Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - The Brutality of War - with Yossi Klein Halevi

Episode Date: December 30, 2024

🔗 Subscribe to watch video episodes of Call me Back on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CallMeBackPodcast🔗 Visit our website to sign up for updates, access transcripts and more: https://arkmedia.org/🔗 Dan on X: https://x.com/dansenor🔗 Dan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dansenorLast Thursday, The New York Times published a long investigative piece titled “Israel Loosened Its Rules to Bomb Hamas Fighters, Killing Many More Civilians”. The article tries to identify an unprecedented shift in the IDF’s military strategy and rules of engagement during its response to Hamas’s October 7 invasion, and reports on the impact on Palestinian civilians, including a substantial increase in risk to Palestinian civilians. To discuss the ethics of Israel fighting a just war justly, to help us unpack and respond to the key charges in the Times investigation, and to briefly reflect on the (post-presidential) legacy of President Jimmy Carter, we welcome back to the podcast, Yossi Klein Halevi, who is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. Yossi has written a number of books, including his latest, "Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor," which was a New York Times bestseller. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Times of Israel. He is co-host of "For Heaven's Sake" podcast.Yossi Klein Halevi's books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B001IXOA04Articles discussed in this episode: “Israel Loosened Its Rules to Bomb Hamas Fighters, Killing Many More Civilians” https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-gaza-bombing.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&tgrp=sty&pvid=1FCD1780-A3CA-40EB-BBFF-99870A87D46E“Teens forced to perform sexual acts on each other: Report to UN details Hamas torture” https://www.timesofisrael.com/teens-forced-to-perform-sexual-acts-on-each-other-report-to-un-details-hamas-torture/“Jimmy Carter, friend of dictators and champion of terrorists” https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/3181150/jimmy-carter-friend-dictators-and-champion-terrorists/

Israeli Jews from left, right and center all agreed that the rules of engagement have to change because the goal has to change. The goal after October 7th in order to restore our deterrence could no longer be to deter Hamas from firing rockets or crossing the border, but the goal was now to destroy the Hamas regime. It's seven o'clock p.m. on Sunday, December 29th in New York City, on the fifth night of Hanukkah. It's two o'clock a.m. on Monday, December 30th, as Israelis transition to a new day, and hopefully not going through a night in which they will find themselves in bomb shelters again due to the Houthi alarm clock, as too many nights in recent nights have been filled

by sirens going off across Israel that send Israelis into their bomb shelters. Israelis have also just marked the 450th day of the war, which began with the October 7th massacre. 450 days of 100 Israelis still held in captivity by Habas in Gaza. This number also includes 34 Israelis confirmed by Israel to be dead. also includes 34 Israelis confirmed by Israel to be dead. A few days ago, on Thursday, the New York Times published a long, exhaustive investigative piece titled, Israel loosened its rules to bomb Hamas fighters, killing many more civilians. The article outlines Israel's unprecedented shift in military strategy and rules of engagement during its response to the October 7th attack by Hamas. The article highlights that Israeli mid-ranking officers were granted significant authority to strike thousands of targets and the article cites that when decisions are made for operations

against Hamas leaders or fighters, all terrorists I might add, there's always a risk of civilians being killed in that operation. But the article argues that Israel is now taking greater risk that could involve more civilians being killed, more civilian collateral damage. The appropriate level of risk has, according to the Times, always been quantified by the IDF. No more than 10 civilian lives could be risked in such an operation when Israel is taking out a Hamas terrorist. But since Israel responded to October 7th to eliminate the threat of Hamas and restore deterrence that number, according to the Times report, has increased to 20 civilian lives

at risk in any operation. The Times article does implicitly acknowledge that the IDF still goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid civilian casualties whenever possible but the same article conveys skepticism over how the IDF determines the number of civilian areas are in an area it is about to attack before launching an operation. When I read the article, I was struck by the complexity of what the IDF does in this war to calculate that number of civilians in any area it is going into.

But the net out of the piece is that all of these newer methodologies and rules of engagement and command and control structures are departures from earlier stricter protocols aimed at minimizing civilian harm. To discuss the ethics of Israel fighting a just war justly, we welcome back to the podcast Yossi Klein Halevi. But before our conversation with Yossi, I did want to take a moment to acknowledge the passing of former US President Jimmy Carter, who just passed today at 100 years old. Quite impressive. In the days ahead, there will be lots of commentary on President Carter's legacy. But as most historians and biographers of President Carter have pointed out over the years, his greatest legacy was in his post-presidency.

