The Pour Over Today - BONUS: TPO Explains Israel and Palestine | 10.07.25

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Readers of The Pour Over pick a topic to have explained, and Jason and Kathleen have to get Joe to understand it in less than 20 minutes… This week, they’re explaining the background and current state of Israel and Palestine. Join over 1.6 million readers with our free newsletter ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠ Looking to support us? You can choose to pay ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠ Check out our sponsors! We actually use and enjoy every single one. Cru Surfshark Holy Post CCCU Upside HelloFresh Mosh LMNT Theology in the Raw Safe House Project A Place For You Practicing Life Together Not Just Sunday Podcast Quince Courage for Life Study Bible She Reads Truth

so jason you just got back from vacation yes yep vacation in florida with just my wife hannah tons of fun no kids gorgeous i fell asleep floating on an infinity pool in the florida sun that's the dream that's what i was thinking no i actually most of the time i had my feet up on the ledge to like kind of keep me just tempting fate but not leaning into it yeah did you drink any look Because I have to throw this in there with our previous episode of learning Kathleen's affinity for Pamplemoose flavor LaCroix. I actually put a poll out to our listeners on Spotify asking them to indicate and vote on their favorite flavors. Can you guess the one that? Lime Lecroy.

I know that Pamplemuse only had one vote and it was me. And that's just, I don't get it. I'm obviously partial to Lyme more than LaCroi because here we have Kirkland Sparkling Water. Man, we were just trying to gain all the sponsors. What's the favorite? The favorite, according to our listeners who responded to our Spotify poll, the favorite LaCroixie flavor is Limoncello. Oh.

That's wrong. No, that's bad. It's too sweet. Drinking perfume. Yeah. Oh, I'm glad we're in alignment. Yeah. For once.

No, lime. Right. Yeah. Lime LaCroix all the way. This isn't up for debate, you know? I mean, I'll broadly say citrus. Great fruit is citrus, right? Yeah, and that's Pamplemoose.

Yeah, but I don't like the lemon. And we're on the wind. Hello, and welcome to another episode of TPO Explains. I'm Joe, podcast producer here at the Porover, and I'm here with Jason, our founder and editor-in-chief, and Kathleen, our managing editor. So here's the idea behind the show. Our readers share which topics they want us to explore, and then we bring that to the podcast. Today's winner, Israel and Palestine. The basics.

The basics. A shallow dive. So this podcast will come out on the two-year anniversary of Israel and Palestine being in the headlines. So let's see where we're at. Yeah. Okay. So a slightly different take on our, on our. a very normal two-episode format. I have ten questions for you, Joe. And we're just, we're

going to quiz you. Whoa, okay. Did you study? I know, because I, yeah, I do not study before this. And this is the worst type of quiz because it's all things that you probably feel like you should know, but we'll be unable to articulate. Or at least. Jason wrote the questions at 1130 last night because I woke up and saw it. And I'm like, Joe's not going to know anything. So these are the things that. that I, yeah, felt like I sort of knew, but didn't totally know until, honestly, sometime over the last two years and heavily over the last... 24 hours? Yeah, 24 hours is what I feel like I have been able to articulate them.

So, you ready? Let's do it. Okay. And if you don't know, you can just own it. And we got the expert here in Kathleen. No. Yeah, you wrote the timeline of... I fixed three issues in it just this morning.

Okay, we'll dive in. What is the difference between Palestine, Gaza, and the West Bank? Okay. My first thought is, West Bank is West. It's in the West. Is West. Yes. When you say Gaza, I think of the Gaza Strip, and my mind goes to, like, a militarized zone area.

Like, there's a lot of, I feel like, I've read. the Gaza Strip contains a lot of military action. So maybe it's like a conflict point, like a area that... All right. Not horrible. I got a map for you, and we'll put this up in our editing genius. Okay. So here is...

And we'll go through... The timeline is important, and we'll go through some more of this later. So in 1947, the land is... blit between Israel and Palestine by the United Nations. So here you can see it's roughly, what's the number, like 56%, 53? Slightly more to Israel than Palestine. And then you can see since 1947 there have been a series of wars where Israel has taken more and more of the land.

So what we're left with here in kind of the most recent map is this is Gaza over here. and then this is the West Bank. All of this used to be the West Bank, but this is the West Bank and the parts that Palestine still controls. So, and together, Gaza and the West Bank are Palestine. So it's like kind of the overarching, and then you have the two different regions.

