Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - RON DERMER, Minister of Strategic Affairs - Part 2

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

Watch Call me Back on YouTube: youtube.com/@CallMeBackPodcastCheck out Ark Media’s other podcasts: For Heaven's Sake: lnk.to/rfGlrA‘What’s Your Number?’: lnk.to/rbGlvMFor sponsorship inquiries, please contact: [e-mail] contact us, sign up for updates, and access transcripts, visit: arkmedia.org/Ark Media on Instagram: instagram.com/arkmediaorgDan on X: x.com/dansenorDan on Instagram: instagram.com/dansenorTo order Dan Senor & Saul Singer’s book, The Genius of Israel: tinyurl.com/bdeyjsdnToday’s Episode: Part 2 of our conversation with Minister of Strategic Affairs, Ron Dermer.A few days ago, Prime Minister Netanyahu and his Israeli delegation, which included Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer, concluded their trip to Washington D.C., where they met with President Donald Trump and other senior American officials. The visit came just a few weeks after the historic military success on behalf of Israel and the U.S. against the Iranian regime. Following these stunning achievements, there has been talk of future normalization with certain Arab states and the potential for a hostage-ceasefire deal in the near future. Minister Dermer has been at the forefront of all these issues. In a conversation divided into two episodes, he and Dan discuss Israel’s standing globally and in the Middle East after the war with Iran, the future of Gaza, the hostages, and where the country is heading internally.  CREDITS:ILAN BENATAR - Producer & EditorMARTIN HUERGO - Sound EditorMARIANGELES BURGOS - Additional EditingMAYA RACKOFF - Operations DirectorGABE SILVERSTEIN - ResearchYUVAL SEMO - Music Composer

You are listening to an Art Media Podcast. In the United States, there's been a kind of consensus in both parties that you need to kind of pivot to Asia. Now, if you're going to pivot, you pivot from strength. Now with Iran defanged, your whole base structure is different because the threat that it was supposed designed to deal with was Iran. So now all of a sudden sudden if you want to do that, if you're thinking about moving more resources and more focus elsewhere to the Pacific, Trump's action actually enables you to do it. Now, what's the vacuum that you leave behind? Well here Israel stepped up into that vacuum and if we have other partners in the region that are willing

to step up into that vacuum, and I think you have them, you can actually envision a whole regional security architecture that'll enable the United States to make that pivot. But that Israel and our Arab states in the region start taking a much more prominent role. And now for part two of our conversation with Minister Durmer. If you've not watched part one, we encourage you to look out for it. Watch that first and then watch part two.

On to today's conversation. You were dismissive of the Palestinian Authority playing a role in Gaza. Why? Because I think it's like UNIFIL. Like how many decades of failure do you have to have to not keep trying to do the same thing over and over again? And this is one of the things I changed my mind about on October 7th. October 7th, and this may seem Pollyannaish to some of your listeners, you know, I was never a believer that we could find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I didn't see a solution for a simple reason, because the peace… you know, I've been dealing

with this for, you know, as a keen observer since the mid-90s, but as somebody who's involved with it for about two decades. And you had all these people of goodwill that were trying to negotiate with the Palestinians and peace envoys and experts and secretaries of state and presidents and all sorts of people who are involved in it. And first of all, they never understood the basic problem. And the basic problem is the Palestinians do not accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state in any boundary. That's what the core is, and it's been that core for 100 years, not just since 1947 or 48, but for 100 years. That's the core of the problem, and people don't want to accept it because it's much

harder for them to deal with. But beyond that being the core of the problem, what has been happening for over 30 years, since the Oslo Process started 32 years ago is the Palestinians have systematically poisoned a generation of people, now a generation and a half of Palestinians, against Israel, against Jews. And so I would see these peace envoys go and all this diplomacy and these texts and I would work on those texts to try to change this or that word to make sure that Israel's basic security requirements are protected in any potential agreement. But I didn't believe

that this process was going to lead to any kind of appease because I asked myself what is a six-year-old Palestinian? What are they learning in school? What is a ten-year-old Palestinian watching on television? And who are the heroes of 15-year-old Palestinians? And they're all people that murdered Jews. So there's no chance to do it. And the PA made the problem worse. You speak to Israelis who've been dealing with this for 50, 60 years, and they'll tell you the generation that came before the PA took over was more likely to try to reach an accommodation. Okay, I don't know. I wasn't there. But what I've seen is this whole process has poisoned the

generation and a half of Palestinians. And what happened to me on October 7th, that night, I remember, and I remember I said it to people in my office, and I may have even said it at the cabinet, and it may seem, like I said, very Pollyannish. It was the first time that I saw a light at the end of the tunnel when it came to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because I knew, and I believed in the resolve of our people,

and certainly the courage of our soldiers, and I believed in the resolve of our people and certainly the courage of our soldiers and I believed in the leadership of the Prime Minister and still do that we were going to win the war. Like I knew that we were going to rally and win. But to me, the hope for a change with the Palestinians would come in the wake of a war because you have to change the culture and the educational system. If you don't deal with that, nothing we do is going to work. And there are people who don't believe they can ever change. Why? They say the Palestinians are the Palestinians. It's never gonna change. I disagree. And I think the United States did it. Of course, no two situations are alike. I think the

greatest thing the United States did is it took their worst enemies and turned it to some of their best friends in Japan and Germany. And that came because in Japan you changed the educational system there and you detoxified Japanese society that was really, really poisoned. You did the same thing with the denazification program. Now the Palestinian issues are much more complicated because you know there's no Hirohito, there's no emperor that can just turn the tide. And it's not Germany. I get it.

