 Hello 40s. I'm so glad to see you all and welcome to what I'm really in event I've been looking forward to for a while. So this afternoon's talk is one result of ongoing work and discussion that we've been having across the school exchanging photos with students faculty and staff. I want to thank everyone who has been willing to share their interests frustrations feelings hopes and deep concern about the ongoing horrific violence in Israel and Palestine and I see a number of faces in the room that I've had some really really good conversations with as as has the rest of our team. So as we've navigated our way through this hard year we will continue to strive to make sure that each despite our differences that we can communicate in a way that lives up to our values and to our strong sense of the Ford School community. We are pleased to be joined by two very highly regarded scholars who will give us a perspective on the causes current state and possible outcomes of the crisis. Hussein Ibbish is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. He's a weekly columnist for the national newspaper in the United Arab Emirates and is a regular contributor to the New York Times the Daily Beast and many other U.S. and Middle Eastern publications. Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace focusing on U.S. foreign policy. A most important credential he received his PhD in Middle East and U.S. Diplomatic History from the University of Michigan in 1977. Always great to have a fellow Wolverine in the house. Between 1978 and 2003 Miller served at the State Department as an historian negotiator and advisor to Republican and Democratic Secretaries of State where he helped to formulate U.S. policy on the Middle East and the Arab Israel peace process. So we welcome you both. And a note just about the structure of our discussion. So each of our guests is going to give some opening remarks and then we're going to have a conversation. We'll turn then to the group that helped us to shape the format and questions for today's event. So the faculty experts Javad Ali and Anne Lynn sitting up here in the front. B.A. student Sainib Alshami and MPP student Ben Grossman. My thanks to B.A. Evan Rotker and MPP Alhan Falker for helping out as well. For those of you in the auditorium you can ask further questions using the QR code which I think has been distributed. So gentlemen, welcome to both of you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I will start. I want to make just a few points to try to put the tragic events that are ongoing into the context in which I view them. The first thing is that those of us and there are quite a few but I was allowed one among them in at least in the United States who've been warning over the past two or 15 years or more that a violent explosion in the occupied Palestinian territories was inevitable. Not likely, not probable, not possible, inevitable. We're not kidding and we were not making it up. We knew something was going to happen. I couldn't have told you that it was going to take the form it did on October 7. I greatly regret that that is what happened and I could not have predicted it necessarily would have come out of Gaza though that's no surprise necessarily and I could not have predicted it necessarily would have been led by Hamas rather than say an unaffiliated armed youth group like the Lions Den in the old city of Nablus or something but that it would happen. I would have guaranteed you and that's my first point. It was inevitable and it leaves me on my second point which is that the 150 years or 100 years or 85 years or however long you want to count this conflict it does not really go back further than the 1880s or 1870s. It really doesn't have any antecedent before that but you can draw the line anywhere. Throughout that process the biggest characteristic of the conflict and the biggest tragedy and irony of the conflict is that it is fundamentally boils down to collectivities of human beings, bunches of people doing human things, doing people stuff. Their Israelis and Palestinians love to pathologize each other and their partisans on each side love to point the fingers at you of this thing and that thing and blame and stigma and pathology you know it's wrong. Fundamentally these are groups of people behaving exactly like human beings do and there's nothing that either side is doing or has done to the other that was not only predictable but that the other side wouldn't have done if the if the roles were reversed in my view and that has major antecedents in in other analogous points of human history. I would rather avoid analogies I don't like analogies because they take our attention away from the specific but my point is this all of this which looks so ghastly and otherworldly is actually typical for example the rage the fury the bloodlust of October 7th looks otherworldly to us but if you put that in the context of the era of great colonization between say 1857 in India and 1962 in Algeria you have constant eruptions of this kind of frenzy again and again and again and it's just we haven't seen this situation a similar kind of situation in a long time because the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories is an acronistic but it is not atypical of human beings alright so and the Israeli response similarly is is absolutely predictable and and it's a Carthaginian response anyway the third point I want to make is that the the core problem here in my view is not just that you have about seven million Israeli Jews with a national collective identity and about seven million Palestinian Muslims and Christians with a collective national identity in the same small area between the river and the sea contesting for land and power that's bad enough the bigger problem is that there is a an almost unprecedented degree of asymmetry and power between them that is to say all the Jewish Israelis are full first-class citizens of Israel with all the defense and very few of the Palestinians are citizens of anything at all Israel has one of the most powerful small armies in the world with nuclear weapons and whatnot there has never been a Palestinian tank in the history of the Palestinian people not one so the asymmetry is is is a a dysfunctionally grotesque one and what that has meant is that practically speaking there isn't any real leverage that Palestinians have over Israelis other than things desperation acts of frenzy like October 7th or a constant protesting to no aim or things like that the power of the week which exists but you know compared to a bullet it doesn't do much honestly we can rhapsodize about Gandhi king was fighting for equal rights within a society for existing citizens it was not a colonial situation that we fantasize about the power of non-violence between peoples within within polities it can be strong there we have many instances of that but between peoples I'm afraid it's a fantasy and that's where we are so the asymmetry makes it virtually impossible for Israelis not only to make concessions where they don't feel any particular pressure to do so but also for them not to go forward with annexation and towards expulsion in the West Bank we have been right now as the world sort of coalesces around the idea of a resurrecting the idea of a Palestinian state as a necessary response to October 7th Israel is further from that than at any time since 1999 before 1993 and this is highly significant because what we're seeing is a slow walk beginning after the failure of the Camp David Summit in 2000 where Aaron was an important member and salute you for trying and then now increasingly a fast train towards the station in the West Bank which is called annexation and probable expulsion and this is now the policy of the Israeli government it is now virtually a plurality in Israel at least half of the Israelis want to do this and it's where it's where we're going and the reason we're going there back to the fact that these are human beings people in collective groups tribal tribal groups national groups don't act with