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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.

And Now Lebanon Transcript

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

Donniel: Hi, friends. This is Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi from the Shalom Hartman Institute, and this is our podcast, For Heaven’s Sake — Israel in Turmoil. And today is day 348 since the hostages were taken.

We taped the podcast on day 347. But the events of yesterday afternoon and last night made our podcast feel, not irrelevant, but not what we need to talk about.

Yossi: It feels like it almost belongs to another era.

Donniel: Isn’t it a strange thing how part of what’s happening to us in Israel is that eras change, generational changes, in, on an hourly basis? And so we felt we needed to tape another one this morning, which takes into account the momentous events that occurred yesterday afternoon.

But it’s not just yesterday afternoon, it’s the larger context of where Israel is going right now. And the events of the Mossad, apparently the Mossad activating these mini bombs in 4,000, 5,000 pagers across parts of Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere. And what does that mean?

And so, our, our theme for today is called “And Now Lebanon.” And Now Lebanon. Now, Yossi, you’ve written about this, we’ve talked about it, we have a lot of ambivalence, on the one hand, the need to resolve the challenge of Lebanon is self-evident to everybody in Israeli society regardless of your political identification or whether you’re left, center-left, center, center-right, far-right.

We have hundreds of thousands of Israelis who are either not living in their homes in the north or whose life is basically in chaos. They’re living under constant, constant, missile attacks, anti-tank attacks. The first, from zero to ten kilometers is uninhabitable. Major parts of the Golan, the Galil, north of Haifa, Akko, Nahariya, Rosh Pina, all cities, hundreds of thousands of people are living with constant sirens, which dwarf the Hamas attacks, missile attacks of the past. Basically, we have a security zone in Israel.

Yossi: On our side of the border.

Donniel: On our side of the border, which has made northern Israel uninhabitable. And everybody knows this is, this can’t be, this can’t be. But yet, there’s, we’re approaching this Lebanon, I can’t, the war started, or the conflict is already in existence, but this new escalation with some level of trepidation, with concern, with despite. The understanding that this is a just war and a necessary war, it doesn’t have the self evidency of October 7th and 8th in Gaza with Hamas. There’s something different.

And what I want to do, want to talk today is want to talk about, how do we feel about Lebanon? How do we feel about what the Mossad did? How do we understand what we’re, where we are now as a country and the complexity that we face? So, first let’s, how did, when you heard the news, what was it, at 3, at 3:30? At 3. 30 yesterday or so, you get, there’s this vague reports and we, all of us watch the news on a, every minute or so we, we check in. There’s this vague report about multiple bombs going off in the suburbs of Beirut. What is it, Dahieh? And then it gets revealed that, well, 4,000, 5,000 pagers that were just purchased, all exploded simultaneously. And Hezbollah operatives, Hezbollah leaders, Hezbollah officers, basically, were pinpointed.

How did you feel the minute you heard this? And how did you feel when you woke up? Like, compare the two.

Yossi: Yeah, well, first of all, I just have to tell you, I loved the line that you opened with about how generational change happens here sometimes on an hourly basis, and how that impacts on how we feel and how we think. Because how I think today is actually very different from how I thought yesterday. And that’s something we’ll need to unpack.

But first, the emotional response. It was this visceral sense of relief, relief. And the reason that I felt is because what we are carrying since October 7th, the shadow that hovers over the state of Israel and each of us is this sense of historic failure. The collapse of our deterrence in, in a region that doesn’t accept our, our presence here. If you lose your deterrence, even if that is just psychological, even if it doesn’t necessarily have a basis in fact, but we all suspect that it does have a basis in fact, that has profound impact on the balance of power, on whether, for example, the Houthis in Yemen feel daring enough to launch a missile at Tel Aviv.

It has, it’s not just an emotional, deterrence is not just an emotional quality, it has actual, tangible impact. Security and political implications. And so the first feeling was, we still have it in us. We’re still capable of that Entebbe daring. We’re still, we’re still the country that bombed Saddam’s nuclear reactor. And so relief. Relief. And that was, that was the first emotion.

What was your first reaction?

Donniel: It’s like, we’re such different people.

Yossi: Yeah, well.

Donniel: I wonder how we’re like, why are we such good friends? Yeah. I felt anger.

Yossi: Anger?

Donniel: Anger.

Yossi: Wow. And I’m assuming anger at us.

