Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - Is a peaceful Palestinian State even possible? - with Haviv Rettig Gur

Episode Date: February 19, 2024

On Sunday, Israel’s cabinet unanimously issued a statement rejecting efforts by the international community to force immediate recognition of a Palestinian State, especially so soon after 10/07. This was following an extensive article in the Washington Post last week that revealed plans — according to background sources — for Washington, the EU, and Arab capitals to accelerate the path to recognition of a Palestinian state. Quoting from the Washington Post article: “The elephant in the planning room is Israel, and whether its government will acquiesce to much of what is being discussed: the withdrawal of many, if not all, settler communities on the West Bank; a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem; the reconstruction of Gaza; and security and governance arrangements for a combined West Bank and Gaza.” You can read the full Washington Post article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/14/gaza-peace-israel-palestinian-state/ According to the Israeli cabinet statement in response: “Israel utterly rejects international diktats regarding a permanent settlement with the Palestinians. A settlement, if it is to be reached, will come about solely through direct negotiations between the parties, without preconditions. Israel will continue to oppose unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. Such recognition in the wake of the October 7th massacre would be a massive and unprecedented reward to terrorism and would foil any future peace settlement.” What was even more noteworthy was Benny Gantz said “the pathway to regional stability and peace is not through one-sided actions like recognition of a Palestinian state.” The real question, embedded in these Israelis responses and others, is whether a peaceful Palestinian State is even possible? That’s what we discuss today with Haviv Rettig Gur of the Times of Israel, during our weekly check-in.

You want to declare a Palestinian state? Declare a Palestinian state. As long as Palestinians are convinced that we can be removed, it is treason to compromise, it is treason to end the war, the factions promising ever more war and destruction will continue. Would this war be different if Gaza was officially recognized by America as a state? I don't think so. I don't think at all. In fact, Israel could take it to the ICJ rather than be taken by South Africa to the ICJ. So I don't understand this discourse. I don't understand why Americans are so eager to solve the problem of the last 30 years of failure by instead of backloading the recognition, frontloading the recognition as if the timing of the recognition has anything to do with why it keeps failing. It's 5 p.m. on Sunday, February 18th in New York City. It's midnight in Israel as Israelis turn to Monday, February 19th. And it's 9 a.m. on February 19th in Sydney, Australia, where our guest joining us today is actually recording from.

On Sunday, Israel's cabinet unanimously issued a statement rejecting efforts by the international community, including the U.S., to force an immediate recognition of a Palestinian state, especially so soon after October 7th. This was following a jarring article extensively reported in the Washington Post last week that detailed plans by Washington, the EU, and Arab capitals to accelerate the path to recognition of a Palestinian state. Now I'm going to quote one central point from the Washington Post article here. It reads, and I quote, the elephant in the planning room is Israel and whether its government will acquiesce to much of what is being discussed. The withdrawal of many, if not all, settler communities on the West Bank,

a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, the reconstruction of Gaza and security and governance arrangements for a combined West Bank and Gaza. Close quote. So Israel is merely the elephant in the room when considering the creation of this Palestinian state. Well, the Israeli government responded today with this statement that I referenced earlier. And the statement reads, and I'm quoting here, Israel utterly rejects international dictates regarding a permanent settlement with the Palestinians. A settlement, the statement goes on to read, if it is to be reached, will come about solely through direct negotiations between the parties without preconditions. Israel

will continue to oppose unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. Such recognition in the wake of the October 7th massacre would be a massive and unprecedented reward to terrorism and would foil any future peace settlement. Close quote. Now, we've heard that kind of language over the last couple months from Prime Minister Netanyahu. Again, what's noteworthy about this statement is it was signed off on by the entirety of Israel's coalition government, including Benny Gantz and his National Unity Party. Benny Gantz, Gadi Agincad, who have been reported in the press to at times be at odds with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other members of this coalition government. But it seems on the issue of the Palestinian state, there is no daylight

between them. In fact, Gantz in a speech today was quoted as saying, after the October 7th massacres, quote, the pathway to regional stability and peace is not through one-sided actions like recognition of a Palestinian state, close quote. Another member of Gantz's party, Minister Gideon Saar, who's joined the coalition government with Gantz and who has been a fierce critic of the Netanyahu-led government, said that the reported U.S. proposal to place a firm timeline on the creation of a Palestinian state would, and I'm quoting Saar here, would be like the sacrifice of Czechoslovakia in 1938, he said, referring to the 1938 Munich Agreement and Europe's appeasement of Hitler in a failed strategy to avoid war. So I guess the real question embedded in all these Israeli responses across

the Israeli political spectrum is whether a peaceful Palestinian state, as the topic is gaining steam, is even possible. That's what I wanted to ask Haviv Retegur about today during our weekly check-in. He joins us, as insightful as always, but on the road from Australia. Haviv Retigur on a peaceful Palestinian state. Is it even possible? This is Call Me Back. And I'm pleased to welcome back to this podcast for my weekly check-in with Haviv Retigur.

