The Israeli Right’s Plan to Carve Up Gaza

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Israeli Right’s Plan to Carve Up Gaza"

The Ezra Klein Show, October 28, 2025
Host: Ezra Klein | Guest: Amit Segal, Chief Political Analyst, Channel 12 Israel

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Episode Overview

This episode features a wide-ranging, candid conversation between Ezra Klein and Amit Segal about the Israeli government’s intentions and the broader right-wing political vision for Gaza and the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the wake of a fragile ceasefire with Hamas. Segal, close to the Netanyahu government, offers insight into how Israelis perceive the ceasefire, their skepticism about peace prospects, and the potential for the so-called "partition" or "Lebanonization" of Gaza. The discussion explores deep divides between US and Israeli perspectives, the region’s future, and the long-term implications for Israel’s international standing.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Ceasefire Deal: What Was Actually Agreed To?

(Starts at 01:04)

• Amit Segal’s view: The ceasefire is a tactical pause rather than an end to conflict. He calls it a "ceasefire based on a prisoner swap deal, and this is it," emphasizing skepticism about broader peace (03:26).
• Israel remains in control of 53% of Gaza. Plans for Hamas's removal remain aspirational, with little belief in immediate demilitarization by Hamas.

Quote:

"I think it was a ceasefire based on a prisoner swap deal, and this is it... It's like pressing the pause button when Israel still controls 53% of Gaza Strip and Hamas is in 47%..."
— Amit Segal (03:26)

2. How Netanyahu Sold the Deal at Home

(04:21)

• Netanyahu dropped "total victory" rhetoric; instead, he focuses on hostage recovery and maintaining a military presence in Gaza.
• Both he and his coalition emphasize that Israel will not withdraw until Hamas is dismantled and Gaza demilitarized.

Quote:

"We got the hostages back, which 80%, 90% of the public wanted, and we actually stay in Gaza Strip and we don't withdraw from Gaza as long as Hamas is not demilitarized and dismantled."
— Amit Segal (04:25)

3. The Real Israeli Goal: Avoid the 'Fantastical' Next Phase

(05:54)

• Klein notes American focus on "phase two"—international policing, rebuilding, and the Palestinian Authority’s return.
• Segal calls these “mostly fantastical”; Israel’s real aim is to avoid removing IDF control before Hamas is neutralized.

4. The Gaza ‘Partition’ Vision & Two Gazas

(07:46)

• Segal imagines a de facto "two state" solution inside Gaza: one part militarily controlled, rebuilt, and internationally funded; the other left in ruins under Hamas.
• Movement between the two would be controlled, with vetting and de-Hamasification required.

Quote:

"If you build there, then Yu Rafah, an Emirati funded, Saudi funded...city in which people have no weapons and there is an efficient police force, no tunnels, no Kalachnikov, no hatred, then you can see a future."
— Amit Segal (07:53)

5. Widespread Israeli Disbelief in the Palestinian Authority

(10:03)

• Israelis see no real partner for peace in the current PA, noting chronic incitement in schools and distrust shared by the UAE and Saudis.
• "No option" for PA rule in Gaza in this generation or even the next.

Quote:

"I would say that 90, 92% of the Israeli public does not believe in the idea of the Palestinian Authority."
— Amit Segal (10:13)

6. Two Streams on the Israeli Right

(11:51)

• Hardline right (Smotrich, Ben Gvir): Reject any Palestinian state, favor annexation or mass emigration.
• Likud/Netanyahu-Dermer camp: Open to hypothetical, "reformed" Palestinian Authority involvement, but only after total demilitarization and re-education.

7. Cautious Pessimism and Skepticism of International Guarantees

(13:39, 17:06)

• Americans and Israelis differ over feasibility of international policing and educational reform as groundwork for eventual coexistence.
• Segal points to Japanese and German re-education after WWII as a model, but with "cautious pessimism" given regional hostility and the power of social media.

8. Israeli Assessment of Palestinian Self-Determination

(20:29)

• Segal: Israelis feel they already offered statehood—in Gaza (2005) and via Oslo—but got only violence in return.
• He projects maybe "60, 70% statehood" (but never full self-determination) could emerge with generational change in 20 years.

Quote:

"Now, if you speak about 10 years from now, I guess we'll see something closer to...60, 70% statehood with reformed entity...really side by side in peace with Israel."
— Amit Segal (21:23)

9. Security Above All: Lessons from Oct. 7 and 'Lebanonization'

(27:48, 29:59)

• Israel’s mainstream (not just the far right) has concluded only permanent, direct security control prevents attacks.
• "Lebanonization" now means a model where Israel ensures deterrence with airstrikes and outposts, not permanent occupation or settlement.

Quote:

"There is no security without actual constant boots on the ground presence, surveillance. There is no trusting an agreement."
— Ezra Klein (29:59)

10. The Trump Factor and Israeli Right-Wing Populism

(31:29)

• Netanyahu modeled himself "to be like Trump," seeing populism as a political success story, but Segal contends Israel’s far-right is still electorally smaller than in Europe or the US, in part due to Netanyahu’s centrist authoritativeness.

11. Normalization with Arab States & the Abraham Accords Post-Oct. 7

(33:40)

• Normalization driven by strategic interests (shared concerns over Iran, transactional tech and arms deals), not Palestinian statehood.
• October 7th intended in part to derail Saudi normalization; instead, Segal says expanding such accords is Israel’s best answer to the attack.

12. Changing International Landscape: Israel as a 'Mistress' to the West

(38:40, 39:52)

• Israel’s tech/arms prowess ensures demand among states even in the face of negative public opinion.
• Segal laments this clandestine, transactional basis, noting diminishing "soft power" and challenging public relations.

Quote:

"I'm not a big fan of the idea of Israel being first the mistress of the Middle east and now the mistress of Europe."
— Amit Segal (39:52)

13. Collapse in US and European Sympathy for Israel

(41:12)

• Polling now shows greater sympathy for Palestinians, especially among young Americans.
• Segal notes: "Today, the world is focused on suffering. The more you suffer, the more sympathy you get." (42:10)
• Worries about elasticity of public opinion and the long-term ability to rely on US support.

14. The Risk of Becoming Like Apartheid South Africa

(52:59)

• Klein draws parallels to Israel's deepening structural control and "apartheid" risks.
• Segal rejects equivalence, but fears international sanctions and isolation are credible long-term dangers.

Quote:

"The main difference between Israel and South Africa is that [in South Africa] the black community...didn't try to massacre each and every white. It wasn't the case there."
— Amit Segal (53:46)

15. Long-Term Outlook: International Isolation or Change?

(58:15)

• Israelis unlikely to shift views on statehood, as security fears outweigh international pressure.
• Some discussion of possible future Israeli governments, but consensus across spectrum on security and skepticism toward Palestinian sovereignty.

16. Israeli Political Landscape & The Endurance of Right-Wing Hegemony

(60:16)

• Exploration of possible anti-Netanyahu coalitions (Bennett, Gantz, Lieberman, Lapid, Golan), but Segal claims genuine policy change—even with a centrist/left bloc—would be minimal.
• Religious/secular divides increasingly more important than left/right on territorial issues.

