← For Heaven's Sake
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A
Hi, friends. This is Daniil Hartman and Yossi Kleine Levi from the Sholem Hartman Institute. And this is our podcast, for heaven's sake, in collaboration with ARC Media. Before we start, we have a quick note of housekeeping. As you know, our show is part of ARK Media. It's an extended universe of podcasts that includes Dan Sinore's Call Me Back and what's yous Number. ARK Media is growing with a specific goal in mind. Becoming the Jewish town square. A place for meaningful conversation and debate and for fostering a real connection throughout Israel and the Jewish world. To better build this, our friends at ARK Media asked us to share a listener survey with you. The survey takes only a couple of minutes to fill and is entirely anonymous. Your answers will give the ARK team a better understanding of what can be improved and what needs building. These surveys really make a difference. Also, as an additional incentive, if you complete the survey, you can opt in to win a special gift from Box Jerusalem. The link for the survey is in your show notes. Thank you.
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B
You are listening to an art media podcast.
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A
American Jews are Americans. That's the point. And when they look at this war, they don't just think of it in terms of Israel's interests.
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C
I can't trust you as an ally on this. Then what's the relationship worth anymore? And this notion that we all belong to the same project, Maybe it's not true. So viscerally deep feeling of betrayal.
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A
You know, we could win this war against Iran and lose America and lose North American Jews. Hi friends. This is Danil Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi from the Sholem Hartman Institute. And this is our podcast, for heaven's sake. In collaboration with ARC Media. Today's Wednesday, March 11. And our theme is are we in an aimless, endless war? Today's episode is being recorded live to supporters of the Sholem Hartman Institute. We're especially grateful to those in the Hartman Wellspring family circle and Giving society for sustaining our work. To learn more about these opportunities, please check the links in our show notes. It feels like a lifetime ago since last week.
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C
It really does. I've said this before. I never know what day it is, what time it is.
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A
My challenge is what year it is. You know, in our last podcast it was called if you remember, the Case for War. You and I focused principally on a number of the essential moral criticisms against the war. And those moral criticisms hit us very deeply in the opening days of the war. And that's almost all we can think about. We didn't talk about Political criticisms of the war we talk about. Where were people condemning this from a moral perspective? And we focused on four. We picked four. We weren't exhausting all the criticisms, but four which we felt were particularly important from an Israeli perspective. One which simply, instinctively sees war as evil, which you called implied pacifism. The second is one which belittled the danger and the evil of Iran relativizing evil. The third was an attack against the self evident notion in Israel that this was an obligatory war in the Chemet Mitzvah, a war of self defense. And that argument was built around the notion that this wasn't a preemptive strike, this was a preventative strike, and that's illegitimate from the perspective of international law. And the fourth criticism just was focusing on the fact that nothing that Trump does could be morally legitimate, that his motivations are not ones that we could count on. And as a result, almost every war that he's going to fight is going to be unjust. And that sort of taints a lot of the conversation here in Israel. We were feeling this flow of moral criticisms. They made us feel vulnerable, they made us feel really lonely. Because when you're in a war, you always want allies. And when you feel very strongly about the morality of this war, hearing them hit us in a very deep way.
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C
And they also made us feel judged, morally judged. And I think we both felt, this is not the Gaza war, don't start pulling that right.
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A
It's interesting, right? There was a simplicity, there was no politics. But in today's episode, we want to expand the discussion and talk about what are some of the political criticisms, what are the political components of the war. And we want to analyze some of that discourse both for and against, you know, and just remind people our podcast is for heaven's sake. And that means that while you and I, unapologetically, we know we have an Israeli perspective. What was our first podcast about this war called? From the Shelter or from the, you know, who remembers? But it was something.
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C
It was thoughts from the Shelter about eight months ago.
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A
About eight months ago, you know, it hits us differently. But today we want to talk from an Israeli perspective, but we also want to give space for a North American and world perspective. We want to try to understand and as always, try to respect other people's perspectives, perspective in the spirit of these. And these are the words of the living God. So for Israelis, this war is so self evident, but part of where we're sitting today is a deepened sense, not even morally, politically, that it's not Self evident, not for America and not for many American Jews. And one of the things that I want to come back to later on, but which is almost a framing for today's conversation, we could win this war against Iran and lose America and lose North American Jews. Now, when it is a nuclear Iran, you've argued, everything is secondary. If I could defeat the nuclear dimension, that's a life and death to be or not to be.
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C
Right.
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A
But part of what we're thinking about and many Israelis are thinking about, or I'm thinking about, is what's a greater danger? Another thousand Iranian ballistic missiles or losing our legitimacy amongst our most significant ally and allies in the world. And the answer there is not so self evident to me. Our conversation today, we want to build it slowly and try to peel it back a little more systematically and start with something that we took for granted last time because we were talking from the shelter. Yossi, how both for yourself and give voice to what is so self evident to 93% of Israelis. Why is this war perceived as a just war and believed to be an obligatory war in mitzvah across the political spectrum?
