← Call Me Back - with Dan Senor
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- [00:04]
Dan Senor
You are listening to an art media podcast.
- [00:09]
Ron Dermer
In the United States. There's been a kind of consensus in both parties that you need to kind of pivot to Asia. Now, if you're going to pivot, you pivot from strength. Now, with Iran defanged, your whole base structure is different because the threat that it was supposed designed to deal with was Iran. So now, all of a sudden, if you want to do that, if you're thinking about moving more resources and more focus elsewhere to the pac, Trump's action actually enables you to do it. Now, what's the vacuum that you leave behind? Well, here, Israel stepped up into that vacuum. And if we have other partners in the region that are willing to step up into that vacuum, and I think you have them, you can actually envision a whole regional security architecture that'll enable the United States to make that pivot, but that Israel and our Arab states in the region start taking a much more prominent role.
- [01:11]
Dan Senor
And now for part two of our conversation with Minister Dermer, if you've not watched part one, we encourage you to look out for it. Watch that first, and then watch part two. Onto today's conversation. You were dismissive of the Palestinian Authority playing a role in Gaza.
- [01:28]
Ron Dermer
Yeah.
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Dan Senor
Why?
- [01:29]
Ron Dermer
Because I think it's like unifilm. Like, how many decades of failure do you have to have to not keep trying to do the same thing over and over again? And this is one of the things I changed my mind about on October 7th. October 7th. And this may seem Pollyannish to some of your listeners. You know, I was never a believer that we could find a solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. I didn't see a solution for a simple reason, because the peace. You know, I've been dealing with this for, you know, as a keen observer since the mid-90s, but as somebody who's involved with it for about two decades. Okay. And you had all these people of goodwill that were trying to negotiate with the Palestinians and peace envoys and experts and secretaries of state and presidents and all sorts of people who were involved in it. And first of all, they never understood the basic problem. And the basic problem is the Palestinians do not accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state in any boundary. That's what the core is. And it's been that core for 100 years. Not just since 1947 or 48, but for 100 years. That's the core of the problem. And people don't want to accept it because it's much harder for them to deal with. But beyond that being the Core of the problem, what has been happening for over 30 years, since the Oslo process started 32 years ago, is the Palestinians have systematically poisoned a generation of people, now a generation and a half of Palestinians against Israel, against Jews. And so I would see these peace envoys go, and all this diplomacy and these texts, and I would work on those texts to try to change this or that word, to make sure that Israel's basic security requirements are protected in any potential agreement. But I didn't believe that this process was going to lead to any kind of a piece because I asked myself, what is a six year old Palestinian? What are they learning in school? What is a 10 year old Palestinian watching on television? And who are the heroes of 15 year old Palestinians? And they're all people that murdered Jews, so there's no chance to do it. And the PA made the problem worse. You speak to Israelis who've been dealing with this for 50, 60 years and they'll tell you the generation that came before the PA took over was more likely to try to reach an accommodation. Okay, I don't know. I wasn't there. But what I've seen is this whole process has poisoned a generation and a half of Palestinians. And what happened to me on October 7th that night, I remember and I remember I said it to people in my office and I may have even said it at the Cabinet and it may seem like I said very Pollyannish. It was the first time that I saw a light at the end of the tunnel when it came to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Because I knew and I believed in the resolve of our people and certainly the courage of our soldiers. And I believed in the leadership of the Prime Minister and still do, that we were going to win the war. Like I knew that we were going to rally and win. But to me, the hope for a change with the Palestinians would come in the wake of a war. Because you have to change the culture and the educational system. If you don't deal with that, nothing we do is going to work. And there are people who don't believe that can ever change. Why? They said the Palestinians are the Palestinians. It's never going to change. I disagree. And I think the United States did it. Of course, no two situations are alike. I think the greatest thing the United States did is it took their worst enemies and turned it to some of their best friends in Japan and Germany. And that came because in Japan you changed the educational system there and you detoxified Japanese society that was really, really poisoned. You did the same thing with the Denazification program. Now, the Palestinian issues are much more complicated because, you know, there's no Hirohito, there's no emperor that can just turn the tide. And it's not Germany, I get it. There's 5,000 different reasons why. But I believe that in this region, particularly in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates and maybe there are others, Morocco, we'll see, that can be partners in trying to begin the detoxification of Palestinian society. They're doing it in their own society. Saudi Arabia today is not the country it was 10 years ago. And the Emirates, I don't know enough about the history of it, but 20 years ago, you see that they're actually trying to deal with the issue of extremism in their societies. Now, I could see a situation where in the wake of the war, we now have partners for the day after of what could be a new beginning. Now, I'm not saying that we're gonna succeed. I'm not saying we're gonna succeed, but you have to try and to take the pa, the unreconstructed, unreformed pa, or just check boxes, cuz, you know, another story. So the former Secretary of State, Blinken, I remember in Japan in 2023, he was at a conference, he talked about a rejuvenated Palestinian Authority. And he didn't speak to me about it before. And I was interfacing with him throughout the war and also with Jake Sullivan and Brett McGurk. And listen, I appreciate many things that they did during the war. And I think many of them on many instances were