How the Israel-Gaza Conversations Have Shaped My Thinking

It’s become something of a tradition on “The Ezra Klein Show” to end the year with an “Ask Me Anything” episode. So as 2023 comes to a close, I sat down with our new senior editor, Claire Gordon, to answer listeners’ questions about everything from the Israel-Hamas war to my thoughts on parenting.
We discuss whether the war in Gaza has affected my relationships with family members and friends; what I think about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement; whether the Democrats should have voted to keep Kevin McCarthy as House speaker; how worried I am about a Trump victory in 2024; whether A.I. can really replace human friendships; how struggling in school as a kid shaped my politics as an adult; and much more.
Mentioned:
• We’re looking for a researcher to join our team. Learn more and apply here (nytimes.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com...) .
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [e-mail].
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 www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-....
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Kristin Lin. 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 Rollin Hu. 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. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

[@mahakyaseri6636]

How is it that the right of return does not apply to people kicked off their land 75 years ago but does justify the return of a people displaced 100s of years ago?

[@bodhisattva4eva]

My question since the age of 5 literally - I grew up near there. No answer. In fact if you read Deuteronomy you realize Moses himself was a colonizer and God gave him the idea and the genocidal strategy, but that also gets us into far beyond the scope of your question and into another scary aspect at the core of Judaism Christianity and Islam.

[@Shain1914]

I think he just says that israel behave like any other country that want to protect itself, and can’t agree to 10M hostile migrants coming in.

[@matematikniels]

​@@Shain1914 I think you're right, that's what he meant. But that doesn't remove the contradiction

[@lenacohen8913]

​@@Shain1914with the telling difference that these Palestinian refugees, viewed by the Israelis as “hostile migrants,” are practically nothing more than Zionist Hasbara fantasies. While for the oppressed Palestinians in the West Bank, the Jews from the USA, Canada or France etc. making aliya , who come to the West Bank as settlers, where they replace the Palestinian villages with their communities, destroy the Palestinian houses, harass and even kill the Palestinians, are a real threat. They have been in fact “hostile migrants” for around 50 years now. They are a reality! Therefore what is the point of calling the Palestinians' desire to return "weird" but Alyia not, using the "hostile migrants" argument, when the opposite is so obviously true?

[@jaialaiwarrior]

Because they took up arms against the state they say they want to immigrate to and already live a few miles away in a land that actually wants them. The point of refugee status is to settle people, not to make their grandkids unproductive layabouts who care more about destroying a country than resettling the original refugee. UNRWA and the Palestinians have abused and perverted the concept beyond all recognition.

[@darkright3001]

So if Ezra says it’s weird that Palestinians think they have a right to return, why doesn’t he think it’s weird that Israelis have a right to return? Why was it very okay for Jews to come back after almost one millennium but so weird for Palestinians to return after barely hundred years? It’s so inconsistent.

[@under-en6lo]

SAY IT AGAIN!!!!!!!

[@ixmini2561]

He's always been biased on this topic. He's just as "tribal" as Ben Shapiro and others who need to support their "team".

[@fionaarchibald502]

No empathy for Palestinians. Israel is a fact and anything that inconveniences that fact can be disregarded as far as Ezra is concerned.

[@moma8956]

It's because he's a hypocrite and the entire Zionist project is insane and unhinged

[@jaialaiwarrior]

Because Jews have an identity and a long history crucial to civilization and Palestinians don't. The term didn't exist a hundred years ago and as long as they go to another Arab Muslim country they will just take on that identity, as they have in Jordan. Their nationalism just exists to destroy Israel cause they feel superior to dhimmis.

[@daniellborson]

I generally agree with Ezra on this, except for one thing. I'm also Jewish and was raised with Zionism. Ezra seemed to compared being Jewish in Israel to being any other nationality in another country, such as Canadian in Canada. The problem, as I see it, is that if Israel is to be a Jewish state, that means that it will be an ethnic state. In an ethnic state, anyone living there who is not a member of that ethnicity is, by definition, a second-class citizen. A Muslim Arab might be an Israeli citizen, but they would still not be Jewish. For Israel to remain a Jewish state, it cannot allow non-Jews to become a majority. The end result of an ethnic state can only be apartheid and/or ethnic cleansing, both of which we have seen with the Palestinians. (Also, I would argue that such a Jewish ethnic state is inherently against core Jewish values: read Leviticus 19:33-34.) Personally, I believe that the only sustainable and ethical solution is a single multi-ethnic state with full political and economic rights for all, full right of return for all Jews and Palestinians worldwide, and sufficient human rights protections to ensure that Jews, Muslims, Christians, Arabs, and everyone else is free from oppression. I realize that getting there would be extremely difficult, if not near impossible, but I don't see how anything less could be ethical, moral, peaceful, or sustainable.

[@soulscanner66]

100% agree with you. Any Canadian who is close to English Canada, French Canada and Quebec, aboriginal nations, and it's varied diaspora cultures (e.g Jewish, Irish, Ukranian, Sikh, Armenian, Haitian, etc.) knows nothing is that simple. Canada is in its politics primarily a binational state defined by it's relationship between it's French and English-speaking population. Much of the demographic concerns of Zionists reflect those of the Quebecois nationalists (i.e. French-speaking Canadians from Quebec, where they are an 85% majority) being overwhelmed by an influx of English-speaking immigrants and English-speaking Canadians skewing the democratic process against then. The Constitutional evolution of Canada has largely been based on managing these concerns. We have the advantage of having settled most of this in our own democratic instituions that were founded in the 1790's by the British in response to the American Revolution, with the establishment of Legislative Assemblies in Quebec City, Toronto, and Halifax. They are currently supported by a federated structure and federal government that dates from 1867, and an official bilingualism that protects minority language rights in each province since the 1980's. It's very messy, with layer upon layer of historical negotiation and compromise that has degenerated into violence at times, but has been remarkably resilient and flexible in continually finding democratic solutions that work for a while until they don't anymore. Some describe the relationship between French and English in Canada as two solitudes, or a constant dance. This doesn't take into account the colonial nature of both British and French societies with the local aboriginal nations, which is too long to get into here. Be it said that in Canada, we don't erect concrete fences and guard towers around our Indian reserves, and have decided in the 1960's that First nations get to vote in federal and provincial elections until we can settle Aboriginal land claims one nation at a time. In that sense, Israel is in fact a failed state with no normal relationship between it's two solitudes. It has failed to come to terms with its binational nature and its colonial past.

[@WorkingMan234]

I applaud you, brother Daniel. As a fellow Jew, I think exactly the same on this issue.

[@Imperator_Prime]

Yo there's also the *truly* radical solution of smashing *all* of these "states"-- states that hoist their colourful rags and presume to lord over us, states that presume to divide us against our neighbours by sowing nationalist delusions of superiority in order to command our loyalties-- and determining, laterally, neighbour to neighbour to every neighbour to live together in an *actual* democracy, instead of the ersatz ones now where "representatives" live lives nothing *like* the vast majority of us, and from their positions of privilege take bribes to uphold the capitalist hegemony of the reskinned old world aristocrats. People just gotta' stop being such cowards and subscribe to a little revolutionary hope in a world free from all this fuckin' authority and money.

[@StringUSA]

Are you opposed to other ethnic states like Armenia, Japan, Serbia, Germany, Albania? Many of these states are built on an ethnic/territorial idea, but still have full rights for their citizens. Do you think Yugoslavia shouldn't have split up? It seems clear at least to me from the events in Rwanda and the Balkans that a unified state would lead to civil war or extermination. Palestinians deserve a state, but they don't have a right to destroy Israel.

[@soulscanner66]

​@@StringUSA It's not that I'm opposed to states like that, it's just that they're not practical in a binational region like Palestine/Israel. Israel is a multinational, multicultural land like Canada or the UK; they would have to ethnically cleanse it for it to be as uniform as Japan. So the State should reflect this reality. Yes, I think it would have been better if Yugoslavia had become a multinational federation like India or Switzerland and solved the issue of minority rights more democratically and hadn't split up; it would have avoided the massive bloodshed and genocide that comes with ethnic nationalism that always comes with ethnostates. If you start with the precept that Jews and Palestinian aren;t gong anywhere and will retain the current demographic balance, you can't really have an equitable ethnostate. Israel will never allow the Palestinians their own state. What you will always have is the status quo: walled in ghettos controlled by the IDF, with some local government masquerading as a state. Imagine if the Palestinians had an air force, a navy, and an army and the Palestinians could defend themselves the way Israel can; Israel would never allow a normal state like this. It would always be subject to Israeli military rule. It could only ever be a client state of Israel. Israel effectively controls all resources on Palestinian territory, so it practically becomes a question of whether Israel is willing to respect the civil rights of its Palestinian population on the West Bank and in Gaza. If you allow Israel the right to defend itself, you give Israel the right to perpetually deny Palestinians their own state; you make Palestinians a permanent internal Israeli problem. The two state solution has failed. What we have in effect is a Jewish state from the Sea to the rivers because it is what Israel wants.

[@pamelaolson5259]

So far (minute 17), quite disappointed. Ezra Klein talked with some very thoughtful people, but in the end, he's going right back to where it's comfortable for him: Israel is just a normal state that defends its borders, and Palestinian refugees are just delusional losers. Never mind that there is no "border" with Gaza -- Gaza is still completely controlled by Israel, with no army or air force or even anti-aircraft missiles -- no defense whatsoever, and Israel even controls its food, water, fuel, and travel. Never mind that Israel DOES let anyone just come and claim citizenship -- as long as they are Jewish -- while it actively steals more and more Palestinians land, water, and homes in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem). Maybe it will get a bit better if I listen to the end, but it's quite disheartening so far.

[@davidfayfield6594]

So let’s hear your proposal ? I’m all ears . I only ask that you limit the proposal to something that has a chance of success.

[@pamelaolson5259]

@@davidfayfield6594 My comments keep disappearing. Did you see my comment with my suggestions? Is it still here but just hidden from me?

[@najacobson]

@@pamelaolson5259 No, it seems to have been removed.

[@Swarming1020]

He is correct that leaders, politicians, the UN etc. need to stop telling Palestinians the lie that they will someday return. It's cruel, because it's not true, and it gives them false hope that they along among all the world's millions of refugees will one day return. It will never happen; they need to accept they lost the 1948 and 1967 wars, that they are where they are. The leaders of Lebanon, Egypt etc. need to do so as well, give them full citizenship, and allow them to get on with living their lives without the delusion of a return.

[@pamelaolson5259]

@@Swarming1020 Why do you find it so offensive that these people refuse to be subjugated? That they refuse to accept that might makes right? That they belong to the land so thoroughly, they are willing to sacrifice a great deal for it? They aren't children. They know the odds. They are also patient and steadfast in a way you will probably never understand. You have your opinion. They have theirs. We'll see what happens.

[@tomasvlcek4476]

Right of return - all examples you mentioned do not work really. Germans expelled after ww2 CAN come to those countries and live there. Same for Pakistanis, Indians. They wont get their property back but Palestinians cant even visit their ancestral home.

