Video: A Palestinian and an Israeli Discuss Gaza

Watch the video of our weekly livestreamed conversation.

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First-time contributor John Aziz joins Mike and Adaam to discuss his piece on the escalating suffering in Gaza and the persistent support for Hamas. The three also discuss the possibilities of a two-state solution or what civil protests can achieve. Alex joins to fact-check the misleading claims of police complicity on January 6, James and Grayson update us on foreign affairs, and the panel wraps up on a debate about eggnog.

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  1. April

    Great discussion! Thank you Mr. Aziz and Adaam. Despite the legions of naysayers, we must continue to look for ways to move Israelis and Palestinians toward compromise and eventual peace. Both need it and both are entitled to it.

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    Michael Berkowitz

    Oh, and with all sympathy for Mr. Aziz's father's bad experience, the existence of an Israeli soldier who's a jerk no more makes Israel remotely similar to the Palestinians than a mean Customs officer at JFK makes the US similar to North Korea.

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    1. Jroa99

      Let's just say that example he brought up is frankly just the tip of the figurative iceberg, so your comparison is essentially tragicomic.

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        Michael Berkowitz

        Let's just say, rather, that in a country of 9 million people there are many jerks, as there are in America, but that the Israeli iceberg looks much like the American iceberg, in contradistinction from North Korea and the Palestinian areas.

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    Michael Berkowitz

    I'm afraid I did not find the conversation between Mr. Aziz and Adaam insightful.

    First, to speak about a Palestinian state we need what's called a "gap analysis": What, exactly, does a state have that's missing from what they have now? For Gaza, the answer is easy: Nothing. They have been ruling themselves for 18 years. Were they given a seat at the UN, what do we expect would have been different? Certainly not Israel's blockade, which is there to hinder their military.

    The West Bank? Most of the Palestinians there pay taxes to the Palestinian Authority and vote -- when allowed to -- in its elections. The PA is responsible for everything in Oslo-accord Area A and everything but security in Area B. Again, if that's formalized into a state, what changes? They'd kick the IDF out of Area B, along with any Jews living there, and Israel can rightly assume that will lead to more violence against its citizens (within and without the Green Line).

    Mr. Aziz quotes polling that shows overwhelming support, both in Gaza and the West Bank, for the atrocities committed against Israel. Why would any Israeli agree to further empower these people?

    And that leads to a problem I have with Adaam in particular: He made it sound as if the Israeli attitude is somehow limited to Netanyahu, or maybe his government. That narrative is popular in the US, possibly because people see only the fictional Israel portrayed by the MSM. Either Adaam should know better or I should, because while the contempt that much of the country has for Netanyahu remains, I see no indication that Israelis, other than a tiny number of die-hard leftists, are prepared to afford the slightest trust to either the Gazans or the PA. And only a handful more would trust any third party to keep the peace.

    In short, I don't know 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 they were talking about.

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    1. Jroa99

      I don't believe you are arguing in complete seriousness, since there are many possible counterarguments to your claims.

      There are plenty of things an actual state would have control over which neither the PA nor goddamn Hamas has any real decision making power.

      Israel blocking access to electricity and water speaks volumes in that regard. Nor would a real state be incapable of stopping Israeli settlers from increasingly expanding into lands that are not theirs.

      Yeah, they have a degree of autonomy and self-administration. That is not enough to pretend they are a state in all respects at this point. Nor would the current Israeli leadership want that to happen, as they have stated on the record long before this crisis.

      If current Israeli authorities were remotely interested in Palestinian opinion, then they would not persist in taking actions that can only radicalize their feelings against Israel.

      The survivors of recent bombings and killings will not exactly fall on their knees to thank Israel.

      This is not to say that the Palestinian leadership is somehow not co-responsible for the current situation, historically speaking, but it is clear they are not the ones with the most power and influence right now.

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        Michael Berkowitz

        For better or worse, I am serious.

        Israel does not block access to water. Maybe you're thinking of a story that surfaced a few years back about Israel damming a river that flows into Gaza, where in fact no such river exists. In any case, no. As for electricity, Israel 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲𝘀 electricity to Gaza. Yes, it stopped after the attack, but it was never obligated to provide it in the first place.

        Israeli settlers, to the best of my knowledge, are not "increasingly expanding into land that's not theirs." Israeli courts are more strict with Palestinian land rights than they are with land disputes between Israelis.

