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From the Front Lines to the Ballot Box: Israel's Political Reckoning ep 41 · Boots on the Ground

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of Boots on the Ground, where we discuss Israel's politics, wars, and identity.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode, we will be speaking about the upcoming elections, the blitz round of politics that is happening, and the new laws that the Knesset has churned out.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: But first, thanks to our partners at Jerusalem Media Group and our sponsors, BeTheirIsrael.com.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: For all your events in Israel, BeThere.com provides live streaming services so your family and friends around the world can join you virtually.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And always remember, like, share, and subscribe.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Ari, we're going to elections in Israel.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know what?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think though, for a minute, before we start with elections, I want to say welcome back to the studio, Sean.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Neither one of us has been here for a very long time.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: We both just finished fairly intensive rounds of reserve duty, respectively, in different places.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's good to be back in the studio.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to be back in the studio.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's also good to be back in civilian life.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, that's one of the things I think we're going to speak about civilian life, the army, and everything we've learned recently.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: So before but before we talk about politics, before we get into the grossness of politics, especially at the moment, I think what I want to do is I want to offer the our in our audience a rare glimpse into the part of reserve duty that that gets talked about very shallow in different places.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: The transition from being a soldier where your life was, you know, your your schedule is very clear, your responsibilities were to back into civilian life, where everything's kind of up in the air, your wife, your children, your job, all those responsibilities come back.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: How has that transition back to civilian life been for you?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: So each time it's slightly different.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: I noticed this lost transitional period was in some areas it was a little bit more difficult than I expected.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Other, it was unfortunately smoother because this is the fifth or sixth time that I've done it in the last three years.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um I also learned fairly early on that it's important to take it slow.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: The Army has learned that as reservists who are in the workforce, we can't immediately switch from being soldiers to being fathers to going back to work.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: We actually need downtime.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that includes on the Army's dime, we go for, if you want to call it a therapy session where we're taken away to a hotel and we actually speak to professionals about transition, about the issues we go through, and it is very important.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: We also have a bit of a vacation time.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um small anecdotal story with me, not this time, but a previous round, I actually thought, yeah, I'm okay after a couple of days at home.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was frustrated, I'm going to work.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: I got to my office, I made myself a cup of coffee, I turned on my computer and it asked me for my password.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, password?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I'm not ready to go to work right now.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't think of a password, I couldn't think of work.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I went home and I actually took some more time.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: This time it was a little bit easier.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, the biggest challenge now was the frustration of missing nearly three months of work.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: That means work with my team who's been relying on me in my office.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: That means catching up on three months of work for myself that was missing, catching up on three months of what is going on in the office, three months worth of technology, three months worth of advancement.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And from my company's point of view, I was missing for three months.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now they continue to pay for me, they continue to look after me, they're incredible people.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: But somewhere along the line, I I've missed three months now, three months previously, and three months before that.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: That is a lot of work that I'm missing, and I feel it.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, I've missed all that time with my family.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's you miss a special day here, you miss a kid's a kid's event at school there, you miss something, a date with your wife, you miss me seeing friends, and you can't quantify all of those things you've missed.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: It can't be paid for, it can't be given back, you miss it.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it is very hard to come back to regular life knowing that you've missed all of those little important things in life.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: How about you?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Ari, you've also been away and been on Miloim in a different area.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: How's it been for you and how's the transition been?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll tell you this time, well, it was very intense.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: Again, we were up in beyond the northern borders of what's recognized as Israel at the moment, uh, which one day will be recognized as Israel.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: We were very deep inside there, very it was a very intense uh 90 days.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you that so far the thing that's been the hardest for me is not having time to read.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the crazy thing is you think about reserve duty and war and battle, there's always downtime, right?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: So there's there's there's an intense period.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: It could be an hour long and it could be 15 hours long, it could be 20 hours long of hyper-focused intensity, very, very physically intense, very mentally, completely all-encompassing.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: But after that, there's downtime.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: That downtime could be an hour, it could be nine days, it could be a week, it could be, you know, a half a day.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: You never know how long that downtime is.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it's a mini transition from extreme intensity to sleeping.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're physically and totally mentally exhausted, you can turn off.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I've found that there's times where I can't, or I'm not really physically exhausted.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was intense, but it wasn't exhausting.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: And now my engine's spinning at full speed in fifth gear, now I gotta somehow get back into park to take a nap.