The following is a transcript of Episode 121 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 from the Shalom Hartman Institute. And this is For Heaven’s Sake, Israel at War. And today is day 186. And our theme for today is entitled “The Victory Debate.”

Yossi, I don’t know if you sense as much as I do, a shift going on, this week already, maybe a little bit last week, some might have seen it a few weeks ago already, in the tenor of debate in Israeli society. We’re angrier. We’re attacking and speaking more viciously, those against Netanyahu, hostage deals, something is shifting. 

And then as the latest hostage deal is possibly reaching a conclusion, and we really don’t know because Hamas is sort of pulling us along, and the issue of Rafah is returning over and again, there seems to be a debate, or what, or I want to interpret the debate in Israel as not a debate about Rafah and hostages, but in essence, a much deeper debate about what victory we need. 

It’s not the victory we seek. I don’t think after October 7, you speak about, I’m seeking a victory. It’s, what victory I need. What is it that I need to somehow repair the tear? It’s not even the trauma. It really is the tear, the morning of October 7. And there’s all these interesting, there’s different opinions. What is enough? 

And recently even, I have never seen such a position put forth in Israel. Smotrich and Ben Gvir actually said, if we do not attack in Rafah, they’re going to leave the coalition. I’ve seen people say that if you dismantle settlements, if you pursue a certain policy, then I have no place in the government. I have never heard an Israeli party say that if you don’t continue to fight explicitly and specifically in Rafah, there is no, this government is going to come to an end. And similarly, if the hostages don’t come back, there is no victory. 

So there’s something going on that I need to figure out. And so I get to speak with my friend. And let’s talk about, I want to divide today into two parts. I want us to understand Israeli society and to analyze it. What are the different notions of victory that we see in Israel? And then I also want to get very specific about the victory that you need and the victory that I need. And hopefully further some understanding of where we are today on day 186. 

So, taking this lens of the victory debate, Yossi, how do you apply it to various parts of Israeli society?

Yossi: So I, Donniel, I really appreciate the way you’re framing the shift in Israeli society. There’s no question that we, we’re experiencing a kind of an emotional, psychological turning point in the war. But I’d like to flip the order that you’re proposing and begin with the victory that I need, as a way of trying to understand what’s happening in the wider society. And, you know, that’s really been… 

Donniel: We’ll flip it for both of us. Go.

Yossi: Yeah, yeah. And I think that that’s really been the spirit of our conversation together over these last six months. We begin with what we’re struggling with, and then we actually have the arrogance to suppose that that’s important for the rest of society.

Donniel: I had hoped, Yossi, that we could spend more time talking so that I can make more sense of what I need and I’m feeling. But you’re forcing me to come straight out. So, OK, I’ll play catch-up. But thank God, you go first. 

You know, and I’ll even push you a little bit, because throughout the last six months, very often, you did say that what you need is the return of Israel’s deterrence, that we cannot live in the Middle East if people aren’t fearful of our power. Is that still your victory? Or is it refined? Is it more than that? Have we achieved that in your mind? Or how far are we from achieving it?

Yossi: I still need the destruction of Hamas’s capacity to govern. That’s not the same as saying the destruction of Hamas, because we all know that Hamas is an idea. In fact, Hamas isn’t even an ideology, it’s a theology. You don’t destroy theologies. But you certainly can limit or even destroy its capability for governance. That hasn’t changed for me. 

You know, Donniel, when you were laying out the threats of Smotrich and Ben Gvir to leave the government, if we don’t invade Rafah, and my instinctive response was for me, victory will be an invasion of Rafah, and Smotrich and Ben Gvir leaving the government. So that gives you some idea of the contradictions that I think all of us in Israel are struggling with between what we want and there are obviously others who want different configurations of victory. 

But my, I would really, and now I’m being serious about this, my three notions of victory here. The three elements of victory is, first of all, the destruction of Hamas’s ability to govern, secondly, the return of the hostages, and third, the replacement of this government moving to new elections. 

Now, I said those three in a particular order that I’m personally not committed to. I actually am leaning more and more to thinking that the other two, that the two goals of the war of destroying Hamas’s capability to govern and bringing back the hostages, depends on replacing the government.

Donniel: That’s interesting. Again, as your friend, you’re in a difficult place right now. 

Yossi: Yeah, tell me about it.

Donniel:I hear you. 

Yossi: Donniel, I got bad news for you. We’re all in a difficult place right now.

