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Richard Helppie
Hello, welcome to The Common Bridge. I'm your host, Rich Helppie. In the news, we've heard a lot about the continuing conflict in the Middle East. Israel, Hamas, the Palestinians, Gaza, Iran, all the other actors in there, some incredibly horrific violence, things that are unspeakable. Is there a right? Is there a wrong? What's the history? Well, today, we've got with us on The Common Bridge, Dr. Todd Edelman. He is the Professor Emeritus of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. We're going to try to cover several centuries worth of history in the next 45 minutes or so. With that, Dr. Edelman, an honor to have you on The Common Bridge. Thank you for joining us. I know you've had a long and distinguished career. Our audience likes to know a little bit about the biography of our guests, where did you spend your early years and and what was your career arc like?
Dr. Todd Edelman
Well, I'm a native Californian, and I did my BA at the University of California Berkeley and I did my PhD at Harvard. I've taught at three different places; I've taught at Yeshiva University for three years, Indiana University for six years and then from 1985 until I've retired, here now in Ann Arbor teaching at the University of Michigan.
Richard Helppie
You were teaching a specific area of history?
Dr. Todd Edelman
I've always taught modern Jewish history. Modern meaning since the 18th century, when the modern period begins by most accounts.
Richard Helppie
The conflict that we've seen has been trying to be encapsulated by the current establishing media ecosystem as somehow there was this Palestinian state minding its own business, living peacefully and then they were invaded by the apartheid Jewish state who's oppressed them and they're only reacting naturally to that persecution. My limited understanding of history is that's not the case. Can you maybe give a thumbnail what's happened in this region, as far back as you want to go, that's led us to this point.
Dr. Todd Edelman
Well, the important thing to understand is it never has been a Palestinian state. Doesn't mean there can't be or there won't be but it means that there's no historical ground to stand on. All of the area of what's now the State of Israel - Lebanon and Jordan - was an area of the Ottoman Empire. It was not independent, it was simply just one province of that area and ruled from Constantinople. It had been that way since for centuries really. And then in the late 19th, early 20th century, a movement of Jewish national liberation arose in response to the failure of then emancipation and acceptance in Europe. And that's when really modern Jewish settlement begins in the land of Israel. I should explain, the word Palestine is simply the English form of “Philistine.” A little part of the strip of land there was Philistine - from the Bible I'm talking about - that's how the the word came into the English language. If in the 1920s and 1930s, you had said to somebody, who are the Palestinians? The answer would have been the new Jewish settlers, because they were called Palestinians if you look at accounts at that time from the newspaper. And Arab nationalism, of course, dates back to the late 19th century as well but it's not focused initially on Palestine. It's hard to talk about Palestinian nationalism - specifically Palestinian nationalism - until really after 1967. One thing to remember is that all the conflicts that Israel was involved in were not necessarily with the Palestinian people up until the intifadas. They were wars Israel fought with the neighboring Arab countries. If, let's say in 1948, when the State of Israel came into being after the British were driven out of Palestine, if things had gone the other way, that is to say if the Jews had lost the war - they called it the War of Independence in 1948 - and the Arabs won, there still wouldn't have been a Palestine because the surrounding Arab countries were ready to gobble up, they didn't back the Palestinians, there wasn't a coherent Palestinian nationalist movement. Ironically - and I'm somewhat exaggerating when I say this - it was conflict with the Jews that created the Palestinian people, that it gave them a national identity, as opposed to think of themselves as simply as Arabs. Arab nationalism, that initially goes back into revolt - not against the European powers, it's certainly not against the Jews - was against the Ottoman Empire, the Turks, from whom they wanted independence. So it's hard to talk about, both groups...look, Jews have had a continuous existence but modern Jewish settlement; there had always been Jews living in Jerusalem and other parts of the Galilee but there hadn't been very many. It's only in the late 19th century what we call modern Jewish settlement. These are mainly agriculturalists, set up the kibbutz scene and other kinds of agricultural settlements. The number increases, in particular, the need for a state, for the Jewish state, became fairly clear during World War II. The British did everything - the British have a lot of blood on their hands - they did everything they could to keep Jews from coming. This is during the Mandate because they didn't want any more Jews there and the Palestinians, the Arabs in the area, were also waging war against the British too. So both groups were eager to see the British leave.
Richard Helppie
So in 1947, 1948 - correct me if I'm wrong - the United Nations established the State of Israel.
