The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - David Rothkopf - War crimes in Israel?

Episode Date: January 21, 2024

Foreign policy expert David Rothkopf discusses the non-existential threats to Israel and (his views) the war crimes Israel is committing in response. Needless to say, a debate ensues.

Okay, good afternoon. Welcome to Live from the Table. I'm here today with David Rothkopf, who is somebody I've gotten to know and enjoyed some lunches with over the years, somebody I have a tremendous amount of respect for, not just as a thinker, but also as kind of a performer. You know, I've always felt that way about you. I always felt that you were an undiscovered kind of talent. Anyway, I'll read a little bit from his Wikipedia intro. David Rothkopf is an American foreign policy, national security, and political affairs analyst and commentator. He is the founder and CEO of TRG Media and the Rothkopf Group,

a columnist for the Daily Beast, and a member of USA Today Board of Contributors. He's the author of 10 books, most recently Traitor, A History of American Betrayal from Benedict Arnold to Donald Trump. He's also the podcast host of Deep State Radio. Rodkoff serves as a registered foreign agent of the United Arab Emirates. I didn't know that. Is that relevant to anything? It's not, and we're not, you know, we don don't lobby we just produce a podcast that they sponsor yeah i didn't know that okay so i've spent some time interviewing some vehemently anti-israel people like norman finkelstein and aaron mate and rashid kalidi uh and now i want to spend some time interviewing people I call Israel uncomfortable.

Not at all hateful, not anybody's idea of an anti-Semite, God forbid, but somebody, in my opinion, who's always seemed to bristle at America's relationship with Israel. When I say always, I mean in my knowledge of the person. And, you know, we all wonder about our own, um, the, the, uh, what's the word? How our own happenstance lines up with our political positions. So I'm born a Jew to Israeli parents, and what a coincidence, I'm very pro-Israel, right? So that always makes me worry.

On the other hand, somebody can have the right position, even someone who's born into something as convenient as that. So when very, very smart people like you disagree, I try to really slow down and take that very carefully. So let me go through a few basic questions with you before I get to the article that I contacted you about because I think a lot of these early questions kind of set a trajectory that kind of geometrically

can place people very, very far apart at the other end when it starts with a very subtle difference of opinion. Did I print it out? I think I did. The first question is, David, do you view the Jews as an ethnic group on the order of Italians and Irish? I mean, it's not

up to me to view it. I mean, I think that's the prevailing view. That sounds like a dodge. I'm asking you what you think. No, I'm just saying. I'm not an ethnologist. Yeah, I mean, that's how I would view them. You would view them as that.

Because from time to time you've talked about Israel in the context of separation of church and state kind of issues, of religion, which I don't see it that way at all. I mean, I wish they would keep the religion out of the state more often, and I understand their problems. But to me, I'm not one bit religious. I view it as my ethnic group. Do you view it that way?

Just that I do. You do? I view it as an ethnic group. But I think it's very important that one disaggregates a number of ideas here. So, for example, I would say I'm pro-Israel as a country, and because I have a lot of friends who are Israeli, I'm opposed to the government of Israel as it is currently constituted. I have a problem, which you just alluded to, with regard to the idea of state-sponsored religion anywhere. Because I view myself as an American, and I think there were some good reasons why we sought a separation of church and state. problems of Israel have to do with the idea of it being a Jewish state above all other

things, given its ambitions in terms of some aspects of where it is and what its borders are and so forth. Well, you have to go out now, son. I'm sorry, my son. Close the door behind you, please. Vegan, vegan, vegan! When you say a Jewish state, that's what it gets to. Do you begrudge them a Jewish state for the Jewish people or just for the Jewish religion? I don't begrudge Israel anything.

I don't believe, and, you know, my father is a Holocaust survivor. Forty members of my family were killed in the Holocaust. My father was quite Zionist. And I was, you know, raised in this idea that Jews need a haven someplace. And so, you know so I support those ideas, but not at any cost. I don't think that the Jews are entitled to a state if they deny people within that state fundamental human rights. I don't think Jews have the right to deny the human rights of

their neighbors. I sort of set the same standards for a state like Israel that I would set for the United States. But why don't they have the right? Presuming they do those things, why don't they still have a right to a state? There are many countries that deny basic human rights. We would never think of saying they don't have the right to a state. Frankly, I've never denied them the right to a state. In fact, they do have a state. This is kind of an abstract trap of an argument. There is a Jewish state. It's Israel. It exists.

The question is, how should it exist? And what policies does it adopt that are constructive and helpful and in the interest of all the people of Israel or in the interest of the United States? And what policies does it adopt that are not? Right. Another question, then we'll get to it. The Nakba. The Nakba is often described as the catastrophe,

and usually when you hear it defined, it's that 700 or 750,000 Palestinians were either expelled, chased out, removed, relocated, however you want to break that number up as an AKBA. But I'm wondering if that is actually the problem. 1948, no Arabs had been expelled. The Arab world would view it as any less a Nakba, that there were a Jewish state now in Israel with a Palestinian minority. It depends on the terms.

If land was expropriated, if rights were denied, if there was a cost in terms of human suffering or loss of life they might um but you know again why why why deal in abstractions what happened happened well we the reason we're dealing and this is a subtle point actually most of our lives the issue the hot issue was the 67 war the occupation occupation, the West Bank, all that stuff. But I think almost nobody's talking about that now. It's back to 1948.

That's what everybody's talking about. River to the Sea and the Nakba and all these attendant issues. These are all 1948 issues. As a matter of fact, almost nobody's even talking about the occupation of the West Bank. Certainly Hamas is not talking about it. And, you know, the history is not well known, but obviously you and I know that when the UN partitioned Israel and Palestine, all the Arab countries attacked. And the Nakba was in that, I guess you'd call it a genocidal attack.

