Episode 53: Telling the Jewish story to the Arab world, with Elhanan Miller

[Music]

Hi everybody. Welcome to Ask Anything.

I'm really glad for the episode we're

about to record. My friend Elan is here.

He is a rabbi with hundreds of thousands

of subscribers throughout the Arab

world. I'll just dangle that as I tell

you that uh this episode was sponsored

by Tali Rice as a tribute to her sister

who's currently serving in the IDF and

to everyone who's doing their part to

keep Israel safe. And the episode is

also co-sponsored by an anonymous

sponsor who dedicated it to the lone

soldiers in the IDF from Newton,

Massachusetts for their bravery and for

their safety. As hard as the situation

is for their families here in the US, it

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outside. Uh, there's a quite a few

subscribers. We have a great time. I

hope to see you there. Rabbi El Kanan

Miller

is the founding director of People of

the Book, an educational nonprofit that

teaches Jewish faith, Jewish culture,

teaches about it to Muslim audiences

throughout the Arab world. He's been

surprisingly viral in disseminating this

on social media. You'll find it on

Facebook, you'll find it on YouTube. Um,

the initiative has roughly half a

million subscribers, millions of monthly

hits, um, across the different

platforms, mostly all the ones I've seen

when I go through the videos and I look

at the comments in the Arab Middle East.

Um, the YouTube channel alone is like

200,000 subscribers.

Um, El Khan is a research fellow at the

Shalom Hardman Institute in Jerusalem.

He served as the Arab affairs

correspondent for the Times of Israel.

That's where I met him years ago. Uh,

back when we were both young and

handsome and had no white hair. Um, and

he was the rabbi of the Jewish community

in Canbor, Australia. He was born and

raised in Jerusalem. He started studying

Arabic at 13, I assume, at school. I'm

about to ask him. Um, and so he is now

fluent and, as you'll hear, very fluent

in English, in Hebrew, in Arabic, in

French, and in Yiddish. I know. I have

that feeling when I meet people who can

speak five languages as well. Um, El

Khan, how are you?

>> I'm great. Thanks so much, Khav, for

having me on. It's really nice. I really

enjoy your podcast and I'm glad to be

part of it.

>> All right, so let's get started with a

joke in Yiddish. Tell us something funny

and Oh, no. Just kidding. Um,

>> oh, yeah.

Um, so first of all, I just, you know,

you have such a such um unique um a

downright strange uh position as a

Jewish rabbi and I've I've watched your

videos and I've been watching your

videos for years um because the Arab

world comments on your videos are such a

more interesting window into the Arab

street um than a lot of other ways that

I personally have from Israel to

interact. act with the Arab world. Um,

and what what's fascinating is first of

all, your videos are a very very

traditional Judaism. You you cite the

Talmud, you give in on you know your

video for Sha, for example, here are the

five ways that uh the Talmud says that

we can change our faith between Shah and

Yumipool as we confess our sins and try

and repair ourselves for the new year.

And you literally just give the the

verses cited by now that that video has

every response under the sun. the vast

majority deeply appreciative

from people saying, "Hey, you know,

watching you from Morocco. Thank you so

much for this." Um, this is deep stuff.

Judaism is so great. Every once in a

while you get uh there's only Islam,

nothing but Islam, but mostly you don't.

At least that's on YouTube. I don't know

if you know it's different on different

platforms. Um, how did you get into this

now extraordinarily successful

um, Jewish rabbi speaking Arabic,

accented Arabic? Even I can hear the

accent. You're very clearly an Israeli

Jew. Um, teaching just just Judaism.

You're not talking about the war. You're

not, you know, you're not trying to

explain why the Amiradis are good for

doing business with us and the Qataris

are bad for not for funding Alazer

against. None of that. Just literally,

hello Muslim world. Hello, Arab world,

which is not all Muslim. Um, here's what

Judaism is, cuz you don't actually have

Jews anymore. Here's what Judaism is.

How did you get into that?

>> Well, I don't know how far back you want

me to go. Like, should I start at age 13

when I started learning Arabic in my

religious primary school in a

neighborhood of Jerusalem called Ramos?

>> Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. This is

this is something you've been doing for

a long even your times of Israel

reporting as as an Arab affairs reporter

was very much about getting into the

kishkis as we would say in Yiddish the

the the the guts but meaning the meat

and potatoes of of the Arab world and

and how the Arab world thinks about us.

>> Okay. So yeah, great. So let's start at

13. Um, and the irony is that from 7th

grade to the end of my master's degree

at Hebrew, all of my teachers except for

one, both in Arabic and in Islamic

studies, were all Jews. Um, all Israeli

Jews. And my first Arabic teacher was an

ultraorththodox woman like many of the

primary school teachers that I had. Um,

and that's interesting. It's also, you

know, a testament to how um siloed our

lives are where Arabs aren't usually

teaching Jews about their own faith, but

we we can go into that later. But um I

made a series of choices that led to me

graduating high school with majoring in

Arabic. You can major in a subject in

Israel. Very few Israeli Jews ma decide

to major in Arabic as their subject

because simply put, Arabic is not seen

as necessary to get along in Israel. um

you can get along very well in Hebrew.

Um Arabs mostly um Palestinian Israelis

need Arabic uh sorry need Hebrew to get

along in in Israeli life. But the

opposite, the reverse isn't true. But um

for me, Arabic was kind of love at first

sight in some ways. Um it was the first

foreign language I'd studied because I

grew up pretty much bilingual with

English at home. My parents, you know,

immigrated from Canada in the 70s. Uh,

Hebrew in school on the street with my

friends and Arabic at 13 was the first

foreign language. And I and I

immediately noticed that I have um a

knack for languages, but also that I

love learning Arabic specifically. Um,

maybe it's the fact that I grew up in a

city that has almost 40% Arabs, that

they're all around. And there was some

this immediate sense of um I don't know

affinity I guess between the languages.

So I took it in high school. I went to a

high school that's now become famous.

Himlarb um in tragic um circumstances

unfortunately. I think it had the

highest rate of fallen soldiers in this

war. But I had a fantastic Arabic

teacher and a great Arabic class. And

when you do that in Israeli schools

typically you get recruited to the

intelligence or you get vetted for the

intelligence to be an Arabic linguist.

And I went through the most advanced

training course in Arabic at the time

that I could have done and became an

Arabic linguist um in unit 8200 matim um

in military intelligence and that was

probably my real

>> famous signals intelligence unit of the

IDF that outstrips all signals

intelligence units on earth that that

we've heard about at least and yes

>> it's very prestigious. Yes.

