The following is a transcript of Episode 105 of the For Heaven’s Sake Podcast. Note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a conversation, please excuse any errors.

Donniel: Hi, this is Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi, and this is the Shalom Hartman Institute’s podcast, For Heaven’s Sake, our edition, Israel at War, and today is day 81. And today we decided to discuss something that’s emerging in the public discourse, and which is going to challenge Israel in not simple ways, and that is the discussion around ceasefire. 

For much of the world, with the possible public exception of the United States administration, “ceasefire now” seems to be a moral imperative, not merely a practical imperative, a moral imperative, to bring to an end the death of civilians. In Gaza, October 7th launched a just war, but that just war from the perspective of much of the world is not being fought justly, and as a result, it just has to be brought to an end.

For Israelis, we’re in a very, very different place. I don’t think Israelis are ready for a ceasefire. Or, if they are, it’s not in the same terms that are being discussed. And it puts us Israelis in a relatively complicated place. Today we want to talk about how do we as Israelis feel about something that is increasingly self-evident. Tom Friedman is speaking about it. Egypt is offering proposals. Self evident that you need a ceasefire, now let’s just debate the conditions. 

And Israelis are going to have to adjust to it and I want to talk about, Yossi, how you and I feel about it and how we feel Israelis feel about it. We’re not going to get into the technical questions of what is necessarily the best ceasefire or not, but more, how does this whole world conversation, meet us Israelis?
So Yossi, here, you read Tom Friedman, Egypt, America, what does it do to you?

Yossi: You know the wonderful Hebrew phrase, “B’toch ami ani yoshev,” I sit among my people. Very complicated phrase, really. I sit among my people. I am part of the overwhelming Israeli consensus. 90 percent of Israeli Jews not only support the war, but want the war to continue until Hamas is toppled.

And I think that there are several reasons for that. Now I’ll speak personally. When you speak about The moral imperative for, for much of the world of ending the war, and I think you phrased it precisely right. My perspective, and I would dare say, strong majority of Israelis agree, is that the moral imperative is to bring down Hamas. And that places us at direct variance with much of world opinion. And you’re right. We are going to have to start internalizing that. 

But I think that there’s also another dimension. It’s not only that it’s a moral imperative to defeat evil, but if we end this war with Hamas being able to declare victory in whatever way, for me, emotionally now, it means that October 7th won.

And we went to war, Donniel, to restore two elements of Israeli credibility that were shattered on October 7th. The first was our military deterrence, and the second was the Zionist promise, the covenant we made with the Jewish people to create a safe refuge for the Jewish people here. Both of those promises.

Both of those forms of credibility were destroyed on October 7th, and we went to war to restore that. If Hamas, this genocidal regime, remains on our border, we failed.

Donniel: So how do you feel, though, when you hear this conversation? I know that you want to continue the war. 

Yossi: I feel assaulted. 

Donniel: And what you’re speaking about is 90%.

Yossi: Assaulted, Donniel.

Donniel: You feel assaulted. 

Yossi: Assaulted. How about you?

Donniel: I feel frustrated. I don’t feel assaulted.

Yossi: This is a great, it’s a great moment of defining our emotional nuances here.

Donniel: But I make a distinction between those who are calling for a ceasefire because they belittle October 7th, and they belittle the legitimacy or deny the legitimacy of our right to not have Hamas threaten our civilians. I believe we have a right to that. And those who are calling for a ceasefire, because they believe that we’re not going to be able to achieve our goals.

Yossi: That’s an important distinction. Like

Donniel: Like the distinct, like you mentioned a line, you cannot psychologically live with the fact that Hamas will be able to declare victory. I think even if Hamas is destroyed, they’re going to be able to declare victory. Our ability to control what they declare, I think you want them to say, uncle. And I think that’s

Yossi: I want, first of all, the region to understand.

Donniel: Let’s change that. So therefore, that’s a more subtle notion that the point that you have raised numerous times over the last 81 days is the need to reclaim the deterrence of Israel’s military power. That’s different than Hamas being able to declare victory. Because I believe,

Yossi: Fair enough. 

Donniel: Because I believe actually already now, given what we’ve achieved in Gaza, Israel’s military strength is clear.

Yossi: Say more about that.

Donniel: Look what we did. The army has operated. on a level of sophistication, skill, it’s just remarkable when you look at what we have achieved. Now, it’s beyond our pay grade.

Yossi: But I think it’s an important point you’re raising, that on October 8th, many Israelis had a strong question mark over whether the army is still capable of defending us. And I think you’re right. That question mark has been removed. 

Donniel: And I think, again, because I speak very often with people from Iran and Hezbollah. 

Yossi: Your inside sources. 

