Transcription
Anshel, that miserable thing to do to a correspondent on the spot, going to ask you to talk about the upcoming election, and it's even worse. It's an Israeli election, and no one can ever predict an Israeli election, even like the day of. But you know it's coming in maybe in October. From our perspective, as wondering about the isolation of Israel, is this one of those elections where as long as Netanyahu loses, in that moment, then you know, with one bound, Israel is free, global standing transformed? Is that how it works?
No, Israel's uh challenges, Israel's security challenges, diplomatic challenges will all remain on the day after Netanyahu, assuming there is a day after Netanyahu. But yes, the new leader, when there is a new leader, whether it's Gaddy Eisenkot, who's now uh gone ahead in the polls, and Naftali Bennett, who was just a few weeks ago the front runner, if it's one of them, they will have an opportunity to try and reset some of these uh some of these issues. But the challenges will remain the same. And also, a Prime Minister Eisen or a Prime Minister Bennett will have to take, will have to make decisions which which will be unpopular around the world. There's no question about it. There's a kind of fantasy, I think, in the has to think that it's all Netanyahu. Just get rid of Netanyahu. Everything will change. That's just not true. It's not true. I mean, he is he is representing some level of public opinion in what I agree is a very divided country, Israel. But but he stands for something, and he's, it isn't just Netanyahu. It's more than that.
It was very striking, David, when we were there and we were talking about domestic politics. Anel took us on this wonderful tour of different political leaders. But the message that really came across to me was how much Israel, in the past 10, 20, 30 years that Netanyahu has been dominant over Israeli politics, the whole country has shifted to the right. When I was last there, and Anchel took me to a fantastic uh pollster, and she was explaining how, yeah, it may be incredibly divided internally, but in terms of foreign policy, actually, there's a fair amount of unity. Isn't that right, Anchel?
I think that's very true. It's about the lack of having a diplomatic policy along with the military policy, and that's where we're beginning to see the difference between some of the candidates and Netanyahu. I was at the launch of Gaddy's party this week, and there was a line in his speech which said, "We shouldn't just be pursuing war for war's sake." And that's where you begin to see the shift, where the alternative leaders are starting to talk about the fact that, yes, we have to be very tough, and we have to prepare to go to go to war, but we also have to have these diplomatic options alongside our military policies. And that's where you're beginning to see the divergence. It's almost like kind of Voldemort. People are too sort of that people are, even his worst opponents are frightened of Netanyahu's political skills. I mean, nobody, nobody wants to exclude the fact that he could win again.
So, if he wins again, what happens to policy? Does it get even more hardline? Do we see even more hardline people in the coalition?
Well, I don't, I don't think there are more hardliners in Israel than Netanyahu can bring in. I mean, he's broken all the walls and brought in all the all the previously unmentionables into his current coalition. But we will see a doubling down on these policies. And if that is the case, and if Netanyahu does win and is reelected with his current coalition, then that can only mean further isolation for Israel.
Is Israel's future standing inseparable from the future of the Palestinian people, or have we just decided that we, you know, it's a busy world, we don't have the kind of the the width to think about the Palestinians?
I think it is inseparable. Yeah. I I think I I thought actually from October the 7th onwards that that it showed, terrible, terrible massacre event, that it was. It showed you actually that there has to be some kind of some kind of agreement here. I go back to the old insight that, you know, either Israel absorbs all the Palestinians and accepts them as full citizens, in which case its identity as a Jewish state is really under, or it absorbs them or does, you know, rules over them, in which case it becomes an apartheid state, or it finds a settlement. And there is kind of no other way. Um, and and I I think, you know, I I agree with you that the the fickleness of of the world of being obsessed by Gaza and then kind of forgetting about it is pretty shocking. But the the the energy for the Palestinian issues, I don't think is going to come from Gaza. I think it's going to come from the West Bank if if Netanyahu is reelected, because the settler movement there is really is really strong, and that's there's sort of movement in in that.