Israel vs. Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran — and Itself

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.6 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 20 September 2024

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s been almost a year since Oct. 7. More than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza are dead. The hostages are not all home, and it doesn’t look like there will be a cease-fire deal that brings them home anytime soon. Israeli politics is deeply divided, and the country’s international reputation is in tatters. The Palestinian Authority is weak. A war may break out in Lebanon soon. There is no vision for the day after and no theory of what comes next. So I wanted to talk to David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker. Remnick has been reporting from Israel for decades and has a deep familiarity and history with both the region and the politics and the people who are driving it. He first profiled Benjamin Netanyahu back in 1998. In 2013, he profiled Naftali Bennett, the politician leading Netanyahu in polls of who Israelis think is best suited to be prime minister. And he recently profiled Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in Gaza. In this conversation, we talk about what Remnick learned profiling Netanyahu, Bennett and Sinwar, as well as where Israel’s overlapping conflicts with Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Hezbollah and Iran sit after nearly a year of war. Remnick and I were both recently in Israel and the West Bank, as well as near Israel’s border with Lebanon, and we discuss our impressions from those trips. Mentioned: “Notes from Underground” by David Remnick “The Party Faithful” by David Remnick “The Outsider” by David Remnick The Bibi Files Book Recommendations: Hope Against Hope by Nadezhda Mandelstam These Truths by Jill Lepore Cosmopolitanism by Kwame Anthony Appiah 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 Elias Isquith. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Isaac Jones. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu 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.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From New York Times opinion, this is the Ezra Klein Show. I was in Israel and the West Bank in June and it was one of the most intense
0:28.8	reporting trips of my life. I spent time on the northern border which was emptied out by Hezbollah's rocket
0:36.4	fire spent time in the West Bank which was a shocking place to be to see the
0:41.6	architecture of control of humiliation of security and
0:47.0	insecurity that is there. It was prismatic. You would spend one day going through one thread, one experience of the wars and the
0:57.3	conflict and you would feel deep sympathy for who you were talking to, for the narrative you were hearing.
1:08.0	The next day would be contradictory, irreconcilable, and you would feel sympathy for that too.
1:12.3	But we are now almost a year from October 7th. And where are we? More than 40,000
1:18.3	Palestinians in Gaza are dead. The hostages are not home. It does not look like there will be a ceasefire deal
1:25.0	that brings them home anytime soon, maybe ever.
1:28.0	Israeli politics is deeply divided.
1:31.0	Netanyahu has made a significant comeback.
1:33.6	Israel's international reputation is in tatters.
1:37.1	The Palestinian Authority is weak.
1:39.3	There may well be soon a war in Lebanon.
1:41.4	There is no vision for the day after, there is no theory of what comes next.
1:47.5	It has just gotten worse. And so I asked David Remnick, the editor of the New York on the show.
1:54.0	The reason I wanted to have him on is he has been doing deep long-form reporting from Israel for decades.
2:00.0	And over that time he has profiled or spoke with almost all of the major players right now.
2:07.0	He first profiled Netanyahu back in 1998.
2:10.6	He profiled in 2013 off Ti Bennett, the candidate leading Netanyahu in polls of who
2:16.2	Israelis think is suited to be prime minister, and he just did a big profile of
	...

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