[@moma8956]

Ikr. It's just blatant racism at this point with these guys.

[@dshappir]

Enter to visit or enter live and receive citizenship? Can any Pakistani really legally enter into India and live there? As for Germans - they can now, given that both Germany and Poland have decided to become members of the EU. No such agreement exists between Israel and the PA, or any other country. Like every other country in the world, Israel can decide who enters it, and how long they can stay.

[@moma8956]

@@dshappir Israel was formed by ethnically cleansing 700K Palestinians and destroying hundreds of villages. Cities were forcibly cleared out like Lydda, Ramle and Jaffa. The ethnic cleansing started before the Arabs even declared war on Israel. Population transfer and ethnic cleansing are illegal under international law. Palestinians have a right to return according to international law, whether Israel likes to admit it or not. Israel won't admit to the ethnic cleat or even offer reparations for the land/houses stolen (which Israel gladly accepted from Germany). Btw, Israel also can't bomb civilians and implement collective punishment (in case that too is too complicated for you to understand).

[@keep-ukraine-free528]

@@dshappir Except that's not what Israel does. It doesn't even approve travel visas if it knows someone who's a citizen of another nation has Palestinian roots. It denies them entry, even to visit. Israel is driven by hate & fear which it self-perpetuates through unjust apartheid & illegal "Administrative Detentions" -- it's become openly undemocratic. The world now sees this, and is repulsed.

[@lynpotter6471]

To summarize, Klein notes that injustice in the past has always been unjust. Therefore, we should not expect any justice in the present. Unless you're Jewish. In that case, you should be able to return to Jerusalem and expel whoever's currently living there because, at some point, some people in the past with a similar religion lived there. No one else with a similar ancient connection can make a similar claim.

[@aldissi79]

As a Palestinian, the historical narrative of who exists and who doesn't is not something I would often like to dwel on. We all exist and we are all equal. Humanity unites us all. However, since you mention history, here it is: Go to Egypt, the Egyptians will proudly twll you that they are descendents of the Pharaohs, the nation who built the pyramids and taught the world agriculture. Go to Iraq, the Iraqis will proudly tell you that they are descendants of the Summerits and Babylonians the oldest known civilizations in history. They will tell you to read the epic of gilgamesh and Enuma elish. Go to Lebanon, they will tell you that they are the sons of the Phoenicians. The nation that taught humanity to use letters for writing and reading before anyone else. Go to Syria, they will talk to you about the Ugareet, one of the oldest known civilizations. They will tell you proudly that Damascus is oldest continuously inhabited capital in the world. Go to Palestine and meet me! I will tell you: I AM PROUDLY A CANAANITE. I AM THE SON OF EL THE SUPREME GOD OF THE CANAANITE, AND HIS WIFE ISRA, FROM WHICH ISRAEL STOLE ITS NAME. Go do a PCR test, let's see who belongs to the region, let's see who is a real Levantine

[@jaialaiwarrior]

​@@aldissi79Israel has a history. Canaan and the Palestinians do not. You'll have to destroy a lot of archeological sites to cover that up but maybe you can look to your ISIS and Taliban friends for inspiration with that. Nice made-up little slogan though.

[@kongming7684]

​@jaialaiwarrior Y'all are even denying Canaan now, thats the original name of the place dafuq😂

[@TheFallinhalo]

@@jaialaiwarrior there you israelis go again, trying to rewrite history. by denying the existance of Canaan, you are by default denying that jews or israel exist. afterall, Jews are descendant of the Israelites, who originate from canaan, to deny the first origin of the jewish people, is to by extension deny the existance of Jews.

[@paulamarsh1]

No other people have faced 2000 years of persecution, certainly no Arab people...and the Jews are still here !

[@bigdaddychacha]

“I think saying it’s a Jewish state, and that’s so weird; I mean, America is a state for the Americans, China is a state for the Chinese, Brazil, a state for Brazilians!” Ezra, you see the glaring difference there in the four examples you just gave, right?

[@rajasmasala]

Look first of all do you acknowledge that a) Israel was a bunch of barely related white dudes coming over to knowingly kill and eat the actual babies of King David, and b) This Oct 7 bullshit is clearly mostly Israel Diaper Force killing hostage candidates per our available evidence. c) Do you think you can somehow get out of having the entire literate world knowing you are just the Nazis at this point, whatever narrative of how it evolved - for most sensible literate people that strain was there right from the start when you were recognised as a sister ideology by particularly western Jewry pre-pogroms and seems to be all that remains in Zionism. If you have a problem with any of this you have an education problem.

[@manaralihassan7135]

Nop he does not

[@artincultureq8626]

Imagine if the USA was established as a white protestants ONLY safe land. Or if Brazil was established and became an independent Catholic only state for people with Portuguese culture and ancestry. And, to establish a nation in mid 20 C on top of an existing population that lived there for centuries as functional multi religious community was an anachronistic colonial project.

[@Pacora2023]

dude unironically equated an ethno-religious state with a nation state, and the moderator had no objections to that... this self jerk circle is unbearable ... why are these people never challenged or cross questioned in these set-ups??

[@rajasmasala]

@@Pacora2023 ethnofascist states are not kosher. this is one of the tricks to subjugate the local devout extremely well respected various brown (oh sorry to speak Israeli "Arab") Jews and turm judges into your janitors by the neonazis who founded Israel. Another trick is the language itself is sacrilege.

[@lopezb]

"Reestablish deterrence" is such a clinical way to describe human atrocities.

[@KittiyKyat]

Others have also noted that while "American," "Mexican," and "Canadian" are nationalities, "Jewish" is an ethnicity and any state predicated on ethnicity would be an ethnostate. This is not "normal" or just.

[@my3bikaht88]

Have you ever been to Japan?

[@brianross9753]

France, Sweden, Japan, South Korea, Denmark, Italy, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, and Spain are all countries with ethnic characters. Some are relatively homogeneous. Others are diverse. But they retain their national ethnic and linguistic character. Israel, like France, is diverse, yet still has a national character.

[@ImberFatalis]

If any ethnicity on earth is deserving of its own sovereign country and self-determination, it's the Jews. Get off your moralistic high horse and look up the history of pogroms throughout the ages. Look at the mob in Dagestan a few weeks ago. Look at the mobs chanting "gas the Jews" all over the world, in the year 2023, the defaced synagogues and cemeteries of diaspora Jews having nothing to do with Israeli policies. This is a question of survival, not merely nationalism.

[@KittiyKyat]

These places don't make you a second-class citizen by law if you don't conform to the ideal ethnic makeup. Palestinians in Israel are not considered equal to Israelis by law, even if they live there. I could move to France and become a French citizen with basically every legal right someone who is ethnically French would have. @@brianross9753

[@saihat6]

​@brianross9753 But these countries don't base it on religion.

[@terriej123]

Norman Finkelstein (a Jewish expert & scholar on the history of this conflict) recently explained that back in the day, during one of the original negotiations, the PLO were actually quite willing to compromise on “right of return”. Here’s a video where Prof. Finkelstein explains it: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ranGo6ShrLaMo6csi=g04GSFqqRvC81ol8

[@ShaneDiffily]

Ezra's comments (but not just him) reveal some tension regarding the desired perception of Israel - as both: - "Exceptional" (i.e. a special place for an historically persecuted people), and - "Ordinary" (i.e. judged to the same standards as every other democracy). "Exceptional" implies special measures can be applied, that are not available to other countries. "Ordinary" implies the opposite. The friction between those two seems to be a source of much heat when Israel is debated.

[@michaelb1348]

Yes that is part of the discussion. However from the perspective of the 'ordinary' it is easy for Europeans and Americans to demand a standard from a position of relative safety. In my view if America, France, UK or another western power were in the same position of Israel they would have reacted in the same way if not worse. So there is a lot of hypocrisy in the discussion (in my opinion). From the perspective of the 'exceptional' for me it is not a question of Israel being a special place for a historically persecuted people. It is more a question of the current times and it is irrefutable that Israel forms part of a region were Western standards do not apply. I do expect Israel to be better than its Arab neighbours however I do understand that the rules of Western democracy don't necessarily work in that region of the world.

[@spointz8936]

​@michaelb1348 i dont really know of any Arab countries that - in the past 100 years - went into a country and displaced 75% of the population and refused to let them back in... despite their depotism, backwardsness, and general economic malaise I don't know of any Arab countries that colonized, practiced a policy of displacing the native population and gradually and unfaillingly seizing more and more land with illegal settlements while practicing complete military/ martial dominance and arbitrary policing of another state/ people/ land for 75 years.

[@michaelb1348]

@@spointz8936 actually there are plenty of examples of Jews being expelled from all over Arab countries …

[@PolinaFradkina]

@@michaelb1348 Thank you for your valuable and important comment.

[@lopezb]

It's not "how many children who no longer have their parents will grow up wanting to avenge those deaths" is not really the point. How about, "how many children will grow up no longer having their parents? " And "how many parents will go to their graves having lost their children?"

[@Pacora2023]

the palestinians will always be dehumanized and seen from the lens of a threat to Jews. Thank you Ezra, oh so progressive and evolved human being.... he is basically hardcore zionist parading as an insightful and compassionate humanitarian

[@fahd6757]

Israel is a “normal” state. No. It is a state that refuses to acknowledge the circumstances around its birth. Pakistanis and Indians do not deny how they came into being. Britain does not pride itself on its colonialist past. Kids in the US read about the injustices perpetrated on indigenous Americans and the legacy of slavery. The right to return in India/Pakistan case makes less sense since both Hindus and Muslims got their states. The reason Israel/Palestine is not getting resolved is because Palestinians have no legal status in any country and are refugees and nomads. The irony is that the best people who should understand the plight of the Palestinians should be the Jews who suffered the same fate for thousands of years.

[@jaialaiwarrior]

Jews always get on with their lives and don't demand a right to destroy another country's history and culture while refusing offers of statehood themselves. Only a loser would demand a right to immigrate to a place their grandparent lived in while refusing statehood for the land ten miles away where they live now. It's the height of idiocy to give away one's state to people who refuse to build one of their own.

[@paulamarsh1]

There are no other people in the world who have been displaced for 2000 years and who have returned.. no Mesopotamians, no Babylonians, no Romans...but the Jews are still here..!

[@Dudemeister]

The fact that people think the right of return would “destroy Israel” is amazing to me. As if that region was some kind of wasteland before the zionists got there

[@ronnynoneofyourbusinessgoo7892]

and then by someone cool like Ezra. it's how far people have climbed up the zionist tree and cant come down now.

[@shainazion4073]

Yes, the land was mostly a wasteland before the Jews had returned there. There are many, many quotes from Christian travelers to the "Holy Land" from the 1700s on, telling about the destitution of the land. The average age of death was 38, today it is 68, the child mortality rate has been cut by 60%. There was malarial swamps and rocky deserts over much of the landscape, this caused by the Ottomans and those before cutting down almost every tree, and killing all the other flora and fauna. The Arabs in 1920 and after mostly lived in one room mudbrick houses with no indoor plumbing. The Arab men had a sixth grade education, if any, and women had None. When Israel took back the West Bank in 1967, there was only 1 school of higher education, today there are 13 universities and more colleges. There was 70% of the West Bank houses that still had no indoor plumbing.

