Doha Transcript

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

Donniel: Hi friends, this is Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi from the Shalom Hartman Institute. And this is our podcast, For Heaven’s Sake, special episodes, Israel at War, a collaboration between the Hartman Institute and Ark Media. Today is day 704. And we taped a podcast yesterday on day 703. And within three hours of taping our podcast—it’s for another time. And our theme for today is dictated by the realities and by the pace of change which we face. And today’s podcast is entitled Doha.

And we know, and we could see it already, that everybody is going to interpret Doha and Israel’s attack against Hamas leadership in light of their preconceived or predetermined political positions. The just-not-Netanyahus are going to see this as an abandonment of the hostages and an attempt to find the victory picture that he politically needs. Those who are the absolute just-Netanyahu people will speak about this brilliant move which is going to bring about the immediate end of the war. And it is only through power that this is possible.

Those in the middle will say the negotiations were stalling, and President Trump issued an ultimatum which really didn’t seem to be scaring or pushing Hamas and that there was no deal to really be made. And whether Israel wants a deal or doesn’t want a deal, you have to be really careful not to confuse your desire for a deal with our ability to achieve it unilaterally.

And you could see it in various newspapers around the world beginning to attack Israel that this is undermining America. Those who see Israel and America as closely aligned will see it as an evidence, will point to this or that fact that proves that America was in on it. Those who want to break the ally ship apart will see this as a devastating moment all of the above.

Now, Yossi, you and I, we’re not political pundits, even though we have a fantasy sometimes to be. Maybe we are a little bit. But the goal of our podcast, For Heaven’s Sake, is not to reveal secret political moves that you and I have access to, but to try to give voice to our feelings as Israelis and as Jews. At different moments, what this means to us and how do we understand this? What is it that we see? To quote a very close friend of ours regarding the nuclear Iran, he said, those who know, don’t speak and those who speak, don’t know. And there’s so much that we don’t know.

So we’re going to talk feelings. We’re going to talk about what we understand, what this attack is making us think about, what is it that we’re noticing, and give voice to that. And so Yossi, I look forward very much to this because, as always, you’re my partner, you’re my chavruta, to try to understand. The pace of events is sometimes too much. There’s an exhausting level to it. And in our podcast yesterday, we said, you know, stay tuned. Events are changing. So who knows? And here we are. So Yossi, I turn to you to start us off with, what are you thinking about?

Yossi: Well, it’s interesting, Donniel. You laid out the different kinds of responses that we’ve heard within Israel over the last day. And as you were going through them, I realized that I personally got through each of those responses.

Donniel: Yossi, I have to tell you something. Me too. Me too. They think– I said, I was embarrassed by the way.

Yossi: Right, right. My first response was, great, those bastards, we finally got them. My second response was, why is Netanyahu doing this now? What is going to be the impact on the hostages? My third response was, well, Trump did deliver the ultimatum the day before? He must have been in cahoots with Netanyahu. So that’s a good thing. And then my fourth response was, well, Trump actually denounced the attack—and this was my fifth response. He denounced it in a really strange way. He disassociated himself with it. And then he kind of approved of it. I’ve never heard a denunciation like that, in any context.

Donniel: Also, Yossi with no emotional–

Yossi: Oh, that’s a really great point.

Donniel: There was no emoting here whatsoever. And he says it was we didn’t know. And he denounces it. And he says, but if Hamas leaders are killed, that’s a good thing. It was a very strange denunciation.

Yossi: It is. So I come back really to what you said, which is—we don’t know. We really don’t know. We don’t know if the operation was a success or not. We don’t know if America was involved. We have no idea what the impact on the hostage negotiations will be. Actually, you know, Donniel, I had a very strange thought, which is that maybe the best outcome for the hostage negotiations would be a failed attempt to assassinate them.

Donniel: I had that same opinion.

Yossi: You had that same feeling.

Donniel: This morning, as we’re reading about that maybe it didn’t work, in my own crazy intellectual machinations, maybe that was the plan. The plan was to make–

Yossi: No, look, I don’t think it was the plan. That’s for sure not. But I think that the outcome might be, you know, it put the fear of God into them. It made them realize they have no immunity. Time isn’t on their side. And you’d better start seriously negotiating. But you know, it’s so ridiculous. Everything is here. Really.

So the other thing I was thinking is the abyss, really, between how the Israeli public, from left to right, responded to the attack and how this was processed abroad. Here, there was absolutely no question of the theoretical justification for the attack. First of all, the Hamas leaders are implicated in October 7. And if we did hit them, they only got what was coming to them. Secondly, this absurd notion that we violated the sovereignty of Qatar. Qatar is, for all practical purposes, the eighth front of this war. It is the principal supporter of Hamas. And through Al Jazeera, it has really turned the Muslim world into a state of hysteria against Israel through lies. And so Qatar is an enemy. And that’s how the Israeli public responded.

