A Best Book of 2025 The New Yorker • Foreign Affairs • NPR • Foreign Policy • Responsible Statecraft Two insiders explain why the Israeli – Palestinian peace process failed, and anticipate what lies ahead. On October 7, 2023, Hamas fighters killed more than eleven hundred Israelis and took more than two hundred hostages, prompting an Israeli response that has in turn taken tens of thousands of lives and devastated the Gaza Strip. Why did this happen, and can anything be done to grant peace and justice to Israelis and Palestinians alike? In Tomorrow Is Yesterday , veteran negotiators Hussein Agha and Robert Malley offer a personal and bracing perspective on how the hopes of the Oslo Peace Process became the horrors of the present. Drawing on their experience advising the Palestinian leadership (Arafat and Abbas) and US presidents (Clinton, Obama, and Biden) and their participation in secret talks over decades, Agha and Malley offer candid portraits of leading figures and an interpretation of the conflict that exposes the delusions of all sides. They stress that the two-state solution became a global goal only when it was no longer viable; that U.S. officials preferred technical schemes to a frank reckoning with the past; that Hamas’s onslaught and Israel’s war of destruction were not historical exceptions but historical reenactments; and that the gaps separating Israelis and Palestinians have less to do with territorial allocation than with history and emotions.

Recommended on 3 episodes:

Venezuela, Renee Good and Trump’s ‘Assault on Hope’

The shocking events of January have sent a message: America works differently now. M. Gessen is a Times Opinion columnist and the author of books about living under autocracy, including the National Book Award-winning “The Future Is History.” They have been a clear, relentless and perceptive voice on what it means and what it is like to live in a country that is turning into a different kind of regime. And they wrote an essay this week on the seizure of the president of Venezuela, calling it, “a blow — quite likely fatal — to the new world order of law, justice and human rights that was heralded in the wake of World War II.”

Books recommended:

• 📕  Tomorrow Is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine by Hussein Agha, Robert Malley
• 📘  One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This: National Book Award by Omar El Akkad
• 📗  The Hill: A Novel by Harriet Clark

Masha Gessen Jan. 10, 2026 3 books recommended

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Mamdani, Trump and the End of the Old Politics

Zohran Mamdani created a new anti-establishment playbook – in his use of social video, his focus on affordability and his position on Israel.   His assumed victory in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, trouncing the former governor Andrew Cuomo, was one of the biggest political upsets in years. And while the electorate in this case is pretty specific, I think it still points to some tectonic changes in Democratic politics.  My friend Chris Hayes, the host of MSNBC’s “All In With Chris Hayes,” came on the show earlier this year to talk about his book “The Sirens’ Call,” which is all about how social media and the new attention economy are shaping politics. So I wanted to bring him back for a sequel, to get “The Sirens’ Call” take on Mamdani’s victory, and Hayes’s insights as a born-and-raised New Yorker, with a deep feel for both the city’s politics and the broader Democratic Party. This episode contains strong language.

Books recommended:

• 📙  Tomorrow Is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine by Hussein Agha, Robert Malley
• 📕  The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, William Weaver, Richard Dixon
• 📘  Mao’s Last Revolution by Roderick MacFarquhar, Michael Schoenhals

Chris Hayes June 28, 2025 3 books recommended

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A New Middle East?

For decades, Israel has wanted American support to bomb Iranian nuclear sites. But U.S. presidents, both Republican and Democrat, have resisted — until President Trump. So, what changed? And what are the likely consequences of that decision? Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a longtime diplomat in the region. He joins me to discuss recent events and how the latest attacks on Iran have changed the balance of power in the Middle East. This episode contains strong language.

Books recommended:

• 📗  Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger and the Art of Middle East Diplomacy by Martin Indyk
• 📙  The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III by Peter Baker, Susan Glasser
• 📕  Tomorrow Is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine by Hussein Agha, Robert Malley

Aaron David Miller June 25, 2025 3 books recommended

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