Daniel Zoughbie: The Mightiest Turns an Enemy into a Friend

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Gist – Daniel Zoughbie: The Mightiest Turns an Enemy into a Friend
Date: December 8, 2025 | Host: Mike Pesca | Guest: Dr. Daniel Zoughbie

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Overview

In this episode of The Gist, Mike Pesca interviews Daniel Zoughbie, a professor and author of Kicking the Hornet's Nest: U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East from Truman to Trump. The conversation dives deep into U.S. policy decisions in the Middle East, analyzing pivotal moments and patterns in American diplomacy, defense strategy, and development assistance. They address why certain opportunities for peace were missed or thwarted, discuss the logic behind the "hornet's nest" metaphor for the region, dissect the prospects of a two-state solution, and explore the challenges posed by polarization, failed leadership, and martyrdom ideology. Zoughbie also outlines his view of the three pillars—development, diplomacy, and defense—that should undergird better American foreign policy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The "Hornet's Nest" Analogy

[13:04]

• Dr. Zoughbie clarifies that a hornet's nest isn’t inherently dangerous—except to outsiders who disrupt its internal logic.

  “A hornet's nest is not a bad thing. It's vital to the global ecosystem. … When outsiders come and sort of disrupt that ecosystem, things can go quite badly.”
  — Daniel Zoughbie [13:12]

• The U.S. has repeatedly “kicked the hornet’s nest” in the Middle East, often ignoring the region’s internal dynamics.

2. Truman’s Recognition of Israel and Missed Opportunities

[13:55]

• Zoughbie critiques President Truman’s recognition of Israel without simultaneous recognition of Palestinian self-determination as outlined by the 1947 UN Partition Plan.
• The plan intended a two-state solution, seen as a lost blueprint for peace:

  “The real issue … was that he recognized Israel full stop and he didn’t recognize Palestinian and Jewish self determination … that plan really provided a blueprint for preventing 80 years of conflict.”
  — Daniel Zoughbie [13:55]

• Both the U.S. and Arab states share blame for rejecting or failing to implement the plan.

3. Two-State Solution & Nationalism

• Root cause analysis: the conflict is fundamentally about nationalism on both sides.

  “At its heart, this conflict is about one word and that is nationalism. We have Jewish nationalism, we have Palestinian nationalism. And unless those national aspirations are satisfied, we will not see a resolution to this conflict.”
  — Daniel Zoughbie [15:12]

• Analogies drawn to Ireland and India/Pakistan suggest painful partitions can be a recipe for long-term stability.

4. Assigning Blame for Failures in Peace Process

• U.S. power was decisive, but missteps, particularly Truman’s abandonment of a negotiated settlement, set an eight-decade precedent for conflict.
• The Arab rejection of the 1947 plan was “catastrophic” but not inevitable.

5. Patterns in American Foreign Policy: The Three Ds

[18:44]

• Zoughbie outlines the framework:

  “American security rests on three Ds—development, diplomacy and defense. And my argument is for the past eight decades, we as a country have been prioritizing defense … and we have allowed our diplomatic and development capabilities to atrophy.” — Daniel Zoughbie [18:44]

• Praises President Ford’s rare prioritization of diplomacy, culminating in the Egypt-Israel peace (Camp David).
• Most administrations focused on military tools, coups, or defense spending rather than long-term development or sustained diplomacy.

6. Where Oslo—and Other Peace Offers—Failed

[21:02]

• U.S. missed opportunities by sidelining moderate voices (Washington Track) in favor of dealing with Arafat.

  “It was far less optimal to deal with [Arafat] than to deal with … the Washington Track.”
  — Daniel Zoughbie [21:41]

• Both the far-right in Israel and among Palestinians undermined peace efforts (notably, Hamas attacks and Rabin’s assassination):

  “Hamas and the Israeli right wing were sort of indirectly collaborating with one another on their mutual goal of sabotaging two states.”
  — Daniel Zoughbie [22:42]

• Pesca poses the tough question: should the Palestinians have accepted Oslo? Zoughbie—viewing the cost in lives—says yes but acknowledges some in the process argued the offer wasn't genuinely fair.

