Jonah Blank: “Very Quickly and Then Very Slowly” in Nepal

Summary

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The Gist — Jonah Blank: “Very Quickly and Then Very Slowly” in Nepal

Host: Mike Pesca
Guest: Jonah Blank (Author, Asia expert)
Date: October 3, 2025
Theme:
An in-depth look at the recent social-media-fueled political upheaval in Nepal, where a sudden wave of Gen Z-led protests led to a change in government. The discussion explores the roots of the uprising, the role of technology and inequality, the history of Nepal’s democratic struggles, and the prospects (or lack thereof) for meaningful long-term reform.

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Main Theme & Purpose

Mike Pesca welcomes Jonah Blank to analyze the dramatic and ultimately ambiguous revolution in Nepal, driven by dissatisfaction with entrenched elites and sparked by the government’s attempt to curtail social media. The conversation unpacks how technological, economic, and generational tensions combine in Nepal’s unique context and why the pattern is “very quickly and then very slowly” when it comes to real change.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Social Media Crackdown and Gen Z Uprising

• Social Media as the News Source:
  • Blank explains that in Nepal, social media is how most people—especially young people—get news and information, with traditional outlets largely irrelevant.
    “In Nepal... most countries, probably social media is where people get their news, where people get their information.” (11:09, Blank)
• Trigger for the Protests:
  • The government’s attempt to restrict social media was perceived as an attack on both freedom and fairness, given the visibility of the ruling class flaunting wealth online.
  • TikTok was uniquely targeted, but enforcement was inconsistent, as “everybody's got a VPN” (13:45, Blank).
• Populist Resentment of Inequality:
  • The public saw the elite flaunting ill-gotten gains while their own prospects lagged, fueling anger. “You get a lot of the wealthy showing off their new wealth on TikTok...and then the people who don't have all these goodies don't like it.” (12:27, Blank)
• Immediate but Shallow Victory:
  • The protests succeeded quickly, ousting the government, but lacked organized leadership or a clear ideology.

2. Historical and Political Backdrop

• Democracy and the Monarchy:
  • Nepal’s monarchy was abolished in 2008 after a period of constitutional monarchy starting in 1990. The monarchy, while not especially repressive, was removed in the wake of a family massacre in 2001.
    “The entire royal family was virtually killed off in 2001 by Crown Prince Dipendra...for a whole interesting story of reasons, he basically slaughtered most of his family.” (16:11, Blank)
• Political Factionalism and Stagnation:
  • The same handful of political parties and leaders (Congress Party, UML Communists, Maoists) cycle through power without delivering change or legitimacy. “They all were corrupt. They all basically just were perceived to be in it for themselves and not really delivering very much to their constituents.” (20:05, Blank)
• Economic Challenges and Exodus:
  • Remittances from citizens working abroad are vital; economic growth is uneven, and many must find menial work overseas.
• Lack of Trustworthy Institutions:
  • Neither the government nor the military is widely trusted—Nepal’s changes are superficial and the real power structures remain unchanged.

3. Long-term Prospects and Cyclicality

• Skepticism about the New Prime Minister:
  • New PM Shashila Kharki, a former Supreme Court justice, lacks a power base; the military’s role as kingmaker is noted. “She doesn't really have any kind of power base. She's only put in at so that it wasn't one of the other three parties, all three of which are utterly discredited.” (23:19, Blank)
• A Pattern of Fast Flash and Slow Reform:
  • Nepal experiences “mutinies” that ignite and end rapidly, but meaningful reforms stall. “Nepal is a place where things tend to happen very quickly and then very slowly.” (26:06, Blank)
• No Lasting Movement or Ideology:
  • The uprisings lack organized leadership or vision, likened to a “flash mob that overthrew a country” (25:50, Pesca).