There's 5,000 different reasons why. But I believe that in this region, particularly in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, and maybe there are others, Morocco, we'll see, that can be partners in trying to begin the detoxification of Palestinian society. They're doing it in their own society. Saudi Arabia today is not the country it was 10 years ago. And the Emirates, I don't know enough about the history of it, but 20 years ago, you see that they're actually trying to deal with the issue of extremism in their societies. Now,

I could see a situation where in the wake of the war, we now have partners for the day after of what could be a new beginning. Now, I'm not saying that we're going to succeed. I'm not saying we're going to succeed, but you have to try. And to take the PA, the unreconstructed, unreformed PA, or just check boxes. Cause you know, another story. So, uh, the former, uh, secretary of state Blinken, I remember in Japan in 2023, he was at a conference, he talked about a rejuvenated Palestinian authority and he didn't speak to me about it before. And I was interfacing with him throughout the war and also with Jake Sullivan and Brett McGurk. And listen, I appreciate many things that

they did during the war. And I think many of them on many instances were more helpful than they get credit for and they should get the credit for it. But on this, I call him up and I said, Tony, what does that mean? What does that mean? Because to me, rejuvenated means going to a day spa. What does that mean? He says, well, it means good governance. It means fighting corruption. And I said, Tony, there are a hundred countries around the world that can't govern themselves and there are probably 120 who are corrupt. I'm looking for a government that won't teach their children to murder Jews.

That's what we need. And that's what goes on there. And a lot of people who say we need the day after plan Really, if you ask them what their day after plan is, is we're gonna take the Palestinian Authority and we're gonna throw it back in Gaza. So now we're gonna repeat 30 years of failure and then there's no hope to have any different future. Now, if we get the day after plan,

which is exactly the kind of stuff that you have to work in the 60 day period, if you get that right, it's gonna take a long time to do it, but at least you're gonna put it on rails, which you can see light at the end of the tunnel. And when I tell people and I get into, you know, my ideas with them, they say, well, what you're talking about something that's going to take a generation. I said, yeah, it may take a generation, but if you think about it in terms of a generation, you might get there in 10. And here what happens is everybody wants to make peace in two years or four years because of political calendars, and then nobody deals with the underlying problem. So what we need to do is actually have a government

that's dealing with Gazans, which will not poison the next generation. And then you may have a situation where a six-year-old goes into their educational system and comes out as an 18-year-old not trying to murder Jews, not turning mass murderers into heroes, but actually wants to do what other people want to do. That's very hard to do. And again, there are probably people who listen to this who dismiss this, but I actually think that's the only way you have to move forward with the Palestinians. And even if you don't get there, the fact that you're trying to do that is what we need to do moving forward, because or else you have no chance. And this gives us a chance to reset what happened with Oslo, because one of the core failures of Oslo, it was

not the desire to ultimately see peace between Israelis and Palestinians and there were people with goodwill that worked on it. The core failure was to not care what Palestinians were doing within their own society and the one who actually understood it... Dennis Ross made this point, he made this point after he said... But the one who understood it in real time was Sharansky. It was Natan Sharansky, who I worked with and have been an admirer of for many, many years. He understood it in 1993, just when all of the momentum,

the polls, 70%, I don't know what it was, it would go to Oslo. He said, wait, right? What is happening within Palestinian society? And a lot of people, the late Yitzhak Rabin, he had a statement that triggered Sharansky because he said, Arafat will deal with terrorism believe a God's believe it's seven,

believe called the Minaya Faye Nefesh, which means without human rights organizations, without a Supreme Court, without all sorts of bleeding heart liberals. It's the Hebrew equivalent for it. And he wrote a piece, I think it's September 1993, within two weeks or three weeks of the deal, I don't remember if it was the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, and he said a society without those things is a society that's going to be dedicated to Israel's

destruction. And he understood it. What happens when you have a society that is just poisoned against you, and it's going to always need Israel as this external enemy. And this is what you have. So when you see the hostage releases and you see everybody there and you see little kids wearing the Hamas bandanas and being committed to this,

it's a poison society. And here, one other thing I will tell you, soon after October 7th, somebody sent me a video of Palestinian children. This is before the thousands that you saw happening in Gaza. This is within days, two days, three days. And they send me a video of Palestinians saying, yeah, we have to kill the Jews,

we have to murder the Jews, we should do it. And they're supporting what happened on October 7th, and they're 15 year old kids and 12 year old kids and nine year old kids. And they say, look, guy who sent it to me said, look what they're teaching kids in Gaza. And I looked at the video, it's not from Gaza. It's from the West Bank.