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C
I think it begins with the question of how do you measure time? When did this war begin? And for most of the world, this war began. When was it? 12 days ago? Two weeks ago? Roughly almost two weeks ago. For Israelis, this war began in 1979. It didn't begin 12 days ago. It began when the Islamist revolution seized power. And one of its first actions was to shut down the Israeli embassy and to turn it over to the plo. The first official visitor to the new Islamist regime was Yasser Arafat. The regime made it clear from day one that we are their enemy.
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A
And that's way before the Oslo process.
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C
Oh, this was literally 1979. And Iran went overnight from being our closest ally in the Muslim world, one of our very few, Iran and Turkey, ironically, given our relationship with Turkey today, to becoming our most implacable enemy. So we've had a long time to internalize Iranian enmity. And we've had a long time to listen carefully to what they actually say, how they say it, why they say it, how they frame this war that they began. And so we don't feel that we began this war 12 days ago. It's simply another phase of a war that's been ongoing for many decades. And why did we attack now? Because the regime was vulnerable. And the regime has lost its legitimacy among its own people. After massacring anywhere from 30 to 40,000 of its own people in a span of two or three days. And we understood. The Israeli public. I'm not even speaking now about the government and the strategic decision makers. The Israeli public understood this is a good time to hit them. And the goal was very clear. For Israelis, this is one more phase. You know what, I'll even put it in a different way. We didn't even need an end goal, which is something that. Well, you mentioned in your introduction, the absence of an end goal. I'm not sure that that really mattered, at least initially, to the Israeli public.
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A
Could I just add, also, just that as we were watching the negotiations that had finally started, you know, the 12 day war in June was supposed to give birth. The hope was that Iran would get a message. And then you see America and Iran sitting down and negotiating, and we're watching and you know the feeling like, what is it that you want? You want the negotiations to be successful or not successful?
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C
What did you want?
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See, part of it was, did you
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C
want them to be successful?
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A
I'm embarrassed.
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C
You did. No, you didn't. You have no reason to be embarrassed to me because I didn't trust them.
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A
You see, it's part of what you were talking about, this endless war. And as you saw, they kept on declaring, we're never gonna give up nuclear enrichment. And we're sitting there and I'm saying, so what? Okay, so we had a pause. It's time to stop the pause. So I think it was both the weakness that is increasing and increasing, plus if after the 12 day war, they were the same place. This is the Iran that we know. And so I think that also was part of it.
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C
You see, you've just answered your own question. You are a perfect measure of, let's say, the dovish segment of Israeli society. And the fact that you didn't want the negotiations to succeed says it all. It explains why 93% of Israeli Jews ended up.
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Because it wasn't success. It was just. It was going to be some fictitious story.
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C
Exactly. It would have been another self deception.
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A
A self deception.
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C
There's your answer. There's another element here, Daniil, which is when you listen to the criticism in America and around the world, and so much of it focuses on the person of Donald Trump. And I understand that. We can understand the unease, to say the least, to say the least, the outrage. But we don't feel that here toward a prime minister whom we ordinarily, many of us, regard with at least as much suspicion and contempt as many Americans do toward Trump. And the reason for that, I think, is because Things work differently here. There's no such thing as Bibi's war. And I remember, you know, during the Gaza war, I would get calls from foreign journalists and saying, well, how do you feel about Netanyahu's war? I said, well, first of all, this is my war, for better or for worse. I signed up for this war, and just about the entire Israeli Jewish public signed up for it too. That doesn't happen here. You can't have a prime minister hijacking the entire security establishment. And I'll give you an example.
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A
I think actually in Gaza, both of us began to feel, not on October 7th, not in November, December, January, February. But by May, we were wondering what Smotrich and Benvir were hijacking and if we were. Yes, it started to feel like Bibi's war.
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C
And then you even had the IDF chief of staff, Zamir, coming out publicly and challenging Netanyahu about invading Gaza City.
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A
That's right.
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C
And we didn't do it.
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That's right.
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C
Now that's how things work here. There are breaks, B R A K E s Not necessarily constitutional, not official breaks. But the dynamic works differently here, and we all know that. And I'll give you an example. This is a story that I heard from a very good source. In 2012, Netanyahu is prime minister and he makes the decision to attack the nuclear facilities in Iran. The pilots are reportedly on the Runway. You know this story. And someone called President Obama, my source tells me it was Shimon Peres, who was the president at the time and called Obama and said, we have to stop this. The head of the Mossad opposed it, and it didn't happen. That's how things really work here. And because we know that, because we know that there's an unofficial system of check, checks and balances in the security
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establishment, we can go to war more.