4. Memorable Analysis & Thematic Reflections

• Geographical Challenges:
  • Nepal’s mountains and localism hinder both central authority and rapid modernization. “It can take you weeks to get from Kathmandu to the other side of the country if you’re going by bus, which is how most people would go.” (17:41, Blank)
• Heroism and Labor of the Nepali People:
  • Despite systemic woes at home, Nepalis are globally known for resilience and reliability, exemplified by Gurkhas. “You can go to Hong Kong, you can go to Singapore, you can go to the Gulf and you’ll find Nepalis undertaking some of the most important security missions that the wealthiest people in the world do not entrust to anyone else.” (22:25, Blank)
• Endemic Political Inertia:
  • Even after radical events, progress stalls—“it took them seven years just to write a constitution...largely just on paper.” (26:16, Blank)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Social Media and Class Tensions

“What they really cared about were things like TikTok, where the incredible new wealth is just being put out there in people's faces...the people who don't have all these goodies don't like it.”
— Jonah Blank (12:27)

On Nepal’s Unending Political Circles

“They just keep on sort of failing to deliver anything and then getting voted out of office in the next election...None of them really did anything. They all were corrupt.”
— Jonah Blank (20:05)

On the Nature of Change in Nepal

“Nepal is a place where things tend to happen very quickly and then very slowly.”
— Jonah Blank (26:06)

On the Absence of Organized Leadership

“It was like the first flash mob that overthrew a country. And I would have to guess that that does not augur well for the possibility of real, lasting, effective change.”
— Mike Pesca (25:50)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [10:24] — Start of interview with Jonah Blank
• [11:09] — Social media as main news source
• [12:27] — Social class resentment, TikTok, and government backlash
• [13:45] — Ineffective repression; everyone circumvents bans
• [16:11] — The fall of the monarchy and royal family massacre
• [18:54] — Overview of political parties and their lack of ideology
• [20:05] — Cycle of political stagnation and corruption
• [21:36] — Nepal’s potential vs. its actual trajectory
• [23:19] — Kharki's prospects and military’s central role
• [26:06] — "Very quickly and then very slowly" pattern
• [26:16] — Difficulty turning upheaval into real change
• [28:36] — Closing remarks, regional WhatsApp group joke

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Episode Takeaways

• Nepal’s latest “revolution” is yet another instance of swift, disruptive protest followed by likely incremental or cosmetic change.
• Social media is both the platform for dissatisfaction and the battleground for government legitimacy, making generational and economic divides painfully visible.
• Despite regime changes, Nepal remains hindered by factional politics, lack of accountability, and weak institutions—any real transformation will be slow and uncertain.
• Jonah Blank’s closing wisdom encapsulates the pervading sense of déjà vu: “Things tend to happen very quickly and then very slowly.”

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For listeners or readers new to Nepalese affairs, this episode provides a lucid and sober assessment of why sudden revolutions often fade into the same old problems—and how social media is reshaping both awareness and revolt, even in the world’s most remote corners.

Transcript

[Mike Pesca]

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[Jeff Bridges]

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[Dana]

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[Jeff Bridges]

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[Jonah Blank]

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[Mike Pesca]