I normally say my weekly check-in from Jerusalem, but I'm catching him as he's in the midst of globetrotting. So it's Haviv Retigur from Australia. Welcome, Haviv. Hi, Dan. It's wonderful to be in summer. Yeah. I mean, someone from Israel complaining not being in summer. Still, Australian summer is nice. apparently the Munich Security Conference this weekend, the flurry of activity around an accelerated process to the recognition of a Palestinian state. And the news flurry was kicked off by a big article in the Washington Post last week titled, U.S. Arab Nations Plan for Post-War Gaza Timeline for Palestinian State. And all this attention about efforts by all

these different capitals and all these different powers around the world to work on a Palestinian state was kicked into high gear following an article in the Washington Post that reported on these efforts to accelerate the path to recognition of the Palestinian state. I will post the article in the show notes. The article is jaw-dropping if, you know, 20% of the reporting is accurate. And a lot of the quotes are on background, so it's hard to know. But if 20% of the reporting is accurate, it is quite stunning. So I'm quoting here. It reads, U.S. officials said the menu of actions under consideration include early U.S. recognition of a Palestinian state, even as elements of political reform, security guarantees for both Israel and the Palestinians,

normalization and reconstruction are being implemented. So, you know, some details are not yet figured out. And then there's a quote here from one of these U.S. officials, a blind quote, says, we don't want to lose the momentum of this moment by doing this in pieces and parts, said a U.S. official briefed on the talks. There's a desire, the official said, to know what this looks like from day one. And the article goes on to say, many believe that only U.S. recognition of a Palestinian state at the beginning of the process, even one whose final borders and institutions are not yet finalized could convince the Arab world that this time will be different. So, Haviv, there are other parts of this I want you to react to, but what is

your reaction to that? This is following Tony Blinken's visit to Israel a little over a week ago, where he said that there must be a recognition of a Palestinian state, that is, or a process for creation of a Palestinian state that is time-bound and irreversible. This is clearly follow on to that. Everything hinges on quick, early recognition of a Palestinian state rather than trying to figure out how to find the appropriate Palestinian leadership, have that political leadership meet milestones. No, this is just start right now, kick into high gear. Palestinian state happens at the front end of the process. I think this falls into that category of when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I don't fit at all. I don't even understand this long,

long running debate, this four decade debate in American policy circles between whether you front-load or back-load the Palestinian state. Do you first build out all the institutions and then declare it, or do you declare it and then build out and then try and figure out how to make it actually happen? I don't understand the debate because in my book, there's one massive obstacle, and until you surmount that obstacle, until you even see that obstacle properly. There's no Palestinian state to be had, no matter how much you want it, no matter how much you declare it or don't declare it. And once that obstacle is passed, once that obstacle is solved, the Palestinian state's actually not very hard to build. And that obstacle is the Palestinian story of the Jews.

Right now, we have a situation in which Palestinian political factions talk about the Jews in a certain way. They promise Palestinians right now, Hamas, more than anything else, and it is many things. It is a terror organization. It is a government. It is a social welfare organization. It is a vision of Islamic redemption. It is more than all of those things, a story about how you handle the Jews, what the Jews are, and why the Jews can be made to leave. As long as the basic factions of Palestinian politics, the founding factions of Palestinian politics, the ones without which nothing moves, in other words, not the tiny little liberal one that might get 2% in some election poll somewhere, but the big major pillars of Palestinian politics continue to hold fast to a vision of the Jews as some kind of artificial colonialist thing that ultimately

is doomed to die, then it is treason to compromise. And as long as it is treason to compromise, no Palestinian state can possibly function. I'm not saying there shouldn't be. I'm not saying it's not right or moral. I'm saying it literally won't work. If the Americans declare a Palestinian state now, do they not have to find a way to manage that Palestinian state in a way that won't go the way of Gaza? Do they not have to now figure out a way to convince Israeli publics, the sufficient amounts, numbers in the Israeli public, that this isn't an existential threat to them. Hamas threatens more October 7th. Hamas is a runaway most popular party in the West Bank right now. Hamas has sufficient, I would call it what, assets on the ground in Gaza, in areas where Israel's in control in Gaza, in areas where its battalions

