Famine

Summary

For Heaven’s Sake: Episode Summary – "Famine"

Released July 30, 2025 | Host: Shalom Hartman Institute

In the episode titled "Famine," hosts Daniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi delve into the profound and harrowing consequences of the prolonged conflict in Gaza, specifically focusing on the emergence of famine as a dire humanitarian crisis. This comprehensive discussion examines the multifaceted causes, moral implications, and potential pathways for reconciliation and healing.

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1. Introduction: The New Reality of War

The episode opens with Daniel Hartman introducing the grim reality of the ongoing war, now in its 662nd day. He emphasizes a shift in Israeli public discourse from solely focusing on military victory to grappling with unforeseen humanitarian consequences.

Daniel Hartman [00:00]: "For a very long time, the focus is on winning. And we're divided into two stories or two narratives of winning... but the consequences, the consequences in the world, the consequences to Gaza. It's like we're fighting a 660 day war under the myth that it's a six day or a 12 day war and all of a sudden the consequences, this reality of famine."

2. The Reality of Famine in Gaza

Yossi Klein Halevi acknowledges the unprecedented length of the conflict and its dire repercussions, notably the onset of famine in Gaza. The hosts discuss the initial denial by Israeli leadership and the subsequent admissions of the severe humanitarian crisis.

Yossi Klein Halevi [01:44]: "We've never fought a war this long, never."

Daniel Hartman [02:30]: "The prime minister of Israel who said there's no famine in Gaza admits things are bad in Gaza."

3. Causes of the Humanitarian Crisis

The discussion identifies several factors contributing to the famine in Gaza:

• Siege Strategy: The intentional blockade aimed at defeating Hamas has inadvertently created conditions ripe for famine.

  Daniel Hartman [09:06]: "What's the reality now? The reality now is that we are losing because we didn't."

• Role of Hamas: Hamas's control over Gaza's infrastructure and potential manipulation of information exacerbates the crisis.

  Yossi Klein Halevi [15:52]: "Clearly Hamas. But what we have to own is our share here."

• International Community and Media: The international response and media portrayal have been inconsistent, with instances of misinformation undermining the credibility of genuine humanitarian concerns.

  Yossi Klein Halevi [04:25]: "We don't know if Hamas is inventing numbers. Well, we can assume Hamas is inflating numbers."

4. Moral Failures and Societal Impact

Both hosts confront the moral failures of Israeli society and leadership in addressing the humanitarian needs of Gazans. They critique the suppression of moral discourse and the societal shift towards a "victim nation" mentality, which has led to moral blindness.

Daniel Hartman [08:09]: "What's reality now for you is something's come home... almost like joining the blood libel."

Daniel Hartman [11:37]: "What's the reality now? The reality now is that we are losing because we didn't."

5. Lack of Strategic Planning

The conversation highlights the absence of a long-term, strategic plan for Gaza beyond the immediate objective of defeating Hamas. This lack of foresight has significantly contributed to the humanitarian crisis.

Daniel Hartman [16:39]: "It's 662 days since we started to attack a densely populated area. And I don't believe at one time we actually thought through what we want to do, where we want to go, and what the consequences are."

6. The Moral Stain and Reclaiming Integrity

The hosts discuss the "asterisk" now associated with Israel and Zionism due to the famine crisis, suggesting a profound moral stain that threatens the legitimacy and moral standing of the nation. They advocate for acknowledgment of failures, repentance, and a commitment to profound change.

Daniel Hartman [37:21]: "We have to start by declaring openly, this has been a failure. We have sinned."

Yossi Klein Halevi [35:10]: "There was a letter... affirming the right of Israel to defend itself... but beyond that, it affirmed the legitimacy of this war."

7. Recommendations for Healing and Repair

To address and heal the moral and humanitarian crisis, the hosts propose several steps:

• Acknowledgment and Repentance: Openly admit the failures and moral shortcomings that led to the famine.

  Daniel Hartman [37:21]: "We have to say, yes, we fail in the midst of this crazy environment."

• Strategic Vision for Gaza: Develop and implement a comprehensive plan for Gaza that goes beyond military objectives to include humanitarian and societal rebuilding.

  Daniel Hartman [36:41]: "We must have a plan... a serious plan that represents some vision on recognition of our moral responsibilities for this war."

• Dual Communication Strategy: Speak compassionately internally while defending against external vilification, maintaining moral integrity.

