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As events accelerate in the Middle east, the team here at ARC Media is increasing our coverage. More conversations, more context, more time spent trying to help make sense of what's happening. And all with an expanding cast of podcast hosts, analysts and journalists. Our Inside CallMeBack subscribers help make this expanded coverage possible. It helps us be here when it matters most. If you're not yet an inside call me back subscriber, this is an important time to join us. To subscribe, you can follow the link in our show notes or visit ark media.org and to our insiders, thank you. You are listening to an ARK Media podcast.
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The dread of the other camp's victory is really what is defining this election. Now, it's true that every election is defined by its antagonists as an existential threat. But this time it really rings tr. The great fear is the disintegration of Israeli society. And the perception among opposition voters is that we have a government whose essence is schism.
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C
I'm thinking of a research colleague of mine. She's not frightened of Haredin, she's angry at Haredin. This is where particularly Bennett and Lieberman are trying to get their voters like to activate not fear, but anger. Netanyahu Government is a government that doesn't see you, it doesn't care about you, doesn't hear you. It doesn't care about people in the north. It doesn't care about people serving. It's out of touch with Israeli society.
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A
It's 7am On Sunday, June 14, here in New York City, home to the NBA champions, the New York Knicks, the basketball team of the city that is the capital of the Jewish Diaspora. It is 2pm on Sunday, June 14, in Israel. I know there's a lot of questions and concern and interest in what's happening with the Iran deal. The U.S. iran deal. Is it happening? Is it not happening? There's gonna be a lot on that. We'll be returning to it during the week until the deal is inked. We did not wanna get into it. All right, so let's jump in. Israelis are famously resilient, but beneath that tough exterior, they are also carrying deep trauma, especially after these past few years. And the accumulated trauma of these past few years is going to shape the coming election in many ways and in many profound ways. But not all traumas were created equal. Israel's different communities, identities and voting blocs will arrive at the ballot box carrying different views, different sentiments, and different wounds and different hopes. In some cases, one voter's hope is another voter's trauma. And to complicate things further. Even within each of Israel's major political camps, those hopes and fears certainly don't always align. So what are these undercurrents supposed to mean as we head into elections? And how are they going to play out on election day? To help us think this through, I'm joined by two people who've spent these past few years using their podcast to examine Israel's soul under the pressure of current events without flinching, without cheerleading, and of course, without losing their love of country. I'm referring, of course, to Danielle Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi, hosts of For Heaven's Sake, an ARC Media Hartman Institute collaboration. Yossi Daniel welcome to this special one year anniversary simulcast from when we began working together.
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C
Good morning, Dan.
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B
Great to be with you.
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A
I want to emphasize this is a simulcast, so we should welcome you to For Heaven's Sake. For heaven's Sake listeners. And I will say I know the spirit of your guys podcast is to disagree. Healthy, constructive, spirited disagreement. I sometimes find myself disagreeing with you two more than you two disagree with each other. And I find myself yelling, yelling at the phone and the earbuds as I'm listening to you. So I figured rather than yelling like a weirdo when I'm walking around the street, I figured just have you on and we could disagree with each other.
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C
That's for heaven's sake. Welcome. Welcome to the experience.
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A
Okay, the title of this episode is the Sum of All Fears Election. Why is this a fear election and not a hope election? I'll start with you.
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B
Y well, every Israeli election that I've ever participated in is about fear. The question is, how acute is the fear and what's the balance between fear and hope in this election? I think it's true for all the camps and the dread of the other camps. Victory is really what is defining this election. Naftali Bennett said just today that if this government, this coalition, is returned to power, Israeli society will disintegrate. He defines this as an existential threat. Now, it's true that every election is defined by its antagonists as an existential. But this time it really rings true. Certainly for voters of the opposition parties, the great fear is the disintegration of Israeli society. And the perception among opposition voters is that we have a government whose essence is schism, is to tear the society apart, energize its base by inciting hatred for the other side. And what I hear very often from opposition voters is that this is a government that doesn't care whether I live or die. This is a government that hates me to such an extent that it actually would be pleased if I emigrated. And that's something that you hear a lot now. Whether that perception is true or not, you have to understand it's deeply ingrained in opposition voters. The experience of the last years is that we are living with a government that actively seeks to undermine our connection to this country, to delegitimize our connection to this country. So that's one piece of it. Let's look at it for a moment from the side of the government supporters, because this is a fear that's very mutual, right? So government voters look at the opposition and say, well, the last time Naftali Bennett was in power, he included an Arab party, and not just an Arab party, but an Islamist party.
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A
Ram, after running for office, saying he would not.
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B
That's right.
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A
So it wasn't just that he did that. It's just that also, I think there was a sense of betrayal that he campaigned on X and did Y.
