Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - Israel, Iran, Trump, Harris - with Dr. Micah Goodman

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

WATCH THE CONVERSATION ON YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/-MGg6Oe5_7AMicah Goodman is on the speed-dial of a number of Israeli political leaders – from Right to Left, but especially on the Center-Left and the Center-Right. And Micah has been synthesizing how Israelis view the war with Iran and the U.S.-Israel relationship.Micah is a polymath, a podcaster and one of Israel’s most influential public intellectuals, having written books ranging from biblical lessons for the modern age to Israel’s geopolitics. Micah has a new book (in Hebrew), called ‘The Eighth Day’, in which Micah tries to understand the implications of the nation’s trauma and what it means for the other ‘day after’ (not the ‘day after’ in Gaza, but the ‘day after’ inside Israel).Micah Goodman’s books in English: Catch-67 — https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/catch-67-micah-goodman/1128089735?ean=9780300248418The Wondering Jew — https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-wondering-jew-micah-goodman/1136574622?ean=9780300252248 

Most Israelis used to live in a very local narrative. It's us and the Palestinians. That's where we used to live. It's the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In October 7th, it's just the last episode of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But critical mass of Israelis are migrating from living in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to living in the Israeli-Iran War. We're in the first episode of probably a 10-year Israeli-Iran war. We're in the first episode of probably a 10-year Israeli-Iran

war. Now that shift has a lot of implications. It's 1230 p.m. on October 31st here in New York City. It's 630 p.m. on October 31st here in New York City. It's 6 30 p.m. on October 31st in Israel as Israelis are winding down their day and for those in the crowd-sourced call-me-back fact-checking community who are always quick to let us know when we get a timestamp wrong this is one of those rare periods in the calendar when Israel is only six hours ahead of the Eastern Standard Time in the US, rather than seven hours, hence only 1230 and 630. I am pleased to welcome back to the podcast today, my longtime friend, Mika Goodman.

Mika is a leading public intellectual and the author of seven Israeli non-fiction books, each one of which became a bestseller in Israel. His books span various topics from classical Jewish thought to Israeli philosophy to contemporary political issues. And he also co-hosts the popular podcast, Mifleket HaMachshavot with Efrat Shapiro Rosenberg on behalf of an organization called Beit Avi Chai. There's a ton I want to talk to him about. So, Mika, I'm thrilled you're here. Thanks for coming back on. I'm glad to talk to him about. So Mika, I'm thrilled you're here. Thanks for coming back on.

I'm glad to be here, Dan. We want to unpack a few topics as it relates to Israel, Iran, and also the US elections. But before we dive into those topics, I know this last week has been particularly difficult in the war fighting. My last count was 23 soldiers killed in action, most of which were Miluim fighter soldiers, reservists, meaning people living lives outside of the military who've been called up and have now died, killed in action. Last count I saw was 56 children lost their fathers last week. And, you know, there's individual stories that are all very moving. My friend,

Mike Eisenberg, who lives in Jerusalem, he sent out from one of these WhatsApp groups, he says, the last few days have been brutal. Six funerals in my neighborhood, including this one individual that we were talking about on the group chat. My teenage kids, he says, are either at funerals or lining the streets with Israeli flags as the families drive to the cemetery. And then he says, my kids are friends with a number of these kids who are children of those fallen. And he says, they're all now orphans. Just wanted you to take a moment to tell us, describe the mood, reflect on this last period,

because we're very dialed into geopolitical developments and warfighting developments. And I think this aspect of Israeli life were less dialed into because there are none on the ground. I'll try very briefly to capture the mood in Israel today. Well, our mood is always the sum of our emotions and we experience many emotions simultaneously and they contradict each other. We are a cocktail of emotions ever since October 7th, but those emotions change. And now I would say it's a combination of pride, grief, sadness, frustration, and a lot of fatigue. There's relief to see that the Israeli army is everything

that we thought it could be. And there's sadness, tremendous sadness, like you're describing. A good friend of mine, Binia's son got severely wounded. He's struggling. I think he'll make it. And there's frustration. People are starting to realize that 101 hostages are brothers and sisters that need to come home and come home quickly. When we speak about fatigue, about war fatigue, we have to think about one group that I hope our listeners are highly aware of this group. This is the Miluimniqim, the reservists. These are, like you said before, Dan, regular people. The army is not their job. They didn't sign up for this. They have regular lives.