17. Memorable Quote on Education as Solution

(56:55)

"I think the most urgent mission...is to base the education system in the Palestinian Authority, not on hatred, but on Western values, on moderate Islam. I know it can succeed...in 20 years from now, if we start today, you'll see a major change..."
— Amit Segal

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Notable Moments & Soundbites

• Ezra Klein on American perceptions:

  "The theory of the Israeli mainstream, you call it the right, but it seems to me to be the center..." (29:59)

• Amit Segal’s analogy on settlements and annexation:

  "Being a right winger in Israel or being hawkish means that you think the only solution...is...Israeli soldiers with boots on the ground where it's needed." (26:36)

• Segal on normalization:

  "The best Israeli answer to October 7th would be to expand the Abraham Accords, thus proving that...October 7th was a failure." (34:31)

• Segal on changing American Jewish and Democratic views:

  "Even evangelicals, the new generation, doesn't see Israel through the lenses of a biblical happening, but through the lenses of social justice." (44:11)

• Segal on the gap in coalition alternatives:

  "If you are American hoping for a change in terms of policy, you'll get quite disappointed...towards Gaza." (65:16)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:04 — Opening: The situation after the ceasefire and different American/Israeli lenses
• 03:26 — Segal on ceasefire as tactical pause, not peace
• 04:21 — Netanyahu’s narrative domestically
• 05:54 — Discussion of "phase two" and Israeli skepticism
• 07:46 — Partition within Gaza, "two Gazas" concept
• 10:03 — Why Israelis reject the Palestinian Authority
• 13:39 — Symbolic vs. real benchmarks in the Trump plan
• 17:06 — Power and limits of educational reform
• 20:29 — Israeli backlash against prior statehood efforts
• 27:48 — "Lebanonization" and Israeli security doctrine
• 31:29 — Impact of Trumpism on Israeli politics
• 33:40 — Abraham Accords and normalization trends after Oct. 7
• 38:40 — The 'mistress' metaphor: transactional relationships
• 41:12 — Collapse of Western sympathy; US political shifts
• 52:59 — Ezra Klein on apartheid analogies; long-term international risk
• 58:15 — Futures: international isolation vs. policy change
• 60:16 — Israeli political system and the prospects of government change

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Recommended Books (68:56)

• The Accidental President by A.J. Baime
• An Unfinished Love Story by Doris Kearns Goodwin
• Messiah in Sdeboker by Segal’s father (about David Ben-Gurion; Hebrew only)

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This episode provides a revealing, sometimes discomforting glimpse into the mainstream Israeli right’s thinking on Gaza, Palestinian statehood, and the nation’s trajectory in global politics. The conversation is a must-listen for those seeking to understand both the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations and the rapidly changing international climate surrounding them.

Transcript

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[Ezra Klein]

We're a few weeks into the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. It's a deal that has already been troubled by violence, but so far it is holding. If you're listening to that deal being talked about in the us, you're hearing it spoken about one way.

[Amit Segal]

So this long and difficult war has now ended. You know, some people say 3,000 years, some people say 500 years. Whatever it is is it's the granddaddy of them all.

[Ezra Klein]

But when I read the Israeli press, I'm hearing and seeing something very different. In America, the dominant position on the Israeli Palestine conflict is still a belief, a hope in the two state solution. And Israel is just not Israeli politics is well to the right of where America admits it is where America even I think often realizes it is. One of my intentions in the way we have covered this conflict since October 7th is to not present either an Israel or a Palestinian politics that is different from the one that actually exists. And so I wanted to talk to someone about this deal who represented more the way the Israeli government and the forms of politics that are in power in Israel see it. Amit Sehgal is the chief political analyst for Channel 12 in Israel. He is a political columnist there. He is the author of the newsletter It's Noon in Israel and of a new book recently published in English, a call at 4am 13 prime ministers and the Crucial Decisions that Shaped Israeli Politics. He's known to be quite close to the Netanyahu government and I think speaks with strong sourcing among both them and quite a bit of their opposition. Sagel as well. To my right, there are things I think you'll hear him say that many people listening to this will not like. But in order to understand this conflict, you have to take seriously where the Israeli public actually is on it and how the government that is in power in Israel and the coalition that might take power in Israel See it as always. My email Ezra kleinshowytimes.com Amit Sehgal welcome to the show. Hi Islam, I wanted to start with the state of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. How do you understand what was agreed to?

[Amit Segal]

Well, it was something quite minor. I'm quite skeptical about the chance of having peace, the biggest peace in 3,000 years or something like this. I think it was a ceasefire based on a prisoner swap deal, and this is it. Now, it's not something small in terms of the hostages, and it was a huge question and the warfare, but it does not end the war between Israel and Hamas. It's like pressing the pause button when Israel still controls 53% of Gaza Strip and Hamas is in 47% and there is a plan, pledge, you name it, by President Trump, to actually unroot Hamas one way or the other. Now, Israel is quite skeptical about, I don't know, Hamas just decide to demilitarize themselves, but let's give peace a chance.

[Ezra Klein]

How did Netanyahu sell it to his own coalition?

[Amit Segal]

Well, I guess he doesn't mention the term total victory anymore, but he says we got the hostages back, which 80%, 90% of the public wanted, and we actually stay in Gaza Strip and we don't withdraw from Gaza as long as Hamas is not demilitarized and dismantled. It's like saying there were three goals for the releasing all the hostages. Check. Dismantling Hamas as an army. Check. Demilitarizing Gaza Strip and removing Hamas from Gaza. It has not happened yet. But unlike all the offers made by the Biden administration and by many Arab countries, the war does not end when Israel is out of Gaza and Hamas is still there. It's where Israel is still in Gaza and there is an agreement that Israel will be there as long as Hamas is not demilitarized. So Israel is still in half of Gaza and we got all the hostages. And this is the most important thing. Hamas was not alone in this war. Qatar supported it and Turkey supported it. And the fact that Qatar and Turkey, Egypt and Jordan and even the Palestinian Authority are agreeing to a plan according to which Hamas is to be demilitarized means something which didn't exist before.

[Ezra Klein]

There has been a lot of focus in American coverage of the deal on what gets called phase two, which is this demilitarized Hamas and the possibilities of international operations and a new Gaza. And you wrote that there is a view that Israel's unstated goal is to avoid moving forward with the next complicated and mostly fantastical phase. Arab soldiers policing Hamas with a heavy price of IDF withdrawals from the Gaza Strip, as well as a future, however unlikely, return of the Palestinian Authority to the area If Israel's unstated goal is to not move forward to the form of settlement or peace envisioned in that deal, what is the goal?

[Amit Segal]

Everyone would wish that Hamas would be demilitarized by outsourcing. No one wants Israeli soldiers to die at the pace of two a week or five a week in order to have a mission that can be done otherwise. It's just the pessimism about the option that Hamas would see. I don't know, two Emirati battalions and all of a sudden would give each and every Kalachnikov rifle, for instance. So it's about what I call in the Middle east, cautious pessimism. So from the highest possible American sources I spoke to this week, they don't think it's feasible. What they do see is a future in which in five years from now, in the area controlled by Israel, behind what we call now the yellow line, there would be a new Rafah.

[Ezra Klein]

The yellow line in Gaza.

[Amit Segal]

In Gaza, not the green line. Exactly. The Israeli line. Okay, it's the Israeli controlled area. In this area there would be a recovery. Rafah would be rebuilt as a city funded by the Emiratis, with a de radicalized education system and under Israel security supervision.

[Ezra Klein]

So what you said is that you now envision a two state solution, but it is a two state solution inside the Gaza Strip, right? What do you mean by that?

[Amit Segal]

I mean that since I don't believe in the idea that Hamas is something that took over Gaza out of the will of 2 million Palestinians, innocent Palestinians, I don't see any way in which Hamas can be unrooted from Gaza as long as there are in Gaza young males between the age of 17 to 35 and as many Kalachnikov as one can see more than meets the eye. There will be Hamas in Gaza and therefore the only way to actually create something else is in the 53% that Israel controls militarily. And then if you build there, then Yu Rafah, an Emirati funded, Saudi funded, I hope not Qatari funded city in which people have no weapons and there is an efficient police force, no tunnels, no Kalachnikov, no hatred, then you can see a future. This would be the moderate Gaza and the other Gaza would be the Gaza that lies in ruins in Gaza City and the refugee camps in central Gaza.

