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A
Hope for the best, expect the worst.
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Some preach and pain Some die at.
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First the way of knowing which way it's going Hope for the best Expect.
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The worst Hope for the best welcome to the Commentary Magazine Daily podcast brought to you today by the Hamilton School at the University of Florida. At a time when American higher education has lost its way, the Hamilton School at the University of Florida is setting a new standard, offering an elite education that's anything but elitist. Led by world class scholars, Hamilton is reviving the classical liberal arts tradition grounded in the great works of Western civilization and the founding principles of the American Republic. In small discussion based classes, students study history, philosophy, economics, literature and America's founding texts, developing the discipline, eloquence and moral confidence to lead with purpose in their careers, their communities and their lives. Learn more at Hamilton ufl.edu commentary. That's Hamilton ufl.edu commentary the Hamilton School at the University of Florida the Leading a Revolution in Higher education and today, October 9th, Thursday, Landmark Day. And we're here to discuss it with my colleagues, Executive Editor Abe Greenwald. Hi Abe.
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C
Hi John.
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Social Commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi Christine.
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Hi John.
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B
And Commentary Contributing editor and Pooh Bah at the foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Jonathan Schanzer on For the second time this week, Shanzer I know I can't believe my luck. Well, I can't believe the world's luck. So I hate to be triumphalist because it goes entirely against the spirit and mood of this podcast over the decade that we have been, that we have been doing it. But obviously the word is that a deal has been reached, the 20 living Israeli hostages are coming home and and though the devil is in the details, though I don't think there's much of a devil here, the terms on which the deal has been reached between Israel and Hamas are almost a fever dream for those of us who have watched over the last 40 years as the west has has interpolated itself between Israel and its rivals, or the people who make war on Israel and want Israel not to exist, and that the deals that are struck are generally either weak sauce or are somewhat unfavorable toward Israel's interests and its goals and its aims and its wants and its needs. And this is almost entirely the opposite, though I suspect once the dust settles and the celebrations stop, you will hear from very realistic and people that I respect in Israel and elsewhere who are going to say, no, it's not good. There are a lot of problems with this. Everybody's on a sugar high, but I think Jonathan, you as somebody who has been, is one of America's leading experts on the conflicts between Israel and Gaza, wrote two books about the conflicts between Israel and Gaza. You've been studying this your entire, your entire life. I think you are pretty close to where I am here and thinking that this is a landmark deal not only because it will end a two year war which Israel has never had to fight before, but because of the way the war is ending and who wins.
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Yeah, I mean, look, John, it's a win for Israel, there's no doubt about it. You look at those seven fronts that Israel has been fighting on and Israel has gotten the better of its enemies on every one of those fronts. There's some non kinetic fronts where I think Israel still losing and you know, we're still going to see the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice and the media still stalking Israel and Hollywood still blathering on about Israel. You're going to see those things I think very likely for maybe weeks or months to come as the pictures start to emerge out of Gaza. But there can be no doubt that Donald Trump swooped in, found an opportunity, used the leverage from the September 9 attacks in Doha, which we talked about just a few days ago, and started to squeeze Hamas's patrons, namely Qatar, Turkey and maybe a few others enlisted the help of, of the Egyptians, I think that was big enlisted I'm hearing actually maybe even the Indonesians, which is really interesting. That's something to keep an eye on in terms of a possible normalization deal that comes out of this peace agreement. But yes, Israel has walked away with all of its war aims now achieved the dismantling of Hamas and the return of the hostages. That appears essentially certain here, here's the one thing that I'm watching that the Israeli right, they're going to be grumpy and they have every right to be grumpy. It looks like Marwan Barghouti, the former ringleader of the second Intifada, a man who's got a lot of blood on his hands. This guy was involved in the planning of attacks on behalf of Fatah, what was known back then as the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. These guys were terrible and he was the most terrible. He's been languishing in an Israeli jail and if he's released, it will be celebrated as a major victory on the part of Hamas and all the other Jihadi groups in the west bank and Gaza. And the thing that I think the Israeli right is going to be worried about and they have every reason to be. His release will be seen as sort of a Nelson Mandela moment, that he is the next leader of the Palestinian Authority when Mahmoud Abbas finally kicks the bucket or is forced out of office. And he's going to be the guy that steps in and breathes new life into this campaign to recognize a Palestinian state. That's what they're going to be worried about in Israel. We're going to hear about the debate within the security cabinet. I think that'll be the sticking point if in fact he is on the list for release.
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C
John, when you said that you don't think there's the devil's in the details, but you don't think there are many details left.
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But there are, aren't there?
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C
I mean, hasn't Hamas not said anything yet about laying down arms? We don't know where they're at in regard to the forming of a government and their involvement, which obviously Israel and the US have said is a non starter. And we have sort of no answer from them.
