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Thoughtful debate elevates us all. Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi revive the Jewish art of constructive discussion on topics related to political and social trends in Israel, Israel-Diaspora relations, and the collective consciousness of being Jewish. 

The podcast draws its name from the concept of machloket l’shem shemayim, “disagreeing for the sake of heaven” and is part of the Institute’s iEngage Project.

The Six Hostages Transcript

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 For Heaven’s Sake, Israel at War, day 331. And today, six hostages were murdered.

We took some time off, Yossi, but the reality hit us again very, very deeply. I don’t know if you felt it the same way that I did. But as we heard of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Carmel Gat, Ori Danino, Eden Yerushalmi, Alex Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, six young, strong hostages, hostages that we were counting on getting back, and we heard of their murder.

It brought me back somewhere in November. And as I was walking through the Machon, the Institute, wishing people good morning, because I was just away for three weeks. And it was back to people couldn’t answer the question, how are you? There was silence. People raised their eyes. People were visibly shaken. This isn’t 331 days. This feels like 31 days. This hit us very, very deeply.

And we know that tens of hostages have been killed. And we don’t know how many of the hundred or so, 103, 105 are left. But the mood in the country as I was driving in the street, it was quiet, hushed, very, very mournful today, very, very mournful.

There’s been a whole spectrum of emotions throughout these 331 days. There’s been anger, fear, anguish, hope, frustration, deep mourning. And for us, many, know, Hersh Goldberg-Polin was very close to all of us, the first cousin of our dear, dear colleague, Eliot Goldstein. So, and you know, in Jerusalem he was the face and for so many people around the world, but all of them, these young, these were 30-year-olds who had made it. They were still there.

How did it, what are you feeling at this moment, Yos?

Yossi: I don’t know if I’ve felt so devastated since October 7th. This sense of being violated in the deepest way. And to think that they survived for 11 months, they made it through, and Hersh, with his amputated arm, and God knows what kind of medical treatment he received in Gaza, and they made it. And there’s this sense of being in a nightmare that just keeps getting deeper and a feeling of a loss of control and also rage, tremendous rage. I don’t know what’s stronger, the rage or the grief. And I think that that was true as well on October 7th, the rage is so much a part of the grief. It’s another way of expressing the grief. And right now, everything at this particular moment frees the frame. Everything feels hopeless.

Donniel: So that’s a difficult place to be in.

Yossi: It will pass, but that’s really, you know, and we’ve been there before, but it’s touching that place of despair again.

Donniel: It will pass. Like for me, we’ve been there before. You know, was like the, as we were waiting for the Iranian attack, the Hezbollah attack, the questions about the future, the airlines canceling and still canceling, the skies closing, there was a doom and a gloom. And I started to feel that that gloom was, we were coming out of it. Iran, we won it. Like we were, we won that, that pause and things were moving forward and the deal is really close. We’ll talk about the Philadelphi corridor, which is now the big issue, and should it be the big issue or not?

I don’t know why we’re so unprepared. Is it, why, we’re so optimistic, or we’re so hopeful? What do we expect? You know, to hear of six hostages, and there’s probably more, in Rafiah, who just last week we announced that we had finally completed all our operations in Rafiah. What does that even mean, to complete, and to see that we were so close, and six, 20 meters underground?

And it’s just, you know what I feel it is? There’s a dimension of this war that constantly reminds us of what we lost. It’s not just a loss. There’s a loss of these six beautiful people. There’s a national loss. There’s the ability of somebody to defeat us. And it just hits us so, so deeply. so you said, it’s like, there’s something broken. Why are we so broken? There’s something very powerful about every life and our connection to every individual, but there’s something so deeply broken in this country right now.

I just want to state, it is perfectly legitimate to have a serious debate on what we should do with the hostages. Should hostage return be a primary issue? Should trying to ensure Israel’s security for some day after be a primary issue? What is necessary? Some debate is possible, but there’s such deep brokenness that this event is, that’s the context of this event and that’s the context of what you’re experiencing. So what is it, Yossi?

