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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 End of the Status Quo 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.

For the last 340 days, we gave our podcast the subtitle of Israel at War. Maybe cause it’s 340 days, maybe cause we don’t, we don’t feel that that sufficiently defines where we are right now. Can’t be a permanent status. It’s 340 days since the hostages. Most of them haven’t even seen fresh air or the sun 340 days since they’re living in underground. But we’re gonna call our podcast now “Israel in turmoil.”

Yossi: It’s an all-purpose term that really could apply to Israel at any time, but it’s especially true now.

Donniel: Maybe we have this dream that maybe it won’t, but it’s not a normal time. In normal times, we didn’t need a subtitle, but somehow after 340 days, we’re waiting for the hostages to be released. There’s something incomplete, but I don’t know what the end of the war is even going to look like. Certainly not a complete victory. And so maybe for this week, let’s call it Israel in turmoil. Maybe by next week we’ll feel we have another subtitle.

Yossi: I think you and I feel we’re in turmoil, so it works.

Donniel: It works. And as an expression of that turmoil, the theme that we picked for today is the end of the status quo. In particular, and our focus for today, is the end of the status quo in the territories, in what in Israel we call Judea and Samaria, but the rest of the world is called the West Bank. And we in Israel, since the Second Intifada and the failure of the Oslo have basically functioned under the notion that our job is to assume a status quo in Judea and Samaria. That’s our job. And that is, we can maintain it.

We offered, they said no, and now, you know, as we say in Latin, “gornisht helfn,” there’s nothing that we could do that’s going to help. Whether that’s true or not true is a separate issue. But it’s out of our hands and therefore, what’s in our hands is, let’s see if we could hold it. Hold what? Hold a status that we’re not fully working out. The status quo is not to think about it. The status quo is to manage the conflict. The status quo is not to create too explosive and violent a reality. The status quo is to leave options on the table. The status quo is maybe just even not to think about it. And Judea and Samaria is not thought about.

In this Israel in turmoil, we’re not managing the conflict in Judea and Samaria. We’re not able to not think about it. It is actually over the last couple of weeks, together with the hostages, the primary issue spoken about in the newspapers spoken about by Israeli security officials, when Israeli security officials had to go to the government and to speak about what is posing an existential danger right now, they were most worried about Judea and Samaria.

Yossi: The settler violence in particular.

Donniel: A whole slew of things. They’re worried about the changing of the status quo in the Temple Mount. They’re worried about settler violence. They’re worried about the lack of judicial control or putting people on trial, which then activates the international courts. They’re worried about the increased violence in Judaism on the part of Hamas and terrorists. And they’re worried about the fact that we’re discovering. That there’s a Gaza in Jenin and Tulkarm and Chevron. There are weapon factories. Iran is now importing huge amounts of weapons.

There’s instability in the air. Judea and Samaria is not being managed. It’s about to explode. And with it exploding, far more than just Judea and Samaria itself, it threatens to explode our relationships with Jordan. It threatens a future coalition with Sunnis. It undermines the focus on Iran. It will make the north and Gaza seem like, I don’t want to say child’s play, but something minor, because if we’re talking about the length of Judea and Samaria and its proximity to the main centers of Israeli population, government, industry, et cetera, this is another story. And this is what’s worrying our security establishment right now.

And they’re warning. You know, like everyone said, who warned us about October 7th, you know, you just want the warning of the attack. But there was a warning that the status quo was not being maintained by Qatari money. So that warning was there, but the warning of October 7th, that exact was, so that’s the great failure. They’re warning now and telling us you’re living on, what’s the term, a kinder.

Yossi: A tinderbox.

Donniel: A tinderbox. A tinderbox. That’s right. Kinder is chocolate. I’m a grandfather, so that’s what I buy a lot of Kinder. But you’re sitting on a tinderbox. So let’s talk about what are the primary causes of this change of the status quo. And while it’s never only in our hands, when Israel is in turmoil, just like when Israel is at war, it’s not just our doing. Sometimes it’s not our doing at all, very often it’s our enemies doing. But let’s focus on, and this is what the security establishment are focusing on, on what, what is it that we are doing to stop managing this conflict right now? Something is going on.

