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Unholy: Two Jews on the News
Ceasefire on day 40 - with Bret Stephens and Amir Fuchs
01:20:32
Follow Unholy and learn more about the pod: https://unholy-podcast.lovable.app/ Join our Patreon community to get access to bonus episodes: https://bit.ly/UnholyPatreon Day 40 of the US-Israel war on Iran — and it's ceasefire. But the relief is complicated: Israeli bombardment of Hezbollah in Lebanon has already shifted the world's anger from Washington back to Jerusalem. Bret Stephens, opinion columnist at the New York Times and one of the conflict's most prominent intellectual defenders, joins Yonit and Jonathan to take stock — was it worth it, what was actually achieved, and what does an inconclusive ending mean for Israel's standing with a younger American generation that's turning away. Then: the death penalty bill that slipped through the Knesset on Erev Pesach. Dr. Amir Fuchs of the Israeli Democracy Institute was inside those committee rooms. He explains what passed and who it targets.
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- [00:03]
A
The history of Israel's wars is a history of kicking cans down the road. I mean, that's how Israel has stayed alive these past 78 or so years. 1956 solved Israel's problems for a while, then came 67. I mean, that's the story. Israel has enough power to postpone reckonings, but not to end them.
- [00:37]
B
It's unholy. I'm Yonit Levy in Tel Aviv.
- [00:40]
C
And I'm Jonathan Friedland in London.
- [00:43]
B
And the clock stops on day 40. It's ceasefire. The voice you heard at the top of the show is Bret Stephens of the New York Times. We'll talk about the war with him. And also later in the program, as the coalition here in Israel continues its legislation, Missiles or no missiles. We will discuss the extremely controversial death penalty bill with an expert who sat on in the committee deliberations in the Knesset. But for now, Jonathan, can I share with you a little bit about a little bit of what went through my head when I woke up this morning?
- [01:11]
C
Well, you tell me. I'm not gonna guess what goes through your mind, but my word, what a week it's been from where you are. So yes, walk me through it.
- [01:19]
B
What a week, what 40 days? I mean, we should say we're talking on Thursday afternoon. On the night, very early on Wednesday, it was clear that a ceasefire was taking hold. After 40 days of war between the US and Israel versus Iran. I. And just to say, I woke up Thursday morning and the first thought I had in my head was, what is this feeling? It's nice, but I don't know what it is. And then I realized, oh, I've actually slept through the night. After 40 nights of being interrupted all the time by sirens, alerts, safe rooms, shelters, missiles and other, you know, interceptors, finally there was a night of sleep. So that was my first thought and followed right by my second thought, which was, oh dear, schools have been closed for 40 days. I think that when schools abruptly. And now they're going to open, of course, or reopened on Thursday. I think that when I, when the schools abruptly closed 40 days ago, I did not remove the lunch boxes from my kids backpacks.
- [02:27]
A
So,
- [02:29]
C
so hang on, when you opened up the lunch boxes, you're telling me there was completely rotten, moldy, disgusting old food still inside? Is that basically what we're hearing?
- [02:39]
B
I'm not gonna share the gruesome details, but it wasn't pretty.
- [02:42]
C
Oh,
- [02:44]
B
look, I mean, all joking aside, it was a very strange feeling on Tuesday night, Israel time, when it began to be clear that A ceasefire is in motion. It was first, I think, the Pakistani Prime Minister who announced it it at 10:30pm and I was sitting with friends and one of them asked me, you know, what should I be feeling now? I said, look, I don't know what we should be feeling. I know what I'm feeling. The first feeling is a feeling of relief, right? We've been in sort of acute danger for 40 days. We're relieved we don't have to drive on the road and think, oh, I'm not covered. If there are missiles here and we don't have to sit in a safe room with our families thinking, oh, what happens if there's a direct hit of a missile? And as I said, a relief that you got a whole night's sleep and that schools are opening up and flights are returning and that we regain control over our schedule and our lives and it's back to normal. But what kind of normal is it? I mean, that is, I think, where we are right now. Israelis are incredibly tough and resourceful and resilient and they can, you know, go into war mode very quickly and go out of war mode. We are required to do that as quickly as well. But the fact that we can do it doesn't mean that we deserve to do it. I mean, the fact that we can stand it doesn't mean that we should stand it.
- [03:59]
C
One of the responses we get from people who listen to the podcast is that, look, they know it's not the only event or even the main event. There's obviously huge impact for the. For the people of Iran, people in Lebanon and one fifth of the population displaced. But one of the few places, some people say the only place they've actually been hearing about life on the sort of home front in Israel is through this podcast. And just there, actually, you prompted in my mind a question. We know that the Passover, the Passa holiday, has been complete just for those. For that period, there wouldn't have been school anyway. But for Those, it's been 40 days, as you've explained, children at home, you know, you and I know that just from the podcast and what we've had to do in terms of recording. But what. It's not the main point, but I'm just interested. Have people been homeschooling? Have the schools been running kind of zoom video classes? You know, probably should have asked you this earlier, but now that it's drawn to a closing, kids about what has actually happened in terms of the schooling, because we all remember the pandemic five, six years ago. But what's, what's that been like?
- [04:59]
B
I mean, first of all, to be honest, I think part of the feeling here among Israelis is that the education system wasn't properly prepared for this prolonged war. 40 days of a war with Iran is a long time. And there were some zoom classes, but they were pretty, again, my kids are all in elementary school. They were pretty brief and intermittent. And I think that one of the things that you realize being a parent with kids at home, 40 days is that your boundaries, right, that you kind of set as a parent the difference between right and wrong. And, you know, what you should do or you shouldn't do or can't do or can do, they tend to become quite flexible after 40 days. So, you know, you know, mom, can I stay up until midnight? Yes. Can I eat only marshmallows for a week? Yes. Can I play Xbox the whole day? Yes. All that needs to be built back, rebuilt now, Jonathan.
- [05:56]
C
So, no, I mean, the version, as I say, that people outside Israel will remember is the pandemic and lockdown. Lockdown. And some of what you're describing there, when you said the boundary between right and wrong, I was thinking the boundary between day and night, all of that. So, look, you know, obviously that has been how it's been experienced, but in terms of the politics, the geopolitics of this, the observation I was going to make from the outside was, was this, that for 40 days, the brunt of the, the world's kind of disapproval of this war, and this is an extremely unpopular war around the world, has been Donald Trump and the U.S. the anger there is about this war has been directed chiefly, not entirely at Washington and at the Americans and Pete Hegser. They have been the kind of face of this war which has very, very, as I said, low kind of approval around the world. In the last 40 hours since the ceasefire, I'm afraid there has been a shift and the focus is very much now on Israel and its continuing of the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, because there is a ceasefire. And everyone, you know, not in the direct way you're describing in Israel, but everyone's relieved that there's at least a pause in this thing. And what they currently, what is seen to be the thing that is putting that ceasefire under great strain is this continual Israeli bombardment of Lebanon. Israel and others say, yep, that was never part of the ceasefire. That was not within the scope of the. The Iranians and the Pakistanis have been saying it absolutely was. It was explicitly said that the ceasefire bound Israel not to Hit Lebanon. JD Vance said it's a legitimate misunderstanding, as if somehow there was a communication breakdown between the diplomats who negotiated this. I mean, that's extraordinary if true. But it just means that something like Wednesday when there was this huge bombardment, the biggest of the 40 day period by Israel against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, killing it said the Lebanese end 254 people. You know, that has been seen as now the the focus let that stop in order for the war to stop. And so suddenly Israel is in the foreground as the diplomats converge. Again, I say diplomats, it's not diplomats that's part of the problem. As Steve Whitkoff, Jared Kushner, J.D. vance, apparently as Thursday afternoon London and Israel time as they head to Islamabad to meet the Iranian opposite numbers, that has become the focus. And whether or not Israel will stop because that will make a ceasefire easier, whether the Americans will order Israel to stop in order that there be a ceasefire or even. It's popped into my mind is Netanyahu doing this because he's not that happy that this war is over. He wants the Americans to finish the job and would if ceasefire breaks down, not a great tragedy from his point of view. That's the questions that I'm having my mind right now. And I'd be interested to know what people are saying where you are about that.
