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Foreign.
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You are listening to an art media podcast.
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If process of normalization starts in the Middle east, if the Middle east accepts Israel, I think it will be make it much easier for the friends of Israel to come back and become friends in Israel, in the West. What process of normalization does is saying to reach the success repaid currency with our legitimacy and then normalization is leveraging the success in order to bring back that currency in order. So normalization is the missing piece to declare real victory.
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It's 1:30pm on Sunday, November 16th here in New York City. It is 8:30pm On Sunday, November 16th in Israel as Israelis wind down their day. Today, Sunday, the Israeli government took the decision to establish a commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding the October 7 massacre. According to Hebrew Media reports, the commission will not be an independent state run commission of inquiry. Its mandate will be determined by cabinet ministers, prompting backlash from opposition figures. This topic, the role of the commission of inquiry, how independent it actually is, the history of commissions of inquiry in Israel and the role they've played after wars is something we will be exploring in a future episode. Also today, IDF Chief of Staff Eyel Zamir toured the Gaza Strip where he stated that the IDF must be prepared for a rapid transition into a broad offensive in which Israel would conquer more territory beyond the yellow line if needed. Meanwhile, Israel and the US Are preparing for the United Nations Security Council to meet tomorrow Monday to vote on a resolution that would endorse President Trump's Gaza peace plan, which includes the establishment of an international stabilization force to oversee Gaza for the time being. Notably, the plan also envisions a potential pathway to a Palestinian state, which many Israeli leaders across the political spectrum, from right to left, have continued to state their opposition to. Also, over the past week, a surge in extremist settler violence in the west bank has attracted the attention of leaders in Israel and also abroad. The attacks have mainly targeted Palestinian communities, with some rioters even going after Israeli soldiers. Prime Minister Netanyahu told the Cabinet on Sunday that Israel will, quote, take very forceful action against the riots. Now onto today's episode. For about a month, Israelis have lived through an all too rare stretch of relatively few sirens, at least by Israel's standards. As the Gaza ceasefire holds, we now have an opportunity to reflect perhaps a little more clearly on the outcome of the war. What does it actually mean? To what extent Israel can claim the past two years in Gaza a victory? Joining me to guide us through this conversation is Micah Goodman. Dr. Micah Goodman is the author of seven best selling books and the co host of Mif Lechet Hamachshavut, which is a podcast in Hebrew, which he co hosts with Ephrat Shapira Rosenberg. Before today's conversation, a quick word from the sponsor of this episode. This episode is presented by Birthright Israel. Your 20s are one of those formative periods in life. Think of the relationships you make, the culture you absorb, and the places you go. That's why Birthright connects young Diaspora Jews to Israel at a critical moment in their lives. Each year, tens of thousands of young Jews return from Birthright Israel with a renewed sense of identity, purpose, and connection. ARC Media is proud to partner with Birthright Israel. Its impact is extraordinary. 84% of alumni are raising their children to have a strong Jewish identity. But it can only continue with our support. Your donation helps our kids and grandkids discover their place in the Jewish story. To contribute to a new generation of proud, connected, knowledgeable young Jews, visit BirthrightIsrael Foundation. CallMeBack back and be part of the movement Birthright Israel. One trip changes everything. I'm pleased to welcome back to the podcast Micah Goodman. Micah, good to see you.
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How you doing? Good to see you.
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Okay, Micah, we have a lot to cover. I want to just start by asking a question of you that I asked of Yonatan Adiri last week. If you ask everyday Israelis if they think Israel has won the war, what kind of answer would you get?
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So I think the answer is, which war are we talking about? Because there's two wars, okay? There's the war in the narrow sense, Israel versus Hamas. And there's the war in the broader sense, Israel word versus Iran and its ecosystem, its octopus, its proxies. And I think you'll get two different answers. If it's Israel versus Hamas, I think you'll get more ambivalent answers. Because on the one hand, yes, we dismantled their offensive weapons and their leadership, but on the other hand, they're still alive and they're still there. So regarding Hamas, you'll get ambivalent answers regarding that war. Regarding the wider war with Iran and its proxies, I think it's commonly understood that Israel was extremely successful. So did we win the war? The question which war are we talking about the broader war or the more narrow war versus Hamas?
