← Unholy: Two Jews on the News
Unholy: Two Jews on the News
Israel Election whispers, Iran Negotiations and "Lashon Hara, Babe"
00:42:30
The Iran war may be over — or it may not. In the space of a few hours this week, Washington ordered warships into the Strait of Hormuz, paused the operation, threatened to resume bombing at higher intensity, and then declared peace was near. Yonit and Jonathan cut through the chaos — and ask the question the ceasefire deal still hasn't answered: what happened to Iran's nuclear stockpile? Also this week: Bezalel Smotrich calls October 7th "a tactical failure" and says including Arab parties in government would be a thousand times worse — Jonathan calls him what he is. Gadi Eisenkot and former Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen join forces. Netanyahu's plea deal murmurs get louder. The UK goes to the polls with antisemitism front and center. And the Chutzpah and Mensch awards both go to the same unlikely figure: Nick Cave, who told a hostile fan to go F himself — and blamed his wife's absence.
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- [00:00]
A
Two days ago, it looked like war will resume. Now the US and Iran seem to be nearing a truce. What to watch in the uk, local elections and our Mentia word can be set to music. It's unholy. I'm Anit Levi in Tel Aviv.
- [00:12]
B
And I'm Jonathan Friedland in London. Unholy. Two Jews on the news. We're going to talk about all of that stuff. Also some mergers and acquisitions, if you like, going on in Israeli politics all day.
- [00:35]
A
Tis the season.
- [00:36]
B
Interesting. Exactly. The sort of movers and shapes, you know, pieces moving on that chessboard. But I think our eye was caught by the fact that May is not just the fifth month of the year, but. Drumroll. Yonit.
- [00:50]
A
It's Jewish American Heritage Month, which led me to ask you, leads me to ask you rather who your favorite Jewish American is.
- [00:59]
B
I mean, crowded feel, isn't it, really? I mean, that is, I mean, it's when you think about Diaspora Jews and mean I be in the modern age, I suspect Most people's top 10 top 100 would be Americans, just the makers of global Jewish culture in that, in the 20th century, certainly, Frank, for Franklin Ford. Much of my journalists wrote a whole piece in the Atlantic which got a lot of attention, I think, in 2024, about the end of the golden age of Jewish America. But I'm so I'm saying all that as preamble to the fact that I think mine might be a bit retro. But I don't know how you don't choose Philip Roth really as number one, because, and this is a writer's bias here, but he's the chronicler of Jewish America, isn't he? And therefore, if your favorite one is going to be the person who sort of distilled it and, and encapsulated it and in, in so many wonderful books that still give brilliant insight and pleasure. I, you know, I read some of them. Even the old ones, I read them still. American Pastoral, I only read a couple of years ago. Plot Against America, a total classic, you know, and on and on and on. So I think that would be quite close for me. But, you know, I, I, but I have to hear yours because you lived in Jewish America for several years. Actually, we both did, but you did as a child. So who's on your list?
- [02:16]
A
So that's just the one. You're just doing the Philip Roth, I guess, many others. But okay, give me one or two more and then I'll.
- [02:23]
B
Okay, one or two more.
- [02:24]
A
I'm holding my list very tight.
- [02:26]
B
Okay, so I think Partly because I think he has just turned or he's turning 100. Mel Brooks as just, you know, a comic genius and such a lovable figure. And again, somebody who comes from that earlier age of Jewish America, you know, the Catskills era Brooklyn, when that was not a sort of upscale, chic neighborhood, but, you know, a hard scrabble, newly immigrant neighborhood. Mel Brooks still has that in his memory. Billy Crystal, who we talk about on this show so often, obviously great affection for him that leads you to Rob Reiner. I mean, Woody Allen is a controversial figure these days because Pete, that divides opinion. People who think he's guilty, people who think he's not of the accusations against him, but again, somebody who distilled a particular, you know, the schlemiel, the kind of Nebuch image. Image of the. Of the weedy yet attractive Jew, which is a very American Jewish thing. You know, Larry David, etc. I was going to give an honorary mention to Leonard Cohen, who is North American.
- [03:28]
A
Well, you're trying to get in a Canadian in this list. Okay, well, it doesn't say Jewish heritage.
- [03:33]
B
It doesn't say U.S. heritage. It says American. And he was in Montreal and North American. But I agree, I'm sort of bending the rules a little bit.