Dr. Todd Edelman
Well, the United Nations...what happened in '47, the British said, we're sick and tired of this. Because the British were losing a fair number, they had, first of all, to station a large number of troops there. And plus in '47, '48, Britain was beginning to wind down as empire. In '47 India became independent and Britain was retreating from this empire. That's a process that continued through the 1960s. But the more it retreated, the less it needed from a strategic viewpoint. That little piece of land there in the Mediterranean didn't become important. The British wanted to get out of it, but they didn't know how to do it. So in a sense, they said to the UN, here's our problem, this is a mess. Jews want this, Arabs want this. And the UN appointed a commission and what they envisioned was what today we call a two state solution. They said these will be the borders of the Jewish state, these will be the borders of Palestinian state, they will be side by side and each will go its own way. It didn't. That's what the United Nations intended. It doesn't happen that way because the Arab states - Lebanon to some extent, but mainly Iraq, Egypt, and Jordan - would not accept that. From their viewpoint it was all or nothing. They said, we don't need a Jewish state at all and that that's when the war began for independence, because those Arab countries with their regular armies invaded which then became the State of Israel as soon as the British withdrew.
Richard Helppie
So you have got 1948, the British withdraw. There's this fragile new State of Israel. Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, attacking with regular armies and this is now the war for independence. Still, at this time, not a Palestinian state or there was a Palestinian state side by side, or that state never came into being?
Dr. Todd Edelman
That state never came into being.
Richard Helppie
Why is that? Why wouldn't there be one?
Dr. Todd Edelman
Because the Arab countries that surrounded it. First of all, they weren't going to accept an independent Palestine. From their viewpoint, they wanted the territory and they grabbed some of the territory. Gaza, for example, was taken by the Egyptians and the area that today is called the West Bank was taken by Jordan. So from their viewpoint there was not going to be an independent Palestinian state, or an independent Arab state, next to the Jewish state. So that's why it didn't happen. It could have happened. I mean, Gaza and the West Bank could have been established as a Palestinian state then, but the other Arab states didn't want it. One of the things that has - and I should point out all of the conflicts that Israel became in were with the Arab states surrounding them, initially. There was no underground Palestinian national movement or revolutionary movement of any kind. That comes much later.
Richard Helppie
When the war for independence was fought, was it exclusively Jewish versus the Arabs? Or were there what would today be Palestinian Arabs fighting with the Israelis for independence from Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon?
Dr. Todd Edelman
There were some volunteers who were natives of the land but most of the fighting was involved with the Arab nations versus the fledgling state.
Richard Helppie
And so Israel prevails in that war for independence. They called for immigration into Israel at that time?
Dr. Todd Edelman
Well, it was already coming. It already began as illegal immigration during World War II and immediately after. The British didn't want any Jewish immigration, but there was immigration. I mean, they would come in clandestine ships and things. So there was that. Then once Jews get control, and they can control their own immigration policies and the number, mainly from Europe at first, but then something else happens that really wasn't foreseen. When the State of Israel is declared in '48. There were something like 750 thousand Jews living in Arab lands, those are some of the most ancient Jewish communities. Many of them have been living there since Roman times, for example in case of the Jews of North Africa, life became impossible for them in the Arab countries. So there's a mass migration, mostly to Israel, some end up in France, a tiny number in England, etc., but most ended up coming to Israel. Actually, you see, one way of looking at what happened is...because we know that about 500,000 Arabs left their homes and went into surrounding Arab states as a result of the fighting. Some because they were driven out, others because they expected to return with victorious Arab armies and some just because they wanted to get out of the way of the fighting. So what really happens, and this is a perspective I see, that you have a population exchange, that is - I'll use a figure - half a million, half a million Arabs leave their homes and half a million Jews from Arab countries are kicked out of Arab countries and end up in Israel. One of the things that I find it's - first of all, it's distorting, most people don't understand - is that about half the Jewish population or more in the State of Israel are what they call the Mizrach, the Jewish communities from the east and were originally Arabic speaking. Whatever they were, they were not white. When you go to Israel, you could see that the population, some people are white in the way the term is casually thrown around, and others are quite dark, people whose ancestors may have lived in Baghdad for centuries. So there is that kind of exchange of populations as happens everywhere, that is to say the Greeks and the Turks, Germans who are removed from areas of Poland and other places in Central Europe after World War II. And there are other kinds of population exchanges like this through history; that in itself is not so unusual. What I think from my point of view is one of the great tragedies of, and outcomes of, 1947-48 is that the refugees who end up in Jordan or in Egypt or in Lebanon or Syria, wherever, are not absorbed into the population. That is that all of these states will push to keep the refugees as a separate group in refugee camps partly because - I think mostly because - they fear them. Also, it's a tremendous way to divert popular attention. As long as Jordan - it doesn't matter which Arab country you're talking about - is at war they can use that to play off the sentiments of the former - the refugees, Arab refugees - there. It's a divertissement; it keeps people less concerned about the fact that they're getting screwed in all kinds of other ways by the authoritarian regimes they live in.
