Latest / In These Times with Rabbi Ammi Hirsch / David Horovitz

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David Horovitz · In These Times with Rabbi Ammi Hirsch

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I am Rabbi Ammi Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York.
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And you're listening to, in these times,
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Israeli politics like ours here in America or anywhere these days have
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become increasingly complicated, divisive, and just plain messy.
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It's hard for outsiders looking in to understand how a seemingly unifying issue,
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like the return of the hostages held in Gaza could actually be polarizing.
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But explaining these complicated issues to Jews in the diaspora is
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the times of Israel's business model, and they become great at it here
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today to help us understand what is holding Israeli society together and
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what's threatening to tear it apart.
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He is a returning guest, the founding editor of The Times
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of Israel, David Horowitz.
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David, you're our first repeat guest.
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I've been doing this podcast for about, uh, two and a half, three years.
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And, uh, you're the first person I've asked back because, uh, you're
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such an expert on, uh, Israeli affairs, but also explaining Israel
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to, uh, diaspora communities.
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So welcome back to, in these times.
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Thank you.
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Um, yeah, I just hope that eventually we'll get to one of these where we're,
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um, being encouraging and upbeat.
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So,
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uh, I'm glad you, uh, mentioned that I wanted to talk to you about the current
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security situation, the state of the war, and of course the domestic situation.
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The political situation, which you've been very vocal about and written
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some penetrating deep articles.
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First of all, it's been, uh, two and a half years since we spoke.
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We spoke right before the government, uh, was formed after the elections.
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What do you think about the last two and a half years?
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Well, it's been, um, a very difficult time for Israel.
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I think you'd have to say because of October the seventh, the worst
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period in modern Israeli history.
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The government took office at the very beginning of, uh, of 2023.
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I. We'd had loads of elections, there was lots of political infighting and so on.
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And then we entered the period with the efforts to legislate,
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really subjugating the judiciary to the elected political echelon.
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This caused, you know, tremendous divides in Israel.
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You know, everyone's pretty familiar with that by now.
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And, uh, then came October the seventh, which is an enduring nightmare for Israel.
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It's, it's anything but over.
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I'm sure you wanna talk about some aspects of this more in depth, but
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broadly speaking, you know, we've not really mourned for the people
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who were lost on October the seventh.
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There are, there are days of remembrance, of course, but most of our attention has
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been on an ongoing conflict with Hamas who are still capable of fighting rockets.
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In Israel, we, we've had significant conflict with Hezbollah.
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You have Iran closing in on the bomb, which is of course a very fresh.
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Headline story right now as well because the Trump administration has opened semi
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direct talks and o of course, at the heart of much of the attention is the
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issue of the hostages, which you know, was very cynically planned by Hamas.
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251 people were taken hostage and 59 still there, 58 from October the seventh.
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We hope that 24 are still living, 35 are confirmed dead and an effort ever
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since a year and a half now to try and square the circle of needing to ensure
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that Hamas cannot rise to do October the seventh again, as it has vowed
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that it will, if it gets the chance and needing to get the hostages home.
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And, uh, lots of back and forth and controversy and divisiveness in Israel.
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And this, you know, speaking to you in the States, it's worth stressing
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'cause perhaps people don't understand.
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The hostage issue is a divisive political issue in Israel in a way
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that it isn't in the United States.
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I mean, I'm generalizing, but you know, you had two massive conventions by the
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two major parties in America shortly before the presidential elections,
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and in both of those conferences, families of hostages spoke and tens of
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thousands of people were unanimously empathetic and supportive and horrified
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and welcoming and warm that that's not the case in any unanimous sense.
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In Israel, there's almost no.
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Effort being made on behalf of the hostages that does
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not have political overtones.
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There's almost no gathering without heckling or dissent or very heavy
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police presence, shall we say.
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It's not a unanimous above all else issue, in part because of
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the real security implications of deals done and deals not done.
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It's by its nature, I suppose, in Israel, more divisive than it would be
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amongst supporters of Israel abroad.
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But you know, that's a, a huge tear in Israeli society.
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The controversy around how do you get hostages back?
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I mean, most people, even those who are critical of the families, think that
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Israel needs to get the hostages back.
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But in isolated extreme cases, and you may have seen stuff about this,
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people demonstrating on behalf of the hostages even released hostages.
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Have been subjected to quite appalling terrible abuse, the most recent of
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which is Larry Alba, who's one of the IDF surveillance soldiers who
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was released in the currently stalled last deal being abused for ultimately
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blaming the Prime Minister for the failure surrounding October the seventh.
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Well, of course, the Prime Minister is ultimately to blame for the
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failures surrounding October the seventh, and she has said other
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things that are quite respectful, shall we say, of the Prime Minister.
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But she was, you know, castigated, denounced in language that is,
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and more repeat, but including, you know, they should never have
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got you out kind of criticisms.
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So, can I ask you to help us understand this?
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Because when the war started after October 7th, they laid out
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three broad objectives of the war.
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One to return the hostages, two, to dismantle Hamas' military capacity,
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and three, to ensure that the day after Hamas would not be governing, uh, Gaza.
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None of those objectives have been achieved fully.
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All of them were universally supported, and to my understanding,
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they are still supported.
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So what is the essence of the controversy now?
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I mean, apart from the fact that the controversy takes place in the context of
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such a divided Israeli political entity.
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Right.
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This is, again, I, I I refer to it before in passing, but it's very relevant.
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We had five elections in four years here because the country is very divided or
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essentially does it want Prime Minister Netanya to, to, to remain its leader?
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So that's before any of this started.
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And then, you know, the actual practicalities regarding those
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three goals, you know, you can argue as the Prime Minister has done
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intermittently and very much of late, and so does his defense minister.
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That military pressure is the only way you're gonna get hostages out either
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because they'll be able to be rescued, and that's kind of very at the margins
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now because it's become increasingly difficult to carry out any kind of rescue.
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There have been a very, very small number of hostages who were saved by the army.
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But the assertion is, and like I say, very much so now that Israel's
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renewed its military campaign, is that without heavy military pressure,
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you're not gonna get Hamas to give way.
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There are other people who say, no, those, those goals are all important goals.
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We have to destroy Hamas.
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We have to make sure that Hamas cannot revive, but we can be doing
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that for a long time and we will probably be doing that for a long time.
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The urgent priority now is get the hostages out, and if that means
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stopping the war, stop the war.
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Now, the counter to that, which I have to add people around Netanya, I'm
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not sure if Netanya himself has said it publicly, but the notion that you
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could somehow defraud Hamas, right?
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In other words, that you'd sign up for a deal.
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Under which you agree to stop the war in order to get the hostages out, that then
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you restart the war in Netanyahu Circle.
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And I'm sure the Prime Minister believes this as well.
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There's an assertion or a sense that, that you can't do that.
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Hamas is not that stupid.
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And one way or another, whether it would be through binding security
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council resolutions that could then not be revoked or overturned.
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'cause Russia would veto, you know, you can't pull the wall over Haas's eyes.
