← Ask Haviv Anything
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- [00:05]
A
Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of Ask Khabib Anything. Thank you so much for joining us. This is going to be, I've been looking forward to it, a deep dive into the strategic situation in Gaza today. But not just this moment in a historical view, to take the long arc of things and to really kind of understand where we stand, what the potential is for the future, how we got to this place. We're recording on October 25th, Hamas is slowly trickling out the hostage bodies and taking over Gaza and suppressing opposition. JD Vance was just in Israel after Donald Trump. Nobody quite knows what the future holds. We're going to dive into it today. My guest is Professor Dan Shiftan of Haifa University, somebody very, very well known in Israel, not just to the public, but also to the strategy planning elite. I'm going to pretend that's a group of people and that group of people consults with him constantly and has consulted with him over the years on Gaza. And so we're going to really take a deep dive with a real expert. So let's get into it. Before we get into it, I want to tell you that this episode is sponsored by Aaron and Donna Horowitz and by Mitch and Sherry Padnos. They asked me to read this even though they know it's embarrassing. With heartfelt gratitude, we thank Khaviv for being the most trusted and insightful voice on the Middle east, helping us make sense of complex realities and offering clarity in a time that so often feels overwhelming. Your work doesn't just inform us, it helps us cope, reflect and stay connected to what matters most. Please don't do that again. And thank you very, very much. They also dedicated it to two lone soldiers, Alexa Horowitz and Ethan Padnos and and to all lone soldiers from Israel and around the world who commit themselves to the defense of Israel, both during their active service and in Miluim reserve duty. Your courage, sacrifice and devotion inspire us every day. At the same time, we cannot look away from the heavy psychological toll this war has exacted on those who serve. Since the war began, dozens of IDF soldiers have taken their own lives, an unbearable reminder that the wounds of conflict are not only physical, but also emotional and invisible. May their memories be a blessing and may their loss push us all to care for the mental health and well being of every soldier, veteran and family touched by this war. Also, thank you so much for that dedication. Beth Elohim is an organization that I am proud to have worked with last year. There are tens of thousands of soldiers who carry wounds, some visible some not visible from this period from this very dramatic multi front war. That was an important dedication. Separately, I would like to invite you all to join our Patreon if you're interested in asking the questions that guide the topics we choose to talk about. The questions Some of the questions that I'm going to be asking Dr. Shiftan today we take those from our Patreon community. There's a great discussion forum there. I listeners discuss the episodes, general news and thoughts of the day, share resources and you get to take part in a monthly livestream where I answer your questions live. We have a great time. Sometimes we have a sad time, but we have it together. So please join us at www.patreon.com askhaviv anything the link is in the show notes Dr. Dan Shiftan is head of the International Graduate Program in National Security at Haifa University. He has been many years at the forefront of National Security Studies in Israel to taught at Israel at the IDF's National Security College at its Command and Staff College. He was an Advisor on National Security to Prime Minister Rabin, Prime Minister Sharon. He was a consultant to major Israeli decision makers, foreign policy and defense officials, and regularly briefs European, American and other political leaders. He has authored multiple books on contemporary Middle Eastern history. He published in 1999 a book, the Necessity of Separation, which was published in translation as Disengagement. That is the core theoretical work, as far as I know, that actually drove the disengagement from Gaza. Don, thank you so much for joining me.
- [04:28]
B
Delighted to be here.
- [04:30]
A
Let's start at the very beginning and then get into the present day. Was the disengagement from Gaza 20 years ago a good thing?
- [04:39]
B
That's not the very beginning. The very beginning is the question should Israel have sovereignty and control the whole region between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River? Now? Is it historic Israel? Yes. Is the most important part of the historic biblical Israel in Judea and Samaria? Yes. But Ben Gurion understood as early as the 1940s, immediately after the Holocaust, that the Jewish people no longer have the reservoir, the demographic reservoir, to have a Jewish majority between the Mediterranean and the Hijazi Railway. This was at the time the perception of where the land of Israel should extend to, and therefore came to the conclusion that partitioning the land is a Zionist interest. In other words, it is not something that we have no choice because we are not strong enough militarily to take over. But we must partition the land. Otherwise we will be establishing in 1948 or 49 a Jewish state with an Arab majority. And then it cannot be both democratic and Jewish. And the only way a Jewish state can be is democratic. And if it is democratic and there is an Arab majority, they will vote us out of existence. And if it's not democratic, the Jews would not want to live there. So we must partition the land, as painful as it is. And again, even if we are militarily almighty, it doesn't really matter. The point is that we cannot have millions of Arabs, of hostile Arabs incorporated into the state of Israel. And this understanding led Ben Gurion and later Eshkol and Golda Meir and Itzhak Rabin and finally even Ariel Sharon to the conclusion that at least Gaza, that's the easiest part. Because historically, unless you need a haircut and you want to meet Delilah, what are you looking for in Gaza? But at least Gaza, with the millions of Arabs, of hostile Arabs, there should not be a part of Israel. So the idea of starting the disengagement from what we don't want, in spite of the fact that we have a right to be there, it must start in Gaza. And this is what Ariel Sharon did in 2005. And I proudly admit that I was part of the process of persuading him to do so. And I don't think we made a mistake. I think we will come back to it inevitably. Now, the mistake we have committed is not to respond very violently on a very massive scale. Once the Palestinians in Gaza started a war against us, immediately after they were given a de facto state that they controlled, we should have responded very, very violently. Let me put it this way. If the New York Times is not outraged, it's the wrong response. Not something that is proportional in the sense that the barbarians can take it easily, but something that even barbarians cannot accept, cannot tolerate. And our mistake was not to respond immediately. The first signs of war that we have seen from the Gaza Strip, after we gave all of it to the Palestinians, we did not do it. And we believed in containment. And we made this terrible mistake from 2005 until October 7th, and we paid on October 7th for this mistake. And what Israel is doing now on all fronts, and will be doing in Gaza as well, is to respond very violently, not only for every act of hostility that comes out of a territory controlled by radicals, but preventively acting very, very violently to prevent barbarians from having the means to make war against Israel. This is what we must do in Gaza, in the west bank, in Lebanon, wherever you have radical forces preparing for war against Israel. When they start preparing, destroy whatever they have that can act against Israel.
- [09:44]
A
So there's a lot to unpack there. First of all, you often talk about barbarians and the difference between barbarians and non barbarians and dealing strategically with an understanding that sometimes in war you face barbarians. You just triggered a lot of people out there on YouTube or TikTok or wherever. What do you mean? I happen to know you a long time. I happen to read you. I happen to know that you're a classical liberal. I happen to know that you're basically the old Israeli left. And when you say barbarians, you mean something very specific and not racist. What specifically do you mean by barbaric? And it's not just about being PC. Just to clarify. It's not just about being PC. You mean a certain kind of polity, a certain kind of organization, a certain kind of strategic mind on the other side that requires a different response from other kinds of minds on earth, Even a society?