Richard Helppie
Not exactly democracies there. And so the recognition of Israel - what recognition has been given - has been slow to come by. Many of the Arab states still today don't recognize Israel. They don't show it on maps and things like that when they're teaching their school children. As you move forward from that war of independence, is there more recognition? Did Jordan recognize the State of Israel as a country early on or have they done it yet?
Dr. Todd Edelman
No. Jordan's recognition of Israel comes much later. It's all very relatively recent. Some people say that the peace with Egypt is a cold peace. There's not a lot of back and forth between the countries, formally though, they're not at war. In one sense Lebanon is still at war. Going back to '47-'48, no peace treaty was ever signed. But the recognition by the states...one thing to think about is the most recent outbreak with Hamas invasion on October 7, one of the reasons for the timing was Israel was coming closer and closer to recognition by Saudi Arabia and the other states that would follow Saudi Arabia. The militant Palestinian groups like Hamas, they didn't want that. So this was a way of throwing a wrench in the whole thing and undoing it and it has made it much more difficult. I mean, for all of...I'm not a fan of Netanyahu, but his an attempt to forge links with some of the countries - particularly Saudi Arabia - is admirable in trying to reduce the tensions there. But it becomes more and more difficult and who knows what the outcome will be now.
Richard Helppie
So there's never been an established Palestinian state. For their own purposes the militants don't want to see the further recognition of Israel. I don't think anybody seriously thinks Israel is going to go away, that they've been attacked - the 1967 particularly intense war, short duration, but very intense - until today. Is the future of Israel just to continue to deal with the attacks or is there hope that other Arab states will begin to recognize them?
Dr. Todd Edelman
It's hard to be optimistic at present. I'm speaking for myself and I'm not a prophet and I'm not a seer, nor am I a stockbroker; I can't foresee the future. It's hard to imagine there be any kind of immediate peace process. Now it's in the long term interest of Saudi Arabia and other states that Iran be isolated; this is when to do it. So that's what's helping push them and if they continue to think that way, then that may end up pushing them, but it's not going to happen tomorrow that I'm sure of.
Richard Helppie
Iran is not seen as an Arab state, it's a Persian nation and so the Arab states would like to isolate them and bring their influence down in the region.
Dr. Todd Edelman
Right, well also remember, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis in the Yemen revolt at present, are all clients, you could say, of the Iranian regime and they're all disruptive forces. There has not been stability in Lebanon for decades partly because Hezbollah controls some areas, Catholics control some areas - Maronite Christians really - and Muslims control some other areas so it's total chaos there. I mean, Lebanon used to be, so to speak, the French Riviera of the Arab world. That's no more.
Richard Helppie
That's tragic, it's a beautiful part of the world. I've never been there but I know many people that have emigrated to the United States to get away from the violence there. It's a tragic loss of a a wonderful place in the world. Once we start thinking about some of the events of the seventh of October, and obviously this took a long time in planning, very sophisticated tunnel networks that apparently are being discovered even more extensive than anybody knew and this vicious attack is launched. What were the militants of Hamas attempting to achieve and did they get there?