more helpful than they get credit for, and they should get the credit for it. But on this, I call him up and I said, tony, what does that mean? What does that mean? Because to me, rejuvenated means going to a day spa. What does that mean? He says, well, it means good governance. It means fighting corruption. And I said, tony, there are a hundred countries around the world that can't govern themselves, and they're probably 120 are corrupt. I'm looking for a government that won't teach their children to murder Jews. That's what we need, and that's what goes on there. And a lot of people who say, we need the day after plan, really, if you ask them what their day after plan is, is we're going to take the Palestinian Authority and we're going to throw it back in Gaz. Going to repeat 30 years of failure, and then there's no hope to have any different future. Now, if we get the day after plan, which is exactly the kind of stuff that you have to work in the 60 day period, if you get that right. It's going to take a long time to do it, but at least you're going to put it on rails, which you can see light at the end of the tunnel. And when I tell people and I get into, you know, my ideas with them, they say, well, what you're talking about something that's going to take a generation. I said, yeah, it may take a generation, but if you think about it in terms of a generation, you might get there in 10. And here what happens is everybody wants to make peace in two years or four years because of political calendars, and then nobody deals with the underlying problem. So what we need to do is actually have a government that's dealing with Gazans, which will not poison the next generation. And then you may have a situation where a six year old goes into their educational system and comes out as an 18 year old not trying to murder Jews, not turning mass murderers into heroes, but actually wants to do what other people want to do. That's very hard to do. And again, there are probably people who listen to this, who dismiss this, but I actually think that's the only way you have to move forward with the Palestinians. And even if you don't get there, the fact that you're trying to do that is what we need to do moving forward, because or else you have no chance. And this gives us a chance to reset what happened with Oslo. Because one of the core failures of Oslo, it was not the desire to ultimately see peace between Israelis and Palestinians. And there were people with goodwill that worked on it. The core failure was to not care what Palestinians were doing within their own society. And the one who actually understood it.
- [08:21]
Dan Senor
Dennis Ross made this point, he made this point after he said, but the.
- [08:24]
Ron Dermer
One who understood it in real time was Sharansky, was Natan Sharansky, who I worked with and had been admirer of for many, many years. He understood it in 1993, just when all of the momentum, the polls, 70%, I don't know what it was, it would go to Oslo. He said, wait, right, what is happening within Palestinian society? And a lot of people, the late Yitzhak Rabin, he had a statement that triggered Sharansky because he said, arafat will deal with terrorism. Beli b', gatz, beli b'tselem, beli kole mine yefe nefesh, which means without human rights organizations, without a Supreme Court, without all sorts of bleeding hard liberals. It's the Hebrew equivalent for it. And he wrote a piece, I think it's September 1993, within two weeks or three weeks of the deal. I don't remember if it was the New York Times or Wall Street Journal. And he said, a society without those things is a society that's going to be dedicated to Israel's destruction. And he understood it. What happens when you have a society that is just poisoned against you and it's going to always need Israel as this external enemy. And this is what you have. So when you see the hostage releases and you see everybody there and you see little kids wearing, you know, the Hamas bandanas and being committed to this, it's a poison society. And here, one other thing I will tell you. Soon after October 7th, somebody sent me a video of Palestinian children. This is before the thousands that you saw happening in Gaza. This is within days, two days, three days. And they send me a video of Palestinians saying, yeah, we have to kill the Jews, we have to murder the Jews, we should do it. And they're supporting what happened on October 7th. And they're 15 year old kids and 12 year old kids and 9 year old kids. And they say, look, guy who sent it to me said, look what they're teaching kids in Gaza. And I looked at the video. It's not from Gaza, it's from the West Bank. Yeah, it wasn't from Gaza. It was from there in Jerusalem. And people don't understand it, they don't want to believe it because they don't want to stare this evil in the face and say that this has to be dealt with. Now. Gaza represents the hope for a restart, meaning you can hit that button again, start something new. And here Gaza is actually helpful because unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, the territory here is totally dependent on the outside world for support. And it's a small territory. Now if we link the reconstruction of Gaza with the de radicalization of Gaza, everybody wants to link reconstruction of Gaza with demilitarization. I say no demilitarization. We're going to get no matter what. And humanitarian assistance. They get no matter what, what. But you have to link reconstruction to the de radicalization. If that happens over time, we're going to move closer and closer and closer to peace. And then if we go and we finish what we started with the Abraham Accords, right, we start doing peace agreements with other countries, which I think is definitely possible. And that's in our northern border in Lebanon and Syria. It's with Saudi Arabia, it's with other countries. All of that is possible in the near Future, not in the future, including Saudi near future. If you do that, then I think the chances of ultimately leading to a resolution will be much, much higher. And that's what we should do for Gaza and October 7, those two things. There's an existential threat that has to be dealt with. And in the wake of dealing with that existential threat, it's the first time that I had hoped that we could actually put this on a different path. It's hard because the world is still stuck in the old paradigm, but it's actually possible to do it. And it requires also, and I'll say that to my colleagues in the government, that it's going to require what Churchill said in war resolution in victory, magnanimity, magnanimity. We're going to have to be magnanimous in finding that new way forward and working with partners in the region to put this thing on the right path.