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B
Right? And he did. He reneged on a very basic promise that he had made to the electorate, to his own voters. And so after October 7th, there's this deep and understandable fear on the Israeli right that you can't make basic security decisions with parties that are not committed to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. And so there's a deep distrust of the opposition, deep distrust, personally of Bennett, that he'll do it again. He has said he wouldn't, but as you noted, he's already broken that promise once before. And so there's a fear that the opposition cannot be trusted to protect Israel's basic interests. So in a sense, the two fears are, what are you more worried about? The disintegration of Israeli society or our situation in the Middle East? And look, personally, as a supporter of the opposition, the fears of the right are exaggerated, and I certainly share very passionately the fear of what will happen to Israeli society if this government is reelected. That's really the outline of how the two camps perceive each other and what the basis of the deep fears that each camp is bringing to this election.
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A
Danielle, first of all, any response to Yossi? And then I have a specific question for you.
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C
Yes, I think, because you framed it also very interestingly. It's not an election about hope. The hope that Netanyahu offers is, trust me, and he actually excites. He's the only politician who has followers who are excited and passionate about him. I think one of the challenges of the opposition, of which I'm a part of, is that none of our leaders have given us any vision of hope.
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A
Across the spectrum.
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C
Across the spectrum. None of them. The only one a little bit from time to time is Yair Golan. He might say something about where he wants to go, but even then it gets drowned out. So it's very hard. If you're an Eisenkot or a Bennett or a Lapid supporter or an Avigdor Lieberman supporter, what hope are they offering you? The primary passion is, let me get rid of Netanyahu. Hope requires policy, requires vision. But they're all hiding any plan they have for the future of Israel behind a wall of silence under the notion that if I say anything, I might lose a voter. That's no foundation for hope. And then all you're left with is fear.
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B
But you know, Danielle, if you believe, as I do, that this coalition is an existential threat, then you will concentrate all your efforts on trying to move any number of voters from the government bloc to your bl. And it's an emergency situation.
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C
I know, but, like, it's always an emergency situation. I know. This is worse. You know, Dan is right. Like, what is it? What's your vision of Israel? So the most that Bennett could give us is we're going to have a government of efficient technocrats. That's not exactly hope. So I think part of it is, is that they are allowing Netanyahu to determine the tenor the. And the whole scope of this election. And the question is, who's going to scare who more? But it didn't have to be that way.
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A
In the intro, I said, one voter's hope is another voter's trauma. I want to press on that inversion because you guys are getting into it here with a specific case. Amit Segal was just on our. We was on inside call me back a few days ago, and he said that the election will ultimately come down to who do you fear more? I'm quoting him here. Who do you fear more to be part of the next coalition? The Arabs or the Haredim? The Haredi parties, the ultra Orthodox parties, which, for our listeners probably, you know, are familiar with this. This is a big dividing line in the Israeli polity today about. About whether or not the Haredim should not only be exempted from military service, but also receive extraordinary state subsidies, while their contributions to the state are, as it relates to military service, extremely limited, and their contributions to the economy of the country are certainly limited. That's not a debatable point. That's just a factual point. There's an opposition to this government that comes into power. The question is, will the Arab parties be part of that government? So that scares a lot of people. And it's a very hot issue, which I think there are reasonable concerns, particularly in a post 10-7-world which we can get into. And if the current government gets reelected, it's presumed that the Haredi parties will be part of it. Let me say this. It's even worse than you guys are saying. Maybe it's even worse than there's no hope. It's like so much of it is being drilled down to which of these two parties do I find more loathsome? Which of these two parties, the Arab parties or the Haredi parties, do I find? Is it more offensive to me, the idea that they would be in power? And that is gonna be the singular decision upon which I vote. So I wanna break those down. So I'll start with you, Yossi. Describe the fears voters might have of the Arab parties. What is the actual fear? Cause I said, and for our listeners to understand this, what this means is if the current opposition bloc cannot get to 61 the 61 Knesset seats, which is necessary to form a government, then they would have to, as happened with the Bennett Lapid government, take some or one of the Arab parties. And so suddenly an Arab party, which is the characterization goes, or anti Zionist parties, becomes a kingmaker in terms of the creating of a government, creation of a government, which was one thing before October 7, 2023. But given the difficult decisions any future Israeli government is going to have to make in terms of all these war fronts, do you want an Arab party to be in the room, to have a seat at the table and to have the capacity to topple a government when an Israeli government is making very difficult decisions? I just want to present the right. That's the sentiment. It's not necessarily racist. We hear all the time, oh, it's racist that the Arab parties. I don't think that's fair.