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Okay, in terms of the mirror image on the Palestinian side, both on the outcome and also looking back at the strategic decision to open war with Israel on October 7th, how do you imagine things look from the Palestinian side?
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So when it comes to the Palestinian perspective, the Hamas perspective is a Part of a larger perspective of Jabet Al Muqawama of the Front of Resistance or Axis of Resistance. If we look at the evolution of the attempts of the enemies of Israel to destroy Israel to end the project called Zionism. So there's three stages. And Hamas in this war was stage three. Now stage one, the common understanding was of the different forces in the Middle east that by building strong standards armies and attacking Israel simultaneously, we can destroy Israel. That was 48, that was 67, that was 73. That was a strategy. That's how they thought they could destroy Israel. And in their own self understanding this is going to work. Israel will be destroyed if we simultaneously attack them with our conventional armies. Well, stage one failed. After 73, probably after 67, more and more Arab countries understood that you can't defeat Israel. And the first country to really lead the way was Egypt, which they decided, well, if you can't beat them, join them, make peace with them. By the way, this was all a prediction of Zev Jabotinsky back in 1923. He wrote a famous essay called Kira Barzil, I guess Iron Wall where he predicts that there will be peace one day, but peace will happen when the enemies of Israel will see Israel as an irreversible fact. And once there is an internalization that Zionism is irreversible, that you can't end a project called Israel, then they'll decide, well, if we can't beat them, we'll join them and make peace with them.
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Or just learn to live with them.
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And learn to live with them. So Anwar Sadat making peace with Israel in 1979 was a fulfillment of the prediction of zev Jabotinsky from 1923. But not all the enemies of Israel learned that lesson. Some said something, if we fail defeating Israel using our armies, maybe it's not that Israel is undefeatable, maybe it's our strategy is not effective. Let's find a different strategy. A different strategy started emerging. It was actually started beforehand, but in the 80s it became more dominant, which is terrorism. We won't defeat Israel by conquering Israel with our armies. We'll defeat Israel through attrition. What terrorism does, attacking civilians and then hiding among civilians, immoral offense, immoral defense. And then Israel will break down. It won't have the will to stand a long war of attrition. And the peak of that attempt was obviously the second intifada where over 1,100 Israelis were murdered when buses were exploding. In the horrible days of the second Intifada and the second Intifada ended with Zachum at Magen. I think you say defensive shield, where the two titans of Israeli politics, Shimon Peres and Shimon Peres, the titan of the left, Ali Sharon of the right, unite and break the second intifada in operation Chomat Magen, by the way, also the six Day war was a binational UAD government. Israel does very well when it could join forces. So the second tifa was put down. Arafadayn also helped the fence, also helped all this together. Put down the second Tifa'dah and it became clear Israel is not going to break under a wave of terrorism. So the first two strategies failed. Conquering Israel with armies failed. Destroying Israel through terrorism failed. Now comes stage number three, and this is what we started facing in this war. Stage number three is a combination of the first two stages. Stage one army. Stage two, terrorism. Stage three, a combination of the two. Creating an army of terrorists. Now Hamas was an army, had battalions, chain of command, the ability to cooperate, an intelligence arm. It was two divisions of light infantry. Hezbollah was an army. It has all the advantages of an army, but it was an army of terrorism. Now the difference between a regular army and army of terrorism is that an irregular army protects civilians. An army of terrorism is protected by civilians. So strategy number three was a very impressive startup, immoral, vicious, but could have been effective. Now Qasem Soleimani added to that another element, and that is not only to build army of terrorists, but to create a network of those kind of armies. And then one day to press a button and they'll all attack Israel simultaneously and put an end to Israel. So from their perspective, let's think about what October 7th could have looked like, what would have happened? And I'm sure almost all the viewers and listeners to call me back probably did this in their head. I know every Israeli did this in their head. Imagine the following scenario. What would have happened if during those 810 hours on October 7, when the Israeli military was in shock and not functioning and not even knowing what's going on, and the terrorists could go into near Uz, do all the sadistic things in Nir Uz and leave without the army even reaching there. If during that window, if Hezbollah would have attacked full blown from the north, what would have happened? And add to that, if we're attacked from the south and the north, accurate ballistic missiles landing on strategic sites in Israel, what would have happened? With not low probability Palestinians from Judea Samaria, west bank would say, hey, if Israel is going down, we have to be in the right side of history they might have joined. Also the militant part of Israeli Arabs could have joined also we will find themselves were attacked in the south north. Strategic missiles hitting all over Israel in strategic sites increasing the chaos and an uprise from within. I would say with not low probability that could have meant the destruction of Israel. Which means the fact that we could have this scenario they missed out on that. But it means that they actually developed a winning strategy. Strategy number one, armies didn't work. Terrorism didn't work. Combining them