As this podcast is primarily focused on Israel, the Middle East, and the U.S.-Israel relationship, I must say that Carter's post-presidency was a stain on his overall legacy. Yes, he was the president who nurtured the negotiations and the process that culminated in the historic Israel-Egypt peace treaty in March of 1979 and that is a treaty despite its many warts and challenges and internal contradictions has held to this day through very difficult periods. But in the decades of his post presidency, no American national leader has done more

to legitimize Hamas and the inflammatory lie that Israel is an apartheid state than Jimmy Carter did in his post presidency. He used the platform of being a senior statesman to put a spotlight on a number of curious issues and leaders but among those that he was most passionate about was Hamas and quote-unquote Israeli apartheid. Even after Hamas had brutally driven Fatah out of Gaza and began to build a terror regime to govern Gaza and even after and while Hamas was executing

suicide bombing campaigns, deliberately slaughtering hundreds of Israeli citizens, President Carter would meet with Hamas leaders and would implore the Israeli and US governments to recognize Hamas as quote, the legitimate political actor that represents the Palestinian population. One of Carter's two post presidential books on Israel, he wrote a number of books since

he left office, but he wrote two on Israel in the Middle East. One of them was called Palestine, Peace, not Apartheid. To read more on President Carter's post-presidential impact on the very debate happening across the world today about Israel, the rhetoric used to describe Israel. I highly recommend a piece by David Harsinai in the Washington Examiner, which we will post in the show notes. I'll post additional pieces on social media in the days ahead. And again, we will have a dedicated episode in the weeks ahead on the Camp David Accords, the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, President Carter's

role in it, its legacy, because that deserves a fair hearing as well. But now on to today's conversation, Yossi Klein Halevi on the brutality of war. This is Call Me Back. And I'm pleased to welcome back to this podcast my longtime friend, Yossi Klein-Halevi from the Shalom Hartman Institute, prolific author and co-host of one of my favorite podcasts, for heaven's sakes. Yossi joins us from Jerusalem. Hi, Yossi. Hey, Dan. Good to be back on my other favorite podcast. There we go. Things have been kind of noisy in your neck of the woods. Not only has there been all these siren warnings about rocket launches that I've been reading about, but a rarity, there were two long range rockets

that were targeted at Jerusalem from Beit Hanun in North Gaza. And then some of the putti rockets were, there were concerns that some of them may land around near Jerusalem, although they didn't. But Jerusalem is typically not in the crosshairs, and it does feel like there's been increased activity. Have you been experiencing it in some way? No, if there were sirens, it was over Shabbat, and I probably slept through it. So I don't know what that says about my state of alertness or the effectiveness of the sirens.

Or the longevity of this war, where people just start to get, you know, they just start to get numb to it all, 450 days in. Right. Each area of Israel deals with a different kind of threat, usually. The South and the North have dealt with missiles, Tel Aviv occasionally, especially now with the Houthis, and Jerusalem tends to deal with terrorism as an ongoing reality.

Meaning these stabbing attacks and these shootings. Yeah, yeah, but every so often there's a spillover. We get some missiles, they get some terrorism. It all balances out in the Israeli grand scheme of things. All right, well, I'm glad you're okay and that coming out of Shabbat, you're well rested, which is the most important issue of concern to our call me back community. I want to talk to you about, which is why I reached out to you,

this big investigative piece in the New York Times titled, Israel loosened limits on strikes multiplying risks to Gaza civilians. And then the subhead is flawed methods for assessing targets and the gist of the piece and I talked about it in the introduction but just to summarize here it's a massive investigative piece that I think based on the hype around it conveyed that this piece revealed the change in Israeli tactics, the loosening of standards and the increasing aggressiveness of the IDF that has contributed to extremely high number,

according to the New York Times, and according to the Gaza Health Ministry, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, an extremely high number of casualties, specifically, obviously, this article is focused on civilian casualties, and the four areas, again, we'll link to the article in the show notes. The main areas of criticism are one historically when the IDF has conducted

operations against terrorists, specifically in Gaza, there was a rule that if the idea of had its eyes on a terrorist that it needed to take out, there often is a risk, even when Israel takes all these precautions that they take which most Western militaries do not take I might add to warn Civilians in the area to get civilians out before the operation takes place. Obviously, you can never be foolproof You can never be a hundred percent And there is often some there are often some number of civilians that could be killed in the crossfire of the operation civilians that could be killed in the crossfire of the operation.