self-restraint and enlightened self-interest they act like toddlers and when toddlers really want something and they can get it you know what they do they take it and that's the situation Jewish Israelis find themselves they really really desperately want big chunks of the West Bank more than the Galilee more than they gave in some religious cases more than they want Tel Aviv for the religious people a place like Hebrew is much more resonant well if they can take it and no one can stop them and that is a situation that is what is going to happen I believe now I don't say it's inevitable but I said that's where we're going fast and so I'm very very worried about that and and I think October 7th accelerates the path towards that and not decreases it because it gives is Jewish Israelis all the more reason to want to separate from Palestinians and to claim to be the grown-ups is that we need a divorce we are going to be the ones to take the better step we cried we didn't want to do it was the last thing we wanted to do after working for so many decades to do it it's the last thing we ever would have wanted and we did it and we cried and that you can hear the script come it's coming I don't know what's going to stop it I would love to talk to you about Hamas's motivations in detail I invite you to ask me because it was not primarily an attack against Israel this is my fifth point Hamas the founding directive of Hamas which was formed in 1987 during the crucible of the first uprising by Palestinians against Israeli rule that began in 67 was to take power away from the secular nationalists of Fata and turn the Palestinian cause into an Islamist one Israel comes after that right now Israel and attacking Israel is a means to that end it is not the end the end is power internal domestic power the goal they're fighting for is the crown jewel of the Palestinian national movement which is the international standing and presence of the PLO 130 embassies and missions around the world and non-member observers state status of the general assembly and membership in countless multinational organizations whoever speaks for the Palestinians on the world stage is the PLO whoever controls the pilot the PLO speaks for the Palestinians right now that's fatah and not Hamas until they get control over that vote voice they are going to be marginal and they're fighting for that I can tell you how they think this is going to do it but I'm not you know I invite you to ask me that brings me to my final observation which is a corollary which is if anybody is interested in defeating Hamas thwarting them and pushing back successfully the only way to do it is first to recognize what they want and deny it to them all right what they want is not to avoid a war with Israel or win a war with Israel or anything silly like that what they want is to marginalize fatah and take over the movement the only way to deny them that is to stop playing footsie with both sides and this divide and rule policy that Netanyahu put in place where it worked hard to keep Hamas in power in Gaza and fatah in power but weakened and humiliated in the West Bank divide and conquer to prevent Palestinian statehood from coming about this produced October 7th this is exactly what produced October 7th as inevitably as the sun rises and if anyone is interested in countering the gate the aims of October 7th better work on strengthening the other side of the Palestinians the ones who want to talk to Israel and do a deal not shoot Israelis and have a war I'll stop with that who's saying thanks I always learn from you I thought I thought my remarks are gonna be depressing let me start with a few acknowledgments first to Jenna thank you for the introductions I don't think the Dean is here but maybe she is Dean Celeste Watkins Hayes thank you to the faculty and staff for grappling with these contentious and difficult issues all these months thank you it's hard but then again ferrity now out beyond your comfort zone is always hard and that's critically important to talk about this conflict and I'd also like to thank the University of Michigan Lindsay Miller and I spent seven extraordinary years here I would say things were different walking down State Street there was borders the arcade is still here in 1969 this campus was something different than it is now I mean there were pros and there were cons but the essence of what Michigan is I think really remains and I I was here the last time in 06 where I dressed the Ford School I didn't listen to that presentation I probably should have but I want to make one additional point being here in those years changed the trajectory of my life now I don't know whether it's still possible that students get profoundly influenced by their professors but I had two professors Gerald Linnerman a historian of American Wars and Richard Mitchell foremost authority on the Juan on the Muslim Brotherhood they both came to Michigan after government careers and the stories they told and the adventures that they had fundamentally altered my trajectory I didn't want to be a history professor which is what I wanted to be since I was five anymore being in Jerusalem in 1973 during the October war also sort of validated my notion that I wanted to try to do whatever I could to help but if I was to teach I didn't want to teach out of the library I wanted to teach out of these experiences so I have no regrets I told my kids they're in their 40s I'll offer the same advice to you the happiest people I know professionally personally is another matter and I wouldn't even presume to give you advice on that matter but the happiest people I know professionally are the ones whose careers combine passion they love what they do and expertise they know what they're talking about because passion without expertise can be boring and expertise without passion could be extremely dangerous and I would wish that for all of you I I have no regrets on the professional side I'm gonna make four or five observations they're all with the exception of the last one I'm not here to make you happier or to make you sad when I left the State Department in January of 2003 shortly before the second Bush administration invaded Iraq Colin Powell who was the last Secretary of State I worked for gave me two pieces of advice the first piece of advice was don't ever try to come back I had my 27 years I took him to heart my family paid a big price for my absences but the second piece of advice he gave me I rejected and that was don't try to look back and I spent the last 23 years in the public conversation looking back about what I believe we got right and what we got wrong and above all the one lesson that I learned is that every time we failed and it's beyond America's Middle East policy every time America fails abroad it is almost always because we persist in seeing the world the way we want it to be not the way the world really is and the lesson of October 7th in my judgment means first and foremost you want to change the world well then you first understand and if you want to if you only see the world the way you want the way it is nothing changes but if you only see it the way you want it to be you will fail I guarantee you as we did in the last serious bid to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem at Camp David 14 days an empowered Palestinian leader which you do not have and you have not had since yes or our friends demise however problematic and unpredictable leader he was a who'd Barack a man who was in a hurry put some interesting proposals on the tables not enough to end the conflict and Bill Clinton who cared enormously about this we went to this summit persuaded somehow that we could break open the Israeli Palestinian conflict by addressing the core issues borders security Jerusalem refugees and end of all conflict and claims those are the core issues of the conflict and when we finished 14 days on the gaps between the parties were this big I can't get my arms out any further not this big as the urban mythologies of what actually transpired at