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Fareed Zakaria GPS

Trump Returns from China Without Big Breakthroughs; U.S. Inflation Rose in April; American Public Opinion Shifted on Israel. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired May 17, 2026 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:00:54]

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN ANCHOR: This is GPS, the GLOBAL PUBLIC SQUARE. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria, coming to you live from New York.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Today on the program, Donald Trump goes to China. He was greeted and feted, and taken to a place rarely visited by outsiders. But what was accomplished? I'll give you my take and then get two very different perspectives.

Plus, we'll take a detailed look at what war and inflation have done to the American economy. Jason Furman, former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, will describe the challenge for the new Fed chairman.

Also, Israel has achieved resounding military success in recent years, but it is losing the war of public opinion according to recent polls in America. I'll explore with the Israeli-American scholar, Omer Bartov.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: But first, here's "My Take."

Regular viewers know that I have not been a fan of Donald Trump's foreign policy in his second term. From threatening to seize Greenland and annex Canada, unilaterally raising tariffs sky high, to the fiasco of the Iraq war, Trump has been reckless, chaotic and deeply destabilizing. But he might well turn out to have the right instincts and perhaps even the right policy in one crucial arena -- the U.S.- China relationship.

In Trump's recent interactions with Xi Jinping, we saw a version of him rarely on display. He was respectful, almost deferential, eager to emphasize their personal rapport. Xi, by contrast, remained formal, disciplined and never especially warm. The asymmetry was revealing.

Donald Trump is obsessed with power. More than ideology or values, of course, he thinks in terms of leverage and dominance. He insults European allies because he understands how dependent they remain on American military protection and access to U.S. markets. Trump senses weakness and exploits it.

But with China, he has come to understand something that much of Washington still struggles to accept emotionally. Beijing has enormous strength of its own, economic, technological, industrial, even military, and can wield it effectively. So Trump has evolved from belligerence toward a more complicated mix of rivalry and cooperation. That may be what this relationship requires.

Contrast Trump's visit with the first meeting of Biden officials with their Chinese counterparts in Anchorage in 2021. The Americans launched into a televised public scolding of China over human rights, cyberattacks and the international order. China's diplomats responded angrily in kind. It was less a serious diplomatic exchange than a cable news shouting match.

Many centrist Democrats live in fear of being portrayed as soft on China, so they often overcompensate rhetorically, adopting maximalist language and escalating symbolic confrontations. After showing skepticism toward Trump's China tariffs during the campaign, Joe Biden kept nearly all of them in place. Biden never visited China as president, nor did he invite Xi Jinping to Washington.

The Biden team endorsed the claim leveled by the first Trump administration that China's actions in Xinjiang constituted genocide, a term that evokes industrial scale extermination campaigns like the Holocaust or Rwanda. China's prison and reeducation camps in Xinjiang are brutal and horrific, and dozens of scholars have called its actions against the Uighurs a genocide. But, as "The Economist" noted, it is not what most people think of when conjuring up the word genocide.

Trump's superpower is that he cannot be attacked from the right.

[10:05:02]

He came to power after the 2016 election, railing against Beijing, blaming it for lost manufacturing jobs, trade imbalances and America's industrial decline. In a sense, the analogy is not Nixon going to China, but rather Ronald Reagan, the uber-hawk to the right of Nixon, going to the Soviet Union.

Trump may be capable of a similar pivot precisely because his base will follow wherever he leads. One need to only look at how quickly many MAGA figures reverse themselves on intervention in Iran once Trump signals support for military action.

Why would a more cooperative approach toward China make sense? Because the truth is that China is not the Soviet Union. The Soviet economy was smaller than Italy's by the end of the Cold War by one U.N. measure. China, by contrast, is the world's second largest economy, the leading trading partner for more than 120 countries, and a technological powerhouse in fields ranging from electric vehicles and batteries to drones, advanced manufacturing and even artificial intelligence.