Yeah, it wasn't from Gaza. It was from there in Jerusalem. And people don't understand it. They don't want to believe it because they don't want to stare this evil in the face and say that this has to be dealt with. Now, Gaza represents the hope for a restart, meaning you can hit that button again, start something new. And here, Gaza is actually helpful because unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, the territory here is totally dependent on the outside world for support. And it's a small territory. Now, if we link the reconstruction of Gaza with the de-radicalization of Gaza, everybody wants to link reconstruction of Gaza with demilitarization. I say, no, demilitarization we're going to get no matter what.

And humanitarian assistance, they get no matter what. But you have to link reconstruction to the de-radicalization. If that happens over time, we're gonna move closer and closer and closer to peace. And then if we go and we finish what we started with the Abraham Accords, right? We start doing peace agreements with other countries, which I think is definitely possible.

And that's in our Northern border, in Lebanon, in Syria. It's with Saudi Arabia, it's with other countries. All of that is possible in the near future, not in the far future. Including Saudi in the near future? If you do that, then I think the chances of ultimately leading to a resolution will be much much higher. And that's what we should do for Gaza.

And October 7th, those two things. There's an existential threat that has to be dealt with, and in the wake of dealing with that existential threat, it's the first time that I had hoped that we could actually put this on a different path. It's hard because the world is still stuck in the old paradigm, but it's actually possible to do it. And it requires also, and I'll say that to my colleagues in the government, it's gonna require what Churchill said,

in war resolution, in victory, magnanimity, magnanimity. We're gonna have to be magnanimous in finding that new way forward and working with partners in the region to put this thing on the right path. You think it's not crazy to think of Saudi normalization as something that's way off in the distant future? No, it's definitely not way off in the distant future. It'll happen much faster. I think until the Saudis see Gaza somehow in the rear view mirror, or at least the process, I think dealing with the day-to-day grind of what's happening in Gaza and what they see on the Al Jazeera

screens, which obviously present a distorted picture, but they're going to see those pictures and it affects their population, I think it's very hard for them to move to an alliance with Israel until that issue is settled in Gaza. That was not true before October 7th. I think it's very hard for them to move to an alliance with Israel until that issue is settled in Gaza. That was not true before October 7th. I think now it is true for them. I just think politically. Look, MBS is a leader that I think he sees his strategic interests long-term being aligned with Israel.

But in his position that he occupies in the Arab and Muslim world, it's going to be very hard for him to do that while intense fighting is going on in Gaza. And until that is behind us, until he realizes and is confident that it's behind us, I think it's going to be very hard to normalize. But I don't think this intense fighting is going to go on for a long time. So my view is that Gaza hopefully will get into the 60-day deal, hopefully will find a solution, and if not, I don't believe that this war is going to go on indefinitely. And the idea that the prime minister would like to continue the war for political reasons is ridiculous. The prime minister wants to win the war as

quickly as possible. And a couple quick things before we go, maybe not so quick. Iran, are we just in this holding pattern now? Like what happens if you see Iran trying to rebuild? What if you see Iran, you know, trying to escalate in some way? What constraints are there on Israel that could make it constraints concern? Maybe no constraints. Tell me look I said Israel's military operation it even exceeded our high expectations. I think our military and Intel officials did a fantastic job What we did is we set out with two goals one is on the nuclear side and one is on the missile side. On the nuclear side what has happened is the two enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow have been effectively destroyed. There's a third facility in Isfahan which they'd like to turn into enrichment facility in

the future which the United States hated when they did their strike with the 30 tomahawks that came from several hundred miles away and sort of jammed up the entrances. In that facility and in Fordow, you have buried nuclear material. That's the one thing that wasn't destroyed. Apparently, it's very hard to destroy nuclear material. But that material is there and as far as we know, it's buried there. And obviously, if they would try to move it somewhere else, then they would be taking a big risk, let me put it that way.

And I think the United States has made that clear to them. And obviously, we have our has made that clear to them. And obviously we have our eyes on it all the time. In addition to that, also you had the attack against the scientists, which was their know-how. I think the defense minister of Iran said a couple of weeks before the attack that no matter what happens with the sites, we'll have the know-how. Well, not so much anymore, the know-how, because their Manhattan project has essentially been taken out.

You know the top scientists who were dealing with the Iranian atomic bomb and remember this is a regime that is openly calling and actively working to destroy the state of Israel. So those scientists were removed. Then you have other facilities that are associated with their nuclear program. There's a conversion facility in Isfahan that was taken out. There was the heavy waterahan that was taken out. There was the heavy water facility that was taken out. There are centrifuge manufacturing facilities that were taken out. There are a Sippand headquarters, which is their, you know, kind of their nuclear scientist program. It used to be called the Ahmad program and it went to Sippand. That's taken out.

