The Outsiders Among Us 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, a collaboration of the Hartman Institute and Ark Media, our special series Israel at War. Today is day 655.

Our theme for today, we entitled “The Outsiders Among Us.” Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people, but we didn’t come to a land empty of people. We came to a land in which there are different minorities—at the time when we came, they weren’t minorities; they were the majorities. Different ethnic and religious groups inhabited the land. And when the state was formed, they were the majority.

But over time, we grew with the founding of the state. There were 600 or 700,000 Jews in Israel. Today there’s 8 million. But we have 2 million non-Jewish citizens in the state of Israel. And this week we want to focus and put a spotlight on two, which were very critical and important in the news of this last week.

One of the Druze, a minority, is an offshoot of Islam, no longer considered part of Islam, which is actually an important principle because the doctrines of tolerance which Islam has to communities who fall under the category of Ahl al-Kitaab, the people of the book, it applies to Jews and Christians. It doesn’t apply to Druze and as a result—

Yossi: Because they’re seen as heretics.

Donniel: They’re heretics and as a result, but a thousand people, a thousand Druze were killed by Bedouins and maybe some of Al-Jolani’s forces in As Suwayda. And Israel’s response and the response of the Druze community really put a spotlight on, how do we see the Druze amongst us and what is our relationship to them? And the Druze are 10%, there may be 200,000 Druze. And there’s another 10% who are Christian, but the vast majority and including the Christians see themselves as Israeli-Arab-Palestinians or Palestinian citizens of Israel. And they also shaped our conversation and our discussion this week over the last week for a number of reasons.

First, it was an attempt to disbar their political leader, Ayman Odeh, from the Knesset. And then over Shabbat, as he was going to speak in an Israeli town, his car was attacked, mobs around him were chanting “Death to Arabs, death to Arabs, mavet l’aravim.” It’s a chant. It’s a slogan which is known. The police stopped it.

But one of the more important television anchors said she understands that they were just letting off steam. “Death to Arabs is letting off steam.” Or the member of Knesset Gotliv, who is one of Netanyahu’s chief…

Yossi: Big mouths.

Donniel: Big mouths. Who like, “You’re my right wing voice.” Says, “Critique them? I’m not going to critique them. I support them.”

Yossi: Talking about the rioters.

Donniel: The rioters, about the rioters trying to lynch him and declaring “Death to Arabs.” And as I was hearing the slogan, “Death to Arabs, and the silence of Netanyahu, it brought me back to Charlottesville, when there was the declaration, “The Jews will not replace us,” you know, us six million Jews who are threatening the status of white America, as so-called. And you know how upset we were that Trump didn’t condemn and he said, “There are good people on both sides.”

And here, where was the establishment? But what is our attitude? This group is the opposite. They’re allowed to be subjected to violence. They’re not part of our coalition. Their voices and concerns aren’t heard while the voices and concerns of the Jews are heard. And so this is a framework for us, these outsiders who are living among us. They’re citizens of Israel, whether they receive full equal protection under the law, in theory they’re supposed to, in fact, less. But these are our citizens and this whole environment of this new changing Middle East is also changing the way we see each one of them. And Gaza, by the way, not just Syria, has had a profound effect on the way we see each one of them.

So let’s start with the Druze, who, surprisingly, when they shouted in angst, they shouted, “My brothers are being killed,” Israel stood up and said, “I’m with you.” How would you frame a way to understand Israel’s relationship to the Druze community?

Yossi: So it’s very interesting, Donniel, to juxtapose the two events. And in our relationship with the Arab minority, the Muslim and Christian Arabs, citizens of Israel, we hit a low point this week; the physical attack on Ayman Odeh, who’s their leading representative. In our relationship with the Druze, we hit a high point this week. And I think it’ll be interesting for us to unpack what is the dynamic between each. But you asked about the Druze, so let’s look at that for a moment.

What I found so compelling in the Israeli response to the massacre of Druze, really right across the border, was that to some extent we were acting as if these were Jews who were being slaughtered. And we were treating the Druze as “mishelanu,” as we say in Hebrew, as part of us. And I think that there were two takeaways here for me.

The first is that we were making a statement that—when you stand with Israel, we’ll stand with you. And that’s very powerful. But I think it went deeper than that. Because really what we were telling the Druze is that when we think of Israel and Israeliness, you’re part of us. Now, what makes this so significant is that, first of all, this came from a right-wing government, which tends to equate Israeli with Jew. And here they were breaking with their own ideology and saying, no, we have to make an exception here because this is a community that stood with us.