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B
Right. It's a very important point. It isn't fair. But before getting into the specifics about the Arab parties, I just want to say that I think this election is very important in the sense that we're finally facing the profound anomaly of Israeli society and Israeli politics, which is that our two fastest growing populations, the Haredim and the Arabs, are also our two peripheral populations that are outside the consensus of Israel as a Zionist state, as a Jewish and democratic state. And so in that sense, this is a very healthy, even essential election because we're really starting to look at the relationship between These two peripheral communities and the Israeli mainstream. Now, to get to your question, the Arab parties are not a monolith. In fact, efforts to unite the parties have just broken down. And it looks like we're going to be going to elections with two Arab parties. One is a bloc that includes the whole range of anti Zionist Arab parties, from the Communists to Ra. Secularish party.
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A
Secular ish.
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B
Yeah, yeah, Secular ish.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And the second party is Ra', Am, headed by Mansoor Abbas, which is an Islamic party that was once Islamist. Now, as strange as it is to imagine, we had a homegrown Muslim Brotherhood political party. And Mansoor Abbas, who I think is one of the most extraordinary figures in Israeli politics today, has reoriented Rahm. And it was Rahm that sat in the Bennett government and that was the
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A
kingmaker that was referring to. Rahm and Mansourbas were key to the formation of the Bennett government in 2022.
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B
And what he made clear to his Jewish partners was, I will not get involved in foreign policy, in security decisions. It's best for me not to be part of those conversations, which would include
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A
in a post October 7th world, just to extrapolate it out, that would include, I won't be involved in war, making decisions about Gaza.
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B
And he effectively, himself, and he said, I am sitting around the table for one purpose only, to make sure that my constituency is well funded.
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A
Right.
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B
That we get our fair share of the budget and usc.
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A
Can I just wanna underline that point? Because I think people, also, I think many of our listeners wouldn't necessarily, for good reason, understand what would be the Israeli Arab domestic issues that don't deal with the conflict.
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B
Two major issues.
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A
Yeah, go ahead.
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B
Two major issues. The most important is dealing with crime, runaway crime in the Arab sector, which this government has simply turned a blind eye to. And it's almost as if the attitude is, well, it's Arabs killing Arabs. You know, it's not our concern. And the second is the ongoing endemic imbalance, discrimination in how budgets are allocated between the Jewish sector and the Arab sector. And the opposition is committed to dealing with both of those legitimate grievances. And there's one more point to say here, which is that Abbas made an extraordinary statement a couple of years ago where he said, for the first time that I've ever heard from any major Arab, Israeli political figure, Israel is a Jewish state and it will remain a Jewish state. He said it in Hebrew and then he repeated it in Arabic in the Arabic media. Now, that statement really should be a ticket into the next coalition And I say this unfortunately as someone who wants to see Abbas at the table. I want to see some Arab party at the table. The other party is unequivocally anti Zionist. It does not belong in an Israeli coalition. I believe that Abbas does belong. There are two problems here. One is that he hasn't succeeded yet in changing his own party in his image. And that's an ongoing process for Mansoor Abbas.
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A
He is farther ahead than where his
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B
party is, than where much of his party is. And so the right has a point here. The second obstacle is Avigdor Lieberman, who will be an essential part of the next coalition, will veto Abbas's participation. And so it's simply a moot point. It's demagoguery. Not that I would, God forbid, accused Netanyahu of demagoguery, but he really is using this point to swindle the Israeli public.
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A
So Avigdor Lieberman, who also represents a smallish party, but could be essential also the forming of a government, an opposition government. Oh, there is, yes, that he's saying he won't serve. Just want to stay with this. And he's actually been pretty consistent on this. Unlike Bennett, he's been consistent that he won't serve with the narrow party.
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B
Absolutely. And there will not be a Bennett led government without a Victor Lieberman. So it's a non starter.
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A
Right. Okay. Danielle, can you talk about the fear that voters have of the Haredi parties?
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C
Right. I think in the case of the Haredim, it's not that you're frightened from the Haredim. I think the primary issue is who are you looking at? Do you see me? When you want to create a coalition with the Haredi parties, you're basically saying the population which serves Israel, which has carried us these last three years. I'm thinking of a research colleague of mine. She's not frightened of Haredim, she's, she's angry at Haredin.
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A
No, no, I hear this. People like their blood boils when they
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C
think it's not fear, it's anger.
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A
She says, I have more days like
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C
my husband's going July, August, September, that's it, he's done. And he's 52 years old.
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A
Right.
