Live from New York: The Mother of All Israeli Elections with Dan Shapiro, Bret Stephens and Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin

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0:24 [Instrumental music] You are listening to an Ark Media podcast. The first rule of being in a hole, when you're in a hole, you have to stop digging at some point. There's no way that I can imagine, uh, just analytically, that we can begin to reverse that deterioration in Israel's status standing in the United States without a change of leadership in Israel. We just can't.

0:52 The vast majority of the hostage families felt that Netanyahu placed the interest of his coalition above the interests of their children and their family members, and possibly even the interests of Qatar, through its influence on Netanyahu's advisors, over the lives of their loved ones who were in captivity or dying in captivity.

1:12 Israel should deal with the settler terrorist problem because it's the right thing to do, because it's a country that believes in the rule of law. [audience applauds] It should deal with the refusal of the ultra-Orthodox to enroll their sons in the army because it's the right thing to do. That's, that's what this election is about.

1:29 It's Israel doing right by itself. But the rest of the world can either recognize that Israel is this tiny little country that is standing up for civilization as we know it today, or they can go to hell. [audience cheers] [upbeat music] It's 6:40 PM on Thursday, October 22nd here at the Striker Center in New York City.

2:01 You can applaud. [audience applauds] It is 1:40 AM on Friday, October 23rd in Israel as Israelis enter the final stretch of the mother of all Israeli elections, which we're gonna talk about in a moment with these terrific guests. Before we start the conversation, one housekeeping note. Five days from now, so on October 27th, the day of the Israeli election, Ark Media's The Fold, which is our private members community, will be holding a live stream with some analysts in Israel and here hosted by me just as the Israeli exit polls come out.

2:39 So at 4:00 PM on October 27th in New York, please join our live stream where we will be digesting the results, trying to make sense of who won, who didn't, what a possible coalition could look like. You can go to arkmedia.org and, um, sign up there. Okay, so now on to today's conversation. Yossi Klein Halevi on a recent episode of For Heaven's Sake actually had a much less dramatic term to describe this election.

3:06 He described it as the most boring existential election in Israel's history. [audience laughs] Now, the reason he made that point is that we do talk about it in the most consequential terms. As the most, it's the existential election. What Yossi meant in terms of why it's so boring is 'cause nothing has really changed in it for a while.

3:28 And when I say a while, not just over the last few months, not just over the past year or two, but actually even before October 7th, 2023. In fact, versions of the polling you see today are very similar to what the polls looked like during the judicial reform protests in early and mid-2023. That's how locked in the electoral dynamics seem to be, and it's a function perhaps of how dug in voters in Israel seem to be, and how few actual undecided voters there are.

3:58 So we wanna understand why that is, what's going on, what's likely to happen, what the implications are in the elections next week. 'Cause on the one hand, things are locked in. On the other hand, it's not entirely clear to visualize a path for either block to form a government. Why is that? What's going on? What's likely to change?

4:17 I have three terrific guests here to give us the Israeli, what's going on on the ground in Israel. All three of my guests and myself have recently been in Israel. One of them lives in Israel. Dan Shapiro just returned from Israel yesterday. He's currently at The Atlantic Council. He served in the Pentagon in the Biden administration, and he served as US ambassador to Israel under President Obama and on the National Security Council.

4:39 Dahlia Scheindlin is a pollster and an analyst and a columnist for Haaretz. She has been doing a lot of polling and a lot of punditry, and, uh, it's kind of very smart punditry, not the kinda hot take punditry that many of us in the US are used to, at Haaretz and a range of media platforms in Israel, and she's advised a number of Israeli political parties over the years throughout these Israeli elections.

5:03 Brett Stephens is a columnist for The New York Times, previously with The Wall Street Journal. And before that, Brett served as editor-in-chief at The Jerusalem Post, where he was based in Israel. So we are gonna talk about what's going on in Israel. We're also gonna talk about what's going on in the diaspora, and what this election means for the diaspora and the future of US-Israel relations.

5:23 First of all, welcome these terrific guests, Dan, Dahlia, and Brett. [audience applauds] We'll be right back after this short message. This episode of Call Me Back is brought to you by the Jewish Communal Fund, JCF. [upbeat music] As the end of the year approaches, many of us are thinking about charitable giving, not only where we want to give, but how to do it thoughtfully and effectively.

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6:14 To learn more, go to jcfny.org/getstarted, or follow the link in the episode description. Jewish Communal Fund, smart, impactful giving. And we're back with Bret Stephens, Dahlia Scheindlin, and Dan Shapiro. [applause] Bret, I'm gonna start with you. At a high level, you just returned from Israel, so I wanna ask you what you think is, generally speaking, on the minds of Israeli voters as they go vote.

6:47 And also, you are very deep and embedded in the conversation, the diaspora. You and I were just in Michigan last week at an event, really just a little over a week ago at, at Temple Israel. So you were also talking to a lot of folks in the diaspora who are following this election closely. What is on the minds of Israeli voters? What's on the mind of diaspora about this election?

7:06 First of all, it's great to be here, great to, uh, share this, uh, stage with the three of you. Before answering the question, I just wanna say, not at a 30,000-foot level, but at a 60,000-foot level, the reason these elections are boring is because Israel has elections. In 2005, I was in Bethlehem for the last election of Mahmoud Abbas, now in the fifth or sixth four-year term of his original four-year term. Last time there were elections in Gaza was 2006. Elections in Egypt are a sham.

7:37 There are no elections in Jordan. Elections in Lebanon are a sham. Let's remember the miracle that the country that happens to be most detested [applause] and most detested by people who call themselves liberals and progressives is the one that it's about to have the most important election, uh, in the coming days. Now, enough with the hasbara.

8:00 The first time I came to Israel was in the early 1980s to visit family on a kibbutz, and I later worked on that kibbutz, Kibbutz Kfar Siba. And I remember thinking as a teenager that Israel was a third-world country with first-world people. And I think that what's at stake in this election, maybe not now, but in the long term, is whether Israel will become a first-world country with third-world people.

8:25 That is to say, is this election going to ratify a new order in the country where a growing segment of the population feels no obligation to serve one of the core functions of Israeli citizenship, which is service in the IDF? We're gonna test in this election whether there are elements in Israeli society who are above the law and prepared to commit acts of terrorism against their Palestinian, uh, neighbors with relative impunity from a government that doesn't have the nerve to hold them to account.

8:59 We're gonna test the proposition whether this is a country where the judiciary serves as a meaningful check on the will of the majority or the temporary majority in the Knesset. I think that's, in my mind, what's at stake. When I came back from Israel, I wrote a column in which I said there are really two Israels that are competing, or two spirits that are competing in this election.

9:22 One is the spirit of service, and one is the spirit of entitlement. The spirit of service is 35-year-old Israelis who have left their jobs for hundreds of days a year to serve in dangerous combat roles in Gaza, in Lebanon, on other fronts. It's their spouses who are holding down, uh, the fort and trying to keep things normal and raise families in an abnormal situation.

9:48 It's the people who have suffered so much, sacrificed so much, and stood tall over the last three-plus years since October 7th. But next to that, there's a spirit of entitlement, of the spirit in the country that is growing, of people who think they can take and take and take. And it, in my mind, and I'm gonna tip my view here, in my mind, there's no greater spirit of entitlement than the spirit of someone who thinks that he is entitled to rule Israel for life.

10:15 I think that's what's at stake in this election, in my opinion. Now, finally, to your, your last question, which is what this means for American Jews. I think it's extraordinarily important, but not necessarily important in the way that a lot of people think. I think a lot of American Jews think, "Well, gee, if, if Bibi goes, then the perception of Israel in the world is sure to improve." I guarantee you, that is not the case.

10:39 And if Eisenkot or someone else becomes prime minister, those placards comparing Eisenkot to Hitler or name your evil dictator of the past, those are waiting to happen. So this is an important election internally to Israel, but it is not going to shape or change the perception of Israel in the corners of the world that are so committed to hating that state.

11:01 So Dan, regardless of what the next government is in Israel, what would you hope is the top of its priority list? Uh, thanks, Dan, and it's great to be here at the Striker Center and, and with my great colleagues here. I think Bret really captured well what's happening from my observation, having recently been in Israel. This is the first election post October 7th.