Dr. Todd Edelman
Well, the ultimate goal of Hamas is the destruction of the State of Israel and the removal - they don't say how - of the Jews living there. Only someone who was totally crazy, totally crazy, could think that their kind of attack with a few thousand men and the way they attacked could accomplish this. What they did was - and this you have to understand - any terror organization like Hamas, particularly a militant group which is committed, in this case for the destruction of the state, has to be seen always at the forefront of the battle. So in that sense that made them the activists and Arabs everywhere else rather passive, you could say it served their purposes. They must have known - they're not stupid people - they must have known, the leaders of Hamas, that Israel will retaliate. And in the retaliation it was about 20,000 people, civilians, have been killed. In some ways you could say this serves their purpose because it just infuriates and angers but they're willing to sacrifice – well,so far - 20,000 Gazans for their own political purpose. Hamas was never chosen by the people of Gaza to be their party. There was a civil war in Gaza between both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, and the Palestinian Authority was driven out. So it's not a question of what they attempted...of them scoring military victories and acquiring land. You could say in many ways it was performative. That is to say it was to attract attention, it was to position themselves as the most radical force of the anti-Israel states and in that sense I guess you could say it worked. One of the defenses of - I don't see how the people do it - but one of the defenses made by left wing people in the United States is that well, this was very important because it was the first military response to Israeli rule. Now that, in fact, that's not true because you had both the intifadas with that as well but certainly it's the most recent one. Remember, there have been two other Israeli invasions in recent years of the Gaza Strip but they never went as far as this one is one partly because the thing that started this was not just shooting a few missiles; Hamas has been shooting missiles into Israel with increasing frequency and accuracy over the years. But this was an actual, I guess you can call it an invasion, but also the horror of the atrocities.
Richard Helppie
Targeting of civilians, rape as a sexual assault as a means war, innocent children wantonly murdered in horrific ways. I've heard people make arguments in defense of those inhuman atrocities. I just can't...I just don't have enough words describe how horrible it is saying, well, look, Israel is the white colonizers and this is a brown people suffering from apartheid, and therefore anything they do is justified. I'm trying to understand that point of view. Is there a part where the Gazans were treated unfairly? And is Israel really the white colonizers subjugating a brown people, which is kind of...
Dr. Todd Edelman
As I suggested before, 50% of the Jews in the land of Israel, or the State of Israel today, are of Middle Eastern origin, are dark, simply the tone of their skin, some quite dark, some much darker than people who claim to be of African descent who live elsewhere so that's not the thing and they're not colonizers. Because what's the power they represent? They're not British, they're not French, or German. In their viewpoint - and one could argue with it - the land of Israel has been a Jewish homeland for centuries, but it was impossible for Jews to settle large numbers there for a variety of reasons. It's not like Russian Jewry was colonizing. The other thing...let's say in the year 1880 or 1890 the area that becomes the land of Israel, becomes the State of Israel, was relatively undeveloped. When Jews purchased land - and they purchased land, all the land up till '48 land was purchased - it was purchased from Arabs. Many of the people who were selling the land, were in fact, not people living in the land but were great land owners who lived in Beirut or somewhere; they profited. Land in what then was called Palestine - Mandatory Palestine under the British - was more expensive than the most fertile land you could find in Nebraska or somewhere else in the American Midwest, it was very expensive. It's just that the people, the common people didn't benefit from it. The people who benefit from the sale of land to Jews were large landowners who didn't really care about the Palestinian peasants.
Richard Helppie
So as you're discussing this, it seems to me that the today's definition of Palestinian people have been used as a tool or as a proxy for some centuries old conflicts versus Iran coming down into Israel or one of the Arab countries attacking Israel. So who backs Hamas now besides Iran?
Dr. Todd Edelman
Well, it's the major supporter. Then Hamas has also developed ways of raising money. I mean recently, it's not fundraising, but various illegal activities. They have what we would now call a very large portfolio of shares in various companies and things around the world. But the main funding came from Iran.
Richard Helppie
And Iran's objective is to destroy the Israel state.
Dr. Todd Edelman
Well, yeah, that's what it says. Yes. See, one of the slogans that's common now is "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." Now, I read that, and many people read that, as a genocidal annihilation, which is Jews, let's help them get rid of them, let's throw them in the pond, tell them to get on the ships and leave, which is not going to happen. But that's one of the slogans. Some people say, well, it's aspirational, which, I'm not sure, even if you aspire to it, it's bad. It's not going to happen as far as I can see but it was a stated goal. And the thing is, it's remained constant. There have been so many opportunities for a Palestinian state to come into being; negotiations, Arafat killed it once, he was offered about 95% of the West Bank, and under others as well who, Barack, etc. But the position of the Arabs, whether you are talking about Palestinians or the Arab states, up until recently, has always been all or nothing. In their mind, Israel is identified with the West. Certainly in the mind of the radical left in America and Europe to be identified with the West is the source of all evil. Dark skinned peoples are pure and virtuous and have always been oppressed. It's a kind of simple black and white kind of setup. I think most people, for example in the United States, who demonstrate in favor of the Palestinians now don't really know one, and for the most part, don't care about the Palestinians. It's part of a long term assault on quote, Western values, European values, whatever. I mean, I remember I was a student at Berkeley 1964 to 1968 and the big issue then, the subsequent poster child for the Left then was Cuba and Cuba was recruiting students to go work in the sugar harvest. Then later years, Nicaragua was. At that time, of course, no one cared about the Palestinians at all. But it shifts and you know, I don't know who it's going to be next week.