- [10:42]
B
Our problem in the Gaza Strip is not with Hamas. It is with the society of the Muslim Brothers. And they are barbarians. They say, by the way, I'm quoting them directly, you Jews will lose because you love life. We will win because we love death. They don't say, we will fight against the state of Israel until we get a state of our own. No, they say, we will kill Jews because they're Jews. They are proud to say that they are barbarians. Okay, so, and by the way, you have barbarians not only in the Gaza Strip, you have them with Hezbollah, you have part of the. The west bank, but primarily and certainly in Gaza, where they openly say not only we will kill Jews because they're Jews, but they often quote what is associated with the early period of Muhammad, the story that in the end of days, every stone will say, hey, Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me. Come and kill it. Hey, tree, tell the Muslim that there is a Jew hiding behind me. Tell these are barbarians. These are not civilized people. Are they human beings? Yes. Hitler was a human being too. Pol Pot was a human being. But is it a barbaric society? Yes. Is it each and every one of them? No. But this is what takes control over the behavior of the collective. Let me give you an interesting example. I'm coming back last week from the United Arab Emirates. I was teaching there, the Diplomatic Academy. I gave them a course about the Middle Eastern history and radicalism in the Middle east for a whole week, six days, six hours every day. And we had a fascinating discussion with people I respect very much in the uae because they start from a perception of tolerance. They built in Abu Dhabi, a church A synagogue and a mosque, and they built it in the same height and the same prominence. To say, this is what we respect about the children of Abraham. We are all children of Abraham. When I speak to the foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah, one of the finest people I've known, and I consider him to be a friend of mine. I hope this is mutual. I was there nine times since the beginning of the war, and I enjoy going there and speaking to these people and respecting them. Because when we speak about what's happening in the Middle east, their point of departure, as well as mine, is one of tolerance, is one of saying, okay, we're different, but we can not only tolerate each other, we can cooperate with each other, we can learn from each other. When you look at the United Arab Emirates and you realize that today most of their income is not oil, but renewable energy and artificial intelligence, you have enormous, at least I have enormous respect for them. When it comes, for instance, to our neighbors, more immediate neighbors, in terms of Arab states, look at Jordan. For 100 years, the Hashemite were responsible and trying in spite of the radical public opinion, because it is comprised to a large extent from Palestinians and Muslim Brothers. But in spite of their radical public opinion, they were always moderate. They understood very well that not only should they tolerate an Israel next to them, they depend for their very existence on a strong Israel. Were it not for a strong Israel, Jordan would not have existed as an independent Arab state. The radicals from Egypt in NASA's period or from Syria would have taken Jordan over, and Jordan would not have been today an independent state. And with these people, you can talk, you can have a good understanding with the Egyptians, who decided 50 years ago not to make war against Israel again, who had a very difficult time when Israel was fighting with other Arab states and with the Palestinians. And not only did they not make war against Israel, they tried to mediate, and today they're trying to mediate. These are very different Arabs. The problem with the Palestinian society is that they are obsessed with what they consider to be historical justice. And from their point of view, historic justice means that the Jewish state should not exist. They do not recognize the existence of a Jewish people at all. By the way, this includes Israeli Arabs. The overwhelming majority, almost all the elite of Israeli Arabs, signed one of four different documents saying that Israel is a colonial, therefore illegitimate, project. Okay, so there is something profoundly wrong with the Palestinian national movement because it is based on the destruction of the Jewish state. And when they say two states, they don't mean two states for two peoples. They mean One Arab state, one non Jewish state that will become an Arab state by what they call the right of return. And when Abu Mazen comes to the United nations pretending to be moderate, he has on his jacket the key that is the sign of return into the State of Israel in order to destroy the Jewish state. So when it comes to Gaza, we have a problem with barbarians. When it comes to Nasrallah and Hezbollah, we have a problem with barbarians. When it comes to the radicals in the west bank, we are speaking about barbarians now again, does it mean that each and every one of them is a barbarian? No. But when you look at who commands the conduct of the collective, they collectively basically say, we will fight the Jewish state until it is destroyed. And sometimes they are willing to pretend to dumb Israelis or to dumb Europeans or to dumb Americans as if they have changed. But when it comes to the core of what they're talking about, they're talking about means to undermine and eradicate the Jewish state if you want. This is what their supporters around the world are saying. From the river to the sea. Palestine will be free of Jews. Okay? This is the essence of it. And when I am addressing people who are proud to be the lovers of death, who are proud to reject life, I'm speaking about barbarians. And when I see that they put their headquarters and their arsenals and their missiles in hospitals and in schools and in UN institutions, I understand that what they're basically saying, we don't care for our own children. We have hundreds of kilometers of tunnels, but we don't put our children in the tunnels so that they are saved from the dangers of war. We put our weapons there and we don't let our children allow civilian population take shelter in the tunnels that we have built. For me, this is barbarism.
- [19:12]
A
I. It does feel after the last two years, it does feel after October 7th that it's time to stop pussyfooting around and, and see the self destructive ideologies for what they are. And it's a little bit frustrating over the last two weeks, really, at the period of the ceasefire, within hours of the ceasefire, Hamas fighters came out of those tunnels and began massacring all possible opposition to them in Gaza. And a lot of people were kidnapped and held and tortured. And these are dozens of reports at this point coming out of Gaza by Gazans, on Gazan social media, having nothing to do with the Israelis or anybody else. In hospitals, they have become command centers for Hamas, using them to hold and kill and disappear and torture dissidents and just critics and just ordinary People who criticize them and received aid from the ghf. Hamas hunted these people down, film themselves beating them, upload the films of them beating these poor people onto, you know, the Hamas telegram account that Gazans themselves follow to as a message to Gazans that they're back. Hospitals were a very were supposed to be sacrosanct when you're talking about Israeli military action. But suddenly hospitals don't matter that Hamas is there. The Hamas uses them as headquarters. Hamas uses them to torture. Now that it's Gazans who are victimized. There's something so profoundly fake about the outrage and barbaric about Hamas. And I take your point that you know, Hamas in Gazan society, I always differentiate. And I differentiate because I was raised by a rabbi, as you know, and I was taught that people can change, but those people have to want to change. And what we need to see in Gazan society, we know from polls that they don't want Hamas to rule going forward. We don't know from polls that they actually want any kind of new day or reconciliation or change in their vision of Islam, in their understanding of Israel and their desire to destroy Israel. I want to address the second point you made. The costs of massive aggressive response to rockets fired from Gaza after we withdraw to attacks from Gaza, to, you know, the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit. The cost of a massive response, what you called tremendous violence or a lot of violence is always going to be very high for Israel in the short term, diplomatically, politically with the Americans. And the Israeli government will never take on short term pain to create that kind of deterrence, or at least it didn't until October 7th, until, you know, until all of the cards were sort of thrown off the table until the whole game was fundamentally changed on October 7th. And if you know that the Israelis will not be capable of establishing the kind of deterrence that people like Sharon and Barak when he pulled out of south Lebanon in 2000. We're talking about the massive deterrence that they Ehud Barak, the most decorated commando in the history of the Israeli army, Ariel Sharon, the brilliant commander of the 73 war in the south. These people said, I will be able to establish deterrence if the enemy doesn't understand. If the enemy thinks we're withdrawing because of weakness, I will explain to them, explain in quotes, right, that it is not weakness. But in the end we couldn't. And so maybe a withdrawal nevertheless is a bad idea. And this, I'm not asking you to relitigate history. I'm asking you to tell us going forward. The IDF now controls 53% of Gaza. Can we afford to pull out of it anytime in the foreseeable future or ever?