- [11:51]
Dan Senor
You think it's not crazy to think of Saudi normalization as something that's way off in the distant future?
- [11:56]
Ron Dermer
No, it's definitely not way off in the distant future. It'll happen much faster, I think until the Saudis see Gaza somehow in the rearview mirror or at least a process, I think dealing with the day to day grind of what's happening in Gaza and what they see on the Al Jazeera screens, which obviously present a distorted picture, but they're gonna see those pictures and it affects their population. I think it's very hard for them to move to an alliance with Israel until that issue is settled in Gaza. That was not true before October 7th. I think now it is true for them. I just think politically, look, MBS is a leader that I think he sees his strategic interests long term being aligned with Israel, but the position that he occupies in the Arab and Muslim world, it's gonna be very hard for him to do that while intense fighting is going on in Gaza. And until that is behind us, until he realizes and is confident that it's behind us, I think it's gonna be very hard to normalize. But I don't think this intense fighting is gonna go on for a long time. So my view is that is that Gaza, hopefully we'll get into the 60 day deal, hopefully we'll find a solution. And if not, I don't believe that this war is gonna go on inde. And the idea that the Prime Minister would like to continue the war for political reasons is ridiculous. The Prime Minister wants to win the war as quickly as possible.
- [13:13]
Dan Senor
And a couple quick things before we go, maybe not so quick, Iran, Are we just in this holding pattern now? Like, what happens if you see Iran trying to rebuild? What if you see Iran, you know, trying to escalate in some way? What constraints are there on Israel that could make it maybe no constraints. Tell me.
- [13:30]
Ron Dermer
Look, I said Israel's military operation, it even exceeded our high expectations. I think our military and intel officials did a fantastic job. What we did is we set out with two goals. One is on the nuclear side and one is on the missile side. On the nuclear side, what has happened is the two enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordeaux have been effectively destroyed. There's a third facility in Isfahan which they'd like to turn into an enrichment facility in the future, which the United States hit when they did their strike with the 30 tomahawks that came from several hundred miles away and sort of jammed up the entrances. In that facility and in Fordeaux, you have buried nuclear material. That's the one thing that wasn't destroyed. Apparently, it's very hard to destroy nuclear material, but that material is there, and as far as we know, it's buried there. And obviously, if they would try to move it somewhere else, then they would be taking a big risk, let me put it that way. And I think the United States has made that clear to them. And obviously we have our eyes on it all the time. In addition to that, also you had the attack against the scientists, which was their know how. I think the defense minister of Iran said a couple weeks before the attack that no matter what happens with the sites, we'll have the know how. Not so much anymore, the know how because their Manhattan Project has essentially been taken out. You know, the top scientists who were dealing with the Iranian atomic bomb. And remember, this is a regime that is openly calling and actively working to destroy the state of Israel. So those scientists were removed. Then you have other facilities that are associated with their nuclear program. There's a conversion facility in Isfahan that was taken out. There was the heavy water facility that was taken out. There are centrifuge manufacturing facilities that were taken out. There are Sapand headquarters, which is their, you know, kind of their nuclear scientist program. It used to be called the Ahmad program, and it went to Sapand that's taken out. It might be that the archive was completely destroyed, the one that we, you know, stole parts of, but the whole thing may be destroyed. So we set them back on the nuclear side, and pretty much everything that we set out to do, we achieved. And on the missile side, we had this problem where Iran is building more and more of these missiles. They were at a clip of maybe 50 to 60amonth. And they were moving within about a half a year to a year, to about 300amonth, which as the Prime Minister said is you have 10,000 every three years. And to have a regime that's working for our destruction armed with that type of arsenal, that was something we wouldn't accept. And so we dealt with everything that had to deal with the production process and manufacturing process of those missiles. And there are many, many sites which our air force, once we peeled away their air defenses, were able to attack all of these targets. So we achieved and set them back years. You know, is it two years, is it three years? I don't know, it's a question. But we set them back very significantly on their missile side. And that time we will use to ramp up our defenses pretty dramatically. And I guess if Iran thought that they were going to defeat us in the production race, they are mistaken. We have now put ourselves in a position to be ahead of that race. And we have very good air defense systems that are going to be getting better and better and better as you're going to see in the months ahead and in the years ahead. But we didn't set a goal to take down the regime. That was never the goal that we set. The Prime Minister didn't say it publicly and he didn't say it in the cabinet when we brought it to a decision.
- [16:46]
Dan Senor
But he did put out statements once the war started, encouraging the Iranian people to take matters into their own hands.
- [16:51]
Ron Dermer
He's talked about to the Iranian people for the last 20 years. But I'm saying as a military matter, frankly, Dan, if I knew that another two weeks of strikes would have brought down the regime, I would have supported that. But that, I don't know that. And you know, you hit regime targets, but it's not clear. Ultimately this is a decision that the Iranian people have to make. And you know, they were very close to doing it in 2009. They were all out in the streets. They got no support from the United States at the time. Cuz the United States was fixated on doing an agreement.
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Dan Senor
So in 2022, there was, in 2022.
