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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. You are listening to an art media podcast. Hi friends, this is Daniil Hartman and Yossi Kleine Levi from the Sholom Hartman Institute. And this is our podcast, For Heaven's Sake, the special series Israel at War Day 634. The podcast is a collaboration of the Shalom Hartman Institute and ARC Media and you could follow us on podcast platforms. And now our new YouTube channel has been launched. For Heaven's Sake podcast. You could find us or you could follow the link in the show notes. Yossi, nice to be with you today.
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B
Good to be with you.
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A
And we have a strange title, Gaza the End Question mark All the dates that we've been counting down, are we coming closer to counting down? 634. And maybe the return of our hostages, our 50 people. And what's causing this change? I would characterize it as the new Netanyahu government. Netanyahu, throughout his career, he doesn't live in the ideological right wing. He lives in the center right with a high emphasis on issues of security. But his natural ideology is much more in the center. And the way he succeeded in being able to deliver on the policies that he cared about was to ensure that in every government that he sat, he was at the center. There were people at the right and there were people on the left. And whether it's ultra Orthodox or religious Zionist parties or a Viktor Lieberman, whoever it might be, or Bennett at the time was on the right. And he would have someone on the left, a Benny Gantz, or he'd have a Yair Lapid or someone from the Labour Party.
- [02:01]
B
And one forgets that, that this was really the old Netanyahu.
- [02:06]
A
That was the old Netanyahu, you really forget. But that's the way he ran and he navigated a center right security conscious policy. But he was able to use both sides against each other so that he was never the one who initiated anything radical. He took credit, obviously, and he deserved it because he was the prime minister. But it was always balancing pressures and this government because there was a whole move of just not Netanyahu, which he also earned as a result of the fact that every promise he made to Benny Gantz he rescinded on. So nobody wants to sit with him anymore. That was in a credible position to be the CA counterbalance, because instead of using you to create new policy, he used you for a while and then fired you for his own political gains. So we have a government in which the right could bring down the coalition and as a result reign supreme. And we now have a new coalition in Israel. Netanyahu is a new coalition partner. The only difference is this person doesn't sit in the government factually, but is governing this country, and that is Donald Trump. And so you now have Donald Trump as the political left wing counterbalance to Smotrich and Benvir.
- [03:25]
B
That's a lot to process.
- [03:27]
A
We jokingly spoke about Prime Minister Trump in the past, but this is no joke. Trump is now involved at the core of Israeli political discourse. He even has a position on Netanyahu's trial, which he speaks about as his suiting of a coalition partner. He's joined the coalition and he's invested in it, but he's now creating that balance. And while Trump can bring down the government, he can bring down the country. And as a result, he has a tremendous amount of power, far greater than the Haredi Party's and far greater than sMarcic and Ben Gvir. And he has announced today again. But this is a process that's been going on. The war is coming to an end. I want the war over and I want the hostages back. Both positions that Netanyahu was not willing to articulate, especially over the last number.
- [04:19]
B
Of months, because he would have lost his government.
- [04:21]
A
He would have lost his government. And he was articulating, I want complete victory. Now it's not complete victory. I want the war over. His coalition partner is telling him, and he wants the hostages back. And Sunday, Netanyahu's traveling. Monday afternoon, evening, he's meeting President Trump again. And so this is the war coming to an end. How do we frame this, assuming that we at all have even a vote as Israelis on this issue? But how do you articulate the crossroads and the issue that we're facing now? Because the whole discussion is about to change.
- [04:56]
B
Well, in one sense, nothing has changed because Netanyahu is still being threatened from his right, Trump. Unfortunately for Netanyahu, Trump does not have a vote in the Cabinet, but he certainly has a strong stick. The question is, who is Netanyahu more afraid of? Is he more afraid of going out publicly against Trump, or is he more afraid of risking the wrath of his right wing coalition partners? Now, until now, he's used Trump as an excuse to the far right, saying, look, what can I do? The question is, if he really goes for the deal that Smutrich and Ben Gvir have in the past defined as a red line, and he says, look, Trump is giving me no choice. Will they bring the government down?
- [05:46]
A
What's the deal?
- [05:48]
B
Well, this is it. What is the deal? And the release of the hostages. Is Hamas going to give up all the hostages? Will they not keep any in reserve?
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A
But now let's for a moment ignore the politics and the new political reality, which is putting on the table new opportunities. What is the dilemma of Gaza that we Israelis and that we're all facing because we're moving possibly into a resolution. But what is the dilemma of Gaza as you understand it?