- [22:48]
B
First of all, I supported the withdrawal from Lebanon. I supported, as I said, the disengagement from Gaza. And I would be delighted if we could disengage from the majority of the West Bank. But we will have to do what we have already started as a lesson of this war. Look at the ceasefire we're having with Lebanon today. We're having it since November 24th. And since then, we kill an average of one Hezbollah terrorist every day. We killed more than 300 terrorists of Hezbollah. We've destroyed factories that they've built in Lebanon to build missiles and rockets. We have destroyed ammunition dams, and we. This is what I call violent maintenance. When they prepare to make war, we will destroy their preparations. Now, what was the risk, and still is the risk of such a policy? It can ignite a war, but I'd rather have a war when they're not prepared than a war when they're prepared in Gaza, because we didn't want to make a war when Hamas was not prepared. They started the war when they were prepared. They get billions of dollars, many billions of dollars from dumb Americans, dumb Europeans, and even some dumb Israelis that you see for every refugee. Everywhere in the world, there is a UN agency that supports them for two years in reestablishing their life in a different place. The Palestinians, the only people in the world that gets billions of dollars every year for generations and forever and constantly are being paid for, for their education and their food and their health services and what have you, are the Palestinians. And they have learned they can be barbarians. And then even the Australians and the Canadians and the French and the British will come to say, let's have a Palestinian state to reward them from behaving as barbarians. You had in the west bank even more support for October 7, based on public opinion polls that Arabs were conducting in the West Bank. Even more support in the west bank than in the Gaza strip. More than 80% in the Gaza, in the west bank supported it. And then you reward them by saying, what can we do for the Palestinians at the expense of Israel? Let's discuss vital issues concerning the security of Israel without even consulting the Israelis. And again, this is not somebody from Zimbabwe or from Bolivia or North Korea. These are the Canadians and the Australians and the French and the British. Now, you shouldn't be surprised about the French. They have betrayed everything they have ever been committed to. And that's not new for them. And they have betrayed Israel in 1967, and they betrayed with the rest of Europe, Israel in 1973. That's not new. But they are encouraged, the Palestinian are encouraged by people in Harvard who are analytically underdeveloped and morally twisted to continue. Because people in Harvard work against Israel for the Palestinians before Israel even responded to October 7th. Okay, so it was not about the response of Israel. It was being jubilant that somebody killed Jews. Because this brings about progress and climate change. And it helps, I don't know, queers or something. People who are completely confused in the Western world support it and governments finance it in billions of dollars. Now you send billions of dollars into the Gaza Strip. Every penny of it goes to weapons and tunnels. And you still do it. And you say to yourself, oh, humanitarian help will do the job. And it is a problem that Israel will have to learn to live with. Let me perhaps go to another subject, but you'll see in a moment how strongly it is connected with what we are talking about. The challenge of Israel is to continue and be constructive in spite of the barbarism of the radicals that are around Israel. Most Arabs no longer fight Israel. Most Arab states have not only accepted that they cannot destroy Israel, most Arab states have identical interests with Israel when it comes to the Middle Eastern reality. They consider Iran as an enemy. They consider the Muslim Brotherhood as the worst enemy you can possibly have for the Arab societies. They realize that what is happening in Gaza is an expression of what the Muslim Brotherhood would do to Egypt and to Jordan if they took over. And they're very close to taking over. Remember, only a military coup d' etat removed a Muslim Brotherhood government from ruling Egypt in Cairo. So we are speaking about the radicals around us. And the challenge of Israel is to continue and doing what we do best to build a stronger economy and a more modern science and. And better medical facilities and a more pluralistic culture and everything a civilized society is about. In spite of the fact that from time to time we have to go to war. Our challenge is never to give up on what our life is about, namely building our society. Rather than destroying somebody else's society, we sometimes must destroy the people who directly fight us and are trying to kill us. But most of our potential must go there. We must combine. And it's a very difficult combination being Sparta when we must and essence when we can. Not to go in each direction to the extreme, not to become Sparta and lose the essence, the constructive essence of what the Jewish state is about and not to become so Obsessed with trying to build a society so that you forget that you need to defend yourself. In other words, you shouldn't go to the extreme that most radical Arabs have taken. Namely, fighting is the only thing we get up in the morning for. And also not go to the extreme of Europe of basically saying we are not willing to defend ourselves. Now, the Europe, the Europeans have been woken up to some extent by what is happening in the Ukraine and they are learning the hard way what we have constantly learned. You must also need to defend yourself. You must also, while you're building your society, while this is your most important objective, you also need to be able to defend it. You don't like the fact that you have to do it, but you must do it. And to combine these two elements, a civilized, moderate, open minded, pluralistic society that is willing to fight the barbarians with one hand tied behind their back. Otherwise we will become like our enemies, but not willing to put both our hands tied behind our backs and be defenseless. Which is what progressivism is all about. Progressivism is about tying both hands behind your back because somebody else has more pigments than you and you are white and therefore you are guilty of practically everything. And you feel that somebody else is a victim and therefore he can be a barbarian. If you stoop to this level one day you will end up in Harvard. And that's the worst thing I can imagine for the young generation.
- [31:43]
A
Dan, the problem listening to you is that it's never easy to tell where you stand on an issue.
- [31:49]
B
I belong to the extreme center.
- [31:52]
A
You're very clear about what you believe. If I take your point about the narrative that Hamas represents, not that Hamas pushes.
- [32:07]
B
It's not just Hamas, not just Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood society in Gaza, that.
