Pod Save the World - Election 2024: Israel, Gaza, and the Future of the Middle East

Episode Date: October 19, 2024

In this special episode of Pod Save the World, Ben looks at the expanding conflict in the Middle East and how either a Harris or Trump electoral victory could impact the actions or motivations of countries in the region. He also looks at the growing rift among Democrats on the issue of Israel, anti-semitism in the US, the Palestinian perspective on the ongoing destruction in Gaza, and the broader regional dynamic. Ben is joined by Peter Beinart, Editor-at-Large of Jewish Currents and author of the forthcoming book “Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza”, as well as foreign policy analyst Rula Jebreal, and The Economist’s Middle East correspondent, Gregg Carlstrom. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Patsi of the World. I'm Ben Rhodes, and this is another special episode in the lead-up to November's election, where we're looking at what the stakes are for our foreign policy and the world as a whole. Last week, we focused on the war in Ukraine. This time, we'll look at the war between Israel and Hamas, and its continued escalation across the Middle East, as Israel has decimated Hezbollah's leadership and bombed Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran. It's been over a year since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7,

killing nearly 1,200 people and taking over 250 hostages. In the aftermath, Israel has waged a relentless military campaign in Gaza, killing over 40,000 people, including 20,000 children, more than all the civilian casualties in the war in Ukraine. It's almost impossible to describe the horror of the conditions in Gaza. Just about every person has been displaced. Most homes have been destroyed. Gazans have been living on the precipice of famine.

Multiple health crises have broken out. The bulk of this destruction has been done with U.S. weapons, which have continued to flow without conditions to Bibi Netanyahu and the Israeli government. The U.S. has tried repeatedly to negotiate a ceasefire that could secure the release of hostages, including the 97 who remain in Gaza. But those efforts have failed.

Meanwhile, rocket attacks into northern Israel by Hezbollah caused a displacement of tens of thousands of Israelis. Earlier this fall, Israel launched attacks on Lebanon. First, with exploding pagers and walkie-talkies to take out Hezbollah operatives, and then with a bombing campaign that killed Hezbo's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and a subsequent ground invasion. In the process, over a million people in Lebanon have been displaced and thousands have been

killed. Now, as listeners to Pazade the world know, we've been covering the ever-expending nature of this conflict every week, including Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, back-and-forced strikes between Israel and Iran, and attacks on U.S. service members in Syria and Iraq. Every step of the way, we've called for a ceasefire for the Biden administration to use leverage on Israel and condition assistance, for all parties to take a step back to avoid war and its inevitable humanitarian crises and political instability. In this episode, we continue to look at what the consequences or solutions could be in the future, depending on who wins the U.S. presidency.

You'll hear my conversations about the message America's action, or in this case inaction, sends on human rights with Rilla Gibriel, a Palestinian foreign policy and security analyst. We'll also talk about where the regional geopolitics are headed among the Gulf states and Iran, and ask how much influence U.S. actually has with Greg Carlstrom, the Middle East reporter for the economist. But first, we'll start here in the United States with a look at how this conflict has become central to our own political dialogue and how it's dividing the American Jewish community and the Democratic Party with Peter Beinart, the editor-at-large of Jewish currents. Peter has a new book coming soon called Being Jewish

After the Destruction of Gaza. We started our conversation the same way we're starting all of our episodes in this series, asking how the winner of this election could define American foreign policy. Well, I think the Trump record, based on what he did when he was in power the last time, is that he will support the Israeli government in doing basically whatever it wants. And so since what it wants is to annex the West Bank, I think it's already moving in that direction. I think Trump would give the green light. I also think that Trump would give the green light to efforts to depopulate Gaza through a kind of mass ethnic cleansing. So I think there are certainly elements, strong elements, Israeli government who want to

pressure Egypt to open the border and basically just push large numbers of people out of Gaza. And I think the Trump administration, I think, would be quite likely to go along with that. With Harris, it's a little bit harder to tell. And I think a lot of it really depends on how much pressure there is from the Democratic base. There is momentum inside the Democratic Party for some kind of conditioning of military aid. I think if it's possible that the pressure from inside the base and from some in Congress could push her in this direction. But my guess will be that there's a fair amount of range of different options that we could see in a Harris administration, depending on how the political, how the politics of this evolve inside the Democratic Party. Okay, so I want to spend most of the time talking about that Harris possibility, but first, just to kind of complete the thought on Trump.

I mean, it does seem to me like a four years of Donald Trump is kind of a window of opportunity for the Israeli right. We've seen already things ratcheting up in the West Bank with recent military operations. Obviously, we see what's happening in Lebanon. And, you know, their Israeli ministers talking about, you know, maybe even annexing southern Lebanon. What is the window, if you're, you know, one of the more extreme members of the Netanyahu Coalition, Ben-Gavir, Smoltritch, or, you know, or the settler movement generally, how do you think they would approach the kind of window that a Trump presidency presents to them? I think their general view is that you can't really live alongside the Palestinians,

because you're not going to, you're not willing to give them their own state, you're not willing to give them citizenship in the state in which they currently live now, which is the state of Israel. But you recognize that the right recognizes certainly since October 7th that Palestinians are likely to resist their denial of basic freedoms. And because Palestinians are going to deny their basic freedoms from the rights perspective, therefore they represent a threat. And since you won't solve their legitimate political desires, the ultimate answer is basically to push them out. I think that's the view of people like Ben-Givren Smotrich. Smotrich famously wrote about it in an essay in a paper called the Decisive Plan in 2017. But I think this goes way into the Likud Party as well. And so I think for the right, the question is, what are the opportunities to do this?