It might be that the archive was completely destroyed, the one that we, you know, stole parts of, but the whole thing may be destroyed. So we set them back on the nuclear side and pretty much everything that we set out to do, we achieved. And on the missile side, we had this problem where Iran is building more and more of these missiles. They were at a clip of maybe 50 to 60 a month, and they were moving within about a half a year to a year to about 300 a month, which is the prime minister said is, you know, you have 10,000 every three years. to a year to about 300 a month, which as the Prime Minister said is, you know, you have

10,000 every three years. And to have a regime that's working for our destruction armed with that type of arsenal, that was something we wouldn't accept. And so we dealt with everything that had to deal with the production process and manufacturing process of those missiles. And there are many, many sites which our air force, once we peeled away their air defenses, were able to attack all of these targets. So we achieved and set them back years. You know, is it two years? Is it three years? I don't know. It's a question. But we set them back very significantly on

their missile side. And that time we will use to ramp up our defenses pretty dramatically. And I guess if Iran thought that they were going to defeat us in the production race, they are mistaken We have now put ourselves in a position to be ahead of that race and we have very good air defense systems that are going To be getting better and better and better as you're gonna see in the months ahead and in the years ahead But we didn't set a goal to take down the regime That was never the goal that we set the Prime Minister didn't say it publicly and he didn't say it in the cabinet when we brought It to a decision, But he did put out statements once the war started encouraging the Iranian people to take matters into

their own hands. You know he's talked about to the Iranian people for the last 20 years but I'm saying as a military matter you know frankly then if I knew that another two weeks of strikes would have brought down the regime I would have supported that but that I don't know that. And, you know, you hit regime targets, but it's not clear. Ultimately, this is a decision that the Iranian people have to make. And, you know, they were very close to doing it in 2009. They were all out in the streets and they got no support from the United States at the time, because the United States was fixated on doing an agreement.

So in 2022, they were in 2022, they didn't want to rupture. They already realized that with an agreement, it was going to be very difficult. They set out the Biden administration set out at the beginning to reach an agreement. Then it looked like it was stuck. And all of a sudden you had the protest. You also had the Iranians sending drones to the Russians to hit Ukrainians. That also created a problem, but it basically was frozen from that point. But very little was said. I mean, frankly, more was said by the Biden administration about judicial reform in Israel than was about the protests that happened in Iran where women were going out to the streets and

being killed, you know, by sharpshooters and culling the internet and finding these people and taking them to prison. So ultimately the answer to Iran is that the Iranian people have control over their own future and not this regime. Because Israel is not at war with the people of Iran and I Don't I think that the second most pro-american people after the United States I mean the Kurds is a is a question if it's the Kurds or the Iranians 70 80 percent of them hate them time will tell what they're gonna do But for right now for the next few years you have to keep your eye on that nuclear material

But for the next few years, I think they have an opportunity. They have an opportunity to stand up, but it's very hard. It takes a lot of courage. Every single Iranian protester has worked about 10,000 protesters in Israel because they risked their lives. And you see what happens. And by the way, same thing in Gaza.

You see what happens when people protest Hamas in Gaza. They catch them, they break their legs and they torture them and they shoot them and kill them. It's really hard to do. And I think that they deserve the support of the outside world. Now, it's obviously in Israel's interest, but much more than that, it's in the interest of the people of Iran who have suffered for 50 years under what is a brutal dictatorship. Now, what will happen in the coming years, we'll have to see, but we have our eye on that ball. We haven't taken our eye off of it because of the success of the operation that we had.

And I think here again, we were aligned with the United States in an unprecedented way, on the diplomatic side, then on the military side, and now again on the diplomatic side. And we are aligned moving forward now. And the message that sends to the region, I keep saying on this podcast, is when President Trump said it's the best partnership that's ever existed or something between Israel and the U.S., between Trump and Netanyahu, I think the implicit message to others in the region is, do you want to be part of that partnership? Yeah, for sure. And also, Alexander Haig said 45 years ago that Israel was an unsinkable American aircraft

carrier in a region that's critical for U.S. interests. And I think in the 12-day war, we served as that aircraft carrier. We did all of this work. And then the United States came on top of this with this dramatic action that I think affects the whole region and affects the whole world. I also think it probably, this is for a future podcast, but it recalibrates American foreign policy a little bit,

that there's not just two choices, isolationism or boots on the ground forever. There's something else that you can do that you can actually exercise American power. And when I went to see President Trump November of last year, right after his election, I think it was a Monday after the election, elected Tuesday, so the following Monday.

And when I was making the case of why this was important, I said, look, this is gonna be a reverse Afghanistan. What Afghanistan did in sending a perception. The Biden administration's withdrawal, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan summer of 2021. The way that that looked, there's no question in my mind that it affected a lot of leaders around the world and their perception of what the US will or will not do. Now, people will say, well, we were willing to do something else.

Doesn't matter. Deterrence relies on their perception of you, not your capabilities. And so yes, America has that capabilities, but does it have the will? When Afghanistan happened, there was a sense, I think globally, that affected many theaters. And I think it could have affected Putin's decision in Russia, other theaters as well. And I think the United States action

is a kind of reverse Afghanistan because it sends a message of great strength around the region and really around the world. And another thing that it did is, you know, you in your political debate in the United States, there's been a kind of consensus in both parties that you need to kind of pivot to Asia. Now, if you're going to pivot, you pivot from strength. Now, with Iran defanged, your whole base structure is different because the threat that it was

