Why Israel Policy Pod Pauses

Neri 0:00

Hi there. Neri here. Just FYI. There won't be an episode of Israel Policy Pod this week, as I'm on the ground covering the election and the aftermath of the election. But as a special offering, we're including this week's episode of Disputed Territory, Israel Policy Forum's new podcast hosted by my colleague and friend, Jenny Reichman, which is aimed at honest and nuanced talk about Israel. Disputed Territory focuses on the big questions dominating the discourse in the United States around Israel, Zionism, and Jewish identity. Enjoy this episode and find more episodes of Disputed Territory in the show notes.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Our generation in Israel and in Palestine was born and grew up under the same type of old corrupt leaders that are holding on to their seat, Netanyahu and Abu Mazen, that are teaching us to hate and fear each other, that do not have our best interests and our future in mind, that do not represent us. We're gonna see a change of leadership in Israel-Palestine.

The Headline Result Netanyahu Loses

Shanie 1:13

Hello and welcome to Disputed Territory, a space for real talk about Israel. I'm Kenny Reichman. This week, Israelis went to the fold for the first time in four years, the first time since October 7th of 2023, after years of war and of evil and craziness and deep divisions over Israel's future. And the election results are not exactly final just yet, and we'll talk about what that means. But we did want to take a look at sort of what this moment can tell us about Israeli society and what the different potential outcomes are going forward, where the country might be headed, what we know and what we don't yet. To help us unpack that, I am joined by a dear friend, Irani San, an Israeli peace activist and a member of the Israeli Democrats Party, a Democrat team, and former C Open Health team, progressive movement working to shape Israel's political and social future, famously of the F. Benzir stickers found all over Tel Aviv. I appreciate you're wearing your savoring Israeli democracy feature today instead, um, because this is a family-friendly podcast. Um Iran previously led education and advocacy of peace now. Uh, you spent years working to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace, develop the next generation of political leaders, and you're also a fellow at um Israel Policy Forum Store Values Project Fellowship and a good friend of mine. Iran, welcome to Disputed Territory. It's 10 a.m. on Wednesday, October 28th when we're recording. Uh polls closed um at about, I guess actually it's later in the day in Israel. So yesterday at some point. What stands out to you? Like, give us the like shortest version of what happened. Um, our listeners, I mean, I'm I I'm going to uh drop a link in the show notes for people who want to really understand the process on a deeper level. Um, but if if you were to consider this election, like what what actually happened?

SPEAKER_02 2:56

I think that the the takeaway is that Netanyahu lost. That the takeaway here is that so for those of you who don't know, in Israel it's not a presidential system, it's a parliamentarian system. We need a uh there you have a you need to have a majority. And Netanyahu's exiting government uh leaned on a 68 major six majority in the Knesset, and that 68 majority dropped to around 53. So I'm saying around because the votes, they are still counting the votes, we are like 90% of the regular votes, and then there are something called the double envelopes, and we can go into that. But there, I imagine that by Friday morning, so 48 hours from now, we're gonna have a uh uh a more accurate result, and the final results are gonna be ratified and uh announced next week.

Shanie 3:58

So the optimistic part of me is like, okay, they dropped a lot of their support. The pessimistic side is that based on the mainstream polls that I saw from Channel 11, channel 12, channel 13, um, it seemed like um at least Gotty Eisenhock was supposed to do a lot better than he actually did. Um I I thought he he really underperformed. Um and broadly speaking, the the Jewish party is underperformed on the left and the left and center. Um, although there's something more here, and we need to talk about voter turnout and the Arab parties, which is a whole other conversation that we will get into. Um but there's like two parts of me, the part that felt like, okay, it's great, you know, it's it's much it's much uh more moderate than it was before. And on the other side, but I really was hoping for a slams-on kind of landslide, clear path to victory for the opposition, and I'm not really seeing that.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

