- I'm left picturing
Inspector Clouseau.

- It is a little bit.

- I spend a good
deal of time puzzling

with the question
of the Middle East.

How do we find peace.

And in my own life,
how do I find peace

in relationship and the home.

It seems there are
parallels there.

There is a great writer
in the Middle East, Oz,

that wrote a small book
called "Help Us To Divorce."

And it seems that in all
five regions of the world,

that you described,
managing differences is

at the core of the
reaction that's going on.

Can you speak to that?

- Well, you're
referring to Amos Oz

who's a brilliant
Israeli writer,

probably the greatest living
Israeli novelist now, I guess.

I was interviewing him once

and he said something to
me that was so profound.

He said "Here's the
difference between Americans

"and the rest of humanity."

And he said, "You Americans
believe that dialogue,

"that breaking bread together,

"will help you
overcome differences."

Most of the rest of the
world, we know that--

It's not that we don't
understand each other,

that's the problem.

It's that we do
understand each other.

And that talking
actually highlights

irreconcilable differences.

Which comes to, it's a cynical

or depressing kind of view.

But, using the Middle East,

using the Israeli-Palestinian
dispute as an example,

are there Palestinians and
Israelis who are living

on the same plane of
reality absorption

and can figure out a way

to have a divorce built
around real estate?

Yes.

Are there people
who, if you put them

in the same room and said,
"No, just have a meal together

"and you'll figure this out,"

would end up trying
to stab each other

with the butter knives?

Yeah, because they believe that

in their view of perfection,

perfection doesn't
allow for the existence

of the other person.

And you're not
going to change it.

The American civic
religion is solutionism.

There's a problem, and
every problem comes

with a solution.

That's why, in my
humble opinion,

this is the greatest
nation on earth,

because we just fix things.

We just, we just tackle them.

We always get, you know--

It's bumpy and we make
terrible mistakes,

but we're on a
constant trajectory

towards something better.

It doesn't always work that way.

To come back to
your original point,

divorce, amicable
divorce, or sort of just

an enforcable divorce, in a
lot of parts of the world is--

It's not idealistic.

It's not we shall overcome.

I tend to think that the
Israelis and the Palestinians

need a divorce for
50 or 100 years.

And they need to
heal, get healed.

And then who knows
what the Middle East

would look like in 150 years?

God knows.

But it's not a
great, grand vision,

but I think divorce is sometimes

the best thing you
could hope for.

- Good.

Ma'am.

- Kind of an unformed
question, but just wondering--

- [Jeff] I have unformed answers

(laughter)

- Good.

What women in the Muslim world,

or that are going into ISIS--

Are they just so
put down and not...

What's happening with
the women aspect of,

that could help with this?

And then, just a second part.

Do you have any clue
of what Obama will want

to focus on when
he's not a president?

- Women in ISIS is one of
the strangest phenomenons.

I don't know enough about it,

except to know that
it's teenagers.

Teenagers are very
impressionable.

They're sold a certain
thing through social media.

There's a romance
associated with going

to ISIS territory and
becoming part of this Jihad.

- You're talking about
women in the Middle East

becoming part of ISIS?

Or, like the young,
even young Americans?

- I'm talking young
Brits, young French,

who are going.

On the broader question,

and this is, by the way--

You ask a very
important question

because the President has
his view very profoundly.

And I quote him in
the story as saying--

And this is why he's
become somewhat fatalistic

about the Middle East.

He says, "Any society,"

and here I think he's
thinking about Saudi Arabia,

but this goes much
broader than Saudi Arabia.

"Any society in which
half of your population

"is disenfranchised
and marginalized

"will never be a
successful society."

And his perspective,
I don't know

if you consider this a
feministic perspective

or just a realistic perspective.

His perspective is, until
half of your brain power

in a society is actually used,

and until women are given
the opportunity to rise,

you're always going to have
a dysfunctional society.

And this is why, going to this
kind of ruthless pragmatism,

he knows that there are
things that America can do.

America can try to
stop the Chinese navy

from interfering with
Filipino shipping, right?

That's something that
a president can do.

He knows that a president cannot

make Saudi Arabia
treat women better.

And so, you kind of
put that on the side,

and you assume that,
over generations,

if history has this direction,

then it'll move
in that direction.

But I think the biggest
issue in the Middle East is--

The single biggest
issue is ultimately

the treatment of women.

Until you actually
solve that in a way

that makes it resemble more--

It doesn't have to resemble
every aspect of our life, here,

but then you're just
going to have dysfunction.

- Doesn't that seem to
be an issue on which

even the two parties in America,

which can't agree on whether
the sun is up or down,

could agree on?

Isn't there some
sense, here, that,

if we could affect
the plight of women

in the Middle East, not just
in ISIS, but more broadly

where rights are not what
they are in this country,

that we should be
doing something?

- I think we are.

I mean, you see
this on the margins.

- [Host] It's not a
controversial issue.

- No, no, it's not.

It's certainly not
controversial, I don't think.

Yes, there is misogyny in
portions of America, obviously,

but it's not misogyny of
the sort of, you know,

"We're gonna whip you if
you go out of your house

"without a male escort"
level of misogyny.

- This is one of those
sort of feel-good exporting

of democratic values, or the
values of a democratic society.

- But, it's a slow process,

and you can't force
cultural change on people.

You know, as Americans,
I think this is something

that's very American.

We believe that, basically,
for all of the problems

that we have, we believe

that we have a pretty
good thing going here.

A lot of things need
fixing, but this is a--

We look at other people
around the world,

and sort of scratch
our heads and go,

"Why would you live like that,

"when you could live like this?"