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And therefore, I mean the, just to go into a little, into the minutiae, a
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deal was signed in January in which, as you know, phase one saw the release of
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33 Israeli hostages, 25 of them alive.
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And under the terms of that deal, which of course Israel signed onto, it was
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supposed to be that we would negotiate on a second phase and the third phase,
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and in the second phase, the rest of the living hostages would be freed and
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Israel would withdraw the IDF completely from Gaza and agree to end the war.
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Now Israel signed off for that and it's often misreported as though Israel
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signed on to a binding second phase.
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In other words, it's now breaching that deal 'cause it hasn't ended the war.
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That's not the case.
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Israel signed on to a binding first phase during which it would
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negotiate on the second phase.
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And instead the prime minister said, listen, I can't go through to phase two.
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'cause phase two means ending the war, and if he ends the war,
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he won't be able to restart it.
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And therefore he has been trying to extend phase one more, a longer ceasefire and
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some more living hostages to be released.
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The Americans have been supportive of this.
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Steve Woff has been supportive of this.
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There's endless reporting, including right now, suggesting that the Egyptians
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have made progress with Hamas on possible more hostage releases without an Israeli
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commitment to actually end the war.
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An Israeli commitment to discuss ending the war and so on.
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But that's why those three.
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Goals, widely supported goals don't sit easily together because Hamas
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has not been prepared, essentially to release any more hostages at this stage
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without a sort of Israeli commitment guaranteed to buy America to end the war.
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And therefore you can't, as things stand, get more hostages out and destroy Hamas.
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That's the way the Israeli government sees it.
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And could you explain in detail for us, what is the national interest in
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getting all of the hostages out first?
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Presumably the living hostages, is it simply a humanitarian issue, or
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is there something about Israeli national social cohesion that elevates
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this into also a security issue?
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I think it is a security issue.
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It's certainly all those other things you said as well in terms of,
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of why this might resonate in ways that aren't immediately apparent.
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The 24 hostages, broadly speaking, are men.
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Many of them are soldiers.
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Israel has always had a philosophy that says you don't leave anybody behind.
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Right.
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And now it's much worse than leaving somebody behind in a battle.
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This is, these are people who were abducted in many, many cases
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fighting off the enemy inside Israel, trying to save lives.
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In some cases, in the most extraordinarily heroic way they've been held in Gaza.
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We know because other people have been held with them, uh, exactly the
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conditions under which they're held.
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They're chained in tunnels.
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They are starved.
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They're physically and psychologically abused.
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It's been going on for 18 months.
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You know, the fact that we, we still believe that up to 24 are
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still alive, is quite extraordinary.
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And therefore, these are everybody's sons and fathers in some cases,
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right, who have been held for a year and a half and Israel.
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Obviously is facing the most cynical terrorist army, but
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has failed to get them out.
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So it's, I don't know if it's uniquely Israeli, but everything
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about this story is uniquely Israeli.
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I don't know of parallels, certainly in the western world of hostages being
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taken in this number, being held for this long, and the incredible challenge of
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tackling a terrorist organization that is widely supported in the urban territory.
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It controls that cynically exploits everything about being able to fight from
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under and next to a civilian populace.
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It's incredibly emotionally and, and security wise, wrenching
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and untenable for Israel.
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You can't just say, well, you know, it's only 24 people think
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how many other people might die.
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As a consequence, there are people who would make that argument.
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That leaves out the fact that nevermind these lives, which would,
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would just be unthinkable to just.
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Essentially give up on them.
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There's also the message it sends to Israel as a nation from its leadership
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that we will send you into battle and we won't always do everything to get you out.
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And just, I would contrast that with the 2011 prisoner deal that Israel did,
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a single Israeli soldier was abducted from within his army base in Israel.
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That was the Gill Shali, right?
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Gid Shali.
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And in that deal, it was actually Yessir who was one of the people who
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was released, which adds, of course, again, underlines the complexity of this.
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So Israel under Netanya freed 1,027 Palestinian security
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prisoners for one soldier.
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And therefore, the notion that the same prime minister would not, I
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mean, you know, the price paid for Shali as an individual, as things
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stand for sure is higher than the price that Israel is paying.
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For anybody who has been released so far.
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And these people were taking hostage because of a complete failure of the
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Israeli political and military leadership to understand what Hamas was up to.
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So that's another reason why it seems unthinkable.
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Adding to the complication, of course, as you rightly say, among those who are free
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that day was Yu s There are people, I'm, I'm in that mix personally, who were very
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troubled by the 2011 deal because it was obvious that many, many more lives were
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gonna be lost, um, for the noble cause of.
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Getting home Gilet.
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I think that the balance and the equation is very different this time.
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And I hope that some of what I've said has sort of tried to explain why the
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context is so different this time.
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Can I ask you, uh, as one who looks abroad and has expertise
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about Israel abroad here?
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Sadly, the issue of the hostages in the, uh, general population and as
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the media covers, uh, the conflict, uh, has sort of receded and, uh, it's
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mostly about Palestinian casualties.
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And from the beginning really, except for the first few weeks or maybe
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a month or two, that's the way the issue has been portrayed in the west.
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Help us understand the issue of Palestinian casualties.
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Is that a significant issue in Israel and what is the moral equation in your view?
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First of all, I'm not even sure.
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It was a few weeks, I think from very, very soon, maybe sooner than
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that, after October the seventh, there was an effort internationally.
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I don't think it was coincidence.
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I don't think it was a genuine flaring of mainstream public opinion.
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I think it was a very well orchestrated effort to basically deny Israel the
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right, the capacity to defend itself.
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And by the way, with extreme content of antisemitism as
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well, in some cases at least.
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So you had a very, very rapid effort to minimize or get over the fact that
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thousands of terrorists had invaded from a territory where Israel had no claims.
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Back to the pre 67 lines.
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Remember, Israel was, was out of Gaza, so they'd invaded, they'd
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killed 1200 people in horrific circumstances, most of them civilians.
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Unprovoked.
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You can argue as defenders of Hamas do that.
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Well, you know, Israel is illegitimate altogether, or
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Israel still holds the West Bank.
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But let's just look at Gaza.
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Israel had left Gaza, and by the way, if Hamas or anybody in Gaza had built a
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safe and secure and dependable neighbor, Israel would probably have pulled out
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of a lot of the West Bank as well.
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So it hasn't been terribly helpful to the Palestinian cause that Hamas
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has been relentlessly murderous.
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So I think the effort to deny Israel the right to defend itself, you
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know, what does, what does it mean?
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Divest from Israel.
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What does it mean?
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Don't sell arms to Israel.
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It means we'd like to see Israel destroyed.
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And if you have any doubt about that, our banners say from the river
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to the sea, Palestine will be free.
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Which means no Israel, that's basically the Hamas ideology.
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So I don't think it was a genuine flaring of mainstream public opinion.
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I think it was orchestrated hostility designed to ensure
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that Israel would not survive.
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Um.
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In terms of how Israel has tried to fight, I don't know that there's a
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precedent for the kind of warfare.