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C
Yes. And the Americans don't have that same
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trust, you know, like, one of the differences between this week and last week is last week. It was the first week of the war. And we're in the midst of our own belly buttons, our own experiences, our own mindset. But as time has gone past, you know, and now it's a lifetime, we've been speaking to our American friends more and more where the conversation is not just them asking us, so how are you? You know, like the serious, so how are you doing? How are you holding? They already know we're doing okay. Like, you know, the casual, it's like this. So it's like. So we could actually have room to Ask him. So how are you? And we heard from a lot, a lot of people in our last podcast. I think it was probably the most responses that we've ever had. And many of them, thank God, were unbelievably laudatory to both of us. And we shaped a lot of nachos for ourselves. You know, as I would say, my mother of blessed memory was smil from the heavens. She was very happy. But we also heard some serious articulation
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C
of disagreements, even anger and hurt.
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Fair enough. Yeah, even anger and hurt will always be there. And that's okay, you know, that's the nature of it. Because we weren't trying to exhaust all criticisms of the war, but part of what we've been hearing articulated by very, very thoughtful people and our colleagues, including colleagues in Sholem Hartman Institute North America. Is that the story that you told about the self evidency of this ongoing conflict? That's not an American perspective.
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C
Right.
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A
So we could quote the embassy in 79 and we can quote the barracks in Beirut, the Marine barracks, and we can speak about the roadside bombs in Iraq. And you know, there's all these points along the way. But from an American perspective, it doesn't feel like an endless conflict and it doesn't feel like Iran is at war with them. We feel, listen, all their proxies, every terrorist attack against us is funded and fueled by them. And the equipment that's being brought in, all of Hamas, everything. So Hezbollah, Hamas, these are our enemies. But that's not an American experience. And for them it's not a mitzvah. You know, we're America and we're safe. Okay, maybe we're not. And a case could be made against a nuclear Iran, but ostensibly you've prevented that. You don't need to go to war continuously to do that. Their missiles don't exactly constitute an existential threat. I do believe that America has interests in the Middle east and they have allies, not just Israel, but part of what happens with allies. And this is something that hit home in our recent Iengage conversation our research team is that allies by definition have dual loyalties. They do. If you're my ally, my well being is your concern. Not because you love me and only because you care about me. I'm not talking about mishpachah family allies. You have interests, but you also have self interests which are separate from the interests of your allies. And this multiple interest, dual loyalties is part of the story. And I think part of the discomfort with this war is that our terms aren't American terms.
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And, you know, you're speaking about America
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generally or American Jews, but American Jews are Americans. That's the point. American Jews are Americans. And when they look at this war, they don't just think of it in terms of Israel's interests, especially with all their ambivalence with Netanyahu and Netanyahu's wars. They have an opinion. They don't want to have another endless war, another regime change war. They grew up with those narratives and those failed narratives. And even if they didn't vote for President Trump, the notion that America should not be the police person or of the world sits on them very deeply. And they're looking and saying, okay, the nuclear thing, I can understand missiles, I'm an American. And part of it. In order to understand it, we have to go back to 2015, to the JCPOA, the moment when the deal was struck and Netanyahu comes to Congress and critiques President Obama and the Jewish community said, you don't critique my president. You thought just because I'm an ally of Israel, because I love Israel and care about the Jewish people, you think that I'm not an American. You don't speak that way. I have American interests. And so part of the problem is that, you know, we are one, we're not one, and I'd love us to be one, but we're not one. And the fact is we shouldn't be because we live in different worlds. And to demand of Americans or Canadians or Australians or British or French not to have. Have a loyalty to their own country, which is not completely subsumed by Israel's needs, I think that's part of this story as well. But that leads to a question that's
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the most important part of this.
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But then how do you, Yossi, Because I know you, and, you know, like, you get hurt. You know, one of the most important terms for you I've learned over the years is betrayal. You feel it. There's this. Do you believe that American Jews have to line up at this moment with Israel?
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C
So I will answer you emotionally and then rationally, but emotionally first. That's how I work. And you, I think, work in the opposite way. First you try to think, well, what do I think about this? What's the rational approach here? Then you allow yourself to kind of feel the emotional side. That's my sense of. Of one of the differences in how we work. I have to vent first and indulge. And so I'm about to indulge.
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A
So this is. Was this like a Warning to people like there's all these movies now where they warn you now it doesn't matter what the PG13 because by the way, those numbers don't mean anything anymore that my wife and I went to a PG13 movie the last week. I'm like not one of my grandchildren would I want even to be remote. But they warn you be careful, there's going to be strobing lights or something. Careful you this might so.
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C
So be careful. There are strobing lights ahead.
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There's strobing lights. Strobing feelings coming up.
