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- [00:00]
John Podhoretz
Hey, it's John. I want to talk to you about Shopify. A lot of people talk to me about starting podcasts. This podcast is 10 years old. It's in a different place from a lot of podcasts because we're obviously part of a nonprofit institution and it's not a way that we are seeking to earn our livelihoods. But a lot of people look at this and say this is something I can really do to create a business and run the business and do it in a really comfortable, practical and serious way. Gotta wear a lot of different hats when you start your own business. Can be very intimidating. But one of the things that I know from a lot of people is that if your to do list is growing and growing and growing and that list starts to overrun your life, you need a tool that not only helps you out, but simplifies everything that can be a game changer for millions of businesses. That tool is Shopify, the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US from household names to brands. Just getting started. You get started with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store to match your brand style. You can accelerate your content creation because it's packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhance your product photography. You get the word out like you have a marketing team behind you. Easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling. And best yet, Shopify is your commerce expert with world class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Turn your big business idea into Kaching. With Shopify on your side, sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com commentary. Go to shopify.com commentary that's shopify.com commentary Hope for the.
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Seth Mandel
Expect the words Some.
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Christine Rosen
Pre champagne some die of thirst no way of knowing this way it's going.
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Seth Mandel
Hope for the best expect the worst.
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John Podhoretz
Welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. Today is Friday August 8th, 2025 and this is kind of an emergency podcast because we recorded a mailbag podcast yesterday after our podcast which I think we are going to release on Monday. Now because of the news out of Israel that the government has approved a massive operation military operation in Gaza that will be the focus of our conversation today. I am John Vaught, the editor of Commentary magazine and with me as always Executive Editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
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Christine Rosen
Hi, John.
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John Podhoretz
Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.
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Seth Mandel
Hi, John.
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John Podhoretz
Social commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.
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Abe Greenwald
Hi, John.
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John Podhoretz
And Washington commentary columnist Matthew Khan. Eddie. Hi, Matt.
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Christine Rosen
Hi, John.
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John Podhoretz
So the details of the plan, the interesting game that the Israelis, I don't know if it was a game, but were playing yesterday or Bibi was playing yesterday, which was that he was staking out a very comprehensive position. I don't want to call it extreme because I don't think that a decision to win a war decisively on the battlefield is should be ever considered extreme, since a war is a war and should be won. But it was very comprehensive. And he kind of spent two days floating this not exactly as a trial balloon, but as a plan, I think, to see partially what the response would be and to give his Cabinet members some opportunity to fly frame their own arguments for and against it. And what came back was a less comprehensive plan that focuses on Gaza City. Gaza City, which has a population of about a million people. And what you don't know about Gaza City is that once you get past the outskirts of Gaza City, it has been left largely untrammeled in the almost two years of war. It is where the center of activities is. It is where the majority of Gazans live, and it is an urban metropolis. And the idea now is that almost everybody in Hamas, including the people who are holding the hostages, many of whom are likely in apartments and not in military facilities or underground, this or underground, that they are located there, and that an operation to control Gaza City, which has many aspects to it, is the only way for Israel to achieve its aim. And the and just to use the if I can find this, because of course, it disappeared on me. There's a very good summary in the Dispatches morning email that focused this better than most things. It says, I'm sorry, the military operation entails encircling and evacuating Gaza City, the enclave's largest. By October 7, an estimated 1 million people live in the urban center, making it a Hamas bastion and symbol of resistance in the eyes of many Palestinians. After the evacuation period, the IDF plans to lay siege to the terrorist operatives who remain. During the cabinet meeting, Israeli officials approved an operation focused solely on Gaza City. But it's unclear whether and when the next phase of Netanyahu's proposal to conquer the conclave in its entirety would begin. Under his initial plan, the military would also move into Gaza's central refugee camps to dismantle Hamas infrastructure there. In the process, much of the enclave's civilian population would be relocated to the southern Mawasi humanitarian zone, where Israel would construct hospitals, camps and other facilities in preparation for the influx of people. Simultaneously, the US And Israel would coordinate to ramp up the distribution of humanitarian aid across the Strip. And Netanyahu laid out five key conditions on Fox for the day after the war. Hamas must lay down its arms. Gaza must be demilitarized, Its hostages must be brought home. Israel must remain responsible for the enclave's authority, and the enclave must be governed by a civilian authority that can live in peace with Israel. The most radical members of the cabinet voted against this modified proposal. That's a little Smotrick and Ben Gavir voted against it. On the other side, the IDF, the defense minister and representative the if the IDF's lead officer is is opposed to it, we're led to understand thinking that it's too risky, it risks the hostages, and it's not clear that it will meet with success. So that's my summary of the and so none of us again, is a military person, hasn't served in military and can't speak to the military operation. I will say one thing about Netanyahu and how he functions. Everybody seems to think that he is a madman. He is the least crazy person on the face of the earth. He is a very cautious, prudent, political, military, geopolitical actor. When he has an almost unlimited prospect of success, he will be incredibly decisive, as in when he decided to activate the Beeper operation, when he had enough intelligence to strike at the Hamas figure in Tehran, when he, you know, hits where he hits. And when Israel and the United States go after Iran, when they have the plan set up, otherwise he moves in very cautious ways. And so the idea that he would propose or float out a radical proposal, only to pull it back into a more contained proposal is fully within his classic political ambit. And part of what it suggests is that he's got 45% of people on his right who want the full occupation and indeed at least partial, if not total annexation re annexation of Gaza. And he's got 45% of people on his left who want any deal possible that ends the war and brings life, hostages home, no matter the consequences. And he is standing there with the 10% in the middle, trying to figure out how to move forward. So as you listen to people talk about this over the course of the next 48, 72 hours, know that when people say that this is just a sign that Netanyahu's madness has now overtaken him, that he is trying to find some version of a Middle path in an incredibly divided country that is not settled on whether or not the war has to end with Hamas out of power. Right.
