About

Thoughtful debate elevates us all. In For Heaven’s Sake, 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 future of Zionism in Israel and on the global stage.

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 Domestic Front Transcript

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

Donniel: Hi, this is Doniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi from the Shalom Hartman Institute, and this is For Heaven’s Sake, Israel at Ceasefire, Day 522. And today, like every day, we remember that there are still 59 hostages in Gaza, 24 hopefully alive.

Our theme for today, we’re calling the domestic front, and we want to share with you a story. We constantly try to put our finger on where Israelis are and what we’re feeling. In times of war, everything is focused, especially initially. You’re focused on the goals, you’re focused on casualties, you’re focused on what we need to do to win. People are all under the stretcher, as we’ve taught our audience. There’s a certain unity and focus.

As the war progressed, things have dissipated. We even had a session on “the war against ourselves,” I think it was called. But this week, what we sense in Israel is on this domestic front, there’s this diffusion, but it’s not a calm, like you’d think, like, once the war is over, like we could actually breathe. We still can’t breathe. But instead of one front, there is a whole spectrum of issues that are simmering and coming to the fore. The context, which we should all remember is 31st, a budget has to be passed.

Now, under Israeli law, if the budget is not passed, you don’t need a no-confidence vote to dismantle the government. If a budget isn’t passed, the government automatically falls. And there are all these issues, which in the context of March 31st, are becoming more and more acute, more and more there. It’s important to state at the beginning. That still the war issues are there, you know, are we going to start the war again?

The new chief of staff seems to be a serious man. Everybody recognizes that this was not a political appointment. He’s a serious man, but you know, generals are trained to fight. They’re not diplomats. What that means, we don’t know. Hostages. There’s now conversation just a few minutes before we started to tape about extending stage one for 60 more days with various Humanitarian aid and other issues for the sake of 11 alive hostages of the 24 being returned. Like, something along these lines for an extended, what they call hudna, which is a ceasefire of some form. But we don’t know. Like, every day, something gets thrown at us.

But it’s interesting. I feel that actually the issues of war and hostage aren’t on me anymore. It’s like, this is not Israel, it’s like, depends what the administration in the United States is going to decide. That’s why the hostage families, they go there, they don’t even bother talking to Netanyahu anymore. They go to the Knesset to protest, but they don’t go to talk to anybody who they think is going to make any difference. So on that one, I’m almost, I’m watching, I’m watching, I’m concerned.

But there’s a whole slew of other issues that I want to put forth and talk with you about it, Yossi. There’s so many issues, I’ll name some, you’ll name others, but the foundation of them is that our internal divides back and they are manifesting themselves in so many ways besides the war and the hostages. The ultra-Orthodox exemption bill being drafted, the return of the judicial reform, especially the potential firing of the Attorney General, which is a huge issue, because right now, she is the only one who is standing for law and ensuring that the government functions within certain parameters.

There’s this secret thing that no one’s allowed to talk about now because there’s been a ban on all communication, but since we don’t know anything, we’re allowed to talk about it. And that is the Qatari investigation of a whole group of Netanyahu aides, who it seems got hundreds if not millions of dollars from Qatar, to advocate for Qatar within the government and now it’s been completely banned. It’s just—the firing, potentially, of the head of the Shin Bet.

We used to have like one headline. Now, the whole page is a headline. And if I had to summarize Israeli sensibility right now, it’s, I don’t sense we’re depressed, I don’t sense we’re sad, I sense we’re just fatigued, Yossi, we’re just fatigued. And this is the domestic front, and in the midst of this, the questions are, what is this fatigue, and are there ways of overcoming, like, I have no patience for this incessant internal warfare, it’s like, enough already, but, but it’s there, I can…

And I think when you talk to Israelis about, it’s just like, it used to be, you’d ask Israelis, how are you, and they’d give you a whole speech, how am I, I’m as good as, as, as this, I’m, I’m given the situation, now, you know what they do, they just shrug. So, where do, run with this, Yossi?

