LEVER TIME: What Will it Take For Israel to End It's War

7:10PM May 13, 2024

Speakers:

David Sirota

Arjun Singh

Nathan Thrall

Keywords:

israel

gaza

west bank

hamas

people

october

palestinians

israelis

war

israeli

palestinian state

life

centrist

palestinian authority

netanyahu

ramallah

control

perception

occupation

tel aviv

From the levers reader supported newsroom, this is lever time. I'm Arjun Singh. For more than a decade Nathan Thrall has covered Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. thralls reporting has been published in the New Yorker, Mother Jones, the Financial Times and The New York Review of Books. This year he won the Pulitzer Prize for his book a day in the life of Op Ed Salama anatomy of a Jerusalem tragedy. Yet, despite his storied career, events in the US and Germany, featuring Thrall had been canceled in the wake of the October seventh attacks in Israel, something Thrall attributes to a culture of fear amongst event organizers for platforming voices critical of the Israeli government. Today on lever time, David Sirota sits down with Nathan thrall to discuss the Israeli Palestinian conflict and what life has looked like for both Israelis and Palestinians since October 7.

I want to start with your reporting and what you can tell us about an overview of what daily life was like, in the Gaza Strip. Before October 7, we'll get to two after October 7, but before October 7, for those who don't know, just give us an overview of what life was like there. Yeah. So

one thing that's important to know is the Gaza is separated from the rest of the occupied territories. And it's very difficult for Gazans to leave, if they just want to study at a prominent West Bank University, like there's eight, for example, it's extraordinarily difficult. And they have to go through a really arduous process to apply for permits to exit which are rarely granted. This includes just for medical care that you can't get in Gaza. So the main feeling of Gazans prior to October 7, for the last two decades has been of feeling trapped. They really have had very little access to the outside world. Egypt has also made it very difficult for Gazans to leave. And this is a very densely urban, more densely populated urban place. And it feels very different from the West Bank. It's it's really, you know, in a way, when I would visit Gaza, and I go to Gaza frequently, it felt almost like trout time travel, like I was going back in time, to an earlier era in the Palestinian national movement, the attitudes of people were really different. And there was a spirit of a spirit of optimism and a willingness to, to fight and a belief in the their ability to endure and to prevail. Part of I think that belief and the discrepancy in that belief in Gaza and the West Bank is that Gaza is we're not exposed to Israel. And so you could Israel for a younger generation was something in the imagination. And, you know, I would be in these conversations in Gaza. And then I go through the eras crossing and reenter Israel and see the skyscrapers and the development and Israel's takeover of land in the West Bank and its steady absorption of the West Bank and the settlements in the West Bank. And it was so far removed from what Gazans believed was on the other side of that wall. So Gaza was a very isolated place,

I should ask you, what did people think is on the other side of that wall,

you know, I mean, an older generation had been to Israel had worked in Israel had friendships through work in Israel. But the younger generation hadn't seen it at all. And so what they saw was on social media, when you see for example, the 2021. There's a little short war in May 2021. And, you know, what Gazans were sharing on social media during that war was showing Israelis fleeing. There was this notion that, you know, these rockets are really scaring Israelis to death, and they're going to, you know, wind up leaving on mass, which is just very far from reality. But it's it's if you're not actually in Israel, and all you're saying, Are these images of people running to a bomb shelter, maybe you can be persuaded that that's the prelude to, you know, the Liberation of Palestine.

What have Palestinians in Gaza told you about Hamas? I mean, I realize you can't speak for the entire Gazan population or the whole Palestinian population but your general impression of the scent Demand about Hamas among rank and file Palestinians in Gaza. So

you know, it's a highly, highly partisan environment. So half of Gaza is basically aligned with Fatah, half of Gaza is aligned with Hamas. They're different. There are varying degrees of that alignment, some of those people are full fledged, you know, members active in these parties, and others just if forced to choose would choose one or the other. But the amount of, you know, hatred toward one party, by the other, was very, very great prior to October 7. And that's why, you know, now you're seeing various media reports of they're largely anecdotal of, you know, a few different individuals talking about how much how angry they are at Hamas since October 7 over over the war and the destruction in Gaza. And I take that with, you know, a large heaping of salt, because you could find those people saying that they hate Hamas prior to October 7, in huge numbers. So the inference being made is that there's been a shift in public opinion. And you can't get that from interviewing for people who tell you that they hate Hamas.