- [32:14]
A
Hamas is the outgrowth and Hamas is arguably. I think you would say that. I think you would argue this and many people argue this. I mean, I say things like there has to be de radicalization in Gaza or nothing is going to change. People say to me, well, I'm going to ask this to you. There is no such thing as de radicalization in Gaza. If Hamas is ever only going to go to war, that's all it can do. It's all it has ever done. For 40 years it has done nothing but drive the Palestinian cause, Palestinian society, right into that brick wall. And Palestinian society was proud of it doing so. As much as we can tell right now. By the way, we have polls that say the vast majority of Gazans don't want Hamas to rule Gaza. They but that's Not a fundamental ideological problem with what Hamas is. What Hamas did. That's just. You destroyed everything. So please don't be the ones to rebuild because you are an oppressor who will destroy more. No.
- [33:08]
B
Is that not radicalize people who don't want to be de radicalized?
- [33:12]
A
Okay, without an American occupation of Japan.
- [33:16]
B
Yes, but again, there are not 22 other Japans waiting to help this Japan as you have here. And you know, when you de radicalize Germany, there was somewhere that you could take Germany to. And American universities were not demonstrating for the Nazis. Okay, so. And the media, the BBC did not support the Nazis the way the BBC supports Hamas today. You see, this was the problem in Gaza. Gaza was the most.
- [33:50]
A
Wait one second then one second. Let me finish the question before you continue. So Hamas cannot be dislodged from Gaza. You're saying categorically that's a misunderstanding of what Hamas is. You cannot separate between Hamas and Gazans. That's not what Hamas is. Hamas is Gaza. Therefore, what's the future of Gaza? Is this it? We bomb anytime they come to shoot at us and they never build a wall? Gaza has natural gas off in their territorial waters. Gaza could be wealthy and happy. They wouldn't even be that hard. And right now they have not just the sympathy of the world, but a world willing to spend $100 billion rebuilding them. But they cannot pick up that offer that's on the table. They can't take it because they are too much. What we understand is Hamas. Is that the argument?
- [34:45]
B
We in the west became contaminated by the progressive concept that you're not allowed to discuss culture. Let me ask you this. Libya is one of the richest places on earth. I mean, they have so much oil and gas and sit so close to Europe, and they could be one of the most successful places on earth, more than Saudi Arabia. The reason Libya is what it is, is cultural. Now, there was a belief that people wanted to believe, particularly in Western academia, that it is because of Gaddafi. You get rid of Gaddafi, the qualities of the Libyan society will come up and they will take over. When they killed Gaddafi, it became even worse in Libya because it is a cultural problem. You cannot change culture unless people want to change their culture. And when it comes to the Palestinians, being violent pays for them because everybody comes to help them and everybody blames the Jews. Okay? So why not continue doing it? We cannot change Gaza. With all due respect to the enormous capabilities of Israel, we cannot change the culture of the countries around us. We cannot even change the politics of a lot of what is happening around us? I mean, think of this idiotic idea of ARIEL Sharon in 1981, how we can make peace with the Christian dominated Lebanon and so on. It doesn't work. You can't do it. There is a limit to even what Israel can do. Okay, My expectation is we've been fighting in Gaza for 100 years and I expect in the next generations we will also be fighting Gaza. There is no solution, by the way, if I may take it to a somewhat different field. People who believe in solutions should deal with crossword puzzles. Most serious problems in life don't have a solution. And by the way, every married person knows that some problems simply don't have a solution. And what you need to do if you are a realist, is to combine damage control and the use of opportunity. And this is what we've done in the Arab world. We have managed to reach a point where the majority of Arab states are not fighting Israel clandestinely. Most of them are cooperating with Israel and hopefully more of them and in a more open way will be cooperating with Israel. When it comes to the hard core of the jihadists, be it in Tehran or in Gaza or in Beirut, I don't see a solution. And I think it is simple minded to say, oh, let's have a two state solution. When it comes to the French, they are, when they speak about the Palestinian state, the French enjoy playing with themselves. Playing with yourself can be very enjoyable, some people say, but it's not fruitful. So the whole dumb idea, you must be really stupid to say let's have the two state solution. Okay, you said it. What will come out of it? Zero. What is the impact of it? Zero. Who cares? Nobody. But you said the right thing. I am trying not to de radicalize Palestinians because I don't think I can. I'm trying to make it too costly for the Palestinians to fight Israel. And at the same time, Israel proposed again and again and again and again a historic compromise. A Jewish state alongside an Arab state. Now this was proposed in 1947 in Camp David by Eud Olmert in 2008. And it was always rejected because they rejected a Jewish state. Let me give you an interesting quotation because I enjoyed it very much. I don't know if you have known personally Saeb Arakat, the negotiator for the Palestinians for more than 30 years, the person who knew about Palestinians negotiations with Israel more than anybody else. And he said immediately after Errol Olmert proposed this Palestinian state in 2008, he said first they offered us 92%, then they offered us 96%, now they're offering us 100%. But why should we compromise after we've suffered so much? So after you get 100%, you don't want to compromise because you want to destroy the Jewish state. And this is what Abu Bazin says until this very day. In his own words, he even denies the existence of a Jewish people. Okay? He even denies that Hitler was an anti Semite. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous. And unless you're a European, and therefore when it comes to your Middle Eastern policy, you're usually ridiculous, then you cannot really understand what is going on here. And from an Israeli point of view, if I want to have a fantasy like rabin had in 93 with the Oslo process, I came to Rabin and I said to him, I understand everything about the Oslo process except the date. Why in September, there isn't a calendar, a specific day for an idea like the Oslo process, it is April 1st, okay? Because the whole idea was dumb. Not because of the concessions. In terms of concessions, I went beyond Rabin. I even wanted a different partitioning of Jerusalem. But because when you come to Yasser Arafat, when you come to the Palestinian national movement, nothing less than the destruction of the Jewish state is good enough for them. They're willing to wait with the destruction until it's done demographically. But this is their idea. I can't change it. I can't change the fact that in the west send their children to school that are called only on the names of people who killed Jews. But then you want to pull out.
- [42:01]
A
How do we pull out? How do we separate if at the.
- [42:07]
B
Moment we can't pull out? I'm sorry that we can't. Immediately after the 67 war, I wanted Jordan to take over. Jordan doesn't want it anymore. Later, I wanted to do it unilaterally. But in Gaza, it proved that you need a very, very strong military response, as I explained a moment ago. And in the west bank today, it is not possible. Because at the moment, I don't see an Israeli leadership that can root out about 100,000 Israelis from the heartland of Judea and Samaria. Do we have the right to be there? Yes, I have a right to jump from my roof. I haven't done it for a long time because of gravitation. Okay? So at the moment, the worst possible idea is an independent Palestinian state. This will ignite a regional war because the Palestinians will bring in the Iranians and they will bring militias from Afghanistan and the French will defend them against an Israeli response. So Israel will not do it. It's a fantasy. You must be an idiot to consider this as a realistic approach to what is going on at the moment. I want to disengage more and more from them. For instance, I would like, if Israel wants to reshape the border of the west bank so that it is better for Israel, from a security point of view, fine, but not to settle in the densely populated parts of the West Bank. So you need today at least to stop the process that leads to a one state approach. Okay? Unfortunately, with this government, I can't do it. With a different government, I hope at least this process will stop because it is counterproductive. From a Zionist point of view, I'm not looking here for international law or anything. From a Zionist point of view, it is a mistake.
