A (4:44)

Personally leaked the video and then lied about it.

B (4:47)

And then lied about it and tried to cover it up, obviously, because this is not what you're supposed to do. So this is the story, this is the context. She broke the law. Everybody across the political map condemned it. Everybody knows she should be put on trial. But this scandal, which seems to be a minor. It's an issue, it's not a nothing issue. It is a significant moment. But this trial, which has been more or less on hold, and now we've even discovered that the alleged victim was released back to Gaza, so we don't even have a victim. So the chance of even having a trial for a month now, none of us even knew this now is entering into the prism of Israeli political discourse, or it's entering into our culture of shifting our war with Hamas to a war against each other and a war from achieving total victory against Hamas to a war of achieving total victory against one of our adversaries within the political system, this is the story. Now, this scandal is of importance because it offers a window into Israeli society. How does this shed light on uncertain trends in Israeli society that you feel are important?

A (6:04)

I think, first of all, Daniil, it shows us that everything in Israel becomes instantly politicized and amplified, so that the crime, and it was a crime, if she's found guilty, and from everything that we know, apparently she's admitted to it, this was a crime. It wasn't just a mistake, and it certainly can't be excused as a well intentioned mistake. This is a crime.

B (6:34)

I think it was a well intentioned crime, but I don't.

A (6:37)

Oh, okay, yeah, maybe a well intentioned crime is still a crime.

B (6:41)

It's a crime. No one's doubting that.

A (6:42)

And how immediately the sides get drawn, what I will say about the opposition, to their credit, every leader of an opposition party, without exception, immediately denounced this as a crime and said that this needs to be fully investigated and if necessary, punished. Now compare that with the culture in the government. How many illegal leaks have there been over the last couple of years? How many coverups? And immediately the entire right wing political system closes ranks and, and defends inevitably Netanyahu because all roads lead back to him. And so I think that that's important to say, but in a larger sense, this case poses two critical questions, one for the government, one for the opposition. Question for the government and their camp is, is everything now permitted? Does October 7th now erase any moral restrictions which we once regarded as self evident, as part of the IDF code of ethics, as part of who we are, what we were proud of, the most moral army in the world? Are we now not only not the most moral army in the world, but has morality been excised regardless of what we're doing?

B (8:09)

But in our discussion, is morality no longer an aspiration even it's no longer a value?

A (8:15)

The only value is to fight terrorism. So that's the question that I would ask government supporters. And it's a serious question. It's not a rhetorical question. Do you have any red lines? Is it permitted to do anything and everything to a captured terrorist? The question to the opposition is how far is it permitted to go to defend democracy, to defend the rule of law? Are you permitted to violate the rule of law for the sake of defending the rule of law? How far are we permitted to go? I say we in our opposition to Netanyahu. And that's an important question that this scandal highlights. So we're facing, I think both sides need a certain reckoning here.

B (9:05)

Interesting. You know, I had a meeting with someone high up in the military who shared with me his the following observation. He said, there's been a profound breakdown in standards in the Israeli army, in the rule of rules. It's not the rule of law, in the chain of commands, in discipline. And he said one of the reasons for it is, is that since October 7, in order to save the country, the people who took responsibility for the failures of October 7th stayed in their positions. Herzi Halebi remained the chief of staff. Everybody remained because to leave and resign immediately was like to leave the battlefield, it wasn't the ethos. Here it is. You made the mistake, but you have to now put your stand under the stretcher. And you too, don't have the luxury of just going home right now. Try and together, you're the best of who we have stay until we fix it. But he said there was a huge price to pay because of that ethos, and that was that. From the top, anytime there was a break in discipline enough, and very often things like this are. Sometimes they're profoundly moral corruption, and sometimes it's just a breakdown in discipline. There's rules, there's things you don't do. It's a combination of the two that anytime there was a breakdown in discipline from the top down, no one was held accountable because they couldn't hold people accountable. You're gonna now say I should be accountable? Nobody was accountable. It starts with the. The prime minister's not accountable. Everybody else, it was always someone else's responsibility. But even though the army accepted responsibility, by staying in place, they facilitated a culture in which you can't hold people accountable. And in that environment, when you speak about the. The fight bec thing, the only measure was success, not means. It doesn't mean that the army didn't attempt to fight a just war. Justly they did. And by and large, they did. It doesn't mean that mistakes didn't happen. It doesn't mean that lines weren't crossed. All of the above we've talked beforehand, but by and large, including the military advocate, would give orders on what we could attack, what we can't attack. But there was no culture of accountability. And here it was, in the midst of this accountability chaos comes this moment. And this moment was, here it is. This was too far. All the evidence is there, and the attack and the onslaught against it, and it's still continuing in many ways that it's. The ends justify the means. And in a culture of the ends justifying the means, there is no accountability. And in many ways, what she did was exactly what she was fighting against. She had an end that she wanted to justify, just like fighting terrorists. She wanted to defend the military advocate.