Yossi: That’s right. We are a nation that wants one thing more than anything else, more than victory, more than anything, we want healing. We want to start to heal, and instead we have a government that feeds off of schism, that sees its continued survival as dependent on pitting one part of the country against the other. This is our most desperate time, emotionally, our most needy time. And this is the leadership we have. So just on that level, it’s so appalling.

And you know, listening to you go through the list of domestic crises that we’re facing, and as you’re speaking, in my mind, I’m going through each one of them and realizing just how outrageous every one of those issues is. So, for example, passing a mass exemption for Haredi young men at a moment when our young people have done 200, even 300 days of reserve duty in Lebanon and in Gaza, and now are being called up again for another 30, 60, 90 days. At what point do we start to break?

Or talk of firing the Attorney General. Netanyahu is on trial for corruption. He has no right to touch the judiciary. And for that alone, he should be impeached, or whatever the Israeli equivalent, we don’t impeach, but he should fall. So every one of these, you know, and Qatar-gate, as it’s being called here, you know, these aren’t just.

Donniel: Explain Qatargate a little bit, because it’s maybe the scariest of all.

Yossi: It is. These are the closest. Advisors to Netanyahu. His innermost core, who we now know without question, received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Qatar in 2022 to promote Qatar’s image, in various forums, around the world. Why they needed Netanyahu’s closest associates to do that is certainly an interesting question.

Donniel: No, we know because the whole issue was Netanyahu was accepting Qatari influx of money for Hamas as the foundation for stability in Gaza.

Yossi: Yeah, so we have a situation where it’s, I know we’re not supposed to talk about this legally, so we’re allowed to, because we don’t know anything. We just have opinions. We’re just speculating. So, what is known, what has been reported until now is that Qatar has paid Netanyahu’s closest associates. It’s not yet clear exactly how deeply this goes, and for what exactly they were paid, and how much they were paid. Was it only, quote, only hundreds of thousands of dollars? Was it millions of dollars?

Donniel: Or whether Netanyahu knew about it or not, that’s also…

Yossi: We don’t know. And then one could go a step further, but we won’t speculate. And so, what we’re really looking at is one outrage after the other. And when you talk about the psyche of Israel, I’ll just speak for myself, and I ask myself this, how much more can I take?

I feel personally assaulted. I’m humiliated by my own government. We spoke about, in previous podcasts, you and I talked about Israel’s three-front war. We’re facing a military struggle. We’re facing a struggle for our legitimacy around the world, and we’re facing a struggle internally to preserve Israeli democracy and, and more deeply, Israeli decency, the decency of Israeli society.

I feel like we are in the hands of the enemy. In the grips of a, of a profoundly indecent leadership that has nothing to do with left, center, right. Bennett is more genuinely right-wing, Naftali Bennett, than Netanyahu, and Netanyahu is an opportunist. He’s not an ideologue. Bennett’s an ideologue. Bennett’s right wing. I pray for Bennett to be the prime minister.

Donniel: You know, when you use the word decency, I’ve always been unbelievably moved. I don’t know his name, but in the McCarthy era, when McCarthy was ruling, his fear campaign and battle against the communists, at one point he went too far. I don’t remember the person’s name who gets up and said Have you no decency, sir? Have you no decency? And that was like the beginning of a tipping point.

And so often, I don’t want to use the word crisis, you use the word crisis. I have a crisis of using the word crisis. Like I can’t do it anymore. It’s like, I can’t.

Yossi: That’s your, that’s your breaking point.

Donniel: That’s my, like I can’t. That’s why I’m so happy this is not Israel at war, even though it might have to become again. I’d rather be Israel at ceasefire and eventually, I just want to go back to my life.

Yossi: Donniel, I hate to tell you, I hate to tell you. For me, this is the deepest crisis of all. The crisis of Israeli decency is what will determine the long term fate and stability of Israeli society.

