Hey everyone. I’m Noam Weissman. And you’re listening to unpacking Israeli history, the podcast that takes a deep dive into some of the most intense, historically fascinating and often misunderstood events and stories linked to Israeli history. This very special live episode of Unpacking Israeli history is generously sponsored by our friends at the Naan Fund, Larry and Andre Gill, and Jody and Ari Storch, and Jean Felice, Amiel, and Ariba. If you are interested in sponsoring an episode of Unpacking Israel History, or even just saying what’s up, please be in touch at Noam@Unpacked.Media. That’s noam@unpacked.Media.
Speaking of tonight’s episode, it’s an incredibly special one for three reasons. One, we’re recording this live in front of a capacity crowd of a thousand, close to a thousand people at the Iconic 92NY in New York City. Two, it’s a topic and a conversation I’ve wanted to have for a very long time. And three, it’s a conversation I’ve wanted to have for a very long time with someone in particular, very special guest, a household name for many of our listeners, the one and only Dan Senor.
I’m excited. I’m excited. You are excited. So I wanna get straight into this one live audience. Help me out here, yalla, let’s do this.
Noam: So here’s what I want to try to cover over the next, over the course of the next 45 minutes or so, four segments, if you will, segment one. First, I wanna start with you, Dan, your life, your experiences, what it’s been like, how you think about telling Israel’s complicated story to different audiences, colleagues, listeners, family, friends. Segment two. We’re gonna rewind the tape. Anyone listen to Bill Simmons? Yeah. Maybe. Yes. Maybe. So we’re gonna look back at Israel’s history through these, what he calls Rewatchable moments. They’re MVPs, unsung heroes. Both of you and I are big Bill Simmons guys, I believe.
Dan: Yes. I’m a I’m a religious listener. Uh, it was the first podcast I ever listened to. Yes. When someone said, you gotta try out this podcast technology, just as a listener. It was Bill Simmons I was listening to, and I’ve been a junkie ever since.
Noam: Yeah. You and I, we we’re so similar. Segment three. From there, we’re gonna fast forward What’s ahead? The big bets, the blind spots, the unexpected possibilities, whether it’s peace, antisemitism, or just restoring some sense of calm. And then segment four, if we get to it, who knows, is we’re gonna zoom out to right now and how we as podcasters, educators, Dan, you’ve become an educator.
Dan: I’m not an educator. . I’m not an educator.
Noam: How we think about it, I, I banter. Okay.
Dan: I’m not an educator. Okay.
Noam: Okay. All right. Resistant. Resistant. Yeah. Okay. Jews, parents, spouses, non-Jews, whoever it is. How do you make sense of Israel at this moment? And then as always, we’re gonna end the episode with five fast facts and one enduring lesson as I see it. Ready? Let’s do it. Let’s dive in. Dan, this is about your life right now. You ready for this?
Dan: This is very uncomfortable. I prefer asking the questions, this is a little awkward, but go ahead.
Noam: Dan. You got this. Yeah. It’s actually gonna be very cute what we’re about to do. You’re very cute. You’re one of the most listened to personalities when it comes to conversations around Israel and the Jewish people. And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that you’re able to ask questions, like you said, and share opinions with such unique and varied life experiences.
So what I’d love to do right now is I wanna pull out four receipts from your life and for you to share a bit about how it’s impacted you personally, how it relates to your views on Israel, past, present, and future. One caveat though, two minutes. Two minutes per for Per receipt. Per receipt. Sound good?
Dan: I’ll do my best. You got this. You cut me off.
Noam: I got you. Okay, here we go. So I have here receipt number one People magazine. You see this? So I have, this is, maybe I shouldn’t admit this, but this is like what I did on Shabbat afternoons in the late nineties to get through. So, but here I have here a picture of you and, and your wife, Campbell Brown. Look at this. Wow. Got this on eBay. .
Wow. Lovely. And you were the chief spokesperson and senior advisor to the US Presidential Envoy in Iraq. How did an NJB, A nice Jewish boy born in Utica, raised in Toronto, land in Iraq.
Dan: It was not a very linear or direct route. The old, you know, Utica to Toronto to Baghdad route. Right. Uh, sounds atypical. Yeah, it’s a little, you know, no direct flights. Um, I, uh, I mean the, the very short version is that I had spent a number of years working in the US government in 1990s, worked in the United States Senate, was very involved with political campaigns and on Capitol Hill. And then I left to go to business school to get my MBA. And then I came back and worked in private equity in DC And a number of colleagues of mine who I’d worked with in Washington over the years, wound up in the Bush administration.
It was after, by this point, it’s after 9/ 11. It looked increasingly likely the US was going into Afghanistan and then Iraq. And they needed help. And they asked me if I would take a 90 day leave from where I was working, uh, in private equity and go to Doha, actually. Because that’s where US Central Command was running the war out of was in Doha. They assured me I’d never go to Baghdad and they, or Iraq. And they assured me it would only be 90 days. I wound up going to Iraq and I was there for 15 months. I worked on behalf of the Pentagon, the White House in Doha, and then ultimately in Iraq. And that is, you are right by the way that you pulling up that magazine.
Noam: You look the exact same.
Dan: Really? Can you tell my wife that?
Noam: Seriously. I will.
Dan: It’s almost 20 years. I met my wife in Iraq. Yeah. She was there as a reporter. I was there for, as I said, over a year. But she came in for a couple, couple weeks with NBC News. And as reporters often do, is they take their sources, you know, people like I was the spokesman for the US government of Iraq say, Hey, we’ll take you and your team out for dinner. And so Campbell took said, oh yeah, we’ll take, we’ll take you. It’s on us. And so they took us to the Al Rashid Hotel, which is where I lived for a little bit, which was a hotel, a former Muara hotel in, in the Green Zone in Baghdad.
