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Listener supported. WNYC Studios. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Right now, much of the world's attention is focused on the Middle East, on the horror of Hamas's October 7th attack on Israel, and then the massive devastation of Israel's war on Gaza that has continued for 10 months.
There's also the potential for a wider war between Israel and Iran's proxies, particularly Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. But today we are concentrating on one place, on the West Bank. This was part of Jordan until the 1967 war with Israel, and ever since, Israel has occupied the territory. Particularly since 2000, in what is known as the Second Intifada, opportunities for compromise have either been lost or disdained,
and the Israeli settlement project has expanded year after year. Indeed, the settlers and their supporters have come to dominate much of the spirit of Israeli politics. Even Benjamin Netanyahu's opponents, men like Benny Gantz, dare not advocate directly for two states. Particularly after October 7th, there's no real constituency for such a deal. Indeed, the Knesset recently held a vote on such a plan, and as a show of ideological unity...
Two states was voted down by a landslide. This is our second of two episodes dealing with the occupation of the West Bank. If you missed the first, it should be in your podcast feed right now. I've been speaking with two particularly insightful thinkers on this situation, Raja Shehadeh, who is the author of many books, including What Does Israel Fear from Palestine? And the writer Nathan Thrall, who worked for years with the International Crisis Group and lives in Jerusalem.
Nathan, there's a presidential election going on here in the United States. What do you expect will happen under a potential Trump presidency vis-a-vis this situation? And what could a Democrat do to make matters better? So I think that a Trump presidency could make things much, much worse.
There are things that Israel has refrained from doing that it might be given a green light to do in Gaza. We could see much more serious efforts to push Palestinians out of Gaza to third countries or maybe even against the screams and cries of the Egyptians into Sinai.
So I see a real potential for a deterioration in the entire situation in the region if Trump is elected. And with a Democrat in office? I see little chance of significant changes in policy toward Israel-Palestine. But what I do see the possibility of is small, incremental changes.
changes such as the sanctions that have been imposed on violent settlers and
and on settlement organizations, that could be ramped up a great deal. It is slowly being ramped up. I think it's clear that the reason that the Biden administration is doing that is because of criticism from the left within the United States. There is little doubt that that is a driving force behind these sanctions that are, you know, unprecedented. The U.S. had never done that before.
And they are increasing in scope. Every couple of weeks, we hear about new ones. And that's a process that could really change things here if it were ramped up in a major way. The question of Netanyahu, if he were to resign, if he were to be thrown out of office, if he were to leave the scene, what could possibly replace him that would improve matters at all? What is the realm of the possible here?
The realm of the possible is more of the same or worse. There is a notion in the Israeli press and much of the Western press that the policy toward the Palestinians is a partisan issue in Israel. It's driven by Netanyahu and the right. There is hope, false hope derived from the fact that there is a great deal of opposition to Netanyahu, the person,
But in fact, there is a bipartisan consensus in Israel. Its left, center, right governments, all of them since 1967, have advanced policies
the settlement project have constricted Palestinians, have dispossessed Palestinians. And so I don't see really any possibility of an improvement no matter who is elected. And it's not just Gantz who neglects the Palestinian issue. It was the successive heads of the Labor Party over the last decade who, during those elections, have ignored the Palestinian issue. Nathan, I get a sense, and I have for some time, that part of your...
mission, part of your intent as a writer, as a commentator, is to make sure that no one has any sense of false optimism, that your voice is distinguished in many ways, but one of them is to puncture what you see as the pieties of the center-left about what is possible in the short term.
I think that's fair. I think that is a driving motive for me. I feel enormous frustration reading that false optimism from the center-left. And I think that it is actually destructive. I don't think it's just a matter of, oh, it's hope is a good thing. I think that there is an enormous apparatus in place now.
that is this system of domination. And it rests on the illusion of a temporary occupation. It rests on the illusion that some solution is just around the corner. I get that. I get that. But my only beef with that is the potential spirit of it, which can lead to despair. And despair is the one, as the Bible writes, the one unforgivable sin.
Well, I'm not calling for despair. But do you despair of the situation? I despair of the situation because of all of the false optimism that's propping up this system of indefinite control. If we graph over time this process of expanding Jewish presence and shrinking Palestinian space, let's extrapolate. What is the future? I mean, it's been linear. And so the future is...
One that is not unlike that of the Native Americans for the Palestinians. And so my aim in puncturing false optimism is to wake us up to that reality before it's too late so that we can avoid that outcome. Nathan Thrall, his recent book is A Day in the Life of Abed Salama.
The question of hope is certainly a vexed one. For longtime observers, it can be hard to imagine anything getting any better. But if we can't imagine it, we consign ourselves to the notion of a permanent state of war in the Middle East. I put this question to Raja Shahadi, the Palestinian lawyer and writer I spoke with in our last episode. He's based in the city of Ramallah. Raja, how old are you now?