Yossi: Look, the status quo was always an illusion. There’s no such thing as a status quo. The status quo creates a vacuum into which the forces who know exactly where they want to take us are able to go. And so that’s what happened. For the last 20 years, we had what the rest of us comforted ourselves by saying, it’s a status quo. We were, as you put it, we offered peace. They said, no, they went to four years of suicide bombings. Our response is status quo. We’re not going to do anything.

But of course, settlements continue to expand. The settlement movement strengthened. And what we’ve learned in the last two years of this government is that the most radical elements among the settlers were ready to step into positions of power and actively change the status quo.

Now, all these years, you know, we always had governments that were, by and large, pro settlement, with a few exceptions. But the explicit goal of annexation was never on the table until this government. This is the first government that included in its platform annexation. And so, the government came to power committed to changing the status quo. And so there’s no surprise. They’ve done it. They’re doing it every day. When you put Smotrich into the defense ministry and you give him the authority over the civilian aspects of the occupation, this is the result.

Now, leaving aside for a moment, Iran and Hamas, and we really obviously do need to talk about that. But look at the escalation of the last year of settler violence. This sense of the government is with us, or at the very least the government is not going to stop us. Now, those who know Zionist history will recognize that phrase, the government is with us. Arab rioters in the 1930s used to chant “the government is with us,” and they meant the British Mandate. And there’s something appallingly familiar about what’s happening now, except now this is on us. This is our government that’s turning a blind eye.

And I just want to say one thing from a personal perspective about what this means, the fact that we have a government that is allowing settlers to burn houses, uproot olive trees, and every so often actually murder an innocent Palestinian.

After October 7th, I was part of a movement among Jews all around the world of people who I’ve volunteered to defend Israel, to engage with the media, to make oneself available, and it’s a very tough sell defending the Gaza War, and it gets harder all the time. But then when you have uncontrolled settler violence in Judea and Samaria, what you’re facing is the media perception, which we have helped create, of a single Israeli assault against innocent Palestinians, from Gaza to Tulkarm. And how do you counter that? It’s like entering the boxing ring with one hand tied behind your back. And this is, what’s so painful about this, is it’s hard enough, guys, it’s really hard enough to be defending Israel at this point, and this makes it impossible.

Donniel: You know, Netanyahu, part of my anger at some of the response, you know, let’s just clarify also the term settler violence, because everybody who lives in Judea and Samaria is called a settler. And 95% of the people who live in Judea and Samaria are simply Israeli citizens, law-abiding people who live in settlements, no different than the cities of Israel, within the Green Line, supported by the government, funded by the government.

So when we talk about settlers, I always find it a term that even though we’ve made that distinction over and again, it’s just precisely because when people hear the term, it applies to everybody, when 95 plus percent would never even imagine of harming, taking the law into their hands it’s just not what they do. There’s a very small group. That group happens to be, though, intimately connected to the parties represented by Betzalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir.

Yossi: You can’t say they’re a fringe anymore. They’re sitting in the heart of government.

Donniel: No, they’re not the fringe, but I don’t want to speak.

Yossi: No, I agree. It’s an important distinction.

Donniel: The thing that’s changed is that they, this group, one of the distortions of the Religious-Zionist Party is that it is precisely some of the most extreme figures who represent a minority position within Israeli society, and even within religious Zionism, are all fulfilling these tremendous positions of authority, and they have a disproportionate power in this government,, far dwarfing the ultra-Orthodox parties in the past. They’re smart, they’re talented, so all of a sudden, the fact that,

Yossi: And they’re very committed.

Donniel: Oh, and they’re very, very committed. And so part of this is what you’re describing when you have this extreme violence happening by a small, small number of people, not insignificant, but small. But they’re coming from the community of the most important leaders of the religious Zionist community who come out and defend them.

And certainly when you have Betzalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, who are responsible for homeland security or for homeland affairs, who are therefore responsible to try to limit this violence, it’s gone. No one’s home, as they say.

Yossi: You know, look how many arrests the police under Ben Gurion have made of anti government demonstrators in Tel Aviv. Dozens, hundreds. And how many arrests have they made among the rioters in the territories?