7. The Missed Abbas-Olmert Deal as Model

[24:40]

• Zoughbie emphasizes the 2008 Olmert-Abbas negotiations as the optimal base for future peace:

  “All the Arab countries, the Islamic world would have gotten behind this offer. … That is a very good place to start.” — Daniel Zoughbie [25:09]

• Both leaders tacitly accepted it; external circumstances (Israeli politics, Olmert’s resignation) doomed its conclusion.

8. Public Opinion & Polarization

[26:44]

• Deep polarization and trauma on both sides have made productive dialogue difficult:

  “Public opinion today on both sides is incredibly, incredibly polarized. There has been an enormous amount of trauma and ... is highly susceptible to sort of extreme views.” — Daniel Zoughbie [26:47]

• Zoughbie expresses skepticism about the representativeness of polling among Palestinians, especially under media suppression.

9. Martyrdom and the Human Cost

[30:59]

• The effect of martyrdom culture and endless cycles of violence are acknowledged as complicating negotiations.
• Zoughbie recounts a personal story from the West Bank, meeting a mourning father whose son "was killed by the Israelis," reflecting the personal and generational pain at the root of ongoing violence [31:16].
• Pesca offers a sharp encapsulation:

  “Bravery should be defined more by the willingness to take a risk than the willingness to kill your enemy.”
  — Mike Pesca [29:28]

• Zoughbie shares a guiding quote:

  “The mightiest of the mighty turns an enemy into a friend.”
  — Daniel Zoughbie [29:52]

10. Practical Steps Forward

• Strong U.S. leadership, a return to the logic of land-for-peace (as seen between Egypt and Israel), and genuine investment in diplomacy are essential.

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Notable Quotes

• On the Partition Plan:
  “It is still in my view, conceptually the best hope we have for stopping the violence ….”
  — Daniel Zoughbie [14:46]

• On the Foundations of Peace:
  “The mightiest of the mighty turns an enemy into a friend.”
  — Daniel Zoughbie [29:52]

• On Accepting Imperfect Peace:
  “If I were negotiating, would I rather have peace than tens of thousands of people dying? Absolutely, yes.”
  — Daniel Zoughbie [23:34]

• On Ordinary Aspirations of People:
  “They want their kindergartner to go to school, they want food on the table, they want a job, they want their kid to get married.” — Daniel Zoughbie [27:59]

• On the Role of Leadership:
  “It’s going to have to take very strong American leadership showing that everyone is serious about it and that all available resources will be brought to bear on … a peace agreement.” — Daniel Zoughbie [28:16]

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• 12:17 – Introduction of Daniel Zoughbie and his book.
• 13:04 – Hornet’s nest analogy explained.
• 13:55 – Truman’s recognition of Israel and critique of U.S. policy.
• 15:12 – Nationalism at the heart of the conflict.
• 18:44 – The "Three Ds" of U.S. security: development, diplomacy, defense.
• 21:02 – Oslo negotiations and the missed opportunity for dealing with moderates.
• 22:42 – Influence of extremists sabotaging the peace process.
• 23:34 – Could peace have been achieved by accepting deals like Oslo?
• 24:40 – The Abbas–Olmert peace offer as a missed yet promising model.
• 26:44 – Challenges of public opinion and polarization.
• 30:59 – Martyrdom and the human face of conflict.
• 29:52 – “The mightiest of the mighty turns an enemy into a friend” – guiding quote for the episode.

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Memorable Moments

• Zoughbie’s critique that neither the U.S. nor Israel fully leveraged their power or responsibility in early years to enforce the partition plan, preventing decades of violence.
• The pointed observation that both sides’ extremists (Hamas and Israeli right) have worked, unintentionally or otherwise, toward mutual sabotage of peace efforts.
• The assertion that peace agreements like Olmert-Abbas in 2008 should be the baseline for future negotiations—supported by the Arab world and rooted in a true land-for-peace spirit.