I was also struck by how some of the commentators who hate Netanyahu unequivocally endorse this. I’m thinking, for example, of Ben Caspit, or Avi Issacharoff—no question; this is a good. And some of the politicians on the left, I’m thinking of Ram Ben Barak or Yair Golan, really, really people who have devoted their careers in the last few years to trying to bring down Netanyahu, what they said was, of course, in principle, this is a good thing. But it’s a question of the timing. And Ram Ben Barak said there needs to be a proper order. First you bring the hostages, then you hit them in Qatar.

So when you hear the discourse– I really had you in mind, Donniel– when you hear the total absence of a moral discourse about this issue, which I had no problem with, but was that a problem for you?

Donniel: Zero. I’m with you on that.

Yossi: Case in point.

Donniel: Case in point. I had none. And it’s not even the sovereign space of Qatar. We would do this in European countries. The distinctions between left and right in Israel are on different issues than the standard left and right distinctions in other countries. Again, I don’t know where I put myself. Let’s say, others put me in the left; I like to call myself the center, a person of the people, the average Israeli.

But the fundamental principle that I’ve been speaking about since the beginning of the war and throughout most of my life is the moral obligation of self-defense. To kill those who are pursuing you, truly pursuing you. And when you’re able to attack and to kill, potentially, leaders, and there isn’t civilian casualties in a clean operation, there is no moral dilemma.

And I think that puts Israelis in a very complicated place right now that, of course, this is an acceptable act. It is self-evident that it’s acceptable to most Israelis. I could appreciate even at the beginning, you and I were smiling and laughing a little bit. And maybe for some of our audience, that might seem a little strange. What’s going on here? But I’m not going to apologize for it. But maybe this is not a moment for levity. It’s not a moment for levity because the consequences could be very significant.

But I think there’s another feature, which I want to add. And that is that it’s interesting that the streets, which is protesting for the return of the hostages and the end of the war, did not erupt in anger. Because here we’re–

Yossi: That’s a great point.

Donniel: You know, like, here it is. They’re meeting in Doha to talk about probably agreeing to the deal. Or maybe not. True, we don’t know. Maybe they were just going to delay again. Maybe there was no deal to be had. Maybe right now what Israel needs and what Hamas is willing to give, it’s not going to happen without additional pressure. But at least in the short run, if our hostages literally have no air and they’re dying and attacking on Hamas leadership will just increase an incentive to kill them or to torture them further, you would expect an outbreak of anger. It wasn’t there.

And I think part of it has to do with the core Israeli consensus on our moral obligation to defend ourselves, but also on our moral responsibility to defend ourselves. And I would add one other feature, and that is Israelis have an addiction to secret operations. We hate war, but we love these secret operations. We love Entebbes. We love the assassination of the Munich terrorist murderers. We love– there’s something about this.

Yossi: Well, it confirms our most flattering sense of ourselves. It’s the Jewish intelligence at work. It’s a survivor people that has internalized the lessons and is willing to go to any lengths to defend itself. And when there are no casualties on our side, it’s of course even more so.

Donniel: Right. And it’s in and out. We hate long wars.

Yossi: That’s right.

Donniel: There’s a six-day war, a 12-day war. There’s the 10-minute war. Perfect. We went in. We did the operation. It was clean. It was sized. It’s startup nation, technology, intelligence. Going back, I think what you said also is so deep in the Israeli psyche is the notion that Israel is the country that nobody came to protect us during the Holocaust. If you come for us, we’re coming for you. It’s Zionism. It’s the myth of Zionism that we could protect and that we could prevail.

Yossi: And that borders are irrelevant when it comes to defending ourselves. And that of course puts us in a very uneasy relationship with the international community. And the truth is, if you look at Israeli history, this has always been a bug in our relationship.

Look at the Eichmann kidnapping. We went into Argentina, a sovereign country, and through a very clever, elaborate ruse, kidnapped a resident of Argentina, Adolf Eichmann, who was the architect of the Final Solution, and brought him to Israel and put him on trial. And when voices in the international community condemned us and said we have no right, we have no jurisdiction over Eichmann, Israelis literally didn’t understand what they were talking about. And so there is this sense that in the same way that our enemies ignore borders, when they attack us, we have every right to reciprocate and relate to them in kind. I really like what you were saying. It’s a very important insight into the Israeli psyche.