- [03:40]
A
The committee needs to sit on this. I'm gonna add a few. I mean, look, the list is endless. And I think that's a beautiful thing. I would add a few. A few names kind of on the off the top of my head. So first of all, and this is because of definitely a Jewish American that I love. My cousin Maya, who is my, you know, Introduction to Feminism, dropped these, like, feminist syllabus in my lap when I was 16. So I'll have to give one to, you know, Betty Friedan. Choosing that. Still a text that resonates today. The feminine Mystique. Someone who we don't kind of run to is obviously Jewish, but was Jewish. Hedy Lamar, brilliant actress and, you know, Austrian American, but still counts as American. Brilliant actress and brilliant inventor as well. She kind of laid the foundations of what we today use as wi fi. Just I don't know how Lin Manuel Miranda did not pick up this story yet as his new mus. But in any case, she's a brilliant story and a brilliant person and, you know, Taffy Brodesser, Achner, first of all, the person on my list who's alive. So that gives her an edge, but also just a brilliant writer. You know, Long Island Compromise and Fleischman in trouble. And why has she not been on this podcast Sir, I do not know. I really don't.
- [04:46]
B
Yes.
- [04:46]
A
I mean, she's a writer. You're a writer. Write her. I mean, she's a comic.
- [04:51]
B
I think I may have done that to Yonit, so. But the invitation is already out there. So observant listeners will have noticed that we have complied with the rules of Orthodox Judaism in the sense of we've segregated between men and women in our little synagogue here, because I realized with shame that I'd only picked men and you've only picked women. So just to break that, Barbra Streisand, I think as the sort of laureate of American Jewish life, I listened again recently to the soundtrack of Yentl, much derided at the time, her adaptation of the Isaac Bashe Eversinger story. That leads me to Mandy Patinka. I mean, you know, once we start,
- [05:31]
A
you can go on and on. How about this? Just do a separate episode about this. I mean, that's what we need to be doing.
- [05:36]
B
And then just for the sake of saying the name. Cause you mentioned Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, surely just as one of the great. I mean, a great feminist, but a great name. Just. That's a surname that you can't mess with. We could go on and on. I think it's very sweet.
- [05:52]
A
I'm thinking. I'm thinking, tell me you're Jonathan Friedland without telling me you're Jonathan Friedland. There are two lines here. One is, I just recently listened to Yentl. And the other is, how can you not choose film? Philip Roth. Two lines. Just tell me who said them. I mean, just. I won the pop quiz.
- [06:07]
B
Yes, you would guess that. No, I was going to say to our listeners, come back with your own thoughts.
- [06:12]
A
Oh, yes.
- [06:12]
B
You know all the different channels on social media, we're there in all the different places on Instagram and in various other platforms, you know how to reach us. And you can see in the show notes how to do that. Why don't you come up with your own thoughts on Big Name for Jewish American Heritage Month? It's the whole month. Like the Catskills comedian who says, I'm here all week. This month is here all month. We can return to this. So why don't we? If you have other Jewish Americans, and I've now set the precedent that North Americans are included, we could have friend of the podcast, Matty Friedman, couldn't we? He's for sure. He would. He would fit, I think, Canadian American. So, you know, the list goes on. Do come back to us with your own suggestions. Meanwhile, two G's on the news. We've got to talk about the news, including must we? Must we? I mean, you've you framed about Iran. And I thought, admire, heroic really of you to sort of say something as if it were certain and fact, because this is moving every two minutes for this minute.
- [07:12]
A
It's true. I mean, we look, we met on Tuesday. We had, I think, a fascinating conversation with Dr. Suzanne Maloney, who's an expert on Iran. And the mood on Tuesday was such that it felt like it was leading to war. Maybe there were more people in Israel talking about that option than anywhere else. But it was what it seemed to be with the president's decision to sort of go into this operation in the Hormuz Strait ever since. I think two main things have One is that the president said that he would pause that for now. And for all thoughts and purposes, the reports are that the supreme Leader removed his veto on concessions regarding the nuclear issue. So it does appear like the sides do now have something to discuss. This leaves a very open question, and we have discussed this with Susanna Maloney as well, which is where does this all lead us to? And that is an open question at this time.