And for our listeners, I'm learning this in real time. West Bank is actually east of Gaza. So I was wrong. Yeah. So it's the West Bank. It's the borders of the west coast of the Dead Sea. Ah, okay. That's why it's referred to as west.

It's west of something. That's very true. It's west of the far east. Yeah. Okay. So at the center of this conflict, Israel and Palestine, is the land. It is a land dispute that's thousands of years old. So why do, Joe, question number two, why do Israelis feel entitled to this land?

Any idea? I'm going to tie it to the Bible. Israelites, obviously, are God's chosen people way from the beginning in, as we read in the Bible. They probably feel entitled to this land because they are the chosen people. It was promised to them. It's the promised land. Promise land, yeah. I mean, the beginning of the timeline when we start to look at the history of this land is, you know, 1700 BC,

when um biblically it was called canaan israel was was settled by abraham Isaac and jacob and then later on king david establishes jerusalem so i mean just deep jewish yeah so canaan in of of genesis fame uh is modern day israel gaza west bank and parts of neighboring countries so yes there's this like kind of spiritual and religious and historical inheritance, this land. And then also you just go through more of the Bible and history. This is the land that Israelites have lived in. It's been conquered and changed hands over and over,

but this is their home for thousands of years. Okay, why do Palestinians feel entitled to the land? Hmm. I'm wondering if there's something in the Muslim faith that I'm not very familiar with, but my guess is, what if they feel like they are the chosen people and their faith to and entitled to that territory? I think that's pretty close. And I certainly know Islam, not as well as Christianity.

But in 636 AD, Jerusalem, roughly, okay, roughly, 600. A.D. Muslims take over this land and specifically the, well, maybe, should I just ask the next question? Next question. Yeah, that's good. Because it gets at this. Do you know what the dome of the rock is? I do not know what the dome of the rock is. Okay. So this is important to why Palestinians and Muslims care so deeply about this land. Is the dome of the rock, Rock is where Islam teaches Muhammad ascended into heaven after miraculously traveling from Mecca to Jerusalem and then he ascends into heaven. The problem is the Dome of the Rock where this happened and right now it's like it's still around today. The Dome of the Rock is a shrine or something and

it's part of a larger temple to religiously significant physical location. It is built on top of the Temple Mount, which is where Christianity teaches, or in Judaism, the Old Testament, teaches Abraham prepared to sacrifice Isaac, and it later became where the Holy of Holies was inside the temple. Wait, this is just all right on top of each other. Literally, like, the Dome of the Rock was built on top of the Temple Mount. And so this exact location is like very spiritually significant for Islam and Judaism. and Christianity and you start to understand why there's kind of this unyielding from both sides of there's there's deep significance and entitlement to this specific location yeah I did not know that yeah and just to back up why Palestinians feel entitled to the land so they have I mean um like you said 636 AD but whatever the math is on that like 1400 years um you know

the Roman Empire came in and kind of eventually gave it the name, Palestine, like, used that name for the first time in, like, record keeping. And then you had, like, a series of conquest that just, like, pushed Israeli people out. And, I mean, so since then, you have 1,400 years of, like, this has been this people's land. Through many, like, conquerings and stuff like that, it just has been their land. Yeah, there's been, there's been conflict. it hasn't been uniformly for 1,400 years, but basically from 600 AD until 1947, post-World War II, the Jews, do you want to speak a little bit to what happened in 1947 with the UN and why it changed then? Well, first, so we had the, this is not on our quiz. This is a pop quiz. Do you know when the Ottoman Empire, like, stopped being a thing?

No, I imagine it's a long time ago. But, uh, 1917. Oh, wow. I know. I think Ottoman Empire and I'm like, yeah, that was a long time ago. That's what I thought. I like double check the dates. I'm like, that's crazy.

He did the same thing. I was like, that's like the beginning of the history of textbook and not even. Which, I mean, I'm speaking off script now, but I'm pretty sure like if I would have paid attention about World War I. Like, that was. It was like a big part of it. But, yeah. Anyway, so Palestine was under Islamic control and Christian Jews were facing persecution. This was leading up to World War I.