Donniel: No, because if I actually analyze what you just said, Yossi,it’s actually, I don’t even know if it’s coherent. Can I tell you, can I share you, can I tell you where my question is?

Because if we’re in the midst of a war, which has a timeline, and there’s a completely different timeline for the replacement of the government, and what you’re basically saying then is that the critical issue is not Rafah, it’s not even what happens in Gaza. The focus has to be on the change of the government. And I don’t know if you mean that. So that’s just what I heard. So I want to get, it’s like, could you explain it? You could change it, explain it. Maybe I didn’t hear you correctly.

Yossi: Yes. So what’s changed for me in the last days is this growing realization that we will not be able to destroy Hamas’s capacity to govern so long as this government remains in power, a government that has lost or is losing, one of the most pro-Israel administrations in the history of the relationship, that has lost all moral credibility and that has even lost its ability to minimally hold Israeli society together around the goal of the war. That’s what we’ve lost the last week or two.

Donniel: So that means, Yossi, you’re saying we lost the war, because the government’s not gonna change for a while. It’s certainly not gonna change for the next year. Deep down, like I’m hearing a real shift, maybe. Do you mind if I push you a little bit? 

Yossi: Please, please do. But I want to challenge what you’ve just said.

Donniel: Great, sure. 

Yossi: That the government will not be replaced for another year. I don’t know. We haven’t seen real pressure coming from the Israeli public. We have the ultra-Orthodox bill that’s pending. This is a very unstable coalition. 

Donniel: Okay, so there are details. The only one that I would disagree with, I think I would claim empirical disagreement, is that the force of the street is going to take time. You might have some factual issues. You might claim the ultra-Orthodox bill. You might claim that Smotrich or Ben Gvir might drop out. Those are things that could happen quicker. But the energy that would be needed to move from war mode to, in many ways, civil war mode, is not an overnight phenomenon. 

But it’s interesting, and I’m wondering, and if I could push a little bit, I feel that part of one of the reasons why you’re saying this is that in some degree, your earlier definition of what you needed has been achieved. Israel’s ability to destroy and the military might that it has brought to bear have made a point. 

And so there’s two things going on. On the one hand, we made that point and on the other hand, you’re saying, we can’t really destroy Hamas as a theology. You know they’re still going to be there. Maybe their explicit or specific capacity or ability to govern we could limit. Maybe we’ve even achieved most of that already.

So that’s moving you to another level of victory. I hear you talking differently than the way you were talking. And maybe it’s because there’s a check that there’s something that’s happened. It’s not perfect. It’s not great. This war is a very troubling war, but there may be in you, Yossi, there’s a sense of dayenu. We did something. And now when we talk about victory, it’s not going to happen by one more or two more or three more brigades, or another 30 or 50 days of war, it’s going to require a much more systemic change in Israeli society. Would that be a fair reading of what or analysis of where you are?

Yossi: Yes, until you, until the point where you began with dayenu. For me, 

Donniel: Ah, that’s because you’re not a dayenu person in your psychology.

Yossi: No, no, absolutely not.

Donniel: I was using my language. I was using the way I look at the world and I forgot who I’m talking to here. That’s true.

Yossi: Right, right, right. So look, you know, the question really for me is what happens if this war ends with Yahya Sinwar emerging from the tunnel, waving the V sign? Now, in the Middle East, perception is essential to determining the outcome of a war. And if Hamas is allowed to declare victory, and I already know what you’re going to come back with, you’re going to say, who cares what they say, they’re going to declare victory anyway. That’s true. That is true. The question is how credible will it be.

Donniel: Just so I know, are you having fun debating me by yourself? I just want to know. Is it working for you?

Yossi: You know something, I think that you and I could actually do these podcasts on our own, without the other, and act as if the other is there, and just simply argue with each other after all these months. Okay, so I think that perceptions matter a great deal.

Donniel: Yeah, I couldn’t. I learned too much. So, okay, but go for it. But okay, and I’m not going to say that. I’m going to surprise you. Go on.

Yossi: The truth in what you’re saying, what resonates for me about what you’re saying, Donniel, is that I think that we have been more successful than much of the Israeli public allows itself to believe. That’s not quite dayenu, because again if we if we allow Hamas to regroup, to be part of the next government, even if it isn’t forming the next government, we will have lost. I do feel that. 