So I beg to differ because in the coming weeks to the elections, the polls were around 70 to 50. From the 120 seats, we had 70 uh seats, 70 mandates uh opposing Netanyahu, and 50 mandates uh from the Netanyahu bloc. And you know, every time I talk to Americans, and I'm I'm trying to draw inspiration or or like commonalities with the American political system, because this is a in Israel we have a multi-party system, so it's not a two-party system. But what happened yesterday was similar to flipping the Senate and taking back the House. Like the Netanyahu lost his majority. The current government did not have a majority since 2025 when the ultra-orthodox parties uh dropped out of the government and stayed in the coalition. So they gave a state unit to Netanyahu in return for billions of shekels to their sectoral financial needs. And we had yesterday in the exit polls 70 to 50 or uh 69 to 51. And this is this still the situation. We had record high turnouts um across the board, not just Arab societies, not just Arab voters, Israeli voters went to uh the the polls and went to vote in masses. We didn't have this turnout since 1999, so in the last 27 years, which are like I think more than 10 uh election cycles because we we were in uh in a political crisis a couple of years ago, and we're still heading into a potential political crisis. And as you said, yes, you hoped for a slam dunk and Eisencoat underperformed, but again, the game in Israel political system is not about who has more seats uh between the parties, it's a game of blocks. So the Eisenblock, a term that you coined, uh still has more seats than Etanyawin, even if there's a tie between the what we call the Jewish opposition, which are the four parties of Eisencott, of Lieberman, of Natali Beneth and Yair Golan, the Democratic Party that I belong to. And the other side, which is not um monolithic, there is tension between Likud, Bangbir, Smotric, and the ultra-orthodox parties, both of them, Shas and uh Yadou Satura. So things are still open. But what we know, and and if I'm coming back to your question, the takeaway is Netanyahu does not have a path to victory. Netanyahu does not have a path to continue the current government, and Netanyahu does not have a path to the number 61, which is what will guarantee him staying in power. So this is a good day for the people who went to the streets to protest against the judicial overhaul, or went to the streets to protest for a hostage deal, or um experienced this government not just as an extreme and dangerous government, but as a racist, nationalistic, Jewish supremacist, corrupt government. So there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic and hopeful. But again, this is a very optimistic take. This is not the whole story.

Shanie 8:10

Yeah. So when I when we first got on this call, before we hit record, I asked you how you're feeling, and you were like, You're feeling pretty good. And I said, Wow, you are? You said, Yeah, I'm a peace activist. And you reminded me, like, it's true. I it's it's um harder for me around elections. But the truth is, like, I spend all of my day working on an issue that is probably more challenging than the electoral system in Israel, right? The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is seemingly intractable and like just have to have a really long-term vision and be able to see every obstacle as a like just one more challenge that we need to overcome, but we will. Um, it just might take a little more time and a little more energy. And um, and it's nice to hear that kind of hopeful, um, hopeful realism too. Um in terms of like the issues that people were really voting on, was this outcome, did you feel like it was a referendum and anything in particular?

What Voters Rewarded And Ignored

SPEAKER_02 8:59

So on the philosophical level, I think there's a question if elections are about the past or about the future. I think that the elections are always about the future, should be about the future. Campaigns should be about the future. And in Israel, and again, this is not a dichotomy because a big question, a big term, a big issue that came back uh again and again in the last three years, but but even more so in the last couple of months, is the um commission of um acquire of the about the fact that up until now there isn't um official appointed entity that is tasked with going into the protocols and getting testimonies and investigating how did October 7th happened. Not just the 24 hours before or the two weeks before, but the decade and even more before about what happened that brought us to October 7th and what allowed October 7th to to happen, and even after, how they manage the war. There are things that we need to investigate, first of all, to know the truth, to know the facts, to get the the facts out, but also to make sure that this tragedy never happens again. And if there are holes in the ship that we need to identify and we need to block, we need to fix, then uh the a committee like of that sort is the only way forward. And the of course Netanyahu and his government were opposing in the in the couple of weeks after October 7th, all of the Likud heads they where they were interviewed, they said, of course we need a commission of national inquiry and we need to form it, and it's gonna be according to the law, appointed by a Supreme Court judge, like we've done this in the past. But uh after a couple of months, they stopped saying that and they started politicizing and delegitimizing the this kind of commission. Uh and so this was one big issue.

