Sneak Peek: Dan on the One State “Solution,” and more…

Dan Senor (0:00)

Hi, it's Dan. Over the past couple of years, Call Me Back has grown into something much bigger than we ever expected. A place for clarity, context, and honest conversations. At a time when those things can seem hard to find. That's what Arc Media is all about. Building a truly independent voice, which means no one shaping what we say or how we say it.

To help support our rapidly expanding operations, we created Inside Call Me Back, our members-only feed. If Call Me Back has been meaningful to you, and you want to be part of what we're building, I hope you'll join us. Your contribution goes a long way in helping us show up when it matters most. You can subscribe at arcmedia.org or through the link in the show notes. And to our insiders, thank you.

You are listening to an ArcMedia Podcast.

Ilan Benatar (1:04)

Welcome to Inside Call Me Back, our members-only edition where we open the door and let you shape the conversation. My name is Ilan Benatar, the producer of the Call Me Back Podcast. And today in the hot seat, addressing your questions and personal dilemmas is my partner in crime, Arc Media's very own Dan Senor. Dan, welcome to the inside.

Dan Senor (1:22)

How are you, Ilan?

Ilan Benatar (1:23)

How am I? Do you really want to know?

Dan Senor (1:25)

I don't want to know. Actually, that was a bad question for me to ask. Let me just say, it's good to see you.

Ilan Benatar (1:31)

Thank you. Well, to those who are not seeing me, I'm sitting here with the sling. That's why I'm asking. It's almost 10 a.m. And I did not wake up for this recording because I was under the influence of some very powerful drugs. I mean, it's prescription drugs, but they're just very strong painkillers because I have a shoulder thing that if I don't take it, I don't sleep. And therefore, I had to take them. And again, I did not wake up for this session, so.

Right.

Dan Senor (1:58)

But here we are.

Ilan Benatar (1:58)

Here we are. Exactly. Yeah.

Dan Senor (2:00)

But I promised to be coherent, even if Ilan won't be. I promised to make up for his lack of coherence. If there is lack of coherence, I'm not saying there will be.

I'm not trying to prejudge our highly medicated moderator this morning.

Ilan Benatar (2:14)

It's the first Inside Call Me Back that's under the influence. Let's put it that way.

Dan Senor (2:18)

Exactly.

Ilan Benatar (2:20)

Why don't I bring something from your past 24 hours? It was a big day for the Senor family yesterday, wasn't it?

Dan Senor (2:27)

Yeah. We sent our son off to Israel for the year.

Our oldest son, who's doing a gap year in Israel, it was bittersweet. I'm hearing from all these families that are dropping their kids off at college. It's very emotional and these parents are talking about, this is like the first real separation with kids. I don't feel that way. Obviously, our son is pursuing something very independently. It's a choice he made. But the fact that he's spending a year in Israel as an expression of that journey, in a sense, he's away, and yet, he feels very much at home.

Ilan Benatar (3:04)

Okay, Dan, well, let's jump into the questions from our community. Evan from Atlanta, Georgia asks, last week, a listener asked, why shouldn't Israel agree to having a Palestinian state under conditions that Palestinians would never agree to? In his answer, Amit mentioned Ben Gver's one-state solution, annexing the West Bank and Gaza. Ironically, a one-state solution is what the far left argues for as well, albeit with equal rights. Say what you will about the extremes, they both offer some kind of solution, while moderates, both in Israel and in the diaspora, offer none.

Doesn't that passive position just cede ground to the extremes, who then moderates complain about?

Dan Senor (3:49)

Thank you, Evan, for that. I'll say a couple of things. I think there's a tendency to create some kind of equivalence between the positions of the extremes on both sides of the conflict in the region or both sides between left and right. And while there is something to that, I think it ignores a very important structural difference. What I mean by that is I think both sides have a tendency to point to the position of the extreme and say that's why there's a problem. The reason that doesn't really work structurally is because the extremes don't tell you much. You need to ask yourself, where's the consensus? Where's the consensus in either side? So if you look at historically, the consensus on the Israeli side, on the center left and the center right, has been for two state solution within a series of conditions, of course, but for two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so long as this new independent Palestinian state did not pose a security threat to Israel. So this has basically been where Israeli society has been. Find us an interlocutor on the Palestinian side that can deliver calm and stability and will help us ensure that a Palestinian state will not pose a threat to Israel, and you will be shocked by how far Israelis are willing to go to reach that kind of accommodation with that interlocutor. There have been two limitations that have always prevented this from happening. One, there has been no interlocutor who either was operating in good faith on the Palestinian side, or even if they were operating in good faith, and there have been some, actually, they didn't have enough political capital within Palestinian society to deliver on those commitments. And so it's for a variety of reasons, including those, but not only those, that's where things have broken down. I think where Israelis are now is, forget about where our consensus is, the Israelis will say, where's the Palestinian consensus? So the Palestinian consensus is not for a two-state solution, right now, now that could change, but I'm just saying right now.