The following is a transcript of Episode 89 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 Daniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi of the Shalom Hartman Institute. And this is the Institute’s special podcast, For Heaven’s Sake — Israel at War. And this is day 23.

Today’s podcast, as all the other ones, is an attempt to give you a window into Israeli society. And sometimes that window is not a pleasant one. Sometimes that window is a very painful one because this is a very painful war for us Israelis on so many fronts. It’s almost unbearable some of the time.

And today we want to focus on the leadership void in Israel. It’s a very personal issue. For many of us, there was an attempt not to talk about this. Yossi and I, we’ve spoken for the last three weeks about this, but we said we don’t want to talk about it. That’s a conversation for after the war.

Right now we are all under, there’s a statement in Hebrew, you’re all under ha’alunka, the stretcher. We’re all carrying. We’ll deal with our issues tomorrow. But it’s just not going away for Israelis.

The leadership void, the role of Netanyahu, the government. You all know the unique position that Israel’s civil society is playing, in many ways taking over for the dysfunctioning of the government.

But things are getting more and more complicated. This evening, Hezbollah is bombing more and more in the north, and we don’t know where that’s going to go. And as of yesterday, more and more troops are now in Gaza, and we don’t know exactly where that’s going to go. We don’t have a clear idea of Israel’s strategy. They’re not talking to us. Normally, we know much more so that all of us could be armchair generals. But now, we’re in this unknown. 

And in the midst of that reality, your relationship with your leaders is critical. Your faith and trust in your leaders is critical. I want to warn our audience, this is not going to be, nor are we committed to, a feel-good podcast. Part of a greatness of a society is its willingness to reflect about itself, to reflect and think about who we are and where we’re going and sometimes to be deeply critical. Deeply critical, but within our family. You are our family. 

And for you who are committed to understanding what’s happening in Israel, you cannot understand the current reality in Israel and some of the deep difficulties we’re facing without a connecting to the sentiment of a leadership void. And we’re gonna speak personally and conceptually today. We’re gonna speak about what we feel. 

And I know, Yossi, you have been speaking to me about this for months. But since the war started, you’ve been speaking about it. And I’ve said, let’s not do this. Let’s, what’s the purpose? But today, the purpose is that our audience should understand where we are and why we’re there. And maybe thinking about where we can go from here. 

So Yossi, this issue of leadership void, it’s personal to you, it’s keeping you up. You start, you share, you share first.

Yossi: You know, Donniel, I so much appreciate the restraint that you’ve really asked me to accept these last three weeks and that I did accept. It’s war. This isn’t a time for political reckoning. There’ll be lots of time after the war. But last night, Netanyahu broke me. One in the morning, a tweet from our Prime Minister accusing the entire security establishment of failure to prevent the October 7th atrocity. And Netanyahu’s purpose there was really to claim his alibi.

And you think that it’s exactly as the ground defense is beginning in Gaza. We have hundreds of thousands of beautiful kids on the border, northern border, southern border. And our prime minister is awake at night, obsessed with trying to beat the latest rap. For the last year, he’s been obsessively dealing with his criminal charges. Now he’s got a whole new agenda. 

I have to tell you, Donniel, something in me is tormented. We know we can deal with war. We know we know the motions of dealing with war. How many times, it’s, all right, it’s true, this is something on a different scale, but we’re practiced in the pretenses of coping. This time, this extra level of torment where I feel that not only don’t I trust my leader’s judgment, I don’t trust his concern. I don’t trust that he’s fully engaged with leading the country.

And it doesn’t take much. You know, we don’t need a brilliant leader at this point. The country is so self-motivated that all we need is someone at the top who’s competent, who doesn’t interfere. And Netanyahu’s presence here, the fact that the guy who brought us to this point is still in charge, something in me is, as you said, I can’t sleep.

And I know that there are many, many people in the same position. Where are you here, Donniel? Emotionally, where does this find you?

Donniel: I am so disappointed, I can’t tell you. Not angry, I’m just so disappointed.

I, as our audience knows, have never been the biggest Netanyahu fan, but I always trusted him to, when push comes to shove, to do the right thing. And I felt that his career earned him, he earned that trust.

There is a request by Israeli society of all of our leaders right now to say, in light of October 7th, are you responsible? Don’t even say, we want people to say you’re guilty. Are you responsible? Are you willing to take responsibility?

The only one who has refused to utter those words is Netanyahu. And I’m watching him. I’m watching each one of his public appearances. And I’m trying to understand what he thinks his role is right now. And what does it mean to be a leader? Why do we want people to say I’m responsible? Let’s analyze that for a moment, because it’s really, it’s a really important idea.