[@shainazion4073]

*_"A few years ago, the Ghor was in the hands of the fellahin, and much of it cultivated for corn. Now the whole of it is in the hands of the Bedouin, who eshew all agriculture, except in a few spots cultivated here and there by their slaves; and with the Bedouin come lawlessness and the uprooting of all Turkish authority. No government is now acknowledged on the east side: and unless the Porte acts with greater firmness and caution than is his wont.. Palestine will be desolated and given up to the nomads."_* *_"The same thing is now going on over the plain of Sharon, where, both in the north and south, land is going out of cultivation, and whole villages [are] rapidly disappearing from the face of the earth. Since the year 1838, no [fewer] than 20 villages have been erased from the map and the stationary population extirpated. Very rapidly the Bedouin are encroaching wherever horse can be ridden; and the Government is utterly powerless to resist them or defend its subjects."_* (p.490) *_[Bedouins] "can muster 1,000 cavalry and always join their brethren when a raid or war is on the move. They have obtained their present possessions gradually and, in great measure, by driving out the fellahin (peasants), destroying their villages and reducing their rich corn-fields to pasturage."_* (p.488) _The Land of Israel: A Journal of Travels in Palestine,_ 1865, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London *_"The road leading to Gaza to the north was only a summer track suitable for transport by camels and carts....no orange groves, orchards or vineyards were to be seen until one reached Yabne village.... Not in a single village in all this area was water used for irrigation.....Houses were all of mud. No windows were anywhere to be seen.....The ploughs used were of wood....The yields were very poor.... The sanitary conditions in the village were horrible. Schools did not exist.....The rate of infant mortality was very high...."_* *_"The area north of Jaffa...consisted of two distinctive parts.... The eastern part, in the direction of the hills, resembled in culture that of the Gaza-Jaffa area..... The western part, towards the sea, was almost a desert.... The villages in this area were few and thinly populted. Many ruins of villages were scattered over the area, as owing to the prevalence of malaria, many villages were deserted by their inhabitants."_* The Huleh basin, below the Syrian border, is described as, *_"including a number of Arab villages and a large papyrus swamp draining south into Lake Huleh....a triangular strip of land some 44 sq. miles in area....This tract is irrigated in a very haphazard manner by a network of small, primitive canals. It is, owing to over-irrigation, now the most malarious tract in all Palestine. It might become one of the most fertile."_* Report to the Palestine Royal Commission, eyewitness account, 1913 A description of the Beisan (Beit Shean) area *_"We found it inhabited by fellahin who lived in mud hovels and suffered severely from the preventable malaria......Large areas of their lands were uncultivated and covered by weeds. There were no trees, no vegetables. The fellahin, if not themselves cattle theives, were always ready to harbor these and other criminals. The individual plots of cultivation changed hands anually. There was little public security, and the fellahin's lot was an alternation of pillage and blackmail by their neighbours, the Bedouin."_* Report of Mr. Lewis French, Director of Development appointed by the British Government in 1931

[@lohikarhu734]

pretty nice kind of dste-picking to describe the land as wasteland...look, instead, at photos and video from 1920's and 1930's , before the Zionist immigration free-for-all. The fact is that there was a thriving, and growing, economy and culture, and the Zionists simply appropriated what they wanted, and Jewish immigrants were illegally given Palestinian passports, and just took over, at gunpoint, anything that they could.,,if a Palestinian family went away for a day, when they returned, they were turned away from home and business, and the Zionist immigrants simply took over home, furniture, personal property, car, businesses...

[@shainazion4073]

@@lohikarhu734 Nope, there is no proof of this supposed thriving, growing economy and culture. There was a backwards land filled with uneducated people. That lived in mostly poor conditions. The majority of the farmers were Fellahins (tenant farmers), not land owners. They worked as surfs and after the growing season owed the land owners up to 60% of the money gained from their harvests. I provided documentation as to the facts. Your "opinion" is not facts.

[@jennycatlike]

I learn a lot about the world from each one of your amazingly throuughtful podcasts.But this one was super valuable personally when you talked about your learning style and the challenges you had because it was an exact mirror of my experience. I have never heard of anyone gong through what I went through until today. Thankyou

[@ke8213]

Just wanted to say, I only discovered your podcast this year and it's been a delight to listen to. While I may not agree with every take, you're always so incredibly nuanced and you've definitely helped me broaden my perspective and be more well informed. Keep it up and I look forward to listening to your show next year!

[@cufflink44]

Well said. I agree completely.

[@thetooginator153]

Ezra - It was really nice to hear about your early life. I think a LOT of people are like you: they are fantastic at things that interest them. Congratulations on finding something you truly enjoy!

[@mahakyaseri6636]

Thank you for your work Erza. I have found your podcast very informative. About your statement re the right of return for Palestinians and your rejection of it, I find the jewish argument re the return to their ancestral land based on the same premise. Is not the state of Israel justifying itself on the right of return of the jews to their holy land?

[@spointz8936]

I wonder if Ezra has ever seriously reflected on whether his own biases, his own precepts informed by his upringing, his friends and family, his very identity! Might be distorting and informing his views on this issue.

[@dadigan5117]

Ok ... that makes absolutely no sense, just sayin'.... seriously. Have you listened to him? He's one of the most thoughtful people out there ... especially on this topic. Sorry, they are words but they don't really say much.

[@oldasrocks9121]

Bot much?

[@m.a.b.4104]

​@@oldasrocks9121yes, seems likely or at the very least someone who has read the title but not listened to the episode. Only the first part of the episode was relevant to 'the issue' mentioned in the title. 3 out of 4 of the topics in this Q&A episode were on different issues. I wonder if KZbin had the comments section set up so that you could only leave a comment if the whole video (or 90% maybe) had been watched/listened too? It is frustrating to see so many comments that seem to be written by people that haven't watched most or any of the videos they are commenting on. And of course bots should be removed from the equation, if tech companies had a monetary incentive to remove them it would've already happened.

[@spointz8936]

@@m.a.b.4104 watched the whole video idk why my thinking that he might be unaware of his preconceived biases on the issue would make me a bot..? And bots don't talk like this lmao

[@spointz8936]

@@dadigan5117 just because he's extremely thoughtful doesn't mean some his underlying precepts, framing, and assumptions can't be biased, or flawed in any way.

[@MTLHR]

The argument in defence of Israel’s normalcy is very disingenuous. The state was founded by a colonial project. The most recent settlement of a nation that comes from that era. It is NOT and has never been a state of all its citizens. Non-Jews have always had fewer rights than Jews including foreign citizens to that state who happen to be part of a racial/religious category. It isn’t a unique country. But it’s not that normal either

[@Eristtx]

The right of return - Coincidentally, 1-2 years before 1948, more than 2 million Sudeten Germans were expelled from Czechoslovakia. As a Czech, I can guarantee you that this is painful. Coincidentally, my family bought a cottage in a small village (Bartosovice) in the 80s, only to have an elderly German family come there one day to reminisce about their youth. Many Czech villages and districts have a German name in addition to the Czech one (in the case of Bartosovice it is Partschendorf). Especially for the Germans, all this is very painful. At the same time it is seen as an injustice. Not every German collaborated with the Nazis. And while for the older generation the Germans were enemies, we born around 1989 (the fall of communism) already see the Germans as friends (albeit annoying, noisy and constantly grumbling about nuclear power plants) and living in a technically stolen house is ... embarrassing (even though we paid for it). Yet the German community is not demanding the return of the property. While it is an injustice to them, it is a closed chapter for them. If one lives in the past, one has no claim on the future. For the record, however, after the end of WWII, the US, UK, France and Russia agreed that for the stability of Czechoslovakia, the Czech and German populations needed to be separated. The coexistence of multiple nations (ethnicities) was seen as a potential risk to peace. Why I mention this - the example of the Czech Republic and Israel regarding the Palestinians has many parallels. In the case of Israel, too, the transfer of the population after the aggression was unjust and was seen as an attempt to ensure its survival for the future. But the main difference is the attitude of the Germans and the Palestinians. While the former accepted it all and moved on. The latter are still living in their injustice.

[@shainazion4073]

The Arabs were not forced by the Jews as a transfer of Population. The Arabs mostly fled on their own after the UN Partition Plan was announced in November 1947. Israel did not let them move back into the land, but after they fought against the Jews, it is understandable that they would not be let back in.

[@ronnynoneofyourbusinessgoo7892]

​@@shainazion4073thats a lie. both happened.

[@shainazion4073]

​​@@ronnynoneofyourbusinessgoo7892 *The Institute for Palestine Studies,* an Arab organization based in Beirut stated, *68% of Arabs left their villages without ever seeing a Jewish man with a gun or a soldier.* Search, *_"How we really became refugees, 13 Palestinians tell their personal stories"_* Mamoud Abbas and 12 others from all over Israel, tell the truth about why and how they left the villages and houses and it wasn't because of the Jews. There is not one picture of Jews rounding up Arabs and displacing them. There was a few villages that were emptied because of the fighting, such as Ramle and Lod. There was 300,000 Arabs that fled after the UN Partition Plan was announced. The Arab League sent notice to all nearby Arab countries to not allow in military aged men, as they were fleeing on their own.

[@spointz8936]

​@@shainazion4073"At the Zionist Congress, held in Zurich, the Peel Commission's plan was discussed and rejected on the ground that a larger share of Palestine should be assigned to the Jewish state. According to Masalha, forced transfer was accepted as morally just by a majority, although many doubted its feasibility.[33] Partition, however, was not acceptable for Ussishkin, head of the Jewish National Fund, who said:[34] 'The Arab people have immense areas of land at their disposal; our people have nothing except a grave's plot. We demand that our inheritance, Palestine, be returned to us, and if there is no room for Arabs, they have the opportunity of going to Iraq'"

[@spointz8936]

​@@shainazion4073look at Plan Dalet - there was a policy of expulsion and displacement and seizure of towns, villages, and land

[@joanyoon4672]

This horrific tragedy is placing the humanity in self-reflection.

[@pamelaolson5259]

I think a reason Palestine is so hated by the imperial powers that be is that they won't just go away. They won't just give up. They won't just die off. (Israel was late to the "imperial buffet" and couldn't quite "finish the job" the way places like the US and Canada and Australia did.) Palestinians are a reminder of the people massacred and ethnically cleansed by other colonial projects, and they cling to their rights in a way that offends the sensibilities (and threatens the self-image) of the US and so on. How dare they think they will ever get their rights back. How dare they keep harping on about the injustice of their displacement, disenfranchisement, and oppression. How dare they keep fighting back all the way into the twenty-first century! Well. Y'all. They dare. And you can blame them for that all you want. Or you can blame the people who drove them out of their homes in living memory and CONTINUE to drive MORE out of their homes every single day. What you choose says a lot more about you than it says about the Palestinians.