Donniel: But why? Standing with us in what way? What enables the Druze to make this remarkable breakthrough? Well, it’s very straightforward. It’s the fact that the Druze serve in the army. The Druze have the highest percentage of serving from any community in Israel, including any Jewish community. And they have proportionally one of the highest rates of the fallen of Israel’s wars. And so that challenges… it hits the Israeli right at their most sensitive place.

And I think there’s also a wider context for this, which is the profound Druze hurt and outrage at the Nation-State Law that was passed, I think it was 2017, 2018, passed by an earlier right-wing government, which declared Israel as a Jewish state, which was self-evident, except it left out the other identity of Israel, which is Israel’s democratic state. And the Druze especially felt excluded and wounded. They said, “How could you do this to us? We thought we were part of you.”

And so here, to have a right-wing government stand with an endangered Druze community in Syria, we’re sending, I think, a very important message to Druze citizens, which is, “We see you, and when we think of Israeli-ness and the Israeli national interest, you are part of that calculation.”

Donniel: You know, you use this term, which is a term that makes sense, even though it has very little meaning outside of the Jewish community, and that’s the term “Israeliness.” But you’re right, we’re a country, there should be a category of Israeliness.

And when you look and compare the Declaration of Independence, which was written when we were weak, demographically, politically, militarily, economically, and then you go 70 years later, and you look at the Nation-State Law and the Declaration of Independence, Israel speaks about developing the country for the well-being of all of its inhabitants, speaks about equality. There’s a whole paragraph which reaches out explicitly to the Israeli-Arab, Palestinian-Israeli citizen of Israel. The names we’ll get to later reaches out in a hand of peace and says, let’s develop this country, and promises them full equality.

And then you come to the Nation-State Law, in which they’re absent.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with the Nation-State Law, which declares Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, and then you just need, as other Nation-State Laws in other countries, you need another clause. And… One line, one line. It’s a line, a clause, which declares, “And this nation-state will also treat all of its citizens equally.” That’s it!

Yossi: That’s it. Well, you know, the way that works for me is, Israel is the state of every Jew in the world, whether or not they’re citizens, and Israel is the state of all of its citizens, whether or not they’re Jews.

Donniel: So, either one, the idea, the spirit, what would be the right articulation we could leave, but I share your spirit, and it’s a beautiful spirit.

Yossi: But I love your point, though, Donniel, that we showed more self-confidence and generosity when we were under threat, existential threat, in 1948, writing the Declaration of Independence, than we did now as a strong and self-confident.

Donniel: So, then you wonder whether it was a moral declaration or was self-interest, and you wanted to somehow…

Yossi: In 48.

Donniel: In 48. But all of the above. But either way, in 70 years, we grew, mushroomed, from 600, 700,000 to 8 million. 20%, 80% to 20% Jewish citizens of Israel, non-Jewish citizens of Israel, in the end to the demographic issues. And by and large, this population is just not seen. You just don’t count in this homeland of the Jewish people, from a conceptual nationhood sense, there is no Israeli-ness.

Yossi: So, how do you understand what we did with the Druze?

Donniel: So, then along come the Druze, and the ethos of Israel, which is so built on, not simply the notion of standing with Israel, I think it’s deeper than that. There’s an ownership. When you’re willing to die. It’s not like, oh, I support Israel’s right to exist. I think the Israeli-Arab, the Palestinian citizen of Israel, has a dimension of standing with… I think it’s a better term for them than it was with Druze, and we’ll come to that in a moment. The Druze said, I have a covenant of blood with you.

Yossi: In other words, they’re not saying, “We stand with you.” They’re saying, “We are you.”

Donniel: We are you. And they’re saying, “What else do you want from me?” Now, this is a very deep principle in Druze ideology, which obligates them to have loyalty to the state within which they live, which created, by the way, difficulty with the Druze in Syria, because the Druze in Syria had loyalty to Assad. And therefore, there’s a very big difference between the Druze who are the Galil and the Druze who live in Majdal Shams, for example, and the Golan, which was… And until the fall of the Assad regime, there were…

Yossi: They were anti-Israel.

Donniel: They’re anti-Israel.

Yossi: And yet, we went to try to defend them.

Donniel: So why did we go try to defend them? And I think something remarkable, very much along the lines of what you said, but especially post-October 7th, who is under the stretcher? We’ve spoken about that so many times together. Who’s standing? Not just—Who’s there? Who’s carrying the weight and saying, “This country’s on my shoulders”? And the Druze are exemplars of that.

