If you can, spend 40 minutes of your time listening to Dan Senor’s interview with Einat Wilf, in his “Call me Back” podcast, “The sobering of the Israeli Left” (link also at the bottom). You really need to. Trust me. Walk with me a bit, and thanks to my thriend @gabedraws for posting it on Threads first.
This is the podcast’s own introduction to Einat Wilf, who has been a regular guest, debating Israeli issues. This is someone you should listen to, not just now and in this interview, but as a very reliable and knowledgeable source of information.
Listening to the interview, I couldn’t help but think back to my own trajectory, trying to understand the Israeli Arab conflict, the origins of Zionism, and the Jewish State itself. A lot of what I heard reinforces my opinions on the matter, and I wrote extensively about it, both here and on threads (@oakie_63). It also enlightened me about a very important feature of this problem, which is related to Israel’s internal politics.
In particular, as the title of the interview suggests, the role and scope of Israel’s Left. There are many specific sobering moments in this interview, and the first one that hit me was the extent to which there were really only two “pure” right wing governments in the 75 years of the State of Israel, both extremely damaging to her, according to Einat, internally and internationally. Menachem Begin’s second government, of 1981, and Netanyahu’s current government.
I know Menachem Begin from his own writing, since “The Revolt” was my nightstand book for a few years, back in the late 1970s, early 1980s. As much as he introduced me to the Arabs in Palestine, and the independence struggle of the Jews pre-1947, he also first shed light on Cultural Zionism and the Settler movement, and the Haredim, all of which he gave free rein during his second mandate.
Many of Netanyahu’s policies are rooted in that belief system, and some of his ministers make Begin look like a boy scout, but there’s more to it than that, since a lot of what Bibi has done aims at destroying all the efforts since the Oslo Accords towards a two state solution. And the way in which he went by achieving this was to exacerbate the Palestinian call for their own one state solution, by propping Hamas, and splitting the Palestinian authority (small caps A).
There is this sentiment in the West, that large sectors of Israeli society are opposed to Bibi’s policies because of his present strategy in Gaza, namely his main objective of destroying Hamas by any means necessary. I don’t see it that way, and Einat calls attention to the fact that most Israelis are, in fact, positioned in the center of their political spectrum, which basically means, they too wish to eradicate the Islamic Jihad elements from Palestinian society.
As I mentioned before, the only way to achieve this goal, is through war. Not because there are no peace loving Palestinians, but because, as it became painfully clear on and after 10/7, the majority of Palestinian society, both in Gaza and the West Bank, see no future living side by side with a Jewish State. Make no mistake about this. Through years of indoctrination, the Islamic Jihadists have transformed Palestinian society into a radical cluster seeking one thing.
And that is the extinction of the State of Israel. The notion that large portions of Palestinians still wish to coexist with Israel, and that trading land for peace is still possible, started to fade during the Second Intifada (2000-2005), but it persisted until 10/7, especially in the Israeli Left. Why 10/7 changed this notion will be the subject of much debate, as will the role of the Settler movement in the West Bank, and the Haredim playbook. Nonetheless we live in a new world.
I still believe Netanyahu’s government is as much of a problem to peace as Hamas, not because they are the same, but because they have the same goal: a one state solution. And the reasoning why Israel can course correct her policies is not found in the Palestinian side. That was the main take from October 7. A take lost on most of the Western world. 10/7 was meticulously planned to inflict major damage, not just physical and psychological, but in particular political.
The main targets of Hamas, on 10/7, were Israeli communities close to the border with Gaza. These people were the most favorable to coexistence with Palestinians, as Eilat points out. She calls them the last bastion of the Israeli Left, in the sense that they saw cooperation with the Palestinians as the key to coexistence, and they actively promoted it, true activists for peace and coexistence.
The Nova Festival was a manifestation of that belief and activism. Many of the attendants were actively engaged in interactions with the Palestinians in Gaza, from technical training to medical assistance, believing, as many did before 10/7, that Hamas was effectively controlling Gaza against the will of large swathes of Gazans, imposing their rule and terrorist activity on them. These civilians, they found out, were part of the waves that followed the initial attack.
