The Jewish Left Is Trying to Hold Two Thoughts at Once
Grief moves slowly and war moves quickly. After Hamas assailants killed at least 1,400 Israelis and took hundreds more hostage, Israel dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza in the first week of a conflict that is still ongoing. So far, more than 5,000 Palestinians are reported dead and many more injured. There\u2019s no one way to cover this that reconciles all that is happening and all that needs to be felt.\n\nMy approach is going to be to try to cover it from many different perspectives, but I wanted to start with the one I\u2019m closest to, which has felt particularly tricky in recent weeks: that of the Jewish left. So I invited Spencer Ackerman and Peter Beinart on to the show.\n\nAckerman is an award-winning columnist for The Nation and the author of \u201cReign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump\u201d and the newsletter Forever Wars. Peter Beinart is an editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, the author of the Beinart Notebook newsletter and a professor of journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. And they\u2019ve each taken up angles I think are particularly important right now: the way that Sept. 11 should inform both Israel\u2019s response and the need to empower different kinds of actors and tactics if we want to see a different future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.\n\nTogether we discuss the goals behind Hamas\u2019s initial attack on Israeli Jewish civilians, how the attack changed the psychology of Jews living in and out of Israel and what Israel is trying to achieve in its military response.\n\nMentioned:\n\n\u201cThere Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive.\u201d by Peter Beinart\n\n\u201cA Deal Signed in Blood\u201d by Spencer Ackerman\n\nBook Recommendations:\n\nThe Hundred Years\u2019 War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi\n\nAn Oral History of the Palestinian Nakba edited by Nahla Abdo and Nur Masalha\n\nIsrael\u2019s Secret Wars by Ian Black\n\nThe Question of Palestine by Edward W. Said\n\nStrangers in the House by Raja Shehadeh\n\nHamas Contained by Tareq Baconi\n\nThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.\n\nYou can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of \u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\u201d at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.\n\nThis episode of \u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\u201d was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show\u2019s production team also includes Emefa Agawu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.