that summit would suggest that was the last serious bid and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has not yet recovered from the trauma of ascending to the mountaintop and then descending in September of 2000 into the Valley of Despair transcended only who's saying I think you'd agree by what we are now in what we are now in two more observations and I say this based on 27 years of watching and participating in American policy with all of its successes and its transgressions the Middle East is literally littered for centuries with the remains of great powers who wrongly believe they can impose their schemes their dreams their aspirations their peace plans their war plans on smaller ones in an existential conflict in which both parties presume the stakes are existential in nature the influence of external parties is limited why I even need to state the obvious I don't know I know why because the question I get more than any other question is why can't you meaning the Biden administration stop this why can't you stop Sudan why can't you fix Syria why can't you repair Yemen why can't you find a way to negotiate a solution between Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelinsky why can't you do it you need to think through that I mean I lived a lot of that it's not that America is a potted plant without influence but the Middle East more often than not is a place where American ideas in on warmaking and peacemaking go to die two more points we are now in what I would describe to you as a strategic cul-de-sac I see no way out of this right now if in fact negotiations in Cairo have which have ebb and float in Doha in Cairo led by my former friend always friend but former colleague Bill Burns who's director of CIA David Barney who's had a Mossad the Qataris the Egyptians at some point they may actually succeed in a limited prisoner for hostage exchange 45 days of quiet maybe it can be extended maybe it can't be 45 hostages women the elderly the sick in exchange more more likely than not for an asymmetrical number the working number was anywhere from 700 to a thousand Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails either those still it held in administrative detention or tried and convicted and Hamas has got a list of special prisoners including Marwan Bargoudi who's serving five lifetime sentences and aspirationally is viewed as perhaps the Palestinian leader with more credibility than any other they want him released as well that might not end things however because 50 hostages will remain that Hamas will not trade except for the ultimate bargain which is a comprehensive ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli forces and some sort of insurance policy on the lives of Yahya Sinwar his brother Mohammed Mohammed Dave and another one or two of the Hamas architects of what occurred on October 7 that won't end it though because the Israelis are determined and it'll be Munich in 1972 no matter how long it takes 11 Israeli athletes killed in Munich the Israelis will try to kill the senior leaders who were responsible for October 7 so I see I see no way out right now and I'd be I mean I need to be as clear about that as possible and let me close with this observation it is not that I have given up hope it is not that I have abandoned my outlook on life to the forces of hopelessness and despair but we're gonna be left with two traumatized communities you can pick which trauma you think is is the one you think is the worst one you can have your own monopoly on on suffering I find it very very hard to understand why and forgive me it's an editorial comment why thousands of miles away from a conflict that is taking place if you're a 15 year old Palestinian if you're a 15 year old Israeli we're down in those Gaza envelope communities or if you're suffering as a consequence of Israeli airstrikes and you've lost whole families and you've watched your brothers and sisters undergo amputation without proper anesthetic you will be scarred for a generation and you're more likely than not to come out of this by saying it's not that we don't understand you Israelis and or Palestinians we understand each other only too well I don't I understand why they would feel that way I do not understand why thousands of miles away from the center of this conflict why Americans American Jews American Arabs American Muslims Christians why it is so hard to sit together and talk and I'm not just talking about civility meaning politeness it's easy to be polite that's not what civility is civility is in my judgment the capacity to actually listen to what somebody else is saying somebody with whom you may have profound disagreements and while they're talking not thinking about your talking points that you're going to use to rebut their arguments I don't understand it maybe you can help me if it can't happen at the University of Michigan on college campuses which to some degree is a suspension of worldly interests for a number of years where where is it going to happen out there in the so-called real world I don't understand it and it it it frustrates me enormously I'll end on a hopeful note October 6 1973 Lindsay and I were in Jerusalem I had gone there to do Arabic and Hebrew which in 1973 was the only place in the world you could study Arabic and Hebrew as living languages and I needed them to convince my doctoral committee to change from civil war history to modern Middle East and three weeks the war was over the greatest trauma greatest intelligence failure 2800 Israelis killed countless numbers of Egyptians and Syrians and yet within six years of that war I watched on the White House lawn Siddharth Carter and Bagan signed an Egyptian Israeli peace treaty 20 years later I'm sitting on the White House lawn again September 13th 1993 watching our font Clinton and Rabin signed the Oslo Accords so in the first instance trauma turns to hope and in the second instance hope because I was absolutely persuaded there was no going back for the Israeli Palestinian issue was one of the most foolish pre judgments I think I've ever made it was it would be irreversible but in that instance hope turns to trauma so what do I take away from all this how is that possible I don't know but I do know is that the forces of history bend very often in ways that none of us not you not who's saying not me nobody knows and it's up to all of us in my view in our own way to do whatever we can to try to bend the forces of history in the right direction the way Hussein wants them back not normal human behavior but well adjusted human behavior thank you thank you both for opening us up and sort of sharing all your thoughts I think sirs start the next question I'm adjusting based off of you all you've been telling us but can you sort of jump back to October 6th and describe for us the state of relations and the policies taking place in Gaza in Israel in the West Bank leading up to October 7th right and then sort of how you see those how you see them have how how they changed sort of through these last six months you say I would love to you if I mean I don't play I don't play in Israeli or a Palestinian on TV or anywhere else but I'll I'll analyze for you where I think the Israelis were if you want to yeah go ahead yeah so October 6 December 2022 the election of the most extremist right wing government in the history of the state of Israel led by a man Benjamin Netanyahu the longest governing prime minister in the history of state of Israel surpassing even Israel's greatest prime minister David Minguri on trial for bribery fraud and breach of trust in the Jerusalem District Court trials three years running it may conclude next year it may not there is a president however ask former prime minister Eudelmer he was convicted for breach of trust he served Israeli prime minister indicted not while he was prime minister but indicted nonetheless he served 16 months in an Israeli prison Netanyahu did not like this government but it didn't matter because his objective is to stay out of jail and to avoid a plea