It produces more manufacturing output than the United States, Japan and Germany put together. Trying to launch a full-scale cold war against such a country would not resemble the struggle against Moscow, when the world was already divided. It would mean tearing apart the global economy itself. American consumers would face higher prices and supply shocks. U.S. companies would lose access to one of the world's largest markets. Universities would lose many top students. The danger would not simply be economic pain. It would be the creation of two hostile technological and geopolitical blocs spiraling toward increasing confrontation.

Of course, the U.S. and China are rivals. That is unavoidable in a bipolar world. They will compete economically, militarily and strategically for decades to come. But rivalry need not mean total rupture. In the weeks before he died, Henry Kissinger noted to me that leaders of both countries should keep in mind how in 1914 nationalist competition pursued with no concerns about its consequences, led to a world war that upended the entire global order.

In an age of A.I., cyber warfare, and nuclear weapons, maintaining channels of dialogue and cooperation is more important than ever. The two countries should compete fiercely while still trading, talking and collaborating where possible on nuclear stability, A.I. safety, pandemics and financial crises. During the Cold War, Washington and Moscow maintained arms control talks even at moments of intense hostility because both sides understood that unmanaged rivalry could end in catastrophe.

That remains true today. And if Donald Trump, for reasons rooted less in philosophy than instinct, has come to recognize this basic reality than on this issue at least his pragmatism makes sense.

Go to FareedZakaria.com for a link to my "Washington Post" column this week, and next on GPS, I'll talk more about the summit with two experts who have had very different views on the U.S.-China relationship. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:12:56]

ZAKARIA: Donald Trump left China this week full of apparent good feelings towards Chinese leader Xi Jinping but without many concrete details on a number of issues like trade, tech and Taiwan.

Joining me now to discuss the summit are Matthew Pottinger, the former U.S. deputy national security adviser and the point man on China in Donald Trump's first term, and Jessica Chen Weiss, professor of China Studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Jessica, let me begin with you and ask you, what was notable to you about this summit? What did you see that was for you striking?

JESSICA CHEN WEISS, PROFESSOR OF CHINA STUDIES, JOHNS HOPKINS SCHOOL OF ADVANCED INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: Well, I think contra expectations that, you know, Xi Jinping was going to eat Trump's lunch. I actually think that the summit showed that what China really wants is stability, not to bury the United States or race for hegemony. And that, in fact, the priority that Xi Jinping and his CCP leadership place on a stable external environment to continue to buy time for their own development amidst, you know, domestic economic challenges is, for me, the biggest takeaway that we should all be keeping in mind.

ZAKARIA: Matt, you wrote an article in "The Financial Times." I think it was saying, beware of the gifts that Xi Jinping might bestow on Trump as kind of Trojan horses. A deal on chips, a peace gesture on Taiwan, investment in U.S. manufacturing. He didn't do any of those. Why do you think and what do you -- what did you -- what's your read on the summit?

MATT POTTINGER, FORMER U.S. DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Yes. Look, Fareed, you said at the top that the Nixon moment in China is the wrong analogy. And I think you're right about that. But what I think the correct analogy is, is Nixon's policy towards the Soviet Union. That was the detente policy that -- was, you know, understandable at the time why we pursued detente vis a vis the Soviet Union.

We were stuck in a war that we were losing in Vietnam. President Nixon wanted to go into talks on strategic arms limitation with the Soviets.

[10:15:01]

So he went towards a more accommodating sort of posture towards the Soviets. And I think this was a -- this was really a detente policy, in both directions from Beijing and from President Trump towards Beijing. The challenge, the challenge is to not let that policy become a parody of itself over time, which is what happened to the detente policy of the 1970s. The Soviet Union used that time to basically run buck wild around the world.

They were launching insurgencies in the Horn of Africa and Angola and across Latin America, and even trying to start a revolution in Portugal, you know. And so by the time the end of the '70s came around, the Carter administration, Brzezinski, saw the Soviets invade Afghanistan. He said that was the final nail in the coffin of detente. So detente became a parody of itself. And that's what we have to guard against this time.

