In this episode, Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi react to the game-changing deal securing the release of all Israeli hostages.

From Trump’s surprising humanity to Netanyahu’s strategic pivot, from the hostage families’ brilliant campaign to the far-right’s defeat – they explore how Israel has arrived at this transformative moment and what it means for the Middle East’s future. Can Israel finally exhale?

Watch the video version of our podcast on the new For Heaven’s Sake YouTube channel. 

Breathing Again Transcript

Note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a conversation, please excuse any errors.

Yossi: What this deal does is reframe the context of victory. What does victory mean? What this shows is that the measure of victory for the overwhelming majority of Israelis was this moment, getting all the hostages back.

Donniel: Everywhere I’m going, we were expecting and people were waiting. And over and again, people were talking about the amount of oxygen that they have now access to, and it’s a beautiful moment.

Yossi: This is the first time since October 7th when I think about the situation we’re in, and I’m literally, I’m not holding myself tight.

Donniel: And we’re gonna call this episode Breathing Again, without a question mark.

Hi friends, this is Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi from the Shalom Hartman Institute. And this is our podcast For Heaven’s Sake, in cooperation with Ark Media. For Heaven’s Sake, we’re dropping Israel at War.

Yossi: Wow, what a milestone for us, really.

Donniel: It’s hard to believe. Two years and two days.

Donniel: And we’re gonna call this episode Breathing Again, without a question mark. Maybe not with the biggest exclamation point, but Breathing Again. And we wanna talk about Israel at this moment. We wanna talk about—how do we understand how we got here? Not a large or long retrospective of the last two years. Maybe that’s something that has to happen at another time. But how do we understand what got us here? And by understanding that, also what are the foundations for some hope for the future?

I could say personally, by accident I woke up at 2:20. And as I have been doing since Israel’s at war, anytime I wake up, I check my phone. It’s not always the best thing to do. But every time I check my phone.

Yossi: How long does it take you to go back to sleep?

Donniel: That’s another thing.

Yossi: It depends on the nerves.

Donniel: It depends on the nerves. Last night I didn’t go back to sleep, 2:20. It was two o’clock, Trump made the announcement. And I couldn’t go back to sleep.

Yossi: When it’s bad news, you can’t sleep. But when it’s good news, you can’t sleep.

Donniel: Right, it’s just you’re so excited. And that evening, we’re in the middle of the holiday of Sukkot. And Jerusalem, in prior years before the war, shut down Beit Lechem Street, which is a street in the Baka neighborhood, about 500 meters of street. And has a street festival filled with musicians and stores and food and magicians and clowns.

And we were walking. I was walking with my wife Adina and my daughter and son-in-law and my grandchildren. And it was just joyful, even before the news.

Yossi: Was it shut down last year?

Donniel: Yes. And if it wasn’t, it just- No one has been celebrating for two years. We might have gone through the motions. So it felt as if Israel was normal. We were waiting even beforehand.

Now, one of the things that I remember about Israel, which always amazed me, upset me and amazed me, because it’s just unnatural how quickly, during the Second Intifada, when there was a major terrorist attack and a bombing, or the First Intifada, how the storefronts were swept clean, the glass put back, and within two hours or so, the roads opened.

Yossi: You’d never know there was a terrorist attack.

Donniel: When there’s a car accident, the road is closed for a couple of hours. Here, we bounce back.

Yossi: We coerce ourselves to bounce back.

Donniel: It’s like almost a ritual. It’s right. It’s a halacha. It’s like, this is what we do. And last night, I felt it was normal again. And it was beautiful. And everywhere I’m going, we were expecting and people were waiting. And over and again, people were talking about the amount of oxygen that they have now access to. And it’s a beautiful moment. It’s a beautiful moment for what it is. It’s a beautiful moment for what will hopefully happen soon. And it’s a beautiful moment for what it might usher in in the future.

Before we get into our analysis, how are you, Yossi? Every word.