[Ezra Klein]

When I've heard this vision, it seems extraordinarily, putting aside a lot of questions about it, very hard to administer. Is there movement between the people in the two gazes that you're describing here?

[Amit Segal]

Just think about. It's not exactly the same East Berlin And West Berlin before the war in 1961, you could actually move through. But if you want to go to the so called Israeli side, or the American side, I would call it, okay, American, Emirati side, you have to go without your weapon and without being part of Hamas. But once you are there, you.

[Ezra Klein]

And you're going to run security vetting on people somehow.

[Amit Segal]

Yes, exactly. And then I guess that then the market forces would actually deter in the future of Gaza. Because where do you want to live? In the ruins of Gaza where no one pays for recovery and rebuilding, etc. Or in the new Gaza, heavily funded, more not democratic, but more western than the other? There is a future for Gaza.

[Ezra Klein]

You also say in that quote I read that Israeli society does not want to go to the point where the Palestinian Authority is ruling in Gaza.

[Amit Segal]

After 32 years of having failed attempts to foster the Palestinian Authority as a partner for peace. I would say that 90, 92% of the Israeli public does not believe in the idea of the Palestinian Authority. Because as long as its education system poisons the minds of generation after generation of young Palestinians for anti Semitism, hatred towards Jews, anti Western sentiment, people don't see any option of prosperity and peace and new Middle east with this Palestinian Authority. By the way, Israel is not the only one to have a strong disbelief in this option. The Emiratis and the Saudis too, do not really believe in this. That's why they want a reformed Palestinian Authority. But to be honest, I think that a Palestinian Authority that does not educate its youngsters, its pupils for hatred and does not pay for slave is not a Palestinian Authority. I don't see it happening in this generation or two to come.

[Ezra Klein]

I think it's fair to say that most of the players in the region, and at this point the United States, have not been confident in the Palestinian Authority. I was actually surprised to see in Trump's plan an end state in which the Palestinian Authority was believed to be the sort of final governing regime. But if you don't believe in that, if Israelis don't believe in that, then is there any assumed future in which there's Palestinian self determination or is this really forever under Israeli control?

[Amit Segal]

Okay, so I think you can identify two streams within the Israeli right wing. One, Smotrich and Ben Gvir do not believe in a Palestinian state. Even the Palestinians were to be Americans or Swedish. Okay, this is the part of the right wing that said we want annexation, we want settlements in Gaza Strip and we want mass emigration. I don't think that the vast majority of Israel is there. The vast majority of the lion's share of even the right wing believes in Netanyahu and Durmer perception. That says we actually have given three symbolic concessions to President Trump. A future for a reformed Palestinian Authority, a future participation of this reformed Palestinian Authority inside Gaza, and more important than this, the image in the future of a reformed united west bank and Gaza altogether. Now, Israel opposed it for many, many years under Netanyahu. What's the difference? The difference now is that according to Netanyahu and Dermer, if it's going to be reunited.

[Ezra Klein]

Ron Dermer, his very close aide.

[Amit Segal]

Yeah, exactly. The joke says in Israel that Netanyahu is the closest person to Ron Dermer. So, anyway, now it's not that the west bank is going to take over Gaza, but that a reformed, demilitarized, de radicalized Gaza is going to take over Judea and Samaria. Because according to the Emirati plan, for instance, it's not only that they are about to change the education system in Gaza, but in Ramada as well. I live 20 minutes from schools in which children are taught that you should kill as many Zionist pigs as possible, for instance. You can't have peace with generation after generation taught on these principles.

[Ezra Klein]

So you described the ceasefire deal as giving a number of symbolic concessions to the Trump administration, and they're based on these benchmarks, right? So they could be more or less symbolic, depending on how things play out. Do you think the understanding of this deal is the same for the Trump administration and for the Netanyahu government? Do you think they're aligned on what it will mean for benchmarks to be met or not met? Or do you think that there is a possibility of divergence in one way or the other on the two sides?

[Amit Segal]

You know, usually in diplomacy you have debates behind closed doors and, you know, in the news conference, you try to actually marginalize it. Here, it's exactly the other way around. In order to sell the plan for the Arab world, Trump speaks mainly about ending the war rather than eliminating Hamas. However, the main advantage of this plan is, is that President Trump articulated for at least five or six times since the ceasefire has begun that between the two goals of the plan, ending the war and eliminating Hamas, he prefers eliminating Hamas. That's why he keeps saying that if Hamas does not demilitarize, Israel would crush him. If I only give the world, as Trump said, and that's why I'm quite confident that the number one strategic asset of this ceasefire plan, that Hamas can no longer rule Gaza, is there to stay. And as long as Trump is the President, I don't see, to be honest, any option in which this Hamas presence gets legitimacy.

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[Ezra Klein]

You're putting a lot of weight in this conversation and your vision here. I remember this was actually true the last time we spoke too, on the power a reconstructed education system could have for the future of how Palestinians see Israelis. I think that creates two questions. One is why you believe it is the education system as opposed to sort of lived experience, checkpoints, that kind of thing. Obviously, in Gaza, huge numbers of people have now lost relatives, lost friends, seen their homes destroyed.

[Amit Segal]

Perhaps it was a bad idea to massacre Jews.

[Ezra Klein]

It was a bad idea to massacre Juice. We're not disagreeing on that. And it was an immoral idea, right? Not just a strategically bad idea. But it's a lot of work for an education system to do, so that's one thing. But also, how is this work done? I know you're thinking of it being based on what's been done in the uae. Maybe it's overseen by the uae, but what is being imagined here?

[Amit Segal]

Okay, so it's not only education, it's not only the pupils, but it's both the media. I'll give an example. Al Jazeera. If you watch Al Jazeera, all of a sudden you see the winds change. I suspect that this is the Qatari gift for this wedding between Israel and President Trump. That Hamas would no longer have this media branch named Al Jazeera to fuel hatred all over the Middle East. So it's media, it's education. I would compare it not to the UAE and Saudi Arabia, but to Japan following World War II or Germany. However, it is not the case. Why? Because there was only Japanese state. The Middle east is still full with Arabic speaker Muslim countries that hate Israel. So even if you live in reformed Gaza and educated on Western values, you can still follow influencers on TikTok that hate Israel. That's why I'm more cautious. But when I see in the UAE and Saudi Arabia how it succeeded, I'm more optimistic now. Yes, the ruins in Gaza might be a bad service for living side by side with harmony, in harmony with the Israelis. But it can have exactly the other effect. I'll give an example. I visited Ramallah a few weeks ago in the biggest mall. If I send you the pictures, you won't believe it's in Ramallah. You would say to me, you would tell me it's in Abu Dhabi or in, I don't know, Cincinnati. It's better than every mall I saw in Israel. I walked there with Yamulka, no one told me anything. And Ramallah was a city that I don't know 20 years ago. Soldiers were lynched there. So things change and you can change them more rapidly as long as you recognize the problem.

[Ezra Klein]

Is there a view, eventually even just a pragmatic view, on the second non messianic stream of Israeli society, that in the long run Gaza and the west bank should have self determination of some sort from Palestinian government? The government should be Palestinian even if it is not today's pa, today's Hamas. Or is the view that either it will be in Israeli control, right, we have moved back to occupation, or that it will be under some kind of Arab consortium? Or I've seen people talk about the Jordanians or obviously you're talking about the UAE and they're a big player in this, that there is some other alternatives.

