The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Dialogue with Dan Senor: a defining moment for Israel

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

For those who have been following the chaos unfolding in the Middle East since October 7th, Dan Senor needs no introduction. A former political foreign policy adviser and a bestselling author, Dan’s popular podcast, Call Me Back, has kept listeners engaged week in and week out by offering unique insight, analysis, and up to date commentary on Israel’s many battle fronts, from the physical wars being waged on its borders, to the inter-Israeli struggles being fought in the Knesset and military, to the increasingly tense relationship between Israel and its western allies - specifically the United States. This Munk Dialogue covers a lot of ground: how Israel is still grappling with the aftermath of October 7th, the Biden administration's tepid support of Israel's offensive, and whether Israel should seize on the momentum of the past few weeks to strike Iran and take out the regime representing the most serious and dangerous threat to its existence. The host of this Munk Dialogue is Rudyard Griffiths Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/ To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to our 15+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, and ticketing privileges at our live events. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/   Executive Producer: Ricki Gurwitz Editor: Kieran LynchBecome a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We tried socialism all through the 20th century, and it failed every time. We should restore dignity to the working class and stop saying you need a credential in order to achieve the most basic, modest version of the American dream. Netanyahu is the worst leader the Jewish people ever had. He should be impeached. Genocide is the latest modern blood liable that anti-Semites use to justify their anti-Zionism. We should prioritize making sure that no more Ukrainians are. that this war is brought to an end. All parents want to help children with their feelings, but I argue that not every feeling is worth paying attention to.

Why are these students covering their faces? I think it says something about their movement, about their ideology, and also simply the fact that they're also cowards. Hello, Monk listeners. Rudyard Griffiths here, your host and moderator. Welcome to this, our continuing conversations called the Monk Dialogues. These are in-depth questions and answers with some of the world's sharpest minds and brightest thinkers.

On each monk dialogue, we go deep into the big issues and ideas that are driving the public conversation. I had the pleasure of interviewing Dan Cynor in Toronto this week when he was visiting to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Israel's Technion University. For those of you who've been following the chaos unfolding in the Middle East since October 7, Dan Cynor needs no introduction. He's a former foreign policy advisor to U.S. President, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, a whole bunch of important folks in American politics. He's also a bestselling author, and you probably know him as the host and creator of the popular podcast, Call Me Back. It's engaged listeners week in and week out since October 7, offering unique insights behind the scenes, commentary, and analysis on Israel and all the many fronts that are

unfolding in this multi-war battle between Israel, Iran, the Houthis, you name it. Dan C.nor has covered it on Call Me Back. My discussion with him picks up on how Israel is grappling with the aftermath of October 7th, a year later. The Biden administration's support, tepid, enthusiastic. It's always different, it seems, from one week to the next. And how Israel should seize on the recent momentum it is enjoyed in terms of pushing back Hezbollah as a threat along its northern border. And finally, is this the time to confront Iran head on, the so-called octopus that seems to be controlling the many armed belligerents that are fighting Israel at this moment? Let's go to Dan Sienor now as I welcome him to the monk dialogues.

Dan, welcome to the monk dialogues. Great to be with you. Great to be with you in person. Longtime listener, first time interviewer, congratulations on the podcast. I'm sure you get a lot of feedback on it, but I really think it is best in class and the quality of the interviews you have. And just treating your audience, hopefully as we try to do here at the Monct debate, as smart people who want interesting conversation, who want to go deep on issues and ideas. So you're really, again, I think a leader in the space. Thank you.

What I've been most struck by particularly since October 7th, which I wouldn't have expected. is how much demand there is for people getting seriously educated. When I mean by seriously educated, which I think you probably experience as well with your podcast, is that some of the episodes we do are the ones that are the most dense, most wonky, most, you know, I would think meaty, you know, lots of history, a two-part episode on The Origins of the 48 War of Independence with Benny Morris, episodes like that. my producer will say the numbers are like exploding.

They're huge. And that just, and I wouldn't have expected that. And that just tells me for as much as we complain about the TikTok generation and the people, there's actually a real market out there, real demand for people to get informed. Yeah. Long form conversations. It does make you hopeful. Dan, let's indulge a little bit just to begin.