Donniel: At us. Like, for what? Like, what does this achieve? Like it’s one thing if you want to bomb a nuclear reactor. I can understand that. That’s not bravado. That is changing a balance of power. See, I don’t believe that we lost our deterrence in October. I don’t think October 7th, I don’t see it as a historic failure. I see it as a, as a horrific failure, but not a historic failure. I see it as a moment. I feel Israel’s deterrence has been undermined, not by October 7th, but by everything that’s happened since October.

So I’m coming, we’re wired very differently, and I’m saying like, I felt like this was just like some. You know, there’s a term, in Yiddish, it’s like a shtick. How do you say shtick?

Yossi: An act.

Donniel: It’s like we had a thing, you know. Okay, so it’s like, I want to show you how clever I am. And what made me even more aggravated is that, I went like, why would I do it at 3. in the afternoon, out of, with no context. If we had this capability, it could be a game changer in the midst of a war, which, and by the way, part of all of Israel is now gearing for this war in Lebanon. The government is speaking about it. They’re, they’ve redefined the goals of it. Israel is now talking war in Lebanon.

It’s as if the war in Gaza is sort of, there’s nothing more that’s going to happen. The hostages aren’t home and we don’t know when they’re going to come home and if there’s anything we can do or not. It’s like there’s a status quo now. We’re not talking about the day after. We’re not talking even about next week. Like, what do you plan on doing next week? It’s more or less right now.

You know, what’s that game where, I’m sorry if this sounds vulgar, where you put this hammer and like, when something pops up you bang the head. It’s like, so now, it’s like we’re sort of hovering over Gaza, wherever Hamas shows its head, and very often they’re showing their head now in various schools. I saw articles about this. We’re going in and we’re playing this, but it’s sort of a status quo.

And now everybody realizes that there’s this horrific thing that’s, there’s this reality that we’re aware of more than the rest of the world of this, of a security zone within Israel that’s made northern Israel uninhabitable. And so, if we have to go to war, use this in the context of a war. I felt like, you know what I felt? I felt exactly that what Israelis, everybody was so happy. It’s like, I felt exactly, you know what, you represented what Israelis felt. Like, Ah! See? We won.

And if you watch Channel 14, which is a extreme version of, makes Fox News look like MSNBC, Channel 14 here, they were just, oh, look at this. We were, we castrated them. I can’t tell you, I was sitting there and I’m saying, what are we doing this for? Do you want to, it’s like you’re forcing us into a war. You’re forcing us into this engagement with power. So from the beginning, I had it and then I started to watch. When is the missile attack going to happen? When is it going to happen? The air, the foreign airlines stopped their flying to Israel. Like that whole scene repeated again.

Yossi: All right, so the emotional response that I felt initially was tempered by two other emotions. The first was this sudden thought about the hostages and their families. How are they responding to this? And you can be sure it wasn’t with ecstasy. And the sense of, well, has this now buried any chance of freeing them? And so there was this angst that I felt. And then I felt something else. I had a Donniel moment. And I’m going to do a little Donniel which is, and you’re invited, by the way, to have a Yossi moment here too, as, as reciprocity.

Donniel: I don’t promise.

Yossi: The Donniel moment was, don’t gloat. Don’t rejoice. And I felt the horror of this mass maiming, because most of the, most of the terrorists who we attacked will live. But we’ve, we did a mass crippling of thousands of people. Now, I own it. I own that act. I’m not, I’m not being squeamish here. If you would ask me, should we do this, my response would be unequivocal, yes. This is how we have to deal with an enemy that has no restraint and whose goal is our destruction. But between that affirmation of the necessity of the act and celebrating the act? I couldn’t. And that’s why I said I felt relief.

And you know, I thought about what Chazal, what the ancient rabbi said, “Binfol oyvecha, al tismach.” When your enemies fall, don’t rejoice. And that’s something, you know, I was taught that as a kid, and I always, I said, okay, that’s nice. But I felt it viscerally with this mass, and that if we rejoice, we are maiming ourselves in some way. And so there was that, and it took me by surprise. The fact that I, and maybe I’ve been talking to you for too long, Donniel. Maybe I have you in my head.

Donniel: You saw the celebration. You saw, I’m not on social media, so I just read the mainstream. You saw the celebratory. It was aesthetically repulsive.

Yossi: And more than that. It was a self impairment. It was, it was something that, it sheepened us.