ZAKARIA: Jessica, what do you make of that argument that, you know, the Chinese are, as you put it, biding their time, building their strength, but they are continuing to build, you know, military facilities in the South China Seas. They are continuing to increase the number of overflights to Taiwan and demand unification there. They are continuing to steal American intellectual property.

In other words, there is a kind of underneath the detente, there is a -- there is a Chinese policy that is fairly aggressive.

WEISS: I think it's quite clear that what China wants is to protect their sovereignty, to preserve the security of the Chinese Communist Party leadership with Xi Jinping at the helm, and to continue to develop into the sort of modern country that they have wanted. But I think the biggest threat here to detente is not that we actually get there, but that we fail to because of Trump's kind of volatile, tendency to flip flop, right?

I mean, for example, at the -- after the summit, he said he welcomed Chinese investment and up to 500,000 Chinese students. But his policies and the Republican Party's policies have been anything but welcoming. Trump has, you know, prioritized business deals over the kinds of economic gains that would make Americans lives more affordable.

And then, you know, on Taiwan, he's been highly erratic. And I think that the essence of preserving peace and stability is, you know, calm and credible assurances, as well as threats. And he's, you know, not been calm or credible, I think, on either score. In fact, he shouldn't be telling reporters that U.S. arms to Taiwan are a bargaining chip for economic or trade concessions. So I have a lot of questions about this.

And I think that we do need a growing effort to avoid war with China. But whether he can get us there, count me skeptical. And so before we sort of dismiss detente, I think we need to give it a fair shot.

ZAKARIA: Matt, give me your sense of Taiwan, because you have briefed Trump many times on the issue. What I'm struck when I listen to him, and you saw that in that interview that Jessica was mentioning, he -- you can tell he doesn't really think that this is a vital strategic interest for the United States. He said, look, it's 59 miles away for them. It's tens of thousands of miles away for us. And then he disparaged them, saying, you know, they've stolen our chip industry. That doesn't sound like a president who is going to come to Taiwan's aid, don't you think?

POTTINGER: Well, look, I think President Trump, from my briefings of him in the first administration, certainly I think he understood that it is a vital interest to the United States. If Taiwan were coercively annexed by the Chinese Communist Party, you could kiss goodbye most of President Trump's agenda, including allowing the United States to win the race in A.I. and more than that, just to remain a technological superpower.

So what he's doing is trying to bring more of the chip manufacturing to the United States. That's a very wise policy, but it's going to take a lot longer than I think many people in the administration realize. So in the meantime, he's trying not to provoke. But so long as he continues to provide armaments for Taiwan's defense, continues to help Taiwan provide for itself I think that we can maintain deterrence. And that's' the name of the game here.

ZAKARIA: Matt, what would you do about those arms sales? Would you hold them up as he has and try to get the Chinese to give something in return for kind of canceling them? Or would you --

POTTINGER: No.

ZAKARIA: Would you just make them go ahead?

POTTINGER: No -- I don't think, I know he used that phrase, but if you look at the policies he pursued in his first term and so far in this term I think he's followed through on providing armaments. It would be a big mistake not to provide those armaments. Beijing would pocket that, and it would actually, undermine the whole concept of peace through strength, which applies to Taiwan just as much as it applies to the United States.

[10:20:09]

They've got to be able to provide for their defense. And we are the lifeline for that since so many other countries are timid and unwilling to sell armaments to Taiwan. It's really important for Taiwan to spend more on its own defense as well, and to build up its own defense industrial base. Taiwan should be like, you know, the dominant producer of drones. They've got all the expertise, they've got all of the technological supply chains right there in their home, but it's -- they need to spend more to actually build that out.

ZAKARIA: Jessica, what do you make of the claim that Xi Jinping wants to annex Taiwan by 2027? And my sense is that's a kind of misreading of what he said. He said he wanted the military modernized by 2027. And we can see by the chaos in the People's Liberation Army what he was talking about. But it wasn't a specific directive to be ready to take over Taiwan, or am I misreading it?