I don't know what would have happened to the Jews if they had not been able to prevail in that war. It would have looked something like genocide. In that attack is when people were expelled or chased out and all that. So that's why I say that this idea of a Nakba, it almost starts the story immediately, conveniently, immediately after the genocidal attack against the Jews. And many people don't even realize that what they're talking about as the Nakba was a response to an attack. It wasn't an aggressive war. It was a response. Do you agree with that?

I think it was a response to a series of activities that took place in that part of the world that immediately dates back to the British control of the region and the British arrogation unto themselves of the decision, you know, of the role that should be played there by Jews and the role that should be played there by Palestinians. and then that got handed off to the United Nations. The reality is, of course, the British didn't have any right to set the terms, and the Palestinians were not consulted in this. Now, they've made a lot of terrible choices subsequent to that in terms of the role they were played or the offers that were made to them and so forth. So I'm not defending

the decisions of Palestinian leaders. But to say, well, this happened in this month because of something that happened X months before it, when we're dealing with something with hundreds that not only is the history complex, but both sides have some merits to their arguments. And so people say, well, pick a side. You've got to be for this or against this. And I just don't think that that holds water in terms of objective analysis. And the original idea behind this partition was that the Palestinians would have a state, and they don't. But they rejected it, right?

Well, they rejected it because they didn't like the terms of the deal. But they were sort of handed a deal, right? And subsequently, over time, the deal has gotten worse and worse for them. Well, they rejected the Peel Commission in 1937, and that was 70% of the mandate. So I don't know what, you know, they rejected various terms. They rejected every term. Do you actually think the reason they rejected it is because of the terms of the deal? I don't think that.

No, I think the reasons that they objected it throughout history were largely because they didn't want Israel there. So they were opposing the whole idea and that that was their position. And, you know, again, you know, one could have an argument about what should have been done, you know, in the 30s or what should have been done in the 40s. But this is 2024. And I think we need to sort of say

we are where we are and what's the best way to deal with the situation given where we are absolutely, but I'm surprised I'm happy with your answers, I'm surprised I thought we'd disagree more so I'm going to put it my way that

starting in the late 1800s Jews being killed all over the world pogroms and the rest, began to realize there was no hope of ever living differently. They even flirted with the idea of conversion. Herzl came up with this idea of a Jewish homeland.

Small numbers started moving there, including my ancestors. And then with the Holocaust, gushers of people came. And then with the Holocaust, gushers of people came. the world at that point, given a fait accompli,

as you say, had to deal with the situation that was on the ground. So they tried to partition it into two states. the key fact is that there's been rejectionism ever since so let's fast forward and this i guess the last thing we're going to article where do you place the blame for the failure of the clinton barack uh negotiations and then the almert-Abbas negotiations? Placing blame is the first step on the road to an unsuccessful discussion of these things.

There were good faith efforts, I believe, to negotiate during the Clinton years, and I was a member of the Clinton administration, so I have a perspective on that. And those good faith efforts were ultimately rejected by the Palestinians. So I place some blame on them for doing that. Arafat, I place some blame on. Now, having said that, you know, there was progress made, Oslo and so forth, under Rabin, and there was an effort among extremist Israelis to reject that, and that included demonstrations led by the now Prime Minister, Bibi Netanyahu, that were calling before Rabin's assassination for death to Rabin,

several months before Rabin's assassination. Netanyahu called for death to Rabin? There were demonstrations at which they were called for. That he was involved in, I didn't know that. Yeah, that he was involved. And in fact, at one of the demonstrations, there was a mock funeral for Rabin, and Netanyahu was presiding over it. Netanyahu, for his entire period of leadership over the course of the past almost quarter century, has been opposed to the peace process. And I attribute a great deal of the blame for the situation we're in now to right-wing Israeli nationalist extremists, just as I attribute a great deal of it to Palestinian extremists. Because obviously, you know, this is a situation

where some kind of accommodation of both sides needs to take place, and you don't get that if you've got extremists setting the tune, right? Well, I agree with you. It's funny you say you don't want to place blame, and then you sound like you're placing blame on Netanyahu. Well, no, you asked the question. I'm trying not to dodge the question. Well, we skipped to Rabin, but the reason I asked the question is because one of the fundamental questions that we all have to come to an answer in our heads about is, do they want peace? Who's they? they want peace? Because if the Palestinian entities, we know that Hamas doesn't want

peace. The question is, does the Palestinian Authority want peace? And then the next step would be, if they want it, can they deliver it? But there's a lot of evidence that's convincing to me that they don't. And then, of course, when people like Benny Morris, who was such a who's such an expert on this, spent his whole life buried in it, he was a conscientious objector and wrote the book Righteous Victims and was

a better advocate for the Palestinian people than never was, when he has come to the conclusion that they will never make peace, yet he calls their treatment of Israel and the West Bank apartheid, or he signed a letter that uses the word apartheid, meaning he's not anybody's right-wing scholar, it really, I think, it really does require one to decide whether or not they don't want peace.

Because if they don't want peace, obviously that has policy implications to what Israel does now, right? I mean, you know, you have to break the debt. So who they? All Palestinians? The leadership of Hamas? The leadership of the Palestinian Authority? I'll define it. I'll define it. I'll define it. A critical mass such that a deal signed with whoever under Netanyahu, nor the leadership of the Palestinians, which in large part due to Netanyahu, is divided between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, is inclined to achieve, you know, a lasting peace.