  Yossi Klein Halevi [40:47]: "We need to learn to speak two languages about Israel... an internal language in which the existence of the lynch mob doesn't matter. What matters is our own moral integrity."

8. Final Thoughts

In concluding the episode, both hosts reflect on the necessity of confronting these harsh realities to reclaim moral integrity and ensure a just future for both Israelis and Palestinians.

Daniel Hartman [42:21]: "Thank you."

Yossi Klein Halevi [42:21]: "I do too, Daniel."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Daniel Hartman [00:00]: Introduction to the episode's theme on famine amid prolonged war.

• Yossi Klein Halevi [01:44]: Acknowledges the unprecedented length of the conflict.

• Daniel Hartman [08:09]: Highlights the personal and societal realization of moral failure.

• Daniel Hartman [16:39]: Critiques the lack of strategic planning over 662 days of conflict.

• Daniel Hartman [37:21]: Calls for open acknowledgment of failures and repentance.

• Yossi Klein Halevi [40:47]: Advocates for a dual communication strategy to maintain moral integrity.

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This episode serves as a critical introspection on the prolonged conflict's unintended consequences, urging Israeli society and leadership to embrace moral accountability and strategic planning to prevent further humanitarian disasters and restore ethical integrity.

Transcript

[Daniel Hartman]

Foreign. You are listening to an art media podcast. Hi, friends. This is Daniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi from the Sholem Hartman Institute. And this is our podcast, for Heaven's Sake, in collaboration with ARC Media and the Shalom Hartman Institute. Our series Israel at War. Today is day 662, and today we are forced to deal with the consequence of this war that for many of us is almost unimaginable for many people around the world. It's been a reality for a very long time, but it's a new reality in Israeli public discourse. Our theme on day 662 is famine. For most of the war, the public discourse in Israel was about winning. It was about the causes of the war, what caused the war, the instigation of Hamas, the massacre. But for a very long time, the focus is on winning. And we're divided into two stories or two narratives of winning. One is winning by stopping the war and returning the hostages, and the other one is winning by defeating Hamas. That's the concentration and it's as if everything else has been on hold. We don't talk about anything else. The consequences, the consequences in the world, the consequences to Gaza. It's like we're fighting a 660 day war under the myth that it's a six day or a 12 day war and all of a sudden the consequences, this reality of famine.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

We've never fought a war this long, never.

[Daniel Hartman]

And we've never had to deal with the ongoing repercussions. We've always had to deal with the repercussions of Israel's place in the world and what people say about us. But this total occupation with the war and its consequences, a new experience and it's devastating to be accused of instigating famine. It's almost unimaginable. And so that's what we're going to talk about. It's here and it's here, not just in the criticisms of the press overseas. The prime minister of Israel who said there's no famine in Gaza admits things are bad in Gaza.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

He said it three days ago.

[Daniel Hartman]

Exactly. He said there's no famine in Gaza.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

There's no famine three days ago.

[Daniel Hartman]

And then last night, after President Trump said the pictures are bad, he lined him, says the situation in Gaza is challenging. Even Minister Smotrich, who, while declaring that he doesn't want to retake Gush Katif, the settlement block, because it's too small for him, he wants to retake all of Gaza because it's part of the promised Land, but he Said, the world will not let us win if we starve 2 million Gazans. He admitted the term. So now, all of a sudden, Netanyahu, Israel's military spokesperson, who just two days ago said, there's no hunger in Gaza. There's hunger in Gaza. There's famine. And so there's three questions we want to concentrate on. The first, what's your take on the reality? This moment that we're in this horrific moment, how do we account for it? Like, what is it? The second are, what are its causes? And the third is, what are our obligations? What do we need to do? So, Yossi, how do you understand this moment that we're in right now?

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Well, there's the technical or practical questions, and then there are the historical questions, the moral questions, questions about who we are as a people in terms of the practicality of what this moment is, what's actually happening there. You and I have done a dance over these long months, periodically going back to the question of what we know, what we don't know. And there's still a lot that we don't know about this. About the hunger, about the hunger. We don't know the extent of it. We don't know if Hamas is inventing numbers. Well, we can assume Hamas is inflating numbers.