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For listeners interested in U.S. foreign policy, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, or the frameworks that might finally break cycles of mistrust and violence, this episode offers a rich, informed, and nuanced perspective that rises above dogma.

Transcript

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[Mike Pesca]

It's Monday, December 8, 2025. From Peach Fish Productions, it's the Gist. I'm Mike Pesca. Why did Joe Biden not win reelection? Biggest answer, he didn't run again. But why didn't he run again? Because he was not up to it health wise. And then he handed off to Kamala Harris. We all know what happened, but mostly she identified with and defended the policies of Joe Biden and in our current state of affairs with Donald Trump not doing well on economic issues most important to Americans, but also underwater on important things including immigration. The supposition is that Joe Biden lost for reasons of style or fairness or perceived cognitive abilities, but nothing to do with policy. However, there is a new story in the New York Times that I think is really important to read and I highlighted on the GIST list, which is my daily compendium of the stories that I think you should read or that I thought were interesting or delightful. Substack Mike pesca.com I'll throw you, I'll throw you a discount if you go there. And anyway, it was about the concrete policy options that Joe Biden declined when it came to immigration. He did not adopt the policy of faster asylum screenings. He did not use reception centers to hold migrants until their claims were processed. He did not limit the forms of remain in Mexico. He was against remain in Mexico. That was he and the people around him perceived a loathsome Trump era policy. And then there were the bigger things. That would have been hard, but you know, pushing foreign governments harder to slow the flows of immigrants or to act earlier with executive actions or asylum restrictions. We won't go through it all. I think you should read it maybe by getting there through the just list. But think about it, think about it. If you have defended Joe Biden as I have at times, if you and I didn't do this, said he will be remembered as a great president, he won't. I think the easiest case to be made, especially to someone who hates Trump, is he didn't do enough to keep Trump out of office. But the actual policies that he championed were not supported by the American people. And the other big one was the economy. And I have tough news on that that people don't like to hear. But when the inflation rate hit the highest, it did for a month, which is June of 2022, and it hit 9 point, you know, 3 or 4% of that was because of what I just said. Why he would be remembered as a great president was supposedly because he passed a lot of spending. And this was what the country needed at the time. But it didn't need the American rescue plan. It didn't need that. It didn't need the amount of inflation that injected into the economy. And I've talked to many, many economists and they will all tell you, I don't know of the 9%, 3% of the 9 was because of the American rescue plan. More money chasing the same amount of good. I even talked to economists within the Biden White House who weren't even ashamed of it. They just looked me in the eye and said, yep, you are right. I would say almost half of that. This economist told me almost half of the inflation was because of this overly generous ARP American rescue plan. I also know and can anticipate, and I hope I don't bore you, but I know the counterarguments are that inflation was high everywhere. Yes, it was high in Europe and it was high here and other parts of the 9% bigger maybe than the American rescue plan, where the war in Ukraine and that affected Europe much more than it did here and snagged supply chains. But it is just true. And you can't ever get an economist to tell you that it's not true that more money chasing the same amount of goods and services and that's also a consequence of the supply chain. The amount of goods and services were locked into place. That is what leads to inflation. And if you want to rebut that, then throw all the other economics out the window we that you use maybe to criticize the politicians you do like or don't, because you're not arguing with me, you're just interested in what I say or believe me to begin with. So my points as we look at this are that rather than fighting, oh, you never proved that Joe Biden was not mentally aware enough to run for president. He championed two policies that America hated. And for all the other explanations that America is racist or that Trump's a fascist or that we don't care enough about autocracy, I think most Americans said we want something close to effective borders and we want a better economy and we're going to vote for the guy who could deliver. Now, Donald Trump did not deliver on both. He did deliver on one and he's not getting credit for it. Sometimes in politics when you deliver on an issue, just take it off the table and don't get credit for it. But yeah, I think that this is a really important article to read and grapple with if you haven't grappled with it already. That is my recommendation on the show today. The mispronounced word of the year. It is not a one instead of AI for steak sauce. That would have been fun. Linda McMahon did one of those. It is not scourge. Instead of scourge. I hear people doing that left and right. I guess it's acceptable. It is not my common mispronunciation, which I must own of Emil Bove. It is in fact Beauvais. It is not pronouncing Terry Rozier, Cliff Rozier, who is another basketball player. But Cliff has died and Terry is the one who was indicted for gambling. So I got that wrong on the Saturday show. It is none of those. It is Zoran. Say it with me, Mom, Donnie. But first, his last name is Zogby. Z O U G H B I E But I knew it was Zogby because I've known other Zog. They are the brothers Jim and John Zogby, a pollster and a Democratic operative. Daniel Zogby, no relation, the name is spelled differently. Is an academic who has looked at the history of the Middle east and has authored a new book called Kicking the Hornet's Nest. Kicking the hornet's nest. U.S. foreign Policy in the Middle east from Truman to Trump. Daniel Zogby, up next.