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C
I understand American Jews criticizing us on the occupation. I understand the settlements, I understand the war in Gaza. I can disagree. We can have our disagreements, but on this a regime that is officially Holocaust denying that promises to bring another Holocaust. I can't trust you as an ally on this. Then what's the relationship worth anymore? And this notion that we all belong to the same project, maybe it's not true. So viscerally deep feeling of betrayal. Rationally I'm hearing what you're saying, but I want to add another dimension which is that it works both ways. That they have their interests, we have our interests. And the dividing line between what we regard as existential interests and what they regard as existential interests. The preservation of liberal democracy in America and for us, dealing with a holocaust denying nuclearizing enemy. The dividing line there runs through Obama and Trump. 70% of American Jews voted for President Obama twice. If Israelis had had the right to vote, upwards of 70% would have voted against Obama. And the reverse is true with Trump as well. And each side regarded the other president as being a clear and present danger, to use American terminology. And we embrace Trump, the Israeli public, not just the Israeli government. It wasn't just Netanyahu. Israelis embraced Trump and I know from conversations with friends in America that they saw that as a betrayal.
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A
But you did it anyway.
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C
And for that's what I'm trying.
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But you did it.
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C
So this is what I'm trying to say is that maybe we need to come to a new stage in our relationship. Maybe American Jews and Israelis need to approach each other as grownups and say, you know, objectively, we each have conflicting interests here. I understand, I understand why you feel that Trump is a threat to the liberal order in which American Jewry prospered and came of age. That is a kind of existential threat to you. I need you to at least understand why I regard this as an existential threat. And then we may have to go our separate ways and then I don't I don't know.
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A
You see, here, that's where I want to challenge you. I don't know, you see, because what
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C
if from an American in terms of policy, but in. No, not in terms of the conversation. We have to continue speaking.
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A
You have to realize the experience of most North American Jews is that they are stuffed with this on an ongoing basis.
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C
Stuffed with what?
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A
I want you to hear my narrative. And I know it violates yours, and I know you think it's a betrayal, but you have to understand that I have to be loyal to my needs and my security needs, et cetera, whether state and religion, democracy, coalitions, war, occupation for 30 years now, North American Jews have to live with a deep dissonance between what they care about and what Israelis care about. And they have to learn. Yes, you know, and we say, but, you know, so now you're experiencing the other side. You're experiencing at your moment. And they're saying, I want to tell you something. I don't want this war. I feel that this war, and this is another dimension to it. I feel this war has a lack of clarity, a lack of objectives. It's not winnable. I just. I just.
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C
Okay, okay, I hear you.
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And so they're saying it. So when you say I feel betrayed, like, it's almost strange to me because how do you think every North American liberal, Zionist, what we call the troubled, committed, have been feeling betrayed by Israel for 30 years, for 20 years.
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C
The distinction that I guess they're betrayed.
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So we have to walk the fact that we have different interests. But this is Bokhar Tov, like, good morning. Of course we do.
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C
The distinction that I would draw from all of the examples you cited. And they're all deep problems in the relationship, and they need to be acknowledged and spoken about. There's still a difference between a threat that one experiences as physical, as visceral as. And I'll use the E word, existential.
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A
You mean the way North American Jews feel about. Many of them, feel about Donald Trump?
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C
Exactly. No, no, that's the same. It's the same thing. Yes. That's what I'm getting at is of all the examples that you cited, religion and state and the academic, I see those are all issues and that are deep problems.
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Interesting. I like.
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C
Your distinction is different.
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And so we betrayed.
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C
We have betrayed their existential fears. And that's the symmetry that I'm drawing.
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But then we have to be really careful. And I want to caution you, because this is where, like, when you feel betrayed, you use the term that we have to go our separate ways. And then you.
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C
Yes, I.
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A
You pull it back.
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C
You pull it back.
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But you don't feel it.
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C
No, no. Emotionally.
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Emotionally, I know you, I know Danielle,
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if I can't depend on you, that's the way for this.
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But you'll see, you have this.
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C
Okay. But they turn around and say, now,
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if we're going our separate ways, it means that we have to understand that sometimes some of the things that we care most deeply about, like if they felt. And here, like I'll channel my colleague Yehuda, just what I feel he would say, even though I don't know if he says these exact words. A bigger lover of Israel, committed to Israel, you're not going to find. You're just not going to find. But his deepest sense is that there are moments when as an American, I have to give expression to my Americanness. If I felt that this decision would bring about the destruction of Israel, I would step back. But since I don't, therefore I could allow my Americanness. And since I'll ask you a question,
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C
Daniil, I hear you, but does each side of this relationship have a responsibility to listen especially carefully to the other side's concerns when it is virtually wall to wall consensus?
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A
That's a great question. I don't have an answer. I don't have an answer. It's not a self evident. It's not because it's a hard question.
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C
There were American Jewish Jews where there's
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a lot of suspicion. We're not worried about the.
