Funding for charlie rose is provided by the following. Theres a saying around here you stand behind what you say. Around here, we dont make excuses, we make commitments. And when you cant live up to them, you own up and make it right. Some people think the kind of accountability that thrives on so many streets in this country has gone missing in the places where its needed most. But i know youll still find it, when you know where to look. And by bloomberg. A provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. I am kurt andersen, filling in for charlie rose, who is on assignment. We begin the program with a look at the ongoing unrest in the middle east, with Jeffrey Goldberg. He is a national correspond democratic for the atlantic and a columnist for bloomberg review. He joins me from washington, d. C. , jeffrey, welcome. Thank you. Andersen so if we can go back to what started this latest unraveling of things in israel and the west bank, so some palestinian thugs kidnap and murder the three young israelis on their way back from the west bank then apparently Israeli Jewish thugs kidnap and murder or livecally this Young Palestinian in jerusalem in retaliation. As terrible, horrific, inexcusable, dreadful as these two murders, four murders are, is this the thing that is going to start a war between israel and gaza now . Well, i mean, things have been slipping out of control for a little while, especially since the kidnapping of the three teenagers, the three israeli teenagers. I am not so sure that this isnt going to wrap up in a couple of days time. I mean anything is possible and these things have a way of sort of slipping out of control as you know from the previous 39 hamas, israel wars over the past several years. Yes. But on the other hand, both of these parties didnt seem to want to slip toward this, and hamas in particular is in a pretty bad spot. You know, they lost they lost their support in egypt when morsi was overthrown, hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood branch in gaza. And the new government of egypt under a scituate is very antihamas which means hamas will have a difficult time resupplying itself so when you are a terrorist organization and your stock and trade is rockets you dont want to fire too many of those. If you cant get resupplied. Of course we dont know exactly how many they have in gaza, but they are in a tough position. They are pretty friendless in the region. So i wouldnt be surprised if both parties find a way to sort of bring this to a close. On the other hand, you have in gaza right now a very unusual situation where has, hamas is, and this is all relative, hamas smore moderate party compared to Islamic Jihad which is also firing rockets and there are of course some al qaeda outfits in gaza right now. And they might also be involved. So hamas is also at the same time it wants to get out of this spiral with israel and understands it has certain credibility explanations it has to meet with its own supporters so it has to be industry rouse in bombing israel so it could be in either direction in the next couple of days. Andersen and a few days ago, certainly last week, both sides, hamas controlling gaza and israel were talkings deescalation we dont want this to escalate. Right. And trying to keep seemingly a lid on it on both sides. That has not happened, at least there has been some escalation, whether it is going to spin out of control, we will see, but hamas has admitted in this case as they have said in the past they have not been responsible for rockets in this case they said, no, no, we have shot some dozen of rockets at israel. Yes, yes. They seem to have better rockets. The rockets are reaching apparently, all of this is very confusing because it is happening as we speak, but the rockets are reaching the tel aviv area which is obviously the center of israel, sirens are going off even in jerusalem which is the capital and it is pretty far from gaza, so, yeah, hamas seems to be engaged. The thing about all middle east conflicts, maybe all conflicts in general is that, you know, once it goes kinetic, to borrow this sort of pentagon shorthand, once it goes live and people are firing at each other all plans go out the window and so we dont know which way this is going to government i will say this for the israeli side, you know, the good thing or lets put it this way the bad thing about benjamin netanyahu, the Prime Minister is he doesnt do anything. The good thing is also he doesnt do anything. And so the back side of that obviously we saw the Peace Process collapse perhaps in large part, at least as the american view because he wouldnt make the moves necessary to get this process going forward. The other truth of netanyahu is he is very reluctant to go to war. His predecessor, a much more liberal Prime Minister, launched two pretty serious, severe wars against hezbollah and hamas, the netanyahu years, it has been several years now have been noticeably quiet, so he is very, very reluctant to sort of widen the aperture here and sort of go all out against hamas. He is, of course, under pressure from his right, from lets say more militant parties in his coalition to go and give hamas the same old middle east rhetoric and give them the deathblow, strike hard but so far he seems to be resisting that, only pretty minor callup of troops so far and there is not much of a look he wants to go down this road. Andersen right. So you have got, not that they are necessarily strategically or morally equivalent but you have in interesting mirror image where hamas controlling gaza has Islamic Jihad and the people to the right, the more militant side. Figure that out, yeah, more militant. Andersen and these forces that they dont control or dont entirely control or cant keep a lid on over there, but they have got to do some things to say, hey, no, we are militant too, and then you have got netanyahu, again, a guy from the right who has this coalition with forces to his