Marc Lynch

So there's a mixture.

I don't think the Israelis were all unified about what would happen with Gaza.

At some point, they even preferred it going back to Egypt.

The Egyptians didn't want it.

So I don't think they all have universal views of what Gaza should be, but now I think they do.

I think that that has always been there, but it's gotten much worse, particularly because of the fact that you have people like Bengvir, who has a say, but even on makeup of certain units.

And so, yes, CNN captures that in this particular case, but it happens every day.

I mean, we've had, I think, over 100 such incidents just over the past month in Marsh.

And the military...

When people say, oh, it's just the settlers.

Yes, of course, they're just the settlers who are actually carrying out the violence, but they're being empowered by the military.

Even if the military don't necessarily sympathize with them, even under the best of circumstances, they're going there to protect them.

But it's not under the best of circumstances because you have units who actually are very sympathetic with them and therefore see

the project that the settlers are pursuing to be perfectly legitimate.

I think that really preceded October 7th.

If you look at the 2015...

Paul Bai-Piu in Israel found that, you know, half of Israelis supported removing Arabs from Israel itself, who are citizens.

You know, 79% of Israeli Jews

believed that Jews should have privileges over non-Jews in the state of Israel.

So I think it crept in.