- [44:29]
A
So just to understand, we don't.
- [44:33]
B
We.
- [44:33]
A
We hold on to the west bank, we hold on to security control of Gaza, surrounding Gaza, including the Philadelphia court or otherwise Hamas rearms. And we do so for the entirety of the foreseeable future. Because the alternative.
- [44:48]
B
Not in Gaza.
- [44:49]
A
Not in Gaza, okay, But in the west bank we do for the foreseeable future, while preserving demographic dividends. Territorial. Demographic divide. That allows for a two state future.
- [44:59]
B
Someday, I hope, yes, in Gaza, we will continue the withdrawal. It is in our interest to continue the withdrawal. If we can establish a reality in Gaza where Hamas cannot build up an army. You can't prevent individual people in Gaza from having small arms or something. This will not, this will not work. But you can break, continue to break Hamas with the aid of the backing of the United States. And we have a window of opportunity while Trump is president in the United States. If we had, God forbid, Kamala Harris, okay, Kamala Harris is already flirting with, with the term genocide. She said she doesn't want to say if it is genocide or not, because it is a legal question. So we have Trump at the moment backing Israel in trying to disarm Hamas. That's very important. If this works in Gaza, Israel can withdraw, certainly not settle in Gaza, certainly not incorporate parts of Gaza into Israel, but focusing Gaza only on the security issues. And I don't think any significant part of Israeli public wants to come back to Gaza.
- [46:34]
A
How could it possibly work? How could it possibly, how could Hamas possibly disarm, be disarmed by the Americans and the Saudis and even their allies, the Egyptians, Turks?
- [46:46]
B
All we need is an American backing.
- [46:49]
A
But that's going in. That's the demolition of the tunnel system under Gaza City, the flattening of Gaza City, the way Rafah was flattened.
- [46:56]
B
Yes, but.
- [46:57]
A
So that's the resumption of the war we're not talking about. There is no right now Trump administration. Let me move us forward to the Trump administration right now. The Trump administration, first of all did something miraculous. It used an Israeli strike on Doha to as leverage to tell the Qataris, we'll protect you if you squeeze Hamas into ending the war and giving up all the hostages. The only thing the Israelis actually would open the political window in Israel to end the war immediately. They gave all the living hostages. But even now, and now the Trump administration thinks that it's going to be able to force a Hamas that has already regained control of the ground in Gaza to disarm. Now, if it manages to build some kind of a mechanism, and it'll do it by Hamas essentially being part of the mechanism while pretending not to be. So that this is something the Trump administration can force on Israel, that is the likely result. But they won't really actually disarm. They'll pretend to disarm so everybody can move forward. I cannot imagine the actual disarming of Hamas. They're willing to go back to war to prevent it. They're willing to have every Gazan die, literally every Gazan die to prevent it. And right now, we're in the middle of a period in which they. 10 days ago, they had 28 bodies of dead hostages. They now have 13. They are slowly releasing them, one or two a night. Now, why are they doing that? They claim it's because that's how long it takes them to find them. Nobody believes them. What they're doing is they're buying time. Because as long as they're handing up one body at a time, the first phase, the hostage release, is still happening, and nobody moves to the second phase, meaning they're not violating the second phase as long as they're still bringing out those hostages. And what are they doing with the two, three, four weeks that they're buying by dripping out the bodies this way, they're retaking the ground, destroying any opposition. Hamas is Gaza going forward. And Trump won't do anything about it. Trump can't.
- [48:58]
B
What you're saying is true in terms of Hamas intentions and also true in terms of the short of the very near future. But the process, if it will take two more weeks or three more weeks, doesn't really matter. It's not that in these two weeks, Hamas will make disarming it impossible. Hamas will not be completely disarmed, but it will be to a very large degree disarmed. And the struggle over disarming Hamas will last for years. It's not a question of a few weeks. It will last for years. It will be a permanent job of Israel to identify Hamas, rebuilding itself, to destroy it. And if we can continue to destroy it as we are doing with Hezbollah in Lebanon today in more difficult circumstances, it's more difficult to do it in Gaza than in Lebanon. A because we don't have this other step of escalation that we have in Lebanon, of acting in Beirut. Hezbollah does not respond to what Israel is doing because they don't want us to esc in Beirut. And also in Lebanon, we have a government that wants to reestablish the sovereignty of Lebanon. We don't have that in Gaza, and we will not have it in Gaza anyway. So it's more difficult. But the struggle against Hamas will continue. The big war is over. The everlasting war has been there for 100 years and will be there for the next generations. And again, the challenge of Israel is to proceed with building the Israeli society in spite of the fact that people around us want to kill us. Look, we've managed in the west bank to achieve something very significant. We have killed about 1200 terrorists in the west bank, particularly in the Jenin and Tulkaram refugee camps. And the millions of Palestinians in the west bank have not joined in the struggle against Israel because they remember the second intifada. They remember what Israel did when they have joined. So we are maintaining our ability to have a kind of life in Israel that we need in order to rebuild our society while we are addressing the most dangerous part of the security challenge that Israel is facing. This is the challenge. Peace in the Middle east is like. Good morning, military intelligence. It's an opsimora, okay, there won't be peace in the Middle East. If you look at the whole region, Arabs are killing each other on a major scale very often. You have civil wars around us all the time. The idea that suddenly vis a vis Israel, there will be peace everlasting and we love each other and so on, live happily ever after is a free fantasies that we shouldn't even entertain. Unfortunately, in the early 90s, some people brought it up, particularly Shimon Peres, who never understood anything about the Middle East. But this is not an option. We have made Israel an enormous success in spite of the fact that the war is not over. And the war will not be over. It will. What is over now is the very Intensive part of the war. And we hope the next eruption will not come very soon, because we will prevent the radicals from being prepared for it. And remember one thing, the radicals in the Arab world who still fight against Israel are very small remnants of what we used to have in the 50s and 60s and 70s. Now very few are left. Now that Hamas, now that the Assad regime in Syria collapsed, we only have the Palestinians, the Houthis, the Hezmallahs, and a few others. Very few. With the support of Iran. Yes, but in the Arab world, we've succeeded not only in having a good life in spite of the wars, but but also in reducing dramatically the portion of the Arab world that is still fighting with Israel. I'm not waiting for perfection. I'm not waiting for the kind of peace everlasting that is not a reality in this part of the world. By the way, responding very harshly to the radicals helps for the maintenance of peace with the moderates, because they realize that even when the New York Times is on the times of on the side of Hamas. And not just the New York Times, the New York Times and the BBC and CNN and Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch and the courts in the Hague and the United nations and so on. And in spite of all this, Israel can respond to the barbarians so that even the barbarians will not make war so fast again. It is our responsibility, not Trump and not any international force, our responsibility to see to it that Hamas cannot rebuild itself. Will it still reflect Gaza? Yes. Is it still a reflection of Gazan society? Yes. Would the Gazans vote for it today if they had free elections? Yes. This is what is wrong with the Palestinian society, particularly in Gaza. There is something profoundly wrong with them that we cannot fix. And unfortunately, their supporters in the west encourage.