Donniel: You know, it’s interesting. I’m not going to do a Yossi moment, if that’s okay. But I didn’t feel, since I wasn’t on social media, I didn’t see, I wasn’t gloating, I wasn’t happy from the beginning. I have to put this in another context, and I’d like your feelings about this, because I think on this too we’re going to disagree.

I’m upset about this whole turn towards Lebanon and this move to engage in a military operation in Lebanon, something that’s now self evident in Israeli society. Everybody. Everybody’s saying, time for discussion. I even heard Lapid says it for sure. Gantz, the same thing. Even Gallant is now saying, it’s time for, the only solution now in Lebanon is a military operation.

You know, for you, October 7th was such a disempowering, dangerous moment. For me, the last, close to a year has been a very, very powerful moment of constantly learning the limits of our power. And I know you’re very upset about that conversation because the issue of deterrence is something that you feel very, very deeply. I understand it. I don’t feel it as deeply, but I’m not arguing with you.

Yossi: But I do, I do want to clarify for our listeners that where you’re coming from, you know, there’s a thin line between caution and realism, on the one hand and defeatism on the other. You are not a defeatist. And it’s so important for our listeners to understand, and I want, I want to clarify.

Donniel: For me?

Yossi: Yes.

Donniel: I’m not being a defeatist. I’m just saying I’m aware.

Yossi: I feel like we need, Donniel, you affirm the need for military action. You’re not a pacifist. I think. I just want that on the table.

Donniel: Those who want it, thank you. First of all, thank you for looking out for me, but those who want to misunderstand me, it’s like, you know, gesundheit, as we say in Yiddish, go for it. But that’s not what I’m saying. I just think we already won the war in Gaza. Not Netanyahu’s complete victory, which was never achievable, and that should never have been the goal. A murderous group attacked us, we destroyed their missile capability, we now own Gaza, and we have the potential to begin a political solution for Gaza that was impossible beforehand.

We now have a majority of Gazans, huge majority, condemning October 7th, something that they didn’t even do two, three months ago. There’s a dead end. Something’s changed. The world is ready to get involved. I don’t believe that there is a military solution for the complete victory, which I don’t even know, for even the next stage. I feel part of what we’ve learned is the limitation of our power.

So in this context, when I hear this shift, this bravado, yes, let’s move into Lebanon. Let’s now, I heard there was this general, Effi Eitam, sits there on the radio and he goes, yes, we have three objectives that are quite simple and we can achieve them. And these objectives are yes, we have to destroy Hezbollah’s military capacity. We have to destroy their officers chain of command and destroy their top officers, including Nasrallah. And we have to reinstitute a security zone with Israeli outposts in Southern Lebanon and he’s talking, like, really?

What have you learned over the last 11 months about Israel’s security, about our ability to fight a, a non conventional war, about our ability. What have you learned of the last two wars in Lebanon? All of the above. So when I see this, what happens is that there’s this move, that it’s self evident that we, that the solution, this is my problem, Yossi. It seems that it’s self evident that the solution to our problems is always the use of military force.

You’re right, I’m not a pacifist. I want to use military force cautiously. I want us, just like Netanyahu did in the past, I want to use it, declare victory, and stop. But now we’re running, and when I saw these, these pagers exploding, We were forcing Nasrallah and Hezbollah to respond, which would then force us, we’re escalating into the use of force instead of, instead of any other possibility.

Yossi: Yes, okay. Where I disagree with you is, first of all, it’s a long list. First of all, hat we won the war in Gaza. We didn’t win the war in Gaza. I’m ready to consider the possibility that we haven’t completely lost. That’s a possibility. But if you ask me what it’s going to be like the morning after Yahya Sinwar will emerge from the ruins of Gaza declaring victory. That will, again, psychologically, that will have its own momentum.

Donniel: No, I want to just stop you there for one second, because there’s a long list. But I just want to explain. I didn’t say that we defeated Hamas. It’s a victory because there is now in place the possibility to change the future. If we don’t engage in a political solution, then you’re right. Sinwar is going to come out, and the same thing is going to continue. We have locked ourselves into a discourse in Gaza in which the only tool we have is military. And then I agree we haven’t won. But if you add something else to the equation then we won because now we have the possibility. So, but I know our issue is Lebanon, not Gaza.

Yossi: All right. But we certainly need a game plan for the morning after. It’s something you and I have discussed here in previous episodes, but that, for me, that is a morning after, a credible morning after scenario, is based on the defeat of Hamas. And that’s, that’s not, that’s not going to happen. And so victory, it certainly is not.