Shanie 11:10

This was a big issue for the uh the people who didn't like him, right? This was for the anti-BB coalition, this was really important. For the people who are voting for BB, this was like, okay, like maybe sure, whatever. Like, you know, they got rid of the security chiefs, Netzanyah was fine, right? People who voted for him, this was not an issue at all. That's what's interesting, is that there were some like voting issues that were really, really important to voters, but only on one side. So it isn't like pro and anti. It's like we care about this and we don't care about this.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

This issue was politicized and was used or leveraged as a voter drive. But it appeared in Viadi Eisencott's in Aftali Bennett, in Liebermann, in Yair Goland's uh speeches and videos and campaign that was very central because it was something that was very important to the families of the victims of October 7th, hostage families and and uh um bereaved families. Right. The second thing was conscription. This was uh a thing that was I think not number one or not even top three for a lot of voters. It was a polarizing issue on the right. Okay, the Netanyahu supporters were split between uh even Netanyahu's party, if they could, was split around this issue, and the opposition instrumentalized and took this in order to um try and peel off Netanyahu supporters or right-wing supporters or current government supporters to the opposition block by saying um they're not gonna draft the ultra-orthodox. And they're kind of right because I think that again, if we're going to the meta-level and and giving the analysis, one of the biggest problems in in Israel, not in under this government or the previous government, but for decades, is that the government as uh institution signed deals with different sections of the Israeli society. And this was not just opening the door for corruption and political corruption or criminal corruption, but also it was something that is uh dismantling Israeli society. When we have public systems like the health, the healthcare system, like if you're sick, go to the hospital, they're gonna treat you. But when you reach the age of 18, suddenly it depends on what kind of society or section of the Israeli society you belong to, that then you get your rights or your obligation.

Coalition Politics And Corruption Incentives

Shanie 13:49

This is to me, this like really brings us into the election process and the governing forming a coalition because right, no single party is ever going to get a majority of seats, mandates, as we call them, or actual human beings to vote for them in the Knesset on their own. And so any part, any given party will have like between the largest party, could have 20 seats or could have 30 seats or 35 seats, but it's never going to get 61. As a result, they need to then go and convince all of these other parties that may or may not hate them to quote unquote sit with them, to support them. Let's say in the last government, um, because I don't want to make predictions for this one. In the last government, four years ago, um Bujihurzag, the president of Israel, hands the mandate from us now and says you have four to six weeks, let's call it, um, four weeks with an extension, to go and convince 61 people to support you as the prime minister. Um, and so what does he have to then do? He has to go to Battles Martridge and he has to donate some more benefits, and he has to say, what do I need to give you to get you to support me? And the more extreme you are, the less likely you are, like the more likely you are to make harsher demands because you don't care. Like you're you're gonna live or die on your on your principles. You're not in it for, oh, like maybe I can get ahead this round. No, you're gonna say, I wanna be uh the freaking minister of police, I want to control the West Bank, I want to be the finance minister, important roles no one would have dreamed these people would be in, but they had so much leverage. Same with the ultra-orthodox. That's like now as voters, they don't particularly love all the like the ultra-orthodox community, they don't particularly agree with them. The ultra-orthodox are sitting there saying, we're not, we're not gonna support you. All we care about is not going to the army, not having to teach our sons math or English, um, and getting funding for your chivas and welfare system. If you give that to us, like we're in. And if you don't, like go have fun going to another 17 elections because you don't have a government without us. Um and so that's the process we're gonna look at right now. But I my point being that I think that whole system of having to convince people to come and work with you sounds like it'll be more democratic, but I actually think it like has a tendency to pull to the extreme the extremes, or at least we've seen it. And it has all of like, this is how corruption takes place. Like, of course it's becoming corrupt because now you're offering bribes, basically, right? Like, I don't want to call them bribes, but you're like, I'll give a lot of money to your constituency in exchange for this. Maybe that's just how politics works, but the system is like so overt here. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 16:08

Yes, I think that we can draw similarities with the American system with appointment, like not just cabinet appointments, but uh, you know, uh choosing a speaker of the house. You have the deficit hots, you have the you have the the the Tea Party MAGA and their or on or on the other side, you have uh Joe Manchin or Kristen Cinema blocking legislation because they wanted things like that.

Shanie 16:33

Okay, okay, fair point. Maybe this is just politics. I'm just too close, I'm just too close to it in Israel. Like I'm ups I'm looking at every single thing.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

And what happened is that when you said Netanyahu has to go, I think that we missed the stuff that is very, very crucial to understand. Because in the next couple of days, we're gonna see a game of chess or a game of poker unfold.

