So, thanks for coming.
Happy to be here.
You help people like me make sense of the world.
How can you help me make sense of what's happening right now?
Why did Hamas attack right now, and how
can we make sense of this?
So you know that story of the frog in the boiling pot?
Yes.
And you turn it up a little bit hotter
and the frog doesn't move, doesn't jump out, just dies.
Whoever came up with that story has never been to Gaza.
- OK. - OK?
Yeah.
I mean, what has happened over the past years
is that Israel has gotten itself
in a much stronger position.
Yeah.
They're creating diplomatic deals with other countries
around the region--
Yeah.
--that want to work with them on investment
and trade and tourism, and even national security.
And while that's been going on, the situation
for the Palestinians has only gotten worse.
So if you're sitting on the ground
in the occupied territories, you
feel like your friends in the region
don't really care about you anymore.
Yeah.
Netanyahu, the prime minister,
has only been expanding his settlements,
his illegal settlements, on the ground in the West Bank.
And meanwhile, I've got to tell you, I've been on TV a lot
talking about Israel over the last year.
Yeah.
No one's been asking me about what's going to happen
with the Palestinians.
They've been asking about all those demonstrations--
Right.
--that have happened on the ground.
- Right. - Judicial reform.
Right.
So I mean, the fact is, that you've got an impossible
situation, especially in Gaza, with over two million
Palestinians who are living in atrocious conditions,
and everyone has forgotten about them.
And that, by the way, includes here in the United States.
Right.
So was it going to happen this last two weeks
or was it going to happen in another month or three months?
You weren't going to keep this stable.
The lesson we've learned is it turns out,
you can't actually forget about the Palestinians.
When you say--
when you're talking about Gaza, you know, man,
social media right now, right?
I don't, I'm scrolling.
It's this, I hear it's an open air prison.
Is that a safe description of how it's controlled by Israel?
What's it like?
It's also how it's controlled by Hamas.
I mean, you've got 2.3 million people.
Yeah.
And they're in a territory that is about twice as
big as Washington, DC.
50% hungry, 90% without access to clean water,
and that was before the bombing.
That was before the last two weeks.
Now, Israel has said, we want everyone
in the north to evacuate, because we're
going to go and attack Hamas.
We're going to destroy them, we're going to remove them.
Hamas doesn't want that to happen.
They want to ensure that the civilians are still there,
so they can protect themselves and they
can blame Israel for killing all these civilians.
So I mean, is it an open air prison?
That sounds nice for the situation the Palestinians
are in right now.
But let's not only blame the Israelis for what's going on.
That's inconceivable.
When they offer the directive of evacuation,
you said 1.1 million Palestinians in northern Gaza.
I mean, where do they go?
Where do they go?
Is anyone else accepting them?
I mean--
As of right now, no one else is accepting them.
The Egyptians are the one country
that actually has a border.
That border is still as of now, shut.
So those homeless, those displaced,
the over one million Palestinians
that have been displaced in the last 10 days,
they're not going anywhere except to the south, where
the infrastructure isn't there.
There's right now, no food yet getting in.
Water has been turned on, but the power to make that occur
is really spotty and a lot of it's been blown up.
It's a horrible situation.
Also, about 2,000 Hamas fighters, terrorists,
were involved in the attacks.
Yeah.
The Israelis and the Palestinians
estimate between 30,000 and 40,000 Hamas fighters
total, terrorists total.
Now, if Israel is saying, and they have every reason
to want to destroy Hamas--
Right.
--after what happened to them, well,
they're going to go into Gaza to kill
30,000 to 40,000 terrorists.
How many civilians do you think, with Hamas
ensuring they operate in the midst of those civilians, how
many are going to get killed? - Yeah.
I mean, this is not a small number.
We, I don't think we are prepared
for the human destruction, the scale of the human destruction
that we're about to experience.
And that's if you can keep the violence contained to Gaza,
which frankly, I think, would be seen by many in the region
as a relatively successful outcome
compared to where it's going.
Let's try to turn maybe to something
potentially positive.
You have a lot of young Palestinians
who didn't vote for, I mean, is Hamas voted?
Was it a true election that they were voted into power?
That was a long time ago.
Right.
So you have so many young Palestinians who
maybe didn't vote for this.
You have so many young Israelis who prior to all this,
were massively protesting their own government,
the potential overreaches of their government.
Is it possible that the new, younger generation is
going to say, enough of this?
Did you say you were looking for good news in this story?
Yes.
OK, because I can give you some good news,
but that isn't it. - OK.
No, that is--
That's why you're the guest.
Well, I'm just, I'm just asking the host.
