President Barack Obama spoke about the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as the decades that preceded it, during an interview with Crooked Media’s Pod Save America. In a clip shared on Saturday, Obama says, “I look at this and I think ‘What could I have done during my presidency to move this forward?’ as hard as I’ve tried, and I’ve got the scars to prove it.”
“But there’s a part of me that still saying Well, was there something else I could have done?” he continued. “That’s the conversation we should be having. Not just looking backwards, but looking forward.”
He added, “And that can’t happen if we are confining ourselves to our outreach. I would rather see you out there talking to other people, including people who you disagree with. If you genuinely want to change this, then you’ve got to figure out how to speak to somebody on the other side.”
Watch that clip here:
Obama also addressed what he called “social media …. and TikTok activism.” The problem with “trying to debate this on that [social media] is you can’t speak the truth. You can pretend to speak the truth. You can speak one side of the truth. And in some cases, you can try to maintain your moral innocence, but that won’t solve the problem.”
The current war between Israel and Hamas began on Oct. 7 when the militant group attacked and killed more than 1,400 Israelis and took over 200 hostages. This was the first time Israel had been attacked in such a manner since 1948.
In the weeks that have followed, the IDF has launched “Operation Swords of Iron” in the Gaza Strip. Israel enacted a blockade on Gaza, cutting off fuel, water, and food. After calling on nearly 1 million people to evacuate northern Gaza, an order that is complicated by limited places to go, Israel began an airstrike and ground assault that has so far resulted in the deaths of over 9,000 Palestinians.
The eruption of the conflict and the resulting humanitarian crisis in Gaza has ignited mass protests around the world and intense debate online and off.