- [09:11]
B
I mean, first of all, we have to say the question still lingers here. Does this ceasefire mean that this war is now over? As you say, the Lebanese question, very interesting here because you detailed it very well. Israel thinks or Netanyahu saying this is not part of it. The United States for now backing Israel, but it's not clear how long there have been rockets fired at Israel and drones. There has been, as you said, Israel attacking Hezbollah headquarters, but with many casualties. And we don't know where this is heading. Also, we should add, you know, the tens of thousands of residents in the northern part of Israel whose life has been hell. And they are not feeling the relief that I described in the in central Israel and the southern part of Israel because they don't know where this is heading. Look, I think part of what we're seeing now and this sort of feeling here, the sentiment here in Israel is to do with the gap between what Israelis were promised and what transpired, right. What we were prepared for and what actually happened. And I remind you that when this started, Jonathan, 40 days ago, it was the briefing from the prime minister's office that said there were three goals of the regime change. Elimination of the nuclear threat, elimination of the missile threat. And this, in fact, was eight months after the prime minister had stood in front of the Israeli public and said, we remove the existential threat of the nuclear threat and the ballistic threat, and we achieved a victory for generations to come. And I think what many Israelis feel today is, look, if we are capable of dealing with war, we are capable of dealing with the truth. And I think that it would have been different if the Israeli prime minister had said, look, we are recognizing that Iran is accelerating its ballistic missile program, and we have to deal with that. And we recognize that Iran has still 440 kg of enriched uranium, and we have to deal with that. And we are going to war to deal with these specific issues that have become urgent. And that is different. And also when it comes to Hezbollah, remember after the Beeper operation in the end of November of 2024, Netanyahu had said, we pushed Hezbollah back decades. This is no longer science fiction. We did it. End quote. And again, if you had said to the Israeli public and prepared them and said, look, this is a very long war against a terror army. Our goals are to move them away from the border and to not have a threat of invasion into northern Israel, I think it would have been different. And that is where the sort of sentiment today in this country is.
- [11:49]
C
Yeah, I find that so interesting. I've mentioned, I think before that I think there is this phenomenon of Trump inflation that the habit of hyperbole that is such a big part of Trump has spread so that Netanyahu now talks in a way. I don't know if he talked this way before over claiming, over promising. It's destroyed. It's generations. This is the best victory ever. I don't think he talked that way, but he certainly talks that way now. And as you absolutely say Israelis, I think people around the world can see the reality. So that the American administration, Pete Hegseth, talking about this is victory with a capital V. The Iranians were desperate. They were begging us for a ceasefire. Their ballistic threat, it's gone. That's the rhetoric. But people can see the reality with their own eyes. And so you're telling people Iran has no missiles left while you, Yonit, and your fellow Israelis were sitting there in shelters because missiles were still coming in. So you cannot keep. Keep saying it. And the relevance of all this is, as we never tire of saying on the podcast, 2026 is an election year in Israel. And the main question on the ballot, as it has been for a long time now, is to Bibi or not to Bibi. You know, is he going to get reelected as prime minister or not? And let's just think about how significant this particular war is in terms of him. He has wanted this and argued for it for much shy of 40 years. For four decades, he has been making this argument that this regime has to be removed. And then you think, you look at what he's actually achieved. This is going to be the record he goes into the election with. That October 7th happened on his watch. He promised that Hamas would be destroyed. It promised it wasn't. They're still governing. He said, as you said just now, Hezbollah set back for generations. They were actually set back a matter of months. The Iranian regime is more extreme and more powerful now than they were before. The same Iranian regime that has been the cause of his, of his political career and professional life. Meanwhile, support for Israel among Americans, Republicans and Democrats alike, is plunging. So that's his record as he goes into an election. And to me, the big question is, can the opposition parties divided, fragmented, can they make that case, that prosecution case against him? I thought friend of the podcast Amos Harel of Haaretz put it very, very succinctly when he wrote this is now the fourth time in a row in Gaza, once in Lebanon and twice in Iran, that his boasts of total victory and the removal of existential threats have been exposed as empty promises. That is the case in a nutshell. And for Israelis sitting in shelters, at what point do they just say, we've had it with you and you're over promising and your false claims?
- [14:50]
B
First of all, it's interesting to say that Naftali Bennett, who is Netanyahu's main rival in these elections, already sat in the studio a week ago and he said to me, he said, look, Netanyahu cannot win in Gaza. He cannot win Hezbollah. And about Iran, we'll have to wait. So you already see the message box with the opposition. By the way, I'm not sure that we are in a situation to say that the Iranian leadership is more powerful than it was before the war. But I think we can go into that discussion also with our guest Brett Stevens. But you're right in the sense that this is what the opposition is taking on to say. You already heard both Yair Lapid, official head of the opposition, and Naftali Bennett saying on Wednesday that this war was a failure. I think you'll continue to hear it again and again. But I also think, and by the way, very interestingly, when Netanyahu spoke to the Israeli public again yesterday on Wednesday with it was not a press conference. It was just his announcement. He didn't use the words we eliminated an existential threat, which he did in the past, he said, which means we pushed back an existential threat. He knows better than everyone now that the point is to be, I think, more accurate than he was in the past. He also said this battle is not over yet. So this will be the question. But we are still a little bit, we have still time before the elections, whether they are on September 1st or their original date, which is October 27th, 2026. I think there's enough time for the most talented politician, I would argue perhaps in the world to still pull out a few tricks from his sleeve.