Yossi: Every word you’ve just said. How are you feeling? It’s exactly it, Donniel. You know, we’re calling this Breathing Again. This is the first time since October 7th when I think about the situation we’re in. And I’m literally, I’m not holding myself tight.

You know, you were talking about Sukkot. Sukkot was my favorite holiday. I think it was yous too.

Donniel: It is.

Yossi: I remember us talking about this in the past. And since October 7th, last year was… Sukkot disappeared. And this year, until now, there was no Sukkot for me. It’s called Zman Simchatenu, the time of our joy. And there was no joy. And now I feel like we’ve done at least a partial tikkun on Sukkot. And Sukkot is back. Sukkot is back.

Donniel: You know, if I could wear my rabbi hat for a second, each one of the three major holidays in our tradition, Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot all have a name to them. And you mentioned that Sukkot has a name, “the time of our joy.” Pesach is the time of our freedom. “Zman Cheruteinu.” Shavuot is the time of us receiving the Torah.

Now, it’s interesting, Sukkos doesn’t have an event. These are, every one of the holidays has an agricultural dimension to it. But the names aren’t associated with the agricultural dimension. It relates to a historical event.

And the event of Sukkot, why do we live in these booths? Not because the Torah says, “Because I took care of you for 40 years in the desert in the Sukkot.” So Sukkot is a holiday of joy, not because of some momentous moment, but because it celebrates our relationship in ongoing sustained living relationship of care and concern that God has and that God exhibited to us during the 40 years.

And it says something about our day of freedom, one single event, that doesn’t matter. That’s beautiful. That’s not a day of happiness. It’s when you’re there day in and day out. And if anything signifies this moment, it’s two years of the people of Israel and much of the Jewish world just being there for each other. And we’re just there. That’s what counts, by the way. That’s like the whole notion of parenthood, that quality time is quantity time. There’s no such thing. It’s quality. And Sukkot is the celebration of our quality time. And two years has been miserable, but we’ve also been there for each other. And it’s time to get back the time of our joy.

Yossi: And how amazing was it that the announcement coincided almost to the day of October 7th? It’s coming full circle. I mean, of course, there’s so much that’s been broken that can’t be fixed. One of the things I was thinking about, the strangeness of Sukkot and the anomaly of Sukkot that you pointed out, there’s another anomaly, which is we’re commanded to be joyful. Right? It’s really, “Ve-samachta ve-chagecha ve-hayita ach sameach,” you must be only happy. And I never quite understood that until the last two years.

The last two years, even when we’re going through this, you have to at least go through the motions. And now I understand why, because one of these days, one of these years, Sukkot will be restored to you. And you can’t forget at least the motions of joy.

Donniel: So that you could reactivate it.

Yossi: Exactly.

Donniel: So how did we get here, Yossi? Here it is. We’re breathing again. We’re hopeful. Israelis are dancing in the streets. There was this bizarre scene on the news last night, in the middle of the night, when a general who was every night doing a detailed analysis, at just one moment, he just hugged the female anchor. And then everybody said, “What’s going on here?”

We couldn’t… We’re breathing. We’re smiling. We’re hopeful. So, this wasn’t a miracle. Or maybe it was. I don’t know. My theology doesn’t have miracles. But there were real things that enabled this. Let’s look at what they are, so that we could understand them and understand what we could count on and what we can’t… What’s important for us today and in the future? So what brought us here, Yossi?

Yossi: So for me, the miracle, and I do see an element of the miraculous here, is that the disparate, the opposing parts of the people of Israel all had a role to play in bringing us here. And for the last two years, each camp was negating the other. You’re impeding the release of the hostages. You’re sabotaging. And let’s look for a moment at the components.

First of all, obviously, the overwhelming credit goes to Trump. But let’s look at how that played out. Because what happened was the families of the hostages had a brilliant strategy, which was they appealed directly to Trump to save their loved ones. And what they said to Trump was, “You’re the only one we can depend on. You are the savior.” And Trump said, “Ah, just me? I… Yeah, I can do that.” And he took this on to such an extent that he knew the names of hostages. He knew the names of the families. How many times did he have these people in the Oval Office?