Just for people to understand, that means someone, say in their mid-20s or mid-30s, or in the case of Avi, early 40s, plucked out of their civilian lives, some of them are running businesses, some of them are doing whatever, then they have children and they have a spouse. Yeah, so to be in the Louie, you're 38,

you're an accountant in Tel Aviv, and you have three kids, and suddenly you're 120 days in Ch Aviv and you have three kids and suddenly you're 120 days in Chanyunis, then you get to come home for two months and then you're called up again. I'm talking about real people. Then you're 100 days in the Golan Heights and then you get to go home for a month and a half and you're called again to go to Lebanon, to the north, and people serve now 200, 300

days. The thing is that the sacrifice of this group is not always recognized that the fact that there's a group of Israelis that carry the majority of the burden and they saved us on October 7th and they've been saving us ever since on October 7th and arguably maybe they're saving the Jewish world and Western civilization. This is all this burden is on one group. And by the way, it's their wives, it's their kids, it's their friends. And this fatigue, by the way, this war fatigue is also transforming into anger

and maybe sometimes rage. It's like very big is happening in Israel. It's a part of our collective mood that has political implications. I know we're not going to go into this deeply. I just want to say one thing is that as you know, this might create a new divide. The fact that such a small part of the population carries the majority of the burden, the Miluimni King, these heroic, amazing Israelis sacrificing for all of us. And we see hints of this in Israel now create new dividing lines in Israeli politics between the Israelis that serve and the Israelis that don't serve. And that might be new dividing lines because Israel is not divided between right and left anymore. That's a myth. They're very close ideologically, while they're very far away from each other politically. That's

the paradox of, for instance, Israeli politics. Most of us are close ideologically, but far politically. Now, the question is if a result of this war, the dividing lines will shift, not between right and left, but between the people who serve and the people who don't serve. If that will create a new architecture for Israeli politics, so the mood question here, Dan, is not a small question, it's a big question because fatigue is turning into anger. And that anger might restructure the entire political Israel landscape, not between right and left, but between the people who serve and don't serve. It's too early to call. This is a process

I see happening, and it might materialize into something very, very big towards the next elections. God knows when they'll be. All right. To be clear, the Milowim, while they are contributing a disproportionate role in the war fighting, they do represent a really small percentage of the population. So the burden on them is enormous. I want to hit a few topics here, a few categories, one of which is Iran. There's a lot to talk about with Iran and also the role that a future administration, whether it's Trump or Harris, could play in that story, the story of Israel versus Iran. And I want to start with the

success with which Israel has had with Hezbollah and Iran. I guess help me understand, like, in Israelis' eyes, how is this success being interpreted? Does it feel like a 1967 moment where Iran is the new Egypt or Syria and Israel has just struck a major blow, like it did on the eve of the Six-Day War, during the Six-Day War? Yeah, there is. Our Six-Day War is our mythological girlfriend. You know, you always compare every war to the Six Day War and then you always feel like, oh, this wasn't a good war. So we're always comparing ourselves to that. But I think this is what's really happening.

I think what we're witnessing is the failure of Iran's strategy. Iran has a strategy and was a sophisticated strategy, was a brilliant strategy and was really serving Iran well. And their strategy was the following strategy. They fought eight years, the Iran-Iraq War. The Iran-Iraq War, you think about World War I, a lot of casualties, a lot of trauma, and no achievements. Nothing happened. They lost hundreds of thousands of people. They don't gain territory, no assets, nothing.