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Ron Dermer
They didn't want to rupture. They already realized that with an agreement it was going to be very difficult. They set out, the Biden administration set out at the beginning to reach an agreement. Then it looked like it was stuck and all of a sud. You had the protests. You also had the Iranians sending drones to the Russians to hit Ukrainians. That also created a problem, but it basically was frozen from that point. But very little was said. I mean, frankly, more was said by the Biden administration about judicial reform in Israel than it was about the protests that happened in Iran where women were going out to the streets and being killed by sharpshooters and culling the Internet and finding these people and taking them to prison. So ultimately, the answer to Iran is that the Iranian people have control over their own future and not this regime, because Israel is not at war with the people of Iran. And I think that the second most pro American people after the United States, I mean, the Kurds, is a question if it's the Kurds or the Iranians, 70, 80% of them hate them. Time will tell what they're going to do. But for right now, for the next few years, you have to keep your eye on that nuclear material. But for the next few years, I think they have an opportunity. They have an opportunity to stand up, but it's very hard. It takes a lot of courage. You know, every single Iranian protester has worth about 10,000 protesters in Israel because they risk their lives. And you see what happens. And by the way, same thing in Gaza. You see what happens when people protest Hamas in Gaza. They catch them, they break their legs, and they torture them, and they shoot them and kill them is really hard to do. And I think that they deserve the support of the outside world. Now, it's obviously in Israel's interest, but much more than that, it's in the interest of the people of Iran, who have suffered for 50 years under what is a brutal dictatorship. Now, what will happen in the coming years, we'll have to see. But we have our eye on that ball. We haven't taken our eye off of it because of the success of the operation that we had. And I think here again, again, we were aligned with the United States in an unprecedented way on the diplomatic side, then on the military side, and now again on the diplomatic side. And we are aligned moving forward. Now, if you.
- [19:16]
Dan Senor
And the message that sends to the region, I keep saying on this podcast, is, you know, when President Trump said it's the best partnership that's ever existed or something between Israel and the US between Trump and Netanyahu, I think the implicit message to others in the region is, do you want to be part of that partnership?
- [19:31]
Ron Dermer
Yeah, for sure. And also, Alexander Haig said 45 years ago that Israel was an unsinkable American aircraft carrier in a region that's critical for U.S. interests. And I think in the 12 day war, we served as that aircraft carrier. We did all of this work. And then the United States came on top of this with this dramatic action that I think affects the whole region and affects the whole world. I also think it probably. This is for a future podcast, but it recalibrates American foreign policy a little bit, that there's not just two choices, isolationism or boots on the ground forever. There's something else that you can do that you can actually exercise American power. And when I went to see President Trump, November of last year, right after his election, I think it was the Monday after the election, elected Tuesday, so the following Monday. And when I was making the case of why this was important, I said, look, this is gonna be a reverse Afghanistan. What Afghanistan did in sending a perception.
- [20:22]
Dan Senor
The Biden administration's withdrawal, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, summer of 2021, the way.
- [20:28]
Ron Dermer
That that looked, there's no question in my mind that it affected a lot of leaders around the world and their perception of what the US Will or will not do. Now. People will say, well, we were willing to do something else. Doesn't matter. Deterrence relies on their perception of you, not your capabilities. And so, yes, America has the capabilities, but does it have the will? When Afghanistan happened, there was a sense, I think, globally, that affected many theaters, and I think it could have affected Putin's decision in Russia, other theaters as well. And I think the United States action is a kind of reverse Afghanistan because it sends a message of great strength around the region and really around the world. And another thing that it did is, you know, you. In your political debate in the United States, there's been a kind of consensus in both parties that you need to kind of pivot to Asia. Now, if you're gonna pivot, you pivot from strength. Now, with Iran defanged, your whole base structure is different, because the threat that it was supposed designed to deal with was Iran. So now, all of a sudden, if you want to do that, if you're thinking about moving more resources and more focus elsewhere to the Pacific, Trump's action actually enables you to do it. Now, what's the vacuum that you leave behind? Well, here, Israel stepped up into that vacuum, and if we have other partners in the region that are willing to step up into that vacuum, and I think you have them, you can actually envision a whole regional security architecture that will enable the United States to make that pivot and that they at centcom, it would be under the wings of centcom and that umbrella but that Israel and our Arab states in the region start taking a much more prominent role after the Abraham accords were done. A few months later, Israel joined Senko. And that was a kind of game changing event because it brought us together with Arab partners in the region. And here it's clear that Israel is an ally willing to fight. And now the question is, can our Arab partners also take a more independent stance and a willingness also to be responsible for the security in the region in the way they weren't before? I think they're willing to do it and I think it's a game changing event for the region. The prime minister spoke about this last year in Congress when he gave his speech. He talked about mesa, you know, this Middle east strategic alliance, a new architecture for the region in the wake of that attack. I think under US leadership this can happen and that's gonna be a very big deal.
- [22:46]
Dan Senor
And now you have what's been a laboratory of the future of modern warfare. So now you have the application of the future of modern warfare that has been actually tested by an ally.