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Christine Rosen
And in fact, he made an interesting point in his interview with Fox yesterday where he said that since the beginning of the war, since October 8th, if you will, people have argued, sometimes we've argued that the two of Israel's three goals in this war, first defeating Hamas and the second freeing the hostages, are in contradiction. But according to Netanyahu, they actually run together. And what he said to Bill Hemmer of Fox was that the increased military pressure on Hamas is what has led to Hamas reaching partial cease fire agreements in the past that have released some portion of the hostages. And now we're down to a total of 50 hostages remaining, about 20 alive and about 30 not alive bodies. And so when I saw the headline this morning about what the security cabinet actually authorized, it struck me as Netanyahu's way of increasing pressure once again on Hamas in order to get a partial agreement somewhere, somewhere down the road. The timeline of this operation is amazing to me considering all of the pressure that Israel is under right now from global left wing media and different European governments. It's a two month operation. They said it was going to take two months to evacuate the civilian population from Gaza. And then the military, Gaza City, right? Then the military operation begins. This is a big undertaking, an undertaking that will happen in conjunction with expanded humanitarian efforts that the Israelis and the Americans are working on, increasing the number of Gaza humanitarian foundation distribution sites, putting more food in. If you've noticed, the starvation narrative has been in decline in recent days. Because I think Israel and the United States have dealt with it effectively. But it's a long time and a lot can happen in these two months. And that's why I think what's going on here is some type of posturing pressure game in order to get Hamas to come back to the negotiating table and say, we'll give you 10 more of the living hostages if you pause for another few weeks.
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John Podhoretz
So that's the gambit theory, that this is all part of the psyop, that you can't take it seriously, that it might be a cover for other things. In other words, while it's a misdirection, while you are thinking about this conversation, about evacuating Gaza City and doing this and doing that, that maybe Israeli special forces are trying to distract people from efforts to free the hostages in Entebbe. Like fat, it can't be like Entebbe because they're, they're too scattered and there's no way they're not collected in one place and can be, and can be removed. There's that argument. There's the argument that what else would you say? That there's nothing that Israel can do that will not, has not, will not receive the opprobrium of most of the world. And so therefore it should just do whatever it thinks is best without reference to it. Because if it ends the war, Hamas and its friends will celebrate and say they won. And if it. Yeah, go ahead. I just want to. This is really a plug for Seth's.
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Christine Rosen
Recent brilliant writing on this stuff. I think in a series of posts, most particularly the. The most recent one about, about this.
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John Podhoretz
Move, Seth just has made the argument.
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Christine Rosen
That I find completely convincing that the world has sort of pushed Israel exactly into this position. The countries that plan on recognizing a Palestinian state.
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John Podhoretz
I mean, I don't want to reiterate.
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Christine Rosen
Seth's argument, but Seth says if they're going to do that, then Bibi's like, well, we better get as much of Hamas out of what they plan on recognizing anytime soon. If they're going to be blamed on the governance of Gaza, then they might.
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John Podhoretz
As well take over the governance of.
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Christine Rosen
Gaza and, you know, make things most suitable to their interests there and so on. It's like everything the world has done as a really distorted means of trying to pressure Israel is sort of worked backward to bring it to this point.
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John Podhoretz
So Seth, as your name has been, has been evoked.
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Christine Rosen
We happen to have Seth Mandel right.
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John Podhoretz
Here, but not hostilely. So it's not like since you've been on, yes, you get a minute to, you know, to debate, to contradict Abe. But what you didn't know when you wrote your post last night was what the contours of the deal were, were finally going to be, and that there was going to be this significant shrinking of the scope of Israel's decision to prosecute the war to its conclusion. So what, what, what say you about what we heard?
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Seth Mandel
Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think, I think the. I think it's not much shrunken. Honestly, I think that the. That's itself a form of posturing in a way. Because I think that you have to just look at this and say, what does it mean? And if Gaza City is the last sort of untouched area in Gaza and if there's a million people, you have to remember before the war, Gaza City is also their most populous city. So it's not as though they shoveled everybody into Gaza City and now they're going into Gaza City to shovel. Gaza City stands as this, this sort of monumental city on the map. And, and so if there's not much besides Gaza City, you could argue that, you know, this is in some ways an end game in, you know, even if not in name. But I will say that I, I do think that, you know, one of, one of my points has been that everything the world has, the actions that the world has, have taken, especially European countries against Israel and the threats they have made have not been contingent on Israeli action. This is, this is like the key, you know, blockheaded diplomatic aspect of what they're doing is that France says we're going to recognize the Palestinian state in September. The UK says we're going to recognize the Palestinian state unless there's a really great ceasefire. And by the way, we just chased Hamas away from the table and told them they don't need a ceasefire. Right. Hamas wanted food and Israel wanted hostages. Hamas got food, Israel didn't get hostages. So let's just, you know, to be clear, the ceasefire happened for Hamas. There's a ceasefire, there's something of a ceasefire now. And, and there's lots of food and supplies going into the strip. Hamas got exactly what it wanted without having to give up the host thing.
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John Podhoretz
And the third thing that it got was the world accepting the argument that it didn't get the food. That's the capper. The capper is they got the ceasefire, they didn't return the hostages. The Gaza Humanitarian foundation has distributed 150 million meals, apparently not very confidently. And there's a lot of problems with it and this, and it's not secure, cured, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but food has been pouring in there and the world thinks that the Gazans are starving. So they not only got what they wanted and provided in the real evil of the war here, which is the holding of 20 hostages.
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Christine Rosen
We don't starving who are starving, according to the. We know Hamas, in its victory and its hubris, released the images of the hostages who look like holocaust victims. And they did it on purpose.
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John Podhoretz
Yeah.
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Christine Rosen
And this is why I find the move by the security cabinet quite frustrating. And whenever I look at the Israeli security, the Israeli security cabinet, quite frustrating because you need to, you need to make a decision here. You need to destroy Hamas. That's the only viable long term solution is to destroy Hamas. And it was shocking to me when you realize that the major population center where Hamas command and control is, has still been untouched almost two years into the war. And I have to, whenever I have this reaction. I have to remind myself that Israel is a different country. Israel is not the United States of America. Israel is governed in a completely different way than the United States of America. And we had to remind ourselves of this during the argument over judicial reform two years ago, where it was unusual for an American to thank.
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John Podhoretz
Hold it.
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Christine Rosen
So there's not really a written constitution, but then the Supreme Court kind of made up a written constitution and they're arguing over whether the Knesset can change the Supreme Court for America. That's just a paradigm shift. It's the same thing with Israeli security. You have to make these decisions in Israel through consensus. It's not as though Netanyahu is the commander in chief. He has to bargain with these different groups, including the military commanders. And that's where you kind of end up at the place where we find ourselves. Precisely because John, as you say, he's such a master politician that he's always, he's always mediating between these different factions. But what it means to me, it seems, is that we're in for at least another two months of continued furor against Israel. Unknown outcome of the war, the hostages fate continued to be in question, when what's required is some type of decisive action to bring this to a close by ending Hamas's rule on the Gaza Strip.
- [21:11]
John Podhoretz
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- [22:36]
Abe Greenwald
Now I was looking for fun ways.
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John Podhoretz
To tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun.
- [22:46]
Abe Greenwald
If we made $15 bills, but it.
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John Podhoretz
Turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial.