- [16:31]
C
Well, yeah, I would never ever write him off. And I agree with you as a political operator, there's a reason why people have talked about him as the magician. He is astonishingly adept. But partly he has been helped by having political opponents who have never quite been able to crystallize the case against him. And I think this thing of promising and then not delivering could be a problem. As you say, he's adjusting the vocabulary in a really interesting way. And the Americans are not doing that, incidentally. They haven't been able to quite to do that, although different voices do different things. So Hegseth's claiming it's total obliteration, destruction, etc. And I noticed JD Vance saying, completely rewriting history, saying our goal, we only had one goal in this war which was to degrade Iran's military capability. I mean, as if that was the stated goal 40 days ago. It really wasn't the state. The, the goal was much more, more ambitious than that. But yeah, if the goal was just simply degrade and weaken, take out some of their kit for a few weeks, that's happened. But if the goal was much bigger than that, which it really was, then I think it's, you know, as J.D. vance is and actually Netanyahu is signaling not achieved. I, we, we will, as you say, get into this much more with our guest. Bret Stephens is a leading commentator on US Politics and foreign affairs and has been an opinion columnist at the New York Times since 2017. He is a former editor of the Jerusalem Post and is the current editor in chief of Sapir, a journal of Jewish conversations. Earlier this year, he gave a state of World jury address in New York City. Bret Stephens, welcome to Unholy.
- [18:22]
A
It's nice to see you both again.
- [18:24]
C
We're glad to have you. And I've been wanting to have this conversation for a while because you were one of the people who came out early and has consistently been against a sort of a trend, among other commentators, a defender of the war, the U. S. Israel war on Iran, that you've seen its merits, you have no illusions about Donald Trump, that's absolutely clear in your commentary. But now that we. There is this very fragile ceasefire and now that we can assess the 40 days, the gains and losses, do you still think this war was. Is a good idea?
- [19:03]
A
You know, events may change so dramatically between the time this conversation begins and by the time it ends that there's, there's no telling whether my, my judgment stands. But my basic attitude, at least right now, is a sort of Dayenu attitude, maybe in the spirit of the holiday. I think that the threat that Israel and really the entire region and also ultimately the United States faced by the strategy that Iran had been employing, which was a kind of a North Korea style strategy, to build up a missile force so formidable that it would render its nuclear programs effectively impregnable, that that threat was so serious that the fact that it has now been very substantially degraded, although I think nobody knows for sure just how degraded. I don't know if the Iranians know for sure how degraded. I think that has bought us five, 10 years at least, or I hope for events to unfold in Iran, for the possibility of public protest to turn into the regime change that was cruelly aborted back in January. So on that ground alone, I think that this war can't be judged a failure. It can't be judged a failure also because I think the regime has sustained such serious blows that it will proceed in a kind of a zombified state. Despite its bluster, despite its threats, despite the capabilities it retains. It's going to be a kind of a zombie state for several years. I don't think it's ever going to recover the strength it had on the eve of October 7, when it was not only in firm control of its own territory, but ruled much of the Middle east through its now decimated proxies. But if this ceasefire holds and if things stop where they are now, I think we'll judge this a very incomplete victory and an incomplete victory that we will quite possibly come to rue a few years down the road. So Niels Bohr, the great Danish physicist, said, prediction is very difficult, particularly when it's about the future. I think that's where we are now.
- [21:57]
B
You know, I have to quote something that a senior defense, Israeli Defense official said to my network to Channel 12 yesterday. He said, quote, we must admit the truth for now, the objectives of the war had not been achieved, especially not the removal of the nuclear threat for which we launched the operation. The operational achievements are very good, but at this stage there is no achievement that constitutes a strategic turning point, end quote. And I think that the feeling here in this country, as much as I can represent it, is the gap between what was promised to the Israeli public, right, regime change, annihilation of the nuclear program, annihilation of the ballistic missile program, and what at the end of 40 days, the point we're at, and I wonder if you can speak about that,
- [22:39]
A
that defense official or that official who said that, I think is right. Look, let me take a step back, Yanit. If you look at the history, Israel's security history from 1948 onward, with the notable exception of the peace with Egypt and I guess with Jordan too, the history of Israel's wars is a history of kicking cans down the road. I mean, that's how Israel has stayed alive these past 78 or so years. 1956 solved Israel's problems for a while, then came 67. I mean, that's, that's the story. Israel has enough power to postpone reckonings, but not to end them. I think that's kind of the history now. Again, I don't think the story with Iran's nuclear file is over, but again, it's true that as it stands, Iran retains some capabilities to reconstitute a program that poses an existential threat to the state. And being this close or seemingly this close to a potential finish line with Iran, it seems a great waste not to go the additional distance. So I understand that there are all kinds of considerations in terms of the removal of the nuclear material in Isfahan. Isfahan. Some well sourced or well placed sources of mine tell me that the material in Isfahan is as good as useless to the Iranians because we have eyes on it the whole time. It's in a gas form that can't easily be turned into the uranium metal that's required for a nuclear bomb. But this site called Pickaxe Mountain has not, to my knowledge, been touched. And that's going to be the next impregnable fordo. And the problem is going to remain very much a living one if this really is, if this shaky ceasefire really is the end of it.
- [25:03]
C
I mean, doesn't that in a way sort of temper the argument you're making? I take your point about incompleteness, but, but given that you just said the nuclear capability is, it's certainly not Gone. I mean, even if it is rendered less operable than it was before, it's not gone. And your point about postponement, I think that's absolutely right. But 56 to 67, that's worth it. That's an 11 year postponement. It seems like this is buying from June to now. In June, President Trump said it was obliterated. It was. A few months is all it brought. And similarly, what Israel, Netanyahu said about Hezbollah, a few months, it wasn't some long term setback to the capabilities of Israel's enemies. Even if it were, you then have to set that against the gains from Iran's point of view. And I know you wrote a very arresting column just now from the point of view of a sort of IRGC apparatchik and how he can look at the landscape and think actually is things are less good than the Western punditocracy would have you believe. But what I can't help but notice is that for one thing, they have gained a weapon that has maybe they had it theoretically before, but now they demonstrably have it. And that is an economic weapon. They can hold the global economy more or less to ransom through the Strait of Hormuz. They've shown that that wasn't clear to them or to the rest of the world, or maybe it was to them, but to the rest of the world before, to the point where the world economy is scrambling to deal with what Iran and the regime there can do. And the other point is about the radicalism of this regime. And we don't know about the supreme leader, the new one, but it's reported that, for example, the new national security advisor of the Iranian regime is a man so extreme, the replacement of Ali Laranjani, so extreme that when he was appointed several years ago to a different job, Qassem Soleimani himself resigned because he could not work with such an extreme, hawkish character. This man is now the national security advisor. It's only one example, but there's very little in there that makes me think this regime is either weaker because it's got this huge economic weapon or that it is anyway more, you know, more placable. It seems more implacable to me. That's how I'm seeing it. But I know I'm, in a way, I'm just the kind of person you were talking about in that column you wrote.
- [27:35]
A
Well, let me make three points. Let's assume, God forbid you get cancer and you undertake a particular cancer therapy which buys you five years of life. But in the process, you are aware that your particular kind of cancer is being closely studied by researchers. And there's the prospect that within three years there's going to be a new therapy that is going to then extend your life another five years and so on. I mean, I think that's a reasonable analogy for what Israel has achieved. It hasn't defeated its cancer, but it has turned it from a stage four cancer into a stage one cancer. I think if that happened to you in your own life, you'd say, not perfect, but pretty good, right? You wouldn't say, well, I'm going to die anyway, so I may as well get it over with.
- [28:29]
C
You wouldn't, but I think it's months rather than years. That's what it looks like to me.