[Amit Segal]

50 years from now, five years from.

[Ezra Klein]

Now, let's say 10 years from now.

[Amit Segal]

Okay, so here is the main debate between the Israeli median voter and the center left in the U.S. the center left in the U.S. says we should try and give Palestinians a state because that's how people are used to live. And Israelis say we gave them a state. Gaza was a state. This was the outcome because when Israel evacuated the settlements in 2005 unilaterally, it actually abandoned Gaza. And Israelis were under the impression that if you build a big wall, you can forget about Gaza. And the outcome was horrifying for Israelis. The Palestinian Authority was something like 60% stake, right? It failed in the second intifada with 1200 casualties over five years.

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[Amit Segal]

And when we gave them a state in Gaza, we got 1200 casualties in five hours. So that's why Israelis don't even want to talk about it now. If you speak about 10 years from now, I guess we'll see something closer to, you know what I feel easier to speak about 20 years from now because this is the time frame for raising a new generation. I would say that you'll have 60, 70% statehood with reformed entity. I don't want to call it the Palestinian Authority, but something like this, living really side by side in peace with Israel.

[Ezra Klein]

And a Palestinian would say none of these things were anywhere close to a state. They did not have control of their own borders. They could not leave and come at will.

[Amit Segal]

It will never be 100%.

[Ezra Klein]

There was a siege, functionally a siege in control of the borders. And you know, barring different goods coming in now, which is partially why you got the tunnels in Gaza. But in the west bank too, you have checkpoints, you have, you have a tremendous amount of Israeli control over daily life. I've been through it. It's striking and visually apparent the moment you step foot in it. And they would say that the reason you have this ongoing conflict is that the conflict for the Palestinians is ongoing. That in none of these 60%, 50% states that you're describing was there anything like genuine self determination, freedom. And that in that condition there will never be any kind of stability.

[Amit Segal]

I refuse to call it a cycle of violence because it bases the ide that we do something, they revenge and vice versa. It's not the case. There was a wide agreement in Israel towards a two state solution. But what we have to unruly to the conclusion from October 7, the only reason it didn't happen in the west bank is because the IDF is still there. The support, I think we spoke about it in Jerusalem a year And a half ago, the support, the level of support for the October 7th massacre in the west bank was even higher than in Gaza Strip because they were not to pay the price of bombing, et cetera. So we should be very cautious before we give anything. I mean, the last attempt to have a real peace, not a cold peace, but a peace between Germany and France, that was the perception in the 90s, this multi culture era. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, new Middle East, Paris and Rabin are in office. The center left controls. Michael Jackson is in, has a concert in Tel Aviv. That was the sentiment. I lived in a settlement and even in this settlement, far from the eye, okay, far in the right, we could feel the winds of change, okay? And it collapsed here, not because of Israelis, but because they didn't want peace. And as long as we don't take care of the idea that the Palestinian image is not of a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel, but of from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free. I believe when they say it, I don't think it's just a slogan, just a campaign ad. As long as we don't change it, we are not going to see peace as we describe it.

[Ezra Klein]

So the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Arab governments strongly opposed the idea of dividing Gaza, arguing it could lead to a zone of permanent Israeli control inside the enclave. I mean, that seems more or less what we're talking about, permanent Israeli control inside the enclave. But in that world, the Journal reported, they're unlikely to commit troops to police the enclave on those terms. Do you think Israel's gonna face a choice between the involvement that you and others are hoping for from the UAE and from others, Saudis and having the level of control, involvement, security presence that you're describing?

[Amit Segal]

To be honest, I don't think any of the actors know what is going to happen. No one knew about Berlin that is going to be divided into two cities. No one, by the way, two days before the wall was built. It's a reality created. But like Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock Holmes stories, when once you rule out every possible, that doesn't make sense. The last one is here to stand. And I don't see Hamas demilitarize as itself. I don't think the IDF would soon invade Gaza again with full engines and 5 divisions and hence I think the only option is what I described. I don't think it's perfect. I just try to envision what's going to happen in five years from now.

[Ezra Klein]

No, I appreciate the realism you're offering on that, from the Israeli perspective, one reason I think that the two state solution language caught my eye is that this feels more in a way like the west bank solution for Gaza.

[Amit Segal]

Exactly.

[Ezra Klein]

And in this case the role of the PA is being played by the UAE and some sort of Arab consortium. But that sets up this other set of dynamics which we're seeing play out with incredible force and violence in the west bank right now, which is that there is a lot of pressure, particularly over time in Israeli society for expansion, for annexation, for settlements to be returned to Gaza, that this is not a situation where what Israeli society wants is Palestinians living in a thriving Israel. UAE controlled Gaza.

[Amit Segal]

Please. I'm not sure. Listen, I come from the most ideological settlement in Judea and Samaria, and yet I allow myself to say that the vast majority of Israelis, when they speak about right wing ideas, they don't think about annexation or about settlements in Gaza Strip. Being a right winger in Israel or being hawkish means that you think the only solution to protect Israelis is neither speeches by a US President nor international treaties, but by Israeli soldiers with boots on the ground where it's needed. So this is why Oslo accords, the collision between the leftist idea of the Oslo Accords and the right wing idea of annexation actually led to the outcome you have just described in Judea and Samaria and the west bank, which is an Israeli permanent security presence in areas in Palestinian areas, but no annexation. It's not a coincidence. So this is going to be the same outcome in Gaza, in my opinion. A heavy security presence with no other presence.

[Ezra Klein]

Another way to describe it, that you've used it in other columns and interviews, is that the Israeli goal is Lebanonization. Exactly what is Lebanonization?

[Amit Segal]

Okay, in the past, Lebanonization meant something really bad, Israeli military presence. When you suffer from booby traps or terrorist attacks and you bleed two, three soldiers a week or a month following the war, Lebanonization means something way more positive, that you have a ceasefire. But this ceasefire is really kept and you enforce it with a heavy fire when needed. When Hezbollah tries to rearm itself, Israel attacks. Since the ceasefire almost a year ago, 11 months, I think Israel attacked more than a thousand times and Hezbollah didn't even dare to attack back even once because they are deterred. So this is the. I think this is what Israelis want from Gaza. Now, when you have a very, very big perimeter, you know that this imminent threat no longer exists. And then you can attack from the air once you see, I don't know, a tunnel being built.

[Ezra Klein]

For instance, when I was in Israel, A year ago June, I was talking to people who lived on the border with Lebanon. And at that time they were furious. They felt completely unsafe. They would say, look, I can see Hezbollah from my house. Since then, obviously, Israel has functionally destroyed Hezbollah. I mean, it's not gone as an entity, but the threat it poses is.

[Amit Segal]

Significantly Israel's most significant victory since the 1967 war.

[Ezra Klein]

But the reason I ask about it is because as of not very long ago, many Israelis seem to me to feel that the Lebanonization strategy had been a failure. And there had been a lot of the first Lebanonization. Great, so you mean the Lebanonization of like the last year.

[Amit Segal]

Yes, the early period Lebanonization meant is that your enemy is one inch from your bor border with commando divisions, and you trust the legitimacy or the international border being sacred. The new lebanization says that you have outposts, military outposts, and you attack when needed. That's what I meant.

[Ezra Klein]

So this is when you talk about Lebanon as it actually exists, when you talk about Gaza as it is coming to exist, when you talk about the west bank as it currently exists. The theory of the Israeli mainstream, you call it the right, but it seems to me to be the center, is that there is no security without actual constant boots on the ground presence, surveillance. There is no trusting an agreement. There is no pulling back, that either you are there and you can see it and you have operational control of it, or you are not safe. And that the lesson Israeli society has taken from October 7 and also I suspect from attacks on Iran, on Hezbollah, on Syria, is that the one thing it can trust in is its own military strength.