- [55:01]
A
Are we up to the challenge of fighting that kind of intelligence war that requires deep penetration of Gazan society? That's what we had with Hezbollah.
- [55:12]
B
Yes.
- [55:13]
A
Gaza was under the auspices under the purview of the Shabak, and that was a catastrophic failure. And the Mossad has shown us in the last two years what the Mossad knows how to do, human intelligence in Hezbollah and Iran. But the Doha strike, which was a failure, was also Shabbat. Is it just. Am I just picking on them or.
- [55:37]
B
You know, military intelligence just picking on them?
- [55:40]
A
But it's more than that. It's more than that because Sino was able to compartmentalize. He was obsessively paranoid about Israeli intelligence being everywhere, and people mocked him for it. But then he turned out to be Right. We learned from Hezbollah and that just obsessive paranoid compartmentalization allowed them to move forward with October 7th.
- [55:58]
B
Yes.
- [56:00]
A
Will we be able to penetrate them?
- [56:01]
B
Yes, I think we've learned the lesson. Look, in terms of intelligence, we were very well prepared in Lebanon and totally unprepared in Gaza. We were very well prepared in Iran as we can prove, and we did prove in June. And we were not prepared in Gaza because the assumption in Gaza was, and I remember it from discussing it with the top echelon of the Israeli intelligence community and army and government, the assumption was oh, you just, you're too obsessed with ideology. These are words. The real deeds are we will give them a better life and they will forget about destroying us. Do they still want it? Yes. Will they do it? No. Let's allow 18,000 workers from Gaza to come into Israel and if this doesn't work, we have the ultimate answer. 25,000 Gazans working inside Israel. And the more we give them a better life, the more they will forget that they want to slaughter Jews. Because these are just words, these are not deeds. The same stupid approach of rabini93. The same stupid approach that we have again and again. And I hope we will not come back to and I hope the trauma of October 7th has finally terminated. They don't really mean that they want to kill us. Yes, they mean that they want to kill us. And when we want to have good intelligence, when we are willing to invest in good intelligence, then we invest in good intelligence. And again it was demonstrated beautifully in Lebanon. Everybody remembers the Beepers, but people forget that we destroyed most of the long range heavy payload accurate missiles in Beirut. This was much, much more difficult than the beepers. The Beepers were brilliant and very helpful. But their real achievement was the destruction of the, the big stick that they held over us. Their ability to hit the centers of population with a massive amount of missiles that will saturate the Israeli anti missile system so that we destroyed. Here is where our intelligence was superb. And in Iran again the intelligence was superb. So when we realize there is a danger, we can learn from our mistakes and not repeat them again in the Gaza Strip. But again, the struggle will go on. Remove the caption wherever you can about peace in the Middle East. We're not discussing the radicals will continue to try and kill us and we need to find a response that is not a solution, but a response, an effective response.
- [58:59]
A
You don't think there's a better future for Gaza?
- [59:04]
B
No. And frankly I don't care. My responsibility is Not a better future for Gaza. For Gaza. The whole approach of happy wife, happy life. Okay? The whole dumb approach that says when they will be better off, we will be better off. This is stupid. We have tried it hundreds of times and it failed 100% of cases. When the Palestinians in the west bank started the second intifada, they had the best economic situation ever in their history and the not only best chance, but the demonstrated chance of getting control over Palestinian land. I mean, the greatest time of hope for them was there. And then they decided to kill the Jews. Okay, so the whole idea, the whole idea of we must give them a better. No. If people are not putting a good life, in our sense of the term, on top of their priorities, we cannot put it there. Okay, you can't do it in North Korea. You can't do it with barbarians. Could you do it with Pol Pot? Tell him we will give the Cambodians a better life and then stop slaughtering your own people. No, we don't understand barbarism because we were forbidden by the progressives to discuss culture, which is by far the most important thing in human behavior. If you disregard it and you want to focus on the question, where does a transgender take a leap? Okay, if this is on top of your priorities, then you don't understand the world.
- [61:04]
A
What would it take? I'm not saying it's possible. It's not possible. Let's assume that. What would de. Radicalization? You could tell me a hundred thousand years. No, you can tell. Not you can't. But I can't. I can't. What would be required if you imagine a de radicalized Gaza? A Gaza that wants to look like Dubai? No, imagine.
- [61:28]
B
Don't. You can't change the culture of other people. Forget it.
- [61:34]
A
What would they have to do? What specific things would they have to change to get there? What is the. What is the. Yes, I'm asking you, what is this specific. They are catastrophically self destructive. 500 kilometers of tunnels and then carrying out October 7th. And all of Gaza's economy was bent to that tunnel project. It's the biggest thing Palestinians have ever built. That tells me that Hamas wanted this war to look like this. I accept that they're catastrophically self centered.
- [62:06]
B
You can't change the culture for people who don't want to be more specific. If you have this fantasy, please don't waste my time and your time to discuss it. Okay?
- [62:19]
A
Not fantasy. No, no, but then. One second, one second. But I want to get to your sense. You talk very bluntly. That's Very useful. You're also translating from Hebrew where you speak very bluntly, but you also have a very coherent sense of what's happening, what exactly is broken in that culture. There are plenty of Arab cultures that have interfaces with Palestinian Arab culture that don't have these problems.
