Is This War With Lebanon Different? (with Matti Friedman)

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4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2024

⏱️ 70 minutes

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Summary

Is Israel's war with Lebanon going to end differently from past attempts to secure Israel's northern border? Journalist Matti Friedman, who recounted his experience as a soldier in Lebanon in his book Pumpkinflowers, reflects on that experience in light of current events and looks to the future in this conversation with EconTalk's Russ Roberts.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:07.9	I'm your host, Russ Roberts, of Sholem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:13.8	Go to EconTalk.org, where you can subscribe, comment on this episode, and find links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:21.2	You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to 2006.
0:26.7	Our email address is mail at econTalk.org. We'd love to hear from you.
0:36.5	Today is November 13th, 2024.
0:39.2	My guest is journalist and author, Mati Friedman.
0:42.3	This is Mati's third appearance on Econ Talk.
0:45.4	It was last year in January, 24, talking about the way the press covers Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
0:53.7	Our topic for today is war, and in particular, Matti's personal experience in Lebanon
0:59.5	and how that informs how he thinks about what is happening there today.
1:04.4	I'm sure we'll get into a number of other issues along the way.
1:07.8	Madi, welcome back to Econ Talk.
1:10.1	Great to be here. I want to start by talking about
1:12.7	your book, Pumpkin Flowers, a soldier's story, which was published in 2016. It's now out in
1:18.6	audio. It's an amazing book. It's a heartbreaking portrait of what it's like to be a soldier.
1:25.1	The fear, the pain, the boredom, the waste, the opportunity.
1:29.2	It's all in there, and it's a very short book. I recommend it highly. The writing is superb.
1:35.1	Let's start with the title, and we'll use your experience in that you highlight in this book
1:41.4	as the foundation of what we'll talk about today.
1:45.0	Why did you call the book Pumpkin Flowers, one word, pumpkin flowers, a funny title?
1:50.0	One of the first things I learned upon becoming a soldier in the Israeli army in the summer of 1997 is that the Army speaks a very different language than a language
	...

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