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Gaza, Sde Teiman, Mamdani, Rabin · Israel Policy Pod

0:05
Shanie: Shalom and welcome to Israel Policy Pod.
0:07
Shanie: I'm your host, Shani Reichman, the Director of Strategic Initiatives and of IPF at Teed at Israel Policy Forum.
0:14
Shanie: I'm joined here by Nari Zilber, your usual host, a journalist based in Tel Aviv and a policy advisor at Israel Policy Forum.
0:21
Shanie: Hi, Nari.
0:22
Neri: Hi, Shani.
0:23
Neri: Uh yes, normally based in Tel Aviv, but now I'm wearing this uh long-sleeved shirt uh made of wool.
0:29
Neri: I think it's it's called uh something called a sweater.
0:32
Neri: Uh and it's cold outside and they're a tall, very tall building.
0:36
Neri: So I'm actually in New York as well.
0:38
Shanie: Um I think our listeners should know that it's 59 degrees Fahrenheit in Manhattan right now.
0:43
Shanie: It is not cold.
0:45
Neri: It's uh all relative.
0:46
Neri: And when you come from uh East or West Asia and the eastern med, uh it's it's a bit nippy outside, but I'm enjoying it.
0:54
Neri: Uh but yes, I'm uh I'm in New York and we're recording this on uh November 4th.
0:59
Neri: Yes.
1:00
Neri: Uh an auspicious, inauspicious day, I believe.
1:03
Shanie: Um I I don't know the right word.
1:05
Neri: Um Yeah, we're gonna go uh inauspicious day, probably probably the right adjective.
1:12
Neri: Uh 30 years to the day of the uh assassination on the on the Gregorian calendar, not the art site.
1:20
Neri: Right.
1:21
Neri: Um although the the date itself uh is seared in in most Israelis' memory.
1:26
Neri: Uh not not the Hebrew calendar day, but the actual the actual date.
1:30
Neri: Uh it's definitely seared in mine.
1:32
Neri: Uh 30 years to the assassination of uh Israeli Prime Minister Ithaca Rabin in uh what came to be known as Rabin Square, uh formerly Kikar Mal Khizrael uh in central Tel Aviv, next to the municipality.
1:45
Neri: So uh 30 years to to that uh horrific day.
1:49
Neri: Uh and also I hear it's uh election day here in New York City.
1:54
Neri: Yes.
1:54
Neri: That's not the reason why I'm here, but uh but it's happening as we speak.
1:59
Shanie: Yes.
1:59
Shanie: Uh there is a mayoral election happening right now in New York City that has really centered on issues affecting Jews in Israel in a way that's pretty unusual for local elections.
2:08
Shanie: So we'll talk more about that as well.
2:10
Shanie: But of course, we're going to talk about um your usual side of the world in Ari, uh including the state of play in Gaza and some internal Israeli affairs, including the State Iman affair that we covered, I think a year ago, maybe more.
2:23
Shanie: I'm sure that's now back on the news cycle.
2:26
Shanie: So um let's dig into it.
2:28
Neri: And yes, we'll definitely get into it.
2:30
Neri: And I'd like to do uh like uh what they call a home and away Shini, even though we're both in in your home, in my former home in New York.
2:37
Neri: So uh what I'd like to do if possible, the first half we'll talk about Israel and the second half we'll talk about America.
2:43
Neri: Uh and I love to talk about America.
2:46
Neri: Yeah, and it's uh your specialty.
2:48
Neri: So uh we'll talk about Mamdani and the general state of American Jewish well, the the general state of the American Jewry.
2:55
Neri: Um, but after we do like a little wrap-up of uh of Israel affairs, uh and I got in, I got into New York uh over this past weekend.
3:04
Neri: So um a lot has happened as as usual in Israel.
3:08
Neri: Uh thankfully no full-scale war.
3:10
Neri: Uh, like listeners and viewers of the podcast uh know I'm a bit of a bit of a hex, but uh no lack of news uh in Israel the last couple days.
3:19
Shanie: You know, I like to keep my questions really short.
3:21
Shanie: So you mentioned that the war in Gaza is still over.
3:26
Shanie: So yes or no, why or why not?
3:29
Shanie: Um, because I feel like every person I talk to has a different perspective.
3:33
Shanie: There are people who feel like everything's back to normal.
3:35
Shanie: We're on the right track.
3:36
Shanie: Other times you talk to folks who make it seem as though it could blow up at any moment.
3:41
Shanie: In Israel, anything can always blow up at any moment.
3:43
Shanie: So um tell us what's going on on that front.
3:47
Neri: So obviously, uh a fragile ceasefire already for a couple of weeks uh in Gaza.
3:53
Neri: And we got into uh the latest state of play last week with uh Ambassador Dan Shapiro, which was a terrific episode, uh going going deep into uh where we're at and where we may be headed.
4:03
Neri: But look, back of the envelope current state of play.
4:06
Neri: Yeah, the ceasefire is holding because Donald Trump wants it to hold.
4:10
Neri: And we've had two, basically two serious uh escalations uh since the ceasefire took hold.
4:18
Neri: One last week, uh early last week, the one the week prior.
4:22
Neri: But Trump really uh bore down on both the Netanyahu government and uh via the various Arab and Muslim states on Hamas.
4:31
Neri: So the ceasefire is moving ahead.
4:33
Neri: Uh we just saw three more deceased hostages uh return for burial uh to their families back in Israel.
4:40
Neri: We're expecting another one, we hope, later tonight.
4:44
Neri: Um, and by the way, the last three uh deceased hostages that came back, uh all three were IDF soldiers.
4:51
Neri: One was uh Asaf Khamimi, the most senior uh IDF commander and officer to fall on October 7th, and really through throughout the war, there were he was a colonel.
5:01
Neri: Um he was the head of the Southern Gaza Brigade.
5:05
Neri: So basically the Gaza division uh that was overrun uh on that morning is made up of two regional brigades, the Northern Gaza Brigade and the Southern Gaza Brigade.
5:15
Neri: He was a commander of the Southern Gaza Brigade, and he really was, if not the first, and one of the first commanders to go out and and try to stop Hamas with just a handful of uh what they call his kind of uh HQ detail, uh, just a handful of other soldiers, and he really uh put up a courageous fight before he fell, and then his body was uh seized and taken back to Gaza.
5:39
Neri: And uh he actually was the first one, we believe, uh, that relayed back to well, the Gaza Division and the General Army, uh, that Israel was now at war.
5:51
Neri: So he actually declared uh that it was a war very early on in the morning of October 7th.
5:56
Neri: So he he was returned and was just buried um, I believe earlier today.
6:00
Neri: Uh and so there are now uh uh eight bodies uh still in captivity being held by Hamas.
6:07
Neri: Uh, we hope that'll go down to seven by the time this podcast goes up.
6:12
Neri: Um five of, well, six of them, six of the eight uh are Israelis, two of them, by the way, are foreign nationals.
6:19
Neri: So we're making progress, and that's all for the good, even though uh Hamas was uh slow rolling the process a little bit uh for its own purposes, as we know.
6:28
Neri: But uh it looks like there's enough pressure being brought to bear on Hamas to actually move ahead, you know, every few days with that.
6:35
Neri: Uh, we hope that all of them come back, obviously.
6:38
Neri: Um, and then that the hope is that that will um facilitate and ease a transition between this phase one of the deal as we've come to know it into phase two of the deal and all the bigger picture uh heavy.
6:52
Shanie: Theoretically, there are like 20 steps to this whole plan, right?
6:56
Shanie: So where are we in that list of steps?
7:00
Shanie: Um, and how do we kind of move from one to the other?
7:03
Shanie: Is there like a is there a sequence where, okay, once all the bodies of hostages are returned, then we move into this next phase?
7:10
Shanie: Or are all these things happening simultaneously?
7:13
Shanie: Because we do know there's talk of an international stabilization force as it's being called, right?
7:18
Shanie: Um, so there are a lot of different moving pieces happening at the same time.
7:21
Neri: There are.