11:23 And so a lot of outside observers might think that the issues that are really grabbing the headlines around the world, of course, Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, maybe these are the issues that are really animating the conversation. They're not. It's very much an inward-focused election, and these issues that Bret touched on, issues of leadership and accountability and rule of law and, uh, the burden-sharing, uh, or the burdens that some in society carry, the hundreds of days of service that reservists have done and how that's affect their families and their economics and psychological health and, of course, the well-being of, uh, Israeli democracy, democratic institutions, right?

12:06 What about democratic hygiene is at stake when, uh, again, to Bret's point, somebody who's been in power for a very long time wants to stay in power almost at all costs. So I think what the potential change coalition of the non-Netanyahu coalition, the ones not in the present government, are really focused on, they talk about One of their first acts will be to pass a law for a state commission of inquiry, something that has been standard in Israeli history after major wars or major disasters.

12:38 Something independent, something without control by the government to really understand the lessons that need to be learned from a disaster like October 7th. They say that they will focus on passing a conscription law that will apply to all Israeli citizens, including, of course, the ultra-Orthodox, who in their entitled way want to avoid having to share that burden.

13:00 They're focused on standing up for the rule of law. That applies in the West Bank, where Jewish extremists are conducting acts of terrorism against Palestinians. It applies in the sector, the Arab sector of Israeli society, where there's a terrible crime wave, and the police don't show up and don't deliver. So in many ways, this is really an internally focused election.

13:21 It's a sort of Israelis asking, "Who are we? Who are we going to be? How are we going to shape our institutions, our society? Uh, what are our obligations to one another? What is the state's obligation and capacity to its citizens?" You know, after October 7th, so many Israelis in civil society went out to take care of the needs of the country and the families of the hostages, and, uh, that really stuck with people, that maybe the state is not delivering on its obligations to its citizens.

13:49 Now, there's a little echo of that in the, uh, FlyDubai near disaster, miraculous ending that happened just recently when, of course, the, the co-pilot tried to hijack the plane, tried to kill his fellow pilot, and Israeli passengers and other crew members ultimately were able to, uh, rescue the plane and prevent- And now airline travelers, commercial airline travelers around the world request to be seated next to a plumber.

14:11 Next to Israeli plumber. That's like the go to- Sure, sure... that's the go to move now. Yeah. And so for three or four days after that event, there was a lot of celebration and the miracle and of course, uh, hailing the, the bravery of the passengers and, and other crew members, and then it kind of clicked that something happened or didn't happen that should have happened.

14:30 There was a state obligation and a decision and a, o- uh, an assignment of a responsibility to screen foreign airline crews before they would fly into Israeli airspace for precisely this kind of threat, and it was just never implemented, not by the Ministry of Transportation, not by the intelligence agencies.

14:50 And so on the second wave, that question of state capacity and, uh, responsibility to citizens, which I think touches a lot of these other themes of bur- burden sharing, rule of law, and institutional capacity, I think are very much what those who want to replace the current government are going to do if they get into power.

15:07 If it's the same government, obviously, I think we know what its agenda is. Okay, so Dahlia, there are two big points that Prime Minister Netanyahu has been making in this campaign explicitly at times and implicitly. One is that he bears no responsibility for October 7th and what happened on October 7th, and two, he deserves total credit for the extraordinary response of Israel to October 7th, having defeated or at least neutralized threats on all of Israel's borders, and really to some degree, even deeper into the region that were posing threats to Israel.

15:43 So no responsibility for October 7th and extraordinary credit for what Israel has accomplished over the past three years. Where are Israeli voters on those two points, generally speaking? Are they buying it? Well, thank you first of all for hosting me. Great to be here with my panelists. Thank you everybody for coming.

16:00 I think that it's very hard these days to talk about what Israelis think because we have, in general, always a very fragmented political system. You may know that 38 different parties are currently competing in the Israeli elections. That is not actually very new. We always have 35 to 40 parties competing.

16:17 What is really, I think, more prominent than ever is the sort of bifurcation into the pro-Netanyahu camp and the anti-Netanyahu camp, and it's not just about Netanyahu. It's about the entire worldview. It's about the vision of where the country's going that my colleagues have talked about. But that makes it impossible to characterize where Israelis are on the questions you asked.

16:37 I would maybe, if I might offer just one tiny correction, I think the most overriding theme of Netanyahu's entire campaign is not actually those, although one of them, but the most overriding, the most consistent theme he's had throughout his entire campaign from months before to the present to this very day, is accusing the opposition of being unable to form a government without bringing in Arab parties.

17:00 So we do have a very strong electoral institution, but we also have a situation in which parties are competing to prove that they will leave out the parties that represent 18% of the voters and 20% of the citizens in the governing coalition. That is Netanyahu's accusation, and the opposition parties have been responding to it.

17:18 So I just wanna make sure that I'm orienting you about to what the discussion is actually about from Netanyahu's perspective, and the opposition parties have been responding largely on that. Now, of course, Netanyahu would've been very happy never to talk about October 7th at all. The reason why he had to make the case that he's not responsible for it was because the revelations keep coming out.

17:39 Week after week, we have new revelations about the levels of warning he received. He tries to say that they are lies or they never happened, and yet we've heard again and again through exposés and various news media, including Haaretz's exposé about how the United Arab Emirates warned Israel and possibly the chief of Egyptian intelligence.

17:57 And un-- but on the other hand, Israelis kind of knew that anyway because Israel's own defense minister warned the country in general in March 2023 that the divisions and the chaos of the judicial reform were leaving the country vulnerable to attack. The, uh, chief of the Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, had warned him as well.

18:14 There's now a lawsuit because Netanyahu claims he wasn't warned, and the chief of the Shin Bet, former chief of the Shin Bet, this, has detailed all the times when he did warn him. And so that became an issue that Netanyahu would've preferred not to have to deal with. But if you ask whether it's working or not, as you've both pointed out, the blocs are incredibly stable.

18:33 So those who support Netanyahu, and let's just put some numbers on this, we're talking about 40 to 43% of the voters. If you add up all the people who are voting for any of the parties of the current government, they absolutely believe Netanyahu's perspective on this. He wasn't warned, or he wasn't warned specifically, or he wasn't woken up. That was a big theme of Netanyahu's, "They didn't wake me up in time on October 7th." Or maybe it's even a conspiracy.

18:59 I, we have, uh, polling on this from Reichman University showing that at one point, support among coalition voters for the theory that there was a conspiracy of the security and intelligence chiefs to allow October 7th in order to topple Netanyahu reached over 50% of coalition voters. It has gone back down to about 40%. Not a small number. These are prominent themes, and those people aren't changing their minds.

19:26 On the other hand, you have just over 50% of the voters who currently say they're voting for one of the parties of the opposition, and by opposition, I mean anybody not in the current government or not openly supporting the current government, and those people absolutely hold Netanyahu responsible, and they are horrified by these increasing revelations about just how many times he was warned.

19:46 But they were already opposed to Netanyahu, and so we can't really characterize about all of Israeli society. In terms of the response, I think that one of the other core themes that Netanyahu has been campaigning on, so the first theme was the negative theme, that the opposition will form a government if they win with Arab parties, which is a disaster.

20:04 It, it brings terrorism, it will lead to a Palestinian state. And just on that point, I just, it's important also, um, 'cause some may characterize that as a cynical campaign play by Netanyahu. The principal play, one could argue in response, is to say, "We will stand shoulder to shoulder with the Arab parties for the opposition to do that," but they're not.

20:20 They're actually saying, "No, no, no, we won't serve with the Arab parties." So both are playing this game in a way. Right. Well, that's my point. I mean, so thank you for clarifying because what I was trying to convey, if I didn't say it well enough, is that they are responding to Netanyahu. Instead of staking out their own position, most of the opposition parties are behaving defensively and rushing to say, "Oh, no, no, no, no, we would never do that." Except for one, the Democrats party.

20:41 Democrats party is the only one- Right, right... Yair Golan, who has openly said, "These are our natural partners. Jewish and Arab citizens are equal, and we should be partners politically as well." But the other major campaign theme of Netanyahu, so you say cynical. We campaigners, we just call it a negative campaign and a positive campaign, you know? I'm just quoting from Haaretz. You know, I just said.

20:59 No, of course, the whole best source to quote from. Uh, the positive campaign is a long list of achievements that Netanyahu will say in every stump speech and, you know, you can probably count them here, right? The response to Hamas, you know, just trying to destroy Hamas, standing up against pressure from the outside, even when people told him not to go into Rafah, for example, in the spring of 2024, making escalating the war and decapitating Hezbollah and making war twice with Iran and convincing the US to come in and releasing the hostages.

