutional memory of this type of harassment that comes to the fore. And that's what she expressed last night.
- [12:59]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, I mean, you know, this is one of these things where the, the, the demand that everything be political, every event, every concert, anything, everything is a constant performative moment again on social media, the Internet, chat room stuff is one of the things that is poising our lives. And that you finally have a performer who is willing to say, I'm a Jew, stop it. I had to run away from the Soviet Union so that I could live a free life. As I say, that's why I joke that, you know, she's not on the right yet, but I don't know what home there is for people like her, what home there is going to be for people like her in the cultural precincts that she might feel more comfortable with. Because this demand is only going to intensify. It has only been intensifying over the past decade. And Jonathan Chanzer, to bring this full circle, of course, the intensification of this demand became extreme over the last 108 hours or something like that, as this narrative that we spent the entire show talking about yesterday, that Israel is just now deliberately starving people in Gaza and committing a genocide, that is being said now without qualification, openly by headline writers at major newspapers without qualification. And that this now becomes a thing where everybody is asked everywhere. I'm sure if you go on the View or, you know, you, you know, you're on a, you're on qvc. Somebody might at. Might ask you what you think about the starving children of Gaza and the evil Israeli efforts to cause mass death. You have a piece we published, I think, on Sunday on our website that says, far from this being a hinge moment in the history of war crimes, that what's been going on in Israel over the last week may Suggest the way out for Israel and the west or the United States out of the mire. I don't think it's a quagmire, but it's a bit of a mire in Gaza. Can you enlighten us as to the optimism that you express in this piece that seems, I would say, oddly at odds with the general feeling or spirit among people who are supporters of Israel at this point, the ugliness that we've been subjected to in the last four or five, six days.
- [16:00]
Abe Greenwald
Sure, John, thanks. First of all, just for the opportunity to publish that on the website, because it was something I'd been thinking about actually for some time now. I mean, first let me just say that the allegations of famine and war crimes, I'm not here to tell you that they're true or that they're not true. I mean, we are in the fog of war. The Israelis are saying one thing. The Gaza Humanitarian foundation, this private organization that's dispersing aid, they have their own reports from the ground. And then you have on the other side, the Gaza Ministry of Health, which is of course a Hamas entity that's been reporting on, you know, nutrition as well as, you know, casualties and things like that. We can't trust that. We can't trust Al Jazeera, we can't trust the BBC, we can't trust cnn. I mean, you know, the nature of this debate has just become utterly predictable. And it's just a food fight. Literally, it's a fight over food. And I think that this does afford Israel a moment to perhaps pause and rethink strategy. And so here's what I laid out. First of all, I think Israel's won the war. And I think that part of what's happening right now is that Hamas is so desperate that they've now resorted to this, right? Like allegations of war crimes. They're on the brink. They. I mean, it's funny, I spoke to an Israeli contact of mine the other day and I asked him how many high value targets are on the Israeli list? Like, what's the target bank for Israel right now? And he said there are probably three people right now that they recognize. Behind me here on my shelf, I've got one of those decks of cards that I got in Israel in January of 24. And you know, there are 52 people that were identified. I don't know, by the way, what it is about democracies when they go to war. They have to create a deck of cards with all of the targets that they're going after it's a thing. But there's nobody left out of the 52. There's literally nobody in that deck of cards that the Israelis are looking for any longer. There's one guy, Izzeddin Al Haddad. Most people don't even know his name. He's the new leader of Hamas on the ground. Nobody heard of him before.
- [18:27]
John Podhoretz
I don't know.
- [18:29]
Abe Greenwald
Mohammed Sinwar was killed and most people still don't even know who he is. So I think when you look at Israel's accomplishments in Gaza, they're not fighting the same organization that attacked them on 10, 7. So I actually do think that this is a moment where Israel can declare victory. Now, it does not feel like a particularly gratifying victory because they still have hostages that they need to get out. There's 20 live hostages, 30 that are deceased, and Hamas doesn't want to budge. And on top of that, you have all these allegations of war crimes. And so the Israelis look like they're on their back foot. Fine. Here's what I think they should do. Declare a pause or even a semi permanent end to this conflict, because they have achieved the vast majority of their war aims from there. I think the Israelis need to flood Gaza with as much food as humanly possible. And you know, the reason for this is simply because it's the right thing to do. You don't want to deprive an entire population as much, by the way, as this is very likely an enemy population. I would say that the vast majority of Gazans would like to see Israel destroyed and that there is nothing in international law that says that this is Israel's job. But nevertheless, Israel can't afford to lose its morality, right? I mean, this is the one thing that has set Israel apart from. Not the one thing, but the primary thing, let's say, that has set Israel apart from Iran and all of its proxies. Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis. These people are violent animals and Israel needs to not act like them. And so if it means flooding the place with food and working with partners like Jordan or the UAE or whomever, great, they should. So once you've done that, then I think there needs to be one more declaration out of Israel, which is simply, we're not letting in an ounce of reconstruction material until all of our demands are met. So in other words, Hamas, you want to stay in charge of Gaza, that's fine, but you're never going to rebuild this place. And you know, for anybody that's seen the photos, that's seen what's going on in Gaza. That's not a good thing for the million and a half, 2 million people who live there. But this is like a legitimate thing to ask for. Israel should say we want every hostage out before we allow for reconstruction. That's absolutely, I mean that's reasonable, right? They should say we want all the weapons, all the major rockets handed over. We want people to go in and destroy these tunnels or at least fill them with something that would make them unusable and maybe ask for the exile of the one or two or three top leaders, you know, from there.