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C
There were American Jewish organizations that on day one already issued their statement. We're against this war.
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I'm not worried about those.
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C
No ambivalence, no questioning.
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A
I appreciate it.
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C
Should we speak to our Israeli colleagues?
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A
You know, but you have to realize we've lost a lot of credibility in Israel. You have to realize there's a sense that in Israel war is really politics by another means. It's just, we're just doing it. It's like, it's what we do. You know, they don't trust Netanyahu. We've never attempted political solutions for things. Everything is existential all the time.
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C
We haven't attempted political solutions in recent years.
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In recent years? For 20 years, almost a generation.
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C
Well, since Olmert. Olmert in 2009. So it's almost 20 years.
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So look, it's like we're getting up there.
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C
Ms. Ehud Olmert. I never thought I'd say that.
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Missing. So if it was that this is truly Israel's about To be wiped out. Then I hear you. But this notion that I have to hear you and hear you better and listen to me first, they're hearing. And I think part of what we have to understand is despite the fact that we're in the shelters and despite the fact that 93% of us think this is self evident war of self defense, because it's an ongoing perpetual war. And in a war of self defense, one of the most essential things you have to ask yourself is that when there is a moment to win, you jump. And when the consequences could be horrific, you preempt the enemy's ability to harm you. These are all self evident, but they know that. And I think part of what we're going to have to do in a mature relationship is get rid of the word betrayal. It's like, you see, I'm sure you have it with your kids. You know, I have the best kids in the universe, I understand that. But you know, what we want from our kids, that's part of growing up. They have their interests, their needs, their time schedules, things they have to do. And I think the word betrayal, it's interesting might be a word. And I would just.
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C
Children don't betray parents, spouses do.
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A
Parents betray kids, parents can betray kids, but kids can betray parents too.
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C
It's a different move. It's a different move. Spouses betray and I think that's a better comparison. Interesting in our relationship with American Jews. But they're not parents and they're not.
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A
The only difference is, is that a spouse. When you're pursuing your own interests, it's not betraying. Your betrayal in a spousal relationship is when you have an affair, dual loyalty is inherent.
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C
We as Israelis, which means an affair is built into the relationship.
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A
That's. So maybe the marriage relationship is not the right one. Maybe it's a different one, the family relationship, but maybe spouses is limited. Let me move this forward to another dimension now. You know, we started to talk about the way North American Jews or Americans, we all hear the criticisms. And as we listen, you watch the news and I'm reading these huge amounts of websites and I'm analyzing the tone like the Wall Street Journal tone. What are you talking about when you're talking about, you know, the oil prices or the school that's being bombed or the discourse, the stock market, like the world order is changing. All these various types of news reports. Iran has discovered Americ, a strategic interest. You're looking and trying to see what is the agenda behind each one of these articles. And part of what the overarching sense is that since nobody wants a four year war and nobody wants boots on the ground and it's not self evident, at least it doesn't seem that the Iranian regime is going to wave the white flag that Donald Trump asked for last week. Yossi, for you, do you have an end game that would qualify as Dayenu for you? That, okay, this was a justified war, this was a mitzvah, I explained why I'm in. When does it end? For Yossi?
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C
Yeah, I have very modest expectations for this war. For me, the end game is regime change. Nothing less.
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Oh boy.
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C
Nothing less. And it's. But it's going to take time. I understand that. And in the meantime, we need to continue degrading their capabilities, their military capabilities, their nuclear program as much as possible. We have a window now. America is with us for now and every day that we're able to continue dominating the skies.
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A
So when does it end?
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C
It ends or is it basically it ends in generations from now? It ends when Trump, Trump tells us it's over.
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But then it's not over.
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C
And it's not over. Of course not.
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A
So would you keep on bombing Israel?
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C
Unilaterally bombing? I think we're probably going to shift into a war of attrition. I think they're going to hit, not necessarily with missiles, they're not going to keep hitting us with missiles. They're going to move to terrorism.
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They'll okay, but that's what they've been doing all along.
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I think we're going to see an intensification. And for me, the decisive turn will be when significant parts of the military start to defect. I pay close attention to Iranian expat media and there are persistent reports of, I don't want to call it defections, but abandonment of their posts. Many, many soldiers, not of the highest echelon, but many of the rank and file are apparently quitting. And we're going to see more and more chaos in the regime, more and more desperation. And this has to play out ultimately on the streets in Iran.
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A
But when do you stop? See, I understand what you want.
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C
Everybody wants to. When do I stop the fighting? Yeah, I'm not asking myself that question right now.
- [35:13]
A
Interesting. You know, that scares the living daylights out a lot of people.
- [35:15]
C
I see every day as an opportunity to maximize.
- [35:19]
A
See, here I'm a little different than you here. Can I just go on the record about my emotions and what were the words?
- [35:26]
C
First comes the rational approach.
