This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

Just days ago, I returned from a trip that took me all over Israel, including what's called Otef Aza, the Gaza envelope.

This is part of an RPG?

This is where a thousand armed men from Hamas broke through the barriers surrounding the Gaza Strip and carried out a massacre that went on for hour

after hour and left 1400 Israelis dead. You can see the Kalashnikov, you can see another

part of the RPG here. They shot on these safe rooms with all the civilians. The RPG, we were fortunate that most of them were not penetrated by the RPG,

but afterwards they broke the doors.

I was escorted by an officer from the Israel Defense Force, the IDF, which was still working to secure the area after the unprecedented collapse.

You know, we were speaking a lot about the failure,

and it was a deep and hurt failure,

but we also should discuss the bounce back.

But it is the Israeli DNA.

Even if you're on the ground, you were hit,

bounce back very quickly.

What are we hearing?

We are hanging the Israeli airborne bombs in Gaza.

Yeah.

You may have read comparisons between the Hamas attack

and the historical pogrom known as the

Kishenov massacre more than a century ago in the Russian Empire. Kishenov was one of a great many

pogroms in Eastern Europe, but it changed the course of history, convincing many Jews that they

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