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: I I brought two books with me.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: I managed to get through so far, one and a half of them from Victor Davis Hansen.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Academic looks at different points in history and military history, and just trying to understand the philosophy behind war.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it's been incredible.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then you come home.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if there's not something that I have to get done or I'm not at work, so I'll quickly help and do another load of laundry, I'll quickly wash the dishes in the sink, or there's always something to do, and it's not like super intense, but I don't have any time to read.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have any time to just stop.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Now, again, in Lebanon, there were days where we had very little to do and we had this beautiful view of the ocean, and I could sit there reading a book as the sun's setting over the sea, and it's like I'm at war, but it's the most calming situation I've ever been in in my entire life.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: So that I've been really missing, you know, that time to read.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: And again, the other stuff, like you said, we've done it five, six, seven, now eight times before in this war.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: The transitions, like, you know, I know not to go back to work just yet.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: I know to take my time.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: I have my other side projects that I'm working on.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's the summer, my kids are home more.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I get to annoy the crap out of them.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's nice, it's good.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: But um I think the transitions also, I'm also looking at things.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm both transitioning from the army back into civilian life.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm debating right now, I might be making a huge career shift into a back into a more academic research role outside of construction.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: There might be a political something going on that I'm not so sure about either, but there's a lot of transitions going on in my life right now.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: So everything's up in the air.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: But I tell you, one thing that's really nice is this studio being back here with you and being able to talk about all of it.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think now, you know, we've we've bored, we've bored our listeners enough.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get into the meat and potatoes.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get into the politics, Sean.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, Sean, share this.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Let's not look at the last three months.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: What's been going on the last week?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: So what's going on the last 24 hours in Israel's politics?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So that is exactly what has happened.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, starting with the fact that the Knesset will go full term.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: It has now been officially mandated.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: The Knesset will not collapse because it has already passed the due date.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Israel's next election, no matter what, will be on the 27th of October this year.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: That means right now we're about to head to the Knesset recess.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: So all of the potential laws that the Knesset we're working on, right now the coalition is scrambling to pass as many laws as it can before the recess because when the re the summer recess comes, that's it.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's no more legislating, and then everything goes into super uh pre-election mode, where the parties are gonna split, new parties are gonna be formed, and everyone is going to be electioneering.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And right now, much of that is already happening on the Knesset floor, where the coalition is throwing out a whole bunch of laws, and I'm watching this happen as somebody who's now come from 400 days of Miloim in the last four years, three years, and I'm finding myself politically in the wind.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Until October 7th, I viewed myself as somebody who was nominally on the right, even far further to the right.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: I had political parties that I was willing to put up with.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: I had coalition challenges, and I understood that politics was about making deals with people you don't necessarily agree with, and I was willing to accept a lot of different things.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm no longer willing to accept certain political dealings because core values that I saw have changed.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Things that I took very seriously are no longer relevant, and things that I didn't think were relevant are now core to the way I'm viewing Israel politically and economically.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you a few examples of what I'm talking about.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Just in the last few hours, the Knesset has passed two major new legislations.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: One is enshrining Torah study as a basic law in Israel, which is symbolic and it doesn't have much impact on me.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: But the symbolism is that all the parties that I was willing to agree with once upon a time on the right and in the coalition are now saying that people who are in who are economically unemployable are equal to somebody like me and you who've spent hundreds of days in Miloim and go to work.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's why not exactly what the law says the second, and this is far more of a problem, this is and it has changed a lot of the way I view it, is the Knesset has passed a law that is that is now saying that the police cannot arrest Haredi ultra-orthodox draft dodgers.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And this has changed a number of things for me.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Firstly, it is now said that draft dodging is only illegal for some people.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Only illegal for some people.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: It has taken a certain group of people and saying, you can actually break the law.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it is also, sorry, it is spitting in the face of people like you and me who do serve, do work, and were expected to do both forever.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And worse is if you would have asked me four years ago, I would have said one of the key issues, the key elements I voted for in the last election was the issue of the Israeli Supreme Court that caused all of the mayhem leading up to September to October 7th.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: I actually agreed with Netanyahu and his coalition that the court needed to be redone.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was a political body that was having serious interference in Israel's day-to-day life.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now I actually don't want the court to be changed at all because the Knesset has ruled that one group of people are exempt when it comes to breaking the law.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: They can break the law and nothing will happen to them.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: One small group of people.