You had the Crusades and everything. Then after World War I, we have Britain and France. The Crusades were before the Ottoman Empire, but it's all leading up to World War I. So after World War I, you have Britain and France who have divided up this Ottoman Empire land, and Britain gets put in charge of Palestine. And they call it British Mandate of Palestine.

They like it because it's right in the middle of a trade route, like they want to keep it. But Arab people and Zionists both want the land for themselves. So Britain works with the Arab people to push out the Ottoman Turks and split the land up among. So Britain has now come in and said, well, let's help you split up the land. So it's still like this colonialism feel and tensions are just still high because they're like, let's help you figure out how to split the land. And both parties are like, but we want the land.

Then you have World War II and you have the Holocaust and Jews are, you know, after World War II, they are scattered. and they want to go back to what they, you know, their land. And so Britain, who was still in charge of the land, says, okay, we'll let you come back, but so many people were coming back. They are fighting over the lands, like Palestinians are living there, and so British troops now have to say we're going to limit the number of people who are allowed to emigrate back to Palestine.

Because it was so tense, British troops start protecting the Israelis who do move back, but Jewish people also have to start forming their own military protection. So it starts to be this really, like, heated, like people are needing protection. They're fighting over the same land. So then in 1947 or after World War II with the creation of the United Nations, Britain announces, I'm just going to, we're just going to leave. You guys can figure it out, have the United Nations help you. And the United Nations say, all right, you guys have to share it.

We'll give, and it was 56.5%. I'm always trying to correct you I just one day I'm going to actually be right when I correct you so the UN says all right we'll have a Jewish state with 56 and a half percent of the land and an Arab state with the rest of it

and leave Jerusalem that holy site for the three religions as this international zone so the Jewish people are like great we you know have a portion of our land back the Palestinians who have been living there for 1,400 years they're like, they don't even, the Jewish people represent one third of the population. Why do they now get over half the length? Yeah, right, right.

Great. Let's move on in the next question. History class. To start to bring it into very modern day, what is Hamas? Hamas is a terrorist. organization, leadership, they have control over the Palestinian people, because we have to, from the news that you guys have written, and I have spoken on during the podcast episodes, when we bring up peace treaty attempts and deals, we have to deal with Hamas.

So they have some decision-making power. Yeah. Yeah, that's very close and broadly correct. So Hamas is a Islamic militant group, political group. Political group with a militant arm. Okay. And they govern Gaza, not Palestine. They don't get along with the Palestinians that are governing the West Bank or those portions of the West Bank.

So they govern or the political authority. They won elections in 2005 and then kind of. violently pushed out any competition so have kind of taken over in 2007 and they started Hamas started in 1988 and with the express goal of destroying Israel and they in the 1988 and they in the 1988 charter is says we want to destroy Israel we want all this land for Palestine. We want to kill Jews and take this land. And so that's where the United States designates them as a terrorist organization. It says expressly, like, the conflict cannot be resolved except through jihad. Like, there is no compromise. Yeah. So I kind of gave away

I did too. The answer to the next question. Why did Hamas attack Israel on October 7, 2023. My guess is if it's in their charter that their full intent is to destroy Israel and the people that attack aligns with what they are setting out to do. Yeah, exactly. In 2017, they sort of softened the original charter. Well, they added to the charter to say, hey, we're not just killing Jews, religious or ethnic Jews were specifically seeking to destroy Zionists, who are Jews that

want the nation of Israel to exist. But they didn't repeal the original and yes. And so that attack is them saying, hey, this is our mission is to take over. All right. Next question. Why is Israel attacking Hamas and Gaza like we know why Hamas attacked Israel why is the conflict continuing and what is Israel fighting for I if I were them I'd be

wanting to defend our territory and protecting our people they fully believe that this is their land that they are entitled to or promised and so if they have someone attacking them I'm sure that they need to

go on the defense and protect their land and people in territory. Yeah. I mean, Israel has said, we're going to declare war on Hamas, and we are not going to stop until Hamas is destroyed. Also, when they attacked in October of 2023, they took, what was the number of hostages? 251. Like I said it slowly to make sure I was remembering correctly.

So they took 251 hostages, and Israel has said, like, we're not going to stop until you're destroyed until we get all of our hostages back. Can I clarify something? As you guys are talking, so in my mind, is it true to say that there are Palestinian people that do not like Hamas? Yes. Because it does not represent what they're about. And so it is false to say what Hamas does all Palestinians are totally on board with. Absolutely.