Historically, the IDF has had as a goal to limit the number of civilians in these situations that are killed to 10 or fewer. And that in this war against Hamas, that number had been raised to 20 or fewer. Meaning you're taking out a high value target that have high value target, even with warnings and efforts to remove the civilians, there's still up to 20 civilians nearby. The fact that there are up to 20 civilians nearby does not preclude the IDF from taking out that terrorist. Again, whereas in the past, the number hit, the limit had been 10.

Second, the way that the methodology the IDF uses to estimate how many civilians there is criticized, we can get into that. Three, the types of bombs Israel is using in these operations. And four, the nature of the warnings that it does to civilians. Are the warnings robust, as robust as they used to be, that the IDF has used in recent and previous wars. So this is the crux of the piece, which again, the New York Times uses to explain why there have been so many Palestinians killed

and specifically civilians, although again, as even the New York Times concedes in this article, they're relying on Hamas Health Ministry data and even their data doesn't distinguish between civilians and combatants. So it makes this all very tricky. But that said, Yossi, what was your immediate response to this article?

So I would just add first a fifth category from the article, which is that Israel loosened the rules of engagement with targets who were not necessarily high value. Basically, any Hamas terrorist was fair game and the number of civilian casualties that were considered acceptable were also loosened. I have to tell you, Dan, that I did not fall off my chair reading this, and I don't know anyone in Israel who did. This article didn't really break new ground. We all understood that the IDF had

necessarily loosened the rules of engagement, and we should really talk about why it was necessary to loosen those rules of engagement. But the other response that I had was reading this, I said, well, we actually are not an army out of control, which is how so much of the media has portrayed us. There are rules, the rules have been adjusted, but our commitment to fighting a war based on rules remains. I think that for me in some ways, that was the major takeaway. to fighting a war based on rules remains. And I think that for me in some ways,

that was the major takeaway. And the fact that the army is still actively engaged in these conversations and we're not acting the way Putin does in Ukraine or the way he did in Chechnya, et cetera, et cetera. One could go on across the globe for other examples. And so it was in a certain way, contrary to what the times thought they were doing, it was actually somewhat reassuring. But really, I think, Dan, the important question here is why the rules of engagement were loosened. What necessitated

that on October 7th? Beyond the emotional response to the atrocities, I think there was something very well thought out here, which is what we understood on October 7th was that we were facing an existential threat to the credibility of our deterrence, which is another way of saying that Israel's ability to survive in the Middle East in the long term was in jeopardy because the weakest of our enemies had delivered the most devastating blow we'd ever experienced. And so there was an immediate decision that wasn't only taken in the upper echelons of the army and the government, but across the society. Israeli Jews from left, right, and center all agreed that the rules of engagement have to change because the goal has to change. The goal after October 7th in order to restore our deterrence could no longer be to deter Hamas

from firing rockets or crossing the border, but the goal was now to destroy the Hamas regime. And when you've changed the goals, as opposed to all of our other mini wars in Gaza until now, those were all based on a very limited goal of trying to prevent Hamas from firing rockets. This time, the goal fundamentally changed. So just to explain this, in previous wars, Gaza wars, late 2008, early 2009, 2012, 2014, 2018, May of 2021, 2012, 2014, 2018,

May of 2021, summer of 2022. I mean, we can go through every one of these, what I would call more, obviously summer of 2014 was probably the toughest war. But even in all of these wars, even summer of 2014, these battles were more akin to military skirmishes, meaning Hamas would launch something against Israel, post some kind of escalation.

They were military operations. Meant to stabilize the situation, but not to remove Hamas from power. They were basically the end game of those operations were go in, kind of clean things up, degrade Hamas's capabilities somewhat, but learn to live with Hamas running Gaza. And the demarcation point, if you will, the demarcation line from all of those operations on October 7th is Israel, and not just the government, but as you say, Israelis across the political spectrum said, it's over.