>> And that was my that was my real school

I guess in Arabic that was my immersion.

It's hard to be really immersed in

Arabic growing up, you know, in Jewish

Israel. But when you, you know, deal

with Arabic at the intensity that I did

during the three plus years that I

served in the army, then you become

pretty pretty um pretty fluent and I

loved it. I had a fantastic uh military

service, very fulfilling.

Um it it corresponded completely to the

second inif. So there was a lot of

interesting things happening, a lot of

tragic things, but also a lot of

interesting work. Um, and then I came

out of the army thinking, what should I

study? Should I go for the practical

route, which for me would probably be

law? Um, because I'm not in sciences at

all, or would I go for my passion and

continue studying Middle East history

and Islamic studies? Um, and I took a

year off to think about it in yeshiva.

And then after that, I went to Hebrew

and did two degrees. And then I had to

think about my career and did I want to

go to the main employers of my skill set

which is the Mossad, the Shabbach,

foreign ministry,

uh, you know, police, the army. Um, I

felt like I wanted to be a little bit

more independent and not behold into a

big government bureaucracy.

I did do some vetting for some of these

agencies, but nothing really uh took.

And I became a journalist, and that's

where I met you eventually in 2012.

became one of the founding staff of

Times of Israel and the Arab affairs

reporter. Um, which was also a fantastic

opportunity to

be exposed more to the Arab world to

report on both the Arab Spring which was

unfolding at the time but also

Palestinian politics. There was a

stabbing inif happening in and around

Jerusalem and places like that and just

meet excellent colleagues and be in a

great um work atmosphere. Um but around

2016 I was kind of getting burnt out a

little bit from the daily grind of

journalism. Um I had done some freelance

work and then I heard about this new

program opening up in Jerusalem called

Bidash Harel. Um a modern Orthodox

rabbitic seminary that also trains

women. So it's very unique in the

landscape of Orthodox uh seminaries or

you know ordination programs. And in

2019, I was ordained as a as a rabbi

along with eight other people.

And then I went to Australia and became

a rabbi there during the first year of

COVID.

Came back and started working mostly in

education at the Pardes Institute, which

is a higher education institute for

Torah learning in Jerusalem and at the

Hardman Institute also in Jerusalem. But

during my studies and this goes back to

the question um I started this project

called people of the book as sort of a

hobby I was teaching some Palestinians

in uh a field outside of Jerusalem. If

some people know about roots shawashim

it's a it's a sort of very unique

interfaith uh Palestinians and settlers

meeting in the ion block south of

Jerusalem.

I was commissioned to teach some like

basically Judaism 101 to Palestinians

and

the theology and philosophy that I

brought to the table was of no interest

to the three and a half four

Palestinians who showed up to the

classes. But the questions that they did

ask me like what is this for example? Um

what is kosher food? Um

>> just for people listening on audio you

raised your kea.

>> Yeah I just showed my uh head gear here.

um what is kosher food? Um what how do

Jews pray? Like what's the choreography

of the prayer? Uh because we pray. So

how do you pray? Uh what does fast mean

to you? And I said, "Okay, we need to

start with the basics." And if these are

the questions that uh our neighbors, the

Palestinians, many of whom speak Hebrew

and work with Israelis and know Jews

have, then there's probably a potential

of half a million Arabic speakers out

there. And if we expand that to the

Muslim world and we have two billion

plus Muslims internationally from

Indonesia to you know Sagal and um I saw

huge potential there was nothing online

exposing Arabs and Muslims to Judaism in

their own language or in Arabic

principally and I said okay there's a

there's a potential here. That's

actually why I joined the rabbitic

program to begin with. I wanted to do um

I wanted to do interfaith on a high

level and have the qualifications to do

that and social media was the platform

that I identified as the most promising

for that. And here we are 8 years later

as you said with a following of half a

million and a lot of interaction and

going to places um to paraphrase Star

Trek where no Jewish Israeli has gone

before. It's not the lowhanging fruit or

the the ones who are convinced. We're

talking about Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Egypt,

very mainstream classic Sunni countries

that are quite hostile to us generally

speaking. So to see those figures, to

see the statistics of where these videos

are being shown is very heartening and

encouraging.

It it is Egypt has um a grand sort of

national museum where the display on

Judaism includes the protocols of the

elders of Zion or or did a couple years

back when I when I read about that and

discovered it and was shocked by it. Um

the framing of Jews, the framing of

Israel. Um the I have a a book uh on my

bookshelf called Israelism which is an

Arab scholar um analyzing Israel studies

in academia in the Arab world. And his

basic argument is there is no actual

Israel studies. It's the studies of the

Arab ideological framing of Israel that

everybody has to adhere to and know and

not actually studying Israel. So any

fact about Israeli society, any

complexity, any layer that doesn't fit,

the Arab political narrative doesn't

exist in Arab academia. Um and and so

there is it's missing. I mean that's

that's an incredible point that you just

made that I just I want to dig more into

that. There's there's nothing online

like what you do. And I just

parathetically um in my totally

different world, which I guess would

count as uh teaching Jewish history to

Jews. I don't know what I do exactly,

but what I do, I've discovered that

identical point that when I come in with

the most basic outline of the Jewish

20th century, um, of of of the millions

of Jews who fled before a Holocaust, of

the of the, you know, the refugeess of

most Israeli Jews, the sheer number, the

percentage, if it's 80% or 90% of Jews

at the founding of Israel who are

refugees, and if you don't understand

that, none of the rest makes sense. It's

not their military prowess, willingness

to sacrifice, not how the 48 war

actually went down, not now you can

criticize anything you want to

criticize, but just to have the social

the sense of the social history of that

moment and nobody knows it and nobody

says it, nobody talks about nobody

teaches it. The only version in western

academia of the Israeli or Jewish story

that you get is also framed in these

larger ideological constructs. And so to

just talk about the basics is missing

out there. And I kind of my question to

you it it's all coming together. I

promise. My question to you is we live

in an age where all the things are there

to just reach out and take. It has never

been easier to be deeply knowledgeable.

And it feels like it's never been

harder. We, you know, I I bring a very

simple, straightforward, you fact check

me, it'll work into the discourse. And

nobody had it. Why is the and and that's

true in the Arab world. Nobody in the

Arab world just reaches out and GR. Now,

first I'm accusing Jews so that you

understand that when I'm accusing Arabs

of this, I think it's structural in in

in our times. I don't think it's

specific to Arabs. Um, nobody reaches

out and just grabs this knowledge. Why

is there nobody Why did you step into

it? So, Jews not telling what and who

they are to the Arab world anywhere in

any way is weird, right?