- [08:04]
B
Yeah, I mean, the funny thing is straight after our conversation and really I urge people to go to listen to it. It's part of our new strand of Tuesday unholy conversations. They drop every Tuesday. Half an hour after we'd finished it, I thought, oh no, it's already out of date. Then an hour later, I thought, oh, no, it's all back. It's completely in date now. And that's because of these, this sort of whip soaring that's coming up particularly out of Washington. So we had Donald Trump ordering US Warships to escort commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and then he ordered a pause in that operation. So you think, okay, it's from escalation to not escalation. Then he was claiming that there'd been great progress, as you say, in those talks with Iran. Then he says if there's no agreement, the bombing is going to start again, this time at his words, a much higher level and intensity. And then all in, I think, in a short period of hours, Marco Rubio saying the war is actually over. So how are you meant to know where to turn on this? It is sort of chaotic and it does, I'm afraid, look to be on a par with or in the same vein as the way the war started, which is this sort of ad libbing, freewheeling, shifting sands about what the Goals are one person says this, then someone else in the administration says something different, as if they're kind of winging it. That was the feeling when they started. And let's hope this is the end. This is how they're ending it too, with firing off in multiple different directions. There is a sort of headless chicken vibe about it a bit as if they are winging it. You know, some people will try and say that's all a clever tactic by Donald Trump to wrong foot Tehran. But it also could equally be just people who are in over their heads. They don't know how to end this war just as they didn't really know what they were doing when they started it. So I've stopped keeping up minute by minute because even though the stock market seems to still take all these vicissitudes seriously, I think what happens at 2 o' clock can be undone by 3 o'.
- [10:04]
A
Clock.
- [10:05]
B
But as you say right now there is some prospect and big discussion about this. Reporting out of Axios that there is a page long memorandum of understanding that could be the basis at least for an end to hostilities for now.
- [10:19]
A
Yeah. I want to return to. And we mentioned this in our last episode, but to things that were said in my studio by Tamir Heyman. He's the head of, was the head of the IDF's military intelligence and reserve duty during the 40 Day War. And he said this. If this was. He Talked about the 40 Day War, an operation to remove threats. The most important threat is the nuclear threat. And if the nuclear threat is not addressed, then the question arises what did we do in this whole event? Now, setting aside what we did here for 40 days, from the Israeli perspective, I think from the perspective of the whole world, the question is what is to be done with the stockpile of enriched uranium, 440kg of it. That is the kind of heart of the matter. And what agreement will be reached. I think another worrying thing in what Tamir Heimen said is that he said, look, it's not just the stockpile, it's the whole sort of chain. Until we get to that, first of all, there's uranium that's enriched, you know, in a lesser kind of percentage. Was also worrying. There's the centrifuges, all of that and the facilities themselves. What is the answer to all that? Until that is answered, I think there's a very growing concern in this question in this country. You mentioned, Jonathan, that the whole issue of the chaos and this kind of. You don't know where the strategy is. I Think, at least from the Israeli perspective, there's a difference between the sort of intent and the execution, because I think it makes sense. I think the mainstream Israeli would say, look, after October 7th, Israel decided to be much more active. Right. And to say, we're not going to be tolerant to terror armies on our borders, we're not going to be tolerate when Iran is trying to export terror and to plan all these nefarious plans, all this is fine and, you know, to take a proactive stance. But at the end of the day, all of this, I think, again, many Israelis would agree, needs to lead to some sort of agreement. Israel can't survive a forever war. So that is, I think, where the question is. And where are we heading? This front is still, you know, open and the Lebanese front is open. And that's a big question.
- [12:15]
B
Yeah, I mean, we've said, haven't we, quite a few times. There is this daylight, and more than daylight, there is a divergence of interest between how Israel sees this war and how Washington sees this war. And there will be an eagerness, a readiness to get this done. A lot of people think that Donald Trump wants this wrapped up before he has his summit with his Chinese counterpart. That's looming. He wants this off the table by then. Suzanne Maloney raised a very interesting point. I thought that it could ultimately take Beijing to lean on Tehran and say, okay, enough, you've got to stop, make a deal now, too, that would massively boost China's standing in the world. That in a way, America couldn't end the war. It took China to do that. I think in our conversation with her, we did put to her this notion of the Tamir Hayman question, which is, you know, what have these 40 days left again? I think you can make a different judgment there a bit. Israel will look at the degrading of some of the conventional arsenal of Iran and think, okay, that's good, that's better than nothing. What the rest of the world sees is a regime that's absolutely still in place. Maybe a couple of faces have changed, a generational shift, but the supreme leader is still the same family, foreign minister is the same guy. You can't really claim it's regime change. The nuclear threat remains, and there is this new weapon of sort of mass destruction that is in Iran's hands, and that's the economic weapon of being able to hold the global economy to ransom. So my glum view, and I think Suzanne Maloney took a similar view, is that actually, so far, Iran emerges actually net in front from where they were on February 27th. And that isn't a good outcome. The thing I think Israelis would have to worry about is this, they need this nuclear question resolved in exactly the way you say they need it properly dealt with and done. I think Donald Trump is so keen to get this thing just off the news agenda that he will take something much less. And therefore this page, this single page memo of understanding may just be so vague on nukes that it allows everyone to save face. But it doesn't address Israel's need, which is to see Iran certainly and confirmed without that nuclear threat, it could lead to the uranium still being there, as you said, both highly and lowly enriched. And it leaves the intent in place. And I once said, I think on the podcast a while ago that right now Donald Trump would take the Obama deal, which he mocked as the worst deal ever made. I think he would grab that with both hands. A few people came back to me after that and said, I don't think that's true. I think it definitely is true now because it's exactly the sort of thing they're negotiating, they're just after how many years, et cetera. So I think from Israel has every, you know, it would be make sense for Israel to look at this and think this didn't really achieve what we needed from it. If anything, that question, the nuclear question remains, you know what less pressing than before? I don't think so. I think as pressing as ever.
