Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal.

Joining me on the show today is Judith Miller.

An adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor of City Journal. Judy has written

about the Middle East, terrorism, and U.S. foreign policy and national security for decades.

A former New York Times reporter and bureau chief in Cairo, she was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for

investigative journalism. Judy's the author of several books, including God has 99 names,

which explores the spread of Islamic extremism in Middle Eastern countries. Work has appeared

in many outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Tablet, and the New York Daily News,

and she is a former Fox News contributor. Today, we're going to discuss the Israel-Hamas War,

which, of course, we've been covering closely at City Journal. So, Judy, thanks very much for joining us.

Politically, Israel has become deeply polarized in recent years. In the months leading up to the

October 7th Hamas attack, Israelis had taken to the streets by the thousands to protest Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu's efforts to overhaul a judicial system. A poll released this summer, found

that two-thirds of Israelis feared their country

was headed towards civil war. Many blame Israel's political divisions for distracting Netanyahu

and his government from its mission of protecting the country. So I wonder, what's your view,

as a longtime observer of Israel, about this position that Israel's

political divisions have affected its ability to respond to the attacks, or at least to prevent them

from occurring? Brian, I think that you've pretty much summed up the way most Israelis are feeling

right now. I think they feel really betrayed by, disappointed in their government.

It is astonishing and it will remain, to me at least, perplexing and horrifying that there were

no soldiers to protect all of those people in the Kibbutzim and the Moshevs along the Gaza border,

...