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: So the Supreme Court that I rallied against, I now want them to stay because I realize that the current government has got gone completely off the rails.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: So things that were important to me are no longer important.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm finding myself looking at everyone I voted for in the past, whether it was the religious Zionist Party of Batalat Sumutrich, has betrayed me.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: I understand that he's saying he's building settlements and everything else.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: From an economic economic point of view, he's been average and he has betrayed a core value of mine, and that is the service in the army.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Even somebody as extreme as Itamar Ben Gvir, who a number of people say, well, you know, he's dealing with I'm sorry, crime is out of hand right now.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: The Arab population is incredibly militant.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: They have a huge amount of illegal weapons that are not being dealt with, and at the moment, organized crime across the country are literally throwing grenades at each other in public, and the police are powerless.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: So every party that I could have thought of has failed me.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that is where I am at the moment.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: So that that's sad.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I hear what you're saying, Sean.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think I look at it a little bit differently.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like I hear when you're speaking, there's a level of of sadness almost, of like, of depression that you were let down by the people you voted for.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I hear that, and I'm gonna be optimistic because I look at this situation and I just see opportunity.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: I look at the current situation and I say, you know what, everyone's taking their masks off, everyone shows us who they are.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's no more BS.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's all on the t all the cards are on the table and they're face up.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I look at that as there's a huge opportunity here.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: So first of all, I agree with you.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: I have no one as someone who's not, I'm not marginally on the right.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm on the right.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think anyone knows me would think I'm anything other than that.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I also have no one to vote for.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: In the past, there were parties that I agreed with about 70% or aligned with my ideology about 70, 80%.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: But the other 20, 30%, I was always able, like, okay, you know, I'll take it.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's the best I'm gonna get.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that 20, 30% is marginally not so important where we don't necessarily align ideologically, and I was willing to put up with it.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm in the same boat, I'm looking at it now, and all of a sudden that 20, 30% where I don't align with the ideology, where I don't align with the actions that they took in order to achieve the 70%, is no longer marginal.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's core.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's a core importance.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: The difference is though, my ideology hasn't changed.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: My ideology hasn't changed almost at all when it comes to my core values.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: What's happened, I think, is that the parties that were supposedly representing them have shown me that they really don't align with my core values.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: And now at the moment, I'm also without a political home on the right.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: We'll look at the two pieces of legislators.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just use those two pieces of legislature.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: You brought up three things, we'll talk about the two legislations of the Supreme Court.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'll put my piece in there.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: The law that creates Torah study as a value enshrined in the basic law.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, whether I believe Torah study in and of itself is some great value to the Jewish people, I don't think a person who's learning Torah who thinks that I'm not a Jew and doesn't support what I'm doing, I don't think his Torah study is really doing me any good on a spiritual level.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: There are plenty of Tolist scholars, just like you and I, who are in uniform as well.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: They're in yeshivas all day long when they're not in uniform, that are supporting their families, that are an active, proactive part of Amisrael that have not separated themselves out.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm all for them learning Torah.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's not what the law does.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now the law originally included in it a line that equated Torah study with army service.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: That has been removed.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Then that was removed from the law.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: And now the law is this kind of meaningless declarative law that doesn't really accomplish anything on a pragmatic level.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: Now, in the past, I would have said, okay, fine, if the if in order to do something else that's really important to me, you have to pass this declarative law, great.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: But what the reality is that law was passed as a show of force.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: That the Kharedi parties were able to force their will on the other members of the coalition.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: And by voting for that law, you just enshrined their power to wield that sword over your heads that we are in charge here and not you.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where I view its evilness, not because of the Torah study part of all, but because of the political statement that it was making by forcing the coalition to go along with it, even though it does nothing.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: It has no practical application, it's not pragmatic, it's a law just making a declaration.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: And legislation, legis declarative legislation, I think is silly and stupid.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: But that declaration completely eroded my confidence in the public voted for it.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that declaration is what showed that the parties that we naturally would vote for our vote.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: They're no longer deserve my vote.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: So let's put that on the side.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: Now let's talk about the law that was passed today, which was that the police it it changed the way the law of arikut of not serving in the army or not answering your call to serve when you're issued it, the way the police are able to arrest you.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it made it so it's almost impossible to arrest a Haredi person who's considered Arik, once they're Arik, which means they were called to serve.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Harik means somebody who's absent without leave.