Look, we are seeing right now for Israel,
Netanyahu is being blamed for this, because he was,
Israel was supposed to have the gold standard border security.
This isn't like US, Mexico, right?
Yeah, this is Mr. Security, this guy.
- Right. - Yeah.
- And so he failed. - Right.
And that's on him.
And the Israelis blame him.
But what they have just experienced
is a greater level of violence against Jews
than has been experienced anywhere since the Holocaust.
Yeah.
So you have a unity cabinet, and everyone agrees,
we must destroy Hamas.
OK.
So on the Israeli side, we are-- they're not talking
about a two-state solution.
They're not talking about how we can eventually find peace.
It is true that Israel and Israelis and Jews in Israel
must live with Palestinians for the foreseeable future.
They must find a way.
This is not coming anytime soon.
For the Palestinians, let's say you destroy Hamas.
And I am absolutely certain that
is the full intention of everyone
in the Israeli Defense Forces.
By the way, 360,000 have just been called up as reservists,
reservists to fight.
That is 4% of the entire Israeli population
has been called to war.
So this is incredibly personal in the most direct way
for every person in Israel.
They are-- they blow up Hamas.
What's going to happen to the civilians
that are caught up in that? - Yeah, yeah.
They're going to be further radicalized.
Yeah.
So I don't see it.
What can an American who is--
I'm trying to be a global citizen.
I'm trying, I can't plead ignorance anymore
to this part of the world.
It was convenient for me for a while.
What can I do?
What can anybody do, I mean, other than just
hear these sad stories or like something on Instagram,
is there any action?
How can I educate myself further?
I would say spend less time on social media.
OK.
It's dehumanizing.
It's disinformation.
It's actively destroying our democracy
and others around the world.
It is making, algorithmically it's taking people
and it's making them angrier and more
hateful than anything they would experience in real life.
Right.
[applause]
So if you want to make a difference,
the last place you can make a difference is on social media,
where you're only exchanging information with people that
are telling you, here's exactly what you need to believe,
and those are the people you need to hate.
No, it's spending more time with your family,
with your community, and your school,
it's with people that aren't just like you algorithmically.
That's what you need to do.
[applause]
Really simple question.
Not to be insensitive, but for so many Americans that
see this as something so far away,
why should they care about what's happening?
Because in principle, we, the United States,
stand for something beyond just ourselves.
I mean, maybe America first doesn't quite say that.
But the Statue of Liberty does.
We all came from somewhere, right?
[applause]
I mean, the Jews and the Palestinians
are the same people.
They came from the same place.
They've grown up in the same home.
And we, as Americans, who have historically represented
that ethos better than anyone else on the planet,
how can we not care when that is falling apart
right now in the most tragic possible way
in front of our eyes?
How can we not care about that?
Yeah.
That's why it matters to us as Americans.
Not because oil is going to $150,
not because people are losing their jobs, no.
It's because we, as Americans, if we stand for anything,
we stand for that.
Is it, yeah.
[applause]
Is it a cop out if I say I'm just anti-suffering?
- Yeah. - It's a cop out.
It's a cop out.
Because I see that one, and I can kind of like that one.
Everyone's paralyzed by this discussion.
They're afraid to talk about this.
Maybe you can see some of my paralyzation in my face
right now.
But why is that a cop out?
Well, I don't think it's a cop
out for a former tennis pro.
Right.
I mean, to be fair.
I mean, I--
I think if Justin Bieber said that, I'd be happy with that.
I mean, that's a low bar.
Right, Right, right, right.
But for you and I having this conversation, no,
it can't just be about I'm anti-suffering, because there
are responsibilities.
We have dropped the ball on this part of the world.
Do you remember the pivot to Asia?
It's was like, we don't need to worry about the Middle East.
Then the Russians invade Ukraine.
OK, we'll focus on Europe a little bit.
The Middle East is unfinished business and is hurting.
It's hurting so badly and it's explosive
and it can get a lot worse.
And that's why the US Secretary of State
has been packing on frequent flyer miles
like nobody's business, right.
That's why the Americans have to take the lead in diplomacy
right now.
Not because we're honest brokers.
The Israelis are our top ally in the region.
The Palestinians, we've forgotten about them.
But we now have to do everything we can.
We're the one country with leverage.
We're the one country with real military assets
that are all over the region.
We're the one country that in principle, can make
a real difference short, medium, and long-term
to reduce the suffering that right now
is exploding in this region.
That's what we have to do.
Thank you very much for talking with me.
Appreciate it.
Watch Ian Bremmer on GZERO World
on National Public Television.