with a network effect the that could have worked. And isn't that amazing and terrifying to figure out that Sadat was wrong in 79 the idea that oh Israel is irreversible. No, your strategy was wrong. And finally Qasem Soleimani and others developed the winning strategy. So I think in light of that we have to think about this war. We didn't know or military didn't know that strategy number three in the evolution of the attempt to destroy Israel was very effective in and it could have worked. Why didn't it work? Because they didn't attack us together. Because their strategy was based on the assumption that they are very united and that they could cooperate. And seeing while starting the war without being coordinated with the rest of them was a lack of cooperation. Hasan Nasrallah not joining full blown all in in October 7th that is lack of cooperation. And if we take this one step further, in their vision of Jabet Al Muqarama the front of resistance was that if we attack them together we could defeat them and get to Al Aqsa and like fulfill our vision. But if you think about this war, Sin will have this idea that I will attack them and everybody will join us and Israel will be in a multi front war where they're fighting full blown in many fronts. And if you think about it, that's exactly what happened. But different than the way Death and Sinuar imagined it, we fought them one by one. When we did Hamas, Hezbollah didn't come all in to save Hamas. When we did Hezbollah, Iran didn't come to save Hezbollah. And then finally when we did Iran, Hezbollah didn't come to save Iran. Which means they had the right strategy but they weren't unified enough to implement their strategy. Which takes me to another part of their strategy. Yeri Siwa and Muhammad Def and actually this is the concept of the entire structure of the axis of resistance. They made not one bet but two bets. They bet on their unity, but they also bet on our division. They saw us fighting and weakening and they thought that if they hit us, we'll collapse into our own divisions. By the way, you interviewed Ronen Bergman, and he actually described why they recorded the atrocities. Because they thought that will break us. That's what they thought.
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I have always been shocked by the extent to which Hamas documented everything and broadcast everything. I always thought that was a strategic error. And as Ronen's reporting shows, based on all the materials that the IDF and the intelligence community have uncovered, that the documenting and broadcasting was the strategy that they thought would serve many purposes, not the least of which is break Israelis and almost like freeze them like deer in the headlights. Like, just like they cannot believe what's happening, then Hamas and its allies could just continue the advance.
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They thought that broadcasting that will do two things. It will implement their bubble strategy. It will excite the enemies of Israel to unite, look, breaking down. And it will also send a shockwave into Israeli society and collapse into our own contradictions. So they made two bets. They bet on their unity and on our division. They got the first bet wrong. Now the second bet is more complicated because Israel was polarized before the war, and it was polarized during the war. The polarization before the war was the center left saying to the right, your way. The government will lead us through a catastrophe. And the right was saying, oh, the protest movement will lead us to a catastrophe. After October 7th happened, polarization changes. The protest movement says the government led us to catastrophe. Government supporters say the protest movement led us to catastrophe. So polarization grew as a result of October 7th. And yet, here's the paradox of Israel during the past two years. While Israelis were highly divided regarding the government, they were highly united regarding the war. Which means you have critical mass of Israelis that were willing to not only support a war, but also fight in a war, sacrifice in a war, and many times die in a war led by a government that they don't trust. Israelis managed to hold on to this tension for two whole years. And by the way, what's even more interesting was also that when the war ended, it didn't break the unity. So it means that the central left supported the war even though they didn't support the government. And the right supported ending the war, even though against their ideology, because their ideology was as war as to lead to transfer and settlement of Gaza. So both sides managed to overcome their instincts, the ideological instinct of the right and the political instinct of the left, and to maintain solidarity. So if you think about this way, they made two bets. The enemies of Israel, they bet on their unity and Our division, they got both bets wrong. So as a result, did Israel win? That has to do with the future, with normalization. Maybe we'll discuss that. But that did the Axis lose? I think they lost. And they lost not because they didn't have the right strategy, but they didn't have enough unity to implement that strategy. By the way, in the War of independence in 1948, in that war, I grew up like every Israeli, that the war was about the few versus the many. And actually what historians show today is that maybe that's not exactly true. Because at almost any given battle, the Israelis had the advantage in numbers. Now why is that? Well, it's because in the attack on Jerusalem, Ben Gurion took troops from the south, from the north, from everywhere, concentrated in Jerusalem, and created an advantage over the Arabs in Jerusalem. And in other battles, we took soldiers from the south and from Jerusalem to the north. And the Arabs couldn't do that. So because we were unified in a strategic sense, even though we didn't outnumber them when it comes to comparing the standing armies, we outnumbered them in every battle. So the War of Independence wasn't the few defeating the many. It was the people that could cooperate defeating those that couldn't cooperate. And I think this war is a replication of the logic of the success of the Atzmaut war.