We're going to air this as quickly as possible, but events obviously could. change since we record this and it appears in the feeds of our listeners. What is your expectation in terms of the scale of the Israeli response? What are you hearing? What do you think? Is this likely to be more rather than less as per the reaction to the first attack of Iran, unprecedented in that case, not unprecedented anymore, ballistic missile attack on Israel? What's your got telling you? There are three ways to think about how Iran continues to operate in the Middle East. One is Israel's able to reach some kind of interim, temporary diplomatic accommodation with Iran. I think that's unlikely. The second is Israel says any kind of diplomatic track is

pointless, and we need to seriously decimate a lot of Iran's capabilities. And including whatever Israel can of its nuclear capabilities, and also restore a sense of a real deterrent effect in the region. And the third is the first two will never work, and what really has to happen is some kind of change in regime in Iran. I don't think Israel thinks they can do number three. They believe there is stuff happening, as does U.S. intelligence, there is stuff happening, fomenting the grassroots in Iran,

but whether or not the U.S. and Israel can catalyze that is debatable. So really, I think the options for Israel are number one and number two. I think Israel is highly skeptical that there can be any even informal diplomatic track with Iran, sort of an unwritten understanding that everyone should de-escalate. And I think the Israeli leadership right now believes partly based on planning and intent and partly just good luck and momentum. The last few weeks have seen a series of successes, and success can beget success.

It's important not to get too cocky, too cavalier, but the reality, if you think of the three tracks that you've seen Israel engage in over the last few weeks, one was the pager operation. The second was systematically degrading Hesbalah's rocket launching capabilities, missile launching capabilities and a lot of the weapons themselves. Israel had a pretty good map of where most of those sites were, and they've been systematically degrading them,

making them basically inoperable. And the third was taking out Hassan Nasrallah. Now, any one of those three would have been considered a success. Any one of those three, you don't know if you're going to be successful until you try it. I mean, the Pager operation, they knew they had the capability for a long time, Israel. They didn't, but you only get to test it once. and the fact that all three have been successful has been extraordinary. I think it's given Israel a lot of momentum.

I think it's boosted the Israeli people's morale because they felt up until the last few weeks they were sort of stuck in this multi-front war they're in. And I think it's changed gradually the dynamic in the region where you have a lot of Sunni countries, mostly the Sunni Gulf, that had been frustrated with Israel, because there doesn't seem to be a real plan for the Palestinians, at least from their perspective, and they want to see Israel makes in progress on the Palestinian track,

what they call it loosely to find the day after plan after the Gaza War. But these are countries that have no love lost for Hezbollah, for Hassan Nasrallah. Keep in mind, Hassan Nassarra, and Hezbollah are responsible for hundreds of thousands of Sunni Muslims being slaughtered in Syria when they were sent there to prop up Bashar Assad. And obviously they know that Hezbollah is basically an arm of the Iranian. government in many of these Sunni countries fear the Iranian government's growing reach in the region. But they've all been uneasy about how to deal with these threats. And then they see Israel over the last few weeks with these extraordinarily successful initiatives. And so now a lot of players

in the region are saying keep going. So I think you add all that up. And I think Israel is most of the Israeli leadership, not all feels that this is a moment to do something big, not do something incremental, not just kind of restore the status quo. When I'd say the status quo, I guess you call it pre-April, which is when Iran launched the first round of projectiles at Israel. Most in the Israeli leadership think this is the moment to do something next level, and I think next level would be doing serious damage to Iran's nuclear capabilities, to Iran's oil infrastructure or potentially both. The one question is what kind of pressure Israel is going

to be under from the U.S. government and how that factors into Israeli decision making. Yeah. One thing I've struggled a little bit with, Dan, is the tale of two cities, which is the tale of the war in Ukraine versus the wars that now Israel is engaged in, and particularly America and the United States kind of attitudes towards the protagonists in those wars. Both Ukraine and Israel invaded. Both countries responded to America's credit. It provided military assistance to both, a lot more to Ukraine, obviously, than Israel. But there the story departs.

On one hand, the war in Ukraine, you have a Biden administration that seems very willing to consider, you know, significant escalation in the face of Russian aggression. For example, the fighter jets are there. The tanks are there. Tens of billions of dollars of ornaments are there. Training. Training. Intelligence. The latest satellite and other data to help with weapons targeting.