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Abe Greenwald
Give it a try at mint mobile.com/switch.
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Christine Rosen
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John Podhoretz
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Abe Greenwald
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Christine Rosen
Only speed slow after 35 gigabytes of networks busy taxes and fees extra c.
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Abe Greenwald
Mint mobile.com but it is Netanyahu has been extremely savvy about the maneuverings in Europe right now and the PR campaign against Israel. And you know, Mertz came out and said Germany is no longer going to give any more know, weapons sales. And this is supposed to be a big, you know, warning to Israel. I was struck by how the reaction to both France and the UK declaring they're going to declare a Palestinian state or recognize a Palestinian state. There was a great op ed in the Washington Post by a conservative member of parliament from the uk, Tom Tugginhat, who pointed out just how hollow and ridiculous this whole posturing on the part of some European leaders is. Because he says if you're going to recognize a state, there's a way to do it there, there's a process. There are certain criteria that have to be met. Obviously that is Palestine does not meet those criteria by any stretch of the imagination. So why is Europe doing this? Why is it putting pressure in this way? Obviously for its own domestic political reasons in the UK and in France. But I will be very interested to see and we're recording pretty early. I don't know yet if there's been any word out of the Trump administration about this, this chain of events. I think it's notable that Netanyahu went on Fox News News to discuss this. That that is, that's the conduit to get to whatever Trump is going to be reacting to this. But it strikes me that he wouldn't be talking about it in this way to an American audience without having had some sort of thumbs up or some sort of signaling from the Trump administration that yes, go finish up what you are start has had to start.
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John Podhoretz
It's bigger than that. To modify idea is not only that he would not be getting out over his skis with the United States. But that, as we now know from the Iran operation, I think all of this is happening in conjunction with and coordinated with the United States, which is Israel's only ally on the planet at this moment, as it. As it happens, the only ally that matters. And we can get to the whole question of what Israel needs to do, you know, on the world stage and its opinion on the world stage being in such terrible odor and all of that. A lot of what goes on here has about it an evolutionary connection to the Trump idea floated in February that Gaza should be depopulated, that its population should engage in voluntary immigration, and that Gaza should be emptied out and rebuilt as a glorious tourist destination on the Mediterranean. What we have now is a kind of seventh order down the road. Now, populations moving in the course of a war that is largely taking place on territory where people live is now somehow being treated as though that is a war crime. Populations move. War is a war crime under those conditions because populations shift around during war and have from time immemorial to protect themselves. And the one wonder of this entire conflict is the fact that the one place to which Gazans could flee, the one country in which they. The two countries on which they border are Israel, which obviously isn't going to let them in, and Egypt, which has basically built its fortress 25,000ft higher to make sure that they don't come across and destabilize Egypt. That's the. The ordinary order battle is that much of Gaza would already have been depopulated were Egypt had Egypt not shut itself down.
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Christine Rosen
Look at Ukraine. Millions have left Ukraine.
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John Podhoretz
Yeah.
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Christine Rosen
Since the beginning of that war.
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John Podhoretz
Exactly.
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Seth Mandel
And if I. If only there were a wide open space like the Sinai Desert.
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John Podhoretz
Right.
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Seth Mandel
Where literally nobody but a handful of Bedouin traders and Egyptian soldiers are.
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John Podhoretz
Yeah. And if you needed to distribute humanitarian aid, you just like, that is no skin off anybody's nose. I'm only bringing this up to say that when we hear what Bibi is saying and what the Cabinet does in all of this, Trump has been signaling for a week, week and a half, as has Secretary of State Rubio, as has Ambassador Mike Huckabee, that they have Israel's back. They like the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. And the idea is that they are going to quadruple the number of sites at which food is distributed by the Gaza Humanitarian foundation, which has come under attack from everyone for being bad at what it does. But that's not the point. They want to use it. They believe in moving the population around in order to. In order to Limit the number of civilian casualties as military operations are happening. The US has its fingerprints on every aspect of this deal. And so when you hear Israelis screaming and shouting and yelling about how evil Netanyahu is, and when you hear American Democrats screaming and shouting about how in Israel you're not allowed to attack Trump because Trump has got like a 90% popularity rating, so they attack Netanyahu here. Attacking Netanyahu is also a proxy for attacking Trump, and it's also providing a lot of Democrats in the United States with ballast or an ability to say, well, I like Israel, but I mean, this guy Netanyahu is a monster. And so therefore we should not give them any aid. He's terrible. He's awful. Oh, here I'm going to wave a little blue and, you know, a blue and white flag and hate Netanyahu. Now, I want to mention one other thing in polling yesterday that came out from the Jewish People Policy Institute, which is kind of like the pew of Israel for the month of August, and this is before. So this came out yesterday. What you hear, and you'll hear this today, is that nobody is for the Netanyahu plan. Everyone in Israel hates the. They want the hostages home. They want the war to end. They want the hostages home and the war to end. And they, the Hostage Family Forum is saying, you're going to kill our children. And the members of the hostage families that, as my sister Ruthie likes to say, are supportive of more aggressive efforts no one hears from. Hostage Family is an organization that sprung out of the ashes of the judicial reform movement and has basically taken its form. It is obviously, we all feel for everybody who has, who has to be a member of such a forum, it has a political agenda. It's an anti Netanyahu agenda now. And, and, and it stands there saying whatever it does, trying to isolate and focus all of the ire on Bibi himself. But here is what Bibi faces, which is an Israeli public that is totally divided among Jewish respondents in the poll Because 20% of Israel is Arab, 46% want to continue the war, and 45% prefer to try to reach an agreement, with 9% expressing no opinion. Overall, 54% of the public, can I.
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Seth Mandel
Just say 9%, I don't believe that 9% of Israelis have no opinion.
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John Podhoretz
9% support, 9% support the war but don't want to say so is actually.
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Christine Rosen
It's like a shy Trump voter.
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John Podhoretz
Exactly. So it's 55% want to continue the war and 45% prefer to try to reach an agreement by the way 100% of people would want to reach an agreement if the agreement was Hamas leaves and the hostages.
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Christine Rosen
And we should never forget that Hamas is the one that broke the ceasefire proposal. They rejected the ceasefire proposal. That's why we've lived through the just torture of the past two weeks of the information war on hunger, the videos of the hostages, and now this grueling debate in Israel over what to do next.