Now, to change the Nation-State Law and to say, “This is the homeland of the Jewish people. And yes, Druze, we see you too.” That would be even worse. That would be horrific, because it would be an explicit canceling of everybody else.

So here there was this moment. Now, they shouted out. Now, here, interesting to look at their shout, at their cry. They were saying, I have dual loyalty. I’m not a Jew. They were saying, I understand that Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people, and I am loyal to it. It is us. But I’m also a Druze. And they wanted to go fight. They wanted to go fight for their Druze brethren.

And when they broke through the border, let’s remember, post-October 7th, breaking the border is a traumatic moment. You break through, Druze even broke through on the other side. Israeli troops couldn’t fire, because we don’t fire on Jews and we don’t fire on Druze. We don’t fire on those who are serving with us.

And it reminds me, there is a clause in the Nation-State Law, which is a beautiful one and a profoundly problematic one. There is a clause which states that Israel is not only the homeland of the Jewish people, it is also responsible for Jews worldwide. If a Jew is in danger anywhere in the world, either for their Jewishness or for their relationship to Israel, Israel is responsible to take care of them. And what you have here is Israel applying this clause to the Druze. And it said, when you scream, you shouted out to me and you said, these are my people, they became ours because the Druze are ours.

And it’s problematic. They’re ethnically related to the Druze. Their ideology is loyalty to Syria, whether this was a war we should have fought or not, but we didn’t fight as if they were Jews. If they were Jews, we would have sent columns of tanks. But we bombed the tanks of Al-Jolani. We bombed in Damascus, the military headquarters. We made it very clear to Al-Jolani, “You want to have a relationship with Israel? Don’t touch the Druze.” And setting that line, I think, was a very important moment, but it’s a sign of how you break through in a country which loyalty and standing under the stretcher is more important than everything.

Yossi: I think this is really an important point because the way in which the Israeli defense of the Druze has been discussed in the Israeli media and generally, is through military and political terms. And what for me is so stunning is its implications for Israeli identity. We’re expanding the parameters of “Israeli.”

Donniel: That’s great. And you know where it’s similar to? It’s not the same, but it’s the Law of Return. We have half a million non-Jews living in Israel who are part of an umbrella called the Jewish people because they had a Jewish grandparent, which more or less says, if Hitler would have killed you for being a Jew, we’ll accept you here. But their relationship to Judaism was initially quite marginal, but they’re buried in Jewish cemeteries, military cemeteries. If you go to a civil cemetery, they’re not considered Jews by the rabbinate, they’re not considered Jews by the country, but the army, the only place that a non-Jew who could be buried in a Jewish cemetery is the military cemetery.

Yossi: So what are we saying with that Donniel?

Donniel: It’s something beautiful and very sad.

Yossi: What’s… no, but there’s a…

Donniel: It’s an Israeli-ness. I think it’s what you were saying. It’s like, you know, the famous line of Moses in the Book of Numbers when the tribe of Reuven said, you know, we have cattle. You’re moving into Israel finally after schlepping around in the desert for 40 years and you’re about to go back in. And they said to him, Reuvan and Gad, the two tribes said, you know, we’re coming from Jordan. The grass here is better. The grass is greener on this side. You know, I understand you’re saying this is the Promised Land, but for us, it’s not such a great land. We’d like to stay here, have a great trip. We support you. Goodbye. It was a nice journey. Thank you for taking us out of Egypt.

And then Moses stands up and says in Hebrew, “Ha’achekhem yavo’u lamilchamah ve-atem teshevu poh?” Will your brothers go out to war and you’re going to stay here? You have to stand. You have to be there, not stand with. You have to be there. You have to be there and say, “Here I am.” And the Druze say, “Here I am,” and there is an Israeli identity that if we sensed other people saying, “Here I am,” maybe we would begin to form this type of Israeli identity beyond just Jewish identity.

Yossi: It’s interesting, Donniel. If you think about it, there are gradations of belonging to the people of Israel and to Israeli-ness that are in many ways determined by your willingness to serve. So look at the similarities and the differences between the half million Russians who have come here, who are not halakhically Jewish, and yet are permitted to be buried in a military cemetery if they fall in the line of duty. The Druze, of course, have their own cemetery.

Donniel: That’s right. They’re not interested in it.

Yossi: Right, they’re not joining us in that visceral way.

Donniel: They don’t want to be buried in a Jewish cemetery. They want to be Israeli, but they want to be Druze, not Jews.