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: You're called to serve exactly.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: It means you were called to serve.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't translate exactly into English, but you were called to serve and you never showed up.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: And again, like we said, that means it means making not serving in the army illegal for only one population.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: Now, between you and I, before we get into that, let's talk about the Supreme Court in relation to that for a minute.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that there is a Supreme Court in any constellation that exists that would not rule that law down.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's a right-wing Supreme Court, a left-wing Supreme Court, it's just so blatantly against the core values and anything else in the legislative world that they would vote it down even if it was appointed by members of the party because it doesn't fit within anything else and it's a silly law.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: The fact that the coalition voted for it doubles down on the first law.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: It doubles down on showing us how ridiculous you are, that you're not even willing to stand up to your own members of your coalition, and you're saying we'll we'll get this through in order to achieve what?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they're saying that this way they'll go along with voting for splitting the legal advisor's role into two roles and all that.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't they vote for that first?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: How about instead of threatening me, you vote for it first, and then we'll talk about your law.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: So this is going back to what this is.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to talk about the draft dodging law.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that there's an issue here.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that there's there's two major issues.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not a solely Khereidi issue.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: And this goes back to what I presented at the JNS conference, and I called it recalibrating our national priorities.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: If the Kharitim don't want to serve, no problem.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: The Arabs don't serve, the Kharitim won't serve, parts of the non-religious population won't serve.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know what?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think you should force people into uniform.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think conscription, while it has its place, I actually disagree with it.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: We're not ready to go to a professional army, we need people, no problem.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: But let's shift our national priorities around.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: People like you and I, we serve and we pay our taxes, and we we we we come back and have families, and we raise our children to do both of that, and we carry the weight and we carry the economic burden of everyone on our shoulders with us.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: And our population at some point is going to say, Adkan, we've had enough.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want to serve, that's fine, but don't make me support you along the way.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it should be that we should be shifting our national priorities around through budgets, through education, through all that, that the top of the priority list has to be the population of people who both support the country economically and support the country mil uh in the defense of the country.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: After the people that do both, it's the people that do one of them, and whatever is left over goes down to the people that do neither.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: And in the end of the day, at the end of the day, the issue isn't with them not serving, it's the not serving and also demanding that we support you.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: And when you combine those two, that's where the problem is.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I think we need to combat.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: And on the Supreme Court issue, again, I absolutely cannot agree with you.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: I can't agree with you that we have to leave the Supreme Court and the way that the judicial system is set up right now in place.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter what they rule or not, it cannot stay the way that it is.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's not not only non-democratic, there is no reality like it anywhere else in the Western democratic world, where the judges self-appoint themselves and they can overrule legislation, and they never have to answer to the actual sovereign in the lands, which are the people of Israel, the voters.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: We are the sovereigns here, not the government, not the judges.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: We're the sovereign power as the voters, and they never at any point have to answer to us in any capacity.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: That reality has to change no matter what.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, and this is why I'm going to disagree with you on this.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: I used to believe that, that the the the reality that we have this runaway Supreme Court that has appointed itself as the rulers of the country, that they can outlaw whoever they want, they can appoint themselves, and they can decide what goes through and what doesn't.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: They have empowered themselves to supersede all others.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: I still believe that is a major problem.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm going to go back to your first point and then I'll explain it to you.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: We both agree that there is a segment of the population that does not practically contribute, both militarily and economically, and they are only taking from us all the time, and they're demand they're demanding more, and they're demanding to be exempt from everything and to receive everything.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: There is no W constellation or combination at the moment of any future coalition that does not include that group.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: There is no potential coalition in the future, potentially right wing or even center-right coalition that does not include the Haredi parties.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: That means that that same group of people who do not serve and demand perpetual exemption will not contribute to the economy and demand perpetual grants forever are always going to be the lawmakers.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Not only will they always be the lawmakers, they're always going to be the kingmakers.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: If they do not get what they want, there will be no right-wing coalition ever.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, you have a tiny minority who do not contribute, quite literally spit on those of us who serve and pay, and they run the country.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: The only group of people that can and do stand up to them is the Supreme Court that has appointed themselves as a higher than them.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: So while I do not like the current Supreme Court, and you are right, it is hugely problematic.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't they're con the way they've appointed themselves, that doesn't exist anywhere in the world.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: But we actually do need an extreme gatekeeper to deal with an extreme situation in the Knesset.