- [Announcer] This program was funded by the following.

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And also by.

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A complete list of funders is available at APTonline.org and LiveFromLBJ.org.

- It is, I guess, a misconception in Israel that war will solve the problem, just ongoing continual war, but what it does is just create the next conflict.

- Mhm.

- The only thing that is gonna solve this problem is a diplomatic solution, and yet there is an attachment t and a greed for land on both sid that stands in the way of that.

(uplifting music) (uplifting music decrescendos) (gentle music) - Welcome to the LBJ Presidentia Library in Austin, Texas.

I'm Mark Updegrove.

As an author, journalist, television commentator, and CEO of the LBJ Foundation, I've had the privilege of talkin some of the biggest names and best minds of our day about our nation's rich history and the pressing issues of our t Now, we bring those conversations straight to you.

The attack on Israel by the terrorist group Hamas on October 7th, 2023 has led to a bloody war and irrevocably changed the Midd Tonight, we begin a two-part int with Pulitzer Prize winning auth and New York staff writer Lawren whose latest book "The Human Scale" provides nuanced insight into the complex history and deep-seated divisions between Israel and Palestine.

Larry Wright, welcome.

- Thank you, Mark.

It's good to be with you again.

- Welcome back to the LBJ Presidential Library.

- It's an institution in this town.

I really appreciate it.

- Well, we're delighted to have So I wanna talk about your lates which goes back to the Middle Ea where you have great expertise.

You've written several books about the Middle East, including "The Looming Tower," for which you won the Pulitzer P that revealed the road that led up to 9/11, but this is a novel.

What led you to write "The Human - You know, I had spent a lot of time in the region, as you say, and it was a combina grief and frustration and anger.

You know, this has gone on for such a long time.

You know, I'm about the same age as Israel, and I often think about it's a young country, but I'm an So, you know, there is some sort of correspond In my lifetime, all these impossible things happened, like apartheid ended.

We elected a Black man president The Soviet Union dissolved.

These were all things we thought would never occur, and they did, but this conflict just goes on and on and on, and it has consequences worldwid You know, America's been implica and, you know, we've lost people because of this conflict.

Osama Bin Laden, revenge about Palestine was a big part of his motivation.

So, you know, the whole world su because of this agonizing confli and it's not easy to wrap your head around the entire thing, but I thought it was best done via fiction than non.

- Hmm.

You write in the book, "A rule of thumb in this region wherever peace seems near, a spoiler will rise.

Extremists on both sides were in and intent on destroying any com - Yeah.

- You were writing specifically about the '90s, the 1990s, but the statement, it took on a larger context.

That seems to be the problem that we have in that region, just generally.

- Yeah.

- Extremism seems to prevail.

Why is that region so rife with - Well, part of it is religious fundamentalism on both sides.

You know, the jihadi impulse is, to some extent, the wellspring of it comes out of the conflict in Israel and Palestine, and then you have the idea on the part of, especially a lot of the settlers on the Jewish side, that God gave this land to us and it's ours and nobody else should live here and that is such a misbegotten n You know, the idea that the Palestinians are some invaded force, you know, some Sea People, as they were sometimes called.

They came from someplace.

They were always there.

- Hmm.

- And, you know, it's interestin to me that Ben-Gurion, David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben Ben-Gurion was the original prim and Ben-Zvi was the second president of Israel, but when they lived in New York in the early part of the 20th ce they wrote a book about the Israel they foresaw, and in there, especially Ben-Zvi, you know, he had done all this study.

He'd walked through the Palestinian villages, he saw menorahs in the windows, he saw Hebrew in the graveyards, and he realized that these people, they never left.

There was the great diaspora, but not everybody left.

- Hmm.

- And the people that remained are the Palestinians, and, you know, originally, they probably were Jewish, but then they converted to Islam in order not to pay taxes or they converted to Christianit but they're the same people, and genetics have shown this, you know, quite clearly.

In fact, the whole region is essentially the same people.

So the idea that they are something other than us is totally mistaken.

The last time I was in Israel, not the last time, but one of the times I was in Is I was doing a one-man show that was called "The Human Scale upon which this novel sprang for I thought, "I'll be giving them and they'll all, 'Oh, we didn't know that.'"

(Lawrence chuckles) No, they go, "Oh, yeah, we know It didn't matter.

The conflict has created its own cause for being, - What are other misconceptions that cloud our view of that regi - I think the worst, the most important misconception is that peace is not possible.

It is possible.

You know, the Camp David Accords that Jimmy Carter brokered with Anwar Sadat, an assassin, and Menachem Begin, a terrorist, and Jimmy Carter, one term, a Georgia Governor.

These were the people that made between Egypt and Israel, and it's endured since 1979.

You know, it's the first and still the most durable peace treaty in that region, and these three men had the cour the political courage required to make the sacrifices that would bring peace.

It is, I guess, a misconception that war will solve the problem, just ongoing, continual war, but what it does is just create the next conflict.

You know, the only thing that is gonna solve this problem is a diplomatic solution, and yet there is an attachment t and a greed for land on both sid that stands in the way of that.