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We are talking about a terrorist government in the entity
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next door that subverted all assistance for a war machine.
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Hamas, on the eve of October the seventh have 24 battalions,
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untold miles of tunnels.
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I don't think Israel, in fact, I'm sure Israel underestimated quite
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how much of, of a, of an underground hell Hamas had constructed in Gaza.
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I, I think an awful lot of it is still intact, by the way.
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And in terms of civilian fatalities, you've got, I mean, I'm sure
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you've heard this before, but the fact that I'm repeating it
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doesn't make it any less true.
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You've got a government indifferent to the wellbeing of its people that's Hamas,
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deliberately putting them in harm's way, and Israel trying to prevent, or
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trying to degrade, radically degrade.
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This would be genocidal GA and government.
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Without harming civilians.
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Has Israel been perfect in every regard?
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Of course not.
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Have there been incidents that Israel has apologized for and has
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rightly expressed regret over?
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For sure.
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The bottom line is, of course, that it's Hamas that has chosen to fight this way.
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It's Hamas that opened this war, knowingly cold Bloodedly knowingly
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invaded the country next door.
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I'm not sure whether they thought Israel would try as hard as it has tried to
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degrade them, but they were certainly ready for it, and they were certainly
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looking forward to it because they knew Israel would be fighting in their
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territory in an incredibly complicated urban environment in which they would be
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able to cynically blame Israel for all the death that they had brought onto Gaza.
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But I think in terms of morality and in terms of, well, how and why would it stop?
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It would stop tomorrow if Hamas laid down its arms.
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It would never have started if Hamas had not invaded.
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And therefore the ways to bring this to an end.
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Unless, or until Israel can destroy Hamas as a military entity.
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And that's an ongoing effort.
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It could end tomorrow if Hamas behaved in a humane way regarding Israel
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and regarding the people of Gaza.
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So do you feel that those, uh, international arrest warrants for
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the Prime Minister and the former defense minister, are they just
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something that Israelis don't even pay a passing attention to?
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Except for, you know, maybe on some kind of political level, do they
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consider the, uh, international legal system to be stacked against Israel?
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And what do you think specifically about those arrest warrants?
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I don't think, uh, Israelis are indifferent.
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I think they are aggrieved by it.
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I think that there's a sense here that the international legal system has
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not been inclined, certainly not been able to recognize that the world is a
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different place from a few decades ago.
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There are terrorist organizations that are not some kind of ragtag,
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relatively weak organizations, but essentially governments.
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Gaza was governed by a terrorist organization.
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It was a, a, a terrorist government, uh, Hezbollah, which is less central and we
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don't know how that's gonna play out.
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But Hezbollah basically was the dominant army of Lebanon, not a terrorist
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organization in the sort of familiar sense of the word from a few decades ago.
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An essential, maybe the dominant part of the government with the
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most powerful army in that country.
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And by the way, if you look at Hezbollah, one of the most powerful armies in
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the world, nevermind terrorism, Hamas is and was a terrorist government.
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And I think Israelis feel very strongly that the international legal
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community in its various forums, and part of this is very much the UN
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have failed to evolve in any kind of.
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Reasonable and pragmatic and aware way the world has changed.
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And, uh, you want to issue arrest warrants for an Israeli prime minister
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overseeing an effort to ensure that the terrorist government that is bent on
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destroying his country, you know, he's, he's the guy he used to be arresting
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when he is going to consult with allies in Europe or anywhere else abroad.
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I don't think Israelis are indifferent to it.
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I don't think they shrug it off.
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And I think even lots of Israelis who don't have a great deal of time for
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Netanya or former defense Minister Gallant take personal offense at the
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issue of arrest warrants against them.
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And that describes your position as well?
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Uh, well, most of what I said thus, yeah.
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Um, no, in terms of.
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We can talk about what I feel about the Prime Minister, but
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in, in this context, absolutely.
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That the, the warrants are outrageous.
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There's an argument to be made that, uh, Israel security situation, you've probably
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heard this argument as well, is better than it has been in decades, if ever.
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Hamas is, for all intents and purposes decimated, at least to
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the extent of envisioning that they would ever in the foreseeable
21:29
future, be able to mount another.
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October 7th.
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Hezbollah defeated the Syrian government has gone.
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The Israelis revealed the weaknesses of the Iranian position.
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You have a, uh, what is perceived to be a much more sympathetic
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American administration.
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Do you think that's true?
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Do you think just geopolitically and militarily in the region, is Israel
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better off now and could you make the claim that despite the immense
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pain and the unbelievable suffering and losses, that Israel actually
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improved its geopolitical situation?
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No, I would ferociously, uh, disagree with that argument.
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First of all, Hamas is not finished and it's anything but finished ideologically,
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which is just a terrible thing.
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How can that be the case?
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These terrible people who've murdered vast numbers of innocence and who have
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brought ruin upon Gaza, they seem to have a great deal of support both within
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Gaza and as we've said already, go to the American university campuses, people
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that are, you know, cheering for Hamas.
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That's unbelievable and uh, so they're not out of the equation.
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Hezbollah, it's interesting that definitely not the force that they were.
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Without getting carried away.
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And, you know, saying something vaguely, slightly positive from an Israeli
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perspective, they're weakened and you now have a new leadership in Lebanon
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that at least is saying things that are, uh, in the direction of trying to ensure
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that that country is not dominated by a genocide and terrorist organization.
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That has brought a fair amount of disaster down upon Lebanon as well.
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You know, you, you didn't mention the Houthis who are just on
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the relative scale of things.
23:07
Right?
23:07
Yesterday afternoon, I don't remember what time the sirens, Blair and
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millions of Israelis have to run into bomb shelters if they want to be
23:15
secure, that they're gonna survive.
23:18
Not because the missiles are getting through, 'cause most of them aren't.
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But because, and good physicists will understand this better than I do, Israel,
23:25
you know, has been quite good at knocking their ballistic missiles out of the sky.
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But it's a shrapnel and who knows what.
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Can still travel hundreds of miles more and land, you know, in your
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garden or in your house or on your school in isolated cases.
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And that's like the least of our concerns at the moment.
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Uh, Syria, I dunno, uh, he's wearing a suit now, but does that mean he is not
23:45
a terrorist who wants to destroy Israel?
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I'm not convinced regarding Syria's new leadership.
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And by the way, you now have a greater Turkish role and certainly
23:53
a much greater Wouldbe Turkish role.
23:56
And the leader of Turkey, last time I checked, was a great supporter of
23:59
Hamas, a vicious critic of Israel.
24:02
And by the way, a self-declared by the president friend of Donald Trump, right?
24:07
So you've got a very dangerous, very well harmed regional player who's got
24:12
good relations with the United States, even as he denounces Israel and talks
24:16
up Hamas to his own people and others.
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And then I guess the last of those, in terms of geopolitical forces, you've
24:24
got Iran, I. And Iran is closing in on the bomb, and Iran is no change there.
24:29
Wants to see Israel wiped out.
24:31
And you've got the beginning of negotiations, which I don't really
24:34
wanna prejudge at this point.