- [15:26]
A
As pressing as ever is true. Shall we move on to Israeli politics perhaps?
- [15:31]
B
Why don't we? Because I made my joke about mergers and acquisitions. But there was a big sort of recruit that had joined a new piece on the board this week.
- [15:42]
A
Just to kind of recap where we stood last week. We were talking extensively about the kind of Bennett Lapid merger and we said this is the advantage, Naftali Bennett with this, who is a right wing politician kind of joining hands with a center left politician in Lapid. One big move from him is to say I'm positioning myself as the leader of the anti Bibi bloc of the opposition bloc. The other thing that we perhaps neglected to mention last time was the fact that he also gets the apparatus of the Yeshatid Party, which is a longer lived party. It has the funding, it has the structure. The disadvantage is of course trying to convince. If you want to peel off voters from the Bibi block, the fact that you're walking with more left win politician is not necessarily a good thing for you. Now let's look at the other player in this block because, you know, I noted that Naftali Bennett wants to be the leader of the anti BB block. I think it was perhaps an English band who said once, you can't always get what you want. And there is one player in this bloc that refuses to, you know, adhere to that and still wants to be the leader of the bloc. And that man is, is Gadi Eisenkut, a very interesting character, very new politician in Israeli politics. He became a member of Knesset for the, in the recent elections and the elections in 2022. And when you mention who he acquired this week or who he recruited this week, I mean, the man was the IDF chief of staff. So maybe the word is recruited. He joined forces with the head, former head of Shin Bet, Joram Cohen. Now, again, what is happening here is I think that Gadi Aizenkut is trying to show that he actually is the right answer. For those voters who are disappointed in Benjamin Netanyahu, who can't bring themselves to kind of cross the line entirely and vote for a clearly left wing politician, they would vote for him. Yoram Cohen, we should say, a very respected head of Shin Bet. He worked under Netanyahu and then turned into one of his fiercest critics, joining forces with Gadi Eisenhut, saying, I've known this man for 35 years. He's a serious leader. He is the leader we need at this moment in time.
- [17:48]
B
Yeah, I was looking at the statement that Cohen made as he joined. I thought it was so interesting, some of the wording. He said, the choice to enter politics is not natural. For me, this is a real thing, the reluctant politician. It's a real sort of theme that runs through even historically in Israeli politics. It's the old, you know, in the ancient worlds, it was Cincinnatus who was brought from his plough to answer the call in Rome. You know, it's the idea that you are this long serving warrior or servant for your nation and then, you know, you reluctantly are dragged to politics. There's just a vibe of that, which I thought is true of Eisencot himself. And I think you were the person who had the conversation a few years ago where Eisenhower conveyed his reluctance. Tell us more about that.
- [18:36]
A
So I have to tell you, Jonathan, I think I met most of the chiefs of staff of the Israeli military over the past, I'd say about 30 years. I think the person I would say who's been the most reluctant, seemed the most reluctant to enter political life was Gadi Eisenkut. So much so that when I interviewed him together with my dear friend and colleague who passed away since Ronnie Daniel. We had the sort of last interview of Eisenkot as a chief of staff. I'm not sure there was a first interview of him as chief of staff. He was very reluctant to give interviews in general. And he was. I asked him there, like, is politics something you would consider? And he said, it's not even. Even on my radar. He's not a natural born politician. And as you mentioned, so is Yoram Cohen. These are people who, as you mentioned, are not the natural born politicians. They will not captivate the audience. They will be full of intellect and knowledge on the one on one. But they're not going to be that kind of charismatic politician. Right now it looks like the campaign is kind of trying to make the lemons into lemonade and saying, we don't need charisma, we need serious people to run this country because there are serious problems.
