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On Monday, the world marked one year since Hamas inflicted the worst attack on Israel since its founding. But amid remembrances for those who died on Oct. 7, 2023, there is growing concern about Israel’s retaliations in Gaza and Lebanon, the rising death toll in those places, and the possibility of an even bigger conflict against Iran.

One year on, where do things stand, and where are they headed? I spoke with Aaron David Miller to reflect on changes in the Middle East since Oct. 7. Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and previously served in the U.S. State Department, where he advised several Republican and Democratic administrations on the Middle East. Subscribers can watch the full discussion on the video box atop this page or listen to the free podcast. What follows here is a condensed and edited transcript.

On Monday, the world marked one year since Hamas inflicted the worst attack on Israel since its founding. But amid remembrances for those who died on Oct. 7, 2023, there is growing concern about Israel’s retaliations in Gaza and Lebanon, the rising death toll in those places, and the possibility of an even bigger conflict against Iran.

One year on, where do things stand, and where are they headed? I spoke with Aaron David Miller to reflect on changes in the Middle East since Oct. 7. Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and previously served in the U.S. State Department, where he advised several Republican and Democratic administrations on the Middle East. Subscribers can watch the full discussion on the video box atop this page or listen to the free podcast. What follows here is a condensed and edited transcript.

Ravi Agrawal: On the one hand, today marks a year since Hamas’s attack on Israel and the massive trauma of that. On the other hand, it also marks the start of a new trauma for large populations in Gaza and Lebanon. Personally, I’ve been struck over the last year by how it is difficult for so many people to reflect the pain on each side, to show empathy, to humanize these traumas. To some degree, the mix of protests and memorials around the world right now reflects the spectrum of this reality. So before we really get into specifics, I wanted to give you an opportunity to open with your reflections one year on from Oct. 7.

Aaron David Miller: I’ll never forget—I was woken by CNN on Oct. 7. And since that moment, I’ve tried to default to the position of analyst. I’ve also tried to hold in my head and in my heart the suffering, pain, and trauma of Hamas’s terror surge on Oct. 7 and the Israeli response to the degree that is humanly possible for someone who is not an Israeli and not a Palestinian. My critics may disagree with that. I don’t play an Israeli or Palestinian on TV.

Both working on these issues and now trying to analyze them, I’ve long tried to understand that people have two choices. You can make a judgment that you’re going to root for one side or the other. Or you can acknowledge the reality that this conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s definition of a tragedy. It’s two competing justices. It will be resolved or won’t be resolved based on leaders who are prepared to recognize that each side has mutual needs and requirements which need to be satisfied.

I’d also offer my judgment that there is no objectivity on this conflict. We are all sum totals of our experiences, of our backgrounds, of our sensitivities, of our sensibilities, and of our prejudices. What is a prejudice? It’s a prejudgment. I would argue that the best you can do is make allowances for the prejudgments that you have, set them aside in an effort to try to understand the narratives and the motivations of Palestinians and of Israelis.

This is critically important if we are going to ever have a chance, , to resolve and to work toward what I call a conflict-ending solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

RA: You’ve written several essays for Foreign Policy in the last year, and one of them challenges the conventional wisdom that Oct. 7 changed everything in the Middle East. The case for that conventional wisdom is well known: an unprecedented attack on Israel, a regional war, direct attacks by Israel and Iran against each other. So, what is the case against? Why do you think the new Middle East, however it emerges, will look like the old........

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