A (12:10)

Department, and she wanted to defend the rule of law by breaking.

B (12:15)

But there's. Again, it's the mean. This notion of means and ends is a difficult moment. And in this context, this too becomes a means to achieving another end.

A (12:26)

In other words, what you're saying, Danielle, is that we have a crisis across the board of a confusion between means and ends in Israeli society and deciding.

B (12:36)

Which ends could justify A means and which ends don't justify me. So the war, or is it the opposite? Which means justified one of those?

A (12:45)

It also. It sounded good.

B (12:46)

It sounded good.

A (12:47)

So October 7th created a frame of mind where the onslaught, the atrocities were so overwhelming that almost whatever we did, certainly against terrorists was legitimate. And here we're talking about an alleged crime that was committed against a terrorist. And this is what.

B (13:10)

But it wasn't in the heat of battle.

A (13:11)

Exactly, exactly. Well, you know, this brings us back a decade ago to the incident of Elora Zaria, which is now, in retrospect, we can see, was a kind of precursor for this moment. Elorizaria was a soldier stationed in west bank city of Hebron, and a terrorist who had tried to stab some soldiers was subdued and his hands were tied behind his back. And a soldier, El or Azaria, shot him, killed him, and the IDF chief of staff put him on trial. Netanyahu came out against the trial. And you look back at that moment and you see the lines being drawn and there again the emotional appeal of you're taking sides against a terrorist, against one of our children. And that's how Eloi Azaria was played. And if anything, October 7th has now amplified that outrageous to such an extent that it may not be possible in this atmosphere to hold soldiers accused of the worst abuses of a prisoner accountable.

B (14:31)

Now, it's interesting, this whole notion of ends and means is in many ways both a challenge of Israeli society and it's what's dictating public discourse right now. Because everybody has an ends that they want to achieve, right? This government, which is, in Hebrew, Yamin, yamin al Malay, full, full right, said we have an. By its own description, by its own description, like this is not a coalition government like in prior cases, which have to balance disparate positions.

A (15:02)

This is the most homogeneous government in.

B (15:05)

Israel's history, until the war came and the ultra orthodox draft created an internal schism. But it was very homogeneous. And they came forth and said, I have an ends. My ends is that even though we ostensibly have won the elections for the last 16 years, just about, with the exception of a year or so in the middle, we've been 16 years, we still are constantly encountering people in positions of power, whether in the military, whether in the judiciary, whether wherever it might be, who aren't under our control, here it is what's going on here. If you win an election, shouldn't this whole country, all the positions of power, shouldn't they be centralized or put in the hands of people who agree with.

A (15:51)

Us, the entire power structure should reflect.