- [06:17]
B
Well, besides the practicalities, there's a meta dilemma here, a moral. An acute moral dilemma, and it's not as straightforward as our critics think. On the one hand, there are growing reports of alleged war crimes that Israeli soldiers have committed in relation to the food distribution. There was a horrific story in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz a few days ago claiming that some Israeli soldiers have taken pot shots at Palestinians who are seeking food and war and threatening them. I don't know, but it has to be investigated. And there's the. The broader question of how Israel has. Has used food as a weapon. And here again, it's complicated. You said, I think, in our last podcast that the Israeli government has a case because the international community has ignored Hamas's systematic hijacking of international aid. So it's a very complicated question, but it feels more and more urgent that something is going wrong morally in the way we're fighting this war, certainly in the last months. So that's on the one hand, and the question there is, and this is something that really nags at me, is that the Netanyahu government dragged us into two variations of the abyss. In the past, there was the abyss of Israeli society tearing itself apart. That was the year leading up to October 7th. Then there was the abyss of October 7th. And my deep fear is that they're dragging us into a third abyss, which is the moral abyss. So that's one consideration, an urgent consideration. But there's a counter moral argument to be made by advocates of continuing the war, which is not to grant Hamas, and by extension, international terrorism, immunity. Hamas has figured out a brilliant strategy. Hide behind civilians, fire against us, fire into our civilian communities from within schools and mosques and hospitals, force the IDF to pursue them, raising civilian casualties. And that triggers international outrage and pressure on Israel. And I feel that we have a moral responsibility not to grant Hamas immunity in this war. And that's something that Israelis instinctively feel, even if they can't quite articulate it in that way. When you say it to Israelis, they say, right, that's what we're doing. We're not only trying to prevent a genocidal regime from remaining on Our border. This is something bigger. This is something that matters to the world. So there's a growing clash of two moral imperatives here. And that's where I feel we're stuck.
- [09:22]
A
We're stuck. I appreciate what you're saying, and I share that dilemma, but I feel, you know what I'm frightened of, that we're using that dilemma right now to quiet some of the serious conversations that we need to have.
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B
I'm afraid of that, too, Daniil, you.
- [09:39]
A
Know, because you can. Because you could say there's a dilemma, and therefore it's complicated. You know, the word complicated is a great word, right?
- [09:46]
B
That's what we do with the West Bank.
- [09:48]
A
Everything is complicated. You call it complicated, but if you follow, whether it's social media or newspapers around the world, it's not complicated anymore. People don't feel it's complicated anymore. The deaths, the overall activity of the war. There's a legitimate fight against Hamas, but we're not. After 634 days, we've decimated huge parts of their military capacity. They're still there, and they're still in control of Gaza. And the question is, how many more days can you continue to fight and bomb? And whether it's not just the humanitarian aid, it's just in general, how many civilian deaths can you allow? And I fear that the callousness towards civilian deaths and casualties is a direct result of the dilemma that you're speaking about.
- [10:43]
B
And, of course, the presence of hostages, which maddens us.
- [10:47]
A
Which maddens us, because, you know, you could say, I have a dilemma and I have a struggle, and you. And try to do the best you can. I don't know if you're even trying to do the best you can anymore. And, you know, one way of looking at it is, you know that we've effectively defended ourselves. This is the tragedy. We've effectively defended ourselves against Hamas's ability to harm Israeli society now. But in effect, we've undermined in many places around the world our legitimacy to do so. And we still are living with this dilemma. And that dilemma is a serious one. But around the world, no one's living with it anymore. And in many ways, Hamas, in that sense has won, because for more people than almost any other time in my lifetime, the basic legitimacy of Israel is being questioned.
- [11:40]
B
So this is it. Leaving aside for a moment the moral question, strategically, I feel the war has become a liability for Israel. But what do you do, Daniil, with the argument, and it's very strong here that says we can't allow the regime of October 7th to return to the border.
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A
I feel that the conversation has shifted already. You know, I think there's a difference, you'll see between the conversation at the beginning of the war, the middle of the war, even two months ago. I think people have basically accepted that while we're not going to let Hamas return to the border, the ability of completely wiping out Hamas is really off the table. It's just off the table. And all the plans that are being put forth now and everything that's being leaked and we don't know what in fact is going to be decided at the end. But when President Trump declares that the war is going to be over and the hostages are going to be returned, there's no deal in which Hamas agrees to leave to wave a white flag. So you're going to look for symbolic things, maybe. And this is being discussed. They'll exile some of the leaders. There's only two left. You know, every other leader is not going to leave Gaza. They're buried in Gaza, and there's only.
- [13:01]
B
Two countries they can go to, which is Qatar or Turkey.