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Well, yes, yes and no. I mean, you know, we understand that there are basic terms that have been laid out and they were, they were the cornerstone of the discussions that have been taking place in Cairo right now. What we do know is that there's going to be 20 live hostages released. And by the way, we're not going to see all of them. As I understand it, some of them are in such bad shape that the Israeli government is not going to allow for their images to be broadcast on television. It will be up to the families if and when those images are released. But some of these people are in really bad shape. But nonetheless, we're going to get all the live hostages back. That was kind of the first and big thing from the Israeli perspective. As we've talked about here. Israel's already won the war in Gaza. I mean, there is no Hamas to speak of any longer. The guy that's running Hamas, his name is Izzeddin Al Haddad. Nobody's ever heard of this guy. And I gotta say he's not for long, right? I mean, at some point that guy's gonna get whacked too. And then there's really nobody left. There are a couple of guys that are based in Qatar, there are a couple guys that are based in Turkey. So Hamas continues to exist probably externally. I think we should be watching, by the way, for where the next headquarters will be if it's not Gaza. If this ends up being like a 1980s, you know, Lebanon jettisoning of Hamas in the Same way that the PLO was kicked out of Lebanon back during the Reagan years. Then we have to ask, where are they going? And I think there. I would just keep an eye on a couple of countries. I think we ought to be looking at Iran for sure, because they have no reason to not host Hamas. I would look at Algeria, the perennial Arab nationalist, you know, sort of country that sticks a finger in the eye of everybody. They won't mind doing this. Malaysia is an interesting one, and probably Turkey, which is awkward given the fact that they're a NATO country and purported allies of the United States. But I think we're going to see the dismantling of Hamas in the Gaza Strip as we know it. It doesn't mean that there still won't be fighting. It doesn't mean that there won't be hangers on from Hamas. But I do think that the war as we understand it, as it broke out two years and two days ago, it's over. And I think Hamas understands that it's over. But, yeah, there are some small details that need to be worked out. How are they going to collect the weapons? How are they going to collect the bodies? I understand there's a committee now of countries that are going to be looking for the fallen Israelis that were buried in scattered places all over Gaza. The people who knew where the bodies were, many of them are dead. And so they're going to have to figure all of this out. It's going to be complicated. But the bodies are set to return, the hostages are set to return, the weapons are set to be collected. Hamas will not govern the Gaza Strip, at least not as we, you know, not as Hamas previously existed. There could be some political figures that were once affiliated with Hamas, but honestly, we're not looking at a terror group that poses the threat that it once did. And so in that sense, I think Israel has every reason to be very pleased. Again, the only question I think is, you know, there are going to be 250 to 300 Palestinian prisoners that are released. We know this, and I've heard that, you know, from an impeccable source that there will be some names that will be painful to Israel. The question is really, how painful? If Barghouti is on there, I'm telling you, as John mentioned, you're going to hear people start to come out and talk about how maybe this wasn't a great deal because it will renew life into this talk of a Palestinian Authority. Israel thought it had kind of dodged a bullet with this campaign that, you know, we saw from the Brits and the Portuguese and the Spanish and all these, you know, countries got on board with a Palestinian state. And it looked like after the UN it was over. And if Barghouti comes back into the picture, despite all the blood on his hands, people are going to talk about a Palestinian state again. And that is going to be not welcomed by the likes of Smotrich Ben Vere. But also, I got to say, I mean, as much as Bibi is going to want to please Trump and he can't back out of the deal, I mean, all the presidential investment that's been made here, there's no way Bibi gets out, but he could still be pretty unhappy about this. In fact, his government may collapse as a result of this. So we're keeping an eye on the politics in Israel right now. It's going to be really interesting.
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D
What you go ahead.
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C
I just have one follow up on something that Jonathan said earlier about how Israel's had military victories on every front, but it strikes me that the Houthis were never really pacified militarily. Is that right, still? And what, what, what would it, what would a full deal with every phase implemented here mean regarding the Houthis?
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So, look, Abe, I think you're right in the sense that, you know, they never stop firing missiles and rockets, and they still have capabilities. And by the way, those capabilities are going to continue to grow, which makes me very nervous. And I think the Israelis are not done with the Houthis in that respect. But I think now they're going to probably have some time to make a plan that would be like the Bieber operation or some kind of decapitation strike against Nasrallah, this time against Abdelmalek Al Houthi. I expect that stuff down the line. But I will say that the prospects of the Houthis continuing to wage war against Israel, I think are pretty low. Not nil, but I think they're low. And the reason being that the Houthis vowed throughout the war. I mean, they got in. I think it was like November of 23 is when they first started firing. And they basically said, as long as Gaza is under fire, Israel is under fire. Well, if Gaza is not under fire anymore, then I don't know if they have a reason to keep fighting. And I do think that the entire region is pretty tired, and I think that includes Iran. Iran has actually indicated that they would support the deal if the bloodshed stops in Gaza. That's how they framed it in Arabic news and Farsi news. So if they're okay with this. They may order all of their proxies to stand down for a time. There are no. I mean, you know, my colleague Cliff May says it perfectly, and I always quote him on it. There are no permanent victories in the Middle east, only permanent battles. So get ready for another round at some point. But my hope, anyway, is that the next round with the Houthis will be on Israel's terms. They will, you know, preemptively strike, take out the top leadership, and, you know, hopefully permanently cripple this terror group. The same will go for Iran. We're not done. There will be more rounds for sure that the regime is eyeing another battle with Israel. They're stockpiling missiles. They are trying to reconstitute their air defenses. They may even be trying to rebuild that nuclear program. So, you know, this is not over by a long shot. This part of the war is over. But the continuation of the 1948 War of Independence, that continues. Right? That is Israel's, unfortunately, its fate. I would just say, though, keep an eye on all those normalization agreements, because if the Saudis join, the Indonesians join, that may put more pressure on the Iranians and all their proxies to stand down in a more permanent way.
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D
So that actually leads to a question I had, which is for you to make a little bit of a prediction about how Trump's appearance in Israel will go, because the one word we haven't heard much of today, I think, deliberately, is surrender on the part of Hamas. No one's talking about surrender. I suspect Trump, who actually doesn't want to see this as a. As a constant, ongoing conflict, but wants to see like, I won this war. I solved the problems in the Middle east, and he certainly did. We're giving him credit where credit is due. But what do you. How do you think both the Israeli public and the American public is going to see. See what he says. And do you have any sense of what he might. How he might talk about this when he is in front of the Knesset?