B (15:55)

Full, full right, Full, full right. And every single time. And it was huge frustration because they've been appointing justices to the Supreme Court, and even people who they appoint, after they get appointed, they discover, oops, they're not full, full right. What are they? They're maybe partially right, a little right or closet lefts and all these things. And they're sitting there and they're seething, and all of a sudden, their ends become an ends of control, of winning. Of winning, not against Hamas, of letting the full right really be sovereign in this country. And then the question is, what are the means that you're allowed to do in order to achieve that? And part of what we're seeing, and even on the other side, with the exception of the Bennett government, part of the just not Netanyahu culture, even though you believe it is very well deserved, and here you and I disagree, Sl. Part of it was there is an ends of denying legitimacy. Even you, very often when you would speak of this, it's not a legitimate government, which I never accept, because they won the election. Like, I don't know what's not over there. You don't like them, you want to change them. But the language of illegitimacy, and I'm not necessarily creating a parody between the two sides, but just for the sense.

A (17:09)

Of the argument, that's a very important concept.

B (17:12)

There's an ends. There's an ends. And then what do we need to do? And we'll use any language, any conversation, whatever it is we need to do. Even paradoxically. And here I'm going to say something which might be upsetting. We even used some of the hostages as an anti Netanyahu campaign. The boundaries were blurred. The same people who marched for the judiciary marched for the hostages. There was something about.

A (17:38)

Daniel, you lost me about three minutes ago. That's okay. And it's hard for me to remember what it is. There's so much you said the last three minutes.

B (17:46)

I'll. I'll let you process your disagreement.

A (17:48)

Okay, so first of all. First of all, you said in passing a very important caveat, which is there's no comparison between the manipulation.

B (17:59)

You know, I didn't say that. I said I'm not claiming that there's a parody. And in your mind, that means there is no comparison. There's.

A (18:07)

There's no parody. Okay, you can make a comparison. You know, the hostage families who took up the attack on Netanyahu and made it very personal for the first year of this campaign. Avoided any attacks on Netanyahu. So I think that's really important to just.

B (18:23)

Okay, so good. So let me now clarify. I was not talking about the hostage families. I'm talking about the larger political support for the hostage families. That, again, some of it. Some of it, there was an ideological move, but that ideology fit very comfortably, and the masses which marched were by and large the same masses that marched in the judicial reform. That's what people. It was the same. I'm just using an example of I have a goal, and the goal, hostages and just not Netanyahu became synonymous. And by the way, I'm now describing the experience of the people on the right. Whether I agree with myself fully or you agree with me doesn't matter. The sense is that our political discourse is there is an end, and any means is acceptable in order to achieve that end. And when that happens, there is a profound breakdown within the society.

A (19:24)

So I want to go back to something else you said about the question of the legitimacy of the government. And here, I mean, this is something we've been arguing about. In fact, in the year before October 7th, when I felt that the government had lost its legitimacy when it launched its attack on the judiciary, and it was a policy that it had hidden from the electorate during the elections. And I remember we argued about that at the time, whether this was legitimate or not. And then after October 7, when every public opinion poll showed that the government had lost all support and Netanyahu would claim credit only for the successes and put the blame for October 7th on everyone else. In the same way that the government of Golda Meir lost legitimacy after the Yom Kippur War, which was a widespread feeling in this country, and protests actually forced her to resign. In that same sense, when an event of such enormity happens on your watch, the fact that you won the election before that event becomes irrelevant. You need, at the very least, if you're not prepared to resign in disgrace, you need to face the electorate or at the very least face the cameras and own some responsibility. Don't claim everyone else is guilty except for me. So in that sense, I feel that, yes, this government lost its moral responsibility.

B (20:56)

Yeah, I heard. I think that's part of a means and an ends conversation again, which is creating a serious challenge for us. Because part of what's aggravating me now, deep aggravation and sadness, is I thought that after the ceasefire, what we should have is Prime Minister Netanyahu, after his victory in the Knesset, should get up and say, citizens of Israel, for Three years from now, we've been at war. For two years, we've been at war with Hamas, and for three years we've been at war with each other. Elections are coming in another year. I could pass now any series of laws, but I know it'll take three, four, five months. And until they get implemented, this will take another couple of months and you won't feel their impact. So I could pursue my agenda, but I know that it could be overturned in the next election. Many of you think that I am responsible and that I should be appointing an independent commission and that I should resign. In another year, you'll have your vote. You'll have your chance. If I win and I get the mandate, then I am validated. If I lose, I accept in any event.