Not only were many Gazans cheering the Hamas terrorists, they actually joined them attacking the Kibbutzim. The towns where the people who were actively helping them lived. This was no accident. It’s purpose was clear: Hamas greatest enemy is peace, and they loathe any cooperation or help, especially from Israelis. Following the damage done to the Israeli Left in 2000-2005, October 7 may have been the last drop in an already impossibly full damn of Israeli progressive good will.
Even the most staunch supporters of a two state solution in Israel, now understand that there will be no such thing while the ONLY objective on the part of the Palestinians is the destruction of the State of Israel. You can’t negotiate with that, in particular when the other side is radicalized to the point of allowing their children to die for the cause, be it as weapons, or be it as victims. They don’t care. It’s a death cult. A genocidal cult.
There is a deal on the table, as I write these lines, to allow for a ceasefire in which more hostages can be returned in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, among which many serving life sentences for murder and terrorist actions. The details are still blurry, but initial reports suggest only women, children, and elderly hostages to be exchanged at the outrageous ratio of 1 to 100.
I have studied this conflict for years, from all angles, and when brighter people in my position of Western privilege, physically removed from its fulcrum, reveal their ignorance on the matter, I feel like I know very little about it. So trust me on this: even if I write a lot about it, I read a lot more, and my opinions are based on facts, not anecdotes, and the purpose of my words is to make you think. Just as I think, as I am writing them.
About Einat Wilf.
“Einat
was born and raised in Israel. She was an Intelligence Officer in the
IDF. She has worked for McKinsey. She was Foreign Policy Advisor to Vice
Prime Minister Shimon Peres and an advisor to Yossi Beilin, who was
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. Dr. Wilf was a member of the Israeli
Parliament (the Knesset) in the early 2010s, where she served as Chair
of the Education Committee and Member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense
Committee. She has a BA from Harvard, an MBA from INSEAD in France, and
a PhD in Political Science from the University of Cambridge. She was a
Visiting Professor at Georgetown University and is a lecturer at
Reichman University in Israel.”
This is the podcast’s own introduction to Einat Wilf, who has been a regular guest, debating Israeli issues. This is someone you should listen to, not just now and in this interview, but as a very reliable and knowledgeable source of information.
Listening to the interview, I couldn’t help but think back to my own trajectory, trying to understand the Israeli Arab conflict, the origins of Zionism, and the Jewish State itself. A lot of what I heard reinforces my opinions on the matter, and I wrote extensively about it, both here and on threads (@oakie_63). It also enlightened me about a very important feature of this problem, which is related to Israel’s internal politics.
In particular, as the title of the interview suggests, the role and scope of Israel’s Left. There are many specific sobering moments in this interview, and the first one that hit me was the extent to which there were really only two “pure” right wing governments in the 75 years of the State of Israel, both extremely damaging to her, according to Einat, internally and internationally. Menachem Begin’s second government, of 1981, and Netanyahu’s current government.
I know Menachem Begin from his own writing, since “The Revolt” was my nightstand book for a few years, back in the late 1970s, early 1980s. As much as he introduced me to the Arabs in Palestine, and the independence struggle of the Jews pre-1947, he also first shed light on Cultural Zionism and the Settler movement, and the Haredim, all of which he gave free rein during his second mandate.
Many of Netanyahu’s policies are rooted in that belief system, and some of his ministers make Begin look like a boy scout, but there’s more to it than that, since a lot of what Bibi has done aims at destroying all the efforts since the Oslo Accords towards a two state solution. And the way in which he went by achieving this was to exacerbate the Palestinian call for their own one state solution, by propping Hamas, and splitting the Palestinian authority (small caps A).
There is this sentiment in the West, that large sectors of Israeli society are opposed to Bibi’s policies because of his present strategy in Gaza, namely his main objective of destroying Hamas by any means necessary. I don’t see it that way, and Einat calls attention to the fact that most Israelis are, in fact, positioned in the center of their political spectrum, which basically means, they too wish to eradicate the Islamic Jihad elements from Palestinian society.