- [21:20]
Jonathan Schanzer
Can I ask, can I ask. Just a quick follow up on that though. The concern I think would be that the, if you put, let food into Gaza, ended the war but said no construction material to rebuild, the images would then be of a flattened Gazan moonscape. And the pressure from the same people who, who successfully pressured Israel into, you know, so called humanitarian pause would pressure Israel into saying, well, why, you know, it's collective punishment to not let these people have a home to stay in their innocence. How do you, how do you stop the ratcheting up, you know, of that.
- [22:01]
Abe Greenwald
Sort of, you can't and I think you should expect that. But I think that, look, you know, the allegation of starvation is one thing, the allegation of not allowing for reconstruction because Hamas still poses a threat and Israel still sees it as a, you know, as a combatant, that it still sees it as, you know, an organization that wants to destroy Israel. There's no reason why they should allow for this terrorist group to be able to reconstitute or to be the administrator while Gaza reconstitutes. And you know, and look, I fully expect that the, you know, the war of words continues, the assaults on Israel, the blood libels that they're going to continue. But I think what, what Israel needs to understand, you're going to have people like on the right, you're going to have the Smotrich types and the Ben Veer types who say absolutely not. We're not stopping the war. My answer there is don't stop it entirely. In other words, do what Israel is already doing in the west bank or the Gaza Strip before the war started or in Lebanon or in Syria, which is to say attack when you see threats. Take out top leaders when you have the opportunity, take out rockets and rocket launchers when you see them. Destroy terror infrastructure as you have the opportunity. And by the way, even if you want to try to rescue a hostage because you have good intel, go do it. But don't put thousands of troops on the ground and put more and more IDF lives at stake. We continue to hear from the families of Israeli soldiers that have fallen, like, what are we fighting for right now? What are we actually getting out of this if Hamas is already defeated? So what you have right now is essentially the opportunity, in my view, for the Israelis to put the onus on Hamas and essentially go to Steve Witkoff and say, look, we're getting out. Go figure out how to get our demands met. And you can do it with the Qataris if you want. We don't recommend it. You could do it with the Egyptians. We don't recommend it, but good luck. This is what we've decided to do and there will be no reconstruction.
- [24:12]
John Podhoretz
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- [26:14]
Abe Greenwald
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- [26:44]
Jonathan Schanzer
So.
- [26:44]
John Podhoretz
Just to, just to lay this out, essentially, Israel unilaterally declares victory in the war in Gaza. And therefore there will be measures that they will take unilaterally, not with agreement with Hamas, which is they will establish some kind of a zone at the border with the Gaza envelope that is a mile or two deep into which no Gazan will be allowed to set foot. They will have other means around. They're not going to occupy Gaza, but they are going to occupy territory in Gaza. Remember, we like occupy Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. I mean, it's not as though there are not places on the earth in which a foreign army stays in place to sort of pacify a border within the territory of the supposedly sovereign. Not that Gaza's really sovereign, but sovereign land outside the official border. And they just say, this is where we're gonna be because we have to protect our people and we reserve the right to do overflights and watch what's going on and do whatever. What you're not going to get is Appomattox. You're not going to get a formal surrender by card number 49 or card number 51 who sits in a courthouse and signs the thing with our general. And the people in gutter aren't going to say, yes, Israel won, but you are essentially going to pull out the mainstream Israeli army and it becomes essentially a kind of patrolling. So you don't get the destruction. You don't get this sort of post World War II, Germany is a. Germany is obliterated and has. There's no remaining Nazi resistance and the Japanese regime is gone and there's no remaining Japanese resistance. But you say you won.
- [29:00]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah.
- [29:00]
John Podhoretz
Okay.
- [29:01]
Abe Greenwald
And just to be clear, we don't ever expect Hamas to surrender. They just won't. I mean, it's not, it's not in their DNA. Same reason why you're not seeing the Iranians surrender. It's the same kind of mentality. They think they're fighting a holy war against the Jewish state and that they need to keep fighting even when they're losing. And, and so the Israelis should Say, look, we have nothing left to fight here. There's. I mean, yes, you've got a bunch of youth with AK47s and IEDs, but are they really the. The army that you were fighting after 10, 7? I mean, absolutely not. And so it's just not worth the fight any longer. You're punching down at this point, and you can see how this is all shaping up.
- [29:45]
Christine Rosen
So where does this leave. Where does this leave room for the Trump administration to also say, yes, this is a good idea? I mean, I agree, I think it's a good idea. But Trump, you know, as we know, just sort of publicly stated he's worried about Gaza, and this is being played in our media as if he's abandoning Netanyahu and abandoning this coalition, which I don't. Which I think is extreme overreaction. But is there, where is America and the Trump administration in particular, where could they fit in this plan to actually say, yes, is there a place for them in it?