7:22
Neri: Um there are a lot of moving pieces, and I'd love to tell you that there are uh uh concrete answers, but there are no concrete answers as we've come to understand them.
7:30
Neri: There's still discussions about all the issues, and yeah, this all came about.
7:35
Neri: This uh Gaza ceasefire deal came about because of Trump's 20-point plan to end the war.
7:41
Neri: But that was a very ambitious and very kind of bigger picture document.
7:46
Neri: Um essentially the first phase has to do with the first nine points of the plan, more or less, depending on who's counting.
7:55
Neri: Then you have uh, you know, maybe nine others that are related to the second phase, each one of them a world unto itself, a massive diplomatic lift.
8:03
Neri: Then you have these longer-term visions um as part of the plan, like uh discussions over the Palestinian Authority reforming itself and returning back to actually govern and control the Gaza Strip.
8:17
Neri: Uh, nobody believes that will happen tomorrow or be allowed to happen tomorrow, by the way, especially by the Israeli government.
8:24
Neri: Uh, and then I think, you know, even the last point, the 20th point, is um discussions between Israelis and Palestinians about uh um pathway to Palestinian self-determination.
8:34
Neri: Uh again, that is a a longer-term process, but all that was in the 20-point plan that Trump laid out and that the Israeli government agreed to, shouldn't, shouldn't uh go unnoticed, uh, that this far-right Israeli government agreed to to precisely those things that it vowed it would never agree to.
8:51
Neri: But uh anyway, we're still uh in the first few points.
8:54
Neri: We're still in the first stage of of the ceasefire.
8:58
Neri: And the hope is that uh, well, um, once all the hostages are back, or at least the vast, vast majority of them, um, that we'll start seeing implementation of phase two, which um a big part of it is, like you said, the the the kind of development and raising and then deployment of this international stabilization force um a few blocks away from where where we're recording this, Shanille, uh, at the UN uh H HQ on the on the East River.
9:26
Neri: Um the they're trying to hash out a UN Security Council resolution.
9:31
Neri: So again, there have been certain leaks about that.
9:33
Neri: So, can you get a UN Security Council resolution to back this force?
9:36
Neri: What will its mandate be?
9:38
Neri: Who will take part in it?
9:39
Neri: That's also unclear.
9:41
Neri: Earlier discussions about potentially European uh and Western uh militaries being part of it are most likely off the table.
9:51
Neri: Uh, you have um likely Arab and Muslim states, but which Arab and Muslim states?
9:56
Neri: Uh some are very cautious, some are uh maybe a bit more proactive for their own purposes, but how effective are they?
10:03
Neri: How effective are their militaries?
10:04
Neri: And again, that's all still in train.
10:06
Neri: Uh, but then you also have the governing component of it.
10:09
Neri: Um, the makeup of the Palestinian Technocratic Committee that is set to run the day-to-day of the Gaza Strip, still unclear.
10:18
Neri: Uh, the Palestinians are still negotiating various candidates and names uh in Egypt that will be part of it, very contentious.
10:26
Neri: Uh, and then all above all of this, both the International Stabilization Force and the Palestinian Technocratic Committee, there's supposed to be um what uh the Trump uh plan calls the Board of Peace.
10:37
Neri: Donald Trump is gonna be the chair.
10:39
Neri: I don't know how uh kind of uh day-to-day uh executive he's gonna be in the Board of Peace.
10:44
Neri: I'm I'm doubtful.
10:45
Neri: Uh this is obviously the body also that um Tony Blair was uh was mooted to be to be a part of and to potentially lead.
10:53
Neri: So who's gonna make up the Board of Peace?
10:55
Neri: Uh, what is its manic gonna be?
10:58
Neri: How is it gonna work in practice on the ground with the various moving parts of both uh the the various militaries, the various uh governing committees, Hamas obviously still a factor on the ground, the various clans.
11:11
Neri: So again, a lot of work still needs to uh a lot of work still needs uh to be done, but at the very least, uh ceasefire is is holding uh and we have to kind of wait and see patiently.
11:24
Neri: This is gonna be um weeks and months, I imagine, and not days, but uh at the very least, uh Israel is getting back hostages, and for the most part, um the ceasefire has held uh in Gaza itself, which uh both all for the good.
11:40
Shanie: And what are the sentiments on the grounds in Israel?
11:42
Shanie: How are people feeling?
11:43
Shanie: I I will say I unfortunately was not in Israel the actual day that the living hostages all returned.
11:50
Shanie: It seemed very celebratory from afar.
11:52
Shanie: It was certainly a celebratory atmosphere here in the American Jewish community.
11:55
Shanie: Um I arrived at Israel a few days later, and Saturday night I went to Hostage Square.
12:00
Shanie: And I was a little bit surprised, I'll admit, um, because it still felt like a real um space for mourning and desperation, because of course it was filled with families who are still waiting for the bodies of their family members to return so that they can have a funeral in Sitchiva and have a proper mourning period.
12:17
Shanie: Um and it sort of felt like it felt similar to how it would have felt before um all of the living hostages came back, it seems.
12:25
Shanie: So um there's I don't know if it was cognitive dissonance I'm describing, but I felt a little bit strange.
12:31
Shanie: Um and I I'm wondering if that is how people are feeling in Israel, or is that really limited to the hostage square and everywhere else people are feeling as though everything's not going back to normal, but we're in a post-war society.
12:44
Neri: So I don't know if Israel is necessarily in a post-war society, and even if it is, uh I think it'll take a long time for everyone to kind of believe that we're in a post-war society, given just the the past two years.
12:55
Neri: Uh so I think it it's still um, you know, you don't you don't quite believe that it's that it's true.
13:00
Neri: You're still waiting for the uh alert on your phone for a incoming Hootie ballistic missile, but they've also stopped.
13:06
Neri: Uh and you know, all kidding aside, uh there's still RDF soldiers deployed in the Gaza Strip.
13:14
Neri: And the IDF has taken several casualties uh in southern Gaza, as we've talked about in this podcast.
13:21
Neri: So um there is still there's still combat going on, or you know, if not a war situation, then at least a not normal or abnormal um military situation still ongoing.
13:33
Neri: I don't want to say kind of a special military operation that has a different connotations in in different parts of the world, but but yes, it it's you know, for the most part, overall, Israel is is slowly coming back to um um a pre- and post-war reality and that has its own complications, as I'm sure we're gonna get into in in in just a minute, talking about the uh the various uh news of the past few days.
13:58
Neri: Um but in terms of your actual question shitty, I think, you know, again, I don't want to speak to the hostage families and the hostage uh forum.
14:07
Neri: Um I'm just an observer and a journalist, and having covered it for very closely on a day-to-day basis, literally um every day for the past two years, I'll I'll venture to say that it's it's more geared towards hostage square than society at large.
14:22
Neri: The hostage square, and really the hostage families themselves, including now many returned hostages, and the hostage forum, which is the main body representing all of them and has done a fantastic job for for two years under very difficult circumstances.
14:38
Neri: They want to keep the pressure on to get everyone back home.
14:41
Neri: So there are still eight people in captivity in Gaza that they want to get back home.
14:47
Neri: So they're doing their utmost to keep pressure on the government, definitely, on the mediators, um, on Donald Trump itself, you know, issuing statements addressing Trump directly, and publicly in in Israel.
14:59
Neri: So they want to keep keep up the pressure until everyone comes home, as they say, until until the last one.
15:05
Speaker 3: Yeah.
15:06
Neri: So it's uh I I completely understand the sentiment and and thankfully it is moving forward slower than we had hoped, but it's still moving forward.
15:14
Neri: And um, you know, we're now at eight.
15:16
Neri: Hopefully it'll be seven by the time the podcast goes up, and uh we're we're getting there.
15:20
Neri: And uh you and I were chatting offline before we started recording, Shiny.
15:23
Neri: I mean, to my mind, it's a it's a major miracle that we've gotten to this point.
15:28
Neri: If you had told me on October 8th, 2023, that you know, there were 251 people, both alive and and deceased, taken on the day, and you add that to the four Israeli hostages uh that precede October 7th.