- [19:41]
B
Exactly what I was gonna say. I was gonna say they can make a virtue of that. I mean, make their sheer awkwardness and sort of reluctance part of the appeal. Cause it speaks to authenticity. And since. So we should say we're going to take a deeper dive into Gaddy Eisenkopf for this week's bonus episode. The whole business of him. He's a really interesting figure, personally bereaved twice over in the war since October 7th. Also, it speaks to this larger theme of generals in politics. Just the sort of political hack in me was thinking, if you were advising Eisenhower, you'd say your umcone is not exactly what you need because he just reinforces what you've already got, which is security credentials. You know, the. The reluctant politician, that's already your brand. You don't need to double down. But why not? He's leaning into it the other thing, because I said, I found his Cohen statement so interesting. He said, we have the personal organizational and managerial ability to deal with current challenges. Again, I thought that word managerial was so interesting. There's going to be a sort of technocratic appeal that some party is going to be able to tap into this next election, which is just the notion of Israel being a country that isn't well governed, isn't well right run that the idea of they need grownups in the room, people who are just capable of making the thing work. And I thought that was an interesting choice of word. Beyond ideology, beyond all the sort of traumas of recent years, somebody who can just bring competence. Now, there is often a market for that in politics. And it seemed to me that Cohen, and therefore Eisenhower, both are sort of playing to that bit of the crowd as well.
- [21:15]
A
Yes. And, and look, Cohen again worked under Netanyahu. He was head of Shin Bet. He did say that during his tenure, Netanyahu asked him more than to carry out what he called illegitimate acts, such as requesting the wiretap of the government's top defense echelon to ensure they're not leaking information, things like that. So it's not good news for Netanyahu that Yoram Cohen is joining Gadi Eisenkot now after saying all that, I think the politician that made the most headlines this week, and I'd like to talk about what he said, is Bezale Smotrich, the far, far right minister in Netanyahu's government. He was discussing the issue of ram, the Islamist party that Bennett did join hands in in order to form his coalition in 2021. Smolic was the one who prevented Netanyahu at the time, who wanted to set up a coalition with the same party. And he was asked about it. And he said that including, this is his quote, including an Arab party in the government is a thousand times worse than the October 7th failures. And he called the October 7th failures tactical failure. This is Smoltic's politics. And if it comes to that again, he will obviously say no to it again, first of all, just to show you that these are his opinions. But to me, what I find quite, and what created really the uproar in this country was that he called October 7th a tactical failure. And to me, I have to say, and we were talking about generals when we talked about Gaddi Eisenhut. Look, Jonathan, since October 7th, I've met a lot of of generals, and I've seen their face. And each and every one of the generals that was involved with October 7th is a man who every molecule in their body is heavy with guilt and shame and conscience about what happens. Most of them are not in the military anymore. And it's quite incredible that this government we're talking about elections happening in October 27, 2026, that will be more than three years after the greatest failure in the history of this country. And all of the members of this government are still in. And I just wondered what would allow someone like Smotrich, who is on record. This was published by our friend of the party, Lana Dayan, one of Israel's most important journalists, who said, right after October 7th, the public will demand our resignation, and the public will be right. And I asked myself, what allows for that person to Wake up in the morning and not feel guilt and not feel responsibility. And I think the key to that is to minimize what October 7th was. And that is why we're seeing things like Smoltic himself calling it a tactical failure, things like this government changing the name of the war to the war of revival. Things like erasing the name the term massacre from a bill that has to do with October 7th and calling it the events of October 7th. So I think on a psychological level, before we even get to the politics of it, what many in this government are trying to do, perhaps I'm reading this too generously, but I think what they're trying to do is just to minimize this catastrophe. So to wake up in the morning and go to sleep at night.
