← Unholy: Two Jews on the News
Unholy: Two Jews on the News
E-Signed, Sealed, Delivered
00:39:18
As the U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding is signed in Versailles — covering a ceasefire, sanctions relief, and billions in unfrozen assets, but saying nothing about uranium enrichment, centrifuges, ballistic missiles, or Iran's proxies — Israel is left reading a deal it wasn't part of and only received hours before Trump's signature. Yonit is joined this week by CNN senior global affairs analyst and Unholy co-author Bianna Golodryga, live from a New York celebrating the Knicks' first championship in 53 years, for a conversation about what this MOU actually says, what it doesn't, and what it means for a country that spent 40 days in shelters waiting for something better than this. Plus: a Cornell sophomore makes headlines for the wrong reasons, and a design school in Israel sends wounded soldiers down a runway. 02:09 Responses to the MOU in Israel and the U.S. 06:59 Concerns from Israel Regarding the MOU 11:20 Netanyahu's Position and Reactions 17:24 Implications for U.S....
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
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B
Levy in Tel Aviv. Jonathan Friedland will be back next week. In the meantime, we have a lot to talk about today, mainly the US Iran memorandum of understanding signed already by both presidents on Wednesday. And here to unpack it all with me, my dear friend Biana Galadriga, senior global affairs analyst and anchor for cnn. Also my co author who wrote a book together. Biana, it's so great to have you on.
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A
I think we should start with that title, my co author. I think it has a great ring to it. Hello, my friend, my sister, good to see you. From New York where we are celebrating the Knicks with a ticker tape parade today. A million people expected to come out to cheer on the Knicks as they celebrate, get keys to the city. First time the Knicks have won the NBA championship in 53 years. So a lot of excitement in this city in buzz and what a wonderful team they are.
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B
A lot of excitement, wonderful team. And I would assume all this translates into New York to a whole lot of traffic.
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A
A whole lot of traffic. I came out, I live in lower Manhattan and that's where City hall is. So that's where the parade is going to end later today and 10,000 police out in force. And I walked out this morning and pandemonium. There's just so much traffic and so many cops, streets blockaded. Good thing schools are closed but work is still open as we know. So getting here was a bit of a challenge this morning. But listen, it's all for a good cause and celebrating a wonderful team.
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B
A lot of Jewish mazel tov, Nick here.
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A
Exactly.
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B
All very happy. Okay. I mean the main thing we're going to talk about, obviously I wanted to say that let's, let's take a dive headfirst into a pool with no water because that's what it feels like.
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A
It's all downhill after that, basically.
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B
Yes, we know how to promote this show very well. Again, I'm so curious to hear about the responses in the US because the responses in Israel have been kind of flowing since the beginning of this deal or at least the kind of first drafts of the memorandum came in. So I'll just sort of say this in headlines. Yediot Achonot, a very big newspaper in Israel. Basically the title this morning is Good for Iran, Bad for Israel. Yisrael Hayom newspaper's title is Israel Left to Cope on its Own. And probably the most well regarded military analyst in this country, Amasar El, and his title in his piece is the Iran Fiasco is Netanyahu's biggest failure since October 7th. So there's a lot to unpack from the Israeli side. But I'm really curious to hear how this is playing out in the U.S.
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A
i mean, it's similar here. I think what's interesting is that you are getting condemnation and a lot of pushback to this MOU. This 14 point MOU was electronically signed last Sunday. The President signed it at Versailles Wednesday evening, which is a bit of an ominous sign given the history of treaty.
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B
Maybe if you don't want to start another war, don't sign it in Versailles.
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A
Exactly. So we think about the treaty that ended World War I and obviously did not lead to good things in the years following. Let's hope that's not the case here. But this is really viewed as the capitulation heard around the world. And you are getting pushback from Republicans who view this as complete failure on the part of the Trump administration here, giving Iran a major win in terms of just a windfall of cash, billions of dollars in access, sanctions lifted, all for opening the Strait of Hormuz, which was free for passage, as we note, on February 27th. And you're getting pushback from Democrats as well. They have their own political narratives and their angling at once. Again, beating Trump when he is suffering in the polls here. And the economy has been of major concern. So both sides here not embracing this deal at all. I think Republicans were giving the President a bit of a benefit of the doubt when we were starting to get early indications about what was in this page and a half memorandum. But I think the fact that it was not released in full detail was probably one of the first signs that this was not a good deal for the United States and as you note, for Israel either.