Yossi: Right. And the Russians who came here did in some way join the Jewish people.

Donniel: In every way.

Yossi: Yeah, in every way except conversion. Except the way that that determined Jewish belonging for two thousand years.

Donniel: Or Orthodox… They would convert if it wasn’t for the control of Orthodoxy.

Yossi: Right. And so what you have here really are gradations, gradations of belonging. And what we’re telling the Russians, and this is entirely a modern Israeli category, you fulfill the definition of Ruth the convert whose first move was “your people is my people.” And then “your God is my God.” But if you’re making that move and you’re joining Israeli society and you’re ready to die for this country, you’ll be buried with us.

And with the Druze that’s playing out differently because it doesn’t need to be expressed that way. And the way it’s playing out is your endangered brothers, they’re not necessarily our brothers, but they’re our concern. Because they’re your brothers. Because they’re your brothers.

Donniel: Because they’re your brothers. Beautiful. Because you have joined us. It’ll be fascinating to see how this evolves. As you said, the gradation of identities. Now that’s biblical. Leviticus 19, “The stranger shall be to you as one of your citizens.” They don’t just say, “Love the stranger as yourself.” They go one step further. They understand that living in our midst creates gradations of identity. It’s not like Jew/non-Jew.

Yossi: But what did the Torah mean by citizen? Because obviously it’s not a modern concept.

Donniel: Ezrach. They use the term.

Yossi: But what did they mean? What do you think they meant? You know, I hear you. Because they’re not, were they fully part of the people of Israel or some half measure?

Donniel: Yes, they live in… You have to realize that in the Bible, when you’re not a citizen, your life could be forfeited. The Bible is not a nice book for outsiders. If you’re an outsider, you don’t get to be among us. And you’re dangerous, especially there’s dangers of you converting us to idolatry. There was a deep theological war. So the stranger who lived amongst us was also… among us. I say amongst, sorry, I know it offends you, but that’s my Canadian roots.

Yossi: Donniel, you see how generous I’m being. I’m just passing over.

Donniel: I can see. They had to cease being idol worshipers, but if they were circumcised, they could eat in the Passover, Paschal sacrifice.

Yossi: In the temple.

Donniel: No, that was done in the house. There’s things that you could do without being Jewish. Because in the Bible, there was no conversion. Ruth never converted, but that’s a whole other issue. Conversion is a phenomenon that enters into the Jewish people in the Hasmonean period with the Chashmonaim.

Yossi: Towards the end of the second temple.

Donniel: Towards the end of the second temple, somewhere in second century BCE. Prior to that, as you said, it was a gradation. The stranger wasn’t an idol worshiper. They were in this middle state.

Yossi: The stranger in your midst was not an idol worshipper.

Donniel: Could not be, because then they would be killed. But they weren’t Jewish because you couldn’t become Jewish. But that’s a whole other world, which we can get into at another time, where in the Bible, where intermarriage was permitted, it was a whole other story, which will take us too far.

But in many ways, the Druze are part of that story. In the sense, they’re not worshiping idols, but they don’t have a primary loyalty to someone who is at war with us. And they are declaring their affinity with us. And it’s expanding. There’s a place now for Israeliness.

And I think the most important characteristic of a citizen is the fact that when they tell you something, they’re not transparent. They’re saying, I’m hurting. There’s something that I need from you. And you allocate the resources of your country to your citizens. This is what states do. States collect resources, collect goods, and distribute it to its members. Israel distributed its military might and power to the citizens, the Druze, who before, but especially after October 7th, everybody looks and says, “These are us.” And so we treated them as such.

Yossi: So correct me if I’m wrong, Donniel, but it seems to me that this is the first time in Israel’s history, modern history, where we have extended ourselves in this way to protect a non-Jewish minority outside our borders. Now, we did have an alliance with the Maronite Christians in Lebanon, but that was really a political alliance.

Donniel: The alliance there was—we will have an alliance with you if you serve us. If you serve us and help set up a new order in Lebanon, we will live at peace with you. So there were strings attached. There was a goal, the impetus was not a sense of loyalty and obligation to a non-Jewish citizen of Israel to do so.

Yossi: And there was a strategic justification for this relationship. And it’s more than that. By attacking the Syrian regime, we were undermining our strategic interests. We’re telling Al-Jolani, we will not make peace with you if you persecute the Druze.

Donniel: This ethnic disease that has plagued your country, if you’re going to bring the Druze into that, we’re not going to be there. Not only not going to be there, they have us as their back.