[Daniel Hartman]

We know. We could actually say, we know they are.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

We know they are. What we do know now is that there is hunger. Again, we don't know the dimensions. We don't know if starvation is mass starvation is an imminent threat. But the very fact that even the government, the Israeli government, is owning up to it now means that the dimensions must be greater than we've assumed until now. And you know, Daniil, I struggle with the question of. And you and I, you know, when we continue this conversation offline before the podcast afterwards, and we try to understand, how did we get to this point? Why has Israeli society been so apathetic? And I, I look at myself, I try to examine myself, and I didn't believe that there was starvation in Gaza. Up until the last few days, I didn't believe it. And the main reason I didn't believe it is because the international community in the UN and NGOs have been crying wolf almost from the beginning of this war. You go back to October 2023, and the UN is warning of imminent hunger, and it wasn't true. And so the question, even before the war, even before the war, right, the blockade was creating mass famine. Now the Palestinians are saying, we destroyed a beautiful life in Gaza. But before the war, Gaza was an open air prison. It was a vast concentration camp. So there have been so many lies, half truths, exagger, that we haven't known what to believe. I'll give you one example. The galvanizing photograph, this terrible photograph of a Palestinian mother holding her dying child. You've seen that picture? When I saw that picture, I said, that's it. I have to say something. I have to do something. I started making calls to people I knew who might have some connection with the government. And I was going to write an article, and then I wake up the next day and there's a report that the photograph was actually a lie. Not the image itself. The image was of a Palestinian child who was dying of cerebral palsy. And they cropped the photograph. Did you. Did you see that? His brother, his older brother was in the picture and he looks perfectly healthy. They cropped the picture and that image went viral. That was on the front pages of the major newspapers from the New York Times to the Guardian. And so you see that and you say, how did I get taken in again? They did it again. I stepped in it again. And you feel like such a fool. And then you realize, well, okay, that's on the media. The media needs to own up to its failures. But I have my own moral failures that I have to own up to. And I can't hide behind the fact that there was manipulation. And it's a very interesting question about why Palestinians thought they could get away with that, why it was even necessary. If there is starvation, why choose an image as your emblematic symbol, your emblematic image for starvation? An image that's not true. That's a whole other interesting question. But again, those are questions that journalists. The New York Times needs to ask itself that question. As an Israeli citizen, I have a whole different set of questions I have to ask.

[Daniel Hartman]

So if I would summarize, what's reality now for you is something's come home.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Yeah.

[Daniel Hartman]

A story that, for multiple reasons, you felt that you needed to deny. It was almost as if you were going to join the blood libel.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Yeah. And I didn't think that's what I was doing. I just simply didn't believe it. You didn't believe it, but I was suppressing it.

[Daniel Hartman]

Right. I share very much my sense of where we are right now as a lot of similarities with your analysis, but with a little more moral criticism of us if I can. And I don't want to moralize, but it's very convenient for us to say that we didn't know.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Yep.

[Daniel Hartman]

Because the truth is I think we did know. And while it was never, I don't believe it was as bad as. And I know what is it? The Gazan Health Authority. What are they called?

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

The Health Ministry, The Health Ministry. The Hamas run.

[Daniel Hartman]

Numbers of theirs are completely distorted. And they count, you know, 70 people a day could be killed, and it has nothing to do with 70. And many of them could be Hamas terrorists in battle. And just the whole counting is something that. It's almost like there's an onslaught. But while all of this has been going on, we know that the nature of the war in Gaza is going to create a humanitarian crisis. That's what makes it so hard. Okay, so you could blame Hamas. And it's true. And a lot of it is on there. I'm not doing now an accounting of what we did wrong, but we know you can't go into Gaza and fight Hamas. You could blame Hamas for it, but you can't go into Gaz, limit the distribution of food, limit access to food just by mere virtue of your bombing and your war, and not think that there's going to be a humanitarian crisis. And I think we chose to hide what we know. We don't want to see it, we don't want to talk about it. But we knew. Who doesn't know? So maybe this picture was false. Maybe we know it was false and we know there were pictures taken from Yemen, presented as if they were in Gaza. We know all of the above. But when you look at the thousands of people dashing to get food, people who have access to their own food, don't do that. When you see the kids running around with their pots trying to get water, People have access to running water. Don't do that. And we know that Israel said over and over again that the only way to destroy and to defeat Hamas was to create a siege. Siege was part of our strategy. It wasn't to create famine, but it's to create siege. But what do you think you're doing when you're creating a siege? What do you think we're doing? And I think part of where we are right now is I think we have to confront a deep and profound moral failure of Israel and our people. Yeah, we can't run where we are now. We can't run away from it. We can't hide it. We can't blame the New York Times. And I appreciate you saying both sides, and I'm not denying it, but we have to be very careful because again, the New York Times, it's so comfortable to slip into all the distorted stories, let's quote President Trump. I don't know if that's good for others.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Let's not.