- [35:28]
A
See, by me, they actually coexist I don't allow either to dominate.
- [35:34]
C
Oh, that's interesting.
- [35:35]
A
At least that's my own self perception. Whether it's true or not, who cares? But that's the story I tell about myself. And I'm sticking with it. I'm not. I don't just hear. It's like they.
- [35:45]
C
And so there's, there's a.
- [35:47]
A
They're constantly talking. They're not struggling with each other.
- [35:49]
C
There's a conversation.
- [35:50]
A
There's a conversation. They're allies.
- [35:52]
C
You see, my emotions in the initial stage are in no mood to talk to anybody, talk to myself.
- [35:58]
A
I never allow my emotions to have total control. There's a conversation and, you know, there's a story. See, it doesn't bother me that this war didn't have a clear end game when we started it. And when I call this aitzvah an obligatory just war, I very much relate to the reasons that you offered. I want to win. Missiles and nuclear weapons are so dangerous. I am going to preempt years if I have to. I will constantly preempt, call it a preventative. It's not preventative. It's just an ongoing struggle. Because part of the mitzvah.
- [36:40]
C
That's a very good way to describe this war. It's an ongoing preemptive war.
- [36:44]
A
Part of the mitzvah is to win.
- [36:46]
C
Yeah.
- [36:46]
A
A milchemet mitzvah, an obligatory war, is because I have a right to live and self defense is my right to live. And therefore the fact that we didn't have a clear exit strategy. I think most wars don't have a clear exit strategy. I think wars begin when either, sometimes when somebody attacks you, like on October 7th, and you wish you had done something preventative beforehand, when you're surprised and you get punched. And then after you're punched. What did Tyson speak about? How every plan changes the minute you get punched in the face. When they punch you first, all your plans, and then they're scrambling, you're behind. Your ability to live is seriously hindered when someone attacks you first. So you attack first. Do you have a clear idea of the exit? No. You do it either because an attack is imminent or because, as you said, there's an opportunity and that maybe I could increase my possibilities to achieve something, something, you know, degraded a little more. All of the above. I believe that this notion that there's always clear strategies of exit, I haven't seen at least my experience, not in the wars that I fought. I'm talking my experience as an Israeli, which we've lived with A lot of wars in our lifetime, I haven't seen any war which ever had a clear exit strategy. It's evolves. There's something roaming and rolling. And what might seem clear to me last week, by this week now, and I sense this, and I want to know if you sense it as well. A lot of Israelis are. As we hear Israel's bombing again into Tehran, they're not telling us everything that they're doing. But when we're bombing again into Iran and again in Tehran, at some point you ask, okay, we degraded. If we're going to fight for another week, how much more are we going to degrade their abilities? Nuclear, that has to have a complete win. Either we get the material out, which
- [38:42]
C
could only be done with boots on
- [38:44]
A
the ground, or you bury it. You just bomb the crap out of it. Whatever it is, that has to be gone. But once that's gone here. This is the experience of an Israeli. Today, one newspaper says Israel has already destroyed 85% of their missile capacity. And within days, not two days, but days, we're going to reach 95%. Two hours later, a different newspaper reports they've lost 60% of their launcher capacities. 30% we and the Americans destroyed. 30% were not functioning. And there's still another 30% left with another 1500 missiles. So you look at this and you say, Gewalt, like, you know, what are we going to do here? And at some point you ask, and I want to go back and give President Trump credit. At one point he said, in the 12 day war, the military did whatever it could do. Now, we might have, like you have aspirations for regime change. And I don't think the war with Iran will ever end unless there's regime change. And somewhere along the line, all those statistics that only 10% of the Iranian population support the regime or whatever it might be, at the end of the day, they're going to have to come and do what they need to do. Now, whether this sanctions weakens, it's going to be in their hands. But at some point, and I think we're getting closer already, Yossi, as every day this work continues, we get three more missile launchers and we lose 5% more of North American Jews and North Americans in general.
- [40:23]
C
Here's where I disagree with you, Danille. What is the strategic goal of this war? If we define the Israeli goal, and you and I agree on this, is eventual regime change. This war is never going to end until there is regime change. There's no compromise. There's no negotiations possible with this regime, from our perspective, it might look different from the American perspective. So if that's the case, then there's a third tactical aim of this war you mentioned. 2. Degrading or destroying their nuclear capacity and significantly degrading their missile capacity. There's a third element here. If we're looking toward regime change and that is degrading the ability of the regime to suppress demonstrations in the streets.
- [41:14]
A
How do you do that?
- [41:15]
C
Exactly? That means seriously targeting the Revolutionary Guard bases, the Basij, the centers of.
- [41:23]
A
I know we've been doing that. They have have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
- [41:29]
C
And no, it's not about killing the soldiers. It's about the leadership.
- [41:33]
A
They're all I know.