- [22:56]
Ron Dermer
Exactly. So Israel now steps into this vacuum and we matter more for America's national security. But here's the other thing. When it comes to national prosperity of the United States 50 years ago, 40 years ago, 30 years ago, even, how important was Israel? You know, you wrote the startup nation. You see the turn that we have now. The real question is who's going to be the preeminent technological power in the 21st century? If America's a company, okay, and China's a company, and you're competing with each other, what's the first order of business on the first day? Buy as well. The asset value of Israel in that competition is huge. So Israel matters for America's national prosperity and America's national security in a way that we didn't before. We were always a democracy. During the cold war we were important, you know, pawn or even bishop on the chessboard. But now we matter in a way we didn't before. And a lot of people don't recognize that. I think what happened between June 13 and 10 days later or nine days later when the United States know drop the B2, I think they were tremendously impressed by what Israel did both on offense and defense, and that we able to exceed our very high expectations. And I think it will have a huge impact moving forward on the U. S Israel alliance because I think they will see Israel more and more as a country that can step into the vacuum and be a force multiplier for the United States as the US Focuses its resources and attention elsewhere. And I think that is going to affect the U S Israel relationship for decades.
- [24:31]
Dan Senor
I agree from the decision maker standpoint, from a geopolitical strategist standpoint, from a US Security system. But you mentioned the craziness on US campuses and we see the craziness in the media and the delegitimization of Israel has reached a fever pitch. I just want to read you something that a friend of mine sent me who's Israeli, who served in government. I won't name him because he wouldn't want to be named, but he wrote we devastated, and I'm quoting here, we devastated the capabilities of our enemies in the Middle east in return for devastating our legitimacy in the West. Or put another way, we took down Fordeau, but we got the apparent mainstreaming of views of Mamdani in return. Maybe it was inevitable as much of the critique is not in our direct control or really about us at all. Maybe it's more of an argument about America, for example. But since it impacts us directly, we need a legitimacy strategy no less impressive than our military performance and we don't have one.
- [25:24]
Ron Dermer
Look, I think people tend to romanticize the past and they're assuming that Israel had all this legitimacy. You know, when I mean Israel was attacked on October 7, what were they yelling in Sydney, like within hours or the next day? Gassed the Jews. So this has something to do with Israel's actions in Gaza? Has nothing to do with it. I think what is hard for some Jews to understand and certainly for non Jews to understand is that an age where antisemitism was on the margins ended. It actually ended a couple decades ago. We had about 50 year period, half century after the Holocaust, where it was politically incorrect to really go after the Jews. That's why when people ask me at the beginning of the war, how long do I think the support will last after the October 7th attack where you had 1200 people who were savagely murdered? And I said two weeks. That's what I felt that we were going to get about two weeks. Now in America it was going to be a lot longer because America is different, but for the rest of the world. And then you saw that happen in two weeks. Why do the math if 6 million.
- [26:21]
Dan Senor
People, Harvard, it was a week later Harvard put out the statement by 30.
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Ron Dermer
Student organizations and they were all ready with all their statements and the whole thing. It has nothing to do with what our actions are now. The devastation that happened in Gaza and the destruction as we have to fight this forced Hamas with the human shields and what they're doing in the hospitals and the mosques and the schools. And I don't think anywhere else you've seen the use of human shields as systematically as you used in Gaza. And it created, I think, a terrible tragedy for the unintended victims of the actions that we took against terrorists. And what happened was people thought in the wake of the Holocaust that antisemitism would kind of wither away. And what happened is it came back. Now, it's not only antisemitism, it's also media. And you see pictures and people who see pictures on television screens of babies being brought out of rubble, if that does not affect you, then you don't have a heart. And here the media is definitely culpable. Not because they're showing the pictures, because they're not blaming Hamas, because the process is we attack the terrorists, they put the civilians into harm's way. When those civilians are harmed, instead of the media saying, hamas, you're responsible for this, they turn on Israel. And you and I know what would happen in the United States if a similar event towards October 7 would have happened in American terms, it would have been, what, 40,000 to 50,000Americans, Americans murdered. What America would do to that strip of land where those terrorists would have come from. Everybody actually knows this, but for 50 years after the Holocaust, it was politically incorrect. And then it became more correct to go after Jews first. It was hidden behind hostility towards Israel. You saw that, I see the turning point actually, in the Durban Conference in South Africa in 2000. That was when you had this festival of hate. And since then, the problem has just gotten worse. And when the problem becomes more acute is when Israel is acting in defense of itself. You remember, you were part of the Bush administration. You went to war in Iraq. All of this anti American sentiment came. So when you're actually fighting, the problem becomes more acute. The question is, can you win? But, yes, the situation, I think, is very difficult. And we can always be better at that fight. I look at it from a historical perspective. Herzl was right about so many things, and he was a great visionary that had the plan of action that ultimately led to the establishment of the Jewish state and the restoration of Jewish sovereignty in our ancestral homeland. But he had this analysis of antisemitism, and many early Zionists had an analysis of antisemitism that they thought that the reason why there was antisemitism is the Jews were a minority everywhere and a majority nowhere. And if we would be a majority in one place, Israel, then we would be treated like a normal country, like any other country in the world. And in Herzl's day, people said at that time, the Jews go to Palestine and they say the reason why there's antisemitism is the Jews don't have a stake. Now look back a hundred years later, now they say Jews get out of Palestine. The truth is that Israel is not the cause or the cure for antisemitism. Antisemitism is a very ancient phenomenon that goes back many, many centuries. The rush to believe the worst about the Jews. I got once asked when I was ambassador, what does it mean to be pro Islam? What does it mean to be pro Israel? It's a good question. I don't know if anyone ever asked you that question.