24:36
But the early signs I think are very worrying.
24:38
Iran is extremely expert and extremely cynical when it
24:41
comes to its nuclear program.
24:43
And I'm not sure if the American interlocutors are either of those things.
24:47
And then the last thing, I mean, and maybe this is the reason, I guess
24:50
why I disagree, most of all, with that assessment of Israel being
24:54
unprecedentedly strong, you've got this tremendous strain within Israel.
24:58
You know, we're still fighting a war, we're still missing people.
25:01
Reservists have been serving hundreds of days with tremendous
25:05
economic consequences, psychological consequences, you know, fathers
25:09
coming home and, and their very young children barely recognizing them.
25:13
I'm not exaggerating it.
25:15
A divide in Israel about military service 'cause the ultra
25:18
orthodox don't serve and so on.
25:20
So it's not as though there's this incredibly unified Israel that has
25:24
defeated or radically set back all its enemies and is sitting pretty.
25:28
And, you know, I'm, I'm over simplifying that summation, but that's really not
25:33
the way it seems, I don't think to Israelis as a whole serve him up to me.
25:38
One more question before we get to the domestic situation.
25:41
Mindful that, you know, there's a phrase in Judaism that
25:45
prophecy has been given to fools.
25:47
Do you wanna speculate, uh, whether 2025 we'll see the end of the hot
25:54
war in Gaza, and where do you think we'll be by the close of 2025?
25:59
Yeah, I'm, I mean, I, I'm kind of tempted to answer the question, but the truth is.
26:03
It would be so foolish.
26:05
I, you know, I don't know.
26:06
And nobody knows.
26:07
And nobody knows.
26:08
To the degree that two days before Bahar Assad was no longer the President
26:13
Assyria, and nobody saw that coming.
26:14
I mean, literally days, right?
26:16
There's just no way of knowing this.
26:18
All the elements are there for things to get much better and
26:22
for things to get much worse.
26:23
There is so much hostility to Israel in this part of the
26:26
world that both the extremes are possible and anything in between.
26:31
Well, let me ask you in a slightly different way.
26:33
How would it end for Israel positively?
26:37
What would have to happen for Israel to say, okay, this war is over?
26:42
From our perspective, we've achieved our national objectives.
26:48
Well, you have to get home every hostage that you can get home in.
26:51
I mean, I, I'm not sure that 59 people can be brought home because
26:55
I'm not sure that anybody knows where everybody is, who's no longer alive.
26:59
The foreseeable danger of Hamas or Gaza being able to constitute
27:04
a threat to Israel, that Hezbollah is a sort of semi guaranteed non
27:08
threat across the northern border.
27:10
So the people who've already begun moving home need not worry that things
27:15
are gonna become terrible again.
27:17
Now we can go to the, wouldn't it be great if, but it's not a million
27:20
miles away from this is what we need.
27:22
Uh, we need to be sure that Iran, that this regime can't, can't get
27:26
to the bomb because they're not very far away and we know that they enrich
27:29
uranium to near weapons grade level.
27:32
We know that they have ballistic missiles that can deliver a bomb.
27:35
I'm not sure if we know everything about how far they are along
27:37
on weaponization, but I think they're potentially fairly close.
27:41
Not to being a threshold nuclear power, but to being a nuclear weapons power.
27:46
I don't see how we can be secure in Israel when this regime
27:50
is that close to the bond.
27:52
Beyond that, going beyond your question, the outcome that Israel needs ultimately
27:58
is a neighborhood in which people are not being educated to try and wipe
28:02
out this country and kill the Jews.
28:05
And that's why in, in terms of a strategic generational different reality, to me
28:11
it comes down to education and that young people's minds are not poisoned.
28:16
That rather there's a recognition that there are conflicting claims
28:19
and conflicting narratives.
28:21
And if one sanctifies life, then one has to find a way to
28:25
compromise and genuinely coexist.
28:29
Now that's beyond your question, and it's beyond the reasonable
28:32
potential goals of a war.
28:34
But I do wanna go beyond that.
28:37
'cause even if the war ends relatively well from an Israeli point of
28:40
view in terms of its security and its national healing and so on.
28:44
Israel's not gonna know.
28:45
Abiding, stability, security, I, I wanna say the word peace, unless
28:51
what people are taught in this part of the world and all over the world
28:54
reflects the sanctity of life.
29:03
Can I ask you, looking back now on two and a half years of, uh, Netanyahu
29:07
and elections have to take place, I think by 2026, they may happen, uh,
29:12
earlier, as I mentioned before, you're a tough-minded critic of, uh, Netanyahu.
29:18
You're very worried about domestic cohesion as well as
29:22
threats to, uh, democratic norms.
29:25
Are you able to say, broadly speaking, if you had to identify the one or the two
29:32
or three major transgressions of Prime Minister Netanyahu and this government
29:38
over the last two and a half, three years, are you able to identify that and give
29:42
us a broad sense of what is the central indictment against this government?
29:48
Yeah, I mean, it's not something I seek to do or seek to be like
29:51
a nonstop critic of Netanya.
29:53
I'm somebody who wants this country to survive and thrive as a democratic and
29:58
Jewish state, and it has a prime minister who's incredibly divisive, who I don't
30:04
know what his actual principles are.
30:07
I think he's very intent on survival.
30:09
I think he's persuaded himself that Israel is lost unless he is the prime
30:13
minister and he's in that mindset.
30:16
Even though he presided over the worst disaster to befall the Jewish people
30:20
since the Holocaust, the judicial overhaul, this was initially what's
30:24
presented as some kind of reform.
30:27
There are aspects of Israel's judicial system that could use reforming,
30:30
but subjugating the judiciary to the political echelon is not one of them.
30:35
And that's what this legislation is intended to do.
30:38
It's unthinkable.
30:39
We have no constitution.
30:41
The legislature is a tool of the executive when there's a unified coalition
30:45
as we have now, which means if you don't have an independent judiciary,
30:50
the government can do what it wants.
30:51
And that's terrible.
30:52
That's, that's not how you safeguard a democracy.
30:56
It's the opposite.
30:57
So that would be one thing.
30:58
And then the second thing is, is the failure of October the seventh.
31:01
Now you or any of your friends or my children, if they had been Prime
31:07
Minister in the days, weeks, months, even years before October the seventh.
31:14
I submit would've done a better job than Israel's leadership, ultimately
31:18
Netanyahu, ahead of October the seventh.
31:20
Because you'd have looked at the intelligence assessments that unanimously
31:24
insisted that Hamas was not interested in escalation and was interested in
31:29
governance, and you would've seen that this was the conclusion, despite the
31:34
fact that here's this plan that Hamas has drawn out to invade, and here's this
31:39
24 battalion army that they've built.
31:41
And in the months before, here they are drilling near the border.
31:46
And here's this TV series that they've shown on television in which
31:49
they're dramatizing an invasion of Israeli army bases and crossing
31:53
the border in multiple places.
31:55
And getting closer still.