- [28:35]
A
I don't think so. And this. I've spent a long time studying the blows that Iran has suffered to its enrichment capability, to its ability to hide its or safeguard its enrichment capability, to the conversion plant that turned uranium gas into metal, which is essential to it, to the weaponization aspect of a nuclear bomb. It's not just. When we talk about a nuclear bomb, it's not like, oh, you've acquired sufficient quantities of fissile material and therefore you have a bomb. There are dozens of intermediate steps, and at any point, if that daisy chain is broken at one or two points, you win a lot of time. And that's what the Israelis, with significant American help, have been able to achieve. So, again, with respect to the nuclear program, I'm sorry we haven't cured the cancer, but I'm glad that we're no longer at the stage four we were at in early June of last year. The strain of Hormuz seems to me a different story. I think this was their nuclear option, and it was a nuclear option that they can employ only once. Why? Because oil, like water, finds a way downstream. And so whether it takes months or years, that oil is going to find a way out. Already Some, I think 7 million barrels a day are pumped out from eastern to western Saudi Arabia via pipelines. The UAE also has pipelines going out to the Arabian Sea, I suspect, although who knows, that Trump won't stand for Iran's indefinite closure of the Strait. Not only I think this is a psychological thing for him. Allowing Iran to take control of the Strait makes him look weak. And if there's one thing Trump despises is the suggestion that he is weak. I don't think that the Strait of Hormuz closure is the kind of decisive game over event that Iran believes that it is. I think I've spoken to admirals in the US Navy or former admirals in the US Navy who've studied the problem. It's a difficult military challenge. It's not an insurmountable military challenge to find a way to open the strait. Finally, with respect to the hardliner or moderate equation, you're probably going to disagree, Jonathan, but on balance, I'd rather have hardliners than so called moderates. When I used to report a lot from Gaza and the West Bank, I always preferred interviewing Hamas niks to the Fatah people because the Hamas people kind of told you the truth. Fatah people lied. And there was a gift of a certain kind of clarity with the hardliners. Also, fanaticism of that kind will be, I think, the regime's eventual undoing. So I think having the fanatics in charge is more dangerous to me than having characters like Javad Zarif, you know, the canny operators who have given the regime a greater lease on life than it deserved as it was. Let's face it, it wasn't like this was a particularly moderate, flexible regime, at least when it came to the essentials, their nuclear file, their despicable treatment of their own people. So in many essentials, I think the regime essentially stays the same, except that it is unmasked. And an unmasked regime may be again, on balance, better for the world than the alternative.
- [32:40]
B
I'm thinking about what you said. I think it's very true and perhaps tragic that Israel postpones its reckoning and it's about kicking the can down the road. But one thing that is something Israel can't live without is American support. And on the one hand, we saw this really historic cooperation between the U.S. military and the Israeli, the IDF. But on the other hand, this is not a popular war in the United States. And I wonder how, again, from the Israeli perspective, how worried we should be that it does seem increasingly like it was the Israeli leader dragging or convincing the American president to go into this war.
- [33:21]
A
Well, I think it's simply a mistake to say that Netanyahu dragged Trump into a war he was otherwise skeptical of. There's a long history going back to the hostage crisis in 1980, of Trump mouthing off in a bellicose way about the the regime. His hostility long predates his political career. That being said, I think it is absolutely true that a war that ends kind of inconclusively without the sort of knockout blow that we had hoped for, it seems to have cost The United States not lives, but perhaps a lot of treasure and a lot of risk and a lot of anxiety and certainly friendship with our European partners. For the sake of what exactly raises questions for a lot of young Americans about the value of the alliance with Israel. If this war were ending in this sort of knockout punch, with Iran simply throwing up its hands and saying, we surrender, I think a lot of Americans, particularly young Americans, would say, well, these Israelis get the job done and they took care of business and they promised us a B and C, and we got at least A and B, or if not, if not quite everything. So I think the question of Israel's reputation, not just the reputation of the Israeli government, but Israel's reputation in the United States, is a very serious one, and we're going to be living with consequences decades down the road. The numbers that worry me most aren't the sort of aggregate numbers about how America feel about Israel, because many Americans, older Americans, are kind of natively sympathetic to Israel's side and they know a bit more of the history. But when you see so many young Americans, not just liberals or progressives, but also increasingly conservatives, taking a dim view of the country, those views are going to represent American views 10, 20 years hence. And that's. That's exceptionally worrying.
- [35:31]
C
I mean, it'd be interesting to hear your views on how that can be turned around. But I just want to zero in on one aspect of the opposition which, which is not the main one. It's not the one that leads to campus protests and so on, but it's about Israel's reputation as being, you know, say what you like about it kind of in terms of the rights and wrongs, but your point about it gets the job done. If the advice that the Israelis gave to the Americans, not that it led them to war, and I absolutely take your point that Donald Trump didn't need to be persuaded. But if part of the advice was this will be over quickly, two or three days and this regime will topple, it's very brittle that there's, you know, there'll be. The Kurds will get involved and they'll come in that it will take two or three days to wipe out this ballistic arsenal. If that advice was all wrong, just in terms of the credibility among military types, Pentagon planners and so on, who've previously, you know, lauded Israel's intelligence capability and so on, will Israel lose ground in that area where people think, well, these guys, you know, October 7th, they didn't see that coming and now they've just given, sold us a bit of a lemon in terms of how they prepared us for this war with the Iranians. Is that a coming narrative way away from the TUCKER carlson, Columbia University I
- [36:54]
A
think the picture is much more mixed there because some of what Israel was able to achieve in the war is just astounding. I mean, it's just astounding. Our memories are so short so that the decapitation strike on not just day one but hour zero of the war is now sort of half forgotten, or the taking out of Ali Larijani, who is in my view, the most dangerous man in the regime. There have been a series of extraordinary tactical achievements which I think people, at least people I talk to in the military admire a great deal. I think the question that's going to come up is about the strategic judgments. Now, from an Israeli point of view, again, the strategic judgment, I think, was ultimately a sound one. And I would argue also that from an American point of view, it was a sound one, too, but it was much more obviously sound from Israel's perspective than it was from an American perspective. And that is, I think, going to create doubts and dissonances on on the American side. When I think of people, say, inside the CIA or inside the defense intelligence apparatus of the United States. On the other hand, there are a great many American military officers who admire Israeli grit, admire the persistence, admire the adaptability, admire the innovation. Understand that Israel is adapting to a new type of battle space and the United States needs to follow Israel's lead so Israel will retain friends. It's just going to be a more mixed picture going forward. Again, all of this is dependent this entire conversation is working on the assumption that what we thought we knew yesterday will be true tomorrow.
- [38:56]
B
You did talk about the sort of younger generation in the United States, and I'm moving past the Iran war slightly. And that is to ask how do we change US Israelis? How do we change the perception of Israel among whether it be Democrats, perhaps that's more problematic, Republicans as well, and that sort of inner argument going on there. What do we need to do, you think, in your opinion?