- [30:16]
Abe Greenwald
Look, I mean, I think, you know, Trump could claim victory right now and say, look, I spoke to Netanyahu. We agree that Israel would stop fighting and that we're going to let diplomacy take its course. Israel's achieved all of its war aims. They've done a fabulous job. I'm using, you know, Trump words.
- [30:31]
Christine Rosen
Trumpies.
- [30:32]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah. And, you know, it's, boy, did they do terrific work and they did it with our weapons and look how it all turned out. But it's time to end the war. We don't want to see any more suffering. And now it's on Hamas. And by the way, it should also be on Hamas patrons. We should be squeezing the hell out of the Turks and the Qataris. Right. Who continue to have Hamas leaders on their soil. And by the way, to your point, John. Yeah. You may not have, you know, General, you know, so and so declare, you know, that this is over, but, boy, the Israelis, I think they could probably still go hunting for some of the leaders that are abroad, and I don't see any reason why they wouldn't under these circumstances.
- [31:14]
John Podhoretz
This is an important point to make. Abe, go ahead.
- [31:18]
Seth Mandel
I have a question about the long term here. So if you do this, to my mind, just as Hamas would never surrender, strikes me they'll never meet the demands that, that Israel put in place for the, for construction to resume.
- [31:38]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah.
- [31:38]
Seth Mandel
So then you have this.
- [31:40]
Abe Greenwald
Here's, here's. I think that, at least for me, the fun part, I think the people of Gaza will not put up with this. In other words, if, if Hamas stays in power and they, they, they, they subject the population to, you know, long term misery and no recon. I mean, just imagine you're living in Gaza right now. Everything is just twisted metal and broken stone. And I mean, you know, they're just trying to pave, they're trying to get junk out of the way so that they have open roads for, you know, for trucks to travel with food. The idea that they want to live in this just strikes me as just not feasible. Right. And the people will start to get upset with Hamas. And we've already seen some protests and we saw this guy, Yasser Abu Shabaab, who represents some kind of militia that's come out and he's opposed to Hamas. Just imagine if you have another three months or six months of Hamas refusing to meet Israel's demands and subjecting the people to yet another winter of this. I just can't imagine that the people of Gaza are going to put up with it. I, I think you can use the people against Hamas here. That would be, at least theoretically what could happen.
- [32:57]
John Podhoretz
I mean, they'll put up with it if some guy, if somebody stands up and says we won't put up with it, and then Hamas sends somebody over and machine guns them in half. It doesn't take much to enforce this gangster discipline.
- [33:11]
Abe Greenwald
No, I think that's true. But then you have these, you know, and we continue to see these groups that have emerged that are, you know, opposed to Hamas. And you know, I think the Israelis can continue to cultivate those, the United States can continue to cultivate those. I'm not talking about picking a winner for after Gaza. I'm talking about just having a force or a counter force to Hamas, just a different voice out there. So I think, look, I think my point here though is there could be problems. And I think to, to your point, Abe, maybe this doesn't happen the way that I'd like to see it happen. And it is the Middle east. And I expect, you know that I expect the worst. But here's the thing. If Israel finds that it needs to go back into Gaza, it can, right? It's unilateral. You know, so if they try this for a month or two months or six months and you know, they find that nothing's better, that in fact things are worse and the threat environment's changed, go back, I mean, Israeli breather.
- [34:11]
John Podhoretz
Okay, this is where I got it. Okay, so if you, you're calling it a breather, that's fine. That's a question that has to be asked which is, will Israel have the stomach to. To listen to its leadership when its leadership says, we got to go back in to mow the lawn or to clean things up or to make sure they don't attack us again? And then the entire narrative that will have been established, which is we beat him and we can leave, will have proved hollow. I think the general thought has been that Israel has been going in and out and in, out. But the war has been consistent since October 8th. I mean, that is that Israel is at war with Hamas. If Israel declares essentially an end to the war with Hamas, and then six months later has to say, we've kind of got to restart the war in Hamas. So you're the man who wrote the book about the fourth Israeli war on Hamas in 2021, right? There had been literally, I think, three or four moments from the time that Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in 2007, that Israel engaged in what would be considered conventional warfare against Hamas in 2009, in 2014 and 2019, and then in 2021, before October 7th. And every time, in an act of rhetorical escalation that has proved to be extraordinarily unwise, Netanyahu, being Prime minister in almost all these circumstances, said Hamas will no longer. When this is over, we will have destroyed Hamas. And guess what happened? They didn't destroy Hamas.
- [36:00]
Abe Greenwald
Right. And maybe this is the moment. Maybe this is the moment, John, to acknowledge that, you know, complete and total, like the word that they use in. In Hebrew is total victory. Okay, you know what I gotta say, The Middle east may not lend itself to that. Right. And I think US learned it in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think the Israelis are learning it now. You can shellack your enemy and it can still survive. And I think that, you know, if the Prime Minister came out and said, look, we are pausing this war, we may need to go back, but right now, our objectives have been met, and it's simply not worth deploying thousands of troops for the minimal gain that we're getting right? At this point. It's overkill, literally. I mean, there is just only so much the Israelis are going to be able to accomplish on the ground in Gaza. Do they really want to sacrifice blood and treasure to kill a bunch of, you know, like, just straggler, you know, young men in tracksuits that picked up an AK47 three months ago to fight because there's nobody left in the depleted ranks of Hamas. It just doesn't seem worth it right now.