21:30 And this is a very bitter division in Israel because the idea that Netanyahu takes credit for releasing the hostages frankly infuriates most of the hostage families or any of the bereaved families. Now, there are a few hostage families who are much more supportive of the government, we should say, and including [clears throat] maybe even most poignantly, one of the hostages who was released recently wrote a book and gave a lot of interviews and said, and his parents were actively against the deal, and he said, "I understood them, and I agreed with them because making a deal might encourage more hostage-taking."

22:03 But the vast majority of the hostage families felt that Netanyahu placed the interests of his coalition above the interests of their children and their family members, and possibly even the interests of Qatar through its influence on Netanyahu's advisors over the lives of their loved ones who were in captivity or dying in captivity.

22:22 And so it is the deepest and most bitter divide in Netanyahu's campaign, I would say, and yet it falls out completely along the same political lines, which is why the polls aren't really changing. So Brett, I wanna ask you about something Dahlia just said because to the extent there is a coalition or a, a demographic of voters in Israel that is critical of Netanyahu's handling of post-October 7th, in this context, the hostage negotiations, when I speak to reporters and observers over here, they think the anti-Netanyahu voters in Israel who are critical of his handling of the war must be critical of his handling of the war because of how unethically the war was prosecuted against Hamas.

23:03 In other words, they're projecting onto Israel their criticisms of Israel over here, that Israel, it was unethical, it was war crime, whatever it is, and so if they're against Netanyahu's handling of the war, that's, they have that criticism in common. And I just think this is a big gap that even left of center vo- what we would call left of center voters, voters who s- who are supportive of the opposition, their critique of the government isn't necessarily what the critique of the government's waging or prosecution of the war is the critique that you hear over here.

23:31 No, as a matter of fact, when you talk to Israelis, and I think I'll defer to, to Dahlia who, who really looks at this much more closely than I do, but many of the most powerful critiques of the handling of the war in Israel are that he didn't move fast enough. He didn't strike hard enough. A war that should have taken three to six months, uh, has now dragged on for three years. There is a criticism that he should have moved against Hezbollah on October 8th.

23:57 Of course, his hand was stayed by the Biden administration. So the, the arguments that are taking place in Israel are simply very different from the ones that we're having here, but I heard very little talking to friends who are both or who are center, left, or right. I heard very little that echoed the kind of standard left liberal Western critique that Israel terribly overreacted, that what it has done in Gaza amounts to something like war crimes or near genocide.

24:28 Uh, that's not what you get at all from Israelis. I do wanna respond a little bit to this question of assigning blame, and this goes back to my earlier comment about my fear of Israel becoming a first world country with third world people. The, the, the fact of the matter is that when it comes to October 7th, everyone is to blame. I interviewed Gadi Eizenkot on one of his last days as chief of staff of the IDF.

24:51 I said, "Why aren't you pouring more resources into your Gaza front instead of spending all your time worried about Hezbollah and Syria and, and to a larger extent, Iran?" I'll never forget his answer. In fact, you can find it in a profile I did of him in The Times in late 2019. He said, "When you fight a weak enemy, it makes you weaker." That was his view.

25:10 That was the conceptia of the entire Israeli security establishment, which included Bibi, which included Gadi, which included Ronen Bar, which included just about everyone who's now struggling for power. Everyone is responsible, but I think Netanyahu is particularly responsible, A, because he was prime minister for most of that period.

25:31 B, because the definition of a statesman is the statesman puts the nation, the interests of his nation ahead of himself rather than the interests of himself ahead of the nation. Bibi, by the way, would be in a stronger position to say, "All of us made dreadful mistakes, including me. We need a commission of inquiry.

25:49 But on the other hand, since October 7th, my eyes were opened, and we moved more swiftly and more decisively than you might have under different leaders who wanted to end the war sooner or didn't want to take it as far as I did to the gates of Tehran." We'll be right back after this short message. [instrumental music] Year -end is the biggest moment for charitable giving.

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26:57 Jewish Communal Fund, smart, impactful giving. [instrumental music] How people come to understand Israel and Jewish life right now depends on who is telling our story. Today, that work requires more care and integrity than ever before, and that doesn't come cheap. Our Arc+ members are the ones who fund it.

27:21 They support our mission and get early access to our second weekly episode, ad -free listening, and our weekly members -only Ask Me Anything episode. Join Arc+ at arcmedia.org. And to our members, thank you. [instrumental music] And we're back with Brett Stephens, Dahlia Scheindlin, and Dan Shapiro. So Dan, I hear a lot over here by, from folks in diaspora, supporters of Israel who have a hard time defending Israel, making the case for the u- the, a strong US -Israel relationship.

27:55 I personally think it's a fantasy, but this view that, "Oh, it'll all be much easier. It'll all change when Bibi is gone." And Brett alluded to this earlier in the conversation, this sense that, you know, once there's a new face and a new personality and a new government and Bibi exits stage left or stage right or whatever it is, that Israel will get this sort of honeymoon period, and that honeymoon period can kind of lead to a reset, and all the animosity towards Israel may not disappear outside of Israel in the West, but it'll, it'll come way down.

28:27 What's your reaction to that? Is that likely to happen, or is it a fantasy? It's not going to automatically or overnight change Israel's standing. Let's just talk about standing in the United States, although obviously it's a global phenomenon, or at least much of, uh, Europe and some other parts of the globe in which Israel's standing has really deteriorated dramatically because of events since October 7th.

28:51 In the camp of those who said Israel obviously had to fight Hamas, that was a legitimate and necessary action, that Hamas is responsible for much of the suffering that happened in Gaza because of the way it fought. But also that there's legitimate criticism of, uh, Israeli actions, uh, the acceptance of too many civilian casualties as part of their campaign, the inconsistent and at times insufficient provision of humanitarian assistance, and some really horrible things said by members of the Israeli government, even if they didn't actually reflect, uh, policy.

29:24 So there's room for criticism, but there's no question that Israel's standing has deteriorated to some new depth. And, you know, the poll that jumped out at me was in the, uh, Pew survey from, uh, late spring, early summer. This is across all demographics. This is in both parties. A- among Americans, among Democrats below the age of 35, the negative view of the Israeli government was 83%. Among Republicans below 35, it was 68%.

29:54 So this is not something that is just solved by one, by depending on who's in power, and this is not something that's gonna be solved overnight either, because these are young people whose a- attitudes will develop over time. But I kind of put it in the category of it's the first rule of being in a hole. When you're in a hole, you have to stop digging at some point.

30:12 There's no way that I can imagine, uh, just analytically, that we can begin to reverse that deterioration in Israel's status standing in the United States without a change of leadership in Israel. We just can't. This is not about who I want to be the prime minister. I, of course, I have views about that, but this is just about Prime Minister Netanyahu's place in that story.

30:35 He's the only prime minister, except for a brief period of one other government, that certainly anybody that age has ever had any experience with. He is intimately connected with all of the pain points in the relationship that have helped contribute to that decline of standing. It's pre -October 7th.

30:50 Some of that goes back to arguments he had with President Obama over the, uh, Iran nuclear deal. Then obviously the fighting in Gaza post -October 7th, the violence in, by Jewish extremists in the West Bank abetted by members of his government, those people in his supporting cast, Ben -Gvir and Smotrich, who say, uh, terrible racist things about Palestinians.

31:09 And, and so that's, he's connected to all of that- Uh, the idea that without presenting a different face of Israel, a different voice, a different perspective, uh, we're gonna have something that will change that deterioration, I don't see it. Now, that doesn't mean it all changes overnight if you do. Now, I think frankly it would be quite healthy for Israel if 95% of Americans did not know the name of the Israeli prime minister.

31:32 Does anybody know who the Prime Minister of Portugal is? No offense to anybody from Portugal here. A huge stampede of people walking out, offended. Right. Okay. [laughing] That person comes to Washington, does foreign policy, works out problems, and, uh, it's not in our face, in our feeds, on our, on Fox News every Sunday, in our emotions, and not over a 20-year span, time span either.

31:53 So a different face, somebody who is, uh, lower profile, someone prepared to try to solve problems, some- someone prepared to at least listen to that criticism, even if they won't come out and say, "Yes, we conducted the war in Gaza, uh, in a way that, uh, that deserves the criticism that they will still have to deal with," but might also approach some of these policy questions differently, might actually apply law enforcement tools to put an end to the extremist violence in the West Bank, might transfer the funds that Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority to try to help the Palestinian Authority function.