Yossi: Look, you’re saying something very important. You’re saying two things that are very important. First of all, that there is a legitimate, and I would even say an urgent debate that needs to be had, a serious public discussion about what our priorities are. And as we’ve said before, Doniel, in our podcast, we, Israeli society in the first months of the war were living a kind of illusion that we could have it both ways. We could defeat Hamas and we could save the hostages. And it became increasingly clear that there’s a choice to be made. And so we need a serious conversation about that choice.

The problem is, and this is what’s broken, what’s broken is the fundamental trust of majority of Israelis in the government. And in particular in Netanyahu, but not only. And the trust is not about the wisdom of their decision-making. It’s about their fundamental decency. Can we really trust that this government is making serious security-minded decisions?

Let’s say, okay, the government has decided that defeating Hamas needs to be the priority. And again, there’s a case for that. How many more times are we going to allow ourselves to be in a position of being blackmailed by Hamas and to keep releasing more and more terrorists? Last time we released in the Gilad Shalit deal in 2011, we released Yahya Sinwar. We got October 7th. There’s an argument that the right is making that needs to be discussed.

But the problem is that most of us here don’t believe that that’s really what’s motivating Netanyahu. And if you can’t trust the national interest of your own government, everything is broken. And so there is no debate to be had because I don’t believe the people who are saying, you know, I believe Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. I believe them. They really believe that this is Israel’s national interest. And I vehemently disagree with them. But at least we know where we stand with Netanyahu. Do you really believe that this is what’s motivating him? When I think about, and that was a rhetorical question.

Donniel: You noticed I didn’t answer.

Yossi: When I think about what’s likely motivating him, I think of three basic motives and none of them has anything to do with the wellbeing of the hostages. They’re all about him. The first and most obvious is his need to hold his coalition together and to keep Smotrich and Ben-Gvir from quitting.

The second is to reclaim his reputation as Mr. Security. Now, Sinwar played Netanyahu for a fool. Netanyahu sent him suitcases of dollars. And Sinwar, up until the very end, up until the days leading before October 7th, was in communication with Netanyahu, reassuring him that, I’m interested in quiet. Netanyahu fell for it. So this is personal for him. He needs to settle that score.

And the final motive that I think is very strong for him is looking at his historical legacy. He is the son of a historian. He thinks, very seriously about his legacy and he knows what his legacy looks like now. So in his mind, if he defeats Hamas he’s somehow balancing or settling the score of October 7th.

Now I think he’s fooling himself. I think his reputation is beyond repair historically and in the Israeli public but that’s what I sense is going through his mind. Now again, none of those motives, Donniel, has anything to do with the well-being of the hostages. It’s all about him.

Donniel: See, I want to give Netanyahu a better reading. But he still, there’s something, I think a large part of Israeli society feels exactly what you feel. And then to be in such a position of such a predicament when you have such a lack of faith and trust in your leadership is, you know, many countries could have weak leaders. Israel can’t afford, with all its dangers, to have these weak leaders. I think there’s another issue.

Yossi: A leader who is fundamentally mistrusted by the people.

Donniel: Mistrusted. But I think there’s another part which for me plays a more important role but I’m not debating you. I hear you and I know a lot of people feel what you’re saying. For me, the reason why I’m so angry and mournful and frustrated is that I think Netanyahu is still committed to a fantasy of victory.

Now, you’re claiming it’s for his reputation. You’re claiming it’s for his historical position. You’re claiming it’s for his political interests. All of those, I’m sure, are true. But there is a segment in Israeli society which refuses to understand the implication and consequences of October 7th.

and the now 331 days. At what point do you understand that a complete victory is not achievable unless you want to do a Ben Gvir and Smotrich, in which case a complete victory looks something completely different? A complete victory is when we resettle Gaza. You’ve resettled it, then we’ve reversed completely the consequences of the disengagement.