- [37:18]
John Podhoretz
Okay, so just to play devil's advocate on this Bibi says what you say, and there is a. I wouldn't say likelihood, but there is a 40% possibility that his government falls. Because if this decision to pause the war or to unilaterally declare victory in the war is not accompanied by 10 living hostages, then what will have been gained then? I mean, the fact that the fact that hundreds of hostages were recovered won't. Won't have mattered.
- [37:58]
Abe Greenwald
It won't.
- [37:59]
John Podhoretz
Right now, Israel's focus is there are these 20 people that have to be gotten out. And in this case, it's not the Kaplan. It's not the sort of liberals who want the war to end and the hostages to come home, who would tank the government. First of all, they're not in the government. It is the right. It is the smokers, Ben Gvirs, and others who will say, you betrayed us. You said total victory. We're leaving without even any guarantee that any of those hostages are alive. We haven't even gotten proof of life about them or where they are or if we have any means by which to get them home. And I don't know that he would have an answer right to that without some dramatic. Okay, so. And Israel's had these dramatic moments like the beepers and the strike on Iran and the second strike on Iran and all of that. And this would be sort of like a piddled end. Right? We won.
- [38:57]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah. Look, I take the point. Here's where. I mean, it's funny. I waited to write this piece until I learned that Trump and Wycoff could not get another hostage deal. In other words, Hamas just burned the United States, which, by the way, is insane to me that you have this ragtag sort of, you know, like, group of nobodies at this point, and they continue to rebuff the world's superpower, and somehow it's okay. And. But so can you.
- [39:30]
Jonathan Schanzer
Can you tell who is they, by the way, quickly? I mean, who. Who is. Who says, no, who. Who is the reason that Hamas walked away? Is it somebody in Gaza or is it somebody in Qatar?
- [39:41]
Abe Greenwald
Is it Turkey? I wish I could kind of listen in on whatever these phone conversations are. It sounds like, you know, it's this izzed in Al Hadad guy that's based in Gaza. And then it's Khalil Al Hayye, who is the external leader that's based in Qatar, who I believe the Israelis should be targeting. And maybe there are a handful of others. There are leaders in Turkey, there are leaders in Iran. And maybe they're all weighing in my Assumption is that they are doing this sort of by committee, but we've just been rebuffed again. And if you're not getting these hostages out and what's happening right now is not working, brute force is not getting them out, diplomacy is not getting them out. And in the meantime, the Israelis are being accused of war crimes. Seems to me like they need to change the channel, right? Like something different needs to happen here. And I think putting the political responsibility, putting the onus on Hamas, by the way, again, I do think that putting, you know, putting the weight of this on the shoulders of the Qataris and of the Turks who are patrons of Hamas, I think that's another good opportunity for the United States. But right now, what's happening is not working. And let me just add one more thing. What we're watching play out right now is actually, it's textbook. Literally, there was a guy, his name is Omar Barghouti, and he wrote the book BDS, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. It's like almost 20 years old at this point, or maybe even more than 20 years old. And in the book, Barghouti, who kind of invented this whole concept of like, trying to put Israel into Siberia, you know, like internationally. You want it on the outside looking in, you want to vilify it, you want to, you know, I mean, shun it, other it, as you put it, John, you know, this, this is exactly what they wanted. They are trying to turn Israel into 1990s South Africa, literally. This is the textbook of what Omar Barghouti wrote. And we are watching it. The word genocide keeps popping up, and now famine, right? And we've already been hearing the word apartheid. We're going down this road. And I gotta say again, what has always separated Israel from all the rest of the mess of the Middle east has been not just its democracy, but its morality, right? That, you know, every bullet has a specific target. They don't engage in collective punishment. So if these charges are being leveled, bogus or not, the Israelis need to take the high ground and then figure out what the new strategy is, because right here.
- [42:30]
John Podhoretz
Okay, Devil's advocate. Yeah, so they did. So they set up the Gaza Humanitarian foundation. It's distributed 60 million meals. And the response to the Gaza Humanitarian foundation is there's famine, right? 60 million meals distributed and. And now they're starving, right? I don't know what was going on before the 60 million meals are being distributed. Were they not starving then?