Maybe another intifada in the West Bank creates the opportunity to push a lot of Palestinians into Jordan. Maybe the Trump presidency certainly means that you have a level of impunity in the United States that I think it would make this much easier to do. And I think that would be the thing that certain elements and strong elements inside this current Israeli government, that I think would be their agenda. You know, I think a lot of us had a lot of hope, you know, when it shifted from Biden to her on this issue, that she was someone that seemed to have different instincts, was willing to call out the Israeli government's military operation Gaza a little bit more forcefully than Biden. And yet, there are also these signs of not wanting to go there, you know, at the Democratic Convention, no Palestinian-American was allowed to speak, including even a Democratic elected official who's going to endorse Kamala Harris in that speech. I mean, how do you read the mood music?

I know you've worked with some of the organized opposition to the war in Gaza and the Jewish community and the uncommitted movement. I mean, how do you assess what we've learned thus far in the few weeks that Kamala has been the standard bear. Well, we know that there's been a big shift in opinion in the Democratic Party in general, led by young people, and that Democrats oppose the war and are very sympathetic to putting limits, if not outright, end to Israeli, military weapons sales to Israel during this war. But as you know, you know, better than most people, like, there's not an easy transmission

mechanism between that public opinion and actual policymaking. And I'm frankly somewhat pessimistic about how much Kamala Harris will be able to do. I mean, first of all, because the public opinion shift that we've seen is not really being translated into a shift in the composition of Congress. There are some members of Congress like Chris Van Hollen and a few others who've become more outspoken. But we also see that because of the astonishing amounts of money that APEC has been able to raise without anything on the other side, that you actually have some of the most pro-Palestinian members of Congress losing their re-elections, which, you know, reminds politicians to basically remain intimidated on this issue. Kamala Harris doesn't have a long track record on foreign policy of her own strong convictions.

And I worry that that, and combined with the fact that, I mean, to be perfectly honest, I think it's harder as a black woman to take on these fights. I think that you were already, you know, you saw this with Barack Obama. I think people are already more suspicious of a view if you're not a white guy, if you try to move foreign policy in a progressive direction. And she doesn't have a group of close advisors who've been with her for years. And so I worry that we don't have a strong bench. Again, as you know, as well as any, we don't have a strong bench of people who can come into

a Democratic administration who have a different foreign policy vision, especially on this issue. We have an entire generation of people who've basically been social. into a kind of a very, very cautious, basically don't pick fights with Israel kind of view. And I imagine most of those people will be the people around her. So I hope I'm wrong. But in all honesty, I'm not super optimistic about how radically she will change U.S. policy. And what about, I mean, to just stay on this question of like what's happening inside the Democratic Party and some of the external forces that might, you know, have some influence on Kamala Harris. there's clearly this rupture in the sense that you have a growing progressive movement that wants to dramatically change American policy.

Then you have kind of majorities of Americans that, if asked the question, say, we should condition some military assistance. And as you say, that's not kind of translating into results by politicians. Look, one of the sources of influence on this, let's just name it, you know, has been the kind of organized American Jewish community that has been a kind of central part. pieces of it, even though APAC has moved, you know, further and further the right, and I would argue is kind of almost Republican-aligned in its ideology and outlook. There's still big chunks of the organized American Jewish community that are kind of pretty key parts of the Democratic parties coalition. As someone who's kind of observed that dynamic for years, do you see any of the debates that are happening in the country with large bringing any change within the structures

of the organized American Jewish community, or is it continue to kind of be status quo ante where it was in October 7? I mean, I think the problem is when you look at interest groups, and this is not just true for American Jews, I think it's true for Cuban Americans, which is a subject you knew really well. I think it's true for gun owners, right?

I don't think most gun owners actually support the position of the NRA. I think most gun owners, if you poll them, have a more moderate position, probably do support some kind of gun regulations. I think polls show that, you know, there are a lot of Cuban Americans who don't support the really hard-line position on Cuba that they're, but interest groups don't represent an entire community. They tend to represent

the most politically organized and the wealthiest elements in that community. And so the divide you have among American Jews is that American Jews who are younger and less affiliated are much more critical of Israel. American Jews who are older and more affiliated and wealthier tend to still take the view that basically the United States should support Israel, whatever it does. And those people really, really punch above their weight. And you can, again, you could see this when APAC decided to start directly raising money. The fact that they were just able to go to a bunch of people who could write million dollar checks. You know, there's nothing on the other side, whether it's among progressive Jews or Arab and Muslim or Palestinian Americans or who can do anything like that. And so

that's still where the balance of power remains inside the American Jewish community. One other last question that's closer to home, which is the other aspect of this, since we're kind of waiting in all the dangerous waters here, Peter, is it, you know, this question of anti-Semitism in the United States. I think we saw a good illustration of the dynamic in recent days, and this will air a little bit later, but I think, you know, the examples will still hold. So you had, right now there's a pretty concerted effort to kind of shame Rashida Talib over some statements she made about, the Michigan Attorney General for her going after Palestinian, you know, pro-Palestin protesters. And kind of the allegation is this was an anti-Semitic charge, even though she didn't say anything about the identity of the Attorney General being the motivating force, the Attorney General's Jewish.