73. You're 73. Even when I spoke to you years ago, I asked you if you ever expected to see a deal in your lifetime. You said no. What do you see in the years ahead? I think it has become much more complicated after the Gaza war and the terrible devastation that Gaza has suffered.
And yet, usually after great upheavals comes something that is a great development towards a new future. And perhaps after this great upheaval, something like that would come. And yet, it cannot come unless there is recognition of what has happened to the people in Gaza of the Great West Station and an attempt by Israel to recognize the Palestinians and move forward in the peace, which doesn't seem at all now to be possible. But
Unless the nations of the world come together and put pressure on Israel, it's not going to happen. But, you know, there's also the ICC and ICJ, the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, who give me a lot of hope because after years of struggling in the law and in attempts to show that Israel is breaking international law, we never succeeded into making it popular and knowledgeable.
known all over now with the ICJ, International Court of Justice. They're going to rule on the legality of the occupation and that is a very positive development. And the ICC, International Criminal Court, is going to hear the case of the prosecutor of the court for a arrest warrant on Netanyahu and Gallant.
And that's something that I would never have expected to happen. And now it has happened. And that could bring about the end of the era of impunity of Israel. And that can make a big difference. You're a close observer of Israeli politics. There's not much of a left left in Israel. And Netanyahu is many things, but he's also extremely shrewd in his own survival. How do you see Israeli politics developing as a reaction to what's just taken place in Gaza?
I think Israeli politics is doomed to failure because the problem is that the right wing, religious right wing are increasing in power and they have such extreme politics towards the Palestinians that they will lead Israel into outright fascism and racism. And that means that Israel will have to fight one war after the other. And that is a terrible fate for Israel because Israel depends on its wars on the United States and that dependence is
It's not going to be forever, and the United States is not going to be supporting Israel forever. And if they don't do that, then Israel will be in a dire situation. So the only way for Israel is to stop wars and to come to peace with the Palestinians. Otherwise, it will go from one war to another perpetually. And come to an agreement with the Palestinians that would mean, in your view, a two-state solution.
I think that the first step is to end the occupation and to establish an independent Palestinian state. But that's only the first step. After that, there should be something that will include all the Israel-Palestine and make it one unit and somehow a new relationship which will enable the free movement and free life for both on the same land. But that cannot come until we go through the first stage of ending the occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state.
So that's how I see it. And do you see Israel ever giving up its position as a Jewish state, a Jewish majority state? Why would it do that?
Well, it will give up if it doesn't make peace with the Palestinians, because the number of the Palestinians in greater Israel is now equal to the Israeli Jews. And in a while, they will be the majority. And if Israel doesn't make peace with the Palestinians and keeps them within the borders of the state as they are now, then they would become the majority and Israel would not really be a Jewish state.
You invoke throughout your book a comparison between South Africa and Israel. The South African experience, as brutal as that apartheid was and as long-lasting, ultimately brought about a representative democracy, a very troubled one, but a democracy. Do you see a path forward for Israel and the Palestinian territories in which both countries
Palestinians and Israeli Jews live in one country together. This is thought of as a one-state solution. To my mind, to my observation, this seems to be a recipe for conflict and what happened in Yugoslavia. I don't quite understand the logic in real life how that would work.
I think it cannot work immediately. It has to work after many years of preparation. And I think that you're right. If it happens now, it will be a recipe for disaster. That's why we have to work first on a two-state solution and two states side by side and then make relations first.
and bring the two sides together and change the laws and so on in order to establish the vision of one state or even more than one state. The whole of the Middle East can become united in some form or another because it's all small states that will not ultimately work, whether it's Jordan, whether it's Syria, whether it's Lebanon, whether it's Palestine, whether it's Israel. All of them have to come together together
and build a unified nation that will ultimately bring the Middle East into flourishing times. We began our conversation by your saying that Israel must acknowledge the legitimacy of a Palestinian people and nation. Do Palestinians ultimately acknowledge the legitimacy of an Israeli people and nation?
I think they didn't start off acknowledging that, but now I think they do, and now I think they recognize that there has to be such recognition that there is going to be peace. And yet when I read the speeches of Sinwar, of Hamas, and of many, many others, they see a two-state solution only as a khudna, as a kind of interim step, but that ultimately that this is Muslim land, that this is bequeathed from God, and that the Israeli presence must be, and I'll use...
Sinwar's word, eradicated. Well, that's a reaction to the Israeli side, which also says that the land is God-given land to the Jews and the Palestinian Arab presence must be eradicated. This is a reaction, one to the other. Well, an Israeli would answer that by saying there are two million Israeli-Palestinian citizens and there have been offers of two-state solutions repeatedly. So we go around this merry-go-round historically saying,
How does it end, Rasha? But David, there has never been a real attempt, a real offer of a Palestinian state. There has been an attempt at managing the Palestinians in their little enclaves, but never an offer of a Palestinian state, an independent Palestinian state. Never. Never a recognition of the Palestinians as a nation. That is not true that they have offered a Palestinian state. Never. Never.
