News Information and Media Site: Opinion Today: What Ta-Nehisi Coates saw in Israel

October 12, 2024

Photo Illustration by The New York Times; Michael Tyrone Delaney for The New York Times

By Elias Isquith

Researcher, "The Ezra Klein Show"

When Ta-Nehisi Coates decided to return from fiction to overtly political writing with "The Message," a new collection of essays that closes with a long meditation on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and his experiences in the West Bank, he knew he was pushing himself outside his comfort zone. "I had a vague sense," he said on "The Ezra Klein Show" this week, "that there was a chance that I was going to see something that I would not be able to come back and act like I just didn't see."

Coates's experience in the West Bank left him outraged, shaken and compelled to bring the perspective of the Palestinians he met to a wider audience. Rather than provide a more sweeping and holistic overview, he was determined to share their stories — even if that required omitting the perspectives of centrist and right-wing Jewish Israelis. It was a consequential decision: Coates's book never mentions Hamas, for example. And Ezra Klein questioned and pressed Coates to explain it.

Out of the many compelling moments in their conversation, one exchange, in particular, has stuck with me the most. After Klein asks Coates what his vision of a better future for Palestinians and Israelis looks like, Coates says, "You're not going to like my answer." Klein's immediate response: "But I want to hear it."

After so much bloodshed in the Middle East and so much political acrimony in the United States — not just on prestigious campuses but also among family members at dinner tables and friends on social media and in group chats — there is something unusually powerful about this simple gesture of faith in the worthwhileness of difficult conversations.

Although Coates and Klein find commonality in how they felt in the West Bank, the conversation didn't result in agreement. But as this episode shows, the point of dialogue like this isn't to reach a consensus; it's to show that it's possible to create a space in which multiple perspectives can be represented, on their own terms and without illusions.

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE HERE

The Ezra Klein Show

Ta-Nehisi Coates on Israel: 'I Felt Lied To'

The journalist discusses his experience visiting Israel and the West Bank.

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