How Herzog Assigns The Mandate

Shanie 16:55

The next couple days, explain what's happening broadly.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

Okay, so they're counting the votes, and they're gonna have the final votes presented to Herzog uh next week. Uh, I don't know, ironically or symbolically, on November 4th, which is the day of the uh commemoration date of the assassination of Zakabi.

Shanie 17:13

Herzog is the president of Israel. This is like his time to shine. He has like no other real job until right now. So this is his moment.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

What's happening is that uh Herzog gets the results, and the results are this party got this amount of seats. Then what's happening is that Herzog invites each head of a party for coffee in his home, and they discuss the uh situation, the reality in Israel, and then Helzog.

Shanie 17:45

And that's the head of every single party, including like the Arab parties.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

Yes, every single party. So uh Bennett and Lapid, they have a party together. Um, Bennett will be invited, and in my take uh Lapid with him. So you can RSDT and bring like a plus one or a plus two, and you have like a meeting with Hellzog separately, each party. And during this conversation, that's usually it's uh it's recorded and broadcasted live, so like for transparency.

Shanie 18:14

Oh, it's a public conversation, everyone can hear it?

SPEAKER_02 18:18

Usually, yes. Uh when they can like it's a big symbolic event of the there's like a parade of heads of parties coming to Helsung, and the purpose of the conversation is not just to have coffee with the the president, but to recommend a prime minister, recommend one of the head the heads of the parties who should get the um, I will say, the attempt, the mandate to form a government. And it doesn't have to be the head of the biggest party. It it can and and and people can recommend themselves. So obviously, Netanyahu is gonna go and say, me, um I I Benjamin Netanyahu, with my 26 uh mandates of Likud, I recommend myself. And then Itam al-Beng will say, me, Itam Albenvil, the head of Jewish power with my seven seats, I recommend Benjamin Netanyahu. And then there's like a tallying of the uh recommendations.

Shanie 19:15

Right, like Herzog now has to do the math and figure out like who can is getting the closest to 61, who has the best chance, and that's the person that he's gonna then like give the opportunity to build the government for.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Exactly. So, first of all, he doesn't have a lot of leeway. It's like according to the law, is that the person with the greatest chances of forming a government, and the interpretation is the guy who gets the most recommendation.

Shanie 19:41

Right. Like this is a math equation, like he doesn't actually have like his own discretion. It's like it's a math problem. People are gonna give you a name and you just like add up their seats. Who's the closest? Give them a shot. Like that.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

It's like the Electoral College. Is that the the state of California with their such and such uh uh electoral uh they recommend or they give their uh support to one of the candidates. I will say the challenge here, and this is when it comes, what what what can go wrong or what might happen? Netanyahu is gonna recommend himself, and probably uh uh Ben Viren Smokich, the head of the far-right parties, are gonna recommend Netanyahu. And the ultra-orthodox parties are leaning Netanyahu. It's reasonable that they're gonna recommend Netanyahu. This is what they've been doing for the past more than a decade. They tied the knots with the right wing. It didn't used to be like that 30 or 40 years ago. Yeah. They used to be the kingmakers. They could recommend the left wing or the right wing, so go with labor or go with the cudd.

Shanie 20:43

Based on who gives them the the things that they want, which are not political in nature necessarily.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

Yes, I know, because you s you uh you listed before their shopping list and you left out it's not just what we want for us. We want you to make sure that there are there isn't uh civil marriages or same-sex marriages, that there isn't uh public transportation for Shabbat. So it's not just about what we do in our homes or what we teach or do not teach our sons, but also how you, you secular liberal atheist in Tel Aviv, can live your life or if your LGBTQ plus how what uh rights and civil rights are being or human rights are being taken from you.

Shanie 21:25

Are those high priority issues for them? Are those like high on their list?

SPEAKER_02 21:28

Uh Shabbat and Jewish identity is what they use in their campaigns all the time. Shas put forward and like the main talking point in their campaign was if they're gonna let Yair Golan be in the government, the head of Democrats or center-left liberal party, they're gonna erase the Jewishness of the of the state of

Arab Parties And The Kingmaker Question

SPEAKER_02 21:54

Israel. Going back to the conversation at the president's house. So the president president, so the Netanyahu's. Block is gonna be around 50 something uh recommendations, which puts him pretty high. And then we're going to the opposition. The opposition came to this elections organized. You have six parties in the opposition. You have two Arab parties, you have uh two more like right-leaning parties, which is Bennett and Lieberman, you have Isencot as the presumptive nominee head of the bloc, and you have Yail Golan as the Democrats. The question is, who are these people gonna recommend? Yayel Golan is probably gonna recommend Eisencot, and Eisencott is gonna recommend himself. And the Arab parties, they said before the election, we're gonna do whatever it takes to get rid of this government. We're gonna take steps that we haven't taken before. They didn't say we're gonna recommend Eisencot, because if they would have said this, this would be a video in the Likud campaign. Look, Isencot, if you vote for Eisencott, you're gonna give the Muslim Brotherhood a victory.