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: And as much as I disagree with the follow-up law, which is the fact that Israel has this unique situation in legal terms where the government's legal advisor and the state prosecutor are the same person, and the current government legal advisor is by all means far to the left and is curtailing every action of the government.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know what?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Three, four years ago, even three, four months ago, I said she needs to go.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Her position needs to be broken up.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: This person is detrimental to the government.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right now, based on the current makeup of the government and the fact that every future government will have, I'm sorry, these extreme minorities who demand more and want to pay nothing and demand that they are exempt from any responsibility.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: The only person willing to stand up to them and say you cannot do this is that same attorney general or government legal advisor who I despise.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: But we need that person there because the entire Israeli democratic system is a complete farce.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: So again, Sean, I think you're combining and you're mixing two things that I don't think go together.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, I'm way more optimistic than you that there is the ability to have a coalition.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: Again, short term, I don't think it'll last full, four full years the next government that will be able to shift that balance.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: I do, I see math that that adds up to a functioning coalition that can deal with this one issue jointly without touching any other major legislation over the course of one to two years.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then go to elections again.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, I do see that math happening.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: And again, we can't really talk about what a coalition will look like or who's gonna get elected.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because as we're gonna see in the next three to six weeks, there's at least three, four, five, maybe even six major new political frameworks that are gonna be coming out publicly and announcing.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: And there's three that I know about, all of which have tremendous potential.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if I know about three, there's probably more.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: There's gonna be endless numbers and there's gonna be recalibrations, and there's gonna be splits, and there's gonna be joinings together and unifications.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: So in the end of the day, we really can't talk about what a coalition is gonna look like after the next election, at least not now.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: Want to have this conversation in a month or two for now.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: We'll have way more information, we'll be able to have a more intelligent conversation.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: Until then, there's nothing really to talk about of what it's gonna look like.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Even the polling data.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Bennett's on top, Guy De Isaacot's on top, Netanyahu's winning everything, the Kharidum are 700 seats, then other five seats, it's all over the place because again, there's too much time still for an election to have a realistic approach.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: But either just because the the legal advisors and the Supreme Court are doing something you like at the moment as opposed to doing something you don't like, it doesn't change my opinion on it.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: There's what's right and there's what's wrong.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: And the system right now with the judiciary is wrong and needs to be fixed.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: Even if it's doing something right at the moment, broken clock is right twice a day.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't give it the right to stay there and exist.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't earn its value because when it stopped working, it was still right twice a day.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's still wrong and it needs to be fixed because right now it's working in your favor.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: But guess what?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna blink your eyes and it's gonna be working against you once again, right away.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: And in the end of the day, in the end of the day, hear about in the end of the day, the extreme, again, if you want to have a Supreme Court that can get involved and intervene in things that are political in nature or in the vision of the nation in nature and not purely bureaucratic legal questions, then that Supreme Court and its legal advisors have to be answerable to the public because they're political at that point.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: If they want to maintain the system they have now, then they have to not be able to or not have the ability to get involved in those things, but only rule on the purely technical, bureaucratic approaches of legal matters.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: They're the highest appeals court, they're not a court that deals with matters of policy.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: And again, if we want a Supreme Court like they have in most Western worlds that can deal with matters of policy, there needs to be a level of public involvement in who's who's appointed, whether that's through elected officials or even electing them directly.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's a solution.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Let's elect Supreme Court members directly for life.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: You get elected once, and that's it.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: So all of this I agreed with you.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: I agree with you.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't necessarily agree with the Supreme Court.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't necessarily like the current way the court system works in Israel.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: But you're like, over the last three years, I flipped, and that I think the Haredi issue, the Haredi draft issue, the Haredi economic issue, has become far more important to me and my family than the Supreme Court.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Three years ago, I wanted to I said the Supreme Court, we need to change the makeup of the Supreme Court and Israel's policy there was more important than anything else.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm the other way around.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: We need to deal with this.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you an example of what happened to me.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: You spoke about the Israeli electorate and we're speaking about democracy.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: So a couple of months ago, during another round of My Melium, my daughter, who was at the time on national service, I hadn't seen her in weeks.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: I had come back from a very intense period of reserve duty where I was away from my family, I was away from my work, and I was missing my family.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't seen my own daughter for many, many weeks.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, we had a chance to meet because she was coming from where she was doing national service, but she couldn't make it to meet me.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because the Heradium were protesting and it blocked all transport in and out of Jerusalem.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: I had a minor period of time to get back.