32:28 It needs reform, it needs to improve, but it also is a partner that it would be better not to have collapse and is the only real alternative to Hamas leadership that we wanna make sure never takes pla- takes hold in the West Bank and wanna make sure leaves Gaza. A prime minister that, uh, wants to, at least creates the impression they want to implement President Trump's 20-point plan for Gaza. There's problems with that. There's challenges.

32:52 Hamas disarmament obviously is a critical stumbling block, but the strong impression of many Israelis, and certainly many Americans, is that the current government actually prefers not to try to implement that plan, and eventually is waiting for the moment when President Trump will give them the green light to continue a major military operation in Gaza.

33:09 So there are things that an Israeli leader could do that will change that perspective. Now, will that change everything? No, but it will lower the temperature, and it won't convince the people who carry the placards that Brett referred to accusing Israel of genocide, those things. That's a hard core that you're not gonna convince.

33:25 But there's a big broad middle that if you poll them, if you ask them, they have a negative opinion, that's why those numbers are what I cited, but it's not their issue. It's not the issue they want American politics to be dominated by, that every primary from Michigan to Colorado to New York to Florida is run around this issue, that they have other things they would like to talk about.

33:44 Important issue, we've gotta get our policy right. This is a partner that we've had some difficulties, very significant difficulties with, and we will continue to struggle over what the right way in the future is. But that's quite a different backdrop to Israel's standing in the United States than, uh, what would be if we see a continuation of the current government. Can I jump in on that a little bit?

34:03 I think that I don't disagree with your analysis of the public, but I wanna bring it also to the European sphere. I speak with great number of diplomats who are waiting for a change of leadership, and I do think that Netanyahu leaving the stage in favor of somebody who seems much more pragmatic and lower profile and, you know, willing to cooperate more with allies and maybe implement some of the plans, like the Trump plan, I agree with your analysis of Netanyahu versus how Eisenkot would do it.

34:27 I see these, you know, Israelis have the sense that the whole world is against them, and particularly Europe. But from what I hear from diplomats, they are basically waiting to be able to have a normal relationship with Israel again. They can't stand the political pressure it draws from home, from their home countries, and they are baffled at the animosity of the Israeli government against them, the kinds of things that Israel's foreign minister posts about allied countries, which are sort of mocking and humiliating, and they don't understand this form of diplomacy, and so they're just kind of waiting for a change of government, and I do think it will improve the sense of goodwill of many European allies to work together with Israel again.

35:04 But I don't think that change is gonna happen at all among either the American public or the European public. I think changing the leadership will basically do nothing for most of those publics, and I, I know that's a big statement, but I really think that at this point, the focus is on policy. The focus is on what Israel has been doing. Now, of course, you know, I don't disagree that there are some who, you know, disagree with the existence of Israel in any form, and that really is the fringe.

35:27 But I think that the publics that we're talking about, especially in those European countries where you're gonna have a gap between the elite levels of the political leadership or the diplomatic corps and the public, those publics are focused on what Israel is doing long term. They are, you know, the occupation was new in 1967, and for decades Israel could plausibly say it was waiting for the right kind of peace agreement in order to divest itself of that issue and let the Palestinians have self-determination.

35:52 There has been no peace process. The, you know, the sense that it is a permanent situation is very clear. You can't really make the case anymore that Israel really wishes it could pull back and let Palestinians have a state, but it's just waiting for the right kind of Palestinian partner. It's no longer the case.

36:07 We've had a government in place that has committed itself time and again to preventing a Palestinian state or a two-state solution, and the opposition parties, okay? So the reason why I think those publics are not gonna change their mind about these kinds of things, and that before I even get into actually, you know, Gaza. And so I think we have to keep that in mind.

36:24 There is gonna be a major split. There is already a split between leadership who would find it much more convenient to be able to go back to normal relations with Israel and the publics. And yes, I think that we have to also be realistic that some of the public attitudes in the US and Europe is a matter of fashion.

36:38 There are fads, and some fads come and some fads go, and maybe we won't have this, like, obsession around the world. But those who are engaged in this issue, and there will always be more people engaged in this issue than in most other countries, will not be convinced by a simple change of leadership.

36:53 I should also say that if Israel's gonna have a special relationship with America, you can't really expect Americans not to put a special amount of focus on Israel. Can I, I just, I'm gonna politely dissent here. Please. [laughing] Uh, this business of standing is a false idol. It's a golden calf. You know whose standing has fallen in my view? The Democratic Party.

37:22 I used to visit Ireland and think, "What a nice country." I wouldn't set foot in that country ever again in my life. These European leaders who, uh, parade their courage by recognizing a Palestinian state, but are in a Celine Dion concert while their capitals are burning, what's their standing? Israel should deal with the settler terrorist problem because it's the right thing to do, because it's a country that believes in the rule of law.

37:50 It should deal with the refusal of the ultra -Orthodox to enroll their sons in the army because it's the right thing to do. That's, that's what this election is about. It's Israel doing right by itself. But the rest of the world can either recognize that Israel is this tiny little country that is standing up for civilization as we know it today, or they can go to hell.

38:19 For all we know, in 30 years, the, we will remember 2026 as being important, not because of this election, not because of the war with Iran, but because Israel consolidated its relationship with the most important democracy of the 21st century called India. All right? That may be what matters. This whole business of, of seeking standing was the mistake that led us into Oslo, which was the idea that if the world loves us, everything will be fine.

38:47 Love without respect crumbles. What Israel needs is respect, whether there's love or not. By the way, bear in mind that throughout this whole long, tortured past few years, the countries that really mattered understood how vital Israel was to their defense. You know who I have time for? I have time for MBZ and the people in the United Arab Emirates who understood, okay, here's an ally that fights. I remember something that was said once about, uh, that Abraham Lincoln said about Ulysses Grant.

39:17 Grant was accused of being a drinker, which he was. He said, "I can't spare this man, he fights." This country fights. We should use, take it as an example, and there are Americans today and Europeans today who are looking at your, at Israel and saying, "Yes, it's a country of human beings who are flawed. They're extremists."

39:36 Smotrich says that, Ben-Gvir does that. It's all terrible. It's true of every country in the world. But outside of Ukraine, the other country I dearly admire, name me a democracy that is facing up to bigoted, homophobic, misogynistic, totalitarian enemies every single day, and I just read this morning, has 5.6% growth projected for 2027, which is more than every other country in, in the West. That's remarkable. Done with rant. Can I just, um, add a, a- Dalia, you, you volunteered to respond to that. So I didn't, I just, for the record, I didn't call on you.

40:21 You- No, no, but, but the response is actually to you because we're, the whole discussion about standing was because you asked. In other words, I really believe that Israel should be taking a different path in its policy for Israel's sake. The question was what will happen to Israel's standing, and I think there is an interesting analysis to be had.

40:37 But as an Israeli, I do think Israel cannot live forever with an occupation of Palestinians preventing self-determination from another people and annexing another five million people or expelling them, which is what the current government wants to do. But I will say, in listening to what Dan outlined, what, you know, what Israelis, what he hopes Israelis should be for in the Palestinian future, Palestinian self-determination, it all sounds great, but the whole topic of Palestinian statehood, it's not where a majority of Israelis are, and it's not where a majority of Israelis are on the right or on the left.

41:12 Now, you've written about these trends, Dalia, in, that the whole, this is something people don't understand over here, that again, it comes back to my point that even those who are opposed to this government inside Israel are not progressive. We should not think of them the way we think of progressives here.

41:26 There's been a rightward drift or push or however you wanna describe it, trend across the Israeli political spectrum, and you've pointed out especially among young voters. So Dan talked about young voters here. Can you talk a little bit about political attitudes of young voters in Israel? Yeah, sure.

41:42 And let me also say that the rightward drift, you know, I hear a lot of people having these conversations about why did Israelis become more right-wing, and especially young people. And sometimes Israelis themselves respond, "Well, October 7th. I mean, what would you expect?" But the fact is that the rightward drift has been taking place for about the last 20 years, and including among young people.

42:01 So the young people rightward drift, I should say it's among the Jewish population. We're not really seeing that trend among the Arab citizens of Israel. So when I do polls, of course we poll the entire population. But this really applies to the Jewish population. The trend started about 20 years ago.