Shanie 23:01

First of all, we should say there's the Ram Party by Mansur Abbas, which has how many seats did they get?

SPEAKER_02 23:06

Seven.

Shanie 23:07

Seven, which is good for them. Um and that is considered it's a very like traditional conservative Islamic party, but it is also the number two on the party list, is a Jewish Zionist um from the FFT party originally, who is a police chief. And so it's it's considered much more uh moderate. They sat in the government of Talib and Gary Lepide. Last time around, they did it, they supported it.

SPEAKER_02 23:29

They were part of the coalition, not the government.

Shanie 23:31

They were part of the coalition, not the government. That's an interesting distinction. I don't know. Um and and um and so like they are perceived as I would say like the average, I think we saw that like over half of opposition voters are okay with them being in the coalition. Israeli Jews broadly are not comfortable with it, will they accept it? Hard to say. There's a lot of like questions around this, but they're distinct from the joint list, which is the larger Arab party because it's a merger of a whole bunch, who are a bit more extreme.

SPEAKER_02 23:59

So, first of all, I I wouldn't describe the joint list as more extreme than Ram. It really depends on what's the definition of extreme. I will say that the Ram Party used to be a more traditional conservative uh Islamic party, a religious party, very similar to the ultra-orthodox parties. But coming to this election, Mansoor Abbas, the head of the Ram Party, uh took very big dramatic steps to make Raham kosher in the eyes of the ordinary Israelis. He disconnected the party from the Shura Council, which is like the parallel of like the like the rabbinical authority, spiritual religious authority. He said, We're gonna, I'm a member of the Islamic entity in Israel, but I'm a head of the political party. I don't take my marching orders from uh the clerics. Unlike the ultra-orthodox parties that do do whatever the the high rabbis tell them to do. If they're gonna say resign or join a party or recommend Isaac, they're gonna do it. So Matsur Abbas disconnected the Ram Party from the religious authority, the Islamic religious authority body in Israel. The second thing is in his list, he it not only does he have Yoav Sugalovich, who is an ex-high-ranking police officer and the deputy minister of internal security, uh like homeless security, but also he has a Christian Arab and a Druze, which is a first for an Islamic party. So this is the Rampaut. So the joint list used to be four parties. It used to be very different parties. You have an Islamist party, you have the more what we call communist party or the um Haddash, then you have Balad, which are secular but very, very nationalistic. They're the parallel of the right wing, maybe in um in in Arab society. It's a different politics, it's not a right-wing-left-wing uh um distinction. And it used to be a joint list of four parties. In 2015, it was the first time that they ran, they had 13 seats. Just for comparison, today their presumptive result, Ra'am and the joint list consisted of three parties, is going to be around 19, which is record high for the Arab parties. It's the biggest accomplishment, electoral accomplishment of Palestinian citizens of Israel or the Arab society uh since they ran. And we had Arab parties, Hadash ran in in the first election in Israel, 1948. Okay, and now toward this election, they uh the the entire political system, the opposition said, if we this was the worst government ever, we need to get rid of Netanyahu, we need to get rid of Smoklic and Venete. Raham's ideology and what separates Mansura Abbas with Rahm and the joint list is that Mansura Abbas said six years ago, uh, I want to be in the room where it happens. I'm willing to make compromises in order to get influence.

Shanie 27:04

The phrase used in English is like, if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. Um so um, which is to which is to showcase the that what some people argue, we had Alana Zajik was on this podcast early on, and you know, she's a friend of ours who like talks about that a lot. But like, I want to be in the rooms where it happens, even if I don't like what's happening, um, and try to leverage my

A Conflict Going Global Fast

Shanie 27:22

influence. I want to talk bigger picture about Israel and and the future of Israeli society. What do you what do you think is at stake, was at stake in this election when it comes to Israel's future as Jewish and democratic?