15:43
Neri: So the two fallen IDF soldiers from the 2014 war and the two um civilians who you know have their own kind of um mental issues and then entered Gaza alone.
15:55
Neri: Uh so you had 255 Israelis and four national hostage in Gaza on October 8, 2023.
16:01
Neri: If you had told me that uh we'd now be down to eight, and you know, obviously two years of very difficult war, but um you know, Israel was negotiating with Hamas for over a decade for two bodies and two civilians.
16:16
Neri: And uh a very senior Israeli official told me at the very start of the war, I mean, those negotiations were going nowhere because Hamas was demanding an exorbitant price.
16:26
Neri: Um and now we just got three bodies back the other day, and you know, it's part of this overall deal.
16:30
Neri: But um, I the price I dare say was um one that Israel was ready to to pay and and did pay, and that's also good.
16:40
Shanie: Yes.
16:40
Shanie: That that said, um Israel has also shifted a lot of their preferences throughout this war.
16:47
Neri: What do you mean?
16:48
Shanie: I would say at the start, there was a resistance to any any deal that called for a complete end to the war.
16:57
Shanie: And there was a there was a preference for a temporary ceasefire over a full deal.
17:01
Shanie: Right now, they signed a full deal at this point, right?
17:03
Shanie: They even preferred it by now.
17:05
Shanie: Right.
17:05
Shanie: So there was a shift there.
17:07
Neri: No, I mean 100%.
17:09
Neri: Um, you know, in the beginning of the war, Netanyahu didn't even want to include the return of hostages as part of the the the war aims, the official goals of the war.
17:18
Neri: Um, in the very beginning of the war, he didn't even mention the hostages until um essentially he was he was forced into it.
17:26
Neri: Uh yeah, I mean again, we don't need to kind of rehash how we how we got here over the past month.
17:30
Neri: But yes, uh there was Donald Trump pressure on Netanyahu to end the war.
17:35
Neri: But I'm just saying, in terms if you step back and leave aside the personalities involved and the various um permutations politically of the past two years, just in terms of the cold hard deal that was struck um and the fact that Israel was able to extricate so many hostages, especially in recent weeks, really, uh, out of out of Gaza, extraordinary kind of in in historical perspective, uh maybe not in the perspective of the October 7th war.
18:03
Shanie: Yeah.
18:03
Shanie: All the credit to those who didn't let us and didn't let politicians forget about them.
18:09
Shanie: Right.
18:09
Neri: All credit to the hostage families, honestly.
18:12
Shanie: I don't know if you're ready to move on from the Gaza conversation back inside inside Israel, as they say.
18:18
Shanie: Um, but I I think I am.
18:19
Shanie: We'll talk about.
18:20
Shanie: I told you I don't even know how to ask you this question in an intelligent way, but the general states Iman affair, could we call it an affair?
18:28
Shanie: Um, that is also bringing up the uh confrontations between the struggle, power struggle between the judicial system and political echelon.
18:38
Shanie: What is going on?
18:40
Neri: Well, uh it's you you pose it very well.
18:43
Neri: What what the hell is going on uh in recent days with regard to the State Iman scandal?
18:50
Neri: I mean, it's not just an affair, it's it's it's a scandal and and a disgrace, really, um, without prejudging it.
18:56
Neri: Uh, and I'll get into what it was exactly.
18:58
Neri: And then really the the news of recent days, which was the head lawyer for the IDF, the military advocate general, the MAG, um, Ifat Tomir Yerushalmi.
19:09
Neri: So basically think of like you know, the Jag Corps in the US military, judge advocate general, so like a few good men, various TV shows and movies.
19:19
Neri: So basically the the head lawyer for the IDF is called the Mag, the military advocate general.
19:24
Neri: Um, Ifat Tomir Yerushalmi, uh only the second female uh major general in IDF history.
19:32
Neri: Uh yeah.
19:33
Neri: Um, so really a senior officer, um, a seasoned lawyer uh was part of this unit for for many, many years.
19:41
Neri: And she uh she got herself into a lot of trouble due to this affair.
19:48
Neri: Um now, if we take a step back, just for our listeners and viewers, uh, what is a Stateiman affair?
19:54
Neri: Basically, back in the summer, the early summer of 2024, um, a scandal broke out, uh, allegations of serious, serious abuse uh of a Palestinian detainee taken from Gaza during the war and detained at Stateiman.
20:10
Neri: Stateiman is a, well, it was an anonymous and very small military base outside Belsheva in Israel's southern Negev that nobody had ever really heard about until really October 7th, when it was turned into the main detention facility for uh potential combatants.
20:26
Neri: So it's essentially set up as like this temporary prison to hold Gazans uh taken um, well, during October 7th, but really over the course of the Gaza War.
20:36
Neri: And this individual was one of them.
20:38
Neri: Um, we believe he may have been a Hamas policeman inside Gaza, uh, not as some Israeli right-wingers claimed, uh, a Nukba terrorist, one of the hardcore commandos that invaded southern Israel uh on October 7th.
20:51
Neri: Uh anyway, these are the details.
20:53
Neri: Uh the allegations, again, there were allegations, and also there was serious um proof of it of major abuse uh of this detainee by at least five Israeli, for lack of a better word, prison guards, the unit that was tasked with um Are prison guards part of the military?
21:13
Shanie: Are these soldiers are these considered soldiers?
21:15
Shanie: They're not general, like sort of hired security.
21:19
Neri: No, they're not hired security.
21:20
Neri: Um I mean, some are regular armies, some are reservists.
21:23
Neri: I mean, there's also been um this incident aside, there were many reports either in the international media or even uh in local media, but really by by HAR, it's uh the left-wing newspaper.
21:35
Neri: Um anonymous individuals that had served in at State T Iman coming forward and saying, yeah, this was the situation there was was quite bad in terms of abuse.
21:44
Neri: Now, again, um this needs to be investigated, which is what the MAG is for, right?
21:50
Neri: They're investigating uh one of their purposes is investigating wrongdoing inside the IDF.
21:54
Neri: Uh the IDF is committed to uh acting and operating according to both Israeli law and international law, and things have to be legal.
22:03
Neri: That is the difference between a Western army and a militia, right?
22:10
Neri: You can't just do whatever you want, uh whatever you want to whoever you want.
22:15
Neri: So again, going back to State Iman uh and this specific incident, there are serious allegations.
22:21
Neri: I mean, this is a family podcast, so I'm not going to get into the most graphic of the abuse allegations.
22:28
Neri: You can all Google it, fine.
22:30
Neri: Uh so the MAG uh started investigating, and effectively it raided State Iman and arrested uh some of these, for lack of a better word, again, prison guards.
22:42
Neri: This set off a firestorm, especially amongst the Israeli right.
22:46
Neri: So supporters of the Netanyahu government, you know, Channel 14, the kind of right-wing mouthpiece for Netanyahu.
22:54
Neri: Um you had a situation where even Netanyahu coalition members and ministers, so Knesset members and ministers, um, broke into State Iman in protest.
23:08
Shanie: In defense of the prison guards.
23:10
Shanie: It I would say in part, I just want to add the context that um this is in the aftermath of October 7th, and of course the prisoners themselves are are some of the worst perpetrators of the October 7th massacres.
23:20
Shanie: So that definitely adds a lot of sensitivity here.
23:23
Shanie: Not in defense of the prison guards.
23:25
Shanie: I just wanted to add that.
23:27
Neri: No, no, look, all of it is in the context of October 7th.
23:29
Neri: There wouldn't be a state iman in any of this if it wasn't October 7th.
23:33
Neri: Um, you can you can use that caveat for everything that has gone on inside the Gaza Strip for the past two years.
23:40
Neri: Yes, we all hold Hamas uh uh more responsible than any other actor or decision maker in all of this, and yet uh and yet, right?
23:50
Neri: Israel is a country of laws.
23:54
Neri: The IDF is an army of laws and a chain of command, and you can't just do whatever you want, no matter if it's the worst person in the world that you're dealing with, either on the battlefield or in detention.