[@mattwalker786]

The neighbouring Arab countries also refuse to give Palestinians citizenship, if Jordan or Egypt opened their borders tomorrow and offered full citizenship I have a feeling this "wont just die off" attitude would evaporate pretty quickly.

[@pamelaolson5259]

@@mattwalker786 It's clear you don't know anything about Palestinians. I lived in Palestine for two years. How many Palestinians have you even met?

[@usbconnections]

@@pamelaolson5259 a very intelligent suggestion. the weight attributed to your opinions on the Palestinian-Israel situation equals to the number of Palestinians you have on speed dial

[@pamelaolson5259]

@@usbconnections I lived in Palestine for two years. I know hundreds of Palestinians.

[@ImberFatalis]

Most Israeli Jews are Mizrahi who've been driven out of Muslim majority countries where they've lived centuries before there even were Muslims. And yet, you don't see them doing suicide or regular bombings in Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Hebron or wherever, endlessly complaining about the things and lands their grandparents owned and had to leave behind. The Arabs wouldn't accept the partition plan and started a war they lost in 1948. Tough shit. They need to get over it.

[@redthepost]

I enjoyed this show in ways I cannot describe. It was a wonderfully honest excursion. Bravo.

[@dadigan5117]

Excellent, excellent, show Ezra ... thanks, and thanks for the thoughtful and nuanced shows on Israel/Gaza. Your mom should be proud, just sayin'. daniel

[@Edo9River]

Thanks Ezra❤❤❤

[@justinboyce1285]

Very cool episode. Love the mailbag questions and your thoughts.

[@JM-if1mo]

I really like how Ezra explains his reflection on history, humanity and the consequences of war. One of the better podcasts on this subject.

[@LadyBug1967]

I'm enjoying this guy Mr Klein. I've not heard him speak before but at least he seems pretty even keel . BUT he's made two errors 20 minutes in. THE first one is that he says you can't just go to a country and say I'm going to live there. BUT you know what, immigration is happening everywhere and that is what people do when they go through the different laws and rules to become a resident or citizen. BUT in Israel you can't just go there and say I'm going to live there unless you're a Jew. AND if you're a Jew, you can come and you can live there. And he tries to make a false comparison by saying when you're an American, you live in America and ifu r a Jew, you live in a Jewish state Israel. BUT they are not the same thing. You're American because you were born in America you are a Jew NOT because you're born in Israel. You're a Jew because ethnically you say that your ancestry is Jewish. Apparently it may or may not be true and Israel NEVER asks you to prove that you're Jewish. THEY just take it for granted that you're telling the truth and they give you access to their country and often they give you land in the settlements and they give you a semi-automatic rifle free as a welcome gift. The land you're given in the settlements is NOT really in settlements but rather in Palestinian territory and they call you a settler but you're not really a settler, you're a squatter squatting on somebody else's land. THE squatters have eaten it up the Palestinian territory just like a cancer. IF you literally look at the map, it looks like cancer has invaded the Palestinian territory and is eating it up and killing it. Now to return to the concept of immigration. In France you have many people who are not French by ancestry. THEY have emigrated there from many countries. I met one in Santa Barbara who I knew was Arab but he says I am French and there's a term that the French guys his age would use to describe his relation to France, acknowledging hes French. In Israel, the same thing does not occur. IF you're Christian, it's very difficult to immigrate there as a Christian and to remain a Christian and to get citizenship. SO NO, Mr Klein is completely wrong regarding that comparison. Israel is a rogue state. IT'S that simple. IT is a man-made state. It did not arise organically & its unsustainable . Not too much to theocracy cannot be a democracy that also is a very simple idea that you can wrap your mind around. WHICH leads to the second thing he says which is wrong. States are formed by War, he says.Italy is a country.War did not create Italy. WHAT happened is Italy was divided into many sections because over the centuries they created different dialects & after World War I many of these little territories united to create italy. SO it was the opposite of a war --conquering people and tearing them apart and taking their land. He may be of course referring to colonization. Israel is a colony. Technically it was a colony of Britain and now it's a colony of America due to the fact that without American money, it would cease to exist. That is a simple fact. As a colony it is trying to do what the United States did & what Australia did and what New Zealand did or tried to do (apparently they didn't entirely succeed). Their M.O. was to destroy the indigenous population but this is not the 1600s or the 1700s or the 1800s and has ceased being the 1900s. WE do NOT allow people to come in and destroy a race of people and commit genocide on another group of people. IT'S that simple. TIMES have changed. THE zionists don't seem to realize that they are living in the 21st century and you cannot commit genocide without violating international law and committing war crimes which will result in many of the zionists being locked up in prisons or maybe executed which was done of course, as we know, following World War ll. l'll return to the video now.

[@LadyBug1967]

Re Jerusalem: that is a unique situation. My understanding and my research says that Jerusalem was actually a majority Christian, 85%, & it slowly changed when the Muslims became a dominant group in that region which was probably a millennium ago. Despite that, many Christians remained living there in harmony with the Muslims that then became the dominant group. THE Jews that remained were a minority & all lived together in peace. Later you go on very quickly and you say "that land", but Jerusalem is not a land. IT is a city and I visited it when there was relative peace in the Holy Land and I loved it and I felt its powerful vibration as a place of three faiths: Christian; Muslim and Jewish. AS a tourist I didn't fear for my life which I would now as a Christian. I didn't fear I would be spit on by the Orthodox Jews and cursed within minutes of walking down one of the streets in JERUSALEM. Zionists have taken over the Greek Orthodox sections of that beautiful city and they are now in the process of taking over the Armenian parts of the City, BOTH of these of course being Christian. I always thought I would return to the Holy Land but the violence of the zionists has made that impossible. Yes, you say it is a land with people who have families and they make art and they have a community and so it cannot suddenly disappear. WELL that's what the Palestinians had and they were made to disappear so I guarantee you it can disappear. History proves that. I think I will cease listening now because like most zionists you live in a fantasy world. Although you seem like a nice person, your fantasy controls your narrative & it controls your logic; it controls and it creates all the errors of your thinking which are too many for me to respond to. SO I say unto you, that one needs as a Jew to join with the Jews who say Zionism was NEVER allowed by our Holy book nor was a zionist state EVER allowed by our Holy book, not until the Messiah comes and he's not here. SO we as Jews say the state should cease to exist as a Zionist State. AS a land it will always be there and it shall return to being a land that embraces all three faiths, with equality and dignity for all peoples.🕊️

[@Ninoblack88]

Good convo but Ezra seems surprisingly naive about the goal of the Israeli government at this point despite the previous podcast and discussions he had and what is obvious to anyone looking at what is going on. Nevertheless, I agree israel is she will continue to be the most dangerous place for jews in the world. That will sadly be even more true after this conflict.

[@danielch6662]

I'm so disappointed. Ezra is wrong with every answer right from the second question. Right of return: why do Palestinians don't get a right of return. Never mind the Indians, Pakistanis, or Germans. *The Jews have a right of return!* If they get to return after 2000 years, why do Palestinians have their rights extinguished after less than 100 years? In a two-state solution, the Palestinians get to return to Palestine. In a single-state solution they get to return to wherever they came from. Refugees ALWAYS get to return at the end of the conflict. Are we saying that the Syrians and Ukrainians do not have a right to return to their countries after the wars ends? Eliminating the right of return makes the world worse for everybody. Every country would be so reluctant to admit refugees, knowing that they will have to keep them forever.

[@danielch6662]

Third question: the Jewish people needed their own state to defend them ... This is proven by Israel itself. Just look at the Palestinians getting slaughtered because they do not have their own state to defend them. Ezra said in 1947 all the Arab states grouped together to try to wipe out Israel. No they didn't. That is wrong. Britain abandoned the mandate, and there was a free for all with everybody fighting to grab their own piece. exed the West Bank. Egypt took Gaza. The Palestinians, they had no army to fight for them. They were the ones getting beat up in all the fighting. In fact, the Palestinians did not exist as a people in 1947. They were formed as a result of the Nakba, and the subsequent decades of statelessness. China is a state for the Chinese. America is a state for Americans. But Israel's weirdness today is that it has decided that millions of people living on it's land, are not citizens, and is trying to fob them off on to their neighbours. THIS is not normal. THIS is not acceptable. When China (re)capture Tibet, it did not expel most of the Tibetans. THIS is what Republika Srpska Krajina tried to do. And you know what we did to Karadzic and Milosevic. NATO bombed Serbia to pieces.

[@davidfayfield6594]

So if right of return is off the table from Israel point of view , what do you think will happen?

[@kyber1fun164]

@danielch6662 As Ezra clearly says, the descriptive reality is that sovereign nations have the right to determine how they are run, and who is let in. For example, the USA includes a lottery-based immigration system. Other countries like Canada have a points-based system. Israel has a Jewish right of return system. The fact that Israel has decided to allow all Jews to qualify as immigrants under the "right of return" doesn't mean they logically have to grant that right to all other peoples with a connection to that land.

[@najacobson]

@@kyber1fun164 I think the point that was being made was that Ezra contradicted himself. In effect, he said the Palestinians do not have a right to return, even though they were exiled within living memory. He then goes on to say that the Jews did have a right to return to their homeland before they had achieved statehood and while they were still living in diaspora. He is not making descriptive observations about the ways that nation-states tend to behave; he is making normative claims about what people can legitimately claim as their moral and civic rights.

[@OutcompeteAI]

I don't buy the argument that this won't lead to more radicals in the future. But I do believe this campaign is fully about putting an end to the tunnels and the logistical capabilities that left unaddressed, would likely lead to more attacks. Israel has been losing the PR battle sometime after the BDS campaign began. The challenge of insurgencies vs democratically elected administrations vs autocrats is that the politicians have to get the truth of things right.

[@keep-ukraine-free528]

@OutcompeteAI You seem to not know why the tunnels were built. They were built with Israel's knowledge (but inability to stop it). They were built to smuggle in food, medicines, and basic building materials that Israel prevented. Israel prevented food & medicine in Gaza -- so instead of starving and dying, Gazans began building them to have a chance to live like human beings. Israel consistently denies them basic human rights. After years of Israeli cruelty, the tunnels were also used to defend Gazans from Israel's unjustified killings ("mowing the lawn" -- literally chopping off the heads of the tallest grass, or people). For its war crimes, Israel will soon be called to the ICC. There, Israel will try to lie to the investigators & judges, just as it has lied to all of us about al-Shifa hospital, about "beheaded babies", & other nonsense fabrications.

[@ericchang9568]

I support you and your integrity.

[@yvonnejoseph4841]

I can't believe that mythical stories from the bible is now seriously being used to guide geo-political policies....incredible!

