0:06

Welcome to the Making Sense podcast. This

0:09

is Sam

0:09

Harris. Just a

0:11

note to say that if you're hearing this, you are not currently

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on our subscriber feed and will only be

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0:46

Okay, well my last podcast

0:49

seems to have made the rounds. This

0:52

was one of those audio essays,

0:55

essentially, where I took the time to

0:57

figure out exactly what I wanted to say. I

1:01

tend to do a few of those a year,

1:03

I think. Most of them tend

1:05

to be PSAs, as that one was. Invariably

1:09

my wife, Annika, comes off the bench

1:11

for these, because she

1:13

is the best editor I know, and

1:16

this time was no exception. The

1:18

episode titled, The Bright Line Between

1:20

Good and Evil, was considerably

1:23

improved for her input, and

1:26

I'm glad so many of you found it useful.

1:29

I got an overwhelmingly positive response,

1:31

I must say. I heard from lots

1:34

of interesting people, CEOs

1:36

and writers and scientists,

1:39

and just a great response. And

1:42

today's conversation is on

1:44

the same topic, but here

1:46

I'm bringing in you all know Harari. I'm

1:49

sure all of you know. He's been on the podcast,

1:52

I think, four times before. And

1:55

as a joke at the end, we can never get to our

1:58

topic of common interest. meditation

2:00

and the nature of mind because there are always

2:03

so many pressing things in the world to talk

2:05

about. Yvon is a historian

2:08

and a world-famous public intellectual. He

2:11

wrote Sapiens and Homo

2:13

Deus as well as other books.

2:16

His books are in print in I

2:18

think 65 languages, which

2:21

is astounding. And he also happens

2:23

to be an Israeli citizen, so I

2:25

wanted to get his perspective on recent events.

2:28

We talk about what it's like in Israel now, how

2:31

people are making sense of the failure of the IDF on

2:34

October 7th, Netanyahu's

2:37

contributions to the current crisis,

2:40

along with those of the settlers in the West Bank.

2:43

We talk about the ethics and geopolitical

2:45

implications of the ground war in Gaza, how

2:48

vulnerable Israel may or may not be

2:51

to world opinion, the rise of global

2:53

anti-semitism, the

2:55

state of Palestinian citizens in Israel,

2:58

and the glimmers of hope to be seen there. We

3:01

talk about the prospects of a two-state solution, how

3:05

Israeli and American weakness remains

3:07

provocative, the lessons learned

3:09

from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,

3:12

how we might avoid World War III while

3:15

shoring up the failing global order, and

3:18

other topics. As always,

3:20

the way to support the podcast is

3:22

to subscribe at SamHarris.org.

3:26

And now I bring you Yavall Noah Harari.

3:35

I am here with Yavall Noah Harari. Yavall,

3:38

thanks for joining me. Thank you for inviting me. So,

3:42

obviously, you are

3:45

a person who has a relevant

3:48

point of view on the current crisis

3:50

in the Middle East. Before we jump in,

3:53

remind people what you've been focused on

3:56

these many years as a historian and a public

3:58

intellectual.

3:59

I try to focus on the

4:02

big picture of history, trying

4:04

to understand how an ape

4:06

from Africa took over the world

4:09

and how now

4:11

the future, the fate

4:14

of perhaps all life depends

4:17

on our species. I try

4:19

to understand the long-term historical

4:21

processes. At the present

4:23

moment or however, I'm focused on

4:25

the immediate historical

4:28

disaster unfolding all

4:30

around me. I know from my

4:33

line of work that it's usually

4:36

not a good thing to be in

4:38

the middle of a big historical event,

4:41

that when history comes knocking at your

4:43

door, it's usually bad news

4:46

and history just didn't just come knocking

4:48

at the door, it just broke the door.

4:50

Yeah, this is

4:52

really the first moment since

4:55

9-11 where the

4:57

intrusion of history has been

5:00

so stark. I mean, this is by definition

5:02

a very provincial view of things because

5:04

obviously history has been hammering

5:06

people all the while in other countries. But

5:09

do you share that? Is that in

5:12

terms of how it's punctuated your life? How

5:14

many moments like this have there been?

5:16

Only too many moments in recent

5:18

years.

5:19

It happened with the pandemic, it happened

5:22

with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

5:24

The Russian invasion started on my

5:26

birthday, the 24th of February,

5:29

and it was like one of the worst days

5:31

of my life. I don't

5:34

live in Ukraine, I don't have

5:36

relatives there, but I

5:39

heard the news, of course, I was following very closely

5:42

what was happening there.

5:44

It really felt that history

5:47

is taking a turn in

5:49

the worst possible direction and

5:51

that we will feel the repercussions all

5:54

over the world. I think to a large extent,

5:57

the war that

5:59

started there... is now reaching

6:02

my house. And if we don't

6:04

change the direction that the world is going,

6:07

then these kind of events

6:10

will come knocking at the door of

6:12

more and more people all over the world.

6:15

You know, put it very, very simply, we

6:17

had a far from imperfect

6:20

but nevertheless functional functioning

6:22

global order. And over

6:25

the last few years, this order has

6:27

been undermined and destroyed.

6:30

And when order is destroyed, what

6:32

you get is this order.

6:35

And this type of disorder and

6:37

violence that we now experience

6:39

here in Israel and in Palestine,

6:41

I'm afraid that we will see it in

6:43

more and more places all over the world. Well,

6:46

I want to talk about that. I want to

6:48

discuss just how fully

6:50

the global liberal order has

6:53

unraveled

6:54

in recent years and where

6:57

all this might be headed. But let's start with

6:59

the more proximate problem of

7:02

the recent October 7th

7:04

attacks in Israel and

7:06

the resulting ground war in Gaza. Where

7:09

were you on October 7th?

7:11

Actually, I was in Turkey on vacation.