Move to Israel, and it's a very different story. The United States is withholding, in many cases, at different times of the last year, vital weapons to Israel. They've supposedly indicated in the last few weeks that they are not providing targeting information to Israel in Lebanon. How are we to square this circle? What's at the core of this seeming, I think, deep contradiction in the Biden administration's thinking about these two conflicts and more importantly, their behavior? I think that President Biden, from day one, meaning day one of October 7th, has been, was very strong. made it clear early on that the U.S. was going to stand by Israel,

deployed extraordinary military assets to the region, did something I've never seen a present do, fly Air Force won, right into the war zone days after the war began, you know, participated in the Israeli War Cabinet meeting as though he were part of the war cabinet, the Israeli War Cabinet, really stood shoulder to shoulder with Israel, and that was very important. I think since then, And I don't want to understate the U.S. has, you know, with the exception of the categories you just described, the U.S. has generally supplied a lot of weapons and munitions to Israel, so it's not nothing.

But there is a sentiment within the administration that, yes, we have to stand by Israel. And yes, Israel has a quote-unquote a right to defend itself. That language I always find so patronizing, but be that as it may. But they always assume that this war would wrap itself up in due course. And I think there are a variety of factors why the administration has wanted the war to wrap up, not the least of which is they do not want the Middle East blowing up as they had into, at the time, it was thought President Biden's re-election campaign. They wanted quiet.

They wanted modicum of stability. And just, you know, they're not looking for Israel to, or any country in the region, but Israel is the only one they've real leverage over to, escalate. So, and they have a political coalition in the U.S. that they have to manage the Biden administration, which is, you know, most of the opposition to Israel's response to the October 7th massacre, most of the resistance in the U.S. comes from the left-wing plank of the president's political coalition. So you add all that up, and I think that has put, enormous pressure on President Biden and now Vice President Harris to look for ways to deter,

discourage, however you want to think about it, but basically persuade Israel that they should, that less is more. I think that's not a realistic option for Israel, but that's where I think the pressure, the political pressure comes from. I think you've an added backdrop to this, which the Democrat foreign policy elites in the U.S., and I, I say this, I mean, while I disagree with a lot of them, I, what I'm telling you, I hear from them too. In other words, they're, these are people I speak to and they talk about this, what they're wrestling with. They have not reckoned with yet that the most important, regardless of what you think of it, on the substance, the most important foreign policy legacy of the Democratic Party over the last 10 years was the JCPOA, the nuclear deal with Iran.

because embedded in the JCPOA, it wasn't just about how did we manage Iran's nuclear program. It was a bet on what the world could look like if there was a serious effort to integrate Iran into the international community and could have become a responsible and strategic player internationally. And that has been a complete and utter failure. And that's what I mean. Many Democrats I speak to who are involved in foreign policy, including in the administration, are now coming to terms with that reaction. They made a big bet, call it from 2015, but it really started before 2015.

But 2015, when the deal was inked, all the way to the Biden administration, when President Biden was trying to get back in the deal after President Trump had withdrawn from it, there's just a sense that, first of all, by now, most of the aspects of that deal would have been winding down anyways. So Iran could have resumed its nuclear program regardless. A, B, as much as if there had never been a deal at all. And B, they're just watching how the maligned forces that Iran is lighting up and sponsoring and activating throughout the region. The idea that this is the behavior of a country that wants to be integrated into the community of nations is preposterous. And they haven't – so, like, they're stuck. They don't know what to do.

They haven't reckoned with that because to reckon with it is to acknowledge that, A, the policy was a total failure. and B, it forces you come up with a new policy and they don't, what does a new policy look like? And a lot of the implications of a new policy would potentially take the U.S. and take the Democratic foreign policy leadership in a direction it swore it would never go. I've been saying for some time

that at the end of the day, Israel does have to deal with Iran in some way and so does the U.S. Meaning Israel can't do it with the U.S. nor should, sorry, Israel can't deal with it without the U.S. nor should it. Iran is a huge problem for the United States. And if you actually go through the list, we tend to always talk about the threat that Iran is in the region and the threat that Iran is to Israel.

But in reality, it is a massive, massive geopolitical challenge for the United States. So the U.S. has as much an interest in dealing with it as Israel. And again, the implication, once you go down that path, I think it takes the current policymaking team in power, and they don't want to deal with it, and especially not during 20, 20 plus days before an election. Right. So to take that analysis and to apply it to the immediate question now, which is the calibration of Israel's retaliation against Iran, on one hand, you have figures like Jake Sullivan seemingly coming out and acknowledging the failure of the policy, saying severe and harsh consequences. Yet subsequent to those remarks, Dan, you and all of us have seen. You and all of us have