Donniel: My inside sources. I think it’s self-evident, the fact that Israel has a powerful, skilled military is clear. I think there is challenges of achieving certain goals in Gaza, given what Gaza is, that, within three months, it was unreasonable to expect.

And the nature of Gaza as a 400-kilometer military installation underneath civilian targets and a civilian population presents, besides a moral challenge, which is unprecedented in war, as I said the last time, it also presents unprecedented military challenges. And so I think our deterrence has been reclaimed.

But when somebody says, listen, you achieved as much as you’re going to achieve, like take the Tom Friedman article, you achieved as much as you’re going to achieve. Tom Friedman in his article speaks about the fact that it’s time to declare on Israel’s side a unilateral ceasefire, withdraw. If we fight for another month, so you’ll get another couple of allies. You’re not going to substantively change and you’re not going to be able to destroy all of Hamas, in another month. Maybe eight, 10 months, but you don’t have the ability to continue. That’s the presumption. 

And he feels that the best victory that we would have is turn it over to Hamas and say, okay, Gaza is now yours again. And the first day they’re going to come out with great declarations of victory. That’s why I responded to your, to your initial condition. They’re going to come up. We won. And it’s true. They’re still going to have their 20,000 soldiers, and they’re still going to be able to show pictures of their tunnels. And so that’s going to be the first day. 

And then Tom Friedman says, don’t worry about the first day. I know the first day is going to be hard for you. That’s what he’s implying. But the second day, he says, the second day. It’s when the populations can rebel against Hamas like they did against Hezbollah in Lebanon. That was his argument.

Yossi: And what do you think of it?

Donniel: See, there’s two stages to it. The first is that it’s very different than when somebody says, have a ceasefire because your war was illegitimate. I’m still frustrated by it. I’m still frustrated, but the one thing that I think we have to begin to think about, and I want to expand on this together, is do we have any other scenario of an end of war that we could be comfortable with other than the Netanyahu and national proclamation, Hamas is going to be wiped off the face of the earth. 

So when I hear, when I say I’m frustrated, I don’t feel assaulted. It’s because I feel challenged.

Yossi: When I read Tom Friedman’s latest, I appreciated it. It looked really good on paper, but I think the fatal flaw in his argument is that Hamas is going to stew in the ruins. Those ruins will be rebuilt. The UN will step in. Iran will step in. Qatar. Hamas is not going to be left to its own self-destruction. So that’s one, one issue that I have. 

In terms of what I would consider to be a reasonable approximation of victory, because that’s really what we’re talking about, would be, first of all, Hamas is not going to be wiped off the face of the earth. That’s something we all know. Hamas will continue one form or another, but for me, the model is Beirut, 1982, when Arafat and the senior leadership of the PLO were forced by the IDF to leave for Tunis. Go into exile. Let the Hamas leadership go to Qatar. Let them go to Turkey and let the PA and an international force come in and let’s begin the reconstruction of Gaza. That for me is a scenario that I can live with. 

Donniel: I could live with that one too, but part of what I’m worried about is that we’re not going to get that one. And when I hear the discussion of ceasefire, it challenges me to start to have to make accommodations. And that’s where I get frustrated. Because I want to win.

Not only do I want to, I deserve to, I morally deserve to. And part of the frustration of our neighborhood is that so often we have rights to things. That we’re not able to achieve and we’re not able to attain, and that gap is a very frustrating gap. Like, I want my kids to be safe. I don’t want my kids to have to go to the army. You know, I want to be Scandinavia. Why not? Why, why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I be Scandinavia, without the suicide rates? Like, we’re, we’re, I want it. 

But part of what these last 81 days has really brought home very deeply to me is the gap between what I have a right to and what I have to learn how to adjust to. And maybe that was the first 50 years of Israel where we took that for granted, that there was going to be a gap. And I think the last 20 years we sort of denied that there was a gap. And we pretended that we didn’t have it. 

And so I want what you want. I would love to see Sinwar and Deif and all of them have to get on a boat or go into Egypt and have to fly and let them declare whatever victory it is. And then they have to be in Qatar and they have all their billions that they already stole and they could fly around the world with their planes. And then one day the Mossad will get them. That’s a happy ending I can live with. 

But what happens if I don’t get that? What happens if Hamas, some of its army, is still going to be there? And I look at the Egyptian plan, and I’m challenged by it because I’m not ready to say amen to it, but it haunts me because I’m wondering whether that’s all I’m going to get.

The Egyptian plan says that there should be a ceasefire now, and we should start prisoner exchange. And that Gaza should be turned over to international force, and that the political life of Gaza should be run by a group of technocrats from the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. 