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Daniel Zogby is here. He is a professor. He has written about George W. Bush's Middle Eastern policy and he's also something called a complex systems scientist. It all informs his pretty grand Magisterial history of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. It is called Kicking the hornet's nest. U.S. foreign Policy in the Middle East From Truman to Trump Professor Zoghb, welcome to the gist.

[Daniel Zogby]

Thank you very much. It's great to be with you.

[Mike Pesca]

So when you write about Kicking the Hornet's Nest, we all get it. Don't do it. There was the Stieg Larson books, but you also write about WASPs. You know a lot about wasps. This isn't an analogy that's come too lightly. Tell us how wasps and hornets might inform what you're writing about and what we're trying to understand.

[Daniel Zogby]

Yeah, well that's a great question. And I think the first thing to sort of underline here Is that.

A hornet's nest is not a bad thing. It's vital to the global ecosystem. But the analogy is really just to the point that there's an internal logic, there's an internal way of doing things. And when outsiders come and sort of disrupt that ecosystem.

You know, things can go quite badly. And that's, and that's what we know of. You know the expression kicking the hornets.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. Think about it. We might think of the Hornets nets as dangerous, but it's not dangerous to the hornets. It's fine. The danger comes in the kicking of it, the interfering of it. So is the first kick given by. Well actually you go back, but in your book, was it Truman's decision to recognize is Israel as a state?

[Daniel Zogby]

Well, I give a little bit of history, as you note, prior to that decision, but just starting with Truman as sort of the main kind of post World War II President. The real issue that I have with President Truman's decision was that he recognized Israel full stop and he didn't recognize Palestinian and Jewish self determination as envisaged in the UN Partition Plan of 1947. And that plan, which I arguably argue in the book, really provided a blueprint for preventing 80 years of conflict is something that is a missed opportunity. It's not just a missed opportunity because Truman missed the opportunity. Certainly the Arab nations deserve their fair share of blame for rejecting that partition plan. But it is still in my view, conceptually the best hope we have for stopping the violence that we've seen pick up over the last few years.

[Mike Pesca]

You mean the idea of a two state solution going back to that as the concept for what should be in the Middle east or this particular area?

[Daniel Zogby]

Right. The basic idea that at, at its heart this conflict is about one word and that is nationalism. We have Jewish nationalism, we have Palestinian nationalism. And unless those national aspirations are satisfied, we will not see a resolution to this conflict. And the partition plan does that. The partition plan in India and Pakistan, by the way, despite the many terrible things that happened to implement it, the partition plan in India and Pakistan did that the partition of Ireland.

Help to stabilize the situation in Europe. And I think the same recipe is needed here today in the Middle East.

[Mike Pesca]

But who violated the idea of that partition of the two state? It wouldn't have been a solution. It would just be breathing the state of Israel and the state of Palestine into existence. Was it mostly a Truman mistake because there are members of his team, top members of his team, some of the most important people in US history, Dean Rusk, George Marshall, they did not agree with how Truman looked at the situation. But to go back to my question, who was the responsible party for rejecting the. That each entity would have their own nations?