have been decimated, it still has sufficient resources to sustain the kind of disruptive insurgency. And this is something Israel knew. Israel's been talking about it from day one for four months, that after the ground war, there is a long counterinsurgency to degrade those capabilities. But those capabilities still exist. In other words, anything that takes over in Gaza can be slowly demolished by a Hamas that still exists in Gaza at the insurgency level. So you want to declare a Palestinian state, declare a Palestinian state. As long as Palestinians are convinced that we can be removed, it is treason to compromise, it is treason to end the war. The factions promising ever more war and destruction will continue. Would this war be different if Gaza was officially recognized by America as a state? I don't think so. I don't think at all. In fact, Israel could take it to

the ICJ rather than be taken by South Africa to the ICJ. So I don't understand this discourse. I don't understand why Americans are so eager to solve the problem of the last 30 years of failure by instead of backloading the recognition, frontloading the recognition as if the timing of the recognition has anything to do with why it keeps failing. Haviv, in terms of who could populate the leadership of a phantom, this phantom idea of a Palestinian state, there's, you of a Palestinian state. You mentioned the founding of Hamas, the founding impulse of Hamas. I just want to play an audio here of Bougie Herzog, the president of Israel, who spoke at the Munich Security Conference this weekend.

And he quoted from a book that was written, published by one of the founders of Hamas. And it talks openly, this book, about the Holocaust solution, the Holocaust as a model, lots of references to the Shoah for dealing with the Jews, the Jewish problem, if you will. And this book was apparently found in one of these tunnels of one of the Hamas leaders as Israel's, the IDF is getting deeper and deeper into the tunnel system in Gaza. So let's just play this audio. This book was written by Dr. Mahmoud El-Zahar. Dr. Mahmoud El-Zahar is one of the founders of Hamas. And the book mainly hails the fact that, first of all, we should not recognize the fact that there are Jews and Jewish people, but most predominantly it hails the Holocaust, it hails what the Nazis have done,

and calls for nations to follow what the Nazis have done. Now we're in Munich. In the outskirts of Munich there is the Dachau concentration camp. Tens of thousands of Jews were slaughtered in Dachau. And that's the problem, meaning we have to have a coalition of all of the moderate forces in the world fighting this ideology. And the moderate forces in the world include many Sunni countries too, because they will be attacked by the same jihadists as well. Now, and then you fast forward, that was a book published decades ago, and it's obviously clearly still in circulation today among Hamas leaders. Yechia Sinwar, who's on the run, but talks openly

about more October 7th, he would do it all over again. More October 7th will come. You have the political leadership of Hamas, like Khaled Machel, who recently gave an interview in Turkey in which he talked about no two-state solution. There will be no two-state solution no matter what, just a one-state solution, which means Palestinians, meaning Hamas, will be in power from the north, from Rosh HaNikra all the way to the south, to Eilat and from the river to the sea. You have the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, which is still yet to condemn what Hamas did on October 7th. And the government policy of the Palestinian Authority still monetarily rewards terrorists and family members of terrorists who die in pursuit of their terrorism

in the slaughter of Jews. And obviously, all the education materials and propaganda in the Palestinian Authority jurisdiction is just more of this Jew hatred indoctrination. So you have the Hamas leaders saying they would do October 7th again. You have Hamas leaders being found, or their materials are being found that talk about the eradication, the elimination, the genocide of the Jewish people. We know they've tried to do it. They talk about doing it again. The political leadership in the West Bank, the Palestinian political leadership in the West Bank doesn't distance themselves from it. And according to all the public polling, the one thing, the one political cause that the Palestinian people all support in large majorities is Hamas.

So I'm not saying there's no world in which there can't be Palestinian self-determination. What I'm like shocked by is these facts. These are facts. There is no evidence of a divergent political reality among the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank or Gaza or, sadly, among the Palestinian people. And how Washington could be potentially going full steam ahead without even just acknowledging this reality. Like, oh, by the way, should we pay attention to the range of actors who are in leadership positions in the Palestinian political ecosystem? Should we pay attention to what the majority viewpoint is of the Palestinian people? I'm trying to think of what advice might pull American policymakers down the right path and away from the obsession with the idea that if they just figure out the right process, the right paperwork, the right schedule, then everything somehow

magically falls into place. Imagine two peoples living in a land that is not very big and in which it's hard to accommodate each other. But don't call them Israelis and Palestinians. Call them people A and people B and let's imagine they live on some peninsula off in Siberia. And whether or not one ends up with more or less land really matters. If these two peoples off on that Siberian peninsula suspect that it might be possible to have it all, it just might be in the cards. There is no moving on from that. There cannot be a moving on from that.