24:09
Neri: So, anyway, uh to get back to the kind of state the the timeline of events, you had the uh essentially Netanyahu coalition members invade Steteman in support of the arrested IDF soldiers.
24:25
Neri: You then had an invasion of another IDF base in central Israel, which is where the the kind of IDF prosecution's offices and detention facilities are.
24:36
Neri: So they invaded yet another uh IDF base in Betlid, right?
24:41
Neri: And again, uh the Israel police did very little to to stop them.
24:46
Neri: That's a separate issue, but uh again, there were no consequences for uh you know Israeli ministers invading an IDF base, right?
24:54
Neri: Uh and again, it shows you where it's pretty controversial.
24:58
Neri: It's controversial, and again, we you know this was a it's a massive scandal a year ago, um over a year ago, who you know who remembers?
25:04
Neri: So in this public and political climate, uh Ifato Meri Rushalmi, the mag, the head lawyer in the IDF, took it upon herself to leak video of the guards again allegedly abusing the Palestinian detainee.
25:21
Shanie: Is it alleged?
25:22
Shanie: Is it alleged if it's on video?
25:25
Neri: Look, again, videos are videos, but this is why we have um due process and courts and all of that stuff that uh all of my lawyer friends you know like to talk about.
25:38
Neri: Um this is important.
25:40
Neri: It's not a minor issue, right?
25:41
Neri: But she took it, she took it upon herself, um, her and a number of people in her in her team, but at the very top levels of the military advocate general unit in the IDF to leak this video to Channel 12 news in August of 2024 to essentially relieve pressure on her and her unit, uh, given the political and public climate.
26:04
Neri: Um, and that set off a massive, again, public debate inside Israel.
26:09
Neri: The lines of the debate pretty predictable, right?
26:12
Neri: The right wing is saying uh doesn't matter what these prison guards did, they're heroes.
26:17
Neri: Like you said, they're dealing with the worst of the worst, responsible for October 7th, even though that individual may not have been personally responsible for October 7th, fine.
26:26
Neri: Um, and then you had, let's say, the more liberal side of the Israeli, uh Israeli spectrum.
26:34
Neri: Spectrum, saying, you know, we're a country of laws, uh, we're not militias.
26:41
Neri: We are in the Middle East, but we don't want to be like the Middle East.
26:44
Neri: And if these uh villa in the jungle.
26:49
Neri: Yeah, which is also um, you know, the jungle is overrunning the villa.
26:53
Neri: Even if you even if you even if you believe that uh overused uh cliche, uh, you know, this is one of those incidents where yeah, the the jungle is very, very clearly overrunning your villa um in, you know, on the on the shores of the Mediterranean.
27:09
Neri: So basically, uh she leaked this this video uh to relieve pressure from her to essentially explain and to trigger this debate that did happen.
27:20
Neri: Um but more recently, this is where she gets into trouble.
27:23
Neri: I'll spare you the details, but it came out uh inside the system that her unit, and then it turned out her per she personally leaked the video.
27:35
Neri: Um, and that in prior investigations into the leak, she had lied to both the attorney general and definitely to the Supreme Court.
27:44
Neri: That's perjury, right?
27:46
Neri: Because the people investigated, you know, where the leak came from.
27:50
Neri: Uh the leak itself, since you're the highest legal authority in the army, that's you know, obstruction of justice, right?
27:57
Neri: You know, you're you're messing up with the the due process that you yourself and your your unit, your people, have to provide to the alleged prison, you know, alleged abusers.
28:09
Neri: Um and that quickly snowballed, right, when it came to the fore and uh became public last week.
28:18
Neri: Uh very quickly, the Nanyao government and defense ministry Salikats, you know, were calling for her head.
28:23
Neri: So she would very clearly had to kind of take leave.
28:26
Neri: And then last Friday she actually admitted uh that she herself leaked it, because I think the evidence against her was um overwhelming.
28:34
Neri: You know, WhatsApp messages and uh people that were involved in it, you know, had essentially said as much.
28:40
Neri: Uh she resigned on Friday.
28:42
Neri: So she is now the former head lawyer of the IDF, the she is the former MAG.
28:48
Neri: Uh and I mean the tale takes another turn uh on Sunday, which you you may have seen, but uh it definitely made news internationally.
29:00
Neri: Uh Ifate Tomelujani went missing on Sunday for several hours.
29:06
Neri: And she allegedly left a note to her family, and her car was found kind of deserted near um near the beach kind of north of Tel Aviv.
29:18
Neri: And there were for a number of hours there was serious concern for her life.
29:22
unknown: Right?
29:22
Neri: Where did she go?
29:23
Neri: Because again, you know, you uh a week prior, you were a major general in the IDF, and in just a matter of days, you not only had to resign, you're now being investigated for crime, right?
29:34
Neri: Perjury, obstruction of justice, all of that.
29:36
Neri: The defense minister is threatening to uh take away your rank, which has kind of knock on effects in terms of pension and and your future uh your future situation.
29:48
Neri: Uh, and you may go to prison, right?
29:49
Neri: So you're looking at it kind of a you know trial.
29:51
Neri: So again, you were the top lawyer in the IDF, and now this again, so there was a major concern.
29:55
Neri: Thankfully, thankfully, thankfully, they found her uh a few hours later on the beach uh In Eritalia, she was uh she was fine.
30:03
Neri: Um, and they took her in uh for questioning, for checkups, and then they arrested her because uh the I the Israel police can't find her phone.
30:13
Neri: So her phone is part of the evidence, and she again, according to reports, she didn't quite provide a reasonable explanation as to what happened to her phone.
30:22
Neri: She may have thrown it into the into the sea.
30:25
Neri: Seems plausible.
30:27
Neri: Yeah.
30:28
Neri: Um, I mean, a bit of sarcasm in your voice.
30:31
Shanie: But again, so again, no, I sorry, I did not mean to be sarcastic.
30:34
Shanie: I think that it's pretty sketchy to not be able to find your phone as part of a criminal investigation.
30:38
Shanie: She like, okay, I'll stop sp I'll stop speculating now, but no, again, it's not sarcastic.
30:44
Neri: I'm trying to just detail like what we know for sure and what's speculation.
30:47
Neri: So again, this is she is now currently still under arrest.
30:51
Neri: She's being investigated.
30:52
Neri: They're looking for her phone.
30:53
Neri: Literally, they have divers looking for her phone because they think she threw away the phone when she went missing for those several hours.
31:00
Neri: Now, again, was she really um in serious distress?
31:05
Neri: Was it a ploy to find a, like you said, a plausible explanation for why you would lose to your phone?
31:12
Neri: I don't know.
31:13
Neri: The whole thing is terrible, it's a terrible story.
31:16
Neri: By all accounts, she was a highly regarded officer and lawyer who made a terrible mistake.
31:24
Neri: And like in most of these cases, cover-up was worse than the crime.
31:29
Neri: So you leaked the video and then you tried to cover it up and lied to, amongst others, the Supreme Court.
31:35
Neri: Uh, and now it all came out all of a sudden.
31:38
Neri: So this is essentially uh, you call it the State Teman affair, but for most Israelis, it's the MAG affair, the military advocate general affair.
31:47
Neri: Because, and this is the really the crux of the matter, for the right wing led by the government and the defense minister, and definitely the prime minister, um, this is proof that you can't trust the lawyers, that as Israel Khatz, the defense minister said, um, they were cooking up blood libels against our soldiers.
32:07
Neri: Why were you in even investigating our soldiers?
32:10
Neri: You know, let alone leaking the tape and causing Israel massive international damage.
32:14
Neri: They're missing the major point that we all can clearly see is that, yeah, you know, there wouldn't have been an investigation or a tape if there hadn't been major, major allegations of abuse in State Iman.
32:25
Neri: Number one.
32:26
Neri: Number two, the MAGs, one of its roles is to actually investigate wrongdoing by the army.