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C
And so it's the issue. And this is where Bennett and Eisenkut less, but particularly Bennett and Lieberman are trying to get their voters like to activate not fear, but anger. And Netanyahu government is a government that doesn't see you, doesn't care about you, doesn't hear you, it doesn't care about people in the north, it doesn't care about people serving. It's out of touch with Israeli society. And so for the Haredim, the problem isn't even the money. The problem is that without another 7 to 15,000 combat soldiers, there's no way for Israel to hold all of these buffer zones. These buffer zones require tens of thousands of soldiers. So you've lengthened military service back to 36 months. That's manageable. But the burden of 90 days, 100, 120 days a year for the foreseeable future to Prevent the next October 7th in Judea and Samaria, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, it's just unmanageable. And the assumption that you could be focused on Israel's security without asking, what are you doing to me? You don't see me. So it's just this insult. And to add everything on top of it, the ultra Orthodox, who are completely disconnected, want to pass a basic law which says that studying Yeshiva is as important in the state of Israel as I'm serving in the army. Now, it's one thing for ultra Orthodox to believe that. God bless you, everybody. We're a free country. Believe what you want. But when you want me to vote that when you study in yeshiva, you're as important as my son, my spouse, serving that level of insult, it just creates, as you said, boiling. A complete total breakdown. And we'll see whether that breakdown is powerful enough, because it has to compensate or overcome the passion for Netanyahu. Netanyahu has gone down. When you look at the Netanyahu coalition, you have to realize Netanyahu was what, at 33 seats in the last election, he's now going to be, in the latest polls, 22. He's already lost 30% of his voters. He has to keep that core. That core are more excited about Netanyahu and frightened of him leaving than the insult and the anger that the ultra Orthodox activate in the core of Israeli society.
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B
You know, what's interesting here is that October 7th is the framing for how Israeli Jewish society now, mainstream society, looks at both the Haredim and the Arab parties. That October 7, for different reasons, has now put both of these parties beyond the pale. You can't make a coalition with the Haredim and you can't make a coalition with the Arab Israelis, obviously for different reasons. But the source is October 7th.
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A
I just want our listeners, you know, we're talking about these two communities, the Haredim and the Israeli Arabs. So for them to understand what this means in terms of their actual share of the population. So the Israeli Arabs represent about. These are rough numbers, 20% of Israel's population. And the Haredim represent about about a little over 14% of Israel's population. So collectively, you have something in the neighborhood of about a third of Israel's population, which the term I often use is Mika Goodman's term, which is that these two communities are the only communities in Israel. And I'm not saying this in a critical way. I'm just like, again, just trying to be factual here. They view themselves not necessarily, and I take your point. Mansour Abbas is different. But generally speaking, these communities do not think of themselves as citizens of the state the way the rest of Israeli society does. They view them more as part of a sub community or a tribe. It's something different than a state. Again, I think there's a lot changing that regard, specifically in the Arab community. But generally speaking, that's the concern. That is, I think, as you Yossi said, you know, we think of them like as the periphery. Okay. Well, it's one thing for them to be in the periphery or as part of a tribe, not part of the state, but it's one thing when it's. They're tiny numbers. You're talking collectively about a third of the population.
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B
It's a very big periphery.
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A
Right. It's a lot of people.
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C
Right. One of the first times an interesting and you just mentioned this is the vast majority of Israeli Arab Palestinians want now their parties in the government, Israeli Arab Palestinians, with all the anger at October 7 and with all the sense of alienation from 78 years of being treated very often not as fully equal citizens in the ways that Yossi mentioned beforehand, they realize that we better get involved and they want a seat at the table. And so that gives us great opportunity. See, haredim want a seat at the table. Under their terms, they want to stay Haredi. The potential with Israeli Arab Palestinians is that they want to become Israeli. Like even Mansoor Abbas started to mention obligatory service as something that the Israeli Arab Palestinian community has to begin to address. They're talking about assimilating into Israel, not about remaining on the periphery as a protected minority. So it'll be interesting to see whether that develops or not.
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B
I just think that there's a caveat here.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Which is I agree with Daniil that a majority of the Arab Israelis want to be part in one way or another of the mainstream. But the problem here is you have a significant minority. I don't know whether it's 20% or 30%. The polls that I've seen Vary that don't see themselves in any way as Israeli and in fact define themselves in opposition to Israeli ness. That's a very significant part minority of the Arab Israeli minority. And the tragedy in terms of the Jewish Arab dynamic in Israel is that that minority within the Arab Israeli community feeds the understandable fear and suspicion of the Jewish majority. And the Arab Israeli majority that does want to be part of the mainstream often gets lost in the shuffle and they are not well served by their own political political leaders with the exception of Abbas.
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A
Yeah, I spent Saul Singer and I, when we're working on the Genius of Israel, our last book, we spent a day with Mansoor Abbas. Now this is obviously well before October 7th in his hometown in Israel at his party headquarters. And we were both pretty obviously impressed for all the reasons we're discussing now. I remember Saul when we left that day with Mansourbas saying him saying as an Israeli, he was saying this. This was not in the book. This was just he and I kind of reflecting on the meeting, the time we spent with him. He was like, we meaning Israeli Jews, we need Mansoor Abbas to succeed. In other words, what he meant is not succeed meaning we don't want him running Israel necessarily, but within the conversation within the Israeli Arab community, we need him to succeed.
