Episode 10: Thirty years of traumatic peacemaking - what do Israelis really think?

Ask Haviv Anything

Haviv Rettig Gur

History

4.9 • 640 Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2025

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Palestinian advocates like to quip that the current war "didn't begin on October 7." That's true, of course, though unhelpful. It didn't begin in any one specific place. There are no singular first causes in history. When we choose the beginning of the story, we choose its framing and meaning.For most Israeli Jews, the story of the current war might be said to have begun in the fall of 2000, in the great collapse of Oslo that still casts its long shadow on the Israeli political psyche.This is that story.Today’s episode is sponsored by Pennyweight Prizefighter, a small business dedicated to preserving the history and craftsmanship of antique and vintage fine jewelry. In a post October 7th world, pennyweight has become more committed than ever to making vintage and new Judaica available to anyone who feels compelled to honor these symbols with something as precious as gold and diamonds worn close to the heart. Check out pennyweight prizefighter on Instagram or pennyweightprizefighter.com.Please join me on Patreon to support this project: ⁠ www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything⁠ If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠.A podcast by Haviv Rettig Gur

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Ask Aviv Anything, Episode 10, 38 years of traumatic peacemaking.
0:12.8	Today we're going to answer a really fundamental and fascinating question that I get asked
0:18.2	probably more than any other question. And the question has many iterations, many articulations, but it always boils down to basically
0:24.8	the question, what the hell are Israelis thinking?
0:27.7	Don't Israelis know what the rest of the world sees, what the rest of the world, or at least
0:33.1	the Western world, knows?
0:36.7	What's the Palestinian future? What do they think is going to happen in the
0:41.0	West Bank? Or Gaza, obviously, is now, this question has become very intense because there's this war
0:46.0	and there's a lot of human suffering and trauma and it's on everybody's news feeds. But even setting
0:52.5	aside this war, this moment, or previous specific wars, which peak
0:58.2	interests, right, which drive intense looking at this conflict, what do Israelis actually want?
1:05.4	What do they want from the future? For themselves, and of course, they owe these answers to
1:10.4	Palestinians. That's what we're
1:13.0	going to answer today. What the hell are Israelis thinking? Really fundamental caveat that goes to the
1:19.1	heart of what we're going to do. This is not going to be the objective historical truth.
1:26.5	I don't know the comprehensive objective historical truth. If I did,
1:30.9	I would tell you, and I would also invest in the stock market because I'd probably have a good
1:34.9	sense of what the future holds. This is going to be something that I think is a little bit more
1:39.0	useful, which is what do most Israeli Jews, the mainstream of Israeli Jews, think is happening to them,
1:47.5	think has happened to them, and how does it shape their expectations of the future and their
1:51.1	responses to future events? That's what we're going to talk about today. And the caveat is,
1:56.4	there are other narratives. There are people to the right of the Israeli mainstream Jewish narrative
	...

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