>> Definitely. I mean, I think um we

reacted to the shunning and you know,

the shutting off of Israel from the

Middle East in in in kind. I mean, the

fact that there was a boycott

essentially, not just a financial

economic boycott of Israel, but also a

cultural boycott, a complete shutting

down, which was um possible during the

time of controlled media, right? When

Syria can control what their people uh

listen to or were exposed to or Egypt

could control, then you could shut off

Israel. By the way, one of the people

who complained most about that is Mahmud

Abbas. He actually writes a lot about uh

how devastating that was to the

Palestinian cause or to the Arab cause.

But um that's not possible anymore in

the age of social media. Um and you see

that the countries that were most closed

down to Israel. I'm talking about Saudi

Arabia, which for years was the number

one country of viewership for me, 25% of

my viewers for years on YouTube were

from Saudi Arabia. It's still, I think,

the number one country. uh Syria, Yemen,

uh Iraq, countries where in some of them

Jews had existed. Um so so I should

mention also that the project my project

has evolved from just being about Jewish

faith, which is what you saw in the in

the last video to also dealing with

Jewish peoplehood. And for the last

probably five or six years, I've been

interviewing um consistently Jews from

the Middle East and North Africa.

>> Beautiful interviews. People have to go

see them.

>> Yeah. And those are going viral probably

much more at this point than the

religious videos. The religious videos,

some of them get more, some get less.

But interviewing a Syrian Jew or a

Lebanese Jew or Iraqi Jew. And what's

fascinating is that the algorithms on

social media send these videos or get

them watched in those countries. I can

actually see province by province on

YouTube. If I'm interviewing a Syrian,

it gets watched in Damascus, Holmes,

Aleppo Benverton.

um uh triple like uh I don't know

Istanbul. It's like a map of where

Syrians are living now in the diaspora

and in Syria. It's fascinating. Um

>> and what what do they respond? What do

they respond when they It's an old man

who tells about his life. There's a lot

of good there. There's there's there's,

you know, centuries and millennia of

history and a tremendously deep memory.

And also it all fell apart and also they

all fled and also they're all Israelis

and they don't want Israel to disappear

because it's their great refuge from an

Arab world that that as empires fell and

as nationalism took over and a lot of

the nationalisms in World War II turned

to the Nazis if only to be anti-British

sometimes out of literal ideology but

it's all this very Iraq was not Syria,

Syria was not Yemen. It's all complex

but nevertheless they're Israelis and

they have nowhere else to go. How did

the Arab world respond to these kinds of

interviews?

>> Right, they're almost all Israelis. I've

also filmed people in the US and in

Australia and in Europe, but most of

them are Israelis. Um, it's to create

cognitive dissonance. That's I'd say the

over overarching kind of goal of my

project. Um, it started as trying to

confuse what Arabs typically think about

Jews and Israelis specifically. And as

you pointed out, not in a political way

because I felt like if it's perceived

immediately as propaganda or as some

form of haz then people shut down and

it's categorized. There's there's also

enough of that even in Arabic there's

there's hazbara being done. I felt like

a more promising way of getting reaching

to people's hearts and minds would be

through the culture and the history and

the religion. We live in a very

religious area but again it evolved from

just religion into peoplehood. And here

again the cognitive dissonance meaning

the confusion and the psychological

impact that it has in creating this

sense of uncertainty or angst is

extremely important I think to for the

development because what happens is that

in the Arab world there's sort of a

predominant um paradigm or or or or

thought that is Israel is a essentially

a western European colonialist project

and in so far as um people from the

Middle East came to Israel, they were

enticed or duped by the empires or by

Ashkanazi Jews to come here. They were

tricked and then they were kind of um

you know uh oppressed. And here you have

consistently an audience seeing Jews

from Libya to Morocco to um to Egypt to

Iraq telling very similar stories which

is we got along pretty well with our

neighbors. uh we had always Muslims or

Arabs who protected us but at some point

the government turned against us and um

it was no longer possible for us to live

here. Um usually Israel was the

instigator of that, the creation of

Israel. But across the board um you have

this sense that Jews could no longer

live in the Middle East. And we're

living in a turning point now in history

where the Middle East and North Africa

are completely emptying of their final

Jews. Um and it breaks something in the

misperception because in in in the

perception of I guess the Arab world of

Jews which is that everything was

idilic. Jews were suffered terribly in

Europe but their experience in the

Middle East and North Africa was

predominantly positive. So it breaks

that down. On the other hand, it also

fosters this great nostalgia because

these Jews often talk with fondness

about their communities, their

neighborhoods, their neighbors. So

there's this mix of um difficulty and

nostalgia, bitter and sweet, which is I

think fascinating to hear. It's

important also for us for Jews to

preserve these memories and stories just

like the Spielberg, you know, project

preserves Holocaust stories. It's not

comparable, but the end of the Jewish

communities, the end of their languages,

their children, their grandchildren

don't speak Arabic anymore. So it's

preservation for us as Jews, but it's

also very important for the outside

world to see it.

>> I, you know, sometimes it's all true all

at once, right? Um, in Europe too, there

was not a little bit, there was vast,

there was a millennium of, of good, of

extraordinary, wonderful culture

creation and not a little bit of

integration. there there was a lot of

good and then there was a collapse and

there were many many small collapses and

then in the 20th century there was a

very big collapse. So those are all you

know those are the same what what

strikes me and

when I talk to um Arabs when they blame

the founding of Israel you think but

like if all of New York City turns

anti-ionist which is imaginable in a way

it wouldn't have been 10 years ago right

would every last Jew have to flee? Would

would the Green Party Jew have to flee?

Would the socialist democratic socialist

of America Jew have to flee? Would theic

anti-ionist Jew have to flee? Would

every single kind of Jew have to flee?

You then discover that it isn't really

about Israel. Something was happening

in, you know, in our analogy in New York

City. If every Jew flees, if the Iraqi

nationalist Jew has to flee Iraq, then

something's wrong with Iraq. And it's

got nothing to do with Zionism. Zionism

is the and and there's no

there's no grappling with that. There's

no serious uh anywhere in the Arab

world. It's all very self-serving. It's

all very, you know, and Mahmud Abbas Abu

Mazin, one of the things he wrote also

is if you hadn't mistreated your Jews to

the point where they flee to the last

man, woman, and child,

Zionism probably wouldn't have been

viable.