31:57
They're drilling right next to the border with Toyota White pickup trucks,
32:01
and they're sending up drones to blow up cameras on the border, and they're
32:05
blowing little holes in the fence.
32:07
And you just said, okay, I understand that you all think that this is
32:12
bravado, and Hamas is not really interested in invading, but all the
32:16
evidence would suggest that they are.
32:18
So what precautions are we taking just in case our intelligence estimates are wrong?
32:23
And if you got an unsatisfactory reply, well, maybe we should send some
32:28
more troops down to that border just in case the assessments are wrong.
32:32
Right?
32:33
None of that happened.
32:34
I didn't even mention the fact that for years, Netanya encouraged Qatar to send
32:39
money into Gaza to help ensure calm and a reasonable humanitarian situation
32:45
when Hamas, of course, was subverting all resources to build this war machine
32:49
when October the seventh then happens.
32:53
If you don't wanna resign because the buck stops with you, then there are two things
32:57
I think you really owe to the public.
32:59
One is when it's not going to fatally disrupt the war
33:04
effort, you hold elections.
33:06
If you're not gonna resign, you at least give the people the choice of whether
33:10
they want to keep you as their leader.
33:11
I don't think that's a democratic prerequisite.
33:15
I just think that would've been the right thing to do.
33:17
But the one thing that I think in this context is unforgivable is you order
33:21
the proper inquiry into what went wrong.
33:24
Not only because there will be people whose the finger of blame will point
33:28
towards them with consequences, but most importantly, to make sure that you are
33:32
gonna not be vulnerable to this again, that you'll be as effective as you can
33:37
integrating Hamas now, and that the errors and the blunders and the blindness.
33:43
That enabled this to happen, you know, the processes and the norms and the steps are
33:49
in place to ensure that it cannot happen again, and that he has refused to do.
33:53
He knows that a state commission of inquiry will ultimately place
33:57
blame on his shoulders, even if the military and the security establishment
34:02
were the insistent prisoners of an unfathomable mis assessment of Hamas.
34:08
Nonetheless, the buck stops with him and he has not consented in.
34:13
In fact, rather than consent to a state commission of inquiry, he has
34:17
battered away at the legitimacy of the judiciary by saying, I can't
34:22
agree to a state commissioner of inquiry, because the head of it will be
34:25
appointed by the chief justice and the head of it will be a former justice.
34:30
And half the country doesn't trust the judicial system anymore.
34:33
Well, half the country doesn't trust the judicial system anymore.
34:36
By the way.
34:36
I'm not sure that that's true at all, but a proportion doesn't
34:39
because he has been inciting against the credibility and decency and
34:45
representative nature of the judiciary.
34:47
So those are some of the areas that I've criticized him, all of which I
34:52
should stress out of an interest to ensure that this country survives.
34:56
Thrives, is not vulnerable again in the future.
34:59
You know, if Netanya called elections and he was elected again, which I
35:03
think is entirely possible, so be it.
35:06
So the people of Israel said, we understand what happened nonetheless.
35:09
We think he is the best person to leave this country.
35:12
That would be, you know, you can't argue with the voice of the people.
35:15
I think after October the seventh, it would've been appropriate
35:18
to go back to the people.
35:20
Do you think there's merit to the criticism against Netanyahu, that he's
35:25
extending the war in this way in order to keep the coalition intact, uh, prevent,
35:31
uh, the commission of investigation being established and eventually elections?
35:36
I I, I don't wanna give you a definitive answer because I'm not sure, um,
35:40
when you asked me before about those war aims and why is it that they're
35:43
problematic, you know, that's part of the reason why on this, I'm wary
35:47
of saying something definitive.
35:49
The war aims are, are the necessary war aims.
35:52
I, you know, I agree with that.
35:53
You've gotta get the hostage back.
35:54
You've gotta make sure Hamas is no longer capable of militarily or
35:59
in a civilian way governing Gaza.
36:01
And you've gotta somehow do your best to ensure that Gaza, again, whether
36:05
it's Hamas or some other entity.
36:07
Cannot threaten Israel, and therefore if you are in trying to work out
36:11
how to do that, which Israel has tried to do, I don't know if other
36:14
leaders would've been more successful.
36:16
I'm not sure.
36:17
We can't know that.
36:18
And I don't know if one should be that cynical.
36:21
Even for example, I don't know what to make of the claim that you can't do a
36:27
deal or you couldn't have gone through to the second phase of this deal, got
36:30
the rest of the living hostages out and not been able to resume the war.
36:34
I don't know what to make of that claim, uh, especially with this administration.
36:38
So I think there's an argument that leaves room for some cynicism.
36:42
Um, but I'm not sure.
36:43
I'm not sure enough, you know, is it possible that you couldn't get a deal
36:45
with Hamas without a security council resolution guaranteeing that phase two
36:51
happens in the way it's supposed to.
36:53
In other words, the army would withdraw.
36:54
It's the end of the war, and then afterwards, because there was that
36:57
resolution, and Russia would veto any revoking of that resolution, you
37:02
truly can't go back to tackle Hamas.
37:04
I don't know what to make of that.
37:05
I'm not in the room.
37:06
I dunno what Hamas is saying.
37:08
I'm not convinced by it, but I think it would be inappropriate or I don't
37:12
know, too arrogant for me to rule that out as a serious consideration.
37:17
You know, by contrast, when Netanya said we can't leave the Philadelphia
37:20
corridor, 'cause if we do, we'll never be allowed to go back.
37:22
And that was an argument that delayed the January agreement.
37:26
I don't buy that argument.
37:28
I don't think that's true.
37:29
I think Israel could have gone back, and that was before Trump was reelected.
37:33
If Netan had said, listen, I, I did that deal in 2011, 1,027, security prisoners
37:38
fate, and we let ua, I can't do that.
37:41
I, again, I can't do it the way Hamas is structuring its demands.
37:46
I can't do it.
37:47
I would've been much more empathetic than him raising the issue of the
37:51
corridor along the Gaza Egypt border.
37:53
But we, you know, we're not in the room.
37:55
I don't know what Hamas is saying.
37:57
And therefore I can't be that definitive.
38:00
Can I ask you to elaborate on, uh, your comment a few minutes ago that
38:04
you think it is eminently plausible that Netanya could be reelected?
38:09
Uh, the elections will take place at the latest in 2026, so sometime within
38:14
the next, uh, year to year and a half.
38:16
Although usually even governments that serve close to their full term,
38:20
they never actually get to the full extent of the term allowed by law.
38:26
Uh, so some, it's fair to assume that sometime in the next year
38:29
there should be elections.
38:31
Elaborate on why you think there is a realistic possibility that
38:37
Netanya would be reelected.
38:39
So, first of all, the elections are due very late next year,
38:42
towards the end of next year.
38:44
We don't know whether they'll be brought forward or not.
38:48
He's in a different league from, I think all other Israeli politicians.
38:53
He's incredibly articulate.
38:55
He's incredibly compelling.
38:57
I mean, I don't know how many prime ministers would not have been
39:00
finished by October the seventh, just mass public criticism and despair.