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A
Yeah, I mean, it's a great question, Christine. Look, I think Bibi understands Trump. I think, more importantly, Dermer understands Trump. They speak Trump. And what they're going to do is they're going to give him full credit for ending the war in the Middle east, and they're going to allow him to frame this however he wishes. And so if he's going to say, you know, peace in our time, the Middle east is going to be great. It's unicorns and rainbows and it's amazing, you know, look at what I did. I think the Israelis are going to let them get away with that. They'll say it, you know, in front of the Knesset and people are going to sit there and nod and smile. And it sort of reminds me in like a perverse way when Bill Clinton went to the Palestinian parliament and everybody just, they stopped talking about destroying Israel for a minute, right? It's going to be like that. But on the Israeli side, they're just, they're not going to talk about future wars. They're just going to let, you know, Trump take his victory lap. On the Palestinian side, it's going to be all, you know, V for victory, right? Everybody holding up the two fingers, telling the world they won this primarily because they were allowed to negotiate the end of the conflict rather than just being crushed. And this has always been the signature of Hamas. With every war, right, they survive to live another day. Even crushed as they are right now, most of the top leadership gone dead underground. They are still going to say that this was a, this was a war of where they won the respect of the world, where they brought recognition and notoriety to the Palestinian cause. This is what they're going to say. I don't think it's the victory that they're framing. I really don't. I think, look, you do see that the, maybe the, in popular culture that maybe there's a little bit more support for the Palestinians writ large, more awareness. But I gotta say, it came at a hell of a cost. And they have to understand that.
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C
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Quints.com Commentary the fact that I am now going to speak more optimistically than you or Abe or anything like that comes as a great shock to me. But since the beginning of this war, and as I said earlier in the week with you, the only way out of this was through. And there were 10, 15 occasions from November of 2023 when the first ceasefire was negotiated that allowed the 80 hostages to the first set of 80 hostages to come home during that one week ceasefire, through pretty much January of 2025 and maybe even onward in ways that we don't entirely know, there were 10 or 15 ways in which this could have gone sideways for Israel. That ceasefire agreements or ideas that they had floated or accepted from the Americans that would have been catastrophic for Israel's long term security were not accepted by Hamas, but could have been the effort to court American public opinion or to remain on the good side of the Biden administration could have gone sideways with too much acceptance of the terms that the Biden people were throwing at them in their own domestic panic over whether or not the war was going to harm them with their base. And this threading of the needle of the war needing to continue even when Israel wasn't being particularly aggressive in it, while talking about bringing the hostages home and all of that, that we go through this period, through the end of the Biden administration at the beginning of January 2025 and the beginning of the Trump administration, in which Trump says I want those hostages home, but sends Steve Witkoff and sends Adam Bowler to the Middle East. And they are very resolutely non ideological and very resolutely not part of the cause of Israel's survival and victory and all of that. And that also could have gone sideways. I mean, we don't know why it didn't go sideways. We don't entirely know why Steve Witkoff, who wanted nothing more than simply to hand Trump a deal on a silver platter provided to him by Gutter Regard, would say, you know what? They'll give back 10 hostages and some of the bodies and all you got to do is just withdraw to a certain line. I don't see why we can't make Israel do that. It would be fantastic. Somehow that didn't happen. We don't entirely know why it didn't happen. And here we are at the end and Israel has gone through it. Two year war, longest war in, in the history of the Middle East. I mean, except for the American wars, but I mean longer, okay, not as long as the Iran Iraq war, but a very long war. The longest war that Israel has fought by a factor of 20. And what do they have? They have their enemy on the run. They have the battlefield not a sustainable place to re to restart the battle. They have the possibility now of, of in the wake of this ceasefire deal, of destroying the secret battlefield, that is the tunnel system that they had to leave largely intact because they didn't know where the hostages were and that where they might be in the tunnels. So Hamas's great triumph, tactical triumph, which was the construction of this underground method of getting around and launching attacks with missiles. And all of that will be removed from play. They will get back the hostages that were taken. Whether they get back the bodies of the remaining of the, of the hostages who died is a secondary question. But though it is very important in Jewish law to find, locate and provide a proper burial for those who died and obviously to provide emotional closure for the families of those who died. It is simply in terms of the safety of the 9 million Israelis who have been under fire and the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have been directly involved in battle, the fate and condition and the timing of the return of the bodies is a very, very, very minor matter compared to letting the reservists go home. Having the, having the regular Israeli military do what the regular Israeli military is supposed to do, which is serve as the military of a country at arms and not have to bring in massive numbers of civilians, disrupt their lives, disrupt their families, disrupt their ability to make a living, disrupt their ability to, to start companies and do things like that. And to end up with Iran on its back foot. Hezbollah largely destroyed the sort of, the threat from the sea, which we have barely even talked about, from, from various efforts to sort of test whether or not there was some way to come at Israel from the sea, largely ruined Syria. The government in Syria overthrown. And the clear participation of the Saudis, without our knowing of the clear participation of the Saudis in back channel ways to bring this to an end. And as you mentioned, you said, okay, it's like Lebanon, 1982, 1983, the PLO, which had dominated southern Lebanon, expelled from Lebanon. But the PLO had a bank account, and the bank account was Saudi Arabia and some other places. And they, and other places were paid off to house the plo, Right. Tunis in particular. And the PLO sat there and ran operations out of like terrorist operations like the Achille Lauro and various other things until they were brought in as an interlocutor by a, in a psychopathological set of decisions by the Clinton administration, brought in to be somebody to talk to so there could be peace with the Palestinians. As I say, you're saying maybe they'll go to Iran, maybe they'll go to Turkey. I mean, Turkey is a very complicated place, but maybe they'll go to Algeria. These are not places from which we or Israel or needs to be in negotiation with them. They, they poke their head up and do something destructive. And as far as I can tell, in terms of Trump's own psychology, Israel will have a free hand to respond to Hamas provocations wherever they happen on the globe, as long as they don't happen in Doha, where we've said you can't do it in Doha, as long as it doesn't happen there. That's the only free zone. And they're obviously not going to stay in Doha. This is a triumph. This is a gigantic Israeli triumph. And the, and the knockoff effects are huge. If you are on the west bank thinking about running an insurrection against Israel from the west bank, think again.
