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- [00:01]
Ben Wittes
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- [00:32]
Cody Poplin
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- [01:31]
Mary Ford
I'm Mary Ford, intern at Lawfare, with an episode for the Lawfare archive for June 28, 2025, almost two years into the Israel Hamas war, the needle seems to have moved very little in the direction of a sustained peace peace with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appearing to favor conflict management over resolution. This week, though, senior Hamas and Israeli officials have both indicated that they are intensifying efforts to broker a new ceasefire and hostage deal. US Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, appears to be hopeful, saying that an agreement between the two parties is, quote, very close. These renewed efforts come after a ceasefire in the 12 day Israel Iran war. For today's archive episode, I selected an episode from December 5, 2015 in which Lawfare Editor in Chief Ben Wittes spoke with Natam Sachs, a Fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, about anti solutionism as a strategy in the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Widdis and Sachs talk about this strategy at length, as well as the need for American policymakers to understand this philosophy better.
- [02:53]
Natan Sachs
I'm Cody Poplin and this is the Lawfare Podcast December 5, 2015. That was the voice of Natan Sachs describing anti solutionism as strategy in the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Sachs, a Fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, recently published an article in Foreign affairs on the topic. During his conversation with Lawfare Editor in Chief Ben Wittes, Sachs argues that what resembles the absence of A constructive national security agenda is actually better described as a belief on the part of the Israeli right that there are currently no solutions to the challenges Israel faces. Sachs calls this policy strategic conservatism and explains that it is a philosophy U.S. policymakers need to better understand in order to make smart decisions about the problems in the Middle East. It's the Lawfare podcast, episode 149 Natan Sachs on Israel's anti solutionism as a.
- [03:51]
Ben Wittes
Strategy so let's start with the question that drove this paper and the project that it's a part of. Why are you interested in sort of getting inside the strategic mind of the Israeli right?
- [04:09]
Unnamed Expert
That's a good question. I think it comes from a few different things. One, superficially I just get asked all the time what the polite version is, what on earth are they thinking? And in other words, in the long term, what's the strategic vision of the Israeli right? Because it seems to baffle a lot of people. They look at Israel and they see especially the trilemma or the demographic question, which is if Israel wants to hold on to the whole land, it can then choose between being a democracy or being Jewish majority, but it can't have both. In other words, of the three objectives, it wants the whole land. Democracy, Jewish majority, you can have two, but you can't have three. So which is it? And the Israeli right doesn't seem to have an answer to it. In theory, the far right wants the land, clearly, but it doesn't quite articulate which is it, giving up, the Jewish majority or democracy? And the center right, especially Netanyahu, who's so important because he's now a four time elected prime minister, doesn't seem to articulate exactly where they are either. He says he's for a two state solution, but a lot of people abroad don't believe him. So I get asked all the time, so what do they actually want? And in part it's for myself as well. I'm going to shock you and say that I don't come from the Israeli right. And so for me it's a bit of an anthropological and even a personal kind of experience to try and speak, interview a lot of right wingers, a lot of right wing politicians and others, not just the right wing left as well. But more interesting for me is to try and give them benefit of the doubt for a moment, try and hear them out sort of dispassionately and see what they are thinking. So the premise of the book I'm working on and the premise of this piece in Foreign affairs is they're not evil, they're not crazy, literally crazy. So what are they thinking? Without saying that I agree with them, which I don't.
- [06:05]
Ben Wittes
And so what in a nutshell, I mean, the answer to that question is they're not all thinking the same thing, right?
- [06:13]
Unnamed Expert
Not at all.
- [06:14]
Ben Wittes
And how would you describe the range of views, what they have in common and what they don't have in common?