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Okay, let's take a break to hear a word from our sponsor.
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Hi, it's Gabe Silverstein from the ARC Media team.
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You may know me from research by Gabe Silverstein.
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This summer I participated in a Birthright trip. So I can tell you exactly what they mean when they say one trip changes everything. Birthright didn't just connect me with my Israeli brothers and sisters in a spiritual and lasting way. Birthright gave me a deeper understanding of what it means to be a Jew and where I fit into the Jewish story. It's incredible to me that this organization exists and I know that behind every one of these trips are generous people who made it happen. People like you. Birthright Israel's goal is to inspire and empower a new generation of Jewish young adults to help make that happen and to create more life changing experiences like mine, please visit Birthright Israel foundation. Callmeback Birthright. One trip changes everything.
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Okay, so why is the Axis of Resistance, having lost the war, not considered like indisputably an Israeli win?
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I think for three reasons. We're left with three strategic problems. And the sum of these problems cracks our ability to honestly declare an absolute victory, which I think is a childish category to begin with. We have to think about a good enough victory. But there's three problems. Problem number one is obviously Hamas is still standing, Gaza is a problem, and Gaza might be a problem that grows. And they know there's a 20 point plan and maybe an international force will dismantle Hamas. I'm laughing because many Israelis are skeptical regarding that possibility. And in Israel there is a saying that in the Middle east, end of which means that everything that seems temporary is permanent. If we have a temporary arrangement now in Gaza, that might be permanent, and it's not that it might suck Israel into attrition war with Hamas. It might not. But that's one problem. But that's the least of our problems. Problem number two is Qatar in Turkey. Now, this is very weird. This is a very paradoxical result of the war Islamist ideology. If it's the Muslim Brotherhood or the Islamic Republic of Iran, they share an understanding and a very specific brand of Islamist ideology that has like three components. All the problems of the Middle east and the Muslim world come from the West. There is also conspiracy elements added to it. Like, if you ask, like Sayyid Qutub, one of the theologians of Islamism is that behind the west are the Jews. And later on it was developed that Israel is the vehicle of the west to distort the Middle East. So it's very anti Israel, anti Semitic and anti Western. This ideology had patrons and proxies. The proxies, Hezbollah, Hamas, they had the armies of terrorists fighting for this ideology. It also has patrons, especially Qatar. The result of this war is weird. Israel smashed the proxies of this ideology, but the result is that it strengthened the patrons of this ideology. So that's where we are now. Is Hamas, is Qatar in Turkey a strategic threat tomorrow morning? No. Could it evolve into a strategic threat? Yes. I want to measure this. Which means we've just dismantled an existential immediate threat. Right? But now we have a new threat. We eliminated an immediate strategic threat and now we have to deal with a long term evolving threat. But finally, the third price of this success of breaking the axis of resistance is the isolation of Israel and the world. And this is, I think, our largest problem because we need international legitimacy. And I think we discussed this, that if breaking the axis of resistance is the destination of the war, the war is a car. So legitimacy, international legitimacy is the gasoline, is the fuel. And the question the whole war was, will we run out of fuel before we get to the destination? And I think we got the destination. We broke the axis of resistance. But now there's no More fuel in the tank. Now there's no more legitimacy. And we've lost so many of our friends, our enemies in the west, the ones that were rallying against us on October 8, we didn't have to begin with, but if we look at America, this war discovered two things about America. First of all, we discovered how dependent we are in America. We would have run out of ammunition pretty quickly without America, which means we are