WEISS: Well, I very much agree. I don't think that he has set a deadline to take the island. And in fact, many estimates suggest that the wholesale purge of the top military brass has set China's capabilities back by maybe even a decade. And so this is not a conflict that I think either the United States or China are racing towards. And in fact, I think one of the hard truths that we need to face up to, both sides need to face up to, is that there is no military solution to this kind of political impasse, and that more sustained and creative diplomacy is the only way forward to preserve, as the Chinese said, the shared interest in peace and stability, you know, across the Taiwan Strait.

But while I think we often focus on the military dimension, I think it's really important that the stable -- the stabilization of U.S.- China economic ties is actually a critical component to China's belief that it can wait on the Taiwan issue, that, in fact, that kind of belief that time is on China's side, that China will become more developed, and over time, the situation will resolve itself is actually critical to deterrence.

And so one of the reasons why, you know, despite my, you know, critiques of how Trump has gone about this, I think it is really important that we find a more stable floor for a kind of mutually beneficial economic trade and investment ties between the United States and China.

ZAKARIA: Matt, I've got 30 seconds, but I do want to hear you on. You know, basically how disappointed are you? Was this, as Jessica says, we created a new stable relationship or have we been lulled into complacency and the Chinese will take advantage?

POTTINGER: No, look -- like I said, it's a detente policy. President Trump has got a lot going on right now with Venezuela, potentially Cuba, a war in Iran. So it makes sense that he would sequence his strategy. The traps that he's got to avoid are allowing Chinese investment in the United States. By the way, France just released a report called the "Chinese Steamroller," showing that Chinese foreign direct investment into Europe has destroyed jobs, not creating them.

These aren't -- this isn't Japan, OK? This is a predatory system. So he's got to avoid that trap. He's got to also avoid giving China a leg up on A.I. If he does those things, we're going to be just fine.

ZAKARIA: Matt --

WEISS: Sorry, I got to disagree with that, though. You know, I think that --

(CROSSTALK)

ZAKARIA: Go ahead quickly.

WEISS: You know, we got to train with not just against Chinese companies who are in many cases, you know, out in front of the United States on, you know, EVs, robotics, et cetera. So just keeping them out isn't the solution to getting ahead.

ZAKARIA: All right. We will have to have this conversation again. But I very much want to. Both of you just terrific. Thank you for your perspectives.

Next up on GPS, inflation is spiking in the U.S. How much of this is due to Iran and what will happen? Jason Furman up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:28:31]

ZAKARIA: According to the Consumer Price Index data, U.S. inflation rose to 3.8 percent in April. That's the highest rate of inflation in almost three years, in part due to the Iran war. Americans are feeling the economic pain. Meanwhile, the stock market has kept going up. What should we make of all this?

Joining me now is Jason Furman. He's a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School and the former chair of the Council on Economic Advisers under President Obama.

Jason, thanks for coming. So first explain to us, how significant is the rise in inflation? And let's take the, you know, a kind of a best- case scenario, which is the Iran war is resolved in say, let's say, six weeks. Does it persist or does it rapidly come down?

JASON FURMAN, FORMER CHAIRMAN, U.S. COUNCIL ON ECONOMIC ADVISERS: Yes. So, Fareed, you have to understand, there's two big things going on in the economy right now. One of them is the Iran war. The second is the enormous demand from the A.I. build out. Both of those are adding to inflation. One of them is helping the economy. One of them is hurting the economy. So they're canceling out to a draw when it comes to something like the unemployment rate. When you're thinking about inflation going forward, I think the Iran

war part of it could probably be transitory. But I say probably because it depends on the degree to which it gets built into people's expectations.

[10:30:01]

The A.I. build out and the extra demand from that actually might have more of a permanent component to it.