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John Podhoretz
Right now, just to go on, when asked what is the right thing to do now in the Gaza arena, here was one question that the Israeli public was asked. It is right to try to reach an agreement for the return of the hostages, even if that means the goal of removing Hamas from power is not achieved. 54% of the public answered that in the affirmative. To reach an agreement for the return of the hostages even if Hamas is not removed from power. 37% answered the war should continue until all the stated goals are achieved. No Hamas rule. All hostages returned. Once again, 9% express no opinion. So we can put that again on the tally of the probably for the war should continue. So that's 54% say it is right to try to reach an agreement, even if that means that the goal is not returned. Israel has been doing just that. Israel was doing just that. It was trying to reach an agreement for the return of the hostages, even if that means the goal of removing Hamas from power is not achieved. We don't know what Israel said at the negotiating table. I think that it is likely that at least a delay in the demand that Hamas is removed from power was on the table, because it's on the table right now. They are saying that they will not, as Seth noted, that the war is really not going to start for another two months. They are going to spend two months preparing for the siege of Gaza City. They're giving the Gazans two months to move. They are giving themselves two months to build facilities for the Gazans either to move into, to have hospitals, to have distribution centers, shelters, whatever it is that are needed. They're giving themselves two months to build those like the Army Corps of Engineers, somehow constructing kind of tent cities and things like that, after which point they will make their move.
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Seth Mandel
So, in fact, also giving that time to move the hostages, by the way.
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John Podhoretz
Which is the other thing we should know, right?
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Seth Mandel
They would, you know, the question of what about the hostages is there is a. There's a pretty strong feeling in, in the Israeli security establishment, I think that if you give them the time, just like they did earlier in the, before they went into Al Shifa Hospital. Early, you know, early in the war, they had said, you know, we're going to Al Shifa Hospital. And they waited and they. You know, and then eventually they went into. The hostages had been moved out of the hospital. I think that moving the hostages out of the war zone is also part of their expectation.
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Christine Rosen
And that's exactly what happened with Rafah.
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John Podhoretz
Yeah.
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Christine Rosen
When I look at the things coming out of Israel this morning, I see essentially a repeat of the Rafah operation last year, with the exception that this time the Americans support what's happening, because last year, when the Israelis said, we need to go into Rafah, we need to secure the Philadelphia corridor separating Gaza from Egypt, of course, President Biden was lukewarm when he was awake. And Kamala Harris was opposed because she had looked at. She had looked at maps, and she had seen from the maps that there was nowhere for the Palestinians in Rafah to go, which was a total lie and proven untrue very quickly because the civilians in Rafah went to Malawassi, the humanitarian zone. And guess what? The hostages who are in Rafah were probably spirited away to different parts of Gaza, including Gaza City, at the same time. So this. This is one other way in which, again, I wake up in the morning, I have to say to myself, israel is not America. America would not conduct a war like this. We really want nobody broadcasting, you know, saying what we're doing.
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John Podhoretz
Nobody on earth would. And that. That gets to the. I have. I've beaten around the bush about this and talked about. Talked about it more in sorrow than in anger and all of that, but you want to talk about a country that is functioning the way no other country would or ever has functioned. We are talking. This entire thing is revolving around the lives of 20 people out of 9 million. There are 9 million Israelis. There are 20, while feeding the Palestinians. Right? Yes. But my point is that Israel is united in the idea that it must do everything in its power to bring those hostages home. Okay, Imagine the geopolitical circumstance here that you have one of what we now know to be one of the world's most powerful countries. Countries, given what it has done in the last two years, most militarily competent, able to achieve its aims militarily against a foe that has proven uniquely weak in being able to respond to it militarily, as opposed to with, you know, guerrilla tactics or whatever, and. And. And unconventional invasions and all of that. And the country is in torment and has activated almost half a million people in its population of 9 million have fought in this conflict in one form or another. In the last two years, the purpose of that fighting, there were 250 hostages, there are now 20. The purpose of that fighting is, is that this is now starting to take on a quality of madness. It's like a reverse Masada. Israel is, Israel is isolating itself on top of a mountain and not doing what it needs to do to finish up what it needs to do for the security of the entire country. For 20, admittedly, nightmarishly, tragically, horribly mistreated through no fault of their own. The reasons for this are many and it has to do with Israel being a Jewish state that follows Jewish precepts of morality, one of which is that you ransom your hostages, you ransom your people when they are taken by other tribes age old, which you pointed out.
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Christine Rosen
On day one to your. I mean I, I'm always reminded you said that on day one that this was going to be the, the, the gut wrenching thing about the October and it has been.
- [38:50]
John Podhoretz
And, and, and it, if you're going to cite me on day one, I will say that I'm a, that I was wrong in, you know, in thinking in my own head that I did not articulate, which was that they were never going to get home. And that's not true. 100, what is it, 150 or 100 have, have in fact made it, made it, have been gotten out in the course of the 20 months. So there's a kind of remarkable story here that those of us of little faith that, that Hamas wouldn't simply brutalize, then kill the hostages at moments to sort of destroy the. That, that was not, that's not what happened. And that Bibi is right on occasion. And I think he throws this in the faces of Smotrik and Ben GVIR when they have debates behind closed doors, which is you would have sacrificed the hostages on day one. And I am not, and I am not ready yet to say that, that we can't get them all back having.
- [39:49]
Seth Mandel
And there's, there's also a, A, you know, a mass forgetting, right? Because people will say, people, when Israel announces plans to go into Gaza City or something like it, its critics say this is ridiculous because we all know that 10 times the number of hostages, maybe more have come out, have come home through deals, negotiated deals than rescue operations. And I want to say to these people who negotiated the deals, right, Bibi has been in power the whole time. He brought like the deals happened because like everybody who came home came home because Bibi gave an order that Includes people who came home from the deal and, you know, and the rescue apps. He knows that. And he also deserves some credit for, you know, people coming home from the deal. And his point is that he has. He can recognize when there are options available and that it's not. You can't always just flip a switch and get a deal. Which is a key part of the polling, you know, John, that you mentioned earlier, which is like, well, if we can get the hostages home and if Hamas, you know, we'll. It work, will tolerate Hamas not being totally defeated if they'll do a deal to give the hostages home. But the weeks and weeks of negotiations for that are an opportunity cost. And then if they walk away from the table, the whole thing is, you know, all these things are much more difficult. But, but the idea that Bibi is like, Bibi's the war guy and someone else is in charge of negotiations is a very silly thing. The other thing I'd say about the hostages is that this is, is why, not to oversimplify, but this is why the war has to be won. Because Israel lives in a state of, you know, if you take a hostage, if you take an Israeli into Gaza City, Gaza City can go untouched for nearly two years. It will be two years by the time they go in. If they go in for two years in a war that everywhere else Israel has gone, you can see that Israel went in, right? We see all the, all the, the, the flyover pictures of the satellite imaging of the rubble and things like that. And the reason that some places are standing as if untouched is because they have hostages there. I don't know how in the future, because the hostages, the way that Israel deals with hostages has eventually, I don't want to blame it, but become October 7th, because October 7th is now the standard example of being held hostage through the taking of hostage that I don't know that you can go back to a situation where you let anybody who might even be thinking of taking a hostage sit there at all. I think prevention is because for most countries, the countries that are telling Israel, look, you don't. Hamas is not. It's not an existential threat to you, right? The guys that are there, you can go in. We've seen some of our friends, you know, the New York Times and elsewhere, you know, who've got gotten tired of defending the war, say just, you know, sort of sit back, take a chunk of land on the border, a zone, and then go in and target terrorists when you need to. And the point is that other countries, when Other countries eventually feel forced to go to war over a similar type situation. It's all out war and then the war is over. Israel for Israel it's not. And that's the difference. That's why prevention of the taking of hostages by almost any means necessary is so important. They have to stop this from ever happening again. And no other country in the world feels the need to stop, prevent this from ever happening.