dependent existentially on America. That's one thing we discovered and one thing that this war created is that our support in America is definitely not guaranteed. The Democratic Party seems like it's not with us. And I know that you think the Republican Party is with us and the Tucker Carlson's are a minority, but we have to agree that's a growing voice and it has momentum. So if we realize how dependent we are on America and on American support, I think there's three scenarios in the next few years that could happen. I don't know how to give probability to every one of them. Scenario number one is that America goes into chaos, that there is some constitutional breakdown, that the next elections won't be seen as legitimate. If America goes into chaos, Israel loses America because America is not functioning. Option number two, you have like a Mamdani or Tucker Carlson or someone doesn't like Israel leading America. And option number three, we get another, I don't know, Joe Biden or another, whatever Nikki Haley. But the fact that I would say if you add up probabilities, there might be high probability that America won't stay with Israel either because America doesn't function or because it doesn't support Israel. Which means if we're dependent on America and we can't count on America, Israel is in a very weak position today existentially. Which brings you to the paradox. Our strongest moment is our weakest moment. So it's hard to declare victory when you achieve the victory, but the price of the victory turns you very weak.
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So first of all, that's an interesting question. When has victory been so clear and indisputable for Israel and actually celebrated not only by Israel, but admired by, you know, many actors around the world? You probably have to go back to the Six Day War.
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And yet the Six Day War, the whole world was rallying. That was the moment that attracted the world to Israel and began the strategic relationship between the United States and Israel. And this is the war that has the opposite impact of the Six Day War. It's pushing the world away from Israel. So we became very strong in the Middle east. And very weak position in Western civilization. There's one thing Israel can do in order to turn this victory into a real victory, and that is normalization.
B
Normalization with Saudi Arabia?
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Yeah. Lebanon might be in the mix, Syria might be in the mix. Saudi, Indonesia. So we're talking about at the end of this war, we see the west breaking ties with Israel and in the Middle east starting to create ties with Israel. Now this is first of all a very paradoxical moment because I think we were both growing up in a world where Israel was not legitimate in the Middle east and very legitimate in the West. Now something's happening. We're becoming less and less legitimate in the west, and we might go into a process where we're more and more legitimate in the Middle East. But my assumption is that if process of normalization starts in the Middle east, if the Middle east accepts Israel, I think it will be make it much easier for the friends of Israel to come back and become friends in Israel. In the west, what process of normalization does is saying to reach this success, we paid currency with our legitimacy. And then normalization is leveraging the success in order to bring back that currency in order. So normalization is the missing piece to declare real victory.
B
There are many analysts arguing that Turkey has replaced Iran as the most important geopolitical power in the region right now, other than Israel, and that's adversarial to Israel. And there's a lot of questions and ambiguity about what Qatar's future is in the region. So where do Turkey and Qatar fit into all of this?
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Israel went to a war and paid the price for success. And then Qatar and Turkey are enjoying the fruits of success. That's what happens. Which is also why normalization is important, because normalization is to create an axis of the Sunni forces that are not supporters of Islamist ideologies, that actually see the Muslim Brotherhood not as their allies, but as their enemies. That's Saudi, that's the Emirates, that's Egypt. So it's hard to exaggerate how important normalization is in minimizing the price of victory and therefore guaranteeing the sustainability of the victory.
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What are the biggest challenges for the path to normalization?
