Episode 17: The Gaza war began 25 years ago, a conversation with Matti Friedman

Ask Haviv Anything

Haviv Rettig Gur

History

4.9 • 640 Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Last month marked the 25th anniversary of the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon after an 18-year guerrilla war that presaged everything we now think of as 21st-century warfare.

I spoke to Matti Friedman, veteran of Lebanon and bestselling author of a memoir from that long war, Pumpkinflowers, about the history, the lessons drawn from it and how we're seeing the continuing effects of that conflict in Gaza today.

This episode is sponsored by Julie and Frank Cohen, who believe that this podcast is a way to teach our story, because understanding our past and present is key to building a better future.

And as has become a podcast tradition, it is dedicated to Carmel Gat, an occupational therapist who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Beeri while visiting family. During the first weeks of captivity, she was held with orphaned children who had also been kidnapped. The children reported that she cared for them and taught them yoga. Carmel was murdered by her Hamas captors in August 2024 along with five other hostages.

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	Hi everybody, welcome to Ask Haviv Anything.
0:07.7	We are recording on May 25th Sunday.
0:11.4	On May 24th, yesterday was the 25th anniversary of the Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon,
0:17.7	from an 18-year military presence in South Lebanon that taught us a great deal about
0:23.4	this moment in Israeli history, about the sort of enemies we face, and we're going to dive
0:28.9	deep into that experience, and we're going to dive deep also into those lessons, how those
0:33.5	lessons have changed Israel, how those lessons really echo profoundly in the current
0:39.1	conflict in Gaza and with Iran and Hezbollah nowadays. And we're going to do it with somebody
0:45.2	who is absolutely the best person to talk to about these issues, Matty Friedman, who wrote
0:51.1	the bestseller, Pumpkin Flowers, about his experience as a soldier in Lebanon,
0:55.2	and I think also about so much more. That book is a remarkable book, and I highly recommend it.
1:01.4	Before we get into the conversation, I want to tell you that we have a sponsor for this episode.
1:06.8	Julian Frank Cohen asked me to just say that they believe this podcast is a way to teach our story
1:12.6	because understanding our past and present is key to building a better future.
1:17.2	That is basically the philosophy of this podcast distilled into a single sentence.
1:21.6	Thank you, Julian Frank.
1:23.1	And they, like many of our sponsors, dedicated this episode to someone who we lost on October
1:31.4	7.
1:32.3	This episode is dedicated to Kermel Gat.
1:35.7	She would have turned 41 last week.
1:39.1	She was killed last summer.
1:41.3	She was murdered by the Hamas fighters who held her.
	...

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