And she makes a big deal that she’s buying a dinner, me and my colleagues. And the, and the bill comes and she hands them an American Express card. Now, postwar Iraq, it’s not a good idea. Let’s just say not a good idea. Like the waiter was looking, had no idea what to do with this American. Yeah. Yeah. And I was, uh, and so I ended up buying dinner because, uh, I figured it was in everyone’s interest at that point. Been in any awkward moments. And, and I have so many more serious lessons about Iraq that we could get into. ’cause it, it has been informing a lot of my thinking about what’s happening right now, actually in the Middle East and how Israel’s doing.
Um, but one story as we’re talking that just remind, speaking of food.
Noam: You get, you get to have 30 seconds for the story.
Dan: I’ll do it, I’ll do it in 20 seconds.
Noam: Okay. Let’s hear it.
Dan: I kept kosher in Baghdad. Whoa. Yeah. Something I don’t really talk about. Certainly didn’t talk about with the Iraqis. Wow. So I kept Kosher in Baghdad, and that was not easy. Wow. And so any time, the hardest part was to get kosher meat. Obviously it’s not a big market these days in Iraq, . And so, uh, and so, so Senator John Sununu, former Senator John Sununu from New Hampshire. Yeah. Uh, was coming on a delegation led by Senator McCain to Iraq, a del what they call these Dels. And, um, they were coming to Iraq, it was August of 2003. And he said to me, he says, I’m gonna be, is there any, I know like people, whenever they come to Iraq officials, they’d say, what do you need? I actually, I really like, where are you going on this trip?
Yeah. He says, we’re going to Israel and then we’re going to Iraq. I said, you know, my sister lives in Jerusalem, and this is a little awkward, but if she gets you like a freezer pack, , you know, very good. It’s a true story. Very good. And a freezer pack with some kosher meats. And so fast forward this story. So my sister finds him in his hotel in Jerusalem, and then he comes, I didn’t imagine they were coming on like a C-130, like into the image of these of us soldiers and these senators carrying kosher meat packages into the green zone. It would like validate like every conspiracy theory about, I was like, this is a bad idea. But it did give me supply for a while. So, but, and by the way, Sununu Lebanese Christian. So I had a Lebanese Christian, Lebanese, and s Syrian Christian senator from the United States bringing me kosher meat from Israel.
Noam: That’s amazing. Mean, come on. That’s amazing. That’s amazing. That’s an amazing story. Yeah. That’s an amazing story. You’re not very good at knowing what 30 seconds is. But that was an amazing it was an amazing story.
Dan: You are assure me you would cut me off.
Noam: So, okay. Yes. But it was a great story. Right? So, okay. Alright.
So I might not get to all this, but I wanna show you another thing. There’s something called, I’ll do the others, I’ll keep them tighter. Put that, but here, uh, we got anyone, you guys know what this is? Waze. Okay. So lemme say something about Waze 2009 Startup Nation is published, goes on to list in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times as a bestseller. It helped shape global perceptions of Israel’s innovation. And you said at the time that you didn’t want it shelved in the Judaica or Middle East sections.
So my question is, are you anti-Jewish just messing my question. My question is my my question is, my question is, why did this matter to you?
Dan: Because I, what we were trying to do with Startup Nation is tell a story about Israel that, I mean, it’s now we all know Israel as startup nation. Yeah. And this innovation, you know, in incredibly dynamic innovation ecosystem. At the time, nobody did. And I wanted to tell this part, the story of a slice of Israeli life that I knew a lot about, but I felt most people didn’t. Yep. And I felt, and, and my big audience was not Jews. Well, I mean, obviously Jews I knew would consume it, but I wanted people who are consumers of business content or consumers of content about current events that are not just looking strolling through the Judaica section. So our book came out at the time as Too Big To Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin, um, Freakonomics, we were it with those books. And I wanted people who would stumble upon those books to stumble upon Startup Nation.
Noam: That’s amazing. That’s an amazing story. I want to show one more thing to everyone here. This is Ark Media. This is an oversized Call Me Back subscription receipt. So September 25, your Call Me Back podcast a success story in so many ways, but I wanna get super real with you here, podcast to podcast host. We’re all alone in this iconic theater. And no one’s listening in just us. And I’d love to know what the most unexpected food for thought you’ve received over the years has been having had so many fascinating guests on your show. Something that’s like, like so unexpected, but food for Thought You that you have received and you’re like, wow, that is an insight. Oof.
Dan: There’s a lot of them. I I actually, one of the reasons I love doing the podcast is for this reason. Because we tend to think podcast hosts that we’re in control of the conversation. But the most interesting conversations are when you’re leading a discussion, you’re actually learning in real time. And like, I’m like, and suddenly Ilan and I will, like my producer will think we’re the conversation’s going in one way, the way we planned it out and we realize this person said something really interesting and it’s going another way. Um, I will say the most difficult, uh, I’ll say difficult, uh, insight I have gained mostly from my Israeli guests, not all of them, but some of them, although it’s, I’m increasingly, increasingly hearing this, this insight is this balance. They’re clearly trying to strike between obviously wanting to do everything to get all the hostages home. And, and that this is so much about Israeli solidarity and they’re so committed to it. And they, for all the obvious reasons everyone in this room understands and this fear they have, that it may not be in Hamas’ interest given who Hamas is to make that possible.
And, and that it will, you know, Gilad Shalit was held for five years. It may be in their interest to try to hold on to some of the hostages for much longer, um, than I think is in anyone in anyone’s time horizon. And how, and I’m hearing this more and more from Israelis and how they strike that balance between the aspiration and what they fears a reality has really been rocking me recently.