And I think if you talk to people who are actively involved in negotiations now, what they'll tell you is that in order to get to a process, you have to eliminate Hamas. They've disqualified themselves. You have to replace the leadership of the Palestinian Authority because they're old and corrupt. And you have to find some new mechanism for Palestinian political leadership. And you have to put out to pasture the Netanyahu government

because not only is he a problem, but, you know, Ben-Gabir and some of these other extremists are worse. And you'll never get anywhere so long as those pieces remain in place. And I think that's accurate. Well, I don't agree with that. I'll tell you why. For instance, a year and a half ago, Lapid was prime minister, and he made a speech to the United Nations calling for a two-state solution, asking them to lay down their arms. We have a plan. We'll end the blockade. He made a beautiful speech, and nobody gave a shit. But the reason I don't agree with it is because, for the same reason, you could have made that same argument about Menachem Begin vis-a-vis Egypt. And it would have been correct

until such time as the leader of Egypt decided he wanted to make peace, in which case the Israeli public swung to the left, ready to make peace, to embrace it. And if there were a Palestinian leader who was interested in peace, tomorrow, is there any doubt

you would see, and it was believable, is there any doubt you would see, and it was believable, you would see the Israeli people swing to the left as they have every other time, toss Netanyahu out or force Netanyahu to make a deal? I mean, the Israelis continue to try to negotiate

peace even during the second intifada. While they were blowing up children and suicide bombs there was still a movement to for a two-state solution so go ahead sorry look the the the reality is that you know you're right there is no identifiable palestinian leader who has publicly embraced the idea of a two-state solution or a constructive process. There is no lasting peace without a two-state solution. So something has to change, and it hasn't changed yet, and I think we can all agree on that. Now, it may be that there are things that are afoot that could lead to that

change. For example, Gaza has been obliterated as a place. You know all the statistics. I'm not going to quote them again here. Gaza must be rebuilt. The Israelis are not going to rebuild Gaza, nor should they, frankly, because that would imply a certain control over it, which they shouldn't have. The U.S. is not going to be able to do it. Regional powers will have to do it.

Those regional powers have all made it absolutely clear to the U.S. and the U.N. that they're not going to do it unless there is a peace process they believe in. And that means new Palestinian leadership, and it means new Israeli leadership. So is that going to be, in 1948, the consensus in the Arab world was destroy Israel. In 2024 or 2028, is the consensus going to shift to say, you know, enough's enough. And if you want to rebuild these places and you want our support, then we've got to cut this two-state solution. We've got to get to this deal finally. If that happens, you know, then there will be progress. That hasn't happened yet. Yeah, that would yet yeah that would be

and it's not a crazy thought by the way very often you do see real changes in direction when things come to a rock bottom as they are now where else can it go

so let's just set up the risk board here for the Israeli situation. As I see it, and you tell me where I'm wrong. Actually, it's in those years. Right now there's 100,000 Israelis displaced in Israel in the north and the south. There's 150,000 something like that rockets that Hezbollah has in the north. Maybe half of them or some big number of them are precision guided missiles, can do much worse damage than the kind of homemade Hamas rockets.

Hamas, obviously, we know is never-ending rockets in the south. The Houthis are in the southeast, right? Now are a new threat. They're also sending rockets to Eilat and they're disrupting shipping. And then far to the east you have Iran, which is not only funding and encouraging

all these kind of mini-proxy attacks, but also has enough uranium now to deliver a dirty bomb should somebody decide to do that. That's Israel's situation on the risk board, as I see it. You agree with that? What?

I mean, that describes a number of things. It doesn't describe Israel's situation on the risk board. Israel's situation on the risk board is the richest and most powerful country in the world is allied with Israel and supports it, has enormous military assets there. There are 50 countries that have come together to offset the Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. There was a UN resolution on that. You have a military activity taking place currently with the United States, the UK, supported by Bahrain, Australia, and some others against the Houthis. So it's not like Israel is all alone in dealing with that issue.

The Iranians could not undertake an action like a dirty bomb attack without there to be the most severe consequences. I would add, by the way, the Iranians are not alone. You know, the Russians are on the side of the Iranians. There are people, there are other Iranian proxy assets in the region, whether it's militia groups in Iraq or entities within Syria. So, you know, the Israelis talk about they're on a five-front war or six-front war. I think that's accurate. But they're not alone in that. And these are not the only risk factors, because the reality is that the Saudis do want to place without addressing the Palestinian issue in a way that it has not thus far been addressed. And so, consequently, you know, there are a lot of

moving parts here. And I don't think we should, you know, take, you know, any of them out of the context of all of the others. Well, that's an interesting point. So, I mean, I don't see it that way. I see Israel as extremely threatened. If they should decide all these powers to press the button all at the same time, I mean, what was more of an existential threat? The Japanese attack on America in 1941 or the situation Israel's in now? I mean, it seems...

Oh, no question. But the Japanese attack was more of an existential threat. And that is because there were two massive armies that were bent on conquering land and reordering the geopolitics of the planet Earth. The reality is that the threat from Hamas never was existential, is not existential. It's serious. We've seen the toll that it can take. But Hamas rockets, in the course of 10 years, have produced almost no real toll on Israel. This attack on October 7th, which was the worst day in the history of Israel, a heinous terrorist attack, absolutely nauseating at every conceivable level, did not pose an existential threat to the existence of Israel, nor, for that matter, could a group with 30,000 to 40,000 people. Should Hamas leadership

be eliminated? Hamas be dismantled? Should it be off the table? Absolutely. Or should they be condemned every day from now until the end of time? But it's not an existential threat. And there is some evidence, some evidence, that the Iranians, who do not want to get into a global war against powers much greater than theirs, when they face real political instability and challenges, potentially at home, have been telling some of their proxies, not the Houthis, obviously, but some of their other proxies to hold back a little bit. So we don't know exactly what their intentions are here. But you know, you know, and I know that off the coast of Iran, there's not just, you know, reputed Israeli submarine. There are other hugely capable weapons platforms that would erase Iran if they went in an existential way against Israel?

