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- [00:00]
Mike Pesca
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- [01:22]
Mike Pesca
At the GIST are in need of a booker. This is a person who goes out and gets the guests, gets the guests for the Gist and all the other great shows that we have and are coming up with at Peach Fish Productions. Now I'd like to say that we're looking for someone who would say, oh yeah, Booker is my middle name. That actually literally is the case with my son and he'd be a terrible booker because he's a freshman in college and quite disorganized. So what we need from our Booker could be you, could be someone you know is organization, experience, knowledge of the news, someone who will go out and work for us. It is a part time job, the pay is quite competitive and we are contactable@the gistke.com thanks. It's Friday, January 30, 2026. From Peach Fish Productions, it's the Gist. I'm Mike Pesca. Don Lemon was arrested and this morning on cnn, John Berman hosted a segment with an Axios journalist and Jackie Kucinich of the Boston Globe. He asked this question. When you see something like this happen, Jackie, first to you. What's your reaction when you learn that Don and another journalist have been taken? Now, Kucinich, the Washington bureau chief of the Globe, she fielded the question. Well, nothing here in this commentary is meant to falter, but I would have underlined what a journalist is and does. And I might have answered something like, john, it doesn't matter what I thought or what I felt. It matters what I, as a journalist, can contribute to our knowledge while setting aside my own personal reaction. And then I might have gone on to offer this bit of analysis. Though Lemon is a journalist, and though it is unacceptable to prosecute journalists for doing journalism, what happened here maybe should not be best understood as an assault on journalism, but another kind of assault. I will also note for the record that Georgia Fort, who is the other independent journalist, that's how she's always described, was in that church. And she is much more of an activist, even more than Don Lemon, who is definitely an opinion journalist and tangles with Donald Trump. But she, too, deserves protections. Maybe because she was a journalist for which there is no definition or credentialing organization, but she was documenting what was going on in the church. And even if she wasn't, she'd have rights to express her opinion, though not necessarily by interrupting a church service. That wasn't what she was doing. She was pointing a camera at other people who were doing that. The category, though, that I would put this all in is not necessarily threats against the First Amendment or against journalism. I mean, in this country, there are millions of people with millions of opinions, and at least 60000 who are online and have significant audiences are quite critical of Donald Trump. The category that this should be put in is Donald Trump trying to punish his enemies, be they a state attorney general, a former director of the FBI, the chair of the Federal Reserve, or in this case, a journalist who very much should enjoy First Amendment protections. I will say some analysis that I've been seeing says this is how the First Amendment is under assault. I don't think Donald Trump likes journalism or would stop at anything to protect journalists. The FBI did raid the home of a Washington Post journalist just a few weeks ago, and I do nothing to excuse the overreach of the Trump administration overall. But when you say First Amendment, there is an easy counterpoint, which I am sure those in the administration would readily reach for, which is that the First Amendment protects freedom of the press, but also freedom of religion. And they would say protecting the religious expression of the worshipers in that church that day was would be their justification for arresting those who would try to disrupt the free expression thereof. That was all a pretext in this case, to be clear, because it's almost always a pretext with the Trump administration. I really just think that Don Lemon annoyed Donald Trump and let us not forget that most of the prosecutions that I've named or referred to, Letitia James and James Comey and Jerome Powell, they've gone nowhere or are going nowhere except as a headache to those persecuted. Though in this case, since we live in an attention economy, the Trump administration might be helping Don Lemon. We all knew who Don Lemon was. Maybe he's very much helping Georgia Fort I've gone to her pages and I've seen that videos that once had tens or hundreds of thousands of views are now peaking in the millions. So this might be a favor if monetizing at a few cents an eyeball can overwhelm the cost of paying defenders. Although maybe someone will step up and give her a defense for free, some enterprising lawyer who themselves wants to monetize eyeballs and attention. Which isn't to say any of this is a silver lining. It's more of a new and attention economy dictated Bottom on the show today I give you a full show interview because I had a full show worth of questions for Paul D. Miller. He's a former analyst for the CIA, a former military intelligence officer for the army, work for the Bush, George W. Bush and Obama White Houses. I article he wrote in the Dispatch called White Hats and Black Hats in the Middle East. It was a perceptive analysis of how we look in too simple a binary at the combatants in various Middle Eastern conflicts, but especially in Israel. So I wanted to have Professor Miller on the show. He teaches at Georgetown. Here is my conversation with Paul D. Miller. Up next. 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- [08:41]
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- [09:46]
Mike Pesca
Narratives are tough to trust, but they're also maybe too tempting to discard. And I've been circling around these ideas for a long time as I think about the conflict in Israel. Paul D. Miller has written about this for the Dispatch in a way that I have for a few months now been trying to put my finger on. He at least offers a few ways in and much insight. The name of that article is White Hats and Black Hats in the Middle East. The problem with framing the Israel Hamas conflict is one between the powerful and the powerless. Paul Miller is a professor of practice at Georgetown and co chair for Global politics and Security at the Scowcroft center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council. Brent Scowcroft he was a good man for peace hello Paul Miller. How are you?