right. Right. Who he has to show he is tough and hardline, but so are they in an equivalent position of having to sabre rattler and sable rattle and bluster and shoot some rockets and move some brigades in . Are they in kind of a equivalent position of neither of us really want this to be a war but we have to show our hardline right that we are prepared to be tough . Yeah. I think you are on to something there. In the sense, i mean maybe this is a universal observation but everyone has politics, even terrorist groups have politics. Hamas is, you know, the titular leadership of gaza and they have constituencies and a base and have people to the right and left and they have got to please people in the same way that israeli politicians or any politician around the world has to please certain constituencies. So yes, they are not fully in control of the agenda and i think certainly on the israeli side, you know, you see people to the right calling for, you know, sort of total war in the belief that there is a military solution, a Permanent Military solution to the problem of hamas rocket. Rockets. I mean the interesting thing on the israeli side, though, is the mood from what i understand, and i havent been there in a little bit but in the last few days the mood has sort of shifted toward a kind of there is a soul searching moment going on because of the murder, the revenge murder of this Palestinian Youth by a gang of apparently you think of as racist hooligans of some sort, it was a despicable murder. It was ostensibly in the reaction to three israelis but these things have their own impetus and own energy and there is a good degree of shock it seems that jewish kids or jewish youth from jerusalem would kidnap a palestinian kid and torture him and burn him alive i think is what happened. Soso that is politically that is forced the Prime Minister to come out to his credit, this is absolutely despicable horrible thing, terrorism is terrorism no matter who is the target so they are busy working that problem, you know, the government is busy working that problem so it is kind of militant language about hamas has been a little bit mooted by this kind of crisis of conscience if you will. Andersen because at least arguably some of the militant hardline language that came after the murder of the three israeli teenagers maybe whipped up the feelings such that these young people decided, okay, we are going to go kill one of these right. Andersen now, how much the fact that the palestinian kid who was murdered apparently burned alive was in East Jerusalem, in essentially in israel. Yeah. That changes the calculus, right, in terms of the soul searching that jewish israelis feel, the anger that 20 odd percent of israel who are arab feel, right . This is a different thing . Well, yes and no. I think it is such a horrifying crime i mean, look, to the credit of the Palestinian Authority and Mahmoud Abbas the president when i said earlier these kids werent settlers it is true they lived in communities inside israel but studying in yashiba on the west bank and part of the National Religious community that is the sort of the base of the Settlement Movement and for the Palestinian Authority credit and the president in particular they condemned it, they condemned the kidnapping and then the murder in absolute terms, so i dont necessarily think that israelis are more shocked or Arab Israelis are more shocked this is an East Jerusalem kid there is another wrinkle he had dual american citizenship, and so that brought the u. S. In in a bigger way and probably more attention to the issue. I think that the crime was so shocking, just the kidnapping of the three kids in the at the bus stop was so shocking that precisely where it happened doesnt have as much sal yentl, yes, true it is in jerusalem and easier to relate to that and people know where this happened, it is not some remote corner of the west bank but i think it is just generally shocking and the fact there is this weird symmetry of teenagers dying and teenagers going to the streets and doing all sorts of militant things. I think that has a lot of adults feeling like the situation is spinning out of control. Andersen and does it, since there have been protests in arab communities now around israel that are not common or usual in this way as i understand it, that that yes. Andersen is that a short term horror being expressed and tempers flaring or is this is the calculus changed somehow in an on going way . What happened in the second uprising as well, we are talking about arab citizens of israel going to the streets and blocking streets, throwing rocks maybe, one of the things different about those situations is those are israeli situations and you dont have the military involved, that is police versus demonstrators so far they have been relative maybe because i covered some real bad ones over there, these dont seem as dramatic and most of the communities are protesting in other ways, if they are protesting at all, but again this is an acute challenge to the Political Leadership of the country. I mean it is quite one thing to say on the west bank which is under military control the army going in and suppressing demonstrations or riots, the israeli public it is one thing, when you have citizens of the state who are of arab extraction, arab background doing that, it undermines the publics confidence in the governments ability to handle complicated and stressful situations and so that there is a political aspect to this as well. Andersen and in terms of political aspect, i see that the one of the members of significant member of netanyahus coalition, his foreign minister, lieberman, has left the coalition. Yes. As a result of he has gotten a political divorce if you will from netanyahu, yes. As a result of netanyahu not being tough enough i guess with gaza and hamas. Yes. Andersen is he going to come back if this blows over, as you are suggesting it will or is that a new important change