It was a meaningless war. Iran came out of the Iran-Iraq war traumatized. What they learned from the Iran-Iraq war, and they don't want to repeat that trauma, means they want their wars be fought not by Iranians and not in Iran. Later on, they developed the proxy strategy, which serves those goals. Iran traumatized by the Iran-Iraq war, gets to fight its wars not in Iran and gets the people who fight for them not to be Iranians. And it worked for them. They got Palestinians dying for Iran. They got Lebanese people dying for Iran. And it's

perfect because they get to attack Israel without being attacked by Israel. And just notice then what happened the past three months. Everything is upside down. Instead of the proxies fighting for Iran, and instead of Iran, now Iran is exposed because of its proxies. But I do think we should create a distinction then between what we're doing with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. I'll give you now an Israeli perspective. I think when we think about Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, they belong to different categories.

In a timeline where there's past, present, and future, we hope that this war with Hamas is our last war with Hamas. We also hope that this war in Lebanon, this is not the third Lebanon war. This is our last Lebanon war. This is what we hope for, and this is the goal. When it comes to Iran, no Israeli is thinking that this, what we're doing now with Iran, is putting an end to our battle with Iran. I think it, no Israelis thinking that this, what we're doing now with Iran, is putting an end to our battle with Iran. I think it's obvious to us that this is the beginning of our battle with Iran. So while with Shizbolat and Iran, this is a war to end the war with them, with Iran,

this is a war which is probably the preview. This is the war that's before the bigger war with Iran. I think that's how we're seeing this. Is beyond that, is there any other way that the story is shaped by this? Every action we do, every activity we participate in lives in a certain narrative, lives in a story. And I think it would be fair to say that the story where the action is located is more important than the action itself. Let me give you just an example for this.

And I think I'm taking this from Rabbi Jonathan's decks. I'm not sure. So three people are eating salad. They're eating the exact same salad, Dan. And then he asks one of them, what are you doing? Why are you eating a salad? And he has an answer. I'm a vegetarian. He asked the next one, what are you doing? I'm keeping kosher. He asked him the next one, what are you doing? They're eating the same salad, Dan. I'm on a diet. I'm on a diet. This is how I lose weight. I eat salad.

So then they're doing the same thing. They're eating salad, but they're living in different stories. One person is a vegetarian. One person is keeping kosher. One person is on a diet. It's the same action living in different stories. Arguably, the story is more important than the action because it gives meaning to the action.

October 7th, this entire war that we're fighting, it's a great illustration of how same action lives in different narratives. All this violent activity that we're involved in, what story does this activity live in? There's three possible stories and they're all true. One story is that October 7th, this is part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 1929, maybe the conflict began like the historian Egon Cohen argues. 1929, it began in a Pogrom and Llovron and different places in Israel. There was 1948, what the Palestinians called the Nakba.

There was 1967, and then there was the First Intifada in 1987 and the Second Intifada in 2000. And now we have October 7th, Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It's a bloody story with many episodes. And October 7th is the latest episode of that story. Many people believe in this story. Yes, they do. But here's an alternative story.

October 7th and this war that we're fighting is not the latest episode of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it's the first episode of the Israeli-Iran war. And Gaza, Hamas, that's Iran. We're in the first episode of probably a 10-year Israeli-Iran war. There's a third option, the option that Neil Ferguson speaks about. His framework is very different. The world is now entering, or we already entered, Cold War II. Not World War III, Cold War II. Just like in Cold War I where there's two centers of power that triggered proxy wars, in Cold War II there's proxy wars. Israel-Iran is a proxy war of the whole reorganizing of Cold War

