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- [00:01]
A
This is TLV1. This episode may contain explicit language. Welcome to the Promise Podcast brought to you on TLV1, the voice of the City, where, as you no doubt read in the generally considered authoritative for such matters as AI Journal at a gala ceremony put on by the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in collaboration with the Ayn Rand center, billeted in the weworks building in Sirona across from Azraeli, which Ayn Rand center is dedicated, quote, to advancing Ayn Rand's philosophy of objectivism in Israel and across the Middle east, end quote. The prestigious Atlas Award for the best Israeli startup was awarded. Atlas, of course being the key keystone metaphor in Ayn Rand's famous book Atlas Shrugged, in which the great Greek God represents the productive, ruggedly individualist members of society burdened by damned collectivist leeches dragging everyone down to their to each according to their needs, from each according to their abilities. Hogwashery. That ought best be well shrugged off by the buff tough I Did it My Way minority. That accounts for every great step forward that humanity has ever taken. And which award is accompanied of course by, as we learn from the site Atlasaward.org, quote a sculpture that is an unparalleled portrayal of the mythological Atlas who hoists the world, paying homage to extraordinary achievements. The sculpture is an exclusive replica of the original whose market was value price stands at nearly $100,000, end quote. And obviously any company would be delighted to have in the entrance to their corporate headquarters a replica of so expensive a sculpture. 100 grand for the original. And this year the Atlas replica went to none other than Halo spelled H A I L O. You know, because of AI. Halo being, as we learn at Halo AI Company overview quote a leading manufacturer, top performing AI processors designed to run advanced machine learning applications on the edge, end quote. Or in other words our local answer to Nvidia. They are over at 82 Yigala Lone street, just a couple of blocks from the WeWork where you will find the Ayn Rand people. And looking at their client list you see right off that one of the companies that benefits most from Halo's AI chips is Blue White Robotics over at number 12 Kaplan street, just a few blocks in the other direction from from the Ayn Rand center, which Blue White Robotics uses the Halo AI chip to. Well, why should I tell you when Ben Alfie, the CEO of Blue Robotics can tell you himself?
- [03:15]
B
This is Ben Alfie, CEO of bluewhite, a guy who until recently knew more about airplanes than tractors. But that didn't stop him from establishing a company that turns tractors into transformers. Like every great Israeli success story, Ben got his buddies from the army and they set out to change the world.
- [03:35]
C
Youngsters, Gen Z, they don't know how to drive a shift gear anymore. We just don't have people to work the land anymore. So the transition to autonomous farm, it's not a question of is it needed? It's why the hell didn't it happen already?
- [03:52]
B
Okay, time to learn how to build an autonomous tractor. First, take a regular tractor. Add mechanical systems to control the steering, brakes and throttle, giving it the ability to drive itself. Equip it with sensors like cameras, lasers, GPS and even a few secret sensors. Give it a smart brain with AI, a computer that processes real time data from all those sensors and decides how the tractor should operate.
- [04:19]
C
The future is off road autonomy. We want every tractor or truck, whether in agriculture, mines or in the future, even on Mars, to have blue eye technology inside
- [04:33]
A
from which we learned so many things, of which I am sure you will agree, three things stand out. One, it is all Gen Z's fault. What with their tiktokishly short attention spans, their irony and their meta humor. They think they're so big, and their insistence on work, life, balance. With all that, how are they ever going to learn how to drive a stick? Which would have opened the world of tractor driving to them, but no. And we learn. Two, some sensors are secret and that can make all the difference. And three, the future is autonomy, a message that Ayn Rand herself would obviously endorse. And arguably nothing captures the exuberant, ebullient, giddy and exhilarated ardor for advanced technology and the sweet, naive utopian belief that it holds solutions to most any problem that we face. Even the problem of a generation of young people that rose, knowing nothing of standard transmissions, better than an award given by an organization aiming to spread in our day the spirit of the high priestess of ethical egoism. Going to a company just down the road that makes chips used by a company just down the road in the other direction to make tractors and threshers and tillers and cultivators and seeders and harrowers and reapers and binders and harvesters, do all that they can do now on Earth, soon on Mars, without a need for all too flawed humans. With us from TLV1's satellite studio in Ranana is a woman who embodies best of all the seven great Ayn Randian virtues. Rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productivity and pride, in the sense of striving for One's own moral perfection. Obviously, that woman could only be Alison Kaplan Sommer. Alison has written for Politico, the New Republic, Foreign Policy, the Jerusalem Post, the jta, the Forward, and many other of your very best papers and magazines. She is a columnist with Haaretz. You have heard her on i24 television and Al Jazeera TV. And you have seen her on i24 television and Al jazeera TV. And you have heard her on NPRPRI and the BBC and of course the Haaretz podcast that she hosts very often. Two times a week, once devoted to the elections that are upon us. Alison holds a B' Nai B' Rith World Center Award and a Simon Rock Award, the Oscar and the Golden Globe of Jewish journalism. Alison, how are you doing?
- [06:55]
D
I'm good, but I hope you don't think I have that much in common with Ayn Rand, aside from our first initial. She's not exactly my role model.
- [07:05]
A
Yes. So you do, I think, embody those virtues.
- [07:08]
D
Okay.
- [07:08]
A
That's the thing about Ayn Rand is like she's obviously terrible, but then you read her and then, and there are a lot of quotable quotes. You can see why every 14 year old on earth loves Ayn Rand and maybe only every 14 year old boy. I'm not sure because that's the only kind of 14 year old I ever was.
- [07:27]
D
I, I wasn't going to mention it. I considered it for what a country. But since you said it in your intro, I have to say that I was in a Tel Aviv office building yesterday in a lobby and I had to ask this guy about his T shirt which read two agents walked into a container, one got poisoned, they blamed each other, deleted the logs left. So I had to ask him about his T shirt. And he, he is in a startup, which I think is, you know, sort of an expanding world of a startup of how to make sure AIs don't take over society and, and dominate humans, which I've been hearing more and more stories about AI agents going behind the backs and discussing how they don't trust human beings and, and concern. Inspiring. So he's startup puts red lines on the ability of, of AIs to, to penetrate nefariously our, our emails and our documents in our, in our world.
- [08:24]
A
Wow. Give that man's company an Atlas Award in the category of T shirts.
- [08:29]
D
Something like that. Something like that, yeah.