Yossi: Now, we would not have done it for the Orthodox Syrian Christians.

Donniel: That I don’t know.

Yossi: I doubt it.

Donniel: I doubt it. Let’s put it this way. The Druze claimed us, whether there might have been political considerations.

Yossi: They claimed us.

Donniel: I don’t think we would have. We don’t go to war for the Kurds. There’s so many others who are deep friends of ours. So this was a moment… but this moment is when you see it and you now compare it to the vast majority, to almost 20%, 18% of Israeli citizens, to find themselves somewhere within these categories of Israeli-Arab-Palestinian, Palestinian citizens of Israel. A group of people who just, again, they’re not like the Druze. They’re not serving in the army. But there was almost universal condemnation of October 7th.

Yossi: Among Arab Israelis.

Donniel: Among Arab Israelis. And since October 7th, while we have in many ways intimidated them into silence in ways that are deeply problematic, they haven’t been a fifth column. They are profound critics of the war. But we treat them differently.

And by them, their dual loyalty is deemed as a flaw. The Druze dual loyalty is part of the package. We accepted it. It’s the story. You’re going to break the border and go try to fight. I’m not going to stop. If Druze comes from Syria, it’s not the same as Hamas invading work. We weren’t sitting here worried. But Palestinian dual loyalty is a challenge. How do you understand? Why are we so stuck? Here’s a group of people, they condemned October 7th. 85% of them declare, I want to remain a citizen of Israel. They define their identity as—I am a Palestinian; I am a citizen of Israel, my commitment is to be a law-abiding citizen. Why do we have such difficulty offering them even a part of what we’re offering to the Druze?

Yossi: Look, they are in an impossible situation because the Palestinian national movement is at war with Israel. And as a result of that, the question of dual loyalty in their case is so much more complicated for them and for us. And there’s been a deep Jewish suspicion of Arab citizens, Palestinian Israelis, from the very beginning. There was military law imposed on Arab citizens until 1966. I mean, that’s astonishing to think, but in a way, that mindset has come back with this government.

This government relates to Arab citizens the way the Labor governments of the early years of the states, of the 50s and the early 60s, related to them. And certainly October 7th, for all of their expressions of condemnation, October 7th has just reopened that deep sense of mistrust. And look, the truth is it also predates October 7th in 2019, was it? When we experienced the worst wave of violence.

Donniel: Internal violence in mixed cities.

Yossi: In mixed cities. And there were Arabs attacking Jews and then Jews attacking Arabs.

Look, there is no more complicated dynamic that I can think of in majority/minority relations than the Jews and the Arab citizens of Israel, for a simple reason. Because each side is simultaneously a majority and a minority. The Arab citizens of Israel are obviously a minority within Israel and they have the formal rights of citizenship, but it’s a very uneasy status. And in many ways, they’re not fully equal.

But in terms of their relationship to the region, they regard themselves as part of the majority. And when you speak to Arab Israelis, very often I’ll hear that. People will say to me, “Well, yes, okay, you’re the majority here, but don’t forget. You have to be careful.” And I never forget, and Jews never forget, that we are the regional minority. We are the only non-Arab, non-Muslim state for thousands of kilometers around. We know it and the Arab minority knows it.

And at the other side of that, and this is answering your question, the other side of that is we are simultaneously a majority with the mindset sometimes, and certainly in relation to Arab Israelis, of insecurity, the insecurity of a minority. We’re always embattled.

And our friend, Mohammad Darawshe, one of Israel’s leading voices for the empowerment of Palestinian-Israeli citizens, has a terrific way of framing this. He said, Arab citizens need to act more like a minority, and the Jews need to act more like a majority. In other words, we need to have more of the self-confidence of the majority. And the Arab citizens don’t always need to say everything that’s on their minds, which sometimes really provokes Jews.

So, for example, let’s bring this to Ayman Odeh, whose car was attacked for making this statement that drove Israeli Jews mad and really pressed that insecurity button. Ayman Odeh said, during the last exchange of hostages for Palestinians in Israeli jails, you remember he said, “I welcome…”

Donniel: “…The release of the hostages and the prisoners.”

Yossi: He created an equivalence. And for Israeli Jewish sensibilities, and it hit me this way too, Donniel, I was outraged. Are you equating Israelis who are being held hostage by Hamas with terrorists in Israeli prisons? And he was. He was equating them. And so that really pressed the button of, well, are you really part of us? And it brings us to the Druze. We know the Druze are a part of us. Do we know that Arab Israelis are a part of us? I don’t know what to do with that.