- [29:25]
Dan Senor
It's just so funny because you never would ask that. What does it mean to be pro uk? What does it mean to be pro.
- [29:30]
Ron Dermer
It's such a funny. Yeah, but he said, what does it mean to you to be pro Israel? Because you know, people are accused of being anti Israel. And what I said was they thought I was gonna talk about the Iran deal or about the Palestinian state or about settlement, none of that stuff. It's not a policy issue for me. It's one thing. Do you want to believe the best about Israel or do you want to believe the worst about Israel? Israel. When you see a lousy story about Israel, a tough story, you know, like remember 15 years ago with the Mavi Marmara that Israeli soldiers killed nine Turkish peace activists on a flotilla? Yeah. When you see a story like that, do you say, yeah, I could see that. Or do you say, wait a second, I got to get the facts meaning, do you give Israel the benefit of the doubt? To be pro Israel is to give Israel the benefit of the doubt. And you have many quarters where they don't want to give Israel the benefit of the doubt. And what I think a lot of defenders of Israel don't appreciate is this is not just the antisemitism that is resurfacing. It also is meeting with other Zeitgeist trends. And that's an anti Americanism that in certain quarters is very deep. And it has nothing to do with Israel. We're just the low hanging fruit of an attack against Western civilization. And there's many people you ask who hate Israel. You ask people this question when they say you go into a place and you're trying to make the case for Israel. I usually ask people two questions before I even start. One, do you Believe in a right and wrong. Because if everything is about competing narratives and it's all power and justice or like buckets in the well and all this kind of stuff, I know it's going to be difficult. Do you believe in a right and wrong? Yes or no? Second question is, do you believe that America has been a force for good in the world, nothing to do with Israel? A force for good? Yeah. America has many imperfections. You know, in a century, you had slavery in the United States 150 years before women had a right to vote, 200 years before the civil rights. But with all of its imperfections, America is the greatest superpower the world has ever known. In moral terms, is America a force for good? Now, if somebody answers two of those questions and says, I believe in a right and wrong and I believe America's force for good, it will take me around 15 minutes to turn them into a friend of Israel. If they answer one of those questions right, either America is a force for good or they believe in right or wrong, I can do it in an hour. If they answer no to both of those questions, I'm going to spend six hours of my time trying to convince them, and I probably won't budge them because they're always going to believe the worst about Israel. They believe the worst of America. They're certainly going to believe the worst about Israel. And what you'll find is 95% of those people burning the Israeli flags would burn the American flag.
- [31:56]
Dan Senor
Look at the gall. There's a Gallup poll out right now that shows. It's stunning, the numbers of people who say they're not proud to be an American. Now, they're mostly young and on the left, and I'm not making an ideological or political point here, but it is true. But it's not about. Because Trump is president, because these numbers have been declining for a while.
- [32:12]
Ron Dermer
But how many. What's the percentage high, double digits, like.
- [32:15]
Dan Senor
Really high, of people who are not proud to be an American? The numbers are on the march. And if you match those numbers up with those that are critical of Israel.
- [32:23]
Ron Dermer
I guarantee you it's 90% critical.
- [32:25]
Dan Senor
You're knocking a lot of people who are rah, rah, pro American and proud to be an American and hostile to Israel, the way that we're seeing that hostility be expressed.
- [32:31]
Ron Dermer
Yeah, you have. Well, certainly on the left side of the spectrum, I would say that everybody who hates America hates Israel. On the right side, you have a handful of people that might be extreme in their American nativism. Let's say, but they dislike Israel. That you could have a little bit, but it's very, very small. I know exactly one person who's an Australian, I won't say who it is, who said he doesn't like America, but he doesn't like America at all, but loves Israel. You know, usually don't encounter it, but it's around 90%. And so that's important for the pro Israel supporters to understand that you're not just fighting an issue of antisemitism. You, you've got a zeitgeist that is deeply hostile to Western civilization. Now, the good news is the numbers don't change that much. If you look at the beginning of the war, Harvard Harris would do this poll, and it was like 80, 20. And the numbers that were, every month they do this poll, 80% supported Israel, 20% supported Hamas. I mean, the 2% support Hamas is a disgrace. But 20% of Americans are supporting a terror organization, right? That is chopping off heads, raping women and burning babies. Okay? And a lot of these people, they'll either it's cognitive dissonance or sometimes they'll deny that it happens, but they're supporting Hamas. That's how insane that is. But that 20%, if you look at the course of the war, it didn't grow to be 50%. Among the younger people, it was around 50, 50, but the number actually stayed pretty constant within almost, you know, statisticians will say in a difference of around 0 from 20% to 22 to 18 to 19 of around 30 polls or 20 polls at this point, 20 months. It doesn't change. What does that tell you? People have preconceived views of the situation. They get their information from the sources. They get it, and they're just confirmation bias. They're just going to confirm their point of view. And so then the question becomes, who's going to go out and fight? Is the pro Israel crowd going to go out and stand on the streets and fight in the same way that the anti Israel. But they're much bigger, the pro Israel. The other thing to know about the American system, this gets into the details of your politics. Part of the problem is you no longer have many competitive elections in the United States. And that means that the middle matters less and less to America. Now, why does that matter?