Donniel: More than Netanyahu. And if you remember his…

Yossi: More than Netanyahu.

Donniel: If you remember his speech from Monday, 10 days ago, which seems like a lifetime ago, it dropped. It was almost unplanned. He said, “Our hostages.” Do you remember when he said, the first time when he got the American hostage out, it was like, oh, these are our hostages. All of them.

Yossi: All of them. Whether they had American citizenship…

Donniel: Of course, our. And he experienced it as our hostages.

Yossi: And then, Saturday night, did you notice that Trump retweeted photos from the hostage demonstration, which of course was a slap in the face for Netanyahu, because these are people who’ve been demonstrating against him. And Trump was saying, “This is my camp.” And the brilliance of the strategy of the families. And to say, “We’re going to nominate Trump for the Nobel Prize.”

They played to his vanity, but I don’t think it was only a game. If you listen to the gratitude, the love that… And I know for many of you, and I understand this, this is hard to hear. But from where we’re sitting right now, the families are expressing the gratitude of the whole country. And so that was one piece of it. Which means that the demonstrations of the hostages was a crucial element, the pressure that they kept applying. It wasn’t strengthening Hamas. And I have to admit, there were times in the past where I felt maybe the hostage demonstrations are playing into the hands of Hamas. And that wasn’t true. The hostage families knew exactly what they were doing.

The other piece of this here is that Netanyahu’s strategy of applying military pressure created this sense of urgency in the Arab world. And then there was the attack on Doha. Now it’s hard to know. It’s really hard to know how this played out. But there is a case to be made that that attack terrified Qatar. And Qatar sought protection from Trump, which Trump then extended in an unprecedented move. He declared that he’s going to protect Qatar from any further attacks, meaning he’s going to protect Qatar from Israel.

But in exchange for that, Trump demanded concessions. I need you to deliver Hamas. And so Qatar and Turkey both delivered Hamas because of Trump’s pressure. But in the background here, and again, you know, these are such amorphous elements. It’s impossible to know what impact it had. But if you look at the whole package, the demonstrations, the military pressure, Trump’s negotiations with his Arab and Muslim partners, there’s this sense that I have that everyone had a role to play here. And for me, that’s the miracle here, is that all the pieces fell into place.

Donniel: For me, I have also a package similar to yours with some nuances that I think might point to some possibilities in the future. The first, I also want to start with Trump. We in Israel have never been comfortable with the flattening of Trump’s personality. We’ve always experienced other things. And I appreciate that our North American or American audience feels differently, but we’re talking as Israelis today.

Throughout this process, I believe that one of the things that moved us forward is not Trump’s vanity. It’s not just I want to win a Nobel Prize. I think that’s part of it. But when you listen to him consistently about Gaza, he speaks about the killing has to stop. Killing has to stop. When he spoke on Monday night, he gave a vision of a new Middle East. He spoke bigger. Half the time he spoke about himself, about I’m the most wonderful and I’m the… That’s true. And that’s part of the story.

But there was another side. There’s a humanity and there was a passion to bring this war to an end. And even when he spoke today, we have in the newspapers, when he spoke to Netanyahu in his recent conversation, he tweeted it. Trump tweets the conversation and Netanyahu says, “Oh, they love me again.”

What you would have thought is for Trump to say, “Oh, that’s not just they don’t just love you, they also love me and they love me more.” That’s not what Trump said. Trump said, “They love Israel again.” He said, “You can’t fight the world.”

Yossi: What a statement that was.

Donniel: For him. What a statement. “You can’t fight the world.” There was a dimension—

Yossi: What it says about Netanyahu and what it says about Trump.

Donniel: There is that dimension. And I want to put it on the table.

Yossi: No no no.

Donniel: I don’t care if I don’t run for election. I don’t care which… Our audience, we’re going to get hate mail. I don’t care. Part of what’s at the table here, there was a greatness of spirit, which we saw, and I believe that only that dimension of spirit could have pushed this through. But it wasn’t just spirit alone. It was also a spirit together with a very, very sophisticated use of interests and power.