See, the chief of staff, the head of the Shin Bet, the security force, the head of intelligence could have also said, just like Netanyahu, I’m not responsible. What, I sit personally on the intelligence reports? I’m the chief of staff of the army. I’m dependent on the reports from the intelligence unit. The head of the intelligence unit personally decides which intelligence is important? He has 20 people beneath him. So did the head of intelligence say that at this moment there is no danger? What does it mean, therefore, when you say you’re responsible? 

What it means is you’re turning to the Jewish people and saying, I have taken a position of leadership. And a position of leadership means that I am there to serve you, not to serve me, I’m there to serve you. I’m there because I have a holy task, the holiest task in Jewish history, and the holiest task in our community, and that is to be a shaliach tzibur, to be a servant of the people. And the bottom line is I let you down. I let you down. 

And the only one who can’t say it, and I’m watching him. I’m watching him with his charade of changing the clothing that he’s wearing, watching him taking these press conferences without allowing any questions. I’m watching him completely in his own mind and I don’t think he believes. It’s like he’s not a shaliach tzibur. The tzibur is his servant and not vice versa and you see that failure. 

And last night, as you said, and literally the newspapers, every news outlet is literally flooded with articles and comments and discussions, that what is it that you’re supposed to do at this point? At this point you’re supposed to come to the Jewish people, to the people of Israel and say, yes, I’m responsible. The power that I have, you gave me. And you gave it so that I would take care of you. And under me, on so many different levels, we failed. Of course I’m responsible. Talk to people. Tell them that you see them. Speak to them, not in platitudes. Don’t pretend as if you’re some little cheapo Zelenskyy over there now with your black shirts and you’re walking and oh, and the huffing and puffing. 

I think he just doesn’t understand what it means to be a leader to a people who feel broken, to a people who have fear. And unless he says, acharah, listen, don’t worry, I’ll fix it. But how could you fix, unless you understand that you are there at my, you’re my servant. And so, I feel upset.

Yossi: Donniel, he has not attended a single funeral. He met with the families of the hostages only under duress after a public outcry. In his appearances to the nation, there’s no empathy. There’s no sense of, I know that I’m speaking to, as you put it, to a broken people. When Biden came here and spoke, people were saying, I finally feel I have a prime minister, someone who understands what we’re going through. 

What we expect from a leader at this point is, the bar is not high. We’re dealing with life and death. Be there, be fully there. This is the moment to set aside politics, to set aside any personal considerations, and be with the people of Israel. And he’s failed.

And so I don’t know, I don’t care what the commission of inquiry is going to conclude, if he’s technically guilty, if he knew at 6.29 A.M., as he was very careful to precisely note, already preparing his alibi, that was his first comment immediately after the massacre. 

I don’t care. I don’t care if he’s innocent or guilty of the charges brought against him on corruption. For me, he has stood before the bar of history and been found guilty.

Donniel: Yossi, do you feel we’ve said enough about Netanyahu? Could we go on from here, is that okay with you? 

Yossi: I feel a great deal of relief having said what I had to say, and I’m good, I’m good Donniel. Let’s move on. 

Donniel: Let’s move on, because what I’d like us to look at, then, so where do we go from here? How do we function in this environment? What do we want? What do we want from our leaders? How do we learn from Netanyahu’s failure? 

And by the way, it’s not just Netanyahu. At the press conference last night, Netanyahu, Gantz, and Gallant, and the latter two I have great respect for, were also showing up in their black shirts. It was like, very weird, and they all said the same thing. They all just, you know, these empty platitudes. There was no there was no emotion. There was no sense of speaking with us. 

But so let’s, so it’s not just Netanyahu. We have a challenge right now. We have unity, which is a good thing for the Jews. But something is profoundly missing. How do we heal from here? How do we heal now? And how, what vision is it about, is in the long run, where do we go?

Yossi: You know, something, as you say, is profoundly amiss, and at the same time, something in this country is profoundly right. And if you look at the quality of Am Yisrael, the people of Israel, how they’ve responded, how they’ve taken up the slack from the government’s failure. No one is waiting to be motivated by our leadership. We’re not waiting to be inspired. 

This is the first war in which we have mobilized ourselves. And I think that this is the moment of the maturation of the people of Israel. I think this is as unbearable as this time is, this is also in some sense one of our greatest moments, because the leadership has failed. 