Donniel: Okay, even though we’re not talking, I’m going to give you the last word, but please, listeners, note what I said three minutes ago because it still applies.

Yossi: And that’s, and that is Donniel giving me the last word. It’s a new, it’s actually a new maneuver.

Donniel: I’m footnoting. How do you footnote in a podcast? But okay, yes, go on. Now let’s go back to Lebanon.

Yossi: My deepest disagreement with you is looking at this period. What began on October 7th is one long war. It is the Iranian-Israeli war with multiple shifting fronts. And to treat the conflict with Hezbollah as somehow separate from Hamas, I think is, is, is missing the wider context of the period that we’re in. We are now in a war that is probably going to take us through the next couple of years. And it’s going to culminate in a direct Iranian Israeli conflict. And I see no way to avoid that.

Now, the question is timing. And here, you know, the ambivalence that you and I have talked about, and we talked about yesterday, that I feel is that this government lacks the legitimacy within large parts of the Israeli public for a decisive showdown with Hezbollah. A showdown which is unavoidable, and yet, the fact that this government is now engaged in a very dirty maneuver to get rid of Defense Minister Gallant, who is extremely capable, and replace him with a politician with no military credibility in the middle of a war, Gideon Sa’ar, who has agreed to join the government and, apparently, it’s not finalized yet.

Donniel: They’re holding it back right now. Who knows, whenever this podcast comes out, whether it will happen or not.

Yossi: And Gideon Sa’ar’s replacement of Gallant is intended to shore up the government so that it can complete its term in office, it’s the next two years. And part of this dirty deal is that Sa’ar will agree to a draft deferment for the ultra-Orthodox, thereby ensuring that the ultra-Orthodox parties remain in the coalition. So this has a, and by the way, I just read today that another part of this agreement is that Sa’ar will waive his demand for a commission of inquiry. So there’ll be no commission of inquiry for the, it just gets worse and worse the more you read the details.

And so what I felt yesterday was that half this country is going to say, this is illegitimate. This government has no right to take us into war. It’s all political. And so I worried for very practical reasons. Could we really fight the next phase of this, and a far more difficult phase than what we, what we experienced over the last year? That was my take yesterday.

And one reason why I so deeply connected to what you, how you began this podcast by saying that we change from hour to hour here is, I looked at the reaction of the Israeli public. I looked at my own reaction. And the fact that I said, ah, I didn’t for a moment question whether the government had the right, the legitimacy to do this, knowing full well what you said, this could trigger the war in Lebanon. So how did I move, I have to ask myself this question, how do I live with these contradictions?

Donniel: What is the contradiction? On the one hand, feeling that it’s illegitimate, but the bombing was legitmate?

Yossi: Yes, the bombing is clearly a step toward, toward war. And the whole opposition, lined up in favor of this move. Now, there are interesting details that have come out this morning. The Americans have revealed that Israel had planned to trigger these beepers as the opening move in the war. In other words, they were going to save it, and it would have been an extraordinary tactical victory in the context of a war.

Your criticism, which is an important insight, is that this seems to be coming out of nowhere. But what the Americans said was that Israel decided to activate the plan because there was a realistic fear that Hezbollah was catching on, that this was about to be uncovered.

Now, if I’m the Prime Minister, and the head of the Mossad comes to me and says, listen, it’s now or never with this plan, they’re onto us. I’ll ask you, and I know the answer, but I’ll ask you rhetorically, in any case, do you say yes or no? This plan that is one of the most brilliant in the history of covert warfare, not only in our history, that could severely cripple and not just, not just physically maim thousands of Hezbollah operatives, taking them out of the next war, but maim Hezbollah’s reputation, its self confidence, heighten its paranoia about being infiltrated. This has so many positive strategic consequences. Do you say, go for it? Or do you, or do you say the Donniel caution, which is no, because this isn’t coming in any wider strategic context, which is an important argument. But that’s the question. You’re the prime minister. What do you do, Donniel?

Donniel: The challenge of being a Prime Minister, I love being a rabbi much more, by the way, is you have all these tools. You have all this stuff. You have all these toys and all this power and all this ability. You have all these buttons that you could push. But because you have an ability to use something, even more than that, because you have a right to do it, and I’m not, as you said, I’m not a pacifist, I’m not, you know, thank God as many Hezbollah terrorists as you could kill, God bless you. But because you have that ability and because you have a right, who said it’s right to do it?