- [10:36]
Paul D. Miller
I'm well, Mike. Thanks for having me on the show.
- [10:38]
Mike Pesca
So much of what you wrote in the Dispatch article resonated with me. I want to lay out some of the theses involved, but in general it is to resist the easy or the temptation to fall back into easy narratives. Of one side is the oppressed one side is the oppressor. It's a classic. Powerful versus powerless. And with that, you also have a white person versus brown person dynamic. And this is what much of the world tells you is what's going on in Israel. And that's either, in your estimation, flat out wrong or way more complicated than the couple of binaries I just laid out. Right.
- [11:20]
Paul D. Miller
Yeah. I wouldn't be a good professor if I didn't say it's more complicated. Right. That's all make things sound more complicated. You know, just to take a little bit on the. On the title here. White Hats and Black Hats. There's that old convention in westerns, Western Hollywood movies from way back when that the good guys would wear white hats, the bad guys would wear black hats. You go watch any old John Wayne or John Ford Western and you'll see that convention. And I think that we kind of tend to have a similar convention when we think about complicated, messy things in politics and international affairs. We want a very clear, very simple narrative with easily labeled good guys. Easily labeled bad guys. Sometimes the world is that simple. The Nazis were bad guys and we were good for fighting them. But other times there's just a whole lot of mess. And it's important if you want to be an informed citizen, to kind of get into the mess and understand a bit of the grays.
- [12:14]
Mike Pesca
Right. So I agree. I want to go deeper, and I also want to note that a lot of John Ford Westerns like the Searchers were more complicated. Very important for me to point that out.
- [12:23]
Paul D. Miller
But an excellent film. Yeah.
- [12:25]
Mike Pesca
Here's a challenging question, and just so you know, I'm with you on so much of this, but you talk a lot about narratives and at one point you say something like, I'm not about to go postmodern on you. And I didn't actually think that that was the danger. I worried that the emphasis too much on narratives might in fact give us clarity onto the premise that there's no easy narrative, but might lead us away from some actual facts that aren't maybe part of a story that aren't really part a binary, but are also really quite uncomfortable facts, say, for the Israel side of things. So they're not bad people, they're not the black hats. But what if they still engaged in a war that could have killed 30,000 civilians, but instead, through Choices, killed 60,000 civilians? What do we do about good people who excessively kill civilians in war? How much credence do we give them resting on the fact that it's more complicated and it's not just black and white.
- [13:28]
Paul D. Miller
Yeah, yeah, great question. Look, I've written a couple of books here on the just war tradition. One of the really helpful things about the just war tradition gives us categories to disaggregate questions like that. I think Israel had just cause in this war. They were attacked, they had hostages taken, and they have every just cause to recover the hostages and to defend themselves. That's a very simple. That is a white hat, black hat kind of situation. I think Hamas very clearly did not have just cause in what it did in the fighting. I think it's pretty easy to say Israel may have crossed some lines, may have made some rash decisions. I served in the US military after 9, 11. I served in the CIA and the White House. And I know for certain that the U.S. government had just cause and maybe went overboard or maybe made some rash or imprudent decisions. I find it very easy to believe that maybe the same is true in Israel. They had just cause, but there was a sense of panic and anger and wrath that may have led them to go a bit beyond what was necessary to win that just war. So that's what I do with it. It's a messy situation. They had just cause, not going to defend every choice they made in the war.