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A
Let's see. Exile, it doesn't matter. The fact is there's 30, 40,000 Hamas terrorist operatives running around still terrorizing, trying to steal the humanitarian aid. Sometimes we're shooting, sometimes we're shooting because we're callous. Sometimes we might be shooting. As the Israeli army discussed, soldiers lives feel threatened by masses of people charging for food. Sometimes Hamas is shooting. It's a whole big. Hamas is still there. And the idea that we're going to achieve a complete, total victory, that lives now only in Netanyahu's narrative. Even in the government, we have Likud members of the government. Obviously, they won't say this publicly who say, you know, the price of the war now is too great. It's like we've shifted. So the dilemma.
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B
There's also an exhaustion in the army. There's an exhaustion in Israeli society. There's a convergence of reasons for why the public is ready to wind the war down.
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A
You know, I feel, I hope this is not misunderstood because it relates to the exhaustion. Hostages are an easy thing to concentrate on. It's a simple thing. It's good, bad, it's clean. It's clear. You know, in the Jewish tradition or in our history, a diaspora Jewish experience was one where we couldn't shape our destiny, we couldn't affect the public sphere in a significant way. And chaos really controlled us. And an essential part of Jewish law was to give you an area that you could Control. You can't defeat Rome, you can't defeat Christianity. But is the mezuzah on your door or what food do you eat? Judaism focused on the private domain and created a sense of order. Like, who needs 613 commandments? You think about it a second, and that's just the beginning. When you add the reply.
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B
You're my favorite Orthodox rabbi.
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A
No, like, you think about it, you know, like, it's like. It's like there's this notion that a Jew, if you follow Jewish law, you have a hundred blessings a day, right? So just think for a moment. How many hours are you up? Back then, even they were up because it was 12 hours. 12 hours. Just do the math. Like, every three minutes, another blessing. Like, we had tefillin and tzitzis and mezuzahs and kosher food. Like, there was all these things for even to be worried about. What's this? How many hours you. We diverted your attention from the cha outside to creating a highly regulated internal life. And you are able to survive the chaos despite that. That's what Jewish law does. But the whole revolution of Zionism is to say to you that we're responsible for the public sphere. Don't run away from it anymore. And so Zionism is an attempt to overcome that chaos. And even the war in Gaza October 7 was the embodiment of that chaos. And then we're promised, don't worry, you're going to have complete and total victory. And now you're not going to have complete, ultimate victory.
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B
Very powerful, what you're saying.
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A
So by Constant, if I could just get the hostages back, it's very powerful. It's like I can't fix it all.
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B
So then I'll have some control over.
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A
I have something that I could. It's not even my destiny. I could control something if they could come home. That's why there was a sense that that's the victory. There's the moral language behind it. All of the above. But you have to realize the recent poll, even a majority of coalition supporters for the first time are supporting the end of the war, not the just not detention.
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B
This is very good, Danil. I want to go back to this point about Zionism and controlling our destiny and the chaos that we're feeling now. And if you think about it, and if you frame it within the context of October 7th, what was the enduring trauma, besides the atrocities? And even more than the hostages, the enduring collective trauma of October 7th was helplessness, a loss of control. And I've said this on the podcast a few times that the trauma, the lingering trauma is that we are a society that prided itself on being able to protect not only Israeli citizens, Jews around the world. We sent the Israeli Air Force into Addis Ababa at the height of a civil war and retrieved 14,000 Ethiopian Jews. We sent commandos halfway across Africa in 1976 to retrieve 100 hostages in Entebbe Airport. We couldn't save 1200 of our fellow citizens within the sovereign borders of the state of Israel. That's a trauma. Helplessness. And what you're saying is that the inability to decisively resolve the war in Gaza is really poking that wound, the wound of October 7th of helplessness. Here we are, we can't do it after nearly two years, two years of war. And it's a great insight, but how.
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A
Are we going to respond? Because we're not getting what we want. And the shift, if you notice the shift in the conversation. And now Netanyahu is going to go to Washington and I'm sure they're going to try to dress up this change in Gaza with larger political moves. You know, it might even benefit by the fact that it's true. But we're going to compromise on Gaza for the sake of an expanded Abraham Accords, and we're going to have Lebanon and Syria. People are speaking less about Saudi Arabia, but maybe they're the surprise card up the sleeve that might come forth, get.
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B
Syria suddenly on the agenda.
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A
Whatever that's like, it's nice.
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B
It's interesting.
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A
It's interesting. Like, what does it mean? But whatever it is, I'll take anything, all of these. But Netanyahu and Trump are preparing Israeli society because we're shifting, because this is so different from the 12 day war in Iran in 12 days, whether we won or didn't win. And it's interesting, the majority of Israelis now in a recent poll said they believe we did not win in the war in Iran, but we achieved great successes.