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From the Israeli perspective, normalization has a price. And the price is not the foundation of a Palestinian state. Evacuation of communities and settlements and a withdrawal of the Israeli military from Judea and Samaria from the West Bank. That's not the price for normalization. The price is not a territorial withdrawal, but a rhetoric withdrawal, which has a lot of meaning. People on the PRAGMATIC right might say, well, if we get paid in cash, normalization, with all the strategic benefits of normalization, and the currency we pay is saying the P word Palestinian state, but saying it will be formed only if it can recognize Israel and has equal rights for gay people and secular people and Christian people and all that. I think many Israelis will say, okay, that's a good deal for us. But that is the perspective of pragmatic Israelis, even pragmatic right wing Israelis. For ideological right wingers, just saying the word Palestinian state just being in that conversation is an abomination. It's a violation of everything that's sacred to them. So what does this mean? This means that when it comes to normalization, exposes something, and we spoke about this a little bit in our last conversation, it exposes the real ideological schism in Israel is not between right and left, it's between right and right. It's between the pragmatic right and the ideological right. That's what the schism is. Which also means something else, that the political divide in Israel and the ideological divide in Israel are not aligned. The political division is between do you like Bibi or you hate Bibi? Let's call that right and left, even though it's not the right categories. But the ideological division is, are you a pragmatic or are you ideological? So for normalization, we have to have the Israeli dividing lines being aligned. We need the political division to be exactly where the ideological division is. And then a new coalition can be formed, the coalition of normalization, which means Bibi has to divorce himself from the far right. Not easy. And the center left has to overcome its allergic reaction to the presence of Netanyahu. Not very easy. They have to come to a recognition that our problem is not with Netanyahu the person, but with Netanyahu's government and coalition. Those are the two things that have to happen in order to create the coalition of normalization.
B
Mika, I agree with your analysis. I say this as an outsider and I just find what you're saying, what those on the center left need to do, totally implausible. The levels of not in a million years can this guy be back in office. That mindset, I just think is implacable.
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So we have a problem here with pragmatism. Pragmatism lost its charisma ever since social media. It's understanding that politics is about compromise and it's about trade offs. You have to ask, what I gain? Is it more or less than what I give? It's pragmatism. Lost its charisma. And just like the far right says, well, I can't say the Palestinian word and I can't go into state. You mean. Yes. Yeah. And even though it means that it might save Israel from international isolation, which is a strategic threat to Israel, and that's without forming a Palestinian state. So a pragmatic right winger might be able to see that, but ideologues can't on the left. Well, isn't a coalition with Bibi much better than the coalition of Bibi? Can't you see that? But the problem is that being pure and being right becomes more important than being effective and doing what's right for Israeli history. Now, I think now this is so rational. And what you're discussing is that the problem is that people aren't rational.
B
I want to stay on this, Mika. Love him or hate him. And I know we have listeners on this podcast in both categories. We have people who love Bibi, and we listen to us regularly. We have people who hate Bibi. But regardless of whether you love him or hate him, I think you can't argue with the fact that he's one of the most clever and effective geopolitical strategists, at least among Israel's leadership. Whether you're a fan of Bibi or you're hostile to Bibi, you want to know how he's thinking about this, right? He, in many respects, could be instrumental to normalization. So if he were, like, inputting all this information that you've provided in this conversation, he thinks, therefore, what?
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So I think this is. My guess is that this is how BB is thinking about this. Bibi wants two things, two Ls, by the way, he wants liberty and he wants legacy. Now, when I say liberty, I don't mean John Stuart Mill, the value of human liberty. I mean liberty. I mean not to be in jail. Liberty. That's what I mean. He wants liberty and he wants legacy. Legacy is creating a cycle around Iran. It's to do to Iran with Qasem Soleimani what Iran did to Israel. That means bringing back the legitimacy that we lost. The whole normalization move is his legacy. I would say if we have normalization, we could declare absolute victory. Okay? The problem is that the government that could try to get him his liberty and the government of his legacy are not the same government. The government of legacy is a government where he divorces himself from the far right, builds the alliance of the Israelis that serve the Israelis. They're pragmatic. The Israelis are hybrid, both very national and very liberal, that mainstream Israeli. And if he could build that coalition, he has a legacy. Problem is that coalition won't play around with the court system and the judicial system and legislate laws or appoint people that will get him out of his problems. You know who will do that? Bengvir Smotrich, the current coalition. So the problem is that Bibi has two needs, two Ls, Liberty and Legacy, but different coalitions. So how does he maneuver this? Maybe, I don't know. Now I'm just guessing. Maybe this is what President Trump is trying to do for him, help him get out of his problems. Now, what Smotrish and Benficre don't understand is once he's out of his problems, he doesn't need them anymore. He throws them under the bus, goes to the center, center left and build the legacy coalition. There's a lot of ifs here because will the center left want him like you described? There is an allergic reaction not to the coalition of Netanyahu, but to the personality of Netanyahu. Sadly, my guess is if Bibi has to choose between personal needs and the needs of the nation, I think Bibi has a tendency to make the wrong choice. But will he be able, with his talents and gifts, to try to get both? He'll try and we'll see what happens. It's going to be very interesting, Mika.
