SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Israeli troops are now active on four separate fronts - in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and the West Bank. NPR's Greg Myre recently spent a month reporting on Israel's military operations in the region, and that got him to reflect about an earlier time a quarter century ago, when Israel was planning or actually leaving these same territories. Greg, thanks so much for joining us.
GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Hey, Scott. Good to be here.
SIMON: Tell us when you first arrived in Israel and what was going on.
MYRE: Yeah. I landed in Jerusalem in 1999. Israel had just elected a new prime minister, Ehud Barak. He campaigned on bringing Israeli troops home and working out a peace deal with the Palestinians, which would end generations of conflict. So there was no active fighting then, but Israel had troops in these places where they'd been for many years, as you noted. This was going to be complicated - no doubt about it - but I thought I might be witnessing a historic moment in the Middle East.
SIMON: And what did Prime Minister Barak do?
MYRE: Well, his biggest move was in south Lebanon. He abruptly withdrew Israeli troops who'd been there for 18 years. There was no peace deal with Lebanon or Hezbollah. He just pulled out the troops. It was all over in a day. So I recently sat down with Barak, and he said that Israel should have left Lebanon long before he pulled them out in 2000.
EHUD BARAK: You know, I'm sometimes asked, why did you pull out the soldier in 2000? I said, the right question is not why I did it in 2000. Why it was not done 15 years earlier?
MYRE: But it did seem like the conflict might be over in 2000. However, as we know, the fighting keeps erupting. Now, officially, there's a truce right now, but Israeli forces remain in southern Lebanon. They continue to carry out attacks, and the prospect for peace looked better back then than it does now.
SIMON: And at that same time, what was happening next door in Syria?
MYRE: Yeah. So in early 2000, Barak tried to negotiate a peace deal with Syria. Israeli troops had captured Syria's Golan Heights in 1967. Barak was prepared to return land for peace. And with that in mind, my wife and I visited the Golan Heights. We stayed at a bed and breakfast that some young Israelis had just opened, and we asked them why, since it looked like Israel might soon return this land to Syria. And they said, eh, we're not worried. We don't think a deal's going to happen. Well, Israel and Syria came close, but they never made a deal. Israel still holds the Golan Heights. In fact, they seized additional land just last year and remained there. And I - Scott, I wouldn't be surprised if that Israeli B&B is still there.
SIMON: Course, with the recent conflicts, we tend to hear less about the West Bank. What was happening 25 years ago and now?
MYRE: Yeah. One of my first days in Jerusalem, I heard that the government - the Israeli government - was going to tear down a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. It was a place called Ma'on. It was just a half dozen tin shacks on a dry, dusty hilltop. The Israeli army tore down those shacks and literally pulled the settlers from the rooftops and dragged them away. So that ended the settlement for the moment, but the settlers tend to just keep returning.
And so just last month, I was driving through the West Bank, and I saw a road sign for Ma'on. And I remembered that day long ago, and on the hilltop, I saw what looked like a large formal subdivision with dozens and dozens of homes, just a perfect example of how the settlements keep expanding, making it more difficult, bordering on impossible, to work out a peace deal and create a state for the Palestinians.
SIMON: And, of course, Greg, we have to ask about Gaza, where there's been so much bloodshed. Where do things stand?
MYRE: Yeah. Back in 2005, Israel decided to remove 8,000 Jewish settlers and all the Israeli troops from Gaza. This was the biggest pullout of Israeli settlers, then or now, and it really was a wrenching process inside Israel. But in the end, all the Israelis were out of Gaza, soldiers and civilians, for the first time in nearly 40 years. And, of course, this certainly didn't solve Gaza's problems, but it was an important step.
And as we know, Israel and Hamas have often fought since then, and Israeli troops reentered Gaza after the Hamas attack in 2023. Well, today, the Israeli military holds close to 70% of Gaza. And so, Scott, a quarter century ago, serious efforts were in motion on all these fronts. None succeeded. And sadly, on my most recent trip, it's clear there's no end in sight to any of these conflicts.
SIMON: NPR's Greg Myre. Greg, thanks so much.
MYRE: Sure thing, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