        And my question is precisely what it means for them to be "a state in all respects". Israel doesn't owe them anything (quite the contrary), so what aspects of statehood that they don't already have would be compatible with Israel's security? And is the gap something that infringes on what we Americans would consider fundamental rights? Nobody has claimed a fundamental human right to anti-aircraft batteries.

        You have the causality wrong. Israeli opinions and actions are predicated on preexisting Arab hostility, not the other way around. This is trivial to prove, if only because the Arab attacks began well before there was even a state of Israel.

        I don't expect them to thank Israel. I don't even expect them to apologize, because I don't think they have a moral culture. What does that have to do with anything?

        And there are many bodies responsible for this tragedy; Israel just isn't one of them.

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    Cal Amari

    Missed the live episode, but I'm afraid Adaam is incorrect - Laugavulin 16 is better than Laphroaig 10. Both are great, and Laphroaig does work better in cocktails and maybe is more cost efficient, but in a glencarin the oil and smoke of Laug. beats the ocean brine of Laph. Of course if you're talking about Laphroaig Lore, then I agree that blows Laugavulin out of the water; but then we'll need to start talking about the crazy stuff released by Bruichladdich and the insane folks at Ardbeg.

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    Dina

    I LOVED the dialogue between Adaam and John. Listening to them felt like a beautiful dream.

    That's because it was. I woke up and remembered that there is so much recalcitrance on both sides that a two-state solution is impossible. Unless certain things change.

    At this point the onus is on the Palestinians to demonstrate their good faith. The awful reality we are observing in Gaza never had to be. In 1948, the Arab world could have accepted the UN partition that the Israelis did, which imposed difficult concessions on both sides. Instead, they started a war that Israel did not seek and did not want and which ended disastrously for them.

    The Palestinian leadership faced three more opportunities for statehood and turned them all down. Israel withdrew from Gaza. And each offer for statehood, along with every land-for-peace deal, earned Israel more war and more terror.

    So one can hardly blame Israelis for hardening their attitude if one is fair-minded.

    It doesn't help that Palestinians are indoctrinated in the most virulent, medieval form of Jew hatred known to man, including the blood libel and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

    Peace will remain elusive as long as the Palestinians continue on this destructive path. In the past, Israel has demonstrated a good-faith effort toward peace. Now, the ball is in the Palestinian court.

    If Palestinians show that they are abandoning hatred and truly desire peace, they will achieve it. How do I know this? The lesson of the Holocaust's aftermath demonstrates how easily peace is achieved with the Jewish people. Just 20 years after the worst calamity to befall the Jews, while many traumatized survivors still peopled the land, Israel opened diplomatic ties with Germany. If we can do THAT, then we can do THIS. We just need to know for sure that Palestinians have lost interest in killing us.

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    1. Jroa99

      I would honestly say the continued poor treatment, displacement of civilians and the occupation of increasing bits of Palestinian land might have a far more destructive effect both individually and collectively than you appear to recognize.

      Rabin getting murdered by his own people for trying to make peace is only one of the complications you appear to brush off rather than acknowledge as part of the problem. While there is no guarantee he would have succeeded, at least he was making a genuine effort but that was unacceptable for extremist Israelis.

      Sadly, it appears the killers of Rabin, in a manner of speaking, have won.

      Perhaps Palestinians don't feel current Israeli authorities, IDF soldiers and illegal settlers have lost interest in making them suffer and, sadly, killing them as well.

      Expecting Palestinians to do anything while putting the boot on their neck, so to speak, must surely read like a cruel joke from their perspective.

      True, there is a fair argument to be made that back in 1948 an alternative outcome was possible. It was certainly a turning point for the worst. I do blame part of those consequences on the Arab leaders of the time.

      However, folks who know the history will remember both how the British acted extremely irresponsibly and inconsistently, the UN and the other world powers essentially washed their hands instead trying to actually do something on the ground, and those with long memories may even recall how proto-Israeli forces carried out what we would now consider acts of terrorism in the years preceding that partition plan.

      If the Palestinians had succeeded in creating a state under those conditions and Israel was never formed, perhaps we would see a mirror image of the current status quo.

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  6. Dave from Denver

    Excellent live cast to accompany an interesting article. Lots to think about and digest

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