I think there’s another element here. You had talked about the moral imperative for self-defense. And I think there’s another element for Israelis here. And this is something I’ve spoken about in our conversations in the past, which is the moral imperative to deny terrorists’ immunity, that you can’t hide behind Palestinian civilians. You can’t hide in hospitals and schools and attack us from there. We’re coming after you. You also can’t hide in sovereign countries. And not only can’t you hide in Gaza, we’re going to come after you in Qatar or wherever you are. We could call it the Eichmann diagram, that we do not recognize the inviolate sovereign borders when it comes to those who seek our destruction.

Now, this is a very complicated doctrine. Israelis, we take it for granted. In the rest of the world, this is not something that goes down—

Donniel: Do you know who’s able to do it? Superpowers do it. Yes, exactly. Russia, if you don’t cheer Putin for enough minutes, they’re gonna send somebody after you no matter where in the world. Whether America does it or not, I don’t know. I’m sure they do also, not to the same degree, but superpowers could get away with it.

This notion of immunity—look, when you applied it to Hamas in Gaza, I felt uncomfortable. But now you’re reminding me that this is a doctrine essential to the Israeli and Zionist story. If you are the enemy of the Jews, you don’t have immunity and Israel’s role in the world is to do that, you never have that immunity. I think this is a very deep part of the Israeli response at this moment. It’s a very important addition.

Yossi: Now, it’s interesting because we can expand this doctrine to other areas of Israeli activity. It isn’t only expressed in acts of violence. When we sent our air force into Addis Ababa at the height of a civil war to retrieve 14,000 Ethiopian Jews, we were expressing the same doctrine. When it comes to protecting the Jewish people, we do not recognize sovereign borders.

Donniel: It’s very interesting, but your comparison to Addis Ababa is fascinating, but I think also opens up another dimension of this attack, which I’ve heard my wife Adina expressed it very strongly. Is this all we know how to do? Like it’s one thing when we’re sending planes to rescue people, but like–

Yossi: My wife said the same thing, you’re killing again? She said, all we know how to do is kill people.

Donniel: Yeah, like we’re killing again? It’s like, is that all you got? Maybe, and this is what we don’t know. Is there an option for negotiations? I do believe that at other times there were, they tend to embrace those analysts who claim that a deal could have been made in the past. And Netanyahu claims there was never a deal to be made. Again, the question comes in, what was the deal? What were the conditions? It’s possible that there is no deal to be made if what we want them to do is to wave a white flag and bow down and say Netanyahu Akbar, Netanyahu Akbar. So like if that’s what it means for Netanyahu to have his picture, you’re not gonna have a deal. But it could be that a deal could not be made. I don’t know, we just don’t know.

Yossi: Are you concerned that there was no strategy here? Because this is an issue that you’ve raised a lot.

Donniel: I don’t know, but I assume there was some strategic thinking here. I give Netanyahu enough credit, according to the Israeli press, they’ve been planning this for eight months. That this is a move, that it has a strategic plan and it could be the strategic plan, it’s just what you said, you’ll see. There’s no immunity. And the question is at what time? And I do assume that there was a plan on why to do it now. I might not have agreed with the plan. It could be that the need to do it now was, give me my victory picture. It could be, allow me to continue the fight.

But there is a sense that, is this all that we know how to do? I think both internally and externally in the world. Do you want it so much, this deterrence? And you taught me that. And I’ve internalized and accepted its importance. It wasn’t a natural thing for me, but I realized that my notion of Israel security has to take into account Israel’s deterrence. But that deterrence is only by another operation, another hammer, another punch, somewhere along the line. When is that enough? And are we actually undermining? What is the Jewish state about? Is this all you know how to do, kill people?

Yossi: Yeah, that’s not my instinctive concern. I have two concerns. As you were talking, that became clear for me. The first is overreach. If you do an action that alienates the international community to the point where it takes us one next step down the road to becoming a pariah state, was it worth it? That’s the first question.

The second question that I have, and this really concerns my profound mistrust in Netanyahu. And here, unlike you, I don’t give him any benefit of the doubt. When I read that except for the head of the Shabak, the Shin Bet, all of the heads of the security services oppose the timing of this attack, I get…

Donniel: A red light goes off. And then when you think about who our defense minister is, Yisrael Katz was appointed by Netanyahu to be a yes-man. He has for all practical purposes, no security experience or next to no experience. And you know that there was no serious discussion going on between Netanyahu and Katz. And Katz didn’t think that it was his responsibility to hear out the reservations of the chief of staff, of the IDF, the head of the Mossad, the head of military intelligence. So there was something here that connects to everything that’s gone wrong in the country in the last few years. And I asked myself, is this part of a pattern of failure? I don’t know. I don’t know.

Donniel: I really appreciate that point. Cause as I was hearing you, for our Israel, there’re certain things that we need. And the most basic thing that we need, and it doesn’t matter what your politics are, you need to make sure that your leadership is going to be engaging in military actions in ways that are completely disconnected from political consideration. And we don’t trust that.