SPEAKER_02 27:32

You said if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. And I think when we look at the bigger picture, the original picture of what's happening in Gaza or the geopolitical dynamics, Israel is on the menu, or the future of Israel is on the menu. The fact that even the Trump administration, and of course the international community, the Saudis and the Europeans, they look at the current Israeli government like the loot, they look at Hamas as a potential spoiler that needs to be uh sideline in order to regain stability in the region, that needs to be excluded from discussions about the future of the region. This is the problem. The slogan of Netanyahu's uh campaign in this election cycle is big billbirds of right wing or Palestine. It crimes in Israel, in Hebrew, Yemen of Palestine. Netanyahu used this um primal fear of existential threat, and he said, if you won't vote for me, you're gonna get a Palestinian state on your head. Now, if we look at reality, which Israelis do not excel in, right now, on October 28th, 2026, there are more embassies of the state of Palestine around the world than embassies of the state of Israel. Really? Yeah, Google it. Palestine have the state of Palestine has a delegation to the Olympics. They only let countries in. They have a seat in the UN of a non-member state, but still, observance status, and still. They have even a FIFA um football, national football team. Yeah. Now, this today, today in the morning, there were people coming and uh going outside of the Gaza Strip. When they went into the Gaza Strip, they pulled out their Palestinian passport and they got a stamp saying stay on Palestine. This was authorized under this government, and another thing. Four out of the five uh member states of the UN Security Council. You have five uh what do you call them, constant members or like the permanent members. Permanent members, thank you. Four out of the five already recognized the state of Palestine. The only one who did not do so is the United States. And I reckon that in January 20th, 2029, there's gonna be a new president, and one of the first things that he or she will do, might do, will be recognize the state of Palestine. So there is this could be right, right, but none of that changes the reality on the ground, which is But the dynamic, the dynamic is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was internationalized. Yes, was taken out of the bilateral dead, like deadlock of like, uh, we need to get the Israelis and Palestinians in a room together. Ben Netanyahu, call Mansur Abbas and wish him happy birthday, or or come to Camp David, or come to Paris, or come to Madrid, or come to Riyadh, and you need to get in the room and negotiate. No, no, no, no, no. We know that this conflict will be solved multilaterally. This is not like Camp David or like the Kerry Initiative or Annapolis or the previous or Oslo, like the previous attempts to um to negotiate a peace deal between Israel and Palestine, or the Israel and Palestinian, were always we need to get the two parties in the vote. But the last three years showed everyone that Israel and Palestine is a destabilized uh destabilizing um factor. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is exporting tension and instability to the world, uh, to American campuses, and also how it can hurt and escalate the entire world economy. We saw the Saudi French initiative after um, I think it was September 2024, uh to UNGA, the United Nations General Assembly, there was announced a Saudi French initiative, and they changed the terminology between the support of a two-state solution or the promotion of a two-state solution to the implementation of a two-state solution. They said we're not gonna wait until there's a willing and able Israeli government or a willing-andable Palestinian leadership. We're gonna go ahead and create the terms. We're not gonna react to the dynamic, we're gonna create the dynamic that will allow a two-state solution. Uh and most Israelis don't vote with those facts or the the last, like the the conversation that we had in the last couple of minutes, or the monologue that I gave in the last couple of minutes, was not around Shabak tables coming to the election. And although Yemen of Palestine was the slogan, they don't talk about the nuance or the actual reality on the ground in Gaza or in the West Bank in order to calculate what's gonna happen. What I think is gonna happen is that whether if it's gonna be a unity government with Isencot and Likud, which I hope will not happen, and even if it's gonna be a Jewish Arab government with the support of the joint list and Ram, or a minority government, which is also uh a possibility, or if we're gonna go into another election cycle, we're gonna have a March 2027 election cycle, still the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not going anywhere. The dynamic, like the train has left the station. There are already things in play. Uh, and we're gonna have in 2027 also hopefully Palestinian elections.

Shanie 33:14

Uh don't hold your breath on that one, darling. Do you really believe so it was supposed to happen? This it was supposed to happen in like two weeks, though.

SPEAKER_02 33:23

Yes, and they were.