II centers of power, United States, China. So October 7th, where does it live? In a global narrative? Is it part of Cold War II? A regional narrative? Israeli-Iran War? Local narrative? The Israeli-Palestinian conflict? And the interesting thing is that all these narratives work. They all shed light on what's happening. We're the guy that is eating salad because he's on a diet. He's also, and he happens to keep kosher. The same actually lives in all narratives. So with that framework, here's, I think, the news I want to share. Most Israelis used to live in a very local narrative. It's us and the Palestinians. That's where we used to live. It's the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In October 7th is just the last episode of

the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I think 7th is just the last episode of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I think what's happening, and Iran is helping this to happen, is that Israelis are now migrating into a new narrative. You know how when you move, when you change your apartment, it's so complicated, move into a new neighborhood and you have to find a new school, you have to reorient yourself? Well, Israel is moving. And we're moving, we're changing the narrative. Critical mass of Israelis are migrating

from living in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to living in the Israeli-Iran war. Now that shift has a lot of implications. So can you rattle some of them off? So I'm thinking about two things just to begin with. One, if we're living in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the way out is to solve the conflict. If we're living in the Israeli-Iran war, the way out is for the Iranian people to liberate themselves from their hostile regime. Okay, so in one

story the way out is solving the conflict. Two state solution, two liberal democracies living in security side by side. The Israeli-Iran war has a good ending if the regime collapses. Now, where do you think has higher probability solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or toppling of the regime in Iran? Now, I'm not saying it's easy, but what do you think has higher probability? Toppling the regime in Iran. Now, again, I don't think we should ignore the conflict, but what does this mean? It means that most Israelis had two understandings of life. One, we're living in the Israeli-Palestinian

conflict. Two, you can't solve that conflict. Now, that is a very frustrating place to live in, and you have no agency. There's nothing you can do. Now, we're migrating into a new story where Israelis think maybe this could have a good ending. Now we have more agency. So increase in Israeli sense of agency, that is one dramatic implication of the migration into a new story. The same actions, the same things we're doing, but have different meaning because they're all interpreted in light of this new story. And two, Israelis never saw Iran. We saw Hamas, we saw Hezbollah, we saw Yemenites. Now I think Israelis are starting to see Iran in Gaza, Iran in Lebanon.

We're starting to see Iran. And you know what this means? When you were living in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we're Goliath, Palestinians are David. We're the strong one. But if it's Israel, Iran, Iran is times nine the size of the population of Israel. And geographically speaking, Israel fits in Iran, I think more than 60 times. And Iran, the Persian civilization is a glorified ancient civilizations. This

is a serious enemy. So migrating to a new narrative means now you're David again, and now you're standing in front of Goliath, and now you have to be the best version of yourself. I think it's what happened to the United States of America when it realized it's in a Cold War with the Soviet Union. And one of the first people to notice that we're living in a new story now was George Kaine. US Ambassador to Russia wrote the famous white paper. Yeah, the long memo. Conceptualizing the Cold War.

And he's telling them, listen, you think that the story is we had a hot war with Germany and Japan and now that's over. Now we're post war. No, you're wrong. We're moving from a hot war to a cold war with the Soviet Union. And he was on the thought about containment, but he has the following analysis. The Soviet Union is suffering from internal contradictions, and it seems like it's very strong from the outside, but it's weak from the inside. But so the United States, this is how I read the long memo of George Kaine, and also the United States of America is suffering from serious problems.

Maybe not as severe as the Soviet Union, but we have problems. And there is division inside the United States of America. Who will win the Cold War? He said, the Cold War will not end kinetically. The last man standing wins. One collapses, the Cold War. He said, the Cold War will not end kinetically. The last man standing wins. One collapses, the second wins. And then he says towards the end that to defeat the Soviet Union, we have to do a lot of things to weaken Soviet Union. But everything we do to strengthen the United States, to strengthen American society, to strengthen American unity,

everything we do to strengthen American unity, that's a blow to the Soviet Union. That's how you defeat the Soviet Union. The long memo of George Kaine is a great analogy for the moment we're in. Iran has serious internal contradictions. Majority of people in Iran do not support the regime that's robbing their rights from them, and their liberties from them, and has problems, and has economic problems, it has water problems, it has serious problems. But then, there's another country that has internal contradictions, and that's Israel. And that's, by the way, the perspective of Iran.