42:15 I began seeing it more clearly in my surveys, well, the youth gapped around 2009, '10, whereby young people about 18 to 34 years old are, you know, roughly five to 10 points more right-wing, hard line against negotiations, peace, concessions, even democratic values and liberal values than the general Jewish population.

42:34 But the older people, 55 and up, are more liberal and left-wing when it relate, coming to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also much more committed to democratic values. But why is it happening in general? I mean, like it's a combination of historical circumstances, you know, regular escalations with the Palestinians, accelerating pace of wars.

42:52 Since the year 2009, the pace of acceleration of wars or operations or, or whatever you wanna call them, has been escalating, right? So if you had the Intifada between 2000, 2004, but then from 2012, 2014, a sort of low level, we called it the Lone Wolf Intifada between 2015 and 2016, and then 2021. So young people have grown up knowing only these accelerated cycles of violence. Every cycle of violence makes, frankly makes both sides more hard line. We see the same trends on the Palestinian side.

43:22 No memory of any peace process. And now these peace processes have failed, and I'm sure we'd be happy to debate why. But I will say that when there is an active peace process, the leadership makes the case, and the leadership of Israel legitimizes working with the other side to try to reach that process.

43:38 Those are words that are never spoken in Israel today, is practically a betrayal. And so something happens over time where the older people tend to become a little more moderate. But it is certainly the result of a kind of self-reinforcing cycle of failures of peace processes, acceleration of violence, and an ultra-nationalist leadership that capitalizes on that.

43:57 One more point on the young people. There's also a demographic factor, because religious populations have many more children, so the younger cohort has somewhat more religious people, I mean, ultra-Orthodox and national religious, or what we call modern Orthodox. And the more a group is, uh, religiously observant, the more right wing. Yeah. Just, my son is spending the year in Israel, said to me the other day, this was a very unscientific poll.

44:19 He's 18 years old, but he said, "You know, I've noticed every old..." His definition of old, by the way, is not, you know. [laughs] He goes, "Every old person, Israeli I talk to, is either voting for Eisenkot or Bibi." I said, "Yeah." And he goes, "And every young Israeli I talk to is voting for Lieberman."

44:34 But that's like a window into, I mean, not, I'm not sure they're all voting for Lieberman, but the idea that there is this appeal for non-Likud right-wing parties among young voters. That's right. Dan. Sorry, I think I was the one who set off Bret on his rant, so I guess I should respond to the rant.

44:48 [laughs] Um, I'm perfectly comfortable telling people who question Israel's legitimacy to exist or unfairly accuse it of things it has not done or, uh, hold it to a, an absurd double standard, those people should be told to go to hell, and that's fine. There's a whole lot of people that that doesn't apply to, and the notion that Israel doesn't have some benefit to its own interest, I would argue also to the health of a productive and, and strong US-Israel relation, to attend to legitimate criticism that people who actually don't wish it ill might have, or legitimate concern about the extreme things some members of its government say or do, that that is not an Israeli responsibility, I think that's a bit off center.

45:32 I have responsibility in the Democratic Party that I'm a part of to try to ensure that people do recognize Israel's legitimacy, its value as a US partner, uh, what we, uh, benefit from Israel's security and the ability for us to cooperate together. I think you, refer to your party, Dan, uh, have a responsibility to do the same in the Republican Party.

45:51 I think Israelis have a responsibility to tend to how their actions, their, uh, leadership, their language, their image affects that ability to have that partnership. You know, I was just there and met with a number of senior, uh, security officials who said one of the things that worries them the most is when they hear their fellow Israeli citizens say, "Ah, we don't need America."

46:15 That is very jarring to the ear of the, the IDF and s- intelligence and other security leaders who value so greatly the cooperation and the extreme performance that the two countries have been able to, uh, achieve together. We benefit from it. Certainly it's very much in the US interest 'cause of intelligence and technology and our ability to fight together when we have to against common enemies.

46:40 But they know that they benefit from that cooperation as well, and find the attitude of some of their fellow citizens that Israel will be just fine without America, that they'll do fine with their South American friends or with India, or once they can't supply what their needs are from the United States, uh, where else will they go?

46:56 They probably won't be going to Europe. So who's left? I don't know. They'll manufacture some at home, and then there are some, only a few other countries that manufacture the most sophisticated military equipment. That's Russia and China. That's certainly not in our interest as the United States. I don't think it's really in Israel's interest over a period of, it's not tomorrow, it's not next year, it's not years, but maybe a decade, to find that the relationship with the United States has deteriorated to the point that that security partnership doesn't provide for them, and so they're out looking for others.

47:22 But let's say, Dan, let's imagine in, you know, there are elections here. Here, we're only talking about the Israeli elections. In two weeks, there'll be elections here. Let's say the Democrats win control of one or both houses of Congress, and let's just pick Prime Minister Eisenkot as the, let's say he's the next prime minister, and the Eisenkot government says to congressional, Democratic congressional leaders, who are talking now a pretty big game about the action they intend to take against Israel.

47:47 You listen to people like Chris Van Hollen. I mean, you just, I don't have to tell you. You listen to what the ideas that they are advancing and the proposals they are pushing for when they are in charge, and I think you, as a moderate, responsible voice in your party, would probably counsel these, uh, Democratic leaders, "Give this guy some time.

48:05 Give this guy some space. He's gonna deal with the settler violence issue. He's gonna deal, you know, he'll deal with X, Y, and Z." But the standard that's being established when you listen to these leaders that could be taking control of one or both houses of Congress is path to a Palestinian state. Show me the path to a Palestinian state.

48:20 And if I'm Gadi Eisenkot and I'm being pressured like that, I'm gonna tell these Democratic leaders, "You push me too hard to lay out a path now for a Palestinian state, my government will fall, and you will get some version of Smotrich, Ben-Gvir, Winter, whoever it is, back in power. So don't push me too hard." What will their response be? Well, obviously there's gonna be a broad range of, of responses. Um, but it's not only the question of a Palestinian state, and I- And that's a big one.

48:48 It is a big one. And look, and I do believe ultimately that is where we need to get to. We need to get to a place where Israelis and Palestinians both live in security and in peace and in states of their own. That's the, the only way this conflict will end. [clapping] And so we have to keep that on as our North Star. It's not gonna happen tomorrow. It's not gonna happen next year.

49:06 It's not gonna happen in the term of the next Israeli government. And there's much responsibility on the Palestinian side to make that possible, and others too. But that should be the North Star, of course. Having said that, I'd sort of ask the question this way. If Netanyahu was the prime minister, I don't think he even has a door open to any of those members of Congress, okay?

49:23 And, uh, that's just the way it is based on everything I've described, the, the previous fights over Iran, the current war in Iran, everything else we've already cited. Whereas, uh, a prime minister who says, "I'm actually gonna take seriously my obligation to shut down the extremist violence in the West Bank." I'm actually going to treat the Palestinian Authority as a partner.

49:42 A flawed partner, needs reform, but something that we are trying to help succeed so that Palestinians have better life, and so that we, both Israelis and Palestinians, have, uh, better security. I'm actually going to at least slow down the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, uh, particularly in areas that would make it harder to eventually find some way to create that two-state, uh, reality.

50:04 That's a prime minister who I think would be able to at least have that conversation. Yes, will there be some Democrats who will say, "No, we're going forward with sanctions on settlements. That legislation is out there. Uh, we're going forward with other restrictions on military, uh, aid or assistance, that legislation or the additives are out there"?

50:20 There's a lot that they won't be able to do as, if it requires legislation, if, uh, at least for the last two years of the Trump administration. But, uh, there are, I think, many people who want to hear that there's a partner, a partner to try to crack open doors that are currently slammed shut, to not have to deal with the extremism that is too frequently articulated and in the news, that is actually willing to listen to them.

50:42 That's not something that, uh, I think we often see from our, our friends in Israel. So, yes, it's not gonna be an easy conversation. It's not gonna solve everything. But the difference between the two pathways, depending on who that leader is, everything that comes with that leader historically, reputationally, and their approach, I think lends itself to very different outcomes in terms of that dialogue with Democrats, and probably also with Republicans.

51:07 Brett? I hope whoever's prime minister after this election has a tough conversation with Democrats. You know, I'd love to know, for example, if our Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can name who runs Turkey. I'd love to know if she's heard of Northern Cyprus or the illegal 52-year occupation of, uh, Northern Cyprus. I'd love to know if she's aware of the status of journalists or Kurds in Turkey.