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B
Yeah, and we're undermining him. That's the truth. We, the Jewish majority did not reinforce, we didn't reach out to him him. When he made this breakthrough statement, it's as if it didn't happen. And that's why Netanyahu can continue to use Abbas as the boogeyman to frighten Jewish voters.
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A
Stay with us. We'll be right back. Israel is heading into one of its most consequential elections and this time the whole world is watching closely. Hot takes and daily noise are pretty much guaranteed to populate your media daily diet. But as with any election, there's a deeper story about identity, religion, democracy and what kind of country Israelis want to live in. That's why ARC Media launched Israel Votes, a special initiative across Call Me Back for heaven's sake. And Ark News Daily. You'll hear from the leading candidates shaping the race along with analysis and reporting from two of Israel's leading political analysts. ARC Media contributors Nadavael and Amit Segal join us for Israel Votes, your front row seat to the election that could define Israel's Future. Go to arc media.org votes to watch and listen. See you there. Yossi in November. Back in November you were on Call Me Back and you said this I'm quoting here. You said on October 6, 2023, we were a society that was tearing itself apart, meaning in the height of judicial, the big judicial reform fight and other. We had never reached that level of contempt for each other as we did in the year leading up to the massacre. We instantly pivoted from October 6th, from the lowest point of our divisiveness to October 8th, one of the peak moments of Israeli cohesiveness in the face of existential threat. Do you think in October 8th, Israel is possible? I don't want to say ever, because it's. Who knows about ever? But is it possible? Can you imagine it in the nearest medium term horizon, given what we're talking about here?
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B
Look, we're not going to recreate the extraordinary solidarity that emerged on October 8, nor should we aim to. Democratic societies don't do well with unanimity. We need space for argument. Israeli society has very serious issues that we have to unpack. In times of existential threat, we still know how to come together, and that's an extraordinary achievement of Israeli identity. But if we're looking at, let's say, a modified version of October 8th, which is what I assume you really mean, where we relearn the ability to navigate our deep differences without tearing the society apart and without risking an historic schism, I think the answer is yes. But it depends on one thing, and that is reconstituting the Zionist mainstream. We talked about the 30 or 35% of Israeli society, the Haredim and the Arabs who are outside the Zionist mainstream. But that leaves 65% on which Israeli society is founded. It's that 65, 70% that carries the defense, that carries the economy, that carries the success story that you and Saul wrote about. And that is the foundation. What I have against Netanyahu, and where I agree with Bennett that this is an existential election, is not that he was a threat to Israeli democracy. Yes, of course I worried about. But my primary worry and anger at Netanyahu is that he saw this as part of his political survival, to turn the Zionist mainstream against each other, to tear us apart to the point where government supporters and supporters of the opposition no longer could even see each other as part of the same project. That's what we have to restore. We have to restore the basic solidarity of the Zionist mainstream that is Jewish and democratic in the old Israeli sense. And I think a majority of Israeli Jews still support Israel as a basic Jewish and democratic state. And so I believe that when Netanyahu leaves the scene, and you know Even he is mortal, politically mortal. I wish him long life, but he, too is politically mortal. And when he leaves the scene, that's when I believe the healing can begin.
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C
I think we have to look at a major change that has taken place in Israeli society since judicial reform and that we are traditionally used to speaking about. The division of power between the government, the judiciary, the Knesset, all of the above. These are the three branches of government, but Israel's developed a fourth, and that is the street, the demonstration. And you can't understand 2023 unless you understand the power of a million and a half people in the street, inhibiting the government from even putting forth legislation for which it had a majority, a Knesset majority. And what's happened now is that any group that feels disenfranchised is not simply going to take to the streets. Because what happened at Kaplan is you don't just go to the streets. You shut down the streets. You shut down the country. And you see now, for example, with the Haredi parties, as they were demonstrating, the Jerusalem faction against the draft, they're closing down the country. They just shut it down.
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A
And they shut it down. Just so people understand. They, like, shut down the train system,
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C
they shut down the highways, they shut down. There is no notion like Ben Ver even tried to say, listen, demonstrate. But there's certain rules you can't demonstrate on, right? No, the Supreme Court said demonstration has to hurt. It's okay for it to aggravate you, but what's going to happen then is that if we have a new government. Government, let's say, my dream. Your dream. Bennett gets a majority. He gets 61. Then he gets supported by Mansoura Bus.
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A
That's Yossi's dream, not my. I don't. I don't. Be careful. I don't. I don't have a dream. You mean you're in Yossi's dream?
