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The Ezra Klein Show

The Jewish Left Is Trying to Hold Two Thoughts at Once

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.611K Ratings

🗓️ 24 October 2023

⏱️ 65 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Grief moves slowly and war moves quickly. After Hamas assailants killed at least 1,400 Israelis and took hundreds more hostage, Israel dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza in the first week of a conflict that is still ongoing. So far, more than 5,000 Palestinians are reported dead and many more injured. There’s no one way to cover this that reconciles all that is happening and all that needs to be felt. My approach is going to be to try to cover it from many different perspectives, but I wanted to start with the one I’m closest to, which has felt particularly tricky in recent weeks: that of the Jewish left. So I invited Spencer Ackerman and Peter Beinart on to the show. Ackerman is an award-winning columnist for The Nation and the author of “Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump” and the newsletter Forever Wars. Peter Beinart is an editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, the author of the Beinart Notebook newsletter and a professor of journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. And they’ve each taken up angles I think are particularly important right now: the way that Sept. 11 should inform both Israel’s response and the need to empower different kinds of actors and tactics if we want to see a different future for Israelis and Palestinians alike. Together we discuss the goals behind Hamas’s initial attack on Israeli Jewish civilians, how the attack changed the psychology of Jews living in and out of Israel and what Israel is trying to achieve in its military response. Mentioned: “There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive.” by Peter Beinart “A Deal Signed in Blood” by Spencer Ackerman Book Recommendations: The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi An Oral History of the Palestinian Nakba edited by Nahla Abdo and Nur Masalha Israel’s Secret Wars by Ian Black The Question of Palestine by Edward W. Said Strangers in the House by Raja Shehadeh Hamas Contained by Tareq Baconi 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, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. 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 Rollin Hu. Fact checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Emefa Agawu 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 Sonia Herrero.

Transcript

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0:00.0

From New York Times opinion, this is the Ezra Klein Show. I don't really know how to start this grief moves slowly and war moves quickly.

0:29.8

One person said after last week's audio essay that to so quickly focus on the Israeli

0:34.5

Army's response lacked a certain humanism and I understood and felt what they

0:39.4

meant. I also want to stay in the grief I have for the Israelis killed and the fear I have for the

0:45.8

hostages being held and I think there would have been wisdom emotional and geopolitical

0:50.9

if Israel had given itself time to grieve and time to plan

0:53.6

before fully committing to response. But that's not what happened. Israel dropped

0:58.1

more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza in just the first week. Tite into noose around the territory, keeping out food and water and medicine and fuel.

1:05.5

A report I saw a few days ago said the Gaza is down to one week of insulin.

1:10.2

One week of insulin.

1:11.2

Less now. My wife is a type 1 diabetic, dependent on insulin to stay alive.

1:16.3

A detail like that carries force for me. What if it was my wife, the person I love most,

1:21.5

who couldn't get insulin.

1:23.0

More than 5,000 Palestinians have been reported dead, many more injured.

1:28.0

There's a part of me that would like to stay in my feelings from right after Hamas's attack,

1:32.0

but that is not where this has held.

1:34.8

And the decisions being made now and that will be made soon will decide a lot of lives.

1:41.1

My approach to this topic is going to be to try to keep the boundaries of what can be said and considered open, to try to add context and to try to hear out a lot of different perspectives.

1:51.0

I said this last week, I'm not somebody who believes

1:54.4

that I know how to solve this conflict. I'm not somebody who believes this conflict can

1:58.0

currently be solved. I think we're at a much more primitive point in it right now.

2:05.6

But the building towards somewhere better, I think, requires a lot of different experiences to be heard.

...

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