A (22:16)

Beautiful, Danielle, beautiful. And you're a much better version of Netanyahu.

B (22:20)

I appreciate, but. So let me sell therefore. And I said, but could we just have a year? And he turned to his face, let's have a year. We need to now rebuild our strength and our unity as a people.

A (22:32)

When is the last time you heard the Prime Minister speak from a place of generosity?

B (22:36)

Never. That's my problem. So I'm sitting here and I'm fuming at how we've shifted our pursuit for total victory from Hamas to again going back to total victory against each other.

A (22:50)

It's a beautiful way to put it.

B (22:51)

And the means and the ends is part of the story because it requires of all of us, it requires all of us to ask, what is it that we're not going to say? So part of where I disagree with is I don't want to say that Netanyahu is not legitimate. I can understand your point. You know, I understand it. I might disagree, I might use different words. But at what point do we stop? And part of what's happening now with the military Advocate General is that we're just ripping down any institution which has the responsibility to preserve law. Everything now is political. This person, I don't even know what her politics are. It doesn't matter. Who's the enemy of Yifat? Tamar Yer Shalmi. Who is it? Tamari Yushalmi, the right? Who's for her? Even Haaretz rights for. It's just not the point. Since when is military police beating and I won't go into other details and doing horrific things. Is that a right wing, left wing issue? Since when is point well taken.

A (23:52)

But Daniil, I object to the symmetry that you're drawing between the opposition and the government. And I Appreciate your call for the opposition to examine itself. And this is certainly an opportunity, more than an opportunity, it's a requirement. We really need to ask the questions we've been raising in this conversation. But again, yes, Haaretz defended her or excused her. I haven't heard many voices.

B (24:23)

There hasn't been anybody of responsibility.

A (24:25)

No one here is political opposition. And I think that it's really important to draw a clear distinction between the political culture of the opposition and the political culture of the government.

B (24:37)

On this case, yes. But in general, as our audience, and you know, I follow 15 news sites three hours a day, and I could tell you, if I would just follow channel 14, which is the extreme version of Fox News for the government, that would be one story.

A (24:53)

It makes Fox News look like MSNBC.

B (24:55)

MSNBC, but also Channel 12 has a little more nuance. Channel 13. But in general, if you just follow one news site, everybody is distorting fact, everybody's twisting it. And somewhere along the line, this is what I felt with this scandal. It's a scandal. It's a terrible thing. It's a terrible thing, what the soldiers allegedly did. But now we're not even gonna have a trial. And now everybody's celebrating. You see, she leaked it. That means if she leaked it, what's the issue? That means they're not guilty. And what does Prime Minister Netanyahu say? This was the worst public relations catastrophe. I don't know if he ever said in the history of Israel.

A (25:35)

He said, in the history of Israel.

B (25:37)

Right. As if. If she didn't leak this video, the world would just. There'd be no Mamdani. Everybody would just be loving Israel. There'd be no problems on campuses. Everybody would say, ah, Israel is a beacon of morality. It's like the stupidity of it is just so dominant. But he says it because he knows it plays. So what you're doing is you're activating this ongoing, just battering instead of calling us to rise. This case, this scandal is just one more indication of a dissent. And that's why I wanted to talk about it. Not for the case itself, but to what extent are you willing to just dismantle everything, dismantle truth, dismantle rule of law? Is everything just going to be a fight? And the question of how we're going to proceed and what this next year, this is an election year.

A (26:31)

This is going to be a brutal year. And it's taking us right back to the year before October 7th.

B (26:39)

I know. So what are we going to do, Yossi?

A (26:43)

There are Two strategies. You represent one, I represent the other. And I appreciate your strategy. It moves me. It moves me morally, spiritually, not politically. And your strategy is, we need a new kind of political conversation, and we need to begin that now. And my response to that is, nothing can really change in the political culture when you have a government whose DNA is committed to inflaming, inciting its base against an internal enemy. And so when you sit back and say, okay, now we're going to have a new kind of discourse, the result is Benny Gantz. And Benny Gantz can't even win one seat in the Knesset, according to the polls. He went from being the leading party. When did we ever see a crash like this? He was the leading party.