- [34:43]
Dan Senor
Every race is the primary.
- [34:45]
Ron Dermer
Exactly.
- [34:45]
Dan Senor
It determines the outcome of the election.
- [34:47]
Ron Dermer
Just so that your listeners, your very smart listeners and very informed listeners. When you're in a landslide district, the race that matters is the primary voter, Right?
- [34:54]
Dan Senor
And it plays to the extremes.
- [34:55]
Ron Dermer
And if you're in a competitive district, the race that matters is the middle. So the middle matters less and less for people's electoral fortune. So that's why you used to have, like, Gang of 14, and then all of a sudden, the Gang of 14 became the Gang of 8, and then the Gang of 6. Pretty much soon it's gonna be a Gang of 1, because the votes are not in the center of your system because you don't have competitive districts. So you have to see how the structure of American politics gives an extreme a much greater voice. And if people are in their own media silo and you don't have competitive districts anymore, it actually makes the problem worse and worse. And when I was thinking about it, I wasn't just concerned for what it means for Israel. I'm concerned for what it means for America.
- [35:36]
Dan Senor
All right, before I let you go, before I let you go, I want to. On a personal level, while you've been in the middle of all that you've been dealing with, your mother passed away. And I thought I knew a lot about you. I didn't know your mother was born a Sabra. A sabra born in Israel. I always thought. And like I said, I've known you for a long time. I thought you just came from an American family, and then you made aliyah, and you've been living most of your life here, and you've been married here and raised your family here. So can you just spend a minute?
- [36:05]
Ron Dermer
Yeah. My mother was born and raised in Israel in Gadara, which is. They used to say that most of Israel's population is from Kadera in the north to gidera, like 80%. So that's the southern part. She grew up here in pre state Israel. So I'm technically the son of a Palestinian because it says Palestine. You know, at that point in 1936, the year she was born, when you said somebody was a Palestinian, they'd have to say, are you a Palestinian Jew or Palestinian Arab? Right now? That makes no sense, because it was.
- [36:31]
Dan Senor
It wasn't a religious. It was purely geographic.
- [36:35]
Ron Dermer
It was geographic, exactly. So I'm actually the son of a Palestinian. I'm sure people would love to quote that from me, but she grew up here, and she left soon after the war of Independence. Her family left. She was 15 years old. Through Germany, they made it to the United States, and she moved to Miami with her family. And my father was born and raised in the United States. They met there. But my mother came back to Israel after almost 70 years. She was there her first 15 years. She spent 70 years in the United States. She was the wife of the mayor of Miami Beach. That was my father. And she was. My father was elected on the fourth day of the Six Day War, actually. And to get elected, he beat FDR's son, Elliot Roosevelt, who was then mayor. Yeah, so he was elected mayor. And, you know, I grew up in a household. It didn't occur to me, you know, there was a very Zionist household because it wasn't like political discussions all the time. It was just. It was natural.
- [37:30]
Dan Senor
Did you grow up speaking here?
- [37:32]
Ron Dermer
No. My brother's first language actually was Hebrew. My father didn't speak a stitch of it. And I think when my brother was like a year old or a year and a half old and he's speaking and my father's trying to communicate him, he said yaffa. That was my mother's name. Maybe you could. Maybe I can speak to my own son, you know, maybe teach him a few words in English. But it was his first language. I mean, he insists that if he's here for a few weeks, everything comes back. But believe me, it doesn't. It's hard. And I made aliyah to Israel in 19. I moved here in 96 and made aliyah in 97, and my sister followed three years later. And I think you've seen a lot of Jews around the world. I can tell you this anecdotally, that you say, as so many people who I never thought in a million years would make aliyah to Israel are now are seriously contemplated, but they're also seeing the antisemitism.
- [38:17]
Dan Senor
I tell you, I was walking to my sister's place for Shabbat dinner on Friday night, walking through Jerusalem. I've never heard more conversations in French. I was like.
- [38:24]
Ron Dermer
It was like.
- [38:25]
Dan Senor
Like groups of people walking. And they were French people who've left France and come here. And I don't know how recently they.
- [38:30]
Ron Dermer
Did it, but, no, I'm always of two minds regarding antisemitism in France, because on the one hand, it's terrible and you need to fight antisemitism. On the other hand, I've noticed that six months after a wave of antisemitism in France, there's an upgrade in restaurants throughout Israel. They get better and better. You know, the French have been. Have been. Have brought their culinary skills to Israel. And if more British Jews come, maybe this country will be a little more polite. And if Americans come in big numbers, American Jews, then it might be. You'd have actually customer service in Israel. And instead of the customer being slave, the customer will be king, because that's an American concept that hasn't translated into Hebrew.
- [39:08]
Dan Senor
I will say Israel is the only country, I say this all the time, that it's at war. It's probably the only country that is at war. And you will actually see its population growing. That's an amazing thing.