[@skog44]

My goodness, he sounds like a reasonably measured guy, but the social pressure he is under must be immense when he refers to Israeli "children" killed by Hamas, but then talks about "Gazans" killed by Israeli reprisals. He HAS to say "Gazans" instead of Palestinian "Children". Some Israelis refer to them as "little snakes". I guess that mindset is fairly consistent among settlers and supporters of settlers. It really is an accurate and detailed parallel of how NAZIs considered Jews to be non or sub-human. It is a very refined and civilized conversation, but I don't believe the Gaza conflict is about protecting the State of Israel for the Jewish population. The war is not about protecting or keeping Jewish people safe. These conflicts are always about money, power and influence, and when you look at the main supporter of Israel and the destruction of Gaza, it is obvious who has their thumb in the pie. It sticks out like a dog's bollicks. Tony Blinken must think everyone is blinkered. The US is absolutely crapping itself incase China's BRI project gets a pathway through the Holy Lands into the Med and all these new BRICS countries come together to make a fairer deal and bring peace between Israel and Palestine, a thought that send shivers down the spine of the US war industry. Anyway, that was cutting to the chase. Please continue with your civilized conversation.

[@keep-ukraine-free528]

Thank you Ezra for this. For you this was clearly difficult & felt risky, since it exposed your personal feelings & left you vulnerable. But you're much stronger than mere attacks of strangers -- who don't know you or the history that shaped you. I loved your answer on the BDS movement. I now agree with your view -- you changed my mind on the _right of return_ being too big of a hindrance to stable peace. Though, on another point I saw a conflict with that view, when you said Jews do have a "historic" (Biblical) _right of return_ and even ownership over Jerusalem. I'd like to understand how you believe a "right of return" isn't reasonable in one case (for Palestinians into Israel) but oppositely you justify the "right of return" for Jews not just into Jerusalem (including East Jerusalem) but absolutely over that city's ownership. How does such a "strong" & "justified" right of return arise from only stories in a book written & re-written over centuries by dozens (many who couldn't have had personal first-hand knowledge of the events, to justify their written accounts) -- and where every story relies on some true facts and some strongly disputed/disproved opinions? Many of those stories don't show a just humane God, but instead show the flawed flesh & fallacies of simple vengeful ancient people (across three religions) -- those stories are about frailties & failures re-imagined to be strengths. Is this "right of return" back to Jerusalem a similar imagined strength? Your "right of return" to Jerusalem doesn't comport with your reasoning for BDS. On just a few other points, I disagree but that doesn't matter since you presented your views diplomatically. Your opening up here, sharing things that some may consider "embarrassing", was wonderful & brave. Thank you.

[@Swarming1020]

He should respond himself, but one point: there is literally zero dispute that the Jews were expelled from Israel. We know this not just from the Torah/Bible but from enormous amounts of archaeological, genetic, and literary evidence. The claims are not based just on like 'Bearded Man In Sky Said So'.

[@hharikris]

A great catch on the discord between "no right to return for anyone expelled from any country" vs. "jews expelled from Jerusalem have a right". After listening to this multiple times, I think the context of the jews-expulsion comment is not to argue for a right-to-return-for-jews, but to show the emotional connection to Jerusalem and how it makes jews settling in Palestine different from classic settler colonialism. I think it is good distinction. Your other point is "well...lots of people got expelled in olden times during wars and regime changes" is great too. Agree on the need to distinguish these expulsions case-by-case vs. seeing one continuous series of expulsions. Undoubtedly connected series of expulsions simply for being jewish did happen.

[@ssun190]

Thank you. Your podcasts have given me a lot more understanding as an outsider.

[@schrecksekunde2118]

i wanted to say thank you for your input in these stressful times

[@user-wq8vk9co5e]

I would appreciate if your podcast discusses why the US unconditionally supports Israel.

[@stoor79]

Most know the real reason, evangelical zionists.

[@Lorenzo939]

I'm guessing because how much influence CUFI, AIPAC, the ADL, Hillel and other similar entities have within the U.S. government and mainstream media. I would also differentiate these entities as necessarily representing Zionist interests, and not necessarily reflecting the interests of the diaspora Jewry.

[@usbconnections]

I doesn't. That's a fact.

[@munchingsquirrel5067]

That would be a worthy podcast. If I remember correctly Noam Chomsky has discussed this. It's only been the situation since around 1970 or so.

[@m.a.b.4104]

I've listened to all 10 episodes that have focused on Israel/Palestine since October 7th, and although a whole episode hasn't featured analysis of US's support for Israeli, it has been talked about a few times.

[@guzmas31]

Israel is very different from other states, especially democratic ones. It's an ethnocracy. It is defined as a state not if it's citizens, but of Jewish people all over the world, including those who have never or will never be there. But it is not a state of it's Arab Israeli citizens. I don't mention occupied Palestinians because the point is that even if that part was solved with two states, it would continue to be a state for one group, not it's citizens, and which is in a constant demographic battle to continue to have a Jewish majority or dominance. No democratic state defines itself as a state of a religion, a people abroad, or a race of people who have lived outside of it for tens of generations. Israel is open to mass immigration by Jews from abroad, but Jews only.

[@shainazion4073]

Israel is a democratic republic, not an ethnostate. There are 2 million Arab citizens (1.8 million Muslim citizens) in Israel with the same rights and benefits as all citizens.

[@shoshanakirya-ziraba8216]

Yep, the Jews are different. We are the only indigenous independence movement that worked after 2 millennia of exile. We are a miracle and we're not going to give away our homeland because you might disapprove.

[@mvonwalter6927]

@@shainazion4073 Israel is defacto an ethnostate. 2 million Arabs will be tolerated as long as they don't constitute a threat to the "demographic concerns" or the "Jewish character". This is why the comparison is colonialism, regardless of what Ezra has told himself, because colonial powers did the same thing. The US managed it's white demographic superiority in very overt ways in the 18th and 19th century. Surely someone could claim that the US gives native population the same rights and benefits as whites so our country doesn't afford any privilege to white people.

[@Klopp2543]

​@@shainazion4073what? Of course Israel is an ethno state. It has laws its constitution that's explicitly define Jews as the identity, superior,only allowed self determination,holidays etc etc. Check it out they call it the state laws. That's for what you call it's arab(beats me why palestinian identity is not allowed) Israeli citizens. For the occupied lands palestinians have it rough. Military laws, stateless,no civil rights of any kind etc. No democracy in the world does that

[@Klopp2543]

​@@shoshanakirya-ziraba8216jeez I believe no one wants Jews to give away it's land. The world, palestinians international law all recognize Israel on 78% of the land. What is illegal is the other 22% of the land which is recognised as Palestinian land. Jews know oppression, dehumanisation and killings. Palestinians don't deserve it too. They too deserve humanity, empathy,self determination and peace

[@nabibel-rahman9169]

Ezra, the arguments you make for a Jewish state Israel ( and not multi-ethnic, multi-religious) is also the same argument the South African Apartheid government had. They didn’t want to become a powerless white minority in their own country - they didn’t want to change who is considered fully South African. Sounds absolutely normal, right?

[@jamesfromtheusa]

Disagree with Ezra at 15:10. It is WEIRD that this state (unlike the others he mentions) officially defines itself by religion.

[@ppcalpha1042]

Israel doesn’t have an official state religion. The Jewish refers to the ethnogroup of Jews rather than the religion. Regardless, there are many countries in the world with official state religions. There are also many countries in the world who define themselves as the homeland of a people. So it isn’t really weird.

[@jamesfromtheusa]

@@ppcalpha1042 He probably should have offered comparable examples. I almost wrote “ethnicity,” and really that seems worse than an official state religion.

[@ppcalpha1042]

@@jamesfromtheusa Gotcha. Yeah I think the peculiarity likely is a result of the equal peculiarity of the strength and persistence of antisemitism throughout the world and history, which ultimately led to the desire to have a Jewish homeland. The good news is that all people in Israel have equal rights under the law, unlike in many of the surrounding countries which treat Muslims and non Muslims different under the law.

[@jamesfromtheusa]

Well we’ll see if the world gets this figured out during our lifetimes. What I see is two tribes, one more powerful and organized with superpower support. It’s their responsibility to resolve this in a way that doesn’t leave the other feeling…disenfranchised, etc. That’s how the situation appears through my screen.

[@ppcalpha1042]

@@jamesfromtheusa I agree overall, though of course it ultimately takes two (and maybe many more in the international community) to have peace. Let’s hope the next generations can heal and have peace.

[@usbconnections]

Are Jews more or less safe with a state of their own? That used to be a theoretical question for many a century. Are you really still on the fence with this one?

[@Hellojsm8823]

They need to distinguish between the public threat and deterrence.

[@MorbidlyCurious0]

Does "When did the statute of limitations on Jewish expulsion run out?" suggest that Jews always have a claim to return to Jerusalem? If so, it contradicts the rest of the examples where no one expelled has a right to return. The "multiple" expulsions of jews from Jerusalem...are they all related? Should we paint all tragic historic events involving jews with the same brush? I agree on the differences between Palestine and classic settler colonialism. Several tactics used to create the country are from settler colonialist playbook, but the emotional connection to the land makes this different from it. I'll attribute the lack of clarity or some eyebrow-raising lines of thought in the discussion to the format of this quick podcast. I did find it surprising to attribute the existence of Israel simply to holocaust, ignoring the entire jewish nationalist movement that led to it. Holocaust did play into it. UN decision didn't physically create state, but arguably helped legitimize it. May be it was a poor but necessary remedy for the horrors suffered by a population from holocaust, while creating new problems or ignoring ground reality. Again, I'll give Ezra the benefit of the doubt in oversimplifying this, given the limitations of the medium. Overall, Ezra's comments are thought-provoking. It still left me wondering about human bias. We emphasize certain aspects of a complex story and ignore others. Our cause-effect reasoning can get contorted. E.g., even by more objective Israelis, the Arab states declaring war is emphasized as if to show their nihilistic approach to Israel, but the circumstances leading to it and the Palestinian eviction before the war is de-emphasized. Seems to me, it requires a rigorous, disembodied thinking, reasoning, and awareness to avoid bias. I've seen it rarely, except from Noam Chomsky or Ilan Pappe. Most others do not have enough facts, reasoning, or are very humanly tinted by their personal context.

[@1940ruth]

The United Nations has the right of return! The USA used to support it. Of course the wrongs prior to WWII of course don’t apply. Ezra ignores international law.

[@jdnlaw1974]

Great episode. I decided to give you a chance despite you getting obliterated by Sam Harris, and am glad to be your newest subscriber. Shake off the Sam Harris defeat, we all get our ass whipped once or twice in life. What’s important is that we get back up and fight another day, which you have obviously done.

[@keep-ukraine-free528]

@jdnlaw1974 That's the same Sam Harris who openly promoted an extreme racist called Douglas Murray, who isn't even Jewish. Sam is sinking. In intellectual circles, he's no longer seen as objective. He promoted an in-the-open racist!!

[@SaudiaYoung]

It's so hard when people talk about their view of history as history...I am disappointed.

[@petercohen5563]

There is a difference between Israel existing and existing as an exclusionary supremacist ethnostate. Israel can because a state for all its people and not just one favored group. Does Germany give special rights and privileges to ethnic Germans? Do you support the groups who want to keep the US white and Christian or “France for the French”?