And no amount of process by some Western diplomat, and no amount of prestige, and no amount of political capital expended, and no amount of these formal ways in which policymakers talk and think will make a dent in the simple fact that this thing is existential, this thing matters. And if there's a chance I could have it all, how much, what right do I have not to try? What right do I have to compromise? It's not more complicated than that. The other strange thing is, you know, when you go to American aid in places in Sub-Saharan

Africa or frankly in Europe over the course of the Cold War, you discover an absolute clear-eyed, clear-headed willingness to have that aid build out not just a political future, a better political future, but political narratives that facilitate that better political future. The Americans come in and they say, this is not possible. This is possible. Please don't choose the impossible thing that guarantees forever war. Please choose the other narrative of your own story, of your own future, of your own politics. Americans have the ability to say that, except when it comes to the Palestinians. When it comes to the Palestinians, international aid, the international community will walk in. This is the great problem

with UNRWA. We've talked a thousand times. Everybody has been talking about UNRWA. The Israelis finally released all the data about all the details about all the people that the Hamas guys actually took part in October 7 with their pictures and their names and their birthdates and their... But the great problem with UNRWA is not that its ranks have been infiltrated by Hamas. Everything in Gaza is infiltrated by Hamas. If the World Food Program replaced UNRWA in not that its ranks have been infiltrated by Hamas. Everything in Gaza is infiltrated by Hamas. If the World Food Program replaced UNRWA in Gaza, it would be infiltrated by Hamas. The problem is that UNRWA doesn't admit it. Not that it happened.

Of course it happened. There are mafia running a totalitarian little statelet. The problem with UNRWA is much deeper because these are people living for generations in their own land who are refugees under their own government. So it's about maintaining the refugees and granting exclusivity to UNRWA is about making sure that the only way to feed them is to maintain the fantasy that they are refugees and therefore can go back home and that back home destroys Israel. For the destruction of Israel, we will hold them hostage. That's the concept of UNRWA. And that's the concept at the end of the day, this is much

more well-meaning than the founding of UNRWA. But at the end of the day, these ideas that we can found this Palestinian state, but we never have to come to Palestinians and say, you need a fundamental, profound, ideological, strategic change in how you understand the Israelis. As long as everywhere the Israelis pull out of, you go after their children from that place, it won't work. People don't understand that at this moment, if the international community conducted airstrikes against Israel, nevermind boycotts, nevermind being unpleasant to Israeli researchers and academic conferences. Actual airstrikes, NATO bombing Belgrade, it wouldn't work. Because we know for a fact that anywhere we pull out of Hamas, we'll use to murder our children. Hamas says so, and after October 7, we believe them.

You want a Palestinian state? Make Palestine unthreatening to the Israelis. And then when you squeeze the Israelis, you'll succeed. Because there won't be that enormous, infinite political pressure from the other side of a promise of the Palestinian political leadership itself. All of it. All of it. Mahmoud Abbas wants stability. So he coordinated for years with Israeli security. That made him the least popular Palestinian leader in the history of the Palestinian people. Also, he didn't change the narrative. He said, yes, they're evil colonialist Nazis. I'm paraphrasing, although he said quite similar things to that. No, he's basically said that. And his big contribution in academia has been a thesis that trafficked in what, Holocaust denialism? That's right, his PhD. I mean, our friend Ksenia Svetlova, a researcher and journalist,

she actually held in her hand his doctorate. It's an astonishing thing. This is Mahmoud Abbas's doctorate. Right, that he did in Moscow that blamed Zionism for the Holocaust. Long story short, Mahmoud Abbas, even when he looks like what policymakers call a moderate because he played the process game, doesn't tell a different story. And so he created nothing but more Hamas supporters under his kleptocracy, which not only continued the story that the Jews could be destroyed, but also was a horrific, corrupt kleptocracy that made everyone under it hate it and so made Hamas look better than it actually is. In Gaza, there's far less support for Hamas before October 7th than in the West Bank. And so there is no other Palestinian story. American aid needs to come in with its, what does America give, like a billion shekels a year, something like that? Hundreds of millions