We're not going to learn to live with Hamas running Gaza. Exactly. The goal is not to restore the uneasy status quo, but to destroy the Hamas regime, to destroy Hamas's ability to govern. Now, you can't fight a total war with those previous rules of engagement of the IDF. Those rules of engagement make sense if you're fighting a limited conflict. As soon as your stated goal has shifted to the destruction of this genocidal regime on our border that had just proven the seriousness of its genocidal intent and capabilities, then the conclusion was, the natural conclusion was the rules of engagement had to change. Now, Dan, when I said that no one fell off their chair in Israel when

they heard about this report, it's because we all understood on October 8th what it meant to wage total war in Gaza. And the reason we all understood that is because Gaza is a known entity to us. Most of us who have served in the army in the last 40 years have spent time in Gaza. Our kids have served in Gaza. We know what a total war would look like under those conditions. And so, of course course the rules of engagement had to be changed. And again, what was reassuring for me was that new rules of engagement were put in place and the army held itself accountable

to a new set of standards. Now one can argue whether those standards were too loose. I didn't see anything in that article, maybe with the exception of dropping major tonnage on crowded areas. Nothing else that really made me feel that we went too far. I'm quoting here from someone who's been involved with the government in a professional capacity, meaning a civil servant who works, who has worked on Israeli legal issues for the government through multiple governments, governments led by different parties, and this person wrote, and I'm not quoting him by name,

but I'll quote what he wrote to me on WhatsApp when I asked him his reaction to the article. He said, most things, I'm quoting here, most things identified in the article do not actually Or necessarily point to violations of the laws of wars In fact the article does not really analyze much of its claims through the prism of what the law requires And then he goes on to say in a strange way. This article is a repudiation of the genocide case even an army that doesn't do as Even an army that doesn't do as rigorous a job of preventing civilian harm in the way that it did in its previous, more limited wars, or as you call them, operations, and he says, which is arguably unavoidable in a war that is of much greater scope and with the objective of eliminating Hamas as a military and governing power, so this is the point you're making, Jose. He says, an army that is adjusting its rules, which is understandable, is almost, he writes, by definition, not engaged in genocide.

Right. That's a great way to put it. Then factor in the actual conditions under which the IDF has been forced to fight this war. Thousands of apartments have been booby-trapped. The tunnels, Thousands of apartments have been booby trapped. The tunnels, and no army has had to fight a terrorist force that is not only embedded within its own civilian population, but is safely underground in hundreds of kilometers of tunnels. Which by the way is also holding even to this day, just shy of a hundred hostages

out of a population, Israeli population of over 9 million people. So that would be the equivalent today in the United States, proportionate to our population of 3,500 Americans were being held hostage, say by the Taliban or by Al-Qaeda and the U.S. had to fight a war with this reality. Yeah, it's, October 7th has often been compared by well-meaning observers, people who support Israel to 9-11.

And this was not 9-11. As you just pointed out, the consequences were so much more severe and so much more intimate. We were fighting on our border. We were fighting in a situation with hostages being held under the worst conditions. And you have to factor the hostage situation in as well in how the army calculated its decisions on October 8th. Now, there were many people in this country who believed that Israel needed to impose total siege on Gaza until it returned our hostages. Total siege meaning no food going in to Gaza and

fortunately Israel did not go that route. And I think one of the reasons that we didn't is that the army was able, the government was able to reassure the public that we have upped the ante militarily. And if we would not have gone all out, if we would not have readjusted the rules of engagement and continued to fight this in a plotting, more cautious way, there would have been enormous pressure in Israeli society to do something even more extreme. And so that's another calculation. There's no way, of course, to really assess that. But my sense is that by responding the way it did with the determination that it did, the army was able to deflect demands within the Israeli public

for much more extreme and dangerous actions. You see, the whole question of international law in these situations, international law was written under the assumption that there are times when war is necessary and that victory is necessary as well. Could Israel have achieved the military aims necessary for this war it's fighting without loosening some of the restrictions it had adhered to in the past? Absolutely not. I mean, as it is, we found ourselves fighting a year-long war and it's still not over yet. Hamas had had years to build up its strength, thanks, of course, in part to our prime minister, but we won't go there. But the force that

we encountered was so formidable, so deeply entrenched, that to destroy Hamas required a substantial loosening of the rules of engagement that we had previously imposed on ourselves. These were limits that we ourselves took on. And in some ways they were stricter than other armies fighting asymmetrical wars have taken on. So we had to loosen the rules of engagement if we were going to fulfill the goals of this war. And I just want to, and I know this follow-up question is obvious to our listeners, but I feel compelled to say it. The premise of establishing any set of rules is that to some degree one hopes

that they apply to all parties. And this idea that Israel's being held to a held to standards of international law when it is fighting a defensive war against an enemy, Hamas, which is again, I think there tends to be this characterization of Hamas as sort of this ragtag militia. It is not a ragtag militia. It has been the governing body in Gaza over several million Palestinians. It has built up over years the equivalent of a light infantry army of a sovereign state that was organized with 24 to 26 battalions and a command and control structure and a hierarchy.