I think the question about the West Bank is also important, as you've made clear, it's a different experience as a Palestinian in Gaza than it is in the West Bank. Have you been into the West Bank since October 7? If so, what is your sense of the sentiment there?

I've been in the West Bank a lot since October 7. And one thing that really is under played in terms of the coverage of Israel, Palestine, and these last few months is how much life in the West Bank has changed since October 7, the restrictions on movement are greater than they've ever been in the history of the occupation. You know, travel that used to take me a half hour within the West Bank takes hours now, it's such a deterrent, that people are not leaving their little towns, not visiting, even people who've moved out of their own hometown and live, for example, in Ramallah, haven't gone back to visit their relatives. Since October 7, I just participated in an Iftar meal with some people in in the town of Aneta, where my last book takes place. And there were relatives there who live in Ramallah, who had it was the first time they'd been there in six months, had been in a nap in six months. So the feeling in the West Bank is one of total strangulation, not in terms just in terms of, of freedom of movement, but also economically, you know, every extended family in the West Bank relies on much, much higher paying salaries, in his jobs in Israel, and in the settlements. And those have all been entirely dried up since October 7, those Israeli employers are just not hiring anymore. And so many families are really, really suffering. And just to give you a sense of how important those jobs are, you know, one of the important employment sectors in the West Bank after jobs in Israel in the settlements, is employment in the Palestinian Authority. And one of the main employment sectors within the Palestinian Authority is the police and the security forces. And prior to October 7, you had members, you know, officers in the Palestinian Authority security forces, who on their days off would go and work in construction in Tel Aviv, because the discrepancy in pay was so great. But so you asked me I'm sorry, I didn't answer you. The the mood in the West Bank with respect to her maths and there. It feels like her maths is at its at its peak of its popularity. It's never been more popular in the West Bank,

I guess the solidarity between the folks living in Gaza and folks living in the West Bank, Palestinians in Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank. What has the solidarity been like in the past? Are these populations do they perceive themselves as separate populations? Or do they perceive themselves as one large community? And I guess the additional question is after October 7, has that changed?

There are two answers to this on one hand, Palestinians are a people and they consider themselves a single people including Palestinians, in refugee camps in the diaspora, Palestinians in Gaza, Palestinians inside Israel with Israeli citizenship and Palestinians in the West Coast. And they're all part of the same people. And they feel themselves to be part of the same people that said, there are, of course, divisions among Palestinians that in some cases are geographical. And part of what Israel has done is to fragment the Palestinian population and to try and ensure that Palestinian nationalism is weakened through fragmentation. And that is a big part of why Israel has made it impossible for Gazans to leave. And to come to the West Bank. You know, as far as the, you know, international law is concerned, the occupied territory is one territory, it is not a set of territories, plural, its East Jerusalem, and the West Bank, East Jerusalem is part of the West Bank and Gaza, and occupied people have a right to travel within the occupied territory, which Israel is denying them, it's denying them access to East Jerusalem, it's denying them access to Gaza, it's denying Gazans ask access to the West Bank. And so, you know, there if you really if you dig down in any society, of course, you will find those divisions and resentments. And certainly, Gazans, I know, over the years have told me how they don't understand how they keep paying the heaviest price for fighting back against Israel system of control. And, and, you know, there were these terrible slaughters that that people in the West Bank are witnessing and and they don't understand how they're how people in the West Bank aren't doing more. So I think, you know, the divisions are very real, but at the end of the day, they are one people at with a single national movement for Palestinians