And whether it was the bombing in Iran, whether it’s the Sunni coalition, 11 Arab countries, Qatar, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, nobody has ever been able to bring them to the table.

Yossi: Together with Israel.

Donniel: Together with Israel. At this moment, and you have to realize Turkey, Turkey broke off relations. We can’t trade with Turkey.

Yossi: We can’t trade. What we’re doing in Gaza is far worse than what Hitler did. So these are our people. It used to be worse. Now it’s far worse. It’s far worse.

Donniel: So we’ve gotten to far worse. So Trump put together a coalition, and that coalition also requires a narrative. And part of that story, and we see it in the 20th clause of the Trump Peace Plan, about how America is going to bring Israel and the Palestinians together to negotiate and to talk about a future. It’s a very, very amorphic language. We don’t know where it’s going to go.

But when Turkey tells Hamas, you better sign this deal, because this is in the best interest of the Palestinian people and Palestinian long-term interests. He was speaking in a language that Trump was speaking, because everybody was saying from the beginning, why should Hamas give up all the hostages? What’s in it for them?

Yossi: How many times did we hear people say, they’re never going to give up all the hostages?

Donniel: That’s right. They’re never going to give them up. But the only way that would have been possible is if they were given, and this is the second stage, if they were given a very significant guarantee that the hostages aren’t their bargaining chip. They have a better bargaining chip. And that bargaining chip is some future in the Middle East. And Trump communicated that future.

Yossi: You’re talking about the Muslim countries. Not Hamas.

Donniel: Not Hamas. About the Muslim countries. So the first, it’s not just the Nobel Prize, and it’s not Qatar. At this moment, the President of the United States put together a vision, put together self-interest, and the interest of the region packaged it with power and force, and changed possibly our region forever. That’s one story.

Yossi: What you’re doing, Donniel, and I so much appreciate it, is putting the value of gratitude out there. And hakarat hatov, gratitude.

And I’d like to add one more name, and that’s Jared Kushner. Because so much of this is his invisible fingerprints. And we owe Kushner-

Donniel: And Witkoff, by the way.

Yossi: Yes. Yes. We owe Kushner the Abraham Accords, which are really the foundation for the next stage that you’re talking about.

Donniel: That’s the vision. That’s the vision. The big picture that Trump was communicating wasn’t just a big picture of himself. It was a big picture which could bring a coalition together that we’ve never seen before. That was one part.

The second part, I believe, that brought us to this point, and this is to Netanyahu’s credit, but it’s also to Trump’s credit in understanding that Netanyahu needed this. If Netanyahu would have just stopped the war, say, “Okay, there’s going to be a ceasefire, and we’re going to have three hostages after you withdraw to area B, and then there’ll be another six hostages from area C.” He couldn’t have sold it to Israeli society, which, even though we wanted the hostages back, it would have felt like two years, or it would have been a narrative that “warrior nation” could not assimilate.

The idea that you’re getting all the hostages back immediately. Immediately. That’s what is—that’s psychologically, makes almost—it’s almost impossible with the exception of the far, far extreme right to be able to be against this, a total coalition.

Yossi: So it’s very interesting, Donniel, because what this deal does is reframe the context of victory. What does victory mean? We are celebrating as if we’ve won. We don’t know though, is Hamas going to remain in power? Are they going to disarm? All of that is going to be negotiated in the second stage. What this shows is that the measure of victory for the overwhelming majority of Israelis was this moment. Getting all the hostages back.

Donniel: The psychological power of it. And Netanyahu could say justifiably, “We haven’t withdrawn from Gaza. We’re not out.” What that means, we all know it’s irrelevant because we know that Trump has decided—President Trump and the Arab world, the whole world—We’re not going back to war.

Yossi: We’re not going back to war.

Donniel: It’s not that we’re not going back because we promised. We’re not going back because this war—and this is the third point—we have to understand that what brought us here is that this war came to an end a long time ago. We could argue, was going to Gaza helpful or not helpful?