And if that recognition were on the table and accepted, that would put an end to the conflict? Well, yes, it would bring it closer to an end because then it would be a step forward and on it we can build and bring the conflict to a close. But it would be a very important step forward, yes. Raja, thank you very much and all the very best to you. Thank you, David. Pleasure. Raja Shahadi is a lawyer and a writer based in Ramallah.
Raja mentioned the case before the International Court of Justice, the top court of the UN. And after we spoke, the ICJ ruled that Israel should evacuate all occupied Palestinian territory, including the West Bank, and pay reparations. That's considered an advisory ruling, and it's not binding on Israel. But it's an unprecedented degree of global pressure. Raja Shahadi has written for us, and you can find his work at newyorker.com.
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Presenting Between the Temples, a new comedy starring Jason Schwartzman as a cantor losing his voice and possibly his faith, whose world is upended when his grade school music teacher, played by Carole Kane, becomes his new bat mitzvah student. IndieWire raves that Between the Temples is spiky, hilarious, and thoroughly unorthodox. Variety calls it raucous and tender. Between the Temples is now playing only in theaters.
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. One fine day in August 1974, I believe I was dangling off a ladder painting houses in New Jersey when
I heard on the radio in my pocket something that seemed truly dangerous. A guy had strung a wire between the two buildings of the Old World Trade Center, the famous Twin Towers, and he was walking between them a quarter of a mile up in the air.
The man's name was Philippe Petit, a high wire artist from France, just 24 at the time. And that astonishing feat took place 50 years ago this week.
When Petit was profiled in The New Yorker,
The piece was called Alone and in Control. In a battered trunk, in a small room, on an obscure street in Paris, a room he still rents, although he's rarely there, Petit has squirreled away his dreams, maps and pictures of eminences and promontories, skyscrapers and other buildings around the world he longs to conquer. He is drawn to the grandiose.
On August 7th, 1974, Petit set a record, still unsurpassed, for the loftiest walk over a city street. He surveyed the tower surreptitiously for several months beforehand. Three friends, including a photographer named Jean-Louis Blondeau, flew from Paris to help him. At the time, the top ten floors of the towers were being finished, and thousands of electricians, carpenters, and delivery men flowed in and out of the buildings, along with the office workers.
No one noticed anything unusual about two young men, Blondeau and an accomplice dressed in business suits, who entered the North Tower late in the afternoon of August 6th, about the same time that Petit and the third friend disguised as delivery men rode an elevator to the hundredth and fourth floor of the South Tower, the topmost reachable by elevator, on their way to the roof, with equipment concealed in packages marked Electric Fence.
After carrying the cable, which weighed 440 pounds, up 180 steps to the floor below the summit, itself no mean accomplishment, they hid until the sole guard nodded off. In the dark, they sneaked onto the unfinished roof. Almost simultaneously, Blondeau and his accomplice emerged from their hiding places on the north tower. At midnight, Blondeau shot an arrow with a thin line attached over the gap, a distance of 140 feet.
Unfortunately, the arrow landed on the lowest and farthest beam of a 15-foot metal truss that sloped downward from the roof. Petit was now faced with an enormously dangerous situation. He had no choice but to climb down the truss and retrieve the arrow.
Once back on the roof, he hauled over lengths of heavier and heavier line and attached the cable to the last one. Blondeau pulled the cable back to the north tower and secured it to a steel beam. Petit attached his end to a grip hoist, a powerful device for drawing the cable tight that was attached to a beam. All this labor took seven hours. Working furiously against the dawn, they tied guy lines onto the truss to steady the wire.
Just as light came into the sky, Petit climbed down the truss one last time. In a narrow corridor underneath, between the tower and its outer skin, he changed into a black sweater, black pants, and wire walking slippers. At 7.15 a.m., as the city began to awaken, Petit took out a yellow grease pencil and drew his symbol and wrote his name and the date on a beam of roof and started his walk. Word spread rapidly.
An unbelievable story has just arrived. I don't believe it, one broadcaster said. Report of a man walking across the World Trade Center buildings on a tightrope. In the street, 1,350 feet below, a quarter of a mile, throngs of people gathered. They abandoned their cars to gawk and traffic snarled. Port Authority police, responsible for the tower's security, raced onto the roofs with emergency squads from the city police. But he never glanced at them.
He glided back and forth on the wire, holding his long balancing pole. He lay on the wire. He knelt, bowed, danced, and ran. He sat down and watched a seagull fly beneath him. Finally, after nearly an hour, he ended his performance, walked back onto the south tower, and was handcuffed. When he reached the street, people cheered him and tried to shake his manacled hands. They booed the police. "Why did you do it?" reporters shouted.
In English, more accented than it is now, Petit replied, When I see three oranges, I juggle. When I see two towers, I walk. That's an excerpt from Gwen Kincaid's profile of Philippe Petit, read for us by the New Yorker's Parle Sagal. That high-wire walk between the twin towers took place a half-century ago this week, a few hundred feet from where I'm sitting now. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Thanks for joining us. See you next time.
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