right now, is it possible to live a life without taking part in this conflict and feeling these tensions? I feel like we live in a world. Many Americans listening to this, for instance, live in a world in which you can you can choose to participate, cognitively, in what's going on in your world, or you can choose to try to shut yourself off in for Palestinians. Is that even possible? I mean, obviously, it's not possible for people in Gaza, there's literally a war happening there. But for instance, in the West Bank, is the day to day experience of a Palestinian can it be just a normal day to day experience anymore? There

is a perception that predates October sevens, that Ramallah for example, is a bubble, that you can live inside this bubble of Ramallah and not really experience the worst aspects of the occupation if you don't leave that tiny little bubble, which is constricted and of course, the second you try and exit that constricted bantustan Ramallah, then, of course, you, you you, you feel it immediately. And there are other ways of course, Israel does enter even Ramallah and calm and make arrests in the middle of the night. And, you know, the people in Ramallah are still under Israeli control. But there's a difference between how one lives in different parts of the West Bank. And and those are very different from how it is to live in Gaza, which is also very different from how it is to live in East Jerusalem. So I think that since October 7, it's been impossible for any Palestinian to, you know, turn off, as you say, and not experienced this war. People are in a state of mourning. They have if they live in the West Bank, they have relatives, they have friends, and and it's their people and they're looking and they're seeing this awful bloodshed. They're looking, they're seeing much worse images than we're seeing in the in the Western press. They're seeing it on social media and sharing it among themselves. And people are in a deep, deep state of despair. And I think there is absolutely no avoiding it.

Let's turn to Gaza. But let's turn back to Gaza for a moment. The situation in Gaza I don't know if you've you've been there or not. I don't know if you've maybe you've know people who've who've been there since October 7. What is that situation? I mean, we obviously know a ton of bloodshed, a ton of death, a ton of innocents being being killed. The day to day life in Gaza. It looks from the outside like there isn't really day to day life. It is a complete dystopian situation. Is there any governance there? Is there any civil society there? I mean, what is your perception of what it's like there right now?

It's total societal collapse. You have the Most minimal efforts being made by what is left of the Hamas government to come and administer in areas where they can. And so this is this has been the case in the north, for example, when Israel has declared victory and said Hamas is totally defeated, you know, who is going out and trying to help with delivery of food aid? It's members of the former government in Gaza. So, you know, those employees still exist, those people still exist. But, you know, it's so minimal, you know, people, people I have, you know, friends and acquaintances in Gaza, who will tell you that in their own neighborhood, they couldn't find their way to their home, because it's so destroyed. They couldn't even recognize where their home is, what street they're on. places they've lived for decades that are so demolished, they, they're disoriented, walking around there,

let's turn to Israeli politics and what's going on in Israel? The central question to my mind, separating out my value judgments about Benjamin Netanyahu, who I find to be quite monstrous. I'm interested just right now in what is it motivating him now? What continues to motivate him to wage? What seems like not only an inhumane and grotesque war, but a war that doesn't seem to be producing what you would call, quote, unquote, victory? I mean, maybe we can talk about what even victory is. But just your thoughts on what is motivating him? What is the political dynamic for him? And I asked that question to try to understand whether and how that dynamic could change to stop the bloodshed. So