- [06:24]
Unnamed Expert
I think the range is extremely wide. And part of the reason that you see them avoiding strategic questions, avoiding answering what is my long term vision often is precisely that they don't agree and they radically don't agree. So it runs the gamut from people who I think genuinely are a version of two staters. People around Netanyahu, and especially a bit to the left of Netanyahu, think of themselves at least as people who support partition, who support some kind of version of a two state solution. Even if the Palestinian state they have in mind is less than the Palestinians would want in terms of territory and in terms of sovereignty, elements of sovereignty. But in truth, it might not be that far from what the conversations are, the negotiations are anyway. And so it's some kind of version of that. They hedge it very heavily. And so it's not likely to happen under their conditions. In particular, now Netanyahu's demand that they recognize Israel as a Jewish state or its right to exist as a Jewish state, excuse me. But then it runs the gamut through people who reject completely, many on the right who reject completely the idea of a Palestinian state, some who talk about basically permanent autonomy, which is another way of saying permanent disenfranchisement of Palestinians, some kind of very limited self governance within the Palestinian territories or within small parts of it, but without citizenship, through people who speak of a one state, some people call it a one state solution, I don't. But a one state, some of them in a non democratic version, some of them will be honest and say, yes, we have to choose between democracy and Judaism, and we choose Judaism, some of them choosing democracy. President Ruby Rivlin of Israel, for example, is a true liberal democrat, very right wing on the territories, but a true liberal democrat.
- [08:17]
Ben Wittes
But is he right wing on the territories? I mean, so if somebody says we should incorporate the territories and give everybody the vote within them, how is he different really from the hardest core of the Israeli left which says, you know, the two state solution is inherently unfair and unjust, it should be one state for all its citizens. Isn't that really where the Israeli right and the left finally come Together?
- [08:49]
Unnamed Expert
Yeah, to a certain degree, yes. As is often the case, the far right and the far left sometimes meet, you know. And it's true, I think in many, sort of, on many ideological spectrums you sometimes find the extremes meeting in odd ways. There are differences and they would say there are Ovi Rivlin and even Tzipi Kotoveli, who's now the deputy foreign minister. She's less prominent than Rivlin, but she too speaks of one state. They emphasize very strongly it is a Jewish state in some regards. So constitutionally they want to somehow keep Zionist and Jewish elements within the definition of the state and incorporate citizens perhaps gradually, perhaps with some kind of. They would have to accept the character of the state to a certain degree. And some of them, many of them now would say this would not include the Gaza Strip, so there would still be a clear Jewish majority, although much less of a Jewish majority than there is now. Much less, because the west bank is a lot of people. But without the Gaza Strip there would not be parity. While on the far left, people who have now moved towards a one state idea or various one state ideas, some of them as confederacy, some of them as condominium of various sorts. So some of them on the far left are now thinking of something that gives up on elements of the nation state. It tries to envision a democratic, secular, Western, basically citizenship based state which is much more palatable to many honest on the left and would take away the element of nationalism. It has some appealing things, I think, to liberals. It of course disregards the fact that the vast majority of Israelis see themselves as Zionists and believe in a nation state as most people in Europe do, for example, and the fact that Palestinians, most of them still want also national self identification. And I think it ignores many other issues we can get into later. But it is a bit distinct from the way Ribrin thinks of it. It President Leibnin is very much a Zionist and very much believes in a nation state. He just thinks that the nation state can incorporate a very large minority and takes it for granted that anyone in the nation state must have equal rights under this umbrella. There's one final variant of sort of long term solutions that I think is worth mentioning. It's sometimes whispered because it's very delicate politically and regionally. And that is the old idea of Jordan as Palestine. Originally Jordan, the Kingdom of Jordan was part of the British Mandate of Palestine and very early on was separated into Transjordan as an emirate under British auspices and then later became an independent state. But of Course, most of the citizens of Jordan are themselves of Palestinian descent. So people on the far right, and Ariel Sharon, the former prime minister, before he was prime minister, was a champion of this idea, which is that Jordan is inherently a Palestinian state. Perhaps its governance is now a kingdom with a Hashemite kingdom, but it is a Palestinian state in the sense that most of the people are Palestinian. And he in fact, and others have said it's a shame that the Hashemite kingdom survived in 1970 and that the PLO should have taken over, which is a bit ironic, right? The first far right in Israel, some of them saying the PLO should have won in 1970 and then Jordan would have been Palestine. Of course, that doesn't solve actually the question of the west bank or the Gaza Strip, whether or not there isn't a Palestinian state somewhere. But some of them would say then the Palestinians, if they want citizenship, should go to that new Palestine. And they kind of miss the point of people being able to vote where they live for their own government. And some of them would say, well, then we can have a compromise, but we'd have a compromise with a viable large state that would include Jordan instead of this rump Palestinian state that is not viable and is dangerous because it's volatile. And instead with Jordan, perhaps we could have more meaningful compromise. I should just add this is rather a rare opinion in Israel in particular because Israelis are very appreciative of the Hashemite kingdom with which Israel has peace and also very close relations. And so most people certainly around Netanyahu and others in the center and people in power are very, very far from this position.