[Daniel Zogby]

Well, I think that we can apportion blame in different ways. In this particular case, of course, it was a really a catastrophic mistake that the Arabs rejected the partition plan. Many people will say no, it would have required ethnic cleansing. And it did not. It was something that did not require the transfer of populations. We can also point out that on the sort of.

The side of the Jewish nationalists, what we call Zionists, that they sort of came very grudgingly to the table to accept the plan, but they accepted it. But in my view, the power rested in the hands of President Truman. He was the most sort of powerful person in the world and he had the advice of General George C. Marshall for reasons that perhaps we can get into later. I think this was a brilliant man, a brilliant strategist, and what he recommended against was precisely the situation that was implemented, which is you re, you sort of side with one side, you recognize Jewish self determination, but you don't actually have a negotiated settlement. And instead what happened was basically, basically eight decades of war. And this all culminated in October 7th and in the.

War with Iran between the United States, Iran and Israel as well.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, there are many off ramps along the way. And your book talks about all of the accords. In fact, it doesn't even start off with. I thought it might start off with Oslo, but it talks about an Ehud Omerat peace plan from 2008. So what about them? What about the various peace plans? Camp dav I'm thinking more of the Clinton, let's jump to him peace plans where especially Yasser Arafat was presented with imperfect but I think much better than the status quo solutions and he rejected them. Could you talk about Arafat's decision and the decisions or maybe missteps that Clinton or other presidents made along the way?

[Daniel Zogby]

I think I just want to take a little step back before answering that question and to sort of provide the general framework of the book, which is that my argument is that American security rests on three Ds, development, diplomacy and defense. And my argument is for the past eight decades we as a country have been prioritizing defense, defense spending, other forms of militarism, coups, and we have allowed our diplomatic and development capabilities to atrophy and we can go right down through the line. And there is only one exception that I have found and that was President Ford. And the reason why I, I point out President Ford, as a sort of singular figure in the sense that he did something positive overall, was that what he did was he understood that Sadat and the Egyptians were interested in and serious about making peace. And he said to the Israelis, with the advice of Henry Kissinger, by the way, you better make peace or you better start talking with the Egyptians, or else. And this culminated in the Camp David peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in 1979. Carter gets the credit, and he deserves some credit for getting it over the line. But it is President Ford, the only unelected American president who actually did that. And that today is the cornerstone of American security and even Israel security in the region today. That same model, unfortunately, was not really extended very well when we get to other peacemaking efforts. So you asked about Oslo. One of the things that I show in my book is that we did not. The United States did not need to really deal directly with Arafat. Instead, there was a Washington track that was in parallel to a Oslo track. And it was actually the Israelis who preferred dealing with the Oslo tract. In fact.

In their decision.

The United States basically abandoned talks with Faisal Hosseini and, you know, some of his more moderate PLO colleagues who were better educated. They were not sort of guerrilla fighters, and they were totally sidelined. And instead, Yasser Arafat was brought in as sort of the principal party to deal with. And I view that as a. A fundamental mistake.

That helped to doom that peacemaking effort.

[Mike Pesca]

So once Arafat was the chief negotiator on behalf of the Palestinians, it was doomed to fail, you're thinking?

[Daniel Zogby]

Well, even then, I. I don't concede that it necessarily needed to fail. It was far less optimal to deal with him than to deal with, with the Washington tract, the Washington track. Excuse me.

But the key things that we need to understand about why the Oslo process failed.

Was really about an alliance between the far right in Israel, let's call it the far right, and the far right on the Palestinian side as well. So, on the one hand, this is the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin. I believe that was a fatal blow to the peace process. Had he not been assassinated, I think that Oslo, with all its faults, might have arrived at a different destination.

The second thing is that Hamas undertook a campaign of violence, suicide bombings. And in some way, you could say that Hamas and the Israeli right wing were sort of indirectly collaborating with one another on their mutual goal of sabotaging two states.