obviously, he has an ideology, I think that many in Israel on the center left would like to attribute his every action to his desire to avoid a conviction in the various criminal cases that he's battling. And I think that, of course, is a motivation for him. But he has been rather consistent in his behavior. And he very much wants to avoid there the creation of a Palestinian state, that is an overall objective that he's been very, very consistent about. And that's part of why he had the policy that he did of trying to, you know, keep Hamas in control in Gaza and keep the Fatah led Palestinian authority control in the pockets of the West Bank, where it's allowed to exercise limited autonomy. So one of his motivations definitely is just to simply to stay in power. And he has a very right wing coalition, whose members want this war to continue and to expand and who want to go and do what they did in the north to refer and how. And so he's very fearful of losing that coalition. And He's fearful of the war ending, because when the war ends, the assumption is there's going to be a price to pay for everyone who was at the top on October 7, this is the greatest failure in Israeli military history. And he is ultimately responsible, as are the heads of intelligence and the army. So I think that he has that motivation as well. I think he also has the motivation of fulfilling his pledges to quote unquote, eradicate Hamas, to, quote unquote, finish the job we have we they've, he and his allies have said that it will be a loss, that this we will have lost this war if we do not go into refer and didn't do what we did in the north and eliminate the Hamas battalions that exist in refer. And so I think he's simply can't, we'll find it very difficult to walk back from those claims. And I think that there is a genuine belief that Israel needs to control Gaza, if not directly occupying it, at least controlling it from the outside and occupying it from the outside with some kind of subservient force administering it within. And that is a very widespread view. It's not just Netanyahu. I think if you know, Netanyahu were to disappear. You would find remarkable similarity in the overall power policy toward the Palestinians from the centrist candidates like guns who wished to replace him. And we saw this, by the way, we had a test run, when there was a government of your Lapidus, Naftali Bennett few years ago, and its policy toward the Palestinians was really no different, and in some ways worse than Netanyahu was. So there is a consensus in Israel in the in the center center right center left, we can't give them real sovereignty, we can't give them citizenship, we have no choice but some version of this control. And basically, the center left is better able to market that to the rest of the world, it's better able to say that we want it to eventually turn into two states, etc. Whereas the right is just much more blunt about saying no, there's nothing wrong with permanent, limited autonomy under Israeli control. You

mentioned Israelis perception of the situation as as the greatest military failure in the country's history, are you referring to the October 7 attack? And the surprise nature of it? Are the Israeli government and military being caught off guard? Or are you also talking about the current offensive in Gaza? I guess what I'm trying to get at is, what is the perception of the current war among the Israeli people? Is it hey, this is going great, or, Hey, this is actually failing, like, where's the Israeli public opinion on that?

So I think that, first of all, the perception of the greatest failure applies specifically to the October 7 attack, the failure to stop it, the failure to predict it, or to listen to those who were predicting it. And then the actual military response on that day, I mean, how long it took the Israeli forces to mobilize and how people in these border communities, Israeli citizens in these border communities are left to fend for themselves. And, you know, entire communities were under Hamas control for over 24 hours. So all of that is considered an enormous failure. The war itself is not yet considered to be a failure. In recent weeks, and maybe I'd say even months, mainstream opinion columnist have started to talk about how the IDF is treading water in Gaza. And that actually, this will be a failure, if the military achievements are not translated into political ones. And this comes from people who are on the center left and would like to see something like to state outcome in the in the future. And they believe that, you know, Israel should leap with both hands with who should grab with both hands, the opportunity to have normalization with the Arab world and the PA returned to Gaza and some kind of path toward eventually Gaza in the West Bank turning into a Palestinian state, which is what the Biden administration has been pushing and what Netanyahu has rebuffed and what I think also the center centrist leaders in private when they're coming to the US when godson Lapidus have come to the US I think they're also giving a pretty lukewarm response to the US otherwise the US would be pushing this much more aggressively. So center left columnists who would like to see the Israeli government cooperate more with the US on some kind of plan for the PA to take over Gaza? They are arguing increasingly, that the war is going to be a failure, or it already is a failure because it's not being translated into a political achievement. But that's not a I wouldn't say among the general public a widespread view yet.

Is there any sense of what not just an exit strategy, but a way for Israel, politically, to end the war? I mean, I believe the war needed to be ended a long time ago. I mean, what Israel has done is horrendous. Its unimaginably awful. The question I'm always thinking about is, well, what are the conditions that need to be established to halt the war? And so presumably for Netanyahu and his government to stop the war? They need some kind of rationale like, hey, we did x now we can stop the war. What exactly is x? I can't detect what that is.