Well, when I was saying existential threat, I didn't just mean Hamas. I meant the entire encirclement that we described. I can't imagine how the Japanese could have impacted the American homeland in any lasting way or even a temporary way in any way like what... During World War II, there were a lot of people who thought any lasting way or even a temporary way in any way like what during during world war ii there were a lot of people who thought that the japanese could attack and potentially take over parts of the united states including hawaii and the west coast so it's not that that was off the table but but it was it realistic i i i mean uh if i mean there's a lot of things there. I'm surprised to hear you say that. I'm no expert on World War II,

but Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and they were not going to take over America. America was never going to cease to exist because of the Japanese. Israel's never going to cease to exist, but it can make it unbearable or impossible to live there. Israel is a country that has an army which is made up of reservists. It can't really exist with all the reservists called up indefinitely, like America could send its army to Afghanistan.

If they were to send in 150,000 rockets at a time and the Houthis and Hamas and some invasion? It's not a zero percent risk. Perfectly reasonable to consider that as a risk. But I don't think it's a highly likely outcome. And we've been in this situation now for 75 years, and we have seen how the risks have manifested themselves in that time. And it's more likely the risks will manifest themselves in the future as they have in the past than they will in this extreme example. Israel has responded to that extreme example by becoming the only nuclear-capable power in the region. The United States has responded to it by saying it will defend Israel from such threats. You know, there

is nothing in the region comparable to the power of Israel or the power of the United States, much less the two of them together. So it's not like somebody's going to push a button and erase Israel without thinking through the consequences. Well, explain this rationality argument to me then. Hamas went in there and killed

1,200 Israelis. Mosi... Not Mosi. Was it Mosi civilians? A whole number of them civilians. Significant, if not most of them. and killed 1,200 Israelis, mostly, not mostly, was it mostly civilians? A whole number of them civilians, significant if not most of them, and continues to this day to shoot rockets in there, continues to keep hostages.

That's not rational. Like, why can't they all be irrational? How many wars have we seen, including World War I, World War II, were bumbled into, stumbled into, by people who you would have described as they don't want a worldwide war, they don't want to be defeated? Look, you know, you make a good point.

Irrationality figures heavily in all of history. But rationality figures more heavily, which is why we're still here. And Hamas is a terrorist group. It's got very little in the way of a history of public service of any sort. And I consider them to be a very fringy example. I think some people feel that Hamas actually saw a different kind of existential threat, which is that if Israel were to actually strike a normalization deal with the Saudis, and that deal did not have any particular win for the Palestinians

in it, that that was going to be game over. That, you know, the major powers in the region would have very quietly moved their pieces to another portion of the table. They would have been sort of, we can live with the situation as it is. And that would have been the end of leverage for Hamas. And since the situation in Gaza is not a sustainable situation, economically, socially, politically, etc., it is surmised that they may have taken their action in response to that. Their action was criminal, inhumane, disgusting, but there may have been a rational element to it. Well, I get that. That's why it's so dangerous. It can be rational to all of it.

So, look, you wrote an article that says, are there no red lines to U.S. support for Israel? And I'll just read the beginning of it. October 7th was a heinous crime, but how many Gazans must die? How many Israeli ministers must promote ethnic cleansing? By the way, I looked into that. I think that's a little unfair. But anyway, how many failures must Netanyahu deny for the U.S. to reconsider its immoral, unconditional support for is going to depend on how you see the threat.

And that's really why I get into this, because if you see the threat as existential, and you feel that you have to win. And I'll add to it that if Hamas is still standing, that will send an invigorating lightning bolt through the Arab, or likely, through the Arab world, through the Arab street, such that why would they agree to a two-state solution when they see that they could pull that off

and get away with it and have the world actually come to their side and not Israel's side? Because I think we agree on this. They're only going to agree to a two-state solution when they come to the conclusion they have no choice. A win

here is not going to be good for the two-state solution, in my opinion. Well, look, I mean, a win, you know, let's... A win is still standing. A win means we're still standing. Who's we? Hamas. Okay. Hamas is 30,000 to 40,000

people, of which no, you know, I mean, when this war started... And an ideology that votes for it. Well, right. But, you know, again, you know, the degree of support for Hamas is predicated on what the other options are, what the circumstances are, etc., etc. And as we know, Hamas was supported and nurtured somewhat by decisions of the Netanyahu government to divide the Palestinian people between the ambitions and administrative capacity or lack thereof of Palestinian people between the ambitions and administrative capacity are like the Palestinian. David, I don't know that that's true. That's absolute.

I mean, anybody can look it up. But just Google. Well, let me tell you what I mean by not true. First of all, during the periods that Netanyahu was out of power, the Israeli prime ministers had the same policy of trying to kind of buy off Hamas. Netanyahu was not responsible for the embrace of Hamas in 2005 or whenever it was. And getting rid of Hamas looks like this. Wanting to...

I guess what I'm saying is that what was the alternative? It's an impossible situation when a country embraces this kind of genocidal terrorist group, starts sending rockets, and why do we try to make deals with Iran and release money to them

and all this stuff? We're trying desperately to buy them off in some way to kick the can down the road. I guess what I'm saying is that what would a different Israeli prime minister have done? Gone to war with Hamas?

What happens to, what does the world say when Israel does go to war with Hamas? Well, I mean, let me, first of all, going to, seeking to eliminate Hamas as a factor can be a reasonable goal. And we can now have a discussion about how to best achieve that. And, you know, the United States has some degree of experience with counterinsurgency operations. And the conclusions of America's generals after too many years of that was that if you go in indiscriminately or seemingly indiscriminately and you produce a lot of civilian casualties, you actually create a lot more terrorist resistance. Stan McChrystal, who was the U.S. general responsible for this, had a rule of thumb in which he said one civilian

killed equals 10 new terrorists created. Now, does that sound hyperbolic to me? It does. Is the number not 10, but perhaps two? I don't know. But I do know this, that if you go in and you produce a lot of civilian casualties, you are just as likely to produce more resistance as you are to produce capitulation in the end of Hamas. And I think that the Israelis have made a tactical and strategic error in how they have conducted this operation. And I think the United States has made it very clear from the outset that if it were more targeted, more special operations, more focused on the leadership of Hamas, more focused on the logistics of Hamas, more focused on the financial support for Hamas, that it would be more effective in neutralizing