B (27:40)

According to the polls, he had 42.

A (27:42)

And now he's.

B (27:43)

He doesn't pass the threshold zero.

A (27:45)

And I think that there is a deep sense in the public, and we're speaking now mostly about the opposition, because that's mostly where his support came from, that, yes, Benny Gantz, you're right. But timing is everything, especially in politics. And we're facing something we've never experienced in this country's history. We've had bitter disagreements, we've had lies, we've had it all. But not this. Not this. I was speaking to a Netanyahu supporter the other day, and he says, you see? Do you see who they are? They're all traitors. He said, do you know why October 7th happened? He said, because from the top, the very top in the army, they worked with Hamas hand in hand to bring Netanyahu down. They did. October 7th. I said, Herzi Halevi, the former IDF commander in chief, he's responsible. He planned October 7th. He said, Absolutely. So I said to him, you know, if that's the case, we're dealing with traitors. He said, absolutely. I said, okay, then they should all be shot. So he's quiet for a moment, and.

B (28:57)

He says, maybe that's a means too far.

A (28:59)

He said, that's going too far. He said, we should put them all in prison. The entire command of the army, the entire judicial system, they should be in prison for life and let them suffer in prison. So this is what he's unleashed here.

B (29:15)

I appreciate that.

A (29:16)

Now you want to have a Benny Gantz? No conversation.

B (29:19)

No. You want to make me a Benny Gantz, but I'm not.

A (29:21)

Okay, so I'm not a Benny. Tell me how.

B (29:24)

But I believe that. And I. I want to believe that they're. Netanyahu has a strong 22 to 25 seats in every poll. And you're not going to change those 22 to 25, not by being Benny Gonz, not by being Sweet, but also not by being you, either. And part of what I've experienced, because I live within, I don't live fully, but I'm in conversation with people from both sides of the political spectrum and I'm watching the conversations is that if you take a similar means ends discourse, it doesn't make any difference. What we're now talking about is the other 60%, the other group. What coalition are you going to build? And we're going to have to build a coalition of people who want a different Israel. And I believe that that coalition is stronger when you present for them a vision. And I actually believe that if you're just like Netanyahu, Netanyahu will go up to 30 because people ask who's a better Netanyahu? Because Netanyahu still owns something. He owns. I'm the security guy. And so if we now position the security guy and we're going to have the same culture for a while, it might work. But I think in many ways the next election, and I wonder, by the way, and again, this is completely outside of my skill set, what the Democratic Party in the United States needs in order to win. Who is a figure that they need? Is it someone who could out Donald, Donald or is it somebody.

A (30:57)

Yeah, that's the debate they're having.

B (30:59)

Is it an Obama? Is it somebody who could remind us of our larger self? So I have a feeling, Bennett, and it's interesting, he presents himself some of the time as the CEO of healing, and some of the time he tries to out Netanyahu with his statements. And whenever he does that, it just rings so shallow. Give us the larger. So this is the question. These are the sides and we're coming closer to the end. And last thoughts on this issue. Yossi.

A (31:27)

All right. So I think you're right, Daniil, you're right in so far as the need for the opposition to maintain its basic standards and its vision of healing. My disagreement with you, and maybe you didn't mean it to this extent, is drawing symmetry between the opposition, which is really fighting for the future of the decency of the society, which is fighting for healing. And you're right, you fight for healing in a healing way, in the same way that you fight for the rule of law by preserving the rule of law and not by violating the law. Point accepted. But there's no symmetry.

B (32:13)

It's so interesting. You know, you're very concerned about symmetry. And we know each other for so long. And do you know where it comes from? The Holocaust?

A (32:22)

No.

B (32:23)

So much a part of your life is talking about the uniqueness of the Holocaust, the experience of the Holocaust and how it got abused every time someone compares. Like, I never think of symmetry.