agreement which would probably end this political career the only way to do that was stay in power maybe appoint an attorney new attorney general maybe find a way to undermine his indictment five elections or Israelis I think had five elections four or five elections in six years precisely because Netanyahu Likud and the Likud had no history of devouring its own it's the most cohesive coherent political party in Israel today and it's led frankly by the most brilliant power-hungry prime minister Netanyahu wants to be prime minister more than any other politician and he'll do anything he can to remain prime minister even conflate his own legal and political travails with the best interests of his country the worst possible leader at the worst possible time right his government with two ministers Netanyahu Ben Gavir and Bezelal Smotrić large budgets and ideologies determined to pursue policies on the West Bank to an exit in everything but name and that process of informal de facto annexation continues while Gaza while Israel Hamas war continues that's the situation that existed one additional point not just Netanyahu but previous Israeli prime ministers in some respects preferred what I would describe to you is the three-state solution not the two-state state of Israel the Palestinian Authority weak feckless nepotistic autocratic corrupt led by Mahmoud Abbas an 88 year old politician in the 19th year of four-year term presiding over 40% of the West Bank that's one state court uncle Hamas a stand since 2007 Gaza that's a second state as long as the Palestinian national movement remained fundamentally divided and I think successive Israeli governments clearly pursued this policy the notion that a Palestinian interlocutor could present itself to the government is Israel as credible remained a distant dream and I only conclude one point there is a lesson here a monopoly over the forces of violence in your society I don't care if it's Ann Arbor Michigan or Chevy Chase Maryland or Washington DC unless you have a monopoly over the forces of violence in your society that means one gun one authority one negotiating position it's almost impossible to make a credible you can get the UN to recognize or basically involve the Palestinian below as an observer state you can make the you can make Palestine a state but to make it a state with credibility and power you need one gun one authority and one negotiating position and it was in Israel's interests at least in Netanyahu's interest to ensure that that did not happen that's where we were I think on October 6th excellent summary on the Palestinian side here's how I think things were on October 6th I think you you had I'm just gonna talk about it from Hamas's point of view because you know for the sake of brevity and because they took action on October 7th and so it's more relevant I think there was a generalized perception outside of Gaza that Hamas was fundamentally content with ruling Gaza and trying to figure out a way forward based on their control of Gaza that Gaza was still the launching pad for them to take their political project the first phase of which is ongoing and not yet complete which must perforce be the takeover of the Palestinian national movement and why do I say why do people create political parties or movements it's to gain power obviously and you must as a first step gain power internally domestically whatever you do with others until you speak for the in-group and dominate the politics of the in-group phase one is not complete this is it is a universal fact of political life stemming from the observation that people form parties to get power okay Hamas in fact was not content with using Gaza as a launching pad Hamas had come to the conclusion I think it was understood to some extent by elements in Iran elements of his but how how unhappy they were becoming and that they were going to do something about it I knew how unhappy they were becoming I didn't know they were going to do something about it the evidence was this first of all they started to feel more and more like Gaza was a trap for them that there was no entree back into the West Bank that they were simply stuck there and they were slowly asphyxiating and gaining nothing that's number one number two the gaps between the Gaza base leadership and the old Politburo which had been driven into Syria and then out of Syria into Qatar was getting greater and greater and the movement was starting to really fracture in ideological ways which was not good the third problem is that they started to feel that they were losing support they saw Turkey's support ebbing away some of their people were being shown the door in Turkey and they started hearing stuff from Qatar that they'd never heard before like we you know you can't rely on this suitcase of money every month for the indefinite future but you guys have to start coming up with something to augment our resources we're it's not all on us you both they're two main backers Ankara and Doha are starting to say you need to do more for yourself more for ourselves under these circumstances what are you talking about so there's that and also I think very strongly they began to feel and this is where real kind of desperation starts to kick in that they're they're brand they're losing their brand the competitive advantage they had in domestic Palestinian politics visa v the fatah led groups that and the PLO and and the PA was always armed struggle that the fatah and and the PLO and the PA went all in on achieving a negotiated peace agreement with Israel whereas Hamas retained the rhetoric and at times the practice of armed struggle but they were not actively confronting the occupiers where as a third force was emerging in the West Bank unaffiliated armed youth groups with some kinds of connections in some cases to Islamic jihad in some cases no connection to anybody cropping up in the old city of Nablus in Jenin refugee camp elsewhere that were starting to engage with the occupation forces in the West Bank and armed settlers and Hamas was losing its brand so they're strangled in Gaza they're losing the support of their friends they're losing their brand and it's all going nowhere the worst part was what was coming diplomatically which is a triangular negotiation between the US Israel and Saudi Arabia where for a potential Saudi Israeli normalization that would consolidate the pro-American forces at last into a more coherent group combining Israel's military might with Saudi Arabia's financial and cultural and religious clout under the banner of the US and make a much stronger force against Iran and its network key to that was the US Israeli track which was a what they called a significant Palestinian component TM to the agreement which was a bunch of goodies for Palestinians mostly money from Saudi Arabia but also some changes that would strengthen the PA on the ground and maybe even strengthen the PLO at the negotiator giving me some resumption of dialogue with Israel something something that would satisfy the Saudis and that would molify Abbas enough that this could all go through without a complete free cut and the problem from Hamas's point of view is you had this very finely balanced national equilibrium that Netanyahu spent decades nurturing and control and and promoting with them in power in Gaza but contained and periodically cut literally cut down to size with these wars that were referred to as mowing the grass cutting them down to size literally and figuratively and and the PA as Aaron described ruling in the West Bank in the cities and towns looking ridiculous and basically serving as a gendarmerie of the occupation while the PLO sits at the negotiating table waiting for Israelis will never come and nothing good ever happens when they do so you you have this very finely balanced situation but you have a Saudi American finger that's about to go down on the scale on the other side so not only are they suffocating losing their brand losing their friends starting to lose their friends not really but a bit they're going