- [12:59]
Ben Wittes
So you describe Netanyahu's view as essentially anti solutionist, not merely not choosing to focus on long term strategic vision, but kind of allergic to it. Explain that. Why would somebody be opposed to thinking about the long term strategy and solutions?
- [13:32]
Unnamed Expert
So anti solutionist is not necessarily allergic to long term solutions, although I think Netanyahu is to a certain degree at least. Let me first start with what solutionism is in their mind. So in their mind they view, and this is my view of their mind, they look, for example at the United States, but especially at the left wing in Israel, and think that the left wing and the Americans have a naive approach to problems in the world. And that naive approach, a solutionist approach, believes that every problem has a solution. If you just try hard enough, if you have enough will and enterprise and ingenuity, then you can find a solution to anything. And in a sense it's an extreme PRAGMATIC can do approach, which is great in the United States and built this country and did a lot of other great things. But they would say, and I think there's some value in this point of view is not true. Fundamentally, when you look at the world, there are many things that don't have a neat solution, at least not in the foreseeable future. And in a sense, Naftali Bennett, I quote him in the article, likened it to a chronic medical condition that a friend of his had. You need to leave sometimes need to learn to live with chronic conditions, and if you force the issue and try to solve them, you're in fact risking catastrophe. And so by analogy, they believe there is no solution in the foreseeable future to the Israeli Palestinian problem, and by trying to force it you are creating the havoc of the last 20 years. They ignore the fact that there was havoc beforehand too. But there is value in the view that sometimes when you try and fail to solve something that isn't solvable, you may be stirring up things that you wouldn't otherwise. To a certain degree this is a conservative small C conservative point of view. And I mean that giving it credit. It's a legitimate point of view that makes sense in many conditions. Conservatives. For example with the French Revolution, they were dramatically opposed to the French Revolution, not because they necessarily didn't believe in liberty and egalitarianism and other things. Perhaps they didn't believe in egalitarianism, but they thought that revolutionizing things will necessarily cause unintended consequences and risks upheaval to long established organic things, traditions, forms of government that have their own logic that are bigger than human design.
- [16:07]
Frances
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- [17:15]
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- [17:58]
Unnamed Expert
So.
- [17:59]
Ben Wittes
When you look at these strains, the sort of rump Palestinian state strain, the incorporate the land but you know, pretend the people are Jordanian strain, incorporate the land, incorporate the people and don't bother me with solutions. You're dreaming. Which seems to you like it is a sort of fantastical magical thinking kind of vision and which seems to you like a plausible rational vision of the sort that you might disagree with.
- [18:46]
Unnamed Expert
This is another reason that I focus so much on how Netanyahu is thinking and sort of this anti solution point of view which another way of thinking about it is a conflict management point of view, which is to say we can't solve the we can't resolve this conflict, we need to manage it and we need to sustain in their mind the status quo. To my mind it's the most likely outcome in the foreseeable future and most certainly the most likely alternative to a two state solution. And that's why it's the most important. So I described earlier the spectrum of ideas and there's some more, but the spectrum of ideas on on the Israeli right and left. But all this to my mind is mostly academic at this point. Besides the two state solution, what Israelis and others are really looking at is some form of continuation of the status quo, perhaps a modification, perhaps some of them would be significant modifications and I think there should be. But that's the real alternative. It's not when people say to Israelis don't you understand that a one state solution is terrible? Therefore go for two state. Israelis roll their eyes because it doesn't seem like a dichotomous choice. Both seem like terrible options to people on the right and really what they're talking about is this status quo. So by far that is the one that is most likely it to my mind is Mistaken for several very important reasons, but it is not as fanciful as the others.