Well, the Biden administration has been trying To argue to Israel that that x is we have flattened Gaza, we now have the opportunity to replace Hamas government with pa control in Gaza, coupled with a plan, a long term plan for a Palestinian state to emerge with Israeli normalization with all the Arab states with not just Saudi Arabia, but the entire Arab League. So the argument that Israel could make is we suffered the worst below that we've ever suffered. But we're coming out of it in a stronger position, actually, then we were in on October 6, we now have normalized with the entire Arab world. And we have a demilitarized Palestinian state with all kinds of security guarantees from the United States. And Hamas has been severely degraded inside Gaza. And that would be that would be the argument that you could make. But, you know, Netanyahu doesn't want the PA to return to Gaza, he says, and the way things are going, it's very likely that Israel is going to continue to control Gaza, that there will not be any kind of realistic path toward a Palestinian state, and that Hamas will remain basically the strongest power on the ground in Gaza. And it will be with Hamas has permission that any other entity comes in and acts as the face of Gaza government, with Hamas really in power behind the scenes, the

day to day life in Israel. What is that, like right now? And I asked that question, wondering, is it one of these situations where people in Israel can tune it out? Try to ignore it go to the beach in Tel Aviv, you know, not pay attention to what's going on, you know, a couple of miles away? Is it a sense of siege? What is the atmosphere in Israel right now,

it's a mixed picture picture. On the one hand, the plight of the hostages is on the front page of the news every day, and it's front and center in terms of public opinion. At the same time, life in Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem has largely gone back to normal. The streets are full there. You know, in the weeks after October 7, there was this almost COVID Like atmosphere, with empty streets and just a very quiet feeling. And that's gone. Now there's traffic as there was prior to October 7, and the streets in the cafes are full, and people are going on with their lives. And there are even news stories about how Israeli exits, tourism exits have picked back up again, and Israelis are going and traveling again. So on one hand, you know, life has largely gone back to normal for most Israelis on an the other element here is of course the the huge number of reservists that had been called up have have gone home as well. But on the other hand, there is this great Israeli attention to campus protests in the US to the possibility of the International Criminal Court indicting senior Israeli officials, that, you know, this perception that the world is maybe on the verge of turning against Israel. And I think that, you know, what you what I see among kind of centrist Israelis is a real doubling down in terms of self righteousness. And it could only be anti semitism that's driving the focus on Israel. And there's a totally unfair double standard that's being applied to us. And in a way, I think it addresses a psychological need, which is that, you know, a big part of the rationale for secular Zionism was that Israel was going to be a safe haven, and October 7, showed in the most horrible way that it's not such a safe haven. And so when the kind of central rationale for this project is undermined in that way, one of the things that becomes a very popular meme, a popular idea to focus on is well, it's worse abroad. And actually, this is still the best place to be for a Jew.

I think the the question of how life can go back to normal is one is one that kind of boggles the mind. I mean, I just want to probe that a little bit more. Do you think that that life can go back to, you know, quote unquote, life can seem like it's gone back to normal in Israel amid this war? Does that have to do with the fact that Israel has been in a state of, you know, hot and cold war for most of its existence? And what explains that?

Yeah, I mean, Israelis have been tuning out the occupation that they're administering the control of millions of Palestinians. Without basic civil rights for decades and and Israelis have grown very adept at at tuning that out and telling themselves, that's not really happening here that's over there. It's almost as though you know, it's, you know, the US occupation of Iraq at some distant thing, and it doesn't have to do with, you know, life and in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, which is obviously not the case. I mean, it's one in 10 Israeli Jews are living in the occupied territories. These, you know, your centrist Israeli and Tel Aviv and your son and daughter is going at administering the occupation that at 19 years old and coming home for dinner on Friday. So I mean, it's not as though they're they don't have the ability to see it. It's just a couple of kilometers away. But there is a great ability to, to tune it out.

Thanks for listening to another episode of lever time. This episode was produced by me Arjun sang with editing support from David Sirota, Lucy Dean Stockton and Joel Warner. Our theme music is composed by Nick Campbell. We'll be back later this week with more episodes of lever time.