seen the president seemingly walk back what the response could or should or might be. So how do you think American decision makers are looking at this right now through that lens of the JCP and the failure in a sense of an entire policy that, again, is critical to a region, critical to American security? Is it all about the election? Is this just happening at the worst possible time? Is that the sine qua non to figure this out in terms of the American? I think the administration has, they're like schizophrenic. By the way, when Jake came out after the attack against Iran, when Iran's attack against Israel,

when Jake came out from the White House podium and said there will be severe consequences, as you said, and made it clear that the U.S. was going to participate in the execution of those severe consequences, I was applauding them. I did not expect that. I had my friend Nadavayel, who's an Israeli journalist from Yiddhiota Hranot, who's a regular guest in my podcast. So he and I did a podcast right after. One of the first times we've been podcasting together that I've been praising the administration more than he has. And he had a much different view.

He thought if this was their approach to come out and say there will be severe consequences, if you are going to draw that kind of red line, do it before the attack, not after the attack. Because then you have a shot at deterrence. If you make it, but the Iranians, it was ambiguous. They thought they didn't know how the U.S. would respond. And so you come out with that statement after, not before. Sorry, you come out with it before, not after, but it was Nadav's point. But I just think it's not so neat and tidy.

There's disagreements within the administration. They're kind of stuck. They're confused. They have an election. They don't know what to do about their Iran policy overall. They're so different players within the administration are advocating for different things. and it's this weird dynamic where you have a president who's in charge of the foreign policy, but he's not on the ballot, and it's his vice president who's not in charge of policy,

who is, who will kind of own the electoral implications of his policy. And so it's like layers and layers of, I've worked in an administration that was running for re-election during a war, and that's complicated. This, I think what they're dealing with is layers and layers and layers of complexity, which means I can't tell you what I think they will do. do. All I can do is interpret what they're saying publicly, which is they are trying, it seems like, are flashing yellow, not red lighted Israel. They're not saying, to borrow, Joe Biden's, don't. They're not saying don't, but they are signaling what they would

prefer Israel do and not do. But Israel, if you look at history, 1981, Manachan Began's decision to take out the Osirac nuclear reactor in Iraq, in Iraq. which the Reagan administration was completely caught off guard by Casper Weinberger, who was Defense Secretary at the time, was furious. They actually did halt arms sales to Israel for, I think, about six months. And Israel said that we had to do what we had to do. And years later, U.S. policymakers were grateful for what Israel did in 81, even though U.S. policy at the time was highly critical of it.

And then in 2007, Israel's decision to take out the Syria. nuclear capability unilaterally. The Israeli government at the time Prime Minister Omar had talked about it with the Bush administration. They tried to get the Bush administration to participate in the operation with them. The Bush administration said no, but keep us in the loop. So they didn't want to be surprised. We should stay coordinated, but we are not going to participate. Israel did it.

I just think Israel has a history of looking at these threats and dealing with them. And sometimes the U.S. will approve and sometimes it won't. and it does what it has to do for its own security. And I think this time more than ever, where you have a live war going on on these multiple fronts, and it's so clear where the energy and the funding and the weapons and the training is coming from that the Israeli leadership feels that they've got to deal with that source.

As Nufthali Bennett has said on my podcast, you've got to deal with the head of the octopus. You can't just be dealing, you've got to deal with the head of the octopus. and the head of the octopus is in Tehran. Yeah. And aside, that will lead to my next question. One of the pilots that attacked the OSHA reactor was Amos Yadlin, who is a past monk debater.

We had Amos Yadlin on our stage here in Toronto in, I believe it was 2015, debating this very topic, whether the West can tolerate a nuclear Iran. And I guess the question, Dan, is, you know, that debates now almost a decade old. little or nothing has been done to deal with Iran's pursuit of a bomb. We have your own Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, saying Iran is potentially weeks away from... One to two weeks, potentially. Yeah, having enough uranium. Other people say, well, they'll have to make warheads.

They're pretty good at missile systems. Who's to know what the Russians are advising them on now and turn for the swap of drones and short-range ballistic missiles for the... the battlefields of Donbass. I guess the question is, Dan, we've left this so long. Does Israel have to do this on its own? If Israel doesn't do it now, do we have to accept that Iran probably will follow the course of North Korea and take out the insurance policy that dictators around the world all seem to love to have if they can get their hands on it, which is a nuclear capability. Look, it is very plausible that Iran will have that capability. I mean, you just look at the science, you look at the progress they're making, you look at, I mean, any metric you want.