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A
Yeah, I just want to add one more salubrious impact from this. And I got to say this one surprised my friends in Israel. It surprises me Israel doesn't have to leave Gaza Right. Happens. Right. Which, by the way, that's the one thing I think the Israeli. Right. And all of Israel right now, they're watching, mouths agape, because they would have been, I think they would have expected the United States, the Qataris, the Turks to demand the exit of the idf. Instead, they are staying deployed well inside the borders of Gaza. They still effectively control the Gaza Strip, even as this has been broken.
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B
That's why the 20 point Trump deal was a landmark in Western involvement in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, dating back 80 years now. Almost 80 years, which was the deal was hostages first.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And then we'll see how your behavior affects how far back the Israelis pull and how demilitarized Gaza can become. And that appears to have held. It wasn't just Trump saying, you know what, everybody should leave and we'll build Mara Gaza. That was like, that was proposal number one. Where we've come to is Israel's pulling back in one stage. There are two more stages. And at the end of the third stage, forget, unless somehow the plan is shredded, Israel maintains a buffer. I'm not sure we know the exact size of the buffer, but the buffer goes from the Mediterranean in the north across to the Gaza envelope, down to the Egyptian border across Gaza to the Mediterranean. Yep.
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A
Thus all the corridors, all the corridors remain open for Israel to operate, and that's huge. They're going to maintain, you know, a certain amount of control over the Gaza Strip, no matter what happens here. They didn't have to back down. I mean, let me just say this. You know, we're talking about Trump and, you know, I mean, it's funny, I'm more than happy to give this man, like, all the credit in the world. He's going to take even more as he gets up in front of the Knesset, as he speaks to the nation, to the world. And, you know, I think he should. But I think what I learned out of all of this is that he used American leverage here to broker this deal. And he did not compromise on his Israeli strength. He leveraged it. And I think if you are an aspiring President of the United States, an aspiring, you know, National Security Advisor, you know, Secretary of State, you have to see this, that, you know, when you keep asking the Israelis to make compromises and to weaken themselves willingly as they fight their enemy, you're not going to get peace, you're not going to get calm. Trump leveraged that strength. And I got to say, I give him full credit for it. He did not flinch at the idea of having a Strong Israel, whether it be with the attacks on Iran.
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D
Can I ask a follow up question actually? So what does Israel have to do between now and 2028? Because that leverage will end in 2028 and we do not know either on the right or the left what support for Israel will look like? What do they have to ensure happens between now and then so that if US does abandon Israel, they are still safe?
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B
Okay, so that's where the there's no way out but through comes in. That is not predictable. Victory in wars has salubrious effects. Vague, unclear conclusions to wars involving demilitarized zones and peacekeepers and where you try to let somebody save face for some reason because it's very important in the region and people are whispering in your ear about doing that. That is something that remains sort of like an unlit fuse or at least a usable fuse that has not been cut off the bomb or made inactive. And if I don't think the world is going to be able, despite whatever half hearted efforts are made to suggest that somehow Hamas won because it wasn't entirely and completely destroyed at 100%, only 97% that the world will look Israel will have won this war. Perhaps there will be diplomatic. There will be this thing despite France and Britain and Canada behaving so monstrously that their neighbors and the people adjacent to them and people who want to move on from the stagnation of this relationship between the Muslim and Arab worlds and this tiny but very successful country that has a lot of information that it can share with its allies to help them do things like fight their own insurrections and their own internal terrorist groups and things like that. If that happens, it's a different world in 2028. It is. The Hollywood boycott won't survive an Israeli victory. The Hollywood boycott depended on, on chum and blood being in the water to stir up against Israel. I would liken it and I was thinking about this this morning because I want to talk to Abe about writing something about this. Abe has written a series of articles since 2020 on the revolution, the effort to create a revolution in the United States. The counter revolution that has been, you know, that is that that started after, you know, two years of George Floyd and all of that. There's been a revolution against Israel and an effort to sort of foment a revolution against Israel and the Jewish people since October of 2023. Nothing has killed off the revolution inside America like the defeat of the revolutionaries in various forms and fora and places. And nothing will kill off the movement to Delegitimize Israel and the Jews, like Israel standing proud and Jews standing proud with Israel after a victory. I don't know how it works. I just know that it works, that this is what history tells us. It's not only the victors get to write the story in the history books, while the losers, you know, like, fade into the woodwork. It's that the world as it is alters. And Trump's general insight, which also has domestic implications here, despite the fact that it terrifies everybody so much that.
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D
Real.