So I’m torn, but I also believe, look, let me give you one last example here of why I feel this government can’t take us any farther. The demonstration, the growing demonstrations, pressuring the government to make a deal on the hostages. I happen to agree with this government, and those words are painful for me, but I happen to agree with this government that street demonstrations to pressure Israel to make a deal with Hamas, harden Hamas, harden its resolve, and make the price that much more painful. I think the government is right.

The problem is that I fully understand the hostages’ families. They don’t believe that this government really cares about the hostages, leaving aside the question whether they’re right or wrong. The fact that there is that perception means that this government has lost all of its moral standing, never mind in Washington, in Jerusalem.

Donniel: But let’s get back, Yossi, and I know you feel this very deeply, but let’s concentrate on the victory debate. And I want to offer my list of two.

Yossi: You’ve been wonderfully restrained. I have to tell you, Donniel. And I really, I appreciate it.

Donniel: It was coming from the place of me trying to figure out what I’m feeling. So I don’t know whether it was restraint or self-interest. But I have two primary needs for victory. And replacing of the government is not part of them. But it is your first two, but in a different way. 

We went to war on October 7th, not to bring the hostages back, that took time, that took time. We went to war because we wanted to destroy Hamas. We wanted to destroy the danger that we face as a people and as a country. And over the months, as we saw the war plotting along, there are different notions of what victory means. And I abide by your minimalistic definition of victory, and that is the ability we have to undermine and destroy the capacity of Hamas to govern. 

But unlike you, I actually believe that we’ve already done that in 90% of Gaza. We haven’t done it in Rafah. And frankly, you know, stay in your tunnels, knock yourself out. The core ability of Hamas to govern has already been destroyed, but on one condition. Victory will only be achieved when we put in place another force in Gaza to combat and fight against Hamas and rule the Gazans. And that’s not us. 

I don’t want our soldiers to be day in and day out having to decide, is this a terrorist, is this a civilian shooting because they don’t know if a person coming close to them is going to blow themselves up. It’s an imp… And the casualties, that’s our staying in Gaza is for me the ultimate defeat. The ultimate defeat. 

Victory is replacing Hamas in Gaza. But that means replacing it with another Palestinian form of government. And it’s not gonna be perfect, but that’s what’s critical for victory. And actually, we are short of victory one simple decision, the training and implementation and selection of a Palestinian force who will rule in Gaza. That’s one. 

And the second one is the return of the hostages. And one of the things that we see right now is that one of the myths that we presented and said to ourselves, and I’m not critiquing us, we didn’t know. As time passes, we learn things. And so as we change our mind, that’s just because new data is coming in. 

At one stage of the war, the hostage return was contingent on military pressure. Right now, it’s not. That is not motivating now. Maybe the first hostage deal was motivated. Now it’s Qatar, the United States, pressure. And they have enough to stay in their tunnels for quite a while, and actually they’re not just in Rafah. As we learned, as we saw just a couple of weeks ago, they’ve already moved back north. There were 800 terrorists in Shifa Hospital. I want you to understand. Israel’s whole notion of undermining the military force of Hamas, it’s negligible. We’ve been in Khan Yunis now for close to two months. What, did we kill a thousand people? And again, I’m just doing my own math. It’s a little bit beyond my pay grade, but still, if you do the math, we’re talking about 12,000. We didn’t… the Hamas terrorists aren’t showing up in the battlefield, so we’re not destroying… We’re going to destroy the command and control centers. Listen, after six months, that’s overrated. 

Right now, if we put in force another body supported by the international community and Saudi Arabia and Egypt and the Gulf states, we won. Hamas will be marginalized, stuck in Rafah. The rest of Gaza will be able to rebuild slowly and surely. That’s one victory. 

And the second one is there is no victory and I didn’t see this on October 7th. And I don’t know if I saw it on November 1st either. And it took the families and their pain and it took the frustration and it took the first hostage return and it took me time to fully understand that the other side is, we have to make Israel as whole again as possible, and that there is no victory without the return of hostages alive or dead. 

And today Hamas says there’s less than 70 alive. And unfortunately, about certain things, I believe them. 

And so those are my two. And the one area that I do disagree with you, but for a different reason, is, of course perceptions matter. But declarations don’t. People could declare anything they want. You could declare anything you want. Do you think there isn’t a perception that Israel has completely decimated Gaza, that the attack on October 7th brought so much more harm on Palestinians than they could have ever imagined? Do you think this is something that they’re looking forward to? We have ruined the lives of 2 million people. 