Noam: Thank you for sharing that. I want to, we’ve learned a lot about your life. I want to go to history. You and I, we spoke about this where Bill Simmons Junkies, uh, we listen to his content. He’s been a podcast, uh, role model for you, a podcast role model for me. If you don’t know him, everyone, he is a sports writer turned podcaster. He started The Ringer. One of his shows is called The Rewatchable. And it’s genius, they take classic movies like The Godfather always wondering when, like, when’s the right time to watch Godfather with my son? What’s the earliest age? I, I’ve, I’ve watched it with both our sons and wait till they get out the womb and then, okay. And then, yeah, they’re good.
Noam: So they, they take, so what the re watchable does, it goes to great movies. The Godfather, it breaks ’em down best seen most rewatchable moment. MVP, unsung Hero, all that stuff. So tonight we’re stealing that idea. And instead of movies, we’re gonna rewatch three big peace moments in Israeli history. I am a, anyone who listens to the podcast knows, I believe there is such a necessity to learn about the story of Israel. Before you have all of your perspectives about Israel, you gotta actually have an informed perspective. So I wanna do Camp David, I wanna do Oslo. I wanna do the Abraham Accords.
And Dan, I’m gonna start with telling a short background for each story. Then for each one, you and I are gonna pick the MVP, that person, the idea or institution that made it happen. We’re gonna pick an unsung hero, the overlooked force that changed the game. And if either of us is feeling inspired, we’ll come up with some other categories.
Okay. So let’s start at Camp David. November, 1977, camp David, just four years after the Yom Kippur War, when Egypt and Syria surprise attacked Israel on the Jewish people’s holiest day, more than 2000 soldiers, Israeli soldiers around 2,500 were killed. In three weeks, morale was shattered. And then out of nowhere, Anwar Sadat, the man who architected that war, lands in Jerusalem. He’s shaking hands with Ariel Sharon, with Moshe Dayan, Golda Meir, Prime Minister Begin. Be a year later Sadat and Begin meet at Camp David with Jimmy Carter, hammering out the peace accord by 79. It’s signed and through all the tension since that piece has held. So let’s go through the MVPs and the unsung heroes. So I’m the host, I go first.
To me, undoubtedly the MVP. Okay. And we could do like, we could do like a, I bet we’re gonna agree. Okay. Let’s, I, I don’t know. Let’s see. So to me, undoubtedly it’s Anwar Sadat.
Okay. Okay. I, well, do you want me to, you planned that He is like, man. Yeah. Okay.
But do you wanna make your case for it? Yeah, of course. I wanna make my case. Go ahead.
Okay. So this was a man who in the 1950s, literally wrote a love letter to Hitler, which by the way is like an, like, I wouldn’t pick him as a top five person to write a love letter to, right? So he wrote a love letter to Hitler. In an Egyptian paper in 73. He planned the most traumatic war in Israeli history, at least until October 7th. He was a developed Muslim, a proud Egyptian Nasser successor.
He had every reason not to make peace. He had every reason. And yet in 77, he stunned his own parliament by saying, I won’t refuse to go to their own home, to the Knesset itself to discuss peace. Days later, Begin invited him, and within the week he was in Israel, they were on alert. They thought something bad might happen. Their security was ramped up. And ultimately that bravery cost him his life. He was assassinated in 1981 by an Islamic Jihad member for daring to choose peace. But he also saved countless others by ending decades of war between neighbors. For me, when someone sacrifices and makes things happen and takes that first step, he’s the MVP. Okay?
Few things. First of all, on the story of his visit to Jerusalem, amazing story. His visit to Israel, there was a poll taken in Israel a few days before his visit, where be at this point was pushing, you know, pretty aggressively, at least back channeling for this peace agreement. Polls taken, overwhelming majority of Israelis are against any kind of deal, against giving up the Sinai. Sadat comes to Israel, poll taken a few days later after he speaks, before the Knesset says, I recognize Israel’s right to exist. He’s, overwhelming majority of Israelis support a peace deal. Meaning, ’cause they believed, to your point, that he was sincere. That he was sincere about this, and it was a dramatic visit.
Another fun little fact there is, you know, he wanted to come during the day when he arrived. It was a Saturday on that date. And he was supposed to land during the day and be called him and said, can you please come after Shabbat, because I wanna greet you at the airport, but I can’t travel on Shabbat. Uh, which Sadat did, um, moved, moved his arrival day, arrival time.
I understand the accolades you want to give to Sadat, but also remember it was, he was a visionary, in part because he knew what was in Egypt’s long-term strategic interest. And given what was going on in the Cold War, and given the degree to which Egypt was perceived, and literally was a satellite of the Soviet Union. And Sadat realized that Egypt could only lose.
So they, you know, it’s enough already. They’ve been losing war after war after war against Israel. And they want to cast their lot with the West and casting a lot with the west means the United States and Israel. So, and, and he wanted to break with the Arab bloc. He wanted to break with Syria. So, yes, it, it, I I’m honestly
But you don’t think he’s the MVP? No, I think he’s, uh, he, so I think, I mean, I’m gonna say it.
Noam: Obviously Menachem Begin is his MVP. Okay. I’m, I, I’m, I’m, I’m kind of disgusted that he wasn’t yours.
Okay. But, you know, I’ll learn to live with that . Um, and, and, and by the way, it’s probably the most of the rest of the room is probably disappointed, but it’s okay. Yeah. But listen. Okay. I saw you’re a Sadat guy. I get it. Okay. So, um, I’ll be the, I’ve been called worse. I’ll be the Begin guy. All right. I, no, I, you know, my son who’s in high school in New York, he did a paper last year. Uh, he, the, the class, it was a history class, the 20th century history. And to pick one document from the 20th century could be anything. And, um, and then kind of study that document and then do the history around it. So he did the Camp David Accords.