Yeah. And how big is the Gaza Strip, like relatively speaking? Oh, it's tiny. It's like, I want to say it's like in my 25 miles across, like, so you can walk the Gaza Strip. And a lot of the Palestinians have been forced to. I mean, there are a number of cities, but it's like, okay, there's now conflict here, move down to the south. And they just, you know, pick up and move. And can over the last two years have done that multiple times as they try to avoid the heavy conflict zones.

Yeah. So I guess the, to emphasize your point, there's millions of people in this tiny strip of land. And Egypt is, oh, man, geographic. If you look at the Gaza Strip, you have Israel to the north and Egypt to the south. I don't know if it's tilted. Yeah. So Egypt has a border with Gaza and Israel has a border with Gaza. And when there's high conflict, borders get shut. And so you have these millions of people who are just kind of stuck. And to your point, like not all. Some of them did not elect Hamas, did not elect these people that are now choosing to go at war with their neighboring countries. And yet they can't leave. They're being pushed around. There's, you know, destruction everywhere. And so it's just a very sad situation. All right.

We have three questions. I think we can go through these pretty quickly. We've touched on a lot of them. When did Israel become a country? I did give it away. You've been listening. Was it 1947? Yeah.

Yeah, nicely done. And immediately, I think five Arab countries declared war on Israel because they just, like, so strongly opposed it not being a solely policy or, yeah, Arab nation, Arab nation. I did it. You did it. There is a city in Alabama where it's pronounced Arab, and it just gets me every time. How many different potential deals have there been for the 2023 Hamas war, like a ceasefire deals. So it's been two years. I'm going to say five.

Eight. At least eight distinct like frameworks that have been brought to the table and said, okay, we're presenting this. Can it go anywhere? And we've had like some progress. Like we did have, I think, five rounds of hostage releases. Hostages have been released and a lot of these are phased. And ultimately like the very difficult conflict just point.

that we can't get past are Hamas wants a full ceasefire and Israel to withdraw and says once that happens, we'll release the hostages. But like the hostages are our leverage. We're not doing that before. And Israel is saying absolutely not until you release the hostages, we will continue fighting to get them. And then the other bit is Hamas wants to continue to exist and govern. And Israel saying, nope, we're not going to neighbor with a group that is openly trying to destroy us. So you understand. And also, you're just pulling from literally thousands of years of both these people feeling deeply connected and entitled to this specific same land. Right.

So it's, I mean, it's hard to see a path towards peace. Real quick question, you guys might not know the answer. but the eight proposals of treaty ceasefire deals that have been presented, has it been the United States each time to lead that? Well, I'm just saying this last question is your, I'm team it up to you, and it's exactly why does the U.S. support Israel? So why does the U.S. and why are they involved in any of these deals? I don't know if you know how many.

I don't know how many. It feels like most of them. And it's interesting because you'll have, like, the U.S. and France are helping mediate peace talks between Hamas and Israel and Qatar. It's just like all of these parties are coming together because there are like Arab nations and Arab leaders who want peace, obviously, in the region. And so they're trying to facilitate that. And but the U.S. does seem pretty heavily involved. So why? Yeah.

Why do you think the U.S. supports Israel? One thought is we take terrorist organizations very seriously as a country. And so the fact that we've categorized Hamas as a terrorist organization, I feel like we take that as a high priority to make sure that they don't. We're on the other team. Right. Yeah. Right.

That's my first thought. Yeah. The U.S. has a history of just aligning itself with Israel. And, I mean, for me, I'm just like, why? you know is it just you hear a lot about saying well Israel is democracy in a you know a region full of regimes and we need to protect that and fight for that after the cold war the U.S. wanted to stop the spread of communism and so they wanted to kind of insert themselves in that geographic region to prevent the sphere of influence but it also comes there's oil and oil is I mean at the center of a lot of geopolitics I didn't realize I mean oil means power and and oil is I mean oil means power and. and wealth and, you know, industry, oil is very prominent in the Middle East. And so protecting that region and having access to that region is important for the U.S. And so you're saying that was like in the 1940s and 50s part of why we aligned with Israel is?