[@shainazion4073]

Israel has NEVER been an ethnostate. It is a democratic republic, and has 26% of their citizens that are not Jews and have all the rights and benefits that Jews do. There are 2 million Arab citizens (1.8 million Muslim citizens) in Israel.

[@Aan_allein]

It must exist like that in Dar-al Islam that surrounds it

[@petercohen5563]

@@Aan_allein no state has a right to exist while oppressing others: states should exist to serve their populations. Dar-Al-Islam is a religious concept that doesn’t exist politically. What exists are different states with different populations and interests. To the extent that any of these countries practice apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide, we must oppose them as we oppose Israel.

[@AllieCaulfield]

All find to claim to be a realist but maybe Jewish people and Palestinians should both have the right of return. I want the whole world to be safe for Jewish people that for me feels like a morally constant stance.

[@AllieCaulfield]

If Jewish people have the right to return to their homeland that right should exist for all.

[@commonwunder]

Most humans crave acceptance... within their peer group. They desire homogeneity of moral and ethic standards within their clique. The younger they are, the more they lean towards a 'purity' of ideals. For their section of the herd... everything is surface, everything is fixable. Complexity does not exist. The possibility of duplicity of victimhood, does not exist. With each new societal issue, the zeitgeist for each part of the overall herd shifts. Changes what is considered appropriate for the various differing strata of that herd. The 'liberal educated and progressive' fractions of Western society have been captured, by their own contextual viewpoint of 'oppressor-victim' narrative. Which maps on perfectly to this particular Israel-Palestinian crisis. Now their prime focal point. It has eaten up the imaginations of this entire group whole. It is a pure injustice without any intricacies ...and for those searching for purity, this is now screaming at them. It is a loud screech and if you listen out for it, if you stumble across it, it is deafening. Although it is loud, it is powerless. Its only force, is to pull those from other viewpoints, into 'weak' sympathetic empathy. It would take the collusion of far more powerful societal groups, to actually affect this disastrous conflict from its current direction. As everyones favourite quasi pastoral village priest said... for those that can't, even clean up their own room. The worlds major problems are all eminently fixable.

[@bryanmurray9846]

"When did the statue of limitations on Jewish Expulsion run out?" Ezra I dont think thats a good argument. One coud ask.the same question regarding variois peoples, including indigenous peoples But no one is saying we should partition America, and give 80% of the land to indeogenous people. We accept that what has been done so long ago has been done. But the difference with respect to Palestinians is that their expulsion happened so recently and that their resistamce to their expulsion and oppression has been continous and unbroken. Palestinians expulsion also didn't just happen in 1948. It happened prior and crucially continues to occur to this day even though the universal declaration of human rights, Geneva convention, and ICC have lomg existed.

[@StevenBrener]

So, then, if we follow such logic, then israel just has to wait it out and at some undefined point in time we will "accept what has been done so long ago has been done."

[@bryanmurray9846]

​@@StevenBrener No. What follows my logic is Israel was a little too late in joining the ethnic cleansing and or genocide perpetrator party.

[@StevenBrener]

@@bryanmurray9846 So, then, the Jews expelled from arab lands after 1948 along with the long list of others expelled or who left in fear in that timeframe or later (Germans from Sudetanland, Indians/Pakistanis/Bangladeshis, etc - actually, quite a list here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_cleansing_campaigns#:~:text=Post%2DWorld%20War%20II%20border,or%20had%20fled%20the%20area.) should all be entitled to the right of return too?

[@paulamarsh1]

Jewish expulsion from their ancestral homeland is two thousand years old..and they are still here !

[@shokuchideirdrecarrigan7402]

Not eating meat does not do much if anything to minimize your carbon footprint. Lowering use of fossil fuels and smaller human population would do more.

[@Klopp2543]

Problem is Israel wants 100% of the land. By international law Israel is 78% of the land Palestinians 22%. That's where conversation should start. Israel is there to stay. Palestine should too, that's the bone of the contention and not 1948,1967 etc etc. Palestine was around 45% in 1958 for palestinians to accept 22% in 1988, acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state and ditch violence was a good basis for any peaceful resolution. Israel rejects it and wants everything

[@kathrynpassmore5425]

But now there is not as much land due to Israel pummeling it and making it uninhabitable for years to come

[@paulamarsh1]

Look at a map of Greater Palestine: Jordan is what is Arab Palestine and Israel is the Jewish part. Southern Syria and Lebanon are also historically Palestine.

[@WriteInAaronBushnell]

When can we get a homeland for the atheists?

[@shaytheo]

Ok, I'm lost in your thinking about Israel and Palestine. If Palestinians have to right of return, why do JEWS? The biblical homeland is an ancient homeland and the Palestinians were displaced in 1948. That Israel, as a state, was created by conquest and that gives it legitimacy, that means Isreal can be taken by conquest as well. Is there a statute of limitations on conquest? I'm not sure what you believe buy the logic you are using seems flawed.

[@Pacora2023]

hes doing a lot of mental gymnastics to come across as thoughful, compassionate and self aware. he is not.

[@rosalindpaaswell9513]

1. Israel is not going anywhere; it will continue to exist as a very flawed (but improvable) democracy, with an Israeli Arab population of more than 2 million citizens, with full rights. Yes, I know what Israeli nationalist extremists have in mind for hierarchy of citzenship, but there was a popular uprising before October 7 that will continue that will prevent that. Israeli Arabs are elected officials, judges (one on the Supreme Court), doctors, lawyers, engineers, techies, business executives, business owners, university professors, university students, media stars, sports stars, IDF soldiers and officers. Most Israeli Arabs say they would never move to a new "Palestinian" state. 2. Palestinians (although they were just plain Arabs until about 1964) have a right to self-determination, liberation and sovereignty 3. The states in the Middle East were almost ALL created after WW1 on land that had all been part of the Ottoman Empire. (By the way, there never was a Palestinian geo-political entity in all of history. The name was for a geographic territory, much like, say "Appalachia" or "the Midwest") Arab interests asked for different territories and Jewish interests asked for a state as well. Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and eventually Jordan came out of that process. As did Mandated Palestine -- the first time borders were drawn around an area that was named Palestine. It's little known but all of Jordan was once included in that designated Palestine mandate. Almost immediately, the part of the Mandate east of the Jordan River was separated and became TransJordan (later Jordan). With those divisions, 99+% of the former Ottoman middle east was designated as Arab states. With the further division of what was left of the Mandate, .01% was designated for a Jewish state. Of the original Mandate territory, less than 20% was designated for a Jewish state. 80+% was to be Arab -- including Jordan and the Arab state within the smaller Palestine. But 99+% wasn't enough. Arabs insisted on all. Don't throw out the specious claim that Jews could have continued their return to an Arab Palestine. The Arab revolts and massacres in the 20th century were all about keeping Jews out Only if you believe that the Jewish people and nation had no continuing and continuous connection could you call that .01% illegitimate. Jews were forcefully expelled by Imperial Rome and throughout history until 1848 were forcefully excluded but there was always continuous and continuing Jewish community there. Jews never abandoned their identification with the land; always considered it their homeland. All the land they ended up living on was purchased from the landowners. Yes, 700,000 Arabs left their homes in the new state -- through the violence of the war or expelled or encouraged to leave by the Arab powers. Herded into refugee camps, and subsequently weaponized, those who left were radicalized by Yasir Arafat, who coined the Palestinian identity. But 160,000 remained and became more than 2 million. Israel is still a democracy and progressive forces within are struggling mightily to protect and improve it. A partition was necessary in South Asia and in many regions around the world. It will prevail in Israel and Palestine.

[@rosalindpaaswell9513]

correction, typo should have been 1948

[@Swarming1020]

To people criticising Ezra: Do Irish-American descendents have a 'right' to return to Ireland just because their ancestor originally left due to poverty, famine, etc? It's a laughable idea. Life sucks. Get over it.

[@hidis2000]

Bised views against Palestinian refugees who unlike the examples mentioned remain stateless. If Israel has caused and supported so many wars, division and insecurity since it was founded, why do you defend its continuation as an ethnic state?

[@user-ry2kt9fo5m]

No the Palestinians should not leave their land thats what Israeli wants. No leave them where they are and try to help establish them a Palestinian state .

[@omarco3971]

You alluding to Mexicans coming to the US at 15:40 is extremely problematic because, Mexicans, the majority of whom have some indigenous blood (you know the people that have had a ***continuous*** presence on these two continents for 14,000 years) were ethnically cleansed off of a large part of the territory that is now the United States in the 1840s cannot claim the same connection to this land that you and your people did with Palestine after 2,000 years.

[@Standupnow56]

At around the 15 min mark you make a ridiculous assertion that Israel is just behaving like other states who do not allow foreign nationals to enter. This premise is completely absurd because the people who are denied entry are not foreigners, they are in fact the native residents and their descendants who were present before the settler colonial state came into being. They were there before the state was being dreamt up by Herzl and his ilk. By your logic, the Palestinians should have denied entry to Jews fleeing persecution and genocide in Europe.

[@scarletsletter4466]

What do you mean not foreigners? He is talking about them not being citizens of the current nation. For example, I’m Cuban American now but my family fled Spain to Cuba & then Cuba to the US. I can’t just go demand citizenship in Spain, even though genetically I may look like a European Spaniard. 🤷🏼‍♀️

[@Standupnow56]

@@scarletsletter4466 that is the most clueless response you could give. The Palestinians that are in the occupied territories haven’t left their homeland and those that did in 48 were forcibly ethnically cleansed and killed as they left. It might be uncomfortable for you to admit that Ezra is completely wrong in principle and also that your comparison is way off the mark, but anyone reading this can make that assertion themselves. If you would like me to break down every instance where the comparison you gave falls short I can.

[@direwolf6234]

then how do you explain the 1.7 million arabs living in israel now ?@@Standupnow56

[@kathrynpassmore5425]

They should have. But I don’t think they thought they would be pushed out like that because it was NOT how it was to play out… Until….. one of the provisions was conveniently ‘left out’ of the final signed deal (that of not forcing out the existing residents), and here we are today. I’ve been thinking about the religious aspect of Israel. If God in His graciousness ‘led’ them back in 1948 and has ‘blessed them and their land’ qnd obviously must ‘support them’ in their treatment of the Palestinians since 1948 through the present and going forward…. What does that say about their God? The same God of the Christians too of which Christian Zionists are a part of. No WONDER the Catholic Church I grew up in didn’t appear ‘Christian’ in its loving one another stuff any better than Israel is today. Either the Jews CURRENTLY in Israel who say they’re Jews but ARE NOT but are from the house of satan, or God isn’t a loving God at all. Maybe GOD hasn’t yet brought back and settled his REAL Chosen people yet? Britton and the USA gave the Jews this land and they aren’t god. Who knows? Perhaps His people are hidden in plain sight!