to take a huge hit all this money is coming to the other side these little benefits however limited they are are going to accrue to the side that says diplomacy is the way not the side that says arms struggle until victory their enemies are going to get a big boost and it had to be stopped and it was stopped and Sam thank you so much for that oops so our next question and I think you both have kind of touched on this briefly but is it a realistic expectation for Israel to militarily eliminate Hamas without creating profound anti-Israel sentiment in Gaza that makes the country less safe for Israel and occupied Palestinian territories for decades to come what are the political implications for Fatah Hamas the Palestinian Authority and other Palestinian political entities in this case I would like to answer first because I have a mini thoughts do you mind no okay all right so look Hamas wants Israel to reoccupy Gaza not just to attack Gaza it's a trap it's it's it's the you know come into the briar you know it's the briar patch if you know Uncle Remus right it's the briar patch come on in and the reason they want it is that they need something dramatic to take their bid to marginalize and unseat Fatah gain control the national movement and ultimately gain control of the PLO's diplomatic standing that I was talking about as the crown jewel of whatever they have accomplished that Israel cannot take away from the Palestinian movement since 1967 is an ins a long-term insurgency against Israel this is what they want and it's what they're getting they didn't expect to win this first battle in this first war they didn't expect to have their brigades survive intact I don't think they're surprised at all by the vehemence of Israel's carthaginian response a savage war of vengeance which is exactly what it is however they know I think I think Hamas is aware that Israel is flailing around I mean my last piece about this I said they know that the giant is flailing with a mighty club destroying everything and wreaking vengeance but the giant is blind the giant is blind because Israel doesn't have a political goal it lacks the closet with sting about policy you know war being an extension of policy by other means it's not there if you ask them what what are you fighting for I destroy Hamas Hamas cannot be destroyed it is a brand it is not a list of individuals who can be killed although it is that and and a bunch of equipment that can be blown up if it were then it could be done but it's not it's a brand name if I and a bunch of policy and say we're Hamas and then Hamas and it can always be rebuilt unless you reoccupy the urban centers of Gaza and you suppress it on a daily basis now comes the real victory if Israel were to leave Gaza very soon Hamas would gain a victory because they would have survived and they'll crawl out of the rubble and declare divine victory and all of that but we could be pyrrhic because people might start to ask what did you do by the way what are you done to us look at our we can't live here anymore thank you you know I mean that's a very good possibility that's what happened to his ballah in in 2006 where Nasrallah had to go on TV and say I'm so sorry I didn't realize how the Israelis would respond to the attack on their soldiers which any child would have known and so whenever a politician is reduced to pleading stupidity in order to get out of a charge of reckless mismanagement you know he's in bad shape I'm sorry I was so dumb I didn't know what I was doing oh it's pretty bad but I think Hamas is counting on the Israelis to stay they want to wave the bloody shirt that the bloody shirt is the best flag you can ever have and what they want to say to the other Palestinians and the world is we are the national movement because we fight the occupiers every day we kill and die in order to over control of Palestinian land here in Gaza the other group is the gendarmerie on the ground and wasting their time in meetings and nothing okay so we are the national movement that is their big bet and the question becomes the last part about ramifications for everybody is what is the do Israel the United States and and others understand that this is all about domestic policy in political power or are they going to treat this as a manifestation of a long-term war between Israel and the Palestinians because if they do the second they're completely misreading the motivations and the political goals of the side that has authored this situation and if they deal with it in the first way then they're starting to get to the point where they could maybe make something constructive out of this because understanding what's at stake actually at stake if they do they would have to first of all deny Hamas the insurgency they want and let them stew in in the situation they've created the other thing is that they would have to do is strengthen all the Palestinian forces that are not with Hamas and that provide an alternative and cut out this business of balancing Palestinians to thwart a Palestinian state but it's going to be very hard to do that because Israel is more anti-Politan statehood as I said many signs since decades I hope that begins to answer your question but I had just a couple points you were patient no I think I think who's saying you the truth is who's saying deserves an enormous amount of credit I mean you go back and look at who's saying Ibish's pieces on in the wake of October 7 about the trap that Hamas had laid for Israel and I think by and large who's saying has proved pretty prescient in that regard if you could translate the political objectives that the Israelis laid out there are two whether they're achievable or not will depend I think very much on the proverbial day after number one is to prevent another October 7 and let's be clear here regardless of who you're rooting for October 7 took the Israeli Palestinian conflict to a new level in terms of the intimacy this sadistic nature the indiscriminate nature of the killing the willful and the taking of hostages that created a situation where I would argue and again I hate to generalize a sort of collective PTSD which is set in vengeance which is not a word the Israelis use in in their political articulation of their goals is understandable but yeah Netanyahu has the sort of architects of a natural strategy designed to do two things number one prevent another October 7 which would mean essentially dismantling Hamas is an organized military structure no one not even Prime Minister Netanyahu believes that of the 30,000 estimated Hamas fighters there won't be a significantly large number of residual Hamas fighters that will survive this war so Hamas will emerge as an insurgency of some kind and to Hussain's point if you leave Khalil shakaki's polls on the West Bank in which Hamas support is tripled among West Bankers the other issue is Hamas will emerge as a political force able to influence Palestinian politics either through co-optation or through intimidation the second Israeli goal is to is to determine whether or not it is conceivable to deny Hamas sovereignty in Gaza deny Hamas sovereignty and we will be very clear the capacity to shape the politics the economy the social structure and the security of Gaza are those realistic goals I think that if in fact you had an Israeli government part of the Israeli government Benny Gantz I think would if he were Prime Minister might think along these terms but let's be clear look at Iraq and Afghanistan the two longest wars in American history where we killed scores of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis now that's that's three thousand dead Americans if you translate that into Israeli's terms it's 40,000 Israelis and we never had a proximity problem with Al Qaeda or the Islamic State or any of the other jihadi derivatives these really have a proximity problem and that gets to the question of can you can you hope to create a day after or a week after a year after because let's be clear Middle East has two speeds on these matters slow and slower 2024 is going