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The conclusion of Israelis from the second Intifada was, of course, that marriage with the Palestinians is off the table.

War and peace, like between Germany and France.

But Israelis wanted to divorce. So the

idea of unilateral withdrawal was quite attractive to many, many Israelis because it created

the illusion that we can actually build a big wall and forget about the Palestinians.

It's 4.30 p.m. on Wednesday, August 13th here in New York City.

It is 11.30 p.m. on Wednesday, August 13th in Israel, as Israelis turned to the 20-year anniversary of Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Before today's episode, a little

housekeeping. This was one of those weeks in which the conversation and the topic were so rich and so meaty

and the story was so riveting that we simply had to break it into two parts.

So in your regular Call Me Backfeet, you will receive an episode today and an episode tomorrow,

part one and part two of our retrospective on the 20 years since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza.

That conversation was between Amit Segel, who covered the Gaza withdrawal as a young

journalist, and Asi Sharif, who was a top advisor to then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the

Israeli leader who pulled Israel out of Gaza back in 2005.

Separately, if you are a subscriber to our members-only feed inside, Call Me Back,

make sure you're listening to this episode on your private feed because right after part

one of the conversation with Amit and Asi, Amit and I will stick around to dive into your

questions, listener questions.

Some of you sent in difficult but

important questions about the rise in settler violence, about future political leaders in Israel

other than Netanyahu and about Qatar's influence. This Q&A is for subscribers only. So if you are

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