- [39:19]
A
I am generally skeptical of the view that what Israel needs to do is make itself very, very lovable by sending missions to help victims of earthquakes. I mean, that's wonderful. I applaud Israeli humanitarian action around the world, or to prostrate itself by trying to show that it's once again willing to take risks for peace, so forth and so on. I honestly think you have to accept this was sort of the spirit of my argument at the world Jewry address a couple of months ago. You have to accept the sad fact that a large portion of the world is going to hate you for a host of reasons, most of which have less to do with policy or reality and have mostly to do with certain kind of human psychology. I think in 30 years, people will remember the early months of 2026. People looking at Israel's history may remember the early months of 2026, not only on account of the war, but also on account of Prime Minister Modi's visit to Jerusalem and the fact that even as Israel was losing friends in don't kick me for saying this in the dying continent of Europe, I'm being a little provoking here, needlessly so, gratuitously so. It was winning friends in the world's most populous and one of the world's most economically dynamic states. And that years ago again, when I lived in Israel, I was friendly with the Indian ambassador to to Israel at the time. This was before the Modi government, and he was talking at length about how Hindu culture and Jewish culture and values overlap in myriad ways. I knew very little about Hindu culture at the time, and so I was very struck by what he had to say. But if you look at the arc of Israel's history, Israel did not start out with much of a friendship with the United States. Israel survived, really, thanks to Soviet weapons in its first few months and then to French weapons in its first 19 years, and then the past 59 years thanks to American support. Israel is a freelancer on the global stage, and I hope the alliance between the United States and Israel endures. I think it's good for both countries. Certainly, as an American and as a Jew, I have a deep emotional bond to it. But Israel may wind up discovering that its best friends are in places like Delhi and Seoul and a new constellation of players on the global stage, and that there's not a lot you're going to be able to do to win over the kids at Columbia or the kids at Berkeley. I will say one thing, Yuni. If you look at the protests, the campus protests, you never heard about a protest at the University of Nebraska, at the University of Florida, the university, wherever these large state schools, they were always concentrated in these bespoke, elite universities. This is anecdotal, but I find in my speaking life, whenever I speak at a campus like Harvard, I can expect a bit of a donnybrook. But when I spoke at Colorado Mesa University on the western slope of the Rockies in Grand Junction, Colorado, not long ago, it was an Entirely different experience. The students were just as bright. Many of them were veterans. They asked better questions and they approached me with an attitude of curiosity, not inbuilt hostility. And so maybe it's a function of our social milieu that we're wondering what happened to our friends at the universities which we attended or which we want our children to attend. We're not asking about a large part of the world that is not, if not actively philosemitic, is potentially philosemitic. Maybe the future for Israel is to to go to places where people are already disposed to like us for whatever meshuggahna reasons and make friends where the door is open, rather than bang on doors that have been closed shut.
- [44:11]
C
I just want to pick up one point in that. It's a very interesting speech, your state of world jury address. And there's the idea that we should be less obsessed about antisemitism and focus on Jewish life and Jewish schools. I really applauded the sentiment behind that. The bit that worried me is the bit that I think you've touched on, which is at one point you say, I'd go further. We need to take this as an opportunity to stop caring. And what you're in the context there about how in the past, for example, in the 1990s, Israel repeatedly took, quote, risks for peace, unquote, for the sake of trying to end the occupation of the west bank, culminated in the second Intifada and rise of the BDS movement. In other words, you do these things, these sort of peacenik things, the world doesn't love you anymore for it, so don't even bother is how I took that. And I think I know you'll say no, you should still do those things for your own reasons. But what concerns me was there was something in there about given the implacability and permanence of anti Semitism, they're never going to like us. Therefore, let's confer on ourselves a kind of moral impunity. We can do what we like because they're not going to like us either way, whether we behave badly or well. And we come. We're going to talk later on in this episode of the podcast about this death penalty bill, the Ben GVIR bill that says we'll execute Palestinians but not Jews. I worry that this sort of approach that you were that was powering some of your speech, a kind of there's a football club in this country whose slogan is everyone hates us, we don't care. And that slogan was taken to be therefore, let's behave like hooligans. It's going to make a football club.
- [45:50]
A
Got it.
- [45:51]
C
Millwall Football Club in the Eastern. That's their slogan. If Israel becomes the Millwall of nations, that's a bad thing, it seems to me, and I felt there was some of that in your argument. Let's throw this off and do what the hell we want.
- [46:04]
A
So I'm glad you're raising that, because that's the far that was the furthest thing from my mind, I think, putting the dregs of Israeli politics to one side, and they're frighteningly prominent right now, the Ben Gvirs of the world. My experience of Israel, and I've covered it very closely for many years, and I knew it pretty well. I was just thinking my first time in Israel was in 1983. It made an indel impression, is that most Israelis I know hold themselves to high moral account. Now, it's not the same type of moral account that you get in other cultures and other societies because Jewish morality is distinct and doesn't exactly hold to the same set of standards. I think it's a higher standard. But that's just my personal view speaking. But what I really am saying is something that Eric Hoffer, the famous philosopher, said back in 1968. He said Israel is the only country in the world expected to behave like a Christian nation, which is profound on many levels. Israel, of course, should hold itself to a high standard. But Israel also has, in a way that isn't true elsewhere, a set of existential dilemmas that involve moral questions that are seldom broached if you are, say, living in Winnipeg or living in central London. And I think that the kind of easy judgments that are passed by those of us, never mind as Jews in the Diaspora, but in the broader world about Israeli action and the moral standards we apply to it, I think we need to think through the morality very carefully. Just to give you a contemporary example, I was reading this morning that the French government, which somehow seems to think that it has a moral role in Lebanon, has said that Israel's actions over the last couple of days hitting Hezbollah sites throughout Beirut, that they're unacceptable. I was asking myself, what exactly is France doing to assure the people of northern Israel that they will not continue to live under unprovoked rocket and missile fire? What did France do following the end of the 2006 Lebanon War to ensure that UNIFIL would be an effective peacekeeping force rather than just a kind of a meaningless presence there? What was France's role, say, at the UN Security Council when it was discovered that Hezbollah was digging tunnels under under the border with Israel for an attack similar to what Israelis feared from Gaza. They did nothing. They did nothing. So when we're talking about the moral standards that we apply to Israel, by God forbid we should ever say Israel should have a moral pass. But what we should say is that Israel is dealing with dilemmas that very few other nations and certainly no other nation that is attempting to live as a democracy, as a free society and as a relatively liberal society in a very tough neighborhood none of us experience. And so let's not give it a moral pass, but let's understand its moral dilemmas in something other than the cheap, easy and self congratulatory way in which those dilemmas are typically described and discussed in the foreign press.
- [50:06]
B
We could go on and on. I'm just so happy that we had this conversation. There were no sirens to interrupt us for the first time in 40 days. That's already. That's something exactly to add on to. Bret Stephens, thank you so much for coming.
- [50:19]
A
It's an honor you need, Jonathan.
- [50:21]
C
We are very grateful to you. Brett. Away from the war, the news have continued, including the domestic political agenda inside Israel. On the eve of Passover Erev Pesach, there was a huge and controversial law passed. People will have seen the scenes of celebration as the far right party of Itamar Ben GVIR cheered passage of a bill that will mandate the death penalty for cases of terrorism. With the bill defined in such a way that it seems almost all its subjects will be Palestinians. As if those people who are guilty of a capital crime of terrorism, who are Jewish will not face the death penalty, but those who are Arab will. It's been slammed and condemned the world over. We have not yet had a chance to discuss it on the podcast, but we want to make amends on that and to talk about it now with someone extremely well placed who had a close up view of the passage of this law.