- [42:57]
Abe Greenwald
No. You gotta understand what's going on here. And this is why I think a lot of us are questioning what's coming out of Gaza right now. And obviously we don't know because we don't live there and it's not a picnic to be in Gaza. That said, I think we need to acknowledge something that if GHF succeeds, if this foundation succeeds in distributing enough food to the Gaza Strip and they're able to break the monopoly held by UNWRA and the UN and they're able to break the backs of Hamas, which has served as the administrator of this food, because they've been hijacking food and redistributing it, reselling it, et cetera. If you deprive them of that ability and you deprive the UN of its ability to support Hamas, then what you've done is you've broken the system in Gaza in the best way you could possibly imagine. And so again, you know, I do think that a lot of this right now is born of desperation, but that doesn't make it any less of a challenge for Israel that as we get to this moment, I mean, and look, I think the Israelis are still thinking, okay, Trump has said we have a choice here. Maybe we go in and we just lay waste to the whole, you know, to all of Gaza. But imagine what that does to Israel, you know, long term in terms of, you know, its ability to integrate back with the international community after all of this. I mean, the Europeans, well, and there.
- [44:22]
John Podhoretz
Isn'T even, there isn't a, there isn't an internal consensus inside Israel that that would be the thing to do. And I don't think you could take a step like that. 90% of Israelis believe that they, that the war, in, going to war in Gaza was necessary.
- [44:37]
Abe Greenwald
Correct?
- [44:38]
John Podhoretz
Now, I think you would probably say this scenario that you're laying out, which is lay waste to Gaza or figure out a different way, you would be at best 50, 50among the Israeli electorate. And you can't, as the United States learned to its own sorrow in some ways as a result of Iraq, you can't conduct a military, you know, a powerful military offensive when the country is only conditionally behind you. The internal social costs and the pain and the suffering and the political fighting that ensues may mean that it's just not worth the cost. I still think, though, that this, that the barrier, the goal has been set to a level that may not be reachable, which is just the return of the hostages. I mean, it's not clear why Hamas or the Gazans who are holding the hostages. It seems reasonably clear that at Least half of the hostages are not being held by Hamas proper, but have been farmed out into individual locations, into people's apartments or whatever, in various places and would need to be collected from them. Yeah, that, you know, that they'll. That they'll. That they'll ever emerge.
- [46:04]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah. But I think, you know, again, I'm not seeing Hamas move here, like, not an age. Right. And if they're not willing. And you have to understand, if Hamas relinquishes these hostages, it loses the last bit of leverage that it has over Israel and the United States. Right. They understand right now that if they make this move, it's probably catastrophic for them, even if it eases the burden on the people of Gaza and, you know, for 60 days or for however long, you know, the cease fire would last. So, again, if they're not moving, and we know they're not, and we know that diplomacy has run its course, and we're not sure that just going in harder into Gaza is the way out, then again, I think the Israelis need to think about turning the channel. I'm not saying that I have all the answers. And it's funny, I've raised this now with a couple of senior Israeli folks, and, you know, it's just not their mentality. Right. Like, I mean, they're still, like, ready to go. Right. I mean, they are still thinking like, we are in full war mode. But I have to say, the longer this war mode continues, the greater the challenges become for Israel at this point. I think we're at the point of diminishing returns. I think that BDS handbook is now. Right. We're seeing a page of it being deployed right now. It almost feels like Israel is playing. It's funny, like, you know, we sort of talk about how this war backfired on Yahya Sinwar, right. That he launched this war and now all of a sudden, look at Hezbollah and look at Iran and look all around the region. Israel's vanquished all of his allies. Right. But now after the win, it actually looks like Israel's backsliding into exactly what Sinwar envisioned, which is an isolated Israel that's condemned for waging this war in.
- [47:50]
Jonathan Schanzer
Terms of the hostages. So, you know, what you guys just mentioned just happened, right? Islamic Jihad, Palestinian. Islamic Jihad announced about a week ago or so that they lost contact with Rahm Braslowski's captors.
- [48:09]
Abe Greenwald
What.
- [48:10]
Jonathan Schanzer
What happens within Gaza, the if. If Israel does this pause, aside from Israel's security needs, John. Right. That they go. That you said they could go back in, they can target people. What does, what, what does this chaos within this whirlpool within Gaza look like itself? If you hit, you know, if the music stops and everybody just sits on the chair in front of them. I mean, they, we don't know, you know, they don't know where some of the hostages are. They don't know who is the leader of what. They do know there's some infighting between some of the, you know, some of the group, some of the families, you know, the main families and stuff like that. If you hit pause now, what happens within Gaza?
- [49:05]
Abe Greenwald
You know, I mean, I think we don't know, but again, I think the idea of now putting the pressure back on Hamas to deliver, you can eat all you want, but you're not going to have a change in the status of where you live. There will be no construction, there will be no forward looking vision for any of this until you end the conflict on our terms. And I think, look, that probably sends different factions of Hamas into squabbles. Not necessarily a bad thing having the clans and the families and the tribes fighting over what the future of Gaza should look like. And hey, maybe we should just get these hostages out so we can get back to living our lives again. That's kind of what I think we're trying to do here. And then again, I think making it clear that we still trust the United States. The Israelis should say this. We still want Witkoff and Trump and everybody else to be involved here, but we're not getting involved until our conditions are met full stop, and then let the chaos play out inside. And in the meantime, again, you haven't lost anything because Hamas again continues to refuse to hand over hostages. But in the meantime, the Israelis don't lose soldiers, right? I mean, they've lost dozens of soldiers for negligible military gains inside the Gaza Strip, which is really where all of this stems from for me. Like, I just am not seeing gains being made, not on the hostage front and not really even on the military front with thousands of Israeli soldiers deployed in Gaza now, I may be missing something big. And the Israelis might say we need three more days and we're just, we're going to actually sweep the leg out from under Hamas and it's over. But I have not yet heard anything remotely like that from people that I think seem to matter in the system. They're not saying it, they're saying, like, this is turning into an urban war. This is turning into our Vietnam. Look at these bodies that are coming back. We need a Different approach. That's what I keep hearing.