>> Y writes that.

>> Mhm.

>> Yeah. He writes that. So, um there is no

grappling with even the problem they

created now is their own abuse of their

own minorities. and and after the Arab

world has done that to so many other

minorities, Christians and and and

Yazidis and Kurds and you name it. Um

where is that grappling as as someone

who talks about Judaism to the Arab

world? Do you ever encounter um we need

to do a serious reckoning with our own

history in the 20th century because we

collapsed on all of our minorities

everywhere and the Jews all fled because

they had somewhere to flee but even

those who those who didn't flee just

stuck around and died.

Yeah, I think there is that. Um, few go

as far as to say what you just said,

meaning that we did this to other

minorities. Um, but I think the

experience of Arabs today, especially in

countries like Syria and Iraq, where the

refugee experience is now become that of

the mainstream, the Muslims, right? Not

just the minorities. And especially in

Syria, I see comments sometimes on my

pages of um you know, it's not just the

Jews who suffered, but now you know, but

everyone suffered or today we're

suffering what you suffered back then.

And I think that's a way that they

understand how dynamics of dictatorships

work. In other words, it starts with the

minorities. It never ends there. At the

end, there's a dynamic that expands it

to the mainstream. You know, this is an

educational process. It'll take a very

long time. It'll take decades. I don't

see this as hazar. I see this as

education. But the education isn't just

for the sake of educating people

academically about Judaism or about

Jews. It's about there is a political

end there, right? The political end is

to understand Israel in a much more

nuanced and complex way than that Arabs

understood it up until now. Um, and to

identify with us in some way, right? to

humanize Jews to Arabs. Um, and I think

one of the ways, one of the vehicles of

humanizing us to the Arabs is number one

by religion, religious discourse, which

was really absent in the peace discourse

up until very recently. And secondly, by

speaking the language. So the language

element is very important. Um, in all

the dialogue groups that I've ever

participated in in college and, you

know, later on, I was usually the odd

man out in two senses. I was usually the

only religious person in the room. Most

of the people on the Jewish side are

secular. Um, and I was and I was the

only Arabic speaker in the room. and

those experiences and the immediate sort

of connection that I had with the Arab

participants. Not that we, you know,

always reached understandings, but there

was this kind of immediate um, I don't

know communication

that didn't have these barriers that

other people had. And so there's also

modeling from my own side here. And I've

been doing more and more of that. I've

been translating more and more of my

videos into Hebrew to kind of like

reflect this back to my own Jewish

society, my own Israeli society to show

look at the connections that can be made

and look at the potential

um of pursuing this rather than just the

classic

I don't know elites or secular elite um

peace initiatives that haven't really

led us to any of that. It's just an

experiment. It's kind of a work in

progress I guess.

Okay. So, um on October 7, um the great

massacre, the war begins. Um the next

two years are the disaster that we all

know about and have been talking about

endlessly.

And you have gone on every Arabic

language channel I know about, at least

Western Arabic language channel. So,

France 24, BBC, Sky News in Arabic. I

haven't seen you in English. I haven't

seen you in Hebrew. Um, but I you have

been hundreds of times in the major

broadcast into the Arab world in Arabic.

Um, I I don't know that your politics

and my politics are the same. I, you

know, I don't hear a lot of your

politics and what you talk about, but

you try to not culture, not history, but

convey what it is that Israelis think

and feel and are going through right now

on those on those channels. tell us

about about that about sort of updating

that story in these two years.

>> So, so on October 7th, my phone starts

ringing. I don't answer it. I was trying

to observe the holiday as best I could

that day with all the craziness and the

sirens, but I saw on my screen on my

phone, mobile phone screen, that the

calls were coming in from the Emirates

and from Berlin and from Paris. And they

were all channels that I had known from

my journalism days. And I kind of got

dragged in almost against my will back

to being sort of a journalist. I wasn't

doing journalism but sort of doing this

punditry. They had my number in their

Excel sheets I guess from my journalism

days and they just wanted to know what

was going on. And here we are 2 years

later and the phone hasn't stopped

ringing. In other words, this is a

story, right? It's a developing story

and it's not one war. It's multiple wars

that were fought in parallel, right? But

I don't know of any other story. Russia

Ukraine hasn't, you know, been in the

headlines like this at all. Um, no other

war even comes close. And um, I've done

I think over a thousand I've saw I've

lost count, but in the first few months

of the war, it was four to five

interviews a day sometimes on these

channels because there's a very small

pool of Israeli um, Arabic speakers,

meaning standard Arabic, modern standard

Arabic, who can give an interview in

Arabic. So there's there's me and a

bunch of um you know olim immigrants

from Israel who worked in Israel's

broadcaster in the 70s and 80s and are

now also in their 70s and 80s. Um, so

there's a very small pool of of people

speaking, you know, about Israel. Um,

and

basically this was my milim in in some

way. All right. I haven't been drafted,

but but I saw this very much as my own

um national service and um one of it was

informing the Arab world about the you

know the anxieties, the fears and I'd

say by and large a large Israeli

perspective. Um, and in the earlier days

of the war, that was easier because I

think most Israeli Jews were exactly on

the same page, at least in the first few

months. I certainly supported the war

and and and you know, justified the war

in every interview I gave. Um, the one

channel that had not called me since the

beginning of the war was Al Jazzer,

which was a channel that I had given

that I I was a regular commentator on

Alazer Arabic. They had a program called

Mir Sahafa, a mirror to Israeli

newspapers. I was there almost every

week sort of deciphering Israeli

headlines, Israeli newspaper headlines.

Um, and Al Jazzer flipped even before

this war I think. So Al Jazzer stopped

calling me and stopped calling I think

most Israeli com Jewish commentators but

other than that BBC and Sky News and

France 24, a lot of European channels, a

few in the in the Gulf. Um, and you're

right. I I mean I I don't know if my

politics and yours are the same. I think

I have listened to what you said about

this war and you know your last episode

about analyzing

uh the deal. I think we're basically on

the same page. I have very few

disagreements about analyzing the

moment. But one of the things that I

that that is very important for me um is

to allow myself to criticize the

government and its policies the way you

do actually um in front of uh an Arab

audience which is generally and

basically hostile like I know that I am

the enemy, right? I'm representing the

enemy side. So why do I do this? Number

one, because I believe in honesty and if

I'm actually going to be a credible

pundit, um I should say what I think if

asked directly about a c certain policy

that the government is pursuing. But

secondly, I think it's actually much

wiser and more sophisticated way of uh

of explaining Israel and of actually

justifying Israel in some way because in

doing so in Arabic with this kipa again

on my head, usually in a visible way on

TV as much as it's possible on TV, um

I'm doing something I'm modeling

something that for Arab viewers is

impossible if they're in the Middle

East, which is to sit in their capitals

or in their cities and criticize their

government without consequence.