supposed designed to deal with was Iran. So now, of a sudden, if you want to do that, if you're thinking about moving more resources and more focus elsewhere to the Pacific, Trump's action actually enables you to do it. Now what's the vacuum that you leave behind? Well here Israel stepped up into that vacuum and if we have other partners in the region that are willing to step up into that vacuum and I think you have them, you can actually envision a whole regional security architecture that will enable the United States to make that pivot. And that they, at CENTCOM, it would be under the wings of CENTCOM and that umbrella, but

that Israel and our Arab states in the region start taking a much more prominent role. After the Abram Accords were done a few months later, Israel joined CENCO. And that was a kind of game changing event because it brought us together with Arab partners in the region. And here it's clear that Israel is an ally, willing to fight. And now the question is, can our Arab partners also take a more independent stance and a willingness also to be responsible for the security in the region in the way they weren't before. I think they're willing to do it

and I think it's a game-changing event for the region. The Prime Minister spoke about this last year in Congress when he gave his speech he talked about MESA, you know, this Middle East Strategic Alliance, a new architecture for the region. In the wake of that attack, I think under US leadership this can happen and that's gonna be a very big deal. And now you have what's been a for the region. In the wake of that attack, I think under US leadership, this can happen. And that's going to be a very big deal. And now you have what's been a laboratory of the future of modern warfare. So now you have the application of the future of modern warfare that has been actually tested by an

ally. Exactly. So Israel now steps into this vacuum and we matter more for America's national security. But here's the other thing. When it comes to national prosperity of the United States, 50 years ago, 40 years ago, 30 years ago, even 20, how important was Israel? You know, you wrote the Startup Nation, you see the turn that we have. Now, the real question is who's going to be the preeminent technological power in the 21st century? If America is a company, okay, and China is a company, and you're competing with each other, what's the first order of business on the first day?

By Israel. The asset value of Israel in that competition is huge. So Israel matters for America's national prosperity and America's national security in a way that we didn't before. We were always a democracy during the Cold War. We were important, you know, pawn or even bishop on the chessboard. But now we matter in a way we didn't before.

And a lot of people don't recognize that. I think what happened between June 13th and 10 days later or nine days later when the United States, you know, dropped the B2, I think they were tremendously impressed by what Israel did, both on offense offense and defense and that we able to exceed our very high expectations. And I think it will have a huge impact moving forward on the US-Israel alliance because I think they will see Israel more and more as a country that can step into the

vacuum and be a force multiplier for the United States as the U.S. focuses its resources and attention elsewhere. And I think that is going to affect the U.S.-Israel relationship for decades. I agree from the decision-maker standpoint, from a geopolitical strategist standpoint, from a U.S. security system. But you mentioned the craziness on U.S. campuses, and we see the craziness in the media. And the delegitimization of Israel has reached a fever pitch.

I just wanna read you something that a friend of mine sent me, who's Israeli, who's served in government. I won't name him, because he wouldn't wanna be named, but he wrote, we devastated, I'm quoting here, we devastated the capabilities of our enemies in the Middle East in return for devastating our legitimacy in the West.

Or put another way, we took down Fordow, but we got the apparent mainstreaming of views of Mamdani in return. Maybe it was inevitable as much of the critique is not in our direct control or really about us at all. Maybe it's more of an argument about America, for example, but since it impacts us directly we need a legitimacy strategy no less impressive than our military performance and we don't have one. Look, I think people tend to romanticize the past, and they're assuming that Israel had all this legitimacy. You know, when, I mean, Israel was attacked on October 7th,

what were they yelling in Sydney? Like, within hours or the next day, gas the Jews. So this has something to do with Israel's actions in Gaza. It has nothing to do with it. I think what is hard for some Jews to understand, and certainly for non-Jews to understand, is that an age where antisemitism was on the margins ended. It actually ended a couple decades ago.

We had about 50-year period, half century, after the Holocaust, where it was politically incorrect to really go after the Jews. That's why when people ask me at the beginning of the war, how long do I think the support will last after the October 7th attack, where you had 1200 people who were savagely murdered, and I said two weeks. That's what I felt that we were going to get, about two weeks.

Now, in America, it was going to be a lot longer because America is different. But for the rest of the world, and you saw that happen in two weeks. Why? Do the math. If six million Jews... Harvard, it was a week later. Harvard put out the statement by 30 student organizations. And they were all ready with all their statements and the whole thing. It has nothing to do with what our actions are. Now the devastation that happened in Gaza and the destruction as we have to fight this force Hamas with the human shields and what they're doing in the hospitals and the mosques

and the schools and I don't think anywhere else you've seen the use of human shields as systematically as you used in Gaza. And it created, I think, a terrible tragedy for the unintended victims of the actions that we took against terrorists. And what happened was people thought in the wake of the Holocaust that antisemitism was kind of wither away. And what happened is it came back. Now it's not only antisemitism, it's also media and you see pictures and people who see pictures on television screens of babies being pulled out of rubble. If that does not affect you, then you don't have a heart.