Hamas, and it would have less of the negative consequences of killing a lot of civilians, the first and foremost of which is that that is inhumane. The second of which is that it reduces one's international standing and reduces the likelihood of support internationally and makes it harder for the United States to continue to support it internationally. And of course, another consequence is what I was referring to earlier, which is that it may actually make the opposition stronger. My final point is this. The Israelis have had a history, a cyclical history of going into Gaza and producing a lot of damage, and it has at no time made Israel safer. And the evidence of that is that the worst attack from Hamas ever was on October 7th, and that that came after 18 years of intermittent fighting with Hamas. And so, you know, I think we can have a number

of discussions here. You know, what is the path to peace? What does the day after look like? But one of them is, what is the best way to achieve Israel's objective of guaranteed security for its people? And I do not believe that the choices made by the Netanyahu administration have advanced the security interests of the Israeli people, and I don't believe that in the long run they will be effective. So, just so you know where I'm coming from, on the day after October 8th, I was saying on this show, if Israel does nothing, I would not question it.

Because I said that there was a sympathy for Israel, kind of. And I said, we're about to see daily George Floyd videos and a worldwide Black Lives Matter reaction. I said that a day or two after, so I was very open to any thinker who could make the case that there was a very much smarter way to do this. You've alluded to some things. I haven't been able to find those articles. Maybe you can send them to me. I know there was a Newsweek article not long ago, but the Newsweek article said that target for target, the American government has backed up Israel's decisions. Of course, now politics, Biden's politics muddy the waters, so you never really know what's going on anymore. But as for creating terrorists, I mean, we killed, I don't know, 120,000 people in Afghanistan and 300,000 people in Iraq were killed.

I don't know if we killed them or they killed because of the dominoes that we started turning over, knocking over. But it doesn't seem to have created a million terrorists. No, but there are more terrorists today than there were on September 11, 2001. There are more different groups of al-Qaeda. ISIS spun off of al- Hezbollah is still around. There are other groups like these. And so the reality is that the United States went in, spent $3 trillion, killed probably twice as many people as you referred to in Iraq, probably 600, 680,000 is one estimate that I saw. We didn't

kill those people. We led to a war. There was no reason to fight a war in Iraq then, right? Somebody corrected me on that figure one time, and I said, oh, that's a fair correction, so now I make it to other people.

That's fine. I'm willing to stipulate that, but what I'm saying is that as a consequence of 20 years of war, we now look at the situation. The Taliban is back in control. Iraq is not stable. While Saddam is gone, there is this much more Iranian influence in Iraq than there was before, which is not a good thing. Iran is just as strong as they were. Assad is still around. And there are more pockets of terrorism in the region. So I can't say that our approach of shock and awe did anybody any favors. Well, I didn't bring up Iraq. I understand. I'm just, you know, but you were saying,

you know, we went in and they're not a million terrorists. Well, there may not be. But the State Department's own report, and the State Department puts a report on terrorism every year, suggests that there are more terrorists today than there were on September 11, 2001. And yet we haven't had a knock on wood, a horrible attack since 2001. You know, when you're dealing with an impossible... And yet we never had that attack before either. So let's, you know, I mean... But we had a series of attacks. We had small attacks, most of which occurred outside the U.S., the coal,

cobar towers in Kenya, and so forth. There was an attempted attack within the World Trade Center, very small, several years earlier, but that was it. There's this kind of correlation-quotation thing that's human and happens no matter what events happen, we try to say they're causative. But, you know, the second intifada that we referred to before, this was in the face of the most obviously good faith yearning of an Israeli government trying desperately to make a peace. We're going to give you sovereignty over the Temple Mount. We're going to, you know, I mean, everything that any Israeli government, they found themselves doing things they swore they would never do, concessions they swore they would never make. And what was, they created terrorists.

All of a sudden, before October 7th, that was the worst thing that ever happened. So did that make them safer? And that's the argument of the right, right? That the peace wing made us less secure. Because look at what happened when they tried to make peace. And probably, who knows? Like, how does anybody know? Because you're dealing with an implacable, hateful, jihadist enemy, entities within the Israeli population. And both of them are opponents to achieving peace.

And they both have to somehow be sidelined in order to get there. And the second intifada, you know, could easily have been the result of the extremist wing there saying, we have to disrupt this peace process now, or we're going to end up on the path to compromise. Just as you have, you know, these people in the Netanyahu administration, who are like, ship the Palestinians out of Gaza to Africa. Let's take over Gaza. Let's administer Gaza. Let's claim more land in the West Bank, et cetera, et cetera. And they're not doing the peace process any favors either. Yeah, well, I agree with you that I would always like, always, always, always like to see the Israeli government sounding like they used to sound in terms of pursuing the two-state solution. As like Lapid was not long ago.

And because you never know what might happen. And it's good PR, and PR is part of Israel's mission. Well, it's like the two-state solution is like Churchill's definition of democracy, which he called the worst system other than all the other alternatives. And I can give you a lot of reasons why the two-state solution

is impractical and difficult to get to. I saw one pundit who I will not refer to by name today going, will the two-state solution occur? And then his response was, well, I don't think it'll happen in 2024. And I was like, what a bullshit response that is, right? You know, I mean, of course it's not going to happen in 2024. But the question is, is there any other lasting solution for peace that does not give the Palestinian people and the Israeli people both the right of self-determination, the right to live securely within their own borders? And the answer is no, obviously. They need that. So, you know, either we're going to get there or we're going to be fighting forever.