7:15

And it was really almost

7:17

surreal to hear the news

7:19

and see the images that began streaming

7:21

from Israel when I'm on

7:24

this kind of idyllic beach in

7:26

Turkey. Yeah,

7:29

it hit very close to home. My uncle

7:31

and aunt live in Kibbutz

7:33

Beri, which is one of the communities

7:36

that has been really obliterated by

7:39

the Hamas terrorists. I have very

7:41

good friends in another Kibbutz in Farazah,

7:44

which was also obliterated by the

7:46

Hamas. So it's really

7:48

felt extremely personal, everything that has been

7:50

happening over the last few weeks. Were

7:53

any of your friends or family killed

7:55

or taken hostage? Not in the immediate

7:58

circle, but the moment you...

9:59

to, but it's obvious that there is

10:02

immense grief and pain. There is also

10:05

immense rage at Netanyahu

10:08

and at his coalition. It's

10:10

clear to a lot of people that,

10:12

yes, there were immediate failures

10:15

of the military, but

10:17

this was the result really

10:19

of 14 years of being

10:22

ruled by a populist strongman

10:25

who divided the nation against

10:27

itself and put his personal

10:29

interests before the national

10:31

interest, appointing

10:34

people to key positions on the

10:36

basis of personal and

10:38

political loyalties and not on

10:40

the basis of competence, accusing

10:44

the serving elites of the country

10:46

of being these deep state traitors,

10:49

to the degree that the very word elite,

10:51

which is supposed to be positive, people

10:54

who are foremost

10:55

in giving service to their country,

10:57

in the military, in the universities,

11:00

in judicial system or wherever, it became

11:02

a pejorative term. There

11:04

is something wrong with it. Especially

11:07

over the last year, trying

11:09

to undermine Israeli

11:12

democracy and it

11:14

was warned again and again and again

11:17

by people in the army, in

11:19

the intelligence that this is weakening

11:21

Israel at a very, very dangerous

11:24

moment and distracting all

11:26

the country and the security forces from

11:29

the main threats and it simply ignored

11:32

all these warnings and

11:34

now we are paying the price for it. I

11:36

think this is a lesson that people all over the world

11:39

should take to heart that

11:42

if you vote for

11:45

a populist strongman like that, then

11:48

eventually there comes a day

11:51

when the entire nation pay a very,

11:54

very high price for it.

11:56

Yeah, I think I could be forgiven

11:59

for hearing. I'm pretty spot

12:02

on description of Trump in

12:04

your description of Netanyahu. I wasn't aware

12:07

of how what a Trumpian figure

12:09

Netanyahu was not having followed Israeli

12:11

politics as closely as I might have. I mean, there

12:14

is one big difference

12:15

that Israel is much

12:18

weaker and more exposed

12:20

than the United States. There are

12:23

the kinds of political

12:25

experiments that people

12:27

in other countries may have the luxury to

12:30

try, that Israel just doesn't have this

12:33

kind of buffer. And

12:36

it was extremely reckless and

12:38

as I said, we are now paying the price

12:41

for it.

12:41

Just so that I'm clear about the causality here, is

12:44

it that Netanyahu

12:47

drew so much attention to his

12:50

own political needs and the divisiveness

12:52

of that whole project, just shoring up

12:54

his government that it was such a distraction

12:58

from the very real concerns of

13:00

security or

13:01

was it... It

13:03

sounds like you're saying it was that but in addition, it was

13:05

also putting people in power

13:08

who are actually not competent because

13:10

they were just loyalists to

13:12

his regime essentially. It's

13:14

much broader than just the destruction.

13:17

I mean, what we've seen since October 7th

13:20

is that even more than a month after the

13:22

horrible attack, still many government

13:24

departments are not functioning well.

13:27

Civil society had to fill

13:30

in for a lot of this

13:32

functioning state agencies and

13:34

government departments

13:36

because of the policies that

13:39

undermined these state institutions

13:41

for years. Another thing

13:44

that we

13:44

see is that Netanyahu based

13:46

his career for years

13:49

on the idea that you

13:51

cannot have any kind of peace process

13:53

with the Palestinians and he actually

13:55

said it openly that he's so

13:58

Hamas as a bitch.

13:59

partner of

14:02

sorts

14:03

than the Palestinian Authority,

14:05

because with Hamas there was no danger

14:08

that there is going to be any kind of peace process.

14:11

So he openly talked about it for years,

14:13

that his policy is to weaken

14:16

the moderate forces

14:17

among the Palestinians

14:20

and strengthen Hamas.

14:23

And this all blew up in our face on

14:25

the 7th of October. And similarly,

14:27

because of pressures from within his coalition,

14:30

if you look, for instance, at the way the

14:33

Israeli Defense Forces distributed

14:36

the military units, there

14:38

were just about two battalions guarding

14:41

the entire border with Gaza, whereas

14:44

something like 32 battalions were

14:47

guarding settlements,

14:49

including illegal outposts

14:52

in the occupied territories, which

14:54

explains why on the morning of the 7th

14:57

of October there just weren't

14:59

enough soldiers to protect

15:01

the civilians

15:04

in Kibbutzim, like the ones

15:06

of my aunt and uncle. I mean, all the soldiers,

15:09

most of the soldiers, were in the occupied

15:12

territories.

15:12

Does it explain why it took so long

15:15

for people to get to the south

15:17

once the crisis began to

15:19

unfold? I mean, how long does it take to drive

15:22

from the West Bank to Gaza?

15:24

I mean, you know, if you drive fast, you can get there in two

15:26

hours or three hours, but you know, to

15:28

move a military unit is a bit

15:30

more complicated than that. The

15:33

army got there, but just not in time. The

15:35

Hamas terrorists just needed a few hours in

15:38

control of these

15:40

villages to simply go from house

15:43

to house and torture and murder

15:45

and kidnap everybody they found.

15:47

Right. But wasn't it a story of more

15:49

like eight hours or 12 hours or 20 hours in some cases?

15:53

I'm not sure. I mean, again, within 20

15:56

hours, definitely the army was there. But once

15:58

Hamas was in control. of the villages,

16:01

then you had to conduct

16:03

a military operation and you had thousands

16:05

of Hamas terrorists. It wasn't just

16:08

a few or 10 or 20, you

16:10

have hundreds in some of the villages.