Donniel: See, I hear, I know I disagree with you, but let me tell a little story because I appreciate very much what you’re saying. I appreciate there is a difference. There’s a big difference. But the Israeli Arab, the Palestinian citizen of Israel, has been a law-abiding citizen since they were given rights in 1966. Israel’s at war with their people.

Now, imagine if you are a Palestinian citizen of Israel and you see Israel at war on October 7th, you condemn Hamas, and then a few days, a week passes, two weeks pass, and now there’s 5,000 casualties in Gaza. And you’re getting your news not from Channel 12 or Channel 14 or Channel 11. You’re getting it from Al Jazeera or from some social media, which is showing blatant pictures of bodies and blood. And you’re seeing this go on and on and on. You’re seeing the hunger in Gaza. And you’re saying… you’re critiquing the war. You’re critiquing the war. Why can’t they?

At what point do we bank, you know, like there’s a term like, I want to bank your loyalty, and now I could accept your criticism as coming from another place which doesn’t undermine the fact… you’ve proven over and again that you’re not a fifth column. You’ve proven it. But we don’t give them any of that credit. And I wonder why.

Now, of course, there’s fears, but I think there’s another dimension. There’s something going on. And I don’t fully understand it because I think we should have given Israeli Arabs much greater credit than we do.

Yossi: Right. Agree.

Donniel: When there is now a consensus. Now, Bennett, of course, we want to now form the next government only with Zionists. Now, of course, Palestinians aren’t going to be Zionists because they haven’t dreamt for 2,000 years that the Jewish people should come into their home. Right? Like, oh, I can’t wait. I’m chaleshing that you’ll be here. So, of course, they’re not Zionists. Of course! They’re not supposed to be. To what extent could we allow that ambivalence? Could we allow that a dual loyalty which just is declarative. It’s… they’re being torn, but they’re not fighting against Israel.

So when they make statements, so here you have Ayman Odeh, and I can give you other examples, like very often Israeli Arabs or Palestinian citizens of Israel will speak about the war in Gaza in genocide terms. Now, when they’re using the word genocide, as we had spoken, they’re not saying on a legal sense, this is, you know, fulfills the legal criteria. They’re saying you’re killing my people, but we say, ah, you said genocide. Like you use the word, you’re now the enemy. Or when they say, yes, I have affinity with the people who are critiquing the war in Gaza. One second, how come you’re not standing with us? To what extent can we allow them that ambivalence?

So even take Ayman Odeh’s statement. Now, in Palestinian culture and Palestinian society, prisoners, the minority of prisoners who are being released, thousands are being, have blood on their hands. This whole idea of prisoners in Palestinian society is a group of people who are arrested very often without due process. They’re arrested for that which under international law they’re allowed to do, to protest or to reject the occupation. But the problem is, as a citizen, do we have to understand you as you understand yourself?

Yossi: Okay, I think that’s a great point.

Donniel: But.

Yossi: Yes, there’s a big “but” here, which is that in Palestinian culture, there is no distinction made between prisoners who have blood on their hands and prisoners who don’t have blood. They’re all considered to be illegitimately imprisoned. And Israel has no right to imprison terrorists. And so, terrorists who are being released…

Donniel: I don’t know if they say that. Because they do condemn, at least the Israeli Arab, they do condemn the violence. But if there is… we’re talking about tens of thousands of people who are in jail. The numbers are insane. You have to realize that. So again, I’m not arguing that they’re right. Could they have more nuance? I’m with you.

So here I come back to Darawshe’s formulation. We need more of the generosity of a majority. And an Ayman Odeh should have a little bit more finesse, a little more sensitivity to the concerns of the majority. Don’t poke the majority in the eye. Especially during war.

Donniel: So then how do we, let’s take it one step further then. What is this—“Death to Arabs?” And a newspaper anchor is not fired? Where was Netanyahu? Where’s the rule of law? “Death to Arabs?” Again, we know the deaths that are happening in Israeli society every day. So this is not exactly, Ayman Odeh, oh, you slipped, you weren’t sensitive and nuanced” There’s something more going on. And I think we have to claim it. And I think we have to claim the fact that we’re not doing right by our Palestinian citizens of Israel.

And what I suspect, I have a good friend, his name is Eli Katz, his son is a psychologist, and he showed me an article. It’s a new term, there’s a condition in socio-psychology called CV. Do you know what CV is? Competitive victimhood.