But they do, and they
have their reasons.

I spent a lot of time
in Afghanistan in
the Taliban years.

You'd kind of look
around, and you'd go,

"You know, it doesn't
have to be this way."

But there are certain
people who like it that way.

But it doesn't mean
that you stop working.

Again, you can't do this stuff

on four-year
presidential cycles.

These are generational problems.

- Or even eight-years.

I think what you said about
Israel is interesting.

Or some of the other things.

You've got a limited
amount of time,

and you look at
the list of things

that you have on your
plate, and you go,

"I could affect some of these,

"and I can't affect
others of these.

"I'm just going
to have to pick."

- Right, right.

The cultural stuff,
the religious stuff is

much harder to
move in a quick way

than some of the--

- [Host] Realistically,
it's going to be

lower down the list.

- Well, Michele Obama is
going around educating.

- That's huge.

But don't expect--

We're also Americans, so
we expect instant results

and instant gratification.

Should we be bringing
Muslim women here,

for education?

Yeah, in huge numbers.

Should they go home a
little bit unsettled

about the conditions at home?

Yeah.

Will that encourage
people to bring more girls

into education?

Over time, yeah, I hope.

- But will the world be fixed
by this well-meaning effort?

If at all, it's going
to take a long time.

- No, no, see you have
a short-term problem

of ISIS and a long-term problem

of fixing this stuff.

- We'll get one more.

- Okay, one very quick
comment and then a question.

You all spoke about the
fact that the Arab Spring

kind of showed Obama
that Israel and Palestine

don't actually
matter all that much.

And the comment is that,
I think it's interesting.

My father's actually Lebanese.

One of his defenses
for Bashar al-Assad,

at least in the early days
in the Syrian civil war was,

he's the only one who
will stand up to Israel.

I think a lot of people still
say that in the Arab world.

Assad was, apparently,
had paid some activist

to rush the Israeli border
in order to distract

from his war, at one point.

That's just a comment.

Related to that, I think
with the Arab Spring

and the rise of ISIS
and all of this,

a lot of attention
has been drawn away

from Israel-Palestine.

Currently, you know,
there's this rash

of stabbings and more
and more brinkmanship

between the Israelis
and Palestinians

that is really kind of rising
into the Third Entifada

or something like that.

The biggest wave of violence
we've seen in recent years.

Just the other day,
there was this instant

where an Israeli soldier
shot a wounded Palestinian.

on the ground.

That's just going to
lead to more incitement.

So do you see a more hot
war developing there,

that could have some
large consequences

because we're not
paying attention to it?

- Right, right.

Let me be clear.

I think that solving the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict

is important for the
sake of that conflict.

And you're also right
that if it got worse,

the spill-over
could be enormous.

But, compared to raw death toll,

or sort of raw
instability measures,

Syria is probably the
greatest cataclysm,

one of the great cataclysms
since World War II

at this point.

By the way, your first
point is very interesting.

4,000 Palestinians
have been killed

by the Assad regime
since this war started.

4,000.

- [Man at the Mic]
And how many Syrians?

- Maybe half a million.

And no one seems to
care about the fact

that Assad is
slaughtering Palestinians.

It's a very interesting
sort of hierarchy of--

There's outrage when X kills Y,

but not when Y kills Z.

It's a very strange thing.

On your broader point, yeah,

I'd have to agree with you.

I think American presidents
are always tempted

to try to fix that problem.

Because it is one of our
civilizational super stories.

Right? Bringing the
children of Abraham

back together again is a huge--

You don't get that same
kind of poetic justice

out of fixing Nagorno-Karabakh,
or something, right?

There's no romance to it.

I would have to say that
your analysis is correct.

If it gets worse,
just because we tend

to pay more attention
to it anyway,

we would have to intervene
in a more direct way.

And, I tend to think, this is--

Again, I didn't come
here to defend Obama,

but I think Obama
understands something

that both Netanyahu,
to a great degree,

and also Abbas, that
you really don't get.

That the status quo
is not sustainable.

You can't just keep going
down this road forever

without having really,
really bad effects.

So what Obama's been
trying, unsuccessfully,

to do is push,
particularly Netanyahu,

but also Abbas to sort
of say, figure this out

while there's still
time, before you hit

some level of
catastrophic violence

that you're referring to.

- And then on top of that, if
I can make one more comment.

If there's the risk
of the war spilling

into Lebanon, that actually
could be much worse

this time compared to 2006.

For people that don't
know the geography,

Syria, basically, hugs Lebanon.

So people have nowhere
to go besides Syria,

which isn't--

- So you're actually right.

The big nightmare is one big war

that stretches from
Iraq all the way

through Syria, Jordan, Lebanon

and then down into
Israel and even Gaza.

And, of course, the Sinai is
under the control of ISIS.

You could imagine a
conflagration like that,

where it's one chess game,
but on eight different levels.

It's sort of a 3D chess board.

That is a nightmare.

This is where the
critique, by the way,

of the President can come in.

Is that, only the
U.S. has the power

to shape Middle Eastern reality,

and you didn't do
enough to shape it

before it became a catalysm.

- And that is or is not
a legitimate observation?

- I think it's a
legitimate observation.

It's not a solvable question,

because he'll say,
"No, you're wrong,

"and here's why."

And I'll say, "No, I'm
right, and here's why."

But we're all playing in theory.

- Steve is telling
me we've got to stop.

We have a hard out today.

Jeff Goldberg was
great to give us some

of his time while
he was in town.

Hopefully we'll get him back.

(applause)

- Thank you very much.

I had a great time.

(applause)