That's how Iran sees Israel. That's how Nasrallah saw Israel. Which means once we live in this new narrative, we're living in the Israeli-Iran War. So you ask, who do we have to be to defeat Iran? Which is the bigger question, more important question. Not what you have to do, but who do you have to be? Well, like George Kanan said, anything we do to strengthen Israeli unity, that's how you defeat Iran. Now, there's a lot to unpack here. How do you strengthen Israeli unity? Not because it's a fuzzy feeling, but because we have to defeat Iran. By the way, why do we have to heal parts of Israeli bureaucracy and government are dysfunctioning?

You know why? Because we have to defeat Iran. Why do we have the ultra-orthodox serving the army? You know why? Because we have to defeat Iran. All our questions become existential questions when you believe you're David, you're the weak one. And the only way to defeat the Persian empire is to be the best version of yourself. You know, it's interesting coming back to Neil Ferguson's cold war too. I mean, there's so many parallels here because American politics is so divided. And yet one of the only issues that you can find a true bipartisan consensus on is cold war too, is the U S cold War against China. In fact, one of the few policies that the Biden administration kept in place when it took over from

Trump were Trump's trade policies against China. It's not like there's gonna be a new day and we're gonna... yes it is true that Biden unwound a lot of what Trump did on in other areas, but on China he actually kept a lot of it in place because that's where both parties come together. So the threat from China subordinates a lot of the division and polarization in the United States. And I think what you're saying is the war with Iran can play that same role in Israel. Yes, amplifying our awareness that we're living in a new story that has the potential of helping us heal our internal divide. Okay. So one figure who has been very polarizing in Israeli politics is Benjamin Netanyahu. And he has been talking about this war with Iran for a long time.

So how does Netanyahu's narrative about Iran fit in this moment? Dan, this is the paradox of Netanyahu. On the one hand, Bibi was speaking about that what Israel is in is in a war with Iran and no one sees it and I see it. He was saying this, I remember 15 years ago, he was saying the year is 1939, Iran is Germany, what he can do about it? And it's interesting now, 2024, critical mass of Israelis are migrating into Bibi's narrative. There's only one problem. Because he was right, he's wrong. Let me try to explain this. There's two political strategies.

There's the politics of persuasion and the politics of motivation. Politics of persuasion, you try to reach out to people from the other side of the aisle. I'm not that scary. Vote for me. Try to persuade people that wouldn't vote for you to vote for you. The politics of persuasion is a politics that creates unity. And then there's a politics of motivation. You're not trying to convince anyone that's not going to vote for you to vote for you.

You're trying to motivate your base to vote for you. And the best way to motivate your base to come out and vote is through fear. Fear of the other side. So the politics of motivation is politics that creates division. The politics of persuasion creates unity. I think roughly since 2015, he's playing the politics of motivation. And as playing the politics of motivation, sadly, he's a divider, which means because Bibi's right, he's wrong. Because we're adopting Bibi's narrative, we have to divorce ourselves from

Bibi's politics. I always hope Bibi himself will divorce himself from the politics of motivation, of motivating his base by scaring them from the other tribe of Israelis. I mean, I always hope that Bibi will figure out how to accumulate power through uniting, but not through dividing, but that's not who he is. And that's why, because Bibi's right is wrong, because we're adopting his narrative, we have to divorce his politics. And there is, by the way, another paradox about Bibi. It's Bibi's coalition. And this has everything to do with the fatigue I was speaking about before. Bibi's coalition means that Bibi's political survival depends on the ultra-orthodox, depends on the people who don't serve in the military. And the political dependency

of Bibi on the people who don't serve guarantees, almost guarantees politically, that they will not serve, that they will not join the army. If you realize we're in a war with Iran, and Iran surrounded Israel with proxies, and we don't have enough soldiers to take all these proxies simultaneously and fight Iran, we don't have enough soldiers. And so we have to recycle the same soldiers, the same heroic soldiers again and again. And now there's so much fatigue and they're saying we can't do it anymore. Their wives are saying we can't do this anymore. And the Khardim are saying, yeah, well, we're studying Torah. We're doing our thing. And it's possible to create a process where through economic sanctions