A (32:35)

That's interesting. The issue.

B (32:36)

I know, what do I care about symmetry? I'm not trying to be balanced. I'm not trying find the middle path. I'm just trying to make up symmetry. It's not even a category Y that I think about.

A (32:46)

But.

B (32:47)

But I want to give you still, again, the last word.

A (32:49)

Nah, the last word really is that the coming election is going to be decided on the credibility of the camp, of healing, because the public is desperate for healing.

B (33:01)

At least we are desperate. And part of what we're desperate is for a different conversation and relationship between means and ends. Everybody knows that the ends justify some means. Everybody knows there's no such thing as the ends don't justify the means. Anybody who has a hierarchy of values knows that some ends justify the means. War itself is an act of taking of life for the sake in certain circumstances. It's always that way, and it's just inevitable. But we need a healthier conversation about which ends and which means. And part of what this scandal did is it just. It was a reflection of the distortion in the relationship between ends and means in our country. And it's part of what we have to try to think about. But to bring our. This podcast to. We can't bring it to an end without correcting two errors that we made the last time. And we received a lot of comments on it. The first is an error that you made and in which you gave credit to Chief Rabbi Zaks for being the one who stood up and called on British Jewry to vote against Corbyn. And it was Chief Rabbi Mervis who actually broke with protocol, broke with what normally is done, and with an act of tremendous courage. And actually, there would have been profound danger involved, you know, and we've met him many times and he's such a fine man. He deserves the right credit for that. So you asked me if I could please correct. And the second one is that you mistakenly. It's again, a mistake that you make. I made two mistakes, and that is.

A (34:42)

There'S no symmetry here.

B (34:44)

And the second mistake you made is that you called the term in which.

A (34:48)

When an own goal.

B (34:50)

An own goal, when you score on your own goal. And you were correct. That is, in fact.

A (34:57)

Well, now there's no symmetry between.

B (35:01)

You were correct. It is actually called.

A (35:03)

I looked it up.

B (35:04)

It's called an own goal. It's a strange term. So I'm correct in the fact that it's strange. But I should know in general not to try to correct your English. So there is an own goal. And kudos to Chief Rabbi Mervis. Really tremendous respect, Kolokavod, as we say. And there's so many things. Today is the election in New York. We'll see where that goes. Deep sigh. We'll see what happens there. We'll see what happens. There's so many things we're going to have to talk about and we're going to see as Israel just goes step after step in unfolding its future. And we'll be here to talk about it. Yossi, it's a pleasure to be with you.

A (35:41)

To be with you.

B (35:43)

Here are some other things that are happening at the Shalom Hartman Institute this week. This past weekend, 100 North American teenagers spending their gap year in Israel gathered at our campus in Jerusalem for the first Shabbaton of our gap year network. Those gathered included 40 alumni of our hartmenteen fellowship and came from 16 different gap year programs. They immersed themselves in text study, peer to peer conversation, Shabbat celebration, and discussion with top scholars on the topic of Israel. At this moment, to learn more about the Wellspring Gap Year Network and how Hartman is building the pipeline of young Jewish leadership, check out the link in the show notes. Imagine a gap year that's not a detour, but a launchpad at the Shalom Hartman Institute's Chavuta Gap Year program, students spend the year after high school in the heart of Jerusalem immersed in serious Beit Midrash learning with Hartman's world class faculty, including leaders such as Daniel Hartman, Tal Becker, and Ilana Steinhein. Blending community leadership and rigorous learning, Kavuta pushes students from North America and Israel to grapple with the most significant questions facing the Jewish people and a Jewish and democratic Israel. If you're looking for a gap year where you're challenged, grounded and ready for campus and beyond, learn more and apply@sholomhartman.org Gap year.

A (37:01)

For Heaven's Sake, is a product of the Shalom Hartman Institute and ARC Media. It is produced by me, Daniel Goodman, 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. Natal Friedman is our executive producer and our music was composed by Yuval Samo. 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.