- [18:57]
B
So the question, which is a very.
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A
Mature thing, could we say, could there be great successes here in Gaza and there's going to be a shift in paradigm yesterday.
- [19:06]
B
So the question then really is have our remarkable series of military successes, beginning with the beepers in Lebanon, with Hezbollah and then culminating with Iran in is that enough to counter this sense of helplessness and chaos?
- [19:24]
A
No, because at the end, every deal that's being bantered about right now has Hamas remaining or Hamas terrorists remaining. There is no system to ensure that they don't have their weapons when we sign the deal. Hamas is not Going to sign a deal saying we give up all of our power and disappear and dissipate and you can have your hostages. That's not going to be. So we're being pushed in a timeline, ending the war, hostages back, is a choice to prioritize something else. But it's a choice to accept a process of uncertainty which might unfold in a political process, because it's being bantered that four Arab countries are going to take responsibility over Gaza and the Palestinian Authority. All the things, by the way, that were possible in February a year and a half ago, everything that was completely unacceptable now is becoming acceptable. And basically what we achieved last February or maybe May, with the exception of maybe I forget when death was killed and Sinwar and a couple of the leadership is more or less what's going to be on the table and what could have been then, where 50 people were exiled, now there's only two people left to exile. But Hamas is going to remain part of the infrastructure of Gaza. You can't get rid of it.
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B
So then the question is, will Israelis see the entirety of the war, the October 7th war, not just the Hamas component, as a victory, a partial victory or a defeat? I suspect the hard right will see it as a defeat.
- [21:03]
A
Oh, for sure. They're speaking those terms. Mitsal Smotrich, the minister, spoke that this is the greatest danger to the state of Israel, to the existence of. It's an existential danger in a recent article in the Times of Israel that a ceasefire under these conditions. President Trump is becoming the president of reality for Israel. The person who in America defines truth however he wants to is the older brother, wise statesman who tells Israel, bring your planes back. What are you going to achieve? You're going to wipe out what you're going to throw another hundred tons of or a thousand tons of.
- [21:42]
B
Now Israel is such a counterintuitive place. You know, in our context, Trump is the mature older brother.
- [21:50]
A
That's what he's telling Israel. It's time. It's like, as he said, you don't know how to stop. So I have to tell you. But what he said about Iran is, he's basically saying, it's true here, too. Take the hostages back. Israeli society will feel some healing. But the reality is, how do we then go forward? I've been advocating for this, and you've been much more ambivalent. But let's try to spell out a little bit. What are the challenges of this type of a deal for Israeli society? Like, is this simple? Is this. Could this be a Victory.
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B
I'll answer for me what I need out of a deal, besides the obvious releasing the hostages, I need an acknowledgment and a way of dealing with the ideological problem of Gaza. And I'll explain what I mean. Gaza is not the West Bank, Judea and Samaria, for all kinds of reasons. But from the Palestinian perspective, what you have in Gaza is an ideological project. The essence of Gaza is impermanence. We don't belong here. We belong in the lands we left or were thrown out of in 1948. And that's why you have the absurdity of refugee camps being maintained in a part of Palestine under a Palestinian government supported by the international community. There's no attempt to rehabilitate or dismantle the refugee camps. They're being kept as permanent refugees. Where are they going back to? Where do they think they're going back to? They think they're coming here. And so the whole foundation of Gaza society needs to be confronted and needs to be dismantled. Gaza has to stop being one big refugee camp. And that's very different from the west bank where Palestinians live. I mean, you have a few refugee camps there, but there isn't this sense of impermanence. People are living in their homes. And this is the absurdity of Gaza that has to be on the international agenda.
- [24:02]
A
But in many ways, Yossi, as I'm listening to you, hasn't that been resolved? Because the fact is Israel destroyed Gaza and Gaza's going to be rebuilt. And Gaza wasn't just refugees. I understand there was a preponderance of huge refugee camps, but not only, right.
- [24:20]
B
There was Gaza City, there was Gaza.
- [24:21]
A
City and there was actually, you know, it actually looked quite beautiful, you know, when you actually saw the pictures. But let's. I understand the idea, the base of Hamas support, the ideological premise of Gaza was Gaza. But that's also because Gaza unto itself is not large, it's not viable unto itself. It's not connected to anything. It's this little strip. And this little strip could never be a country unto itself and disassociated from the west bank or Judea and Samaria. It was just sort of hanging there and hanging there. It's like, where do we belong? Do we belong to Israel? And. And, you know, and so all of.