[Mike Pesca]

Right, Tough question. You're not the negotiators. You're not the people. Do you think the Palestinian negotiators should have accepted Oslo?

[Daniel Zogby]

I think in light of.

How the past three years, how the past 20 years have gone.

I think that there are a few things that would not be better than the amount of people we have seen died.

So I would say yes. If I were negotiating, would I rather have peace than tens of thousands of people dying? Absolutely, yes. At the same time, I was just on a panel with somebody called Rob Malley and he was a deputy to one of, one of President Clinton's deputies. And he made the argument that what the Israelis considered a generous Israeli offer was neither Israeli nor generous, nor indeed an offer. And so there was an argument that was made, not by everyone, but by, by Rob Malley, that the offer that was made was not sort of clearly defined and presented. I don't think we need to get into that sort of level of detail at this stage. What I. What I would instead prefer to endorse, which I did in my book, was the Abbas Olmert negotiations. And the reason why I point to those negotiations.

Is really because the Palestinians never said no to the offer. In fact, I would say they tacitly accepted that this was a fair offer. Olmer was very serious about the offer. I spoke with him and there's no question that he wanted to get the peace deal across the line. All the Arab countries, the Islamic world would have gotten behind this offer.

It was done in the spirit of partition, two states, two nationalisms, and it didn't work. There are reasons for that that I get into in the book, but it was not because either the Palestinians or the Israelis rejected it. And I believe that that essentially is a good starting point. If you want to make peace today, start with Olmert's offer. Sure. If you want to adjust some things, if you want to sort of make some of the holy sites more inclusive, that's fine. But that is a very good place to start. And I think that the vast majority of Israelis, the vast majority of Palestinians, if they really understood it and if they knew that the other side was serious, they would accept and support that offer.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, you could look at the polling of the vast majority, and it wasn't vast, but you could look at polling of Israelis and at different times they are slightly to bit more than slightly to some sort of plausible land for peace deal, if it, it's plausible, changed a little bit, you know, hovered above 50% during Oslo. I don't know. I don't have the polling during the Olmert Ehud Olmert Mahmoud Abbas deal. The Palestinians, on the other hand, and I don't blame them as people, but they aren't subject to a free and fair media, for instance. I don't see any evidence that that is the case. And certainly the most powerful factions who lead the Palestinians, Hamas especially now, is not. So that's a complication, isn't it?

[Daniel Zogby]

I think.

Public opinion today on both sides is incredibly, incredibly polarized. There has been an enormous amount of trauma and I think it is highly susceptible to sort of extreme views. I mean, somebody pulled, pulled out a poll of, you know, Israelis who endorse X, Y or Z things. And you know, there can be another one among Palestinians. By the way, the majority of Palestinians in Gaza, you know, categorically would reject Hamas today. I mean, and 1, 1, 1 does not need an imagination to understand why.

[Mike Pesca]

Right, but, but then again, polling in the west bank where Hamas wasn' you know, killing and rampaging through the population showed that Hamas was at times during the conflict more popular than the other, the other alternatives, including Fatah.

[Daniel Zogby]

Right? That is, that is correct.

I believe that, you know, these polls are not representative of the true aspirations of the people. I think the average person.

Yes, they want the same things that we would want. They want their kindergartner to go to school, they want food on the table, they want a job, they want their kid to get married.

[Mike Pesca]

And.

[Daniel Zogby]

I think most people look at the destruction in Gaza. In Witkoff's term, it's a demolition site. And they understand that this is not the future that they want for their children. And the thing is that there's so little credibility that, that the peace process or the two state solution has today because of all the mishaps, because of all the expectations that, you know, were not fulfilled. And I believe if we could get beyond that with very strong American leadership, and that's what it's going to take. It's going to have to take very strong American leadership showing that everyone is serious about it and that all available resources will be brought to bear on, on bringing about a peace agreement. I think if that were to happen, it would hold. And the precedent, of course, for a land for peace exchange is again going back to Egypt.

This is an example where the Arabs, sworn enemies of Israel, exchanged peace for land occupied by Israel.