But we're having one of these debates where there's a very loud course of people that throw the charge of any Semitism at anyone who's a critic of Israel. Right. On the other hand, you had Donald Trump just the other day saying, quote, any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion is something. Well, that's thing he said in the past. But he's updated it by saying that if he somehow loses in November, Jewish voters will, quote, have a lot to do with it because presumably they should have

acted on their dual loyalty for Israel to vote for him. The deepest, darkest, you know, right-wing anti-Semitic trope about essentially Jews having dual loyalties or Jews being, you know, a stab in the back narrative if things go wrong. The way I'm going to frame the question is, like, how worried are you, you know, that all of the focus of the conversation by anti-Semitism shifting to kind of college kids and Rashida Taleb is kind of taking our eye off the fact that the kind of right-wing ethno-nationalist version of anti-Semitism that has been the most destructive one in history kind of is just right there. and yet there's much less, you know, the ADL's not issuing statements of what Trump said,

like they were kind of taking our eye off the target here when it comes to anti-Semitism. Right. I mean, yeah, the problem is that so many of the people who are setting the agenda and the debate about what defines anti-Semitism are really basically thinking about how they defend Israel from criticism rather than thinking about what actually constitutes bigotry. There is genuine anti-Semitism on the left. course there is. But if you look at the data that we have, right, by academics, by social scientists, right? Not by the ADL, whose definition of anti-Semitism often shifts to basically incorporate whatever

criticisms of Zionism they don't like, but actually academics. What they find is that anti-Semitism, bigotry against Jews, is far higher on the right than it is on the left. And this should not really be surprising. We would expect that anti-black racism would be higher on the right than on the left, that homophobia and transphobia, that anti, that misogyny. Of course, it's not that there are not people on the left who have all of those bigotries, but the right, by its nature, tends to idealize a prior version of America, which was less equal. That's kind of almost baked into how American conservatism functions, right? The kind of pre-civil rights America is the better America.

And so it's kind of bizarre that we would think that anti-Semitism would be different than all of these other ideologies. The NACP doesn't say we think there's as much anti-black racism on the United States. the left is on the right, they understand that the right by its nature has a more hierarchical and unequal view of society. It's the same with anti-Semitism. It's deeply integrated. The people who are most anti-Semitic are also most anti-immigrant, most anti-Muslim, most anti-Black. And yet, we have a kind of organizational establishment and a group of politicians always want to obfuscate that because they need to obfuscate that in order to try to protect Israel from the consequences of its behavior. Okay, so as you heard from Peter, there are many dimensions of this issue in the

United States, identity issues, political issues, ethical issues. And what is clear is there's some change happening in terms of views of Israel and the Palestinians in the Jewish community, in the Democratic Party, among the U.S. public, this is clear. You see it not just in protest on college campuses, but we've also seen an opinion polls. You know, majorities of Americans want to condition assistance to Israel, kind of want to condition assistance to Israel, kind of want to to rethink the nature of this relationship, which feels pretty dysfunctional right now, as the Israeli government basically ignores everything that Joe Biden has told them. Now, to be clear, though, that's not enough to change policy.

Just as changing attitudes have not really impacted U.S. policy at all. And so the question is, what comes next? If Trump wins, I think we all know what we're getting, a kind of blank check on steroids for Netanyahu. But what about Kamala Harris? What happens if she wins? Well, to take a step back here, it's not just the question of how are we dealing with Israel, how we're dealing with the Palestinians.

It's really important to remember that beyond even the immediate overwhelming concern about Gaza, U.S. policy has once again deeply compromised our international and global position on issues like human rights in the rule of law. This is pretty simple. When the U.S. makes arguments about the war in Ukraine that are based on the rules-based order, the need to avoid civilian casualties, when the U.S. tries to name and shame Vladimir Putin in Russia for strikes that harm children inside of Ukraine.

When the U.S. embraces the international criminal court in going after Vladimir Putin, all those words ring pretty hollow when it's set against the arguments that we make to defend Israel's conduct in Gaza in the broader Middle East, where the majority of global opinion, frankly, is horrified at what's taken place in Gaza. And so America's capacity kind of make this argument for the rules-based order, for human rights, for international law,

well, that's all been compromised by what's been taking place in the Middle East. Now, Kamala Harris, as we've heard, offers a new opportunity to kind of turn the page to a new generation of American leadership and, given her background as an attorney general, to take a strong and principled position based on international law. I discussed this with Rula Gibriel. Now, I've known Rula for a long time. She's been a journalist and one of the smarter political analysts watching not just the Middle East, but also American politics. We began by talking about how she feels about this election as a Palestinian who's been watching the tragedy unfold, but also as someone who's thought long and hard about American foreign policy in the Middle East.