[Amit Segal]

Exactly. And it came exactly when President Trump talked about Greenland. Now, I know President Trump is not going to invade Greenland, right? But his talking points about annexing Greenland or taking over the Panama Canal, I think articulated something that Israelis can understand. It's not imperialism, it's that international borders used to be sacred, but it's no longer the case. And when you see Russia invades Ukraine and you multiply it by a thousand, because Hamas and Hezbollah in Iran are not even Russia, they're way more monstrous. You can't trust only international guarantees or borders, and you have to be wherever there is a danger. This is the main lesson from October 7th.

[Ezra Klein]

Trump's view of power, of strength, of geopolitics, of treaties, of all of it is very different than Republicans and Democrats who preceded him. But you just got something I'd be interested to hear you reflect more on, which is how does Trumpism, the rise of right wing populist parties in many other countries, particularly in Europe. How has that affected Israeli politics, its sense of what is possible, what is desirable.

[Amit Segal]

So when I go back to 2016, following Super Tuesday in March 2016, when Trump actually took over the Republican Party, Netanyahu told his staff, be like Trump. He repeated those three words, be like Trump. And then Netanyahu shifted from the TV Netanyahu to the Facebook Netanyahu. Okay, from Netanyahu, the elder statesman. Think about, I don't know, not Ronald Reagan, but even more boring than this George Bush, something like this. He turned into Donald Trump. Now he is no Donald Trump. He's way more educated. He got better English, but he changed. And in my opinion, this is why, in an absurd way, the right wing in Israel, or the power of the populist right, the radical right wing in Israel, is way smaller than in the U.S. the UK, France and Germany. Why? Because you still have the founding father of the right, Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu is two at the price of one. He's both the elder statesman that gets the agreement of the US to attack Iran and for annexation of the Golan Heights and the recognition of Jerusalem. And at the very same time, he is the Netanyahu that speaks viciously about the left. So once Netanyahu resigns, you'll see a spike, in my opinion, in the representation of the far right in Israel. I don't know how many people are aware of the fact that both Modric and Ben Gil combined got only 10% of the popular vote in Israel. 10%. Just compare it to the Reform Party in the UK these days.

[Ezra Klein]

So Trump's, I think, most significant foreign policy success of his first term was the Abraham Accords. And that's based on Netanyahu and him and Kushner and others realizing, and this comes from some of the Gulf states, too, that there is a transactional relationship that is possible with surrounding Arab states absent any change in Israel's relationship with the Palestinians.

[Amit Segal]

Exactly.

[Ezra Klein]

And I think, somewhat to the surprise of many, the Abraham Accords hold through this whole period. So you recently wrote that Ron Dermer, Israel's Minister of Strategic Affairs, a person who counts Netanyahu, is among his closest saints, believes the chances of Israel signing peace agreements with Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and even Syria have now increased. There's a belief there that they're now, with the ceasefire, on the cusp of an expansion of the Abraham Accords. Why?

[Amit Segal]

Okay, so there is a gigantic fight over the last two years, which is rarely spoken. The main idea behind October 7th behind killing as many Jews as possible was to stop the normalization process, the Abraham Accords, from happening. It was 12 days before Saudi Arabia was to sign a peace treaty with Israel. The due date was October 19, 2023. Now, the whole idea of the Abraham Accords were based on denying the liberal idea that the way to have Israel involved in the Middle east with normalization this way go through Ramallah, the Palestinian capital city. Many, many Arab countries refused to base their commercial relationship, their even relationship with the United States, on the idea that a very old, unelected dictator named Abbas is going to actually set the terms of the entire regime. And that was the idea behind the peace agreement between Israel and the Emiratis, which is, in my opinion, the most important development in Israel's history, save only the Six Day War in 1967. And that's why I, as a right winger, I wrote against annexation of the settlements a few weeks ago. Because what I heard from my friends in the UAE is that it would be too much on their plate to digest. This is one thing. Now, apart from the military operation, the best Israeli answer to October 7th would be to expand the Abraham Accords, thus proving that strategically speaking, not even morally speaking, but strategically speaking, October 7th was a failure. And that's why, in my opinion, Israel's efforts should be based on expanding the peace agreements with Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Syria. And from what I hear, there is an option that the agreement with Syria would be more than merely a security agreement.

[Ezra Klein]

What are these agreements now based on? I mean, I think this is partially what I'm trying to draw out, that for a very long time the relationship between Israel and its neighbors was understood to be. Ideological isn't quite the right word.

[Amit Segal]

Right.

[Ezra Klein]

But based on an assessment of the moral and ethical condition of Israel's relationship with the Palestinians. And there's been a move towards these bilateral agreements that are much more transactional.

[Amit Segal]

Because in my opinion, the Emiratis signed a peace treaty with Israel because they no longer saw the Middle east as a battlefield of Jews versus Muslims, but of radicals versus moderates, or if you want, a Shia versus Sunni and Jewish states, that was the main idea behind it.

[Ezra Klein]

But even in these countries, there has been a huge amount of anger over the devastation and the death toll in Gaza. So what are the chits being traded back and forth?

[Amit Segal]

So here's the thing, because there was a change following October 7th. Prior to October 7th, all the Saudis wanted was, I'll put it in an undiplomatic way, a lip service regarding the Palestinian question. Okay. Now, prior to October 7th, the Saudis wanted something quite vague that even smalltrees in Bengal would green light. Following October 7th, they nonetheless wanted a bit more. Now, I don't know what this more is. I suspect that the idea of the Palestinian Authority somehow symbolically, hypothetically being involved in Gaza Strip would be part of the agreement was that Saudi Arabia would base the normalization on this idea. So this would be the Palestinian ingredient of the normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. But my mistake as a commentator was that prior to October 7th, I thought that Netanyahu's main achievement was that he choked the idea of Palestinian statehood. I still think that there is not going to be a Palestinian state in our lifetime. But following October 7, there is a presence to this idea.

[Ezra Klein]

One of the things going the other direction though, is Israel has become such a capable developer of technology and weaponry, and then highly technological weaponry in particular, that it seems to become a kind of, I don't want to call it soft power, I want to call it medium power. That is at the base of many of these agreements, both that Israel is part of your security umbrella and it's a way station also to a close relationship with America, particularly under Donald Trump. But even in Europe, where a tremendous amount of public opinion and state level opinion has turned against Israel, Israel as a seller of weaponry to Europe.

[Amit Segal]

Germany puts an army embargo on Israel, but buys decided to buy missiles in 2 billion euros.

[Ezra Klein]

So something is happening here that has become a kind of bargaining chip or more than almost like a foundation, it seems to me exactly of how Israel understands it is going to maintain relationships without substantial change amidst the Palestinians. And this is a very sort of Trumpist transactional.

[Amit Segal]

Although I'm not a big fan of the idea of Israel being first the mistress of the Middle east and now the mistress of Europe.

[Ezra Klein]

Can you say what that means?

[Amit Segal]

That is to say that we are not married to, I don't know, Saudi Arabia or the Emirates, but we meet at night when no one sees the.

[Ezra Klein]

Relationships are all clandestine.

[Amit Segal]

Exactly. Now, here is the dangerous idea behind it in Europe, because I think Netanyahu failed to understand the depth of the international crisis Israel has gone through. Because he knew more than you and me know about the real relationships. Okay? Because he knew how many European countries beg for Israeli technology and weapons. But when it comes to soft power, soft power is based on the idea that your brand is very strong. And with Israel, it was exactly the other way around. That while Israel turned almost to be a pariah state, consumption of Israel technology and weapons went up. And that's why I think Israel should invest more in its branding if you want to.