- [14:41]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, I agree with that in general. And I also think that to unwind that and to argue against just cause, you do have to go back to probably 1940, 47 or 48. Maybe you could make a case just based on 1967 boundaries. But from your knowledge and scholarship, what about that? What about a situation where the tactics in the moment are informed by something like a greater injustice in the past? So what I exactly mean is that under just war doctrine, how much do they take into effect into account the truth value, credibility of the underlying claims of those executing the tactics?
- [15:33]
Paul D. Miller
Two wrongs don't make a right. If I understand your question. You know, you're, you're getting at history and the history of the Israel Palestine dispute and who's got the better side of that historical argument. We can have that debate if you want to go into the history. Fine. I'll just observe that no matter what the historical arguments are, there are still some rules when you're fighting a war. You don't use war as an excuse to murder civilians, to murder women and children, and you're supposed to use war to fight for a more just and more peaceful outcome in the aftermath. That's true no matter what's true of history. Does that make sense? Does that Answer your question.
- [16:15]
Mike Pesca
In a way, what I'm thinking of is that there are some causes where terrorism or tactics that violate international war were used, but they were used on behalf of causes that not just I think are right, but the world has come to say are right. I'm thinking about terrorism and the Iraq. I don't necessarily agree that the. Certainly Hamas's cause is right or all of the claims of Palestinian resistance are right. But my question is, knowing what you know about international law and just cause doctrine, how much does the rightness of the claims really matter or does it stop at once? You use the tactics, you're in the wrong, full stop.
- [16:58]
Paul D. Miller
If there's a non state group that's got just cause for a rebellion or a movement for liberation or something, okay, then that's the American colonists against the British in 1776. You still have to fight with justice. You still have to exercise discrimination and proportionality. Just because we're in the right doesn't mean we get to go out and, you know, murder British civilians on purpose. And the problem with Hamas, they are the greatest enemy of the Palestinian people because they've made it very hard to support the legitimate claims of the Palestinian people without feeling complicit in terrorism. Hamas as a group denies Israel's right to exist and they practice terrorism. They kill civilians on purpose. And that's just wrong, no matter what the cause is that they fight for. I think Palestine should have a state. I think the UN said that in 1947 they partitioned the area and they said there's going to be a sovereign, independent Israel. Sovereign, independent Palestine. And Israel reaffirmed that with the oslo Accords in 1995. So I think everybody understands there ought to be a Palestinian state, you know, now or soon or wherever. That doesn't mean Palestinians get to practice terrorism to get there full stop.
- [18:16]
Mike Pesca
Right. The Palestinians don't. So this is what I think is so complex. If we're saying, did Hamas violate war crimes? Yes, of course they did. If we're saying, did Hamas engage in acts of genocide? Even the World Court has said that this is plausible. Hamas is, doesn't get any benefit of. Not just the doubt, just if you apply rigor and logic to what they've done, you have to, you have to account for them as the worst of the worst, engaging in actions that are totally unjustifiable.
- [18:50]
Paul D. Miller
Yeah.
- [18:50]
Mike Pesca
Then you have the Israeli counter reaction. And so what Israel has done in return, I think can't be explained or justified based on the fact that their enemy was so Very, very much in the wrong. And so you have this situation where the general cause of Palestinian liberation, even though maybe to some people it's regrettable that it found expression in what Hamas did. Those are the facts. So even if Hamas is a bad guy, that doesn't make Israel a good guy. Or even if Israel is a good guy acting against a bad guy, that doesn't make the things that Israel has done not just fine, but even acceptable. Or maybe, you know, this side of a war crime or worse. You know, most people besides us will say they've committed genocide. Doesn't matter what Hamas did, even if Hamas has committed genocide, you do have to grapple with that.
- [19:51]
Paul D. Miller
Do you like science fiction?
- [19:53]
Mike Pesca
Yes.
- [19:54]
Paul D. Miller
Dune?
- [19:55]
Mike Pesca
Sure.