to be the year of Gaza right probably right up to well and through our presidential elections which I agree of course is a whole nother matter in terms of what our Middle East policy could look like if the presumptive Republican nominee regains the White House but Hussein's point is right military is military powers an instrument to achieve realistic viable political objectives and if you had a strategy you would you would beat an idea with an idea Hamas is what the organizational embodiment of an idea and that is the destruction of Israel and its replacement by an Islamic State is there an idea competing idea that could actually counter rival and animate Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank I think there is but it requires the sun the moon and the stars all to align at the right moment with a far-seeing Israeli Prime Minister who understands Palestinian grievances and pain a Palestinian leader who in fact can to some degree create a unified Palestinian national movement and an American administration that was risk ready rather than risk averse risk ready rather than risk averse now that to me I'm a Star Wars fan that's sort of like a galaxy far far away it's not really tethered to the realities back here on planet but could could it be Hussein I ask you yeah could it be that's that's I think if anything good comes out of this yeah and that actually could that happen and what what would it take leadership I mean not not in the immediate aftermath listen I I want to challenge you on on conceptual point first site I just want to observe that your articulation of Israel's political goals is probably as close as one can get to making them coherent there's a problem with it is they both are negative goals neither of them actually constitute the achievement of anything deny this and deny that well and then what I mean you deny in favor of what we know what the what is no we don't I know it's Palestinian and it's Palestinian independence no we know in a conceptual framework of two no two states hold up but that's not Israel's political goal in this war I know I'm saying that has to be but no but listen to me I'm telling you I'm raising an observation about your articulation of Israel's war aims here which is they are both then I don't even think they it rises to that level frankly but let's say you're right in neither case do they really constitute achievable goals because both of them are deny them this and deny them that but that is not an achievable goal necessarily because it lacks content on the other side of that equation it's like one plus x equals question mark I mean but there's nothing there it doesn't work it doesn't compute you know because you need something to replace that thing that you're denying that's the first thing so it's not it's not actually coherent I think Israel absolutely lacks a political goal and it's disastrous for them and for everybody the second thing is you're you're right in your critique about the difficulty of creating the outcome of a realized power to state solution with the Palestinian state alongside Israel and end of claims and all of that that's true everything you said about how difficult that will be and the moon and the stars and everything aligning yes but that's not what's required to provide an alternative to Hamas's hiccup of popularity now as as long as long as Israel is killing Palestinians by the bushelful and smashing Gaza pieces Hamas is going to be popular by default and the Palestinian amygdala collective an individual is going to be focused on the Israelis naturally and no one is going to either want to or have the psychological or cultural or collective space to ask the question what have you done that comes afterwards if if the dust settle ever settles that's when that question arises my point is this Hamas was afraid of the little things Fatah was going to get out of the Israeli Palestinian the Israeli sorry the Israeli American triangular deal they were really afraid because they couldn't afford another hit and they couldn't allow the people who said patient diplomacy is the way to accrue the first benefits to Palestinians no matter how minimal in decades when they had nothing to show for it now at this point no one has anyone to show for my point is this you can strengthen other Palestinians without realizing the state you can move in the right direction you don't have to go from zero to a hundred listening to you just now we can't it's like we have to realize everything all at once and we don't thank God we don't obviously slow and slower saying there's no question about well so it can be done but no well you need it you need a if Gaza first is Gaza only which is what you seem to be suggesting it's not gonna work it's not what I'm suggesting at all what I'm suggesting let me be clear what I'm suggesting I'm suggesting that first law even if Israel will not commit to the eventual creation of a Palestinian state which it certainly should and will not enter into a process that has that as its end goal at least it can cut out the crazy policy of a divide and conquer and and having Islamists as powerful as nationalists and and strengthen the Palestinians who want to do a deal it's make the the PA and the PLO look less ridiculous give them incentives to do the right thing reward them for being serious stop persecuting crippling them stop digging the hole deeper etc but the problem is we can't get there not because the moon and the sun and the stars need to align but because Israelis have no practical incentive here to stop charging towards annexation here I disagree with you you need a chain you need three you need you need at least two leadership changes in order to even do what you want to do in Gaza you need a different I'm talking about I'm talking to the West Bank no Gaza you need a different Israeli government number one well and you need and you need a credible not feckless Palestinian leadership without those two things we're stuck yes you know it you know I agree with you I agree with you the vision of two states that's that's but listen all right the fecklessness of the Palestinian leadership is not accidental a lot of it is baked into Oslo the PA is a Frankenstein monster it is I can see it I can concede Israel's role in undermining Israel the question is at some point however yeah I'm on a boss who has no credibility among Palestinians in the West Bank and it was rearranging the debt on the Titanic by appointing Muhammad Mustafa right financial advisor they already think a boss is corrupt so I mean you know you put your friend in it's not good okay I don't want to play Israel here and I certainly don't want to play Palestinians but well I'm not doing either I can't pull the wagon in even in the direction that you want the wagon to go without new leadership you can pull the wagon some way to where I want to go with with with different Israeli policies you don't require a different PA to start pulling in the right direction you don't I'd say yes for all of his fault I could do it Muhammad Mustafa is he the right person I'll even do it I'm sorry another Israeli government sorry we're working this is amazing and we are all like just completely caught up in what you're doing and and learning so much no I I think it's absolutely amazing we have so many questions in the room though and so I just thought I would do the associate dean thing and grab the mic and but thank you I I am really loving this and I am looking around the room and knowing that everybody else is as well we're so grateful I think that one of our our faculty panelists we're gonna ask a question now so thank you for the conversation but I wanted to pick up and sort of explore different thread that we haven't yet covered so you both have done a great job sort of laying out these different competing dimensions and tensions within Palestinian politics and Israeli politics but let's bring it closer to home so what do you see as the policy positions for the Biden administration as it heads into an election with most likely Donald Trump