Gaza: The Dream and the Nightmare
Trump’s Gazan dream is to overlay the complex human history with his own narcissistic real-estate fantasy. But for Maia Carter Hallward, co-author of a new contemporary history of Gaza, this once vibrant Mediterranean entrepôt linking Africa, Asia and Europe is now defined more by nightmare than dreams. “In peace studies, we talk about positive peace, which has rights, liberties, the ability to reach human potential - and we talk about negative peace, which is the absence of war,” Carter Hallward says. “I would say we have none of those in Gaza right now.” No negative peace, no absence of war. For Carter Hallward, that - alongside the more than 70,000 dead Palestinians - captures today’s Gazan tragedy.
Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe
Episode 2256: David Kirkpatrick on his twenty year odyssey from digital idealist to sceptic
Episode 2255: Frank Vogl on whether Donald Trump 2.0 will be a semi-legal repeat of the Sam Bankman-Fried/FTX debacle
Episode 2254: Steven Levy on what has and hasn't surprised him about the last twenty years of tech history
Episode 2253: Andrew Keen revisits Cult of the Amateur
Episode 2252: Can the AI revolution decentralize our politics, culture and economy?
Episode 2251: Steven Robinson on how a band of activists beat Donald Trump and saved New York's West Side
Episode 2250: :John Markoff compares Steve Jobs with contemporary tech titans like Sam Altman and Elon Musk
Episode 2249: Peter Wehner on how American self-renewal is a wonder of the world
Episode 2248: F.H. Buckley on the case for Trumpism
Episode 2247: David Masciotra on how the Boss and the Dude can save America
Episode 2246: Jonathan Rauch on the catastrophic ordinariness of contemporary America
Episode 2245: Elon Musk, Silicon Valley and the Reinvention of American Government
Episode 2244: John Hagel on overcoming fear - his proudest achievement over the last 20 years