- [19:56]
Paul D. Miller
Yeah. The Harkonnen are deeply evil. The Atreides, they're better, but they're not that great. And that's the point of that whole story. That was what Frank Herbert was trying to say. Like, there's no such thing as, like white hats. You know, we're all shades of gray in this life. I'm a Christian and I've got a broader, you know, horizon on this. I think there's ultimate good out there. But in this world, man, we're all shades of gray. Some shade gray. So deeply gray they really are black. You know, not going to make excuses again for the Nazis or whatever, but if you're the Atreides, be careful about how much self righteousness you cultivate by telling yourself, hey, at least I'm not the Harkonnen. You're missing the point if that's the standard you're comparing yourself to.
- [20:41]
Mike Pesca
So the standard we have to compare ourselves to is what the world puts out as international law. What the World Court defines under international law. The Atreides would be in violation of every treaty. Right?
- [20:54]
Paul D. Miller
Right. Yeah. And again, that's sort of the point of the whole novel is the so called good guys do some ghastly things in the effort to protect themselves and survive against the really, really bad guys.
- [21:04]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, yeah. And if there were other planets who were able to bring cases in the world of Dune, the Atreides would be guilty of all the crimes. Right?
- [21:13]
Paul D. Miller
And the Atreides response would be, why are you holding me up to the standard? I'm the victim here. If you're going to apply the standard, apply it to the Harkonnen, for crying out loud. Like, where's the justice against them? That's the Atreides response. That's Israel's response.
- [21:29]
Mike Pesca
Right, but this is my point, that the enemy of The Atreides is the equivalent of Hamas. And I think no one, there's a to this because they're not too even in America demonstrate in favor of what Hamas did. Maybe as a provocation. But my point is once we accept as table stakes what Hamas did was wrong, then what I don't think it lets. I think it's hard to say that the horrors of Hamas lets Israel off the hook. Except maybe can make a military case that Hamas has forced Israel to do the things that the world sees as in violation of international law or human rights.
- [22:13]
Paul D. Miller
I don't think it lets Israel off the hook. Look, we talked about World War II just a little bit and I do think the allies had just cause. I think the allies did some terrible things. The strategic bombing campaign was pretty ghastly and I would have liked it would have enhanced the justice of the post war world if we'd actually held some of our guys accountable. If there had been some self reflection after the war. By the way like there was during Vietnam. You know, I was just talking to a student this morning about the My Lai massacre. Terrible incident. American lieutenant led his platoon to murder a couple of hundred Vietnamese civilians. But then he was put on trial and put in jail because they court martialed him and said this is wrong. I think it was. The massacre was a low point in American history and the court martial was one of the higher points that we put. We held one of our own accountable for something that he did. And when we said just because it's wartime doesn't give you an excuse to do that kind of, that kind of thing. So I'd like, you know, I think that's the responsibility of anybody in charge in wartime. Hold your people accountable.
- [23:17]
Mike Pesca
In World War II you can certainly debate the use of the atomic bomb, Nagasaki especially after one was already dropped. You could debate and talk about. There is no debate except for the fact that there was no law against it. The firebombing of Dresden, even clearing the towns in France before the D day landing. Many civilians were killed and slaughtered. And that wasn't just Americans. That was all the allied forces probably in violation of international law if it had existed then in later conflicts in Afghanistan, in Iraq, there was the Hadith a massacre and sometime and other massacres like Lieutenant Cali's perpetrated by US troops and, and there was some accountability and some not. Okay, my question or problem is that it seems to me that the reason that Israel is different is that they've done so many of the things that the United States and its allies have done in the past, but they are just this unpopular nation who has the entire world aligned against them and are strong enough to defend their position in their neighborhood, but aren't strong enough to affect world's world opinion or have a veto at the United Nations. So they might not be a good guy, but basically strength is what is determining what we think of as acceptable or in retrospect, as something that was perhaps regrettable. But we move on. And we don't even question the nature of the existence of the country.
- [24:56]
Paul D. Miller
A suggesting that the international community do something to hold Israel to account.
- [25:00]
Mike Pesca
No, no, no. What I am saying is that the analogy between what Israel has done, which is seen as a pariah state, is very close to what countries like the United States, basically all surviving countries that have engaged in mass conflict has done.
- [25:14]
Paul D. Miller
Right.
- [25:14]
Mike Pesca
The difference with Israel is that they're in a more vulnerable position in terms of criticism and just standing on the world stage.