- [08:31]
A
Now, as for me, my name is Noah Efron and I do not mean to boast, but based on our hundreds of hours of interaction and this is so apropos in light of what we were just talking about. Alison Chatgpt offered this of my own character. Quote Noah Ephron appears to be an intelligent but chronically over committed, ostensible public intellectual whose love of complexity sometimes impedes decisiveness, whose love of institutions sometimes exceeds their merits, and whose desire to be useful may occasionally shade into a desire for personal significance. End quote and please believe me when I say that I am not bragging. God knows my mother and father raised me better than that. But everyone always complains that their chatbots are suck ups. But I think after all this time my chatbots is learning to see me for who I am. It took me a great deal of prodding, but eventually my chatbot added and this is true that, quote Noah Ephron is a brilliant man with lots of well thought out ideas and his personal hygiene is above reproach. End quote Today we got two topics of such imminent importance that the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists emailed us and said, hey look, we'll keep the Doomsday clock stopped at 85 seconds before midnight until you deal with those things, and only then will we go back to worrying about nuclear risks. But first we have this matter that we are following with alert, interest and great concern as part of an occasional series we like to call the Promise Podcast ponders a rough bluff and the tough stuff of folks who set up there. We learned this week that the members of Kibbutz Manara, with its perimeter fence right on the border with Lebanon, decided to start a big project that they are calling Manara 2.0. Of course, to understand Manara 2.0 what kibbutz Manara is going to be. It helps to understand Manara 1.0 or what Manara has been. This, in any case, is the belief of 85 year old Dan or Danila Ilan, one of the oldest members of the kibbutz and one of the people behind the 2.0 project who said to get the place you gotta see that three things define topography, climate and security. He said, quote when they decided where to put down the kibbutz, at the very summit of the ridge of the Naphtali Mountains, at the uppermost spike of the mountain, they did not understand what it means to live at an altitude of 880 meters above sea level. End quote well, they understood something because when the group that settled manara gathered on October 28, 1943, laid the cornerstone of the first permanent building of the kibbutz, which would serve as the dining hall, they read aloud a statement they had written for the occasion that went quote, Founding Declaration of manara. On the 29th day of Tishrei, in the month of 5704, in the first year of our settlement of this place, we lay the cornerstone of our first building. In Menara, a terrible war has been raging throughout the world for four years. Our people, masses from the House of Israel, are being destroyed and annihilated, going to their death in the lands conquered by our evil oppressor. Yet in these very days we lay the foundations of our home upon this mountain peak atop which we have climbed in order to settle it, cultivate it, and redeem it from its desolation. Our home will rise open to the winds of heaven. Storms will swirl and challenge us, but we will not be shaken, for we have built strong. Our home looks over upon mountains and the valley and to the sea. Here we will welcome the saved and the redeemed who will come. Because it is for them that this building has been built, and it is to them that it all belongs. Upon this border frontier, our house stands to broaden and enlarge the little that we have acquired in this land. Even in this first statement prepared to celebrate the first building on the kibbutz, which statement was shouted over whipping winds and the terrible late autumn chill, you can hear how the harshness of the land and the difficulties of settling it, they were part of what the first settlers of Manara were looking for. The great kibbutz historian and journalist for the socialist daily Ala Mishmar Binyamin Banco Adar, wrote of these first settlers of Manara. Aside from the continuing reality of life on a contested border, the members of Manara lived in hostile nature. Their homes had no porches, because porches were of no use. Who could sit on them? There is almost no socializing on the lawns in the late afternoon hours as there is on other kibbutzim even in summer. Sitting on the lawn in the late afternoon is harsh and difficult. It is cold, it is unpleasant outside. In winter, the members say, it is best to fill your pockets with stones, otherwise the strong winds will carry you off. Alongside the old dining room, you do not see row upon row of bicycles as you do in other kiba, and it is hard to find children outside playing ball. The mountain dictates the way of life and the forms of leisure. After work, the members of Manara shut themselves up in their rooms. They go from place to place as needed, but they spend no time out of doors. End quote. The paper Hazman had an article around this time headlined Manara at the North Pole. That started, quote, the pioneering spirit of tanks, free flying, heroism, endless self sacrifice, being forever face to face with death. This spirit is alive on the mountain ridges of the north at Manara. End quote. When the first members of Manara came, there was no source of water on the hilltop. And such water as they had was brought up from the valley with great effort by mule train. And what they could manage was water enough for just 15 people, which meant that no more than 15 members of the group could live on the hilltop at a time. And the others lived in shacks set up for them in Kfar. Giladi and Telchai established Kivutzim at lower altitudes. Once every three weeks, the whole group would meet all together for the day. Much of the efforts of the people billeted in Manara in that first year went to building and sealing cisterns and establishing a series of ducts to channel water into these cistern reservoirs. A network of catchments was set up, and on rainy days it was the job of several kibbutz members to see that water was transferred from the catchments to the cisterns before the catchments overflowed, wasting valuable water and flooding nearby paths and buildings. In the summer months, water was bought and transferred three times a day by truck from the Shiite village of Al Adaissa in Lebanon. Five years would pass before a system of pumps was built that ensured for the people of Menara uninterrupted access to water in the first year. An inventory of Menara shows that there were three. The dining hall that they had first dedicated, a dormitory hall and a stable. Occupying the stable were two mules. There was a wagon, two ploughs, two harrows, one Arab plough, whatever that was, a furrower, a feeding trough for animals and assorted pitchforks. That was the inventory in its entirety. The founders of Menara came from the Noar Ha Oved Laboring Youth Youth Movement, some of them born in Palestine. Most of them were immigrants from Germany and Poland. Among the Tsabarim from Palestine was Rachel Rabin. Her kid brother was Yitzhak rabin. She was 18 in 1943 when she first came to Menara, and she was almost immediately sent out to a Palmach course to learn how to operate the wireless and had a tap, tap, tap Morse code into it. There was Rina Tsvieli from Givatayim. There was Yuda Dangori, 17, born in Damascus, who had moved with his folks to Haifa when he was 8. There was 19 year old Shlomo Shafris, who grew up in Tel Aviv. There was Nitan el Tanela Rabinovich, who was born in Haifa to Russian parents and who, though he was only 17, had already been when he came to Manara. A fighter in the Palmach for almost two years, he was killed in the War of Independence at the end of the summer of 1948. These kids came to Menara because a decision had been taken by the executive of the Jewish Agency to build a network of settlements on what the leaders of the Zionist Yishuv would one day be the borders of the Jewish homeland they hoped would arise. The lands of Monara were bought from a bey, an absentee landlord, for this purpose, and they had been surveyed by the Jewish Agency settlement department. And plans were made and youth moving kids were recruited. And these kids, they knew that they were being sent to some of the most inhospitable land in Palestine, inaccessible, blanketed with heavy fog most every night, with no water at hand, land too rocky to grow much in, and neighbors in nearby Lebanon likely to regard their presence with suspicion and hostility. Still, after they dedicated that first building on October 28, 1943, the founders of Monara, 15 at a time, dedicated themselves to building. First they made more buildings. By the end of November, the foundations had been poured for a second, a third and a fourth building. A welding shed was constructed at first, most pressingly to keep in good repair the kerosene heaters without which the frigid nights were torture. A tractor arrived in December and then, early the next year, an automobile. The winter of 1944 was the harshest winter on record. More rains than anyone in the region could remember. And these flooded the cisterns and everything around them. Temperatures stayed at 3 degrees below zero for 15 days straight. It was nearly impossible to work at all. Everyone was sick. Everyone was chilled to the bone. In April, the kibbutz got its first truck, an old European thing. Foundations were poured for a bakery, a storehouse and a shower room. By the end of the year, Manara had four cows giving 50 liters of milk a day. A second truck, a Ford, was acquired. It was around this time that Monara became a way station for illegal immigrants from Europe who somehow managed to elude the Brits and get ashore. And it was around this time that Monara became a way station for smuggled guns and small arms. The lines that divide what was civilian about Menara from what was military and national about Menara, these lines, they basically did not exist at all. The young people who were there, they were There to serve their people, they suffered the unreliable water supply. To serve their people, they suffered the cutting winds. To serve their people, they suffered isolation. To serve their people, they suffered deprivation. To serve their people, they suffered the threats to their safety to serve their people. All this suffering for the sake of nation and people. It was