- [04:29]
B
I wanna focus for a moment on the Republican Party because, I mean, obviously Democrats opposed the war from the beginning. And in the Republican Party, you have that group that didn't like the war, right. That sort of Tucker Carlson group. And you have now the sort of right wing hawks who supported the war. And where are they finding themselves? Are they. They obviously are opposing the way that it ended. Is anyone kind of standing up for this, the, the way that this was handled apart from the Vice President?
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A
Vance? Yeah, it's hard to find a voice here. You're right. Some of the traditional hawks are out here criticizing this deal, saying that this won't hold, calling it doomed for lack of oversight, Thom Tillis, others, Senator Cassidy, saying that this is the worst deal that the US has made in decades. I think they speak for a number of Republicans who view this as a failure for the President. They had been supportive initially of this war. Senator Lankford is another one who of Oklahoma, who said that an executive agreement won't hold as it relates, if these details do end up being true. And it does seem that that is what, given the President has signed that, that is something he will be pursuing at least for the next 60 days. Though he did say he could, you know, walk back if they weren't, if Iran wasn't holding their end of the bargain. So this is perhaps a turning point for Republicans. They are a bit nervous going into the midterms now about whether the President is actually an asset for them. His approval rating is hovering around 40%. What was notable was the President this week when speaking in France and asked, why sign this now? Why did he agree to these terms now? And he said it was about the economy, essentially, that he did not want to be another President Hoover. He did not want to bring on a global depression, and admitted that blackmail, in essence, from the Iranians proved to be quite successful. That their hold over the Strait of Hormuz and the flow of traffic there ultimately led the President to agree to a deal that I think most everyone would say is not in the United States favor. And it's definitely not in Israel's favor either.
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B
Yeah, I mean, there's still so much to unpack on the, on the US Side, but maybe we'll dive a little bit into what, how Israel looks at this deal and what Israel is really concerned about. I think the main issue is the main point is that the only question that mattered more than anything for Israel is what happens to the uranium? What happens to the centrifuges and the enrichment facilities in Iran? All of this is not in the mou. It is postponed to the next stage of negotiation. And the huge question here looming is what kind of leverage will there be over Iran to even comply in even getting large portions of this enriched uranium out of Iran. Worryingly For Israel, the MoU does not mention neither the proxies nor the ballistic missile program. Now, remember, Israel was saying, and the chief of staff of the Israeli military was clearly saying in June, If Iran has 9,000 ballistic missiles, it doesn't need a nuclear program. And what President Trump is saying on Wednesday is, well, you know, Iran can keep some of its ballistic vessels. His quote was, if other countries have them, it's a little bit unfair for Iran not to have some. Well, maybe we should just mention that other countries don't threaten to annihilate different countries over the around the world. But that is something that Israel is looking at. Of course, the other thing Israel is worried about is the issue of Lebanon, because the final version is saying, okay, there's going to be cessation of violence also in Lebanon and talking about respecting Lebanese territorial sovereignty. So does that mean that Israel needs to withdraw draw before Hezbollah, a terror military group on the border, will disarm? All of that is very strange. And look, I mean, there is, it's fine to and of course, we heard President Trump, he was criticizing Netanyahu. He said, you don't have to attack a building in Beirut because of a, of a few drones in the desert. We'll just mention that Those drones killed 19 Israelis over the past couple of weeks. But it kind of sounds like the president of the United States is defending a terror organization while talking to Israel and explaining how Israel should behave itself. So that all of that is entirely worrying for Israel and very confusing for the Israelis. I mean, this is a document that Israel is looking at and is quite trepidatious.