- Why did the Camp David Accords What was the secret to that binding agreement?

- Each side sacrificed as much as they could, but not more than they could, and so the principle object of the Egyptians was to regain Sinai.

You know, Sadat had started the with a surprise attack on Israel which really caught them off gua and there was great fear.

They were digging mass graves in public parks in Israel.

This fear of, you know, that they were gonna lose.

It wasn't like the '67 war.

It was the reverse, and, you kno Israel acted out of a sense of t - Hmm.

- And they gained Sinai, and once they had Sinai under their control, they got kind of used to it.

They had beach reports in Tel Aviv about, you know, swimming in the Red Sea and stuff like that, and they weren't about to give i and Sadat wasn't gonna stop until he got Sinai back, and, you know, it came.

You know, Israelis really liked having that expansive, it's a very small country, you k and to have that great expanse o which has biblical and historical references to Judaism it was a big sacrifice and Begin suffered a lot politically, and Sadat was assassinated.

- Right.

- And Jimmy Carter lost the elec so it didn't do any of them any good politically, but they realized they had highe than just continuing the conflic over year after year, and, you know, so Israel's greatest enemy was Egypt, and, you know, it's been retired from that category for half a century now.

- What do you want readers to take away from "The Human Sca - I think that one of the problems that people have with regard to the Middle East is that they have stereotypes in their mind that are very durable.

Who are the Israelis?

Who are the Palestinians?

You know, who are the Arabs?

Who are the Jews?

You know, these stereotypes, I won't call them misconceptions but they're just firmly embedded so that if you are firmly in the camp of the Israelis, you look at the Palestinians, no even an open-hearted person thin as more inclined to violence and less interested in peace, and the reverse is absolutely tr So, both sides are...

It would take a monumental reorientation of the public mind to open the idea that peace is p but it's the only possibility for a resolution to this.

My feeling is that the peace solutions that have been proposed so far have been too small for such a profound tragedy, and as nutty as the Gaza, you kn beach proposal of President Trump, the idea of, you know, creating something rather than just managing something is something I would look forwar Open up new ideas.

I think, you know, you could bri kind of a regional settlement.

The idea of Saudi Arabia and Israel making peace, that's a very important thing.

Israel could be comfortable in that part of the world, but it would require a peace agr that would be durable and profou and it's not on the table yet, but there's so much going on in the Middle East right now, such a volatile moment in its hi that I don't know what might happen, but I think, and mark me down as an optimist, I think it's a better time to try to make peace than has been in years.

- You alluded to President Trump's proposal to take over Gaza and drive out the Palestinians.

Is that a foolish notion?

- It's beyond foolish.

It's dang You know, the Palestinians were in 1948 and 1967.

That's why Gaza is what it becam a vast outdoor internment camp, 20 miles long and seven miles wide at its widest point, two million people crammed insid and most of them have never been outside of Gaza.

You know, generation after gener You know, people have been essentially imprisoned in this.

So, yes, it could be a resort, (Lawrence chuckles) It is on the Mediterranean, and, you know, but the Palestinians have reacted as one would expect, and oppressed and driven people react angrily and occasionally v and this isn't going to change t It's going to make it worse.

I think, if we follow this propo we'll have a rebirth of terroris that is going to be really, really dangerous, and yet, as I said, this is an opportune moment.

When everything is in play, people, other leaders in other countries in the region will be looking for an agreement that would settle things down, and the only thing that really will settle things down is a true agreement between Israel and Palestine.

- Last year, we saw activism on campuses across America around the plight of Palestinian Did that activism surprise you?

- Yeah, because until now, I haven't seen a very strong con in favor of the Palestinians, and especially the people in Gaz Sympathy, you know, in a distant way, but not activism, and the spread of it, the width the extent of this uprising was it caught me off guard.

It may have affected the election in some respects, and it's certainly not just true of America.

You know, Europe, you know, was riven by these protests, and they're feckless.

They just replicate the anger that you find in the region, you know, and it's identity politics in a way.

You know, I'm a Jew, I'm a Pales or I am anti-Jewish, I'm antisem or I am anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, anti-Muslim.

That's a form of identity politi and when you get into that, you don't brook any response.

You're only exercising your righ to holler and intimidate people, and that's the Middle East.

I had... - Hmm.

- This old Egyptian playwright named Ali Salem, he's passed away now, but he was a great character, and one time when I was in Cairo he had this big, long, rubbery f and he had gotten sort of excomm from the intelligentsia 'cause he had driven to Israel o just to see what it was like.

Anyway, he said, you know, "The United States is now a Middle Eastern country, and you're going to have to think very old thoughts."

(Lawrence and Mark softly chuckl Well, we're too young for this.

- What was behind the activism?

Was there some sort of external force at work that led young people to be more aware of what was happening in the Middle East than they might have been attuned to other problems throughout the world?

- Well, you know, October 7th is the precipitating event, and, you know, there was a period of enormous grief especially among Jews in America and anxiety at a really high lev So, from that point of view, you could understand the reactio but then the consequences of this immense bombing campaign, which, you know, in the first ye I think the Israelis used more o than the US did in Afghanistan in the entire run of that longest war in our history.