and incentives to start pushing them towards the army. But when Bibi is dependent on them politically, the chances of that happening is very low, which means if we adopt Bibi's narrative, we can't live in Bibi's coalition. If we're fighting Iran, we need a big army. If we need a big army, Khardim have to serve. For the old Orthodox to serve, we can't be dependent on them politically. If we're fighting Iran, we have to be so much more unified than we are now on the long run, and we can't play the politics of motivation anymore. We have to play the politics of persuasion.

Sadly, that's not the politics that Bibi is playing. So this is the paradox of Netanyahu. He's brilliant, he saw this before everyone else, and because he's right, he's playing this one wrong. Okay, I wanna bring this to the US now, because we have an election in a matter of days. Where does the US fit into all of this? From Israel's perspective, not from our perspective,

from Israel's perspective. Yeah, from Israel's perspective. As you know, Israelis, if your elections would have been taking place in Israel, Trump would have won landslide. But I'm asking are Israelis right? Is this instinct that Trump is good for Israel? I wanna question that instinct.

I don't wanna bury it, I think there's truth in it. I wanna question it. I was in a conference in September and you were in this conference also. I think it was Chatham House Rules, but I think Pompeo and Blinken, we could quote them, right? Yeah, yeah. Because as Blinken said at that conference, Chatham House Rules for Israelis means you have to wait 10 minutes to tweet about it. Blinken's comments and Pompeo's comments and my conversation with Benny Gantz also were all on the record. Everything else was Chattamassarose. So in this need conference, I was listening carefully. Listen to Blinken, you understand.

Democratic party lives in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And everything we're going through, Hezbollah, everything, it's all about that once we have a two-state solution, everything will be solved. Pompeo lives in a different story. It's the Israeli-Iran war. And once a regime is toppled, so all the proxies, you know, they become irrelevant and things will calm down. They live in different stories. Our mutual friend, Matthew Friedman, who has made this point many times, he's written about this, he's made this point on my podcast, and it's so relevant to this conversation.

He says, do Americans speak of the American-Italian war of 1944? He says, you know, there were GIs. There were American GIs being killed in Italy, fighting the Italians in 1944, but no one talks about the American Italian War of 1944 because it was one piece of a much bigger war. I put myself in this category, by the way, on the right, to those of us on the right on American foreign policy,

view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as one front in a much bigger war. And my friends on the foreign policy left are fixated on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as one front in a much bigger war. And my friends on the foreign policy left are fixated on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as though that is the conflict. And if we just resolve that, peace and tranquility could come to the Middle East. Now, I have a lot of appreciation for the left-wing dream of peace and two-state solution. If you ignore Iran and the Middle East, wherever there is a vacuum of sovereignty, you'll have Iranian proxies there.

That's the law of the Middle East. Wherever there is a crack in sovereignty, that's where you'll find Iran. Now if we create a Palestinian state, what are the chances it will be a failed state? More than 50%, right? I think that's very obvious. So if it's going to be a failed state, not a lot of governance, not a lot of sovereignty, that's where Iran will be. That's where it goes. It goes to Yemen. It goes to Syria. It goes to Iraq. It goes to Lebanon. It goes to failed states. So which means it's important for the people on the Democratic Party to understand that as long as Iran is there

using the strategy of entering pockets of anarchy in order to create proxies, that Israelis can't create a failed state in the Endur-des-Sameer or the West Bank. It just can't do that. Once the regime is toppled or they reject that strategy, Israelis can reconsider that. Even if your end goal is a two-state solution, the way there goes to Iran. There's no way that Israelis, I'm talking about Israelis on the center left and even on the left, will agree for a territorial withdrawal, creating a vacuum of sovereignty and let Iran beat five kilometers from Kfar