So you know how in writing they say show

don't tell, right? So you can you can

shout till tomorrow, Israel is the only

democracy in the Middle East. Um okay,

either they believe it or they don't.

Most won't believe that. But if you

demonstrate to them that here I am

sitting in Jerusalem and I'm saying

things about my government that are very

critical. I'm wishing for there to be

elections. I'm wishing for for there to

be a change of policy. I'm expressing

empathy to the Palestinian side when

empathy in my opinion is due. I'm

admitting certain mistakes.

Um, you know, maybe some people will

cap, you know, will will will pocket

that and sort of use it against us.

That's possible.

But I'm hoping that the more intelligent

viewers um and the more sensitive

viewers among them and if I'm, you know,

speaking over time to hundreds and

thousands or millions of viewers will be

sensitive to the fact that I'm doing

something that they can't do. And what

does that mean about Israel? I think

that's a much better way of presenting

Israel to the Arab world than just

defending it blanketly or defending

everything it does. And doing this in

Arabic is specifically important. So, so

that's kind of where my mind is when I'm

doing these interviews. That's why I'm

still doing them even in channels that

are very hostile. Um,

yeah, it's it's gratifying, but it's

also massochism at the same time. It's

sometimes very frustrating. At the

beginning of the war, I would sometimes

go to bed reeling. I wouldn't be able to

fall asleep. I was so sort of worked up

by these interviews. But with time, you

kind of get used to them, I guess.

>> Yeah. I I feel very free uh to criticize

and constantly criticize. And in fact,

at some points the what what the world

needs to know is why Israelis are

united. And at some points what I think

is the only important thing to talk

about is the screw up of the Israeli

government or of Israeli policy that

sometimes have terrible costs for

Palestinians and also for Israelis. I I

also feel we are free from even

imagining we should try to win a

propaganda war by the simple fact that

there's not a lot of us in the world and

so we're going to lose the propaganda

war and so ignore the propaganda war.

There's only your own truth. And I I

agree with you. People respond to it.

You know, I find that um is in the

Israeli government after I've criticized

the Israeli government, there's some

people once in a while, maybe it makes

it all the way to the top, but there's

some people who are in the policym room

who then have carry that critique into

the policymaking room. And if they

thought that it was wanting criticism

because it was partisan, that would not

happen. And if they also thought that I

can't criticize because I'm a gung-ho

supporter um because I don't know what

Israel can do no wrong or some other

obviously idiotic statement that people

pretend to feel or pretend that their

opponent thinks and nobody I've ever met

thinks that. Um then also I would be

useless to them. A supporter is useless

and an opponent is useless. But an

analyst is actually quite useful. And so

um that's that's the only thing we have

to offer. Um okay so let me um let me

take this in a different direction. Um

I have a sense that the um the big

question that I that I have been asking

and I don't have the tools you have to

answer this question is which way is the

Arab world going which way is the Muslim

world going and specifically because you

have interactions one way or another

hundreds of thousands of them um with

Arabs with Muslims

on issue on issues of Israel on issues

of their understanding of Jews and of

Israelis Um, is the Arab world turning

Muslim Brotherhood? Is it radicalizing?

Is it actually despite the defeat of

Hamas, despite the defeat of the

resistance axis, most of which is Shia

at the end of the day? Um, is it

actually joining because of the Gaza war

was radicalizing or maybe pre-Gaza war

and it actually just brought it out into

the open but didn't actually create it,

joining the kamas narrative of us and

we're in for another 30 years of war. or

is what the Saudis and Amiradis are

doing, trying to create a Middle East

that doesn't have these insanities,

isn't fallen into these neverending

constant religious wars that end up

destroying Arab societies. Um, is that

having an effect in your sense of the

Arab world and here you're a guy who

talks to them, but you're also just

literally an analyst, um, an Arabic

speaking analyst, an intelligence guy

and and an analysis guy who knows the

Arab world. Which way are they going?

What does our future look like in this

region?

>> Wow, that's that's a huge question,

Khaviv. And I I don't think that there's

an easy answer. I think the Arab world,

the one short thing I can say is that

it's completely broken. And um the Arab

world has come out of the Arab Spring uh

what was called the Arab Spring in a in

many cases in a worse state than it was

going into it. Before it had um

authoritarian or dictatorial regimes,

especially in the republics, right? the

countries that called themselves

republics and those countries are today

in chaos from Libya to Yemen to Syria.

Well, Syria now maybe finally is

starting to turn around but we don't

know yet. Um and that's why um the

promise of democracy that these

revolutions brought with them and even

in the successful countries like

Tunisia, it's catastrophic the situation

politically. So um the promise of

democracy and liberalization that a lot

of the people were on the streets

fighting for did not materialize. Um and

in many cases what replaced the

dictatorships is anarchy um violence.

Yemen is still divided between the

Houthis and a legitimate government that

is dysfunctional. Um in Egypt we have CC

who in many ways is more authoritarian

I think in every significant way is more

authoritarian and clamps down even more

than Mubarak. So um the promise of

liberalization and of taking to the

streets has not delivered the the I

think the results that they had hoped

for. And the countries that survived and

where the Arab Spring sort of virus

almost didn't infect were the monarchies

in the Emirates, right? For whatever

reason. Some of it has to do with the

fact that they manage to that they're

rich, that they managed to buy off uh

the loyalty of groups with money, with

public spending. But even in countries

that are not resource wealthy like

Jordan or Morocco, there was this idea

of I think loyalty. And there's a

different social contract. There's no

pretense of democracy or of

representation for the public there.

You're you're you're a you're a subject.

You're not a citizen. And I think when

you come into when you're in the mindset

of a subject and all you need is the

king to take care of you. You don't

expect ever to be represented. I I think

that's part of I think that's part of

it. Um it's not that Jordan didn't have

upheavalss in Mora Morocco and they did

make adjustments. Um, I don't think that

the Muslim Brotherhood model um has

succeeded um to convince people that

that's the right way. I think with

Kamas, it's maybe still open. It's still

an open question. I think Hamas acted on

October 7th based on um a set of

incentives that Israel helped set up

which helped incentivize violence,

kidnappings, uh targeted uh roadside

bombings, rocket launches, um in order

to get gains that were important for the

Palestinians. And as long as there's no

credible convincing alternative to that,

um the Muslim Brotherhood may be still

the most convincing alternative for

Palestinians. And that's what's more

interesting to me. Whether it takes root

in Syria or Yemen or Iraq is of less

consequence to me than whether it's

convincing to Palestinians. And I think

the jury is still out on that one.