- [62:47]
B
If you are willing to adopt a completely different culture, but not abandoning your own. In other words, you don't have to abandon your Islamic identity or your Arab identity in order to be civilized. Again, look at the UAE to give you a very good example, but also many throughout the Arab world. But if your priorities are. And I started with it saying they are obsessed with what they call historic justice. Now every nation has a perception of historic justice. Okay? You can say, as Jews, we would like to renew the land of Israel as it was in the time of Solomon and so on. And then you come across reality and you say to yourself, what are my real choices? I mentioned to you the very traumatic decision by Ben Gurion after the Holocaust, saying, what we wanted will not be from what is possible? What is the least of evils? What is the best that we can do? And then take this and build around it a constructive structure. What have Palestinians never done anything constructive? During the British Mandate, the Jewish society built the infrastructure for the Jewish state. Okay? The Palestinians have never done anything constructive. They are whining. They're very good at whining and complaining and getting things from other people and being dependent on other people's attitude towards them, but saying, let us focus on building our own society. Why are most Arab states a catastrophic failure? Okay, most Arab states are a catastrophic failure. So the dumb answer that you get throughout academia is, oh, they're poor. Poor like Libya, poor like Iraq. Okay? No, it has nothing whatsoever to do with poverty. It's not a question of natural resources. Look at Singapore, look at Japan. Okay?
- [65:25]
A
Israel.
- [65:25]
B
Oh, is it because of colonialism? Look at countries who were colonized. Look at India, okay? Look at the Indian democracy. It's impressive when you compare it with the caste system that they have to deal with even today. Okay? Nations throughout the world try to bring themselves throughout the Arab world. It's very rare. It happens, but it's very rare. The Palestinians have a combination of two things. First of all, their sense of pride comes from killing Jews. If your only role model. When you're asking yourself, what name will we give to a school in the West Bank? If your only role model is somebody who killed Jews, and the more Jews he killed, the better role model he is, then what do you expect from such A society. Can they change? Yes. Have Arabs changed? Yes. I've given you examples. Can it happen in the future? Yes. Is it beginning to happen now? No. I will know decades before it becomes a reality that it is beginning to happen. It is not beginning to happen. And one of the major reasons it's not beginning to happen is behaving like barbarians brings them billions of dollars. Why should they change? It works. Behaving like barbarians brings them the support of American students and universities and the support of France, Britain, Canada and Australia. Why should we change? It works. Okay. Now, are they very good in cheating people? As if they're changing? Yes. But when push comes to shove, we've seen it in the Oslo process, when push comes to shove, we get something like we got in the second Intifada. Because Arafat never did what Rabin fantasized or Paris fantasized that Arafat is doing. And the reason they have this kind of leadership among the Palestinians, like the Mufti of Jerusalem who supported Hitler, like Abu Mazen today, listen to his speech to his own people. It's ridiculous what they're selling their own people. And again, it is never what we need to do to build our nation. It is how everybody else is responsible for our problems. So again, will it ever change? I don't know. Look, in Turkey, we had two cultural revolutions in one century 100 years ago with Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in a very positive sense, and with the present Barbarian Erdogan about 25 years ago. Okay? In both cases, there were cultural changes. Arabs are capable of cultural changes. Muslims are capable of cultural changes, positive changes, negative changes. Radical Islam was a negative. The most important cultural change in the Arab world in the last few decades was Islamic radicalism. Cultural changes are possible, but the fact that they are possible doesn't mean that they are inevitable. And the fact that they are possible doesn't mean that they must be positive. There can be also negative cultural changes.
- [69:30]
A
Okay?
- [69:30]
B
You know, there is this saying one day I was sitting gloomy in my room, and then a voice came out of the darkness and said, cheer up, things could be worse. So I cheered up. And sure enough, things did get worse.
- [69:45]
A
So let's end very pragmatically. If you were right this minute advising Bibi, what is the best case scenario for Gaza's future? What should Israel aspire for Gaza? The way Gaza will be run. There's going to be international stabilization forces and a governor, Tony Blair. And there's all this stuff that the Trump plan imagines. The very fact that they have to have the President, the Vice president and the Secretary of State in the country within 10 days of each other suggests that it's not at all clear to anybody that that's actually doable and going to move forward. The Qataris and the Turks are going to use it to support Hamas rather than anything else. What should the Israeli hope for Gaza? What's the best case scenario for what happens in Gaza in the next few years? And what do you actually expect will be the situation in Gaza politically, strategically, militarily going forward? And you could talk about the next year, the next 10 years, the next 40 years, whatever.
- [70:48]
B
They best realistic things that can happen in Gaza. Okay. The best realistic thing is that Israel will manage with the backing of the United States and without Turkey standing in a way to see to it that Hamas cannot rebuild itself in Gaza in a way that will threaten Israel. I don't expect any alternative governing structure in Gaza to function very well. I don't think that they can persuade the Gazans to become constructive. I don't think that we will see a process of nation building in Gaza. I don't expect it. But again, it is more about damage control than about finding solutions. My best realistic hope is an effective damage control. And also this is my prediction. We will not have a rebuilt Gaza in the near future. We will perhaps build houses in Gaza, but not a society. There is something profoundly wrong with this society that they're not willing to change. By the way, again, look at the Arab world. Rich countries, poor countries, big countries, small countries. Very few of them are successful. Look at what is happening in Egypt, a country with a history of thousands of years, with 120 million people. And I don't see a good future for Egypt. How will you feed 120 people with a culture that refuses to adjust itself to the 21st century? And as an Israeli, I want Egypt to be in a much better position than it is today. Look at Jordan with a very realistic and responsible leadership of King Abdullah ii. But with a society that is so overburdened with Palestinians and Muslim brothers that I don't see a good future for Jordan. Look at Syria. Hopefully Lebanon will improve. Thanks. By the way, thanks to the war Israel waged against Hezbollah, Lebanon has a chance of reestablishing its sovereignty and becoming functional again. The Gaza Strip is the worst part of the Arab world. And if you compare it to most of the Arab world, in most of the Arab world, it's also not exactly what I would hope for. Again, as an Israeli, not as a humanitarian as an Israeli, I want the Arab states to be more successful. And I can't see it happening because of the cultural reasons. Okay. Not external. They are domestic to a very large. To a very large extent. So my best hopes and my realistic prediction for Gaza is good Israeli damage control. If this works, I'll be delighted.
- [74:18]
A
One of the striking things for me after October 7th, a lot of people have asked me hundreds and hundreds of times, how has Israel changed from October 7th? And it's a question that's first of all hard to answer in many different ways, but also actually hard to answer. It's the same Israel, but one of the things that early on I realized about myself and then I started hearing it from everyone else in Israel is humility. The enemy surprised you. And when an enemy. And that's what an enemy is, that's every. Every officer in the IDF learns in the first week of officer school that once you encounter the enemy, you encounter the unknown. You encounter the enemy's surprises. The enemy has been maneuvering to planning to surprise you. You plan to surprise the enemy. But when the enemy surprises you at that scale, you no longer believe in your own ability to psychoanalyze and to navigate the other side's politics. And you boil down to a brass tax. You boil down to the simple things. And so no monsters can grow on the border. Simple things. That's what you're seeing in Hezbollah, that you're describing as what's going to be the Israeli policy in Gaza. If the other side wants to change and modernize and liberalize and become competent as a society, fantastic. If it doesn't, that's got nothing to do with me. I don't know how to change them. There's no. You know, the Americans sometimes fantasize they can change the world because a couple of times they change the entire world. But they're the Americans. We're the Israelis. We're small. We have. We cannot have such fantasies. You describe in your inimitable way. I'm going to get emails that Israeli humility. There's very little that we can.