39:08
A leader who didn't himself step down.
39:10
I can't imagine very many who would've survived the anger at the failure,
39:16
not because people don't know that the blame points mostly to Hamas.
39:20
Of course they do.
39:21
Hamas invaded, Hamas, murdered and sorted and brutalized, and burned and raped.
39:28
But you were the prime minister on who's watched this happen.
39:31
So the very fact that he survived that Ammi is a testament to his
39:34
extraordinary political skills.
39:36
That's what it is.
39:37
And then, you know, you look at the history and you look at oppositional
39:41
leaders like Benny Gantz, who several times came quite close to Ousting Netanya.
39:46
But in the end.
39:48
Seems to make the worst possible decision at every crucial
39:51
moment with good intentions.
39:53
And one of those was basically saving Netanyahu.
39:57
When Netanya was nearly finished, there was the Bennett Lapid government
40:00
that unseated Netanyahu for, um, a fairly short period, and which Netanya
40:05
brought down because Bennett had been, I don't know, not attentive enough in
40:11
putting together his list of candidates who came with him into the class.
40:15
And one by one, they were prized away until his coalition had lost its majority.
40:19
So when you look at who the alternatives are and how skilled and effective they
40:24
might be at the Dark Art of politics, I think it's surprising that anyone
40:29
would assume that Netanyahu is finished.
40:31
I understand why people think that.
40:33
'cause they look at the opinion polls.
40:34
Well, the opinion polls are reliably wrong in Israel.
40:38
There are all kinds of factors behind that.
40:40
But among them is the fact that they underestimate
40:42
Netanyahu's electoral skills.
40:45
Just take an issue like social media.
40:46
'cause I, I think I checked this not too long ago.
40:49
If you look at social media followers for Netanyahu and people like, uh,
40:55
Bennett and Gantz and Lapid, he's got, last time I checked something
40:59
like 3 million people following him on Twitter on his main account.
41:03
And the leaders that I'd mentioned probably have about a sixth of that.
41:07
But beyond their endless circles of social media influence, and therefore
41:12
anything that Natanya wants to get out impacts millions of people multiple times.
41:19
And his opponents have nothing like that sway.
41:22
Um, and it's nuanced as well.
41:24
There are people who are more extreme supporters spreading
41:27
more extreme messages.
41:29
Look at Israeli media.
41:30
I. There's a television channel, channel 14 in Israel, which is
41:34
basically a Netanyahu TV channel.
41:38
There's another one that's heading in that direction.
41:41
There are newspapers or websites that are very supportive of him.
41:46
By the way, there are newspapers and websites that are very strongly
41:49
opposed to him, but in terms of tv, I think it's very significant that
41:53
he has Channel 14 in Israel, which is probably now the second most popular
41:57
TV channel in the country having been sort of nowhere a couple of years ago.
42:03
So this is a very, very smart world class politician with tremendous support
42:10
in media and tremendous support in social media up against people who
42:15
are all familiar, and one of whom, or two of them, if you wanna put Lape and
42:19
Ben together, briefly unseated him.
42:22
And even that experiment underlines how ultimately successful he was and how.
42:28
Inept.
42:28
They were, you know, they defeated him and he still got back into power
42:31
because he persuaded some of their loyalists, you know, to cross the house.
42:37
Three more just brief, uh, issues.
42:40
First of all, with respect to the Haredi draft, the Army is groaning under the
42:46
manpower burden and they're pleading with government for more, uh, manpower.
42:53
As you mentioned earlier, there are people who are doing, uh, hundreds
42:56
of days of reserve service as it is.
42:59
Where do you think that issue is going to evolve in the coming period?
43:05
So, again, I, I don't know how it's gonna play out, but I think
43:07
it's a very significant issue and it's very significant also in
43:09
the context of the last question.
43:12
In other words, there, I think he's pretty vulnerable, Natanya, he's got to keep
43:16
the two ultra Orthodox parties in his coalition on board and their leaderships
43:21
do not want their constituency to do any kind of military or national service.
43:26
And we're not only talking about those young males who are in Yeshiva
43:30
full-time, we're talking about young males generally, and this is a point of
43:34
real conflict with the rest of Israeli society, but it's also a point of real
43:37
conflict with modern Orthodox Israelis who are disproportionately represented
43:43
in the military and who have as a consequence, disproportionate loss.
43:47
And you can see that friction escalating really month by month.
43:53
Why is the Prime Minister not obligating the fastest growing community in
43:57
Israel to share their responsibilities to the protection of the state?
44:02
Moreover, in an environment in which the army is basically saying, whatever
44:06
you need us to do, in order for you to be able to serve and not have your
44:10
lifestyle sort of destroyed from beneath your booted feet, if you, you know, we'll
44:15
build Yeshivas in the Jordan Valley so you can help protect that border and
44:19
mix that with Torah study, for example.
44:22
You know, the Army has.
44:23
Projects like that.
44:25
And instead of which you've got tens of thousands of call up orders going out
44:29
to the Al Ultraorthodox community and almost nobody actually heeding the calls.
44:34
I'm not sure that there isn't a significantly greater willingness or
44:38
desire even to do national service in the community, but the leadership, rabbinical
44:42
and political is set against it.
44:45
Um, just again, to give you a little flavor here, there's a mother, bereaved
44:50
mother from an Orthodox community who's kind of leading a battle for the
44:55
Al Orthodox to do military service.
44:58
And, uh, with, with significant support.
45:01
She may even start going into politics to champion this goal,
45:05
but it's, it's the area in which Natanya is pretty vulnerable.
45:09
And in terms of electability, it'll be a problem for him.
45:13
I mean, it's been a front burner issue for a long time.
45:16
It's never been more prominent an issue because as you rightly have stressed
45:20
there, this inequality of the burden.
45:22
In the interview I saw with her last night, this Beave mother was
45:27
quoting Derry, the leader of the Shas party, saying, you know, something
45:31
like he, he wouldn't want his son to return from the army, having lost
45:36
his orthodoxy or his ultra orthodoxy.
45:38
And she said, you know, my son returned from the army in a coffin, and that was
45:43
kind of atypically burning from her.
45:46
She's not like a, an aggressive speaker, but that gives you a sense of how
45:50
profound the argument and the friction is.
45:54
Tell us about this Qatar controversy now.
45:58
How serious is that and does it pose a threat to the
46:01
government?
46:02
I mean, the allegation essentially is that 1, 2, 3, maybe aids to Netanya.
46:09
Were working for Qatar and paid by Qatar to lobby on behalf of
46:15
Qatar even while they were working for the Prime Minister and.
46:20
Allegedly also may even have disseminated materials from the Prime Minister's office
46:25
that were in anonymous communications with reporters that were not messages
46:30
coming from the leadership of Israel, but rather messages that they were relaying on
46:35
behalf of Qatar, which is pretty radical.
46:37
Nakata is not, it's not an enemy state.
46:39
It is, as Tenino likes to say, it's a complicated state.