Donniel: I know, I prefer to use, call it a challenge. I’m not arguing with you. I just, I just can’t use that word anymore. It’s like everywhere we’re going, there’s just so, and again, I just came back from a three week trip to America and so much of what you’re describing, we can come up with a different list. And so many Americans feel similarly. It’s like it’s, it’s, there’s so much upheaval.

Yossi: But you know the difference? I’ll tell you. Yes, I recognize the similarities. The difference is that when we feel a fundamental threat to the decency of our society, it has immediate consequences. It affects the morale of soldiers at the front. It affects our willingness to sacrifice. It affects the willingness of young people to continue living here.

You know, it’s, you’re not going to have a mass immigration from America because of Trump. But the consequences here could be very serious. Let’s talk about that. And that’s, and Donniel, that’s a crisis.

Donniel: I can’t, but okay, I’m not arguing with you. I just can’t use that word anymore. It’s like I’ve run out. It’s like how many times you could use the word crisis in a week. I think I’ve just run out. So it’s like next week I can come back.

So I agree with you. I think what you said is very, very deep, and it touches what I feel when you speak to Israelis. They want to heal. And there’s so many things in the way. There’s so many things in the way. And so one of the questions I want to talk about, and I don’t know the answer to, is can we heal? Like you mentioned, Bennett. You know, we have this nostalgic memory. of Bennett a lifetime ago, when he was prime minister. How many years ago was it? Two, three?

Yossi: 2022. About forty years ago.

Donniel: Yeah, three years. About forty years ago. About forty years ago. And we got up in the morning, and there was a government who was there working for the people. There were right wing and left wing. Not just that they sat together. That was uninteresting. What was interesting is that they complimented each other.

Yossi: And they worked. They worked.

Donniel: But in addition to working, they actually said, you know, Bennett said these are my political adversaries, but I’ve discovered that they’re really good people.

Yossi: And that they care as much about the country as I do. Which is a big thing.

Donniel: Yes. That culture. And I think his primary political power, which is, makes him in every election like the biggest party, is I think people are healing, are yearning, for some of that healing force, even though he himself is starting to change because he himself said, I don’t want to have any Arabs in my coalition this time. I was very disappointed, but that’s part of his right-wingness.

Yossi: That’s true, but it’s also a savvy recognition of the price he paid for bringing the Islamists into government.

Donniel: I still hope for politicians who lead without their noses up the, on whatever it is of the pollsters. Is this our destiny? Like, it’s a crisis, you say. So what are we going to do? How do we get out of this? Besides, I know it’s trivial to say we need a new election and a new government, which is a good enough answer. But in this environment now, you know, there was a moment where you called for decency. But no one’s going to turn out for demonstrations or they’re going to be smaller, it’s just people are tired.

In this moment, doo you have any good news? Any hopeful thoughts?

Yossi: Can we hold that question for the next podcast so we can think about it?

No, and actually, that’s not a facetious answer. I think it’s a really important question. I mean, look, I have a general, I’d say two points that are getting me through this time. The first is, The recognition of how quickly we transitioned from our most dysfunctional, schismatic moment, which was October 6th and the year that preceded it, and how we immediately pivoted to October 8th, which was one of our most unifying moments, which means that we still have the memory, the instincts of national solidarity. We know how to do it.

And I think that our ability to come together on October 8th was far more profound than May 1967, just before the Six Day War. I remember May 1967 very well, you probably a little less. But May 1967, which was, you know, celebrated justifiably as this great outpouring of national unity, wasn’t preceded by bitter infighting. October 7th was preceded by the worst schism in Israel’s history, and yet we came together instantly. And so that’s the first thing that’s giving me strength. And when this war ends, Israeli society is going to be faced with a choice. Do we go back to October 6th? Or, do we build on October 8th? And I think most Israelis want to build on October 8th. This is an October 6th government.

The second thing, Donniel, that gives me hope, this is hard hope, but I have a certain grudging or backhanded gratitude to this government for exposing certain deep seated distortions in the personality of the Jewish people that we’ve carried for thousands of years, and we didn’t, we just didn’t want to look at it.