The Director of National Intelligence in the U.S. has recently said, briefed Congress saying they don't have signs that Iran is proceeding, but they no longer have signs that Iran has paused the program, which is quite worrisome, which is partly why Secretary of Lincoln said one to two, you know, said that he had truncated the timeline to get Iran to have a breakout capability. I think from Israel's perspective, it's unfathomable to think about Iran, us just all learning to live with Iran having a nuclear capability. This is a country, a regime, careful to say a country, because I think most Iranians are not for this, but this is a regime that talks openly about its annihilation strategy for Israel, that its strategy is to literally annihilate the Jewish people. people in the country where the majority of Jews in the world live.

And to their credit, they're executing on it. If you look at October 7th, if you look at what Hesbo has been able to do, if you look at what the Houthi's been able to do, you look at what militias in Iraq are able to do. You look at what Iran itself is able to do. They're on their paths. A, B, there's this famous clock in the center of Tehran that is the countdown to the elimination of the quote-unquote Zionist regime, which they have pegged that the supreme

leader of Iran says will be gone by 24. and the clock is ticking down. So I think the Jewish people have learned, among other things throughout history, is take leaders of countries that hate Jews at their word and the Iranian leadership are not mincing words.

There's no nuance to what they say. So the idea that you would know all that and then say, we're going to give, we're just going to just learn to live with this country having this capability. And by the way, your assumption, if you are willing to argue that,

is that this kind of, countries being led by rational actors. So they know Israel has its own capabilities, and therefore they will be careful not to escalate because they could wind up in a situation where Israel responds overwhelmingly, and the regime could, you know, come tumbling down. Maybe, or maybe, that was our calculation during the Cold War with the Soviets, that they were, as much as we thought the Soviet Union was an evil empire, we never thought they were messianic.

we never thought they were suicidal. You can't say that with total confidence about the decision makers in the Iranian regime. So we know so little about the decision makers in the Iranian regime. But just based on the rhetoric, it is absolutely messianic. And maybe they would think

that taking down, annihilating the Jewish people and risking Iran getting incinerated, would be going down in like a blaze of glory. I mean, we just don't know. No. What I'm laying out here is what you are gambling with when you start to imagine what it is like to live with a country like Iran or government like Iran having a nuclear capability. So I just think it's – I mean, they want to be the hegemonic power in the region. And if they have a nuclear weapon, they will be that. One of the arguments I heard for the longest time from Israeli decision makers about why they couldn't really deal with Iran,

It's because Hezbollah was breathing down their throats from Israel's north. And how do we deal with Iran, talk about an insurance policy, is if we try to do something against Iran, Iran can just light up... A thousand rockets a day. Or more, yeah, exactly. And what's extraordinary is Israel has been taking out that capability. So now that used to be a loaded gun on the table. That may not be a loaded gun anymore on the table for Iran.

That's the good news. The bad news is, to your earlier point, this may incentivize Iran to move even more quickly because they realize all their options are being removed and the one option they will have is the nuclear weapons program and they should race to it. And that is obviously a calculation and a fear that the Israelis have. Yeah, I would just urge listeners to run a horrible thought experiment.

But if Sinwar had a nuclear bomb today, I mean, how long do you think it would take him to use it? I think five minutes. So I think there is, in this case, unlike other nuclear powers, the rational, non-rational actor debate is a very real debate because you're seeing it right now revealed in Sinwar's seeming willingness for the complete destruction of Gaza, the murder and killing of... It talks openly about Sinwar talks openly that mass Palestinian casualties are not only okay with it. him but are actually an indispensable part of his strategy in fighting and isolating the Israelis. Israel has never faced an enemy or Israel has. Most countries in the Western world have never faced an enemy like Israel is facing in Hamas. That is typically in

conventional wars you have two militaries fighting each other and each military is in addition to trying to defeat the other military is trying to do everything it can to minimize civilian casualties of their own country. This is the exception to that rule. Israel is worried about civilian casualties on its own side. Israel is actually worried about civilian casualties on the Palestinian side. Hamas wants to maximize civilian casualties in Israel and actually sees maximizing Palestinian civilian casualties

as a tool against Israel. I mean, I've spoken to numerous military experts, people who teach at West Point, people who study the history of warfare, There's nothing like this. That's Hamas. But you can't tell me it's any different with the leadership of Iran. So then you take your Sinwar model and his approach to warfare and then you say, staple on a nuclear bomb.