And it was a semi-modern military backed by the way by major well-financed and sophisticated sponsors Ie the Islamist regime in Iran. So this is who Israel's up against However, it's not like this body was was operating under any kind of international law I mean they you know Israel tries to obviously minimize civilian casualties of its own citizens and it has been trying to minimize civilian casualties of its own citizens and it has been trying to minimize civilian casualties of Palestinians to the extent that it can while it fights this war and it's fighting an enemy that is trying to maximize civilian casualties of Israelis and As we now know from intercepts intelligence intercepts of Yehia Sinwar

Maximizing Palestinian civilian casualties was part of his strategy even Even you said in the Russian-Ukrain war earlier, as diabolical as Vladimir Putin is, no one thinks that he has as a military objective maximizing Russian civilian casualties in his war against Ukraine. Here Israel fighting an enemy that was trying to maximize civilian casualties of Sinwar's own people, of its own, of the Palestinian people. So this idea of international law when Israel's fighting this kind of enemy is, to me at least, preposterous. Look, morally, the nature of the enemy that Israel is fighting on all fronts is qualitatively different than what we see in most conflicts around the world. You asked me at the beginning of this conversation how I reacted to the Times report. My visceral reaction was we've just learned that there is a mass grave in Syria with over 100,000 bodies. These investigations didn't happen in real time. Assad was a welcome guest in capitals around the world. If Assad had

appeared on university campuses before his ouster, he would not have gotten the treatment that Israeli leaders get on American campuses. So my visceral reaction is how dare you place us under a microscope and give a pass to those who really are practicing genocide. And that's not a critique of the journalists who wrote this piece. I think they're doing their job. This is a major story. I fault the Times for turning this into this major story, major expose and the the obsessiveness with Israel's moral behavior, again, while giving a pass to so many others who truly are genocidal.

But that's only one half of what I have to say. That's what I have to say to our critics outside. And what I need to say to myself and our friends who, for the purpose of this conversation, are really part of us, those who support us. Our kind of honorary Jews, they're part of our camp. I think that's a big part of the Call Me Back community. We have data on the number of non-Jewish listeners to Call Me Back, which is surprising to Alon and me, the large number of non-Jews. And yet, I agree with you, Yossi. They're non-Jews, but they're in our camp. They're in our community. And we really should internalize that and appreciate that we're

actually not alone because it so often feels that way, especially when you're under assault by a lynch mob. But in our own internal conversations, I think we do need to look at that report and say, well, maybe at the beginning of the war, we went a little too far. And if you look at the trajectory of civilian casualties that the article lays out, within two months after the war, civilian casualties were down by more than half. And so there is a question here that we need to ask ourselves. Now, of course, this notion of an internal private Jewish conversation in the age of media transparency is an illusion. But for our own integrity, I think we need to develop two languages on Israel. The first is how we speak to those who try to criminalize the Jewish state, and there the language is unequivocal rebuke and contempt.

At the same time, we need an internal language in which we're able to ask ourselves, well, okay, we're better than Assad, we're better than Putin, but what are the standards that we really want to hold ourselves accountable to, even under these impossible situations? And we can't have it both ways. We love to flatter ourselves and say, we're the most moral army in the world. Now, I think that that phrase is actually ludicrous, because there's no way to measure that. Are we more moral than the Finnish army? I don't know.

The Finnish army has never been in a position that we're in of fighting an existential war against terrorists who are embedded in a civilian population, et cetera, et cetera. So I think we need to free ourselves from the pat on the back. We're the best. We're the most moral army in the world.

And I just want us to be doing the best we can under impossible circumstances. I don't need for us to be the most moral army in the world, because then we get into this pathological loop where we promote ourselves as the most moral army in the world, because then we get into this pathological loop where we promote ourselves as the most moral army and our critics say we are the new Nazis. And my sense is that neither category is useful in trying to understand what Israel is up against. Well, but what about this idea that Israel's response in part, I mean, now that we're getting into this, I'll go there. I don't believe this to be true, but I just, there is this criticism that Israel's response was not just strategic and was not just defensive, but was also a form of retribution.