- [24:18]
B
Night. Yeah. I think Naftali Ben made that part of his charge, saying that Smotrich and Netanyahu are trying to make people forget the atrocities of October 7th. I mean, as if that ever will happen, but certainly to play them down. I think also let's just. So you've emphasized, rightly, the hideousness of that downplaying of October 7th, but let's also remember what he was saying was would be a thousand times worse. And that is just the inclusion of an Arab party in Israel's government. Smotrich is a racist. There's really no other nice way of saying it. You know, often we talk about ultra nationalists, whatever. I think he is a racist. And, you know, people remember his remarks about maternity wards and wanting Israeli Arab mothers to be separate from Jewish Israeli mothers. I think he's a racist. And I think the idea that this man, Mansurah Abbas, who is really, in a way, just about as amenable a politician, an Arab politician as Israel could hope for, really, in terms of his willingness to work with the Jewish majority of Israel, it's sort of. It's pretty sickening and dispiriting. You know, longtime listeners will know that. I think Israel's only hope democratically is to actually make its peace with the Arab minority in the country, to make them a full governing part of the society. That's, I think, the way that the opposition forces, the only way they're going to get the numbers to govern there is a sort of fifth of the electorate just sitting there, there that is being ostracized and excluded. And I think to say, to even put it in the same breath as the failures that led to October 7th and then to say it's a thousand times worse is just hideous and appalling. Israel's future is actually going to be governing alongside, you know, Jewish part, is governing alongside the likes of Mansur Abbas and, and Smotrich is I think, a bigot standing in the way of that. So I think, yes, the downplaying of October 7, but also his attempt to exclude a fifth of the Israel electorate is pretty unpalatable. It's almost as if we've got to our chutzpah nominee early there with Batzel Al Smotrich. But no, obviously a big part of the politics in the country. Should we just mention this thing which is sort of, it's bubbling. You see it in some of the Israeli commentary. Some columnists are talking about it. It's, it's there on the edges and it involves the politician who in a way dwarfs everyone else. We've been talking about the, the 800 pound gorilla of Israeli politics for the last 30 years.
- [26:51]
A
Yes, or magician or maverick or whatever you like to call him. But this is Benjamin Netanyahu either, you know, riding to his greatest victory ever or terrible defeat. We really don't know at this stage. I think what is interesting in talking about bubbling, I think there are murder murmurs of all kinds of things. First of all, the only person who sees the whole board is Netanyahu himself because he's the Prime Minister. But there has been this discussion because the president of the country, Herzog, has called both Netanyahu's lawyers and the Attorney General Gali Bahar of Miyara to try and mediate a plea deal for Netanyahu. Look, obviously the one thing on the table is officially the one thing that Netanyahu will not agree to, which is to leave public life in order to receive a pardon that is not officially what he would agree to. There are people in the political kind of analysts who say, look, this might be Netanyahu deciding that if he might lose, isn't this the right moment in time to take that plea deal and to say I am leaving political life and I will have all these accusations and this trial expunged? I don't see that in Netanyahu at this moment. But I think that this is going to be a campaign like we have never seen before. And just to give you a sort of bubbling from the other side, I've also heard, and this is actually coming from analysts in the United who are friends of mine who said, look, what he didn't play so far is the peace card, right? The whole issue of Saudi Arabia normalization, all of that. Like what, what I mean by this is we're all in sort of this guessing game on what Netanyahu would do. But this could be that we are leading into places to this uncharted territory that we kind of haven't seen before. I have nothing to say about this, that is any kind of knowledge. It's just this kind of intuition that we are in places we haven't seen before. We also didn't mention on this podcast that Netanyahu did reveal that he had prostate cancer, that, that he's, you know, in the words of Naftali Bennett in one of the interviews he gave last week, he's almost 80. He's not healthy. There are all kinds of things in play here. We're just seeing the tip of the iceberg.
- [28:54]
B
Yeah, he's not as almost 80 as Trump, but he's. But he's in his, you know, edging late 70s. Yeah. And so that you think that would be a consideration. I think the thing I remember on this is something you said early on, which is if he thought he had a winning card to play, he would have gone for early elections. So as an insight into how he is seeing the chessboard, the fact that he hasn't gone for early elections, the fact that it seems he's going to run out the clock till 27 October, even though that brings him uncomfortably into collision with all the anniversary retrospectives of October 7th. Apropos your point about trying to, you know, minimize it or erase the memory of it won't be able to do that in October. The fact that he's taking all those risks tells you he doesn't think he has a winning hand right now. Very interesting thought of yours. Does he therefore change the hand altogether and take that other path in the crossroads? Remember, Tom Friedman talked about these two paths, this crossroads. He talked about it on the podcast that available to Netanyahu and to Israel. And the other one is the opposite, opposite one. It's to say to all those countries who are saying, we'll normalize, we'll make peace with Israel, so long as you open up the path to a Palestinian state, it would be such a Nixon. To China, it would be, you know, it would make Nixon to China look modest by comparison, as a reverse. But he's not known as the magician, the sorcerer for nothing. And if. And you could similarly see Donald Trump really seeing the value in that maneuver after this, I think, failed war in Iran. So, you know, I agree. Don't rule anything out. This is. These are two people who know how to play politics, and Netanyahu are better than anyone. But the Idea that he might himself exit the stage. You don't feel it's in his locker personally, it doesn't feel like part of his biographical picture. But I do see the political logic for it.
- [30:50]
A
We just gave you all the crazy options so that when one of them happens we can say, oh, you heard it first on Unholy. This is what we do.