Richard Helppie
And we saw this. I wonder if the people - let's just say college campuses - that are shouting "from the river to the sea..." if they've ever looked at a map because if you look at river to the sea that means no more Israel.
Dr. Todd Edelman
I think what that's what they mean but you may be right, some of them may simply not understand.
Richard Helppie
Well, I'm wondering, like the thing I always find curious is, this attack happens and I say, okay, well, they have to know that Israel is going to retaliate so there must be another move coming. And as the world was in shock over the absolute brutality of this, all of a sudden there were these brand new Palestinian flags all over the United States. There were posters, same font, same, they came out of the same printing press and you have to say, how did they get that that quick? It almost seems that there had to be infrastructure in place that would produce this kind of a reaction because unless there was something that a powder keg was waiting to go off, okay...
Dr. Todd Edelman
There had been growing Palestinian enthusiasm on some campuses specifically before October 7. I don't think there's any power behind the scenes manipulating things, it's not hard to get things printed. It's part of an ongoing campaign, sometimes referred to as third worldism - exultation of the Third World and a denigration of Europe, or, in this case, Europe and the United States - a lot of it is anti-American. The other thing is opposition to the State of Israel can - not always, but can - serve as a mask for anti-Jewish feeling; certainly, Hamas makes no distinction. Actually when Hamas rounded up people, they rounded up a lot of workers in Thailand because they were working in the fields on Israeli farmland, etc. but they didn't particularly care, they also picked up a number of Arab Israelis, as Arabs were citizens for the State of Israel. So they were rounded up and some of them were shot as well but that was, from their perspective, by accident.
Richard Helppie
Well, I looked at the intentional attack on a concert, okay, these are defenseless people. I can't imagine the justification, it's not that they stood for something; it was to cause as much damage as possible to elevate as much terror as possible. I think about the end goal. Now you watch the media ecosystem in the United States, it's all coming from one set of talking points about, wait a minute, Israel needs to back off. They're killing too many people in Gaza. I've listened to some of the Israeli viewpoints where they're saying, look, there are tunnels underneath the hospital, these tunnels are being used for the organization of men and arms and supplies to attack us, we have to go get that. They're very clever apparently, these tunnels, to withstand almost any kind of assault. I was reading one fairly reliable source that said there were 800 exits from one. So just trying to find out where these things are running is very difficult, that they're set at sharp angles so concussive explosives don't work as well because they come to the endpoint. I understand the world wanting to bring down the violence, bring down the amount of damage to civilians. I don't know how it's done, when you have evil people - and I will use that term - hiding behind and beneath those innocent people.
Dr. Todd Edelman
Hamas itself is not concerned with the welfare of the people who live in Gaza. If they were they wouldn't starve...if you engage in military activity against a much more powerful neighbor, you're going to be attacked or you're going to suffer from it and they've used the Gazans as, essentially, shields. And you are right, every day new evidence of new tunnels comes up. The most recent one I saw was big enough to drive a car or truck through. In fact, if the millions and millions of dollars that Hamas used to build those tunnels had been used for education or welfare or sanitation, things would look very different there.
Richard Helppie
Indeed, and the justification...the people that were living in Gaza pre October 7, were they being contained behind fences? Were they being oppressed? Were they being shut out from having a representative voice in the Israeli government? What was their condition prior to October 7?
Dr. Todd Edelman
Within the Gaza?
Richard Helppie
Within Gaza, right.
Dr. Todd Edelman
Well, Gaza then, essentially Israel had controlled Gaza, won control over Gaza, in the 1967 war. (Rich Helppie: With Egypt.) Yeah. And then Israel withdrew - I'm sorry, I can't remember the exact dates but maybe a dozen years ago, whatever it was - then essentially the Gazans could not leave Gaza, except through Egypt, because they were not permitted to come to Israel, except that they were working in Israel. There were Gazans up until recently working in Israel mainly in construction and in agricultural labor. So in that sense, they were caught. The maritime exit was also blocked. But to call that a concentration camp is absurd, Gaza could have co-existed with the State of Israel, all they had to do is simply renounce the goals of Hamas and that would have been it. I mean, Israel's control [of] Gaza, [they] had no interest in continuing it's control, withdrew and then the Gazans made a mess of things.