Now, could I weave a narrative that Hamas technocrats are not the same? It’s not what I want. I’m with you. I like your adjustment because you’re, you already did the adjustment. I don’t have to kill all of them. I don’t have to achieve that. We just have to get them to say uncle, to give in, to surrender, and to leave. This conversation is, is challenging to me. Could I live with that? And if I don’t live with that, what are the consequences of what’s going to happen for another 80 days of war on Israeli society and Gazan society? And will there be a substantive change in the next 80 days? 

And if it won’t be, at what point does a just war, if you can’t achieve its goals, and there are dire consequences, begin to be, its legitimacy gets undermined.

Yossi: So I have a different question, an urgent question, and I don’t know how to measure the answer. But the question is, how do we ensure, reasonably ensure, that the evacuees, close to 200,000 people from the southern border and the northern border, will feel reasonably safe to go home again? And if we can’t provide an answer at the end of this war, that will be in some way acceptable, and again, we’re not looking at the ideal here, for people to say, you know what, okay, I’m going to try again to raise families on Israel’s borders, on the border of Iran’s surrogates, that, for me, is the measure of, of what I’m looking to achieve. 

And again, I don’t know how to measure it, but think about it, Donniel. Think about the morning after if we have tens of thousands of Israelis saying, I’m not going back. Who won the war?

Donniel: I couldn’t agree with you more. But that’s where I’m frustrated. Yossi, we’re sitting in a studio. I’m wearing a gun. I’m wearing a gun. I walk around with a gun all the time. I’m worried about something going on in Baka. I’m not wearing it to protect myself against some Israeli dictatorship. I’m wearing it because there are people who want to kill me and I’m aware of it. And I don’t want to be a victim. 

So Yossi, what security do I have? What do I have? What are the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who are now getting gun permits, what are they saying? They’re saying that Kfar Aza and Be’eri is unique. But it could be in Jerusalem. It could be in Tel Aviv. It could be anywhere. It could be anywhere. And I so much identify with what you’re saying. But maybe a perpetual war to achieve that which we have a right to is just not going to be achieved.

Now, it scares me because we went to war with a clear understanding of what is our moral right. Now, I don’t know how the people of the Gazan envelope home. I don’t know how they go home. I know that Israelis have a remarkable spirit and they’re going to go home. 

And I know that we as a country are going to try to build there the most beautiful things. We’re going to try to compensate for our failure. And I don’t think Sderot is going to be left alone. And I think we’re going to try to say, this is the Zionist victory. But at the end, the Zionist victory is about rebuilding. I don’t think we’re always going to get the Zionist victory of security that we have a right to, certainly not on the northern border.

Yossi: Look, I appreciate that. My view, from my neighborhood, French Hill, which sits literally next to a Palestinian village, which is more like a town, Issawiya, which is on our side of the security barrier, is that after October 7th, we started locking our door. 

And we used to be pretty relaxed about it. And we live ground floor, opening up to a public space. And now? That door is always locked, and we have nightmares, and this is true for my neighbors as well, in French Hill, of large mobs of rioters coming over from Issuwiya, they don’t have to cross any border, it’s literally a hundred meters away, and would we be defenseless? So October 7th changed the psychological orientation of everyone here to the question of personal safety. 

But still, there are gradations, and I don’t know if I would agree at this point to go back, if I lived on the southern or northern borders, I don’t know, Donniel. And when we talk about the northern border, Benny Gantz said this the other day, and I hope it wasn’t just rhetoric, that by the end of this war, one way or the other, Hezbollah must go back to behind the Litani River, which is 40 kilometers from the Israeli border. Right now they’re sitting on the border, which we allowed to happen over the years. They violated one ceasefire agreement after the other. 

What that would mean, of course, is a war in the North. And you and I have discussed this before. And by extension, if I’m taking the logic of my argument to its final conclusion, this war cannot end without Hezbollah being forced back to the Litani. Now are we ready for that? Can we fight that war? We’ve had that conversation. So it’s, 

Donniel: Can I challenge you just for a second on this? 

Yossi: Yes, it’s just where it hits me emotionally. 

Donniel: I know, because look, when we talk about, I just want to observe and I want you to respond to it. The conversation about ceasefire in Gaza is activating thoughts of a war in the north. 

Yossi: Yes. Yes. And I think that that’s a really good insight into the confusion in the Israeli psyche today. What do we mean? Does a ceasefire mean that Hezbollah remains on the border? That Hamas remains on the border? What are the parameters of the morning after a ceasefire?

Donniel: I would wish for us to de-complexify it a little bit and to deal with one problem at a time. I think already now, on the South, we have a higher degree of security and the security will be enhanced, not necessarily by the continuing to fight, but by the type of measures we institute and ensure. And none of them are going to be failsafe. And there can always be a day where the troops, it’s a holiday, and the troops are divided, and people hear about a danger, and don’t take it as seriously. And that, as I’ve said before, many times, the capacity of human beings for error is infinite.

