I'm Christopher Leiden. This is open source. We are listening in the dark after a catastrophe yet to be contained.

More than 1000 Israeli civilians killed in a terrorist invasion from Gaza two weeks ago.

Thousands more Palestinians dead in a first round of punishment from Israel.

Only the beginning says Prime Minister Netanyahu. While President Biden in support warns him against all consuming rage.

In all consuming anxiety, more than a million Palestinians under Israeli orders have fled their homes in Gaza without a clue where safety will be found.

What we went to find in conversation was the sound of deep experience in the war zone of the Middle East.

And also, in the time of dread, some measure of confidence in restraint.

First up is David Schulman. Iowa born 50 years now living in Israel. He's a poet and professor of cultural anthropology at the Hebrew University and a founding activist in the Arab Jewish partnership in the occupied Palestinian territories.

I asked him for the feel of things in this mid-October of 2023.

There are moments when it feels like the end of the world. This last is we've seen things that we've never seen before.

The attack on October 7th, the Hamas attack, was levels of inhuman brutality such as we have never seen so severe as to make you feel that these Hamas fighters are really not worthy of the name human being.

The results also are horrific. We have as of now about 1500 killed murdered Israelis.

Yes, the vast majority of them civilians were cut down in their homes or in their gardens or while hiding behind some bushes or whatever entire families wiped out.

I think it's fair to say that there's nobody in the state of Israel who does not know at least one person who was killed in that way on Saturday.

There are 10 million people here in Israel, but it's like a big village and people don't want another.

And actually, in the course of the last few days, practically every two or three hours we get a message from somebody about another son or grandson or daughter-in-law who was murdered.

So it's a terrible time here. The country is largely depressed.

There's the imminence of a land invasion of the Gaza Strip by the Israeli army.

If that happens and it's almost certain to happen, it's going to involve a lot more casualties, both Israeli casualties and of course Palestinians.

So yeah, it feels terrible and very threatening and dangerous. And along with the things that I've mentioned, the kind of feelings of despair and horror, there's a rage.

Part of it directed, of course, that these Hamas murderers, but part of it also directed at the inept and incompetent government that we have.

So we read that, for a matter of your depth of experience, David, I want to know what you think this crisis comes out of unfolding from where, from what history and why, why now?

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