How Biden’s Middle East Policy Fell Apart

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.6 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 8 October 2024

⏱️ 91 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On Oct. 6 of last year, the Biden administration was hammering out a grand Middle East bargain in which Saudi Arabia would normalize relations with Israel in exchange for a Palestinian state. And even after Hamas’s attack the following day, the U.S. hoped to keep that deal alive to preserve the conditions for some kind of durable peace. But that deal is now basically unviable. The war is expanding. Israel may be on the verge of occupying Gaza indefinitely and possibly southern Lebanon, too. So why was President Biden ineffective at achieving his goals? In the past year, has the U.S. been able to shape this conflict at all? Franklin Foer recently wrote a piece in The Atlantic trying to answer these questions. And he starts with the Biden administration’s attempts to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East — an effort that began well before Oct. 7. In this conversation, Foer walks through his reporting inside the diplomatic bubble of the conflict and the administrations of other Middle Eastern states that have serious stakes in Israel’s war in Gaza. Book Recommendations: Our Man by George Packer Sea Under by David Grossman Collected Poems by Rita Dove Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair . Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Efim Shapiro, Isaac Jones and Aman Sahota. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Rollin Hu, Elias Isquith and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Emma Ashford, Shira Efron, Natasha Hall, Richard Haass, Michael Koplow, Selcuk Karaoglan and Switch and Board Podcast Studio.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From New York Times opinion, this is the Ezra Klein Show. Today's episode will publish almost a year to the day after October 7th.
0:28.0	I have tried writing different versions of this introduction, tried to write something up to that moment, and failed.
0:38.6	Nothing I write is up to memorializing the horror of that day or of what's followed.
0:46.8	So what I'm just going to try to do
0:50.1	is say what has actually happened.
0:52.8	On October 7th, the year ago, Hamas
0:57.0	launched an invasion into Israel.
0:59.7	Its fighters butchered Israeli citizens
1:02.2	and non-Israeliesies and took hundreds hostage.
1:06.2	Many things can be said about Yaya-S-Noir, the head of Hamas.
1:10.1	One thing I have never heard said, including by Israelis,
1:14.5	is that he is irrational or emotional or impulsive.
1:19.1	He is agreed by all to be an icy tactician. He has aims, plans, and he is willing to sacrifice lives,
1:27.7	including Palestinian lives by the tens or hundreds of thousands to achieve them.
1:32.3	Like many Americans, my frame of reference
1:37.0	after October 7th was 9-11, when America was attacked, when civilians were killed,
1:42.4	by an adversary who wanted to provoke us into
1:45.4	disastrous reaction. In my first audio essay after October 7th I was one of many who offered
1:52.3	a warning based on that.
1:54.0	Don't give Synoir what he wants, what he is trying to get you to give him.
2:00.0	What did Synoir want on October 7th?
2:03.0	At a moment when Israel was normalizing relations with other Arab countries
	...

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