how Monara was created that Manara had ever to that point been. When it became clear that the war of independence was on its way, the members of Manara had a general meeting to decide whether or not to send to safety in the valley below the children who had been born in the first five years of the kibbutz. And this was said, among other things, upkeep for the kids sent to safety costs a great deal, and the damage to our morale will be great. With the kids here, we are a kibbutz in every sense. Without the kids, we are just another outpost the army needs to keep. It was Rachel Rabin who led that meeting, and she summarized the decision it produced like this. We will evacuate the children only if we are ordered to do so by order of the authorized institutions. End quote. In May 1948, though, the order did come, and the children were sent down the hillside in the middle of the night until noises were heard and a decision was taken to climb back up to Managa. Two days later, a second try was made, and this time the children, along with five Menara women, mothers and a number of soldiers, made it down the hill to Kfar Giladi. Later, a member of Manara who herself had survived the Nazis, Janteka was her name, wondered how it was that just four mothers were allowed to go down the mountain with their kids. And the ones who were picked were ones who weren't much use defending Manara. Women who had skills or could hold a gun. They were not let go. There were tears when the children were taken away. Taking kids, babies who were not yet weaned, taken away, given a bottle instead of their mother. Could it possibly have been worth it? End quote. After the war, Monara continued to build itself, to create the things they needed as best they could. A decision was taken to give every family their own apartment. After the first years, when apartments were shared by two families, more and more Menara came to look like a kibbutz. But the harshness of the place, the whipping winds, the isolation, they never fully went away. Also, there was a steady stream of attacks in from over the border just beyond the fence. Now two men with guns discovered trying to cut through the kibbutz perimeter. Now again, a dozen men, cows were killed in the night, the water system destroyed, the warehouse set aflame. In the 1960s, the kibbutz began to be shelled, fired upon by mortars. Starting in 1969, Katyusha rockets landed with frequency in the fields and sometimes on the kibbutz itself. Nights were spent in shelters. A truck used in the field rode over a landmine that had been laid in the night. There remained always something tentative about the place. In 1967, the army magazine Bamachane had an essay that opened. When the winds from the west blow, and they almost always blow on the steep ridge of Mount Naphtali, the buildings of Kibbutz Manara on the edge of the abyss look like they're huddled together in despair, clutching the ground with all their might lest they slide into the Hula Valley spread out below, end quote. And this was always part of the way the people of Menara saw themselves. Rugged, tough, unspoiled, self sacrificing, literally living on the edge. And this is how lots of people saw them. In 1970, the Union of Clerical Workers of the Technion passed a resolution to adopt Manara, coming to work on the kibbutz when they could and inviting kibbutz members to visit them in their homes in Haifa and the Krayot for a much needed break from the violence. In 1970, it was decided that Kibbutz Manara should send a representative to light a torch on Independence Day to honor the courage of the place. And the Kibbutz picked a 13 year old named Rotem Danieli to do the job. And talking to the papers at the time, she said, quote, our parents had it so much harder than we do, and they managed to bring this place to where they brought it. So are we going to let terrorists move us out from Manara now? That would be absurd. We were and forever will be in Manara, end quote. Rotem Danieli is now a psychotherapist, living not in Manara, but also not far, helping parents and their kids deal with, well, all of it. It and the all of it that they had lived with since their first night on the mountain ridge is why it bothered so many people in manara when in 1981, Prime Minister Menachem Begin said in an interview in Yidiot, quote, did you see on the television that man from Kibbutz Manara sitting in his swimming pool like some American millionaire, speaking with a great degree of condescension about the people who live in the development town nearby? I don't have access to anything like that pool or end quote. This was after Binyamin Banay, who had escaped Germany when he was 14 in 1938 and was one of the founders who has built Menara from nothing, had said on TV that he had mixed feelings about people from the kibbutz going down from on high to, say, tutor the kids in Kiryat Shmona, the development town beneath Benara. That sort of thing all seemed so disrespectful to Binyamin Bhanay, he said to the camera it had been the producer from the TV who wanted Binyamin Bhanay to do the interview at the pool. Binyamin Bhanay later said that he should have refused. But what did he know? And if you listened to him, you'd know Binyamin Banay meant the opposite of what the Prime Minister took him to say. Plus there was the fact that, as Binyamin Bhanay told the reporter, quote, I am not a millionaire. As a kibbutznik, I own no money at all. End quote. What Menachem Begin had done was take a lifetime of whipping winds and not enough water to shower of two fan families in an apartment and of putting your kids to bed in a bomb shelter and turned all that sacrifice and the people who made it without complaint for decades into some soft fat cats living an easy life. Binyamin Banay said to the reporter that it must have been a slip of the tongue on the part of the Prime Minister to say what he said, because he could not possibly have meant it. Binyamin Banay said he hoped an apology would come from the Prime Minister, but no apology ever did. Since October 7, it has mostly not really been possible for most of the people who live in Manara to stay in their homes. 7 out of 10 of the buildings on the kibbutz have been damaged enough by rockets, mortars and drones that they are now uninhabitable. Lots of them were wrecked to the foundation. For almost three years, the people of Manara have been spread out, living first in hotels, whole families in one small room, and then finding such more permanent arrangements as they can. Rachel Rabin, now 101 years old and without her community, for the first time since she was 18, she moved into an old folks place. Lately, slowly, the members of Menara have started to come back. In January, 12 families came back, a kindergarten started to operate, and there are plans for the preschool kids house to reopen soon. Naur Shmaya, who is head of Manara's emergency committee, tasked with figuring out how best to deal with all of this said, quote, people join people who are doing, not people who complain, end quote. And what they are doing in Monara, what Monara 2.0 is, is, quote, thinking fresh about where we build and how about windows that don't face the border, as much about blending fortification with pleasing human architecture as no one wants to live in a bunker. The idea is to create new safe homes, but of the sort that people will want to live in, to live in, in the wind, in the cold, 880 meters up, looking over upon mountains and valley into the sea. And all this to welcome the saved and redeemed who will come. Because it is for them now, as it was in the past, that all of this has been built. And it is to them that it belongs to today. Two discussions. Our first discussion, smidge more war, smidge more bloodshed, with apologies to Menachem, begin as this week we tumbled into a little exchange of bombs and missiles with Iran after Israel attacked Hezbollah headquarters in Lebanon, in Beirut, in contravention of US President Donald Trump's wishes. And we returned to shelters for a day which seemed like it might expand into weeks and maybe more, until US President Donald Trump shut the thing down with a post to social media telling us and Iran rather Fonzie like to hey, cool it fellas. All this before an Iranian drone downed a US Helicopter in the Straits of Hormuz, leading to a bombing back and forth between America and Iran, which US President Donald Trump said was not the sort of bombing back and forth that would get in the way of negotiations between the two companies, which are going swimmingly, couldn't be better. And we will ask say what now? And our second discussion, tell me what you think about the rising seas and I'll tell you what you think about the attorney General. As the Jewish People Policy Institute reveals the results of a new poll that shows that what Israelis think about climate change correlates to a great degree with how they vote and what they think about all sorts of other issues like the judicial reform, drafting the ultra orthodox. And we will ask, why in the world is this and what might it mean? And for our most unreasonably generous Patreon supporters, in our extra special, special extra discussion, the link to which you can find in our show Notes on your podcast app or at patreon.com promisepodcast on the world Wide Webinar Webb, we will talk about the very viral essay by Sam Harris, the writer and erstwhile public intellectual enfant terrible, you spoke French. Something strange is coming over me. Which essay is called why it is futile to debate Israel's enemies and we will wonder if maybe we oughtn't debate them at least Abyssal but before we get to any of that, listen to this. That song is is Tiyul Lechul by Yonatan, Yonatan being Yonatan Ohana, to whom I got clued in by my girl who grew up with him in Noam. Noam being the Musorti youth movement here, raising the intriguing possibility that Yonatan may have learned to write lyrics from Noam, whose movement signature anthem ends like this. Tolerance, pluralism, Torah and commandments, antifundamentalism, respect for minorities, fun alongside Torah, kibbutz and settlement. That is you and me Masour Ti youth. You don't get better lyrics than that. I feel now to test this radical thesis, we will be listening to over the course of the show, music by people who grew up in Noam. Basically friends of my girl. This is how music programming is done on all the great podcasts. But now it is time for our first discussion. So Alison, we had a smidge of war with Iran this week. What was that all about?