- [20:08]
Ben Wittes
Okay, so let's talk about. I mean, I can think of one big reason why the status quo is the idea that it can be preserved indefinitely is mistaken, which is that it implies that you can freeze in place things that are in fact very difficult to freeze in place when settlements are growing. But why do you think that it's a mistaken vision?
- [20:42]
Unnamed Expert
For at least three important reasons. The first you touched upon, which is it is not truly a status quo approach. And that masks the fact that for some of them, they're not really looking at simply a status quo that would preserve long term options. Rather, they're trying to preclude some of the options, namely a two state solution. So let me back up on that. If you had a truly conservative approach, what you would want to do is to minimize risks and keep for yourself as many strategic options open as possible. You'd want to not prejudice the future and allow yourself policy leeway. The first thing you would do is not create facts on the ground, such as settlements, that would limit your own possibilities in the future. Whatever you think of settlements morally, it obviously limits Israel's options in the future. So if you were taking a conservative approach, this would be it. And that reflects the fact that for some on the Israeli right, this is not really just a status quo option. It's one that needs to preclude a two state solution.
- [21:46]
Ben Wittes
And are its advocates, in your interactions with them candid about that or are they kidding themselves that this is a status quo option?
- [21:56]
Unnamed Expert
Both. It depends who it is. There are those in the book I'll be citing, very explicit and I find candid. Smart answer by someone named Ze' Ev Elkin, who was then Chair of the Foreign and Defense Committee of the Knesset, a very important post. And now as a minister who answered this question exactly about keeping strategic options open, with saying to me very simply, not, no, I want to preclude that option, the idea of a two state solution. That is why we need to do this. Others around Netanyahu don't think so. They would argue that most of the construction is within the settlement blocks and therefore doesn't preclude separation. Perhaps it precludes what the Palestinians think of as a two state solution, but it doesn't preclude what they think of as a meaningful separation, perhaps a two state solution of some form. And so they have that view, perhaps somewhat delusional, about where the settlements are at, what is actually happening, but not completely divorced from reality. And so both exist. There are other reasons, though, that I think the status quo is unsustainable, as people have been saying for decades now, and yet it seems to continue. And that has to do with time working against you, A conservative point of view is good not only if you keep your options open, but also because if time is not working very, very much against you, and I would argue that time is working very much against the Israelis and the Palestinians. The leadership on the Palestinian side is in disarray. We have the west bank and the Gaza Strip separated into two mini states. We have Abbas, who's very old and won't be around forever. And we're eventually going to have some kind of transition of power which might be very messy, but we also have a growing and very deep cynicism and skepticism about the possibility of reconciliation with the Israelis. And that's quite important. And on the Israeli side, we have growing international isolation and a very deep disgust with Israel as the conflict continues. And I think that's very dramatic against Israel and argues very strongly against the idea of maintaining the status quo simply indefinitely.
- [24:05]
Ben Wittes
So when you. Has this problem project made you more respectful, sympathetic of the strategic vision of the right or less.