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A
And it was a document that Israel wasn't privy to, it wasn't part of. So this is a war between two countries started together. President Trump had always stated that the United States was the leader here and the big brother and that it Israel was the small brother. I think what we heard earlier this week from the president when asked about some of that criticism that he directed at Prime Minister Netanyahu, not just once, not twice, I think a number of times, repeatedly in interviews with reporters, criticizing how he's conducting the war in Lebanon, saying that he's gone too far. I think a few expletives had been used as well in a phone conversation between the the two. And the president could confirmed that in his conversations with reporters in stating this week, when asked about that relationship, he defended Israel and Israel's right to defend itself, but then criticized, as you noted, how Prime Minister Netanyahu has been conducting the war, saying that he's going too far, calling Israel a reliable, strong partner and ally to the United States. But I think a number of times reiterating that it was the US that was leading the war and that Israel was a small, small partner here. And I can't imagine that that's reassuring for Israelis to hear. And I would only imagine what Prime Minister Netanyahu is thinking as he's facing reelection, but also just strategically at home when you are still at battle with Hezbollah and there's not a clear sense and direction as to what Israel is allowed or the perimeters from The US Perspective to continue to fight Hezbollah. It is just, is it just reactionary? Is it just defensive? Or can Israel, does Israel, under this mou. I believe the first principle here, the first point says that it's cessation of all, all fighting, and that includes Lebanon. So can Israel take preemptive strikes if they see that Hezbollah is regrouping, Hezbollah is planning some sort of attack on Israel, or do they have to wait until Hezbollah actually conducts that strike?
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B
Yeah, and that's a very big question. The defense echelon in this country is very confused when looking at this agreement. We should say that the agreement arrived by, by the Biden administration November 2024, stated that Israel can indeed conduct these preemptive strikes if needed against Hezbollah. That was again, in the, in the Biden administration. Here it is really murky and the details are not entirely clear. We didn't even say something about the fact that President Trump did also throw out this notion that Ahmed al Sharar or Abu Muhammad al Julani, the new, relatively new Syrian president, maybe he, and of course, a former, a man with former ties to Al Qaeda, maybe he should take in a role of fighting Hezbollah. I mean, all of that, because he
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A
can conduct it with more precision.
- [11:55]
B
Yes, yes. He's a little bit more delicate than the. Maybe that's what the president thinks. I mean, all of this begs many questions. And when we think back to President Trump, you know, saying when starting this Operation Epic Fury in February, he called the Iranian regime a vicious group of very hard, terrible people. This is his quote. Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world. And now saying, you know what, maybe they can have a few ballistic missiles. I mean, the gap between all of that is astounding. And you talked about, and rightfully so, Prime Minister Netanyahu is going to elections at the end of October, either October 20 or October 27. All this looks very bad for him. So much so that he did something very rare for the Israeli leader, which is to call a, a press, a conference. The last time he did a press conference and asked answered journalist questions was in March. So he hasn't done it in a long time. And he stood in front of the Israeli public and he had to explain that huge gap beyond between going to this operation and promising the Israeli public in, in different briefings that it was targeting the Iranian regime, that it is to eliminate the threat of a nuclear Iran and to eliminate the ballistic missile program. And now he has to explain this huge gap between what he promised and what is actually happening, he filled that gap up with hyperbole, which is to say he went on and on about saying, you know, as long as I am the Prime Minister, Iran would have a nuclear weapon. And he also said Israel was on the verge of annihilation by Iran. That's why we had to go to do these operations, these military operations, both in June and now in February and March. I don't know how much of the Israeli public buys this, but again, since it is the election, Netanyahu is speaking specifically to his base. The way he danced around this obviously very clear argument he has with the American president was to say, in families, there are always, you know, arguments, and I am the leader of this country and I will continue to lead it and keep it safe. That was his message. That was why he wanted to call that. That press conference.
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C
Yeah.
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A
And I think just the image of Israel not having access or being privy to these negotiations and not having seen this mou, I think, until just hours before President Trump signed it in Versailles. And that what we'd heard from President, from Vice President Vance, who's really been the face of. Of this deal and has made a number of statements and gone out on the interview campaign here on a number of networks. He's also selling a new book. But the key was that he is the face of a deal to end a war that he was also very vocal about not supporting initially. And this had been reported through the New York Times, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, and their book that's coming out about the Situation Room meeting early on, when we had Prime Minister Netanyahu in the room and he was laying out why this war would be a success and the steps to get there and the capitulation that we'd see in Iran following the initial strikes, obviously that that never happened. But it was pretty clear that J.D. vance, if he wasn't a source himself, those around him, in his camp, were there to provide reporters with this narrative that he was against this war from the beginning, but would obviously support the President if he chose to initiate it. And he has been the face now defending this MoU, even though there's not much here just objectively to defend. And so here in the states, you have J.D. vance saying the reason the text has not been released was because they wanted to honor the requests from a number of the mediators. Qatar and Pakistan had asked that it not be released. Perhaps Iran as well. Well, so Israel had not been given the same luxury of, even behind closed doors, having seen any of this text, and none of it bodes well for, as we've noted, the United States, I think, for, for Israel either. And it really sets a precedent for Iran that one could argue they are in perhaps better position now if they do have access to these billions of dollars, if they do have access to frozen assets and sanctions are lifted and they can immediately start to sell their oil than they did even on February 27th when there had been a lot of, you know, speculation about the stability of the regime as it stood at the time, the weeks after the horrific slaughtering of tens of thousands of protesters. And you hearken back to President Trump's words, I believe, early January, was it January 13, saying that help was on the way. None of that is mentioned in this MoU. In fact, the United States has agreed not to intervene in Iran as well. So what does that say to those Iranians who were hoping for change, who were hoping for a chance at some freedom? That's not what they're going to see with this current leadership in power, that's for sure.