16:12

So you had to conduct very difficult open

16:15

warfare, house-to-house warfare

16:18

by the army when you also have Israeli

16:21

civilians and hostages there. So

16:23

the army had to be extremely careful, so it

16:25

takes time. Can you tell me more about

16:28

this fairly cynical

16:30

game that Netanyahu played with

16:33

the Palestinians with respect

16:35

to encouraging the Hamas,

16:38

the far more extreme ruling party, and also

16:40

just the support of the settlements as well?

16:42

I mean, that's also been provocative

16:45

and decidedly unhelpful if your goal

16:47

were a two-state solution. Absolutely,

16:49

yeah.

16:50

I mean, Netanyahu's recent,

16:53

certainly this government and also some of his

16:55

previous governments were based on

16:58

an alliance, a political alliance with

17:00

extremists who want

17:04

indefinite Israeli control of the West

17:06

Bank.

17:07

So they saw any chance

17:09

of a peace process

17:11

with the Palestinians as a threat

17:13

to their ambitions, which basically

17:17

are coming from religious fanaticism.

17:20

We also have our own messianic zealots,

17:23

and they wanted full control

17:25

of the territory far more than they wanted peace.

17:28

And because of that, they saw

17:30

the moderate forces

17:31

among Palestinians

17:34

as a potential danger,

17:36

whereas Hamas, that you can count on Hamas

17:38

not to initiate and not to agree to

17:40

any kind of peace process. So

17:43

for them, Hamas looked

17:45

like an almost ideal partner

17:47

that they thought you can let

17:49

Hamas rule Gaza. Okay, you have

17:52

some occasional attacks,

17:55

and every year or two you have a bigger

17:57

military operation, but on the whole for 15

17:59

years... years, they just let Hamas

18:01

control Gaza, turn it

18:04

into a terror base and an Islamic

18:06

dictatorship, and

18:08

no chance of any kind of peace

18:11

process while they

18:14

deepen their control

18:16

of the West Bank. And this was all

18:18

based on a completely mistaken view

18:21

that the situation can be contained,

18:24

that Hamas will continue to play

18:26

by their rules.

18:28

So what's the sense among Netanyahu's

18:30

critics that he should step down now, and

18:32

to what degree

18:35

do people think that it's more important

18:37

to have the continuity of government now

18:40

and to just wait until the immediate

18:42

needs of the war are in the past

18:44

before dealing with the political fallout

18:47

for his failure?

18:49

Because he's an extremely divisive

18:51

figure, and

18:54

the thing you need most in the country right

18:56

now is unity, the ideal

18:58

thing would have been for him to take responsibility

19:00

for the catastrophe and step down. And

19:03

you can do that in the middle of the war. You know, chamberlain

19:06

stepped down and let's show children, replace

19:09

him in the middle of the war, one of the worst moments

19:12

of crisis in the Second World War. If

19:14

he

19:14

thinks this is impossible,

19:16

that

19:16

he can't do it, he could still

19:19

have said, I

19:20

take responsibility for the catastrophe,

19:23

I will step down

19:25

once the situation permits it.

19:27

I'm declaring elections

19:30

in six months, and I will not be

19:32

running to these elections. So you can trust

19:35

me now that no matter what

19:37

I did in the past, now I'm

19:39

fully committed only to the interests

19:42

of the Israeli nation. And when this

19:44

is over, I'm stepping down,

19:46

this is the end of my political career, so you

19:48

can trust me. And he

19:51

is not doing it. Trust the opposite. He

19:53

tries constantly to shift the blame

19:55

to other people, especially in the military

19:58

and even in the protest movement. And

20:01

there is no indication that he is going

20:03

to step down or to call an election or

20:05

to take responsibility on himself.

20:07

You mentioned the protest movement. This

20:09

was in response to the attempted judicial

20:12

coup prior to October 7th?

20:14

Yeah. I mean, what we dealt with before,

20:16

which now looks like ancient

20:19

history, but it was just a few months

20:21

ago, was an attempt by

20:23

the Netanyahu coalition to not

20:25

just change the judicial system and

20:28

neutralize the Supreme Court, it was

20:30

an attempt to take

20:33

unlimited power to their own

20:35

hands. In Israel, we don't have

20:37

a constitution. We don't have any

20:39

upper house in parliament or anything like that.

20:42

The only institution that

20:45

could limit the power of a governing

20:47

coalition was the Supreme Court, and

20:49

they tried to neutralize or

20:51

to take over the Supreme Court, which

20:54

would have given them unlimited power

20:57

to do anything they want, to rig

20:59

the election, to disenfranchise,

21:01

say Arab Israelis, whatever, you name

21:04

it, they could do it with a minimal majority

21:06

in the Israeli parliament. So

21:09

for months, you had the biggest

21:11

protest movement in Israeli history with

21:13

hundreds of thousands of people going

21:16

week after week after week to protest

21:18

and demonstrations to stop that.

21:21

And when the war erupted, something

21:24

really remarkable happened that while

21:26

the government

21:27

and many government agencies were completely

21:30

paralyzed, the protest movement

21:32

turned into the

21:35

mainstay of much of

21:37

the military effort from

21:40

going to the south, to the area

21:42

around the Gaza Strip, to help

21:44

people and look for survivors, to

21:47

organizing places of refuge for

21:51

Israelis. Israel now

21:53

has more than 100,000 refugees, internal

21:56

refugees, people who fled the border

21:58

areas. and lost their homes

22:01

or had to leave their homes and somebody needs

22:03

to take care of them and the government is not doing a very

22:05

good job. So the protest movement stepped

22:08

in. So yeah, many of these protesters

22:10

were

22:11

people who said that as

22:13

reservists, they wouldn't respond

22:16

to the call in protest and

22:18

then after October 7th, everyone

22:20

just put their political differences on

22:23

ice and responded, correct? Absolutely.