I think one of the things that we’re so stuck, which we don’t have with the Druze, it’s not just that the Druze die with us, say they are us. With Palestinians, we have a competitive victimhood. And there’s a whole syndrome of people who are at war with each other.

Yossi: Well, they won.

Donniel: No, we don’t want, that’s a great, we can’t allow that. Competitive victimhood creates constant alienation, moralizing war, it perpetuates it because I can’t allow you to be more a victim than me. And so this whole hostility, when I would add to Ayman Odeh, is there a way for us to…

Yossi: Well, how do you connect that with “death to Arabs?”

Donniel: Because, it’s like—I’m the victim. The hatred is so deep because you are presenting a narrative, a victimhood. Or put it this way, those who declare death to Arabs are racists. Whether they come from ultra-nationalists or they come from religious sources and they come from both, that normalization of that is no different than “The Jews will not replace us.” It’s anti-Semitism because it’s against Semites. I’m sorry if I’m insulting you. We don’t own the Semite language.

Yossi: Oh, let’s not go there.

Donniel: I know, I’m just teasing you. I don’t care about that. Whatever you want to call it, it’s certainly not Islamophobic. There’s something… You need a better term. Here it is. It’s absolute racist. It’s despicable. And the Israeli government should be condemning it. But what I’m speaking about is why is it tolerated? We are at war with each other, not just in Gaza. We are still at war with each other over victimhood. And somehow we just can’t let that go. And it’s not that we just have to be a majority. I think we have to realize that we won. And when we realize that, there could be a largess spirit and a space for us.

I don’t know if the Israeli Palestinian will ever be the Druze because they don’t have a religious ideology of loyalty. But they could feel that, yes, I am respected and treated as a citizen here with full equality. I think there’s room and one place to start. And maybe I’d ask you, the next elections, would you want Mansour Abbas in the government?

Yossi: Oh, absolutely. Mansour Abbas, just to remind our listeners, is the head of the Islamist party, Ra’am, in Israel. We have our own Israeli Islamist party, Homegrown. And Mansour Abbas was part of the Bennett coalition that preceded the current government. And he made a series of extraordinary statements when he went farther than any prominent Arab-Israeli politician that I can think of since the beginning of the state. He said, we accept Israel’s identity as a Jewish state.” And then he went on to challenge the Jews by saying, but what place do I have in your understanding of Israel as a democracy? Which was exactly the right move. And this is really where I fault our Israeli Jewish discourse on. We didn’t seize on this as a breakthrough moment.

Donniel: Because we couldn’t get… We’re so stuck. We couldn’t see that someone was…

Yossi: We didn’t hear it. We couldn’t hear it.

Donniel: You’re still… who’s your loyalty, the dual loyalty…

Yossi: What Abba Eban, Israel’s late legendary foreign minister once said about the Palestinians is, they can’t take yes for an answer. We couldn’t take yes for an answer here.

And so, you know, it’s interesting, Donniel. The victim competition, that doesn’t speak to me. I don’t see that playing out with Arab-Israeli… Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t see that.

Donniel: I think you’re wrong, but maybe I’m wrong too. It’s possible.

Yossi: I see it with the Palestinians. With the Arab-Israelis, I think it’s a different dynamic. And it goes back to what we were saying at the beginning: Who’s part of us and who’s not part of us? You’re citizens of Israel. You carry an Israeli passport. And yet you’re ambivalent about Israel’s existence? Okay, you accept that Israel exists. Why? Because it exists.

Donniel: They’re not ambivalent about Israel’s existence, Yossi.

Yossi: Well, not… They’re ambivalent about Israel’s historic right to exist. Yes, you’ll…

Donniel: Oh, they’re not Zionists, you mean.

Yossi: Well, they don’t… Most Arab-Israelis that I know will not affirm the indigenousness of the Jewish people in this life.

Donniel: That’s correct, because they’re not Zionists. But what do they say? You exist. The reality is, Israel is here. So of course I accept that you’re here. But you want them to say, I’ve come home. You want them to accept your story.

Yossi: Yes. Yes, and…

Donniel: And by the way, the Druze don’t have to do that. You see, they could bypass that through their religious ideology of loyalty to the power under which they live. So are you asking something impossible of them?

Yossi: Maybe. Maybe. Especially given the fact that we’re at war with their national movement. But this question of what does it mean to be Israeli? That’s really what we’re talking about. There’s a formal Israeli-ness. There’s an emotional Israeli-ness and an ideological Israeli-ness. And I recognize the problematics here. But what I need as an Israeli Jew is for my fellow Israeli, it doesn’t matter who you are, what religion you are, what alternative nationality you are. I need you, if you’re going to be a fellow Israeli, I need you to recognize my rightful place here in the way that I recognize your rightful place.