32:31
Neri: So you can't just say all wrongdoing is not wrongdoing because it happens to be an Israeli soldier doing it, right?
32:38
Neri: Which is essentially the the line that the government is taking, including um today, when a new military advocate general was appointed.
32:48
Neri: Actually, by all accounts, a very reasonable appointment.
32:50
Neri: But Israel Khat said, you know, uh, we want we want our MAG to not cook up uh essentially blood libels against our soldiers.
32:59
Neri: It's like, well, I mean, you know, there may be wrongdoing.
33:02
Neri: I dare say there likely is wrongdoing by certain, you know, soldiers and officers and units.
33:07
Neri: It has to be investigated, right?
33:09
Neri: That's obvious that's clearly right.
33:11
Neri: But in terms of the hierarchy of the current debate, um, it's fallen way, way down below the real debate or the overwhelming debate right now, which is um, you know, what this specific mag did or did not do, leaking the video, who knew about the leak, the conspiracy theories that stem from that, and so on and so forth.
33:34
Neri: So again, uh she this is the bottom line, she caused major damage to trust in not only that specific institution, but all kind of judicial institutions in Israel, which has been a major, major point of contention now since this Netanyahu government came into power three years ago.
33:53
Neri: Um, she caused major, major damage to what I like to call you know the anti-anti-Netanyahu liberal forces or camp in Israel, because you know, a a run-of-the-mill middle Israel citizenslash potential future voter will say, Well, they're all the same, they're all terrible.
34:12
Neri: Right?
34:13
Neri: Uh Netanyahu may have done this or that you know and blade into his corruption trial, but look at the top lawyer of the IDF, right?
34:21
Neri: Leaking this tape and you know, all of that.
34:24
Neri: Um, so she she caused major damage, and you know, I all my sympathy goes out to her, but she it's just not done.
34:31
Neri: It's just not done, um, especially as uh for a person in that position.
34:35
Neri: And then my final point, Shanie, this all comes uh in addition to the news, I believe it was yesterday, uh, another kind of legal political scandal.
34:46
Neri: The police raided the Histadrut, um, the big trade union federation, the headquarters in in central Tel Aviv, uh, massive kind of scandal involving corruption, favorite trading, all of that.
34:59
Neri: Um again, the details are less important than the bottom line, which is the head of the Histadrut was also part of the let's let's call it again, the anti-Netanyahu liberal camp.
35:10
Neri: He was a major um, I want to say gatekeeper, but he was a major counterbalancing force against the government if, say, the government was even considering uh not adhering to a Supreme Court decision, right?
35:23
Neri: So the head of the Histadrut said, you know, if you do that, we're gonna shut down the country, we're gonna go on strike, right?
35:27
Neri: When Netanyahu tried to fire former defense minister Joav Garant way back in March of 2023, it was the Histadrut that actually brought the country to a halt the next day and forced Netanyahu to backtrack.
35:40
Neri: So again, you should have done better.
35:43
Neri: Again, I mean, if you know the Histadrut, you know that uh this is this is probably not new for them in terms of you know shady dealings and corruption.
35:50
Neri: But you yourself as a as a figure um trying to uphold certain norms and defending certain institutions in the country, uh, you can't do that.
35:59
Neri: Um and now the Hazi Stadut is in jail, he's being investigated.
36:03
Neri: Many others are as well.
36:04
Neri: Uh so again, a very uh bad few days for um uh the liberal quote unquote or democratic camp, probably better name for it, the democratic camp in Israel.
36:14
Neri: Uh, and that all ties back to uh, well, part of it to State Iman.
36:19
Neri: Uh so yeah, I'll stop there.
36:21
Neri: By the way, Shani, I know you you had many questions going in.
36:25
Neri: Did that answer your question?
36:27
Shanie: Honestly, yes.
36:27
Shanie: I think that was really comprehensive.
36:29
Shanie: That was really comprehensive.
36:30
Shanie: I did come in here thinking it was the Seitiman affair, and you convinced me it was the Mag affair, which was um, I think your goal.
36:37
Shanie: So I definitely am on board.
36:39
Shanie: And to be honest, I did not have all the information you provided.
36:42
Shanie: So that was great.
36:43
Neri: Yeah.
36:43
Neri: Um again, it's kind of inside baseball, but it has a warm.
36:48
Shanie: No, but it was also some really it felt like some fun gossip too.
36:51
Shanie: Not gossip, obviously, because it's journalism.
36:54
Shanie: But when journalism feels like gossip, you know that's my favorite thing.
36:56
Shanie: So Yeah.
36:58
Neri: And you know, you're you're following the news.
37:00
Neri: Again, I was here, but I was following the news on Sunday.
37:02
Neri: It's like, wait, she went missing?
37:04
Neri: Where is she like I honestly it could have been?
37:06
Shanie: She was hiding in the beach?
37:07
Shanie: Like, no, no.
37:08
Neri: It could have been obviously it ended could have ended very, very tragically.
37:10
Neri: Thankfully it didn't.
37:12
Neri: But you're saying this is this is like uh House of Cards, like a Netflix show.
37:16
Shanie: Aaron Powell I was worried you were going into murder mystery territory, but luckily we we didn't.
37:21
Neri: No, but uh did she stage the disappearance to get rid of the phone?
37:26
Neri: I mean, let's call it like it is, right?
37:29
Neri: Uh so they're looking for the phone.
37:31
Neri: Anyway, that's that's what's happening in Israel.
37:34
Neri: This is all part of this is all part of the post-war um you know, back to reality, even though it's uh very far from reality.
37:41
Shanie: Uh I just want to note that I know that most people don't watch this on YouTube, but you're missing out because there are a lot of facial expressions expressions revealing all of my true emotions and some of Nari's as well.
37:55
Shanie: Uh so I just want to name that, even though most of our listeners are not on YouTube.
37:58
Neri: Yeah, I hope the uh the disappointment and anger uh comes across in my facial expressions because uh these things are just not done.
38:05
Neri: And it's definitely not done when you yourself and the entire system and all these institutions are under major, major stress and under major, major fire, metaphorical fire, but fire from the current government, and you're not making anyone's life uh easier.
38:24
Neri: And if we're looking at elections coming up in well, the coming year, uh this will be a major uh point, you know, to kind of dilute the anger at the government, saying, well, how can you trust these gate, these actual gatekeepers, these institutions?
38:41
Neri: They're all the same.
38:44
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39:41
Neri: That is uh all the news that's fit to uh fit to talk about from Israel, I believe.
39:46
Neri: Uh I wanted to shift Shani to your neck of the woods, which is now my neck of the woods.
39:51
Neri: Um first, I mean, very briefly, what was your I mean, you kind of big picture you, like you in terms of, you know, American Jewish society, the discourse, and also you personally, as Sheny, uh head of uh IPF's uh Young Professional Network, has there been a change in the conversation since ceasefire took effect?
40:14
Neri: Um has the has the kind of uh level of emotions gone down a little bit or has it remained steady?
40:25
Shanie: I think the emotions are going down a little bit.
40:28
Shanie: The broad spectrum of we'll call them liberal American Jews, which of course is the majority of American Jews, are feeling that sigh of relief, are feeling the move towards a post-war Israel that we can relate to in a very different way.
40:44
Shanie: Doesn't mean that people are ready to have the hard conversations that, frankly, we've been postponing for two years, um, that were put on pause within Israeli society to some extent and between American Jewry and Israeli society.
40:57
Shanie: Uh, but I think that's where where we're looking towards.
41:00
Shanie: And of course, those of us who really exist in um spaces that are trying to influence the public discourse and are thinking critically about policy are very much in this headspace of what is the horizon, what is the vision for Israel, both in the democratic front and the security front and the peace front and in all of these spaces.
41:16
Shanie: And um, some of us are are itching to get to get back to it and and and think about how we can move in a positive direction.
41:22
Shanie: Um, but but I don't know that I don't know that that's where Israelis are at, as you noted.
41:26
Shanie: I said, Are we in a post-war society?
41:28
Shanie: And you almost laughed in my face, right?
