Friday Focus with Yossi Klein Halevi: Worse than Disengagement is a one-state ‘dissolution’

Welcome to The Times of Israel’s newest podcast series, Friday Focus. Each Friday, join host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan for a deep dive into what’s behind the news that spins the globe.

This Friday, we present a fourth and final installment of our August miniseries centering on the 2005 Disengagement from Gaza. We launched the series with a zoom-out conversation with public intellectual Dr. Micah Goodman, followed by a personal account of life in Gush Katif by former Nezer Hazani resident Anita Tucker and last week, we heard from Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, who shared the perspective of Palestinians within the Gaza Strip and the ripple effect felt after the Disengagement.

This week, we speak with author and thinker Yossi Klein Halevi from his Jerusalem home.

The Shalom Hartman Institute senior fellow begins by explaining why he and so many other Israelis supported Disengagement. He describes how the promises of security from the right and peace from the left failed, and why so many Israelis were eager to try the “centrist” approach of unilateralism.

Klein Halevi describes the zeitgeist of the time and compares it with the renewed global interest in a Palestinian state — despite the Hamas massacre of 1,200 people in Israel on October 7, 2023, and the terror group’s continued holding of 20 living and 30 dead hostages.

In the context of the ongoing war, when asked whether the two-state solution is dead, Klein Halevi’s answer may surprise.

Friday Focus can be found on all podcast platforms. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

Check out last week’s Friday Focus: