The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Dialogue with Michael Oren: is Israel on the brink of civil war?

Episode Date: March 27, 2023

Over half a million people have taken to the streets in the biggest protest movement the country has ever seen in response to Prime Minister’s Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial plan to overhaul the judiciary and give unprecedented legal powers to the government. Michael Oren, the former Israeli ambassador to the US and Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s office, joins us for a Munk Dialogue about what he sees as a clash of two Israels: On the one side is a liberal and secular faction that wants to be a leader in tech, science, and the arts; and on the other, a more religious and right wing voting bloc whose vision for Israel is quite the opposite.   The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths - @rudyardg.   Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/ To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to [e-mail].   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 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, newsletter 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/ Senior Producer: Ricki Gurwitz Become 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.

When you're a journalist and people don't trust you, it's always your fault. These people need to be represented. They are Canadian. They deserve to have a voice and a seat at the table. It is time to go back to the office, and the time is now. Russia had reasons to be concerned. They had reasons to be fearful. We're at an absolute turning point in reproduction. This is a problem with realism. They just treat all countries the same. They don't distinguish between dictatorships and democracy. Hello, Monk listeners. Rudyard Griffiths here.

and moderator, welcome to this, our continuing conversations called the Monk Dialogues. These are in-depth Q&As with some of the world's sharpest minds and brightest thinkers. We go deep into the big issues and ideas that are transforming our world and shaping our future on each and every monk dialogue. Well, protests in Israel have reached a fever pitch departing flights from Ben-Gurian Airport have recently been halted. Military reservists in the hundreds are refusing to serve. a defense minister has been fired, and a prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has placed a hold a temporary halt on his controversial series of judicial reforms, all largely because Israel is now experiencing some of the biggest mass demonstrations in its history.

Over half a million people taking to the streets in cities around the country to oppose Netanyahu's constitutional reforms. Where does this all go? What is the future trajectory of an Israeli society being pulled apart by sharp divisions on issues of religion, ideology, and the very notion of what is a Jewish state. Perhaps no one understands the dynamics of this moment in Israel better than Michael Orrin. He's the former Israeli ambassador to the United States and internationally renowned scholar and author and a former politician in the Knesset. Michael joined to be for an in-depth conversation about what's going on on the ground in Israel with the protests, the different political factions that are vying for control and fighting in and through this debate

over Israeli constitutional reform. Our conversation also includes some far-reaching thinking about what this all means for the future of Israel as a democratic, free, and open society. Michael Oren, welcome to the Mug Dialogues. I'm delighted to be here. How are you? You're someone who's had a career that spans Israeli politics, diplomacy, military service. But I want to begin with you where I first discovered Michael Lauren, and that was as an award-winning historian. If you could help me and our listeners try to situate what we're seeing in Israel right now in the context of the country's history. Is there a moment in Israel's past that you think could be,

somehow an analogy, a reverberation, a mirror to understand what's happening today? Or should we instead be seeing this constitutional crisis as something new and potentially dangerous that's emerged in Israel's political civic and constitutional culture? Give us your sense of that. That's where I want to begin this conversation with you. Well, as most historic events, This is indeed an event of massive historic import for the state of Israel. There is continuity and there is innovation. So the continuity here, the antecedents to the crisis, go back to the foundation of the state of Israel, the decision by our founding father, David Ben-Gurion, and other founding mothers around him and fathers,

Golda Meyer, Moshe, Diane, that generation, to determine not to have a constitution. The Constitution was too difficult, when Israel was under fire, a highly diverse population. It wasn't like the population of the United States in 17, 789, which was largely white and Christian, very, very diverse.

And so we decided to adopt the British system of basic laws, which together would form something like a constitution, but it actually left our Supreme Court bereft of a constitutional base for making judgments. And the only base they had was this notion of reasonableness, which is highly subjective. What is reasonable Supreme Court may not be reasonable to a lot of other people.

We also designed a system of government in which there are only two branches of government. The United States has three, the executive, judiciary, and the judiciary and executive. We only have the judiciary and the executive and the legislature, which are the same. The Knesset is a branch of the branch of the government. It's an expression of the government. Prime Minister Netanyahu, when he goes into Knesset. It's not Prime Minister Netanyahu. member of Knesset, Nathania.

And so when you weaken one of these branches of government, then you no longer have effective checks on decision making. So to understand that, you understand why when this government is trying to basically gut the Supreme Court of much of its authority and weakening that check, then you can have a government that could pass all types of legislation that could, for example, outlaw homosexuality. A lot of people in this government are very, very religious, are not particularly partial to LGBT people. You could take all sorts of measures against the Palestinians, all sorts of measures against free speech or freedom of assembly, and there be no

Supreme Court to override it. And so this would profoundly alter the nature of Israeli society, which is why so many hundreds of thousands of Israelis are out protesting. So that's continuity. What is new here? What is new here is the immensely moving and impressive outpouring of love for this country by its citizens. I honestly haven't seen anything like this. I know you'll say that I don't look this all, but I'm that old. And I participated in, I marched against the Vietnam War in the 60s and the 70s. And we burnt the American flag. We talked about America spelled with a K.

and we cursed the U.S. military and the policemen were pigs. I just came from a demonstration of close to a half million people in Tel Aviv where everyone was singing, we love the army, we love the police. Everyone's carrying Israeli flag and everyone's standing in attention where we sang the national anthem, Hatifa. Do you imagine 1960s standing in a tension in Star-Spangled banner after a march on Washington? It was never going to happen. I just have never seen anything like it. I think the closest thing you could find in history generally would be some of the velvet revolutions, against Soviet communism in 1989, 90.

But it's profoundly moving. Now, having said all that, it's also profoundly disturbing because we don't know how this is gonna come out. Yes, there may be a half a million or even 700,000 people out protesting, but about two million people voted for this government. And the charges on the right now is that some ministers are buckling

to what amounts to a putch a revolution from the street. And they'll remind the government that when previous governments who were more a centrist or leftist took actions that were against the right wing, such as withdrawing from the Gaza Strip in 2005 and ripping up 21 settlements, tearing 9,000 Israelis out of her homes, I was there as a reserve officer. It was very traumatic. Nobody in the right said, we'd leave in the country.

Nobody at the right said, we're not going to serve any army anymore. So who are the real patriots here? Who are the real Zion? And on top of all of this, the schism here is not only about the interpretation of democracy, whether the Supreme Court should have what we call judicial review or not judicial. But it goes to very deep divisions in Israeli society between people from Western backgrounds, known as the Ashkenazim, people from the eastern backgrounds, the Mizraim, between religious and secular, between working class and high tech.

I'm talking to you from South Tel Aviv. My neighborhood is a working class, largely misery neighborhood. And they see this not as a fight over democracy and liberty and, you know, checks and balances. They see this as a basically white, elite upper class that refuses to link us power to the working people and who win at the polls. And they see it very different. And in fact, there was a big poster up on our major highway could put up posters on the highway, a billboard,

quoting the president of the Supreme Court back in the 90s, Aaron Barack, who was really the architect of the judicial overreach approach that is so antagonized parts of the Israeli society. They have him quoted saying, I cannot find a Moroccan who's qualified to be on the bench. that is a Moroccan Jews qualified to be on the bench of quote. Now, the people who are protesting

will say that the government is playing the race card. And it's difficult for me living in this neighborhood to see who's being played and who isn't, but I talk to my neighbors and this is the way they feel. You previously served as Israel's ambassador in the United States. As you say, you were previously an American citizen. You renounced your citizenship.

in your adult years. So you have a deep familiarity with American culture, and I wonder if that could help us, or maybe not, try to understand this moment that Israel is in, because we are all familiar, I think, of the idea of an America that is polarized, divided, separated on the issues of class, but also on these issues of identity. Is that an analog or a kind of lens to understand where Israel is today and why this debate around the Supreme Court has just become so, explosive, so incendiary for all the different sides of Israeli society that Israel today is profoundly divided. Well, there are analogies, but they're almost like reverse analogies. We're a mirror image of the United States. You can say that both, you know, part of the GOP and the Republican Party

is led by an individual who is very educated, would say very white, very rich. And yet he is representing the working people, the poor people, people who are uneducated, don't have a college education. In this country, we have an individual who comes from the upper class, MIT graduate, very wealthy, Benjamin Netanyahu, he has a house in the wealthiest community in Israel, Cesaria. And he is the champion of the working class. Though in the United States, it's the white working class who is attracted to Trump. And here it's the Mizrahi Eastern working class who's attracted to Netanyahu.

In the United States, it's the left that has the problem of the Supreme Court. In this country, it's the right that has the problem, the Supreme Court. It's like a mirror image. And it's interesting, I can't help but look at an entity like the New York Times, which has been hyper, hypercritical of this government and hyper, hyper-supported of the protesters. You could say that the New York Times comes from the same echelon of society. that the protesters do. It's almost like there's a way you could look at this and say,

this is kind of class unity, isn't it? Hyper-educated, you know, upper-class privileged people. And yet, so there are parallels, but there are also sort of cross-listings. You know, there's sort of kitty corner from the United States in many of these issues. But the fact of the matter is what is most reflective is the division itself.

that societies today have a hard time cohering. And that polarization has come to characterize many societies. They see what's happening in France today. And people are burning the French flag. And they're not exactly singing the Marseilles when they're out protesting against Macon. So we have the advantage of love. And maybe that sounds a bit, you know, mawkish.

But I'm very moved by the display of love. Oh, fascinating. Let's zero in a little bit on the actual controversy itself, because we're record, I'm recording this podcast from Canada. Canada has featured in the political rhetoric around the debate of the reform of your court. Our Supreme Court justices are appointed by whoever our sitting prime minister is. In effect, we have direct appointment, direct political appointment. judiciary really has, you know, very tacit, informal say, if any, over these important appointments. Why is this, you've talked a little bit already, but let's go deeper here. Why is it not right to equate, let's say, the Canadian and American system of judicial appointment

with what the Netanyahu government is recommending here is proposing in this legislation? See, I'm not objective on this. I actually have a book coming out this week called Israel 2048, the rejuvenated state. It's a vision of Israel on our 100th birthday, what the state you look like. And it's from every angle. It's educational policy and social policy, labor policy, Israel, Arabs, Israel, Palestinians, Israel, Dasp for Jews, everybody. But there's a chapter in there on the need for judicial reform, particularly the reform of the Supreme Court. And I wrote this three years ago. So this notion that we have to have reformed

the Supreme Court has been around for a long time. And here's the basic reason why. I don't know about Canada, but certainly in the United States, if you're a citizen in the United States, you have not one but two opportunities to influence the composition of your Supreme Court. You vote for the President and you vote for the Senate. In this country, we have almost no say on the composition of the Supreme Court. Supreme Court judges are chosen, overwerewerewomened. by sitting Supreme Court judges and other jurists, and quite naturally, they're human beings. They're going to choose someone who agrees with them. So in terms of its worldview, the Supreme Court of Israel has basically marched in place since 1992.

It hasn't really moved. But Israeli public opinion has moved. It's moved very far to the right because of profound disagreements over the peace process. Every time we withdraw from territory, we don't get peace, we get rocket. So that impacts voters, just the young view of voters. and we have also the largest under 30 voting population for capital in the world. That has a tremendous impact. The Supreme Court's moved the Kinesis move rightward.

So you've got this widening gap in worldviews between the Supreme Court and the Knesset. And increasingly, the Supreme Court was turning down pieces of legislation that were passed by the Kness. And the people in Kness. We're saying, hey, who elected you? No, elected you. We're the elected. We're the sovereigns. And there was talk already three, four.

or five years ago of creating an override law, which means the Knessa would vote to override the Supreme Court's override of any pieces of legislation. Now, to make matters even worse, if that's not bad, that worse enough, A, we don't have a constitution. Okay. And so remember, we talked about this reasonableness notion. And then the court was extremely active. That same Aaron Barak, who appears on that racist poster, it's a poster that's where he's being perpetrated races who said that everything is adjudicable. The Supreme Court has no boundaries. So the Supreme Court could tell me, you know, where this computer is on my desk. Supreme Court could tell me where the lighting is above me. Everything could be determined by the Supreme. And they did it.

They're all over the place. They were telling the Israeli government, you know, where they could put security barriers and overriding the Army. And so you combine all of that fact, the fact that the Supreme Court is marching in place in terms of its worldview, and it doesn't have a constitution to base its decisions on, but only this notion of reasonableness, highly subjective notion of reasonableness, and arrogates to itself, powers that are not enjoyed by any Supreme Court in the world. You put that all together,

and you've got yourself a formula for what's going out in the street right now. Now, that is very much distinct from Canada. I don't think the Canadian Supreme Court to read I know it, arrogates itself that type of scope. where it can determine everything. It does not, it has, it has input from the political national force and people, you have a feeling as a Canadian citizen that you are impacting in one way or the other,

your composition of your Supreme Court. And you probably have a firmer set of laws on which to base, which the Supreme Court can base its decisions. You have one other thing that we don't have any. You have one major, major division, okay, between the Francophonic population and the Anglophonic population. And I understand that. But we have divisions up, down, and around.

21% of the population is Arab. But even in that, there are divisions between Druze and Circassians and Bedouins and Arabs from different places. Christian Arabs, Muslim Arabs, very different. And religious Jews, secular Jews, as we said, Eastern Western Jews, far more fractious as a society. and we do not have an 800-year-long tradition of civility. Now, you can trace your democratic system to the Magna Carta of the 13th century.

The vast majority of people who are in this country either came from the Middle East or from Eastern Europe. None of them came with democracies in their suitcases. Democracy is an alien idea. Do we talk about Israel being the only democracy in the Middle East? There's a reason for that. This is not wellspring of democracy here. And it's an alien notion to this region. And so we had to sort of create democracy from scratch.

And while we may have democratic institutions and democratic norms, we don't necessarily have a deep democratic tradition or culture. And so what we're missing often is civility. You have a certain amount of civility in Canada, at least you used to have, that acts as a type of. of checkman itself. The notion that there are things that are not done. And that we don't have. Hey, Monk podcast listeners, I wanted to let you know about our other weekly audio program. It's called Friday Focus. And hey, guess what? It comes out each and every Friday. It's half an hour long

and it provides you with a master class on international events, all the big issues and ideas shaping our world. We've got that for you. each and every Friday here at the Monk Debates, simply access via our website, triplew monkdebates.com. Click on Friday Focus in the top right navigation. You'll get all the details or check out a sample of the program in the same podcast feed as the main Monk Debates podcast. I hope you'll join us for the next edition of the Friday Focus podcast.

Now back to our program. Well, let's hypothesize about what could happen in the near term. It certainly looks as if Netanyahu's coalition has been shaken in the last few days. You've had the firing of the defense minister, rumblings from other key cabinet ministers, and figures in his coalition government. You know that this coalition is a small one, a majority of just a few seats. You've also sat in the Knesset. You know Israeli politics like few others. What do you think is likely here? Will Netanyahu eventually, be forced to walk back this ambitious slate of judicial reforms? Is that the most likely outcome

if he wants to save his government and save his coalition? Well, the coalition is pulling the other way. Most members of the coalition are saying to not back them. He has several members of his only could party who are whispering that we have to back down, including a near-Barcat, the former mayor of Jerusalem. We've had now, Yoav Ghan, come out with the defense minister, now former event, defense ministry was fired last night,

and Yuliette. And it's interesting, I just say, parenthetically, I've had close relationships with all three individuals. Nirov-Marcotte was with me in the siege of Beirut in 1982. He actually was my direct commander, very fine commander. Yov Ghanloni was with me in Knessy. He was in my party for four years.

I know him very well. And Yuliatoste, was my first contact in the Soviet Union when I was sent to underground to work with Soviet Refusenix at the time. He was a very brave individual. So I know them quite well. And Israel has really been focusing on them as being sort of the adults in the room and the political party to come out and say something. What happened was that when Yolf Gowlin came out, Bibi immediately put his head on a spike and these other prospective opponents of the reform. within the Qud party quickly backed down.

Many people don't know that the Qud is not a party. The Qud is a family. You're born into the Qud. You ask people when they join the Qud. Well, on the 8th day, I joined the Qud. And you don't betray the family. That's when the family's down. And it's interesting that not that Yov Galaan,

neither Yerav Gellant nor Niro Barclad actually came from the Qud. They joined the Qud later on in their careers. So they actually weren't born into the family. They were, I don't know. They're the Kudniks by marriage. put it that way. So they already have a bit of an asterisk over the case. I think that Netanyahu, being a very, very clever politician, will do a tactical retreat. Tonight he's supposed to want television. He's supposed to announce that he'll delay the passage of the legislation until after the

holidays. We're about to enter into about a month of holidays, which includes the Passover holidays. It's also our Independence Day, a Memorial Day, and Holocaust Remembrance Day, which basically shuts down the the country for a month, but also the Kinesis goes on recess. And I think Natown is probably thinking, okay, I'll gain a month. I will regroup. Some of the tempers will begin to calm down around here and will come back in the spring and people will be more interested in going to beach and they will be protesting on the street. It is a huge roll of dice.

A huge roll of dice. Whether they'll succeed, I don't know. If there's anything I've learned in politics, that it's always premature to eulogize Mr. Netanyahu. Always premature. Every time we get into price like this, people say, this is it, this is the end of BB. And I always say, wait a minute, not so fast.

You know, remember the movie Fatal Attraction with the Hand comes out of the Dirt? That's BB. You think he's gone and he's got your brother broke. That is, that is BB. It's interesting. If I can go on, if I can riff just for a second, that is really politics generally for the last 20 years at least

have been about two words. They've been about Benjamin and Taino. And why is that? This man is, and I've worked with him for many years. And he has a resume that's, you know, non-parrile. Really, he's not only a former commander.

He was a commander of the commandos. He was a decorated veteran. He is a graduate of MIT. He is an economist, a world-class economist. He is, a former ambassador. He has held every position in Israeli governance, serious position. He is the most experienced parliamentarian in Israel, maybe in the world, maybe outside of Joe Biden.

And he's been around for over 40 years. And he is not only the longest serving his Israeli prime minister, he's the longest-exemptively elected leader in the world, physically robust, brilliant, one of the great orators of our century. It's difficult fact to follow, but what his butt. And that's a big bus. And he's got three charges of corruption against him that he's defending himself against. And that's the beginning of the,

just the top of the complaints that people have about his style of government. Most people who have worked with him are alienated from him or hostile to him. I mean, I managed to work with him those years not leave under those terms, but most people have. And then why does he?

keep on getting elected? Why this man? And the answer can be found on YouTube. If you type in your YouTube browser, type in Bebe-B-Sitter, and you'll get a political ad that was in the 2015 campaign, 30 seconds long. And what you see is some nerdy parents sitting, getting ready to go out. You hear kids in the background scream, and then the doorbell rings, and the father answers the door, and it's Netanyahu. And the father says, what are you doing here? Netanyahu says, well, you've asked for a babysitter. And, but we don't want you, the father says, well, I'll bring sippy. Sippy meaning Sippy Livedney.

No, no, we don't want Sipipi. I said, okay, I'll bring you here. We don't want you here, you repeat. The father finally says, okay, come in. Next scene, Bibi's sitting on the couch, eating popcorn, watching TV. The father comes in, the parents come in. They says, everything okay. And Bibi says, yes, your children are sleeping safely.

That's all you need to know about Israeli politics the last 20 years. Your children are sleeping sleeping safely. The BB's hidden. And you ask, even people who hate him, will say that he is the most qualified to be prime minister. Very difficult to act to follow. The liquid with BB, the liquid with BB polls at about 28 to 30 seats,

without BB to go down 10 seats. But Michael, we have many, you're familiar with them that large numbers, upwards of 200, you know, senior reservists inside the Israeli Air Force are indicating that they are not going to be showing up for regular training to the point where there's speculation that if this continues much further, it could actually, you know, materially impact Israel's security and defense readiness. So to what extent is that? you know, a lever here, a huge source of pressure on Netanyahu and this coalition, because

that seems antithetical to the BBCitter analogy, that this debate now is embroiling more than just the Constitution, more than just people's sense of their own individual rights and dignity as citizens. It is impinging Israeli security. No question about it. And that to me is almost more a forceful argument than the actual reform. And I just have an article that came out in the Times of Israel a couple of hours ago. When I look at the history of Israel putting money in what I call its bank, it's diplomatic bank. So if you make gestures for peace and you show that you're serious about reaching an accord with Arab enemies,

then when Israel goes to war, we can draw on that credit. And, for example, in 1948, our war of independence, we accepted the UN partitioned resolution. The Arabs rejected it. And so we were able to win that war and push our borders out much more without the world criticizing us because we had made that gesture of accepting the UN resolution. And I go through the whole history over the last 70 years. When prime ministers have made that, the governments have made that gesture, how then when we had to fight, the world gave us a lot more leadership. way, time and space to fight because we had shown we really wanted peace and we were forced to go to war. And what I say at the end of this article is that basically we're dealing with an

empty bank account now. We're an overdraft because we have ministers who are not only want to gut Israel's democratic institutions, but they also have ministers who have talked about denying the existence of the Palestinian people, ministers who talk about destroying a Palestinian village. and certainly rejecting any American suggestions on the peace process. America is our ultimate ally. So if we have to go to war, and I fear that a large-scale conflict is very possible in the not-too-distance future, and I can go into that, why, we will be with an empty bank account. We'll actually be in arrears, and that will have an immediate ability,

that would need the impact on our ability to defend ourselves. And so, yes, this situation acutely impacts Israel's security. And it's not just soldiers who refuse to serve. It's our entire, you know, geostrategic envelope, which is being shredded and extremely dangerous for us. And if I could be very specific, tomorrow we may have to go to war to prevent Yvonne from getting a nuclear weapon. And when we do Iran's allies in the region, is Bala Hamas, the Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, they're going to start firing rockets at us, thousands of thousands of rockets. We're going to have to defend ourselves. We're going to need ammunition from the United States, and we're going to need diplomatic cover in the UN.

But if we have alienated this administration, if we've alienated other allies in the world, we're going to be pretty much. on our own. Let's just talk for a moment about Iran. To what extent are you worried that this crisis is embolding Tehran, that if they're sitting there looking at Israel right now, their opponent is divided. Their society is in chaos. I mean, Michael, you know, you're an astute scholar of Middle Eastern power dynamics. Does this suggest to you a kind of pre-sequel to the potential here for bigger conflict between Israel and its neighbors if this remains unresolved? No question, but. For me, if you ask me, that's my deepest fear you've touched on us, and that's this.

We've already seen indications of it. Just last week, Hezbollah sent a bomber into northern Israel, planted a bomb at a major intersection. The terrorist was killed, but they're probing us. They're probing us. Two weeks ago, the Iranians signed a reconciliation with Saudi Arabia. with the intervention of China. It was Chinese mediation. Everyone was very quick to point out the fact that the Chinese have now sort of ousted the United States from that mediator role in the Middle East.

But what they didn't say was Israel's role in this. The Saudis were looking to us to defend them from nuclearizing Iran. And the Saudis are looking over what's happening in Israel now and say, listen, you can't depend on these guts. These guys are sitting there tearing ourselves apart over, over the reforms. form of the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Iran is rushing to nuclear capacity, threshold capacity. One estimate of the United States is that there was about two weeks away from having enough fissile material to make a nuclear weapon. And what are we doing? What is Israel doing? So, yes, very, very deep concern. And I'm not unconvinced that Iran will take advantage

of the situation to move within a hair's breath of actual nuclear weapons acquisition and may make decisions to break out? You've great one. May. But we are not in the position I can see. To respond, understand that Israel is a sort of Lockhean social contract. The people of Israel will pay our exorbitant taxes. We will serve in the army.

We will fight in the wars. If the government proves to us that those wars are justified, that the government represents our values. The government is also pulling its weight. And there are many ministers in this government who haven't served in the Army for various reasons. Some of them are ultra-Orthodox, not serving the Army.

Some of them were so radical right-wing right-ringers that the Army wouldn't even let them serve or consider racist. Hello? What I'm going to pay 55% of my income to this government, to all these people who are not working. I'm going to pay, I'm going to go out and risk my life for my children's lives, for a person who's never worn a uniform or carried a gun, chooses to. That social contract can begin to unravel.

That's never happened. And this country's been under extraordinary, extraordinary pressures since the day of its birth in 1948. We've never had a situation where, you know, we threw a war and nobody came. It's a poster in the 60s. What would happen to people threw a war and nobody came? Well, we've thrown a whole bunch of wars. People always came. And every war we've had, the number of reservists reporting for duty has always exceeded 100%, which is quite amazing.

I don't know how you exceed 100%. People aren't on the role, run on the roster, show up. So when reserves are saying now in advance, if there's a war, we're not going to show up. That is a totally unprecedented development of this country, totally unprecedented and very terrifying. It's showing that the social contract, the fabric, is unwrauded. Yeah, I think this is an absolutely key point. I think many people understand why the social contract, you know, subjectively may feel broken for the ultra-Orthodox or, you know, the settlers, so to speak.

But isn't, in a sense, what's different here and maybe genuinely alarming is that the majority of Israeli society, that kind of big middle, tent, they're starting to question their own kind of civic identity, their place in Israel, and whether Israel reflects who they are and their more secular values. They're, as you say, openness towards LGBT rights, which Israel has really been a world leader on. And you can go through so many different, you know them all, Michael, but so many different indicators where there is a positive kind of progressive spirit in a, you know, Israeli society. Is that, Michael, what's really part of this crisis, is a crisis of identity

of the soft majority that underwrites your military, your civic infrastructure, your political institutions. Is that what's really a play? I don't want to put in terms of majority and minority, because the numbers are sometimes very confusing. But there are definitely two Israel's here, which are clashing, tectonically fashion. There's a lot of. There's a lot of the the Israel that wants Israel to be, as you described it, an open and very liberal society that is a leader in the arts and culture, certainly an innovation and science, the world-class universities, the Philharmonic, everything you know about is with this world class that has the great restaurants, you know, you have culinary tours of Israel now and beaches and

wants to be something like a normal country, wants to be Sweden. I don't want to say France, not the normal anymore. It says it wants to be sweet. But you have another part of Israel that says, you know, the Jewish people were never supposed to be normal. In the Bible, that's what, that's God's message to Abraham.

You're about to be abnormal. And why, once we have a state, would we ever want that state to be normal? We want it to be a Jewish state. And we care more about that Jewish state than we do about having good food and restaurants or, you know, having nice promenade along the beach. That's not, that's not important.

not important to us as it is, you know, tradition and the integrity of the land of Israel, which includes, you know, Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, you have these two Israel's. And very generally, it breaks down along ethnic lines. It predicts along between secular and religious lines, though you have, you know, secular people in the nationalist camp. You have religious people in the normative camp. But that those are the two issues that these are the two Israel's that are literally grinding up against one another here. And I don't, though I think the reform issue is very sub-titively profound, it also serves as a type of a metaphor for this cultural tectonic clash. If you were to hypothesize about where we find Israel at its

centenary, having gone through this upheaval in the second decade of the 21st century, how does this reverberate? I mean, I look at these large protests, and you think there's the potential here for an immense agglomeration of civic energy that could be incredibly positive, maybe for some of those more progressive, and I don't mean in a political way, I just mean in a 21st century being part of the rest of the world will kind of way. I mean, are we actually, maybe it's that cliche of its darkest before the dawn, and you are undergoing right now a transformation of Israeli society that will have reverberations again for decades to come. That was actually beautifully put.

I agree with you. You can't be, first of all, I've spent much time in this country than I have is not being an optimist, but you can't be an historian and be not an optimist. And what I bring to the book, the rejuvenated state, 2048, is the historical. perspective. And that is, you know, this country was founded 75 years ago. It was nothing. The 600,000 Jews in the country, no natural resources, no allies, surrounded by adversaries. We created that democracy. And Israel is one of, along with Canada and the United States, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, is one of the few countries in the world that has never known a second non-democratic governance. And we've never know a second of peace, which is the only country on

the list like that. So that's quite extraordinary. We developed an army which would become more than twice as large as the British and French armies combined. It's a citizen's army. Seven world-class universities, you know, the whole innovation, the revival of the Hebrew language. You know, more people speak Hebrew today to speak Danish and Finnish and amazing. The language that wasn't spoken, you know, 150 years ago. And you have, you know, people winning Nobel Prizes and Booker prizes, you know, in Hebrew. it's not to be taken for granted.

And it's a beautiful country. It's a beautiful country which has more land under conservation for capital, just about any country. Very, very beautiful. It really has many, many, many accomplishments to it. And then I've been here, oh, boy, 45 years, and I've seen a million Soviet form of Jewish and former Jews and former Soviet Union come here,

tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews. I've seen this country transformed. I've seen peace with Egypt, peace with Jordan, peace now with four other areas. of countries the Abraham Awards. When I came here, we did not have relations with China, India, almost all of Africa, the, the Soviet satellite countries,

nothing with South America and a nice relationship with the United States. We now have great relations with just about everybody, and we have a deeper multifaceted strategic alliance with the United States. This is in my lifetime. This is, you know, it's things that could take place over the hundreds of years that take place since I've been here. And yet, and yet, that's not what this book is about.

The book is about the issues that may jeopardize our ability to have a second century as successful as a first. And that includes the Palestinian issue, of course. The largest chapter of the book is about the Palestinians. And I've been involved in every peace initiative pretty much since the Oslo course. I was an advisor to Yus Hakarab. I've gone back 30 years, 30 years this year. and the ultra-orthodox issue, which is an existential issue, if we don't resolve the orthodox issue, this country will not be sustainable in 40, 50 years because that population is growing so fast,

and ultra-orthodox children get an education that's roughly that of a second grader in Canada. So the country simply won't be sustainable. Norom my defense won't be sustainable. There are issues with Bedouin in the South, which are acute, our relationship with the Israeli Arab population, the 21%, and our foreign relations with the United States, with Europe, with Canada, other Western countries. All of these have to be addressed now, or we will not have the second century.

And if there's anything, I'm not a prophet, really not. I'm a historian and I've got enough problems predicting the past. But the fact that I wrote the chapter on the need to reform the Supreme Court three years ago, and now this has exploded, can show you that you're never premature. too early in pointing out the issues that could jeopardize the future security, prosperity, and even survival. And it's not too early. And that's why I wrote this book.

It strangely enough, it began in a conversation between myself and Mr. Benjamin Netanyl when I was the deputy, the crime industry. And I walked into B.B. one day and I said, you know something? We're so bogged down in our current crises. we never have time to think about the future. Let's create a project where we imagine Israel on its 100th birthday. And you know what he said? He says, great, go for it. And look, we shall see.

You cannot make this up. As someone who's just so much enjoyed your writing over the years, just a pleasure and honor to connect with you today at just such an important moment in Israel. You've expanded my mind. you've elucidated, I think, so many of the key factors and ideas that we should be thinking about, both not just in terms of this crisis, but the future of Israel, which is so important to so many Canadians and people around the world. So thank you for your public service. Thank you for

your writing and your creativity and your leadership. And again, a real privilege to have you on the Monk Dialogues today. Thank you. Thank you. Well, that wraps up our dialogue today. I want to urge you to check out Michael Oren's amazing books that he's published over the years on Israeli history, the Middle East. This is a guy you want to be reading. You want to have his books on your bookshelf. If you have feedback or reflections on what you've just heard or any of our other podcasts, please send us an email to podcast at monkdebates.com. That's MUNK DebateswithanS.com. Also a friendly reminder that you can catch our website.

weekly current affairs podcast Friday Focus each and every Friday here on this podcast feed or on our website, triple w monkdebates.com. Just click on the top right navigation where it says Friday Focus and I'll take you to the latest version, the latest episode in this regular monk program. Thank you for spending some time with us lending your attention to our efforts to restore the art of public conversation, one dialogue at a time. I'm your host and moderator, Rudyard Griffiths. The Monk Debates are a project of the Aurea and Peter and Melanie Monk Charitable Foundations. Rudyard Griffiths and Ricky Gerwitz are the producers. Be sure to download and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and if you like us, feel free to give us a five-star rating.

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