By the way, I have a lot of friends in the Arab world, particularly in the Sunni golf, who, these are friendly criticisms of me because I go on television in the U S constantly to make the case that Israel is the David here is not the Goliath and that Israel is fighting as you're saying under these impossible circumstances and it's doing the best it can. And it's trying to minimize civilian casualties as it fights this enemy that has genocidal ambitions against it. And it's a seven front war and a ring of fire and it's trying to minimize civilian casualties as it fights this enemy that has genocidal ambitions against it And it's a seven front war and a ring of fire and it's being squeezed and etc. Etc I make all these points and my friends in the Arab world said to me. Why you

Why are you being defensive Israel's I quote here these are you know? This is a slight deviation from our from our PG standard here and call me back Israel's kicking ass and they should be kicking ass because that's the only thing that is understood in the Middle East. So if you look at the areas, as Mati Friedman has said on this podcast in the past, as Mati Friedman has said, look at the areas where Israel has withdrawn over the last 30 plus years. It's withdrawn from Gaza, it's withdrawn from Southern Lebanon, and it's withdrawn

from parts of the West Bank. In every one of those areas, Israel is back today, fighting in all of those areas. And Israel's withdrawal from those areas looked weak. Israel withdrawing from Southern Lebanon in 2000, in Hezbollah's eyes, looked weak. Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, in Hamas's eyes, looked weak. So Israel needs to be back in those areas. Israel is back in those areas, and again, to quote them, and Israel's kicking ass and taking names. And that's the only thing the region understands. All right. So our dilemma is that we need to be perceived in the Middle East as Goliath and in the West as David. And post October 7th, at least initially, it was kind of reversed. We were seen as weak in

the Middle East and still as bullies in the West. So we were really getting the worst of both. And in the last few months, we've succeeded at least in readjusting the disastrous perception of Israeli weakness in the region. If you want to take this a level deeper, Israel's real strategic situation and our moral situation, our moral dilemma, is that Israel versus the Palestinians, we are Goliath and they are David. Israel in terms of the region, we are not this uncontested power. We're fighting for our lives, we're fighting very well, we've turned the corner, but we're certainly not the overarching bully. And so Israelis, when we think of this conflict, we have a kind of a split screen in our heads. One side is Israel versus the Palestinians, and there we are the uncontested power. But the other side of the screen is

Israel and the region. And so all you need to do is widen the lens and to understand how Israelis live with this kind of schizophrenic understanding of Israeli power on the one hand and vulnerability on the other. Yossi, I want to mention one other topic that's in the news, which was not initially part of this, intended to be part of this conversation, but I don't think we can have this conversation without bringing this up. This is an extensive report compiled, researched, issued by the Israeli Ministry of Health in which it conducted extensive interviews with hostages that had

been released last year, last November, both on their experiences in Gaza in captivity and then how they have suffered actually over the last year since they've been released. And this report, which is pretty brutal to read, and it's being submitted to the UN, I think in a matter of days. We'll put a link in the show notes to some of the press coverage. I guess I feel compelled to get into a couple of details here because I live in fear constantly of the sense that we're forgetting about the hostages. Time is passing them by.

There's sort of a numbness and a, and a, um, ability to kind of drown out the reality of what these remaining hostages must, must be going through. And so I just want to quote here. This is from the times of Israel, the title of the article, which is about this, uh, Israeli health ministry report. The title is teens forced to Forced to Perform Sexual Acts on Each Other. And it says, report to UN details Hamas torture. I'm not gonna, again, I'm not gonna read the whole thing,

but I just wanna read one excerpt. According to the report, the terrorist captors forced two minors, two Israeli minors, to perform sexual acts on one another and compelled them to take off their clothes in front of them, touch the private parts, and whipped their genitalia. The same two former hostages also reported, quote, that they were held bound and were beaten throughout their captivity.

Signs of binding, scars, and marks consistent with trauma were found, the report says. Additionally, the two young children had burn marks on their lower limbs. One child stated that the burns were the result of a deliberate branding with a heated object. Both the child and adults who were with him in captivity described the incident as a purposeful branding event, not an accident. I can go on and on. I'm just... the report says that some hostages were kept for days in darkness with their hands and feet bound and received little food or water. They were beaten all over their bodies and some had hair pulled out. Again, none of this should be shocking and

yet it was shocking. Well the the consequence of this report on the Israeli public will be to intensify the pressure on the government to do what it did in southern Lebanon, which is end the fighting, make a deal, bring all the hostages home. The only real divisive issue over this war has been the question of do we prioritize bringing down Hamas or saving the hostages? There was virtually, virtual unanimity among Jewish Israelis about the necessity of fighting this war, about the moral legitimacy of this war. There were no demonstrations against the war, which is extraordinary because in previous asymmetrical conflicts involving the IDF and Hamas or Hezbollah, there were demonstrations. So the Israeli public has supported this war all the way through. The