- [25:22]
Paul D. Miller
I think I agree with that. When I said that there ought to be, in an effort to hold people accountable, I generally want that to come from within. I don't think it should be the United States or certainly not the United nations to hold Israel to account. I think it should be the Israelis. I think that, you know, they ought to. There ought to be, far be it from me, 9,000 miles away to tell them how to run their country. But wouldn't it be a credit to their country and their national honor if they then took some steps in the aftermath of this conflict magnanimously, both to make peace with the Palestinians and to seek out justice within their own ranks if necessary? I mean, I think that's the kind of thing that we'd all like to see. I'd like that to be true of my country and my leaders. I think that'd be a credit.
- [26:06]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that depends on the very legitimacy of the country not constantly being questioned. I think, for instance, the United States can do that and can hold their soldiers who commit war crimes accountable because the United States doesn't feel threatened, but Israel does.
- [26:22]
Paul D. Miller
Yeah, yeah. Well, it sounds like you want Israel to get away with it. If I want to be provocative, you know, there's a balance between pursuing justice and pursuing peace or conciliation. And there is such a thing as transitional justice, where you kind of pursue a symbolic act of justice and then you just kind of move on. A lot of after communism fell, a lot of the Eastern European states decided to do just that. They really kind of drew a line and said, look, we're not going to go investigate the past, we're not going to prosecute people. We're just going to move forward and we're going to move forward and dismantle the communist totalitarian apparatus, but we're going to move forward, not going to point fingers. And that is a legitimate way for countries to. Again, I kind of don't want to sit here at the comfort of my literal ivory tower and tell other countries how they ought to do their business. Just acknowledge that some countries choose to pursue more justice, some countries pursue more conciliation. They're both valid paths. It's a very difficult balance depending upon the war, the conflict, the thing you're emerging from. And I wouldn't want to be a decision maker in that situation. It's just, it's an impossible situation.
- [27:44]
Mike Pesca
Do you think it worked out best for the self interest of the communist bloc, former communist bloc, to do things that way?
- [27:52]
Paul D. Miller
My temperament leans more towards justice. I want to see the bad guys get their comeuppance. And so I, you know, if I'm involved in a situation like this, I'd like to see a bit more reparation, maybe is the right word. After the American Civil War, there was a blanket amnesty. And the only thing is that the confederates were not allowed to hold public office afterwards. And I wonder if that was rushing into reconciliation a bit too fast. Didn't we then, for the next century, kind of miss the point. So maybe there's room for pushing a bit harder into the post war justice rather than rushing to conciliation. I'm really just, honestly, I'm thinking out.
- [28:38]
Mike Pesca
Loud here because these things I wanted to do here. Yeah, yeah. And we'll be back in a minute with more of Paul D. Miller.
- [28:53]
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- [29:56]
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- [30:26]
Mike Pesca
Paul D. Miller, professor of Georgetown, author of White Hats and Black Hats in the Middle east, is back with us. And I want to know, follow me here. Do you think there might be some downside to the world community asking let us take Rwandans or requiring Rwandans reconcile between themselves and their victims and their victimization from the tutus by the Houthis and the victimization of the tutus at the hand of the Houthis in this regard? Because you could probably, if you're the world community or the United nations or the World Court, you could probably force that process to happen. You could compel Rwanda to do that. You might be able to compel a country like Serbia to do that. You haven't, but you might be able to think you can and to try you can. And then all the upstanding countries in good stead with the United nations then feels that what their job is to compel countries who they decide to have done wrong to engage in these processes. But the next country down the line, as you go up the line of the more powerful who have transgressed, you'll get less compliance on the score. So I don't know, if you think of the next country as Russia, you might think of the next country as Israel. But you will never be able to force a reconciliation there. And then the question is, maybe you're worse off having thought that you could do so in the first place.