- [51:32]
B
Doctor Amir Fuchs of the Israeli Democracy Institute is an expert on anti democratic legislation, criminal law and legislative processes. He sat on most of the deliberations in the Knesset National Security Committee about the highly controversial death bill and he was there on behalf of the Israeli Democracy Institute saying that this bill contradicts the idea of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. Amir, thank you for, for being with us on Unholy.
- [51:56]
D
Thank you for having me.
- [51:57]
B
We'll get into this bill and why it is highly controversial, but I would want to ask you a little bit about what it felt like being in these deliberations. And you were in the Knesset so many times, so many different kinds of committees. What was it like this time, discussing this, you know, highly controversial bill in a very, very charged political environment?
- [52:18]
D
Well, it was, it was a challenge, certainly. And I have to say I've been speaking in hearings in the Knesset about 18 years. I've been in many problematic hearings, in very tense hearings. I was in all of the hearings of, not all, most of the hearings of 2023 overhaul. And I have to say that this experience now in the National Security Committee regarding the death penalty looks, Makes me think of the discussions of the constitutional community on the 2023. 2023, it looks like a seminar in the university because these hearings were so shallow, so empty, was not. It wasn't in the news, nobody talked about it was totally under the public radar. We didn't hear almost any experts, even about very important issues of international law, of international relations. We didn't hear enough from the experts on security. The real deliberations took place only from late October, because when the hostages were free, then the deliberations started, the real deliberations. And then very, very quickly it was going to the final straight.
- [53:34]
C
So you've explained how rapidly this was done, and perhaps not with deliberation that you'd expect for something so memorable, momentous. I think what has shocked people around the world is not just the death penalty itself, that that's a debate people have, but the notion that this is in effect for Palestinians only. And people have condemned it as blatant racist discrimination. And some have attempted to say that's not right, actually. So Jews could be hanged under this law, executed under this law. Can you just spell out for us exactly what the legislation says on this?
- [54:12]
D
So first, the law is actually two changes that we are doing in two existing laws which are totally different. One is the martial law in the west bank, which already had for murder a death penalty, but was actually never implemented as policy of the security agencies and of the prosecutors. And if in some rare cases, actually the court did sentence someone to death, then there was a pardon by the chief of staff of Israel, and then it was only life sentence. So this was the law for decades, from 1967, about murder in the West Bank. So what they wanted to change there, the amendment, is that the death sentence in a situation of a terrorist act will be mandatory or almost mandatory, because there is this one escape clause that says in very unusual circumstances, the court can say, well, we are only giving a life prison imprisonment, but the Default and more than default, almost mandatory will be death. And it is very explicitly says that it will be only for Palestinians because it's only for the residents of the Judea and Samaria who are not Israelis. So not the settlers, only the Palestinians. This is very clear. And also they change in the martial law. Some of the checks that were on the pro on the procedure, for example, the procedure demanded a unanimous decision of three judges. And now it will only be a majority, even if there's only majority about whether about if he's guilty, not even about the punishment. So it doesn't have to be unanimous. And there won't be the authority for the chief of staff or the commander in the area to give pardon and to change the punishment to a life sentence instead of a death sentence. So these are the amendments about the law in Judea and Samaria. Very clear that it is only for Palestinians. Also the law is changing the criminal penal code within Israel, which don't have a life sentence for murder. We have some death sentence for the Nazis and for some other like treason, which were never implemented. It's considered dead law, doesn't apply anyway anytime nobody ever asked for it. So what were they want to change? And they changed because the bpassed is that there will be a maximum death penalty on murder if it's within a terrorist act and with an intent to negate the existence of the State of Israel. And of course, and we know, because we know the process that the whole idea here is to take out Jewish terms, for example, Baruch Golshing didn't want to negate the state of Israel and others who go and murder, whether it is Palestinians and whether it is Israeli citizens, which are Arabs also would not be there because there is no intent to negate the state of Israel. Now it's true that proving such an intent won't be easy anyway in a criminal court. But you can use for example, what was the intention of the organization or what is the intention of some other enemy state or sent you or something like that. So it is possible it might be problematic to any way to convict anyone with that intent. But of course it will apply certainly for terrorist organizations which mostly are Palestinians. Theoretically, if Israeli Jew is a traitor and accomplices with Iran or with Hamas and goes and murders Israelis, yes, theoretically he might be tried under that law and can be sentenced to death. But this is of course just a theory because we don't have these people and there was never such case.
- [58:37]
B
You mentioned Baruch Garcin. We'll just make the note to say that he was a Jewish terrorist who murdered 29 Palestinians in Hebron in the tomb of the Patriarchs. And as you say, you can't find any clause that he was negating the state of Israel. So that wouldn't fall under this, this bill. When you, you, you put it the way you do and you kind of set the stage the way you do. Is there any way that the Israeli High Court of Justice would ever allow for this bill and not cancel it the way it is?
- [59:09]
D
I think you will consider it the way it is. As you said, I think there's a very high chance that this will not pass constitutional review. I'm not saying that I'm certain that they will just strike down the whole law, but of course, some of the components, and also about the component that take away all of this question from the court, I think this will not stand the legislative constitutional review. But of course there is a good claim against capital punishment per se. And, and you can ask, well, but we had capital punishments against the Nazis and we had other, we even had one time that we actually executed Adolf Eichmann. But that's in a different area, in a different era. This is in 1961. We still didn't have basic laws. We still didn't have constitutional review at all. And also at that time, all the democratic world still didn't totally abolish the capital punishment. Now it's only in the democratic Western world, only in the United States, in some of the states and in Japan. So now it's so highly unusual. So I think that the Supreme Court will strike it down, at least the very extreme version that passed.
- [60:36]
C
I'm encouraged by what you say there, but here's my worry. The Supreme Court has been under such pressure. It was the main target of the judicial overhaul in 2023 that you mentioned mentioned. At what point does it feel that there's only so many battles it can fight? I mean, it cannot keep on fighting a government that says it's illegitimate, that it interferes too often, that it's got too much power. And therefore does it look at a case like this and think, you know, there are limits to how often we can keep standing in the way of this, this government. And so I, you know, the confidence that people like me have always had that the Supreme Court will, will in the end catch these things. Is that confidence perhaps over optimistic?
- [61:25]
D
Well, I'm not always saying that about laws that pass in the Knesset, but this time I think it almost certain that some of the components will be Struck down. But I agree with you that the court might as a tactic say something like that. Well, until you come to us with a final verdict of someone who was sentenced to death, we are not dealing with it. This is a theory. And maybe the courts won't actually always use this escape clause and maybe, who knows, maybe the next Knesset will actually abolish this law because some of the it didn't pass with such an overwhelming majority like some of the people expected. So they might just say, well, we'll not decide about it now, let's wait. And things will have to take time because the law is only prospective. You cannot impose it on things that already happened. It might take years. And if you think about tactics, this might happen. I hope it won't happen because we need to take off this very problematic view from my point of view, from our book of bills of laws. So I hope they won't do that, but they might. And you, you again, you say you talk about the government. Well, the government is there at least for until the end of the year. We don't know which will be the next government. So maybe the political arena will change and the court will be, will have a little more confidence dealing with this law.