is the prospective Republican nominee do you think there's going to be symmetry there as we get closer to the election are they going to break further away and bring it even closer home to Michigan when we had the primary results a couple months ago the population here voted in a really interesting way with about a hundred thousand people voting uncommitted for president Biden that's why the White House really took notice of that and Michigan is such a key battleground state so wanted to ask your perspectives either at the national level for us politics or even how it applies here I just make one one cosmic comment here I spent most of my life on foreign policy my kids they're not their kids they're so my children and their 40s remind me all the time that that it's not President Xi it's not Vladimir Putin it's not a putative Iranian nuclear weapon it's not Israel it's not Hamas the greatest threat to the American Republic we've seen the enemy and the enemy is us and I'll make an alarmist category statement the last book I wrote was called the end of greatness why America can't have and doesn't want another great president we don't need great presidents we need good presidents good in the sense that they are good at what they do good in the sense that they have moral compass and good in the sense that they understand that they have to keep their own personal demons under control without that I fear the worst for my kids and and their kids I did one more comment in the US Constitution the framers used a personal pronoun someone asked me why and I didn't I didn't the answer until I read the document they embedded the inaugural oath of the president in article 2 of the document and they did it for a reason to demonstrate that the office and the man and one day the woman who holds that job the office of the presidency is subordinate to the principles and the visions contained in the document and you have a presumptive nominee and I voted for republics and democrats I worked for republics and democrats these are not republicans that I worked for they're not even republicans that were republicans throughout most of the America story but you cannot have a president who doesn't understand that you you must turn the M in me upside down so that it represents and becomes a W in we you cannot have a president who has no conception of foreign or domestic policy beyond what satisfies his personal needs requirements and psychological peculiarities and this is a huge problem how it relates to this conflict I've never and I was I was here during Vietnam University of Michigan in Iraq and Afghanistan where Americans were fighting and dying the impact of that foreign policy issue is nowhere near what the Israel Hamas war has done to the domestic constituent constituencies in so many ways and for a president in a close election it might be determined by three or four states under a hundred thousand votes and I don't know why Americans will vote the way they do no November 5th are you saying this issue didn't have as much impact as this war no I'm saying good I was not in government in Vietnam are you okay right I was here and it had its impact I understand and and George will writes that you know when it comes to foreign policy Americans wanted little of it as possible yeah that may be true or not true I don't know but on this issue it now matters for this administration in a big way and yet a final comment I'll turn it over to you the president of the United States I described the policy over the last six months as passive-aggressive he is angry in the extreme he doesn't know what to do but he is unwilling unenable until what's the day today the 3rd of April to impose any serious cost or consequence on for any of Israelis of Israel's policies I have an explanation as to why that's true but it is an extraordinary demonstration so far of how domestic politics seems not to be influencing the president's actions same I totally disagree over to you I completely disagree with the last one let's let's because I think that while there's a strategic motivation behind the the policy of the administration towards this war in Gaza which is primarily aimed at conflict containment that is raison d'etat it is amoral and it is analytical position that is quite logical and what it holds is that the United States can cope with almost anything that happens inside Gaza but if the war were to spell out especially to involve Hezbollah in Lebanon that it could drag in the United States it could drag in Iran it could produce for the first time in the modern Middle Eastern history a regional conflagration involving the United States it could lead to a direct Iranian-American confrontation all these things the United States does not want and his main ally in containing where actually has been the Iranians of all things and it is Israel that is testing his will to a very large extent when it comes to the potential offensive in Lebanon are they bluffing or is this brinksmanship I haven't the fantasy idea that they're doing an awfully good job of pretending they're getting ready for a war in Lebanon if they're not and you can see why they might because both the Israelis and the Iranians think the Iranian alliance is doing quite well out of this and that the best thing for the Israelis would be to regionalize the war there some Israelis who agree with that some who don't the Biden administration certainly does not and has managed to contain this now the politics of it alright I think the administration has been wise about the politics because even though there is this constituency left of center under 35s or under 40s who are very angry about the lack of restraints on Israel and the carte blanche the remunition resupplying of munitions is like that the older generations and there are at least two of them remain so we've got you've got the elderly liberals like Biden and Schumer and Pelosi who have an emotional connection to Israel and the middle-aged people like the Blinken and Sullivan who and McGurk who maybe they don't have the same emotional attachment but they buy into the narrative of the special relationship as a strategic value for the United States so it's only there that the real anger at the administration is only there in that a small part of the Democratic Party it's loud the majority of the party wants more or less the policies we've had a Biden has had in my view and that's his calculation I whether he's right or wrong that is what I think he thinks I'm not saying he's right I'm saying I think that's what he thinks I also think he wanted to give the Republicans no avenue of attack to critique him for being insufficiently pro-Israel given the way in which October 7 was was and also was narrativized in the United States and he did that in fact the first serious attack with which drew any scratch was when the US abstained at the UN and the Wall Street Journal said he's siding with Hamas over over Israel which is silly but it is it shows you how quick the Republican establishment the journal evolved I mean yes it's trumpified and a bunch of nonsense but still it's it's more cautious than say I don't know Nikki Haley who ran around calling him insufficiently pro-Israel but she sounded like an idiot at the time honestly but when that when the abstention came there was a little opening and wham they went right in so he's thinking very carefully about the electoral politics of this issue and I believe Biden has concluded that on balance the strong support for Israel is the most effective political stance he could take even if it means risking the wrath and the ire of a bunch of progressives because he's going to run on other issues as well such as reproductive rights that are going to resonate with parts of that constituency as well and the basic democratic freedoms the the primacy of the Constitution the rule of law things like that and and I don't know I don't know how people are going to come down but I would be amazed if a big majority of the non-committed people who took the opportunity of the Michigan primary