And anybody who is looking for certainty, the only thing that’s certain, what do they say? Is death in taxes or whatever. You just, welcome to our world. But do I believe that Hamas has been seriously curtailed, especially in the north? Do I believe their ability to function has been curtailed? Absolutely.

Yossi: Especially in the north of Gaza. 

Donniel: In the north of Gaza. Thank you. So, and maybe that’s enough. And we haven’t even raised today the issue of the moral consequences of continuing the fight. But I think it’s part of the conversation and maybe we have to talk about it. 

We’ve spoken and talked at another time, but part of the question of when we accept a ceasefire has to do with how much more we could achieve with another month, two months, will that strategically change? At least according to the Israeli military, it won’t. The commanders in the field are saying, we need eight months, a year, two years. And they look at Mosul and they say, what America had to deal with there is nothing compared to what we have to do.

Gaza is a unique military challenge, not, you know, for a superpower, you know, if we wanted to level, but that’s not what, here, the house to house, 80 percent of the houses are booby-trapped. Just the enormity. We need another year, two years. So let’s say Yossi, we take two months. Three months. The humanitarian crisis is just gonna increase. The calls for ceasefire are gonna grow. The moral justification of October 7th, it’s gonna fade. It’s gonna

Yossi: Oh, it already has. For people outside of Israel. 

Donniel: It’s so, so in all of that, and then you ask, so what, what is it that you need to do? Like one of our colleagues said to us that one of the challenges of a just war is people being able to see that you have clear and achievable goals, and that’s why you’re continuing to fight. That’s a version of the famous proportionality argument in morality of war. The proportionality says that when you engage in a certain operation, that you take into account the expected consequences and the expected benefits to the best of your ability.

And if we do that over the next month or two, what are they? And I’m very frustrated by it. You know what? I’m not, I’m angry by it, because I want Hamas, not Gazans, I want Hamas terrorists dead. It’s simple. I want them dead. I want them on a boat going to Qatar, going to anywhere in the world. But what do we do if we don’t get that, Yossi?

Yossi: I’m not ready yet to ask that question, which brings us full circle back to our [00:24:00] original question. Where is this hitting you? And I think it was, for me, a very revealing moment when you were asking about, okay, the ceasefire in Gaza, and I took it to Hezbollah. And I think that what that tells us about where we’re at. It’s that for Israelis, this is not just the Israeli-Hamas war. 

Donniel: Correct. Absolutely correct, Yossi. 

Yossi: And people abroad need to understand that. It’s not Gaza. It’s not Gaza. It’s the Shiite arc. It’s Iran. And so Hamas staying in power has implications, repercussions, far beyond the Gaza border. That’s where, in the end, I’m left without.

Donniel: That’s very important. I don’t even, could I even push, I don’t think it’s repercussions or implications. You’re really fighting a different war. It’s not Hamas. You are fighting all of us. We are fighting a war for our right to be safe. 

Yossi: Our right to be here. 

Donniel: To be here. And for our families not to be exposed to this evil. And so it happens to be that right now, the front is Hamas. The front is Gaza. This is not Gaza. 

Now, I appreciate that. I do. And I don’t know what to do with it. I really don’t. And how does Israel, realistically, assess its abilities, its power, and power has to do with the strength of your society. There, our society, our alliance, it’s remarkable, the amount of bravery and commitment. That is our greatest strength.

But at the end, you also need weapons and you need bombs, and we need someone to provide them for us, and we have an economy. Because we don’t want to live like Syria. We want to live like Scandinavia and also military might is connected to your position in the world. And I think all of those have to lead us not to caution, but to how frustrated can we be? I’m seeing your body right now and you’re frustrated, but maybe,

Yossi: I’m contorted. I’m frustrated. 

Donniel: I hear you, but maybe that’s the challenge of Zionism, is within that, we don’t get everything. And so when people speak about ceasefire, I feel that part of them don’t morally understand our rights and don’t embrace our rights

Yossi: And don’t understand our dilemmas.

Donniel: And don’t understand our dilemmas. And don’t understand our frustration. And at the same time, as is always the case, sometimes you need someone from the outside to activate a conversation that inside you don’t know how to start. Our politicians don’t know how to start it. Nobody’s talking honestly. Nobody’s speaking seriously. 

This is, the day after is not the day after the war ends. The day after is tomorrow. How do you talk about tomorrow? How do you help us readjust? It’s going to be emotionally and intellectually very challenging.

Yossi: A rollercoaster.

Donniel: It’s a rollercoaster. This is For Heaven’s Sake, Israel at War, Day 81. 

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