- [41:34]
C
And it's about creating.
- [41:35]
A
But at some point.
- [41:36]
C
I appreciate that.
- [41:37]
A
I appreciate it. You know, you might want to go. Our audience, you know, Walter Russell Mead has a phenomenal article in the Wall Street Journal a couple of days ago and Dan Sonor had a wonderful interview with him in which he outlined all the various scenarios of what will be defeat. And here's what's defeat and what's absolute victory. Absolute victory. Everybody knows the jackpot. Regime change. But everybody knows we're not going to achieve that. That's not going to be achieved by continuing the air campaign for another three years, and we don't have three. With the discourse that you hear in the United States, it's just, you know, we read statistics. This is the least supported war in the history of the United States military campaign since World War II. The lowest support amongst all. So we gotta be careful here.
- [42:26]
C
So that lower than Vietnam.
- [42:28]
A
Lower than Vietnam. The lowest. It's the lowest. The lowest of every war. Even Grenada, which constituted such a phenomenal existential danger to America, ranks above this war, which is quite scary. And even Fox News is reporting on this. They're splitting it between the Democrats and the Republicans and their statistics. Other polls are 41%. Fox speaks about 50%. And those are like, you know, everybody's shaving a little bit. But let's say that would be great. That's an act of God. That's like, you know, the Messiah comes. The worst is just to stop. Period. Now. Okay, I hope you got the message. And now, like the 12 Day War. Pick. Like, you know, like God tells the Jewish people, you know, pick. I'm putting before you life or death. Pick. We gave you Iranians and they know that America's not going to do it again. So pick. That's the worst. So now everybody's trying to find a little Thing in the middle. So Walter Russell Mead speaks about securing the Straits of Hormuz. Like, you need to have some tangible victory, something so. But we're looking for it. And I feel that part in Israel is like, you know, our superior Minister of Defense, he faced the mirror. There's no time limits to this, really. And people are realizing our life is upended, our life is put on hold, our kids aren't in school, the economy's in shambles, the north is suffering beyond. There is a time clock. There has to be some notion that if you fight another day, you're achieving something a little more than continuing to degrade. It needs a qualitative, not a quantitative. And part of me is wondering whether we've achieved most of the qualitative. There might be a couple of more days, and then if we have some qualitative stuff like, you gotta do it now. And when I watch the American pictures of destroying the Navy, you know, there's different navies, you know, they have their big ships and the frigates and all the above. And then when I start see them blowing up, what do they call those little boats with an engine on them?
- [44:42]
C
Speedboats. Speedboats. 50.
- [44:45]
A
Now we have. It's like, what constitutes the Iranian name? Somewhere along the line, that question's going to come. So I think in Israel, it's starting to be asked and America's asked, and if we don't answer it with some clear explanation, like Walter Russell Mead said, you didn't explain why you went to war, but you need to find the right exit point for something.
- [45:10]
C
Yeah, okay. But I think that to a large extent, this part of our conversation is theoretical because it's going to be decided by Trump. Trump. And just as the 12 Day War abruptly ended when Trump decided he'd had enough, and just as the Gaza war ended when Trump decided it was enough.
- [45:30]
A
But we're talking about how we feel. So then let's end with, you know, this podcast is a little long. Let's bring it to a close. So how do you feel now when all we've done all this analysis, this. I don't know if it's Bibi's war, and I don't know if it's tr. This is definitely Yossi Klein Halevi's war.
- [45:48]
C
You know, we're living such a strange existence because here we are sitting analyzing the wars of Faduna. We're sitting in a studio somewhere in Pennsylvania, and when this is over, we're going to go home and go back into our surreal lives of being awake in the middle of the night. And, you know, yesterday my wife Sarah and I went for a walk, and we live right near the Jerusalem forest. And we said, what could happen?
- [46:16]
A
You see, you're supposed to call me before you make these choices.
- [46:20]
C
What can happen? You know, you're the last person I want to call, because I know exactly what you'd say. And so we were so longing for the forest. So, ah, let's go. We'll make it a short walk. So no sooner are we in the forest when there's a siren, and then we hear an extraordinarily loud boom. And we look up, and there it is. And we see the missile exploding.
- [46:46]
A
The Iron dome took it down.
- [46:47]
C
Yes, the Iron Dome.
- [46:48]
A
The arrow.
- [46:48]
C
The arrow took it down. And it was an extraordinary thing. The sky turns orange, and there we are in the forest.
- [46:56]
A
Cause that one hit right above Jerusalem. That one.
- [46:58]
C
That one was right above your head. And so what do you do? So Sarah and I say, well, should we hold our heads so stupidly? We're sitting in the forest with our hands on our heads.
- [47:09]
A
You're supposed to lie down. You know that. Yeah, well, the inner Daniil voice wasn't there. Like, what's going on here?