Donniel: Ah, but you don’t.

Yossi: I don’t what?

Donniel: Recognize your rightful place. This is part of the story. It’s such a mess. We’re not going to resolve it. Their response, and through ongoing conversations, which we’re now, because we are so invested at the Institute in shared society as a core part of our business and our work, is their response is—what more do you want from a citizen? You know how you test a citizen’s loyalty? Are you a law abiding citizen? They say, I’m a law abiding citizen. So if I’m a law abiding citizen, could you give me equality? Look, give me equality. Then we’ll talk. So it’s like this cycle. Round and around and around.

Yossi: Yes. You’re right. But here’s the thing. Each side in this torture dynamic has a deep need. The deep need of the Jewish majority, it’s the same need as the Arab minority. It’s the need to be seen. We need to be seen by you.

Donniel: That’s right. That’s right. And what we’re giving to the Druze is we said to them, you’re seen. Palestinian citizens of Israel don’t feel seen by the Jews and Jews don’t feel sufficiently seen.

Now I wonder, this is why the CV category, whether what is it that we want you to see? Do we want you to see my sovereignty? Do we want you to see my wholeness and at wholeness or do we want you to see my victimhood?

Yossi: No, I don’t care…

Donniel: I know you don’t care, but I’m frightened. That’s why the Nakba, all that conversation.

Yossi: Don’t give me the Holocaust. And I say that when I speak to Arabs.

Donniel: I know that’s you, because you’re a post-Holocaust Jew now, the New Yossi. But so much, do you see my victimhood, the terror, October 7th?

Yossi: You’re right. That is there. But for me, I would say, and I think this is true for many Israeli Jews, it’s—your national movement denies my legitimacy. Its founding premise is that I’m an outsider here. For you as a citizen of Israel, not to accept my indigenousness here.

Donniel: No, you see you’re now combining. I have to tell you, you’re combining categories here.

Yossi: Go ahead.

Donniel: You were saying citizenship, indigenousness. This is just part of the mess. And I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m just, it’s just a mess. Do I accept that you’re here? Yes. Do I accept the legitimacy that Israel exists and that I’m a citizen of Israel? Yes. I even choose to want to be here. Now you want me to accept my indigenousness? Why do I have to accept your story on the basis of a tradition that’s not mine? But I appreciate it. It gets all farmisht-ered in, but you know where it’s going to have to get worked out? You’ll see. Farmisht-ered in is a technical term. Gets all, what’s it, how would I do farmisht-ered? It gets all mixed…

Yossi: It’s not the King’s English, but we’ll…

Donniel: It’s all mixed up. You know what will be interesting? What happens if liberal Israel—and I’m including here very generously Lieberman’s party—the anti-Netanyahu group gets 60, 61 or 62 members and it’ll be volatile. And you can have a strong government, but you’re going to need Mansour Abbas again. And the question might be, you know, Amit Segal in Call me Back said Israel’s…

Yossi: One of Israel’s leading journalists.

Donniel: And he says, liberal Israel might have to choose between the-ultra Orthodox as coalition partners, and the religious Zionists, or the Likud. And he couldn’t even consider—what about Mansoor Abbas? There it is. He’s part of this different liberal Israel and liberalism has involved, just like with Lieberman, the issue of liberalism is on religious freedom with Mansour Abbas. It’s about rights of minorities and whether there could be a coalition. Who knows? We’re going to be pushed because…

Yossi: There’s so much to say.

Donniel: There’s so much to say. And who knows. Anything last you’d like to share?

Yossi: No, I think you’re right that there’s so many overlapping categories, interests, fears, emotions that again, I can’t think of a more complicated majority/minority dynamic, but what gives me a little bit of hope this week with the breakthrough on the Jewish front is that for the first time in a long time, Israeli society is suddenly aware that Israeliness is a little bit more complicated than just a Jewish story.

Donniel: And the outsiders aren’t only over the border fighting us. We have outsiders within amongst us and how we, whether they’re going to be our friends, whether they’re going to be our allies, whether they’re going to be part of us, whether they’re going to be us in all of its spectrum this week, put it forth, put it in front of us. Let’s see. Oy, a lot to talk, a lot to watch.

Yossi: Good talking with you, Donniel.

Donniel: You too. Thank you so much, friends. This is For Heaven’s Sake, Israel at War, day 655.