- [63:05]
B
You know, it's so interesting to hear you talk about the court striking down the law. I mean that would be for, from Ben Greer's point of view, almost a win win. I'm not trying to drag you into the quagmire of politics, but obviously if he gets, you know, he got the bill across and then it was the courts proving the point that they have too much power and they were striking down law. But, but it is interesting because it does seem like this committee was kind of setting a trap to anyone opposing the bill because anyone trying to oppose the bill kind of the Ben versus party would say, but wait a minute, what do you mean? Are you pro terrorists? Because what, you don't want terrorists to die? I mean, what we're saying is we just want terrorists to die and we don't understand the people who oppose it. And I wonder when you talk about the sort of shallowness of the, of the deliberations and the fact that no one from the sort of defense echelon was there to say what the defense echelon Israel has been saying for many, many years, this actually will not deter anyone from terrorist activities. But I wonder when you think about that and the fact that it sort of have had this publicly, this idea of saying to anyone who opposes the bill, you're actually pro terrorist. What do you feel when you, when you hear that kind of argument?
- [64:15]
D
Well, it's not pleasant to hear that argument when you are there and the families of victims are saying it to you. And, and of course you understand when you hear it why so many, so few people came, why we had so few mks who were convinced that this is like you say, a trap. This is just for the, for the, for the election. A lot of people said, don't worry, they won't, they wouldn't pass it. In the end, Netanyahu will stop it because of the international pressure. This is only a campaign, Benvir is doing a campaign. And in the end it will stop and you will say, hey, Netanyahu stopped me, therefore you should vote for me. Netanyahu is too leftist. And of course a lot of people were convinced that this is just a campaign, it would never pass. So they didn't come, they didn't want to hear that they are Hamas supporters or Nukhba supporters. Although this law not even apply for 7th of October. But I agree with you. Yeah, it was very deterrent how the committee was acting to people who came, but they didn't listen to us. I have to say I spoke almost every time I came there. The chairman Fogel was very nice, he listens.
- [65:30]
B
Of Ben Greer's party, we should say
- [65:33]
D
yes, but they didn't really. There was no deep deliberation about the arguments because the whole assumption was that the law would pass. And we are just talking about how about details. But the assumption implies that there is no actual question about the need for capital punishment. Also about what you said earlier in the last sentence of the last hearing, Fogel says, well, maybe it's unconstitutional. Okay, that's for the court to deal with. And then the responsibility for the next terrorist acts will be on them.
- [66:12]
B
That was what he said.
- [66:13]
D
Yes, that's what he said. So this is like a win win, like you say. If they will strike it down, then a minute later when there is a terrorist act, that's it. Because you abolished, you tied the hands of the security authorities and therefore it's on you. I don't think that the Supreme Court will be afraid to deal with this law. I think they have enough confidence to deal with it.
- [66:38]
B
Dr. Amir Fuchs, thank you very much for talking to us today on Unholy.
- [66:41]
D
Thank you, Yonit. Thank you, Jonathan.
- [66:48]
B
We discussed this with Emile Fuchs, this kind of trap that Bengville laid for, for the Israeli public with this bill of his. I would say that that image of him Celebrating with champagne after the bill was passed. I'd say two things about that. One is Judaism is not a religion that celebrates death. It's a religion that celebrates life. And that picture, I think, for that reason, was very jarring for many inside Israel and outside. But the other thing, Jonathan, that I wanted to mention is that when he was celebrating with that bottle of champagne, we already knew in the studio and couldn't yet publish, because in Israel these things are very sensitive. You never publish news about dead soldiers before their parents and their families are notified. But we already knew that there were four soldiers, young men, who died in Lebanon. And I remember turning to our political correspondent and I said to her, does Itamar Bengvir, who's now celebrating with a bottle of champagne, does he know that there are four dead soldiers, Israeli soldiers, in Lebanon? And she said, if we know he is a member of the defense Cabinet, he surely knows. So maybe we should keep that in mind as well.
- [68:04]
C
Yeah. Your point about not celebrating death was exactly the theme of the sermon that I heard in synagogue the first morning of Pesach. But quite dramatically, the rabbi said, I'm putting aside the sermon I prepared. I don't have anything written, but I want to talk about this. And he referred to the thing in the Seder, the tradition of dipping the fingers in the wine, as you count out the 10 plagues. Something I never knew, which is that's in order to reduce the volume of the wine. It means that you reduce the volume of the wine in proportion or symbolically to reflect that Egyptians died as part of our liberation thousands of years ago as slaves in Egypt. The Egyptians suffered those 10 plagues. And so it's a little gesture towards acknowledging that, and it's later discussed in the Haggadah and the Passover service, that we are not allowed to celebrate the downfall, the death, demise of our enemies. As the Red Sea is parted, the children of Israel escape. But Pharaoh and his pursuers are then drowned. The story is told that the angels were celebrating and God himself silenced them. These are my children too. And this is such a. The timing of it. For a man who wears a kippah, you know, affects to be a religious man. Itamar Bengvir, as Pesach was approaching, as you say, he knew about the dead Israeli soldiers, but he also knew something of Jewish tradition. The idea of celebrating it was pretty sickening, to be honest. And I'll just say one further thing. People who are defenders of Israel, one of the arguments they have all the time is people who want to say Israel is an apartheid state and Israel's guilty of apartheid. If Israel passes as a law that the death penalty is for one group Arabs and not for another group Jews, good luck rebutting those who want to cast Israel as an apartheid state. Now, I don't think this will happen because of Amir Fuchs point about the Supreme Court. I think it will be overturned. But just hold that in mind when those arguments rage next time. This is what Ben GVIR has brought down upon us and let us not forget the prime minister made sure he was there and voted for it. He could have found an excuse not to be there, but instead he was there. So I'm glad we came back to this subject because the Pesach holiday intervened, but it was an important one and one that did have a particular poignance coming on the eve of Passover.
- [70:30]
B
Yes. And side note, since we never had a Seder el Pesach together, if we had, you would have known the story about taking out some of the wine and what the reasoning for that. It's one of my favorite things to tell around the Seder table. But now we are going to talk about a country that isn't Israel. Shocking. Jonathan, do you want to set the stage on this just very briefly to
- [70:50]
C
tell our listeners we're just a few days away from elections in Hungary. Viktor Orban has been the prime minister for 16 years. That sounds like a lot most places, but he's barely getting started by Israeli standards, given Netanyahu's run. It's significant, of course, for all kinds of geopolitical reasons. Orban, it's Russia's biggest ally within the European Union. But I think that the other thing that people will have been keeping an eye on is that Orban ran so often on a sort of dog whistle, anti Semitic messaging. George Poster's demonizing George Soros, who's just a trope in anti Semitic conspiracy theory. And Orban has really been sort of pumping this stuff out for years. And so there will be a lot of people who will just breathe a bit of a sigh of relief if they see the back of him. The man who is his opponent is no softy. He's a Hungarian nationalist himself, Peter Magyar. But I think the Orban himself has become a kind of quite symbolic figure. So an eye on that election and the reason it's had this big buildup is for once the polls say there's a really strong chance Orban could lose.