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: She had a we couldn't meet.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I, as somebody who serves and pays taxes, my daughter, who's serving the country in her capacity, we are voters, we form the majority of the country.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: We vote, we serve, we pay.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Our rights were hindered, were infringed by a minority who will not pay, will not serve, and now they are exempt from any uh legal any ramifications from them blocking my legal up my legal right.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, my right, my duty to see my children, their dem their demand to block the streets, to demand that they will no longer serve and want me to condemn their ability to block the streets and prevent me from seeing my child and force me back to the army, that overrides everything else.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: That is the democracy that Israel's created right now.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm looking at that situation and saying, you know what?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: If that is the democracy that has been created right now, it is a broken system, more broken than anything else.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: I want that changed first.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: I I will vote for that first.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: The Supreme Court and everything else doesn't matter to me right now.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we're talking about.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: We can talk about how four years ago I was in a similar situation on my way home from reserve duty before the war, and I couldn't get home because the anti-judicial reform people were blocking all of the streets.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's a two-way street.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: If you can if one group can block a street, another one can as well.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: So you can't say that the right to block a street is a reserve one.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: Personally, I think it should be completely and apparently against the law with huge fines and jail time for anyone, even if it's just one guy protesting in a street.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: The street is for everyone to use for transportation.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a place for protest.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: Go protest in a park.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't, it shouldn't be allowed for anybody.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm universal in that sense.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: But like I was saying, it's not only an issue.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: You're looking at it as an issue from the Kharedi population.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because they're the ones that are at the forefront in the news at the moment.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: They made the mistake of shoving themselves into the spotlight instead of being like the Arab population.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't a mistake.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was a either way, it doesn't matter.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: They put themselves into the spotlight, which I think is a miscalculation on their part.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I also think it's a miscalculation on the leaders of the political right-wing camp.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think they take, I don't think they properly understand how much anger and resentment the right-wing voters have towards the Khardi population at the moment.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's not, it's, you know, Asher, Professor Asher Cohen spoke about it in a podcast I was listening to, where he was trying to quantify through his research the anger, the level of anger and resentment towards our representative, our elected representatives from within the Datilumi, the national religious crowd, because of their cooperation with the Khari population.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: And he his research wasn't conclusive, but again, he had just started and he was showing that that resentment, it's already quantifiable, which means it's already there enough that we can detect it and see it.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: And he's saying it as he does the reach, it's going to show that he thinks that it's going to be seen as much more.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I'm having I'd love to be proven wrong, but he didn't think he was going to be proven wrong.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: He thinks it's there a lot.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think also what you're realizing is my approach, as opposed to yours, I'm saying I'm not looking at it as a Kharedi problem.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking at it as an overall problem and looking at there's the population of people.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: There's those that serve and those that work, and there's those that don't.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to break it out of that Kharedi, anti-Khari conundrum, almost like the yes bbi, no baby question.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: Things aren't binary.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: And things need to be shifted on a national level because there are plenty of Kharedi that do serve in the army.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they're a tiny percentage of the Kharedi population, but it's a growing number.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: And we need to encourage them to keep serving as well.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing gets solved only with a stick ever in life.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's raising children, it's having a business, it's disciplining in the army, it doesn't matter what it is.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: There's always a carrot and a stick need to work in unison to accomplish any major changes.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why when I presented my plan at the JNS conference for shifting our national priorities, it's from A to Z on a national level and relates to the person as an individual, not a member of a community.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right now, as a member of the community at the age of 18, that ultra-orthodox member is getting his exemption because he's connected to a community.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: Not because he stood on his own two feet and got us an exemption.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: The first thing we need to do is change that math.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: Make it so that that individual is required to get his own exemption.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: First, start connecting personal responsibility to decisions you make as an adult.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: At the age of 18, you're an adult already.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then connect every part of budgetary funding on a national level, not to communities, not to institutions, to people.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: Higher education, right now, the overwhelming part of higher education's budget.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: The universities come from how many students are signed up.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: You as a student sign up to do your bachelor's degree at university A.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: You pay 10,000 shekels a year of tuition.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: The government's paying another 30 or 40,000 shekels, depending on what you're studying, to the university.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: Everything talks about a scholarship for that 10,000.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: That 30,000 to 40,000 is never called into question.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: What about all the people in university who never served at all?