51:36 I'd love to know if she's aware of, of what Turkey's trying to do to create a new colonial empire in its neighbors, uh, among its neighbors, uh, throughout the region, or its, uh, support, in some ways material, in other ways, simply moral, for Hamas and other, uh, terrorist groups. I'd like to know what the Democratic Party intends to do constructively to bring about a Palestinian state.

52:00 And by the way, I was just on stage w- with your colleague, Ahmed Al Khatib, at the Atlantic Council, one of the bravest Palestinians I've ever met, who knows very well [audience applauding] that the only way a Palestinian state is going to come into creation is if the mafia known as Hamas is utterly destroyed and defeated. [audience applauding] And what's the Democratic plan to make that happen?

52:23 What is it, really? What is it? And how, in fact, is boycotting Israel or denying Israel weapons, uh, going to bring that about? This has to be a bit of a two-way conversation about how we go about changing things, and part of that conversation has to begin with getting American liberals and progressives to do other, something other than exercising their moral vanity when it comes to their Democratic friends [audience applauding] in, in Israel.

52:51 And again, I say this as someone who believes that Zionism can ultimately only be fulfilled with a Palestinian state. Zionism is about Jewish self-rule. It's not, it's about not being ruled by others, but it's also about not ruling others. But it is very material, it is very material whether a Palestinian state resembles Yemen or Costa Rica, and I am for the Costa Rican plan [audience applauding] for Palestinian statehood.

53:18 But that requires constructive partners in the United States and other Western countries who are, aren't simply prepared to turn a blind eye to everything Hamas does, everything Mahmoud Abbas does, everything the Palestinians have failed to do over decades to advance the cause of a progressive [audience applauding] in the best sense Palestinian state that wants to be a blessing to its own people and a good neighbor to the rest of the Middle East.

53:45 [audience applauding] And Brett, my only question is, who's best capable of having that two-way conversation from the Israeli side? That's the only question I'm asking. Oh, I mean, y- I've already announced who I'm for in this election, right? Well, so we're not that far apart. Yeah. I, I, by all means, yes, it's absolutely true that it's, uh, I would prefer, well, I'd probably vote for Lieberman, but I would prefer Eisenkot, uh, over the prime minister.

54:11 But those are reasons that are interior to Israel. But I'm just trying to push back on this idea that it's up to Israel to get right with the rest of the world. [audience applauding] Actually, I think it's up to the rest of the world to get right with Israel, to the, to the extent that they care about.

54:26 By the way, one small point, it drives me crazy, it drives me crazy that Democrats are like, "Well, you know, this guy Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, they're terrible people." Yeah, I agree, by the way. I think they're horrible people. Why is it that Democrats know the name of cabinet members in Israel [audience laughing] but not in any other country that you can think of? Why the obsession, right? Surprise.

54:50 I mean, because we're giving so much foreign aid. On this, on this, on this- Why, why is it surprising? It should, it should, it should be a question in our minds that so many Democratic voters are carefully attuned to the inner workings of Israeli politics. Does anyone in this room know the name of the interior minister of Japan? [audience laughing] Do we care? Right?

55:11 It says something about the state of play in liberal politics today that there is this obsession with this country. I don't find it that surprising. I mean, America does give quite a bit more foreign aid to Israel than most other countries. That's not true. And so- Sorry. Well, I mean- Sorry, that- It is, but it, but there also is- That is, that is objectively- And there is a special relationship... that is objectively not true.

55:32 Yeah, I mean, we s- We give money, we give foreign aid- Biggest recipients of foreign aid in the entire 20th century No, I'm sorry. We've had American soldiers, and sailors, and airmen stationed in Japan since 1945. That isn't free, okay? And in Germany since nine- 1945. That isn't free. Okay, it's budgeted differently 'cause it's- It is budgeted differently... budgeted through the Pentagon.

55:50 Okay, but the idea that, oh, we give all this money to Israel, but we don't give it to these other countries, of course we give it to these other countries in our security. We have nuclear, we have- And Japan is a conquering country, right? Japan is a democratized country right now... we have nuclear bombs in Turkey, and yet nobody cares, at Incirlik Air Base, allegedly.

56:06 Nobody cares about this. It is bizarre, the obsession, and someone should call it out. [clapping] [cheering] I think if you believe that Zionism can only be fulfilled with a Palestinian state, you should ask yourselves al- also what the American government under the Trump administration has done to help a Palestinian state.

56:28 Not much. Not for the Trump administration either. Not much. And also, if you're worried about how difficult it is to move ahead with Palestinians not taking responsibility, we should also consider Israel's responsibility because it was Prime Minister Netanyahu, of course, who has been channeling funding to Hamas for the very purposes of avoiding the kind of solution you're talking about.

56:44 And when you say that Gadi Eizenkot said we shouldn't be fighting weak enemies, Hamas may have been somewhat weaker in 2019, but those were the very years that Israel was facilitating that money to go to Hamas to avoid this kind of solution. It's not just, you know, this, well, Israel needs to, you know, get everybody on its side. Israel is behaving in bad faith when it comes to ending the occupation. It doesn't want to. [clapping] All right.

57:08 I wanna, before we wrap up here, I, I have a few sorta lightning round questions, one of which is Iran is ver- We barely talked about Iran. I don't think that Iran has come up in this conversation. Iran is very much in the news right now. There's a lot of speculation about whether or not the US or Israel will take action against Iran again sometime before the Israeli elections or before or after the American elections, and the secretary of war was just in Israel.

57:34 There's all sorts of reporting coming out about stuff moving and th- this issue being taken more seriously by the Trump administration. Dan, you just returned from Israel yesterday. I know you had conversations about this topic. What is your sense of what's going on? There's definitely an effort by both the US and Israel to prepare for an additional round of, uh, significant, uh, fighting with Iran.

57:57 I'm very skeptical it'll happen before either the Israeli or the American elections. I think, frankly, President Trump holds the red light or green light versus whether Israel would do it. He wouldn't, uh, they would not act if he, uh, did not want it to happen. He has said he would not act before our midterms. He has said some other things as well.

58:15 I never try to get inside Donald Trump's brain to try to predict what he'll do. It's very messy in there. That seems logical that he would prefer to act only after the midterms. Today, the oil price of, uh, Brent crude oil is $112 a gallon. It's still 600- $6 and 50 c- uh, dollars a gallon for diesel.

58:32 It's a, a global, uh, economic challenge that has not been abated, notwithstanding the, uh, very impressive work of the US, uh, Central Command to facilitate some flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. So it's not as if those problems have been solved. I expect he also doesn't wanna have those raised again before the midterms.

58:51 Also, the IDF leadership, uh, the Chief of Staff, Eyal Zamir, has made it very clear in leaked comments and comments to American officials that have found their way to the public that he, uh, and I'd say the IDF leadership more broadly, would be very opposed to an Israeli-initiated military action in the final week or final days before an Israeli election.

59:11 Uh, it would really call into question the legitimacy of that action if it was being done for political reasons, and, uh, I think it's a very heavy weight that even if Prime Minister Netanyahu wanted to do that, he would probably find difficult to overcome. Doesn't mean that he, uh, this might not happen in the week or two weeks after the election, and therefore, during the period of government formation, uh, which might also have political implications, whether the prime minister is trying to steer the formation of a coalition or whether there isn't a coalition so he remains as a caretaker or some unity government emerges.

59:41 But I think it's not at all unlikely, uh, that we will see an additional round sometime following these elections. I think it's very questionable whether that additional round of fighting can be more effective in bringing an endpoint, a satisfactory endpoint, than the previous rounds. I know I was on your podcast a, a number of months ago.

59:59 I raised a lot of concerns, which I think have been borne out, about the, uh, stress on the US military, the ex- the depletion of our stockpile of missiles and, and interceptors, how that affects other theaters like the Indo-Pacific, like Ukraine, how, uh, Iran has, uh And I, I want this Iranian regime gone yesterday.

1:00:17 I, I despise the regime as much as anybody. Uh, but it's not gonna be brought about through a military regime change strategy, and that's still likely to be the case. It's been weakened by sanctions. It's been weakened by the blockade, and yet it can absorb a lot more punishment, and it can dish out more punishment. It's not a one-way street.