22:26

And even before, I mean, it's

22:28

not that the people in the protest movement said they will

22:30

not respond to a call. They said if there is a

22:33

war, we will respond, of course. But

22:36

at a situation that existed

22:39

back then, they said we are not willing

22:42

at the present moment to take

22:44

orders from a government that

22:46

is trying to assume dictatorial powers.

22:49

So what is the view, I don't

22:51

know if there have been recent

22:53

polls that you might recall

22:55

or if this would just be relying on intuition

22:58

here, but what is the current

23:01

state of public opinion around the

23:04

settlers in the West Bank? And

23:07

I guess I have an additional question. What percentage

23:09

of settlers do you think are actually religious

23:12

extremists and what are people just looking

23:14

for cheap land? What

23:16

is the picture of that movement

23:19

and how much patience is there

23:21

for it in Israeli society?

23:23

It seems that there are only a minority.

23:26

I don't know how small, but a minority

23:28

are these religious extremists.

23:31

Most people got there for different reasons.

23:34

And also most of the settlements are

23:36

very close to the pre-1967 border. So

23:40

in a potential future peace

23:43

treaty based on two state solutions,

23:46

they should not be an impossible barrier

23:48

to peace. But you do have these

23:51

more extreme

23:52

groups

23:53

who, again, out of this messianic

23:56

conviction, are not interested

23:58

in peace at all. And they are

24:01

dreaming about rebuilding the

24:03

temple in Jerusalem and things like that.

24:05

And in many cases, they intentionally

24:08

undermine relations

24:11

between Israelis and Palestinians and

24:13

try to do their utmost

24:16

to foil any chance for

24:19

future peace.

24:20

Well, obviously, I've done previous

24:22

podcasts on the contribution,

24:25

as I see it, of religious extremism to

24:27

this problem on both sides. Obviously,

24:30

far more focused on the problem of jihadism, both

24:33

locally to Israel and globally.

24:36

I guess I'm interested in getting

24:39

your sense of how vulnerable

24:41

Israel is to public opinion internationally

24:45

at this point. So the ground war has started. It

24:48

has been a catastrophe of

24:50

a sort that everyone would have expected

24:53

and certainly Hamas expected and

24:55

even wanted. I mean, they've done their

24:57

best to ensure that it would be a

24:59

catastrophe. And I

25:02

think many people wonder, and I'm certainly

25:04

among these people, many wonder whether there was

25:06

another way for Israel to have gone about

25:08

destroying Hamas that would not have entailed

25:11

seemingly doing exactly what Hamas wanted,

25:13

which creates an

25:16

intense amount of civilian

25:19

injury and death in the process

25:21

of trying to root them out. So what's

25:23

your view of the ground war just as

25:25

a concept and as it has unfolded in

25:27

recent weeks?

25:28

I can't really comment on what

25:31

are the best operational plans

25:33

to do this or that. I'm not an expert on that.

25:36

What I can say is that anyone

25:39

who is interested in peace should also

25:41

be in favor of disarming Hamas.

25:44

And I'm not sure what is the best way to do it. But

25:46

without disarming Hamas, there is not going

25:48

to be any peace in the region. What

25:51

people need to realize is that the immediate

25:53

background to the horrific

25:56

attack of the 7th of October,

25:58

that is the...

25:59

we were very, very close

26:02

to a historical peace deal.

26:04

Israel and Saudi Arabia were in an advanced

26:08

stage of negotiations mediated

26:10

by the United States. And

26:13

according to many credible sources, maybe we were

26:15

just weeks away from signing

26:17

an Israeli-Saudi treaty,

26:20

which should have not just normalized

26:23

relations between Israel and

26:25

maybe the most important Arab state, but

26:27

also opened the door to normalized

26:30

relations with much of the rest of the

26:32

Arab world. As part of this treaty,

26:35

Israel was also supposed to make significant

26:37

concessions to the Palestinians, and it

26:39

was hoped that it

26:41

would be also possible to restart the

26:44

Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

26:46

I actually... I

26:47

think you're something that... Yevo, I just want to

26:50

ask you about that point, because that's a point I

26:52

hadn't heard. It's often described

26:55

that this peace treaty with the

26:57

Saudis was an instance

27:00

of Israel simply moving on in

27:02

complete disregard of the Palestinian

27:04

situation, and that Hamas could

27:06

have been expected to have wanted

27:09

to block that.

27:11

But you're saying that there were concessions to

27:13

the Palestinians built into those negotiations.

27:16

Absolutely, because again, if it depended on

27:18

the extremists in Netanyahu's government,

27:20

no, you would not have any concessions to the

27:22

Palestinians. But of course, the treaty

27:25

was negotiated not just by

27:27

these extremists. It was very

27:29

clear, not just from the Saudi side, but

27:32

also from the Biden administration, that there

27:34

would be no treaty unless

27:36

it includes significant concessions

27:39

to the Palestinians that were supposed

27:41

to alleviate, at least to some degree,

27:44

immediately the suffering of Palestinians

27:47

in the occupied territories and reopen

27:50

the peace process. And

27:55

again, there was a lot of stock that

27:57

Netanyahu would have probably to ditch his...

28:00

more extreme allies

28:02

in the coalition in order to

28:04

secure this treaty. But

28:06

this was too big a prize.

28:08

If this happened, this would have been Netanyahu's

28:11

crowning achievement

28:11

of his entire career. So

28:15

again, we don't know because Hamas intervened

28:18

that the possibility

28:20

of this peace treaty was a deadly

28:23

threat

28:24

both to Hamas and also to

28:26

Iran, Hamas's sponsor.

28:29

So the immediate aim of the attack

28:32

was to foil, to derail this

28:34

chance for peace. And the long-term

28:37

aim was to prevent

28:39

any restart, any

28:41

chance

28:42

for an Israeli-Palestinian peace

28:44

even in the future.