It's Friday, October 3, 2025 from Peach Fish Production it's the gist. I'm Mike Pesca and sometimes I feel guilty because I do like news of the odd. And when I lead with news of the odd, especially stemming from the administration Pete Hegseth warning against bearded fatties in the upper ranks of the military. I wonder, have I distracted your attention from some important things? I probably have. That might even have been Pete Hegseth's design. Now I do have this institution. It's now an institution called the Gist list. And what's good about that is a couple days a week I put it behind a paywall. So you're saying that's not good? I want it for free. I'll give it to you for 75% free or 25% off if you text Mike 233777 but the good thing about Paywall News product is I don't have to feel guilty by distracting you. Like the other day I was talking about the passing of the Primatologist Jane Goodall, really our prime primatologist and herself a primate. In fact, there are three women who were known as the Trimates who studied primates. They were Jane Goodall, Diane Fossey, and Beruta Gal Dicus. And three also being a prime number just reifies the point I'm trying to make. But the point I was making on the gist list was actually about her son. Her son whose name was Hugo, but went by because Jane Goodall insisted on calling him this Grub. So Lil Grub not only was nicknamed Grub, but lived in a cage. Okay, didn't live in a cage, but was placed in a cage from a young age by his mom. It's okay. It's, I think, not as objectionable as it might sound. It was for Grub's own protection. Isn't this what ICE always says? She built a protective cage for him when he was a baby, but she said you could stand upright and walk across the cage. He couldn't even crawl, so it was almost like a giant cot. And he was never on his own so it wouldn't be attacked by those wonderful, wonderful chimps. It was like we would call this a pack and play, but me bringing it to you, I do so without guilt because I can, in this space, if not the gist list, when it's under and behind a paywall, I can still mention these important news items that just aren't getting covered. Like, you know, about the goings on in the Eastern District of Virginia. Lindsey Halligan bringing an indictment against Jim Comey by. But other high ranking officials have been ousted for the stupidest reason. A guy named Michael Ben Ari. Not just a guy. The office's top national security official who was spearheading the prosecution of one of the Afghan Terrorists who killed U.S. marines at Abbey Gate. Donald Trump was very happy to bring that prosecution put Michael Ben Ari in charge of it. Ben Ari was ousted after some MAGA aligned activist posted on social media about his work with the Biden era Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. Also speaking of bad news about Lisa Monaco, Trump has gone on a, to borrow the words of perhaps an Abigail bomber, a jihad against Lisa Monaco, who is now gainfully employed by Microsoft. But Trump wishes she wouldn't be. And he's using the powers of the presidency, or at least the Truth social account to blast Microsoft and insist on the firing of a private citizen just because he doesn't like that. During her time at the doj, certain prosecutions were brought actually by independent counsels, not at the discretion of Lisa Monaco. But certain prosecutions were brought by Jack Smith. This is horrible and attention must be paid. We cannot all be in a grub like cage of ignorance. On the show today, I shall spiel about this Hamas agreement to release the hostages. It has been reported, but first, keeping with developments in Asia, Nepal has had a bit of a revolution, a bit of an insurrection and it's all because of social media. Well, our guest Jonah Blank returns to tell us it's not all because of social media, but it is largely about repression which is the government trying to take away Gen Z's social media. And now they have a new government. Jonah Blank, up next, life got you down or just stressed out? If not, you're not doing it correctly but you know, you need to unwind a little bit. Maybe you might consider cornbread hemps CBD gummies. Now in my house and I'm not going to get that much more specific, but cornbread CBDs deliver the goods. Relaxation, stress release. There's also, you know, just the sleepiness aspect of it all. They don't all cause all of these reactions, but what they do is they utilize the best part of the hemp plant for the purest and most potent CBD and their third party lab tested in USDA organic to ensure safety and purity. Right now the GIST listeners can have 30% off their first order. Just go to cornbreadhemp.com thegist and use code the gist at checkout. That's cornbread.com the gist and use code the gist. Let me tell you about Claude. Who's Claude? Probably an it's Claude but it feels like a who's Claude? Claude is my AI, colleague, friend, pal, collaborator I think might be the best way to say it. I was looking through some of my projects and a lot of them are things that you might recognize me having talked about on the show. Jawbone explanations, pass through entities, explain explained, price, inquiry, clarification. Great stuff there. Knowing facts. But then I ask it to do things. Oh, here's a great one. Iced tea copy. So what I did. A friend of mine runs an iced tea company and he asked me to help him write some copy. So I went through Walmart and I took photographs of every bottle of not just iced tea but all the different kind of healthy snacks and granola. You can't sella granola. Being honest. These days it's all about the healthfulness. And I got the little branding statements on the back and I loaded them all, not even by copying them down just by loading them all via photograph into Claude. And I gave it prompts and I said, what are the most common words? I created essentially a word cloud and I wanted to avoid cliche, but also get some ideas. And then I said, if you were to construct a very cliched granola, I don't want to step on what I had to do personally, which was the iced tea stuff, granola copy, what would you say? And so I avoided that. And then I gave it more prompts such as what if Dave Barry and Walt Whitman combined to write copy for a healthy snack? Great thought starter. And it was all or some. I mean, you know, we're collaborators, like I said, but it was all because of the Claude Mike collaboration. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. I think that story illustrates that it's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you, not for you. Whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. That's what you want. That's what you want from an AI friend assistant thought starter ready to tackle bigger problems. Set. Sign up for Claude today and get 50% off Claude Pro when you use my link claw AI slash the gist. That's Claude AI the gist right now for 50% off your first three months of Claude Pro. That includes access to all the features that I mentioned previously. Claude AI slash the gist. Nepal has seen some fascinating, confusing and deadly demonstrations. Some 74 dead, thousands injured, and a government changed, if not overthrown. There is a new prime minister thanks to the Gen Z protest, which on the one hand followed the classic pattern of a government trying to suppress information and the people rising up. On the other hand, the information was things like social media and TikTok and hashtags and AI and disinformation played a huge role in in this overthrow. No one I'd rather talk to about all of this than our old Asia expert. Our Asia hand. You know, Asia's old. Jonah's not Jonah Blank. He is the author of Mullahs on the Mainframe and Arrow of the Blue Skinned God. Welcome back to the Gist.