- [44:05]
Christine Rosen
Can I just add, can I just add on the over the horizon argument, which you're hearing a lot of the idea. Okay, just. And you know, as you say, John, there's so much yada yada here. You know, make the deal with Hamas to release the host and yada yada yada, we'll get the hostages back. No one who Hamas knows that the hostages are their lifeline. So they're not going to give them up. But let's just say this happens and this is what people are advocating for. And so Israel retreats and goes to maybe the buffer zone or just maintains an over the horizon presence. Remember, like we were going to have in Afghanistan once we retreated from Afghanistan over Gaza. It is historically ignorant. Israel has retreated before. General Amadror in a conversation with Jinsa yesterday said, you know, he's lived through three retreats. He lived through the retreat of Oslo when the Palestinian Authority was granted suzerainty or something or whatever over the west bank and the Gaza Strip. He's lived through the Lebanon retreat in 2000 when okay, Israel's leaving the buffer zone in Lebanon. And then he lived through disengagement, the withdrawal from Gaza entirely, no security control in Gaza in 2005. And each time he pointed out there were people within Israel and within the west who said, well don't worry if something happens, we'll just go back in. And what happened? Well, the second Intifada happened where they are murdering hundreds of Israelis. The Netanya bombing, the sparrow, it took, it took that type of death in order to have the Jenin operation and to reassert security control over the West Bank. Then you have that Lebanon was turned into a Hezbollah stronghold and you had the Hezbollah war in 2006. That's what you know, there's rocket constant rockets from the north, Right?
- [46:02]
John Podhoretz
Oh, what started that war, Seth?
- [46:05]
Christine Rosen
Yeah, right.
- [46:05]
John Podhoretz
What started that war?
- [46:07]
Christine Rosen
Hostages.
- [46:07]
Seth Mandel
Right.
- [46:08]
John Podhoretz
Yes.
- [46:08]
Christine Rosen
And then you had October 8th. So I get, I'm getting very upset because you might tell because people are just want to set up the very same conditions that Israel has been for. Has this chose, has chosen. I mean these were all Decisions Israel has made under pressure, for sure. But Israel has chose these retreats and each time it has led to more Jewish lives lost.
- [46:38]
Seth Mandel
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.
- [46:49]
John Podhoretz
And we're bringing that same reporting and sharp analysis to a new podcast, Power Lines.
- [46:54]
Seth Mandel
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.
- [47:06]
John Podhoretz
That isn't afraid to call it like it is. We also pull back the curtain via.
- [47:09]
Seth Mandel
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, we've got some hot takes. I just think Brad Pitt, honestly, he kind of seems a little washed up.
- [47:29]
John Podhoretz
Oh, my God. That's Power Lines. Presented by Status. Follow Powerlines and listen on Apple, Spotify.
- [47:36]
Seth Mandel
Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast app.
- [47:43]
Christine Rosen
Hi, everyone, I'm Matt Ebert, CEO and founder of Crash Champions. Welcome to Pod Crash. On Pod Crash, we'll dive deep with industry leaders and game changers because we.
- [47:54]
John Podhoretz
Want to uncover their secrets to success.
- [47:56]
Christine Rosen
We're going to explore everything from building.
- [47:58]
John Podhoretz
Trust, building a rock solid team, to champion blue collar work. And we also want to talk about.
- [48:04]
Christine Rosen
Creating explosive growth in your business. You'll hear actionable advice, real leadership and.
- [48:10]
John Podhoretz
Business lessons along with what's worked for these incredible people throughout their career.
- [48:15]
Christine Rosen
We're even going to go in depth.
- [48:16]
John Podhoretz
Into what I call a Champions mindset.
- [48:18]
Christine Rosen
This is the very philosophy that I.
- [48:20]
John Podhoretz
Use to champion people and take Crash.
- [48:22]
Christine Rosen
Champions from a single shop to over 650 locations today.
- [48:27]
John Podhoretz
And now I want to share that information with you. Watch or listen to pod crash on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And that's where I say we are getting to the point of madness inside Israel, Okay? A thousand Israelis have died and maybe a thousand more casualties in the course of the war to free the hostages who numbered at maximum number 251. Now, the idea here is the hostages could be anybody's children or grandparents or whatever. And they were taken from their homes. They were taken from this concert that they were just dancing at all night. The horror is unmistakable. Every Israeli soldier is somebody's child. And as I keep saying, every Israeli soldier who is not a reservist is A conscript is not in the Israeli army. Now they all want to go into the army. I'm not saying that unless you're a Hooray, unless you're a haredi who wants to pretend that if you pray, you're going to bring about the return of the Messiah. So thanks a lot for that great, great work there on your prayers. But they want to serve it as their national duty. It is what they're raised to do. But they are all everybody's children also. And there is now a distinct privileging of certain lives in Israel under the unique, horrible circumstances over the lives of other Israelis. And what's interesting here is how little debate there has been about this inside Israel and these monsters, these evil, horrible monsters, smotrich and Ben Gvir, who have between them 16 seats in the asset. That's more than 10%, 14 or 15% of the representatives in the Israeli government. They are the way that Bibi got got himself into power by having them come together, pool their resources, be a single force and win these seats together and then come into the government. They are the only ones who are openly saying we cannot run this country and this future under these conditions. And last night, according to Amit Sehgal's indispensable newsletter I keep. People keep asking me its name. It's called It's Noon in Israel. His name is Amit Segal. Segal. Go Google it and you can subscribe to it. He reprints what he understands was the dialogue inside the councils of power. Last night, the fight that was going on. Chief of staff, the IDF chief of staff Al Zamir said we don't go into Gaza with all the costs just to put pressure on Hamas. At which point the Shash chairman, the chairman of the. Of the. Of the largest religious party, Aria Dari, said it's immoral not to release the hostages and smote rich. I can never remember whether it's smotrich or smotry. And my sister always yells at me that I mispronounce it. So I'm going to mispronounce it.