[Ezra Klein]

I think it's more than branding, but I know that does open up that question, which is that my read of Israel's geopolitics right now is that it is thriving where the relationships are transactional and it is suffering where the relationships are more values based. And that's beginning to include America. So we just had a New York Times Siena Pollution, which for the first time since our polling is asked this question. Going back to 1998, you had more Americans sympathizing with the Palestinians than the Israelis. Now, the poll is very narrow. I think it was something like 35, 34. But you look at the age split in that poll and Americans over 65, 47% are more sympathetic to the Israelis and 26% of the Palestinians between 18 and 29, 61% are more sympathetic to the Palestinians and 19% to the Israelis. And I think there's a tendency to say it's just a leftist thing. But Megyn Kelly, the right wing commentator, she has told Tucker Carlson that everybody under 30 is against Israel. Tell me how your understanding is what's going on in America. Also, it's like Europe, other places, the numbers look much worse even than that for Israel. How do you see this?

[Amit Segal]

To be honest, it's too early to call. I don't know if it's something generational, something that's going to change with time. You know, years pass, you leave university heavily funded by Qatar University, and you understand the situation more. One thing second, the war. Today, the world is focused on suffering. The more you suffer, the more sympathy you get. Now remember October 8th, when the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, Brandenburg Gate were lit with a blue and white flag. And to be honest, the image that frightened me the most as an Israeli wasn't the horror pictures from Sederot and the kibbutzim, but to see Eiffel Towerly, it was blue and white. Because I said, wow, we look so miserable that even in France we get legitimacy. Okay, now we won the war. We decisively won the war. I can explain you for hours why abducting the Bibas family and murdering them with bare hands is not something that you can compare to the death of Palestinian children from Israel bombardment. However, I'm fully aware of the fact that the images are so strong that I can't convince millions and millions of TikTok followers. And that's why I think the most dramatic thing for Israel is first and foremost to end the war and to move to a new phase of normalization, peace, having Israel either mentioned positively on the press or even better, not mentioned at all. You say that Netanyahu went for a few podcasts and all of a sudden you could see that Netanyahu, I mean, he didn't really control the medium. Right. For the first time, he went on.

[Ezra Klein]

The Nelk Boys, which is a sort of, I don't know how to describe it, a manosphere podcast that Trump has been on many times. They got so much backlash from their own listeners that they needed to apologize. And one of them said he was told that having Netanyahu on is like having a modern day Hitler on. And he went on to say he thought that was a good point. I mean, that's a right wing coded in this country. That's something different happening.

[Amit Segal]

I agree. So I think there was a damage, a permanent damage. I still think it's smaller than people think now. It's elastic. The public opinion is elastic, especially when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians. It's not abortions or weapons or, I don't know, Trump. It's something that you can change your mind on. People tend to forget that following Yom Kippur War, Israel's rating fell both in the States and Europe, following the oil embargo, et cetera, and that Israel's positioning in the States was very low following the First Lebanon War in 1982. The very same picture of a very long war in highly populated Palestinian areas. So I think it can change, but we can't base, and this is something more dramatic, we can no longer base our relationship with the United States on the values of the 20th century. Because even evangelicals, the new generation, doesn't see Israel through the lenses of a biblical happening, but through the lenses of social justice. Exactly. Like the African American community used to see the Jews is Moses coming from slavery in Egypt. And over the last few decades, it sees Israel as a white colonialist power. So there's a lot to work on.

[Ezra Klein]

And so something bigger than that seems like it has changed to me. And I feel like I have a good sense of U.S. politics.

[Amit Segal]

Yes.

[Ezra Klein]

And it's not just the polling. It's what is considered conceivable in politics around Israel. And right now we're in New York City. Zoran Mamdani is likely to become very, very likely to become the next mayor. His views on Israel, that would have made you absolutely unelectable, I think, in almost anywhere in the country, but particularly in New York City, a very Jewish city, just a couple of years ago. And it's not just that he is going to win the election, most likely. It is that what he is showing a lot of other Democrats is that they can express something closer to where their politics on Israel have actually gone. Right. Andrew Cuomo tried very hard to weaponize Israel against him, completely failed. Eric Adams was running on the combat antisemitism or end antisemitism ballot line. Completely failed.

[Amit Segal]

The most Jewish city on earth and.

[Ezra Klein]

The most Jewish city on earth, or at least a city with the most Jews on earth.

[Amit Segal]

Exactly.

[Ezra Klein]

That shifts things. And one reason I think it shifts things, one thing that it is getting at is we're talking about how this is happening on the right. But Netanyahu really, over the past 15ish years, 20 years, threw in with the right and began to choose to polarize Israel and America. Right. Going around Barack Obama to the Republican Congress. Israel had a bit of an interrennium with Joe Biden, who was a much older generation of Democrat and had an older Democratic generation's views on Israel. Personally, it's one of the issues where Biden was quite, I think, to the right of his own administration on how a lot of his staff would have liked to approach this issue. Israel seems to be betting a lot on continued Republican dominance presence in America. That if you imagine the next generation of Democrats being in power here and Israel needing American support in a time of conflict and crisis, it seems to me it's going to look very, very, very different, both because of the views, but also because I don't think American Democrats anymore believe that they have to be more pro Israel than they actually are.

[Amit Segal]

Two years ago, before the war, I met with the IDF chief of staff back then and he told me when they are to buy air jets, air jet fighters, its life expectancy is 40 years for all. And he said that when we decide which fighter jet to buy, you take into account that in the next 40 years, 10 terms, there is going to be a US president that would put an arm embargo on Israel. That's what he said in 2023. Now, I think you and me would agree, you and I would agree that had Kamala Harris got elected and Israel invaded Gaza City, we would have already seen it. Right. So, yes, it's there. I think that the question of whether.

[Ezra Klein]

We were on the cusp of that already happening. That's a good point.

[Amit Segal]

Exactly. And then again, it's a chicken and egg question. I don't think Netanyahu is to be blamed for the fact that Israel became a partisan issue because each and every topic in the U.S. including the weather, became partisan. So maybe, maybe he should have made choices.

[Ezra Klein]

I watched this happen, particularly in the Obama administration.

[Amit Segal]

But tell me something. When Obama got elected for the first time, I remember people say that he doesn't have the sympathy for Israel in his Kishkas, in his guts, right? By the way, Obama got elected before Netanyahu came back to office. And when Obama and Netanyahu met for the first time, Obama told him not even one brick in the west bank and he appeased the Iranian regime. So I fully agree. It takes two to tango, but I think it was.

[Ezra Klein]

But Netanyahu made a series of strategic decisions because he did not want to take pressure, or at least he wanted to see if Obama was really capable of bringing pressure on him. Look, I'm an American Jew. I have more Israel in my Kishkis, so to speak, okay? But I think Israel would have been better off if they had listened to Obama on settlements. Now, I recognize that you and I have a different view on this, but even in the last two years, there's been a rapidity of settlement construction in the west bank that outpaces the last, I think, 20 years, according to More than ever. More than ever. So there is a world in which Israel made a strategic political decision to say, well, we want to make sure that the Democratic side of the aisle in the US Feels kinship here, feels we're taking into account some of their concerns, and we're going to hold ourselves back on certain things. For that reason, Israel decided not to do that. Right. And in many ways, like kind of spat in their face. Biden ended up humiliated. I think there were real decisions here on the Israeli side, and particularly on Netanyahu's side. And you could have imagined it playing out differently with different prime ministers.

[Amit Segal]

But west bank is easy. How about Iran? Do you see any scenario in which Obama is easy?