A tendency to fanaticism, zealotry, corruption in high places, hatred within the Jewish people, the tendency to schism—these are all archetypes that you see in biblical times. And then the long exile came, and it kind of, it suppressed it. And now we’re back in this land and this government is rubbing our faces in it, in all of the failures, the collective, let’s put it in a more positive sense, the work that we need to do as a people on ourselves.

Donniel: It’s there right in front of you.

Yossi: It’s, you know, and look, you and I, we can be as sentimental as anyone about the Jewish people. We love the Jewish people. And yet the experience of the last two years. We’ve had our faces rubbed in our failures.

Donniel: So the blueprint is right there. If you just look at it, you know what you need to do. It doesn’t require any great innovation.

Yossi: And sometimes I feel, Donniel, that we’ve come back home to do that work that we failed to do and that brought us down 2,000 years ago, that helped cause the exile. Now we’re back. And this is the work we have to do.

So, and this government has given us no choice because the situation is so desperate, the corruption, the moral corruption, the literal corruption on every level is so blatant, we have no choice and the healing, if we are a people, as the expression goes, that seeks life, a chafetz chaim, and we are, we are a people that seeks life. This is the work of the next generation.

Donniel: You know, first of all, thank you for that. I needed it. On a much more short term level, there’s two things that made me, I don’t want to say happy, but that gave me some comfort. And they’re very, very different.

You know, the chief of staff resigned and he was very well beloved and I respected him and I trusted him, Herzi Halevi. I do, you know, we didn’t want to talk about it, but there were a lot of legitimate criticisms about the way, forget not only at the preparedness on October 7th, but also on how the war was conducted. I’m not sure that he will be remembered, even though beforehand he was known as one of Israel’s greatest strategic, you know, heroes. I’m not sure he did the greatest job. And, you know, we don’t like to talk about it. But there he left.

And then I felt unbelievably vulnerable. Who is this government going to pick? There’s a minister of defense, who personally I don’t trust. He wants headlines because he’s running to replace Netanyahu, so his significant other is the Likud base.

Yossi: Let me put that in less diplomatic terms. We have never had a more incompetent Minister of Defense than this guy.

Donniel: Again, you pick your language, I appreciate that. I get to be the more mature one today. Completely a political appointee. He is. It was just, like it’s, this is a very, in this country, Minister of Defense is a big job and it’s the most important job. It’s like life and death. And so I was so worried. Who are they going to pick for the chief of staff?

And I’m sitting there and I’m thinking about soldiers in the field and I’m thinking about the deep political divides. Are you going to pick somebody who is one of those generals who just say let’s kill more or like who are very clearly political or theologically aligned and Netanyahu has a very deep engagement with the far right religious Zionists, so many of his, of his advisors, that he feels most comfortable. I don’t know if he feels or maybe Sara Netanyahu feels most comfortable with this group of people. And I was worried. Like I said, please don’t ruin the army. Could you just keep us with one place which could be beyond politics, and I know there’s politics, but…

Yossi: Especially after they destroyed the police.

Donniel: They destroyed the police. They also politicized the army and attacked it over and again. You know, there’s even conspiracy theories, you know. His son, Yair, speaks about the fact that we allowed October 7th to happen so that we could fire Netanyahu. And that’s why we can’t have a national, what is it called? Inquiry?

Yossi: Commission of inquiry.

Donniel: Commission of inquiry because, of course, that was the whole idea. Like, there’s such sickness. And I was sitting, like, I was feeling like there was an angst that I don’t like to let myself feel, but it’s like creeping in. And then they picked a person who everybody, yeah, this is the best guy. They didn’t look for, one second, it’s, what are your politics, where does he live, religious, secular, Ashkenazi, Sepharadi, like, it just didn’t matter. This is a guy, who, the minute they picked him, there were other people, who, oh my god, like, was, was Katz gonna be creative right now, and was he gonna try to show that, here it is, we wanna win, we’re in power, we pick our leaders, and they didn’t do that.