We began by talking about how Rula feels about this election as a Palestinian who has been watching the tragedies unfolding over the last year. I would like to answer this, not as a Palestinian or as a journalist, as actually a foreign policy expert who look at global events and who has been looking at the fight between authoritarianism or dictatorship and democracy. And you and I, regardless of our background, our religions, our ethnicity, our upbringing, we truly are committed to this absolute fight to advance democracy. democracies everywhere. So in this vision that brought forth the presidency of Joe Biden, clearly in the last two years, there's two approaches to foreign policy. One, when it comes to Ukraine and Russia, and we understood that Putin is exporting his authoritarianism and dictatorship with propaganda, with bombs, and with starvation, and with corruptions. And I might add, looking at Europe also with blackmail.

And rightly so, Joe Biden approached these issues at the administration of purchase issues saying the difference between us, Democrats, and others, we uphold and enforce international humanitarian law. We don't endorse invading country and accent country. All of these principles were basically abandoned, undermining the case for all of us, international and globally, that really truly we are fighting against authoritarian states when it came

to Israel and its approach and its execution of the war in Gaza and now the expansion of the war in the West Bank. The former Prime Minister of Sweden and Foreign Minister of Sweden, Card Bell, actually tweeted something that is very relevant to this conversation where he says Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin have shared values. They have the same approach to international humanitarian law. So again, I understand that Biden, and I have no hope that Biden would change his approach. I believe you met him very well when you were in the White House. You understood his approach.

And I read in your book, obviously, that generational dynamic there when it came to the arms ring and, you know, supporting authoritarian stability, Mubarak and others. It was clear from day one that this is Biden's approach and it's not going to change. It is disappointing. It is heartbreaking. and I think it is misguided. But here we are in a different dynamic. We have a younger woman of color

running on the fact that she is a former prosecutor, that she wants to uphold America's law and enforce America's law here in the United States. The real questions that many people around the world are asking today, not only in Palestine, in Israel, in Europe, Southeast Asia, but also I think of the Chinese and the Russians, will this next president of the United States, will she also uphold international humanitarian law

or even enforce America's law, the Leahy law, for example, that forbid funding of military unit that are engaged, are committing war crimes? The question is still open, and I hope, and I'm going to push, like you, for the next administration to actually, to understand that if they want to win this, by generational fight, global fight against authoritarianism, they need to start at home by enforcing

our own law. It is not possible that you abandon this law when it comes to allies, and then you enforce it when it comes to enemies. That's very well put. And I think you and I agree that, you know, with respect to the war in Gaza, following the law would mean, you know, halting military assistance to Israel because of the human rights violations it's engaged in. I, I, also like you, I'm sympathetic to the ICC, applying a uniform standard. Because you put this in, I think, usefully a bigger context, too, because I agree with you and with car built, that Netanyahu is cut from the same cloth as Putin, I think we should expect not only the ongoing challenges in Gaza, but we've seen Israel move into the West Bank. We've seen Netanyahu recently appear in front of a map

that presented the West Bank as just a part of Israel. We know people in his coalition would like the annexation of the West Bank. And by the way, We also know that Joe Biden, in addition to his Gaza policy, had kind of a Middle East policy that was about making deals with the Saudis, you know, bringing BB and MBS together, kind of that, that stability mentality that excluded the Palestinians entirely from the Abram Accords. So if Comlaris is elected, in addition to, you know, enforcing the law and applying the law to our Gaza policy, how should she shift off this paradigm of support Nanyahu and try to bring him together with MBS.

Like, is there, what, what would be the right approach to the Palestinian issue, to the West Bank, and to the future of Gaza for an incoming Harris administration? Look, Ben, we know that what President Biden failed foreign policy, if I may, is actually Trump's foreign policy. It's the continuation of Trump policy, which is the Abraham Accord, who cares about the Palestinians. Let's keep dealing and bringing, you know, autocrats to the equation. so they can normalize with Israel. And the whole promise around this policy, the Abraham Accord, was that somehow this could

constrain Israel and prevent annexation of the West Bank. That didn't happen. Actually, it emboldened Netanyahu's government who are ideologically committed to the annexation of the West Bank. So Kamala Harris will be faced with a very important question. What do we put first? America's stability, security, the fight for standing in the world, and also national security, or continue to back this far-right government that is willing to dismantle every resolution that

willing to violate every law, America's law and international law. So Kamala Harris will be, you know, faced with all these questions. I hope people like you will be surrounding her and will be actually advising her because whatever she will be doing in the next four years or three years, will determine if America will stay safe, secure, will not have another war, will not fight another war in the Middle East, but will determine if we fight this global fight against autocrats and against dictators, whether it's China, Russia, and others. Make no mistake, when the Germans, the far-right, you know, fascist party in Germany, Germany, basically, recently was rising in the polls. The first thing they did, they said, we would, they held the Israeli flag, they said, this is

what we believe in, ethno-nationalism, that Jews should not stay in Germany. Somehow they have a homeland that should go to Israel. And this is what we're fighting against here in the United States, a multi-ethnic, multiracial democracy. Palestinians should be included, not only in the solution and the conversation, but should be, actually should enjoy the same rights. and the same, you know, the same, the same aspiration that Israelis are enjoying in the West Bank and inside Israel and everywhere. And I think this case, she can understand better than anybody else

because she was a former prosecutor, former, you know, DA and a woman that understand the role of the rule of law and how nations that claim to be a democracy has to anchor its policy around the rule of law. I just came back from Europe, man. I mean, we have Borel, you know, chief diplomat of Europe who is placing sanctions on ministers, Israeli ministers. We have Spain who is calling Spain, Belgium, Ireland, and others who call it to examine the relationship with Israel. It's like, if we don't comply with the ruling of the ICJ, international law is rendered obsolete. Doesn't mean anything. And nobody will obey and basically people will. People will, start using the formula of Gaza and the doctrine that was unleashed by Natania in Gaza as a president