[Mike Pesca]

And it did not work out well for the negotiator of that plan. But it is true and it shows that. Yeah, and it shows that bravery should be defined more by the willingness to take a risk than the willingness to kill your enemy. I Think that's. Is that a quote from your book or just an idea that I gleaned from the book?

[Daniel Zogby]

It might become a Mike Pesca quote.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, I hope so.

[Daniel Zogby]

But, you know, there is a quote I use in the book that I really like, which is the mightiest of the mighty turns an enemy into a friend.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. And you use that in terms of when asking Olmert, is Abbas your friend? Which was a really interesting question to ask. So I was thinking, as you say this and as I read the book, that there is this gold in my ear quote which I once tracked down and I couldn't find evidence she actually said it. And it's kind of horrible and a calumny, but it's. We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us. That's very harsh. But it brings to mind a couple of things. How much does martyrdom, the idea of martyrdom, the fact that Israel is fighting an enemy that very much does believe in martyrdom, inform all of these calculations? Because earlier I asked you, should they have taken the deal? And you said yes, as a rational humanist. But this is my question about the negotiating partners here and how much they adhere to martyrdom.

[Daniel Zogby]

I think that's a very interesting question. And.

I would have to give this some extensive thought. But I will tell you a story. I was.

In the West Bank. This was about two decades ago.

Sort of as the second Antifada was kind of coming, coming to an end. And I met a poor man. He was in a store. And I saw pictures plastered on the outside of his store. And there was a young boy on those posters. And that boy was his son. He was killed by the Israelis.

[Mike Pesca]

We've got more I did with my interview of Daniel Zogby. Look, it's foreign policy from Truman to Trump. And we didn't even touch most of Ford. 22 minutes more with the professor for not free, but less than tuition is at his university. In fact, I will give you a $75 yearly subscription. The Peska plus if you go to subscribe.mike pesca.com youm must use the code Laser Focus at checkout LA S E R F O C U S Laser focus. Thus echoing Dr. Zogby's concentration powers when it comes to, say, the Al aqsa Martyr Brigades. Subscribe.mike pesca.com Laser Focus.

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[Mike Pesca]

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Of course he did.

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[Mike Pesca]

And now the spiel. The mispronounced word of the year is in. And according to those who put it together, the language learning company Babel, sometimes pronounced Babel. The closed caption company, the captioning group, that's all in caps. They are telling us that the word of the year is Zoran. Mom Dani. And they are providing a helpful pronunciation. Should be pronounced little Z O H dash r a h N dash M a m D a h N E E. Zoran Momdani. Here's the thing. This is a tape from 2016 of Zoran Mamdani.

[Zoran Kwame Mamdani]

Okay, so my name is Zoharan Kwame Mamdani. I'm born and raised in Kampala, Uganda, in East Africa. Moved to cape town in 96. And that's from that. It's from there that I moved to New York in 99.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay, so it has changed a bit or it's become maybe more palatable for the American palate, mixing the Zoran and the Zoran around in your mouth. But the Real concentration in this article. And, in fact, during the campaign was on Mum Donnie. And it became an issue because if you got it wrong and you were a voter who might vote for Mom Donnie, he wasn't crazy enough to chide you then. And if you were a politician who was endorsing Mom Donnie, that'd be okay. This was New York Governor Kathy Hochul.

[Mrs. Claus's Younger Sister]

We need a fighter in City hall who wakes up every day ready to.

[Mike Pesca]

Punch and fight for the working of the city.

[Mrs. Claus's Younger Sister]

And that person is Zora Mandavi.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay? In case you thought. Did I hear it wrong? Did you say it wrong? She was yelling. No, no. She was wrong the whole time during her endorsement. It was consistent. So I said, we are the state that does not back down.

[Mrs. Claus's Younger Sister]

And I'm gonna be working closely with Mayor Zoram Mandami.