- [31:52]
Paul D. Miller
Yeah. So Rwanda, if I'm not mistaken, there was a variety of justice mechanisms. There were some international, there was also some local sort of community courts, so to speak. And the two operated in very different levels. The one was by international standards processes that we would be familiar with, and the other one was more like a community meeting where they would confess sins and then receive a kind of a symbolic washing, something like that, and then they'd move forward. And that's about it. I said that my inclination is toward justice, but my inclination is also towards localism. And if that's a solution the Rwandans felt comfortable with, in order to just keep on living and moving forward as a country, maybe we should keep our hands out of it, because you can't put half a country in jail. You just can't. You can't, like, function as a society with half your country in jail. And when there's such a heinous act like the Rwanda genocide, and they have a local solution to try to create some kind of conciliation and move forward, maybe that's good enough. You know, something very similar with the denazification after World War II. There was the Nuremberg trials. There were trials. They put in. They put a few thousand people in jail. They hung a few from the gallows. That was it. There was 8 million members of the Nazi party. 8 million. And only a couple hundred were executed. Only a few thousand were ever put in jail for any length of time. And so it's an impossible dilemma. And if the locals have a way forward that they are comfortable with, I think maybe we defer to that.
- [33:36]
Mike Pesca
But do you think international law works well when it comes to Israel?
- [33:43]
Paul D. Miller
I feel like that's your real question, isn't it?
- [33:45]
Mike Pesca
I got a lot of questions, yeah.
- [33:48]
Paul D. Miller
So I don't think the international. I don't think law is the same thing as justice. And I think that international law in particular, I think that we have fallen into a pretty bad habit of treating international law as if it's almost the same thing as domestic law, and it's really not. It's a real thing. We should use it. I think most of the time we should abide by it. But it's more like a. It's more like a. Okay. Pirates of the Caribbean, where Barbarossa says the pirate code. It's more suggestions. Right. That's international law. It's a body of norms that is a good idea to follow most of the time, but it is not the same thing as justice. And there are times when it's important to do the thing that is just rather than the thing that is lawful. I think the intervention in Kosovo was pretty plainly illegal under international law. Kind of glad we did it.
- [34:33]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. We may have saved 400,000 lives. So does international law specifically work poorly in a place like Israel, where there really is, among many of the countries of the law of the world, a belief that it is an illegitimate country? Maybe they say differently. Certainly in all their treaties, they say they have the Right to exist. But I don't know, especially now in 2025, how much they believe that.
- [34:58]
Paul D. Miller
Yeah, that might be getting. Yeah, I might become close to agreeing with that. Just want to be clear. I do think that Israel, like every state, should abide by norms of conduct and doesn't have an excuse to commit war crimes or whatever. But what you're saying is, you know, international law presumes a degree of comity and fraternity among nations. It assumes a certain basic level of mutual reciprocity and recognition, like, hey, we're all going to play by the same rules and live by the same rules of the road. And if Israel lives in a neighborhood where essentially nobody agrees to that, then what can you really expect of Israel? And Israel does indeed. What did I just say to a student this morning? That it's got sharper elbows than the rest of the democratic world. And you understand why? You understand why?
- [35:54]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, I think it's a situation where all the countries of the world, they decide on this thing called international law, or most of them do, and then they have to decide what are the table stakes. Well, you get to defend your country. And everyone looks around and says, yeah, that's true. I want to defend my country from attack. And then they'll extend that to even Kim Jong Un or whatever current pariah state there is. But then when it comes to Israel, maybe not alone among Israel, but they generally would like it for that not to be the case, or it's useful to many countries of the world, given the politics of either their genuine beliefs or what their population think, to somewhat wish Israel out of existence. And maybe they'd wish the United States out of existence, but you can't do anything with that because the United States is way too strong. But when it comes to Israel, what you could do is not really give them the proper protections of international law, because you really don't believe that they are a nation, a legitimate nation that deserves to exist. I think that dynamic is going on. What do you do about that?
- [37:01]
Paul D. Miller
Yeah, no, I think you're right. It is absolutely going on. It's. There's a. There's a double standard that Europe in particular, that they. They hold Israel up to a standard that they don't bother holding others up to, and they go out of their way to hold Israel under very tight scrutiny, and they kind of gloss over or don't mention the stuff that Hamas or the others in the neighborhood are doing. Just want to be clear, the answer isn't turnabout is fair play. The answer isn't apply the double standard in reverse. Like, I don't think that's the answer. That's not going to help anything. And it's going to make Israel into the monster people think it is. And that's not the right answer. So I would want Israel to live up to the best vision of itself, to be above reproach, number one, and number two, make sure that Israel has some friends who can not excuse any, any abuses, but at least be in its corner diplomatically when others are coming after it with a double standard. There ought to be some people who speak up and say, well, look, well, hold on, let's get the whole picture here.