And here the media is definitely culpable, not because they're showing the pictures, because they're not blaming Hamas. Because the process is we attack the terrorists, they put the civilians into harm's way. When those civilians are harmed, instead of the media saying, Hamas, you're responsible for this, they turn on Israel. And you and I know what would happen in the United States if a similar event towards October 7th would have happened in American terms, it would have been what 40,000 to 50,000 Americans murdered. What America would do to that strip of land where those terrorists would have come from. Everybody actually knows this. But for 50 years

after the Holocaust, it was politically incorrect. And then it became more correct to go after Jews. First, it was hidden behind hostility towards Israel. You saw that I see the turning point actually in the Durban Conference in South Africa in 2000. That was when you had this Festival of Hate and since then the problem has just gotten worse and when the problem becomes more acute is when Israel is acting in defense of itself. You remember you're part of the Bush administration, you went to war in Iraq, all of this anti-American sentiment came. So when you're actually fighting, the problem becomes more acute. The question is, can you win? But yes, the situation I think is very difficult and we can always be better at that

fight. I look at it from a historical perspective. You know, Herzl was right about so many things and he was a great visionary that had the plan of action that ultimately led to the establishment of the Jewish state and the restoration of Jewish sovereignty in our ancestral homeland. But he had this analysis of antisemitism, and many early Zionists had an analysis of antisemitism that they thought that the reason why there was antisemitism

is the Jews were a minority everywhere and a majority nowhere. And if we would be a majority in one place, Israel, then we would be treated like a normal country, like any other country in the world. And in Herzl's day, people said at that time, the Jews go to Palestine. Right? And they say the reason why there's anti-Semitism is the Jews don't have a stake. Now look back a hundred years later. Now they say, Jews, get out of Palestine.

The truth is that Israel is not the cause or the cure for anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is a very ancient phenomenon that goes back many, many centuries. The rush to believe the worst about the Jews. I once asked when I was ambassador, what does it mean to be pro-Israel? What does it mean to be pro-Israel? It's a good question. I don't know if anyone ever asked you that question. It's just so funny because you never would ask that. What does it mean to be pro-Israel? What does it mean to be pro-Israel? It's a good question. I don't know if anyone ever asked you that question. Just so funny, because you never would ask that. What does it mean to be pro-UK? What does it mean to be pro-

It's such a funny- Yeah, but he said, what does it mean to you to be pro-Israel? Because, you know, people are accused of being anti-Israel. And what I said was, they thought I was going to talk about the Iran deal or about the Palestinian state or about none of that stuff. It's not a policy issue for me. It's one thing.

Do you want to believe the best about Israel or do you want to believe the worst about Israel when you see a blousy story about Israel a tough story you know like remember 15 years ago with the Mavi Marmara that Israeli soldiers killed nine Turkish peace activists on a flotilla yeah when you see a story like that do you say yeah I could see that or do you say wait a second I got to that? Or do you say, wait a second, I got to get the facts? Meaning, do you give Israel the benefit of the doubt? To be pro-Israel is to give Israel the benefit of the doubt. And you have many quarters where they don't want to give Israel the benefit of the doubt.

And what I think a lot of defenders of Israel don't appreciate is this is not just the anti-Semitism that is resurfacing, it also is meeting with other zeitgeist trends. And that's an anti-Americanism that in certain quarters is very deep. It has nothing to do with Israel. We're just the low-hanging fruit of an attack against Western civilization. And there's many people you ask who hate Israel. You ask people this question when they say you go into a place and you're trying to

make the case for Israel. I usually ask people two questions before I even start. One, do you believe in a right and wrong? Because if everything is about competing narratives and it's all power and justice or like buckets in the well and all this kind of stuff, I know it's gonna be difficult. Do you believe in a right and wrong? Yes or no. Second question is, do you believe that America has been a force for good in the world? Nothing to do with Israel. Force for good? Yeah, America has many imperfections. You know, in a century force for good in the world. Nothing to do with Israel. Force for good, yeah, America has many imperfections. You know, in a century you had slavery in the United States.

150 years before women had a right to vote. 200 years before the civil rights. But with all of its imperfections, America is the greatest superpower the world has ever known in moral terms. Is America a force for good? Now, if somebody answers two of those questions and says, I believe in a right and wrong, and I believe America's a force for good, it, if somebody answers that two of those questions and says, I believe in a right and wrong and I believe America's force for good, it will

take me around 15 minutes to turn them into a friend of Israel. If they answer one of those questions, right, either, you know, America's a force for good or they believe in right or wrong, I can do it in an hour. If they answer no to both of those questions, I'm gonna spend six hours of my time trying to convince them and I probably won't budge them. Because they're always gonna believe the worst about Israel. They believe the worst of America, they're certainly gonna believe the worst about Israel.

And what you'll find is 95% of those people burning the Israeli flags would burn the American flag. Look at the, there's a Gallup poll out right now that shows it's stunning the numbers of people who say they're not proud to be an American. Now they're mostly young and on the left and I'm making an ideological or political point here, but it is true.

