Will Palestinians and Israelis Ever Find Peace?
New Thinking for a New World - a Tallberg Foundation Podcast
03/20/25
•31m
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The brutal Hamas attacks on October 7th, 2023 kickstarted a new cycle of widespread death and destruction that continues today. Countless lives lost, shattered, or irrevocably altered. Of course, mostly Palestinian, but also Israeli. Even Donald Trump is right about some things, as when he says, "It's impossible to imagine how life can go on under such circumstances."
Indeed, it's easier to imagine how roads or houses or markets can be rebuilt than how people, Palestinians as well as Israelis, will deal with the scar tissue. Can the hate, despair, fear, and insecurity that caused the past 18 months, and has been exponentially compounded during that time, ever dissipate? Are kids who survived this war condemned to new cycles of rinse-and-repeat violence?
Even though those questions may be unanswerable, they are far more vital than all the talk about governance or reconstruction or peacekeeping that preoccupies diplomats. So this episode of New Thinking for a New World attempts to focus on people, Palestinians as well as Israelis, who are condemned to co-exist rather than on the Arab Plan or the Egyptian Plan or the Trump Plan. Francesca Borri is an Italian journalist who lives in Jenin, which helps give her reporting a totally different insight into what people are actually thinking. Gershon Baskin is an Israeli political activist and commentator with deep empathy for Palestinians and an even deeper commitment to looking for ways for people to live together.
What do you think: is Palestinian-Israeli peace possible?
Previous Episode
Is Trump Good for Europe?
March 13, 2025
•37m
Donald Trump doesn’t like the European Union and he’s not afraid to tell people. “The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States.” “The EU treats us very, very unfairly, very badly,” "They put tariffs on things that we want to do ... We have some very big complaints with the EU.” His answer, of course, is tariffs, “taking back” American companies, and ignoring Europe as he reaches out directly to Moscow without bothering to consult America’s allies.
And then there’s Ukraine, where President Trump demands the Europeans follow him as he shifts policy from President Biden's “Whatever it takes, as long as it takes" to his demand to "Stop the killing." The problem is that neither Ukraine nor Europe seems willing to follow on Ukraine or much of anything else.
A few days ago, a French senator gave a widely quoted speech calling Trump a "traitor." And that country's defense minister recently said, "Europe's problem is the unpredictability of our American partner, not the Russians.” Freidrich Merz, the incoming German chancellor added, “It is clear that [Trump] does not care much about the fate of Europe,” More bluntly, the EU's foreign minister insisted “The free world needs a new leader."
Trump is often more bark than bite. But this time feels different and Europeans are scrambling not just to respond to the barking, but—maybe—to escape their usual habit of muddling through crisis after crisis. Could it be that Donald Trump will emerge as the spark that makes Europe great again?
Two former foreign ministers, Ana Palacio of Spain and Vygaudas Usackas of Lithuania, both hope so. In this episode of New Thinking for a New World they share their criticisms of Trump, but also of Europe’s past failure to act in its own interests. And they discuss what needs to be done to put Europe on a better track.
Could Trump be good for Europe? Tell us what you think and comment here.
Next Episode
Congo’s Unending Tragedy
March 27, 2025
•37m
With its unlimited natural resources and huge agricultural potential capacity, the Democratic Republic of Congo should be a paradise—but unfortunately, it’s not. Instead, it’s been wracked by war, bad government, corruption, tribal and ethnic enmities, neighbors who are serially tempted to intervene, and Great Powers who seem to think that it's time for a second age of colonialism.
Recently, well-armed militias, accompanied by the Rwandan military, have seized key provinces in the country's mineral-rich east. They're threatening to continue their offensive with an ever-changing mix of tribal, political, and economic justifications thatmay be pointing towards violent regime change in Kinshasa.
Why should we care? Obviously, because the human tragedies that define such wars should not be happening in the 21st century. But, beyond that, the Congo conflict is a dangerous microcosm of our time: international borders no longer sacrosanct; 19th-century-style natural resource grabs for 21st-century rare earth minerals; Great Power rivalries; the potential for a larger regional conflict if full-blown civil war breaks out across Africa’s second largest country.
Michela Wrong is a journalist and an author who knows Rwanda, Congo, and the Great Lakes region as well as anyone. Her recent article in Foreign Affairs, “How Far Will Rwanda Go in Congo?” provides some of the backstory to this New Thinking for a New World conversation about the huge dangers of yet another conflict in Congo.
Will Congo ever find peace? Tell us what you think and comment here.
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