of dollars every year to the Palestinians. It needs to, as it does elsewhere, it comes into a country where there has no women's rights because of old cultural things, and it says, here's my aid, empower women. It comes into a country without democratic rights, and it says, here's my aid, support civil society for democracy. It needs to come into the Palestinian arena, and it needs to say, listen, there are some people in the State Department who are Arabist, pro-Palestinian. They would really love to squeeze the Israelis. Here's the problem we have with squeezing the Israelis. You keep trying to murder them from every place they pull out of. You need a new story that makes our squeezing of the Israelis effective. America

can't say that. It can't condition out everything the Palestinian movement has ever done, whether Hamas or UNRWA, or how the pro-Palestinian officials in the West have dealt with Palestinians, has always preserved the story, and not the story of their historical experience. I'm not asking them to give any of that up, but their understanding of me. As long as their understanding of me is that I am removable, you are forcing them into another generation of war that they cannot win. everybody agreed on, including actors, major players in Arab capitals, including the US political leadership throughout Europe, was that Hamas is gone. Hamas's days are over. Hamas needs to be eradicated. Hamas will never have another role. What I'm sensing now is that is shifting. That is not as ironclad as it once was. So you have this Martin Griffiths,

who's a top official at the UN, who said on February 14th, I'm quoting here, he said, Hamas is not a terrorist group for us, meaning according to the UN standard. Hamas is not a terrorist group. It is a political movement. And then, I don't know if you saw this, but the German government put out a statement quickly after that saying that Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by both the US government and the EU, be that as it may. But the UN is already saying, no, it's not a terrorist group, it's a political movement. And then in this Washington Post article that was generating all this attention, there are these talks apparently going on on how to launch this process for a Palestinian

state. And I'm quoting here from the article, participants in the talks are putting forward their own favorite candidates to serve in other top government roles and debating whether Hamas's political leadership would have any role in a post-war Gaza. One Arab official said Hamas's political wing should be included in the talks, if not in the future government. And then he's quoted saying, we need someone there who represents them to ensure they're on board with this, the official said. And then the piece goes on to say that if they don't include Hamas in this early, then it'll be Fatah versus Hamas all over again. And if there are elections again, Hamas will prevail.

And this is the only way, if you get their buy-in early, this is the only way to start a process that if it goes to elections, Hamas will not win the election. It's the most convoluted thing I've ever heard, which is like, we need to do everything we did before to make sure what happened before won't happen again. I mean, it makes perfect sense. But here's the thing, Dan, they're right. everything we did before to make sure what happened before won't happen again. I mean, it makes perfect sense. But here's the thing, Dan, they're right. They're right in the simple sense that Hamas maintains the ability to disrupt and destroy anything they tried to do on

the ground. So they hope that maybe if we include Hamas in it, because process is how you solve problems, and all life and all society can be engineered through the right process. Everything will solve itself. If Hamas is at the table, even if not in the government, because that's a no-go for the Israelis and Europeans and Americans and everyone else who's going to fund this thing. But if Hamas is at the table for some 10-minute period, somehow magically Hamas won't then on the ground disrupt and destroy it all. They're admitting the problem and admitting they have no solution for the problem, except to come to Hamas begging that if they're trying to trade some kind of process, Hamas doesn't think in process, okay? Everything that they're saying that shocks you is an admission that they understand everything that you see and have no

idea how to get around it, but they're a hammer, so everything had better be a nail. When I was in Israel a little over a week ago and I was meeting with government officials, I was commiserating with them about how absurd it is that they're supposed to have a quote-unquote day-after plan before the war is even over, before Hamas is even eliminated, before they have the leadership of Hamas dead or captured, before the hostages are rescued or released. The idea that they're supposed to have some day after plan ready to go, as though events on the ground between now and the end of the war won't in part determine what that day after plan is. But be that as it may, one official

said to me, whatever the day after plan is, it has to be conceived by the Arab countries. It has to be backed by the US and it has to be something that we Israel can live with. And where this official was going with that is there has to be some kind of de-radicalization of the Palestinians. You would call this changing their story, but that's not the language these officials were using that I was meeting with. They said that there's got to be some kind of de-radicalization plan, and we can't do it. Israel can't de-radicalize the Palestinians.