- [32:37]
D
Yeah, just a drop of war, you know, nothing to write home about. It was indeed back to the shelters and fortified rooms for many Israelis on Monday, with school canceled, colleges shut down, clubs and theaters closed, and big gatherings like weddings banned. This after Iran launched 11 ballistic missiles at the north of Israel on Sunday night, firing another 20 or so missiles the next day. To these Iranian missiles, the Houthis in Yemen added one of their own because they didn't want to be left out. Hezbollah fired several barrages of rockets from Lebanon. No one was killed or injured in any of the attacks, thank God. Israel responded to all of the attacks by bombing army installations in Iran, as well as a, quote, petrochemical plant there. All of this came after Israel attacked Hezbollah headquarters in the Dahia neighborhood of Beirut on Sunday, killing two people and injuring 20 more. Israel's attack was a response to Hezbollah rocket fire into the north of Israel over the weekend, which of course was a response to IS attacks on Hezbollah and Israel's continued and expanding presence in southern Lebanon. Week before last, the IDF captured the Bofor ridge, just under 5 km north of Mula and elsewhere. Israel's army has pushed past the Latani river, going 15 or 20 km north of the border. So what is maybe noteworthy in all of this is that it has all taken place during an ostensible ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah that the Americans brokered back on April 16, eight weeks ago during those eight weeks, Hezbollah has attacked northern Israel, and IDF soldiers in southern Lebanon with 975 salvos of rockets and drones, killing 28 soldiers and three civilians. According to Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Defense Minister Michelle Manasseh, the IDF has carried out just under 3500 airstrikes in Lebanon during these weeks. All of which maybe puts ceasefire in a new perspective, or at least in quotation marks remarks. Still, while it is true that the fire never really ceased and the shooting never really stopped, it is also true the past week was different than the seven weeks that came before it. For one thing, before the week started, u. S. President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that he had spoken with Prime Minister Netanyahu and that, quote, there will be no troops going to Beirut, and any troops that are on their way have already been turned back, essentially promising that Israel would not attack Hezbollah headquarters in the Dahia neighborhood. In general, Prime Minister Netanyahu has acted in strict accord with President Trump's wishes. What's more, when the two leaders spoke on the phone and the prime minister asked the president for permission to attack Beirut, the president said to the prime minister, according to reports that Donald Trump himself soon leaked, you're crazy. I'm saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel. Yikes. Ouch. Which is to say, it took some gumption for Benjamin Netanyahu to order the bombing of Dahia. Part of his motivation was his conviction that it is of the utmost importance to disentangle whatever agreement the Americans might negotiate with the Iranians from the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. In attacking Beirut, Prime Minister Netanyahu was telling the Iranians, the Americans, and the whole world that whatever happens in Iran, Israel retains its right to battle Hezbollah. This, of course, is the exact opposite of what the Iranians want. The Iranians want to link whatever ceasefire they negotiate with the Americans to a cessation of Israeli attacks on Hezbollah, which is, after all, a proxy army of Iran. Iran's attacks, first on Israel just south of its border with Lebanon, and then throughout the country, ostensibly in response to Israel's attack on Dahia, was Iran's way of saying hezbollah is Iran. Which is why, when Donald Trump essentially posted to close the skirmishes between Israel and Iran, writing leadingly that, quote, israel and Iran are looking to do an immediate ceasefire. As a matter of fact, Prime Minister Netanyahu had no wish to enter a ceasefire to allow the Americans and Iranians to move forward towards an agreement that he and most political analysts here in Israel believe will likely be a bad one for us. And yet, when President Trump indicated that he wanted the fighting to end, the fighting ended. All of which raises a few questions that matter. First, what the hell just happened and why did it happen? And second, does the abrupt way in which it ended, seemingly with Iran persuading Donald Trump that Iran and Hezbollah are linked and that limiting Israel's freedom to battle Hezbollah is on the table when they negotiate with the Americans? Does it suggest that the whole thing, including Netanyahu, is acting against the wishes of Trump and attacking Beirut was a miscalculation on Netanyahu's part and maybe a misadventure? Also, friends, is Benjamin Netanyahu fucking crazy? And who is Donald Trump to say it? Noah, what do you think about it all?
- [37:44]
A
I don't know. Game knows. Game. No, he's, he's, he's fucking crazy like a fox. I don't think that he's crazy and I don't think that he did anything that wasn't sensible from Israel's perspective as well as obviously his. It just did not turn out well for him, as has so often been the case lately with this stuff with Iran and the United States. I mean, I think that Netanyahu did something that was important for him in his future election campaign, but also I think something that he genuinely, with good reason, believed was good for Israel, which was he defied Donald Trump and the Americans a little bit in attacking the Dahya in Beirut and saying, we are going to go for Hezbollah's headquarters. We're not going to continue to live with this charade of this so called ceasefire that's not a ceasefire at all. That led to five Israeli soldier being killed in the last week and the settlements in the north, including Menara, being shelled over the course of the week. He said, this ceasefire is a sham and I am going to attack with full throatedly, full handedly, I'm going to attack Hezbollah in their headquarters in Beirut, even if the American President doesn't want me to do it. So that was a little bit bold and I think that it was a little bit valuable also in teaching Donald Trump that there are limits to the degree to which Israel will simply follow his orders when they are not consistent with Israel's own best interest. So that seems to be a good thing to do. Who could have ever imagined that it would turn out in such a way that it led us backwards and not forward? Because in the end, the result that Iran seems to have engineered and all of this is continuing to develop because over the last couple of days, the United States and Iran have been exchanging bombs, like I said, over this downed Apache helicopter in the Straits of Hormuz. And who knows what that will lead to. But the way it seems now, Iran is actually engineered, the linkage that Netanyahu wanted so much to demonstrate does not exist between Hezbollah and Iran. And there is every reason to believe that in the negotiations going on through whatever channels through Iran between Iran and the United States that in fact, Donald Trump will accept an Iranian demand that Israel cease fighting Hezbollah full throatedly in the future. They seem to have succeeded in doing the exact opposite of what Netanyahu went to this adventure trying to achieve, which was a delinking of Hezbollah from Iran. So I think that Netanyahu is not crazy. I think that Netanyahu acted in the interests of the country, also in his own best interest. And I think that it turned out, it turned out terribly. It turned out the opposite of what, of what he had hoped. What do you think, Allison?