28:46

And this is why, and this is not the first time this is

28:48

happening. I mean, Hamas, since its very

28:50

foundation, opposed any

28:53

peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

28:55

And every time there was a significant

28:58

advance in the direction of peace, Hamas

29:01

intervened in order to stop it.

29:04

So if we want to have

29:06

some chance of peace in the future, we

29:09

have to disarm Hamas.

29:11

Of course, simultaneously,

29:13

we also have to give the Palestinians

29:16

a different future to

29:18

give them the possibility that

29:20

they can see that if they choose

29:22

a different path, they could live

29:24

dignified lives in their homeland.

29:27

And this should be, I think, Israel's

29:30

war aim,

29:31

to go back to the Saudi

29:33

peace treaty and to restart

29:36

the peace process with the Palestinians. Now

29:38

in the ground attack, in

29:41

the way it is conducted right now,

29:43

is this the ideal way

29:44

to disarm Hamas? And I

29:46

just don't know.

29:47

That's beyond my expertise. But

29:50

without some kind of military measures,

29:53

obviously Hamas is not going to disarm

29:55

voluntarily. And maybe I'll

29:57

add to it something from the bigger... historical

30:00

perspective

30:02

of what we are dealing with here, if

30:04

you look at decades

30:07

of this conflict, you

30:09

see three big anomalies

30:12

which are intertwined with one

30:14

another and which make this conflict

30:17

so complicated. I mean, at one

30:19

and the same time, you have the

30:22

anomalous situation of Israel,

30:24

which is one of the only countries

30:26

in the world which even though it's internationally

30:29

recognized,

30:30

most of its neighbors

30:32

never recognized its right

30:34

to exist. Most countries

30:36

take their existence for granted. Israel

30:39

doesn't. It's very right

30:42

to exist. Forget about the exact borders.

30:44

The very right of this country to exist

30:47

has been denied from the moment

30:49

it was created by most

30:52

of its neighbors. Then you have

30:54

another anomaly, which is the

30:56

situation in the occupied territories,

30:59

which is one of the only inhabited

31:01

places in the world which

31:04

no country claims sovereignty over.

31:06

This makes the conflict very different

31:09

from, let's say, what's happening in Kashmir between

31:12

India and Pakistan. There you have

31:14

a piece of territory that two countries

31:16

claim sovereignty over. In the occupied

31:19

territories, there

31:20

is really... Israel never annexed

31:22

the occupied territories.

31:24

Formally, it doesn't claim that

31:27

this territory is mine. It once

31:29

belonged to Jordan, but Jordan

31:31

renounced it. There is no

31:34

Palestinian state,

31:36

so it's really one of the... Maybe the only inhabited

31:38

place in the world

31:40

that no country claims at

31:42

its own. Then you have the third

31:44

big anomaly, which is the situation

31:46

of eternal refugees.

31:48

From all the tens of billions of refugees

31:51

that were created that exist

31:53

in the world in the 1940s, only

31:56

the Palestinians

31:57

are still here, and not because the

31:59

other refugees are

31:59

refugees returned to the

32:02

homes from which they were expelled, they

32:04

were absorbed and resettled

32:07

in whichever countries or territories

32:09

they reached. And

32:12

what people often don't realize is that

32:14

there were more Jewish refugees after 1948

32:18

than Muslim refugees because

32:21

Arab countries like Egypt, like Syria,

32:23

like Yemen, like Iraq responded

32:27

to the 1948 war by expelling

32:28

Jewish communities that

32:31

lived there for hundreds, sometimes

32:33

thousands of years. And most

32:35

Jews in Israel, they are not

32:38

what you know, this fantasy

32:40

of colonialists from Europe, they

32:42

are not even from Europe. Most

32:44

Israelis, most Israeli Jews are

32:46

indigenous Middle Eastern people

32:49

who

32:49

were expelled as refugees

32:52

after 1948.

32:53

So you have these three anomalies of

32:56

that Israel's

32:57

right to exist and Israel not recognized,

32:59

that the occupied territories, no

33:01

country claims to verinity over them, and

33:04

this perpetual status of the

33:06

Palestinian refugees. Ideally,

33:09

you could solve all these three anomalies

33:11

at one stroke, which is what the

33:13

two state solution was always meant to

33:16

achieve, that you get recognition

33:18

for Israel's right to existence,

33:22

that you get a Palestinian state in

33:24

the occupied territories, and that you solve

33:27

the refugee problem by some of

33:29

them coming back to this new Palestinian

33:32

state and some of them getting citizenship

33:35

in countries like Lebanon, where

33:37

they lived for now for generations.

33:41

Whether we can reach this solution or not, that's

33:43

a very big question.

33:45

Yeah, and even that would be to...

33:47

That best case scenario, which I want

33:49

to ask you if you can see a path

33:51

toward it, but even that would be to

33:54

enshrine the very anomalies

33:56

you've just described. Is

33:58

there another case? of a country that

34:01

was attacked on all sides and

34:03

won a defensive war, in

34:05

fact, two defensive wars. The

34:08

security buffer claimed

34:11

in those successful acts of self-defense

34:14

was then perpetually denied

34:17

them as – they were treated –

34:19

they were basically treated as aggressors even when

34:21

they were fighting defensively and

34:24

victoriously. Is there another historical example

34:26

of that? Does it simply give back to

34:28

West Bank and Gaza and return

34:30

to pre-67 borders? It's

34:33

almost like they're not allowed to win

34:35

a war of self-defense. I don't know. Are

34:37

there other examples of that kind of thing? I'm

34:40

not sure. I mean, again, as a historian, I tend

34:43

to be

34:44

cautious about drawing historical

34:46

analogies.

34:48

What I can say, again, from a broader perspective

34:50

is that in most

34:53

ethnic conflicts around the world,

34:54

both sides tend to

34:56

be victims and perpetrators

34:59

at the same time. And this is a very

35:01

simple and banal fact that for

35:03

some reason most people seem incapable

35:06

of grasping.