Right. So having said everything I said about wanting Israel to always do the right thing, my gut still says that, again, going back to the history with Egypt, that really there was nothing Israel could or couldn't do. It really was about the Arab leadership. And if Sadat had been another Nasser who didn't have that bravery and vision, 30 years later, we'd be blaming Israel for the fact there's no peace with Egypt, and how come Israel didn't do this, and how come they didn't do that,

and why are they aggressive, and why are they treating the Palestinians this way? But in the fact, none of that really would have been the reason. The reason would have been because a great leader had not taken control of Egypt. I think they control everything, including

the attitude of the Israeli public, because the only reason the Israeli public is so right-wing now is a reaction. Like, everybody wants to talk about the psychology of Israel's actions, how it creates a psychology on behalf of the Arabs, and they should talk about that, because that's a necessary consideration. But there is a psychology of the Israeli public. No one's criticized Hamas or the Palestinians and said, listen, for every Israeli civilian you kill,

you create this number of Israeli voters who are going to vote for Ben-Gavir. It works both ways. Nobody expects them to strategize their actions. That's right. When I was at Columbia, when I was a student, there were posters everywhere saying, free Soviet Jewry. And be careful what you wish for, because part of what you've gotten here is a demographic shift within Israel, as you've had a big population come in from Russia

and some other places that have more extreme views with regard to this. But the reality is, you know, the Ben-Gavirs of this world are extremely dangerous. And I thought that the 40 weeks of protests against Netanyahu's judicial reforms were actually mobilizing the center-left in Israel in a way that it has not been mobilized in a long time. And I have some Israeli friends who believe that this may manifest itself when we finally get to election time. I don't know. The other thing, though, as you were talking that struck me, and I don't want to make the mistake of inserting any optimism into our conversation, is that think about everything that's happened since Sadat. So Sadat crossed the line. You talk about 1948. In 1948, every Arab leader was willing'm going to cross, I'm going to move to a different position.

And everybody was like, well, that's a big breakthrough. You know, then, you know, the Jordanians, they sort of had an accommodation with Israel. Well, that was progress. In the past few years, you've had other Arab states say, yeah, we can normalize with Israel. And in fact, almost every major Arab state now has normalized or is willing to consider normalizing with Israel. That's come a long way from 1948. And who gets credit for that? Who had the vision of that? If you say it was Donald Trump, I will laugh at you. No! Netanyahu! Well, let's...

I would suggest... David, I can remember, you know this video where John Kerry was on TV saying anybody who thinks there's going to be a deal with the other Arab nations that doesn't go through the Palestinian people is wrong. And he says, no, no, no, no, no. Like that, arrogantly.

And Netanyahu said, yes, we can. Let me say one more thing, because there's a contrarian, I'm not a Netanyahu fan, but I know that there's a huge partisan political overlay on it that eventually you get away from, like in our own history, and you begin to see things leveling off. Netanyahu was on the cusp of a deal with saudi arabia that was going to revolutionize the middle east and if he hadn't been a schmuck

and pursued this judicial thing such that israel didn't have these had their battalions uh in gaza rather than policing the the west. Rather than Gaza, right. Then he might have pulled it off. This jackass, this horrible leader, saw what no one else saw and was this close to doing it. You've got to be fair to the guy, right? I would be

happy to be fair to the guy, but I think you're misstating it slightly. Go ahead. That is, actually not misstating it slightly. Go ahead. And that is, actually, not misstating it, but having to do with a misplaced emphasis, perhaps.

Netanyahu participated in normalization talks, and progress was made. And to the extent to which he contributed to that progress, which was led in part by some of these Arab states, that's a good thing. However, Netanyahu saw this as a way of moving forward and proving you could move forward without resolving the Palestinian issue.

And that was wrong. And ultimately, that's what undid the Saudi deal. And ultimately, that's why the progress that has been made to date can only go so far. Why do you think the Saudi deal is undone? But I think because of what's happened here, the concessions Israel would have to make with regard to the Palestinians are much higher than they would have had to have been made prior to this war. But the point is, there is a trend, a prevailing trend over the course of the past 40 years of the countries of the region, with the exception of Iran notably, growing more comfortable with the idea of Israel being there. But this will never be a settled issue until the Palestinian issue is resolved. And Netanyahu thought he could work around that and then carve away at the West Bank little by little and turn the heat off in Gaza until it became less of a problem and ultimately control the whole region as he wanted to and trade with all these partners around him. It's not possible. And the Palestinians need to have some kind of effective governance,

some kind of rebuilding, some kind of autonomy, and they will not have peace and stability in the region until they do. Well, I heard Noah Harari say on the Sam Harris podcast that, he said something I didn't know, that the deal that they were contemplating with the Saudis had benefits, important benefits for the Palestinians. He didn't say what those benefits were. I think the general consensus is inadequate.

Inadequate. do things for their interests, and whatever the reason is that the Saudis think that, thought that it was in their interest to make peace with Israel and to normalize relations with Israel, they might see it as even more urgent after they've seen the havoc that Iran is causing with Hamas in that part of the region, bringing the world to within one accident of a global conflict. I'm no expert on this stuff, but it wouldn't shock me that the Saudis say, holy shit, all the reasons that we thought we should make peace with Israel, they go double today. It's going to be harder. We've got to figure out how to get around this, but we need a deal with Israel.

I think the Saudis and the Israelis share one very strong thing, right? Deep distrust of Iran. And that was driving that deal, and that would drive any deal that comes. Can I ask you a question about that? Why don't they see your deterrence as enough for them? Because they're right next door. And they, like the Israelis, have this sense that if Iran crossed the line,

it would be over for them so quickly that the United States might come in and eliminate Iran shortly thereafter, but they would be done. And, you know, I understand that rationale. But the Saudi royal family is acutely aware that the people in the street hold their fate in their hands. And if they did something that inflamed the people in the street, then they might have a domestic problem that was bigger and more important than the Iranian

problem. And that's why... Go on. No, no, finish, finish. I didn't mean to... I was just going to say, and that's why again, you know, all roads lead in the same direction. Either there is progress on the hardest question of them all or we will live in

fear of regional conflagration indefinitely. Exit kind of subject here. I had kind of a scenario always playing in my head. What if the Lord came and lifted all the Gazan civilians and deposited them in some remote part of Gaza that was devoid of any strategic importance,

such that Israel would have zero reason to want to disturb them. Who would be negatively impacted by that scenario? In my opinion, Israel would thank the Lord so that they could drop all their 2,000 bombs on the rest of Gaza, all the tunnels, everything, and not have any worry about killing another civilian. But Hamas would immediately try to figure out how can they suck this 1.8 million people back into danger in some way so that they can start getting killed again because that's how this war is fought and that's how they win.