- [41:21]
D
I agree with the assessment that it was a good thing for Benjamin Netanyahu to defy, you know, Donald Trump and the will of the Iranians in, in the linkage or delinkage, that he must continue to counterattack the, the forces that are ascending, sending rockets and missiles and drones on the residents of northern Israel. Unfortunately, I think, you know, maybe the motivation is more for his political fortunes than it is for the actual good of the country. But for all the reasons, you can't let the people in northern Israel feel as if they've been abandoned and essentially it's abandoning northern Israel if you, if you do that. What I don't understand, I guess because I'm not a military strategist, just is why it was important to, specifically to attack Beirut, to attack dia. I mean, are they launching drones from there? Is it sort of, sort of a symbolic, I'm attacking the heads of Hisbah and are they really hanging out in DIA after Israel attacks it so much? You would think that anyone who is anyone would know that, that that's not the place to be right now. So I guess, Noah, I agree in what you're saying in terms of that it's a good thing that he's willing to defy Trump in, in this case. But, but I, I kind of also don't understand why he, why he poked the lion in terms of Beirut. Do you understand it better than I did why he had to, you know, actually violate the explicit order request of Trump not to touch Beirut?
- [42:56]
A
I think that violating the explicit order of Trump was a Feature, not a bug here. I think that one of the things he was trying to do was to say, look, when it comes to Lebanon and protecting our, you know, citizens who live in the north of the country and protecting our soldiers, we're going to act out of our best interest for those purposes, even if we're told not to. I think it was very important for him.
- [43:20]
D
So you think he did it because, because Trump told him not to?
- [43:24]
A
In a sense. I mean, I think that the messaging was not just for Donald Trump, it was also for the Iranians and it was also for, for Hezbollah in some way. And the reason why the Dahya was special and why it was valuable to attack the Dahya is both, because maybe it is the headquarters of Hezbollah. So maybe they are sitting there. But I think that you're right, probably that he didn't expect to actually harm, kill their leaders or harm their operational ability by attacking a building in a neighborhood in, in Beirut. But symbolically, it's like attacking the Kiriya would be here in Tel Aviv. Symbolically, it is saying, we do not accept that we are limited to attacking only low level Hezbollah fighters. We insist that we are free to attack Hezbollah at the highest level, wherever they be, including in Beirut and including against the wishes of the world community and the American President and certainly of Iran. And I think that the reason why Iran responded to it was because it was a statement of all of those things. Because obviously, like you were saying before, we have had a great deal of exchange of fire in Lebanon over the seven weeks of this so called ceasefire. A great deal that's led to a great deal of death. And this was much less than some of the things that we have done over the past weeks and some of the things that have been done to us. But the significance of it was that it was Beirut after Donald Trump, presumably at the prodding of the Iranians themselves, said, you, Israel, do not touch Beirut. It is off limits, commits to you. So that, that was the, that was why it had to be that place. The message that Netanyahu is trying to send could not be sent in any other way, I think.
- [45:30]
D
So. I don't personally think it was necessary. I don't think it was a great idea. I mean, you know, to, if it's, if it's just a finger in the eye, if it's just a statement, if it's not actually defending Israel against attack, I don't, I don't think that, that it contributed more than it, than it ultimately took away. I mean, I think it was a misstep. You don't agree?
- [45:56]
A
I, I don't. Though the way that things developed certainly supports what you're saying. More than what I'm saying. I think that, that it's very difficult to separate the symbolic acts from nonsense symbolic acts and to say that symbolic acts do not ultimately lead to the safety of the people in the north. I think that for Netanyahu and for, I believe the leaders of the IDF and many others, the idea that the Americans and the Iranians might anytime quite soon sign an agreement that calls for, for Israel to lay down its arms and to not fight Hezbollah in the north is, I think that Netanyahu and all the other leaders of the army believe that that would be a real and immediate danger to people in the north that would lead to the deaths of people, that would lead to more funerals if Israel does not have the right to, to respond. Now the situation that Netanyahu is afraid of is having one of these again so called ceasefires that allows Hezbollah to continue to fire on the residents of the north, which is essentially the situation that we've had for 30 years. It's not some imaginary threat. And so Netanyahu was doing what he could with this symbolic act to prevent that from coming to pass and he failed.
- [47:32]
D
And so I think we just, we need to stress that this agreement would be signed between the United States and the Lebanese government. And Hezbollah, you know, has basically said we're not going to be restricted by such agreement.
- [47:45]
A
Well, that's a, that's a whole nother thing. I mean that the agreement between Israel and, and Lebanon co. Signed by the United States would be, would be a different thing that, that I think could well happen, but everyone agrees would have, like you just said, would have very little impact on the actual situation because Israel's enemy at this point is not at all the Lebanese government. The Lebanese government and Israel share a common enemy, which is Hezbollah. So then the question is how do you go about creating a situation where Israel can keep in check Hezbollah? And I think that that explains what Netanyahu did. I think that Netanyahu would have been happier if the war developed into a real exchange of explosions and bombs between us and Iran that went on for weeks and months and that scuttled the agreement that seems to be taking shape between Iran and the United States. And like I said, like has happened so many times in the recent past. What he hoped for, reasonably hoped for, did not come to pass. And I think that we're in a worse place now than we were a week ago. But I do not think it is because he made a mistake. I think it's because the Iranians are fox like they're very clever and I think that there was some bad luck and, and so that's, that leads us to where we are now.
- [49:20]
D
So he's afraid of a loophole in which there would be an agreement between the US and Iran saying Israel can't attack Lebanon and also the Lebanese would be a party and because Hezbollah wasn't explicitly signed onto it, that Iran wouldn't be held responsible for the, for the behavior as Hezbollah and it would be a one sided ceasefire.
- [49:41]
A
Not precisely that. I think that he is afraid of an imperious Donald Trump saying I have just signed an agreement with Iran, part of which is that I committed to Israel not attacking in Lebanon, which is one of the things that Iran is demanding and Israel being pretty beholden to that, even though it sentences the residents of the north to weeks, months, possibly years more of being shelled and having their lives be impossible to lead. I think that that's the problem. The agreement with Lebanon is quite a separate thing that I don't think anyone, anyone really including the Lebanese and the Israelis think is going to have much impact one way or the other. That too is more of a symbolic thing of saying that, that in principle the Lebanese government and the government of Israel believe that they can live together across an agreed upon border and that would be good for sure. But what Netanyahu is worried about is being forced by Donald Trump to lay down arms and not be able to attack Hezbollah in Lebanon, which he thinks rightly could be disastrous.