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B
Yes, sadly, what it means is that no one is looking at them anymore like they did in mid January, as you mentioned. And indeed, what was really interesting, by the way, in the press conference that Netanyahu conducted was that at the end of it, and he got more and more upset at the sort of questions of the mainstream media and end of it, he said, I don't know what's in the agreement. This was on Monday and on Wednesday was when President Trump said we had just sent the Israelis the, the agreement. I mean, it is a, it is a shocking thing when you think of the relationship between the two countries. Now, of course, there have been ups and downs and we can go down that road historically and talk about Eisenhower and Ben Gurion and of course, Bush 41 and Shamir, and we can go on and on. But I mean, there has never been a moment in a relationship, in the relationship between these two countries when the president of the United States speaks to the prime minister of Israel publicly in this sort of way, and the prime minister can't do so much about it. He can't be publicly arguing with the president. Definitely not this president, like you would argue with Barack Obama, because he had the Republican Party to turn to. Here, he doesn't have anyone to turn to. So that has to be a very kind of delicate tightrope walk by by Netanyahu. I think what's interesting is what Netanyahu's mouthpiece, and there are a few of those in Israeli media, they're most of them concentrated on channel 14. What one of them wrote this week, maybe it's worth quoting. The man is named dinon Magal. He is. If I would explain who he is, I'd say he's Tucker Carlson before he broke from Donald Trump. Charismatic media person who speaks for Netanyahu will always, always defend him, come hell or high water. And this week saw a little of both. So this is what this man tweeted. I apologize beforehand. It's his words, not mine. He wrote that President Trump is a loser, that Vice President Vance is a scumbag. His words and Kushner and Witkoff were, I apologize again, little Jews or Jew boys who were bought by Qatar and sold out their brothers in Israel. So what this shows you really, is that this is the way of the Israeli right that supports Netanyahu to, to sort of step out of it and say, what are we going to do now? Because if he failed, we have to say it. No, it isn't he who failed. It is Donald Trump who failed us. That is the solution.
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A
And has Prime Minister Netanyahu responded to that at all?
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B
He has not responded. By the way, J.D. vance responded to this because he was asked by Megyn Kelly and he said, look, this is Iranian propaganda. These are people who want to extend the war without an end. By the way, ADL did castigate this in say this is unacceptable. It's a vile language for sure. Maybe we should also make a point, parenthetically, that Netanyahu's own top advisor, Jonathan Ulrich, who advised him through all of his latest political campaigns, is someone who is suspected of taking money from Qatar while still working in the Prime Minister's office and after October 7th. That, of course, has been completely ignored when, you know, Magal is pointing to both Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff as people who took money from Qatar. But what you see here again is an interesting indication of how this is making everyone in this country, how tempestuous this deal is and the reactions to it. I'm going back to the US and you mentioned Vance and we mentioned, I mean, there are other players here. First of all, it looks like Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, is trying to stay away from this deal as far as he can. I don't know what this means for the political career of Rubio, what it means for the political career of the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth. But all of these, this is going to be a very. I don't know, maybe we are set up for a major shift in the way this Administration is handling itself well.