41:30
Shanie: Like, of course, we're we're nowhere near that.
41:32
Shanie: And I certainly felt that when I was in Israel, and of and and I think that that that gap is is gonna remain because the sort of trauma of of war doesn't uh fade that quickly, I suppose.
41:45
Neri: Yeah, the the hardening of um Israeli minds.
41:48
Neri: It's almost the war was almost, I don't want to say a distraction, but when when you're in it, you're kind of focused on the day-to-day and and what will happen tomorrow and all that.
42:00
Neri: Now that Israelis are kind of um well, at least there's a ceasefire.
42:04
Neri: It's uh uh I think there's a lot of processing going on, and some of the processing has been um well, more hard line than than I'd like.
42:14
Neri: But uh I think that's like you said, it's gonna be a a a longer term process.
42:18
Shanie: And in terms of American Jews, I mean I think most of us are hoping that the discourse in this country can move past Israel a little bit.
42:27
Shanie: It's been so centered around Israel at every level, federal, national, and we're and we're gonna talk about local, literally a local mayor election, not even at the state level, um, that's centering around Israel in a lot of ways.
42:38
Shanie: And I think a lot of us are just hoping we could be ignored for a little bit and that everyone will stop talking about us so much and stop talking about Israel so much.
42:46
Shanie: I don't think that's necessarily in the cards.
42:48
Shanie: Um because to be honest, there was a frustrating component of seeing the uh we'll call them detractors of Israel, right?
42:57
Shanie: Like sort of the proper anti-Israel camp, um not really expressing what I would think to be like a legitimate relief.
43:07
Shanie: Or I think part of the issue is that Trump was the one who orchestrated the ceasefire.
43:11
Shanie: And so for those on the far left, it's it is hard to acknowledge a positive thing coming from Trump, right?
43:16
Shanie: I think you've talked about this in the podcast before.
43:18
Shanie: It's been even hard for me, I will say, um, to be so positive about something that Trump did, someone with whom I disagree in a lot of things.
43:25
Shanie: And so um, on certainly on the far left and in in the anti-Israel camp on the left, it's been hard to be positive about this.
43:32
Shanie: But I would hope that people who have been yelling about this war for two years since the day it started against Israel would at least acknowledge that it is now at least temporarily over.
43:43
Shanie: And we haven't seen any of that.
43:44
Shanie: So the discourse hasn't shifted that much outside of the American Jewish community, even though I think a lot of us are taking a breath.
43:50
Shanie: But um I do want to talk about how it's played into the race in New York City.
43:55
Shanie: Today is election day.
43:57
Speaker 3: It is.
43:58
Shanie: Everyone I talk to, I've been talking to mostly Israelis today, so everybody wants to know what the hell's going on.
44:03
Neri: Um I want to know what's going on.
44:06
Shanie: Okay.
44:06
Shanie: So I'll speak about American Jewry in general, and then I'll speak about young people because obviously there's there are different politics amongst young people and the general um community.
44:16
Shanie: Insofar as there is a unified American Jewish community in New York, they they're not voting for Mamdani and they do not like him.
44:25
Shanie: Um, over a thousand rabbis signed a letter opposing him last week, um, including some really prominent ones.
44:32
Shanie: Rabbi Elliott Cosgrove of Park Avenue Synagogue, again, one of the uh largest, most prominent congregations here, um, gave a whole sermon about it.
44:41
Shanie: There is this new development in which it is now legal and maybe even encouraged now for religious leaders, which includes rabbis, to take stances on candidates.
44:51
Shanie: They can endorse candidates now, which is really unique.
44:54
Shanie: I don't know how I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing broadly.
44:57
Neri: This was illegal before?
44:59
Shanie: Yeah, because the same way that nonprofits, right?
45:02
Shanie: Like Israel Policy Forum cannot endorse a candidate as a nonprofit organization.
45:06
Shanie: You're a 5001 C3.
45:07
Shanie: So a synagogue, a synagogue and a church wasn't able to either before.
45:11
Shanie: That has recently shifted.
45:13
Shanie: And so that's why you are now seeing.
45:14
Shanie: I was actually shocked.
45:16
Shanie: I didn't realize that the law had changed, and all of a sudden I see rabbis um publicly endorsing Cuomo or publicly speaking out against Modani, who's gonna be the could will very likely be the mayor of the city that um they're running a pulpit in.
45:28
Shanie: Um and then I realized this um is a recent law that changed.
45:32
Shanie: Um interesting.
45:33
Shanie: So that's added a really interesting dynamic.
45:36
Shanie: Um, before people were a lot more subtle in their criticisms of public officials of elected officials, and now far less so.
45:42
Shanie: In terms of young people, certainly there are a lot of um young American Jews who, like a lot of young New Yorkers, are energized by Bam Dani.
45:51
Shanie: They see, first of all, they deeply have deep disdain for Cuomo for a variety of reasons, including the sexual harassment allegations against him, um, and a lot of other uh components of his handling and and speculation of corruption, things like that.
46:04
Shanie: Um, the general, to be honest, a lot of these are criticisms that young people have of the old guard in general, the old political guard, which Cuomo does represent in a lot of ways.
46:13
Shanie: And they're excited by someone um young in Mamdani who also has a lot of what they perceive as new and fresh ideas, free buses and childcare and all the like um sort of democratic socialist um policies that you see.
46:26
Shanie: So I think a lot of people want to be energized by him.
46:29
Shanie: Obviously, there's a lot of conflicting feelings for the pro-Israel Jewish community.
46:33
Shanie: Um, I still see young people kind of on the fence.
46:36
Shanie: To be honest, a lot of my my friends are are on the fence about this because they don't really want to vote for an anti-Israel candidate, which he objectively is.
46:46
Shanie: Um, and so it's a struggle.
46:48
Shanie: But to be honest, the the polling that I've seen, the last polling, had only 16% of Jews voting for Mamdani.
46:53
Shanie: So if there was ever a referendum, like only getting 16% of Jews in New York means the Jews don't like you, right?
47:00
Shanie: Um, which um That's an important point.
47:02
Shanie: That's an important point, right?
47:04
Shanie: So as much as I might see the young progressive lefties who are even canvassing for Mamdani, that is not representative.
47:11
Shanie: 16% is like nobody, right?
47:13
Shanie: I don't know if that's gonna be true.
47:14
Shanie: We'll see in the exit polls.
47:16
Shanie: We don't know for sure yet, but again, that's extremely low with Cuomo getting, I think, 60% in the last poll.
47:22
Shanie: Again, these are this is not who actually voted.
47:24
Shanie: This is just like preliminary early voting exit polls, things like that.
47:28
Shanie: I will say, I think the conversation shifted a lot with people who were on the fence, moving a little bit in the last week.
47:33
Shanie: There was a resurfaced video of him in 2023 saying that this is a direct quote: when the boot of the NYPD, the police department, is on your neck, it's laced by the IDF, right?
47:44
Shanie: So directly tying this line, which I would say is very clearly an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, that the problems of our current society in America, the most violent of our problems, are is tied back to Israel, is tied back to the Jewish state.
47:56
Shanie: Um, and I'll go so far as to say the Jewish people, right?
47:59
Shanie: And that seems to have been a red line for some who are keeping more of an open mind.
48:03
Shanie: Angela Buktal, who I will comfortably call like the most famous American rabbi, basically at Central Synagogue, um, potentially our largest congregation here in New York, um, who did not sign that letter originally, um, spoke in a sermon about this.
48:18
Shanie: I won't say that she specifically endorsed or didn't endorse, but she called it what it is, which is, you know, uh anti-Semitism last Shabbat, I believe.
48:27
Shanie: Um so that changed a few things.
48:29
Shanie: And there was a phone bank from Amdani with Jeremy Corbyn.
48:32
Shanie: Um and I think that those two combined.
48:35
Neri: Um the former head of the Labor Party in the UK who was uh drummed out of the party over real allegations of, you know, not only anti-Israel sentiment, but anti-Semitism.
48:47
Shanie: Aaron Powell Yes.