Only the Arab leadership can do it. And by the way, the Arab leadership, to their credit, including some of the Gulf countries, have a record of doing it. So we're looking at them. You're looking at us for a day after plan? All right, why don't you look at them? What's their plan for de-radicalization? Because that is the only way we can really start thinking about a day after plan. That is the only way. I'll say another thing. When Martin Griffith said that Hamas is not a terror organization for us, I was filled with a great and profound empathy for him. And the reason that I feel tremendous empathy for him, and I'm not being sarcastic, is that the Palestinian national movement, Hamas specifically, but the Palestinian national movement more largely, including its supporters in the Arab world, its supporters in the progressive left in the West, they've been forced into a choice. Hamas and the Palestinians have forced their

supporters into a choice. Either you support our permanent commitment to the destruction of Israel as a fundamental plank of the moral arc of history, of international law, of all these terms that we use to just mean how things are supposed to go. Either we all agree that our vision of Israel's destruction is the only way forward, or we Palestinians starve, or we Palestinians die. The only way to support us is to follow us down that disastrous path. The only way to support us is to follow us down that disastrous path. The only way to support Palestine is to let Hamas off the hook for every atrocity while pretending to believe in international law. That's a Palestinian choice that they are forcing on the poor UN relief chief, whatever

his title is. And so he has to make a choice. Either I accept that Hamas, that its vision, that its morality is legitimate politics, or I have to go with this crazy, evil other side and go after Hamas, get rid of Hamas and hope for a better day for Palestinians the day after Hamas. Because when Hamas is gone, the Israelis are out of excuses and then I can squeeze them. But that means that they're right until the day after Hamas. And I can't have that happen. So I have to go with it. They're forcing him into a choice in which he has to side with the Hamas vision, with Hamas morality. It's not even kidding. It's genuinely sad because allegedly what the story he tells himself about his career and his life and his work as a UN person and this international community and this international law that he believes in, the story he tells himself about these things is that that is not what they are, that they are a standard.

But when the Palestinians forced the choice, he has decided to go that way, to go to the Hamas side of the ledger. So that is not happening to just that way, to go to the Hamas side of the ledger. So that is not happening to just that particular UN official. That is happening across the board. Those students screaming decolonization on the Columbia campus, they're being forced to choose. They don't know it because they don't know anything. So they don't understand what they're choosing and they don't understand the meaning of the words they're using. But the Palestinian national movement, by saying it's either permanent decolonization war or we die because we insist on there never being that compromise because we could still win, so how could a compromise be okay? And therefore, in order to support us, in order not to support

the Israelis, you have to support Hamas. That false choice has been forced by the Palestinian national movement. And there is no international will. There is some of it in countries like the US, Britain, Germany, France, but that's it. And they're a minority and they're certainly a minority in the General Assembly, which we need to make differences in UNRWA's policies and votes in the General Assembly are mandatory to change the UN's fundamental refugee policy, for example. But outside of those few countries, and even in, according to the Washington Post article, even in those countries, in their diplomatic processes, in their diplomatic bureaucracies, there isn't a willingness to come to the Palestinians and say, no, no, there's a third choice. There's a third choice between the destruction of Palestine,

the destruction of Israel. There is a third choice. And's a third choice between the destruction of Palestine, the destruction of Israel. There is a third choice. And the people selling you on one choice are selling you destruction because guess what? The Israelis aren't going anywhere. That is not something that they are able to say because they're not even able to parse the Palestinian discourse and understand that that's the fundamental question in which Palestinians are still stuck. Hamas represents being stuck in that question.

So I pity Mr. Griffith. I'm not angry at him. He's being forced into that choice by Hamas, and therefore he has to sell half his soul to stay pro-Palestinian. Haviv, if we were having this exact conversation on October 6th, how would your analysis of these issues be different? I wrote that Hamas is engaged in a forever war with Israel that is doomed to failure because it's modeled on the Algerian FLN that kicked the French out of Algeria, but we have no France. And so we can't be kicked out.

And so all Hamas can do is destroy Palestine, not Israel. I wrote that in 2014 in the 2014 war. This has been my analysis all along. Everything we have ever seen, everything Hamas has ever said has validated that basic point. But I'm asking you about something bigger than just Hamas. I'm asking you where we would be on October 6th if you were analyzing this as it relates to the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah, the whole Palestinian ecosystem. Like, where were you on October 6th about where Israel should go forward, if at all, if there was a path forward? By the way, my view increasingly, just full disclosure, I've said this, I can't remember if I said this on our conversations, but I've said it in one of these conversations, is maybe the answer is that the Israeli-Palestinian relationship is a tragic relationship. It's tragic. There is no easy fix. There's no hard fix. There may be some really, really, really difficult path forward that no one's been able to conceive of, but maybe

all we know is it's unfixable and the status quo is going to be around for a really long time. Maybe that was where we were on October 6th. Well, that is tragic. I mean, that's tragic in the sense of the Greek literary tragedy, in the sense that nothing is resolved and everyone is dead. I hope not. May 2021, we had a pretty vicious round of fighting with Gaza. And I wrote the same piece again. There is a glitch in Hamas's forever war. And it's not just Hamas. It is the basic story of the Palestinian national movement. And it's the same basic glitch. And I'll tell you another thing. I'm working on this book for a very long time now,