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A
We saw Pete Hegseth, I think every week during the course of the war prior to the ceasefire out, standing next to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, two completely different presentations and styles. We had a lot of bombasts and combat specifically directed towards the media from Pete Hexseth. But the narrative that he was constantly selling was that this was a complete military success, that Iran had been an annihilated, that their ballistic missile program has been decimated, that their navy had been destroyed. That I think is pretty fair and accurate, that they never really had much of a strong navy prior to this war. But the takeaway, at least in listening to Pete Hegseth, was that Iran was completely diminished militarily, that the nuclear dust, as President Trump likes to call it, was buried and nuclear not within reach. And that there again, I keep going to the ballistic missiles because it wasn't just Pete Hegseth. Remember, there had been a bit of a misstatement from or misstep as they try to clean up Secretary of State Rubio's comments initially in the early days of the war as to why the United States went into this operation with Israel. And he alluded to the fact that Israel was going to attack Iran regardless. So the United States was going to have to defend Israel and defend its own bases because they knew that they would be attacked by Iran in response. But this, so much of it centered around the ballistic missile program and what a threat that was. We saw them strike not only their neighbors, but also thousands of miles away at a UK island, you'll recall that as well. And so the conversation then shifted to the threat that these ballistic middle, you know, mid range to long range missile programs that Iran had been working on for a number of years, the threat that they posed to perhaps even Europe as well. So to come full circle and have the President of the United States sort of excuse the Iranians for having missiles and defend having a few at least because their neighbors do as well. I just, I'm wondering how the Saudis interpret that and how, you know, the UAE interprets this. None of this they'll say publicly, but I can't imagine that it sits very well with them either. They, they may not have been champions of the war war prior to February 28, but we do know that once the war began, there had been a number of reports saying that there had been pressure from these countries on President Trump to finish the job, that the worst position would be to leave Iran wounded but emboldened. And now, According to this MoU, not only are they wounded, they're emboldened by billions of dollars that they will once again have access to. So they could be potentially in a much stronger position regionally. And here in the US you talk about the future of someone like Pete Hegseth. Marco Rubio has, as you noted, not said much at all about this mou. President Trump, not sure how much of it was a joke and how much of it was speaking just the truth, knowing that he follows through on some of these statements and perhaps a bit ominously telling Vice President Vance that if this fails, it's his fault. So it will be interesting.
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B
And if it succeeds, it's Trump's success rate, just to make sure.
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A
So he's never at fault. It's only others who are to blame if things don't go accordingly. And Axios had been reporting that it was Vance, it was the CIA director, it was Hegseth, who were opposed to this MOU and ending this war. Now, Ratcliffe, the CIA director, had said or had been reported that US intel showed that, surprise, surprise, Iran would not keep his word on not pursuing a nuclear program. Something we've heard for decades now, a number of administrations have been dealing with. And according to axios, it was J.D. vance and Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner who were advocating for this mou.
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B
Yeah, I mean, look, we can go on and on about the politics of this and what this does to Trump's administration and the midterms and what it does to Netanyahu before the elections. By the way, in the polls, he is weakened by this. But at the end of the day, it's just. Just a. Even if you detach it from politics, it is so concerning, it's so worrying here, because what you're saying is this is a nefarious regime that has nefarious intentions. And what you're saying is, oh, promise. Pretty pleased that you're not going to pursue a nuclear weapon when everyone understands that this is a promise made to be broken. Already has been broken, but. And here are billions of dollars as well. I mean, that is, at the end of the day, this deal. And it is just. It's frightening that that is the point we are at. Just, I mean, saying this as an Israeli citizen here that has, you know, sat in like every other Israeli for 40 days between February and March in safe rooms and in shelters, and before that, obviously, in June for 12 days, thinking this will be eventually over. But, no, we are just going into another round and another conflict. And this is far from over. That is the sort of saddest point here, really.