in what in the regime, in the Israeli Government . Well, everyone knows in israeli politics leiderman has designs on the Prime Ministers chair. He is a credible candidate for the Prime Ministers job, if netanyahu sinks further in the polls, so a lot of this is opportunistic, sea pretty clever politician and also, he has been playing a strange role, in one hand he is asking for more severe attacks on hamas, on the other hand, he has been in the last months been lets say kinder about or more understanding about the Peace Process than netanyahu at times and made all of these very sympathetic noises in the direction of president obama who of course is in, you know, a tense relationship with netanyahu, so he has been playing all he has been doing all sort of weird moves or clever moves. That are not consistent or coherent, necessarily . Yes, well it wouldnt be the first time in israeli politics or other politics but they kind of have one through line which is that it is wherever netanyahu goes, lieberman seems to be moving in another direction, so i just tend to think that he sees he seize some opportunity down the road to try to get the number one job and as we know Israel Netanyahu dominated politics for a long time now but for various reasons he seems vulnerable and, you know, he has maintained the quiet and maintained the status quo for some time, but this week is obviously a challenge to the idea that the status quo can be maintained prefer or ad infinitum. Speaking of president obama he published in the last day an article that he has written apparently in the israeli newspaper harrad. Well, it was written for him i think is safer to say. As president s do. Often, yes. And it is a piece that says, restating what is said by american president s forever, we love you, we are at your back and giving you all of this money, this help, this intelligence and military coordination. But we of course twostate solution is the only hope ultimately, he says in this article that he signed. What is the point of that . I mean, why go there and essentially not give a speech but go the next best thing, i guess . Why yes. What is he angling for there . Oh, no, it is interesting it might be fairly limited in its ambition, this op ed he wrote for harrad, it is one of israels smaller newspapers but it is known to be its most left wing newspaper and it has a broad readership overseas because it was an earlier internet english edition i think there is a very specific purpose which is president obama whose sympathies obviously lie with what you would call the Israeli Center left and left to signal them i am not abandoning your cause sway twostate solution and pushing netanyahu toward a twostate solution. I am not abandoning you and paying attention, we appreciate the fact that you, you know, the center left block in israel, i appreciate in other words, president obama speaking and appreciate you havent demonized me as antiisrael and here are my bona fides and repeating these things to know how pro israel i am. The joke of this it was probably the most pro israel piece in harra since it was published overnight because it really reflects mainstream bipartisan american thinking about israel. It doesnt break much new ground. I think it was just kind of dash just a kind of signal to the i e Israeli Center left that i am with you emotionally and spiritually and have not given uup, even though the peace structure totally collapsed and appears i have given up i have not given up on this process. Speaking of the Peace Process which the United States and secretary of state kerry invested lots of time and energy and capital and wishfulness to the last year which has collapsed, you interviewed i guess, did the first interview with the point man on that, martin yes, sir nick, our negotiator on that, talk about his take in that interview on why he believed it just couldnt get done this time . Right. There are two contradictory streams of thought coming out of the administration which have been coming out for some time, the last couple of month, one is the more calibrated it is everyones fault line and there is good evidence to show that it is the palestinians fault as much as the israelis fault, but, you know, when you listen and martin endick in the interview we did the other day, martin endick was very careful to say, you know, look, i think blame is shared equally, not with america, by the way and this is his argument and the administrations argument, their argument is essentially we wanted to do this more than either party and so they are sort of blaming both parties for that. But what you hear when you actually going a little deeper is a broad feeling in the administration that israel has the more powerful of the two entities negotiating had more to give and particularly on the settlement issue of signallinging to the palestinians yes, we know the west bank will be your state so we will stop settling it, doing all sorts of things over the past month that signal to the palestinians or at least gave them an excuse to pull out of the negotiation. By saying we are going to going to start these processes showing we are going to expand settlements . Right. This is really complicate because a lot of the problem starts with administration mistake from four years ago when the administration demanded a complete settlement freeze there are a lot of kind of settlements i dont i dont want to go down this load because it is complicate but it is one thing to talk about settlements deep in the heart of the west bank and another thing of settlements that are bordering suburban tel aviv or suburban jerusalem but the american position is if you guys meaning the israelis really wanted to do this and really wanted to be helpful you would not be so provocative in putting out tenders or settlements and actually building settlements, the average palestinians look at the settlement, i am not talking about radical palestinians, hamas, the average palestinians sees the d