35:07

It's very, very simple. You

35:09

can be victim and perpetrator

35:11

at one and the same time. And

35:14

so many people just refuse to accept

35:17

this simple fact of history

35:20

and think in binary terms

35:22

that one side must be 100% evil

35:24

and one side must be 100% pure and just. And

35:29

we just need to pick a side.

35:33

And this, of course, links to these fantasies

35:36

of perfect justice, of absolute

35:38

justice,

35:40

which are... This I can

35:42

say from historical perspective, they are always

35:44

destructive. The idea that

35:46

you can achieve absolute justice.

35:49

In this world, usually

35:52

or almost always leads

35:54

to destructive places,

35:56

to more violence and war

35:59

because no...

35:59

peace treaty in the history of the world

36:02

provided absolute justice,

36:04

all peace treaties are based

36:07

on compromise. You have

36:09

to give up something. You won't

36:10

get absolute justice the

36:12

way you understand it. Well, there are examples

36:15

of really nearly miraculous

36:18

examples of profound

36:20

injustice rectified through

36:23

violence that lead to

36:25

a peace and reconciliation

36:28

and even friendship that

36:30

would have seemed impossible. I mean, just look

36:33

at the aftermath of World War II. I

36:35

mean, we, the Allies,

36:38

dealt with the Nazis and the Japanese

36:41

in the harshest conceivable way, I

36:43

mean, killing civilians by the hundreds

36:46

of thousands. The necessity

36:48

of that certainly can be debated, but we

36:51

dropped two atomic bombs on

36:54

Japan and rebuilt

36:56

those societies and found in them

36:59

enduring friendships. Even

37:01

the Israelis and the Jews of Israel and

37:03

the Jews elsewhere view

37:06

Germany now as a totally

37:09

benign or better than benign

37:12

influence in the world. That kind

37:15

of future seems

37:17

impossible with respect

37:19

to Israel and the Palestinians and

37:22

it really shouldn't be, but

37:24

the one wrinkle that I

37:27

think you know I focus on a lot is the

37:30

role that Islamic extremism, specifically

37:33

jihadism and the doctrines of martyrdom,

37:36

lay here and it just seems

37:39

in terms of the ratchet

37:41

of ideology and hatred

37:44

and the destructive power of

37:46

ideas, it is a kind of final

37:48

turn to that diabolical

37:50

machinery which strikes

37:53

me as worse than basically anything

37:55

else that the human mind has produced.

37:58

I mean, once you get a true otherworldliness,

38:01

a true expectation of paradise.

38:03

It seems to me that all rational

38:05

negotiation about the state of the world

38:07

and any terrestrial demand that any group

38:10

might make upon it, all of that goes out

38:12

the window and you just have a death cult.

38:15

So one anomaly I see here is that

38:18

in dealing with a group like Hamas, which

38:20

is arguably not as extreme

38:22

as the Islamic State but extreme enough

38:24

to be a death cult, the logic

38:27

that most people try to

38:29

lay over this current conflict simply

38:31

doesn't work. So most people think in terms of cycles

38:34

of violence and

38:37

the point you just made certainly still stands

38:39

that you can be both a victim and a perpetrator.

38:41

So you're a victim trying

38:44

to defend yourself rationally and

38:46

yet of course you're going to create

38:49

casualties and collateral

38:51

damage and kill children on the other

38:53

side. And when you do

38:55

that, you're going to make nearly permanent

38:58

enemies of that population and the

39:00

cycle of violence will continue. Yes,

39:02

we have that horrible dynamic also

39:05

going but in addition to

39:07

that, we have people who simply

39:09

do not care about the

39:12

deaths of non-combatants. In fact, that's part

39:14

of the plan and in

39:17

fact, their own deaths are also

39:19

expected and part of the plan because

39:22

martyrdom is sincerely believed

39:24

in. So I'm just wondering what

39:26

you... I think you

39:29

would certainly agree that that level of religious

39:31

extremism is unhelpful but

39:33

I mean, can you imagine? I guess the

39:36

only ray of hope I see here and perhaps you can give me some

39:38

perspective on this is that there is a Palestinian

39:40

population inside of Israel. They're

39:43

Palestinian citizens of Israel. Presumably

39:46

most of them, nearly all

39:48

of them are integrated into

39:50

the society such that you can see

39:52

a possibility where the Jews

39:55

and the Palestinians live in peace in

39:57

the same region. Yeah. Give me some sense

39:59

of your...

40:00

optimism and pessimism about this whole Gestalt.

40:02

Okay. So, lots of things to

40:04

say. First of all, yeah. On

40:07

October 7, Hamas murdered

40:10

and kidnapped not only Jewish

40:12

Israelis,

40:13

also Muslim Israelis. Among

40:15

the victims has been a significant

40:17

number of Muslims

40:20

who were murdered by Hamas like

40:22

an ambulance driver who

40:24

tried to rescue people. And

40:27

just the Bedouin civilians who

40:29

lived nearby and rushed to the place

40:32

to try and save people and were murdered

40:34

by Hamas, there are a couple

40:36

of Muslim Israelis kidnapped right now

40:38

in Gaza by Hamas.

40:40

And what we saw with

40:43

the unification of the Israeli nation

40:46

in the face of this atrocity,

40:48

lots of people feared,

40:50

and some people on the Israeli right

40:52

claimed that we will now see

40:55

an uprising of Arab

40:57

Israelis

40:58

against the Israeli state. The

41:00

exact opposite happened.

41:03

There has been almost no incidence

41:05

of physical violence

41:07

by Arab Israelis.

41:10

Instead, you saw people

41:13

volunteering and helping

41:15

to displaced communities, in

41:18

hospitals, in so many places.

41:20

If you want really to speak with somebody

41:22

who I think is one of the most hopeful

41:24

leaders on the scene,

41:27

I warmly recommend you

41:29

speak with Mansur Abbas.

41:31

Mansur Abbas is the leader

41:34

of an Islamist party

41:36

here in Israel

41:37

who was a member of the short-lived

41:40

previous

41:41

government,

41:42

the Bennett Lapid government. I

41:44

think it's the only case

41:46

when an Islamist party was

41:48

a member of a democratic government

41:51

in a Western democracy. And

41:54

it worked well. He's a very moderate

41:56

leader. He made some of the thinnest

41:59

pronouns. that I've heard

42:02

in recent weeks from almost anyone, anybody

42:04

in the world, about the conflict.

42:07

And if we have more people like

42:09

Mansur Abbas, I think there is hope. He's

42:12

often called the bravest person in the Middle

42:15

East.

42:15

Yeah, I can imagine he has his

42:17

own security concerns. He

42:20

is the number one target

42:22

of a lot of people

42:25

here. I'd love to speak with him. I

42:27

don't know if anyone on your side could help connect

42:29

me with him, but I would love to speak with him. Yeah,

42:32

we'll be happy to, afterwards, to try and

42:34

connect.

42:36

With regard to extremism, I fully agree

42:38

with you that religious extremism... I mean,

42:40

the biggest reason for the horrendous cycle

42:47

of violence

42:48

in my region of the world is religious extremism.

42:52

But as a historian, I would

42:54

say that extremism of any kind

42:57

is dangerous.

42:59

And what the 20th century showed us

43:02

that not only paradise

43:05

in some other world

43:07

can lead to murderous extremism,

43:09

paradise on Earth,

43:11

as the one imagined by Marxists

43:14

and Stalinists, has equal

43:17

dangerous potential. I never understood

43:19

how Marxists think about what

43:21

happens to you after you die,

43:23

and what's the point of dying for the revolution

43:26

if you're dead and you can't witness the revolution.

43:29

So you would think they would be less extreme

43:32

than the jihadists. But if you look

43:34

at the history of the 20th century

43:36

in places like the Soviet

43:38

Union, then they give them a hard

43:41

fight, I would say that, to the jihadists

43:43

in terms of what they are willing to do. And

43:46

in terms of hope

43:48

and justice and

43:50

what we

43:51

talked earlier about 1945 and the end of the

43:54

Second World War,

43:55

so the end of the Second World War did

43:57

not bring absolute justice.

43:59

for instance, about the fate of Poland.

44:02

So

44:02

in many ways, the Second World

44:05

War, at least in

44:05

Europe, started over Poland,

44:07

protecting Poland from Nazi

44:10

totalitarianism. And it ended

44:12

with the Allies giving control

44:15

of Poland to Soviets, to totalitarianism,

44:18

because they really had no choice.

44:20

And looking back, most people,

44:23

maybe not in Poland, but certainly in Britain

44:25

or the US, would say, yes, this was the

44:27

better option

44:28

than to go to a Third World War

44:30

with the Soviets immediately over

44:32

the fate of Poland and Eastern Europe.

44:35

But there is, I mentioned Poland

44:38

because there is a very hopeful story

44:40

that most people don't know, because

44:42

in history, very often, the hopeful stories

44:45

get lost,

44:46

because they don't generate a lot of violence

44:49

and bloodshed and death. So you

44:51

don't hear about it.

44:52

You know, when the Soviet bloc eventually

44:54

collapsed

44:55

in the late 80s, early 90s,

44:58

everybody heard about the wars in

45:00

Yugoslavia.

45:01

And the impression of many people is that

45:03

this was just inevitable because

45:05

of the age-old ethnic hatreds

45:08

and conflicts

45:09

in the Balkans. And

45:11

people explained to you about

45:14

how Croats and Serbs killed

45:16

each other in the 1940s.

45:19

And then when communism broke down,

45:21

this frozen conflict was

45:24

defrozen, and they continued

45:26

killing each other.

45:27

What people don't talk about is

45:30

the conflict between Poles, Lithuanians,

45:33

and Ukrainians.

45:35

In the 1940s, the

45:36

war ethnic cleansing

45:39

and hundreds of thousands of people murdered,

45:41

tortured, expelled from their homes

45:44

in mutual conflicts between

45:47

Poles, Lithuanians, and Ukrainians,

45:49

and the arrangements at the end

45:52

of the Second World War, they took

45:55

many territories which previously

45:57

belonged to Poland and gave

45:59

them the power to

45:59

them to Lithuania, the city

46:02

of Vilna, Vilnius, which is the capital

46:04

of Lithuania, was part of

46:06

Poland. It was a Polish city to some extent

46:09

before the war.

46:10

And in Ukraine, you had the same thing with

46:12

all the territory around Lviv

46:15

or Lvov.

46:16

Now lots of people expected

46:19

that with the end of the Cold War, the

46:21

conflict between Poland, Lithuanian,

46:24

Poles, Lithuanians, and Ukrainians will

46:26

also be defrozen.

46:28

And you would have this wave of wars

46:31

as Poland tried to reclaim

46:33

Vilnius and Lviv. And everybody

46:36

goes back to the terrible memories from the 1940s.

46:39

And it didn't happen.

46:41

The Polish government had a

46:43

very conscious policy. It wasn't

46:46

an accident. It was a conscious policy.

46:49

They came to the governments of Lithuania

46:51

and Ukraine and to the people, to

46:53

the nations themselves, and they

46:56

told them, we

46:57

don't want to go back to the past.

47:00

The past is gone, is done,

47:02

it's over. We are focusing

47:03

on the future.

47:05

We do not want Vilnius back.

47:08

It's yours. It's the capital of Lithuania.

47:10

We do not want Lviv, Lvov

47:13

back. It's part of Ukraine. That's

47:15

over.

47:16

We want to be good friends with you.

47:18

It hasn't worked.

47:20

And when you look at the conflict now in Ukraine,

47:22

and despite some hiccups,

47:25

the Poland and the Polish people

47:27

have been maybe the greatest

47:29

supporters, one of the greatest supporters of

47:31

Ukraine, receiving millions of

47:33

Ukrainian refugees.

47:36

And in the 1940s, this

47:38

would have sounded unthinkable.

47:41

And this was a choice.