Yossi: Gaza City.

Donniel: City. Thank you. It’s almost irrelevant. None of us know whether Hamas all of a sudden stopped wanting to die or not. Who knows? I have no idea. It doesn’t seem like Hamas was going to accept this deal without the pressure of Turkey and Qatar, without whom- They’re basically alone in the world financially, politically. They have nowhere to go. But I have no idea. It could be that there were a lot of other reasons. But at the end of the day, this war ran its course.

And if the continued operation in Gaza City for three months, five months, and then Amit Segal saying that we’re then going to go into the refugee camps south of Gaza City for another six months, some picture of creating a total defeat of Hamas in another year’s time is a complete misreading of the political map. And Trump himself, when he says, they’re loving Israel again, you can’t fight the world. We are fighting the world.

So the third thing, the first is, I would say, the power and spirit of what Trump put on the table. Second was the particular nature of the deal that was put on the table, which enabled Israel to move in on the third, is that this war, it’s time for us to understand. It ran its course. The world, they weren’t going to let us continue to fight. And all of those together brought us to a moment where Prime Minister Netanyahu could recognize and accept the third point. It was so powerful. You can’t just speak to the internal base anymore. There’s a reality out there, all of those together and more.

So, you know, what I hear from Netanyahu supporters, and this narrative worries me because it’s so simplistic and plays electorally, obviously, into Netanyahu’s hands, is that all the credit belongs to Netanyahu for keeping the military pressure on. So that’s one extreme of reading the consequences of the Gaza City move.

The other side of it is what you’re saying, which I also don’t accept, which is that it was irrelevant, that it had—

Donniel: Well, I don’t know. I’m not saying it’s irrelevant. But it was negligible, that there were more important factors. I don’t think that that was the critical factor. Maybe it was.

Yossi: No, no, I’m not saying that it was the critical factor. But again, as part of the mix, when you look at the whole picture, you see a convergence of pressures. And here, I think that Netanyahu, in retrospect, was justified to push ahead. Now, you and I spoke about this just last week and many times in the past, that the problem with the Gaza City move was that there didn’t seem to be a political endgame. But as soon as Trump put the deal on the table and the far-right goals were removed, then, at least for me, Gaza City made sense.

But just one other point about the far-right, and this is something that really needs to be emphasized. They are the big losers here. They really thought just a few weeks ago, they thought we’re going to be emptying Gaza out. They’re all going to be expelled.

Donniel: Because they wanted the Trump deal, the original…

Yossi: The real estate deal, which Trump, you know, he puts it out, then he forgets it. And what’s so amazing about this deal is he didn’t forget. He stuck with it. You know?

Donniel: And he was explicit, absolutely.

Do you know what they’re calling this? The far-right on social media? Oslo 2. Yes. Yes, I saw that. They’re calling it Oslo 2. And I think… You want to unpack that?

Oslo, which was the great capitulation and destruction, where Israel agreed to withdraw from territories and to create a Palestinian state, or at least move in that direction, was the beginning of the end of the greater Israel vision, which ultimately led to the Second Intifada, which ultimately led to the disengagement from Gaza. Seeing this as Oslo 2 is seeing Israel moving away from “warrior messianic nation.”

Yossi: Well, the comparison they’re making with Oslo 2, I just saw this on social media today, is that Rabin entrusted the security of Israel, which he didn’t. But that’s their reading to the Palestinian Authority, and that we are now entrusting our security to others.

Now, we’re not entrusting our security, certainly not to Hamas, and we don’t know what’s going to play out on the ground. So there’s a certain amount of hysteria here, but I think that what it’s really expressing is this profound sense of betrayal that they feel toward Netanyahu. We were supposed to be rebuilding the settlements and expelling the Palestinians.

Donniel: And rebuilding the temple. Like, what do we go beyond? I don’t think that’s right.

Yossi: Talk about long-term plans, right?