[Jonah Blank]

Thank you for having me, Mike. And I'm old too, but not as old as Asia.

[Mike Pesca]

So this was my first question as I was watching the protests and hearing their complaints. Was the complaint, and a righteous one, in that the government was in fact using the classic means of suppression, of withholding the free flow of information? Or was it More of, was it more of entertainment or based on something other than we need our accurate information so that we as the people can react in a civically responsible way. In other words, was this about newspapers printing accurate information or was this about social media and hashtags?

[Jonah Blank]

It was about social media, but that's a bigger thing than just watching the latest trends on TikTok. In Nepal, as in many countries, most countries, probably social media is where people get their news, where people get their information. So the newspapers even to some extent the radio stations, the TV stations in Nepal are not really all that important. They matter. But Nepal is a very social media focused place, as are basically every country in the world nowadays. And Nepal in particular, for reasons we can discuss, largely due to the incredible number of people working overseas and sending home remittances, social media plays an even bigger role there.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, and the reason they have to work overseas is the other major factor. And this is always, this is a constant. It's the economy. But is it the case that the government, the elected government, was trying to repress information? Could do newspapers and can newspapers, newspapers with websites. Are they able to report on corruption within the ranks of the leadership? Are they able to freely report on dissidents or are they suppressed and oppressed?

[Jonah Blank]

They're not so much suppressed as just irrelevant. They exist, they do their job. It's good that they're doing their job. You have to have journalists in every country doing their job. But if it were just old school journalists, the government wouldn't have cared. What they really cared about were things like TikTok, where the incredible new wealth is just being put out there in people's faces. Nepal has done better in the past couple decades under democracy than it had done before. Economically, there's a lot more money coming in, but as is the case often it's not very evenly distributed. So you get a lot of the, the wealthy showing off their new, their new wealth on TikTok, on Instagram, on every platform, and then the people who don't have all these goodies don't like it.

[Mike Pesca]

Right, right. So the Prime Minister's son and daughter in law, they're something of other Kardashian types, they flaunt their wealth. This angers people and that was why the government wanted to take away. Well, it's interesting you said TikTok a few times, but from what I understand there was a law that all social media companies had to comply with and TikTok did agree to comply with the law, but some of the others didn't Right.

[Jonah Blank]

And just as everything else in Nepal, nothing really operates the way it's supposed to, and nothing really operates very efficiently. So for, for example, when you say, is the media oppressed? Well, I mean, to some extent, but not very effectively. Nepal didn't do democracy very effectively. It doesn't do oppression very effectively. Even the social media crackdown, it wasn't all that universal. I had WhatsApp communications with extended family members there. And part of the reason it wasn't so effective is that everybody's got a VPN or, or at least everybody in the middle classes who can afford it. Everybody who wants a VPN has got a vpn, but it's who wants to have to jump through all these, these hoops and have the government telling you, don't worry, there's nothing to see here when you're seeing right in your Instagram feed a politician's daughter showing off her Gucci bag.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. So it was a populist uprising. We want our social media back. Not just to send around stupid memes though, that too, but because much that, yes, but because it's reflecting poorly on you, the elite. So that's, that's basically the story of.

[Jonah Blank]

The uprising and this underlying anger of, wait a second, we're not really getting much benefit from all this money flowing in. We're not getting much benefit from this democracy everybody's talking about. In the meantime, we're feeling some of the negative sides. For example, back the first time I went to Nepal was, I'm showing how old I am now, 1994. And Kathmandu was a totally different place than it is now. It was, it had the feel almost of a quaint village compared with how it is right now. Now Kathmandu has terrible, unbreathable air traffic jams that take you an hour to get across across town. So everybody has to deal with the downside of being brought into the world trade and the world economic system. But they're not getting the Gucci bags and they're not getting really much of the jobs outside of kind of some low level service economy jobs people still have to go to, you know, to the Gulf and work in practically indentured servitude just to pay the bills.