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C
Yeah, that's. This is us.
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A
Yeah. Okay, good, good, good.
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C
Yossi and I were in the studio together. You're in New York? Yeah, yeah. We're still deciding whether you get to have a dream or not. But that's okay. Whether. But. Well, like your dream, you know, we'll listen to it somehow, but. I'm just teasing you. But if we get 61 and then you have 66 seats with a strong government, the people who are now in the opposition, who have 50 seats, or 49, they're going to start marching. So if we're talking about creating an October 8th environment, there's something bigger that has to change than Simply changing this government. And that is the notion of running on who cannot be in your government. I categorically reject the notion that Netanyahu cannot sit in the government or that the Haredim cannot sit in the government, just like I reject that the Arab parties can sit in the government. I don't want Netanyahu as Prime minister. I don't trust him at that. But put forth your platform. Invite the Haredim and say to them, yes, I'm going to care about you because you're 15%. You also have rights. But I'm not going to fund you if you don't serve in the army. But I'll do other things for you. There are other avenues of cooperation that in this current environment in which we are running on the sum of our fears that the other is placed outside. I see it happening. I'm sitting there at a Shabbos table and everybody is just clothed. We can't even hear. We have to change that culture. And that's why I think the next government shouldn't just be a government of the current opposition. There has to be somebody else. Lieberman doesn't satisfy the sense of the right wing that I have a stake in this country, country. He gets right wing voters. But the Likud base, these are my people. Haredim are my people. Arabs are my people. There has to be avenues. To sit in a coalition without getting everything that you want, that's a healthy coalition. We have to move beyond that. Otherwise, I want to tell you, Bennett or Eisenkot could be the next prime minister and the country will be shut down because we learned the lesson of Kaplan. The animosity and the anger will fester. And then, by the way, what you said is you move people more to the extreme because they're not part of the conversation. They don't feel that anybody's hearing them.
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A
Right.
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B
I appreciate that very much, Daniil, that sensibility. But I think that it's premature in this election. We have two emergencies. One is we have to replace the most divisive prime minister in Israel's history.
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C
But I didn't say that. Not Yossi. Just to be clear, I'm not saying we don't have to replace him, but why should I say now that Likud is not welcomed into. You see, you're not going to win, Yossi, to overcome the existential danger of internal divisiveness, unless you're gonna get up and say, yes, I'm willing to sit with you.
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B
Okay, fair enough. But to bring the Likud in even
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C
With Netanyahu, by the way, then Halid.
- [35:01]
B
Yes. With Netanyahu as the junior partner in a coalition, of course he won't sit. Yes. Should Bennett be, as we say in Hebrew, large, generous? Yes, he should say that. But in terms of the Haredim, we have really an opportunity in a generation, opportunity to reset the relationship and to make sure that the distortion of where 15% of the country feels exempt from participation in the national defense also happens to be the 15% that is most lavishly funded. That has to stop, you see.
- [35:38]
C
But if you're doing an all or nothing, I'm not saying that by inviting the Haredim, we're going to therefore have to continue the existence. If we realize that Israel's danger is this sense of profound inner divisiveness, you're not going to legislate and. Or your language of reset 15% through an election. It comes through a process. The coalition government in which you sit with people who you disagree is the way you reset this divisiveness. And we're going to have to have more patience. It's going to aggravate you. That's right. Tolerance is difficult. You have to tolerate somebody who aggravates you. And then you in this government. What happened when Netanyahu formed the coalition? We know what happened. He gave everybody a white piece of paper and said, write whatever you want. I agree. So they wrote. And he said, I'll deal with it, but that you don't have to do it that way. You could create certain principles and then challenge the Haredi community. Okay, you're not going to get everything you want, but you want to lose everything. That's part of creating a mature conversation and relationship with people. And I think to get to that October 8th sentiment, we're going to have to get over the notion that one side wants complete victory. That is just a prescription for constant, constant internal war. And now the Kaplan culture just shutting down the country for years to come. And that will only create a foundation for the growth of Ben gvir.
- [37:06]
A
And you could argue that things have changed a lot in Israel. So I don't want to romanticize previous eras, but there have been these models of these coalition governments. Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres formed a coalition government, obviously Begin and Levi Eshkol, but although it was a different circumstance stance on the eve of the Six Day War, but there is precedent for these kinds of governments that are wide, diverse.
- [37:29]
C
We always had them then.
- [37:30]
A
Right.
- [37:31]
C
It's just, it's the last few years that we didn't, but it was always that way.
- [37:35]
B
Yeah.
- [37:36]
C
And I think it's healthy.