- [51:12]
John Podhoretz
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- [51:42]
Matt Ebert
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- [52:37]
John Podhoretz
It appears based on reporting overnight that a game that somebody described as a Kissinger's brilliant National Security Council game is going on inside Israel, which is the three option game. So there was a cabinet meeting last night in Israel and basically the people were propose. The people in the war cabinet or the larger cabinet were provided with three possible scenarios, one of which is a modified version of what Jonathan, you've been talking about here, which is pause, flood the zone with aid and you know, try to, you know, say, give us back the hostages. Two, complete annihilation of the Gaza Strip, go in total war. Sherman's March, Grant at Vicksburg, Burn Atlanta, make them suffer. And three, partial annexation of parts of Gaza forever. Those are basically the three choices. So given those three choices, if I'm right and Bibi is playing this game, there's obviously only one choice that makes sense, which is the Shanzer, which is the Shanzer option. Sherman's March is not an option in the 21st century. And being in a situation in which Israel partially RE annexes Gaza 20 years after the disengagement, as I say, I think they hold territory like as a kind of DMZ or something. But that's not, that's not annexation. That's not saying formally, this is now part of Israel, which is what? Annexation.
- [54:25]
Abe Greenwald
I mean, I've heard people refer to it as the kill zone.
- [54:28]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [54:28]
Abe Greenwald
Literally a half, a kilometer deep or a kilometer deep into Gaza.
- [54:33]
John Podhoretz
Step in there and we shoot you. Yeah, yeah.
- [54:35]
Abe Greenwald
And you know, it's, it's fafo, Right. Like that's it. Right. And I think, you know, they're going to do that. I think they're going to keep Philadelphia, the Philadelphia corridor along the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula. They'll keep that border. They might keep Nitzarim, they might keep Morag. Right. These other corridors that go east, west and slice into the Gaza Strip so that they can deploy. But the idea of the full conquest, I mean, how much more can they conquer?
- [55:06]
John Podhoretz
The question, in any case, I think that the reason that you lay these options out, as I say in the Kissinger model, is you have option A is totally, unacceptably over hawkish. And you have options. It's like too hot, too cold. Just right. And the. Just right here would be flood the zone with aid so that Trump gets off our back and the world. I don't think it'll help. By the way, they could literally serve every Gazan a meal from a Daniel Ballard restaurant and we would still hear that it was. Well, it won't stop.
- [55:49]
Christine Rosen
It won't stop the absolutely zealous, anti Israel, anti Semitic ideologues. But it will, it will quell something that is actually really important and reminder of our current administration here at home, which is Trump is uniquely vulnerable to what's on television and the images he sees on television. And I think that's in part what prompted his statement yesterday about Gaza and hunger. So we do. It will make it more difficult for that sort of squishy middle that just doesn't want to see war and thinks this is terrible, but doesn't really have any convictions or understanding of, of the motivations of either side to at least go, okay, something's being done and just shut them up.
- [56:31]
John Podhoretz
Maybe, but I don't know. I mean, the people you're talking about, are they, are they, you know, hysterical zealots of the if not now, when? Or Students for Justice in Palestine? Or is it Patrick Kingsley, the Jerusalem bureau chief of the New York Times? Well, it'll become harder for him, but I can tell Patrick Kingsley is now Students for Justice in Palestine on the front page of the New York Times, and he won't be satisfied. But nonetheless, I think the question Here goes to the Israeli populace also like they are. And I think, as Jonathan said, like, what are, what, what would your 19 year old kid in the army be dying for if he dies in the next week? It's not clear what he's dying for. It's not clear what the end game is. It's not clear. So if you can unilaterally declare victory, the only thing that you would say is they're fighting to get the hostages out. But if there is no modality to get the hostages out, which is what, which is what this three weeks of negotiations for no reason in gutter, you know, indicates, then there is this other thing that I've heard which again, it's a kind of fantasy out of a Gabriel Alone novel or something like that, which is that you do what you can to buy. You try to figure out where the hostages are, what the families are who are holding the hostages. You go to them, you give them $30 million, you give them a new identity, you fly them to, you know, Switzerland and buy them a villa. And, and, and you save their family and you take the hostage away from them.
- [58:08]
Seth Mandel
But can you kill them once they're in the villa?