ZAKARIA: So when you look at the microdata in the U.S. economy, earnings, and not just of A.I. companies, but earnings in general, fairly strong, the stock market keeps going up, unemployment rates still very, very low. I guess it's not -- I'm going to mix some of data points seem to be very positive. And then you look at inflation, you look at consumer sentiment, it's very bad.

You know, what is the picture of the economy? I saw somebody say the U.S. economy is weak in every way except that it is one massive bet on artificial intelligence, which is keeping it going.

FURMAN: Yes, I think that's about right. A really disproportionate share of our economic growth over the last year has come from that one sector, from building data centers, from building the power that they need. And you can look at different parts of financial markets and they tell you about different parts of the economy. So the stock market tells you what you expect corporate earnings to be, but it also tells you about risk inflation.

And it's all bundled together. And on balance the higher expected earnings are dominating everything else. That's why it's done well. But then look over at the bond market. That doesn't care about corporate earnings. All it really cares about is risk, expected inflation, those types of things. It's a really pure measure of that. And interest rates are incredibly high. They rose a lot over the last week. The 30-year is the highest in nearly two decades.

And you're going to start to see that, by the way, in mortgage rates. So it's going to be really concrete and tangible for American families.

ZAKARIA: So in the 1970s, we had a Middle East war. We had energy prices go up by a lot more. Energy prices tripled after the oil crisis. And we had a president, Richard Nixon, who bullied the Fed chairman to lower interest rates. And that time the Fed chairman, Arthur Burns, agreed to be bullied. And the result was we got a combination of slow growth and high inflation, which people call stagflation.

What's the danger of something like that happening this time around?

FURMAN: Look, I think it's a danger. It's one I'm going to be watching closely and certainly commenting on and warning if I see it materialize. But right now I'm cautiously optimistic. The incoming chair, Kevin Warsh. I didn't love everything he said to get the job, but he's a serious person. He's going to care about his standing in history. I don't think he's going to want to badly mess things up.

And the other thing to understand is interest rates are set by a committee of 12 people. It's a majority vote. The chair is one out of 12 votes. And right now the committee is thinking in a very independent way. The last meeting, four different members dissented. And so I don't think the chair can walk in there and say, you know, here's what Donald Trump wants. Here's what we're going to do.

He's going to have to have analytically persuasive arguments or the committee is just going to say, you know, no, we're going to vote on something else. So I think there are some real checks and balances there. I feel OK about it, but I don't feel 100 percent. So I'll be watching carefully.

ZAKARIA: Quickly, we don't have a lot of time, but Kevin Warsh has strike me most of his life as an inflation hawk. When you were in the White House, he was assailing you guys. He was saying there was too much quantitative easing. The Fed was being essentially too dovish. It feels like he's somehow convinced Trump, he's dovish on inflation.

Do you share my view that -- you know, underneath there's a -- there's somebody who's generally speaking, wanted rates higher for the last 20 years.

FURMAN: Yes. I think that's right. And look, Donald Trump I think was nervous about this. He probably would have named him a year ago if he thought he would do his bidding. But, you know, I think what he was going through his head is this is a credible person. Financial markets respect him. But I'm nervous that he's too independent, that he's not going to do what I want. And that's why he dithered, tried other options, thought about other things, and eventually came back to Kevin Warsh.

So I don't think he was exactly what Donald Trump wants. I think it's possible he'll be closer to something that the rest of us want, but again, we'll have to wait and see. And you know, the other thing about Kevin Warsh is he's been a real critic of the Fed. He's never said exactly what he's going to do differently. And so trying to understand what his affirmative vision is and how he fleshes that out is still a little bit unclear.

And I'll be watching all of that as we go forward.

[10:35:01]

ZAKARIA: Jason Furman, thank you. That was so helpful.

Next on GPS, Israel is one of America's strongest allies. But according to recent polls, it is rapidly losing support among the American public. I will explore this with the Israeli-American historian, Omer Bartov, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: American public perceptions of Israel seem to be shifting sharply. In 2022, before the October 7th attacks and the war that ensued, 42 percent of American adults held an unfavorable view of Israel. Today, just four years later, that number is up to 60 percent, according to recent Pew Research polls.