Yeah. And staple on now not one, but two large-scale ballistic missile attacks on Israel. I don't know, Dan. I feel like we've been numbed here. bit in the West as to how utterly outrageous this situation is. After October 7th, I wrote an article that opened by comparing what an American response would be if Mexican drug cartels had come across the border into El Paso, Texas, and on a proportional basis had killed 30,000 Texans in a matter of days, kidnapping.

Five thousand. Daughters, wives, children. and bringing them back into northern northern Mexico. Well, I think northern Mexico would be a parking lot today. Yet there's something strange here, whether it's the debate about dealing with Iran's acquisition of a nuclear bomb, whether it's this tale of two cities,

the Ukraine war versus the wars that Israel is in and facing. I don't know, Dan, at the root of this, is there something about us, the world, the West, that is uncomfortable when Jews begin to fight back? When Jews begin to, as was the promise of Israel, it's arguably the very reason for the existence of the state. It's not simply to protect. Protecting can often mean fighting back. Is that where this all comes down to some just, I don't know, some longer memory that we have in the West, Jews are victims. They're not fighters. And we're cognitively confused when the Jewish people

go on the offensive and take matters into their own hands. A couple thoughts. One, there's a book I highly recommend to your listeners called People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn, who's an academic. And she's a very thoughtful and serious critic of Holocaust education and how we've gone about educating about the Holocaust, but for simplicity's sake, she says that basically people are comfortable with dead Jews, meaning they're comfortable with, or weak Jews, or Jews, you know, Jews that are under siege. Victims. And I basically agree with her.

What I find troubling and sort of in a perplexing kind of way is that it's paradoxical. Jews, Jews on the one hand, have power, right? One thing the Jewish state gave the Jewish people living in Israel, what was it, what pre-state Israel, what statehood gave them was power, gave them a military, an intelligence agency, an Air Force, you know, all the tools and the instruments. of a sovereign state to fight back, to protect themselves, to never let another Shoah, another Holocaust happen. But just because Israel is strong doesn't mean, and the Jews, I guess, in that sense, are strong, doesn't mean they're not vulnerable.

I think there's a sense that, oh, my gosh, the Jews, Israel has this, you know, military juggernaut, intelligence, you know, how on earth should we think of them as the David one, reality of the Goliath? And I think, again, the paradoxical part for many people around the world is they can't quite figure out our Jews and are, is Israel strong and powerful or is it vulnerable? And the reality is it's both. And so if you just kind of draw the lens out, if you say if you only context for understanding Israel's geopolitical tension, say the first year post-October 7th, really up until the last few weeks, everyone seemed to just focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And in that conflict, according to all the popular analysis and press, Israel was the Goliath and the Palestinians were David.

It's my friend Mati Friedman, who I've had on my podcast a couple times, has said, he says, you know, when I hear about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I think to myself, I ask people, do you ever hear of the American-Italian War? I'm like, what, the American-Italian War? Yeah, the American-Italian War of 1944. I said, there was, he says, of course you don't talk about the American Italian War of 1944. You talk about World War II because it was much bigger than Mussolini versus the Allies. It was one front in a much bigger struggle. And to know that is to understand the Middle East. The Palestinian track, if you will, the Palestinian conflict is what at times feels like an unsolvable problem.

And it may or may not be an unsolvable problem. but it is one thing is certain is it is one front in many fronts of a war that Israel is facing that is all basically coordinated and led by one regime. So Israel's in this much bigger war and when you just think about it,

this is Israel is I mean just a piece of land that is one hundredth of one percent of the world's total landmass. There are 13 million Jews in the world. 13 million. There are two billion. million Muslims, many of whom live in countries that are Muslim majority countries, that

are countries that Islam is protected as the majority of religion in their constitutions, Arab nation after Arab – I mean, there's a whole Arab League with 23 countries, I mean, all the power to them. I'm not – that the idea that this tiny speck of land with a minuscule percentage of the world's population is somehow excoriated, invade against, when it insists on taking a lot of hits rhetorically and militarily and physically, but one hit it refuses to take

is the hit that would force them to disappear. That they refuse to do. So like that, hey guys, we can take a lot, but like we're not going to disappear. We've seen people try it actually throughout our history, and it doesn't end well, so we're done doing that. It's not an unreasonable position. And so in pursuit of that, it has developed extraordinary capabilities,

as we've seen in the last few weeks, right? We've seen these capabilities play out. You can't be anything but in awe of the operation, the Beeper operation against Hezbollah. I mean, even friends of mine in Gulf states, in Sunni Gulf states, who have been frustrated with Israel on the Palestinians track, have reached out to me, officials and governments, and have reached out to me and said,