- [24:19]
Unnamed Expert
That's an excellent question. I don't think I have a clear answer to it. It has made me. It has made me more respectful in some respects in that I think people on the right think more strategically than people think. In other words, when I started asking people, Israelis, any kind of Israelis really, does Israel have a plan? That's the title I'm working with for the book. The answer I get half the time, and I'm not even exaggerating, is no, of course not. What, are you kidding? That's a short book. One word no, or you get an answer that goes. Goes along Kissinger's lines. Kissinger purportedly in 75, said about actually the Rabin government, then Israel has no foreign policy, only domestic politics. And you hear that a lot in the United States, people complaining about the Israeli political system. We discussed it on previous podcasts and it's just a crazy system that precludes long term planning. And there's something to that. But at the end of the day, to my mind that the fact that people think short term is in fact quite true of many political systems. It's worse than the Israeli system for a few reasons. But Israelis still do think long term. And in that regard I have slightly more respect than I had maybe starting out. But at the end of the day, the answers that I get, including the anti solutionist argument are so glaringly wanting in dealing with what is a crucial fundamental question for Israel in the long term that my opinion has not gotten any better. This point of view, which starts from a valid position, which is not everything, has a solution that is valid. And applying it to a case where it is inappropriate and where Israeli policy does not reflect that properly to my mind is strategic blindness. And if there's one thing that I find most egregious about the Israeli leadership with regard to its own country, it's a lack of an answer in the long term. Where does Israel want to be when it turns 100 in 2048?
- [26:27]
Ben Wittes
So Netanyahu reflects this anti solutionism tinged with perhaps a kind of belief that under ideal circumstances you could do something that somebody could call a Palestinian state. So he has this quality of two state non solutionism. Is your sense of it that that is a, that that is sincere in any sense or you know, is the state, is the solution that he doesn't want to see a two state solution or is he just mouthing what he knows the international community wants to hear from an Israeli leader for it to be viable?
- [27:20]
Unnamed Expert
This has been the million dollar question about Bibi from when he ran before the elections of 1996, which is might he be a Nixon going to China? Maybe this guy sounds so tough and campaigned against the also process as leader of the opposition against Yitzhak Rabin, with vociferous campaigning against Rabin, maybe he'll surprise you all and from a tough position he'll actually make peace. The short answer is I don't know. I don't know what goes inside his mind. I am very skeptical, as everyone else really is. It's been 20 years now since the Rabin assassination this week and we haven't seen Bibi make any dramatic moves. That said, people have worked with him on these issues in particular do say that there sometimes is pragmatism. Sometimes you do see the possibility of far reaching moves. There have been a lot of reports of very serious conversations with Syria, for example, before the upheaval in 2011 of far reaching possibilities and perhaps even with the Palestinians. The American negotiating team came to a point where they thought there was a striking zone, as they've said publicly. And so it's an open question. To my mind it probably is a bit of both. I imagine that like most people, Netanyahu can contain more than one idea in his mind. And under ideal conditions and with the right pressures, perhaps he would think of something that in his mind would suffice as a two state solution, even though maybe others would not think so. But I think on most days he's cautious. On most days he's more of an anti solutionist. On most days he sees the dangers of grand policy designs and wants to avoid them more than anything else. And as evidence, he's been prime minister for a long time and what we've seen mostly is extreme caution, extreme pessimism, extreme kind of anti solutionism. And so at the end of the day, actions speak louder than words. This is what he's been pursuing. I don't know that under the right conditions, something else might, might not have been possible. But we're certainly very far from the right conditions in the Middle East.
- [29:26]
Ben Wittes
Thank you very much for joining us.
- [29:28]
Unnamed Expert
Thank you. My pleasure.
- [29:29]
Natan Sachs
The Lawfare Podcast is produced in cooperation with the Brookings Institution. Our music is performed by Sophia Yan. And as always, please spread the word and promote the Lawfare Podcast via your social networks, Twitter, Facebook, email and in any other way you can. Thanks for listening.
- [29:47]
Unnamed Expert
SA.
- [30:23]
Heather
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- [30:26]
Mary Ford
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- [30:28]
Heather
During a house call, she found Jack had an issue.
- [30:31]
Mary Ford
Jack's blood pressure was dangerously high.
- [30:33]
Ben Wittes
It was 217 over 110.
- [30:36]
Heather
So they got Jack to the hospital and got him the help he needed.
- [30:40]
Mary Ford
He had had a stent placed in his heart, preventing a massive heart attack.
- [30:44]
Unnamed Expert
If it wasn't for my guardian angel.
- [30:46]
Ben Wittes
I wouldn't be here.
- [30:47]
Heather
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