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B
That, it's actually Gaza's on the wrong side of the map. It's on the wrong side creating a Palestinian state.
- [25:06]
A
That's right. It's in the wrong place. But the destruction of Gaza, which was affected by the military campaign in Essence is going to create, whether it's this new real estate deal for other people besides Gazans. The reality is, is that over the next 10 years, Gaza's gonna be rebuilt and it's gonna be a permanent place, and it's gonna be a beautiful place.
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B
See, that's very interesting that I haven't. I really haven't factored that in, because really, what you're saying is that the very process of rehabilitating Gaza is the negation of the ideological project of return.
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A
Of return. So that might be very interesting, but the big.
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B
Very, very interesting.
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A
But the big challenge we're gonna face, and I'm prepared for it, and I don't know, Yossi, if you are, and I don't know if Israelis are, and maybe the hostage return will be enough, but we're going to be entering into a very uncertain stage in which total victory is not there. Hamas is going to be there, and all the solutions that were offered in the past with all their imperfections and were rejected, are going to become operative. There's going to be Palestinian Authority and other armies there, and Hamas initially is going to be there, and it might take a long time, and it might take five years, and slowly but surely they'll be disarmed or they'll be replaced and a government will come into power. If Gaza is handed over to other people, then it's possible to have humanitarian aid distributions which aren't necessarily controlled by Israel. It's not certain. It's a mess. The war is going to end with a mess and a tremendous amount of uncertainty. But at some point, I'm not advocating it because I'm claiming certainty that it's going to be resolved. But rather, and I think this is where Israelis are, and this is what President Trump and the reality that he's putting in front of Israel is. It's over. You tried to resolve it your way. You tried to resolve it with power. As you said at the beginning, I can't let Hamas have a victory by hiding behind its civilian population. But it's harmed us, it's harmed the Gazans, and at some point, the total victory is as far away today as it was almost on October 8th. And it's time to try another methodology. And that's what Trump is putting forth, another methodology. How do I make it psychologically acceptable? Have your hostages? How do I make it politically acceptable? Let's talk about expanding the Abraham Accords, which will give it, you know, there's the term in Hebrew, a hecher. It'll make it Kosher. It puts it in a larger context.
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B
It'll make it palatable.
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A
It'll make it palatable is the term. But at the end, we're going to be starting now a new process. That's why, you know, it's the Gaza the end. Question mark. It really is the beginning. There's going to be rebuilding. There's going to be a lot of uncertainty. New armies are going to be there, new forces are going to be there. Israel's going to have to pull out from how much? We don't know all of these details, but I think part of what we're coming up against is reality, and that you can't keep on denying reality. The reality is, is that Israel has been undermined. The reality is that Israel's credibility has been weakened. The reality is, is that more and more of our friends are questioning, as you said, whether this war is being fought in any way justly, even on the most minimal terms. It's just gone too long. And now the uncertainty of war is going to be replaced by the uncertainty of politics. And the challenge is Trump can make the declaration, he can enforce the policy, and he could say, this is the greatest thing that ever happened. But the uncertainty and the difficulty of day to day is something that we're going to have to live with for a very long time. Last thoughts that you have about this, Yossi?
- [29:02]
B
I have thoughts that will take us in another direction, and I'm hesitant to bring it up, but I'll mention it briefly as something that you might want to talk about next week, which is the dark side of Papa Donald embracing us and intervening in our affairs. And that is the growing unease among Israelis of a loss of sovereignty. And again, this is really taking us in a different direction, but it is a consequence of what's happening. So when Trump intervened in Iran, we all cheered. When Trump intervened in our legal issues and said that the court has to stop the trial of Netanyahu, the center and the left started to feel, wait a minute, you're encroaching on our sovereignty. Now, if Trump is going to force the government to make a deal on Gaza, the right is going to say, what about our sovereignty? So you may see emerging in the coming weeks a strange coalition across the political spectrum of pushing back against the Trumpian embrace and saying, what is this doing to our sovereignty?
- [30:18]
A
Interesting. Netanyahu's project is going to be to project himself as the leader of this process, not as the one who's being coerced in it. His project will be to embrace this as his next great.
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B
That's his great political challenge.
- [30:34]
A
That'll be his great political challenge.
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B
I don't know if the public is going to buy it again. For different reasons.
- [30:39]
A
For different reasons. Who knows? I really want to stop counting days. I want the hostages home. I want to go back to. For heaven's sake. Without the subtitle Israel at War. It's been a long time. Who knows? Next Monday we're going to hear the next chapter. Yossi, it was a pleasure being with you.
- [31:00]
B
Great to be with you, Daniel.