- [52:03]
Seth Mandel
We can meet in the middle and say Smotrich, okay?
- [52:07]
John Podhoretz
Is it moral says Muchuk, for 100 soldiers to die and then we withdraw for 10 hostages? Because it is presumed that the next deal that will be struck is Israel will go fight. Hamas will come to the table, but it will not release all the hostages. It will only release half. So you are already going in with an understanding that there is going to be a 10 for 1 ratio of dead Israelis to live hostages. And the IDF response was because of the exclusive, the explosives, meaning mines and such. And IEDs, said in Gaza, it will take three months and three divisions to do what we have to do. To which Smotrish said, then you are criminals, meaning the idf, because he's a very, you know, vulgar and blunt person, because those explosives were planted during previous deals. That means the price of a deal is ending the war. The chief of staff's plan is better hold our positions, go to elections, and let the public choose which path to take. Which is interesting. And there was that. We can't, Zamir said, we can't come to an agreement. Let the public decide. Let's have an election and let the public decide. Smoke tricks. Voted against the plan. Netanyahu promised him that Hamas would be defeated in Gaza. And lean on the argument by Minister Avi Dichter, a former Shin Bet chief, that Gaza City's collapse would help bring down Hamas. Okay, so what is. Why am I laying. I'm laying this out to say that Israel is putting itself in a morally impossible position because neither of these views, in other words, like saying forget the hostages is not right according to Jewish tradition, but the fact that hundreds of Israelis are going to die without a surety that you're going to get the result that you want, which is the hostages home, is a moral calamity.
- [54:10]
Abe Greenwald
It also.
- [54:11]
Christine Rosen
Almost a thousand have, by the way.
- [54:14]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, and as I say, at least those thousand. The hostages were released and Hamas has largely been destroyed.
- [54:21]
Abe Greenwald
But it also.
- [54:22]
John Podhoretz
Go ahead.
- [54:23]
Abe Greenwald
But Amit also makes another point about what he. In his reporting, I think is it speaks to what we've been discussing about the next stage. He says the word Occupy didn't come up again. So what happens even if you get a partial deal that satisfies the particular moment and that even if you get all the hostages back, who governs that area?
- [54:41]
John Podhoretz
Who. So this is the most interesting aspect of this, because they're not going to use the word Occupy, because by the way, occupation is by definition, in terms of the art of war, the use of the word temporary. So this is the ultimate Yaakov Amidror, whom Matt talked about listening to at Ginsa yesterday. Yaakov Amidror, the former IDF chief. I believe he was chief of Staff. I can't remember.
- [55:06]
Christine Rosen
He was National Security, National Security Advisor.
- [55:09]
John Podhoretz
Pretty remarkable guy. Israel is going to annex. Re. Annex parts of God. When this is over, parts of Gaza will be. Will be annexed. It's not that they will be. Will be annexed by Israel forever. That is I'm telling you this right now. On August 8th, there will be a two mile buffer zone from the Israeli border into Gaza. There will be, there will be a zone along the Philadelphia corridor with Egypt and there will be some other stuff. Israel, in Seth's terms, it's not only that you have to win this war to make it clear that the taking of an Israeli hostage will mean your utter and total destruction, no matter how long it takes. But they have to do this to make sure that the operation that happened here doesn't, can't be repeated 20 years from now. And how will they do that? They will annex parts of Gaza and they will, that will be, that will be a 30 mile military base in perpetuity. And so the, the final blow to the Sharon Ehuda Olmert plan to say, fine, we're done. We're not going to have 25,000 Israeli soldiers protecting 8,000 Israeli settlers in Gaza. We have no real historical connection to Gaza. It's not, we don't look at Gaza as part of the, you know, holy land per se and the hell with it and let them, let's see what they can do with it. Well, the problem is that what they did with it was launch five wars against Israel and in the fifth war they killed and injured 5,000 Israelis. So it was a world historical disaster of an event. And as you say, Matt, the. We'll just go back in. Well, look what's happened. When you have to just go back in, they're ready for you in some sense. They're, they're all, this is my, this is my point.
- [57:15]
Christine Rosen
I just, I would also listen to doing a lot of listening, which is unusual for me. But among the things I've listened to was a recent interview that Daniel Gordas did with Mika Goodman. And Mika Goodman gave his four, four reasons why he opposes whatever Netanyahu does. His first, his first and top reason, which we've been discussing, is that the hostages will be put at risk with this operation. The second is that it goes against, as he put it, the will of the world, global public opinion. The third, he said it goes against Israeli public opinion, which as we have noted, is not actually true. He was basing it off of these other polls which were incorrectly phrased, but nonetheless, that's his third condition. And the fourth is that the continued operations in the Gaza Strip threaten the future of the army of the idf, because as we've been talking about, the IDF has been going through all these rotations and it's heavily dependent on, on reservists and the reservists, of course, have lives, whether they're students, whether they're businessmen, or whether they're their fathers. But my point is this. Will any of those things change if Hamas is left in power? If Hamas is left in power.
- [58:39]
John Podhoretz
Your.
- [58:39]
Christine Rosen
Brother'S lives will still be at risk because Hamas will just take on more hostages. And by the way, Hamas, I don't think is ever going to give up all of the hostages, because they know that that's the only card they have to play. Number two, will the will of the world change if you retreat? Doesn't seem like it. And by the way, the most important global opinion is Donald Trump's, and he's with you. Three, Israeli public opinion. Well, as Seth alluded to earlier in the program, Israeli public opinion is very volatile. It's very polarized. That's not going to change either. I mean, you know, it's going to reflex. Maybe then you'll have people angry at Netanyahu for ending the war and then the future of the army. Well, the future, I understand. And we dealt with this in Iraq as well, where that's a professional army. But even there we relied a lot of National Guard units and there was, there was a lot of exhaustion. And no one wants to have these wars last long, but there will always be another war if Hamas is left in power, because Hamas will simply rearm and then it will start shooting the rockets again. And so you're going to mow the lawn again. How did that work out? So I don't find these arguments persuasive because they won't change if Israel simply retreats.