[Daniel Hartman]

I don't know if that's good for others. What did he say yesterday? Yeah, he said the pictures are hard to deny, and it's not of that emaciated child. And I'm not claiming how many people are dying. We've done something, and this war, we haven't taken into account the moral consequences to civilian life. And I think. What's the reality now? The reality now is that we are losing because we didn't. And the reality is, I believe that Israel and Jews and even Judaism now have an asterisk. There's a stain.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Yeah, the. The bright red warning over our failed food policy was the casualties among the desperate Palestinians coming to the food distribution points who were being killed and wounded by Israeli soldiers. And I'm not blaming the Israeli soldiers to be in a situation and any of us who have been in a situation where you're. You're confronting riots and you feel physically threatened and you know you could be in mortal danger. I blame the system. I blame the army for not preparing our soldiers, for not adequately training them, for not giving them the riot control equipment so that all they have is their gun. But more deeply, the failure was the government's entire approach to the food policy. This was. This was a failure from the beginning.

[Daniel Hartman]

So here I want to. I don't want to stop you, but I'll just frame it. You're now shifting a little bit into the causes. How did we get to this crazy place? And so now that's.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

That's. This is what. This was the. This was the root cause. Red line.

[Daniel Hartman]

This is the red line. So go, expand. Say more like, this situation, I can't imagine in your lifetime you would associate with Zionism, with Israel, with the Jewish people, that we allowed hunger, we allowed famine. We disregarded all of this. How did we get here?

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Now, look at the language you used very careful language. And I appreciate that. We allowed famine.

[Daniel Hartman]

There's a. I don't know if I was. If that was as intentional as it needed to be, but give me credit. I'll take credit.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

But, you know, there's a deeper question. We're being accused of having deliberately caused famine. I don't think. I believe that. I don't think that was the intention even of this terrible government. Nevertheless, there's a permeable line between intention and negligence. At what point does negligence become criminal negligence? And this is what we have to Own up to now. And there are lots of parties to this that have a share in this failure. Look, the UN has a very big share by allowing Hamas to control its food supply.

[Daniel Hartman]

You know, the New York Times denies that.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Yeah.

[Daniel Hartman]

The latest article is that a unnamed military spokesperson of the army said there is no proof that Hamas ever invaded the UN food distribution system.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Look, I don't know. But I do know. I know that that is a ludicrous claim. Absolutely ludicrous. And anyone who's been paying attention here for the last nearly two years knows what Hamas has done and also knows that Hamas is partly responsible. We are mostly responsible, but Hamas is partly responsible as well for the fatalities at the food distrib points. And again, I'm not trying to shift the blame from us, but I am looking at the constellation of guilt. And the UN would not cooperate with our food distribution system, claiming that it doesn't outsource food distribution, which is a lie all over the world. The UN outsources to third parties food distribution, but it wouldn't work.

[Daniel Hartman]

United Nations 1 cause 2. What are the other causes?

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Well, clearly Hamas. But what we have to own is our share here. And it doesn't matter to me if we are overwhelmingly responsible or if we're a partner in this crime, because it has become a crime. We have ample shares in this disaster. And where I feel I need to own up is not facing this sooner. Yeah.

[Daniel Hartman]

I want to point to two causes, one troubling and one profoundly disturbing. So this is a trigger warning. I'm going to move from. From troubling to disturbing.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

You're going to give us the bad news first and then the worst news.

[Daniel Hartman]

Yeah, I think the first cause for this goes back to something. And I can't tell you how angry I am because I know we could have done better. Like, if you can't do better, I can understand. I can understand that you can't fight a war in Gaza without civilian casualties. I understand that and I'm not blaming anybody. It's terrible, it's a tragedy, but it's not. I know there's certain things, not everything in life you can work out. And not every problem has a neat solution to it. But it's 662 days since we started to attack a densely populated area. And I don't believe at one time we actually thought through what we want to do, where we want to go, and what the consequences are. We had rhetoric, we had aspirations. It's not even a strategy, it's even a real articulated Vision of what do we want now, I don't blame anybody. In the first month or two, we were reeling from the tragedy, we were reeling from the massacres. But since then there is a absolute refusal to ask what is your real honest, implementable solution for this reality other than a fantasy we're going to wipe out Hamas. Okay, I appreciate that. We're going to bring the hostages back. I appreciate that. I appreciate that.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Through military pressure.