Doesn’t mean that soldiers won’t be killed because if anybody’s following the news, more and more soldiers today are being killed by snipers and roadblocks and roadside bombs. The Netzarim Corridor, which is basically going to be a death trap for Israeli soldiers on an ongoing basis. so soldiers will die continuously. But they have a notion of reverting, putting us back to 2005. I want to go back, go back to a moment before.

Yossi: Before the withdrawal from Gaza.

Donniel: Right, but that, just like you, them I understand, but the mainstream Likud, who’s by the way, who’s ministers we don’t hear at all, at all, don’t.

Yossi: In some ways, they are the greater scandal than Netanyahu himself. Yes.

Donniel: Now they are holding onto this notion that there’s going to be this one thing that we’re going to do and that’s going to bring us the victory. And so throughout the last 11 months, Yossi, you and I, we’ve talked about it. We’ve been talking about it since month two. Or at least I’ve been talking about it. You’ve had to suffer me. But what is this great victory, this ability to wipe out Hamas?

First it was we were going to destroy all the tunnels. Well, we’re not even close to destroying maybe 30% of the tunnels. We’re going to kill all of Hamas, destroy their army or their terrorist capacity. Well, for every soldier we kill, there’s another one coming in. So we’ve killed many of their generals. Most of them are replaceable. We claim that their brigades are dysfunctional, but they don’t need to fight as brigades. They’re fighting now as small RPG units and sniper units, all of that. So we’ve seen this.

So now we have this new, the new Messianic Garden of Eden. We’re going to hold on to the Philadelphi corridor, that corridor next to the border with Egypt, which has hundreds, hundreds of tunnels. And now after, I don’t know how many months we claim to have 80% of the tunnels, those tunnels which are fueling Hamas. The Philadelphi corridor, which we only started to talk about publicly somewhere in March or April. The army started in December, March, April, it became the reason for us moving into Rafiah and all of the above. And now this is becoming the issue. The deal is, we bring back the hostages because we have to hold onto the corridor.

And I think part of what angers me is that if there was a chance for this complete victory, I could understand the debate. If there was this moment that was going to change everything. But we’re grasping at this fantasy, Yossi. This fantasy. And that, and that, when you sacrifice hostages’ lives.

Yossi: See, I don’t know. I don’t know.

Donniel: I don’t mind. You want to hold on to Philadelphi? Okay, deal with it. Come up with a plan. But deal with it on the Egyptian side. There are so many ways. But this notion that right now it’s the hostages or Israel’s security, I think that’s what people aren’t trusting anymore. It’s not that they’re trusting. They’re not trusting that.

Yossi: Well, that’s exactly, exactly right. Now look, Donniel, if there were no hostages being held in Gaza, of course the Israeli public would say, keep going, keep going. If it takes another two years, so let it take another two years. But when you have the entire security establishment telling you this should be the priority, rescuing the hostages at this point, after 10 months of fighting, this is what we need to do. Now, it’s certainly true that the whole security establishment can be wrong. We saw it on October 7th. The problem is that I can’t trust, again, it comes back to that question, and I can’t trust my government.

And even if the government is right, and the security establishment is wrong. The very fact that I can’t trust them, or that I don’t trust them means that they can’t function. They can’t implement the policy that they want because they don’t have the people’s trust. The country is siding with the security establishment. Look at every poll. It’s something like 20 or 25% that’s with the government, and the overwhelming majority is with the security establishment.

So you know this, but there’s another feature that you and I have talked about in the past, but I think we have to talk about some more today. And that is that not only do we not trust, there’s also a deep dislike. It’s going to another space right now. This is a government which has,

Yossi: That’s a very gentle word, Donniel. Dislike.