[Mike Pesca]

When did Nepal throw off the shackles of the monarchy?

[Jonah Blank]

Well, Nepal became a constitutional monarchy in 1990 and the monarchy itself was abolished in 2008. Whether it was the shackles or not is kind of depends on who you, you know, who you're asking and when, because it was never really a particularly brutal monarchy. The monarchy had A lot of popular support, in some ways similar to the monarchy in Thailand, which under the previous king had tremendous popular support and still sort of does. Even now there are monarchists in Nepal, quite a few of them. The thing is, the entire royal family was virtually killed off in 2001 by Crown Prince Dipendra. There was nothing political about it. He had some real serious mental problems. And for a whole interesting story of reasons, he basically slaughtered most of his family. His father, Ganendra, happened to be out of the palace at the time, and he then inherited the monarchy. But he was never a popular figure. He still isn't. He's still in Kathmandu right now, thinking he's going to come back into power and maybe he will. But he never had the popular support and the love that his brother and his predecessors had had.

[Mike Pesca]

But this slaughter essentially wipes away the most unifying force in a country that we're soon to see has disunity and factionalism in its future.

[Jonah Blank]

Yes, I wouldn't oversell the degree to which the monarchy was binding Nepal together. I would say Nepal was and still is bound together by inert. Remember, this is a very mountainous, craggy, essentially in essentially very localized country. On a map, it looks like one country, but it can take you weeks to get from Kathmandu to the other side of the country if you're going by bus, which is how most people would go. So it wasn't really in anyone's interest to break away and have these different little, tiny little statelets. But a lot of the factionalism that we see looks very ideological. You know, the factions are the. The Congress Party, sort of a traditional center centrist liberal party, and two different communist parties, the uml, the Communist Party United Marxist Leninists and the Maoists. However, the Maoists and the Marxist Leninists, they're only communist in a very, very light sense of the term. There's very little ideology behind it.

[Mike Pesca]

So the current or the. Up until a couple of days ago, weeks ago, the prime minister, who is Sharma Oli, he was a communist, he was a revolutionary. He promised freedom and then he just failed to deliver based on difficulty or corruption or intention meeting reality. What's your assessment?

[Jonah Blank]

Well, he was a communist, but I wouldn't say he was ever a revolutionary. He had never been out in the jungle. He had never been outside of the political mainstream. The Maoists, on the other hand, had fought a very bloody revolutionary struggle for over a decade from about 1996 until about 2006. And they then won the first free and fair post monarchy election in 2008, however, when they came into power, these three parties have basically been trading places, playing a little game of musical chairs for. Let's see, that's 2008 to 20, 20, whatever the math is 17, 18 years.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. And the terms only last a couple years. So not much changes, Right.

[Jonah Blank]

Between the parties, elementary structure, they. They just keep on sort of failing to deliver anything and then getting voted out of office in the next election. And whenever you look at Nepali politics in this time and you talk to Nepali and you sort of ask what's going on, people's attitude is always, yeah, well, whatever, you know, it's just nothing really changes. Nothing really happens. Oli for Oli was prime minister, I think it was five times. Daoba was definitely prime minister five times. That is the Congress Party politician leader. And Prachanda, the Maoist leader, was prime minister a few times. None of them really did anything. They all were corrupt. They all basically just were perceived to be in it for themselves and not really delivering very much to their constituents.

[Mike Pesca]

Given the geography, the history where they. Well, let's not take where they are now. I want to talk about the potential. Is the. Has the potential of Nepal been squandered or is it more the case that it is, though filled with 30 million people, fairly isolated, fairly mountainous, a country that isn't at the crossroads of the world maybe doesn't have the infrastructure. I know there's a water crisis in Kathmandu. It has a lot of problems and we really couldn't have expected it to be the next Asian tiger.