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B
Teeth in a threat, violence to confront violence, ordered violence to confront disordered violence, and that there is righteous violence and that there is bad violence, as opposed to the general idea on the left, mostly, that violence is the problem and that we need to settle the violence, which only leads to more violence. Let's have a nice peacemaking. Let's everybody sit down together. Let's not arrest people on campus, because that's just going to stir everybody up. Let's not cut. Let's not nip this kind of activity in the bud or we're going to get more of it. It's the opposite. If you nip it in the bud, you get less of it. If you subsidize it, you get more of it. That's classic tax rules. Right? So in my estimation, this is not only. This is not only the best outcome, but an ideal outcome, because it speaks to the fundamental truth of human nature, which is that if you are attacked and you stand up for your house or your family or whatever it is, and you are able to retard the attack, not only will the attacker either be arrested or killed or will run away, but other people are going to go, I'm not going to try to burgle that house. Because those people know how to stop the know how to stop people in their tracks. It's classic deterrence. They've reestablished deterrence against Hamas, they've reestablished deterrence against Iran, they've destroyed Hezbollah for the most part. That deterrence will have long effects and will have domestic effects inside the United States. You think people want to side with losers?
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D
Yeah. So I'm going to push back on that idea because I actually think what you're describing is neoliberal lefties who wanted, you know, who. You don't want any violence, don't want to, you know, don't want the carceral state or whatever. But you do have a much more nihilistic left now that is motivated by violence, that actually doesn't care who wins. And There is a, not quite a mirror version on the right, but a similar sort of, you know, far right that has that same idea. I don't think they will be deterred. I mean, I think the fact that we've heard the, the cease fire, now folks have gone completely silent, which is notable now that there's a cease fire. And I think that that movement will just morph into the. There's a reason that the phrase Omni cause has been used a lot lately. They will find another way to channel that violence because there is a sort of philosophical undertone to what they've been doing and saying. And that's something that I think that the classic liberal liberals on the right and the left have been a little slow to engage. I think, I feel like that's something we've spent a lot of time talking about recently and that I fear is not going to improve after the end of this war.
- [38:05]
A
You know, you're right. I think you're right. But I want to say, I think that if the Trump administration is smart, they're not done with prosecuting this war at home. You know, there are actors that were involved in stoking the violence on campus and in other places around the country. You know, I hope that we're going to hear from the Department of Justice at some point soon about those that they've been watching that may be taking direction from abroad, that may be taking funding from abroad, that may have connections to terrorist organizations. This will, I think, be important. Further kind of tamping down on the radicalization they got up. They actually have to show what happened here, and they haven't done that yet. And I don't know how far along they are, if they're going to actually reach the finish line. But I think that's going to be important here to, you know, start to eat into that Omni cause from at least the Palestinian angle. If you can disgrace it. Right. And really start to cast it as kind of the modern day kkk, the people that are out there wearing masks and intimidating minorities. That's an important step for the Trump administration to take from a domestic perspective. But, you know, Christina, I do want to answer the one question you had of how do you get ready for 2028? I think that the Israelis have a lot on their plate because I think there's, there's a lot that they need to do to lock in some of the gains that John rightly mentioned. And those, they're all gains. There's no question it's wins. But if you're Going to lock it in. You need a couple of things to happen. One, the Hezbollah threat's not over. They're still like, they're still fighting, albeit at a low simmer, but they need to be completely dismantled. And so what Trump just did, did with the Qataris and the Turks vis a vis Gaza, we need to now do in Lebanon. There needs to be a full dismantling.
- [39:56]
B
There's.
- [39:57]
A
There needs to be some kind of an agreement that forces Hezbollah out of Lebanon. That's going to be important. Getting Syria to completely abide by Israel's rules of engagement, that's going to be another big one. We can hopefully lean on the Saudis and the Emiratis for that. The Houthis we've already talked about, that's going to be a challenge, you know, well into the future. The Iranians, huge challenges. I got to tell you, though, we still have a Turkish issue that hasn't been dealt with. They're in the Naito tent, peeing in it, as they say. They, like, we have a problem. Right. So we're going to have to deal with some of that then. There's a few other things that I'm looking at. Israel's defense industrial base. They cannot continue to rely on American weapons. If you have President AOC or Michelle Obama coming to office, there's no way that Israel can continue to rely on American weapons. We saw it with the Biden administration. So they're going to have to start to think about how are they going to source those weapons. If we go back to what happened under the, you know, the last year of Biden, that was a disaster. So we've got that challenge. And then, look, there's just one other one, which is, I think it's a PR issue. I mean, Israelis, we all know, perennially horrible at pr. And it's not just because these people get up on TV and you hear them go, you know, I mean, that's part of their problem. But they need to rebrand Zionism in this country. And I don't know how they're going to do it, but I think they need to start anew. I mean, I do think that putting, you know, these campus organizers, you know, actually exposing them for who they are and what they've done is going to be a start. But there needs to be a positive side of it, not just a punitive side. So just a few thoughts about, you know, the next couple of years.
- [41:44]
D
Well, they're not just the kkk, these organizations, they're the kgb, too. I mean, and that's actually where the normie Americans who think Israel doesn't matter, you start telling them foreign influencers are in your country trying to stir up trouble, suddenly they'll wake up to the risk.
- [41:57]
A
One would hope.
- [41:59]
C
Yeah, I just want to say something on that because yesterday I was in the my daily newsletter. I wrote that, you know, China and Russia will still be amplifying all the anti American social media propaganda that, that these, that the revolutionary contingent drinks up. But they won't. They'll have to find better material than using a recent war that an American ally won. And what I didn't add, what occurs to me now is that if Qatar has really changed its tune here, that would mean a lot regarding the foreign, foreign influencing because what they were a huge part of the backing of all this radicalism here, both in terms of propaganda, in terms of all the campus stuff and money and organization. So that's going to be really interesting.
- [43:03]
A
I'm Oliver Darcy. And I'm John Passantino. We have spent years covering the inner workings of the news media, tech, politics, Hollywood and power. Now through our nightly newsletter status.
- [43:15]
B
And we're bringing that same reporting and.