- [39:17]
Ron Dermer
That's right.
- [39:18]
Dan Senor
Fertility rates have not gone down, to my knowledge. And. And people are moving here. Both Israelis who are living abroad are coming back. And then you have these other members of people in the diaspora who want to move their lives here because they're.
- [39:29]
Ron Dermer
Worried about what they see. As you mentioned, they're worried about the antisemitism that they see. But look, I think what has to happen is people have to stand up and to fight it. Because a lot of times people in the Middle, they'll believe that passion is a substitute for sincerity. They'll see people who are very passionate, passionate against Israel. And if all they see is that passion and they don't see the passion on the other side, then the Middle will go to where the passion is believing that there has to be some truth to it, which is not. I mean, Israel is really an easy cause to defend. Not if you compare Israel to perfection, by the way. If Israel has to be compared to perfection, we're going to fall short because we're a real country and not an idea. We're a real country of 10 million plus people who have to deal with all the challenges that other countries have to deal with. With. But we're a democracy that's beleaguered. We're facing security threats that no other country has. And I think if you just compare Israel to what other countries would do, faced with similar situations, it glows, it stands out of the crowd. People don't want to do that. People just constantly want to push back. But I think when the dust settles, when the October 7th war ends and it will come to an end again, the Israeli Palestinian conflict goes on for a centuries, century. It's been going on and it may go on for a lot more time, we don't know. But the October 7th war will come to an end. And when the dust settles on that and people look back how Israel responded to the worst attack against Jews since the Holocaust and how we turned what was a strategic catastrophe because of the resolve of our people, because of the courage of our soldiers, and because really of the leadership of the prime minister, how we turn this strategic catastrophe into a strategic triumph. We haven't completed the task the war is coming towards an end. And I believe the fruits of this war we're going to see in the continuation of peace that is going to expand throughout the region. But this turnaround is maybe unprecedented in the history of nations. You know, I love the United States and its history and Pearl harbor and that attack and how America rallied that. This is very different. This was an attack the likes of which the United States has never faced. 911 was 5% of the effect that it has on the whole country. And then to come back the way that we did against external pressures. Cuz when the United States stands alone, okay, the United States.
- [41:47]
Dan Senor
I asked Andrew Roberts, Lord Andrew Roberts, the British historian, military historian, war historian. I asked him for a speech I had to recently give. Is there any example in history of a country that has faced this kind of threat and turned around its geopolitical positioning? A survived and then turned around its geopolitical position the way it has. He said France like 200 plus years ago.
- [42:09]
Ron Dermer
Maybe he actually said that about France. I sent you the quote, Brit. To say that about France is a.
- [42:14]
Dan Senor
Lot said the same thing. I'll send you the quote. Ron, thank you for doing this. This was a tour de force. And the eulogy that you wrote for your mother. I am gonna post in the show notes because it is quite moving and it's an extraordinary life she lived.
- [42:27]
Ron Dermer
I said there that my father inspired me, but my mother forged me. She always would ask me, last thing I will say about my mother, cause it's relevant to the attack now I can say it. She'd always ask me when is Purim coming? And Purim was the code word for when are we going to strike Iran? Because she knows that I'm in this fight for 25 years that we have to remove this threat. And she would say when is Purim going to come? And Purim is for those of you who don't know is they want to destroy all the Jews and the Jews flip everything around and ultimately the Jews enemies are destroyed. She says, when is Purim coming? When is Purim? She would ask me that even after a stroke for years. She would ask me about it. And Purim came. The morning that Purim came. It was her Shloshim. It was the 30 day memorial for her. And the prime minister was busy dealing with 500 things. I had 50 things that I had to deal with. Because it's that day, we know that night there's going to be a strike. And he said to me, listen, do me a favor, can you write a few things down for me because I have to give a statement both in English and Hebrew. And you can't let somebody else do it because few people are aware that there's going to be a surprise attack. So here I drafting something for the prime minister on the way down to the cemetery, on the way back from the cemetery, in between 5,000 other things. And Purim came and she also had this recurring dream all the time. She would tell me all the time she dreams that the Saudi king is landing in Israel. For years she's been having this dream. She keeps telling me, I don't know who's there, but who's the king and who's that Saudi king is going to land in Israel. So with my mother, those of you who knew Yafa Dermer, her dreams come true. So look forward to not us, just Purim and winning the war, but also winning the peace.
- [44:03]
Dan Senor
It's the biggest tell to Saudi normalization.
- [44:06]
Ron Dermer
Absolutely. Thanks. Take care. Take care.
- [44:18]
Dan Senor
That's our show for today. If you found this episode valuable, please share it with others who might appreciate. Time and again, we found that our listeners are the ones driving the growth of the CallMeBack community. So thank you. And to offer comments, suggestions, sign up for updates or explore past episodes, please Visit our website, arkmedia.org that's arkmedia.org where you can deepen your understanding of the topics we cover. Call Me Back is produced and edited by Ilan Benatar. Sound and video editing by Martin Wergo and Mariangelis Burgos. Our director of operations is Maya Rakoff. Research by Gabe Silverstein. Our music was composed by Yuval Semo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.