- [38:04]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, so not becoming the monster that they're been accused of. That means don't just wantonly commit war crimes, don't just wantonly bomb civilian populations have rules of engagement and rules of war, which they're very proud of, or at least they very much say we're the most moral army in the know how much they're saying that now, but this was something that they definitely believed. But what about just the idea of. Do you think it's becoming the monster they're accused of? If they generally eschew international law because the dynamics we both agree with, it doesn't really de facto apply to them in the minds of many of the hundred countries of the world. And you could say, well, who cares what Benin or South Africa says about Israel? Well, they could bring cases and vote of them, accuse them and convict them of genocide in different international bodies. So, yeah, that's my specific question, is becoming the monster that they're accused of eschewing international law, being more than skeptical, kind of divorcing themselves from the norms and the actual rules of international law?
- [39:06]
Paul D. Miller
I don't think so, because again, I would say what is just and what is lawful are different things. Domestically, I'm very, very much about the rule of law. I think domestically the rule of law is vital, but international law is just not the same kind of thing. It's not really intended to be the same kind of thing. And if Israel kind of detaches itself from those rules of the road. Look, I think America's doing the same thing these days. Like we're, we're driving our own way.
- [39:35]
Mike Pesca
What's the difference, though?
- [39:37]
Paul D. Miller
It's definitely a difference.
- [39:38]
Mike Pesca
Yeah.
- [39:41]
Paul D. Miller
It's not like, you know, Russia and China don't abide by those rules of the road either. The international law is really real in Europe. And that's about it. That's about it. And I want to live in a world that is more law oriented. I do. But I have to live in the real world where in huge swaths of the world, it's not. And it would be foolish of me to act as if it already were a world governed by law when it's not. And so I don't begrudge it when Israel has to have the sharp elbows. As long as it's not, as you say, becoming the monster or massacring people going its own way with sharp elbows is maybe necessary for it.
- [40:21]
Mike Pesca
So I know you are an expert in military ethics and a chair of the Hugh Shelton Chair in Ethics at the US Army Command. Knowing what you know about how Israel goes about its business and how the United States States does. I've heard different things about civilian ratios and rules of engagement, allowable deaths of civilians. Do you think the that most of what? Well, let's ask the question this way. Would the United States have engaged to the extent with the rules of engagement that Israel did if they were in the same situation?
- [40:54]
Paul D. Miller
I don't know. I've heard some conflicting reports about what Israel did and didn't do in this recent war. One report suggested that early on the Israelis, the Israeli military made a conscious decision to allow, I think it was 30 civilian deaths in exchange for one single militant death. Low level militant, not a leader, but any militant. If that's true, and I think the Israeli military has denied it, if that's true, that would suggest to me that they sort of gave up trying. Like if you're going to swap a 30 for 1 ratio, allow yourself to kill 30 civilians just to get one guy with one rifle, you're not really trying anymore to minimize civilian casualties. All you're doing is applying a math formula to make it look like you're making an effort when you're not. And that really would be becoming the monster people say you are. I can't verify the fact, the truth or falsity of those reports, if they were true. Deeply troubling. I think those are precisely the kinds of decisions that I said at the outset. I'm not going to excuse everything Israel did during this war because I think it's very plausible for me to believe that in the aftermath of October 7th there was an overreaction. It's very plausible for me to believe that.
- [42:11]
Mike Pesca
What's the Highest ratio the US military has ever used?
- [42:15]
Paul D. Miller
Let's leave aside World War II. I don't know, actually. I don't know what the numbers are, what the Air Force targeters use But I think it's much smaller than that. Yeah, I don't know. That's a great question.
- [42:27]
Mike Pesca
What do you think Israel does now? Advise, advise Israel and keep into account what the internal dynamics there are. What might be the tough thing for them to do to reestablish justice as they define it, as you define it within their nation? And you could take into account, I think it's important for them to get back in the graces of the international community or I think it's important for them to realize that they're still under attack. However you want to take it. What do you think the best thing Israel should do now is.