[Mike Pesca]

No, you won't. No such guy. Believe me. I says check, but it is okay if you say mom dummy, but you mean good things to Mamdani. But if you say mom dummy, but you have any ill in your heart towards Mandani, that is no good. That gets you called, among other things, a racist. You are very, very offensive. You might be Andrew Cuomo. Here was Democracy now host Amy Goodman teeing all this up. Your main opponent, Andrew Cuomo, continually mispronounces your name. I want you to respond to that. This is how he does it. I'm running against a man named Zoran Mandami. He's a socialist.

[Zoran Kwame Mamdani]

Zoran Kwame Mamdani. And I think what has been offensive to me is not whether a New Yorker can say my name on their first attempt or their second, but that what Andrew Cuomo has done is to deliberately mispronounce that name. And it is something whose meaning is not just about me. It's about how so many New Yorkers have to deal with this in their own workplace, in their own lives. You know, I was at a mosque recently for Friday prayers, and I asked the uncles and the aunties there to raise their hands if they've ever had to deal with the basic indignity of having the name that they were given be butchered time and again with an intention of belittling them. And hand after hand after hand raised. And that shows me the ways in which so many have been overlooked, at the very least.

[Mike Pesca]

See, he's doing it for the people. Zoran is. Mamdani is. But I remember a column I read by John McWhorter, I think, which explains it better than, we don't care if we insult many of our brothers and sisters, our fellow citizens. McWhorter, a linguist writing in the New York Times, writes about particular combinations of sounds known as assimilation. Bear with me him for a moment. He's going to get mechanical. The letter M is pronounced by putting the lips together, while the letter D is pronounced on the ridge right behind the teeth to it. Do it on your teeth. There it is. It's on teeth. Never really thought of that. That crazy. You say sounds all day, you don't even think where they start. If you're anticipating a D sound, it's natural to make the preceding M sound further back in the mouth.

With the tongue on the same ridge. Try making an M with your tongue on that ridge. What do you get? An N. See what? See what we're saying? Start with the D. D. Where do you want to go? You want to go to. From duh, top of the palate, duh to M dums the breaks. You don't want to go dun dun. And that's what you have to do with Mum Donnie. And he, I think explains in a way other than Andrew Cuomo is a lecherous neoliberal racist who can't pronounce ends when he pronounces M's instead. Andrew Cuono. That's all Mom Donnie should have said cuono, but he had so much more to say. You know what? On this one, I think Mom Donnie's instinct was right. Hit him on the big things, like touching the state trooper on the back, not the Andrew Cuono line. I'm going to go one further than John McWhorter, though. It's not just how we assimilate the sounds. It's that the mdan, that part of Mamdani. It's odd in English. I have consulted many dictionaries and two AI programs. There is no English word that has the series of letters MDAN anywhere in the word. So it is a little bit unusual, for reasons other than nefarious reasons, that Mamdani is the American hardest to pronounce word of the year. Kathy Hochul had every incentive to say it right. She was trying to convey her endorsement of the man. In fact, she was trying to stave off a lot of angry and impassioned Mom Donnie supporters. And she wasn't doing herself any favors. She wasn't trying to make any point. She wasn't trying to degrade anyone. When she said mom dummy, she just said mom dummy. Because people sometimes say mom dummy, but now they won't. They'll do so less. This will not persevere as we could see when we think about the country of Ukraine and the capital of Kiev, which when the war started, I did a little spiel. I do these spiels. I say, Kiev. Come on. When. When did it stop being Kiev? But now we just say Kiev because we hear it enough and we say it. And there are so many words in the English language like this. Nike, Nintendo, Acai Bowl. There's one. There's one. I wouldn't have known unless I heard it a bunch of times. Quinoa. And also Louvre. Louvre. Which is the second worst or most frequently mispronounced word of the year. Louvre jewels were stolen from the Louvre just as Zoran Mumdani stole our hearts.

And that's it for today's show. The gist is produced by Cory Wara, with Leah Yan as our production coordinator and Jeff Craig running our socials and Michelle Pesca as coo Improve is how you pronounce it. Thanks for listening.

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