So you know what? Sinwar is going to say what Sinwar is going to say. Yossi, when you are dependent on what he’s going to say, you’re giving him all the control. You’re never going to control. He could lie. He could say, he’s going to say whatever he wants. Listen, he is going to get a couple of thousand terrorists released. Or once we get to the soldiers, three, four, five thousand terrorists released. He’s going to have his day. 

But at the end of the day, we do know if there is another force in power and our hostages have returned, Sinwar and Hamas say whatever you want. We will have achieved, not a healing, but a rebalancing. And yes, in my life it’s different. A dayenu. We’ll not have erased October 7th, but we’ll have a dayenu. Does that make sense to you?

Yossi: Yeah, I appreciate the way that you’re reformulating this in two ways. One is that you’re right that what will determine the perception is not what Sinwar says, it’s what the people of Gaza will say. 

Donniel: It’s what they will feel, not even what they’ll say, Yossi, because they’re gonna say, they’re gonna say anything that doesn’t, you know, people always say also how happy they are to, you know, my kids, words don’t matter.

Yossi: And so there really is this question of whether this war will convince, not only Palestinians, but maybe more broadly people in the Arab and Muslim worlds that inflicting atrocities on Israel, as we would say in Brooklyn, doesn’t work so good as a strategy. And after October 7th comes October 8th. 

What you were saying about the ability of the government to present a coherent plan for governing Gaza the morning after as part of our perception of victory is actually another argument for replacing the government, because we both know it’s not going to happen under this government. It can’t happen. And so I appreciate the question about the timeline. I appreciate the ambiguity with which I’m struggling. And you pointed that out. And I don’t have a good answer for that. But I do know that what you define correctly, I think, as an essential component of victory will not be possible unless the government is replaced. So that’s one thing. That’s already two things. The third thing is about the hostages. 

Donniel: Who’s counting, Yossi?

Yossi: The hostages. And I’ve also come to that position. And like you, I was not clear about linking victory with the return of the hostages in the early months of the war. What changed for me is the realization that the goal of the war, one of the essential goals of the war, which was restoring our own faith in Israel’s ability to defend itself. And that’s an essential part of restoring our deterrence. It’s also how deterrence plays within Israeli society. 

We couldn’t protect these people on October 7th. If we can’t protect them now, if we can’t retrieve them from Hamas, then our faith in the foundational ethos of this society will begin to unravel.

Donniel: You know, Yossi, if I could stop you, if I could stop you here, like, for me the hostages are very different. I think for the first few weeks of the war, I think I saw the hostages as the casualties. It was, you know, there were 1200 deaths and 240 hostages. It was 1400 and something casualties. And so they were separate. 

But bringing them back is not, for me, connected to a sense of deterrence. I think we have that deterrence. And if the hostages were casualties, they’re casualties. It’s, my people are there. I can’t have a victory when, I don’t see them as casualties anymore. They’re my people and they’re alive and they’re not okay. Like the 1200, how many of us are thinking, even though in Israeli newspapers we see, you know, there’s stories over and again of all of the victims and it’s horrific. The hostages aren’t casualties. They’re our people and it has nothing to do with deterrence. It has to do with healing ourselves, not healing our military power. And for me, I don’t know if it’s victory. We can’t go on if they’re left behind. That whole notion, you don’t leave people behind. So that’s where it is for me. 

Yossi: So I think you’ve just clarified something very important in terms of a difference between us, which is that for me the need to restore our military credibility is existential. And the dayenu piece of this is not good enough for me. I really need, again, forgive me for quoting Netanyahu, I need total victory. However one defines total victory, and my definition of total victory is not his definition, because he doesn’t have a definition. He’s just playing mind games with the Israeli public. 

But I agree that we have an overwhelming need to restore our military credibility. And so in this particular case, and it’s very painful for me to say this, if I have to prioritize what the goals are, the first goal is military deterrence. The second goal is restoring the hostages. How I square that circle is by linking, is by linking the return of the hostages to restoring our deterrents.

Donniel: I see, I see. I would just say to you, you don’t have to, don’t worry about being consistent, and linking. It’s okay, it’s okay. 

You know, it’s interesting, we called today’s session “The Victory Debate,” and I wanted to speak about Israeli society, but our time is more or less up, as we were figuring out and talking ourselves, maybe about the victory debate amongst the two of us. And I don’t know how much of a debate there is, but I want to end with a caution, and it’s a term that you used, and it is something that we’re going to have to pick up again. And don’t worry, I’ll give you the last word if you want it. The word “total victory.”