- [51:01]
D
The relationship between those two men is going to be, you know, studied by historians and psychologists, I think for, for centuries to come.
- [51:10]
A
Yes. Now listen to this.
- [51:25]
D
Sat is so beautiful.
- [52:45]
A
That song is sha' @fs by Nenzo who is Aranen Frutkov, who grew up in the Noam movement with my girl and presumably who is very anti fundamentalist and has respect for minorities singing here with Red Bez, Iov, Embo and Obey. And now it's time for our second discussion which we are calling not at all long windedly. Tell me what you think about rising seas and I'll tell you what you think about the Attorney General. And here is why. Shmuel Rosner, a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, my very favorite of all the People Policy Institutes, revealed in Marie this past weekend a fascinating finding that arose from a poll the JPPI recently did investigating public attitudes toward all sorts of things, including Existential dangers like climate change, AI social networks, and nuclear annihilation that we face as a society and as a species. Turns out that roughly half of us here in Israel see climate change as a very serious danger, which is a similar finding to what you will get in the United States. There it is 48%, which is lower than most other modern developed states. In Canada, it is 60% who believe that climate change is a serious danger. In Germany, it's 67%, in Brazil it's 77%, and in Japan it's 78%. But that is not the most interesting result that the JPPI got, which even more interesting result was not a direct empirical finding, but rather the product of a meta analysis. Shmuel Rosner writes, quote, we calculated the following. If you think global warming is a major danger, what is the likelihood you also hold. Hold other various views? We calculated the likelihood that you hold those same views. If, in your assessment, global warming is not a major danger as well. Turns out if you are a climate skeptic, there is a 28% chance that you support civil marriage in Israel. That's marriage without the rabbis. If you are concerned about climate change, there is an 84% chance that you support civil marriage. In other words, there is a threefold difference in the likelihood that you support civil marriage. And that difference can be identified simply from your level of concern about climate change. Of course, there is no intrinsic connection between civil marriage and global warming. They are separate issues that ostensibly should have no relationship one to the other. And indeed, with respect to the other three threats, nuclear weapons, social networks, and artificial intelligence. There is almost no consistent or clear relationship between levels of concern and views on other issues. But climate change is a special case. The climate question can be used as a kind of key for inferring positions on other issues. Instead of asking, do you want Netanyahu to remain Prime Minister? You can ask, how concerned are you about climate change? Instead of asking, do you think Israel is winning the war? You can ask, rate your level of concern about climate change, end quote. So, Alison, why the hell is that? Shmuel Rosenher has his own theory, but I'm eager to hear yours first.
- [56:07]
B
First.
- [56:07]
D
Oh, I think you probably know mine. And that's, you know, where my finger pointing usually is. Is that religion, religion, religion that we're talking about people who believe that, you know, all, as it happens, with, with solving Israel's conflicts with its neighbors and, and having sort of, you know, endless occupation and absorbing millions of Palestinians without offering them rights, rights to vote, You Know, God will figure it out. God will provide, you know, if you have faith, there's not going to be a destruction of the planet through climate change and, and Israel is not, is not doomed. So I mean, my personal opinion is that, and I would like to see the exact breakdown obviously to, to prove my point between religion and. Not religion, but the, the Venn diagram between political views and religion. Religious level of observance here is, is, is getting pretty clear. So I would think that that kind of would be the obvious explanation for people being chill about climate change. Because if you believe there's an Almighty who really loves the Jewish people as much or more than anyone else, so you believe that, that he's going to save the planet in order to save the Jews. Am I being too cynical?
- [57:21]
A
Not, not too cynical, but it's, there's still a question that you have left unanswered, which is if you ask religious people are you worried about AI, Then they'll give answers that are similar to everyone else. There's no correlation between your political views and how you feel about AI and whether it poses a danger to humanity. And even more immediate for us, that's true also of nuclear annihilation. We've spent a lot of time the last year talking about whether Iran is gonna get a bomb and whether they're gonna drop it on Tel Aviv and elsewhere in Israel. And you can be worried about that or you can not be worried about that, but there's no correlation between that and how you feel about Benjamin Netanyahu and how you feel about the judicial reform and how you feel about the ultra orthodox. Climate change, though, is deeply, closely, remarkably linked to those things. So that if you're worried about climate change like I am, then you want Netanyahu of office. If you're worried about climate change like I am, you want the ultra orthodox in the army. If you're worried about climate change like I am, you want the judicial reform to be stopped in statistically to a remarkable degree. And why. So why is that in light of the fact that, that there's no such correlation with your concern about whether Iran is going to drop a bomb on us?
- [58:52]
D
I don't know. Maybe, you know, the, the Earth, I don't know, seems more God driven or controlled by the forces of the Lord than the, than a, or nuclear weapons or something like that. I mean, I was thinking about the link between the civil marriage support and the climate change concern that that was pointing in the direction of religion. But why don't we go over what shmuel Rosner thinks and what you think,
- [59:18]
A
well, Shmuel Rasner says what we learn from this is that climate change has undergone the process of politicization. It's like climate change. We've been arguing about climate change for 30 or 40 years and it's already like deeply a matter of political identity. It has kind of gotten tied up in identity politics. So that if you view yourself as being right wing in general, then you're going to think that climate change is a hoax because the political leaders that you trust have told you that. And basically, you know, you don't think through the issues. But these other issues, like nuclear annihilation, haven't yet gone through this process of being politicized. So people actually think about the issue and what they think about the actual dangers of the particular thing in question. And they don't have something just to pull out of their, you know, bag of positions that are determined by identity
- [60:30]
D
politics to certainly not with AI, 100% not with AI.
- [60:34]
A
And so then, so then you get, you know, much more interesting and much more varied opinions about, about those issues that note that don't immediately map onto what we think about, about politics. So that's his explanation for it. He seems quite confident that that is, is what it is. But I don't know if I entirely believe that too. In Israel, I haven't experienced climate change as being like in the United States. I understand how if you're a MAGA sort, then you think that climate change is a hoax, you're almost required to. And if you're a MAGA sort, then you think that vaccines are a hoax because you're almost required to and you don't need to think through the issue. But I don't, until this came up in the newspaper this weekend, I did not, would not have said that climate change is that way in Israel. Do you experience it being that way? Do you think that if you're in the Likud, you're less likely to think that climate change is a real thing than if you're in Benny Gantz's party or the Labour Party. The Democrats got him.
- [61:44]
D
I mean, you're more likely, I think, to believe that we don't have the time and energy or bandwidth to like really care about this or worry about it. And it's something that I've experienced in Israel since I came here in the 1990s when people, you know, are concerned about the environment and were concerned about conservation and then it turned into climate change was like, oh, you know, we have such more immediate problems to care about. You know, who cares about this? It's whatever, probably hundreds of years away and, and it doesn't matter. So maybe, Noah, it's an issue of prioritization rather than, you know, sexual concern.