Donniel: But I do think that part of, as we look to the future, there is no doubt, and Trump said this himself again today, this is not about Gaza, this is a larger move. And Israel is being positioned, forced, whether it’s against its will, whether it’s in its interest with Netanyahu, you never know. Because Netanyahu is not such an ideologue, and he prefers to go to a certain place, but never to say that this is where I ideologically want to be, this is where I’m forced to be. So he is moving Israel with this to a certain place in which there is a political horizon, at least on the table.

And if the United States, together with 11 Sunni countries, all, don’t just sign a theoretical statement about if Israel withdraws, we’ll recognize Israel. But if serious plans are put forth, plans which speak about changing the Palestinian authority, ideas of allowing other forces to ensure security, the whole big—

Yossi: Changing the education system.

Donniel: The whole big package. That package is a package when they look at it. It isn’t also, whether we’re being hugged to death, because Trump knows how to push us, but hug us at the same time, and that’s his brilliance. But Netanyahu is moving. Now, could another prime minister have been coerced by Trump to the same degree? It’s possible that everybody, just like Qatar and Turkey were coerced, that a Bennett would be coerced. But the difference would be that if Bennett would try to do this move, Netanyahu would be in the opposition, screaming and bringing a million people out, betraying, betrayal, betrayal, betrayal.

Yossi: You betrayed the fallen soldiers.

Donniel: The whole story, how dare you ever—him doing it, Bennett, everybody else is lining up and supporting. That’s right. So it could very well be that Netanyahu also gets a lot of credit here for his lack of ideology or accepting and reading the international map right now and realizing that this is the way to go. And so for that, he too gets credit and his right-wing supporters, the right wing of the Likud and those from the Smotrich—Ben Gvir camp, that group of people, let’s call them 20% or so of Israeli society, are rightful to say, “Is this Oslo too? What’s going to come? Is this the pattern?” But if we look at this model, it gives us also great hope. A moment for last thoughts for today. We’ll know much more in the days to come.

Yossi: I think the challenge in moving us from this point to beginning a long-term vision for the Middle East is shifting the dynamic away from Qatar and Turkey toward the Gulf States and the Saudis. And this, I think, is something that we need to watch. And we had no choice. Trump had no choice because it’s Qatar and the Turks that had leverage over Hamas. But in terms of reshaping the future of the region, we have to really be shifting the weight toward the Saudis and the Gulf States.

And here, Israel has a very important role to play and a great responsibility. We need to treat the Abraham Accord countries as partners, and we need to look at this relationship not only in terms of what we’re getting, but what they need from us as well. That’s what a partnership means. And of course, with the long-term goal of bringing the Saudis into the process.

Donniel: My last thoughts is—we’re here because for two years and two days, the spirit of Israel wasn’t broken. For many people, they focused on the hostages. That was what they could focus on. Like, that was the objective. It almost became transcendent in a certain sense. But it was indicative that, you know, like, am Yisrael chai. We were hurt on October 7th. Our families, we died. We sacrificed. We paid prices. Our families have been broken up. The amount of challenges in marriages and PTSs and wounded, it’s just huge.

But at the end of the day, the spirit didn’t break. It’s beautiful. We’re going to rebuild. We’re on those storefronts, and we’re going to rebuild our lives. And when we rebuild, that’s the way you get out of the pessimism and the determinism of warrior nation. And Yossi, it doesn’t take a lot for me to be optimistic, but I see not just, and this is enough, this is a day, you know, hopefully Sunday, no one knows the exact day, all our hostages who are alive coming back.

Yossi: What a moment.

Donniel: It’s going to take a couple of weeks, but I’m hoping that almost all, if not all, of our dead hostages will also come back to be buried in Israel. And then slowly but surely, with all of its uncertainty, we’re going to be in building mode, building mode, talking mode, hopeful mode.

Yossi: Beautiful. Thanks, Donniel.

Donniel: Let’s hope and wish each other a happy Sukkot and to wish all of our audience, breathe again, better days are coming. Thank you, Yossi.

Yossi: Thank you.