[Daniel Hartman]

I appreciate. I don't. Aspirations aren't a problem. But every single time we had to actually plan something and a plan that would bring in our best minds, that would put together serious solutions, we never did it. And what makes me so infuriated is that every single bomb of the 12 day war against Iran was planned. It was planned for months. We now know the beginning of the planning started in November for an attack that happened in June. Six months. Every single target, we put people in place. Our abilities to take, take into account difficult things to plan, almost impossible things. For 600 days, we have yet to put a serious plan for what do you plan on doing with the population here? And that's why we fall in love with the Trump plan. Oh, they'll leave. So this is one, you know, what about, as I said, you know, this mythic city which was supposed to house a million people. Really we are, I hope this is not. We're bullshitting our way through a human tragedy. And you can't do that. You can't go to war and kill and have such total strategic disregard for the serious challenges you face. Why are we here? This is the troubling one. Because we were beyond mediocre. Now, that mediocrity might be a result of the government, it might be a result of individuals who didn't plan things or whatever constellation you might want to have. And you can blame this one and that one. There's nothing. Still to this day, there is no intelligent articulation of what Gaza should be tomorrow. Forget who should own and rule Gaza. Here it is. You have 2 million people. What do you. You can't engage in a war and do this. This is the troubling one. And you could see. And our GHF solution, look, yes, we're offering a solution. How did you plan it? Is it in sufficient places? Is the distribution safe enough? Safe enough. Including for the Israeli soldiers, our kids, who have to guard it. What do you plan on doing? You had months. It was just like pull out. Like at this I'm sure someone's going to say, oh, we planned it. And if you actually had time. And this is what you came up with. You came up with what? Systems where people are supposed to walk through and quietly somehow separated from the contractors in the army. Part of it is just we have been conducting a 660 something day war without ever putting through long term plans, and we're just standing in place. You want to stop me now before.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

I get to the story, the worst one? Yeah. You know, over the course of the war, I've done a fair number of media interviews and I've been often challenged to explain how can I justify this war when you have far right ministers sitting in government and listen to the rhetoric that they've been saying. And the answer that I gave, the defense that I gave was they're not establishing policy, they're mouthing off. And that's true. That's true. That's true to a point. But. And this is a big but. What really brought us to this point was not Smartrich and Benvir. It wasn't the ideologically immoral, it was the amoral. It was the fact that the Likud and Netanyahu above all didn't care one way or the other. They didn't set out to have a policy of creating starvation. But the fact that they were setting in motion the conditions that would lead to that, that's not their consideration. And it feeds into what you're saying, it reinforces what you're saying, because there was no forethought. It was part of the way in which they've turned this war from a strategy to a series of tactics. And here Smatrich and Ben Grier did have an influence because they were preventing Netanyahu from who I'm not absolving by any means, but they were his alibi for not creating a serious strategy. And so you stumble into one series after another of disastrous miscalculations, and this is the end result.

[Daniel Hartman]

You know, I think one of the things that we have to officially change is what we said at the beginning, which was true, that these far right wing ministers aren't in the security cabinet and they're not determining the war. I think that's just simply false. Netanyahu has spoken to them, listened to them, and worried about their veto and leaving the government since day 30 or.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

50 of the war. No, you're right, but what they have vetoed, Daniel, what they have vetoed is exactly what you were speaking about earlier, which was a plan.

[Daniel Hartman]

A plan.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

That's what they veto. So they helped create the conditions and.

[Daniel Hartman]