- [43:17]
A
Sharp analysis to a new podcast, Power Lines. Every Friday, we're breaking down the biggest stories shaping the industry, explaining why they matter and saying the things most people are thinking but too timid to say out loud. No spin, no fluff, just sharp analysis that isn't afraid to call it like it is. We also pull back the curtain via our exclusive reporting to take you behind the scenes. My understanding having reported this is that the Pentagon protested to CNN and tried to effectively exile the CNN producer. And when the moment calls for it, it. We've got some hot takes. I just think Brad Pitt, honestly, he kind of seems a little washed up. Oh my God.
- [43:56]
B
That's Power Lines presented by Status.
- [43:59]
A
Follow Power Lines and listen on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music or your favorite podcast app. I'm Mark Alper and I want to let you know that Two Way Tonight, the destination for the best political news and analysis anywhere, is now available as an audio podcast. Each weekday I'll be joined by special guests from the worlds of news, politics and the media, along with members of the two way community for conversations like no other. It's the best way to stay informed at the end of your day or first thing in the morning. Every weekday, it's a show like no other because we involve the community. We hear from people from around the country, around the world. They're part of a conversation. There is no other platform like this, and I hope you will find it to be not only different than everything else, but more meaningful as you become part of a special community around the program. So listen and follow two Way tonight with Mark Alperin on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other major streaming platform.
- [44:57]
B
Okay, but, you know, I in no way, shape or form disagree with Christine that we have this problem on the, on the, on the far right and the far left, anti Semite supporters of violence against Jews domestically and Israel abroad and delegitimization efforts and all of that. The danger to Israel in the long term, I have to say, is not really from them. The question is whether they famously move the Overton window. And that is what we've seen over the last couple of years. Is Normie Democrats shifting slowly in the direction of the ideas of the radicals against Israel and maybe against the Jews. I don't know that that is permanent. And that's why I say again that we don't know what the long term effects of a victory in this war are. Because when it appears that everybody, you know, and everybody that you like and everybody are on one side and everybody you hate is on another side, and that there's so much energy and life and excitement and enthusiasm in the, you know, Israel's committing a genocide. I'm against genocide. Everybody come and protest the genocide. Where's the food? Everybody is starving. And then suddenly that kind of, that specific situational cause is removed from the vocabulary of the conversation. It's no longer that Israel is actively pursuing aims that are killing Palestinians or starving Palestinians or starving Gazans or whatever, something else happens. And so there's no kindling, there's no gasoline accelerant. And the people who are just going along to get along, who are in a tent on campus, because that's the cause. You wanna be able to say when you're 40 years old that you were involved in a fun protest on your campus, like everybody said about the 1960s, that may lose its saliency. Like Black Lives Matter had its life, it had its life, and then its life was slowly choked off.
- [47:25]
D
Okay, but that depends. I do think that the. That can happen and I love that. John, you're the most optimistic on the podcast today. I'm being the most pessimistic. I think that requires what Jonathan was saying earlier, a message that says to the entire world, the world needs Israel, not Israel is the world's problem. Which I think has been the takeaway even for these younger generations who just, as you say, are protesting because it's Fun, A new message that said, this is why the world needs Israel. It is a protector of the kinds of freedoms that they entire west has based its civilization on. And that message, I think is a really hard sell to a lot of cynical young people in this country. And I. My fear is that they, even when the war and the conflict ends and they can't scream about genocide, that sensibility about Israel and Israel's place in the history of the world will still be there, this sort of aftertaste they'll have about it. And going forward, if you have a President AOC or even if you have a milder Democrat who's, who's a little more hostile to Israel, those voters will not have an alternative story to tell themselves. And that is, I think, that it's not propaganda, it's a way of understanding Israel's role in Western civilization, which is very important for Americans.
- [48:35]
B
Now remember that Bibi got into trouble. I think it was six weeks ago. I can no longer remember the sequence when he said we in Israel are prepared to be Sparta. Everybody in Israel went crazy. They went totally crazy that he said this. But what did he mean by it? He said, we have to prepare for a world in which we must provide entirely for our own defense and security. It is the task of our future to be able to do this. In other words, to prepare with an insurance policy in case AOC is president. That was the sort of implicit meaning of the we become Sparta, which is we are the. We're a. We're a. We're a Marshall democracy able to defend itself and project its power to defend itself and to make sure that it succeeds in its aims and is not overturned in its goals. And as I say, everybody is, because they don't want to be isolated. They don't want to live like the Lacedaemonians. They want to be part of the world and be a full participant and player in the global economy and all of that. And so Bibi spoke a truth that was too hard for his people to hear and he backed off. But don't think that that is not one of the two or three main issues that will be discussed at the highest levels of Israeli society over the course of the next year. One will be opposite, which is how do we build on this success with America, you know, in our corner, like, happy that it helped win this war and happy that it is getting. Take credit for having secured this peace. And then maybe we can extend out the Abraham Accords to these final countries. That will, will be the transformative thing that has never happened over the last hundred years while simultaneously preparing for a world in which Israel has to provide for its own defense and not buy or secure with American grants the materiel that help it provide for its own defense.