- [60:14]
John Podhoretz
I have one, I have one repast to that, not that I just don't disagree with a single thing you said. So I have one repost to that. But it goes to the problem of the way the Israeli political system is framing this that we alluded to at the beginning. So Hamas was an Iranian proxy, Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy. Iran. Iran is mortally wounded. The nuclear program was taken out. Other stuff is bad. They're in trouble. They're dealing with internal dissent. There, there seems to be the idea being expressed that they are having to basically go and kill thousands of people to keep, prevent uprisings and, and their search for the Israeli moles and whatever. And so there may be a supply problem, a supply chain problem for Hamas or whatever would. Now, here's the other thing, which is you can say Hamas is destroyed and then there will rise up in an independent Gaza Strip, a group called Shamas or blamas. Or Chamas or the Palestinian Authority will have Palestinian Authority junior and then there will be a Palestinian Authority that is much more radicalized inside Hamas to take up arms or to do something like that. It may take 10 years, it may, may take 15 years. That's why I'm saying that ultimately there will be this re. Annexation.
- [61:49]
Christine Rosen
I understand. Yeah. And I think that's true. And look, when I say destroy Hamas. Yeah. What I mean the 25% of Hamas's military structure that remains and that is in Gaza City. And in my view, you dismantle that as you've dismantled the other 75%. You do dismantle the tunnel networks.
- [62:10]
John Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [62:10]
Christine Rosen
And then you maintain security oversight as Israel has done in the west bank since, since the second intifada. So something like that.
- [62:20]
John Podhoretz
Ultimately. Seth, the agony here is what Jonathan Foreman laid out in his remarkable article for us that came out of the British report on the causes of October 7 and others, which is that that what happened here and what Israel is to going. Going through and the torments that it's going through and the torment that it will go through having to be in a kind of harder military posture after the war than it has been or than it found itself in during the 21st century at pretty much after the war in Lebanon in 2006. So say for the past 20 years is the result of failing to take seriously the threat from Hamas and the Concepcia that said as, as they call it, that said you could mow the lawn, you could keep them. They were. And that they were being bought off. That gutter was buying peace for Israel, however that was working and that peace was being bought off and that Bibi's main issue was dealing with Iran. So he's now dealt with Iran. He has dealt with Lebanon. There is Hamas, there is Gaza. But the other thing that we haven't mentioned is what it would mean for this war to end in an unstable fashion for Israel's longest term problem in terms of terrorism and threat, which is the West Bank. And people in Israel are very worried about the West Bank. West bank is because there are so many Israelis there and because they, you know, but the west bank is largely governed as a, as a, as a independent authority run by a tyrant. They want to destroy Israel too, blah, blah, blah. What does it mean not to win this war. That is also a signal to the PA or to forces inside the west bank that it's time to take some, it's time to go into the settlements and take some hostages. It's time.
- [64:41]
Seth Mandel
And it's not to, it's not too catastrophizing to, to say that if, if Hamas is left in power, they're going to make a move for the west bank and the Palestinian Authority is incapable of stopping them now. Maybe, maybe not right now. Okay, maybe tomorrow. If Hamas went for the west bank, they could not displace the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian security forces. But everybody knows, right? The big secret is that Abbas is alive because of Israel. Abbas is alive. Mahmoud Abbas, the president for life of the Palestinian authority in his 20th year of his four, of his four year term is alive because of the IDF. And what Israelis see is that the Palestinian Authority is preferable to Hamas. And they're there because Israel didn't do in the west bank what it did in Gaza, which is just move everybody out and say, you know, good luck. Right? All these arguments sort of work against the concessions that were taken for granted in the Israeli public discussion for a long time. The idea now is you look at the west bank and you think, well, first of all, you can't leave, you can't pack up and leave the west bank because Hamas will fill the vacuum because Abbas can't fight him off. But the other, but that's the other thing is that you will create. The west bank becomes the sort of last, the last holy grail, the last prize for the forces that are looking to destroy it.
- [66:26]
John Podhoretz
Can I point out also, and that maybe we can end here. Matt wants to do a little rant. So. But the terms of this have shifted so much that victory for Hamas has shrunk to something very small, which is that it survives, it can be a remnant, it can be nothing, it can be 11 people.
- [66:57]
Abe Greenwald
That's always a victory for a terrorist organization.
- [66:59]
John Podhoretz
But that's exactly my point here, which is that is it unbelievably hard to extirpate Hamas and to completely destroy it? Yeah, it's like cancer. Like one cancer cell left after chemo and radiation and whatever can still kill you because it can A, metastasize and B, it can rot into your whatever, you know, like it is a very difficult challenge that Israel placed for itself. But the success of governments or whatever in Israel are responsible for the fact that this cancer was allowed to grow and that they've had to spend two years in this incredibly painful effort to, you know, to eliminate this cancer, which obviously, as we know, cancer is never really fully eliminated ever. You just say that you're in remission or something like that, but it is the cost of the last 20 years of Israeli policy, over which Bibi. And this is where, historically, Bibi, though I'm speaking, very admiring of him. We don't know how history is going to record what this premiership has been like and how the positive things about it will stack up against the negatives. But what the Israeli debate has done is make it very easy for Hamas not only to declare victory in its astounding defeat, but to reconstitute itself in the bizarre, nightmare world of Palestinian public opinion as the heroic savior force that stood up to the evil Zionist entity.
- [68:45]
Abe Greenwald
And having seen itself and its sacred symbolism and its behavior normalized in the west in a way that hasn't happened before.
- [68:53]
John Podhoretz
Yes. And you know that. That, of course, is our long, longest serving longest. And I would. I would encourage everyone who has not done so before. Matt gets to his rant. Go to our webpage. Go to where it says newsletter at the top of the webpage. Subscribe to Abe Greenwald's daily newsletter. He wrote a newsletter yesterday, your Most Powerful. Yeah, I mean, you've written, I don't know, 100 of them so far. Something like that, which is about the terrible choice that is facing American Jews and. And whether or not we are now looking at a world in which Jews, as the Jews in Europe, seem to have no future. Are we at the beginning of an American experience that says that we are going to have to flee? There was this car bombing. These three. This. This car bombing in St. Louis. Three cars set on fire. A synagogue in East Rutherford, New Jersey, burned to the ground last night. Nobody knows why. It could have been. It's old. It could have been a wiring fire. Could. May maybe not have been a, you know, an attack, a firebombing attack. But the shul was firebombed in 2012, so it's not beyond the bounds of probability. We see this, you know, we see this happening. Killings outside the event in Washington, all of that. These are now happening twice a month in conjunction with very ugly things happening in.
- [70:25]
Christine Rosen
Well, certainly in the Democratic Party and in.
- [70:29]
John Podhoretz
In the past.
- [70:30]
Christine Rosen
Populist, right?
- [70:31]
John Podhoretz
As well. Exactly. Matt, can you do your rant?