Rejecting a ceasefire and attacking Again, and they have been far more powerful. But I want to go to what you called amoral, because now we're coming to what I think, think I'm worried about. And I'm hearing from a lot of our listeners, and I'm hearing from myself. When you don't care, when millions of people forget, I don't know, if they're starving, are they hungry? When you institute for whatever reason and you don't think about the consequences, are you not responsible? Is that amoral? What frightens me is that October 7th activated what I call victim nation. You know, before the war, we had startup nation. At a prior podcast, I spoke about warrior nation, the difference between a nation at war and when you become warrior nation, what that does to you. But for 662 days, Israel has been victim nation, and that victimhood just shut down any of our compassion. When you're totally consumed by your victimhood, you don't see. And every time people spoke to us and said, do you see what's going on in Gaza? What would we do? Did you see the pictures of October 7th? Like, what do you want from us? Do you see the pictures? It's Hamas. This victimhood has consumed us. And I think part of the problem is its consequence has been a silencing of a deep part of our moral conscience. And I think there's an absolute moral failure, not an amoral failure, a moral failure. And a lot of people are asking me. I have someone who wrote me, says, daniil, you speak about the troubled, committed. You know, you're troubled about some of the things that Israel is doing, but you're still committed. When do you stop being committed? And I don't stop being committed. We failed. And this hunger is just sitting there, and it's looking at Israeli society. And you and I, and I know, we're talkers, so you can blame us for just talking, but, like, at some point, there's something that's disturbing. And I look at Israeli and I look at the leadership and I look at the conversation, and I think we have to recognize that it's not just the byproduct of callousness. I think there's been a shutdown. I don't think Israeli society overnight has become an immoral society. But victim nation makes moral calculations impossible. You don't see them. And hunger, famine has come.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Yeah, I struggle with that question of whether Israeli society has lapsed into a victim identity. And I'm not at all convinced that that's the root of what's happened. I agree with you that there's been a major shutdown of our moral discourse. And, you know, this is a society which, 40 years ago, in the middle of a war, the First Lebanon War, when our Christian allies massacred a thousand Palestinians in the Sabra and shatila refugee camps, 400,000 Israelis, we were. At that time, we were 4 million people, 10% of the country, gathered in a public square in Tel Aviv to say, not us. This cannot be us. And now this is us. And we're silent.

[Daniel Hartman]

Something has happened then.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Yes, no, because back then I agree. I agree with you. But no, no, I agree with you. I don't agree with the reason for it. I don't think that we now see ourselves as victims, especially after our military successes. I think something in that is restored. And maybe I'm about to contradict myself here. And that's.

[Daniel Hartman]

That's fine.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

We don't. That's fair.

[Daniel Hartman]

We're thinking things through.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

That's right.

[Daniel Hartman]

To be fair. It's. Things are hard.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Okay. So it occurred to me the other day that we made a fundamental mistake in framing October 7th through the Holocaust. What did we say? Everyone. Everyone said the largest, and we're still saying it. The largest number of Jews killed since the Holocaust. And that's not the issue. That's not the framing. The framing is this was the largest number of Jews massacred since the creation of the state of Israel. That's what was important about October 7th. And it was a threat not to our victim, it was a threat to our power. And we have said this very often in our conversations. What October 8 was all about was Israeli society affirming that we're not a victim nation, and we're not going to stay in that.

[Daniel Hartman]

But you know what the problem is? There's no rational reason why after everything that we've done, we should still see ourselves as victim nation. But I think we still do. And the combination between victim nation and warrior nation has a moral toxicity that we have to give an accounting for. And how they're both able to exist for so long together, that inconsistency has room in the human psyche. But if it's okay with you, unless you.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Is this something else I want to say, Please come. Which is that when I try to understand the Israeli psyche in relation to Palestinian suffering, try to understand my own attitudes, but also my surroundings, I come back to those outrageous ceremonies that Hamas staged when the hostages were being released, and especially when the two Bibas children who had been murdered in captivity were returned in a festive ceremony with thousands of people. There was music, whole families came. Those images had a profound impact. I'm not justifying, I'm explaining. It had a profound impact.

[Daniel Hartman]

Fair enough.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

On how when Israelis look at Palestinian.

[Daniel Hartman]

So in addition to Victim Nation, there's Furious nation.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Oh, I. There's multiple fights. I think Enraged Nation is another one. Is much.

[Daniel Hartman]

It's another one.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Is much more, is much more important.

[Daniel Hartman]

So maybe I think that Rage nation reaffirmed the victim, but I don't care who gives a damn. So call it Rage Nation, Victim Nation, Warrior Nation. There's so many nations, all of them together have created this profound moral blindness and flaw. So now we have an asterisk. Israel has created a famine. New York Times. One of the worst humanitarian crisis in the 21st century. It's interesting. And again, all of the Israeli apologists will all say, when was the last time you traveled to Sudan? You know what I mean?

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

You know what, we'll leave it aside for now. No, no, no, it's not an aside. It's not being an apologist because it also, it helps explain why we couldn't see what was happening. I know that when you excuse, you know, one example, Forgive me for venting right now. Go say I love you. I have to vent.

[Daniel Hartman]

Go.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

It's yours to vent. The New York Times again. The New York Times published an op ed which became instantly renowned by an Israeli born holocaust historian, Omar Bartol.