everywhere else, Taiwan, Ukraine, and elsewhere. And I think this is very dangerous, a dangerous precedent. So one more thing I want to ask you, because I think you've laid out well, you know, the need to enforce the law to abide by international law, to take a different paradigm to the Middle East, to see the far-right government in Israel as part of the anti-democratic trend globally. With respect to this Palestinian specifically, though, what could a Kamala Harris do to engage Palestinians differently? You know, there are questions of potential recognition of a Palestinian state. Then there are just questions around, you know, usually you see U.S. official they kind of go through Ramal. They meet with, you know, Abu Maz and Mahmoudabas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, but they don't really engage Palestinians much more broadly.

How would you like to see a Harris administration reach out to and kind of build a new relationship with the Palestinian? people? Well, first of all, why don't you, you know, reverse what what Trump did and open the embassy or consulate in Washington, D.C., start with small steps, have represented the Palestinians back in the United States instead of dialoguing with the Palestinians by a third party or somewhere else, are going to Ramallah. I mean, there's 159 countries that recognize the Palestinian state. I mean, the fact that the United States is still unwilling and enabled, yet Kamala Harris said they deserve self-determination, they deserve freedom. Well, you know, just put your words where you put your money and make your policies, you know, somehow connected to your rhetoric. Secondly, do what you did, Ben.

You traveled around the Middle East. You engaged with activists, journalists, human rights, you know, politicians, and also people who are leading the fight for democracy everywhere. You have actually to say something about enforcing international law, about the illegality of the settlements. I mean, you have an order for the international, you know, Court of Justice, the highest court in the land in the world telling you, we order you to dismantle the settlements. So start by, you know, calling the settlements an illegal enterprise, sanctioning, you know, just do what you did in Russia. You have the Magnitsky Act, trigger the Magnitsky Act against the illegal. settlements and settlers who are called terrorists, not by the United States, by the head of Shabakh, the Shinbeg, who called them terrorists.

He said, and he actually said in an interview in a letter to the prime minister said, I cannot do anything about these terrorists because they have political support. So I would say sanctioned the settlements, sanctioned these ministers. I would open the embassy immediately, but also arms embargo ban, without an arms embargo ban, without an arms embargo, those weapons. You cannot say, I care for Palestinians, and yeah, I want self-determination, and then you continue to provide the weapons

that are killing scores of Palestinians, thousands and thousands. I mean, the last number of children who are killed are 18,000 children. We don't know any, you know, we don't know the numbers of Palestinian children under the rebels. You cannot say that this is a legitimate tool of war.

You cannot say starvation is a legitimate tool of war. And I think it also helps Israel. Why do I say that? We're seeing many human rights organization in Israel who are begging the international community to intervene because they're seeing a radicalization in their own society. We've seen people who are protesting against the prime minister and for a hostage deal getting brutalized and beaten up. And now we have a conversation in the parliament of Israel that of people who are politicians and ministers who are calling to legalize basically the use of torture as a weapon of war against Palestinians. I mean, we're seeing a radicalization in Israel that need to be stopped.

And the only way it can stop by pressuring Israel externally, there's no way they will change without international pressure. I want to repeat the sentence that I love very much, which is, power never can see anything without demand. Never did and never will. This was Frederick Douglass when he was talking about slavery, that you need to pressure any entity, any regime to change. Otherwise, it will not change. Okay, so you heard some strong views from Rula. Now, I just want to add that reflects pretty broad opinion, not just among Palestinians, but among many people around the world who've been watching this conflict. Now, Rula had some, you know, pretty strong language and obviously some pretty

clear recommendations about the need for the U.S. to change policy. I don't expect everyone who's listening right now to agree with everything Rula said. But I would ask you to consider how many Palestinian voices you actually hear in our media in politics? Because again, Rula's voice is very much in the mainstream of what you'd hear from Palestinian voices. And I think it's important that we hear more of that perspective as we make these decisions. It's also important, again, to consider the impact all this is having on the U.S. position in the world. world with Palestinians, with Arabs, also just globally. Now, we heard from Rula a real focus on what's been happening in Gaza, what's been happening

with the Palestinians. But just as Kamala Harris has an opportunity to kind of change course as she addresses that conflict, there's also the question of how she's going to approach the entire Middle East, whether or not she's going to change U.S. policies and certain U.S. assumptions about the Middle East in her presidency. What impact could Kamala Harris have on the very complicated set of relationships and interests and kind of competing interests that the United States has in the Middle East. Now, before we answer that question, I want to play a clip from a conversation I have with Senator Chris Murphy, just because he gives a bit of a hopeful window into Kamala Harris'

record, one aspect of that record, where she has been willing to kind of question assumptions around U.S. Middle East policy and, you know, take a different approach. Let's give it a listen. She was one of the only senators who joined me in my first resolution on the Senate floor to stop U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia until they got serious about ending the war in Yemen. That was a contrary opinion at the time. There was certainly risk in voting to end U.S. military support for a key ally, but she was willing to take that vote because she took the time to really, reconsider whether the foreign policy community, the establishment, the consensus was right that we needed to back Saudi Arabia's play in Yemen, which if you really looked at it on the