- [70:35]
Christine Rosen
I. I am. I mean, this rant is distinguished from the rants I've been going on throughout the past hour simply because it's on a cultural topic. And I will make it brief. I've spent the past two evenings catching up with my esteemed colleagues here by watching and so It Goes, the HBO documentary on the life and work of. Of Billy Joel. I have loved it. I think it's one of the best documentaries, actually, I've ever seen. I recommend it to everybody, and it's already been recommended. But I do have one pet peeve, and that is the documentary gives far too much attention to what I believe to be the most irrelevant profession in the United States. And that is the profession of pop music critic. I like criticism. I love literary criticism, literary essays. I love film criticism. I even like classical music criticism, pop music criticism. What are you doing with your life? And they. It comes. Not only are these rock critics quoted throughout the show, throughout the documentary, but at one point they talk about the reception to the Innocent man album in 1983, and how the pop music critics, they heard this album that Billy Joel put out and they just. They don't. They don't like. They don't like the album. You know, it's this album. It contains these songs like An Innocent man or the Longest Time or Tell Her about it or Uptown Girl. You know, these are. These are very. They're just rehashes of earlier pop. You know, there's nothing original. This Billy Joel, he's in such a creative rut. All he does is write these gems that live on a half century after they are produced. And I have to listen to these rock critics say these things. And I felt like, you know, reaching into the television, giving them a good shake. So today's cultural rant is simply on rock critic. If you're thinking of going down that path, take a. Take a deep breath and, you know, think about it. Also, by the way, go into classical music criticism because one of many things that stand out from this great film is just how steeped Billy Joel is in the tradition, in the classical Western tradition, to the point where, as John, you were saying, he, as a boy, he would be imitating Mozart or Bach or Beethoven at the piano to have fun with his mom. And of course, one reason I suspect that his songs are so long lived and will continue to live is that they are. They come from. From this deep well of classical Western music. So maybe, maybe study that instead of holding your nose at popular, actual popular artists. Thank you very much.
- [73:44]
John Podhoretz
I think.
- [73:45]
Seth Mandel
Learn to code.
- [73:47]
John Podhoretz
Learn to code. I am so thrilled that you said this for. You know, I've been a pop culture critic.
- [73:55]
Christine Rosen
Yeah, you write about, like 45.
- [73:57]
John Podhoretz
So I write about television. I write about movies. That. That's what I've written about mostly. And literature, you know, literature, which I don't think is pop. Pop music is pop. But from the time that I started reading criticism in the 1970s, which was the height of the music of the. The American music critical scene with the success of Rolling Stone and Village Voice and others. When you would go to Rolling Stone and you would read the four star review and then you would buy the album that got the four star review, and particularly after the introduction of punk and new wave and some other things, you would often get an album, you put it on your turntable and it would sound like the shifting of gears on a 25 year old truck. And the idea was this was raw, this was real, this was authentic, this was.
- [74:51]
Abe Greenwald
Okay, we'll have to do another episode where I defend punk and new wave. But that's not.
- [74:55]
John Podhoretz
No, no, no, I, I like punk and new wave. It's not that. It's really, it's really not. In some ways, by the way, was a response. A lot of that was a response to the previous praise for pretentious fake classical music for disco.
- [75:11]
Seth Mandel
Also punk was a response to this.
- [75:13]
John Podhoretz
Okay, but my point is that nobody gets a degree in musicology and then writes pop music or rock music criticism. It is, it's all attitudinal. It was all about nobody has a better ear or worse ear. None of that. It's just attitude. And the attitude was always authenticity, purity, ugliness, politics, unpopularity. Right, okay. And I just thought the striking thing to me about that documentary was this moment when Bruce Springsteen, the single most praised American singer songwriter of that era, beginning in like 1973 onto when he became a gigantic AM radio hit person with the Born in the USA album, but recorded three albums before that that were, you know, that he was on the COVID of Time and Newsweek simultaneously in 1975 or something like. Like that. And Springsteen says flatly, billy Joel writes better songs than I do. Melodies. Melodies. Did he say melodies?
- [76:19]
Christine Rosen
Yeah.
- [76:19]
John Podhoretz
Was it only melodies?
- [76:20]
Abe Greenwald
Speaks to the classical music.
- [76:21]
John Podhoretz
What is a song but a melody? I'm sorry, his lyrics are better too, but whatever. I'm not gonna. I don't.
- [76:27]
Seth Mandel
Well, but that's still something because Springsteen writes some pretty great melodies. I mean, some of those songs are utterly epic, you know, forever.
- [76:35]
John Podhoretz
And like, and, and Paul McCartney said, I wish I'd written just, you know, here's the other way you are.
- [76:41]
Christine Rosen
Matt's point about pop music criticism. Much like our jobs numbers, they revise all the time. They're like, they're like on.
- [76:52]
John Podhoretz
On sec.
- [76:54]
Christine Rosen
Now in retro.
- [76:56]
John Podhoretz
In retrospect, I was unfair to this album because it became huge and you know.
- [77:01]
Christine Rosen
Right. I didn't at the time realize that blah, blah or Their attitude changes. Yeah. But you know, what really got me was, you know, we. Yeah. Hearing Paul McCartney say that he's envious of Billy Joel. Yeah, that's one thing. But what really got me is when Nas says that he. That he's a fan. When Nas chimes in on the Billy Joel legacy, that's when I was like, okay, now, now, you know, he's just.
- [77:22]
John Podhoretz
To conclude this point about an innocent man, which I remember the reception of being. Yeah, this kind of like, it's pastiche. It's so, you know, like, blah, blah, blah. So I'm just going to read off the. The now. I am a Billy Joel. Stan and have been to. Went to seven concerts in Madison Square Garden and all that. But Here are the 10 songs on. On Innocent Man. Easy Money, An Innocent man, the Longest Time this Night. Tell Her About It, Uptown Girl, Careless Talk, Christy Lee, Leave A Tender Moment Alone and Keeping the faith. Of these 10 songs, I would argue that there are two Careless Talk and Christy Lee that are not American standards. Right.
- [78:06]
Christine Rosen
Eight of the ten are.
- [78:07]
John Podhoretz
Out of ten that are, like, in, you know, like, are what we would consider entries in the American. The Great American songbook. That's amazing. 80% for an album that was trashed by the New York Times.
- [78:24]
Christine Rosen
They don't know anything, these critics.
- [78:26]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, they're terrible. Thank you. That was a great. A great rant. And we will be back. I will be back whenever we're back. So for Matt, Seth, Christina, and Abe, I'm John Podhorts. Keep the candle bur.