Donniel: And it’s unbelievable. And when Netanyahu finally, after I don’t know how long, finally condemned it, he condemns it why? A, because you’re moving troops. You’re undermining our war in Gaza because we have to move troops here and you’re hurting our larger efforts. And you’re undermining the strength of the settlement in Judea and Samaria. He doesn’t get up and morally condemn this behavior.

Yossi: And he compares burning the homes of Palestinians to people blocking traffic at demonstrations in Tel Aviv.

Donniel: Could you not say that, please? I just, I don’t want to be, I can’t, I can’t.

Yossi: It’s unbearable. It’s actually unbearable.

Donniel: I can’t, I can’t be aggravated to that degree. So you know, it’s one core, as you said, this is one dramatic change in the status quo. We’re changing it. The reality is, is there was a plan and we’re not, we’re not managing the conflict. We’re not, we’re allowing a bunch of pyromaniacs or deep ideologues to,

Yossi: And if there was ever a time when Israel needed the pretense of a status quo, it’s now.

Donniel: That’s correct. I want to add another. To your analysis, I want to add another feature that’s changing and changed and is, and again, there is no counter ideology to compete against it, even though it’s not the ideology of the majority of Israelis. The term complete victory, which we’re looking for in Gaza is really a messianic category. It’s not a political category. There’s no such thing as complete victory. Never happens. There’s never a complete victory. There’s always, even when you have a complete victory of, in 1967 or in 1973, there’s always consequences. There’s never, you know, and they lived happily ever after, you know, and they drive into the sunset. There’s always something that, there’s no such thing as this complete victory, but that complete victory is a profound Messianic ideology.

So, it has its secular manifestations, but I believe that part of what is happening, both before October 7th and even more so post October 7th, is an application of the categories of complete victory, not just to Gaza, but also to Judea and Samaria. The notion that we’re managing a conflict is over. There’s a conflict that we could win. And some of the people say, I want to win it in Gaza. And that’s not just defeating Hamas, that’s, in fact, resettling Gaza. It’s the same group of people, I want to bring us back to 2005, I want to remove any of the concessions. And part of what you see is a desire to engage in conflict.

Now, it’s not that they’re simply warmongering. It’s a deeper issue than warmongering. This desire to engage in conflict and to achieve full victory is connected not to realpolitik but actually to messianic politics. And messianic politics has returned in a very deep way to Israeli society. You wrote about this for so much of your life. But post-2005, Messianic politics were removed from the religious Zionist community. They realized that Israelis aren’t listening to it. And as Rabbi Tau says, our job is not just to settle the land, but it’s to settle in the hearts. And we failed. Rabbi Tau, one of the most right wing figures. We failed to settle in the hearts of Israeli society, and we have to resettle, and as a result, they stopped talking about the holiness of the land, and they made it a security issue.

And now look, they settled, and now they’re mainstream in Israeli society. It was a phenomenal plan, it was successful. But this shift now, they hid the messianic discourse. But in the contest of October 7th, it’s emerged again. There’s a full victory. And just like we want a full victory on October 7th, we also want a full victory in Judea and Samaria.

Yossi: It’s interesting, Donniel, because that places them potentially at variance with the Israeli majority, which after October 7th, agreed with the settlers about security in the territories. The operative conclusion almost across the board was, we can’t even think about a two state solution now. That was the result of October 7th for mainstream Israel. For part of the settlement movement, there was a very different conclusion, which is, ah, now we have an opportunity to bring mainstream Israel along with us to the next messianic state.

Donniel: That’s correct. And you know where it gets manifested?

Yossi: On the Temple Mount.

Donniel: Temple Mount. Absolutely. Why Temple Mount now? Like, you sit and think about it. You depressed me before. I don’t want to depress people more. But yeah, this is what we’re thinking about, because this is also what’s making defense and security establishment hysterical. Changing the status quo on the Temple Mount now, in the midst of a war, in the midst of an attempt to create a Sunni coalition. Why now?