Richard Helppie
There's a distinction between the Gazans and the Egyptians.
Dr. Todd Edelman
Today there is.
Richard Helppie
But in 1967 more of it was part of Egypt.
Dr. Todd Edelman
Certainly during the British Mandate, there was no distinction. Well, I mean, there was a distinction between the Gazans and other people. Gaza has become a...I don't want to say a world or a society unto its own, but it has because it is isolated. It does border with Egypt. And there's the possibility there but Egypt didn't want Palestinians, Gazans, coming into Egypt for various reasons.
Richard Helppie
So the largely brown Egyptians did not want the largely brown Palestinians coming into their country, Israel said - 50% of the brown Israelis said - you're not going to cross this line. Yet, by the time it crosses into the United States it's white colonizers oppressing a brown people who've always had their state.
Dr. Todd Edelman
That's the simple minded way in which the radical Left in America - or the mobilized Left or the hard Left, whatever term you want to use - sees and wants the affair to be seen. But it's part of a much larger trend, I think, in either American society or Western societies in general, is a simple mindedness; we're going to look at things and there's good and bad, there's the virtuous and the evil, and there's nothing in between. You're either with us all the way or you are our enemy. It's simple minded. It's simply not true.
Richard Helppie
I mean, history is messy. So I don't imagine...if you've been back to Berkeley or YU and I don't know how much time you spend at the University of Michigan campus here but I'm wondering what coursework would be taught today about the situation with the Gazans and the Israelis and how how it would be framed for a young student coming in to Iearn about this.
Dr. Todd Edelman
I think it depends on who's teaching the course. I know there's a course in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. That's taught by someone I know and I think it he tries to give the perspective of each side their narrative; this is how Israelis think about it, this is how Palestinians think about it. And then there are propagandists or people or historians who aren't so interested in being critical. Now, they don't teach this particular course but in teaching a history of the Middle East they may bring this in.
Richard Helppie
I see. So if we start thinking about where this can go - and I know it's speculation and crystal ball as we look at this - the Palestinian group, as it's defined today, saying, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. That's the all or nothing, that means Israel doesn't exist. Israel's position is what?
Dr. Todd Edelman
Well, it depends. See, here's the conflict, there's an internal conflict within Israel. There are some Israelis - really, it's sort of a left-right kind of thing. The left in Israel and much of the center does not want to keep the West Bank, does not see the idea of a greater Israel as either moral or workable and they would like to return it. They see there the nucleus of an Arab state. The right, particularly the far right in Israel, sees that...the opposition in some ways is like Hamas. I mean, they're not talking about murder, but they're talking about the whole territory should be part of the Jewish state and that's probably what's been [inaudible]. And part of the problem is Netanyahu now has been Prime Minister for I think, about 12 years and his own position is a maximalist position. He doesn't think you can negotiate with the Arabs, or at least the Palestinian Arabs. And he doesn't believe that there should be an independent Palestinian state. He's been able to stay in power, because he's been able to attract the votes of the very religious in Israel, who aren't for the most part concerned with this. But what he does is he gives them large amounts of funds to support their schools. He gives them authority over certain ministries, like the Ministry of the Interior. So it's the combination of the settler left in the West Bank, and then in the far right parties, and then the religious parties have kept him in power. But I don't, I'm guessing, I'm speculating, that he's not going to remain in power much longer, that he will have to bear the responsibility at least for the intelligence failures that led to this. That should not have happened we now know, the evidence is available, it just was misinterpreted.
Richard Helppie
Well, the the intelligence, it was less than 48 hours after the attack on October 7, The Wall Street Journal was reporting that Iran green-lighted the attack and named the specific meeting and the specific date that they green-lighted it. I thought to myself, well, how did they know that so quickly? They must have had intelligence sources of their own or reporting of their own. How...it couldn't have been kept secret from the Israeli government, unless there was just complete ineptness?
Dr. Todd Edelman
Well, as we know from reading the newspapers, some parts of the Israeli intelligence community knew something was being planned but they thought either this is for the future or they don't have the wherewithal to pull it off. And look, it's like if you look at 9/11 in the United States, now we can see all the signals we missed. Well of course, that's ex post facto; doesn't count much and the same thing here.