- [76:04]
B
No, no, not really. I mean, okay, I agree that we should be humble when it comes to what happens to us, but the way we responded to it is unbelievable. I mean, I was born arrogant, but I'm today much more arrogant than before. Because first of all, look at the Israeli society. In spite of the fact that we have probably the worst government Israel ever had, the Israeli society showed resilience of the kind that no other society ever showed before. Israeli society showed Enormous, unbelievable strength. Second, when most young people in the west really don't know what they're talking about, they're obsessed with things. They invent concerns about, I don't know, transgenders and what have you. And this is what they're dealing with. Look at the young generation in Israel. It's unbelievable what they have done. And third, Israel established itself by far as the most important regional power in the Middle East. Look at what we did in Iran, 2,000 kilometers away from the. From Israel. Look at the tremendous achievements that we've had on all fronts. Does it mean that we solved our problems? No. But every society can start with a bad reality. The Second World War for the United States started with Pearl harbor for The Brits, until 1942, they didn't have one victory that they could show for. So democracies start out wars in a difficult situation because democracies are never ready for war. Never. Okay, but the question is, how do you get up, manage to re. Establish your position and dramatically improve? Israel today is in a dramatically better situation than it was two years ago. So again, I was born arrogant, but I'm more arrogant today than ever before. I don't think any other small nation could have done what we've done in the last two years.
- [78:35]
A
Last question. Nevertheless, the people listening to this, a majority are going to be Diaspora Jews. And I have spoken to many Diaspora Jewish groups and communities over the last two years, and one of the things I tell them is that this whirlwind of antisemitism that has just exploded everywhere on the left, on the right in America and Europe, we Israelis kind of shrug and don't have to worry about it because we don't have to live with those people. But Diaspora Jews, of course, have to live with those people, and their lives have been turned upside down. It's hard to talk about because, you know, the Israeli family where the dad has been gone into Gaza or Lebanon for 160 days, it's hard to then say, I, an American Jew in Cleveland, am suffering. But nevertheless, they are suffering. And that doesn't worry you. The turning on Israel, by the way, the massive rising up of anti Semitism that people thought was gone and turned out to just be latent and ready to come forth.
- [79:40]
B
I didn't think it was gone. And I was considered a pessimist. And I was proven to be not pessimistic enough about antisemitism. It went even further, much further than I expected. And as a Jew, there are two things I'm concerned about. I am concerned about the ultra Orthodox in Israel. I think that their way of life, the hardcore of the ultra Orthodox in Israel is a catastrophe. It puts in danger the continued existence of the Jewish people. If we don't break this way of life, the parasitic way of life of the ultra Orthodox, then the Jewish people has no future. And the second thing is what you mentioned, namely Jews outside of Israel. Look, there is practically today no Jewish life in Europe, okay? Let alone in other parts of the world. And I thought that the termination of Jewish life in America will take a few generations. I now think it will come much, much sooner. And I don't mean Jews being exterminated or Jews being persecuted in Europe or in the United States, but Jewish life. In other words, people who can be proud to be Jews to associate with the Jewish state and so on. This, I think will go away, first of all, because of the degree of antisemitism that we've seen now. And second, because young Jews, particularly in the United States, are much less associated with their Jewish identity than before, than previous generations, have very few children, and their entire attitude is such that they can't combine in a good way the commitment to an open society with a willingness to defend themselves against the enemies of the open society. So I'm not very optimistic, particularly about the young generation of Jews in America. And since the option of ultra Orthodox Judaism for me is destructive. So the kind of Jews that I can feel comfortable with, liberal people who are for whom the Jewish identity is very important and so on, they are under siege now. And they're under siege, first of all because of the unbelievable level of antisemitism, particularly in the left, because this comes from home, from their point of view, okay? The fascists who were anti Semitic is one story. Arabs and Afghans and Pakistanis are another thing. But when it comes from the hard core of American liberals who are under the influence of American progressives, this is the problem. The problem is not with the liberals. The problem is when Chuck Schumer is afraid from Sanders, okay? This is the problem. The problem is that they are being undermined. Their Jewish identity is being undermined by forces that come from within their social and cultural backgrounds. So I am very pessimistic about that. And it saddens me. And the fact that I have a solution for myself. I live in a Jewish state and I wouldn't live anywhere else, doesn't make my sadness about people who've chosen another way of life, who are my brothers, who are people I very much care about. We are very Similar in terms our weltan, in terms of our cultural priorities, and I'm sorry to see it being weakened.
- [83:51]
A
Okay, we're going to end pessimistic. No, we can't end pessimistic. I'm sorry, give me two more sentences. The death of the major, the largest, most powerful, most influential, most productive diaspora community in the history of Jews. That's what American Jewee is.
- [84:06]
B
Yes, but the Jewish state is the solution.
- [84:09]
A
So give me the optimistic end. Just so that we people can't walk away from. I should just say. Dan Shiftan counsels Israelis that they have agency, massive agency, and every time they stand up and have to solve a problem, they demonstrate it. So, you know, give us the optimistic ending.
- [84:28]
B
First of all, let me make the distinction between a dumb optimist and a smart optimist. A dumb optimist says things will be good, a smart optimist says things will be bad, but we will get stronger faster than things get worse. In other words, the gap between the good guys and the bad guys will grow. And if they challenge us, we'll break their face. Okay? That's an optimism, not of a nice person. And if somebody wants to insult me, he should call me a nice person. Okay? So that's an optimism of saying, yea, though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for I'm the meanest son of a bitch in the valley. Okay? I mean, I can handle this. The second point is, I think Jews have learned to adjust themselves to a changing reality better than others. And the best way to adjust yourself to a challenging reality is to make aliyah and come to Israel. And in Israel, if I may, it'll take another moment. You know, I cannot sleep in flights and I cannot read. So I watch dumb films. And in one of these dumb films, there was a pearl, a mother saying to her daughter, you know, I love you and I'll do anything for you, but I don't like you. And that's my attitude to the Jewish people. I don't like the. But I love them. In other words, they have demonstrated now here in Israel the kind of resilience that makes me sleep very well at night, okay? Saying, yes, we live under very difficult circumstances, but there is almost nothing that we cannot do if we put our mind to it. We need to put our mind to it.
- [86:28]
A
Dan Chieftain, thank you very much for joining me.
- [86:32]
B
It was fun.