[@Standupnow56]

@@kathrynpassmore5425 I would add that the Zionist project began in the late 19th century and was the brainchild of Theodor Hertzl, a publicly declared atheist. From a theological perspective I’m far less confident to say that anyone is from the house of satan. As a Muslim, I believe that all human beings have the divine spark within them and the potential to use their free will to follow the moral path in the future. I sincerely hope that one day they will. The religious Jews are our cousins, and interestingly the modern Palestinians are actually the descendants of the original Jews from millennia ago. They just converted to Christianity and Islam like the whole region did at versions points in History. The lie that they are all Arab invaders is false. If you’re interested, I lease have a look at the work of Professor Schlomo Sand from Tel Aviv University.

[@camcaasi2685]

I so appreciate your coverage of the ongoing conflict but I am disappointed in your conclusions. I was annoyed you used right of return to justify Jewish claim to Jerusalem but dismissed it entirely for Palestinians, many of whom have been expelled from their homes in living memory. The comparisons to expelled groups that now do have citizenships and human rights doesn't ring true to me; Palestinians live under apartheid in refugee camps near their former homes, it's not the same as refugees who built new lives in other countries. I also do think Israel is an exceptional state. Most states define their population by the people living on the land, not on an ethnic or religious identity. The premise of Israel as state to provide for one identity should be questioned more critically. That said, I am grateful that you were willing to put your opinions out there in this way and I continue to be a fan of your work and the podcast.

[@lohikarhu734]

this discussion that you make about a state deciding who can come there, relative to Israel, is a false comparison, because none of the other countries mentioned define themselves by religion, and even reject religion as any kind of influence (at least constitutionally...on the ground, the USA has tried to define itself as dome kind of "Christian" place), but Izrael's very basis for existence, and its end goal, is as a "pure" Jewish Palestine...and, by Palestine, the zionist's goal is ALL of Palestine, and their stated goal was to rid the state of "others"..."goyim"....So, Israel is seen as, and exists to be, a "racist" state, beyond "Apartheid", because Apartheid actually allows for others to exist in the state, but kept separate, whereas the Zionist goal is complete exclusion (other than those 'imported' low-cost agricultural workers and other 'low-status' workers, who will *never be citizens*)

[@shainazion4073]

WRONG! there are 2 million Arab citizens (1.8 million Muslim citizens) in Israel. From the beginning, the early Jewish leaders appealed to the Arabs to stay in their houses and help them create a country together, instead, they had 5 Arab armies attack the one day old country of Israel.

[@lohikarhu734]

@shainazion4073; in 1948, the Zionist terrorists had already driven 100's of thousands of Palestinians out of homes and businesses, homes and businesses that were simply"occupied", approriated by Jewish immigrants, supported by zionist soldierd and police...and the owners received *NOTHING IN PAYMENT!. You make out that Israel was being so nice to those Palestinians, when they had already lost far more land than was ever envisioned by the Balfour declaration.... And, at the time of the partition, the British guy in charge was, in fact, a senior Zionist, so that the Israeli state was granted more than 70% of Palestine, so that 95% of the population were "allowed" only about 25% of Palestine, which has now decreased more and more... Where did you get that idea? The Zionist extremists started taking over villages and land, at gunpoint, in the 1930's, a long, long time before 1948. Plan Dalet was in place in '47/48...

[@shainazion4073]

​@@lohikarhu734Nope! The Arabs started Massacres of Jews from the 1880s, on lands the Jews had purchased. The Jewish paramilitary organizations were established to fight Arab terror. Show the Arab villages attacked by these groups prior to the UN Partition Plan announcement in November 1947, and the civil war starting..........

[@shainazion4073]

@@user-jj5mp7ib1f And most claiming to be Palestinians today, are not even from Palestine. The population in the entire land in 1860 was 350,000, and 30,000 were Jews. The population in the first British census of 1922 was 750,000 people. The second British census on 1931, just 9 years later, the population increased 36.8% to over 1 million people. The census reported over 30 different languages spoken by the "Arab" population. There was Muslim refugees invited into the land by the Ottomans from Europe and Africa, Bosniaks, Circassians, Chechins and Sudanese are not Palestinians! And there was massive immigration into the land by Levantine Arabs as laborers, as support personnel for the British and because of the prosperity brought by the Jews reclaiming the land. Egyptians, Syrians, Jordanians, Iraqis, and Lebanese are not Palestinians!!!

[@cheesy132]

My favorite podcast.

[@m.a.b.4104]

I don't have a single favourite, but The Ezra Klein show is definitely amongst my favourites. I don't miss an episode, I am always learning so much from his conversations. 👍

[@peteunderdown6889]

How can "AI friends" be healthy for kids? Even if they are indistinguishable (to the kids) in the text they can generate, social animals such as humans need physical proximity of their kind or they go insane

[@bryanmurray9846]

Ezra, you dont see how inane it is to say Israel is for Jews just like the USA is for Americans? When I heard you say that, it shattered my belief that you were at least arguing in goodfaith.

[@heightwidth]

He wasn’t

[@DavidValladares]

Lol I came to comments first. You guys are spot on

[@heightwidth]

@@DavidValladares 😬

[@Pacora2023]

he really never argues in good faith when it comes to defending israel

[@joesimone6614]

Can it be that this wasn’t a lapse of security or an interpretation of it and that the intention of Israel was to have an excuse to perpetrate the violence that they’re doing now.

[@Pacora2023]

netanyahu was almost on his way out before october 7th happened and gave him a political lifeline... the fact that the israelis were aware of this attack months in advance only strengthens this argument!

[@lopezb]

He talks for 20 minutes before really mentioning Palestinans and the reality there today.

[@Shain1914]

The situation is heartbreaking. Also worth to mention that what complicate the situation is that 86% of the Palestinians supported in a pole the October 7 massacre, and it might be, after all, that only very strong deterrence/disraction might prevent the next war as the other methods (money, economic incentives, limited military campaigns) failed. Anyway it's a tough to judge as I don't think we understand the Jihadist state of mind. A question: why The media keep quoting Hamas-controlled health authorities about “20,000 gazans died mostly women and children” and ignore Israel numbers about 10,000 are Hamas militants? Is there any objective number?

[@YOBREADKNIGHT]

Hey buddy, America is not a State, its a country. You can have a state, but act now and we'll throw in the country, just pay shipping. Ok , free shipping.

[@baj5763]

I didn't like the rapid fire segment. Opinions aren't interesting / insightful without explanation / reasoning

[@moma8956]

"Arab countries wanted to exterminate Israel " is very inaccurate. I'd like you to view the timeline of events from when the ethnics cleansing started happening contrasted with when war actually started.

[@Pacora2023]

for someone who waxes poetic about being nuanced in their approach to israel-palestine issue, Ezra Klein is actually very status quo American Jewish who believes Palestinians are a threat that need to be neutralised, and israel should do what ever it can to do it. In this instance Ezra disagrees with the disproportionate response by Israel, not because its a genocidal war crime and a moral abomination, but because the Palestinian children will grow up wanting to avenge the death and destruction of their families, which is going to pose a security threat to israel. this is the level of empathy Ezra Klein has for the Palestinians ...thanks buddy, and you are celebrated as some super insightful, knowledgeable and compassionate journalist :/

[@Ultra_Light_Beam]

Deterrence is preeminent.

[@rosslogie217]

Ezra sounds like he has ADHD with his school story.

[@danielpincus221]

Genuine thinking, not producing answers.

[@icecoldpierre]

@15:30 Really disappointing to hear someone as smart as Ezra defend the racist ethno-state policies of Israel. Hey Ezra, those other countries bestow their nationality on it's citizens simply because theyare born or live there. In the vast majority of nations if you move there and live there you can become a citizen. In Israel they say no! Jews only. They have religious/ethnic requirement that is the difference here. That kind of thinking is why we see the violence against the Palestinians. This mindset ensures there will always be racism and violence and that they will never be a true democracy. You acknowledge the Nakba but still don't think Palestinians have any right to go back to their land. You acknowledge that the two state solution has been made nearly impossible because of Israel's actions but you still think Jews deserve an ethno-state wich means a one state solution can't happen either. This means that you are pro-status-quo Ezra! No wonder you keep saying it is complicated. This what people who acknowledge the Palestinians unfair situation, but are not willing to go against the racist Israeli ethno-state idea say. They throw their hands in the air.

[@goldenhourg]

🙄 Ezra’s being a bit disingenuous. Israel shouldn’t be treated differently but it is. Chile and Canada don’t have lobbying orgs that decide the fate of American democracy every election thru big money and influence. Any other country would’ve been HEAVILY sanctioned by now. It’s exceptionalism that must be reversed.

[@aOneaTwoAndYouKnowWhatToDo]

And you don't think arab money lobbeys? The difference here being that wether you like it or not, the majority of Americans support Israel.

[@ronnynoneofyourbusinessgoo7892]

​@@aOneaTwoAndYouKnowWhatToDochannel 4 did a docu on conservative friends of israel. then the director wanted to made a docu on arab lobbying. his bosses looked at his plan and said to him 'thats the same story' again. arab lobbies and elites represent much of the same type of zionist positions

[@spointz8936]

​@@aOneaTwoAndYouKnowWhatToDono, beyond genuine grassroots popular support (which is also shaped by the elites, the lobby, the framing of the discourse, the media) the US stance here is disproportionately dictated by a political-financial elite that has tremendous power across all walks of American life and key sectors of the American economy and which is unyieldingly dedicated to absolute support for Israel. The Arab lobby is comparatively a speck, a joke.

[@harrypmay]

Not every Jew is a Zionist but every Muslim is a self-proclaimed anti-Zionist. I think you’re naive to think 2 billion people can’t influence the world.

[@nkarawan001]

@@aOneaTwoAndYouKnowWhatToDo and those same who support Israel are and antisemitic and chant "Jews won't replace us".. that make you think 🤔.. why?

[@ili626]

From 22:58 to 27:45 RE ceasefire: Israel ignores such consideration, that’s why a ceasefire is needed. Netanyahu has only further endangered Israel and increased antisemitism by committing genocide. The post WW2 pledge “Never Again” applies to all of humanity, not Israel alone.

[@marciateperman8811]

Thanks for sharing this, Avi! Fkg unbelievable what those ignorant, protesters have to say.

[@James-ip1tc]

It would be great to have a podcast about the meaning of Zionism and how it definition is weaponized. Particularly when you have a majority of protesters thinking their protesting against fanatical Zionism but really they're protesting against any Israel State whatsoever.

[@user-gd6ug5gj6t]

Saying Israel is a state for the Jews IS weird. China is not a state for the Han, Australia is not a state for the white man (as used to be said). Israel is a state for Israelis. To define a state in terms of religion - or any ideology - is in conflict with democracy.

[@brianross9753]

Israel is a Jewish democracy that gives full political and religious and civil rights to all its citizens. Like the UK is an Anglican democracy. Or Denmark is a Danish Lutheran country that is a democracy and gives full rights to non Danish and non Lutheran citizens.

[@user-gd6ug5gj6t]

Democracy is democracy. It has nothing to do with identity. No UK citizen claims to live in an "Anglican democracy." As for equal rights for Arab Israelis - that's not true either, as anyone who has taken even a cursory look at the situation will confirm.