[Jonah Blank]

I think there's a lot of potential. And also its output, or at least what it has delivered for its people, is far, far below whatever potential it might have. The potential of the Nepali people, you can see just by the fact that they go all around the world and do incredibly difficult things that other people are not as able to do. For example, I've spent a lot of time in Afghanistan during the war years over there, and Nepalis were everywhere. They were running the food services for the Americans. They were running protection, that is the legitimate paid mercenary protection for the Americans, the Brits, for everyone. I'm sure you've heard. I'm sure most of your audience has heard of the Gurkhas. The Gukas are a particular type of, particular military formation of Nepalis, almost all of them Gurungs, a particularly sub set a community near Pokhara, which in the 19th century kind of got into the business of being mercenaries in part because of British colonialism, and found that they're very, very good at it. So you can go to Hong Kong, you can go to Singapore, you can go to the Gulf and you'll find Nepali's undertaking some of the most important security missions that the wealthiest people in the world do not entrust to anyone else.

[Mike Pesca]

Tell me about the possibilities of the new Prime Minister Shashila Kharki, who is a anti corruption Supreme Court justice. What hope is there for her to break through given the situation that you've laid out?

[Jonah Blank]

I have to be a little pessimistic just because it's so hard to grasp for reasons to look at Nepal and say things are going to be radically different tomorrow than they were yesterday. She doesn't really have any kind of power base she's only put in at so that it wasn't one of the other three parties, all three of which are utterly discredited. The military is the only group that has any real power and it doesn't have any real love. They're not a beloved military. So she can stay in as long as the military keeps her in. But that's very different from actually delivering something or creating a movement. So if you were to ask me how I would bet things play out. I would bet, bet that there is another election within a certain number of months and one of the three parties goes in this cycle again. Whichever one of them is smart about it may jettison its old, old leadership and try to rebrand itself to get ahead of this anger.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. The idea of the beloved military or at least the repository of public trust, this is true in places like Turkey and true in Pakistan. And it's not always a good thing, but at least it reflects that there is institution that has credibility. And to me, from all your description and everything that I've been reading, it seems like Nepal is a place without any credible institutions. And into that mall comes social media which is has a lot of dislocations associated with it. Everything that you're saying makes me worried for this place that I've always had a lot of affection for. Also I like the hats, I like their flowers, flag. I like the name Kathmandu. All these, all these reasons. And the Gurkhas, very good reasons. Do you? I don't know if you've done a study of this or have any inclination, but this is a mutiny. This is an uprising that was very quick and they got what they wanted very quick, quickly. And I don't know that it had real leaders per se. It certainly didn't have a bunch of people who are shaping the ideology and Crafting some sort of shadow government and really thinking in a rigorous way about replacing the government or ideology. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing for the possibility of a future when there is an uprising that stems from that sort of hard work that was put in. But, man, in Nepal, it just happened in an instant. It was like it was the first flash mob that overthrew a country. And I would have to guess that that does not augur well for the possibility of real, lasting, effective change.

[Jonah Blank]

Yeah, Nepal is a place where things tend to happen very quickly and then very slowly.

[Mike Pesca]

So we saw ascent and descent of a mountain.

[Jonah Blank]

Yeah, exactly. We saw the royal family were wiped out. And it was such a shock to everyone in Nepal because this had been one of the anchors, even though for a lot of people, the royals were very, very remote. But they also were a fact of life. They were the government. They were what you thought of when you thought of the government. Out in the rural areas, which is where most Nepalis live, people still talk when they say they're going to Kathmandu, sometimes they talk about going to Nepal as if that's someplace different from where they live. And the royals were one of the things that at least let them feel like they were part of the same country. But then after the royals were overthrown and the Maoists came in, and The Maoists in 2008 had, in my view, and I'd been saying this within government circles for years before that, actually about a decade at that point, they had probably more popular legitimacy than anybody else. But then it took them forever just to write a constitution. It took them seven years before there was any constitution even written. And even then, it was largely just on paper. So I think a lot of the problem is not so much are we going to see a French Revolution, or to put it in Nepali terms, back before the Maoists came in, I used to have big arguments with the US Ambassador to Nepal who used to say, we can't ever let the Maoists come in. It'll be like the Cambodian revolution, like the Khmer Rouge. It'll be year one. We're not going to see something like that. But I think we may well see just more cycles of governments changing and not really getting anything done that helps the. The people with their very legitimate grievances.