Saba and 15 kilometers from Tel Aviv. That's when two kilometers from Jerusalem, that's not probable. So he asked me about American politics. I think the Republican party is living in the story that Israelis are now migrating into. They're getting our story. It's about Iran. In that sense, Trump gets Israelis, the new version of Israelis that we're in a war with Iran now, while Kamala thinks it's all about the Palestinians, solve the conflict with the Palestinians, everything goes away. But Trump is also an isolationist. And who influences Trump more, Pompeo or Tucker Carlson? No one knows the answer. He's unpredictable. No one knows the answer. Can I challenge that? Sure. Because I hear this and I do think it's important. We have data. Trump, I keep saying this is one of these bizarre unprecedented experiences in American politics, where you

have someone running for president as the challenger, effectively, who's already been president. You know, the only people who ever run for president historically, except for one exception in American history, who have been president are incumbents. Here you have a guy who was president four years ago, who's running again. So we have this period, this four year period of what he did while he was president. Those same voices were whispering in his ear while he was president. And yet his foreign policy, I mean, I don't have to tell you, he pulled out of the Iran deal,

he launched a maximum pressure campaign against Iran, he authorized the killing of Qasem Soleimani. I mean, we can go on and on. I mean, I'm just saying, there is a pattern here of what he did as president. There is a pattern, but also something changed. The MAGA movement became much stronger. In the real estate between the two years of Trump, two ideological movements are competing over

control over that real estate, over the mind of Trump. There's the evangelical Christians, and there's the isolationists. Now, if it's evangelical Christians, they're pro-Israel and anti-Iran. If it's the isolationists, they're like, we should stop Israel from, like, this is what Tucker Carlson is saying, from bringing America into Israel's war, it's Iran's war, it's not America's war. And JD Vance the other day said, this is not our war. We should not, this is not our engine, it's not our war. I don't know where Trump will go. And maybe my assumption is the chances it's more Pompeo than Tucker Carlson. Okay. And again, I'm not a surrogate for Trump or spokesman for Trump, so I'm not here to

like, you know, carry the Trump campaigns or whatever. But I know, I know that. I do think it's important to keep in mind that I think political actors of all stripes across the ideological spectrum are very responsive to the base of the party, to the activist base of the party. Point to me a successful politician who at least is not attuned to the base of the party. That's not saying they're totally captured by the base of the party,

but is somehow attuned to the base of the party that's a politician that's successful. Where? In any democracy, like, you know, it's hard to build a coalition when you're not in sync with your base to some degree. And I say that about Harris, and I say that about Trump. And I will tell you the base of the Republican Party

is not just enthusiastically pro-Israel, doesn't just express intense solidarity with Israel, but they actually have internalized this idea, quite organically by the way and authentically, that Israel's fight is our fight, that Israel's wars are our wars. And thank God Israel's on the front lines fighting those wars and we got to back them up If you look at the Republican Convention the parties divided over what to do about Ukraine The parties have divided about what to do about NATO. They're divided on all these issues around foreign policy I guess maybe not China

But the one issue that was talked about the Republican Convention where there was no division none was Israel So I think it's important to keep in mind, like the center of gravity of a political movement matters a lot to whoever the leader is of those movements, even when you're dealing with unpredictable politicians. And so I think Tucker Carlson on these issues as a minority within the conservative movement. Well, thank God I don't have to vote on Tuesday. I do.