48:47
Shanie: Uh so I think those two things combined, which are happening in the last week, probably shifted things a little bit.
48:53
Shanie: I think that a lot of the people who were on the fence, and I say this genuinely, I think a lot of young progressive Jews are struggling with this decision.
49:00
Shanie: And I I I speculate that that shifted um a couple folks.
49:04
Shanie: But again, um if it's true and there's only 16% of Jews voting for Umdani, then that's as much as referendums against him as anything will be.
49:12
Shanie: So that's what we're seeing right now.
49:13
Shanie: And of course, like all the Upper East Side Jewish moms where I live are campaigning actively for Cuomo, just to give some more context here.
49:20
Shanie: Um anyone I yeah, anyone I talk to who's over 30, it's not even a question, to be honest.
49:26
Neri: Right.
49:27
Neri: Uh and it's worth mentioning you are a denizen and a citizen of the Upper East Side.
49:31
Shanie: Aaron Powell I am a citizen of the Upper East Side, yes.
49:33
Shanie: Where it's pretty obvious who people in my neighborhood are voting for.
49:37
Neri: Yeah.
49:38
Neri: Uh I guess the the vibe would be a bit different, say, in uh deep Brooklyn.
49:41
Shanie: Um Yes.
49:43
Shanie: Brooklyn's a little different.
49:45
Neri: Aaron Powell And Shani.
49:47
Neri: So okay, I mean it's obviously election day, and you know, I saw one poll last night because I, you know, I'm on the front lines of of this of the story now.
49:55
Neri: Unbeknownst to me, but um I saw a poll last night that the gap was actually narrowing between Mamdani and and Como.
50:04
Neri: I mean, again, uh this podcast will likely go up tomorrow, so we'll be a lot smarter, or our listeners will be a lot smarter.
50:11
Neri: But um, in the event that Mamdani wins, what will be the reaction from the Jewish community here in New York and maybe farther afield?
50:20
Shanie: Okay.
50:20
Shanie: So, first of all, I want to say I know it's always risky the day of an election to predict how the election's gonna go.
50:25
Shanie: Very few people are predicting that Mamdani will lose.
50:29
unknown: Right.
50:30
Shanie: She is with a with up with almost certainty going to be our next mayor.
50:34
Shanie: I I know I really like I don't want to say hope that I'm wrong.
50:37
Shanie: I I could easily be wrong, um, but it will it will be surprising.
50:42
Shanie: I've been looking at a lot of polls all day, but again, anything can happen.
50:45
Shanie: Um, anything can happen if Mamdani wins.
50:48
Shanie: I think there are a lot of institutions that are actually prepared to work with him.
50:52
Shanie: Even pretty mainstream ones are are working very hard.
50:55
Shanie: Of course, there are those who are it's hard when you spent several weeks or months campaigning against him to then go and extend a hand.
51:03
Shanie: But there are still very large congregations and um large New York Jewish institutions, very mainstream ones, that held mayoral debates that included him, um, and that I think are are thinking really critically about how to engage him thoughtfully if he becomes the mayor.
51:18
Shanie: Um, I have a lot of of faith in um the Federation here and the JCRC here and a lot of the institutions that they take their job seriously of representing the Jews of New York.
51:28
Shanie: Um and I I have I have a lot of um trust that they will build a relationship with him.
51:34
Shanie: I don't know his his receptiveness to this sort of thing.
51:36
Shanie: It's hard to tell during a campaign, especially when his whole base is young progressives who are in aren't really into Israel.
51:44
Shanie: And um it's it's hard to know what he'll actually do if he wins.
51:48
Shanie: Um, but I do think the Jewish community is preparing for that really actively.
51:51
Shanie: We have a really good um infrastructure here for that.
51:54
Shanie: So I have a lot of faith that we'll make it work whenever it happens.
51:57
Shanie: Um I I will add because I'm um I'm a person who I don't think who I think will be less affected than a lot of others.
52:06
Shanie: Um but I do worry um that in places like Brooklyn, where there are a lot of ultra-orthodox Jews who receive a lot more anti-Semitic or are subject to a lot more anti-Semitism and hate crimes and even violent hate crimes, um, I am concerned that this will embolden a lot a lot of the people who commit those hate crimes against them.
52:26
Shanie: I just want to name that.
52:27
Shanie: Um although a Satmer leader, who obviously represents a really small portion of the community, but a Satmar Hasidic leader actually endorsed Mamdani yesterday, I think.
52:36
Shanie: Um but again, that's not really representative of the Jewish community or certain or the Orthodox community either, which I'm I'm also sort of live in that community as well.
52:47
Neri: And bigger picture, the fact that this kind of candidate running on a democratic ticket, right, in okay, uh New York, New York City is is fairly liberal, but uh, you know, there are major pockets of New York City who voted for Donald Trump last time, right?
53:04
Neri: He did better this past election um you know in New York City than he did than he did previously.
53:10
Neri: What does it say about the direction not only of the Democratic Party but politics in America, where such a uh I'll I'll use the word, unabashedly anti-Israel candidate, right, um, who actually didn't back down at all during the campaign.
53:27
Neri: I mean, I you know, it didn't seem like he really backed down from those positions uh when he was asked flat out.
53:32
Neri: Maybe he didn't address them directly, but he didn't back down from it, didn't apologize.
53:36
Neri: What does it say about uh potentially future races, future directions in American politics?
53:42
Neri: Or should we not read into what happens today in New York City vis-a-vis the wider country?
53:48
Shanie: I I don't think people are voting for Amdani because he's because he doesn't support Israel.
53:52
Shanie: I think that they're voting for him for a lot of reasons, and a lot of them have to do with Andrew Cuomo.
53:57
Shanie: I want to say that a lot of them have to do with Andrew Cuomo and not about Amdani himself and support for him.
54:02
Shanie: And a really young, energetic, well-spoken candidate.
54:07
Shanie: I don't know if you watch the debates, but for most of them, he in the primaries, he easily won those debates really well.
54:14
Shanie: Even for someone like me who doesn't really support a lot of his positions.
54:17
Shanie: I was, I mean, he really won those debates handed.
54:21
Shanie: Um so I think it's more than I don't think people are like sitting around voting for Omdani because he um is perceived as being like pro-Palestine or anti-Israel.
54:31
Shanie: Not that I want to frame those as against each other, because I don't necessarily um anti-Israel, and there's also, you know, a certain kind of pro-Palestinian.
54:42
Shanie: And uh Yeah, absolutely.
54:44
Shanie: Um so I don't want to see it that way on a larger level.
54:48
Shanie: I think that many perceive a Bamdani win as being very good for Donald Trump because then he can position this as being the standard Democrat is a socialist and is anti-Israel, et cetera, et cetera.
55:02
Shanie: And that's really good on a national level for Republicans.
55:05
Shanie: So I will say that's a lot of what I'm hearing about the impact.
55:09
Shanie: Um, less about marginalizing, um, actually marginalizing moderate Democrats, more about the perception of them being marginal and presenting this as being the dominant democratic opinion or views, which I don't think it is.
55:23
Shanie: I think that people vote for very different issues on in a local election, and they would vote very differently on a national scale.
55:30
Neri: So I think this is a very important point, maybe obvious maybe to Americans, but all our listeners, um, whether especially in Israel, but also around the world.
55:39
Neri: Uh you know, you can say whatever you want about Mamdani as both a candidate and a politician, but there was a certain specific context to this specific race in the specific city.
55:50
Neri: Uh Israel was obviously a big part of it, but not maybe I'll venture to say not the overwhelming part of it.
55:58
Neri: So maybe extrapolating too much from his potential victory would also be erroneous.
56:06
Shanie: Yeah.
56:06
Shanie: I will just add, in an ideal local election, Israel does not come up at all.
56:11
Shanie: It is not asked about, it is not mentioned.
56:14
Shanie: Jews and anti-Semitism should be mentioned because it is the most Jewish city in this country, or like then any city in this country.
56:22
Shanie: But to be asking directly about this shouldn't happen.