Now, it’s not by accident, because the Temple Mount is not a security issue. The Temple Mount is a messianic move. Reinstituting Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount. And when Itamar Ben Gvir walks and says, I determine this policy, not the state of it, he’s basically circumventing Realpolitik and he’s saying, we’re looking for complete victory. And complete victory, it’s not simply the army’s victory. It’s God’s victory. This search for conflict. It’s about reintroducing God into our political lives.

I see you smiling. I can, I can talk about this. I’m just getting warmed up, but I’m going to stop. What do you want to say?

Yossi: I’m smiling because, as you know, I come from that world, and I know the mindset. What is in those people’s minds is a line from the Israeli poet, Uri Zvi Greenberg, who was one of the great. Hebrew poets, and the great poet of ultranationalism. And he had a line that said, “Who controls the Mount, controls the land.” And when you talk about total victory, that line sums up why they are going for the Temple Mount now. Because if you control the mount, you control the land.

Now, you can understand this in two ways. Spiritually, if you control the epicenter of spiritual power in the land of Israel, you will control the land. But there’s also a very distorted practical reason for this as well, which is when you talk about pushing things to the limit in order to resolve the conflict, it can only happen through the Temple Mount.

If you look at the last 20 years in Jerusalem, the only time you’ve had uprisings of Palestinians in East Jerusalem,

Donniel: And in mainstream Israel.

Yossi: Yes, and among Arab Israelis was when there was any change in the status quo on the Mount. And so this is a deliberate provocation to push things to the limit because now we have a chance to resolve the issue.

Donniel: See, because now nobody is taking the, who’s standing for Palestinian rights right now. What are you talking about? Now, they’re the ones,

Yossi: In Israel.

Donniel: In Israel, I mean. They, they instigated October 7th. We quote polls, they want it, they liked it.

Yossi: This is the irony, the settlers won the argument on security on a two state solution, but it’s not enough for these people.

Donniel: And now they’re, because now I’m actually hearing people, mainstream Israelis talking about feeling threatened on a security level. Because I want to add a different dimension, you know, Uri Zvi Greenberg wouldn’t talk in these terms, but I think our tradition does. And that is the myth that whoever controls the Mount controls God. You control God.

Now, paradoxically, in our tradition, it’s the opposite. When something is closer to divinity, it’s manifested by the fact that human beings aren’t allowed to go up there. You’re not allowed. That’s why the ultra-Orthodox and almost most halakhic authorities say you’re not allowed to go up to the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount, the holiness of the Temple Mount manifests itself in the fact that you’re not allowed to be there. It’s God’s space, not your space. There’s a sense in which your faith creates humility, your sense whereby you leave a space between you and God. Even when God comes down on Mount Sinai, he’s hovering above. We and God are never supposed to inhabit, we can never inhabit the same space. That’s the essence of monotheism, not God being one, but the radical otherness of God and not transcending that space.

Yossi: It’s the essence of the ultimate sacred space.

Donniel: Sacred space. And so the ultra-Orthodox, there’s actually a fascinating now fight between the ultra-Orthodox and the religious nationalists. It’s also fueled partially by the fact that there are more ultra-Orthodox who are becoming religious nationalists, so there’s a political fight. But this notion, “I want to control the Temple Mount,” is to create a fight right now with Sunni, is to unite Sunnis and Shiites, and people are watching this. But when you believe that God will enter history, at the moment when there is an ultimate conflict, you’re basically trying to control God, and you’re trying to move us from any domain of realpolitik, and yes, if I control the Temple Mount, I control God and through that, I will control Jewish destiny. And that’s the only way to create a complete and total victory, because human beings will never have a complete victory, but God in the Messianic era will.

And this ideology, which was powerful in the 70s, in the 80s, sort of disappeared as Israeli society began to look at possibilities of peace and possibilities of compromise. Post-October 7th, with its pain and suffering, has reemerged into our discourse.

Yossi: See, in the last two decades, as you mentioned before, the messianic far right put its end game in a deep freeze, because they understood Israeli society, to use their language, isn’t ready yet. It’s not spiritually ready. October 7th, in their reading, created such a deep trauma among Israelis that you can now enter into that fissure, and people are so desperate for hope that this is the hope that they’re going to offer.