And you know, you said something very interesting before about Netanyahu, trying to give him a little bit of, what we call in Hebrew zechut, a little bit of merit, that maybe he would have been the right leader for a different Israel, a more Spartan or Stoic Israel, and we’re not that anymore.

By the way, I think he would have been a disaster for any Israel under any circumstances, but we’ll leave that for now. This moment really shows not only the ability of Israelis to assume responsibility when their leaders have failed, but there’s also an emotional quality that we haven’t identified with Israeliness until now. There’s a softening, there’s a vulnerability. People aren’t trying to hide their brokenness. You see it everywhere. 

You know, in the old Israel, in the Israel that was shaped by the kibbutz ethos, you weren’t allowed to show emotion, certainly not men. You weren’t allowed to cry at funerals. Something has changed in Israel. And what we’ve discovered is that not only hasn’t our ability to show emotion weakened us, but quite the opposite. We are a society that trusts each other now because we trust each other’s brokenness. 

And at the same time, we trust each other’s capacity for rising above brokenness. For me, in the 40 plus years that I’ve been here, this is one of the most moving moments I’ve ever experienced.

Donniel: First of all, thank you for that. I think I needed it. And I think our audience needs it. 

Yossi: I needed it too.

Donniel: You needed it too. I know it’s a cliche, but there’s something very healthy amongst our military leadership. Something very, very healthy about them. When they talk, they don’t, it’s not a bravado. They talk to us. And I think, as you said, we don’t need this one single mega leader, this Rabin, this Sharon, these bigger-than-life individuals whom Netanyahu wanted to play walk in their footsteps.

We don’t need that right now. We really don’t. I think our army is going to lead us well. I think the cabinet is going to be careful, but there’s one idea that I want us to remember because our job is precisely when things are troubling. The whole reason to be self-critical is not to knock somebody is to learn from it. What is it that we need? 

Your observation that Israeli society has changed is growing out of this honest reflection on who we are. There’s one beautiful idea about leadership in our tradition, which was quoted by the Kahan Commission after the first Lebanon war and the massacre of Sabra and Shatila. 

And they quoted the biblical law, which is called egla arufah, the decapitated calf. And it’s a law which obligates the leadership of a society to bring a sin offering, if ever in their society there is a death. And the rabbi said, what am I bringing a sin offering? I didn’t kill anybody. And the answer is that leadership is responsible also for what you didn’t prevent. Leadership is responsible. You stand up and you are responsible. 

I hope that from this moment, whenever the next elections are gonna be, and after the war, it’s gonna be a tumultuous time. Because if we’re seeing anything from Netanyahu, his lines, you know, when he tweeted at 1:30 at night, it wasn’t that he was staying up at night. He was speaking to Sarah and his son, who said, you’re coming across weak. Stay, it’s not you, stay, it’s not you. 

What we wanna learn from this moment is that’s not what we want. For a people who are living in such difficult reality, we want somebody who will say, I am responsible also for what I’m not preventing. And you wanna know something? I’m not asking you, just like in the Torah, they didn’t have to resign. Not all failures of leadership require resigning. In this case, I think Netanyahu has to resign. Failure of leadership could also be repaired. But it’s people who stand up and say, yes, I failed and I want to learn from it. The whole reason why we want to be critical is we want to grow. 

And so my bracha for us at this really, really hard time is that we remember, and that we give our leaders a chance to grow, and to grow to be the type of leaders that we need, a much more mature people, a people who aren’t looking for someone to get us to the promised land, but who will walk with us and help consolidate the strength of this people into a powerful force of building. Let’s remember. 

Closing words, Yossi?

Yossi: This moment is giving me great hope for the future of Israeli leadership. We need to get through this time. There needs to be a cleansing at the top. There needs to be accountability. But at the same time, we really need to remember what an extraordinary society we live in and how a whole new generation of leaders is being born before our eyes.

Donniel: Maybe from them we’ll find, Yeshua will find some help. This is For Heaven’s Sake — Israel at war — Day 23. 

And I want to stop for a second, on day 23 because our audience is going to hear this on day 24 and we don’t know what’s going to happen between day 23 and day 24. There’s so much uncertainty. I wish, I want to give a bracha for the well-being of our soldiers. I want to give a bracha for all of Israel who are exposed and frightened and who might be on the verge of new fronts. I want to wish strength to the families of our captives and, there are no words for the pain that they’re going through. 

Yossi: And prayers, Donniel, prayers for the innocent on both sides.

Donniel: Day 23. For more ideas from the Shalom Hartman Institute about what is unfolding right now, sign up for our newsletter in the show notes or visit shalomhartman.org/israelatwar. Be well.