46:43
Of course, he was encouraging them to send tens of millions
46:46
of dollars into Gaza for years.
46:48
I don't know where it's gonna go.
46:49
It's kind of linked to an earlier case in which charges have already been filed
46:52
against two people for the theft of classified IDF intelligence documents,
46:59
and in one case, the leaking of material from one such document to a German tabloid
47:05
in a way that was designed to sort of take the pressure of Netanya after Hamas
47:08
killed six of its hostages last August.
47:12
I don't know where the Qar gate saga is gonna go.
47:15
If you did make me try to make a prediction.
47:18
I tend to think that it might not go anywhere.
47:21
I'm not sure that people will be charged, and if they are charged, I'm not sure
47:24
that they'll be successfully prosecuted.
47:27
'cause maybe there's a lot that hasn't come out yet.
47:29
I mean, a colleague from the journalistic community, the editor
47:32
of the Jerusalem Post, was arrested and questioned under caution.
47:35
And if we know everything that is to be known about that
47:38
affair, there's a fundamental misunderstanding of what journalism
47:42
is on behalf of his interrogators.
47:44
He went to Qatar and he reported on Qatar.
47:46
Now you might not like his reports, or you might love them, but that's not actionable
47:52
behavior in terms of criminality.
47:55
So I don't know how savvy all of these investigations are and if they
48:00
really are gonna lead to prosecution.
48:03
And beyond that conviction, not not convinced.
48:07
And my last question here on the internal situation is, uh, the head of internal
48:12
security, Shabbat looks like he's on the way out, although it's being litigated.
48:17
Now, between the, uh, judiciary and the government, there's some speculation
48:22
that after they finished with him, they want to go after the Attorney General.
48:26
How serious are these developments and how serious is this attack
48:31
against the Democratic infrastructure?
48:34
So yeah, that's, that's the context in which to view it.
48:37
The head of the SBA was in fact fired by unanimous cabinet vote, but the
48:41
Supreme Court, as of now has issued two.
48:44
Interim injunctions against his dismissal.
48:46
And there was a hearing last week which was pretty raucous and unpleasant with,
48:50
I would say, orchestrated protests against the legitimacy of the court.
48:54
He may step down, I suppose, of his own accord, or it might be that
48:59
the court engineers a compromise, dunno how that's gonna play out.
49:02
And in the case of the attorney general, first of all she told the
49:05
government that you can't fire him in the way that you are planning to
49:08
do so because there are procedures.
49:10
Including a committee that recommends people for such appointments also has to
49:14
be consulted if they're to be rescinded.
49:16
Israel's never fired a serving Shin BET chief before, and she was saying,
49:20
I, I won't be able to defend the government if you do go ahead with this.
49:23
And that's exactly what happened.
49:24
They fired him.
49:25
There were petitions to the Supreme Court.
49:27
The Attorney General said, well, you know, you shouldn't have fired him.
49:30
I told you not to fire him and I'm not gonna be defending
49:32
you against these petitions.
49:34
Um, they took a vote in her case just days after they had fired
49:38
the Shin bet, um, to begin the process of seeking her dismissal.
49:42
That's more complicated.
49:43
It's not something that they can do overnight, but you are trying to
49:47
ous the head of the legal hierarchy, the law enforcement hierarchy.
49:51
She's the government's chief legal officer and she's also sort of the
49:54
head of the prosecution system.
49:55
It's a very.
49:56
Demanding role.
49:57
And by the way, there's room to reform that role, but that's not the goal here.
50:01
The goal here in her case, Gali Ra, is her name, is to get rid of an
50:06
attorney's journal who keeps irritatingly telling the government what she
50:10
thinks are the democratic requirements that they're not always honoring.
50:15
Uh, and therefore it is part of, it's part of the battering of the
50:18
institutions of our democracy.
50:19
You have a police force that is led by a minister, ITA Beng Vir, who is a criminal
50:24
recidivist and is brutalizing the police.
50:27
You can see it, you can see the behavior of the police at
50:29
demonstrations becoming rougher.
50:33
So you've got a police force with a ministerial chief who's should
50:37
not be in anybody's government.
50:38
You've got a justice minister who's determined to subjugate the judiciary, the
50:43
Shin Bet chief, who's, you know, the, the one of the claims is that Ronen Barr was
50:48
fired because, uh, Natanya has actually asserted that he and the attorney Journal
50:53
initiated this QAR gate investigation.
50:56
So that Netanya would not be able to fire a hin bet chief who was investigating him.
51:01
But the timeline doesn't actually work like that.
51:03
It, uh, it doesn't back up Netanyahu's argument.
51:06
It is part of this wider challenge to the institutions of democracy
51:10
and it's, uh, it's very trouble.
51:13
So my last, uh, observation here is to give you an opportunity to express to
51:18
the diaspora Jewish community your sense of what are the strengths of Israel and
51:26
are you optimistic about its future?
51:28
So the strengths of Israel, I think are its people.
51:31
I think we're incredibly resilient and capable and innovative people.
51:39
And we also feel very strongly, I think, speaking on behalf of the
51:43
people of Israel, that the Jewish people better hang onto their state
51:47
because the wellbeing of the Jewish people everywhere depends upon it.
51:51
I also think in time there'll be a new generation of public leaders, and I think
51:55
they will be shaped by the circumstances of the last 2, 2, 3 years and restore
52:00
some of the value of public service.
52:03
But that's, you know, that's my, my source of optimism.
52:05
The, the people of this country.
52:07
You know, I'll end with this.
52:09
What we've been through, I don't want you to have to imagine the United
52:13
States, just something like, you know, an Iranian ballistic missile attack.
52:17
This was the, the story of last year.
52:20
By the way, the Iranians have, you know, they've sent some drones our way.
52:23
It'll take about 12 hours to get here.
52:25
Don't worry.
52:25
He says the army spokesman, we'll keep you informed and then a few hours pass.
52:29
Well, they've actually launched some cruise missiles now.
52:31
They'll take a couple of hours to get to you.
52:33
But you know, so, you know, don't go too far from the safe rooms that we've
52:37
been building in our homes for the last, you know, half a generation.
52:40
And then, well actually ballistic missiles are on the way now.
52:43
They take 12 minutes to get there.
52:45
So right now you need to enter the sealed rooms.
52:47
And don't worry, we've got the best missile defense systems in the world,
52:51
multi-level, and you'll be fine.
52:52
But make sure you listen to us, we'll tell you when it's safe to come out.
52:56
And the Nation of Israel does what it's told and goes into its sealed rooms when
53:01
the moment has come and waits for a few minutes and then you know, comes back out
53:06
again and the next morning, you know, did the country rise up in anger at anybody?
53:11
Its leadership, the Iranians, the world.
53:14
No, just went back to work and went back to the cafes.
53:17
I'll bring you right up today, yesterday.
53:19
There's a HT missile on its way.
53:21
Sirens ring out all over Israel.
53:23
It's a very loud noise.
53:24
People are on the beach in Tel Aviv.
53:26
You can see the footage.