As I mentioned before, the only way to achieve this goal, is through war. Not because there are no peace loving Palestinians, but because, as it became painfully clear on and after 10/7, the majority of Palestinian society, both in Gaza and the West Bank, see no future living side by side with a Jewish State. Make no mistake about this. Through years of indoctrination, the Islamic Jihadists have transformed Palestinian society into a radical cluster seeking one thing.
And that is the extinction of the State of Israel. The notion that large portions of Palestinians still wish to coexist with Israel, and that trading land for peace is still possible, started to fade during the Second Intifada (2000-2005), but it persisted until 10/7, especially in the Israeli Left. Why 10/7 changed this notion will be the subject of much debate, as will the role of the Settler movement in the West Bank, and the Haredim playbook. Nonetheless we live in a new world.
I still believe Netanyahu’s government is as much of a problem to peace as Hamas, not because they are the same, but because they have the same goal: a one state solution. And the reasoning why Israel can course correct her policies is not found in the Palestinian side. That was the main take from October 7. A take lost on most of the Western world. 10/7 was meticulously planned to inflict major damage, not just physical and psychological, but in particular political.
The main targets of Hamas, on 10/7, were Israeli communities close to the border with Gaza. These people were the most favorable to coexistence with Palestinians, as Eilat points out. She calls them the last bastion of the Israeli Left, in the sense that they saw cooperation with the Palestinians as the key to coexistence, and they actively promoted it, true activists for peace and coexistence.
The Nova Festival was a manifestation of that belief and activism. Many of the attendants were actively engaged in interactions with the Palestinians in Gaza, from technical training to medical assistance, believing, as many did before 10/7, that Hamas was effectively controlling Gaza against the will of large swathes of Gazans, imposing their rule and terrorist activity on them. These civilians, they found out, were part of the waves that followed the initial attack.
Not only were many Gazans cheering the Hamas terrorists, they actually joined them attacking the Kibbutzim. The towns where the people who were actively helping them lived. This was no accident. It’s purpose was clear: Hamas greatest enemy is peace, and they loathe any cooperation or help, especially from Israelis. Following the damage done to the Israeli Left in 2000-2005, October 7 may have been the last drop in an already impossibly full damn of Israeli progressive good will.
Even the most staunch supporters of a two state solution in Israel, now understand that there will be no such thing while the ONLY objective on the part of the Palestinians is the destruction of the State of Israel. You can’t negotiate with that, in particular when the other side is radicalized to the point of allowing their children to die for the cause, be it as weapons, or be it as victims. They don’t care. It’s a death cult. A genocidal cult.
There is a deal on the table, as I write these lines, to allow for a ceasefire in which more hostages can be returned in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, among which many serving life sentences for murder and terrorist actions. The details are still blurry, but initial reports suggest only women, children, and elderly hostages to be exchanged at the outrageous ratio of 1 to 100.
Nothing
is certain, and my humble advice to those who claim that things like
the release of ALL the Palestinians in Israeli prisons are on the table,
like @jonnydaniels did this morning,
is to respectfully shut the fuck up. We all need to disconnect from
these talking heads, who suggest “sources familiar with the matter”, and
pay attention to what is really going on. We will know when a deal is
struck, up or down. Anything before that is pure speculation.
So
don’t look at me to tell you what’s going to happen. I only remind you
of what HAS happened, in the hopes you understand what is at stake, and
what the reality is. And you may not like it, as many times I don’t, but
it’s still real. And, in the end, all that matters. Remember that most
of us, just like the vast majority of the ones clamoring for “Intifada”
in the streets of our cities, have a very privileged view of what is
going on in Israel and Gaza.