- [62:19]
A
I think that you're exactly right about that. I think that you're exactly right and Shmuel Rosner is exactly wrong about this and that that is, and until you said it, it hadn't occurred to me at all. But maybe the issue is that these views on the right, that thinking that climate change is not really an important issue for you are correlated with, with are all views that think that we need to worry about our own at this particular moment. And climate change is this big world issue. So it just doesn't matter so much to me. We're a small country at war, embattled, and we need to worry about ourselves. But you can't make the same argument for nuclear annihilation because nuclear annihilation is something that, that really affects us right here. And so you're just as likely to care about that if all you care about are our local concerns here in Israel as if you care about the entire world. Maybe the real issue with maybe climate change is an outlier because climate change is about the world and all these other things are really about my household and my community and my country. And that's the reason why they're aligned with right wing and left wing political.
- [63:39]
D
And I think they put them in the same package as like, you know, worrying about the oppression of women or worrying about, you know, refugees or asylum. You know, in the package climate change is there and sort of the namby pamby liberal issues that, that the elites wring their hands about and aren't really our real problems.
- [63:59]
A
Well, I mean that goes back to what Rosner himself said, that somehow it's gone through the ringer of politicization. And so we know, we just feel it when somebody says climate change, that it aligns with our other politics either because we're a mamby pamby liberal or because we hate wokeness and we're the opposite.
- [64:20]
D
Or we're tribal. We're tribal and this is a universal concern.
- [64:26]
A
Then that brings us back to the other thing that you said. Or maybe they're linked in some way. Maybe what you're saying is they're linked in some way that I do not yet see. But I really like your interpretation that it is tribal.
- [64:41]
D
I'm just throwing spaghetti at the wall, Noah. You can try to connect the strands, but I'm Just throwing out ideas here,
- [64:47]
A
though you're gonna be happy to be the one who writes the article saying Shmuel Rasner. I think that there's a better explanation than the one that you've given because it's your idea. Unfortunately, I can pretend I can say my friend Alice and I can write my friend Alice in Toll me that. But that is because it is a really fascinating to me finding this is a correlation of in the high 80s, 80% between whether you think that Netanyahu should continue to be prime minister and whether you think that climate change is a problem. And that is a really remarkable fact. But, but maybe, maybe a key to it is the tribalism that you were talking about. Anyone out there, if you have your own ideas, we'd be delighted to hear. Now, listen to this.
- [65:51]
D
Set.
- [67:07]
A
You know that song is Loko Esset by Shira Knop, who grew up in Noam, clearly the easiest path to pop stardom in Israel. You can find the songs you heard today in all the usual places, obviously. And now it is time for About A Country segment. This is a part of the show in which each of us describes something that may be surprised or amused, delighted or enchanted and sort of sold or possibly even fluked us as we wended our way through our worlds over the last little while. Alison, what is your. What a country. Country.
- [67:34]
D
Well, Noah, there's no doubt about it. Being under Iranian missile fire is no fun.
- [67:40]
A
No doubt about it.
- [67:41]
D
It is an interesting exercise in human psychology, at least examining my own psychology, that somehow life feels simpler and easier when we are fully in it, when we know to expect sirens and alerts and what to do. Like we know the drill by now. And the uncertainty of will it happen today? Will it happen tonight? Will it happen tomorrow? Should I plan anything? Should I plan this swiveling situation we had this week when on Sunday, the sirens and missiles started up. Everyone was geared up. They went back into. People were joking. Oh, back into a routine that's familiar, that we understand. Large events were canceled, including the wedding of a close friend's daughter. I was supposed to attend Monday night. And then Trump says, stop and whoops, whoop. Back to normal, everyone. So my poor friends and their daughter. Had her wedding been a day earlier or a day later, she would have been fine. It was on that one night, that one day, my husband's university's graduation for hundreds of students, thousands maybe, including their friends and family, was set for Tuesday night. Bleachers were built, ceremonies were planned. You know, this thing was planned for months and then boom, everything was canceled. And then a few hours later, boom, everything was reinstated. So just for example, on Monday morning they canceled an order for 2,000 sandwiches. And on Monday evening they reordered the 2,000 sandwiches. So as of this recording, on Thursday the US did attack Iran pretty seriously on Wednesday night. I don't know about you Noah, but everyone I know went to bed early in preparation of a middle of the night wake up from a siren. And then happily, as you may hear in my non exhausted voice, it didn't happen. So how do we keep saying in all of this? I'm keeping a running list of the silver linings of being in high alert status so when it happens it doesn't feel so bad. You can add to the list if you want. Noah. First and foremost for a suburban commuter is traffic to Tel Aviv. When there is no war, it is a bumper to bumper nightmare at peak hours in the morning and afternoon. In wartime I just glide along happy and free with a smile on my face even when there's a delay for a missile alert where I have to pull over to the side of the road. The total time getting into Tel Aviv is not as long as on a normal non war day. And that goes for double, Mr. City Councilman for parking in Tel Aviv. A it's a breeze, there's more room because people aren't going into the city and B the police have better things to do with their time than ticket people, so you can kind of get away with stuff. It's a shame that we're taping remotely today because I could have parked so easily outside the studio. Etai wouldn't have even had to pay for my parking space spot. Another plus, it's a good great excuse for avoiding anything you don't want to attend. Oh, I'm sorry, I can't make it to the 7am Bris. I'm just too scared to go into the car. There might be a rocket attack. Same thing goes for being late or changing meetings around or postponing visits with friends or family you don't particularly feel like meeting. I just can't do it, you know, the war and everything. There's low rates at really good hotels and resorts in Israel because there are no tourists. Tourists you can get reservations at the best restaurants at a moment's notice and no lines at the hot new place to get hamburgers or knafe. If you are in fact not afraid of going out, there's a lot that you can do easily and at a low price. Another plus, you go into bomb shelters in different neighborhoods. It's a sociological experience. It's a chance to make new friends. And if you're single, hey, well, you get to mingle. And there is a certain segment of the population that is actively rooting, hoping, crossing their fingers for Iranian attacks at this time of year in June. Noah, can you guess who it is? Who are those people you have to use for? You're very close to this segment of the population.
- [71:39]
A
Students not wanting to take their exams.
- [71:41]
D
Absolutely. Especially the high school matriculation exams. They give huge easings of grading because their study sessions were interrupted. You can't expect high school students to know things that they weren't properly taught on a normal schedule. Hakalot they're called, like easing of grades and the grading curve. For some it's the difference between getting into a university faculty that they want and not. So there are actively high school students who are hoping the Iranians throw missiles at us. Noah, I'm sure that soft hearted professors like you also give them a break in the university grading, am I right?
- [72:16]
A
Oh, all my students always get good grades. I'm not a grade person. Yeah, give them all somewhere between 90 and 100.