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A
Yeah. And then it begs the question of, was this worth it? I think there had been various versions over the course of this ceasefire, which had lasted longer than the fighting and kinetic action itself, as to whether if this ended now, would this have been worth it? And I think some optimists, those who supported the war, who, both in Israel and the United States, viewed this as an existential threat and needed to be taken care of and needed to be conducted when it did. We're still looking for some positive lines that. That, yes, Iran is wounded, that they perhaps are facing post war, an even bigger problem at home, existentially, with a civil, a society that is struggling even more financially, that perhaps the regime would crumble within itself once the war ended. But no one had envisioned that perhaps they'd have access to as much as $300 billion in sort of a slush fund and rebuilding. I don't think many people view that, that money going to education or water plants or health care. I mean, knowing what this regime has done over the last few decades, that money will likely go to support more terror proxies and building their ballistic missile program and perhaps relaunching their nuclear program and ambitions as well. So sanctions being lifted. I just imagine we always play this game. What would the Republican response be if this had been a Democratic president and the constant comparisons with the jcpoa? Objectively, I think this deal is much more favorable to the Iranians at this point than what we saw in the JCPOA. And I do wonder, going back, what, 11 years now? Prime Minister Netanyahu came to speak before Congress here. An unprecedented step in rebuking President Obama at the time for his pursuit of the jcpoa and addressing a bipartisan session of Congress at the invitation of Speaker Boehner at the time. You know, knowing now where we are, you know, was it worth it?
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B
That's a very good, good question. I think the line that was echoing in my head was that line attributed to Paul Newman, that if you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you. I think that is the. The feeling in Israel today and think many people who were highly critical of the Obama Iran deal, the jcpoa, the main critique was that it was kicking the can down the road and you didn't have. There was a sunset clause and all that, but at least you had some sort of guardrails in place when it comes to verification and inspection and all of that. Here there is nothing that's just let's believe a regime that if anything has become more extreme than it was. Let's believe that they really want to do this. I think the one thing that shows us the difference a little bit, the difference of the view from New York and the view from Tel Aviv is that the markets here are dropping for third day straight. That's not the situation in the US Right now after the deal was signed.
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A
No. I think the stock market hit a record high once news came of this mou. And as noted, President Trump said as much, saying he didn't want to be the Hoover of this deal and to cause a global recession. It was just a few weeks ago where he said that he didn't care about the financial woes of families here in the US and dealing with inflation and higher gas prices. He was saying it was still worth it to make sure that Iran never had a nuclear weapon. And now all of a sudden, we see a different side of him saying that he capitulated, in essence because Iran successfully did hold the global economy hostage. He saw the rising gas prices. He saw his poll numbers continue to decline. And knowing that the midterms are just around the corner and clearly not having a military appetite to renew fighting, even though we still had a full force posture in the region. Now, President Trump said that if he doesn't like the direction the Iranians take over the next 60 days, he can start bombing again. I'm not sure how much, how much credence is given now to those threats. It's pretty clear he does not want to go back to any sort of combat. And troops on the ground were never clearly a real option for him. So strikes have their limits. And I think the president, as always, kept his eye on the stock market. And we've seen the, the narrative now that you, that you've just laid out that the markets in Israel started to sell off immediately on this news, and here in the US they went up. And I believe gas prices are now, after months of hovering around $4 a gallon, are now below $3.
- [31:24]
B
Yeah, I mean, we're talking about that essential. You called it blackmail and what the Rainians did with closing the Hormuz Strait. I stumbled upon this this week. There's this paragraph in Marco Polo's Travels. This is a text from the 13th century describing Hormuz. And this is what it says. After writing for two days, the traveler reaches the ocean sea. Here on the coast is a city called Hormuz, which has a harbor. And I can tell you that merchants come here by ship from every part of India, bringing all sorts of spices, precious stones and pearls, silk and gold, fabrics, elephant tusks, and many other products. This is Marco polo in the 13th century realizing the importance of the geography of Hormuz. And you ask yourself, when all of this was planned, how no one put the main sort of effort on the option that this would happen, whether they didn't think the Iranians would pull that lever or anything else. I mean, this is partly the heart of what happened here.
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A
Yeah. I was actually quite surprised in the 60 Minutes interview when Prime Minister Netanyahu, who, as we know, is a seasoned politician and interviewer with perfect English, was asked about why the Strait of Hormuz hadn't been given more attention prior to the planning of this war, why they hadn't predicted that Iranians would do just this, given the leverage that they had over the strait. And his answer was very muted. He said, basically, nobody has perfect foresight. And I thought, wow, that coming from, if that's the best he has to say, that is pretty telling. And coming at a time when he has been touting his bona fides on both his relationship with the Republican Party and President Trump. And as the man who would take down Iran and bring ultimate security to Israel, he's really done neither at this point. Precarious situation in terms of their personal relationship with Trump. And unlike previous Democratic presidents where, you know, the prime minister could then say, I have the Republican Party on my side, at least the majority of Republicans under the age of 50 now, according to latest polls, view Israel unfavorably. So I don't know how he could consider either going after Iran and now his relationship with the United States and specifically this president, as a win for him.