And, I don’t know whether he’s gonna turn out good or bad, but he’s a serious person. And they kept my army, where my children, my grandchildren, my nephews, my family, my friends. So there was a moment where this government transcended, I believe, politics. And that is a model for something really, really important.

Do you want to, there’s another thing I want to share, but I want to give you space here.

Yossi: Today, I met with a senior official in one of the government ministries, I won’t mention which one. Someone whose decency, to coin a phrase, I deeply respect. And the minister is someone whose decency I do not respect. And he said to me…

Donniel: Like normally, that would be limiting. That would be giving hints. But we still don’t have a clue.

Yossi: Oh, it’s all of them. It’s all of them, but we don’t have a clue. Donniel, I can’t think of a single one.

Donniel: I can, but you know, but it’s still broad enough that his identity is hidden. Good.

Yossi: So, and I said, I said, What’s left? What’s left in your ministry? He said you’d be shocked. He said the civil service has by and large held. These are quality people, dedicated professionals. And so, that gave me some hope. Right. That this government has not succeeded in turning the civil service into a scorched earth, reflection of itself.

Donniel: See, so in many ways, it comes back to, there are parts. Like you spoke about October 8th, this is not October 8th, but also a lot of these ministers who we don’t like, they haven’t picked a scorched earth policy. They’re not fighting Netanyahu. There are some whose job it is just to be Netanyahu’s defense docs, just to bark and attack and spread disunion. But there are people. They’re still civil servants on the political, governmental level, but they haven’t fought them.

We, listen, we know what’s happening in the United States. So there, what you could do when you have complete unchecked power could be scary. As I’m sitting here today, there’s a certain level of calmness in this storm. And I think it also gives us a sense of like, where do we need to go? I don’t have such high expectations. I don’t need utopia redemption.

Yossi: Don’t worry, you won’t get it.

Donniel: It’s, but like, that at the critical junctures in our life, this government was still able to say not everything, this is not partisan politics.

There’s a second thing. We don’t specifically script our podcast. Like, we just talk, right? But the truth is, you and I, we think our whole lives about this. And I’m always thinking about how I’m feeling. Like, I’m reflecting on my reflections and how I’m feeling and what I’m experiencing. And I noticed that I’m feeling very different about this government since Ben Gvir resigned.

Now, I’m not pro-government, and I’m not, but I don’t feel, you know, there’s still Smotrich here. But, it’s like, I can handle one. Ben Gvir flooded my public consciousness and violated it all the time. And the consequence of Netanyahu’s decision It’s very, very deep. Here’s a man who was the Minister of Homeland Security in charge of the police, doing a horrific job, but his job was to be the attack against democracy, against morality, against everybody and anybody who wasn’t an ultra-nationalist calling them a betrayal and his self aggrandizement is not there. There’s a minister. Nobody even knows his name. I’m not saying he’s yet changed the police. I’m not claiming that all the damage that Ben Gvir did is gone. But he’s going to work. And I have to tell you, you know, I have a little more room to breathe.

And so when I look to the future, we don’t need all our divides to be healed. There’s real divides, but a path for the future is to ask, what’s the radical extreme? You know, boundaries have a purpose, but they’re very dangerous when you put them in the wrong place, because then boundaries could divide us. But there has to be things beyond our decency. Ben Gvir is beyond our decency. And it gives me a direction, and I hope I have to tell you I’m breathing.

Even the Haredim again, it’s an assault, and I understand it. And they’re doing crazy things. Do you, do you know that in the latest coalition allocation we are allocating money to organizations that are training Haredim how not to be drafted. They’re getting government funding. These hotlines. It’s like,

Yossi: Good luck with that breathing, Donniel.