I come from another place. I don’t believe that we can resolve Lebanon with another war. I don’t think we’re going to bring our people home with another war. Just like I don’t believe that continuing the war is gonna bring the hostages home. I don’t believe that any battle with Hezbollah is gonna make the north safe. I think our destiny is gonna be the exact same thing.

Yossi: So what’s your game plan? What do you tell the tens of thousands of Israelis who’ve been in, in hotel rooms.

Donniel: I have a different game plan. My game plan is, you start a negotiated solution for Gaza, which is a solution with the international community and the institution of a new governing body that will completely neutralize the power of Hamas. That, once that happens, and you have a ceasefire in Gaza, then you have a possibility of a ceasefire in Lebanon.

See, the reality is, is we have an enemy, and there’s Hezbollah as that enemy, and Iran is that enemy, that we’re going to have to deal with. I just don’t believe that because we have a military threat, that as a result, we necessarily have to believe that we have a military solution.

Yossi: That’s very well-put.

Donniel: This is where, this is my problem. And I’m seeing us going like, and by the way, when you spoke about the legitimacy of the war, I actually felt something. I felt everybody in Israel thought it was legitimate across, you’re worried about the legitimacy of this government. People on the left, people on the right, everybody said, you know, war in Lebanon is acceptable, even Yair Lapid.

Yossi: This is what I felt yesterday is, well,

Donniel: But it wasn’t yesterday, it was even before yesterday.

Yossi: Yes, you’re right. But what my realization for myself was that, wait a minute, if you’re ready to support such a far reaching move, which will open the possibility of war with this government, then you just need to own the war and say, look, if this is the government we have, we have this, we have tens of thousands of people sitting on suitcases. The country cannot continue this way. So if this, you know, as we say in Hebrew, ze mah yesh, if that’s what we’ve got, then just play the hand.

Donniel: But that’s, you see, this is where I feel a little lonely. I feel that I’ve been experiencing something these last 11 months that, that most Israelis have not. And maybe they just don’t want to admit it. Maybe they do feel it. Maybe I am saying something that more Israelis feel, but that they don’t have a language because in our society we can’t talk about it that way. And that is understanding and coming terms with the limits of our power.

I do believe we won in Gaza. And we have, and we will win when, just like, you know, in other war, in these other operations, Netanyahu declared victory. Okay, let’s just declare victory. We achieved something. We achieved something. It was successful. Now let’s go to the next stage. Why do we constantly function under the notion, because we have an army, every problem is a nail? This bravado in the way we talk about Lebanon. As if we’re going to go in and it’s going to be some quick operation and we’re, it’s, I believe, it’s insane. We know that our, let’s just even, let’s just count, like, could we talk about our weaknesses without feeling that it’s defeatist? Could we talk about the fact that our soldiers are tired?

You know, employees of the Institute were called up this morning again, and as I was speaking to someone who works with me very closely, my assistant, it’s like he doesn’t, he has no energy. He was four months, already, serving. His wife is now pregnant. He just, he’s 43 years old. He had, we all understand that we have to solve the problem of Northern Israel. I’m there. But is there any other option? One, do we have the energy? Do we have all the munitions that we need? Do we have the international support? What’s going to happen? We know what happens in Lebanon. We do these massive bombings. There’s a whole picture. Is there any caution?

So when I saw these beepers exploding, I saw, forcing the hand, it’s as if, you know, I, you asked me, I’m prime minister, I have a toy. And that toy might be taken away from me. I want to use it, at least once, without asking what I think our prime minister should ask. What are the options that we have? And Israeli society here is not asking that question, and I, I’m wondering. Yes, Yossi?

Yossi: Being in one long war, with constantly shifting fronts, with Iran hovering in the background as the ultimate threat, creates a situation where there are no simple answers. And more than that, it leads to contradictory responses, which is what I feel, because part of me says, this government can’t lead us into war. The conditions are not ripe for reasons that you just mentioned and others. Is America going to resupply us? How do you go into the next phase of this war, a far more dangerous phase, without guaranteeing that we have America’s backing? It’s a, the election is coming. We’re the last thing on anyone’s mind, outside of ourselves.

Donniel: By the way, that’s a very important articulation.