Donniel: No, I want to, there’s something there, there’s, Netanyahu and this government are incapable of also showing empathy. I want to put forth a moment that I remember again from Naftali Bennett’s year as prime minister, when I don’t remember the event, but there was a man, a child who was killed. I don’t remember if it was in Gaza or in a terrorist attack. And the family was a right-wing family who lived in the South. And he went for a Shiva visit. And he went knowing that this was going to weaken him politically. And the father used it as a moment to attack Bennett and his betrayal of the right wing. And Bennett sat there silently and took it. And when he left, they said, what do you have to say? And he said, in our country, the families, the Gold Star families are holy. They could say whatever they want to say. Our job as political leaders is to listen. And you had a sense that there was an empathy.

One of the most beautiful things about Judaism and about Israeli society is the empathy we have for each other. You know, the whole country is walking around sad. We’re empathizing with these six people. We’re empathizing with our hundreds of hostages. We don’t feel our… We don’t… There is no empathy. There’s one agenda coming out of the Likud party. Ben-Gvir Smotrich, they’re doing what they’re doing. The Charedim, you don’t really hear from them right now. Shas, from time to time, says the right thing. The Likud party has one agenda. How do we spin this so that it won’t hurt us or hurt Netanyahu? There’s no warmth.

We’re sitting here crying. Hersh and Carmel and Ori and Eden and Alex and Almog. So you know Netanyahu went on TV today because Biden shamed him. Biden, you feel empathy. So Netanyahu tried a little bit.

Yossi: It took Netanyahu hours before he responded.

Donniel: Okay, but he saw he did it. Okay, but at the end he did it and he did it. There is the pain, the pain, the ability to feel, to feel, I’ll trust your judgment if you want to call, if you’re asking me to sacrifice, if you see me and care for me. But this, I feel that they’ve lost, I don’t know if they’ve lost their humanity, they’ve lost their decency, their ability to empathize. And when that’s there, not only do you distrust their policy, you distrust their humanity.

Yossi: Look, they’ve certainly lost their capacity for empathy. And Netanyahu’s pathetic attempts to show empathy from time to time have just backfired. Do remember when he was meeting with, had one his rare meetings with hostage families, and one of the people there was a released hostage, and she was telling him about how she was tortured in captivity? And he said, yeah, I know what you mean, because when I was a soldier, I went through a simulation of the hostage situation and I was beaten and it hurt. And then he quickly, you then he says, no, I’m not comparing, of course, what you went through is much worse. But it was such a window into this blank emotional slate.

But the truth is, Donniel, it’s even worse than that. It’s worse, it’s worse because what the Likud through its media, Channel 14 TV and its radio, the radio stations that are aligned with the Likud, what the message that they’ve been conveying for the last months is that the hostage families are actually enemies of Israel. And you have Netanyahu supporters who have physically attacked the families who are demonstrating in the streets. And we’ve never been in a situation like this, where not only did Netanyahu fail to embrace the families, but his supporters were actively turning them into enemies. And of course, Netanyahu never said a word. This is what we’re dealing with. This is the brokenness.

Donniel: You know, Yossi, in many ways, you know, as I’m hearing you talk, do you know it reminds me of? It reminds me of the days after October 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, where Israeli society is expressing the most beautiful parts of our country, the love, the humanity, the care. They’re talking about shutting down businesses tomorrow. You know, movie theaters are shutting tonight. Theaters are shutting down and plays and businesses.

This is a country which is, you know, if on October 8th we had to find the resources to equip our soldiers, today we’re calling on the resources to mourn with each other, to stand with each other, to feel. I know right after this podcast, I’m going to a demonstration in Jerusalem. You’re going to the demonstration in Tel Aviv, even though you might have COVID, but you know, that’s, I don’t know if that’s a laughing matter, but that’s why I’m not going to Tel Aviv with you.

Yossi: I’ll let you know where I’m standing, you can be in a different part of the crowd.