1:00:34 There are Iranian cards that have not been played, striking Gulf energy infrastructure at greater scale, uh, working with the Houthis to really put the squeeze on Saudi Arabia and take Saudi oil off the market, which is a global catastrophe, uh, economically. Underwater sea cables, uh, data centers, US naval vessels, maybe more, uh, missiles fired at Israel, which Israel will be able to mostly manage.

1:00:56 But what we could well be going into if there is another round is not just another round. We were told their first round was about four weeks to six weeks, and then it would be over. Well, we're at almost seven months in. We're going into what will more likely be kinda forever war, a very straining combat requirement for the US Navy, for the US military more broadly, and, uh, probably a much deeper economic crisis.

1:01:21 So, uh, while I think it's coming, I think it was a, it will be a mistake, just as I think until now it has been a mistake. So Brett, Dan thinks it's coming. You, you and I have both observed over the recent months that there was this conventional wisdom out there that as we got closer and closer to the midterms, there was Trump, the administration would just be looking for ways to deescalate with Iran at basically at all costs, right?

1:01:44 And while there has not been kinetic action, administration, the US, has not really deescalated. It's kind of extraordinary how much the conventional wisdom in those, like, late spring, early summer, uh, the predictions, the forecasts were wrong What do you think is going on with US policy, and what does it tell us about where it's going?

1:02:04 I mean, it's impossible to say because you have a kind of a will-of-the-wisp mentality with the president. He's going to say, threaten, scream, "It's about to happen," and then claim that, you know, a last-minute phone call led him to abort whatever he was going to do. He's now played this game, I don't know, a dozen times since the end of that initial 38-day period. But I'm of the view, which I know is not particularly popular, uh, that... Well, maybe in this room it's popular.

1:02:36 I don't know. [laughs] Uh, I'm of the view that I'm glad the United States took the action it did. I'm sorry it stopped the kinetic action when it, uh, when it did. I think it's essential- [clapping] to defang this regime to the point, hopefully, that its own people can once again take matters in their own hand.

1:02:55 But I'm very glad that, uh, Iran is not in a position to continue its development of its nuclear programs, uh, behind the shield of a gigantic- [clapping] -ballistic missile arsenal. It has awakened us to the need to redouble our investment in ballistic missile defense. By the way, thank you, Israel, for proving the concept of Iron Dome and the other- [clapping] -ABM defenses, which the entire intelligentsia in America said couldn't possibly work until it became absolutely vital to the defense of so many countries.

1:03:29 But I think it would be a grave mistake for the United States, for the Trump administration, to back down in any way after the, uh, the election, for a couple of reasons. First of all, I think that American deterrence has taken a blow by the way the president has, has acted. Notice, Iran is not striking Israel. Iran is striking Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, the Saudis, uh, and so on.

1:03:53 But it's, somehow it's not going after Israel. Israel has at least reestablished its deterrence. United States needs to reestablish its deterrence as well. But I also think for a different reason, which is that I think that if Trump fails in this respect, it will be the core failure of his presidency, much like, say, the hostage crisis was for Jimmy Carter, and he will be remembered in this area.

1:04:19 I mean, I can... There are many other things to say about him, as another Jimmy Carter presidency, which is probably not the way he wants to be remembered. I'm, I'm afraid we're already at that point, but I'm just curious, what's the end state you would like to see that US, additional US military action achieve? Well, there are a couple of possibilities.

1:04:37 Obviously, there's a kind of an ideal goal, which is the collapse of the regime. I don't know if that's a remote possibility. Maybe we were, we are closer to it than we, than we know, but, uh, it's, it's very hard to say. The end state would be to find ways to so substantially degrade Iran's not only military infrastructure, ballistic missiles, and nuclear infrastructure, but also its economic infrastructure, that the regime itself is forced to change course.

1:05:07 Remember, there's a lot that we didn't do. We never took or destroyed Kharg Island. We never seriously threatened their energy, uh, uh, infrastructure or their assets. We took out two layers of Iran's, uh, leadership. I suspect Israel, and probably the United States, has ways of taking out, of further degrading that leadership, to bringing them to a po- the same point that they found themselves in 1988.

1:05:31 Very succinctly, in the words of the Ayatollah Khomeini, to drink the poisoned chalice, and that's what they have to do. They've done it before, and I think we can make them do it again. Yeah, that was an eight-year war, so I think we are looking at a forever war to get close to what you're hoping to achieve. Uh, this term forever war, okay, it's a bogus term, okay? I just have to say this.

1:05:52 Like you mentioned, okay, oil is at $112 a barrel. Oil was like that under Biden in 2022, all right? [clapping] It was. And, and my friends in the climate movement would like oil to be at $150 a barrel to move us off of, of, uh, uh, hydrocarbons into the promised green, green energy future. So it's a term of art, which, I mean, I understand the strain it imposes on the American military. I get all that. We have done these things before in the past.

1:06:19 But the t- moment you use this term forever war, it locks you into this thinking, "Well, we have to get out of this forever war." Joe Biden got us out of the forever war in Afghanistan, and what resulted was a tragedy for Afghans and a geopolitical disaster that invited Putin to invade Ukraine. [clapping] So let's just be careful about these, these cliches that become so embedded in our mind that, that they become obstacles to thought.

1:06:42 We'll, we'll have a real forever war when Iran feels emboldened and has the means to seriously control the Strait of Hormuz, which gives their friends in Beijing the idea that they can impose a similar types of blockades over Taiwan, or that it gives the Russians, and I'm... let's leave aside Trump's meshugahs with the Russians, right- [laughs] uh, the idea that they can continue to pursue their war in, in the West, not just against, uh, Ukraine, but against NATO member states in, say, the Baltics. That's what I'm really afraid of.

1:07:12 This is a test of whether America has the ability to finish a war that it was right to begin and it ought to find a way to finish. Just in wrapping up, I had another question for Dahlia, but Dahlia, before I ask you a question, I can see you're jumping out of your seat 'cause you want to respond to Bret, which I don't...

1:07:25 Far be it from me to head off a panelist's desire to have a rant. R- Bret has had, like, two or three. I've actually stopped counting. I like them 'cause I agree with his rants. [laughs] I will definitely not rant. I, I started so politely, but, you know. [laughs] So I, far be it from me to cut him off, but... I will definitely not rant, but I will say that the war failed to achieve the major goals.

1:07:43 He should take, President Trump sh- or any president should take a page from Netanyahu. This was his life's project to have war with Iran. He thought he would topple the regime and the nuclear program and the ballistic missile program and destroy the regional proxies. He's done none of that. He has set them back, but none of those have been achieved, and Netanyahu did not get a single boost in the polls for it. But more than that, if we go into further cycles of war, they will involve Israel.

1:08:05 That's missiles on my home in Tel Aviv. That's friends of mine who has their, had their homes destroyed. That's all of us who had to have, you know, basically a standstill in life. And if that is the, our future, cycles and cycles of war, we have already seen probably over 100,000 people leaving Israel in the last three years, and you can guara- I can guarantee you there will be another 100,000 over the next year By the way, if I could just make a prediction about President Trump, he is not looking for the end state that Bret described.

1:08:30 He's looking for a deal. He's looking for a deal where he can claim victory and get out. All right, I want to read something, and I have to use my phone for this 'cause I just read it on my way over here. On my way over here, I saw a friend of mine sent me a column that was just posted in The Wall Street Journal by Elliot Kaufman, uh, which I guess will be in tomorrow's paper, in which he quotes an essay that you, Bret, wrote in 2012.

1:08:53 Sorry to do this to you. Maybe should've given you more warning. You wrote it for Commentary Magazine, and you talked about Sderot. How many people have been to Sderot? Lot of people, wow. So Sderot is in, is, for those who don't know, is in southern Israel, and it used to be this place that was, like, the symbol of what it's like to live under Hamas rocket fire, so clo- you know, in the Gaza envelope.

1:09:16 And I traveled to Israel, um, with many political figures of both parties from the United States. Presidential candidates, you always go to Sderot. Dan, you know when you were am- ambassador to Israel, you, you know, when officials, luminaries came, they always came to Sderot. And what Elliot Kaufman was quoting you, Bret, writing back in 2012, you wrote, "Sderot should not be turned into an advertisement for Israel in its bid to make itself more popular.

1:09:40 On the contrary, Sderot is an indictment of Israel for its longstanding failure to stop the attacks from Gaza." All right? So that's what you wrote, again, 14 years ago. We are in a much different world now. So just reflecting on this conversation, reflecting on the fact that Israelis are about to go to, to the polls, reflecting on what Israelis have lived through, both the shattering of Israel and the triumph of Israel, depending on your interpretation of what Israel's response and what Israel's experienced over the last three years, as Israelis go to the polls, have they gotten over this, kind of this s- what you would characterize as this Sderot syndrome?