Shanie 33:24

And now it's happening next year.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

Because our generation, you and I, and our Palestinians, I will say cousins or brothers and sisters, our generation uh in Israel and in Palestine has uh was born and grew up under the same type of old corrupt leaders that are holding on to their seat, Netanyahu and Abu Mazan, that are teaching us to hate and fear each other, that are do not have our best interest and our future in mind, that do not represent us. Uh and um there is Smotlich said a couple of years ago, what politics is not gonna do, biology is gonna do. Netanyahu is old, Abu Mazan is old. We're gonna see a change of leadership in Israeli in Israel power.

Shanie 34:14

Okay. Eventually, eventually. You are you're totally right.

SPEAKER_02 34:17

Sooner rather than later. It's gonna be soon.

Shanie 34:20

Okay. I love I love the is it count as optimism? It's just about someone's death.

SPEAKER_02 34:26

Um not death. I didn't say death. I say the capacities, the mental capacities, mental capacities, yes, retirement.

Shanie 34:37

Yeah. No, but then we have we do have to grapple with the fact that a lot of what we talk about, like the Israeli public, is totally allergic to those ideas. And I don't know if this lives and dies with the benefits now, um, which is you know this other issue to overcome. Um, and that that's kind of takes me into my last question for you, actually, because as an Israeli, what is missing from the Israeli discourse

What Israeli Discourse Still Avoids

Shanie 34:58

about this? You can also say what's missing from the diaspora discourse, but I think there is so much law in the Israeli public and like how people are thinking about these issues, how people are talking about them. A lot of it is who resonates with me and I know it to be true. The Israeli public broadly, certainly the Jewish public, does not know it to be true. Um, and and for better and worse, they're a voting public. So they're actually like the most important constituency when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinians, they're important, but they actually don't vote for their own leadership yet and have not for a long time, whereas Israelis do. And so we actually have like a ton of agency in how this shapes out. And so the perceptions and the views and opinions of Israelis really matter if they're not shaped. Um, and maybe that means they're being shaped by external forces. I don't know what will shape them. Certainly being short shaped a lot internally. Um, but if they're not, if they don't change, it will be very, very hard to envision any of what we're describing. So, what's missing from the discourse in Israel?

SPEAKER_02 35:57

The short answer is the deep conversation about Jewish Arab partnership, political partnership, and the ability to perceive Jewish Arab political partnership or a government that represents all citizens and not just 80% of the citizens, as something that is not an obstacle, but as the key. Um, and also if we connect it to the the previous uh topic, the how instrumental Palestinian citizens of Israel, this 20% of uh Palestinians with the Israeli citizenship or Israeli Arabs in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, how they have a role to play in the the conflict or peace or negotiation dynamic. I think what is missing is the notion that people change and societies change and reality is dynamic. But you said what's gonna change their minds in order to get them to vote differently because they are voting for uh like you talked about agency.

Shanie 37:00

Have to vote differently because their leaders are very receptive to public opinion, right? And so if Uven is really public that supports something, you couldn't convince me that Bibi Netanyahu would would do literally anything if you thought people would vote for him because of it. Um, and certainly I see that on the opposition side. So if juven is really public that wants it, they don't need to vote differently. They can vote for the same leaders, but the leaders will need to be responsive to what they want. So I just want to emphasize that.

SPEAKER_02 37:23

I think that's and vice versa, and this is the this maybe we can end uh again a peace activist. If we go into a time machine uh and we go 50 years back, and we are 1975, and we go into the streets of Tel Aviv and we catch a random Israeli voter, and we say, What would you think? What would you say that the relationship between Israel and Egypt were gonna be a decade from now? And he said, Look, we had war with Egypt in 1948, and then in 1956, and then in 1967, and just two years ago we had the Yom Khupu War, which is a tragedy. And in average, every eight years we go and we have a war with the Egyptians, they will never accept us being here. And we are still in trauma. This was two years ago, and this was 1975. In 1977, the first time that uh we have a right-wing government and the Nachem Begging, when he declares we're not gonna give a centimeter of land back to the Arabs. This land belongs to us. And then he gets there and he says, Okay, war is bad, we need peace, and he goes and he makes peace with Egypt.