one dividing line has been the question of the hostages. And there is a growing outrage against our government for not making a far-reaching deal. Now, initially, and I'm going back to the first months of the war, maybe even almost the first year, I supported the government's position that we need to bring down Hamas before rescuing the hostages. I feel that now after we have substantially restored the credibility of our military deterrence, which for me was really the goal of this war, we can afford to take that chance. We have done a tremendous amount of damage to Hamas. We don't yet know if we've reached the tipping point where Hamas is no longer capable of governing. But what I want to see our government do is agree to a morning after plan that would bring the Palestinian Authority into Gaza. The Palestinian Authority is a terrible

option. It is everything that the Israeli right says it is. It's corrupt. It doesn't have the support of its people. It doesn't accept the existence of Israel. It supports terrorists. All true, but that's the only other option we have. And so, first of all, have in place an alternative government to Hamas that would help ensure that Hamas does not come back into power, supported by the Gulf states, the Saudis, whoever is willing to come into Gaza, and at the same time, retrieving the hostages. That's the deal that a strong majority of the Israeli public supports. All the polls show that in recent weeks. And the fact that this government isn't doing it is really because Netanyahu knows

that his coalition will fall apart if he does. And after this report, I suspect that the pressure is going to intensify on Netanyahu to make it. I should say though, that my understanding based on the reports, one, one holdup major holdup, and I'm hearing this from Israelis, but also the Americans involved is that Hamas is not willing to give Israel at any point before a

deal is inked an actual readout of who they have, what hostages they have, which the ones that they know are alive, the ones that are dead, and so the government's position is, how do we agree to a ceasefire? And Hamas is saying we can't give you those names because we can't do a full accounting until there's a ceasefire, and so Israel's giving up

its most important leverage, the ceasefire. Obviously, obviously, we don't agree to a ceasefire until we get the names. But what we can say and what we have not said until now is that we are ready for a comprehensive agreement that will wind the war down, bring in the P.A. And create the same kind of uneasy status quo that we have in Lebanon. Yeah, I wonder whether or not Hamas will agree to that because this is like a tragically zero sum situation because that means that Hamas has to agree to its own demise. So Dan, you and I won't negotiate with each other on this,

but let's agree that it might be a good idea if the Israeli government said this publicly. Fair enough. Yossi, one last thing before we wrap. You are one of my rabbis, so to speak, on the history of anti-Semitism globally. We have seen in the last few months, I mean, what was already horrendous waves of anti-Semitism throughout the world, you couldn't imagine it getting worse. And then in recent weeks we've seen, you know, synagogues being burnt down from Melbourne to Montreal to Toronto.

I mean, Canada has become a real, um, cesspool tragically of, of, um, anti-Semitism out of control. You know, what's happening in the UK. We know what's happening in various parts of the United States, including where I live in New York. It's just what, just when you say you, say you you can't believe it, it gets worse. And just when you say it can't get any worse, it gets worse. There are some critics of Israel who say, well, the way Israel is fighting this war in Gaza,

they said we're not excusing the anti-Semitism, but the way Israel has fought this war in Gaza They said we're not excusing the anti-Semitism, but the way Israel has fought this war in Gaza Doesn't help and it inflames if people are already hysterical critics of Israel and the way Israel is conducting itself further inflames already hysterical and Perhaps already irrational as they would say critics of Israel to do Crazy things and I think they will those same critics will point to this report in the New York Times which was the subject of most of our conversation today to say this is just going to further provide further fuel for those for the mob as you said earlier the lynch mob metaphorically attacking Israel but attacking Jews around the world you are as I said an

expert on anti-semitism and the different ways it rears its head and has throughout history. How do you respond to that? That Israel's, the nature of Israel's response is part of the problem for Jews and that Jews around the world should in part be blaming the actions of Israel's response to October 7th for what Jews are experiencing with this anti this antisemitism. The hatred of Jews predates the Christian era. It goes back into deep pagan antiquity, where we're speaking during Hanukkah. And antipathy to Judaism, to the Jewish people, was present already in the Hellenist world. And so this

notion that what Jews do creates antisemitism is something that after 3,000 years of this, I think we can safely say that antisemitism is a problem of anti-Semites. And I was speaking the other day by Zoom to University of Amsterdam, spoke to a group of students there, and they were saying about how the Jew hunt, which you didn't mention in your roundup of outrages. There was so many to choose from, and Shame on me for missing the Jew hunt in Amsterdam. On the streets of Europe, on the eve of Kristallnacht, you know, it doesn't get any

clearer than that. And so students were saying to me, well, you have to understand the Israelis came and they were provoking, they were provoking the Muslims. They were chanting anti-Palestinian slogans and they even took down a Palestinian flag. And I said to them, I said, how many thousands of Israeli flags have been desecrated around the world in the last year? How many antisemitic chants have Jews in the diaspora been subjected to?