- [37:37]
A
I want to talk to you about Gadi Eisenkot, because in many respects, I find when I talk to Israeli friends, center left Israeli friends, that Gotti Eisenkot is the hope. Now, we did an episode on our podcast with Nadavael. These retired generals capture this moment in the polls where they're going to be the centrist unifying force, and then they wither politically. So I don't want to overstate it, but there does seem to be a lot of excitement right now about Gotti Eisenhut. And so how do you think his Persona, his personality, fits into this framework we have here, or the hope and fear inversion?
- [38:13]
B
I like him a lot. I think that what he brings to Israeli politics is something that we're missing, which is his slogan, Yashar straight honesty. I think that what you see is what there is, and that's both good and bad, because a politician needs a little bit of wiliness. You know, I have a deep mistrust of catapulting generals from the army into politics without political experience. We've had experience with general generals who became prime minister. We have two examples. It was Yitzhak Rabin in his first term in 1974, which was not successful, to say the least. He had come virtually from the army. He had a period of respite where he was the Israeli ambassador to the US but more or less coming out of the army directly catapulted into the prime ministership. And it was a very, very unimpressive performance. The second example we have is Ariel Sharon, who I think was a very good prime minister, but there was a 30 year gap between Sharon as a general and Sharon as prime minister. He went through the whole political system. He served in every position from agriculture minister to defense minister. And so to give Gadi Eisenkop the reins when he's so untested politically, I think points to the desperation of so many Israelis. And from my point of view, Bennett was a very fine prime minister and fulfilled what he promised to do, which was to bring as much of the country together as possible.
- [39:57]
C
I also like Bennett, but Bennett's challenge is that I think in his Persona, he's a mini Netanyahu, while Eisenkot is an anti Netanyahu. And in the just not BBQ camp, the question is, where do you want to go? There's just this basic decency that you feel about him. And maybe we want someone who's a little less charismatic. Who's a little more plotty. But I want to know that maybe in this process of healing that to heal we need some decency Now I don't think, Dan, that there is excitement around Eisencut. The rise in the polls is not excitement. I think what you have is the just not Netanyahu camp is looking for who has a chance. So many of them said it's been since the beginning Bennett's the man and Eisenkot has, once he became an alternative, he's someone who we could take into account. And in that sense he has a certain attraction to the center that Bennett does not have. Bennett's strength is on the center right, but a new right wing party is going to cut into his base, which is this. New parties are being formed all the time, as does Lieberman, by the way. Eisenkut has, has like people understand that he's a more balanced. He even in the past spoke about the one state being the greatest threat facing the state of Israel. Plus there's a certain decency about him and I think part of, if you want to call it excitement, like in a campaign on fear, who potentially is going to hurt me more. You asked which party, right. Was it going to be the Arab party or the Haredi party? Which candidate could hurt us more? I think people don't see a downside with Eisenkot. He's not going to act rationally. He's going to be thoughtful and at the end the well being of Israel, this is his greatest strength. Eisenkot is a man who serves not for his own ego and not for his own career. Over and again he turned down positions of advancements. This is a man in our tradition there's a term Shalia Tzibor. He's a servant of the people and there's something very noble about that. And I think that's his attraction. I wouldn't call it excitement. And that's an attraction.
- [42:15]
A
Many friends of mine on the right, they are very, including some interestingly who are in the current government or very close to Netanyahu personally or advising him. When they talk about Bennett, they seethe they have this incredible resentment towards Bennett. They say once he formed the coalition with Lapid, twice, twice now, the second time now he sent a message to the right that he's unreliable. But with Eisenhower, who they really disagree with, these people I'm talking about, they think Eisenhower was wrong on a lot of things. Eisenhower would have been opposed to Israel going into Rafah. When Israel went into Rafah, Eisenhower would have supported certain hostage deals without getting into the merits of those deals during the height of the Gaza war, which they argue would have prevented Israel from dealing its most difficult, toughest blow against Hamas. They're critical of him on policy decisions, but they like him.
- [43:06]
C
That's right.
- [43:06]
A
They admire him. He doesn't offend them the way Bennett does.
- [43:09]
C
That's correct. See, Bennett symbolizes, just like Yair Lapid or our Netanyahu, just Bibi. Just not Bibi. And it's not by accident that Eisenkot went and had a conversation with Haredim. There is a sense that he wants to build something and he might not get stuck in the old lines of animosity. And that has a lot of attraction.
- [43:30]
A
Yeah. I want to talk about another divide, which is odd for me to say, but it just keeps coming up in I've been having on Call Me Back, which is the difference between how Israeli Jews and Diaspora Jews think about the Israeli election. And I'm struck by the degree to which the Diaspora is paying so close attention to this upcoming Israeli election in a way I have not seen in a very long time. So I want to ask you, just before we wrap up, a question that I've asked other guests. What's the difference, from your perspective, meaning Israeli Jews, what's the difference between what Israelis and Diaspora Jews look for in an Israeli leader? I'll start with you, Yossi.