Yeah. Um, and so it was fun watching it like through his eyes. And one of the things that I was struck by was to look at the Knesset debates when they’re, the Knesset debate, when they’re voting on the agreement and the vitriol Yeah. Being directed at Begin from the right. It’s wild to go back and read the stuff they were saying about him and the, and, and he really, really put his political base at risk to do this. And you realize from that story only be, be was the only political figure in Israel who could have pulled that off. Who could have delivered the hard right. The center. And obviously the left was on board with it, but he was the only one who could have held all that together. So there’s a common theme there. The common theme is sacrifice, though the willing to actually make a claim against the norm to, to achieve whatever you you’re trying to achieve.
Noam: Yeah. And look, and I, he believed it was in his country’s interest too, so I’m not, I’m gonna like, in that sense, he and Sadat were very similar. I mean, he in had similar, you know, motivations. Do you know what Gold Meir said about Achham be when he got, she wouldn’t get the Nobel Prize. Wouldn’t get the Nobel Prize. She said he doesn’t deserve a Nobel Prize. He deserves an Oscar. Right. That’s why I’m always amused with those kinds of stories. Yeah. Because when people think Israeli politics is small minded and petty today Yeah. , I’m like, I’m like, you just don’t know your history. Yeah. Learn Israeli history. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. You, I mean, by the way, I just have to give a shout out. OpenDor Media. We did co-produce a film on Menachem Begin, so I kind of like Menachem Begin too. Okay. Okay. Alright.
I’ll tell you the unsung heroes. Yeah. The IDF, the IDF, the IDF, basically Egypt and the Egyptian leadership thought they had Israel on its back in the invasion of Yom Kippur, 1973. And the fact that in a matter of weeks, Israel so turned around that war. And in fact, if you look at the Israeli wars that are studied at US military academies today, everyone thinks it’s a six day war. It’s 67 war. It’s not, no, 73, it’s 73. Because what 73 was was Israel. Everyone just assumed Israel was doomed. And the fact that in less than three weeks they turned it around. And that was the wake up call to Sadat, that these people are not going anywhere.
Noam: So we gotta figure out how to work with them. And so that, that is the strength of the IDF contributing to diplomacy. That is so interesting. I had, I had what I had with what I had with, um, in my Bill Simmons sort of language. I had the miracle on ice. Nobody believed in US team. I had the 1973 Generals. That’s what I had. Right. Okay. So I am gonna skip my unsung hero. Fine. Alright. Cool. I mean, I just, I’m con conscious of time. Okay. Good one. At least one of us. One of us has to be.
Okay. Oslo. Oslo. Here we go. Oslo, this is gonna be fun, Dan. Yeah, yeah. Is there tension in the room right now? No, Oslo, when people think of Israeli-Palestinian peace, they usually think of Oslo. But Oslo wasn’t exactly a peace deal. It was a set of interim agreements between Israel and the PLO. The Palestine Liberation Organization meant to lead to peace. There were two Accords, 19 93, 19 95, they brought mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO. They created the Palestinian authority to govern Palestinians in the interim. And they laid a framework for future negotiations on borders, refugees, and Jerusalem.
I want you to go first. Who’s your MVP for this one? And I’m sensing from the look on your face, you don’t have an MVP, you know, I don’t, I guess, I guess the MVP, this is gonna sound counterintuitive. The MVP from that whole period from Oslo right through to camp David two, right back to Oslo is Bill Clinton, because he tells the truth about what actually happened in the 1990s. So he’s my, he’s my unsung hero, I guess, because he tells the truth about what happened.
Noam: But I have a, can you do a Bill Simmons, like a different thing, like Bill Simmons does these things called like what ifs. Sure. So can you do like a what if, do you have a what if for Oslo?
Dan: Yes.
Noam: Okay, let me hear your what if.
Dan: What if Yitzhak Rabin had not been assassinated? Hear me out.
There’s this narrative that is now like etched in, you know, stone among elites and intellectuals and observers of Middle East affairs, that Oslo was a smashing success and it was on course to being fully implemented. And then Rabin was assassinated and Oslo went up in flames as a result. And that is why Oslo failed. It was the assassination of the Israeli prime minister who had pushed it through that is historically really historically not correct. Oslo, before Rabin’s assassination was facing major obstacles on implementation, there was serious issues with Raf Os, which we now know for sure, the Rf os commitment to the full implementation of Oslo. And Israel was heading for an election between Rabin and it was probably gonna be Netanyahu. And Rabin had one of two choices heading into that election. Either begin to move away from Oslo because it wasn’t working and it wasn’t being properly implemented, and the other side was not operating in good faith, or lean into Oslo and really have an election where Oslo is the debate. Let’s have a real political debate about this. And the country can choose which direction it wants to go.
Now, when Rabin was assassinated, not only was Israel denied the continued, you know, service of a great Israeli leader in Yitzhak Rabin, but it was denied the opportunity to give Rabin the opportunity to say, this isn’t working, let me explain why, or it must work. And let me tell you why. And I’m willing to stake my premiership on it. And that I think would’ve been so healthy for the Israeli polity and actually for the diaspora too, for us to actually have a serious discussion about whether or not this was working. Rather than it just be written off as the failure that followed, uh, the tragic, real tragic assassination of, of the prime minister.
Noam: That, that, that is always a what if. And I still have that memory of my parents coming downstairs. I think it was x telling us, it was after Shabbat that, that, uh, that that, uh, telling me and my older brother Hannan was here also about how, um, that Rabin was assassinated. Just that moment. I remember exactly where I was. I was in, in, up on the upper East side of Manhattan, and I was visiting my godfather, my dad’s best friend, and I was staying with him. And he walked, I just remember him telling me, he says they, they killed re I was so confused when he said they, I just assumed it was like a Yeah, yeah. It was, it was really horrific. Uh, for me. I am gonna say, um, you know, I said before that in the, the Camp David Accords, that Sadat is my MVP. Um, and I think that seeing Arab leadership take that sacrifice and ultimately Sadat sacrificed his life for the cause. Now people here listening might agree, might disagree with Rabin’s policies, but he, he was a hero throughout Israeli history. One of the most decorated soldier in Israeli history. Uh, and he, and he was a real hawk for most of his career. He was, he was for, for a lot of his career. Yeah. But, and this is, he said, this is something that I want to do right now. And he said, a, it you remember that line I will navigate. Yeah. I will figure this out. Um, and he made that decision to recognize the PLL. So for me, I’m giving him the MVP award. He won the Nobel Prize. Um, I’m not giving it to Arafat. I don’t give Arafat the MVP. I’m not, I’m gonna take, I’m gonna not gonna give it to him. Smart move. Yeah. Yeah. So Arafat, he failed to crack down on the rampant terrorism at the time. And he was even recorded at a mosque in South Africa, where I’m going soon to, he called for jihad to liberate Jerusalem. So I, and, and as Dennis Ross points out, he never actually explained to the Palestinian people, unlike sap, by the way. Sadat explained to the Egyptian people what he was doing and why he was doing it. Arafat never explained to the Palestinian people. Uh, Ross says in his book, the Missing Piece, one of the biggest failures of Oslo was the US never insisted that Arafat Israel, the Israeli leadership, was preparing the Israeli people for what was coming. Arafat never really communicated to the Palestinian people.
It’s still the problem today. It’s still why the entire education system in the West Bank is still teaching about the eradication of the Jewish people. That is not necessarily like conditions for learning to live, you know, peace peacefully with, with a Jewish state next to us. And Arafat never did that hard work. They never, they never really required him to do it. So the, the education is, is so significant in the Palestinian authorities. I just don’t wanna in, in the audience. Um, we have Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, who is, uh, a leading thinker in the Palestinian world. Woo.
And he, he’s been a guest on both our podcasts. He’s been a guest on both of our podcasts. And he’s somebody who’s trying to make this, and we won’t ask him, which was a better experience, but it was just, they were both great. They’re both great. They were both great. They were both great. They’re great. Everyone gets a trophy. Okay. Alright. Mine in the Jewish world or in the media. Yeah, whatever that, okay, I’m gonna skip the like hero again on this one.
Okay. Abraham Accords. Abraham Accords. Abraham Accords. And again, I want to go through peace. I wanna understand how peace was made through these different moments. Abraham Accords 2020 agreements, normalized relations between Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. The name says it all. Jews and Muslims, children of Abraham. It opened the door to regional peace, economic cooperation, and security ties Briefly. Dan, give me your MVP and I’m gonna give you my unsung hero.
Noam: I have both though. I have an MVP and an unsung hero. So tell me your MVP then I get unsung hero. Okay, well then you gotta answer. Well, there’s no question to that. That with, without Jared Kushner being in the White House and being No, it’s, I mean no, I’m not disagreeing with you. I’m not disagreeing with you. You took my unsung hero. Oh, oh yeah. No, but there’s no, I mean, there’s just no question that you, you’ve never had an official so close to the president who’s in the west wing of the White House, who clearly has the president’s ear and can, can truly represent the president throughout the Middle East. ’cause in the Middle East, especially in the Arab Muslim world, they understand family when someone comes on behalf of the family. And the fact that Jared made this one of the two or three most important things he worked on it, it wouldn’t have happened without him.
Noam: But I do have an unsung hero. Okay, you get to go again. I get to go again. Or you want go first. No, gimme your unsung hero. Mohammad bin Salman, NBS, the crown, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Because it wouldn’t have happened had he not basically blessed it had he not told the Emiratis and the Bahrainis, you should do this. I I met with him in 2018, uh, at a, at a small, very small dinner with a, with a few Jewish leaders in la. He was here for two weeks and I could, or he was in the US for a couple weeks. And at that dinner, all I can say is I could not believe what he was saying about Israel. And it was so clear to me then that he, he had made the decision that Israel is part of the future of the Middle East and he wanted to bet on the future.
And it was, and it was in Saudi, back to our point about Sadat. It was in Saudi’s interest to get this normalization integration process going. And um, and I I obviously he didn’t wanna go first, but he wanted the process to get moving and the, and the Emiratis and the bas wouldn’t have done it without his that
Noam: Yeah. That’s why I was wondering if Mohammad bin Zayed might be an MVP candidate also the UAE leader
Dan: Of course. He’s of course, he’s, he’s up there also. Yeah.
Noam: But I wanna say my hero was actually Jared Kushner. And I want to tell you a quick story. I have a personal connection here. Um, the connection is I once played basketball against his brother Josh, um, in Yeshiva. Okay. So we were in the championship, it was Mevaseret against Reishit, and it was a big deal. Okay. And I know, I mean, right up there with like the Jets game today, everyone’s time.
Yeah. It was big. Good thing. And lemme just tell you this story. We are winning the game and, and we’re the better team, okay? And, and Josh Kushner, who’s okay, he’s solid, whatever he is solid . It’s the end of the game. 5, 4, 3. And he’s not gonna give it to Josh Kushner. They give it to Josh Kushner buzzer beater to beat us to win the game against me. I still have nightmares about that game. And I, I sometimes have to imagine that like, before he goes to sleep at night, he’s like, Carly Kloss listen, Carly, listen to what I did. I hit a buzzer beater in Yeshiva.
Dan: You know, for a guy who’s very concerned about managing time, that was quite a…I’m thinking, I’m thinking, I’m sitting here in real time. I’m thinking that’s not part of Israel history. Where is he going with this story? That’s it. That’s, that’s the story. Yeah. No, it’s a good story, really. Okay. Buzzer beater. Okay.
Noam: All right. Dan, let’s look forward. I wanna shift to that discussion. We are almost two years since the 7th of October. And I wanna start with as odd as it sounds, but some positives. They’re often very, um, from the military perspective, Iran was humbled in June. Its nuclear program was severely setback. How, how much we, we don’t know exactly, but, but a lot. Okay. Hezbollah, is it shell of itself. The Lebanese government has demanded, they disarm unquestionably an ama amazing thing. Syria. Syria has reportedly on the brink of signing a security agreement with Israel. Could you imagine that on October 6th, 2023? Hard to imagine.
But on the other hand, on the other hand, it’s not all sunshine and roses. Israel still bogged down in Gaza. Nearly two years later, over 900 soldiers have been killed. Nearly 50 hostages remain in the tunnels. 28 are dead to our knowledge. Around 20 years still alive. Over 60,000 Palestinians have been killed. But in terrible, heartbreaking condition. This is where we are internationally. This is something you’ve spoken about on your podcast. Israel is becoming a pariah. This is the greatest level of isolation it’s faced in decades. anti-Zionism has been normalized and mainstreamed in many countries across the western world. Antisemitism is at the highest it’s been in decades. There are also internal divisions and people don’t like talking about this, but there are internal divisions in Israeli society as well. A lot of internal divisions, many, many internal divisions.
So that’s where we’re at. Some triumphs, some problems. I want to discuss what those triumphs and problems mean for the future of the region and the Jewish people as a whole. So I have three big questions.
Question number one is, we all know the cliche Israel has a PR problem. But I wanna really talk about what that means. The conventional wisdom is this, Israelis are terrible at hasbara, they’re terrible at PR. They or Israelis don’t understand why Hasbara is important.
I think that’s a misdiagnosis. I think the issue goes a lot deeper, a lot, a lot deeper. And there are a number of thinkers I wanna reference here. The first is Yonit Levy. She is an Israeli news anchor and journalist and a fellow podcaster (we should start a club). She and others, others, by the way, people who love Israel and are fiercely loyal to it have said the following sentence, Israel doesn’t have a hasbara problem right now. Israel has an Israel problem. Meaning it’s not that Israel is doing a bad job explaining why they are in Gaza, or why this war is continuing, or why it’s being handled the way it is. What she’s saying is sometimes Israeli policies are just bad, hard to defend. It’s possible.
And I’m an Israeli history guy, and I go back to the 1950s and the 1960s. I think about the diplomats and the foreign ministers of the time, Abba Iban one of the great spokespeople for the Jewish people and for Israel Mosha Shire. Both of them went on record in the 1950s, whether it was after the Lavo affair in 1954. Definitely gonna do an episode on that. Kya. In 1953, we did an episode on that, and they basically said, what the heck? Why are you making our jobs so difficult to be out there? Those words, haah issues, those were policy issues that were very, very hard to defend. So that was a long preamble, but I wanted to give that history, and I don’t like to just be superficial about these ideas, I really want to go into this sort of thing.
Do you agree with Yoni Levy that Israel’s problem isn’t just with hasbara, but with policies that might make Israel hard to defend in the West?
And part two of the question is, what is the American or international Jewish community’s role here, if any?
Dan: I disagree with Yonit, who’s a friend. Uh, and I’ve, I’ve, uh, I’ve been on her podcast a couple times. She’s, she’s great, but she’s no Noam. I just want you to know that. I would preface it or frame it differently. Israel is a country. Israel is a real country. Real countries have to make difficult decisions. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they get it wrong, right?And given that Israel has basically been at war in some form, as you cover extensively since its founding, and it’s, it’s facing the seventh front war now, fewer fronts, thank God, over the last two years in circumstances that no country in modern history has ever had to experience on top of the fact, when I say, you know, multiple fronts, a huge percentage of your population being held in tunnels held hostage, and not like on the other side of the world, but like 40 miles from Tel Aviv, 50 miles from Tel Aviv, um, this labyrinth of this tunnel system that Israel has to deal with, this international PR or international media and social media obsession with Israel.
Like this, this, this war has been covered like no war in history has ever been covered. The only thing you compare it to is the Vietnam War, but that was before social media. So it wasn’t covered like this. So does that mean that Israel’s in conduct trying to navigate these impossible circumstances, gets everything right? No. Does it mean that it is perfect? No. Does it mean that it loses a little bit of its innocence in trying to defend its existence? Of course, again, point to me, another country that wouldn’t have that, like getting something’s right and getting something’s wrong. And somehow with Israel, leave the world aside. Somehow with Israel. We wanna like have this conversation. We need to put it all on the table. Israel’s in the wrong here. No, Israel is a country. And it is crazy to me, Noam, that, that, because Israel doesn’t get everything right in trying to navigate this impossible war, this problem from hell, it’s dealing with that. Suddenly we subject ourselves to debate about debates, about, well, does Israel have a right to exist? Are you a Zionist? Are you an anti-Zionist? It’s the, imagine any other war in the world where people would say, well, does Vietnam have a right to, does America have a right to exist? Does, but somehow with Israel, because of it being brutally attacked and subjected to what has been an existential crisis, we now have to defend whether it has a right to exist all the way back to its founding in the forties. So Israel doesn’t have an Israel problem. We need to start explaining to people that Israel is a normal country.
Noam: I think the audience liked that one. . I mean, they’re debating between that and the Josh Kushner buzzer, buzzer beater. You know, it’s just sort of like, yeah, I have, so, I have so much I want to say. No, go ahead. No, no, no. And think through your last point. I don’t disagree with anything that you just said about people’s obsession with Israel, obsession with maligning Israel. I, I just recorded, we haven’t released it yet, but I recorded talking about the claim about Israel being a genocidal right now. I, I reminded our audience that Israel has been accused of genocide. In 48, Israel was accused of genocide In 67, Abba Eban was defending Israel before there were settlements. And so a huge part of me is like, yeah, there is a strange obsession with maligning Israel no matter what. The question is that I do think that young people are struggling with is not the question of whether or not Israel, uh, has a hasbara issue or an Israel issue, but whether or not Israel as certainly at this point in the war, is acting in this war in, in a just way as it was in the first half of the war. And that is, I think, a discussion that many Israelis debate themselves. And I think that the American Jewish community is thinking through a lot right now. So I just want to add, I, the, the nuance there to me is not whether or not Israel has a right to exist. All of us should fight like crazy to make sure no one talks like that.