We’re in the midst of a 700 and four day war, our natural inclination. And I always trusted Netanyahu. I didn’t necessarily like him, but I trusted him. Now I’m willing to give him more credit now than you do, but still I’m not sure. I’m really not sure. And to be in this environment, and you’re right, the fact that so many in the military establishment were against—not the principle, none of them were against the principle,—against the timing.

Yossi: Exactly. It’s the time.

Donniel: It’s the time. And it wasn’t brought up to the cabinet for a vote. It was, you know, Netanyahu’s small little cabinet, him and Ron Dermer. I think, listen, they’re serious people, but still there is a big question mark, but there’s one other question mark that I wanted to add.

What does this mean about Gaza City? The army is saying, don’t go into Gaza City. Netanyahu and Katz are saying, yes, if we go into Gaza City, we’re going to win the war. But if Gaza City was the vehicle in order to facilitate a transformation and the defeat of Hamas, what is this saying about that? In one way, it could be that it’s saying, I want to do this and this, but in another way, it’s saying Hamas leadership doesn’t care how many Gazans you kill.

And it actually is just waiting for the next screwup of Israel, the next military mistake, the next civilian catastrophe, the fact that at least 300,000 Gazans or maybe more aren’t leaving Gaza City. They’re just waiting for you to have that operation because this war is progressing exactly according to plan. Israel, keep on fighting. We’ll see you on day 856. And then there’ll be no more trade. You won’t be able to travel. You will be a pariah, culturally, politically, all over Europe, just you and Trump. Your universe will be you and Trump and any other dictatorship.

Yossi: And Hungary.

Donniel: You’re right, and Hungary, you’re fine. And fight your regional dictatorship. Ultra nationalists unite. Israel, that’s our community of nations. And this just happened. If you’re arguing that this is the move that will change the course of the war and bring about the return of the hostages is what Netanyahu said, a hostage deal could now be made. What does that say about Gaza City? It sort of undermines the legitimacy of that operation.

Yossi: Yeah, the wider question that this raises for me is how do you fight terrorism? How do you fight evil? And it seems to me there are a few non-negotiable principles here. The first is what you mentioned, which is you need credibility of the leadership to unite the people. We don’t have that. The second is you need moral credibility in the international community. We don’t have that. The third is ensuring that the evil that you’re fighting against doesn’t penetrate your own camp. Your soul. And we don’t have that anymore either with the far right now positioned key points in the Israeli government.

And so how do you fight terrorism when you’re lacking the most basic elements of credibility? And not only credibility abroad, but credibility within your own people? So this is what worries me. And I so much appreciate you bringing up Gaza City in this context because really, that’s the bigger question that we’re facing.

Donniel: It’s a strange time. We’re gonna watch, we’ll see, things will unfold. As is usually the case, there is no magic solution to our problems. The nature of Gaza is that our addiction and love for operations which resolve our problems is not what we have, and our problems are greater than that. And this might be a successful operation. It might be a non-successful operation. In its lack of success, that might be a success. We just don’t know. At what point do we say, Jewish people, what else do you have?

I think Yossi, this is the time for final thoughts.

Yossi: Yeah, you know, just listening to you now, I realized that my first response to Doha was relief. Because here we’re targeting the leaders. There are no civilians. It’s not Gaza City. I felt this, oh, it’s the old Israel. This is what we do best. And then of course, all the complications start to set in. But that initial sense was, it’s not Gaza City.

The last point that I’ll leave you with, Donniel, is how much I appreciate this conversation with you. Because what we didn’t talk about, which really would have been the first topic if we did a kind of a typical political analysis, was, well, what happens if it fails? What happens if we actually didn’t kill the leaders? And that wasn’t even a question for us, because our questions are different. Our questions are, in principle, was it the right thing to do? Regardless of whether it worked or not, you take a chance. If it didn’t work, if you believe it was the right thing to do, then you can’t fault the government for trying. So that wasn’t even an issue for us.

And I just so much appreciate stepping out of this relentless news cycle and the commentators and counter commentators and being able to have a serious conversation with you about what this means in a larger moral and historical and psychological perspective. So I just wanted to say thank you for that.

Donniel: Thank you, Yossi. Yeah, again, this has been very helpful for me. And I’m leaving this with a certain concern: When are we gonna show that we have other things up our sleeve? And when are we gonna be able to deal with issues that are gonna take long-term strategic compromises? There’s another muscle. Is Doha part of the solution? Is it an indication of the Israeli syndrome? I don’t know, time will tell. But thank you for enabling me to think about this and for teaching me.

And to our audience, this is For Heaven’s Sake. Israel is really still at war. And our hostages are still there for 704 days. Is Doha gonna help? Is Doha gonna harm? Time will tell. Be well, everyone.