[Daniel Hartman]

He's the one who said, I'm a genocide scholar and this is genocide.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

This is what I see. Yes. And the headline is, I'm a genocide scholar and I know genocide when I see it. Right. The opening line tells us exactly what this piece is about. In that opening line he refers to the Hamas attack of October 7. He can't bring himself, the genocide scholar, can't bring himself to call it a massacre, a mass atrocity. I didn't need to read beyond that to know exactly where this is going because what his whole argument was based on is that this is a one sided war. Hamas doesn't appear, Hamas isn't a factor. And this also, did it get off your chest? No, but, you know, it's a start.

[Daniel Hartman]

But I appreciate, because the truth is once I start on this, once I start you or anybody, it's, it's part of the problem. You know, we recommend Mati Friedman's remarkable article.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Oh, I'm so glad you brought it up.

[Daniel Hartman]

Where is it?

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

In the Free Press.

[Daniel Hartman]

In the Free Press where he showed like what we know, what we don't, and what we've had to deal with in constantly defending ourselves against these types of lies.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Must reading the best piece on this subject that I've seen, an excellent piece.

[Daniel Hartman]

But at the end, that asterisk is now here.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Yeah.

[Daniel Hartman]

And Jews around the world are feeling it. Israelis who are finally, you know, you can get out of Israel. There's actually airplanes leaving Israel wherever an Israeli goes now they're frightened. The idea of even having an Israeli or a Hebrew symbol, not to speak of a keeper anywhere in Europe. It's not even a thought. So as we're finally able to get out of, you know, this is rage nation, victim nation, warrior nation, exhausted nation in need of a vacation. They're now and you can't go.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

A vacation won't do it.

[Daniel Hartman]

Vacation.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

This is a country in need of deep therapy.

[Daniel Hartman]

So now so I want to ask the last question. There's this asterisk and again, we're not talking the genocide conversation today. And that technical debate and Bret Stephens article on it on genocide was also highly recommended to look at whether it is genocide or not genocide. And another article that I want to highly recommend is Ross Dohaat's editorial. It's not a response to Bret Stephens, but it's saying, I don't care what it is, what you call it. So we left all aside.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

And he has been a friend, he has been a strong supporter.

[Daniel Hartman]

He says like something wrong is going on here. So leaving all that aside, there's now this asterisk on us. It's an asterisk on Zionism. As I said, some people could I still be troubled, committed or now is the time for me the trouble uncommitted. When do I say enough? And I never want us to say enough because I want to fight for my Israel. So how do we repair this? Could we repair this? Could we repair this stain because we're leaving it aside? What do we do?

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Let me be cynical, a cynical Jew for a moment and ask the question, why are we the only country that worries that a moral stain, even a profound moral stain, will define our right to exist?

[Daniel Hartman]

No, I didn't say that. Did you notice that? You just did.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

No, no. I know you did it.

[Daniel Hartman]

No, but did you notice you just move and here. Could I argue with you, please, vociferously with my friend. You're letting yourself off. I didn't say that. You're having an argument with somebody else right now and I appreciate that that argument is there, but I didn't ask that.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

You're right.

[Daniel Hartman]

I didn't ask that. It's Such. And it's so much more convenient.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

But you see, that's the mechanism.

[Daniel Hartman]

Daniel and Yossi, forget the creeps out there.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

We're so defensive because we're so wounded. We're so under attack.

[Daniel Hartman]

I appreciate that. I understand. You're right and I understand, but that's not the issue.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

You're right, you're right.

[Daniel Hartman]

How do we. We're here. We have a right to be. I'm not even interested in talking about my rights. I know other people want to, but for us now in our conversation, is there anything we can do?

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Look, there was a letter. There was a letter. It's not too late. There was a letter. First of all, God willing, all of the pressure has stopped mass starvation. At least we have a good chance of stopping it because there's now a mass infusion of it.

[Daniel Hartman]

It'll take months, but yes, to overcome the impact. Okay, that's one part. Fair enough. Good. What else?

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

The necessity of drawing red lines in our discourse over Israel. There was a. A very fine letter that Rabbi Art Green and a few others wrote when hundreds of rabbis across the denominations, including Orthodox rabbis, signed saying basically, not this until this.

[Daniel Hartman]

And they didn't walk away from Israel.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Oh, it was a very good letter because the letter affirmed the right of Israel to defend itself. But beyond that, it affirmed the legitimacy of this war. I didn't agree with everything in that issue, but I felt that there were mindful of the need to protect Israel even as they're criticizing. And for me, that's in some way, that's the balance. You have to remember that we're facing a lynch mob and our legitimacy is under question, under assault all the time. And at the same time, we must critique our failures. Especially when you have a government like this and a war like this, the Jewish people must critique itself. Even in the middle of war, Especially in the middle of the war.