Whether or not Zionism has a right, we don’t dare those conversations to take place. But there are difficult conversations that need to be asked at certain points in Israeli history. That’s what we do at, on the podcast. We go through Israeli history. We show the good and the bad and the ugly, and we show the different sides of the issues. ’cause we deeply, deeply believe in viewpoint diversity.
The problem is so many of us struggle, struggle with this nonstop being attacked and therefore don’t have the ability to actually talk thoughtfully about difficult topics like this. Okay, my final question in this segment is based on something you discussed with Israeli journalists and Al on your podcast, you asked him, what’s the one thing Israelis get wrong about diaspora Jews and vice versa? And I want to hear your opinion on that, but for our purposes, I think this is something many people in the room struggle with. What role should diaspora Jewry play in the Israeli story, in Israeli policy in Israeli life generally, if any, is our role to platform Israelis give them space? Is the Jewish American’s role to be partners to support something else entirely? What do you view as the, the job of, of the Jewish American Right now?
Dan: The two are very connected, those two questions, because I, I often hear from Israeli friends who say, why aren’t you and why aren’t you the di, why isn’t the diaspora banging on the Israeli government the way we’re, we, Israelis are banging on the Israeli government because they say, we’re sitting here, we’re trying to, you know, advocate for change. And you could be so helpful here, and you’re not, or at least many, many much of the diaspora is, is they claim not helping with that. And my response to this, that is, it’s not our role, okay? Israel is under siege, internationally under siege. And if you wanna be part of the Israeli democratic experiment, and I, and I’ve, my mother made aliyah, I have two sisters who have made aliyah. I have three nieces, I have three nephews. They’re all in and outta the army, especially over the last couple years. I mean, they have chosen to be part of the Israeli democratic experiment, and they can go there.
And they, some of them are protesting on Saturday night, and some of ’em chose assertively not to protest Saturday next. They thought it was inappropriate. And they’re having arguments and debates and their children, and, you know, my nephews and nieces are risking their lives.
They’re, they’re in it. Okay? We’re not. So all I ask of the diaspora is to give Israel, you don’t have to be a cheerleader for Israel. Give Israel the benefit of the doubt. Okay? Just give Israel, think, think, think about it this way. The analogy I give is this, okay? Think of Israel as your child. I don’t mean that in a, in a patronizing way, right?
But the connection, you give your child the benefit of the doubt. Your, your kid gets in trouble at school. You get a call from the school, right? Your immediate reaction is not to believe the worst things that a school says about your child acting out. Your immediate reaction is, okay, I hear you. I want to talk to my child and get to the bottom of it, because there’s probably two sides to the story. And I have confidence that my child does not like, is not like pernicious acting out. Not to say your child’s always gonna be right. It’s to say you’re gonna give them the benefit of the doubt.
And that is, I think, how we should think about Israel. It’s, again, back to my early point, it’s a normal country. So when it makes mistakes, criticize it and, and, and, but, but it’s not our role. It shouldn’t be to be out there joining the jackals who are just slamming Israel in the international press and in international institutions. Because when members of the diaspora do it, when I go on TV and I’m defending Israel, and I hear anchors of shows cite other members of the diaspora in the criticisms, it’s like, really? Like, is that, is that really what your contribution is? Is to just joining the, the kind of the gang up on Israel is to me, um, it’s not a role
Noam: I wanna stop for a second and reflect on what’s happening right now. The fact that you and I are here right now, coming together in this way with almost a thousand people in the audience who came to talk and think about Israeli history. This, this doesn’t happen very often. Like I, I think it’s actually mesmerizing in some ways that people are out here on a Sunday night, a thousand people to hear the story of Israel, to hear about the history of Israel, to talk these ideas through together. And I think that’s special in and of itself.
There, there are, there are many differences between our shows. There are also similarities in particular, uh, the challenges that our listeners face, especially as it relates to their Judaism and to Israel. And by the way, many, many, for both of us non-Jewish listeners across the globe who are also grappling with and thinking about this. Many, many. And, and Dan, I’m guessing that we get similar types of questions from people who are thinking not only about individual episodes, but the big picture. So I want to pick a question that I think comes up often, or maybe it’s not a question, but it’s a framing. It’s, I don’t trust this is, this is the line that we kind of often hear. I don’t trust legacy institutions or mainstream media, but I trust your podcast. And the question is, why, why is it that people, from your perspective, I have thoughts, I’ve been thinking about this for my podcast that I host, but why, why your podcast?
Dan: It’s, uh, it’s something I’ve tried to understand. I don’t really understand. I do know one of the most revealing conversations I had a couple months after October 7th about my podcast was in London, and I was meeting with a top Saudi diplomat, uh, in, in the uk. And, um, and he requested the meeting, and I realized over the course of the meeting that he’s a regular listener to call me back. I didn’t know that going into the meeting. And he starts studying different episodes, and I was flattered. Uh, but at some point I said, with all, you know, it just, I am flattered, but like, why, why are you listening to this podcast? And he said, it’s the only way I really feel I get a sense for the conversation happening inside Israel.
And he says, as a diplomat, you know, we get the official translations of the prime minister statements from the prime minister, Israeli prime minister’s office. We get the IDF spokesperson’s statements, but I don’t hear the conversation happening in Israel, like, Amit Segel and the Dal, you know, having a real discussion about different points of view. We don’t get to hear how Israelis are sorting through these times. And I think at the, at the end of the day, Noam, that’s what I’m trying to do, is present to the world, the dilemmas, the discussions and the challenges that Israelis are wrestling with and the diaspora as we sort through this, this impossible period. And I think for people to be able to access those kinds of conversations and really hear how, how Israelis and supporters of Israel are wrestling with this, you know, maddening period is something you’re just not gonna get from legacy media, right?