wow, like what Israel's doing, we're in awe, and they should keep going. They shouldn't stop. You know, like there's a, so both those things are true that Israel is powerful and capable and incredibly vulnerable and tiny and actually could be wiped out of, the map in the historical blink of an eye and I that the world is so obsessed with making sure

the Jews are the only people that have to be vulnerable and not powerful that they that they can't be both is holding Israel and I think the Jewish people in the diaspora to a standard they hold no other people that's that to me is the ultimate test when people say what's anti-Semitism what is it you know what is it is it Is it being critical of the Israeli government? Is that no? I'm critical of the Israeli government a lot. I mean, one can be critical to the Israeli government.

The question is, in your criticisms, are you holding them to a standard that you don't hold any other government or any other country? And if the answer is yes, you do hold them to a different standard, then that is a form of discrimination. Inherently, it's saying X can do this,

but why can't, is you're discriminating against one another? Discrimination against the Jews is anti-Semitic. Now, we can get into the origins of it, and what, but it is, and so anti-Zionism today is the modern incarnation, modern version of this anti-Semitism. Serious questions about Israel's right to exist, which is what you're seeing play out right now. That's what blows, Josie Klein-Halevi, who I just, is really intellectual, you know, so I just had him on my podcast for this one-year anniversary series I did.

His last book he published, he's working on a new book now, but his last book he published was called Letters to My Letters to a Palestinian neighbor. very short book, I encourage your listeners to read it. But what is striking to me is he said, he argued in that book that most of the world was having a debate about 1967 Israel, meaning should Israel have the borders that it won in the Six Day War in 67 or should it revert back to pre-1967? The people who are not ready to have a 1967 debate are the Palestinians, the only people, because they were still stuck at the 1948 borders, which is the birth of the Jewish state.

And he argued that the Palestinians had lost the plot. The whole world had moved on. They're ready to live with the Jewish state, and now they're having this debate about what should the contours be, what should the borders be? The Palestinians are still stuck in this, should Israel even be coming to existence, 1948. And what he and I talked about is maybe he was wrong.

Maybe the world is actually, most of the world is actually at 1948, that they're not so sure there should be a Jewish state. And so this is the, you know, this is the debate that Israel finds itself in. And I find myself as someone who's a strong supporter of Israel and cares a lot about the Zionist enterprise and the future of it, explaining a lot and trying to explain and trying to inform in ways that we talked about the beginning of this podcast. At some point, though, there's a limit to how much explaining you can do. At some point, what's most important is Israel has to win. Israel has to win the war it is in.

There will be plenty of time for explaining, but right now, I'm not convinced Israel will have much freer reign if it does a better job at explaining some of the things we're talking about. The most important track they should focus on is winning. Just in the remaining moments, let's talk about where Israel finds itself today. you know, this is a society traumatized by the results of the actions of October 7. The specter reintroduced of the Holocaust. You know, if you ever wanted an example of what could or would happen to the entire country if the likes of Sinwar were given full rain, you know, we had it, unfortunately, showed to us in all of its horrible brutality and murder on October 7th. So that nation now has experienced a year of terrorist attacks,

ballistic missile attacks, tens of thousands of its citizens displaced from the northern border. I mean, this is a lot of trauma. And how long can Israel survive in this state? Is this its future for the next period of time? How does Israel and its leadership, I don't know, bring this to some kind of moment where the country understands that what was past was past and that there is a future again? It seems to me that this is one of the big existential challenges that Israel must face right now and the people of Israel is this fundamental insecurity that they've experienced, not just on that one horrible day, but on the 365 days and counting that have followed October 7th. Look, I wrote a whole book, I co-authored a whole book on Israeli resilience, my most

recent book, The Genius of Israel, which oddly was published through no planning of our own, obviously weeks after October 7th. The New York Times in reviewing it, which was very critical of it, did make the point. Who knows if Israel can bounce back from this terrible period, not only October 7th, but also the divisive debates inside Israel about judicial reform prior to October 7th. but if they can that our book laid out the playbook for how Israel would do it about Israeli resilience. I do think, as we talk about in our book, most Israelis have a tremendous sense of connection to a larger story. This is, I mean, as Mika Goodman, who's an intellectual, we quote extensively in the book argued, Israel's a small country with a big story, and most Israelis feel that they can touch that story,

They can shape that story. That is to say there are big countries with big stories. The United States is a big country with a big story. China is a big country of the big story. It's hard to think how an average citizen in either of those countries can shape the history, the future of that country. It can be done, but it's not so simple. And then there are small countries with small stories. So there are smaller countries that...