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: Why should they be getting access to that funding at all?
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: Let's make yeshivas, the yeshiva tuitions that the kolels are collecting in ginormous amounts from the government at the moment, in the billions of shekels and the hundreds of billions of shekels.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: Let's make all that funding per person.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: How?
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: How?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: How?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: There is no Sean.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: There's no call the numbers don't work right now, but we're again we're before the election.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: If enough parties that we've that will come out of the woodwork start presenting an option that isn't, let's just go head to head with the Kharidim.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: Let's not just go head to head.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Let's actually change the broken system.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: Let's look at the system and let's fix it.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: Not let's just put a band-aid on it.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because what everyone's talking about right now is let's arrest all of them.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Let's throw them in jail.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's just gonna cost you and me a shit ton more money, excuse the language, and it's not gonna make our service any shorter, right?
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: Then let's say, okay, let's cut all of their funding.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so now it's gonna cost us more money in healthcare, and it's gonna cost, they're not, it's not gonna change the realities at all.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking at it, let's take a change.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: Let's we have we have the stick, we know how to use it.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: Let's also offer the carrot, and not the carrot just for them, the carrot to everybody.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because in the end of the day, you and I are already gonna be getting the carrot.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: I don't need the stick, I'm following all the rules.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna keep getting, we're gonna enjoy the carrot from day one.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: Their population is gonna be having seeing the stick and realizing that the stick is being wielded by people that are willing to use it now properly.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: And their younger generation is gonna see the carrot.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: We're not living in a reality anymore where you can detach yourself from the world.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: There's saturations of technology are everywhere.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: If everyone thinks the Haredi world is disconnected and they've cut themselves off and they can't see what's going on around them, they're living in a bubble.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's not true.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: They're aware, they can see the reality.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: Enough of their population leave that bubble every year, and they don't wait.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: You think you don't talk to their siblings?
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: You think the guys serving in the army that are now getting enormous benefits for their children and for themselves after their service when it comes to education?
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: You think they're not talking to their 15 siblings?
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe three siblings cut them off, but not all 15.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it slowly makes its way in.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking at solving the problem properly at its foundation, not just today, tomorrow, but for the next 50 years, the next hundred years.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: And the difference is, is there's people like me coming up in the political world that, yes, I can work together with the ideological other side of the aisle.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not gonna go all the way to the extremes, but there are people in the middle that we can work together to solve this problem and then go to an election again.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: Say, listen, we're not gonna, we're not gonna agree on what to do with Gaza.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: We're not gonna agree with what to do with Lebanon.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: We're not even gonna agree on what to do with the Supreme Court.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: So let's not talk about all that.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Let's spend the next year and a half to two years dealing with the intrinsic issue at hand right now, which is this issue that we just spoke about.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Let's fix that and let's have elections again.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: Let's agree that we're not even gonna attempt to go for four years.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna say we're gonna do one issue and then we'll do again, almost like national referendum.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the reality that we're looking at, because that's gonna be the real the next election, is like you said, it's either gonna be a coalition which is just plus minus the same as we have now, which won't accomplish anything good.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I also don't think the current coalition's voters will go for that.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's like maybe, maybe the opposition somehow squeezes by at 61, but even within themselves, they're so fractured, they won't be able to accomplish anything.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: And they have the enemies of the state of Israel, the Arab parties, inside of their coalition, which means they won't accomplish anything, which means they'll collapse fairly quickly.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then you have the people in the middle and the newer people coming up saying, listen, I don't need you anymore, and I don't need you anymore.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: And we can create a strong enough block in the middle, we won't solve all our problems.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: We won't bring utopian society and eternal peace to the land.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: We can solve this one issue and then go to an election again and then solve another issue and go to an election again, and we can make the elections around issues almost like having national referendums, but it could be by people that aren't beholden to the current existing mechanisms.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds great.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um I right now that sounds overly optimistic and overly idealistic.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: The the reality of a center right and center left people coming together on one end saying we will join together on one sounds great.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: If there are enough of those people, I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I based on the last 75 years, pretty much every politician that's going to come in, somewhere along the line, will either look for something long term or certain people are not going to are gonna follow through on this.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to say that'll happen.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope in three, four months' time, when there is a new coalition, we can say, yeah, Ari, you were right and I was wrong.