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B
Yeah. And the way Israel is viewed is a danger well beyond, I think, the tenure of Prime Minister Netanyahu or the tenure of Donald Trump in Washington. I'll just mention that our Tuesday conversation was with Nir Bardas, and we, you know, well, Biana, and he's the CEO of Bridgewater, and he was talking about how dangerous it is for Israel to be so isolated in this kind of world. And I think it just kind of underscores that feeling of not he was talking specifically about how Israel is removing itself from the world. This week also proves that the world is somehow removing itself from Israel. And all of that is, of course, dangerous. I think maybe we should hear just a part of what he said in
- [34:35]
C
a world that is becoming more polarized where we are an indigenous minority, whether we live abroad or in Israel, we are not really dependent on ourselves. Doesn't matter how much defense we have, it doesn't matter how many missiles we buy, we're always going to be dependent on other people. Being as isolated and unpopular as we are now is a strategic, economic and security risk for Israel.
- [35:04]
B
So the Iran deal sealed, signed and delivered. Unfortunately, at this point and negotiations now begin for 60 days, we can in the interim give our awards or nominate our Mention Chutzpah Awards of the Week
- [35:17]
A
Listen, it's hard to find many mensches out there in the world, so I'll leave that to you. Since this is your show, I'll go with the low hanging fruit and that's the number of chutzpah players. And this one I'll give to Cornell sophomore Austin Franco. This, for those that haven't been following this story, is a 19 year old who applied through a job platform for an internship at a New York real estate company. This is a real estate company that had been co founded by two Jewish brothers. He applied for the first round of interviews and was accepted. And then I believe when they when one of the brothers asked for a meeting, Franco responded with available times. Then he failed to show up to some of these scheduled dates. And then when the owners of this company then reached out to ask what happened, Franco replied, quote, not interested in working for a Jew. Thanks. So this went viral after understandably, the owners of this real estate startup were stunned by this response. They posted a screenshot of the message on X and Franco doubled down really, instead of walking it back. And I think it speaks to the larger crisis at hand now that you and I have delved deep into. And that is just the anti Semitism crisis that we are seeing metastasize around the world. No one's dancing around the issue now. No one's hiding behind. Even though is this just about Israel or anti Zionism? No, this is just full on not interested in working for a Jew. Thank you Ivy League student at that.
- [37:06]
B
The shamelessness of it. Just to say it so clearly and not be completely shunned by society is is just terrible. I think it's even a beyond Chutzpah story. So let us lighten the mood a little bit, hopefully with a story, a beautiful story coming out of Israel and of the Shankar College for Design. And what they did was to team up with soldiers who were wounded in the war in the recent couple of years and some of them obviously more severely amputees. Whether lost their hand or lost their leg. And what they did was design clothes for them. They don't hide the injury, but actually amplify it, but are just, you know, beautifully done. And to say and to kind of give those people trying to recover, and there are thousands of them in this country trying to recover, giving them, you know, this kind of fashion and saying, no, you don't have to hide your wounds. Actually, quite the opposite. And just that kind of. And you see the sort of these pictures of these, like, pants that are, you know, they're cut at the. At the knee or shirts that are cut at the elbow. And kind of, again, they. They don't hide the wound. They kind of emphasize it even. But just to sort of say, you know, you're part of us, you're part of society, we want to even celebrate you. Then the soldiers kind of walked up this. This catwalk to show the clothes. And I think that that is kind of this beautiful. This beautiful project. I know I was trying to look, lighten the mood. Obviously there is some darkness in this story as well, but I think that is something to look at, the talent on one end and the sort of trying to go back to life on the other. And that story together would constitute, I hope, as a mensch story.
- [38:47]
A
That is lovely. That comes back to the theme that you and I constantly talk about and just the empathy in all of us. And we should be shining a light more and more on those that are willing to express it and stand up for humanity and just doing the right thing.
- [39:03]
B
So we will hope for some better things to talk about. But a very, very big thank you, Bianna. Thanks so much for co hosting this week. And a very big thank you to Michal Porat and we will all see each other next week.
- [39:18]
A
Thank you.