You can't do it, right?

Because if you are only talking about

how the Israeli Defense Forces are responsible

for these brutal killings,

or if you're only talking about

what Hamas did on October 7th,

and you don't talk about the broader context, right, you are

absolutely not understanding what's happening

in this war right now.

- Today on Big Think, we're gonna be talking to Ian Bremmer,

president and founder of Eurasia Group

and GZERO Media about the ongoing conflict

between Hamas and Israel.

Ian, thank you so much for joining us today.

- It's great to be back with Big Think.

- This region has been embroiled in turmoil for thousands

of years, so there's many historical

factors we could discuss.

But I would like to know from your standpoint,

is it more helpful to focus on recent history

to better understand this conflict?

- Both the Jews and the Palestinians have long,

long running and legitimate claims to live

on this territory.

Palestinians, some 700,000 plus were

kicked off these territories

after 1948 post-Holocaust.

The Jews had lived on these territories for millennia,

and a number of empires have kicked them off.

We can talk about that.

There are people that are far more expert on those histories

than I am, but the reality is that for the Jews

and the Palestinians that are fighting over this land today,

they've been living there for their lifetimes and,

and so it's really not about who has a right

to live on the territory.

It's rather that they need to find a way

to live together in peace.

And what has happened over the past years is that

everyone in the world has basically given up

on finding a peaceful solution

because they've tried for decades, it's too hard or

because they're not interested;

they have other things that they would rather do.

That's where we are today.

The last time that the Americans

who are not an honest broker for peace in the region,

the United States, a principle ally in the entire Middle East

is Israel.

So you can't say, "Oh, well, you know, they're the ones

that can broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians,

because they're equally trusted."

That's not true. But they do have the dominant military

presence in the region, and they also have the dominant

diplomatic capability on the region.

So they've been the ones

that have played the most significant role.

And the last time an American senior diplomat was

really invested on trying to figure out a way to bring peace

to this region was when John Kerry was Secretary of State

in the first couple of years

of the Obama administration.

And he did shuttle diplomacy between the Israelis,

the Palestinians, the Jordanians, the Egyptians, I mean,

all the time, for 18 months

this was his top priority.

He wanted a Nobel Peace Prize for it. He failed.

And after that, basically the Americans gave up.

It was the pivot to Asia.

It was no longer focusing as much on the Middle East.

And then when the Russians invade Ukraine, it's

focusing on Europe too.

But no one's spending real time on the Palestinians,

the Gulf States, who had been providing so much money

for humanitarian support

for Palestinians living in the West Bank,

and particularly Gaza, as well as refugees in other places

that they were saying there could be no peace

in the Middle East unless the Palestinian-Israel

issue is resolved.

Well, it turned out they were willing

to make peace with Israel.

They're, they're willing

to engage open diplomatic relations, allow Jewish tourists

to come to their country, trade

and investment, technology cooperation, security cooperation.

But what about the Palestinians?

Well, too hard to resolve, and Israel,

and particularly this far-right,

Netanyahu-led government has been willing to not only

expand illegally, the settlements in the West Bank, reducing

the territory that the Palestinians can live on,

and making it harder for them to get to work, go to school,

you know, have a possibility for a viable future.

But also, Netanyahu's government was engaging more

with Hamas in Gaza at the expense

of the Palestinian authority,

because they never wanted to pursue a two-state solution.

So they forgot about the Palestinians too.

So when you look at everyone around the world

that was committed to the Palestinians, finding a way

to live viably on their territories,

the answer is this has not been a priority for anyone

for a long, long time.

And their own government in the West Bank that

recognizes Israel's right to exist, as opposed to Hamas,

which does not, they were corrupt.

They were divided.

They couldn't speak for Palestinians in Gaza,

and they were being weakened by the Israeli government.

So, I mean, this was a long introduction

to talk about the history,

but the point is that if you are looking for people

that are responsible, historically,

for why we are in the mess that we are in today,

and it is an unholy mess,

and I use that term very literally, you know,

you can look everywhere

and you have people to blame that

that is where we are today.

- Thank you for that. I'm, I'm curious, you know,

to talk about some of the domestic politics within Israel,

because that's something that I think has not been paid

enough attention to

and specifically the actions of the Netanyahu government

and the people who they are partnering with as it relates

to this conflict, but also just internally inside of Israel.

What does it look like in terms of the partnerships

and the dynamics that are happening there?

What has been the lead up to this conflict in terms

of the internal politics with Israel,

and how has that had an effect on just the general

relationship between Israel

and the Palestinians in the various places?

- You know, Israel is a very political society.

The average Israeli citizen reads

a lot about news and politics.

If you go to a cafe in Tel Aviv or in Jerusalem

or Herzliya, you're gonna hear a lot

of people talking about politics.

It's also a very fragmented society.

There are a lot of different political parties.

And, and in order

to get a government together in the Knesset,

you can't govern by yourself

because you'd never get a majority.

You have to find a coalition with other partners.

And Netanyahu, who has, you know, faced all sorts

of internal corruption scandals and,

and who's Likud party has also been painted

with a lot of those challenges.

The only way he could form a government this last time

around was with a hard-right group.

A party that specifically has, you know, said some

of the most horrible things about wanting

Palestinians removed from the West Bank, about wanting

to take over their territories.

In some ways, the hard-right partners

of Netanyahu have been as unyielding

and aggressive about the Palestinians not having rights in

the occupied territories as Hamas has been

about the Jews not having the right

to have an Israeli state.

Now, that does not reflect the opinions

of the Israeli people as a whole, but it has meant that

before the events of October 7th,

the terrorist events against the people of Israel, you had

enormous domestic instability.

That domestic instability was the people of Israel