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: And we do have people who are willing to sit together on this one issue and then they'll say we're gonna solve this issue and then we're being done.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't see it happening.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: I really don't.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm more optimistic than you, I guess, in that sense.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: I also think I have more faith in the voting public in Israel.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think that the reality is that the if you look at the conversations that are happening, not on TV, not on the TV world.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: No, but but the conversations on the street, especially in reserve duty, where both of us have the privilege of doing reserve duty where you sit there and you have hours of hanging out with people that you would never hang out with in your daily life, that cross the political, religious spectrums of society, socioeconomics, but everything.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: There's always someone that fits a completely different part of the world that you would never speak to sitting with you in the room.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the conversations that are happening.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: Now, again, 1% of the population does reserve duty.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's the reality.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: We're less than the people that are doing our combat reserve duty like us, we're less than 1% of the population.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, again, it's a very small window.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: But when you start talking to people, I had the opportunity because of where I served, I took the train back and forth a lot at random hours.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was bored.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: I started talking to everybody around me because that's just what I do.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: And the conversations that we're having that I'm hearing around me when I listen to the conversations around me are exactly what I'm talking about, where people are just sick of the same recycled anti-BB, pro-BB, anti-haridim, pro-haritim, anti-this, and that that dichotomy, that binary options, people are waiting for somebody.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: They're waiting for the new political parties to come out.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: Not the recycled politicians, not the, oh, I'm leaving my party and starting a new party, not the people that held it like a the people who are new voices, the people that I'm working with, the people that other people I know are working with on the other side of the aisle, new voices that are willing that are not willing to fall into that dichotomy of yes, no, binary, you have to be here, you have to be there, that either you're on my team or you're the enemy.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: That splitting everything up into two sides, people are sick of that conversation anymore.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: Can I say that everyone on the left is evil?
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely not.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: There's some guys that are on the left that serve me that are absolutely outstanding people that I would trust blindly.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: Do I agree with them ideology ideologically on everything?
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: Of course not.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: Can we find common ground that we can work together to solve some of the problems right now without including the Kharedi, non-Kharedi side?
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: Of course there are.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: Of course there are.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: We have enough in common, we care enough about the country that we can work together minimally.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want again, I'm not expecting utopia and I'm not expecting eternal peace.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: But we can start fixing some of the foundational issues that we agree on and keep moving forward from there.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you're a lot more optimistic than I am right now, and I appreciate that, and it's always good to talk to you.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think I needed a little bit of positive reinforcement, even though I, like I said, right right now I'm very frustrated.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: I I feel the the word I'm going to use is betrayed.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: I hear that, Sean.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I'm really happy we could have.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here for you.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really happy we could have this conversation.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: While I'm not convinced yet, it was good to hear a positive spin on the current situation.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think also what we'll do is in the coming episodes, you know, now that we're both out of reserve duty and we can have time, we'll start getting back in the studio more often.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe what we can do is we can break down the specific issues at hand.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: Not so much how we got here, but actual solutions, pragmatic solutions.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: Not, oh, we just, you know, let's just adopt this whole entire system.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: Let's pick out issues and let's talk about one piece at a time.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, maybe we can start off with the national, the national, the shifting, realigning our national priorities, a real plan.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: We can go through it and I can show you how it's something that I can get the left and the right to agree on.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: If I, you know, as a lobbyist even maybe, I can bring people on a table, a plan to really solve the issue that we're talking about.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm also very interested to see is the current political parties and the new ones.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure we can have a great discussion about all these new political parties that are gonna come up.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: We said there's at least three at the moment.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's probably gonna be five or six.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: Who are they?
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: What are their makeup?
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: What are they offering?
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: What's the difference between them?
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: And also it's going to be interesting to see uh the lists that come out of the old parties.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: All of that is stay tuned.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be fun.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be a fun ride the next few months, guys.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: And with that, Ari, again, thanks for putting a positive spin.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: I know I was a little gloomy this time.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's all good.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: But it's good to be back.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: And thanks again to our partners at Jerusalem Media Group and our sponsors, beTheERISrael.com.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: For all your events in Israel, BeThere.com provides live streaming services so your friends and family can join you from around the world virtually.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, and please remember like, share, and subscribe.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Israel Chai.