Yeah. So essentially from what I've been able to gather, the Soviet Union after World War II wanted to have their influence in the Middle East but what they wanted to do with the oil was have it for themselves. Even though they have oil reserves, they were going to have access and have it for themselves. And the United States wants to have access

for everyone. They, you know, at surface level for everyone. Of course, I'm sure we wouldn't be able to use it to. But they want free trade, basically protected. And then you also have trading passages that run through like the Suez Canal and the straight starts with an eight.

I can't remember the name. It's like Horas or something. Something like that. Not saying that correctly either. But, you know, if those passages are shut off, then, you know, ocean shipping things will take an extra 10 to 12 days. So just the United States has kind of taken the stance of we stand with Israel for spurious regions, possibly, you know, Judaism and Christianity being much more closely aligned than Islam maybe. And then also for protecting democracy. and kind of serving is that, like, I feel like the U.S. always plays this, like, big brother, like, we'll come in.

And then, yeah, just economic. Economic reasons. Well, that is as much as we know. So you're all caught up with us, and that felt like a lot, and it was also just skimming the surface. Any huge major takeaways? Yeah, actually, this was very helpful for me because probably similar to you. guys before you dug deeper into the research, you know, these, the Israel-Palestine relations conflict makes the headlines frequently. And you guys went way back to biblical times. And I just

felt very not confident at all of the history and things like that. I'm going to throw out an imperfect analogy. As you guys were talking, I was thinking about this. There's so much feelings of entitlement to territory to land and protecting that, I was thinking about the analogy of, let's say you buy a plot of land and your intent is to build a new house on it. And it takes a while to build and you put the structure up. It's enclosed and it's almost done, but you're not occupying it yet. What if some squatters just moved in?

You already said, hey, I have the rights to that land. a new people come in and what if the squatters were homeless people and your local government said hey here's our plan that we're going to decrease homelessness there's an open property right there we're saying as your local government

you have the rights to that that space it's a very imperfect metaphor but you have the homeowner that purchased that plot of land paid for the house to be built you have these squatters that are now sanctioned living in there.

Exactly. Government given, yeah. And you take this and you just add thousands of years to, it's like, well, they've been living there for thousands of years. And what makes this complicated is I can understand why both the purchaser of that land is like, hey, that's my property. And then the squatters are like, hey, we were told we can live here. You need to come. Well, even like even so much like you need to go and that is where you have to live now. And I mean, and I want to be clear, like, we're not calling either party squatters.

I just want to be very clear there. But in some cases, like, the houses existed and they were told by the government, like, okay, leave, you can probably come back later. And then new people moved in. They're like, yeah, by the way, you can't go back. Like, yeah. So with my imperfect analogy and you guys talking about all the over time, the negotiations that had to happen and why everyone feels like they are the

the chosen people for that land, I can empathize with, honestly, both the people of Israel and Palestine, because in some ways here or another, they've both been told and both have had mandated, and both have had land taken away from them. And so I can understand and empathize with both parties of, this is a very complex situation. Hey, it's Emily from the Porover. There are a few things. things I enjoy more than getting a good deal. Okay, more than a few, but it's pretty high up there. But as much as I love a coupon, I don't love digging through my purse or my email to find them. That's why I use Upside. Upside gets you an average of 8% cash back at grocery stores, restaurants, and gas stations near you.

And it couldn't be easier. Just download the app, claim an offer, shop as usual, and earn, cash out directly to your bank or PayPal, or even a gift card to get a basically free latte. Download the free upside app and use promo code TPO to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first take of gas. That's an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first take of gas using promo code TPO. Kathleen, what should we do with this as Christians? I think, you know, when you see the headlines and you're like, oh, there's potentially a piece deal and you're like, do I even hope for a piece deal at this point? Like, it feels like every time we think we're close, like something falls apart. One thing to keep in mind, we do, I mean, this conflict seems far away, but it's very real. So we don't want to become callous to that.

And these are people that we should pray for. And our prayers should go to, you know, praying for them, praying for peace and remembering that God does have a peace plan. And it doesn't need Israel's or Hamas' approval. It won't, it doesn't even, you know, just cover Gaza or the Middle East. It can't be undone by rebels. It won't unravel decades later. The Lord's peace has been a done deal from the beginning of time, sealed with the death and resurrection of Jesus.

It is global. It is unending. It's open to all who laid on their weapons. So praying for peace and praying for the people involved and remembering that when we start to feel anxious about it, God does have a plan. Yeah, that's such a good reminder. Well, thanks everyone for joining us on another episode of TPO Explains.

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