Igal
Ram, a colleague of Einat Wilf, defined that privilege as “a Disneyland
of Hate”, because, just as in Disneyland, we can experience hate from
the safety of our privilege. There’s no real danger. And to make matters
worse, all we do, most times, is to replace the reality of the Israeli
Palestinian conflict by our own, attributing the roles of “Israel” and
“Palestine” to whatever our social experience is, transposing them onto
our own struggles, with invariably nefarious results.
I have studied this conflict for years, from all angles, and when brighter people in my position of Western privilege, physically removed from its fulcrum, reveal their ignorance on the matter, I feel like I know very little about it. So trust me on this: even if I write a lot about it, I read a lot more, and my opinions are based on facts, not anecdotes, and the purpose of my words is to make you think. Just as I think, as I am writing them.
The
truth about the unwillingness of extremists from both sides to live in
peace has been revealed since October 7. On one side you have a fascist
government aiming at the destruction of Palestine, on the other, a
terrorist organization posing as government aiming at the destruction of
Israel. Hamas made 10/7 to poke their one state counterparts in Israel,
to push back against the more progressive Israelis, and turn them
around. There can be no “good Jews”.
I
know some will read the last paragraph and see it as bothsideism. It’s
not. The fact that extremist sectors of Israeli society like the
Settlers, and even the Haredim, wish to push all Palestinians into Egypt
and Jordan, claiming Gaza and the West Bank as Israel, in one state, is
well known. They are openly discussing in the Knesset how to make this
displacement “legal”. And mind you, this would make the Nakba look like a
camping trip. We are talking about displacing millions.
So
Israeli extremists are not genocidal maniacs in the same sense Islamic
Jihadists are, there are no both sides here, except in what relates to
the one state solution. What Hamas wishes to gain from the exacerbation
of these ideals, and Iran is guiding them through it, is the
radicalization of Israel, leading to its isolation in the world stage.
And that’s a real problem. This is where the Disneyland of Hate comes
into play.
This
is why for Hamas, the more Palestinian babies are killed, the better.
The more aid sent that doesn’t reach their people, the better. The more
buildings destroyed in Gaza, the better. Hamas does not wish to
negotiate, and because they know that their end game is invisible
outside Israel, for the common person in the West, it looks like the
Israelis are pushing them into a corner, but they’re not. They put
themselves there.
They
started a war they knew they couldn’t win, not because they are stupid,
but because they know most of us are. And in large part, we are. We are
expected to save them, again. The only thing is, after 10/7, it became
clear to ALL Israelis that Hamas cannot be tolerated any longer. That is
clear to me, as well, and a lot of you too. How to achieve it is matter
of debate, but it will be violent, and innocents will die. It’s a war.
Innocents always die in war.
So
do not expect Israel to stop fighting. Hamas knows this. This is why
they want the West to win the war for them, and push for a permanent
ceasefire and the IDF withdrawal from Gaza as the condition for any
hostage deal. It’s not going to happen. Remove Bibi and the settlers and
Haredim from government, and it will not happen. If there were
elections today in Israel, and the Left won, which it won’t, war would
go on. With a different strategy, prioritizing the hostages, maybe even
expanding aid and diminishing civilian suffering in Gaza. But the war
would not stop. What is clear to ALL Israelis now, is Hamas needs to be
removed from the equation. It may go on living in the mountains of
Jordan or Lebanon, but never again in Gaza, or the West Bank. And the
same applies to Hezbollah, by the way. We are confronted by this
reality.
On
one side, an Islamic genocidal maniac ideology that aims at
exterminating all Jews (and Westerners, for that matter). On the other
side, a small nation whose citizens are Herzlian Zionists for the most
part, the majority of which have only the desire to be left alone, to
live in peace, regardless of the size of their country, the land of
Israel. Now tell me again how this is achieved without war. And tell me
how to “free Palestine” without war.
War
is inevitable, and like I told you before, you need to pick a side now.
But before you do, read a lot, listen a lot, think a lot. It’s not
fucking easy, and we mostly know little of it. This is a good place to
start. Einat Wilf, interviewed by Dan Senor:
May it become the start of the sobering of us all.
Am Yisrael Chai.
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