- [30:56]
B
Yeah, thank you for method. Now that's our secret sauce right there.
- [31:01]
A
So we are on the issue of politics, we're just changing the location a little bit to the UK local elections happening today on Thursday. So can tell us about that?
- [31:10]
B
Yeah, absolutely right. As we speak, people are voting. Normally, I, I don't have such a distorted view of the significance of Great Britain that I would be troubling Unholy listeners with local elections, but they, there is an unholy dimension here. First of all, it's not just local. So there are national elections for the national parliaments in Scotland and in Wales. Those elect the governments of those countries which make up part of the uk. But then elections across London and inc for local authorities, for councils. Normally, as I say, I don't think this would be on Unholy's radar, but the story now is inevitably brings sort of us and our issues into it and that is, you know, anti Semitism has been, has become a dominant issue in this campaign following those heinous attacks in Golden's Green in North London, big Jewish neighborhood in London that we talked about last year, last week. It's been part of the big political conversation. On the one hand, Keir Starmer turns up in the area. He's heckled by local Jewish onlookers there. They start chanting, Keir Starmer, Jew. Hama. The leader of the Conservative Party, the opposition party, Kami Badenot, makes a speech that is very widely passed on, goes viral. I mean, she takes on a heckler and talks about defending Jews and she wants to see an end to the pro Palestinian protests which she says have incubated an anti Jewish atmosphere. You have the leader of the Green Party who are big and up and coming, Zach Polanski, you know, clues in the name Jewish Manchester born, who is leader of, in a way, the furthest left of the big parties of, of whose issues Gaza has become a signature, signature question, which is they are rallying supporters, left supporters, Muslim voters, to the notion that only the Green Party will use the word genocide, for example, which Polanski uses all the time. And so the, and you know, that body of opinion that is outraged by the Gaza war, they are trending green. And then finally you have this nationalist populist party reform led by Nigel Farage. And this is an issue for them too, because, yes, he, Farage is with, you know, in that position about against the marches, but he has big questions to answer himself. A big investigation by my own newspaper, the Guardian, brought out more than 20 different people who were at school with Nigel Farage when he was a teenager who said he engaged in really crude anti Semitism, making hissing noises when he saw Jews talking about Hitler was right. Gassing, singing Hitler songs, sort of pro Nazi songs, Hitler salutes, the whole lot. And he has, of course, denied it, but he's denied it in such a way that it's left open quite a lot of questions whether he's saying, you know, it was all a long time ago, rather than I didn't really do those things, and not really speaking about the impact those things would have happened had they happened, not acknowledging the seriousness of antisemitism. So one way or another, all these different parties, and it's now become no longer the two horse race that British politics mainly used to be. There are five or six parties jockeying, and one way or another, Jews, anti Semitism, Gaza have really loomed very, very large in this campaign. And you have two parties outside what used to be the mainstream, both populist parties, one of the populist left, which is pushing a very strong anti Israel message, one of the populist rankings, right, which is appearing to pose as the big defenders of the Jews, partly say skeptics, because they want to, you know, hit hard at the Muslim minority in Britain. And one way or another, Jews feel themselves caught in between. And many British Jews I speak to say it's getting so tiring just being this political football that is kicked around on this pitch and waking up every morning, the news one way or another is somehow about us. Tiny minority, less than 300,000 in this country, less than half of 1%. But nevertheless, this campaign has been somehow our issues, unholy issues have been front and center.
- [35:19]
A
And how much does this address rehearsal for the general election? I mean, not on the horizon, but if Starmer loses big, if his party loses big, is that something that hastens the elections, the general election?
- [35:31]
B
He won't hasten the elections just because he won some such a big majority that his mandate in Parliament won't run out for the party, for labor until 2029. So it'd be a big surprise if that were to collapse. What might collapse is his own prime ministership, his own leadership of Labor. If labor are absolutely walloped at these elections and people think they will take a take massive losses everywhere, then that the clock, which has already been ticking, starts ticking very loudly on getting rid of him. People in his own side just do not think he has the chops as a political communicator. And they really are in a hole. You know, Wales as a country has. Labour have never lost an election there. They only win in Wales for a hundred years. They are about to lose Wales. So it's just an example of how deep the hole he's in. What it will do is it will drive up calls for him to step down, to quit. And then if there was a new leader of Labour, there would then be pressure, yes, to call early election elections for that new leader to get a mandate. So there is so much to play for here, even including who is really the leader in waiting, who is the opposition? Is Nigel Farage going to be able to say he is de facto the challenger to this labor government? And that would be a big change in British politics as well. So tons at stake. But as I say, a lot of it relates to the sort of stuff you and I talk about here week after week.