56:24
Shanie: It happened because a lot of his campaign or happened to have to do with some of these issues.
56:30
Shanie: He's been bringing up this up in his activist career for a decade.
56:33
Shanie: I was thinking about it.
56:33
Shanie: And of course, Benger Cuomo wanted to position it that way too, right?
56:37
Shanie: Everybody wanted to position it this way for different reasons.
56:40
Shanie: In an ideal scenario, this would have nothing to do with Israel.
56:45
Neri: Yeah.
56:45
Neri: Um I mean, some of it Mamdani himself bears responsibility for because uh I know this from someone who went to college with him.
56:52
Neri: Uh this was, you know, the Israel thing didn't pop up uh at the start of this campaign.
56:58
Neri: It's been with Mamdani since college.
57:01
Neri: Um it's not really my story to tell, but you know, he was very anti-Israel, very um, very uh BDS-y uh during his college days, and I think that that continued maybe even until the present.
57:15
Neri: So uh he, you know, that's part of his record as well, publicly.
57:20
Shanie: Yeah, yeah.
57:22
Neri: Uh okay.
57:23
Shanie: Um I think we've we've devoted enough time to this conversation because honestly, I'm exhausted thinking about the mayoral election here.
57:31
Shanie: But I do want to end by acknowledging what day it is.
57:34
Shanie: Okay.
57:35
Shanie: I I I spend a lot of time thinking about Rabin's legacy.
57:38
Shanie: For those who don't know Israel Policy Forms founding, while our organization has evolved a lot over the past uh few decades, we were founded to advance Rabin's vision.
57:49
Shanie: And he really was a visionary and he had a lot of courage and a lot of resilience.
57:54
Shanie: And he was really trying to make a better Israel.
57:57
Shanie: And he made a lot of really hard decisions.
57:58
Shanie: And I want to honor that today.
58:00
Shanie: Um, and I want to encourage all of us to think about what it what it means to be a brave leader, because I think that having strong visionary leadership is what's missing for Israelis and Palestinians and maybe Americans and everybody else right now.
58:15
Shanie: So I do want to recognize that today.
58:18
Shanie: Um, I don't see it as central to the discourse.
58:21
Shanie: I'm curious if Israelis are talking and thinking about Urbeen's legacy today.
58:25
Shanie: I I think there are a lot of really amazing folks working in the American Jewish community to bring that up more and more.
58:32
Shanie: Um, I I just showed you today a class of 95.
58:36
Shanie: Um, my friend Barak Sella uh translated a literary anthology of the assassination of Prime Minister Yshak Rabin with a bunch of poems, um, which is great.
58:45
Shanie: And he's one of the people who's really trying to raise awareness so that people don't forget the legacy of Rabin.
58:50
Shanie: But um, it is a struggle here to bring this up every year.
58:53
Shanie: And I'm wondering what the perception is in Israel, if we can cover that quickly.
58:58
Neri: Yeah, I mean, look, there was a major rally uh on Saturday night, uh, right at uh now Rabin Square, uh, although it's under renovation, so it was on the side of Rabin Square, uh near near where the actual site that he that he was shot three times by Igar Amir.
59:15
Neri: Um and it you know, it's very much in the discourse now, again, in a amongst certain kinds of Israelis, we have to be we have to be kind of careful with how we with how we portray things.
59:28
Neri: Uh obviously we have our own communities and our own biases, but but no, I think the fact that it was a a major milestone anniversary, 30 years, I think did play a big part in it.
59:37
Neri: The fact that uh we just come out of two years of terrible war and uh almost three years of this terrible government and likely heading into an election year or definitely heading into an election year.
59:48
Neri: I think all of that brought up fond memories of Robin himself as a leader, as a man, um, you know, leaving aside the actual policies, just the integrity of the man, the example, the person.
59:59
Neri: An example that he that he set for the country.
1:00:02
Neri: And you look around now at the political establishments.
1:00:06
Neri: I mean, we talked about it earlier, but just political establishment from the prime minister on down.
1:00:10
Neri: And it's it's it's a joke.
1:00:12
Neri: Um, you know, again, 30 years is a long time, so we can't kind of romanticize the past.
1:00:18
Neri: Uh because uh Israeli politics was was still Israeli politics 30 years ago, trust me.
1:00:24
Neri: But uh Rabbi himself was a unique historical figure, again, a real man, so flawed in some ways, but really uh a figure of world historical importance.
1:00:35
Neri: And when he when he was assassinated, uh, I personally believe it was a major turning point for the country, um, a massive turning point for the country.
1:00:43
Neri: Um, I know it was a massive turning point for me.
1:00:46
Neri: Um, I was 14 years old, and uh, as Neri Zilbert, there was a before and after, right?
1:00:52
Neri: Before November 4th, 1995, uh Neri Zilbert didn't did not really care about politics, didn't follow it that closely.
1:01:00
Neri: Uh, the very next day, it was uh front and center in my mind and has been pretty much every day for the past 30 years, uh on some level, in one way or another.
1:01:11
Neri: Uh so it was a major turning point in my life, a major turning point for the country, I'd argue for the worse.
1:01:18
Neri: Um and we're kind of dealing with the ramifications of that assassination still, uh, not least because the person who became prime minister after Rabin in in the election of uh spring of 1996 was Benjamin Netanyahu.
1:01:34
Neri: And um now almost three three decades later, he he is still a prime minister, not consecutively, but he's still leading the country.
1:01:42
Neri: So, you know, by definition, uh it is still with us.
1:01:45
Neri: It is still with us.
1:01:47
Neri: And um, you know, I think the lessons of Robbie's assassination, yes, and by the way, there was a very good speech by opposition leader Yayel Lapid about that, that you know, it wasn't only a man that was killed on that terrible night, Saturday night in Tel Aviv, but also an idea that Igal Amir was trying to kill, and did a pretty good job of you know, uh, if not killing it outright, then severely, severely injuring it.
1:02:14
Neri: Uh, and it's up to the current generation of Israelis to um uh repair and mend the idea that was injured uh 30 years ago and put Israel back on the right course.
1:02:26
Neri: Um, it's up to the Israeli public.
1:02:28
Neri: You know, just like the voters of New York City will um decide the fate of this great city uh for the next four years at least, uh whenever Israel goes to the polls in the coming 12 months, they will have to actually take matters into their own hands.
1:02:43
Shanie: So here's hoping we have a future that rejects the sort of incitement and division and hatred that directly led to the assassination of Itzhak Rabin and instead look towards a more hopeful vision for Israel and the Jewish people.
1:02:57
Neri: Absolutely.
1:02:57
Neri: And um, you know, there was uh and just a final point, you know, obviously there was uh the push for peace and the need for peace that Rabin was was promoting and cost him his life.
1:03:08
Neri: There was um the push for democracy, right?
1:03:12
Neri: A more liberal Israel, you know, the the literal uh slogan of that um of that rally that Saturday night was yes to peace, no to violence, right?
1:03:22
Neri: And violence not only physical, but also just um verbal, political violence.
1:03:28
Neri: That was a literal slogan.
1:03:30
Neri: Uh and if you go back and you watch Robbie's interviews in the months leading up to his assassination, to his death, um, the one word that he used more than well, more than anything other than maybe peace was uh hypocrisy.
1:03:47
Neri: And he was saying the leader of the opposition is a hypocrite because he knows better and yet is saying the opposite and is inciting his followers and his political supporters um against the government, against the the push that was being promoted by the by the government, up to, I mean, you know, Robin couldn't have known it, but it it it you know it paved the way, shall we say.
1:04:12
Neri: It loosened the guardrails and led up to the terrible night of November 4th, 1995.
1:04:18
Neri: So hypocrisy um was the what the was the major charge of robbing uh vis-a-vis Benjamin Atanyahu.
1:04:26
Neri: Thirty years later, not much has changed.
1:04:33
Shanie: Thanks, Nari.
1:04:34
Neri: Take care, Shiny.
1:04:35
Neri: Good to be with you in New York.
1:04:36
unknown: Bye.