Yossi, I have no problem with you, because I know you. You want to use the word “total victory,” I’m with you. But in the details of what you’re saying, it’s not total. It’s a different, you’re so nuanced. You’re right, look at you. 

Yossi: Right. No, no, you’re right.

Donniel: You know, like you’re so thoughtful, you’ve changed. You’ve allowed reality. You’ve internalized the six months of the war. You’re not, the deterrence you’ve already achieved, even though Hamas is still around. You’re not talking about, you used to talk about destroying their ability to, as a military force, now you’re just speaking about their ability to govern. There’s so much nuance and growth that you have experienced, and so have I. Not because we’re talking to each other, because we’ve seen six months of a war progressing. 

Yossi: And, and, and because we’re talking to each other, Daniel.

Donniel: And okay, we’ll give that too, but not just, but we’ve seen it. So we know, just like America had to learn in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have come to terms and we are starting to come to terms with the limit of hard power, you know, the distinction between hard power and soft power. Hard power is the use of military might. Soft power is economic, cultural influences.

We’ve seen the limits of hard power and what it could really achieve. And at the end of the day, we killed more terrorists in this secondary little operation than we killed, I don’t know, in a month.

The limits of hard power, the limits of our being able to continue to fight, so the only thing I would struggle with is that your notion of total victory is a new notion of total victory, which actually has a lot of dayenu in it, but that’s my words, don’t worry. Don’t worry, I’m not… 

Yossi: And not a lot of total.

Donniel: And not a lot of total, exactly, but there’s not a lot of total, but Yossi, you used the words, but, readjust to reality and are saying, okay, what could I live with? I’m not going to get everything. But what are the critical things that Israel needs for its safety? I speak about what does it need for its safety, but also for its political future, and for a political rehabilitation of Gaza, as well as a rehabilitation of the soul of our people. 

But the word total victory, which we really, if we would start to analyze Israeli society, that’s one of the great, great obstacles. Because when people speak about Rafah, and when people speak about total victory, part of my skepticism, and you know, okay, I know the majority of Israelis, and it’s not just Netanyahu, argue that we have to go into Rafah, but I could tell you, I already know. I know we’re gonna go into Rafah, and what are we gonna do, spend two months? And we’ll again, you know, they’ll talk about, yes, today we took out three terrorists with an RPG. It’ll be one of those, you know? 

We’ve learned. And our notion of total victory has changed, but for many Israelis, it hasn’t. And part of the reason why people are saying, if you don’t go into Rafah, the government has no, has no legitimacy anymore, and we’re gonna bring it down, is there’s this fantasy, not of limiting Hamas’s ability to govern, but of somehow wiping them off the face of the earth. 

And if we’ve learned anything in the last six months it’s that doesn’t happen, but that desire is still alive and well. And I believe that until Israeli society doesn’t free itself from that messianic fantasy, that psychological need, and I understand it, there’s going to be a path of war and destruction, not to speak of alienation of ourselves from the world, that actually is going to be undermining our deterrence and moving us further away from victory. 

Last word, Yossi?

Yossi: Oh, I think we’re done for now.

Donniel: Okay, totally. We are totalled. We’re done for now. Okay, my friend. This is, listen, and again, like we said this in the past. We have to start talking about victory. What is enough or what’s total? And when there’s only one definition of victory, and both of us actually had very different, not even from each other, from much of the public discourse being put out of Israel and what the pro-Israel community is supposed to believe, you know, whether it’s in Israel or outside of Israel. Total victory, the defeat of Hamas, that whole fantasy that unless we don’t go into Rafah, unless we don’t do this, unless we don’t go here, somehow we’ve lost. 

I think it’s time for us to take the six months of experience, the way the world is shifting and changing and looking for new opportunities and more subtle definitions of what total victory might mean.

Yossi: So I actually will take up your offer for a last word here, because I do want to reaffirm my belief in the need to go into Rafah and greatly diminish Hamas’s military capacity, which will impact on its ability to govern.

Donniel: Fair enough. We’ll leave that, I was fine without that final clarification, but that’s OK.

Yossi, it’s good being with you. 

Yossi: Always a pleasure.

Donniel: My friends, this is For Heaven’s Sake, Israel at war, Day 186. And the Jewish people looking for some measure of victory.

For more ideas from the Shalom Hartman Institute about what’s unfolding right now, sign up for a newsletter in the show notes and subscribe to this podcast everywhere podcasts are available. See you next time, and thanks for listening.