- [51:00]
A
So I fully agree. I would just frame it. I'll frame it this way because I think it's important to understand there are two kind of competing forces here right now. There's the Israel emerged from this and it's strong and it's eviscerating all these narratives and you know, we have a new Middle east and a promise of a new day, etc. The other side of that is that you still have a full movement of people that would like nothing more than to turn Israel into apartheid South Africa. And it's how these two narratives live with one another that I'm actually really interested in. As long as that effort to, you know, put Israel in that South Africa bucket, as long as that exists, the Israelis are still going to have to figure out ways to be self reliant. That Sparta mentality that Bibi was absolutely right to describe, whether his people liked it or not is actually inconsequential. It's where they are. And that narrative is not. It's actually there's something almost healthy about it because it's going to force Israel to still think about itself in that way. It's going to have to protect itself over the years. Certainly it's got three years to think about right now, but it's a longer Runway. But yes, they are stronger and they're coming out of this. I think they need to lock in some gains. I will just actually also mention this. I had a fascinating conversation on my program the other day with Yossi Kleiner Levy. And you know, I think he's sort of like he's got his sort of finger on the pulse of Israel's psyche. He's a fascinating guy to talk to. One of the things that he said is that as a result of this war, you could see Israel less ensconced in the kind of Western international politics, but fully integrated in the Middle East. And that is a really interesting way of looking at what might happen here where the Middle east finally says, we can't beat you, we're going to let you join us. And meanwhile you got the Brits and the French and the Canadians and the Australians and everybody else still unwilling to fully allow Israel into the community of nations. That's a possibility that comes out of this. But regardless of how it all shakes out, Israel needs to understand that it's going to lock in those gains and it's going to emerge stronger. But it can't forget that it has been ostracized and people still want to keep it in that South Africa bucket no matter what happens.
- [53:27]
B
Well, most important, I think, is this long term question of the United nations and Israel and the United States and not that we're now, this is the 50th anniversary this month of the Zionism is racism resolution and Pat Moynihan's legendary speech of denunciation, largely written by my father, by the way, which is, I think important to acknowledge, which is to say that, you know, Israel's troubles at the UN are, you know, the UN helped incept Israel and then regretted it immediately and has spent 80 years trying to destroy Israel as a result. But that, you know, now that now that the, the UN has sort of gone into the section of Gulliver's Travels where he ends up in the, you know, in the nation in the cloud that with inventing this mythical nation called Palestine where, you know, which cannot actually be allowed to come into existence until the Palestinian people accept that their purpose is to be an ordinary people with an ordinary nation, as opposed to a people whose purpose is singularly to destroy the people who are next to them. So it's not going to happen. And this is now what the UN has committed its blood and treasure and ideological power to. Then Israel has, weirdly enough, sort of no choice, as is the case also with the European countries that have decided to side with this fantastical, preposterous notion that it has to turn elsewhere. And remember the thing that's weird about Israel and the strike that Israel and America conducted together to destroy or retard or whatever Iran's nuclear problem and overall in the seven front war, its imperial or power extension ambitions to control much of the Middle east and its own near abroad and all of that. And really, really, really taking that out. Israel has become a bizarre protectorate of the larger Middle east, the Sunni Middle east against the Shiite Middle east, and that Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia knows that what was his major strategic goal upon taking power 10 years ago, it was to secure control of the holy sites so that they can remain the protectors of the holy sites while he tries to modernize the country and, and somehow has this force across the Persian Gulf that he needs to keep at bay. And that is the Iranians who want to take control of the holy sites. And Israel, just Israel in the United States just did them a huge solid like there's nothing more you couldn't do better than what happened there.
- [56:37]
A
Let me just say, John, there's one other thing that we're going to see from the Saudis. They just watched their rivals, not the Iranians, their Sunni rivals. They just watched the Qataris lock in a, an agreement with the United States to protect the Qataris against all enemies, not foreign and domestic, but foreign. Any attacks against Qatar will be seen as an attack against the United States. That's what Trump just inked with them. Assuming that they're able to get Hamas across the finish line, the Saudis are now looking on and saying, I want a piece of that.
- [57:11]
B
Yeah, I'll trade the Abraham Accords for that.
- [57:15]
A
Exactly. And that's what I'm watching for next, is you're gonna see a bunch of other countries say, sign me up, I want to be part of this US Led alliance, this US led defense structure in the Middle East. I saw what you did with Iran, I saw how you worked with Israel. So can I have some please? I think that is going to be a huge component of what I mean, you asked me if where I'm probably the most optimistic. I think you're gonna see a lot of countries wanna get in line for what just happened here. I think the Qataris got it by way of deception and disgusting foreign policy. But I do think they just paved the way for a bunch of better allies. And that's interesting to me.