Am I wrong about that? I mean, first of all, you can't take two million people and shift them around in Gaza that easily. I said the Lord did it. The Lord did it is what I said. I'm making a point. You understand my point.

I do, but the reality is there is... I mean, it's just not an option, right? It's not a plausible thing. And I think the reality is... Yeah, but Israel's being charged with genocide right now. I don't know how you feel about the genocide thing. And the big lie of the genocide is that it's Hamas that is eager to have the civilians die.

It's not the lie of the genocide. It's a contributing factor to the situation right now on the ground in Gaza. The reality is, and I'm not going to get into the debate about what is or is not genocide. What the Israelis have done to civilians in Gaza is indefensible, inhumane, disgusting. The United States should not support it. And we should use all the power that we've got to stop it. That said, we don't seem to be inclined to do that. And we don't seem to have been successful at doing that although we can hope in the next couple of weeks this broader war winds down a bit

but David, you're familiar with the concept of lawfare it's very difficult to talk about these things you can talk about them as far as history you can debate the atom bomb now I think the atom bomb now. No, I think the atom bomb was immoral and I don't think we should have used it. I think

when we got to the end of World War II the reason that we reached international agreements about the nature of conduct of the war was because of the horrors of Hiroshima, Dresden and other places. I'm saying you can debate the atom bomb now without people thinking that you don't care about innocent lives.

It's very difficult to talk about, for me, what's going on to these poor people being killed at the time that it's happening. It's very difficult. Having said that, if the laws of war are designed to promote morality and justice, and if we're going to allow an entity to turn those laws, to invert them,

so that the victimizers can utilize them to tie the hands of the victims by embracing civilian shields. And then we're going to push Israel to accede to that, the inversion is complete. And I say, listen, we not only, we actually reward human shields. It's not binary. The reality is that Israel has an obligation as a nation in the community of civilized nations to protect innocent civilians, regardless of whether they are being held hostage or not. We don't go into a bank that's taken over by a bank robber and kill everybody in the bank because the bank robber took over the bank, Because that's immoral.

Having said that, the issue isn't let Hamas win or let us kill all these civilians. The issue is how do you conduct the war? And there are ways to conduct a campaign against Hamas that have far lower civilian casualties. Can you write a column about that? That column needs to be written with experts that talk about it. I know there was one thing about starving them out, but if I

read that and it was convincing to me, I'd be, fuck yeah, that's what they should be doing. Why are they killing these civilians when there's a perfectly good alternative? You know what the real way to shut down Hamas is and nobody wants to do it? No.

Yeah, get rid of the billion, claim their billions of dollars in all those bank accounts in Qatar and go after the Qataris and go after the Swiss bank accounts and go after... Why does anybody want to do it? Well, because there are other parties in this thing and they're hesitant to go after that. And everybody knows there's multiple levels of vulnerability.

But I think I should write a column. Everybody should write a column. Everybody should write a column. I've talked to many military leaders who will talk to you about this. And by the way, you know, it's a little bit of a moot point. I understand that come the end of January, the nature of the conduct of this war is going to change. If, in fact, the broader operations cease, and if, in fact, they move to more targeted special operations, then presumably there will be a dramatic fall in the civilian casualties. And that would be a positive trend. But, you you know again i i feel a little squeamish

you know talking about this in such cold terms i do too because the reality is that 250 people a day 100 children a day are dying in gaza that means every four or five days, it's the equivalent of October 7th. And the death toll, which is now about 25,000, which is 20 times what the death toll on October 7th, is not justifiable in self-defense terms. And it has been a catastrophic series of decisions by the Israelis and ultimately, I believe, will produce a plethora of negative benefits to compound the human loss that's been involved so far. Were the civilian deaths that we caused in Afghanistan justifiable? No. Is this equivalent to what Israel is doing? I mean, you have to take the specific cases, but, you know.

60, 70, 80,000, over 100,000 people killed, you know, Hamas doesn't separate, you know, I don't, I don't believe it's justifiable. I don't believe what happened in Iraq is justifiable. I don't think it was okay for you know, I mean, you know, the perfect example of Iraq, where we were allegedly going after Al Qaeda Al-Qaeda didn't actually have any relationship with Iraq. We invaded an entire country, caused it untold misery. Hundreds of thousands of people died as a consequence. Was that a war crime, a crime against humanity? The answer is unequivocally yes.

Unequivocally yes. I'm trying to take the harder case. What about all the civilians who died in Afghanistan? Are we guilty of exactly what Israel is guilty of? Yes. Unequivocally, yes. I'm trying to take the harder case. What about all the civilians who died in Afghanistan? Are we guilty of exactly what Israel is guilty of? Yes. Yes. Do you think that all the people who are writing about this vis-a-vis Israel, very few of them ever mentioned it during the Afghanistan war, right?

I think very few people mentioned it or spoke out against it. Some of us said this war needs to come to an end. Some of us said we are not going to achieve anything, particularly when the war, you know, I think any U.S. president, anybody following 9-11 would have gone in and tried to get al-Qaeda. Going in and trying to dismantle the government, do nation building, you know, go after different warlords because they were saying, and so forth, for 20 years is insane. Yeah. All right, I'll leave you with this.