1:10:17 Well, I don't know. That's a question probably better addressed to, uh, to Dahlia, who follows- But you wrote about it, so... Okay. Well then, uh, I hope so. I hope so because, look, I mean, Israel didn't come into existence to showcase Jewish victimization. It came into existence to end Jewish victimization.

1:10:37 And it cannot forever be expected to live on a knife's edge, always within range of the next Hamas or Hezbollah rocket, or as you experienced, as you noted just a moment ago, uh, those ballistic missiles from Iran. We wouldn't expect any American leader, or any Western leader, to accept what we routinely demand of the Israelis, which is restraint in the face of terror.

1:11:06 Peace is going to come about maybe never, but it will only come about in, in the kind of way that I think all of us on this panel wish for when there's a fundamental sea change in attitudes among Palestinians, among Lebanese, among the rest of Israel's neighbors, to understand that having Israel as a neighbor is, in fact, a blessing for the region, not a curse.

1:11:29 And in the meantime, Israel can only do two things. It can make sure that its borders are fully secure, however far those borders have to extend to guarantee that security, and it must make sure that internally it is a country that is able to thrive because it abides by the best of Jewish values and the best of Jewish traditions, um, and that it keeps one foot deeply rooted in its oldest past and one foot moving straight forward into the furthest future.

1:12:01 That's what the Jewish people have always done at their best. I think that's what Israel does at its best. Dahlia, I wanna end where we, where we began, which is the election. There is this election happening in a few days. I wanna leave on a little bit of a cliffhanger. What do you think we could be most surprised about as everyone in this room is watching the election results on Arc Media's The Fold live stream?

1:12:29 So as they're watching the live action, of the things we'll be talking about, what will be the most surprising? I mean, I don't wanna open up the entire, you know, you opened up lots of big topics that we could hopefully have an opportunity to debate, but I do think that we need to admit, you know, confront the fact that the era of restraint for Israel ended on October 7th, and to this day, many Israelis believe that what Israel's doing in Gaza is justified.

1:12:53 I do think it will force a reckoning. There has been no restraint. The war is essentially ongoing, and it has been disproportionate, so I do need to say that. Um- Don't do that... that's, and, and I will say, I will say, to be very clear, this is my opinion, not the Israeli public's opinion. I try to separate my analyst hat from my personal opinion.

1:13:14 However, on Israeli elections, cliffhangers, I think that the biggest surprise for me is the surprise that we can't predict, which is if there is a late stage surge for one side or the other, and that has often happened in Israeli elections. In 2015, there was a late stage surge on election night for the Likud which none of the exit polls even picked up on, and the exit polls are usually fairly accurate, but they were not this time.

1:13:40 In 2013, there was a late stage surge for a centrist party, Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid. They went to five or s- I think six or seven seats more than the final polls were showing, not the exit polls, but the final published polls. So that's gonna be the thing that could change the balance of where we are now, and where we are now is a situation where we cannot know who will form, or who will even be asked to form the next government.

1:14:04 The two blocs that we know about, Netanyahu's bloc and the bloc of parties who are likely to go together in the opposition, what we tend to, to call the Izankot bloc, which is kind of a, an inner club within the opposition, they are polling too close to really know which one will have the advantage. Uh, although, again, the parties who are in the opposition today are clearly in the majority, but they will not necessarily be able to form a coalition together. So as the polls look now, we don't know anything.

1:14:29 That's a hard thing for pollsters to say. Exactly, but I mean, I, I think that people have misinterpreted polling. Polling cannot predict what that f- those final hard undecideds will do, if they will scatter and vote sort of the way the general public is voting, or whether there might be a surge in one direction or the other.

1:14:45 And so I've come to, um, the following formulation, which I hope you'll all appreciate. We can't know what we don't know until we do know. That is like the ultimate hedge. Um, I wanna, I wanna ask you- It's like worthy of Donald Rumsfeld, right? [laughs] That is the best- No knowns, no unknowns... and probably the last time anybody will ever compare it.

1:15:03 [laughs] All right, Dahlia, I won't hold you, I won't hold you to these. All right? I'll just rattle these off. Higher than a 50/50 likelihood or lower than 50/50 likelihood that Israel will be going back to elections in April of next year 'cause they, no one could form a government? I'm gonna say 51. [laughs] Wow. Wow. Okay.

1:15:23 Yeah. It, I mean, in other words, it's pretty likely. It's more than halfway unlik- likely. 1% more than- Yeah. Be- because, you know, there might be no government No, I hear you. I hear you. And I, I actually agree with you. But one of the likely possibilities is a minority government. Right. Uh, and if there's a minority government, it will by structurally be unstable.

1:15:39 It can be voted out easily, and that, as we saw in 2022 could- Okay. Um, last question for you. Again, higher than 50/50 or lower than 50/50, that if one of the coalitions is able to form a government, that government will be led by a prime minister that's not Benjamin Netanyahu and not Gadi Eisenkot.

1:15:58 So it could be Naftali Bennett, it could be, uh, Lieberman, Avigdor Lieberman, it could be- Okay, I hate forecasting, but- I, I know. I'm, I'm not holding it to you. I'm not holding it to you No, no, it's okay, 45%. There is a chance that a small party will wield its king -aking power. I mean, I think that, hello, Lieberman.

1:16:16 Um, you know, he, there are certain small parties that are expected to try to use that power to take the pri- premiership just the way Naftali Bennett did in, uh, in 2022. It's not impossible, but I think there is probably a greater likelihood of one of the two more prominent candidates becoming prime minister, and I'm gonna even go f- to a question you didn't ask, which is what is the likelihood of Netanyahu being the next prime minister, and I would probably put that at about 40%.

1:16:40 Why? Because that's coincidentally the same number of supporters he has, 40 to 43 or five, or 4%. But like in 2009, when Tzipi Livni, who I know you advised, was leading the Kadima party, she came out of the elections, the Kadima party had more seats than Netanyahu, and she got the mandate to form a government, and then Netanyahu wound up becoming prime minister.

1:16:59 Because the size of the party doesn't, uh, have any legal basis for forming. It doesn't, you can be the biggest party, you can be a small party, you just have to have the greatest number of parliamentarians recommending you so that the president taps you to form the government. And then you have to have more than the other side to vote in the government, but you don't have to vote in a minor- a majority government. Right?

1:17:18 We think about 61 because all governments of Israel have been sworn in with 61, but it could ha- or 60, but it could happen that we will, uh, for the first time swear in a government that is actually not a major, not a majority government, and then it probably will be unstable. And just so folks understand what, what Dahlia's referring to, you're meaning if the, if the Arab members of Knesset abstain- That could happen...

1:17:39 so then the total number of seats voting in the, for the formation of government is lower than 120, which means you don't need 61, so then to form a government, you can get a minority government. Right, but the minor- and the coalition itself doesn't need to have 61 even to be sworn in. You just need to have more people voting for it. Right. But then it's very unstable.

1:17:55 Okay, so before we wrap, I do wanna, seriously, I hope folks go to arcmedia.org to register for the fold and join us on election day at 4:00 PM here, 10:00 PM in Israel f- as the results are coming in. And I will say that Yossi Klein Halevi may have referred to this election as the most boring existential election in Israel's history, but this certainly wasn't the most boring panel.

1:18:18 [clapping] It certainly wasn't the most boring panel about Israeli elections, so please join me in thanking Dan Shapiro, Dahlia Scheindlin, and Bret Stephens. Thank you. [clapping] [upbeat music] Before we close, one final thought about year-end giving. Generosity is personal. We each have different causes, communities, and institutions we want to strengthen, but thoughtful philanthropy is also about making sure the way we give reflects the same care as the causes we choose.

1:19:02 That's where Jewish Communal Fund, JCF, comes in. A JCF donor-advised fund gives you the ability to contribute charitable assets before the end of the year and recommend grants over time, while JCF provides the expertise and personalized support to make the process easier and more effective. Because giving shouldn't be just about writing a check before December 31st. It's about building a thoughtful approach to philanthropy that can continue long after the year is over.

1:19:28 Learn more at jcfny.org/getstarted, or follow the link in the episode description. Jewish Communal Fund, smart, impactful giving. [upbeat music]