[10:40:07]

And for Americans under the age of 50, that number is even higher. 70 percent of that population held an unfavorable view of Israel in 2026, up from around 50 percent, same group in 2022.

Joining me now is the Israeli-American historian Omer Bartov. He is the dean's professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University. He has a new book out, "Israel: What Went Wrong?"

Welcome.

OMER BARTOV, PROFESSOR OF HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES, BROWN UNIVERSITY: Thank you for having me.

ZAKARIA: So what I want to first focus on is the answer to your question because for you both personally and professionally in the book, you think that Israel took a wrong turn on two dimensions, one of them is a historical one. Explain what it is. You know, what did go wrong?

BARTOV: Right. So what interests me most is how Zionism, which was an ideology of liberation and emancipation for a Jewish minority, 80 percent were Jewry who lived in East Central Europe and came under increasing pressure from nationalism, ethnonationalism and eventually antisemitism and violence, a movement that said, well, let's define the Jewish people as well as a nation, and find a place for them where there would be a majority and have a state of their own.

How that movement, especially after 1948, becomes something else, becomes a state ideology that increasingly becomes militaristic, expansionist, violent, and in the last few years, racist, Jewish supremacist and in -- in Gaza also genocidal. How did that happen? And I try to -- there are many answers to this, but I would say that the most important moment is what happens in 1948 itself, with the establishment of the state when Zionism changes from being -- having these two faces. One of liberation from oppression and the other becoming a state ideology of occupation and oppression of others.

ZAKARIA: So a lot of people will push back and say that in a sense, you do have it right. But what you want is the Jews to be permanent victims. That -- when you look at Jews with power, with a huge army, with a successful country that is, you know, outperforming others, that you're deeply uncomfortable with that, that there is a certain strain of the Israeli left that just doesn't like a very powerful Israel.

BARTOV: You know, I think, I mean, one could make that argument. That's not the way I look at it. What is so interesting in the case of Israel is that the more powerful it became, especially after the war of 1973, Israel became the hegemon in its region, became the most powerful country in the region, not least because of American support as well. And it's during that period that the Holocaust that Israel was seen as the answer to after 1948 becomes not only something that you need to remember and commemorate and study and research, but also an imminent danger that the country develops a self-perception of a society, a state that is under imminent danger.

And that creates in Israel a sense that any danger to any threat, and most of the threats are coming from the people that it occupies, may lead to its destruction. And because of that, it begins giving it infinite license to respond with any kind of violence that it sees appropriate.

ZAKARIA: You also say that, you know, the Holocaust is one part of it and then the occupation has changed Israel. Explain what you mean.

BARTOV: One has to remember that since 1967, when I was 13 years old, to now when I'm 72, Israel has been an occupying power. Half of the population under Israeli control and Israel is basically one state, from the river to the sea, people living there under different regimes. Half of the population, nowadays seven million Jews, rule over seven million Palestinians. That process of ruling over people for so long, in such great proximity, has done something that when I was a teenager and protesting against a very young occupation, we used to say occupation corrupts.

[10:45:05]

We didn't quite know how much it was corrupt and how long it would last. It corrupts society. You dehumanize the people you occupy. You have to because why are you occupying them? Why are you bossing over them? And that dehumanization of those who are ruling over begins a process of dehumanizing you as a society.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, Omer Bartov, critics say, that he doesn't really consider the perspective of many Israelis. The Israeli narrative, if you will. I'll put that to him and see how he responds to it, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:50:08]

ZAKARIA: And we are back with Israeli-American historian Omer Bartov. He is the dean's professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown, and has a new book out, "Israel: What Went Wrong?"