which may someday actually be published with the grace of God. And I have gone back into Palestinian newspapers from 1914. The same story about us is there in 1914. And the same story about us is there in 1937 when the Palestinian leadership has a debate about what to do about us in the middle of the great revolt against the British. And the same story is there in the 60s and the same story is there in the 80s. This Palestinian story of us has driven the Palestinian cause into a brick wall from day one. If we are removable, it is immoral to accept a partition plan. If we are removable, it is immoral to go to a peace process. If we are removable, it is immoral to accept a partition plan. If we are removable, it is immoral to go to a peace process. If we are removable, it is immoral to let Arafat sign away territory permanently. If we are, in other words, to allow Israel to exist. If we are removable, then it is immoral to go anywhere except to the place that we now find ourselves.

And so this is not the Palestinian story from last week and not from last year. This is the Palestinian story of us. And it is not the totality of Palestinian culture or society or historical experience. They have their story. There are people I have a right to comment on because they get a couple of little things about me very, very wrong and it has decimated their politics, their capacity to build a better future for themselves. And if the world doesn't come to them and say that, if the world doesn't come to them and say, everything you're seeing in Gaza is a tenth of the actual Israeli resolve, it is a careful Israeli war. Give us a six-front war with Iran and all its proxies all at once in which we are pushed to the corner and 100,000 missiles land from Lebanon on Tel Aviv and set Tel Aviv on fire and then see how ferocious Israel

can be. We are refugees with nowhere to go. None of this story will work on us. And there's not much left to save. So change your story now. It's urgent. Gaza can be a Palestinian state and some significant part of the West Bank, maybe two. And you want strategic depth and a larger horizon? Maybe you link it to Jordan in some confederation. Once the story is gone, once the story of the Jews understands our actual history. By the way, in this debate, I can concede every claim about me, every claim about my crimes, my mistakes. Israel's a real country. It made a lot of mistakes along the way.

In basic training in the IDF, I was taken to a class in my first week in basic training as an infantry. They took us to a class on Israeli war crimes. Israeli soldiers are taught Israeli war crimes. We were forced to read high court decisions about our war crimes that explained why the Israeli army actions in a particular place or time were a war crime. If I were to tell you, Dan, that America sometimes made terrible mistakes or terrible crimes even, you would not fall off your chair. That is not something Americans are unaware of. That is not something Israelis are unaware of. I can concede to them this whole moral popularity contest that's happening on TikTok and on CNN is meaningless.

I am not going anywhere. What's your strategy for dealing with that? If the world doesn't come and make that demand of the Palestinians, the world is pushing them into six more wars for no good reason so that in a generation, you and I can have this conversation again about how their story has to change in one specific way so that we can move forward to a better future. Why not take this massive crisis and do that moment now? Haviv, last question. You and I have both been on this podcast since October 7th and elsewhere at various times quite complimentary of the Biden administration. We don't have to rehash all the reasons why, but in short order, if you would have told

me here we are 130 plus days into this, that Israel would still effectively have a green light from the United States to keep fighting in Gaza. It's not to say the US isn't trying to put some constraints on the fighting and the way Israel conducts its war. It's not to say that President Biden doesn't get frustrated with Israel's political and military leadership. It's not to say that the Biden administration doesn't hash out its disagreements behind closed doors, and it sometimes gets very tense. All those things are true. But this is not 2014, where Israel had to fight Hamas in Gaza, and they were basically told to stop after 50 days. This is not the 2006 Lebanon war, which when Israel was fighting Hezbollah, where Israel was told to stop after 34 days.

We are well over 130 days and Israel is still fighting with these images of Palestinian civilian casualties all over the news, all over TikTok. And it drives the administration crazy for a number of reasons, but they're still not shutting it down. And they're still providing munitions and they're still defending Israel at the UN. And there have been problematic statements in the last 10 days from President Biden and from Secretary Blinken. But again, the policy, the core policy that is in action, not what's being leaked out as a possible future policy, like I was quoting from that Washington Post piece, but the's being leaked out as a possible future policy, like I was quoting from

that Washington Post piece, but the core policy on the ground is the only thing that's in front of me that I can truly evaluate. And I have been supportive of and appreciative as an American and as a Zionist. I am, you and I have talked about this offline, you and I are both now not so sure, given some of the things the administration is doing, including this talk of an immediate recognition of a Palestinian state. What is your response to President Biden on this issue? First of all, obviously, you know more than I do about the Biden administration. And so I'm going to give an Israeli perspective rather than any insight into the Biden administration itself. There is a very great mitzvah, a very great commandment of Jewish law,