Donniel: No, but I can tell you. I’m like, but I can. I can see that. I can handle certain levels, but when the Netanyahu government goes back to some level of national responsibility, when the hostage deal and the war, like, it’s in Witkoff’s hands, I don’t know why I trust him, but like I somehow feel he seems to be somehow quite reasonable. I don’t know, there’s something about him, the way he talks. I’m calmer about that. I don’t feel like our government on its own. You know, there’s, and I always had respect for Dermer, I don’t necessarily agree with him always. But I have more respect, I think he’s a very serious man. Like he’s a, he’s not, he might be an ideologue, but he’s not a political hack. There’s a question about what he believes. But all of that, and then you add this removal of Ben Gvir… Yossi, I’m sensing from your body that you disagree and I’m going to plead with you, don’t depress me. I’m, I’m, I’m feeling a little better today, Yossi.

Yossi: All right. So, so, all I’ll say is, Donniel, that I’m really glad you’re breathing. I think we all need to breathe. I remind myself a hundred times a day to breathe. I don’t feel the same sense of relief with Ben Gvir’s resignation from his cabinet position, because, first of all, his spirit is still hovering over the police. You see that the police have internalized Ben Gvir’s norms, and you see it in how they behave at demonstrations, you see it in how they’re still behaving toward the Arab minority. The damage has been profoundly done, and this government is not doing anything to change the culture that he created in the police.

And in terms of a sense of national responsibility, I think that this government is the antithesis of national responsibility. And if anything, Ben Gvir and Smotrich have principles, and the Haridim, the ultra-Orthodox, they also have principles. They’re not my principles, but yes, they, they, they certainly, they care about their communities. They know exactly why they’re there. They’re public servants. They’re not servants of the entire Israeli public, just a part of it.

The Likud has been recreated totally in Netanyahu’s corrupt image. And this is the tragedy.

Donniel: So could I articulate what I said now into a theory? In light of what you just said. How do we heal? We have to be different than what you just said. I disagree with you. Not that I disagree about one fact. You’re getting it right. It’s, how do we heal? By finding something positive to hold on to, including in the person who we disagree with. Including in that person, can I hold a, is there something, because the divides are deep, and only, you know, crises of external, like, will somehow put them on hold, but trying to find, what is it, a silver lining? It’s not, I’m not talking about a silver lining, I’m talking about a moment, a moment of grace, and when there’s moments of grace, you add them up, and by the way, I know, by next week, they’ll be gone.

You know, the Haredi vote, we got, it’s like, it’s gonna be there and all these things. And, and if judicial reform, I look at Levin, if there’s ever a person who, the minister of justice, the minister of justice, just, he has no decency. It’s like, he is convinced that the only way to save Israel is to just stomp on all of us for his pure campaign to free Israel from some mythic left wing force.

Yossi: Donniel, Donniel, you were, you were starting, you were, you were on a positive… I don’t want to, I don’t want to ruin that.

Donniel: I won’t, I won’t, but I’m saying like, that’ll come. But whenever there is, like, how do we heal? We’ve always been a divided people. Judaism divides us more than it unites us. Politics divides us. But maybe one of the ways to heal is to find those moments, the appointment of the chief of staff some year. The disappointment, even like a month of breathing, without Ben Gvir, reminds us that we could still have boundaries that could help us get together. That national unity governments need to have boundaries, and when we have them, something might happen.

So anyway, this, for me, this gives me a little hope this week, and I want to tell you, I’ll take it. I’ll take this week. Yossi, last thoughts, please?

Yossi: I really appreciate what you’ve just said, and I don’t want to undermine that, because you’re right, we need any respite that we can get. Bennett said something very powerful that really strengthens what you’ve just said, which is, when you start to hate the other camp more than you love the country, you’re on your way to churban, to destruction.

Donniel: So, the reverse of that would be when you start to look for the hidden decency in your opponents, maybe you’re on your way to healing. So, I’ll give you that this week, Donniel. And I will, I will deny saying it next week.

And don’t worry. Somehow I have a feeling that we’ll both be there. But, we’ll take it week by week. That’s all we have. Yossi, thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be with you.

Yossi: Great to be with you.

Donniel: This is For Heaven’s Sake, Israel at ceasefire. Day 522. May we hear some good news for as many people as possible.