And I didn't see any Jews in any community in the diaspora having a Muslim hunt and saying, we can't take this anymore. So never mind that this was premeditated and there were plans for this Jew hunt even before the Israelis landed in Amsterdam. But I think that that's a very useful example of how this notion of blaming the Jews for Jew hatred is simply outrageous. After 9-11, George Bush, President Bush, made a point of visiting a mosque, of reaching out to Muslims. Now there was a good case to blame certainly part of the Muslim world for 9-11. And not only liberals, conservatives too. People were careful not to place blanket blame on the Muslims. When it comes to the Jews suddenly, well, what did the Jews do to bring this on themselves? Now, I mentioned

Kristallnacht a moment ago. We brought Kristallnacht on ourselves. There was a young Jew shot a Nazi official in Paris, and that then became the pretext for launching Kristallnacht. So, did we bring Kristallnacht on ourselves? We're so used to being accused of acting disproportionately in our own defense that we don't stop and ask the question, well, is there something perhaps disproportionate in the response to Israel's self-defense? Let's assume that the Times report, and let's bring this full circle back to the Times. The Times report is completely accurate. And is that really the worst atrocity that's happening in the world today? Is this the measure of a war crime? And look how easily, really don't get me started down, you know. Look how easily the criticism segues

from Israel is committing war crimes to Israel's war is a war crime to Israel's existence is a crime. And we were there already on October 8th, you know, that instant slide from war crimes to your existence as a crime was all condensed in those few days around when it's occurred. And so, no, I don't buy it. To even consider the possibility that our actions bring on this ancient hatred is demeaning. And the only way to respond to Jew hatred is with contempt and an affirmation of Jewish pride.

– I will just, on that point you're making a moment ago, I just pulled up here something I saw that blew my mind at the Guardian newspaper. The Guardian compiled the increasing list of organizations and scholars concluding the Palestinians in Gaza are the victims of a genocide. And the list here, and so they compiled this whole list of organizations and scholars, concluding the Palestinians in Gaza are the victims of a genocide. And the list here, and so they compiled this whole list of these organizations. October 15th, 2023, public statement over 800 scholars warned of potential genocide in Gaza. It's before we even invaded Gaza. Unbelievable or not or not unbelievable.

Right. But you go through this list. And what's striking about it is almost every one of the items on this list refer to a report of quote unquote reputable organizations or reputable scholars or reputable government officials from the international community claiming that Israel is genocidal before Israel even responded defensively to a genocidal war on its borders.

When they can't pin genocide on us, they try to fudge the definition and say, well, the classical definition of genocide doesn't apply in this case because the term itself isn't adequate to explain what Israel has done. And so why did those organizations line up a week or two after the massacre to accuse us of genocide? Why is it so important to stigmatize Israel with that particular accusation? Whether consciously or not, I believe the reason is to, in some way, even the score over the Holocaust to deprive the Jewish people of its grievance, of its claim to historical justice. All right, Yossi, we'll leave it there. You said a moment ago that Jews have to do what they've always done and among the things you cited was be hopeful and live rich Jewish lives, which is something I've been evangelizing every time I speak publicly at events is that we can't

just be in the response and fight mode. We also have to be in the live rich Jewish lives mode and focus on continuity and ritual and community and the joy of Judaism. Uh, that is as much about our survival or key to our survival as just raw defense. And, um, I think that that point that you just alluded to is, is extremely important and extremely important point to end this otherwise quite depressing conversation. point that you just alluded to is extremely important and extremely important point to

end this otherwise quite depressing conversation. Well, it's great to have a depressing conversation with you, Dan, so thank you for having me. That's a very Jewish statement, by the way. It was great catching up on such a depressing topic. Why should I be miserable on my own? Exactly. When I can commiserate, share my misery with you. Maybe you can give me a different angle on my misery, uh, than I otherwise would have on my own. That's what community's about.

All right. Yossi, we'll leave it there. Stay safe. Look forward to talking soon. Thanks. Take care. That's our show for today. Call Me Back is produced and edited by Alain Benatar.

Our media manager is Rebecca Strom. Additional editing by Martin D'Huergo. Research by Gabe Silverstein. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Cnorn.