- [44:10]
B
Well, there's something that really struck me over the last few years of encounters with Diaspora Jews, especially American Jews, and especially liberal American Jews, was that we oppose Netanyahu for very different reasons. I support Netanyahu more or less on the war. I certainly passionately support him on Iran, and I have for decades. My problem with Netanyahu is almost entirely domestic. As I said, what he's done to the Zionist mainstream, tearing us apart, what he's done to the quality of governance, what he's done to the concept we call in Israel, Mamlach Tiyut, the dignity of the state. These are the issues that burn inside of me. And I think that that's true for almost the entirety of the opposition. You don't see opposition to Netanyahu here. On security issues, there's more or less consensus. And so when I speak to friends on the American Jewish left, I realize that we are actually not speaking the same political language, even if we reach the same conclusion about Netanyahu.
- [45:20]
C
Yes, I really appreciate what you said, because what you're saying is that even though we don't disagree with Netanyahu on security issues, those who are Anti Netanyahu have a new notion of what the security of the country demands.
- [45:31]
B
That's a great way to put it.
- [45:32]
C
So it still is security. And I think this is the big difference. Israelis want to. To know, am I going to be able to live here? Whether it's an external danger, how do I live? I think world Jewry, their primary agenda is, do I have hope? Do I have a future? See, Israel for world Jewry is not a place that you want to live. It's a place that you want to allow to be integrated into the core of what it means to be a Jew. Israel needs to inspire me. Israel, it's not the place where I get up in the morning and want to know, are the ministers corrupt? Do I have a system that works? Do I have a system that's sees me for the average Jew around the world? Is Israel something that could enter into my larger vision of my Jewish identity? They want vision and hope. They want to know what values you stand for. And by the way, I don't criticize world Jewry for caring about that, and I don't criticize Israeli Jews for saying fundamentally, am I gonna live? That's the way it should be. But in a healthy relationship, we actually hear each other, because Israelis need that vision, and world Jewry needs to understand that Israelis also have to live. So it's when we could hear each other, that we could have a mature political conversation and debate. But the perspectives are healthy. They're necessary in the larger scheme of Jewish life. They both reflect essential parts of what we need in a leader.
- [46:55]
B
That's beautifully put.
- [46:57]
A
Yeah.
- [46:57]
C
Thank you, Yossi.
- [46:58]
A
Well, this was a sort of depressing turn from talking about the Knicks, where we.
- [47:05]
B
I don't know. I heard. I'm coming away from this conversation, Boyd.
- [47:10]
A
You are? Wow.
- [47:11]
B
But you see, that's the difference between an Israeli and a diaspora perspective.
- [47:16]
C
He's also a Spurs fan.
- [47:17]
A
Oh, yeah, right. It's a shonda.
- [47:20]
C
A Brooklyn boy wouldn't know such a thing. Yeah.
- [47:23]
A
I will say two other housekeeping notes for our listeners should mention is, as I said in the beginning of this conversation, today's June 14, which is also my wife Campbell's birthday. I did not say it was her birthday at the beginning, whereas I did the other day on June 10th for my mother's birthday. And the reason is, my mother listens to podcasts. My wife does not. I was on this Ask a Jew podcast a week ago, and I was asked, you know, what's a reaction? What's the number one reaction we get from people to call me back. I said, when people go up to my wife and say, what did you think of Dan's latest episode? And she says, how do I break it to him that I don't listen to it? She says, I listen to him for, you know, hours and hours and hours every day. The idea that when I have a free hour, that I would actually pop my earbuds in and listen to an hour of him yapping away is not exactly relaxing.
- [48:07]
B
My wife, by the way, Dan says exactly the same thing. I don't know if she's ever heard a single episode, but here, I have
- [48:14]
C
to tell you, my wife didn't listen, but her friends started to shame her as she was asked. And now she is a loyal listener. And Athena, listen, you hear. I appreciate you.
- [48:25]
A
But, Danielle, I will tell you, coming back to the theme of this conversation, she's not listening because of hope. She's listening because of fear. She's been pressured into it.
- [48:35]
C
It's not Not. It's not.
- [48:37]
A
It's not about joy. It's not about what could be. It's not about being inspired and illuminated. It's about being embarrassed and being peer pressured. So there we go.
- [48:48]
C
Okay. I hope both of you feel better. I think it's an act of love, and I appreciate it. You know, whatever.
- [48:54]
A
It's beauties in the eye of the beholder. Thank you, gentlemen.
- [48:57]
C
Thank you, Dan. It was a pleasure being with.
- [48:59]
B
Great to be with you as always,
- [49:04]
C
Sam.