- [47:16]
C
Yose, we leaned against you, meditated.
- [47:19]
A
Okay, I got you. You're aggravating me now.
- [47:21]
C
We leaned against an earth wall. It was just this reminder of the strangeness of our lives. And, you know, this is the first war where Jerusalem is also being targeted. Not anywhere near as much as Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv is still the front line, but we're no longer immune.
- [47:42]
A
It's like when terrorists attacked, Jerusalem was the front line.
- [47:45]
C
That's right. That's right. And every part of the country had its own particular threat. You know, the north and the south was Katyushas and Qassams. And now suddenly, the threats are converging, and it's very disorienting.
- [48:00]
A
You know, while you were taking the walk that you shouldn't have taken, I was at Hadassah with Adina taking an mri. And I was actually in the middle of the MRI when your missile blew up. They actually pulled us all out of.
- [48:17]
C
Wow.
- [48:17]
A
They pulled us out of the mri, and we all go. Everybody's quite calm because it's a couple of floors down. But we all walk into the shelter, and we're sitting there. It's like all your shelter friends.
- [48:27]
C
I could have stayed inside the MRI and have an additional protection.
- [48:30]
A
But it's interesting that, you know, you get this feeling. I had this a couple of times. How do you say mizdamen? There's a word in Hebrew of something that just. It just happens. It's not planned, it's just happened. These shelters that you just happen upon and then you have your shelter friends and you have your shelter conversations. And anyway, I don't know, Yossi. It didn't start as an aimless war. Israelis never felt it was aimless. Yeah, it is endless until there is regime change. But there might be longer stops. And the difference between us Israelis and North Americans and people around the world is to understand that we have very different perspectives on it and how we make room for all of that in our broader discourse, in our frame of mind. And as you're saying, who knows? In Israel, the ground is beginning to shift a little bit, but we still have a hope. But we are in an endless war. But the world can't be in our endless war. Maybe that's part of the loneliness of what we have have. Hopefully our endless war is not aimless, but that's already a prayer, and maybe not all of that is in our hands. Y. It's a true joy to be with you.
- [49:39]
C
Great. Great to be with you.
- [49:40]
A
Really, Really. I appreciate you. I. I appreciate you.
- [49:44]
C
It's very mutual, Danielle. Thank you.
- [49:46]
A
Thank you.
- [49:52]
B
Hi, I'm Tessa Zitter, the producer of Identity Crisis from the Shalom Heart. On our recent episode On Not Standing Idly by, we ask a question that's been sitting heavily with many of us. What does it mean to show up in the face of cruelty?
- [50:06]
D
With the blood of our neighbor in
- [50:07]
A
the streets, we dare to speak the
- [50:09]
D
language of moral truth about what has gone wrong all around us.
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A
Get ice out of our city.
- [50:18]
B
I traveled to Washington, D.C. for a Jews Against Ice rally where ideas made met urgency and the Jewish community united around the issue of protecting our neighbors in coalitions. You come together about what you can
- [50:29]
C
agree on, and it might be that
- [50:31]
A
you don't agree on other things, but that's how we win.
- [50:34]
B
Join us as we wrestle with what it means to raise our voices and why showing up matters. Listen to On Not Standing Idly by, the new episode of Identity Crisis. Wherever you get your podcasts,
- [50:47]
E
here are some other things that are happening at the Shalom Hartman Institute. This past weekend, the Hartman Institute was honored to partner with Taglit Birthright Israel for a weekend seminar preparing over 250 Madrim and Route 1 leaders of Teen trips to Israel for their upcoming immersive trips for thousands of young adults. As we follow the news of the escalating war with Iran many of us are trying to make sense of what's unfolding and what's to come. If you're in Miami, Florida on Sunday, March 22nd, join President of the Shalom Hartman Institute, Danielle Hartman and Tal Becker, veteran Israeli peace negotiator, as well as other leading Hartman thinkers for the first ever Florida Leadership Conference entitled Israel at a Moral Leadership In a Time of Crisis, Space is limited. Secure your spot today@shalomhartman.org Florida leadership,
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C
for
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D
heaven's Sake is a product of the Shalom Hartman Institute and Ahrq Media. It is produced by me, Daniel Goodman with with help from Miriam Jacobs, Adar Taylor Schechter and Aviva Katmanaur and studio support from Go Live Media. Our episode was edited by Seth Stein, Maital Friedman is our Executive producer and our music was composed by Yuval Samok. Past episodes can be found@arcmedia.org where you can explore more of Arc Media's podcasts. You can watch the video versions of our episodes on our YouTube channel. Follow the YouTube link in the show Notes. Also, to receive updates on new episodes, please follow the link to arcmedia.org and subscribe to Arc Media's weekly newsletter. For more ideas from the Shalom Hartman Institute, visit our website@shalomhartman.org.