[Mike Pesca]

I have always said no oldest established news and analysis daily podcast has a better Asia expert on hand than Jonah Blank. He has. He's in WhatsApp groups from everywhere from Kathmandu to Ulan Bator. He is the author of Moolahs on the Mainframe. An Era of the Blue Skinned God. Very good to talk to you again. I would say let's do it again under better circumstances, but we honestly have you on for revolutions, don't we?

[Jonah Blank]

Hey, I. Any time you give a call, Mike, I will jump to it and gladly be here.

[Mike Pesca]

So it's Ulaan Bator, Kathmandu in Brooklyn. Those are your WhatsApp groups.

[Jonah Blank]

I'm actually none in. I've got to start some WhatsApp groups. I'm really interested in what Mom Donnie is doing, but I don't have any active now.

[Mike Pesca]

All right, we'll get on that. Speaking of Maoist revolutionaries, you mean.

[Jonah Blank]

That's right. There you go. Well, he's about as close to a Maoist revolutionary as Perchanda is.

[Mike Pesca]

Thank you so much, Jonah.

[Jonah Blank]

Thanks, Mike.

[Jeff Bridges]

Morning, Zoe. Got donuts.

[Dana]

Jeff Bridges, why are you still living above our garage?

[Jeff Bridges]

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[Dana]

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[Mike Pesca]