Shanie 38:33

And he gives back a piece of territory, he gives back a piece of territory larger than the whole state of Israel in the Sinai Peninsula in exchange for a peace agreement that has actually stood through multiple regimes in Egypt and stands to this day.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

And moreover, a piece of land that people who were objecting to the peace process said this gives us strategic depth. We cannot defend the borders of Israel without the Sinai Peninsula. And the fact that it was a liquid um prime minister, and you said that they're receptive to uh public pressure, but it's also the other way around. We could have a right wing um prime minister who um campaigns on being hawkish, and when he gets there and said, Okay, maybe we need peace. Now, I think that you said external like forces or internal forces will shape mindsets. And I think reality is the best thing that shapes the mindset. If we're gonna have a different government, even for two weeks, if we have the joint list in Ra and uh they recommend and somehow Lieberman who said we will never do this, he accepts this kind of government, and we change the government and we swear in a new speaker of the Knesset and a new government, a minority government, and suddenly Benjamin Netanyahu is not the prime minister, he's the head of opposition. And the corrupt Jewish supremacists on his government are just ordinary members of Knesset who can yell, but they don't have any executive power or access to public funding, and you get a budget through, with negotiations and compromises, and the reality changes. The fact that in six months from today we could have a Saudi Israeli uh normalization. We can uh Saudi can join Saudi Arabia can join the Abraham force with a path, uh credible path to a Palestinian state. We can have public transportation in Shabbat with separation and religion state was a big thing in in like liberal um like civic uh liberties, women's rights. We can get same-sex marriage in eight months, and suddenly reality changes. And then if if the government collapses, there's another election cycle and said, you know, in the last eight months, it was like normal, it was quiet. A little bit uh like when Biden was elected after Trump, like you open to your feed, you wake up in the morning, and it's not just okay, what did he do? You're not panicking panicking and going to your news feed, and like, oh well, what did he do now? The fact that you can live a normal life with normal politicians that are working for you, that are professionals, that are inspiring, that they show you how they can cooperate with people that they think differently and they have different values. Like, this is what we want out of our government. Just make stuff work. Uh, and I think that reality is the best tool to shape the mindset because people say, Okay, this is nice. I I could get used to this instead of sirens and and war and death and destruction and corruption and Jewish supremacy and settler terrorism.

Diaspora Voices And Shared Consequences

Shanie 41:43

You also spend some time in the states, you uh meet with peace activists, you meet with Palestinians, Americans, Israelis, whoever, but you spend a lot of time in in in other communities, also in Europe, speaking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What's missing from the discourse outside of Israel about the situation?

SPEAKER_02 41:59

Whenever I go and meet with international audiences, whether if it's Jewish communities around the world or just like British students or diplomats or politicians, my slogan is don't talk about us without us. I think what is missing is our voices. There is um room in the like a room, uh sit around the table for the diaspora. The last three years showed us that the actions and the rhetoric and the policies of the Israeli government affect the livelihood and the well-being of Jewish community of Jews around the world. Anti-Semitism exists, it's a real thing. But there are things that this government has a responsibility to do or to abstain from doing, and there are things that the Israeli government can do that can make the lives of Jews around the world worse or better. And there it's a responsibility. And because Israel affects other communities, this is not a transactional relationship. We are our destinies, our livelihood are intertwined. And I think what is missing from the conversation is the importance of this connection. It's it's it feels like for too many years it's a one-sided relationship. And it shouldn't be. It should be reciprocal. And I think that there are there's a lot of shame and guilt in the conversation in the diaspora, and there's a lot of misconceptions and a lot of things that are missing from the conversations around Shabbat Dennis and Inshuls and in campuses and in classrooms in the US of people do see themselves as troubled and committed to Israel. And I think that our stories and our voices and our experiences of young liberal Israelis and young liberal Palestinian citizens of Israel is missing from the conversation about where this country needs to go.

Shanie 44:00

Beautiful. Thank you so much for joining Iran.

SPEAKER_02 44:02

Thank you for having me. And uh I hope that your midterm elections are gonna be more decisive, uh, that you're gonna wake up the day after uh knowing that you won. And if not, that will uh we'll stand with you in solidarity. We have your back when you need us.

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Shanie 44:23

This podcast is brought to you by Israel Policy Forum and executive produced by Jacob Gilman. Make sure to subscribe, like, rate, and review Disputed Territory on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you're listening. For email updates about Disputed Territory, click the subscribe link in the show notes. And to help keep this show and others like it going, consider making a donation at the link in the show notes.