I don't have to vote. This is your problem, it's not my problem. But you're right that there is passion in the Republican Party. They love Israel, but they also don't want your problem is not my problem. But you're right that there is passion in the Republican party, they love Israel, but they also don't want the whole MAGA, the whole isolation, such a powerful instinct and the mythology of MAGA movement, the war in Iraq is what brought America down. And there is a narrative that Israel pushed America to war with Iraq and these voices are there and isolationism is is strong. And if Trump chose for his first

vice president, an evangelical Christian, the second one, an isolationist, we heard J.D. Vance saying, America's not going to fight a war in Iran. He said that clearly. All I'm saying is, probability-wise, the chance that we'll get the Pompeo paradigm is higher than we get the Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson isolationist paradigm. But since as an Israeli, our existence is here, I don't like the chances. So maybe I'll try to capture this. What I like about the Republican side is that they understand our story and they identify with our story. Yes, we're in a war with Iran, but I'm afraid they don't want to be a player in that story. They don't want to be a part of the war with Iran. So that's the downside of Trump. That's how this is

all connected to our conversation. Okay. And what about Harris? Well, the question is, just like Trump is somehow between the isolationists and the Mike Pompeo, which is a geo-strategic translation of the pro-Israel evangelical sentiment. Just like Trump is between two different ideological movements when it comes to Israel, the isolationists and the evangelical Christians. So Kamala Harris is also between two movements, between liberals and progressives. And progressives, by the way, are not liberal, they're anti-liberal.

And liberals like Joe Biden. Biden is great for Israel in the sense that he's with Israel in defense and he supports Israel in defense. He also wants to restrain Israel when it comes to offense. So he's with us in the defense, he's not completely with us in offense. The woke progressives, they're against us in defense. Some of the woke congresspeople, they voted against Iron Dome. So this is the hierarchy. Pompeo supports us in defense and in offense. Biden, defense, more careful in the offense. Woke, not offense, and against us in defense. So where is Trump here? Is Trump Pompeo? That's the question because he's trapped between the isolationists and the evangelicals. That's the

question. Where is Kamala? Is she a Biden or she woke? Is she with us in defense and not in offense, but is she also against us in defense? My assumption, my assessment is, and you know, I'm just an Israeli, I can't make an assessment of American politicians, that she won't turn against us in defense, but she'll definitely try to restrain us in offense more than Joe Biden. So the way I capture this for Israelis is that with Trump, there is a tremendous upside. You could go Pompeo paradigm and a downside, Tucker Carlson paradigm. The chances for the upside are higher than the downside. With Kamala, there's no upside. I don't think there is a very dangerous downside. I think

she'll be like one or two notches beneath Biden. So paradoxically, Kamala is the conservative bet. There's no upside, the chances for a downside are lower. And with Trump, it's a gamble, but with higher chances for the upside than the downside. That's how I, do you think, what do you think about that analysis? It's pretty good. I mean, it's interesting.

I think that there's a lot of talk about how the world is worried about Trump. Right. You hear this all the time and like the pages of foreign affairs magazine and the op-ed pages or the financial times. And, you know, the world is worried. The international system is concerned about a Trump presidency. And it's such a parochial analysis.

Cause what they really mean when they say that is like Brussels, Paris, London, you know, Berlin, That's basically about Europe. They're talking about Europe as a Europe's worried about Trump. And we can get into why Europe is worried about Trump or should not be worried about Trump. But that's what they're fixated on. It's a very fascinating. It's like a very European centric view of international affairs. You go to Riyadh.

I'm pretty sure they would prefer Trump. I know the Emiratis feel that way. I won't quote any of them, I assume. You start going around the Middle East, I think you're saying most Israelis feel that way. Then you go to India, you ask the leadership of the political system there who they would, this is very funny how we all,

there's this conventional wisdom that the world is scared of Trump. When people say the world, they never mean the world world they mean the part of the world that they like. Exactly. Anyways, Mika we will leave it there. Actually very fascinating framing of this new moment and I'm looking forward to continuing the conversation and I'm sure we'll have a lot to talk about after Tuesday's, meaning after the election, although I don't think we're gonna be able to have real resolution. I don't expect immediately after Tuesday.

But our war with Iran is continuing with or without your elections. It's still happening. Right. All right, Mika, until next time. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Call Me Back is produced and edited by Alain Benatar, our media manager is Rebecca Strom. Additional editing by Martin Huérgaux. Research by Gabe Silverstein. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Sinor.