merits, was absolutely disastrous for U.S. security interests. So I've seen her be willing to challenge the consensus to take a step away from it when she thinks there needs to be a reorientation. And I think that that will be a welcome ethos in the Oval Office. Okay, so that vote on Yemen in Congress was a moment of Kamel, taking a strong position in opposition to existing policy, and she was joined in that by a majority of the Democratic Party. But right now, the consensus in Middle East policy among elites in both parties has essentially been unconditional support for Israel,

pursuing the Abram Accords with the Gulf States, where they normalized relations with Israel in exchange for, well, a lot of things from the United States, and then putting maximum pressure on Iran, including over its nuclear program and support for terrorism across the region. However, we've clearly seen the limits of that approach and in U.S. influence in the Middle East over the last year. So, what do we do about it? To get a smart perspective on where the region is going and what influence the U.S. has or doesn't have, I spoke with Greg Carlstrom, who lives in the region and covers the Middle East for the economist.

Where does Greg see things going after the U.S. election? I think the clearest view that anyone has in the region is probably bin U.Méin Netanyahu's view, which is that he is banking. on a Donald Trump victory as a way to alleviate any pressure to reach a ceasefire in Gaza. And we can talk about how much pressure Joe Biden has or has not placed on Netanyahu over the past year. But I think there's a sense within his administration that Harris would put at least some pressure on him and Trump would not put any. And so he's very much hoping for a Donald Trump victory. I think consequently there are plenty of other people in the region who are not pulling for one.

And then I think you have countries like the Saudis or the Emirates where, you know, I think there's a view in Washington that the Gulf states are pulling for Trump. They can't wait for January for Trump to come back to power. And I'm not sure that's entirely true. I think there's a certain amount of buyer's remorse that people have in the Gulf about their their dalliances with Trump the first time around. And they're not quite as enthusiastic about the idea of him coming back as people might think that they are. If it's Kamala Harris, what are the options before her when it comes to trying to de-escalate

essentially the dynamic in which the Israeli government has both been fighting the war in Gaza and encroaching in the West Bank? You know, she talked in her convention speech about a commitment to Palestinian self-determination. What options does she have to actually change that dynamic? sense that, you know, yes, Trump would be less critical of anything Israel likely does, yet Joe Biden didn't exactly exert a lot of leverage on these issues. How do you see the choices before her? Right. And I think what you, you know, what you outlined before the sort of two prongs of Biden's policy, this push for a ceasefire in Gaza and then this push for a bigger deal

with the Saudis, a Saudi-Israeli normalization deal. I think doing both of those things, the way Biden did is going to be very difficult for Harris. She can't pursue them the way that Biden did. On Gaza, if she wants to make a deal in Gaza, if she wants to push Netanyahu to make a deal in Gaza, there are going to have to be some very serious American threats attached to that. Biden and his envoys have spent many, many months now doing shuttle diplomacy, trying to bear hug the Israelis, as the White House put it shortly after October 7th, and trying to nudge them towards not just the ceasefire in Gaza, but various other policy priorities that the White House had, taking more measures to protect civilians in Gaza, allowing more aid into Gaza, having at least a

conversation about what the day after in Gaza is going to look like and who is going to take charge politically after the war. And Israel has not been willing to really do any of those things over the past year. So if Harris wants progress on any of those files, there need to be some serious threats attached around perhaps military aid, sale of weapons, diplomatic support to Israel. And then on the other piece of this, on the Israeli-Saudi normalization, Mohamed bin Salman, in a speech on September 18th just said very clearly for the first time that there is not going to be an Israeli-Saudi normalization deal unless there is a Palestinian state.

And he didn't say progress towards a Palestinian state. He didn't say a pathway towards a Palestinian state. he said very clearly the establishment of a Palestinian state. So that's a policy shift on the part of the Saudis, and it's a policy shift that obviously comes after a year of pressure on them from around the Arab world, from people who are watching what is unfolding in Gaza. And so that takes the prospect of an Israeli-Saudi deal, for now, off the table, unless there is, I think, some really serious progress on the peace process.

And so Harris can choose to do what Biden did and sort of ignore the Israeli-Palestinian. conflict and try to keep working on it from the outside in. That was Trump's policy. That was a policy. Biden then picked up as well, but she's not going to make any progress there. And so I think as fruitless as it may seem to try and work on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, given what's happening right now. I think if she's able to broker a deal to end the war, before you unlock anything else in the region, you have to try to make some progress on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict itself. Okay, so pulling back, you know, you and I talked shortly after October 7th, and, you know, one of the things that, you know, you were highlighting was that, you know, part of the

Abraham Accords was an effort to kind of normalize relations between Israel and the Gulf, less because of any pathway to Palestinian self-determination or statehood, but more to kind of have a security alliance that could counter Iran. And so if you look back at the last, you know, three U.S. administrations, you know, in the Obama years, we were trying to de-escalate with the Iranians to kind of stabilize the situation in the region, Trump and Biden kind of took this pathway of the Abraham Accords to fortify this kind of security alliance against Iran and its proxies, including Hezbo and the Houthis. is that still a viable path?