- [58:10]
John Podhoretz
Well, that's of course, that's I think, where Jonathan, where Jonathan's. The gutter. The question of what happens to the people in gutter. I know that Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner claim, as George Jonas claimed, that, you know, it was a great emotional hardship for the Israelis after, after the murder of the 11 Israeli athletes at Munich when they went out to kill everybody who took the hostages. And that this, you know, this operation took two, three years. And the people who ran it were, were tormented by the revenge. It was revenge. And they were so tormented. And of course that is utter bull. They're all heroes. They think they're heroes. They knew what they were doing. And anybody who wants to follow that example could follow that example in 20, 26, 27, 28. It's like, you know, it's like not to, not to get like very low, you know, go low culture here. But Michael Corleone waited a long time to hit Apollonia's the guy, Fabrizio who blew up Apollonia in the car. But in the long version of the Godfather saga, you do see the scene that got cut from The Godfather Part 2 where Fabrizio is out on a street and it's like 10 years after Apollonia was blown up and Fabrizio was murdered. Because revenge is a dish best served cold. And that is, that could happen here Too. You don't want it.
- [59:47]
Christine Rosen
This isn't revenge. This is just. That would be just. It would be justice.
- [59:49]
John Podhoretz
Justice for. It was justice, for example.
- [59:52]
Abe Greenwald
Exactly.
- [59:52]
Christine Rosen
Different thing.
- [59:53]
John Podhoretz
Right, but what I'm saying is, like, you wouldn't telegraph that now or say, oh, you know what? You know what we're gonna do? We're gonna make a deal with the guys in gutter, but don't worry, we're gonna murder them later. I don't think that's actually a good negotiating strategy. You would want them to think that they wouldn't be murdered later, but. Yes. Could they be murdered later? You betcha.
- [60:13]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah. I mean, I got to imagine, by the way, that the Mossad is, you know, already thinking through all of this. Right there, it will be scorched earth. There will be nobody left by the time it's all done.
- [60:23]
John Podhoretz
You know, Everybody could take 10 years is my point.
- [60:26]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [60:28]
John Podhoretz
But, you know, they'll never have a good. And they'll never have a good night's sleep. And for all we know, they don't have a good night's sleep. Now. How do they know?
- [60:35]
Abe Greenwald
You know, I would. I would hope not. You know, that is what ZQUAL is for. But, you know, I don't know if they have it in Qatar or whatever. But, you know, I mean, I think that they're smuggling.
- [60:46]
Jonathan Schanzer
The UN is smuggling it in. If you go to the UNRWA truck, you can get Z.
- [60:50]
Abe Greenwald
Exactly. But, you know, I think, you know, just to sum up sort of where. Where I am right now, you know, they. There's this sort of saying that, you know, every plan, every military plan is brilliant until you make contact with the enemy. And. And look, they've been making contact for a long time, and it's worked, but it's not. We have not seen sort of the end result that Israel is looking for. I think part of that has to do with the war aims that have been declared. Defeating Hamas and getting all the hostages back. I've been saying for a year and a half now that doing both is exceedingly difficult, maybe impossible, because if you make a deal with Hamas to get the hostages out, you're empowering Hamas. And what we've watched is this empowerment over time. The dynamic needs to change somehow. Right? Because I don't think anybody wants to see the war go on in its current iteration. I mean, ironically, maybe the UN and Hamas want it to go on in this way because it continues to just erode Israel. Right? Over time. Israel is just getting beat up in the media in the international community, it's unsustainable. And Israel's got to think about its future after this. And I think this is a good inflection point again. Look, I'd be honored if they embrace this. It's not even a plan, it's a notion, right? If they embraced it, great. If they don't, that's fine. We just need to see some different thinking out of Israel right now. I do think they've reached that crossroads where they are going to have to figure out something different here that redounds to their benefit, because this ain't working.
- [62:34]
John Podhoretz
Okay.
- [62:34]
Jonathan Schanzer
I just want to say if they embrace it, they shouldn't name it after you because, you know, you don't, you know, you don't want people saying, remember the shanzer option?
- [62:43]
Abe Greenwald
Right. I don't, I don't go down in, in history in that way. Yeah. I'd like to be a footnote. Not, not, you know. Yeah.
- [62:51]
Seth Mandel
So for me, I'm like, I'm listening very closely to all this. I'm very torn. I, I find myself here because I, I, I, I think your idea is ingenious. And for me, the most compelling reason to do it is because is, is your, is that we don't want to lose soldiers for minimal gains. I agree. Where I'm not as convinced is about Israel being able to endure the international condemnation, A, because I think it can, and B, because I think, I think, which has already been alluded to here a few times, it's going to come no matter what. If there's a, if there, if there's a Gaza that's not rebuilt and there are, there are medical facilities that aren't being rebuilt and there's, you know, the disease or whatever, it's all going to come back anyway. The international community is going to, going to go crazy no matter what. So, but that's, I'm like, that's what I'm not, I don't know. I'm torn.
- [63:53]
Christine Rosen
But can I just add what I'm getting from John's argument, which I think is really important and doesn't get discussed enough, is what is sort of the idea of Israel's moral core and that they won't get that. You're right, Abe. They probably won't. They never have. They likely never will. But what they need to do as a nation and as a people is be able to say, we did what we should have done, the right thing, even though we could have taken a path of devastation or all these other things justifiably Given that they were the ones under attack. But that, I mean, America right now is struggling with these questions too. What does it mean to be a nation? What do you stand for? What are the limiting principles with things you will not do in the name of your own nation, in the name of your own security?