Like Canada. Well, you said it not me. I don't be critical. I spent years living here. But Canada is a... People can have real influence in Canada, but when you just think of a country with literally biblical implications and proportions,

which is the case with Israel, it's not Canada, it's not Denmark. I would argue these days it's not even the UK. Israel's this tiny country with a really big three, four thousand years story, five thousand years, depending on your starting point. And most Israelis feel that they have a stake in it,

and they can shape it. And if you're really tuned into Israeli history, which is imbued in so much of Israeli civilian life and civil society and rituals, both religious rituals and secular rituals, the Israeli story, Israeli history is everywhere. And I do get the sense that. that most Israelis feel like they're part of something larger, and they, and if so, this period that they're in right now,

as awful as it is, and it is awful, it is a chapter in that story, and they wanna work to resolve it and get to the next chapter. I mean, I, you know, every day I meet Israelis who just, who just blow my mind. One that's fresh in my mind is a guy named Amir Tibon, who's a correspondent for Haaret's newspaper. You and I disagree a lot politically as far as to the left,

of me. He moved to He's Israeli, lived in Tel Aviv, moved to Kibbutz Nakhaloz in 2014. In the middle of the Gaza, Israel War in 2014. And it was at the time the most bombarded Kibbutz in southern Israel and all of Israel during that war. He went down there to write a story about it. He was so moved by it. He and his wife ended up moving there. Then his girlfriend.

They have two kids. Found themselves locked in a safe room with a three-year-old and a one-and-a-half-year-old for 10 or 15 hours on October 7th with gunmen trying to get into their house. He just has a book out now called The Gates of Gaza, which I also highly recommend where he just describes that horrendous day. He survived, thank God, as did his family. I interviewed him recently in New York for a live taping of our podcast,

and I said to him, so what now? I mean, he's internally displaced in Israel. He's, you know, his world's been turned upside down. And he said, I want to move back. I said, what do you mean? He goes, we're going to move back. Once it's safe, we're moving back. So he's going to move back to a kibbutz that's less than a mile away from the Gaza security barrier

after all that he's been through. And I sit there thinking, this is someone who's thinking about a larger story. And it's not just about a quality of life decision. And it's not just they're thinking about their connection to something large. larger. And I, and so how does Israel endure? How does Israel go on with all the challenges and obstacles and headwinds that you're describing and they are real? And yet most Israelis I know as frustrated as they are and as shattered as they are, most of them are sticking with it. And so I, I wouldn't count them out. Yeah, that's a great, great answer, Dan. I think it just,

you're right. It's a different mindset. They're wired differently. And they have a sense that some things are larger than themselves, and they're part of something larger. That's what we talk about in our book, is how Israelis tend to view themselves involve a something larger than themselves. Which in our post-national, some of our post-national Western cultures is kind of what's missing. Right. I agree. Part of the reason we wrote the book is because we wanted to argue what we wanted to lay out for America, what could be learned from the Israeli experience. Right. Well, talking about Learning Day, and we've learned so much from you today as I began the podcast. I'm a big fan of call me back and urge all of our listeners to check out Dan's podcast. It's a must listen.

Some great guests and the same kind of civil and substantive conversations that we hope to bring you here at the Monk debates each and every time. You tune into our podcast. So Dan, thank you for coming on the program. Great to catch up in person. I know you've got a busy schedule ahead of you, so we're going to let you go. But again, great to host you here on the Monk Dialog. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

That wraps up today's dialogue. I want to thank our guest, Dan Cynor. he's certainly given us a lot to think about. Please check out his podcast. Call me back. It's a must listen. And also check out the Technion University and all the great work it's doing to educate Israeli students, professors, and generate the next generation of technologies that will change our world.

If you have feedback or reflections on what you've just heard on this or any of our podcasts, please send us an email to podcast at monkdebates.com. That's MUNK Debateswithan S.com. Thank you for lending your time and attention to our efforts to bring back the art of public debate, one conversation at a time. I'm your host and moderator, Rudyard Griffith. The Monk Debates are a project of the Aurea and Peter and Melanie Monk charitable foundations. Rudyard Griffiths and Ricky Gerwitz are the producers.

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