[@yvonnejoseph4841]

It seem to me that Israelis simply simply don't understand howvand why most people in the 'outside' are repelled and revolted by their unrestrained racism and intolerance towatds the Palestinian people whose land they have stolen. .especially after their own experience of intolerance and racism it just seems totally inhuman and irrational.

[@aOneaTwoAndYouKnowWhatToDo]

"Most" people in the outside's opinion has very little priority to Israel when it comes to their survival, which wether you agree or not is how they see it. What was inhuman and irrational was October 7th.

[@itamarsharon]

Actually outside your echo chamber you'll find a lot of people understand our need to defend our country from terrorists

[@shainazion4073]

Wow! When Asad murdered hundreds of thousands of his own people, when the Jordanians murdered 25,000 Palestinians, when tens of thousands of Yemenis, or Chinese Uighurs are murdered, nobody cares!! But Israel which was brought into the war by the most brazen display of hatred and terror since the Holocaust and everyone has something to say. Most Americans, especially the young, have no idea what any of this is about.

[@paulamarsh1]

It is also totally inhuman and irrational that one and only one people in all of human history have been so persecuted that they they were considered worth ethnically cleansing. The Middle East must be viewed through its historically tribal lens. Only Islam unified these various tribes - all except the Jews, who, even expelled for two thousand years, never forgot their identity. They returned, claimed it and created their country since none would have them, despite their contribution to each society they lived in. The Arabs who lived there since the Jewish expulsion have 22 Arab countries, Southern Syria, Jordan and Lebanon being Arab Palestine...

[@ssun190]

I understand that Israel is a state and states have myths about who is and isn't part of a state and most if not all states would not accept a rapid flux of immigrants who are not a part of that myth. Not accepting an influx of immigrants is not the same as expelling people who already live there who don't fit your national myth. Myanmar is not justified in expelling the Rohingya just because they don't fit the Maymar national myth. No nation can justifiably expel an "undesirable" minority just because they don't fit the national myth. The central question for Israel is whether places like Judea + Samaria are a part of Israel or not. If these places are a part of Israel then the people already living on that land when you conquered it are your citizens and can fully participate in your political system with equal rights. If those places are not a part of Israel then those people get to make their own sovereign state and have their own economic, foreign, and military policy. States conquer lands and protect their borders, but when you conquer a land the people on that land that you just annexed become a part of the state.

[@usbconnections]

Israel was always happy to exchange annexed territories that were won in defensive wars for peace

[@ssun190]

​@@usbconnections I think certain administrations in the past were happy to do such a thing but Bibi definitely was not and still is not. Some sectors of society always thought this was the solution but other sectors insist that Judea and Samaria are an integral part of Israel and that the people currently on it should just disappear. The sector which thinks this is a solution definitely has not been in power for the past 20 years. Plus annexations should have never happened without accepting the annexed population as citizens in the first place. Correcting a past mistake is not a bad thing, but the problem was still created. Defensive war or not, territories are captured. The civilians living on that territory can't be made subservient citizens without equal rights. The nature of the war doesn't matter to how you treat the civilians on the land you captured after the war.

[@ssun190]

@@usbconnections I'm not against Israel annexing land by the way. States do that every now and then for whatever justifications. That's not the problem. The problem is that the people come with the land and millions of people arent' just going to disappear just because you establish military control.

[@jimroth2493]

I don’t trust NY Times anymore! Sory!

[@ili626]

2024 outlook: We have one candidate echoing Hilter’s words, while the other enables Hilter’s actions

[@goldenhourg]

Great way to put it 😢

[@spointz8936]

Ezra over intellectualizes the whole discussion, downplays the history of Israel's inception - born of ethnic cleansing, and trivializes the Palestinian plight in terms of it's scale, length, and the cold, calculated nature with which Israeli politicians from Ben-Gurion, to Golda Meir, Begin, to Yitzhak Rabin, Sharon, to Netanyahu (from "left" to far right) have erased Palestinian identity, denied a full, dignified statehood, and dedicated themselves to seizing more and more land from the Palestinians. Israel has - by design - always been dedicated towards taking as much Palestinian land as possible with as few Palestinians possible.

[@shokuchideirdrecarrigan7402]

Most people love their own children-very few people love other people’s children. Which is why I don’t believe that all the hysterical screaming about the children of Gaza is sincere. Until October 7 very few people cared about the children of Gaza, least of all Hamas who was busy building hiding places under them.

[@christoffel840]

You sound like a really dangerous person. I hope no one leaves their kids alone around you.

[@FlyinDogRecords]

The tunnels were built by Israel.

[@saadia4570]

Zionazi logic So then you must believe the hysterical screaming of 40 beheaded babies wasn’t sincere

[@jamesbennett5430]

As far as Mr Klein’s comment about at some point Republicans must get back to making deals - there is only one deal acceptable to Democrats, Republicans must surrender and do what Democrats want. Well I for one object. How about this - the two sides take turns getting what they want.

[@petercohen5563]

Do you believe that the sacred texts and oral traditions of all people should grant them rights to colonize land and exclude those who live there?

[@mensrea1251]

It matters not since that’s the way it has been since our species began. You’d be wiser to contemplate whether or not it is just and righteous that it rains on the day of your picnic. It just is, so stop wasting your energy on the normative question of whether or not the movement of peoples and the consequential displacement and sometimes extermination of other peoples is “right” or not. Maybe care more about the living and find a solution forward than focusing on the dead who are beyond your reach to help.

[@ronnynoneofyourbusinessgoo7892]

​@@mensrea1251its always been like that has rarely been a good moral argument. next time, someone comes after jews, we can all go "relax, its always been like that" using your logix

[@shainazion4073]

There was no colonization of any land. To be a colony, an Empire creates an outpost in another land, strips it of it's natural resources and sends the riches back to the Empire. Where is this supposed Jewish Empire? Where is the colony of Jews and where is the Empire they come from? Israel/Palestine is the ancient homeland of the Jews. No colonials ever dug up their own history in lands they colonized. Every piece of land Jews lived on prior to 1948 was purchased by them. The land was Ottoman land, all the people were Ottoman subjects. The Ottomans signed their lands to the Allies after WW1. The Allies turned the responsibility of the lands over to the League of Nations. The League of Nations created 3 Mandates out of the Ottoman Empire lands, the Mandate of Mesopotamia (Iraq) the Mandate of Syria and Lebanon, and the Mandate of Palestine. The British were made administrators of the Mandate of Palestine, the first act they did, was illegally give 77% of the land to the Arabs as another Arab state, leaving only 23% to become the future Jewish state. The Entire League of Nations voted unanimously for the Mandate of Palestine Charter in 1922 which stated; *_"Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country"_*

[@petercohen5563]

@@mensrea1251 the solution is obvious: freedom and equality for all without regard to ethnicity, religion or national origin.

[@mensrea1251]

@@ronnynoneofyourbusinessgoo7892 Since I never gave a moral argument, only a practical one, you judging me by a moral standard is fkn hilarious. Stay in school since it’s obvious you can’t read.

[@merrybenezra3979]

Very disappointing--magical thinking about Israel's "normative" identity and its "right" to exist from a commentator I have long relied upon for intelligence and rationality.

[@minkowski11]

I've listened to a couple of the recent interviews that I like. But this one, which is about what he really thinks about Israel, is pretty awful. To me, he wants to avoid making the tough calls that would make him unpopular within his own worldview and community, so he indulges in magical thinking and ends up blaming Israel for the situation it is in. For example, he says that he essentially supports BDS even though he admits the goal of it is Israel's destruction. He questions whether Israel is even an important force for the safety of Jews. He is supposed to be an expert on Jewish history, and is way too smart not to understand what Jewish existence was like before Israel. Also, he says that Israel could have degraded Hamas without the war, simply by counter-terrorism actions. Given what has been revealed in terms of tunnels, armaments, and pervasive Hamas control, this assertion is very hard to believe. I don't know whether Israel could have been more effective in their approach, but it is clear to me that as they have learned the battlefield, they have altered their approach. There are also more soldiers dying since doing that, which is horrible if you are the parent, friends or siblings of one of these young men, who didn't want this war in the first place. I hate this war, but I hate more the tenuous situation Israel is in, no matter what they do.

[@kevinwoolley7960]

Regarding your take on the Republican Party not being open to negotiation and not acting in good faith, when did Biden give any ground whatsoever on Federal spending that is totally out of control and more than 20% higher than baseline level in 2019.

[@Aan_allein]

GOP dont care about spending. Trump years proved that. They do care about immigration which we should compromise over

[@kleinpca]

Ezra Klein is one of the very few people in this world who can persuade me to change my mind about anything.

[@markbantz9699]

Ezra is very good,but you need to expand your viewing. There are. Wonderful people out there and some way better than Ezra

[@uriberger8213]

@@markbantz9699 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Than_Ezra

[@Pacora2023]

if you are this easily moved to start supporting genocidal states by excusing their actions then God help you!

[@rabinserious1]

Ezra, you raised an interesting question about whether Israel is the safest place in the world for Jews. Under normal conditions the answer is obviously no. This was also the case after the Second World War. The US Jews supported Israel because they viewed it as a shelter, in the unlikely (but not impossible) event that another holocaust will take place in the US or somewhere else. The reason why Israelis like myself prefer to live in Israel rather than the US has nothing to do with safety. We simply like it here and are willing to fight for it if necessary

[@monicabeaston4996]

Great. But don't drag America into your fighting then. Please let your Israeli politicians know that you no longer want any US support. You should go it alone. Best of luck.

[@jacobjorgenson9285]

Two major world shipping companies have suspended all trades with Israel. This pressure will only build with civilians populations starting to boycott brands and companies that traded with the colonial apartheid state

[@usbconnections]

Thanks to houthi aggression it's likely that more shipping lanes will divert suez-canal passage taxes away from the Egyptians. FTFY

[@seanparrish7293]

Ezra misses the distinction between ethnonationalisms and multi ethnic democracies. The US is not an ethnonationalist polity, Israel is.

[@judysinsheimer1732]

I agree with Ezra. I have always thought having a bunch of Jews in one place it is a target. Like shooting fish in a barrel. Too late for that argument. Tragic. Will there ever be “normalcy”? 😢

[@behrensf84]

I liked Michael Cher’s assessment of the conflict. Muslims and Jews need some Jesus to get along😅

[@garyjohnson8327]

Equivocation. Rationalization. Double standards. Lost respect for Ezra

[@davidhabart5323]

Ezra, there is a contradiction in your thought: deterence is deterance only if it is actualized at due time. Israel would lose it if not for the rapid and forceful response. Remember, Hitzbulah and Iran are monitoring the response and they are even more dangerous enemies. You can see this well in the case of the ship harassment by the Houties right now: the problem proceeds only becasue Americans and Iraelies failed to bomb their bases after the very first incident. The same gors with Putin who was emboldened by the meek support of Ukraine by the US. Think about it, pls.