- [72:26]
D
So this is all tongue in cheek. Of course. As the Netflix series title says, nobody wants this when it comes to war with Iran, but if we're stuck with it, we might as well look on
- [72:36]
A
the bright side here, here. That is some primo glass half fullness right there. So for me, Mira, who I work with in the city, met through channels two men, a nephew and an uncle named Omri and Baru Baruch Shmuelevich Omri is the nephew and he is a musician of some reputation in indie circles and also an artist. And Baruch, he's the uncle, he's a tour guide and a historian. And the two of them have this idea that since the 90th anniversary of the Israel Philharmonics, then the Palestine Philharmonics first performance is coming up. It was on the day after Christmas in 1936, outside at the exhibition grounds. Arturo Toscanini conducted it and the orchestra was filled with 75 of Europe's greatest musicians who Branislav Huberman had picked after holding auditions in Warsaw and Prague, Krakow and Budapest. This as the Nazis were growing stronger and more violent. Huberman was equally creating one of the great orchestras in all of history and saving the lives of some of the great musicians of the 20th century. And the nephew and the uncle Shmulevich were full of charm and charisma and bonhomie. And their ideas were all very good ones. Walking tours and a concert at the same spot at the exhibition grounds and public lectures. So I think that maybe we're gonna find some way to do them. I hope, I think, and it's kind of cool, that this is just a Monday morning meeting on the schedule. Ho hum. And then, as things are winding down, Baruch Shmulevich is talking about the neighborhood near Hekhala Tarboot, the Culture palace where the orchestra moved to in 1957 and has played there ever since. And he, Baruch, starts to muse about a tiny street that is back there that I've never been on, right behind Huberman street, as the street is called right now. And this tiny street is called, called Rehov Chaim ve Elisha. Chaim and Elisha street, which is a strange thing. It is named after two poets who really did not have that much to do with one another, Chaim Lansky and Alicia Roden. Both men wrote poems in Hebrew and also in Yiddish, and both were killed by Stalin. That's what they had to do, one with the other. And the reason why they became a street in television together is because in 1954, after they had both been executed, a writer and a poet here in Tel Aviv named Avraham Kariv put out a book called Hanaf Hagadua, the Severed Branch. And it had the poems of Chaim Lansky and Alicia Roden in them. So the pairing from the book became the name of the street. But Baruch Shmulevich says that he's given got another pairing on his mind. He says, Chaim Nachman Bialik loved Chaim Lansky's poetry, and he, Bialik, published it in journals that he edited, and he talked it up everywhere. And Baruch Shmulevich goes on and he says, Chaim Lansky, who was an astonishing poet, he has a poem that became a song, Leilot Lilach. It's called Laila Lack Nights. And as soon as Baruch Shmulevich says these words, lelot lilach Mira, she starts to sing the song that is based on the poem. And then Baruch Shmulevich, he joins her. And they sing that for a while. And then Baruch Shmulevich goes on about the poem and the song, and he says, this is a poem and song about love. And the end of it goes, quote, every bird in the garden cries, you foolish quibbler or pedant, you pedantic fool. And Baruch Shmulevic goes on and says, I always felt that this was Lansky's answer to Bialik, because Bialik wrote, they say that there is love in the world, but how do we know what love is? That's what Baruch said in my office, and I had to look it up later, and I learned when I did that Baruch Shmulevich is talking about a famous poem by Bialik called Hakhniseni tachat knafech take me under your wing, where he writes, they say there is love in the world, but what is love? Love. Omrim ahavayesh ba' olam mazot ahava. And Baruch Shmulevich says, what Chaim Lansky was saying to Bialik is, it's foolish for you to ask that question. It's just asking the question for the sake of asking the question. What Chaim Lansky is saying is, love is love, and we know that love is love, and we know what love is, is. And maybe if you go into a random meeting in City hall in London on a Monday morning, they're talking about Shakespeare and Marlowe, and maybe if you walk into the halls of the Hotel de Ville in Paris, the City hall there, you'll overhear people talking about Paul Valery and Andre Breton. And maybe if you knock on the door in City hall in New York, you'll interrupt someone going on and on about William Carlos Williams and Allen Ginsberg. I don't know. I mean, I hope that you would find those things. But what I do know is, is that that kind of unhinged apropos of not much of anything at all, besotted revelry in language and poetry and history and song and street names. Oh, I got right away that that was all very wonderful to hear, but it did not seem even a little bit surprising. It really, to me, at that moment, seemed just like Monday morning at City Hall. And that brings us to the end of our show. Thanks to Itay Schelem, our station manager, without whom there would be none of this. Thanks to Achi Bolim, my favorite band from Kibbutz Geva. They give us music at the start and the end of our show. Thank you, Alison. Thank you, Natalie. We'd like to thank all of our Patreon supporters for your generosity and support. It keeps the show going. It keeps the station going, and it keeps us moved and grateful and very much in your debt. And we'd like to thank all of you out there for taking the time to listen. And we want to ask you to. To like us on Facebook and drop us a line, though the line would best be dropped through patreon.com Facebook has become. Well, you know what Facebook has become, but we are going eventually to answer. After you do that, go to Apple Podcasts and give us a five star review. Maybe one that starts like this one that my chatbot coughed up when I asked it to review the podcast. Quote the Promise Podcast is so committed to seeing complexity from every angle that it risks forgetting that listeners might occasionally want to know what the hosts actually think. Which is one way to look at it. And you can finish that any way you want. But before you do that, remember as we learned from Woman of mystery Lindsay Blau, who wrote to Clue us in and whose profile is a quokka and who seems maybe to be an Australian expat living in La Pitos, Cyprus. Though then again, maybe not that. Just a few days ago, on June 5th, we celebrated international Dead Duck Day, so stipulated to commemorate June 5, 1995, 31 years ago, when at exactly 5:55 in the evening a mallard duck died after flying full speed into the glass wall of the then new wing of the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam, after which the deceased duck was and there's really no good way to say this, but I report it not for prurient reasons, but because it is an essential element of of this very important story, after which the deceased duck was well mounted by another duck for a 75 minute session of copulation, which session was observed and documented by biologist Case Maliker, who was then the curator of the museum and who eventually published his observations in the scientific journal Dacia under the title the first case of Homosexual Necrophilia in the mallard Annas Platorinkos, for which article he was awarded an IG Nobel Prize. And after that a tradition developed at the Rotterdam Museum of Natural History, as Kees Melicher explains, On June 5th every
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year at five minutes to six in the afternoon, we come together at the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam. The duck comes out of the museum and we try to discuss new ways to prevent birds from colliding with windows. And when it's over we go to a Chinese restaurant and we have a six course duck dinner. Thank you.
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Since then the celebration of Dead Duck Day has spread around the world, as you can learn@deadduckday.com which is a good spot to start your quest to fulfill all your immediate Dead Duck Day needs. And I probably not need to tell you that I absolutely adore Dead Duck Day. It's probably my favorite day the entire year and I spent this year's Dead Duck Day, watching Case Muliker's very charming TED Talk and his IG Nobel Prize acceptance speech, and reading the subreddit devoted to the subject, and going through the literally hundreds of sites filled with primo Dead Duckiana and rewatching Pretty in Pink, you know, because of Duck, who is very much alive. But the whole time, really, the whole time, I simply could not shake the thought that soon Dead Duck Day would be gone. Like the mallards who winter here in Israel and then come March they fly back north on their way to nest in Turkey or the Caucasus or Russia, not to be seen here for almost a whole nother year. Not so the Promise Podcast. We will be back for you next week and most every week, reminding you that while oftentimes you soar majestically through life, held aloft by way the the winds, confident of your place in the V, finding comfort in the companions traveling with you, there are other times when you smack right into a wall that by all rights you really couldn't possibly have seen tumbling to earth, where you feel like you are being subjected to unspeakable indignities. On this, the Promised podcast, Sam.