B
We'll leave it there. Thank you for this.
A
Thank you.
B
I know you're on the road, so safe travels. Shabbat shalom.
A
Shabbat shalom.
B
And I'll see you at the ga. See ya. That's our show for today. If you value the Call Me Back podcast and you want to support our mission, please subscribe to our weekly members only show, Inside Call Me Back. Inside Call Me Back is where nadavayalamit, Segal and I respond to challenging questions from listeners and have the conversations that typically occur after the cameras stop rolling. To subscribe, please follow the link in the show notes or you can go to our comment media.org that's Ark media.org Call Me Back is produced and edited by Elon Benatar. Arc Media's executive producer is Adam James Levin Aretti. Sound and video editing by Martin Juergo and Marian Khalis Burgos. Our director of operations, Maya Rockoff. Research by Gabe Silverstein. Our music was composed by Yuval Semo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Sino. By now you've heard the stories, how one birthright trip changes everything, not just for individual participants, but for their families, their communities. And the wider Jewish world. Imagine more and more young Jews experiencing Birthright and emerging as the of part. Proud Jewish leaders confident in who they are, with a deep, lasting connection to Israel. That's how we help build the strong, bright Jewish future we all want to see. In 25 years, Birthright has made a lasting impact on the entire Jewish world. Now it's our privilege and responsibility to keep it going. Because Birthright isn't just a trip. It's pride, identity, and connection. With your generosity, thousands more can experience this too. Support, support the movement today at BirthrightIsrael Foundation. Callmeback Birthright Israel. One trip changes everything.
Date: November 17, 2025
Host: Dan Senor (with Ark Media, Ilan Benatar)
Guest: Dr. Micah Goodman, author and public intellectual
Theme: Examining whether Israel can claim victory after two years of conflict with Hamas and the broader "Axis of Resistance," exploring military, regional, and diplomatic consequences, and looking at Israel's future challenges.
The episode addresses the core question: "Did Israel win?" after recent wars, focusing on the complexities beyond immediate military success. Dr. Micah Goodman analyzes the evolution of Israel's conflicts, the failures and adaptations of its adversaries, and the new dilemmas Israel faces—especially internal division, shifting regional alliances, and weakened international legitimacy. The conversation also explores the conditions for turning military advantage into sustainable, recognized victory—highlighting normalization with Arab states as a key factor.
"Did we win the war? The question is, which war are we talking about? The broader war or the more narrow war versus Hamas?"
— Micah Goodman (04:50)
"They developed a winning strategy... But they weren’t unified enough to implement that strategy."
— Micah Goodman (13:53)
Hamas's Two Bets:
Historical Parallel:
Three Remaining Strategic Problems:
On Hamas's strategic broadcast of atrocities:
"They thought that broadcasting that will do two things. It will implement their bubble strategy. It will excite the enemies of Israel to unite... and it will also send a shockwave into Israeli society and collapse into our own contradictions."
— Micah Goodman (14:53)
On Israel’s new isolation:
"This is the war that has the opposite impact of the Six Day War. It’s pushing the world away from Israel."
— Micah Goodman (24:12)
On normalization as the missing piece:
"Normalization is the missing piece to declare real victory."
— Micah Goodman (25:40)
On Israeli dysfunction after victory:
"Our strongest moment is our weakest moment. So it's hard to declare victory when you achieve the victory, but the price of the victory turns you very weak."
— Micah Goodman (23:36)
Dr. Micah Goodman argues that while Israel achieved an unprecedented victory against the effective strategies of its enemies, true victory remains elusive. Israel faces a trio of strategic challenges: a persistent Gaza/Hamas problem, the empowerment of Islamist regional patrons, and a dramatic loss in international legitimacy. Only a diplomatic breakthrough—normalization with core Arab states—can translate military advantage into recognized, sustainable success. However, the deep internal fault lines in Israeli politics, exemplified by tensions between pragmatism and ideology and embodied in Netanyahu’s personal-political dilemmas, may prevent this from happening.
“Normalization is the missing piece to declare real victory.” (25:40)