Yossi: So, I have many questions, and of course the legitimacy of the government. Yes, that is still, that’s, and the legitimacy of this imminent deal, which is just going to sully everything. It’s going to cheapen everything. So I have, I have questions, a deep ambivalence, but it’s ambivalence in the old meaning of the term. You know, ambivalence has since come to mean I’m against. No, ambivalence means that I really am ambivalent.

And if I’m the prime minister and the head of the Mossad comes to me and says, we have a way of delivering a substantial blow in the middle of this long ongoing war. And it’s not just hanging in the air. It is part of a years long conflict. And I have the opportunity to deliver a major blow. How would I live with myself if I pass that up?

Donniel: I appreciate that. You know, as we begin to wrap up this conversation, I want to add, add one more point, and then give you the last word, without any footnotes. Actually, it depends on what you say.

But, you know, as I look at this imminent war that’s coming with Lebanon and the lack of imagination in Israeli society as to its options. I don’t know if it’s a fixation, or if it’s a stuckness, or it’s a sense of destiny that the only solution to our problems is always military. We were very frightened about a multi-front war. And the reality is, is that we, even though we were attacked by the Houthis, and even though Hezbollah made northern Israel uninhabitable, the reality is that outside of our air force, our ground forces have been fighting a one-front war. This multi-front war was what we were always afraid of. And we thought that what Sinwar wanted was to activate this multiple front. And that that would somehow defeat us.

Do you know what the greatest danger is? It’s not a multi front war. It’s a multi-year war. And I feel that we are being pulled in directions. Like they’re setting it up for us. Sinwar is sitting there in his tunnel. And he’s looking and saying, it’s now 348 days and you haven’t found me. And even if you find me, I’m now rebuilding my forces. I’m re-equipping. You know, you want to try to solve this militarily? Knock yourself out, it’s going to take you, you’ve already lost the world. How many, today, four soldiers were killed. Four soldiers were killed. Again, you know, I’m gonna cut you and cut you and you’re gonna try to get your absolute victory because you got stuck. You got stuck into this notion of this absolute victory and I have that.

And now Nasrallah is sitting there and he’s going to slowly begin his engagement. A multi-year war is not something that I believe we can, militarily, economically, psychologically, I believe even morally, not to speak of politically sustain. And I think it behooves us to ask ourselves, okay, we have all these little tricks and we have all these little tools and all these little buttons, we have a right to do things, but sometimes the intelligent thing is not to do what you have a right to do. I want that conversation to surface in Israeli society in a way that it’s not yet surfacing. Last word, Yossi?

Yossi: So where we disagree is in how to fight a multi-year war. And for me, again, there’s no easy formula. We’ve never been in a situation like this. But being in a war that I regard as existential, and since it’s existential, it’s unavoidable, means that even if you may be right, in the end, it doesn’t matter because we have no choice. We have to fight this war. We have to fight this war as if we can win. And we’ll live with the consequences.

Donniel: I’d like to, I want to pick up this notion that we have to fight this war and live with the consequences, that sense of inevitability. I want to, I want us to develop that, but I think it needs its own podcast and its own, and I want to give it, basically, since I gave you the last word and I don’t, I don’t want, I don’t want to argue. I just want to say that we’ll move it to the next episode, because we have to talk about ths notion of inevitability.

Yossi: We’ll move it to the next episode. But I do want to say one last thing, which is however deeply I disagree with you, your voice is in my head. And that’s so important for our integrity, to have the, an annoying voice.

Donniel: Oh, thank you.

Yossi: No, no, you know, in the middle of a war, to hear the kinds of things you said is annoying for Israelis. And annoying is the least offensive way to describe it. There are many Israelis who would use far stronger language.

Donniel: Yeah, death threats were…

Yossi: But it’s essential. It’s essential, Donniel. Your voice is essential.

Donniel: Yossi, I want to tell you, I’m, thank you, but I, I’m telling you, I’m getting tired of being so lonely here.

Yossi: Yeah, I, I appreciate that. I appreciate that.

Yossi: And that’s why I want to affirm.

Donniel: Thank you.

Yossi: No, no, I mean that.

Donniel: I appreciate it. But anyway, my friend, our friends, Yossi, thank you. We have a lot more to talk about. I hope this podcast is going to be aired, because it could be that, who knows what’s going to happen this afternoon. But we’re going to air this one. We have a lot to think about. This is For Heaven’s Sake, Israel in a lot of turmoil. Day 348. Our hostages are still not home. And I don’t know what to bless ourselves with in the days to come. Maybe some wisdom. Some wisdom.

Yossi: Amen.