>> I take your point. What Palestinians

think will deeply affect the future of

our children and uh what Moroccans think

less. So Jordan nevertheless faces a

serious Muslim Brotherhood threat. Iran

has because it's angry at Jordan for not

helping it fight Israel over the last

two years begun to massively fund the

Muslim Brothers. Qatar funds the Muslim

Brothers or whatever offshoots and

pieces there are. Turkey is a party is

ruled by the AK party which is um not

you know card carrying members of the

Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood but the

ideological foundations at the start of

the party and the way the party talks

now about um Muslim piety and its

importance in creating a a stronger

Islam and and Turkey's I think

geopolitical aspirations in the region

to lead Sunni Islam uh to take that

leadership away from the Saudis this

neotomanism as some people call it um

all these things are a religious framing

of um of of Muslim return to power that

always always always looks at Israel,

looks at the Jews in the Middle East and

says they are the thing that is most out

of sync with Islamic, you know, strength

and confidence and a return to the world

stage. And so, um the Jews have to be

put back in their place and that means

overcoming Israel and defeating Israel.

And so, everywhere the Muslim

Brotherhood goes, you end up with this

deep anti-Israel. Even Egypt now flexing

its muscles and occasionally some

officials saying hey war with Israel is

a possibility. Egypt Egypt itself uh is

a sopu deepseated you know the spread of

Muslim Brotherhood version of Islam in

Egyptian society and so um

we're going into Gaza in 10 seconds. Um,

is it reasonable to think that the Arab

world is um, you know, with all due

respect to the Amiradis and the Saudis

and the people who see this as the

constant Arab self-destruction of their

own societies and this Islam that will

only ever bleed us and make us poor and

make us ridiculous and dysfunctional.

Nevertheless, it feels on the march all

over.

>> Yeah. So, I've started actually

committing I've started like looking

into some of these ideas um and writing

them down for a book that if I ever

manage to find a publisher, I hope to

write to publish, especially um Hamas's

thinking about Jews in Israel. Um you

know, I've read Sinir's novel. I've read

Makadme, who was a senior kamas person.

The M70 rocket is named after him. Um um

Husam Badran, who I interviewed myself

in 2018. He was one of the kamas leaders

who was in that room or safe house in

Qatar that we uh bombed. I interviewed

him for tablet in 2018. All of these

people wrote down their thoughts and

having read all of that, I think it's

impossible to minimize the impact of

Islam and Islamic thinking on the

conflict. So maybe like unlike many

people on the left which I think I

largely belong to I don't minimize or or

or marginalize the impact that the Quran

and Islamic thinking on Jews has on the

conflict. I think it's a serious serious

barrier impediment

and the form of Muslim Brotherhood

thinking as long as it exists is

probably an insurmountable obstacle to

peace. That's why

>> we're talking about Hamas, but Hamas

itself is heir to these ideas coming in

from Egypt um in the 1930s all the way

to the 1980s. Um but so well you know

what um you'll do it better than I ever

have. What what is that? What are those

ideas? Can you um can you do the reverse

of what you usually do which is tell us

now this is not Islam. This is a

particular strain that had profound

influence on how the Arab nations around

us look at us, see us, understand us,

and decide whether or not we deserve to

live or die. Um, what are these ideas?

Well, largely speaking, political Islam

says that um previous models of of Arab

governance or subordinates to empires

didn't work and that Islam itself um

contains all of the features and tools

to govern societies and that as the the

motto of of of the Muslim Brotherhood is

Islam, Islam is the solution. So unlike

Judaism which didn't really have in the

last two millennia very many

opportunities to show governance or to

prove how it creates a theology of

governance, Islam did govern as a

caliphate and then as you know the the

Turkish the Ottoman Empire for hundreds

of years. It has a model of how Islam at

least nominally, you know, um can can

govern societies. And the fact that they

lost World War I and and that the

caliphate collapsed um is a is a wound

that's still open, right? It's just the

for sort of final stage of deterioration

of the prestige of of Arab governance,

the Abbasad caliphate and later on the

other um dynasties that ruled the Middle

East. But um the idea is that um Islam

that the Quran gives you a toolbox to

govern societies that any ruler that

doesn't adhere to Sharia law um is kind

of betraying his purpose. And um

what it means for minorities like um

Jews used to be in the Middle East is

that they're protected by a system

called themma or you know they're

they're under the the protection of the

Muslim benevolent rulers um Christians

and Jews and other minorities. And

that's the model that kamas envisions I

think or that other Muslim um you know

Islamist rulers envision. They don't see

themselves as particularly oppressive.

They actually see themselves as

benevolent, kind um you know and and

merciful um given the Jews subversive

character, their nefarious character um

as as presented in the Quran and in the

stories of the prophet, the hadith. So

um

>> but as long as the foundation stone the

cornerstone of it all is Islam is on top

and then everybody gets to have Islamic

mercy beneath Islam. That's I mean that

is that's the hierarchy ordained by by

God in the cosmos and and that's

so much

>> so where does Israel fit into that?

>> It doesn't really I mean I get this so

much in the comments also on my pages. I

get you know the the sense of betrayal.

It's it's an authentic sense. The sense

that the Jews betrayed their Muslim

patrons, right? We protected you. We

brought you in after you were expelled

from Andaloo from Spanish uh Catholic

Spain, right? We brought you into the

Ottoman Empire and there you went and

backstabbed us even though you had it

great and formed your own country. Why

did you need to do that? It just caused

all the problems in the world.

Everything was fantastic before then.