I mean, what is the nature of the kind of regional dynamic? I think, you know, when you talk about the Abraham Accords and when you talk about some of the other regional integration ideas that this administration has had, you know, there are some things in there that on paper makes sense, this idea of integrated air defense in the Middle East, this Middle East air defense system that various Biden officials have been pushing over the past four years. It's a good idea. if you had all the countries in the region, Arab states and Israel,

tie their air defenses together so that they could protect against Iranian missiles and drones, like we saw when Iran fired this barrage at Israel, then this ad hoc coalition of Western and Arab states stepped in to provide defense. The problem is getting that to be sort of self-sustaining. There's a lot of fear in Jordan, in countries in the Gulf, that if they are in some sort of overt military alliance with the Israelis, they are going to invite direct Iranian attacks on their own soil. And so over the past year, the UAE hasn't backed out of the Abraham Accords, Bahrain hasn't backed out,

the Saudis have continued to express some willingness to normalize with Israel. But at the same time, they have all been trying to shore up their relationships with Iran. They have really tried to do everything in their power to make sure that no one brings them into this conflict, that they are able to almost sit on the sidelines. So I think for the Gulf states, the overarching principle at the moment is one of fear. They don't trust in the American security umbrella that has protected them for decades. They don't think it's that reliable anymore. And that is something that has to do with both Trump's nonresponse after the attacks on Saudi oil fields five years ago.

And then also Biden's sort of nonresponse after the drone attack in Abu Dhabi two and a half years ago, which shook officials in the UAE. they're concerned about the reliability of the American security umbrella. They don't trust in their own military capabilities, even though they have lots of very expensive American-made military kit. So they are just very concerned about being dragged into a conflict with Iran or Iran's proxies in the region. So, you know, if the Gulf states are hedging like that and there's kind of this roadblock in terms of the Saudis not joining normalization apps in a Palestinian state, you know, one other pathway is Iran. when after the Iranian election, there was some sense that this was a president who would be more in a kind of Rahani fashion, more willing to pursue diplomacy, maybe around the nuclear program, kind of return to the Obama paradigm of negotiation between the U.S. and Iran to at least de-escalate the nuclear side of things, but that could, you know, spread to other areas. You know, if there's a Harris presidency and, you know, Phil Gordon, her top advisor, he was there at the, outside of the Iran negotiations, he supported that. I mean, is there any opening there?

I think a lot of that is going to depend on political dynamics in the region and political dynamics inside of Iran. And some of these things, I think, will be outside of the next president's control. With Rouhani, there was a moment where you had an Iranian president who was elected with a big mandate and with a mandate to do exactly what he did to negotiate with the West and try to broker a deal that would bring sanctions relief and help the Iranian economy. And so he was able to deliver on that, of course, with the support of the Supreme Leader who was, if not enthusiastic about it, at least open to it. Trump came in, obviously. He shreds that. Biden comes in. You can fault Biden, I think, in the first few months of his presidency for not moving quicker to try and revive

the JCPOA. But I think by the summer of 2021 when Ibrahim Reisi was elected president, the window closed at that point. And after that, it was Iranian intransigence that prevented a return to the deal. It wasn't really anything the Biden administration did or did not do. And I think now you have this moment where, yes, Pesachian, I think personally would be more amenable to negotiating with America in the vein of a Rouhani. But does the Supreme Leader want him to? If you look at what he's been able to do, Pesdashkian, with his cabinet so far, it hasn't been the sort of transformative cabinet that many Iranians hoped it would be. It's not stocked with young people and moderate-leaning reformist voices. It's stocked with a lot of older conservatives because that is all of the political

room that Pizashiyan was given. You've got a perhaps somewhat reform-minded or pragmatic-minded president, but many of the people around him are quite hide-bound conservative. So whether he's given room to negotiate something as a question, and then of course the sort of question overshadowing that is what happens to the Supreme Leader. He's an old. man, statistically speaking, he's probably going to die in the next four years or so. And so the next president, if they're considering how they're going to approach Iran, I think a lot of that is going to depend on what happens after Khomeini's death, who replaces him, whether there's a smooth transition of power or whether it's only the second time Iran has ever had to

replace its supreme leader, whether it is a more difficult, more fraught transition. So kind of summing this up, listening to your talk, it kind of feels like absent pretty dramatic change from either Trump or Harris. It kind of feels like the U.S. is being, you know, it's like a piece of driftwood in the currents of the Middle East here. I mean, is that a fair way of looking at it? Because it, you know, it does seem like the U.S. is very important there, but doesn't seem to be driving events. No, it's not driving events. And some of that, I think, is just because America's influence in the region. I think it's been overstated for a long time. I think there's this belief that some policymakers in Washington have and also that a lot of people here in the region have that, you know, America snaps its fingers and it can change regimes in the Middle East and it can overthrow governments.