- [43:02]
Paul D. Miller
Well, thinking again about just war, the just, just war traditions. I think the obligation of any state after war is to seek order, justice and conciliation and order. Hey, look, we're kind of there in the sense that there's a ceasefire and there's not widespread political violence right now. So we're doing better than we were doing six months or a year ago. Justice. Well, Israel did recover the hostages. That was a just act. Now the deeper question is, are there other acts of justice to pursue both within Israel and between Israel and the Palestinians for a longer term just and lasting peace in the region? And I'll go back to what I said earlier. I think there absolutely needs to be a Palestinian state. That's what the UN said in 47. That's what Israel itself said in 1995. I don't think anybody, really serious observers don't think there's a different solution out there. There's just not. I understand that it's politically unrealistic to think about a Palestinian state right now. And that's exactly why I think it's important to talk about it. Because if you want to be serious about a long term solution in the Middle east, that is. That's part of the answer. That is absolutely part of the answer. This has to be a sovereign, independent, secure and stable, hopefully democratic Palestine for the aspirations of its people. That has to be part of the answer. And Israel under Netanyahu has stepped away from that. Previous Israeli governments accepted the idea of it and even took steps towards it from Oslo forward. And then Netanyahu stepped back from that. I think that's a mistake. I think Israel should take steps. Should they? Look, I'm putting the onus on Israel. Palestinians have a burden here to find credible leadership, to be interlocutors in this effort. And so far that's not happened. Hamas is not a credible interlocutor. They are yeah, they're not Palestinian Authority, too incompetent, too corrupt. So there does need to be a Palestinian partner who can work with Israel towards this end. But I think that's Israel's obligation is to be open to this possibility and not shut it down prematurely.
- [45:08]
Mike Pesca
You've been teaching at Georgetown since the start of this specific conflict in Gaza.
- [45:13]
Paul D. Miller
Yeah. Long before 2018.
- [45:16]
Mike Pesca
Right. Have you changed the minds of many students on this issue?
- [45:22]
Paul D. Miller
I think I've shocked some of my students when I say openly I'm a Zionist, and I hope you are too. And many students in this generation have been trained to believe that Zionism is just another name for racism or bigotry. And I think that's not true. I think that at a minimal level it simply means a belief in the right of Jewish self determination. That's what I meant in the 19th century. That's what I meant all the way up until 1947. And I think that's true. I think that I agree with the UN and the world community when they said 1947 there ought to be an Israeli state. They have a right to exist that is kind of lowest common denominator Zionism. And a lot of my, I think a lot of students don't understand that that's what the word meant. Right. Because they've been given a different definition. There are more maximalist or expansionist versions of Zionism that I don't hold with. Now you asked have I changed any minds? I have no idea. I'm working on getting them to write good memos. That's my effort right now.
- [46:25]
Mike Pesca
Well, you've shocked them, but has anyone said to you, oh, I'm no longer calling myself an anti Zionist or I am calling myself a Zionist?
- [46:34]
Paul D. Miller
Those kinds of changed minds, usually it happens over a longer time frame. Usually. Maybe I'm just planting a seed that will come to fruition much, much later. So no, I don't think I've had a student come up and say something quite like that. One can hope.
- [46:49]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. Paul D. Miller is a scholar, public servant devoted to ordered liberty at home and abroad. I'm reading from his Georgetown bio and I can also say that in addition to teaching at Georgetown and having a background in the CIA and in the executive branch, two of his most recent books are Choosing Defeat the 20 Year Saga of How America Lost to Afghanistan and Just War and Ordered Liberty, which we have been talking about. Thank you so much, Professor Miller.
- [47:16]
Paul D. Miller
Thank you.
- [47:22]
Mike Pesca
And that's it for today's show. Cory Wara produces the gist. Leah Yanni is our production coordinator, Jeff Craig is in charge of the magic of the Moving Image, Kathleen Sykes is in charge of the mysticism of the Gist list, and Michelle Pesca is in charge of the aura of all that is the Gist and Peach Fish Productions. And when I say it like that, her pay gets bumped up by 70%. Improve. And thanks for listening.
- [47:59]
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