But it's not about because Trump is president, because these numbers have been declining for a while. But high double digits, like really high, of people who are not proud to be an American. The numbers are on the march. And if you match those numbers up with those that are critical of Israel, I guarantee you, you're not gonna have a lot of people who I guarantee you, you're not going to

have a lot of people who are rah rah pro-American and proud to be an American and hostile to Israel, the way that we're seeing that hostility be expressed. Yeah, you have, well certainly on the left side of the spectrum I would say that everybody who hates America hates Israel. On the right side you have a handful of people that might be extreme in their American nativism, I would say, but they dislike Israel. That you could have a little bit, but it's very very small. I know exactly one person who's an Australian, I won't say who it is, who said he doesn't like America but

he doesn't like America at all but loves Israel. You know, usually don't encounter it, but it's around 90%. And so that's important for the pro-Israel supporters to understand that you're not just fighting an issue of anti-Semitism. You've got a zeitgeist that is deeply hostile to Western civilization. Now, the good news is the numbers don't change that much. If you look at the beginning of the war, Harvard Harris would do this poll and it was like 80-20. And the numbers there were every month they do this poll 80% supported Israel 20% supported Hamas

I mean the 2% support Hamas is a disgrace But 20% of Americans are supporting a terror organization, right? That is chopping off heads raping women and burning babies. Okay, and a lot of these people they they'll either it's cognitive dissonance or something They'll deny that it happens, but they're supporting Hamas. That's how insane that is. But that 20% if you look at the course of the war, it didn't grow to be 50%. Among the younger people it was around 50-50. But the number actually stayed pretty constant within almost, you know, statisticians will say in difference of around zero from 20% to 22 to 18 to 19 of around 30 polls or 20 polls at this point 20 months. It doesn't change. What does that tell you?

People have preconceived views of the situation. They get their information from the sources they get it and they're just confirmation bias. They're just going to confirm their point of view. And so then the question becomes who's going to go out and fight? Is the pro-Israel crowd going to go out and stand on the streets and fight in the same way that the anti-Israel? But they're much bigger than the pro-Israel. The other thing to know about the American system, this gets into the details of your

politics. Part of the problem is you no longer have many competitive elections in the United States. And that means that the middle matters less and less to America. Now why does that matter? Every race is the primary. Exactly. It determines the outcome of the election. Just so that your listeners, your very smart listeners and very informed listeners, when you're in a landslide district, the race that matters is the primary voter.

Right. And it plays to the extremes. And if you're in a competitive district, the race that matters is the middle. So the middle matters less and less for people's electoral fortune. So that's why you used to have like Gang of 14. And then all of a have like gang of 14, and then all of a sudden the gang of 14 became the gang of eight, and then the gang of six.

Pretty much soon it's gonna be a gang of one, because the votes are not in the center of your system because you don't have competitive districts. So you have to see how the structure of American politics gives an extreme a much greater voice. And if people are in their own media silo and you don't have competitive districts anymore, it actually makes the problem worse and worse.

And when I was thinking about it, I wasn't just concerned for what it means for Israel, I'm concerned for what it means for America. All right, before I let you go, before I let you go, I want to, on a personal level, while you've been in the middle of all that you've been dealing with, your mother passed away. And I thought I knew a lot about you.

I didn't know your mother was born. A Sabra. A Sabra. Born in Israel. I always thought, and I guess I've known you for a long time, I thought you just came from an American family and then you made Aliyah and you've been living most of your life here and you've been married here and raised your family here. So can you just spend a minute?

Yeah, my mother was born and raised in Israel in Gidera, which is, they used to say that most of Israel's population is from Hadera in the north to Gidera, like 80%. So that's the southern part. She grew up here in pre-state Israel. So I'm technically the son of a Palestinian, because it says Palestine. At that point in 1936, the year she was born, when you said somebody was a Palestinian, they'd have to say you're a Palestinian Jew or Palestinian Arab.

Right now that makes no sense because it was... It wasn't a religious designation, it was purely... Or an ethnic data. It was geographic. It was geographic, exactly. So I'm actually the son of a Palestinian. I'm sure people would love to quote that from me. But she grew up here and she left soon after the War of Independence. Her family left. She was 15 years old through Germany. They made it

to the United States and she moved to Miami with her family. And my father was born and raised in the United States and they met there. But my mother came back to Israel after almost 70 years. She was there her first 15 years. She spent 70 years in the United States. She was the wife of the mayor of Miami Beach. That was my father and she was...my father was elected on the fourth day of the Six Day War actually and to get elected he beat FDR's son Elliot Roosevelt who was then mayor. Yeah, so he was elected mayor and you know I grew up in a household...it didn't occur to you know, there was a very Zionist household because it wasn't like

political discussions all the time. It was just, it was natural. Did you grow up speaking Hebrew? No. My brother's first language actually was Hebrew. My father didn't speak a stitch of it. And I think when my brother was like a year old, or a year and a half old, and he's speaking, and my father's trying to communicate him, he said, Yaffa, that was my mother's name. Maybe I can speak to my own son, you know, maybe teach him a few words in English. But it was his first language. I mean, he insists that if he's here for a few weeks, everything comes back. But believe me, it doesn't. It's hard. And I made Aliyah to Israel in 19... I moved here in 96 and made Aliyah in 97 and my sister

I followed three years later. And I think you've seen a lot of Jews around the world. I can tell you this anecdotally that you say, as so many people who I never thought in a million years would make Aliyah to Israel are now seriously contemplating the anti-Semitism. I tell you, I was walking to my sister's place for Shabbat dinner on Friday night, walking through Jerusalem, I've never heard more conversations in French. I was like, it was like groups of people walking and they were French, people who've left France. I don't know how recently they did it, but... No, I'm always of two minds regarding anti-Semitism in France, because on the one hand it's terrible and you need to fight anti-Semitism.