Just so you know, this genocide thing is very interesting. One of the standards, one of the qualifications of genocide is deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. And I think that there's not enough attention being

paid here to the fact that, sure, you say, I will stipulate that Israel is committing these crimes for the sake of argument, but the lack of attention to the fact that Hamas is deliberately inflicting on a group of people conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, this bothers me very much. The world needs to not only criticize Israel here, it needs to pressure, it needs to show much more outrage

at the fact that Hamas is, this is the fuel of Hamas' cause, is having its own civilians die. They've said as much. They said it in the New York Times interview. And this gets under my skin. But as far as Israel, how they're conducting the war,

whatever the facts are, the facts are. If there's a better way to do it, then, of course, they should be doing it the better way. And I don't doubt that, as it was with America, rage and anger and retribution even unknowingly fuels decisions that people make in a consequentially ugly way. That's what humans are. I agree with you. I think at the end of the day, we have to do the hardest thing possible here. And that is try to find our own humanity.

Try to be a little decent. Try to have some empathy, try to understand where both sides are, and try to have some principles and stick to them. If we did, we would condemn Hamas. We would condemn the Netanyahu government for the conduct of this war. We would condemn the loss of civilian lives in Israel. We'd condemn the loss of civilian lives in Gaza. And then we would ask ourselves, how do we ensure this doesn't happen again in the future? And we would have a constructive discussion. And that's hopefully where we will get. But right now, there's far too much anger in the air and far too much fucking certitude, where people on one side or the other are saying, my way is the only way. And they're,

you know, making ridiculous sweeping accusations. You know, I, son of Holocaust survivor, have been accused of being anti-Semitic because I criticized the government of Israel. You know, being against a political, you know, group that runs a country is not anti-Semitism, you know, and yet that's where some people are. I've had friends, lost friends, who have just said to me, well, you know, if you oppose this government, then you're an anti-Zionist, and if you're an anti-Zionist, you're an anti-Semite, and blah, blah. Come on. Stop it. This isn't helping anything.

And the extremes on both sides have gotten us into this mess and we need to find another path well David I would defend you very much on the charge of anti-semitism I think that's a ridiculous charge and I'm not I'm going to say something now and then I'll say goodbye I'm not

I don't know you well enough to say whether this applies to you and I'm not accusing you of this. But I would say that among many liberal Jews that I know, there is something, a distant cousin of Stockholm Syndrome, that the peer pressure to show their bona fides as not being afraid to criticize Israel and to criticize Israel first more than they would criticize other conflicts around the world, like Afghanistan or Ukraine, whatever it is,

to somehow be in good standing with their peers on the left, it wears them down, and they start short-circuiting facts and arguments, and they become more anti-Israel than I imagine they would have been if they were the exact same person, but had not been Jewish. I see this all the time. It's not anti-Semitism.

But on many, many issues, we've seen the effect of peer pressure. And I feel it. I'm Jewish. Don't denigrate. I mean, I believe you're making an observation based on your own experience. And you may be right in some isolated cases.

But when you make a statement like that, it suggests that anybody who takes a critical position is being pressured into it and is not making a rational decision. And I think there are a number of rational ways that people can assess this situation where they can be hypercritical of the Israeli government, which is not the same as being critical of Israel or anti-Israel, and that naturally there are a lot of American Jews who feel that way. And I would add, and we can end with this, or at least I'll end with this,

I think it's very, very important to recognize that the narrative of Israel that I was raised with, which is Israel was David, the Arabs were Goliath, Israel was making the desert green, the Israelis were the heroes, they were fighting with us against communism in the Cold War. That narrative is over. And that narrative started to be over in the mid-early... But it was always a Hollywood narrative. It was never quite real. I get it. I get it. That was Paul Newman in Exodus and he wasn't in June.

But the reality is that starting... Barack Obama graduated college right at the same time, roughly, that the Israelis went into the Sabra and Shatila camps in Lebanon. And the narrative started in the early 80s,

changing to Israel being a bully in the region and being an abuser of people. And my children, who are 30-ish, look at that, and they do not instinctively, automatically have any affinity for Israel either. And I'm fine with that. I'm an American. I think the best place in the world for Jews is America. I hope that always remains the case.

But I view this through the eyes of an American, and that is my perspective first and foremost. But you're right. You're kind of making my point. Yes, of course I agree with you. And yes, they've been bullies at times. And Ariel Sharon was guilty of horrible behaviors and was called to task by the Israeli judiciary.

And was thrown out of the government for a while. And then came back kind of as a man of peace. But what Jews have trouble with is allowing Israel to be just as flawed as every other fucking nation on earth, especially every other nation that is constantly threatened. Every other nation is constantly losing their children

in violence with people who swear their allegiance to destroying them. And this is the Israeli life, and it's taken a toll on their psychology. It's made them too tough, and it's led to overreactions, as it would, I believe, any other human group on Earth. As a matter of fact, I've commented, I'm surprised sometimes Israel's not more right-wing. Seeing how America swung to the right after our little experiences with terrorism, I can't even imagine the country we'd be in right now if our children started blowing up all around the country

by Mexicans in suicide vests or something like that. I mean, Israel has a much bigger peace swing than I would credit my own country for having. It was similar provocation. So you've got to have some perspective. These are deep issues. Anyway, David, I want everybody to listen to David's podcast. I think he's a very formidable guy,

and I'm looking forward to maybe we can do some debates or something in the future. And I'm very happy to know you, and I really appreciate you taking the time. And I'll give you the last word on anything you want to say. I'm happy to know you. I like you. I consider you a friend. And one of the things that has always been appealing to me is that we're able to have civil discussions about the things we disagree on, alongside the discussions of the many things we do agree on.

Which are most things. Which is almost everything. And I look forward to continuing those discussions uh you know this is not on zoom or riverside necessarily but back at the waverly diner where they belong that'd be great okay david rothkoff bye bye david