is hakarat tov, recognizing the good done to you. You should be living your life in deep recognition of the good done to you. The Biden administration has done for us in an hour of real need, immense good, and it paid costs to do that good. And I don't think Israelis have the right to sit around bandying about this kind of terrible or that kind of terrible because Blinken said something we don't like or really genuinely were insulted by. When someone helps us defend our children and then insults us, they helped us defend our children. That's the bottom

line. Everything else is secondary. So just in terms of my attitude to the Biden administration, it's one of immense gratitude at a moment where we really needed the help. One of our lessons is we needed this help. We're not going to need this help in the future. We're building out our missile building capacity. So we don't depend on the politics of America in the future. But at this moment of need, when the threat is vastly larger than Hamas in Gaza, it's the entire Iranian proxy array around us all throughout the region. And the US deterred Iran at the moment of truth. And so that gratitude remains. Nothing Biden does will ever lose him that gratitude, at least in my own heart and soul. That is A, that's the bottom line. I don't expect, we talked back in October,

it was one of our very first conversations where we talked about how Biden is going to help us right up until he can't, he will not lose Michigan for us. I don't expect him to. If this is him pivoting away from us, throwing us under the bus so he doesn't lose Michigan, that's okay. That is something to be grateful for because he paid a cost. Third point, I just don't want them to screw it up. This is the moment where we pivot. In their minds, we pivot from us getting rid of Hamas. The missile shipments continue because they still want us to get rid of Hamas because the Biden administration understands that every plan they make is an after Hamas plan. It was interesting to me that that one quote about Hamas being at the table, the Washington Post cited an Arab official rather than

an American one. The Americans still want us to get rid of Hamas. Do they want us to get rid of Hamas so they can squeeze us better for a Palestinian state? That's their policy. That's their vision. Fantastic. But it's getting rid of Hamas is still part of that policy. But don't screw up the Palestinian state because America keeps coming in and thinking that its own process, its own discourse in Washington must be the reality on the ground. We saw this with the Obama administration, not the Obama administration going, you know, fisticuffs with Bibi Netanyahu. The Obama administration couldn't get the Palestinians to the table when it squeezed Netanyahu back in 2010. It outflanked the Palestinians from the

left. It made demands on the Israeli government. Remember the 10-month settlement freeze back in 2010 for Israel to show good faith? And then Palestinians came to Mahmoud Abbas and said, this thing that we had never even demanded from the Israelis, a pre-negotiation settlement freeze, the Zionist president got out of him. It undermined Abbas in Palestinian politics, and Abbas had to invent new things as preconditions for negotiation that prevented him from ever coming to the table for those 10 months. The Obama administration was so busy in its own policy-oriented sense of how Palestinians think and talk in their political culture that it actually massively undermined the Palestinian capacity to come to the table. Don't do that. Have a better sense of what's going on.

Have a better sense of a way forward. America provides so much to the Palestinians. It gives them so much help, so much aid. And there is a hatred of Palestinians because America also is an ally of Israel and likes Israel and supports Israel and wants Israel to finish off Hamas. Ultimately, only Palestinians can tell their own story. But come in as an international community and tell them you know something big and your values and the money that comes in from America is part of those values, is that Israel isn't going anywhere. And also just as a strategic fact, Israel's not going.

Come in and make the story the centerpiece. And then everything else falls into place. Everything else makes sense. Right now, it's a bunch of gobbledygook who runs Gaza the day after Hamas, but Hamas is going to be at the table. And we're going to squeeze the Israelis so they can't do the counterinsurgency properly, and therefore Hamas can always disrupt it. What? It's all meaningless unless the story changes. And you have so much power, so much influence, tell that better story. And then there could be a future administration that's slightly more on Israel's side, slightly more on the Palestinian's side. It doesn't matter. The basic things fall into place

if the Palestinian story changes. Don't mess it up. We owe only gratitude to the Biden administration. And Israelis who talk otherwise are ungrateful, which is a literal sin in Judaism. But don't screw it up. Haviv, we'll leave it there. Thank you. Safe travels. And I'll talk to you in a week. Thanks, Dan. That's our show for today. To keep up with Haviv Retegur's work, you can find him on X and you can find him at the Times of Israel.

Call Me Back's digital media manager is Rebecca Stroom. Call Me Back's producer is Alon Benatar. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.