[Daniel Hartman]

You know, this goes back to one of the core features of Jewish law and the path of repentance. Do you know how repentance starts? Doesn't start by committing to change. That's a later stage. It starts with recognizing and admitting what you did wrong.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Right.

[Daniel Hartman]

And I think part of what the way this. How does this change? There's a few things. First, we have to say, yes, we fail in the midst of this crazy environment. And I know I have friends who say, which country ever admits that it's wrong? And which country ever has to. Can't allow the defendants. It doesn't matter. There's now an asterisk on Judaism, Zionism and Israel. And amongst our anti Semites, it'll never change. But amongst our friends, we're losing. And we have to start by declaring openly, this has been a failure. We have sinned. This was wrong one. Whether by commission or omission, whatever it.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

Was that we did, the very fact that we allowed it to get to this point and with all the story.

[Daniel Hartman]

The second is we have to commit to change. And commit to change, I think needs two dimensions to it, otherwise we're never going to free ourselves. The first is not just allowing food to come in or now, you know, parachuting food in by the Israeli army and the Emirates or whoever it is and the Jordanians. That's not a plan. Throwing food at Gaza is not a plan for starvation or for hunger. It's just not. We have to have a plan again. Let's actually say, what are we going to do now for the Gazans? We want to destroy Hamas, but we have destroyed life. We've created a famine. What's your plan? And not, oh, we have to stop the blaming Hamas, all of the above. We have to put forth a serious plan that represents some vision on recognition of our moral responsibilities for this war with all of its complexity. And I think the only way this asterisk is ever going to go away is if we actually show through action and policy that we want a different future with the Palestinians. And I don't know what it's going to be, and I can't tell you how to do it, and I don't have simple solutions. But unless Israeli society actually declares Palestinian lives are created in the image of God and we as Jews have come home and we have to make sure that Palestinian rights are preserved, unless we start from the midst of this moral failure, reach a different moral height, that asterisk is going to remain. We could talk about it more, but it's just, I'm telling you, I am so upset. This is not my Israel, this is not my Jewish people. And we need to reclaim something. Yossi, this is our time for final thoughts.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

You phrased it beautifully, Daniel. I have one deep disagreement, and I think, I actually think you'll more or less agree with what I'm going to say.

[Daniel Hartman]

So our disagreements are ones where you disagree with me, but I agree with you.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

No, I'll tell you. No, no, I'm okay with that. No, no, My disagreement is in the way you put it. And I don't think that you meant it this way, but it could be heard that way.

[Daniel Hartman]

Okay.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

And that is when you said we have to stop blaming Hamas and focus on ourselves. I believe that the challenge for us at this unbelie complicated time is twofold. On the one hand, to deal with the lynch mob and not to let go of defending ourselves from the outrageous campaign of lies that we're subjected to, while at the same time relentlessly examining ourselves and subjecting ourselves to the deep and wrenching process of chuva of penitence. And in that sense, I've spoken about this before, Daniil we need to learn. Jews need to learn to speak two languages about Israel. There's an external language directed to our vilifiers, and there's an internal language in which the existence of the lynch mob doesn't matter. What matters is our own moral integrity.

[Daniel Hartman]

In this context, I want to reference everybody to yet another article.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

By the way, we reference more articles in this episode.

[Daniel Hartman]

There's a bunch of serious people who wrote some stuff. This one was in Sapir, the Journal Sapir by Toba Hellerstein. It's called actually feelings don't care about your facts. It's also a phenomenal article and recommended there's like four articles that could really frame a lot of our conversation. And part of what she was saying you distinguish between an internal conversation and external one. And part of what she was saying is that you win the external one by communicating your internal feelings to them them because your facts don't matter. And so much of our explanation has nothing to do with actually analyzing what the other person is thinking or what will convince them. It's speaking to what will convince us. And what works, she says, is not facts. But actually the two conversations that you mentioned talk about who we want to be. I actually think that this conversation of reclaiming who we are and yes, admitting that we're flawed, admitting our problems, talking about who we want to be could be very helpful. Again, not for the anti Semites, but for our friends. And okay, final thoughts. This is Israel at war day 662. It's been a hard one and I very much appreciate talking it through with you, Yossi.

[Yossi Klein Halevi]

I do too, Daniel.

[Daniel Hartman]

Thank you.