47:42

And I think this is a choice in every ethnic

47:45

conflict,

47:46

whether you look to the past or you

47:48

look to the future.

47:49

And I will say one more thing about it. As a historian,

47:52

I think the curse of history

47:55

is the attempt to correct

47:57

the past,

47:58

to save the past.

47:59

if we could only go back to the past

48:02

and save these people, and we can't.

48:05

We can't go back to the past and save

48:07

the people who are massacred on the 7th

48:10

of October in Israel, or go back to

48:12

the

48:12

Holocaust and say, no, it's impossible.

48:15

And we can't go back to the past and

48:17

try to

48:18

do a different narrative

48:21

of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

48:24

What we need to do

48:25

is

48:26

stop using the

48:28

injuries of the past as an excuse

48:31

for fresh injuries in the

48:33

present,

48:34

and instead think constructively

48:37

about

48:37

how we can heal

48:39

the injuries

48:40

and create peace,

48:43

which will not give absolute justice

48:45

to anybody, but will create better

48:47

future for everybody.

48:49

Well, one of the reasons why it's so untenable

48:51

to continue trying

48:54

to rectify the past is that, you know, by

48:56

your description, every group

48:59

has a partial but nonetheless

49:01

accurate picture of the past wherein

49:04

they are the victim and the other group is the perpetrator.

49:07

And it's impossible to reconcile

49:09

those two visions because they're

49:11

mutually canceling. And it

49:13

should theoretically have been possible, you know,

49:16

this is what is known as theory of mind,

49:18

that children beyond the age of, I'm

49:21

not sure which age, but beyond a certain age, people

49:23

should have the capacity

49:25

to go into the mind of another person

49:27

and understand that she or

49:30

him, they see reality from a different perspective

49:33

than me. And this is the basis

49:35

for all social relations. But unfortunately,

49:38

there are many cases like the current conflict

49:41

when theory of mind breaks down.

49:43

And

49:44

it becomes almost impossible

49:46

psychologically

49:48

for people to realize that

49:50

others see reality differently than

49:52

us.

49:53

the

50:00

layer of religious extremism of

50:02

the Islamic sort that is riding

50:05

over this entire catastrophe. I

50:07

mean, so for instance, the Israelis have

50:10

very little leverage with respect to

50:12

Hamas now. I mean, it seems

50:14

that Hamas doesn't care and in

50:16

fact wants them to bomb indiscriminately

50:19

and kill lots of civilians. It

50:21

works for their propaganda purposes. But

50:24

they actually do have leverage. I

50:27

describe this idea in no way endorsing

50:29

it and you'll see why in a moment.

50:31

But they have a building. They have the Al-Aqsa

50:34

Mosque that everyone really

50:36

claims to care about. I mean, Hamas cares about

50:39

it. Every jihadist organization on earth cares

50:41

about it. Muslims everywhere care about

50:43

it. Any group that could have leverage

50:45

with Hamas, the Iranians or

50:47

any other group cares about it.

50:50

They could say, listen, we

50:53

don't much like this building that you care so

50:55

much about. If you don't return the

50:57

hostages in 48 hours, we're going

50:59

to demolish it. Well,

51:01

I'll put it to you. What do you think would happen if

51:04

they did that?

51:05

The third world war?

51:07

Exactly. So I

51:09

mean, literally, I would expect

51:11

and I think everyone would expect, not just

51:15

World War III or something quite like it, but

51:18

they would expect buildings in

51:21

London and Paris to also

51:23

burn. I mean, just literally

51:25

an uprising the world over

51:28

of a sort that no one could

51:30

possibly contemplate. So

51:33

what we have, we're all exceeding

51:35

to here,

51:36

is a picture of the Muslim community

51:39

worldwide that is so combustible

51:41

and it's so provocable

51:44

on the basis of pure religious

51:46

symbolism. They don't care

51:48

when Assad kills hundreds

51:50

of thousands of their fellow Muslims. There's

51:53

not a single protest over that. They

51:55

don't care when the Saudis kill over 100,000 people. in

52:00

Yemen, they really do care when

52:02

the Jews start killing Muslims

52:04

as we see in Gaza, but they

52:06

care even more about

52:08

religious symbols. They care about the

52:11

cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. That's

52:13

what causes embassies to burn in

52:15

a dozen cities. If the Israelis

52:18

said, listen, we're so sick of killing your

52:20

children, we're just going to destroy this

52:22

building unless you give us our hostages

52:24

back, that would be a provocation

52:26

that would overturn this

52:29

period in history.

52:32

That is a completely insane

52:34

and untenable status quo. My

52:37

view is that the Muslim world has to figure

52:39

out how to perform

52:42

an exorcism on itself

52:44

such that that is not the level

52:46

of religious fanaticism generally

52:49

speaking in the Muslim community

52:51

in a hundred countries. We're dealing with

52:53

the Christians of the 14th century. There's

52:56

no other community that is combustible

52:58

like this. If the Israelis destroyed

53:00

the Church of the Nativity, there wouldn't

53:02

be a Christian uprising the

53:04

world over and for good reason

53:07

because as sentimental as people are

53:09

about it, it is just a building. So

53:12

from my point of view, the underlying

53:14

problem that we really have to deal with is

53:17

there is an ambient level of religious fanaticism

53:20

that is totally at odds with

53:22

a pluralistic civilization

53:25

in the 21st century and we have to figure out

53:27

how to release that pressure, the

53:30

operative pressure of that ideology and the commitment

53:32

to it. And until we do that, that

53:35

is always going to be casting a shadow over

53:37

all of these kinds of moments.

53:39

Yeah, I think basically what

53:41

we can say is that in

53:43

history, story matters.

53:46

The stories in people's minds

53:49

are often the most powerful

53:51

forces

53:52

that shape

53:54

history, that shape

53:55

politics and culture.

53:59

This is a large part of what it means

54:02

to do history, is to listen to

54:04

the stories that people tell. Now,

54:07

you do have...

54:09

...also to... ...to...

54:13

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