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Ezra Klein Doesn’t Understand Israel
Haviv Rettig Gur
April 17, 2026

…Because [Klein] misses the central point that any Westerner concerned for Palestinians must deal with: Any Israeli withdrawal from significant parts of the West Bank will almost certainly produce a Hamas takeover. This point is so widely believed by Israelis and Palestinians that we can safely ignore that “almost.” And a Hamas-run West Bank—16 times the size of Gaza, perched on mountains overlooking Israel’s main population centers, narrowing the country to nine miles wide at its vulnerable middle—would be catastrophic. It would endanger Israelis, sure, but it would be devastating to Palestinians. Because Hamas will not have changed from the version of itself that planned and launched the Gaza war and even now sees it as a success worthy of replication in the West Bank. If your analysis of the West Bank erases Palestinian politics and the certainty of the Hamas takeover suggested in every poll of Palestinians, then you aren’t discussing real people. You’re staging a morality play in your own mind. READ MORE