[Ezra Klein]

Why didn't Israel do it?

[Amit Segal]

No, it's easy to speak about it, but the differences between Democratic administrations and Israel is not between Democratic administrations and Netanyahu because each and every Israeli saw Iran as the biggest threat to the Jewish existence since the Holocaust. Now we know that Obama and Biden didn't consider for a second to attack Fordo, for instance, or even to allow Israel to attack. And I guess Kamala Harris wouldn't either. So it's not only the easy Palestinian questions, it's something really bigger than this. President Obama came to office and he appeased enemies and pissed off.

[Ezra Klein]

I think it is almost axiomatic that Democrats have a different view of what creates security than Republicans do.

[Amit Segal]

Yeah, Prime Minister Netanyahu. I understand it's addictive stuff to inhale the Trump administration because you have the most pro Israeli approach, because his enemies is yours. I know it's addictive, but maybe this problem is to be fixed with a different prime minister and a different president.

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[Ezra Klein]

I think when I look forward into the future of this and when I try to put together the two parts of this conversation we've been having, you have Israel pursuing a lot of settlement building and control of the West Bank. There's been a lot more violence. You have the indefinite reoccupation of much of Gaza. You combine that then with these poll numbers, these changes in support here. And it's not just like Israel can wait for the war to end. It is setting itself up in a structural position where the effort is going to be, and possibly quite successfully, to make it into apartheid South Africa. Right? And that that is the strategy and also the risk. It has opened up for itself by maintaining so much control in both places. How do you think about that?

[Amit Segal]

The main difference between Israel and South Africa is that African American or the black community in South Africa didn't try to massacre each and every white. It wasn't the case there. And here we speak about South Africa. But let's imagine that the clerk signed an agreement with Nelson Mandela only to find out that Nelson Mandela, Yasser Arafat, actually initiated a second intifada, a war against the whites killing 1200 of them and sending suicide bombers to Cape Town and Johannesburg.

[Ezra Klein]

I understand the argument that it's a different situation. What I'm saying is that the international view that you have roughly 7 million Palestinians without any self determination.

[Amit Segal]

No, they have, they have a civil one. They got more than they have now. And they decided that it's more important for them. They decided twice, both in the west bank and in Gaza, that it's more important for them to kill as many Jews as possible than to get more independence. That's the thing that we Westerners fail to understand that I keep asking myself, why did the security establishment failed on October 6 to understand that this attack is imminent? And my response, I mean, I can speak to you for hours about those SIM cards and alerts, et cetera, but at the end of the day, they fail to understand that there are people who have a lose lose policy. We know win win policy. This is good for all. We know win lose policy like in Russia versus Ukraine, that Russia tries to take something, it's evil, but it's digestible. We fail to understand a lose lose situation in which I know I'm going to suffer, I know my people are going to die, I know Gaza is going to lie in ruins at the end of this war. Yet I want to kill as many Jews and Israelis as possible.

[Ezra Klein]

I think many, I don't want to speak for God knows Hamas, but I think that another way of saying why this does not seem stable to me, the situation you've described is that, I mean, they felt accurately they were losing and that we talked about. You said, look, this is not a cycle of violence, it's one side creating. I've had many Palestinians on the show. I've talked to many of them in our reporting to them, the violence is every day, it is ongoing, it is ceaseless. In Gaza and in the west bank. They understand the condition they are living in as a condition of structural violence. And I don't disagree with them on that. And the thing that is going to create the ongoing pressure if you combine an international community that is less sympathetic to Israel, but Israel having much more control over these two places is I agree that it has many differences from the South African situation, but it's the image.

[Amit Segal]

You speak about the image.

[Ezra Klein]

I mean, I'm speaking about both the image and the reality. The people are going. The idea that forever you will just have a situation where you have 7 million ish people, 5. Okay, well I'm including actually Arabs in Israel who have a different situation than.

[Amit Segal]

Citizenship Divorce of the public.

[Ezra Klein]

People debate this in different ways. I don't mean to go into it too much that.

[Amit Segal]

That.

[Ezra Klein]

That seems like it is a situation in which Israel is going to have a lot of trouble in the long term with not just international standing, but eventually questions like sanctions and other things.

[Amit Segal]

Yes. I came to the conclusion following October 7 that Israel's number one problem is the Palestinian one. I thought before that it's the Iranian one. It's not. However, I cannot, in order to get legitimacy, giving a license for people who see me treat me as an evil enemy that should be eliminated in each and every way. That's the main thing. So I think we should wait patiently for a new generation to come. I think that the most urgent mission of our generation, both in the US and in Israel, in the uae, is to base the education system in the Palestinian Authority, not on hatred, but on Western values, on moderate Islam. I know it can succeed. How? Because this is exactly what happened in the UAE and in Saudi Arabia and they change the minds of Muslims. In both countries. You see a decline in the levels of anti Semitism. And since I'm no racist, I don't think that Islam is about killing as many Jews as possible and hating as many Americans as possible and cheering and give candies in the streets when 9, 11 disaster happened, as it happened in Gaza. And I think it takes time. It takes time. It takes, I would say, 20 years. In 20 years from now, if we start today, you'll see a major change in both what you call the West Bank, Judea and Samaria, and in Gaza Strip.

[Ezra Klein]

I think the question that many people want to see change in Israel have here is whether or not if Israel sees its politics collapsing in other countries. Right. You have after President Trump, a Democrat, win office, and there's a recognition that Europe is now accepted Palestinian statehood in some abstracted way and a sense that Israel cannot maintain support here with the politics it has had. I could see that going one of two ways. I could see that going under certain leaders and under certain conditions towards trying to create some space for the international opinion to express itself. And a change in Israeli policy. I could see it in Israel becoming more inward looking, more focused on weapons development, trying to be less reliant on others. Was an interesting quote, I thought, from Netanyahu, where he said that Israel is going to have to adapt to international isolation, become an Athens and a super.

[Amit Segal]

Sparta in terms of weapon acquiring. Yes.

[Ezra Klein]

So tell me about. I'm sure people in Israel are thinking about this somewhat, given how aggressive and total the international anger has been. What are those two paths?

[Amit Segal]

I don't see any chance that Israelis are going to change their mind regarding Palestinian statehood because it's not about diplomacy, it's not about public opinion, it's about fear. People saw what happened on October 7 that they will not be willing to give an opportunity for this. Five minutes from their home in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, ten minutes the most. This is one thing when it comes to cooperation, I think there is room for a party that would say, okay, we are quite tired, we want to waste a few years, we will be prepared, our soldiers will. Would guard everything. But we want to breathe some air, international air, economic air, et cetera. And that's the next. I think the next government would see a significant ingredient. As I just described.

[Ezra Klein]

There will be either in October 2026 or sometime before then, if this government falls. Elections. Israeli politics isn't structured the way US politics are here. We're used to thinking in terms of two parties that battle it out there. It's two coalitions of different parties. Walk me through the anti Netanyahu coalition that's developed. It looks like it would be led by Naftali Bennett, who traditionally in Israeli politics was understood on Netanyahu's right in terms of security. In terms of security, certainly at an earlier point was harshly critical of how open Netanyahu at least claimed to be to a two state solution, for instance.

[Amit Segal]

Exactly.

[Ezra Klein]

You have Benny Gantz, who In November of 2023, I think was widely considered to be a plausible next prime minister for Israel. Now his blue and white coalition, under the threshold, is under the threshold for representation. Avigar Lieberman, who's a quite far right wing defense minister in 2018. Yair Lapid, right. Who is the more centrist figure?

[Amit Segal]

Yes.