53:27
They all run towards whatever shelter they can find, and then a few minutes later,
53:32
the all clear goes, literally minutes later, people are back in the cafes.
53:37
The yoga class on the beach has resumed.
53:39
I saw someone posting the picture of it.
53:42
Okay.
53:42
And, and on we go.
53:44
Now that's, that's incredible.
53:46
It's also radically atypical.
53:48
I don't know of another society that could deal with that.
53:51
And we do.
53:52
I don't, I wish we didn't have to.
53:53
Don't get me wrong.
53:54
But you know, this is a pretty tough country with some pretty resilient people.
53:59
With that, David Horowitz one.
54:01
Thank you for the time you've given us now, and two for the
54:04
incredible work that you're doing.
54:06
It's so important.
54:08
One to explain to diaspora Jews what's happening, but two, for you to be
54:12
this constant check on what is right, what is good, what is democratic.
54:19
It's a phenomenal, uh, task that you've undertaken and that you're
54:22
doing, and we're very grateful to you.
54:24
I just have to say, we have a fantastic team here at the Times of Israel who
54:28
are like all Israelis going through.
54:31
I mean, we're 18 months into a war.
54:33
The diplomatic correspondent, you know, will be going back to Milam fairly soon.
54:37
Another of my reporters, her son is in the paratroopers, has
54:42
been in Gaza a lot of the time.
54:43
One of our desk editors has been up north.
54:46
Reserves, et cetera, et cetera.
54:47
We're all, you know, we're living this as we're trying to report it fairly, and
54:52
it's a terrific team that we have here.
54:54
It's good to know and, uh, convey to them on our behalf too that you just,
54:59
all of you are doing a terrific job.
55:08
Among the central functions of a free press is to hold the powerful accountable.
55:13
Great journalists not only report the news, they express opinions that are
55:17
often critical of public officials.
55:20
David Horowitz and the Times of Israel are doing a tremendous service for
55:23
the Jewish state and world Jewry.
55:27
Jews do not hesitate to debate and criticize.
55:30
Our tradition celebrates when people debate in good faith,
55:33
when they differ with each other in pursuit of a greater truth.
55:37
Jews argue over everything.
55:40
The Jewish tradition is one long, remarkable, millennia old record
55:44
of disagreement after disagreement, controversy after controversy, and
55:49
dispute after dispute, our sacred texts explode with conflicting
55:54
opinions of the same Biblical verse.
55:57
You can hardly open even one page of Talmud without encountering numerous
56:01
debates over seemingly minor matters.
56:04
Often these disputes are unresolved.
56:07
The rabbis were content to leave room for future generations to join
56:10
the fray and try to sort it all out.
56:13
Judaism is emphatic persuasion, logic, reason, proof, vigorous
56:20
challenge, openness to debate evidence, and a willingness to
56:23
reconsider when new evidence emerges.
56:26
These are the tools of the intellectual trade and the prerequisites for
56:30
social progress and communal decency.
56:33
It is one key reason why Jews do well in Western democracies that are themselves
56:38
based upon the same principles of intellectual and communal pluralism.
56:43
Around 85% of American Jews define themselves as either
56:47
pro-Israel or Zionist.
56:50
While the 15% of our community that is not in this camp makes a lot
56:53
of noise, they are in reality, a small component of American Jewry.
57:00
What we, the 85% debate is how best to improve Israel, not whether a Jewish
57:06
state is a good idea or how we should join our enemies in destroying Israel.
57:12
Jews once debated whether a Jewish state was a good idea at all in the
57:16
early years of the Zionist movement, but the time for this debate has
57:20
long passed since the Holocaust and the creation of the state of Israel.
57:24
Israel is now a fact.
57:26
There are 10 million Israeli citizens, seven and a half million of them Jews.
57:31
I spend considerable time speaking with and reading the opinions of those
57:36
Jews who claim to be anti-Zionist.
57:39
As a matter of principle, I do not cancel any Jew.
57:43
If they are prepared to speak with me, I certainly am prepared to speak with them.
57:48
This is especially the case with regard to young American Jews.
57:52
I feel I have an obligation to state with clarity and forcefully what I
57:57
and most Jews believe and to tell yes.
58:00
Even young Jews, when I think they are wrong,
58:05
I don't really know what they mean when they say they're anti Zionists, and
58:09
I'm not sure that they themselves know.
58:12
Do they mean they dislike Israeli governments and policies?
58:16
If so, join the long line.
58:20
Or do they mean what Israel's opponents mean?
58:23
That Zionism is an evil ideology and that Israel is a European oppressor state
58:27
that is persecuting minorities of color.
58:30
Do they mean what Hamas means and executed on October 7th?
58:35
Do they mean what Hezbollah and Iran mean?
58:38
Do they mean what anti-Israel campus and street activists mean from the river
58:42
to the sea globalize the Antifa, and do they take into account how many of our
58:48
people would be murdered and dispossessed to achieve this dream of our enemies?
58:53
Since I believe that the way to deal with bad ideas is to present better ideas.
58:58
I take every opportunity I get, both publicly and in more intimate
59:01
conversation to emphasize, especially to younger American Jews, that the
59:08
idea of the national existence of the Jewish people in the land of Israel
59:11
is not a 20th century innovation.
59:14
It is as old as Judaism itself.
59:17
The idea of the national restoration of the Jewish people in the land of Israel
59:21
began the day after the Romans destroyed the Jewish kingdom in the year 70 ce.
59:26
A contemporary political movement called Zionism is simply the latest
59:31
and most successful political expression of these sentiments.
59:35
Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel has been the cornerstone of Jewish
59:39
beliefs and the foundation of Jewish history since the birth of our people.
59:44
The Jewish presence in the land of Israel gave birth to three great
59:47
faiths long before Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon were carved
59:52
out by the British and the French.
59:54
After World War I, the Jews were in the land of Israel.
59:58
Long before the birth of Islam, the Jews were there.
1:00:03
Long before the birth of Christianity, the Jews were there long before Mecca, there
1:00:09
was Jerusalem more than anything else.
1:00:12
Israel reminds us that we are part of a bigger story.
1:00:16
It compels us to hope, to dare and to accomplish.
1:00:21
As David and I discussed, there are plenty of challenges in Israel.
1:00:25
There are enough serious problems to keep Israelis and all those who care
1:00:28
about Israel busy for a very long time.
1:00:33
But Israel testifies to the resilience and the grandeur of the human spirit.
1:00:38
The Jewish people's craving for life is indomitable.
1:00:43
What is this so-called right to exist that the Arab world and some
1:00:46
Western intellectuals throw at Israel as if from all the nations of the
1:00:50
world, only the Jewish nation's right to exist is somehow in question.
1:00:55
Jews do not need your permission to exist.
1:00:57
The Jews are here to stay.
1:00:59
The Jewish state is here to stay all this noise from foes of Israel.
1:01:07
So what?
1:01:08
To paraphrase, mark Twain noise proves nothing.
1:01:12
Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles.
1:01:15
As if she has laid an asteroid.
1:01:22
Until next time.
1:01:23
This is in these times.