Noam: For me, uh, I hear this from listeners all the time, and we engage with our audience. We take community very seriously. There was a, a diplomat in, in stationed in Israel who reached out and he said, you know, we listen to Unpacking Israeli History all the time to help us actually inform our decisions about policy in Israel and to represent our governments. We don’t always do a great job shifting their perceptions, but we use that podcast to do this. And I think one of the reasons that I’ve been reflecting, and our team at OpenDor Media in general has been reflecting on, but I think about this very often, is, I struggle with issues. I genuinely struggle with issues. I go through that process of exploring, and you hear it on the podcast. And I think what I try to do is I give permission to people to explore. And because if, if, if I have all of the answers all the time, then okay, that guy’s got all the answers. But if I genuinely am exploring something and sometimes even change my mind, what that does to the listener is they say, oh, I can explore. Oh, I can change my mind on an issue. And it’s this very like, intimate relationship with the listeners. That’s what we have with the podcast. They, they we’re in their ears. Mm-hmm . They’re running, they’re doing chores, they’re doing dishes, they’re in the car, in the subway, and we are, we are with them. We’re, we’re with them. We’re their inner monologue. And it’s weird. Yeah, it’s really weird, but it’s like, it’s also really special. So I think we have this obligation to model changes we want to see in people ourselves. If we’re able to model that ourselves, then I think that it, it lends credibility to the person listening to say, oh, I, I, I’m, I can think about something a little bit differently than I did before. Um, so for me, that is how I think about it. So I want to thank you. xSo that’s the story. Here are your five fast facts.
Number one, it’s possible to get kosher meat in Baghdad, but only when schlepped from 600 miles away by US soldiers.
Number two, the MVP of Camp David is controversial. Both Begin and Sadat put their careers on the line for peace. And Sadat even sacrificed his life when he was assassinated four years later.
Number three, less than two decades later, Israeli prime Minister Rabin would sacrifice everything in his attempt to bring peace. His assassination was a watershed moment in Israeli history, and it’s tantalizing to imagine what could have happened if he had not been killed.
Number four, whether Israel has a PR problem or an Israel problem, and maybe both are kind of true, maybe not. Israel is a regular country. Israel is, I actually don’t view Israel as a regular country. I view Israel as an exceptional country. But Israel is, Israel is a country. It is a country one that is held to a different standard than the rest of the world’s countries.
And number five, diaspora Jewry doesn’t have to put up and shut up, but they don’t have to bang on the drums against Israel either, as you would with any member of your family. Give Israel the benefit of the doubt.
Those are your five fast facts. But here’s one enduring lesson, as I see it, there is a Hasidic story from the great grandson of the Bov, a rabbi by the name of Nachman. It’s a story I think about very often, Dan. It’s sometimes called the Turkey prince. The story goes like this. A prince wakes up one morning, convinced that he’s not a prince at all, convinced that he’s a Turkey. He strips off his clothes, he crawls under the royal table. He begins eating scraps from the floor. The king and queen are devastated and they bring in doctors and wise men to cure him, one after another. They try different methods reasoning with him. They’re either yelling at him, they’re scolding him. They even mock him. They punish him. Nothing, nothing, nothing is working. It’s an odd story.
But finally, finally, a sage comes along. He doesn’t argue, he doesn’t shame. Instead, he takes off his own clothes, sits down under the table and says, I’m a Turkey too. Slowly, slowly, slowly. Once the prince trusts him, the sage begins to suggest little changes. He says, turkeys can wear shirts, can’t they? The prince nods, and they both put on shirts. Then turkeys can eat at the table, right? It’s possible. And together they climb back up step by step. The sage shows the prince that he can remain who he is, but also live fully in this world. Yes, it’s a little bit of a strange story, but the message is powerful. This is what I take from it. True change and healing. They don’t often come from force or from standing above someone and demanding that they be different. It won’t often work. It comes from something else.
It comes from genuinely understanding who you’re talking to, genuinely understanding your audience, genuinely understanding the other genuinely d, demonstrating and showing compassion and empathy, entering another person’s world and slowly, patiently walking with them towards something better. It teaches that leadership is not about hierarchy, it’s about relational wisdom. It’s about being willing to sit under the table before you invite someone to join you above it.
And the reality is, for so many of us, for so many of us, we tend to think of ourselves as the wise person in this parable, going to the young people under the table who just don’t get it. But we’re also, we’re also the prince, the Turkey under the table at times also. And we need others to help us be understood as well. It’s a lesson that resonates so deeply with me when I think about Israel, about Jewish history and about what Dan, I think what you and I are both trying to do with our podcast.
We live in a moment where everyone is shouting at one another. Be like me, see the world the way I see it change immediately. You’re wrong about everything. But history shows us that transformation rarely happens that way. Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs, even Jews with each other. We can’t simply force the other to accept our truth. Change becomes possible when we show. We’re willing to listen, to meet people where they are, to build trust first. And here’s the kicker, like I said, we are not the sage always. All of us are also the prince. We all have moments when we’re stuck under that table, when we need someone else to meet us where we are, to remind us that we can take the next step.So maybe that’s the enduring lesson. Maybe that’s what it is. Whether we are leading a country, running a business, raising kids, hosting a podcast, we’re young professionals, whatever we are, all of us have the capacity to be that wise sage, to choose empathy, to walk alongside and to help others rise up. And we all need people who will do the same for us. That’s the work, that’s the hope. Thank you so much.
This very special live episode is generously sponsored by our friends at the Natan Fund, Andrea and Larry Gill, Jody and Ari Storch, and the Lindenbaum family