[Ezra Klein]

Yair Golan, who represents the left in Israel and is inside this coalition too.

[Amit Segal]

8% of the popular vote.

[Ezra Klein]

How would that group govern? Where would they differ?

[Amit Segal]

Oh, it won't. My 10 year old child asks me, why don't you vote for the center left? I told him because they are leftist. So he said, what is a leftist? So I had hard times to explain to him because 20 years ago it was his for evacuating the settlement where your grandfather lives. Okay. Nowadays no one really offers seriously to evacuate settlements. So what is the watershed line in Israel these days?

[Ezra Klein]

Is it a center left? Okay, Naftali Bennett is the center left.

[Amit Segal]

Exactly. Now here's the thing. Who is this awful monstrous left that is going to try to defeat Netanyahu? According to the right wing, it's Naftali Bennett, the former CEO of the Yesha Council, the settlement movement, Avigdor Lieberman, a settler himself, who once said that Israel should hang each and every of the Arab Knesset members like in Nuremberg. Okay? And Benny Gantz, who is not. I mean, calling him a leftist is not.

[Ezra Klein]

I mean, I don't think leftists would.

[Amit Segal]

Claim him and vice versa, okay? So it's about identity first and foremost. What I believe is that the more religious you are, the more you tend to vote for the right wing. That's the real. The debate over the judicial reform was not about the judicial reform, but about whether Israel is more Jewish than democratic or more democratic than Jewish.

[Ezra Klein]

And the right wing here is the Netanyahu coalition.

[Amit Segal]

Exactly. Now, it's quite a miracle that the leader of this so called religious, Jewish, Sephardic, relatively lower class camp in Israel is this secular atheist millionaire, the son of a professor from Jerusalem.

[Ezra Klein]

We're acquainted with these peculiarities in American politics at this point, by the way.

[Amit Segal]

It's not peculiarity because the politics, context of identities is not something that I believe in. I think it's a woke way of describing things and that people don't vote for someone like them. If you have a bird, you'll vote for someone with a bird. It's ridiculous. You vote for someone that you believe would represent your values the most. So this is the watershed line. And that's why, in my opinion, the ultra Orthodox parties, who are not part of the right wing at all, they are anti settlement, anti annexation, are a basic part of Netanyahu's coalition because it's about Judaism. But I would like to offer something else. We moved in 2020 from one generation, the security generation, towards the identity generation. And that's exactly the point where Israel went through five consecutive election campaigns. Why, it's like the summer league in the NBA, okay, where you still try to get accustomed to your new basketball team, but it takes time because you used to be for the Chicago Bulls and now you are for the New York Knicks.

[Ezra Klein]

What was the dividing identity line that created. It's just religious identity is where you.

[Amit Segal]

See it, the religious one. And I'll give you an example, okay? Avigdor Lieberman, in terms of security, he's the most hawkish figure in Israel. His voters are former USSR immigrants who are more hawkish than Ben gvir. But when you talk about domestic issues, about civil society, issues that are more secular than Yair Golan and Yair Lapid, that's why Avigdor Lebron moved from the so called right wing to the so called left, although he is not leftist because it's not the left we used to know. The same applies for Naftali Bennett in terms of security. Yes, his foreign accession is allegedly more hawkish than Netanyahu, but when it comes to civil society, things, etc. And domestic issues, he is the leader of the moderate small yarmulke voters.

[Ezra Klein]

Small yarmulke voters who believe in, for.

[Amit Segal]

Instance, public transportation during Saturdays, during Shabbat. This is the main change. Let's speak about the last coalition to defeat Netanyahu in 2021. It was called the coalition of change. But when you try to really analyze where the change is, you couldn't find a change in the policy towards Gaza, which was the same in the policy towards Iran, which was the same in the policy towards settlements, which was exactly the same, even in terms of economy. It wasn't a social justice coalition, but even more hawkish, more capitalist than Netanyahu's right wing coalition. So the main change was changing the living address of Sarah Netanyahu, Prime Minister Netanyahu's wife. So there was no change. And that's why you see Israel's political system reshape itself. If you are American hoping for a change in terms of policy, you'll get quite disappointed towards the Palestinians, towards the Palestinians, towards Gaza. I would say even more than this, that a coalition controlled by Bennett, Liberman, Yergo, Lanier, Rapid, et cetera, would never be able to sign this Trump ceasefire plan because the right wingers would kill them. Netanyahu would say this is a surrender to the two Hamas.

[Ezra Klein]

And do you think there's a good shot that Netanyahu just survives the next election?

[Amit Segal]

Yes. But I have to explain something about Israeli politics in the us when you have Trump versus Harris, one of them must win, right? Because someone has to get 270 votes on the electoral college. In Israel, you can either win, lose or having the election undecided. Why? Because in Israel you have Arab parties that traditionally do not take part in coalitions. There was one exception four years ago, but it was under the, you know, the COVID crisis, which was a domestic issue. As long as Israel has its complicated strategic relationship with the Muslim world, I don't see any coalition formed on the basis of an Arab, non Zionist or sometimes anti Zionist party. Hence, if they get at least 10 seats out of the 120. So if you get 61 seats, you won the election. Right? If you won the election 61 out of 120 out of the majority. But if you get 50, you didn't win the election, but you didn't lose it either because you blocked the center left change block from forming a coalition. According to each and every poll following the deal reaching Gaza, Netanyahu got 51. At least Netanyahu lost the outright majority. But as a result of October 12th ceasefire and Iran being defeated and Hezbollah being defeated, Netanyahu secured himself from not losing the election for the time being. Of course, time and again he outnumbers his opponents and it's too early to call, but I would say that something dramatic would have to happen in order for Netanyahu to directly lose the next election.

[Ezra Klein]

Think his government will stand until October 2026?

[Amit Segal]

No, but I mean, the last coalition to survive full term in Israel was in 1988. I know it sounds weird for Americans, but in Israel there are no fixed terms. So Netanyahu succeeded in the mission that most of the governments failed to reach the fourth year, the final year of his term. And it's amazing no one believed it, including Netanyahu himself, the day after October 7th.

[Ezra Klein]

And then now, as our final question, what are three books you'd recommend to the audience?

[Amit Segal]

Yeah, so I recommend two English books and two books in English and one in Hebrew. The first is the Accidental President, about President Truman's first four months by A.J. baym, I think great book. The second is not exactly a book about presidents, but a book about the history of how to write history of President. It's an unfinished love story by Doris Goodman.

[Ezra Klein]

Doris Kearns Goodman, exactly.

[Amit Segal]

But yeah, Goodman, because yes, she was married to President Johnson and President Kennedy's special advisor. And it's a brilliant book about how to write about history. And the third is a book in Hebrew and it's a book written by my father. It's called Messiah in Sdeboker. It's about David Ben Gurion. Ben Gurion was the founding father of Israel, a mixture of George Washington and, I don't know, Thomas Jefferson. And he was a very, he was considered a very secular leftist leader at the time. But my father reveals how deep inside he was very Jewish and how the right wing should fall in love with him in retrospect. And if you want to understand Israel, so it's better for you to study him Hebrew, to learn Hebrew as fast as possible and read it.

[Ezra Klein]

Amit Segal, thank you very much.

[Amit Segal]

Thank you so much.

[Ezra Klein]

This episode of the Israel Client show is Produced by Jack McCordick, Fact Checking by Michelle Harris with Kate Sinclair and Mary March Locker. Our senior audio engineers Jeff Gelb, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show's production team also includes Annie Galvin, Marie Cassion, Roland Hu, Marina King, Kristin Lin, Emma Kelbeck and Jan Kobel. Original music by Aman Sahota and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Christina Semiluski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Strasser.

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