- [57:54]
B
I just think getting back to the thing I said about Abe and his charting of the American revolutionary course over the last five years that nothing is static and that the argument of the American and world left against Israel as a genocider that has then provided this permission structure for this total explosion of anti Semitism among liberals and leftists in the west mostly, but also some people on the right, that this is not static. It was situational. It arose out of long term trends. Don't get me wrong, settler colonialists say things on campus, stuff that has been going on in Democratic precincts in the United States for many years that first really exposed themselves to public view with the booing of the notion that Jerusalem was Israel's capital at the Democratic convention in 2012. But things are not static. And things that you thought, okay, well you know what? We're never getting out of this. We're never getting out of dei, we're never getting out of the world in which the lunatics are starting to run the asylum and telling people in newsrooms and in corporations who they get to hire and who they get to fire. Or they're going to have a little. They're going to have a temper tantrum and say nasty things about you on social media and use their voodoo dolls to frighten you. And somehow that all waned once there was sustained resistance to it, for whatever reasons, it was unsustainable. The attack on Israel and the Jews is unsustainable in some fundamental sense because it is nonsensical. And you're talking about the idea that all of the world's moral ire should focus on 0.01% of the world's population and 2% of the population of the United States being held responsible for all its ills. And so many people, normies, again, the normies who run America, the normies don't want to, don't want this. They want to, like, watch football on Saturdays. They want to go out at night and not have Islamists in keffiyeh marching in Times Square. They don't like that. I don't like it for 10,000 reasons. They don't like it because this is not the country they live in. This is not the way we do things here. And so I think the notion that change begets change has to be taken seriously. There will be setbacks. They will. They will. Bad things are going to happen. This is going to be a complicated year. People will be propagandists will try to make hay out of Israel's efforts to defend itself in Gaza when necessary and act as though Israel is violating some deals or whatever when it won't have been. And Trump's own quixotic nature cannot ensure that his love and admiration of whatever, however he believes his deal is gone, will, if he makes a fetish of it and doesn't understand that it has to be elastic because it's still a war fighting situation. You know, if he sort of turns into the, you can't shoot a pop gun off because that's going to ruin my 3,000 year peace, then there are going to be troubles. I'm not saying there can't be troubles, but, you know, this is the day to look forward and say, I didn't think we were going to get here. I certainly have to apologize. In my own spirit and soul, I assumed that the hostages were not going to survive. I've always assumed that some, you know, that, I mean, obviously 38 are dead, so that all the hostages did not survive. But I didn't think, you know, I thought we were going to be in a much different set of circumstances. I did not trust that this aim could be achieved. And I thought that it was retarding the ability of Israel to win the war, which it was. But nonetheless, if this is the end, if the end is that they come home and Israel has won the war, that is, to me, an almost mystical conclusion to what has happened here. And I did not have the vision to see that it was possible. So maybe my vision is similarly occluded about the future, and Christine's more pessimistic vision is clearer. But.
- [62:41]
D
Well, I hope I'm wrong. I hope you're right and I'm wrong in this case. I will say this is why some of us are quite continually critical of the Trump administration's actions at home. Because for the kinds of change that we all seek, particularly about the DEI stuff and the crackdown on anti Semitism, that needs to be done in a way that's procedurally sound. And when it's not, it can be easily undone. If it's an executive order that can be reversed on day one of a new administration, if it's not done by bullying someone to not, you know, bullying a college president who then resigns, a new college president comes in who's immune to that bullying. That's not a permanent solution. So that's where I think I often get in arguments with. With friends of mine who are more sympathetic to Trump. And I say the procedure matters, not because it's a norm thing or, you know, an old school conservative thing, but because it's a lasting thing when it's done well and it'll hold up in court and it'll be something that future generations will. It will be harder to undo when someone who is hostile again, to Jews on campus or, or in general, to anyone whose views are different from their own.
- [63:44]
B
Okay, Jonathan Schanzer, you gotta go. So, once again, thrilling to have you and to have you on this, as I say, historic, what appears to be a historic day. We will see what the weekend, tomorrow and the weekend have to bring or tomorrow has to bring or whatever, but for the best. Okay, thanks, guys. Hope for the best without expecting the worst. Okay, that's great. I did want to conclude with a surprising recommendation because I've been reading all week a book with great profit, the existence of which I did not know until I read a biography of its author. The author is Edna Ferber. Edna Ferber was one of the most successful American novelists of the 20th century and wrote, I think most famously now wrote Giant, which is this, you know, epic about how Texas turned from being a cattle, you know, being a ranching paradise to becoming a giant oil field. And the. The journey of this family over half a. Half a century into becoming oil tycoons and the wars of the oil tycoons, which was made into one of my five or ten favorite movies with Rock Hudson and James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor. But she was a huge. A success story. And she wrote Showboat. She wrote a book called so Big. She wrote a book called Come and Get It. She was a member of the Algonquin Roundtable and a sort of a. She wrote play. She wrote Dinner at Eight. She wrote all kinds of. She was this kind of sophisticated New York character who wrote these books about America and sort of did repertorial fiction about American American life. Well, it turns out that in the mid-30s, when she was in her 40s or her early 50s, she wrote a memoir called A Peculiar Treasure. And it is. It is. I am only 3/4 of the way through it, and it's one of the great American memoirs. She was born in Chicago. She ended up following her parents through unsuccessful journeys at setting up stores in Kalamazoo. She was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She's from a Chicago family, Kalamazoo, Ottumwa, Iowa, and then to Appleton, Wisconsin, as her increasingly unsuccessful father set up Jew store after Jew store and failed. And it is a. And then she became a kid reporter on the Appleton Crescent upon graduating from high school at the age of 18, and then was set off on this life journey. Most of the book that I've read so far is just about her youth and this description of the American transition through the eyes of a pretty secular Jewish German family, that second generation that had made its way, as I say, unsuccessfully through the. Through the efforts to become entrepreneurial businessmen in these hardscrabble and a couple of very hard scrabble towns, Kalamazoo and Ottumwa. What it was like to grow up with, you know, being a sort of a daring Waspish girl in a. In. In towns with very rough guys who were also like, wildly anti Semitic. Ferber is somebody I didn't even know was Jewish until I read this memoir written by her niece. That is how deracinated she seemed. But this book is not deracinated at all. It is a Jewish memoir about how one Jew made it in America as a writer. But this description of what America was like in the 1890s, through the turn of the century, as roads got paved and people got electricity and the society and living amongst a world of immigrants, by the way, Germans in Milwaukee and all kinds of other people it's just. And so beautifully written. And I got it on Kindle. It's called A Peculiar Treasure by Edna Ferber. There are many great American autobiographies. I don't know, since I haven't finished it and it really does only go up. She hasn't even written Giant yet by the time the book ends. But it's just a remarkable portrait of this country that made everything possible for so many people. So that's A Peculiar Treasure by Edna Ferber. That's my recommendation. We'll be back tomorrow. So for Abe and Christina, I'm John Pothor. It's Keep the Candle Burning.