>> 400 years later, right? 400 years later,

we backstabbed them. Yeah.

right? Something happened suddenly and

because of the European sins we decided

to turn against our um now I think this

is the strand there is a pragmatic

Palestinian camp there is a pragmatic

Arab world out there maybe the most uh

the best example is the Emirati and and

you know Bahraini and Moroccan so

regents right the leaders who are like

yes Israel is there to stay um we have

just what to benefit from relations with

Israel and then by extension with the US

and um but this wasn't just the thinking

of those region like you know the

Hasheite family that became the kings of

Iraq and Jordan right and Abdalah they

cooperated with Zionism on a pragmatic

basis for 100 years there was a

correspondence between Fisal and and and

our first president whitesman right um

so there was always a strand of

pragmatists

but I would say that in the large scheme

of thing they always lost out to the

ideologues and to the maximalists and to

the Islamists essentially basically in

the struggle in Palestine. It was the

the Husinis and Kajamin Husini

especially who won out over the more

pragmatic Nashibis and other families

who are more amendable to cooperating

with Zionism. Um and and now that's

basically that's the that's the battle

that is being fought between I think

Mahmud Abbas and Hamas. Now, I know we

have a lot of things to say about Abbas

people. I'm um I'm I'm one of the at

least up until a few years ago, one of

the pro Abbases. Um I think Abbas um is

different than Yasar Arafat. I think he

did went a very long way to suppressing

the second inif. I think he continues to

collaborate with Israel and that's why

he's seen as a sellout by many

Palestinians and he helped with with

Israel to end the second inif.

But there's no um there I often tell

Palestinians, you need your Altalena

moment. What is the Altalena moment that

we had? It's the moment where the

militias, the pre-state militias had to

give up their arms and basically submit

to the one decision, to the sovereign

decision. There's no contiguity,

territorial contiguity between Gaza and

the West Bank. So even physically it's

very difficult for them to settle this

debate I think between pragmatism and uh

maximalism or or radicalism. Um but they

need this discussion to to be settled

because it's destroying them. It's

destroying their national project. Um

and I don't know how we in Israel can

enable that to be decided. But I just

know that up until now we supported a

divide and conquer policy that blew up

in our faces on October 7th. Now, I know

it's not just our fault. They don't need

our help necessarily to hate each other

and to prefer sectarian or factional

considerations over their national

cause.

But I think we need to help reverse that

trend and help the moderates win. And I

think we need to put a lot of thinking

into how we're doing that if there's

going to be a peaceful solution.

>> Israel's trying for two years to defeat

Hamas. Um the skeptics uh among

Israelis, never mind the international

discourse, um which really matters far

less than Israeli and Palestinian

discourse, but uh the skeptics say

Netanyahu has not really been trying

enough or doesn't it wants the war to

continue because of political

considerations. But uh let's imagine

that that's not true of the chief of

staff of the IDF and of the Shabbach and

of of the vast majority of Israeli

soldiers and of the vast majority of the

Israeli hierarchy. And I happen to also

think Netanyahu really does actually

want to defeat Kamas. And my criticism

of him is the failures in that regard

trying to achieve that goal. Not not

that he's not trying.

Is it doable? How does Israel defeat

Kamas? Is Kamas undefeable? Is Kamas so

deeply integrated into Palestinian

society, the Palestinian sense of self,

the narrative of ordinary Palestinians

about their historical experience that

there is no removing Kamas, you know,

even if Kamas because it I don't know

what the last Kamasnik is killed in Gaza

um changes its name to a new

organization with exactly the same

ideology, which is a very widespread

ideology in the Middle East, including

about Israel, the Muslim Brotherhood,

etc., that whole world of discourse, um

that we're never riding Palestinian

society of kamas. You're saying now

Palestinians have to make a choice to

turn away from that. Can they can Israel

do something that'll make them do that?

>> I definitely think Israel can help. Yes.

just as Israel helped the divide, Israel

can help the the healing. Um, I think

that in order for there to be a future,

Hamas has to be eliminated and and be

removed. Now, how that happens is very

complicated. I'm not sure we have easy

answers, but it has to be something

along the lines of the Marshall Plan.

You mentioned uh Nazi Germany, I think,

in your last episode. Um, of course,

Nazism hasn't been completely eradicated

from Germany, but it's not the governing

power because an alternative was brought

forward, right? There was a new uh there

was denazification. Then there was a new

uh constitution and there was a huge

amount of funds meant to rebuild. Okay,

I see the funds coming in in Gaza,

right, in the Trump plan. I see uh

perhaps the deamasization

but where is the alternative ideology

and how do we help that alternative

ideology come up? I think we can because

it is there. It is there in the West

Bank. Um, and I think that's why I

really believe, I know it's so

unpopular, people poo poo it, but I

think the model that Oslo gave, maybe

not with Arafat as the leader, but where

Gaza and the West Bank need to be one

territory that's that's that's

controlled by the same government and

connected physically

um, and then rehabilitated with

conditions that Kamas's ideology can't

reemerge. Now we need to discuss the

details of how to implement that but

that's a way forward. There were other

you know experiments that didn't work.

There were very noble ideas of right

curtailing communism. That's what led

the US to Vietnam. Okay. And then so

many years later and so many tens of

thousands of American soldiers later

Vietnam today is still communist. Right.

Um same thing with uh with the Taliban

in Afghanistan with uh with with the

bath in Iraq. It's not enough to do

debathification. and you need to find an

alternative and safeguards also to make

sure that Iran doesn't intervene. But I

think that the international um

constellations right now are such that

with Iran depleted with some Arab Sunni

countries on the ascendancy like the

Emirates, like Saudi Arabia, we have the

ability to introduce a form of

government

that would be more amendable to living

with Israel. I don't think that this

would cause, you know, Palestinians or

Arabs to accept Zionism. I've given up

on that dream. I don't think I wish them

to understand Zionism better, you know,

where we're coming from, but I don't

think they'll ever accept Zionism.

There'll always be a tension and

animosity between the Arab world and

Israel. But I think we can find an

alternative um scheme to replace Hamas.

But for that, we need to drop the

mindset of divide and conquer. So yes, I

believe like you that Netanyahu wants to

defeat Hamas. I just don't think that

the alternative that he wants is not

divide and conquer. I think he's looking

for another Han to fight the PA and

continue the same policies, whether this

be, you know, gangs like Abu Shab or

other, you know, families or clans in

Gaza. I think he's not convinced that

part of the problem was weakening the

Palestinian body and not strengthening

it. So, I think in this I'm 180 degrees

opposed to Netanyahu. I think

Netanyahu's speech two weeks before uh

October 7th at the UN exactly two years

ago where he said the Palestinians are

only 2% of the Arab world. They're going

to have to jump on the bandwagon of

normalization or just be irrelevant and

therefore they're going to capitulate.

That was immensely incredibly

shortsighted naive

and dumb, honestly. Like that that was

not possible. That was not what

Palestinians were going to do um given

the normalization. I'm not saying that

the attack on October 7th as it took

place was the inevitable way, but there

was going to be some sort of backlash.