And now the spiel. Hamas got the facts apparently they have agreed to release all the Israeli hostages and the bodies of those who have died in captivity. Or I should be more clear and less passive. They have killed in captivity. The New York Times does note, however, the question is whether Hamas's response will satisfy Israel and the White House. Now, as to the second part of that. A few hours before Hamas said they've released the hostages, Trump truth that hamas had until 6pm Eastern Time on Sunday to agree to all his terms to end the war in Gaza or quote, all hell like no one has ever seen before will break out against Hamas. He later said after reviewing the proposal that he believes Hamas is, quote, ready for lasting peace and therefore, quote, israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza so that we could get the hostages out safely and quickly. Right now it's far too dangerous to do that. It's the first time that Trump has ever called on Israel to halt any part of its military offensive in Gaza. The statement that Hamas gave about releasing the hostages should also be noted did not talk about all aspects of the deal, like giving up their arms or if they would try to slaughter their members who agreed to live without attacking Israel in the future. Still, I do believe Israel has got to accept this arrangement. It is in all 20 points and they should do whatever they can to push for 20 points. But turning this down or saying not good enough is not in Israel's interests. Hamas has been so degraded that Israel will be able to live with whatever remnants of them there are in at least the near term. And an agreement of a deal doesn't mean that Israel will forever or even in the medium term, stop policing acts of aggression, specifically by Hamas out of Gaza. I would not expect a full scale surrender of Hamas. It is way too hard for a morally convicted martyrdom cult to ever do that. But this is such a core demand. The hostage release is such a core demand of the Israeli public. It can't be ignored. According to a recent poll, the majority of the Israeli public think it is time to end the war in Gaza, 66% of the total sample. This includes both Arab Israelis and Jewish Israelis. Jewish Israelis 60% believe that Arab Israelis, of course get a vote, but it just shows that Jewish Israelis are almost exactly where the nation is as a whole. The Israel Democracy Institute also asks, in your opinion, which of the two declared war goals toppling Hamas or bringing home the hostage should be Israel's main goal today. And this was asked just a couple of weeks ago. And if you look at bringing back the hostages that has gone from 47% in 2024, January 24 to 59% in September of 24 to 61.5% in September of 25. And that is just among Jewish Israelis. Among Arab Israelis it's 82%. Even among Jewish Israelis, more than a 2 to 1 margin say that bringing home the hostages, not toppling Hamas, is the main goal of the war. Now this might not be Netanyahu's main goal, especially if he sees further polling from the Israel Democracy Institute that says he must go. Half of Israelis say he should resign immediately, 20% say after the war. But remember the name of the institute doing the polling. And this is what I want to talk about. It's the Israeli Democracy Institute and that's accurate. Israel is a democracy and its status as a democracy is driving a lot of the dynamic in forming this war. Netanyahu does in fact act undemocratically, does certainly kowtow to pressure from far right wingers to hold his coalition together. I guess that might be a vestige of democracy itself. But we should also say that democracy depends on elections. And the timing of the October 7, 2023 attacks were such that there weren't going to be elections for a long, long time in Israel. And if elections had occurred, we might get a totally different and less gruesome dynamic with the war. But this is important because the status of Israel as a democracy isn't just a good talking point or something you say in front of the United nations to try to earn favor among, I guess, all the non democracies. It's not just a way to make Israel seem aligned with the values of countries like the United States or NATO members. It is to the Zionists who founded Israel. To the Zionists of Israel today, the status as a democracy is intertwined with the belief that that is the system of government, or maybe only aligned with the way to save their own lives. The history of pogroms, extermination, inquisitions, the Final Solution. All of those, let's remember, were overseen by autocratic rulers. The story of Zionism would have to be a story of democracy. It was decided. And the democracies in the world today are the countries that have best protected Jews. The countries with the most Jews as a percentage of population, or even just in total, are all democracies. Israel, the us, France, Canada, the uk, Russia's up there. A lot of that is because Jews have not always been able to escape Russia. And we should also note that things aren't going so great for the Jews, especially in France and If you look at the UK yesterday, all over the world, they're going less great for the Jews than they have in the previous recent decade. But they are a relative safe haven in part, in large part because of the structure of the government. And I know Israel always gets accused of not being a true democracy due to the treatment of its noncitizens within their boundaries, though not necessarily the 20% of the Israeli population who are Arab Israelis, who we talked about, but this is also or was also true of the United States, said now not to have been a full democracy before the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Good argument there. But I can assure you During World War II, you can bet that the US thought of itself as a democracy and acted as such and said it's a big thing that distinguishes it from the undemocratic nature of its rivals and its opponents. And we know how motivated reasoning works and we know that people have blinders on also. But we also know that telling yourself a story like we're a democracy and we have some ideals to uphold as such, that has a real effect on the world. You know, I'll bring it back to Israel and Netanyahu and democracy in a second. But I just want to address side note, the Israel, are they really a democracy? There is something called the democracy matrix that's put out and they rank Israel as the 35th, fourth most democratic country in the world. 36 United States, the Economist also has a democracy index. And there Israel's just a little couple of places lower than the US but they're above Belgium, they're above Italy. My point is that just as during World War II in the United States, being a democracy was a thing that wasn't just taken for granted, it was taken for true and is the thing that drove the actions of a country. Perhaps aspirationally, the same thing goes on with Israel in this war. That's defining their national character. Israelis during this war are acting as Israelis. They're confirming their self image. And a big part of that self image is care for Jews is yearning to bring the hostages home. Another part of their self image is that they are a democracy. They get to say these things and they are hostile to their prime minister. Once this hostage deal is known to the Israeli public, I do not think rejecting it would be possible. It won't just appall Israelis, it will make them say, how is it that we're living in a democracy if our leaders can possibly reject this deal that embodies our most fervid goal, the release of the hostages doesn't just appeal to Israelis as Jews or as citizens, but fundamentally as democratic actors. Netanyahu might not like it, but he can't resist it. I do not think if he wants to lay claim to the status of the country that you always hear that it is aligned with the west and that it is unique in its neighborhood. Of course, there is another leader of quite a big democracy who we've already mentioned, who does have a lot to say about this deal to the leader of our democracy and with him, the status of his country as a democracy might not be as important to him, the leader of the democracy, as to the demos, the people themselves. And that's it for today's show. Cory Warra produces the Gist. Ashley Kahn is our production coordinator. Jeff Craig runs our social media. Kathleen Sykes writes the Gist List with me today on the Just List. Well, on Wednesdays we run a long piece. I call it the Pesca Profundities piece. And I'm running a piece that originally ran in the Free Press, a peace of mind that I've been working on for a long, long time. And audio version of this will be coming down the pike. Text 33777 the word Mike text the word Mike get 25% off just list and substack subscriptions. All right, thanks to everyone who made this possible, but especially Michelle Pesca who helps me camera angles and cap placement improve G Peru Do Peru and thanks for listening.

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