- [64:34]
Seth Mandel
Israel's already doing the right thing.
- [64:35]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, I agree. I'm uncomfortable with this framing because Israel, you know, we, in this way, which is that there are plenty of Israelis who share this idea that this is going too far. And the fact is that in terms of the laws of war understanding of if there is such a thing as just war, Hamas, Hamas's surrender is the act that concludes a just war. It is not Israel's conduct of the war that is, that will merit whether or not it is.
- [65:13]
Christine Rosen
No, I know, I don't think that's what I mean. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not going to speak for John, but, but these are separate questions. But this question of how Israel wants to be able to understand its own actions is deeply important and will resonate for, for decades after this war ends.
- [65:29]
John Podhoretz
Right, but I don't. Again, if, if, if the idea is that the Israeli self examination gets to, we were just too mean to the Gazans, that would be a very bad form of self examination because Israel is not responsible for a single death in Gaza. Israel is not morally responsible for a single death in Gaza, including if a six month old baby starves to death, which isn't happening by the way. Israel is not responsible. If Hamas surrendered at any moment, the.
- [66:05]
Abe Greenwald
War would have, it would have been over. It would have been over. I think, look, I think my point here is not to say Israel needs to stop and it's based on its self examination and it feels so guilty as a nation that that's not where I'm getting, that's not where I want this to go. What I'm actually suggesting right now is just simply, hey, this strategy not working. Right? Let's think about a different one. Let's pause and let's put things on our terms for right now. For right now and then see where this thing goes. Try to put pressure on Hamas, try to put pressure on the outside negotiators, try to put pressure on the United States to deliver. In the meantime, we give nothing to them other than food, which we were going to do anyway. And we're not going to put our men and women in the line of fire until we figure out what the right strategy is. That's the framing that, you know, when you start to think about kind of Israel's national interest and it doesn't change how you view Hamas, it doesn't change how you view the dynamic. It just means, hey, what we're doing right now ain't working as well as we thought it would.
- [67:10]
John Podhoretz
Right. Okay, so last, last word. A great many people were skeptical that any negotiations would ever work. And in fact, they have. I mean, not really, except for the big pause six weeks into the war when 80 hostages were returned. I mean, there have been pauses since. There have been little bits of negotiations since here and there. And that cynics or realists inside Israel would say that this three week negotiation and gutter over nothing, all we ever heard was, oh, they're moving, they're waiting for an answer from the, from Hamas in Gaza. They don't really know where it's going. And that, you know, this was where this was going all along. And that the, the pause here was a pause that allowed the Gazan, that allowed Hamas and, and its Kadamites in the west to rebuild the argument that Israel was committing genocide and did absolutely no good for Israel whatsoever. These negotiations end up being morally one sided because they allow Hamas and its people to catch a breath, to start the propaganda war anew. And so one reason I'm tempted by your proposal is to say we're just not working. We're just not going to follow the international community's rules here. We won, we finished doing what we can do primarily. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna demand that you get the hostages out and then you have no idea what we're gonna visit on you if you don't get them out. You're saying no reconstruction. That's a message to the, that's a message. But it could be like, you have a cousin who lives in, you know, Oslo, I'm killing him. You have this. We're going anywhere. You're not safe anywhere for the rest of your lives. Maybe make a deal with us and we'll, we'll let you go. I don't know what they'll say, but the international negotiation system of trying to get Hamas to do something is over. Witkoff basically said it's over. Trump said it's over. All he cares about now is getting better images of food being distributed. And he's still on the, Israel should do what it should do, whatever it needs to do to end this war on favorable terms. So they should take them up on that and make unilateral decisions without any kind of bow to the international community. Even as if they do this, flood the, flood the strip with aid, they will be doing that for domestic political consumption for their own people, even if they aren't immoral enough. People in Israel may worry about the moral frame that Christine talks about, that it would be a good thing spiritually inside Israel to do something about this and say, you know, we hear you, but I don't know, I don't know where we go with that. Anyway, we gotta go run long again. So I will do a quick 15 second recommendation. I read this biography of Clint Eastwood by Shawn Levy. It's called Clinton and like all showbiz biographies, the first half of it, which is about this 15 years of Clint Eastwood was laboring in the vineyards of trying to become some kind of an actor with some kind of a career and then out of nowhere and then finally gets a TV show that does well but doesn't really make him. And then out of nowhere goes to Italy, makes a movie and becomes an international box office sensation and then turns into, into Clint Eastwood, who has had a 60 year career since then as an actor, a director, an Oscar winning director and 95 years old, just made a movie last year. Like all these books, once he really becomes successful they get really boring. But as it happens, and it sort of took him until he was, till he was 37 or something like that to hit it and those, that story of him getting to where he hits it is just, just like incredibly compelling and fascinating. And so that's Clint by by Sean Levy. Anyway, we'll be back tomorrow. Thank you to Jonathan Chanzer as ever, our contributing editor and for Christine, Seth and A.B. i'm John Papur. Keep the candle bur.