So, it was, it looked like a war of extermin and so there was a lot of alarm Just, you know, a widespread number of people who felt that they had to do something, and, you know, expressing your opinion is a wonderful thing in America that you can do that, but opinions only go so far, you know?

- Right.

- And, you know, we're already a very divided country, and no doubt the Russians embedded, you know, with bots and stuff like that, trying to enlarge the divisions, and we're so susceptible to that kind of influence, so it's hard to parse how much of that was outside inf but I think you can easily say t there would've been a reaction a and there is a lot of antisemitism in this country that rarely comes into view as starkly as it has during these protests, and I'm not saying that people that are protesting are all antisemitic by any means but there are some, and, you kno Mark is a historian.

You must look back at, you know, the Weimar Republic, and, you know, the other instances, you know, in our own history where, you kn there was a rise of public feeli that was dangerous and led to catastrophic political consequences and wars and so on, and I feel very strongly that we're in such an upsurge moment, and where it plays out, you know I am unable to see the future of but I see the elements being quite dangerous, and these protests are just an expression of how on edge the country is, how it's about to explode at any and causes like this mark these changes in our country's civic life and drive us further apart.

- So we talked about the extremi that's endemic to the Middle Eas We are seeing extremism flare up in America, and part of it is a new surge of antisemitism.

What's at the root of that?

- Well, identity politics is, yo a big part of it.

- Mhm.

- You know, if you are standing for your peo let's say your people are white Christians, then the acquisition of power by other groups, whether it be minorities, people people of different religions an is a threat to you and it has to be responded to.

So there's that.

There's always been, with antisemitism, a class eleme the assumption being Jew plus mo - Right.

- Equals, you know, ruling the world, and that was, that kind of antisemitism is what led to the rise of Nazism in Europe.

It is also the case that people feel strange.

A lot of people feel hostage to Israel's behavior because we give them the weapons to pursue their wars.

- Mhm.

- And also support them in other ways, just as, you know, acquiescing and moving the capital to Jerusalem, looking the other way when Israel acquires land throug You know, these are all enabling actions on our part, and people who don't agree with it feel dispossessed, and so they take to the streets, and what other recourse do they - What is the long-term solution for peace between Israelis and Palestinians?

- Well, the long-term solution would be that they agree to live with each other without hating each other, and it's hard.

Our own country has struggled with this, you know, and, you know, look at, you know our original sin is slavery, you and it has perpetuated itself even 'til today, but attenuated now in part because of LBJ and all the great society programs that have helped make America more comfortable with itself.

You know, the funny thing is you can go to Brooklyn and see Arabs and Jews living together very peacefully.

- Mhm.

- And so they go to the same grocery stores, the same restaurants, the same food habits, and all this sort of thing.

They're very similar people, and outside of the context of the Middle East, they get along very well.

So, you know, it disproves the n that they can't live together, but it does drive people crazy.

I know this is gonna, this is ex but I have to tell.

In Haaretz yesterday, there was This is a leading newspaper in I A Jewish guy in Miami shot two people in a car because he thought they were Pal and they didn't die but they wer but it turned out they were Isra and they reported that they were shot by a Palestinian and it was a hate crime, and then suddenly there was this vast, "Nevermind."

You know, but the lunacy that is and oftentimes, you see on our c you know, the anger that drives people crazy.

You know, unfortunately, the protests have seemed to have died down somewhat now, but they only were replicating the hatred of the Middle East.

They weren't proposing solutions They were just carrying over the antagonism and adopting it as their own, which one of the problems with the Middle East is that hatred is a luxurious emotion, and it allows you to put all you on somebody else's shoulders and blame them for whatever is g and it's hard to break that.

Love is more difficult, but hatred is easy.

- As you look at a region which been troublesome for certainly our lifetimes, is there anything that gives you for long-term peace in the regio - Not yet.

I see the possibilities because I've seen how peace can be structured and made to work in the Middle E So, now, there are other players that are, you know, the Jordanians, the problem with the refugees is they tend to capsize other gover and the Middle East is awash in not just from the Palestinians, but from the Syrian war and from and, you know, it's just more refugees than during World and many of them not being educa especially this is true of the Syrian refugees.

So, you know, they've gone throu what would be their entire, you elementary school years without actually getting instruc What's the destiny of such peopl And, you know, how do they balance the scales?

Because that'll be what's on the You know, without addressing the problem of refugees, and certainly without creating more of them, which is what the Trump plan wou - Yeah.

- You know, we're gonna be dealing with the consequences, the violent fallout of that for the rest of our lives and probably for our children.

- The book is The "Human Scale," and our guest is Pulitzer Prize winning Lawrence Wright.

Larry, thank you so much for bei - Mark, it's always a pleasure.

(uplifting music) (uplifting music continues) (uplifting music continues) - [Announcer] This program was funded by the following.

Laura and John Beckworth, BP Ame Joe Latimer, and Joni Hartgraves And also by.

And by.

A complete list of funders is available at APTonline.org and LiveFromLBJ.org.

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