But let’s unpack it for a moment. What’s their endgame? What does total victory mean for Ben Gvir and Smotrich? First of all, it means the expulsion of most of the Palestinians and Arab Israeli citizens from this land. That is the definition of total victory. We will tolerate some Druze here. We’ll tolerate a few people who will pledge loyalty to the Jewish state, but most of the Palestinians will have to go.

Donniel: This is our land. It’s the meaning of our land.

Yossi: This is our land. And there are all kinds of layers to this, you know, there’s the radical biblical interpretation of cleansing the land of idolaters, nevermind that Muslims are the ultimate monotheists. And so the end point of the game that they’re playing on the Temple Mount now is to provoke a war that will make it possible, like in 1948. And that’s the template. They understand that you can’t expel the Palestinians unless we are in an existential war, all out war on all fronts. They want an all-out war.

Donniel: Because that brings about, they believe very deeply the total victory, total victory in which Israel lives in the land of Israel, according to the Torah of Israel, will bring God back. That’s what this all about. This is our version of the Messianic. Now, you know, again, this is the third time that I’m frightened in this little podcast. Normally I feel better after our podcast, but this is the third time.

What happens is, and you, you spoke about your defense and all of our desire to help Israel and to protect it in these difficult times, and some of the worst attacks against Israel are completely illegitimate when it comes to the state of Israel. But they’re not illegitimate when it comes to the ideology and the politics that this fringe which is sitting at the heart of this government actually wants to implement. That’s what’s so scary. It’s like, and when our enemies want to attack us, they know who to quote. And when you quote the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Homeland Security, you’re not talking about quoting the minister of the olive tree next to Be’er Sheva. These are mainstream ministers. You can’t say, oh, they’re fringe people. And so that further undermines us.

But could I take that and shift for a moment to what does this change in the status quo mean? The international community is also not in the same place when it comes to Judea and Samaria after October 7th.

Yossi: There’s a lot less patience and much more of an anticipation that the result of this Gaza war will be a resolution of the conflict.

Donniel: What does that mean? What is, in the world, the world which understood for so long that this is not a conflict you’re going to resolve. So remember, you remember when John Kerry came here, the famous thing, he said within two years we’re going to resolve the conflict. And we’re like, we said, okay. You know? Right. So what is it? You know, and I heard Pelosi, yes, you know, I’m a two-statist, I, you know, I have been my whole life, I feel it’s a religious obligation, I’m morally obligated, I’m religiously obligated, and committed to the creation of a state for the Palestinian people, which will live side by side with Israel in peace and security, but we, none of us know how to do it.

But the world, they’re in another place right now, and they’re meeting Smotrich, Ben Gvir. So they’re gonna, what are they gonna do? Boycott them? They’re not gonna allow them in. They’re gonna freeze their things. But what does this mean? Add them to the equation.

Yossi: What we’re seeing happening in the international community is its version of Messianic thinking. And there is a return to the messianism of the Oslo years. We’re going to solve this thing. And the Gaza War created a trauma in the international community, which has led to the opposite conclusion. We have to solve this thing, but in our way. We’re going to solve it with a two state solution. So you have two disastrous messianic concepts coming toward each other like two slow trains.

Donniel: Add Iran’s Shiite messianism, and Israel’s in turmoil, because it’s not bad enough that we’re a war, and it’s not bad enough that we have to deal with real enemies and real evil. There’s messianic ideologies at play here which don’t want to manage the conflict.

Yossi: Quite the opposite.

Donniel:They don’t want to manage it.

Yossi: You know, so many people, managing the conflict is the main obstacle to a messianic solution.

Donniel: That’s why so many people we know were so critical of our close friend, Micah Goodman, when he raised that category. And what he was trying to do was, how do we minimize our moral failures in the midst of a conflict which we can’t resolve because we’re not messianists? And everyone said, well, I still want my messianism. So there’s all this messianism going on right now.

Yossi: Well, which is interesting because desperate times create desperate solutions.

Donniel: And there aren’t enough responsible aspirations or responsible plans. I want to talk about solving the conflict. I want to talk about a two state solution, but I’m frightened that the world is going to want a resolution within, you know, six months, we’re just, we’re gonna find a dictator, put him in Gaza, then the Palestinian Authority be recreated, everything is gonna come. It’s just the pace is what makes it Messianic, not the aspiration.

