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Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American power, politics and society.

On each episode, I will talk to an American expert or an expert on America

about something that's going on in America in 2023. I'm delighted to be joined today by

Andrew Coburn, who is the Washington, D.C. editor of Harper's Magazine, and we're going to be talking about America's

response to the developments in the Middle East. Andrew, thank you for coming on to Americano.

I thought I'd start by asking Joe Biden has been pretty forthright, in his condemnations

of the attacks and also saying Israel has an

absolute right to respond. There are some stories already in the sort of right in the American

press about the squad, the eight Democrats, progressive Democrats who, unlike the bulk of the Democratic Party,

seem to align with Palestine more than they do with Israel,

and have been, seem to have been making more pro-Palestinian noises,

and there's been a bit of outrage about that.

I wonder, first of all, what you make of that as a story?

Well, you know, it's not surprising since, you know,

they have been, you know, one of the distinguishing features of the squad,

of the left to the left of the Democratic, you know,

elected party, a congressional party,

is, you know, they've always been forthright,

to slightly varying degrees on, you know, the necessary to support Palestine, to offer a more

...