- [72:05]
B
To me, it's so interesting when you hear the story of these elections the fact that there is someone, finally a real challenger to Viktor Orban. He's coming from the right. He's someone who worked for Orban, he's younger than him, and he's saying, you know, I'm still the same ideology, but I don't have the corruption that he has, and he has lost his way. That is what the leader against him is saying. Peter Maga. But to me, it's just so interesting because it really sounds like the Bibi Bennett story, right? I mean, again, Bennett being someone who worked for Netanyahu, younger than him, challenging him from the right. And I think that if he. If this works and Orban loses, this will be a blueprint for many other countries in which the right is. The right wing leader is not defeated by the left, but actually by another right wing leader and where that leads that country. So I think we should look at it very closely and obviously talk about it next week as well. Are we arriving at our awards segment, sir?
- [73:03]
C
I think we are. And again, because we had a little bit of an interlude for Passover, for Pessach, it feels like there's so much, much to catch up on, so much ground to cover. I wonder if we might begin with Kanye west, who now calls himself. I can't say it with a straight face. What is it? Well, how do you put Yay. Ye. I don't know. I'm not. I don't think I'm his target audience. He was due to perform here in Britain at the Wireless Festival, actually, in my own neighborhood, Finn's Park. The British government have denied him entry. People will remember that a matter of months ago, he put out a record, literally, called Heil Hitler. He was selling T shirts with a swastika on it. He had confessed himself to be an admirer of Adolf Hitler. There's nothing really ambiguous about this, just a few different angles of chutzpah. First of all, he himself, he put out a statement saying, I'd be grateful for the opportunity to meet with members of the Jewish community in person. I mean, you know, nobody is queuing up for that meeting, I can tell you. But he said, you know, if you're open, I'm here. In other words, this is on you. You know, you. You've got to be big enough to meet me. His promoter, man called Melvin Ben started saying that, you know, I hope that again, talking about the Jewish community, that they can offer some forgiveness. And forgiveness is a virtue in short supply. And, you know, that's like, echo, it's Easter and Jews are not Forgiven. But even then, a whole lot of the other commentary around this was, what does the Jewish community think? Jewish groups are opposed to this? And I was there thinking, sorry, why is it only Jewish groups who have a problem with a guy who's selling swastikas and singing Heil Hitler? As I, as far as I remember, last time I checked, Britain fought a war against the Nazis. It's not only Jews who should have a problem with an overt Hitler admiring Nazis visiting Britain. And this idea that it's somehow all the Jews have to be the arbiters and then who are there and they. And it's no win, right, for Jewish communities, diaspora communities, because then you're the suppressors of free speech. So this invitation always of, well, it's not up to us. What do the Jews say? You know, I've really had it with that. I think that if, you know, good for the British government, they decided without having to, you know, get the say so of the Jewish community, that this guy has no place in Britain. So it's a chutzpah award for Kanye west himself and for his promoter, but also those people who somehow think it's only Jews who need to have a problem with, you know, a Nazi like this. How Nazi sympathize?
- [75:35]
B
Yeah, 100% agree. I remember we had Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt on the podcast a while ago and we were talking exactly about Kanye west and his, you know, claiming that people around him saying, you know, it's his mental state. And she said, why is the mental state always targeting Jews? I mean, it doesn't necessarily have to be what comes out of you, your, you know, mental state. But I agree completely. It's not supposed to be only a Jewish issue to combat this man, I have a small chutzpah. I mean, it's not you. You brought out huge topics like anti Semitism, you know, and battling it and all of that. I feel a little silly, but I'll just, you know, just note the fact that we, we were people. Some people. I'm not going to name names, but some of them who were spending 40 days in, in bomb shelters, perhaps were holding on to might be a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot. But it is now official that there won't be. Or at least at this point, you ask who the Chutzpah Award nominee is. According to Sarah Michelle Geller, who is the star of the show, telling People magazine why this won't become a reality. I think 25 years after the show ended, she said that there was an executive, a TV executive who was not a fan of the show. How is that possible? And her quote is, we had an executive on our show who was only not a fan of the original, but was proud to constantly remind us that he had never seen the entirety of the series and it was not for him. So that is my Chutzpah Award nominee of this week. I know it's small, but I just wanted to make that point.
- [77:09]
C
I like that. I like the. It's real. But what I also would just say about it is I think you might be lucky here because what if the reboot had disappeared, disappointed you. And I know how devoted you are to this show. And I think the chances were high that it could have spoiled your memories. Instead, you're going to be left with an intact, perfect memory of a show you loved.
- [77:27]
B
And. And a Chutzpah Award. Yes, and a Chutzpah Award for this week. Could be. Could be.
- [77:32]
C
Let's move to our Mensch category. My Mensch nomination would be Colette Avitar, a described brilliantly by ha' Aret as 86 year old former Knesset member and diplomat, the embodiment of the old Israeli establishment. That is no more. I think that puts it very well, part of the old labor ruling establishment of the country. A week ago she went out to demonstrate against the war with Iran. She said, I didn't think it was a good idea. And she found herself violently thrown to the ground by, she believed, police officers. A crazy galloping of police officers with horses. She was knocked to the ground. An octogenarian holocaust survivor and political veteran. And yet still, despite the fact she said she can barely raise her voice physically these days, she still takes herself out to a demonstration for what she thinks is best for the country. I mean, awful that that happened, but I think applaud it to Cola Avital for still caring, still being involved and still paying a price for her, for her beliefs and her principles.
- [78:41]
B
Cora Tavatar is a remarkable woman. We should explain that what happened in that demonstration was that it was limited to begin with because it was still during the war and the home front and the courts limited it to 600 people. The police were, according to eyewitness accounts, very violent in curbing this demonstration, even though it was not a large one because of the situation. You know, when we talk about Mensch this week, there are all kinds of images I have in my head. One of them is of an Israeli reservist on his way to, to Seder. And there was a, as we said, it was very dangerous driving to all kinds of places because if there's missiles coming in from Iran, you have no place to hide. And there was this image that kind of became iconic in Israel. He is covering, he's a reservist in the military. He's covering his small baby while this missile attack is happening. They're both okay, but just that kind of image, the other images of women, Israeli women giving birth in what has become underground delivery rooms because so many of the hospitals had to move underground, even in parking lots or things like that. I mean, just generally, I think the Israeli public, which is jaw droppingly incredible in these moments, even on regular days, but definitely when you feel like you need to have a switch on, switch off into war and out of war, I think that we should mention that in general. So I think we're heading into the end of our show. Yes, Jonathan, right.
- [80:09]
C
We are. We are indeed. It's like the. I'm about to. It's like the last round of matzah after an eight day pesach which some of us have been having. We are reaching that moment of closure indeed. We should say our thank yous to producer Michal Porat, as always and we will see each other next time when we're back with another episode.