- [37:01]
A
I love talking to you about British politics and makes Israeli politics seem calm and, you know, they make sense, reasonable.
- [37:10]
B
Yeah, no, it is pretty torrid, all of that stuff. Should we get to our awards, do you think?
- [37:16]
A
I think so. I think so.
- [37:17]
B
We thought we might do something a bit unusual and link together our Chutzpah and Mensch awards in the following way. So, first of all, the Chutzpah Award. The. There is a website where fans of Nick Cave, poet, rock star, writer, can ask questions of Cave themselves, put them very directly. And Nick Cave has always got quite a lot of, you know, stick from people for his refusal to join the cultural boycott of Israel and to, you know, other musicians have asked that he do that and he won't do it. In fact, he calls the cultural boycott of Israel cowardly and shameful. So for that reason he. He gets a lot of stick, including from one fan, Lee, from Bournemouth here in Britain. He asked Nick Cave, do you have any plans to spearhead a new artists collective? It could be called Artists who are neither for or against crimes against humanity because making money is sacred. Right. So this is obviously somebody being sarcastic and sticking it to. To Nick Cave. So we give a Chut award trying to. So we Chutzpah award first goes there to leave from Bournemouth because it brings though the mensch worthy response. Nick Cave wrote To Lee that he and his wife of over 20 years, Susie, Nick Cave's wife, quote, try to be mindful of Lashon hara, a Hebrew term meaning evil speech, an act forbidden under Jewish law. It basically means you're prohibited from saying anything negative about anyone, even if it's true they're not Jewish. Explained. But the concept just feels like a pretty solid idea. Idea. So he said the loving couple, he and his wife will be sitting together, and if Susie starts to say something unkind about someone, Nick Cave will respond with Lashon Harrah, babe. I love that. Don't you just love that, Lashon Hara, babe? I just love him saying that, darling. And Susie will respond if he's being bitchy about someone. She will say, darling, Lashon Harrah. And he's. I just think it's fantastic. All reported there by fella.com website. And Cave explains to Lee that they have taken the this habit or in order to keep each other, he and his wife Susie, on the righteous path. So a mentor ward, I think, for Nick Cave for just beautiful usage of Leshon hara literally means evil tongue. And it's the phrase religious Jewish Jews often use for speaking ill of somebody. And Nick Cave doesn't do it, babe. Now we know.
- [39:49]
A
Coincidentally, Lashon Hara babe was the title we considered for our podcast. Podcast, but then settled on unholy. I just. I think I'm gonna take that part of you saying Lashona Ra babe, and make it my ringtone. It just. It works perfectly. Yes. All. All Mensch awards of all of our episodes go to Nikab for that and for, you know, keeping with the Shahran. It's not. It's not an easy thing to do, not to respond to someone being as annoying. So I agree entirely with the Chutzman before.
- [40:20]
B
Before we fully canonize Nick Cave, which we obviously want to do. It's just a fantastic payoff to this whole story, which is when Lee from Bournemouth put his question, Susie was not there around to restrain and to tell him not to. So Cave wrote his response with to, you know, to Lee, without the restraint and said, well, the Shunnaran, all that. But le Lee, you are a massive f wit and should forthwith, with no hesitation and great urgency, go f yourself, which I just think is a nice.
- [40:55]
A
Sort of makes me love him more, actually.
- [40:58]
B
Yeah, it's slightly less restrained than the original answer might have suggested. But I think that exchange between the two of them, I think those two, Lee and Nick have got a grip on the chutzpah and Mensch Awards for
- [41:13]
A
this week and they ain't letting go.
- [41:15]
B
So no competition at all in the mensch category. But we did want to make a passing mention to a giant figure of news who we lost this week in the form of Ted Turner, founder of cnn, which obviously had a massive impact on the news business, but also a kind of all round good guy, really, philanthropist, gave a billion dollar gift to the United nations, big on conservation, rewilding his land, bringing back the bison and fighting climate change. The contrast with today's titans of technology and media, the likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, we don't really need to spell it out. So Ted Turner, a loss from this week.
- [41:57]
A
So we will say our thank yous to Michal Porat and to Nir Leist. Remind our listeners that we have a conversation for them. Our interview, our main interview interview will drop on Tuesday. It's a really interesting one. And also a bonus episode about Gaddy Eisenkot. And we will meet Jonathan next week on our also on a regular episode on Friday.
- [42:17]
B
See you then.
- [42:18]
A
See you.