Donniel: But it’s like, almost the most beautiful part of Israeli society is our country is standing up and saying, we’re here. Six people, six beautiful young people died and we’re not going out to eat. You know, Israeli society has rebounded so many times since October 7th. And we have to. You can’t mourn. But Israeli society is entering a mourning mode. And again, the society is doing it. The government is on a completely different… It’s in a different place. They just don’t… They don’t get it. It’s there. They’re shell-shocked. They’re in a different mode. And so it’s, know, we’re back at that same, we’re literally back, we’re in October 8th again.

Yossi: It’s a great analogy. What I felt after October 7th, the immediate aftermath of October 7th, was that this was the moment of the maturation of Israeli society. Because we mobilized ourselves. We didn’t wait for the government. Nobody looked to the government to tell us what we should be doing. We all knew.

This is another one of those moments, except now, what we’re what and this is this is the political implication of this moment is that all of this Israeli sense of solidarity and goodwill is being turned against the government you hear things that people are saying that we haven’t heard since October 7th. The families of the hostages are saying, Netanyahu killed them, Netanyahu’s a murderer.

Now that’s very, very tough language, but that has political consequences. And what I’m feeling for the first time since October 7th is that the rage is so profound and there’s such a sense of revulsion against this government that I feel something, something can move in a way that seemed impossible before.

Donniel: It’s interesting, I don’t trust rage. And I don’t like it, I don’t trust it.

Yossi: I don’t trust hatred, but righteous rage has its place.

Donniel: Oh, I understand, it has its place. I don’t know if rage creates societal change. I think part of our challenge when we’re looking now, so where do we go from here? Where do we go? For both of us, it’s evident that we need a new election. We need a new election. The country doesn’t trust its leadership, and the challenges in front of us are so great. But I think we’re going to have to go beyond rage to something.

Maybe the hostages. It’s not the rage at the government, but the sense of solidarity, of care, of a vision of a different Israel that we want to claim. It can’t just be anti-government, you see. It can’t. There has to be a larger calling that’s going to bring people out, because rage activates rage. Mournfulness is not rage. They’re not the same.

Yossi: So you know why I’m smiling. Because you and I, every few months, we have the same argument.

Donniel: Really? I don’t remember. I don’t remember.

Yossi: And so I’ll refresh your memory. When you say we need more than rage, we need a vision, my response is yes, we need a vision. But in order to get to the point where we can begin to conceive of a vision, we need to bring this government down and it will only be brought down with righteous rage. And I think this is an opportunity, this is one of those moments that have been all too infrequent. It will pass, but I sense that the public today, literally today, is galvanized in a way that it hasn’t been before. And that gives me hope.

And then, Donniel, I will be more than happy to hand the microphone over to you and to get the vision, get the vision thing down, as George Bush called it.

Donniel: I hear you. It’s interesting to think about what causes this tipping point, what will bring it about. Our job now, in many ways I had hoped that we were in another place. Part of what we knew this coming year was going to be about was the transformation of Israeli society. And we’ll have plenty of time, but maybe today is a day of mourning. For Hersh, Carmel, Ori, Eden, Alex, Almog. For beautiful lives that were cut short. For people who survived heroically and were just murdered. For their families who held on.

You know, I was closest and you were too, Eliot, know, who, superhuman efforts to give Hersh a name and a place and his parents and all of that, and so today is a day of mourning. And tomorrow will be a day of funerals. And the day after will be a day of mourning. And I know the rage has to be there. But there’s also something deep about the mourning. The humanity, the tragedy. And the tragedies that are continuing to hit us as a people. These are difficult times, Yossi.

Thank you for being with me to all of our audience, I wish it was under different circumstances. And to our audience, have strength and let’s remember these six. Hopefully they’ll be the last six. And hopefully a deal will be signed as soon as possible. So whoever is still alive could be brought home. Be well, my friends.

Yossi: It’s good to be back, Donniel, good to be back together.