Um, so we need a reversal of policy. We

need to find a partner who is capable of

working with us and allowing him to

control the entire Palestinian

population. Even if there's a

transitional period now in Gaza of a few

years or 5 years, that has to be the

strategy. And we have to we have to have

a strategy. That has to be it. I want to

end. Um I'm I'm always uh optimistic. Um

I've been optimistic for two years if

only because um I've had an argument

about Israeli strength and about how

Israeli strength is uh sustainable over

the long term. And uh I wish the region

would understand it and I wish our

enemies would understand it and our

allies would and I wish Israelis would

understand it because it would it would

reconfigure a lot of the um attempts to

destroy us, a lot of theories about our

fragility. Um but um that makes me very

deeply optimistic over the long term.

We're an incredibly strong people and it

doesn't come from the clever

strategizing of one prime minister or

another. Uh Merritt had this strength

available to him and Robin did and

Barack did and Chaon did and and BB

does. Um, but I'm ending this

pessimistic because I deeply believe

that people live in stories and the

Muslim Brotherhood's story of Israel

is the only story out there. There was

what's what's what's the religious story

that a that I have met I have talked to

sometimes online Palestinians

who are horrified by kamas sick and

tired of kamas's brand of Islamic uh you

know indoctrination um they they ran the

schools for for a generation of of of

gazins and that gazins were already

primed to think the way they think but

gazins have learned nothing else for the

17 years kamas ruled of Gaza. Um a and

and they're they're horrified by where

that has taken Gaza and where that took

Hamas. They know Kamas wanted this war,

still wants this war, and a lot of

Palestinians are enraged and hate kamas

for that. And my question is, so when

you reach out, what

what other Muslim story of Israel is

there for you to hold on to? I mean, the

Muslim Brotherhood, among other things,

is a revolutionary rebellion against the

stayed and standing sort of Muslim

authorities of the 19th century that

just kind of cowtowed to the British

when they showed up, counted to the

French when they showed up. And so, it's

this it's this, you know, Islam is a

religion of order. Islam just like we

described with where the Jews belong in

the Islamic sense of of where, you know,

of of how society should be organized.

Islam's on top, Jews, Christians beneath

them or monotheists beneath them, and

then and then non-monotheists beneath

them, right? And this sense of social

absolute it's true of gender. It's true

of many things in Islam. Islam is a

religion they often talk about as a

religion of peace. It's actually a

religion of order. And and and that and

that very very clear social order brings

you know Islamic thinkers say brings

peace, brings safety, brings prosperity,

brings all the good things. The Muslim

Brotherhood in that sense is a statement

that all the order that had been brought

about in the decaying Ottoman Empire and

in the imperialists who showed up, all

of that left us weak and shattered and

broken. And we have to now

revolutionarily demand demolish all of

it, destroy all of it, overthrow all of

it, and reestablish the the first

generations of Islamic order. the first

generations closest to Muhammad, the

holy generations who first built out

this great sacred order, but they did it

as a conquering revolution. And so we

restore that conquering revolution. Now

that's that's powerful. And it recasts

the Palestinian story of weakness as a

story of the the the the vanguard of a

of a of a resurgent, confident Islam out

to redeem the world again rather than

just decaying in the face of Western

strength. Now, what other possible

narrative as evocative and powerful and

dignifying does a Palestinian who hates

kamas have to have to latch on to? And I

don't I've never heard of one. And I I

what are the Amirati saying? They're too

powerful. So, we're going to make peace

with them. The West backs them. I don't

know what they have high-tech. So, you

know, we're not going to destroy

everything. By the way, eventually

they'll all convert to Islam anyway. We

have to have faith in God that

everything's going to be okay.

>> Let's end the war. Is there an

alternative?

>> Well, um It's certainly not for me to

create. I I can't create an alternative

Islam. And I'm not convinced that

there's a convincing alternative Islam

in this point. But I'm going to now

undermine what I've told you this whole

last hour and say that it's not all

about religion. Also, we also as Jews

have a religious narrative, right? And

the representatives of our religion

today are pulling Israel in a very very

specific direction. Right? So if I were

to rely only on religious narratives on

the Jewish side, I'm trying to fight the

battle also on my side, right? But I'm

not sure I would win that battle. Okay.

I'm not sure that my narrative would be

more convincing to the my fellow Jews

than the than the narrative of

Smootrich, Benvir, Orit Struk, and

others. I I'm kind of pessimistic on my

side as well, if if I need to be

pessimistic about something. Um, and I

think Hamas will probably at the end of

the day not be undermined by an

alternative Islamic narrative if I'm

honest, but with a nar a narrative more

like the Emirati pragmatic narrative

that you just put forward. Imagine if we

gave 1, 207

uh captives or whatever um prisoners,

Palestinian prisoners to Mahmud Abbas or

to a pragmatic leader that's better than

Mahmud Abbas. and and given the the 78 I

think we gave to Abu Mazin, I was

covering this as a journalist during the

2013 2014 negotiations as an incentive,

right? So for good behavior that Abbas,

right, went back to negotiations, he got

78. He never got the last um trunch of

of of prisoners because Netanyahu

basically shut down those negotiations.

um or if we gave the entire territory,

let's say area C or area B or area A, um

to the pragmatic leader who actually uh

helps our security forces crush

radicalism and not to the Islamic jihad

and kamas like we did in 2005

when we withdrew to the international

recognized borders in direct response to

violence. Um that could help create a

different narrative. Yes, it's not a

religious narrative. if it's a pragmatic

narrative, but let's start with that and

see where that takes us. I know it means

taking risks. We'll have to take risks

as Israel. I believe we're strong enough

to take those military risks. Um because

the alternative really is is

catastrophic for for for Israel. I think

I don't think uh that we can say sustain

the direction we're going. I don't think

we can manage anyone who thought we

could still manage the conflict. I don't

think we can manage the conflict

anymore. if anything uh we if if the

last two years taught us anything so I

don't think we really have much of a

choice in the matter we can't just wait

for another narrative to emerge if it

does we have to start being Zionists

again and acting and putting forward a

plan which is something that Zionists

used to do in the past and have stopped

doing so let's start thinking of a plan

and maybe not letting other people

impose plans on us whether they take

place or not but actually thinking of

what we want Israel to be like in 20

years.

>> El Khan, thank you for joining me. Uh

the people of the book, people should

look it up on social media, on YouTube.

It's absolutely astonishing and

beautiful and um and um you know, well

done being in a space that nobody else

is in. Thanks so much.

>> Thanks, Khiv. Thank you.

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