On the other hand, I've noticed that six months after a wave of anti-Semitism in France, there's an upgrade in restaurants throughout Israel. They get better and better. You know, the French have been, wave of antisemitism in France, there's an upgrade in restaurants throughout Israel. They get better and better. You know, the French have been brought their culinary skills to Israel, and if more British Jews come, maybe this country will be a little more polite. And if Americans come in big numbers, American Jews, then it might be you'd have actually customer service in Israel.

And instead of the customer being slave, the customer will be king. Because that's an American concept that hasn't translated into Hebrew. I will say Israel is the only country, I've said this all the time, that it's at war. It's probably the only country that is at war and you actually see its population growing.

That's an amazing thing. Fertility rates have not gone down to my knowledge and people are moving here. Both Israelis who are living abroad are coming back. And then you have these other members, the people in the diaspora who want to move their lives here. Because they're worried about what they see, as you mentioned, they're worried about the anti-Semitism that they see, but look, I think what has to happen is people have to stand up and to fight it, because if, a lot of times people in the middle, they'll believe that passion is a substitute for sincerity, you know?

They'll see people who are very passionate against Israel. And if all they see is that passion and they don't see the passion on the other side, then the middle will go to where the passion is, believing that there has to be some truth to it, which is not. I mean, Israel is really an easy cause to defend. Not if you compare Israel to perfection, by the way. If Israel has to be compared to perfection, we're going to fall short because we're a real country and not an idea. We're a real country of 10 million plus people who have to deal with all the challenges that other countries have to deal with, but we're a democracy

that's beleaguered, we're facing security threats that no other country has, and I think if you just compare Israel to what other countries would do faced with similar situations, it glows. It stands out of the crowd. People don't want to do that. People just constantly want to push back. But I think when the dust settles, when the October 7th war ends, and it will come to an end, again, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict goes on for a century. It's been going on and it may go on for a lot more time. We don't know. But the October 7th war will come to an end. And when the dust settles on that and people look back,

how Israel responded to the worst attack against Jews since the Holocaust and how we turned what was a strategic catastrophe because of the resolve of our people, because of the courage of our soldiers, and because really of the leadership of the prime minister, how we turned this strategic catastrophe into a strategic triumph. We haven't completed the task. The war is coming towards an end, and I believe the fruits of this war we're going to see in the

continuation of peace that is going to expand throughout the region. But this turnaround is maybe unprecedented in the history of nations, you know I love the United States and its history and Pearl Harbor and that attack and how America rallied that this is very different This was an attack The likes of which the United States has never faced 9-eleven was five percent of the effect that it has on the whole country And then to come back the way that we did Against external pressures because when the United States stands alone, okay. The United States stands alone.

Lord Andrew Roberts, the British historian, military historian, war historian, I asked him for a speech I had to recently give. Is there any example in history of a country that has faced this kind of threat and turned around its geopolitical positioning, it survived, and then turned around its geopolitical position the way it has.

He said, France, like 200 plus years ago, maybe. He actually said that about France. For a Brit to say that about France is a lot. Neil Ferguson said the same thing. I'll send you the quote. Ron, thank you for doing this. This was a tour de force. And the eulogy that you wrote for your mother,

I am gonna post in the show notes because it is quite moving and it's an extraordinary life she lived. I said there that my father inspired me, but my mother forged me. You know, she always would ask me, last thing I will say about my mother because it's relevant to the attack, now I can say it. She'd always ask me, when is Pirm coming? And Pirm was the code word for when are we going to strike Iran?

Because she knows that I'm in this fight for 25 years, that we have to remove this threat. And she would say, when is Purim going to come? And Purim is, for those of you who don't know, is they want to destroy all the Jews, and the Jews flip everything around. And ultimately the Jews' enemies are destroyed. She says, when is Purim coming? When is Purim? And she would ask me that. And even after a stroke, for years, she would ask me about it.

And Purim came, the morning that Purim came, I was, it was her Shloshim, it was the 30 day memorial for her. And the prime minister was busy dealing with 500 things. I had 50 things that I had to deal with, because it's that day, we know that night there's gonna be a strike. And he said to me, listen, do me a favor,

can you write a few things down for me, because I have to give a statement, both in English and Hebrew, and you can't let somebody else do it, because few are aware that there's going to be a surprise attack. So here I am drafting something for the prime minister on the way down to the cemetery, on the way back from the cemetery in between 5,000 other things. And Purim came and she also had this recurring dream all the time. She would tell me all the time.

She dreams that the Saudi king is landing in Israel. For years she's been having this dream. She keeps telling me, I don't know who's there, but who's the king and who's not? Saudi king is gonna land in Israel. So with my mother, those of you who knew, Yaffa Dermer, her dreams come true. So look forward to not us just purim and winning the war, but also winning the peace. That's the biggest tell to Saudi normalization. Absolutely. Thanks. Take care.

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