Richard Helppie
Well, it still, though gives rise to a point you made earlier to about how this is coming into American politics. BLM is one example, having a symbol of a para-glider drone coming into attack as some kind of symbol of liberation. I think that speaks volumes. I don't think that organization has done much for your average black person. If you were to advise the president United States; you got a call today saying, Dr. Edelman, we'd love to see you in Washington and we want to sit down with Secretary Blinken and maybe General Austin, what ought we to do here?
Dr. Todd Edelman
You mean, right today?
Richard Helppie
Today. Today is December 18, which I know things can change on the ground by the time we get this episode up.
Dr. Todd Edelman
May be dated.
Richard Helppie
Indeed. And you go into the Oval Office, and they say, Professor Edelman, what should we be doing about this? What might you tell them?
Dr. Todd Edelman
The two different things I would say, one is short term and long term. Short term, I would say, probably do what Biden's doing; not really restraining them but say they should restrain themselves. The reason for this, I think, is that I cannot imagine anything, short of a destruction of Hamas, would bring any kind of stability because they'll just do the same thing again ten years from now, 20 years from now, whatever it is. But long term, the United States does have influence and for a long time, it hasn't wielded that influence, that is to say, to urge the Israelis - partly because we give them a lot of money - to abandon the West Bank, to move to a two state solution, and say, look, you're not going to get...it hasn't used its ties, its connections yet to - I don't see - further these goals.
Richard Helppie
Is there a group that would be part of that two state solution, that second state? How would that get established?
Dr. Todd Edelman
Well, that's the problem. Many Israelis say - and I agree with some of this - is there's no one to talk with. For a long time this was true about the PLO, then finally they changed a bit but it didn't turn out as people expected. At the moment, who represents the Arabs; Hamas, the supporters of Hamas in the West Bank or the PLO which rules out of Ramallah? I don't think any of them do. There is no use. So who are the Israelis to talk with? That's a problem.
Richard Helppie
It seems almost intractable. In the Republican presidential debate following the attack they were asked, and I know Nikki Haley and I think Ron DeSantis both said to Israel, "finish the job, take out Hamas." Now this was before there was such a toll of civilian casualties. I don't know if they've changed their position at all. It's not like the Hamas isn't camped out in the open where an army can...
Dr. Todd Edelman
It's not where two armies meeting.
Richard Helppie
No, not at all. I mean, it's worse than urban combat. Dr. Edelman, this has been very informative. Many Americans, like myself, just don't understand this. What's going on in the history what's led us to this point? I think we're all grieving over the bloodshed and just the wanton destruction of people; that the Gazans can't live in peace, the Israelis don't really need to have missiles blowing up over their heads. We don't need to see our young people raped and murdered. Everybody wants a way out of this. You've helped enlighten me today about how complex these issues are. We're going into a media ecosystem in the United States where it's all about simplicity; white oppressors, brown people, we're going to take out the white oppressors. They're on our land, they've been there forever. Well, wait a minute, you never actually had a country. So I hope that my audience in the United States and internationally will be thoughtful about this. We do need to hold those that we elect accountable and responsive and we need to hold those that report to us accountable. With that, any closing thoughts for the listeners readers and viewers of The Common Bridge?
Dr. Todd Edelman
Well, I think my message would somewhat echo what you just said, reject any kind of perspective that says this is black, this is white, simple binary is not going to help, it's much more complex than that. You had a guest once who said that well, complexity is just to say that it's a way of deflecting interest in it. But that's not true. If you really want to see some sort of stability - I'm not talking about paradise, I'm just talking about some kind of stability - then you have to - all the parties involved - have to think there's something for it in them. They all have to agree that they're not going to get everything. I mean, it's like the Rolling Stones saying, you can't always get what you want.
Richard Helppie
But if you try some time, you'll get what you need. [Laughter] That's the rest of that lyric. Thank you so much. You've been very generous with your time. We've been talking today with Professor Emeritus of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan, Dr. Todd Edelman. I do encourage everybody to do your own research, there's plenty written there. I'd also advise you to stay away from the current media ecosystem. They're there to enrage you, inflame you, and make you think that things are simple - they're not. Let's meet each other on The Common Bridge. And with that, this is your host, Rich Helppie, signing off on The Common Bridge.
Unraveling The Complexities of the Israeli-Palestine Conflict.