And actually, America's influence in many ways is much more limited than that and has been for some time. But I think also, you know, in so many places American policy has just been stuck in this sort of path dependency where relations with the Gulf states, I mean, there's so much frustration when you talk to officials in the Gulf. that neither Democratic nor Republican administrations seem to have any vision of what American Gulf relations can look like beyond an oil for security bargain that I think is often misinterpreted on both sides. America wants something on oil that it doesn't get from the Gulf states. The Gulf states want something on security that they don't get from America. If you're a Harris administration, and I think if Trump comes to power, it's going to be very much like his first term where it's very transactional with the Gulf states.

he's pushing for normalization deals and, you know, various people around him find a way to make billions of dollars in the process. If a Harris administration comes in, there's a moment where you can think about and talk about something new. I mean, what does the U.S. Saudi relationship look like in the 21st century? If it's not just this old oil for security paradigm, what does the U.S. Emirati relationship look like? And it has to be something more than what it was. And last question, you know, we've talked about the areas that people are focused on right now, obviously Gaza, the West Bank, the Palestinians, Lebanon, Hezbollah, the conflicts, you know, dynamic with Iran. What are the other, you know, wildcards, spoilers, things that, you know, and the next president may have to face that you think are not getting that much attention? I mean, the Houthis are still entrenched in Yemen. The Iranian nuclear program is perilously, you know, advanced. Iraq, Iraqi stability can always become an issue. I mean, is there something you would introduce as the potential surprise crisis of the next presidency?

With the caveat that I think trying to predict the future in the Middle East is always a fool's game, right? I mean, I'm sure the Obama administration didn't predict the Arab Spring when it came in in 2009. But I think, you know, there's this focus on, as you say, on Israel and Iran is sort of two of the central problems in the region. But there's a related problem, which is the fragility and the weakness of so many states, so many Arab states. You look at a country like Egypt, which has spent now a decade lurching from one economic crisis to another, which seemed earlier this year like it might be on the brink of default because it had burned through so much of its hard currency. It got a bailout from the UAE. It got a $35 billion bailout from the UAE, which then

unlocked some more money. So it staved off disaster for a year or two. But, you know, all of the underlying problems in Egypt, the economic dysfunction, the military control of the economy in Egypt, corruption, all of these things are still big issues. And in a couple of years, they're going to burn through their bailout money and they're going to be facing another crisis. Tunisia right now, teetering on the brink of default. It's had, you know, almost four years now of being ruled by a very, say, erratic president who has done nothing on the economy and has let the economy just fester for the past four or five years. Jordan is a perennial basket case. You have countries where more than 100 million people in total live in just those three countries. They are all

going through huge socioeconomic problems. They are all going through crises of political legitimacy. And I think there's a real concern in the coming years that, you know, what if, What if Egypt defaults? What if the economy in Egypt really goes off a cliff? The CC government has spent years sort of counting on the idea that it's too big to fail and someone will always bail it out. But what if Egypt becomes too big to bail out, essentially? And its economy does go through the sort of collapse that the Lebanese economy went through four years ago. You have potentially a massive wave of migration, leaving Egypt, trying to go to Europe. That has implications for European policy. You have implications for the stability of Egypt, which then is of concern

for Israel, for the Horn of Africa, for other countries. And I think it's not just the job of America to deal with those things. Europe needs to play a role. The Gulf states need to play a role. But I think American policy has ignored a lot of those economic issues, both under the Biden presidency and under the Trump presidency before it. And those are, to me, some of the most overlooked, depressing issues in the region.

Okay, so I thought one of the most interesting and underappreciated points that Greg made there was towards the end, which is the fact that there are many problems in the least. And we're all focused right now, understandably, on Gaza and the West Bank, on Lebanon, on the potential for conflict with Iran, on what's happening in Yemen. But as you're at Greg say, there's also challenges inside other countries like Egypt and Jordan that have kind of very brittle political systems right now. Now, in both Egypt and Jordan, you have the potential for instability in Jordan, because a large part of the population is either Palestinian or certainly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and is dissatisfied with what King of Della

has done there. But also in Egypt, where you have a brutal dictator who's kind of keeping the lid on things. And I will just tell you that having lived through the Arab Spring, I don't know if it's going to be Egypt or Jordan where there's a new political crisis. But the one thing I do know is that every president of the United States gets tested in a way that they don't expect by some crisis in the Middle East. So whoever's elected, they're going to be facing an ongoing war in Gaza and Lebanon potential conflict with Iran and Iranian nuclear program that is getting very close to Iran having the capacity to build a nuclear weapon. But we should also remember that whoever is elected is going to be dealing with the unexpected. So far in this series, we've talked about two ongoing wars, one in Europe, one in the Middle East.

But perhaps the biggest geopolitical conflict in the world right now is actually between the U.S. and China. Where is that competition going? Where do the risks of war over Taiwan? An issue that will surely be on the front burner for the next president. And I have to say, given that we already have a war in Europe and Middle East, the last thing we need is for this to go truly global. So how can we bounce competing needs to stand up to China at times to protect American jobs and industry? but to work with China when we need to to combat climate change and how do we avoid conflict, particularly over Taiwan, in our relationship with China?

We'll look at all of those questions next week. POTSafe the World is a crooked media production. Our producer is Alona Monkowski. Our associate producer is Michael Goldsmith. Our executive producers are me, Ben Rhodes, and Tommy Vitor. The series is mixed and edited by Charlotte Landis with audio support by Kyle Seggler. Our senior video producer is Phoebe Bradford, and video editor is Brady Kane.

If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more, consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at cricket.com slash friends. Don't forget to follow us at Crooked Media on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter for more original content, host takeovers, and other community events.

Plus, find Pod Save the World on YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more. If you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review.