to raise their anger at President Biden we're happy to stay home and watch Donald Trump bring an American fascism into the White House I wouldn't want to test that for well I don't want to test it but we are testing I'd offered just two other explanations as to why the administration and it is extraordinary even considering the pro-Israeli sensibilities of most administrations Rojo Garner Democrat I'd offered two other explanations one is Biden's literally his emotional bond with Israel he alone among modern presidents considers himself literally part of the American story I mean the Israeli story I watched Clinton up close and personal when Rabin was murdered grieve for Rabin right I mean Clinton writes in his memoirs that he he loved no man like he had rarely loved another man as much as he had loved the former prime minister for an American president that's an extraordinary statement to make yes I only raise that because Biden's commitment goes beyond that and stretches back decades so that's part of it the other is the practical reality we talked about this that if Biden wants to change the pictures in Gaza if Biden wants to deescalate Biden wants to surge humanitarian assistance Biden wants to free the hostages this is in one hand clapping right he's gonna have to as hard as it may be for him to accept work with not just the prime minister because it's not the prime minister doing all of this you've got the work cabinet you've got Benny Gantz you've got the Israeli public everybody opinion pollsters in Israel do not even list on their questionnaires do you support the war in Gaza it is not even a question they pose 90% of the Israeli electorate either thinks appropriate forces being used where they want more and as far as humanitarian assistance is concerned which is something that I think would be a relatively easy lift if the Israelis were to prioritize not giving their own assistance there's no way why Hamas holds hostages and abuses the women that Israelis are going to agree but to facilitate out of the question I mean the port of Ashdod is 20 miles north of Gaza it has screening facilities to do everything you could ship tons of material and then truck it over that into Gaza that would only happen if you weren't making war against an entire society and they are fair enough all I'm saying is that on this one and Biden I think is yeah and that gives him some leverage to press should he want to was very helpful no and I so I am going to ask one last question it's just to give you a fair warning a 32nd response okay well and the question is really like you have modeled such such respect for one another even really don't like each other even come on I saw you exchanging like photos as we were starting we had any dancer in the question I was just talking about the cigar it has no no no no no here is the question you see um what advice do you give us as we are wrestling with differences within our building within our on our campus friends who are finding themselves pulled apart by this you I know it got heated and that was really amazing really to see but it's still respectful what advice do you give us as we move forward as a community you first yeah you're the wise one I mean you know I made my plea decor my credo core initially it's frustrating for me it's 75 not to be able to understand why it's so hard no common vocabulary no common terms no sense of respect an insistence on monopolizing rooting for one side of the other the inability to understand that humans can suffer pain even with any the asymmetry of power on the Israeli side that is saying referred to think you need I mean I hate to say it I think you to do these conversations you need not just normal humans you need well adjusted humans who are prepared to stretch and to reach and you need good facilitators yeah and good mediators just one other one other point and that is you have at your disposal all of you as do we more information that at your fingertips readily accessible than at any time in human history and yet I would argue and I'll put myself at the top of the list we are lazier and less well educated in my judgment than we should be we contract out our views to our favorite I don't know who newscasters broadcasters influencers we don't stretch ourselves and it's on this conflict you should every day it should be an unassembled jigsaw puzzle on your living room floor and your mission should you choose to accept it is to try to take the pieces from all kinds of different sources and humans that you talked to to assemble the jigsaw puzzle for yourself not to contract it out to an embassy or a website or your favorite politician I I'll tell the story just briefly when Jack Kennedy addressed the nation on October 22nd 1962 in the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis I was 12 I guarantee I didn't watch the speech my parents watched it he spoke for an hour after the president of the United States was done talking about the gravest crisis the United States has faced in the history of the Cold War the networks all went back to normal programming there were not two days of buildup with commentators with laptops telling you what the president might say what he should say what he ought to say and then afterwards CNN Fox and MSNBC telling you analyzing the speech my parents had to listen for an hour to the president and decide for themselves whether or not he made any sense thank you that's those two pieces of advice all right thank you want some for me yeah throw up the TV don't watch TV never watch TV if you watch an act if you want to watch it's okay but don't just never do it's it's toxic forget about it it's number one no but seriously every conversation that's going to be constructive has to arrive at the same place which is the common humanity of everybody involved both both in terms of conflict and in terms of the conversation now it is much easier to begin there and move forward so in so far as you can make that the sort of working prima facie assumption beforehand that everyone agrees that everybody else is a fundamentally a normal human being having different kinds of extreme emotional reactions different kinds of you know responses to challenging stimuli then you can have it's much easier to get to where you want to go and I think the the key insight which is which I mentioned in my opening remarks is that ultimately what this conflict and probably all conflicts is certainly this conflict is very much about peoples both of whom have faced existential crises in in very recent memory behaving as human beings do in collective groups nothing surprising about any of it no matter how awful it has been and it's worse than ever as Aaron was saying that the last few months have been the Israelis and the Palestinians doing their worst to each other after more than a hundred years of trying to get to this point and not exceeding an hour here they are the next thing I would like to strongly suggest is basically I mean it's very hard to get this point but in so far as you can and this I think I'm echoing what Aaron was saying about the jigsaw distrust yourself like if you have a strong positive reaction to something ask yourself what it is that makes you have that response and distrust it test it ask your you know ask yourself first of all is this in is this a piece of genuine information or is it misdirection is it something designed to make you think or is it designed to make you not think and react in a certain Pavlovian or programmed way are you thinking what you thought because you saw it in the movies or on TV or are you really thinking it through and thinking about it not as a oh I am a Jew or Muslim and Arab a Palestinian Christian but I as a human being just as a human being try to detach yourself a little bit from these smothering robotic hegemonic discourses that want to tell you how to act and how to think and be independent think for yourself if possible least try step number one turn off the damn TV Wow thank you very much please join me in giving a very warm 40 Wolverine thank you