Yossi: Now the Israeli leader who most understood this was Netanyahu in his old iteration. Netanyahu feared not only the messianism of peace now, he also feared religious Zionist messianism. And I know this because I read it in his book, A Place Among the Nations, and it was an extraordinary passage where he said our problem is not only the messianism of the secular left, it’s also the messianism of the religious Zionists. And that passage, which I always saw as key to understanding his caution all these years is no longer part of his makeup.

Donniel: He just doesn’t, it’s, I don’t know if it’s not part of his makeup, he’s not controlling it. The Netanyahu said that, I’m in the house, I’m the boss, everybody will listen to me. You know, he gets up and he tells Ben Gvr, you’re not going to do this, and they do it. And he tells Smotrich, you’re not going to do this, and they do it. Don’t worry, I’m the prime minister, trust, that’s not what’s happening anymore.

You know, this Israel in turmoil and this war, you know, there’s so many dangers, and now it’s messianism. It’s Iranian messianism, it’s Hamas messianism, it’s religious Zionist messianism.

Yossi: It’s a very interesting way to look at this moment, Donniel.

Donniel: The gap between reality and the need for change. For this, too many people are trying to resolve it now in opposite ways. And Israeli society is missing these counter voices which talk about where we want to go and progress and, and therefore these messianic visions, they’re attractive because you’re at least offering people a solution. Last words, Yossi. Well, two last words, you get it all.

Yossi: One is the conflict. unless we put a break to it, is heading to a confrontation among three messianic agendas. There’s Iran’s messianic agenda of destroying the Jewish state, which is the symbol of evil, and then the Shiite messiah, the Mahdi, will come. There is the Israeli far right Messianic agenda of pushing things to a confrontation with the Muslim world, which will enable the expulsion of Palestinians. And then there’s this messianic fantasy in the international community that somehow the time is right for resolving the conflict.

Donniel: Now.

Yossi: Now. And now is always the word, right?

I just wanna wanna say one last thing about possible silver lining here, and it’s something you alluded to earlier, which is, ordinary Israelis who might have been tempted to go along with the far right on security are now seeing what the true agenda of the far right is, and there is a growing fear in Israeli society of ourselves. And that gives me hope, Donniel.

Donniel: You know, I have to, I said I wanted to give you the last word, but I want to just reiterate what you said. I’ve heard more and more people frightened from this. And I don’t know if you saw today, and this is something we should watch because we might have to talk about it. Do you know what we’re talking about again? A new national unity government. There’s a new conversation talking about it. The president starts to talk about it. I know Aryeh Deri is pushing it.

Now, what does that mean? It’s interesting. It is the hostages which is the igniter. The fact that we feel that this is, you know, I don’t know how many days we’re going to call this war, but we’re going to still count how many days the hostages are still in horrific conditions in Gaza. Until they’re not home, we’re going to keep on counting the days. So understanding that we’re failing them in some deep degree and understanding as you wrote in your beautiful article in the Times of Israel, anybody who didn’t read it, go read it please because it just, it speaks about how Israelis just don’t trust that what the government is saying is in fact what’s guiding their actions vis a vis the hostages and not just succumbing to messianic ideologies for the sake of maintaining the coalition.

So the hostages are the igniting, but there’s a sense that this can continue like, are we really going to continue? Are we going to allow dangerous people to determine the future of this country? And, you know, I’m beginning to see some forces beginning to align. There’s an openness. Yair Lapid and Gantz didn’t discount it. The president, there’s something happening because as you said, Israelis, you know, we like having messianic dreams, but when somebody believes that their messianic dreams should determine politics in the presence, that becomes our nightmare.

Yossi, it’s a pleasure to be with you.

Yossi: Truly.

Donniel: This is “Israel in turmoil.” I don’t want to say day one, I don’t know how many days.

Yossi: Year 76.

Donniel: Year 76. I don’t know what we are, Israel in turmoil, but it is day 340 for the hostages. May there be a resolution and may we all be well and safe.

Yossi: Amen.

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