What I would wonder is, you know, when I talk to -- about you and your work to Jewish friends of mine, they will often say, he doesn't really take into account the Israeli narrative of what happened, what's happened. The Israeli narrative, I would say, is that, yes, the occupation has been very difficult, but Israel has repeatedly tried to negotiate for some end to the occupation, that the places that they are fighting in are places from which emanate attacks all the time.

So there are rockets being fired at them from Lebanon. There were rockets being fired at them from Gaza. There was October 7th, that this is all, you know, that this is a society under a certain amount of siege, surrounded by countries that want to kill it. And yes, maybe it, you know, it's being very tough, but it's being very tough in a tough neighborhood. And again, you're more comfortable with Israel as the pitiful victim, not as the tough guy who's doing what the strong often do.

BARTOV: Let's start with the neighborhood. Israel's neighborhood has wanted to have peace with it for a long time. Israel has peace with Egypt. It has peace with Jordan. Saudi Arabia proposed peace with Israel 20 years ago. So it isn't that Israel is actually in a neighborhood that wants to destroy it. It's in a neighborhood that wants to work with it, not for love of the Jews, but because Israel is a strong country and has a very, very strong ally that all those other Sunni Arab countries would like to work with.

So that's one myth that is propagated by many Israel defenders. As for the relationship with Palestinians, the last serious attempt to bring about a settlement with the Palestinians was under Itzhak Rabin. It was partial. These are the Oslo accords of the early 1990s. It was partial. Israel never agreed to go back to the issue of 1948. It said, we'll begin in 1967. We have to resolve the issue of the occupation.

Rabin understood that the occupation was corrupting Israeli society, and he accepted that. What was on offer was partial, was not the best solution, but at least there was negotiation.

ZAKARIA: There were two other prime ministers who have offered.

BARTOV: Yes. Yes. What Ehud Barak tried to do was to say to the Palestinians, here is what you can have. Take it or leave it. Again he would not talk about the core issue that is at the, I'd say, at the basis of Israeli-Palestinian relations. We have to remember, during the war of 1948, most of the Palestinians living in what became the state of Israel, 750,000 were kicked out, were expelled, often very violently.

There were many cases of massacres. Far more documented now than were in the past. That is at the core issue. How does Israel come to terms with the way that it was created in a way that would make it possible for Jews and Palestinians who are equal numbers living between the river and the sea to share that space?

ZAKARIA: Let me ask you about the rise of antisemitism in -- particularly in the West. It does feel like, I mean, it's one thing to protest the Israeli government, but then why are you going to a synagogue? The attacks on synagogues, on community centers are often seem to --

BARTOV: They -- I would never defend any of those attacks on Jews. There have been attacks on Jews sometimes by antisemitic white supremacist and sometimes by people who trace themselves to Arab or Palestinian or Muslim descent, as we saw in Australia and other places. You can never defend that. That's criminal. What I'm saying is that the actions that Israel has taken and the fact that Israel has claimed to be the representative of Jews around the world while it is exercising so much violence against Palestinians has actually played into that narrative that is that people associate Jews with the actions of Israel. Israel has acted as a trigger to the rise of actual antisemitism.

ZAKARIA: I assume you've lost a lot of friends in Israel over your writing and speaking?

BARTOV: Look, I mean, I don't know, when you lose friends, they don't necessarily tell you that you lost them.

[10:55:05]

I know of some cases. I think many of the people I know in Israel, they're mostly left of center. They are reluctant to talk about this. And that's what has troubled me most. Yes, I don't want to lose my friends. These are friends of 50, 55 years. But what is troubling me most is that on -- apart from the Israeli right, which is bloody minded and violent, the majority of the Israeli population has become -- is living in denial, has become indifferent to what was carried out in its name by its own people, often children of people my age who were in Gaza as regular soldiers, as reservists.

And people don't want to talk about it. They would like to wake up one morning and just to hear that the Palestinians have gone. That is deeply troubling to me about the society that I grew up in.

ZAKARIA: Omer Bartov, thank you for coming on.

BARTOV: Thank you very much.

ZAKARIA: Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week.

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