On Sept 17, 2024 Shabtai hosted a delegation of Israeli students and faculty from Reichman University to engage with Yale students about the relationship between the US and the State of Israel.
The delegation was led by Professor Dov Greenbaum.
Dov teaches law and technology at Harry Radzyner Law School in Reichman University (formerly IDC).
Dr. Jeffrey Gedmin addressed the students.
Jeffrey is President/CEO of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks. He is also co-founder (with Francis Fukuyama) of American Purpose, a nonpartisan, international, multi-platform media venture dedicated to the defense of liberal democracy.
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Jack Boger: Reminding me to get our sequencing in order. We're going to go around the room and introduce ourselves and then kick it off with our speaker. And so just again, as a reminder with the format which I'll model, is your name, your Yale affiliation or where you're coming from tonight, your hometown. And then in one word or extremely brief, pithy, witty. What does Israel mean to you? And so for me, my name is Jack Boger. I'm from Sandy Springs, Georgia. I'm at the Yale Divinity School, and Israel to me means Hatikvah. Hope. And could you please stand?
Lior Stein: So nice to meet you all. I'm Lior. I'm from Israel, from Tel Aviv nowadays. And while Israel, for me, it's at home. Kind of. Of course.
Liad Richman: Hi, I'm Liad, also from Tel Aviv. And Israel is home as well.
Keren Mozes: Oh yeah, I love it.
Matt Beck: Hi everyone. My name is Matt Beck. I'm a third year at the law school and I'm from Glendale, Maryland. And I would say Israel for me is one of our nation's closest allies.
Caroline Waxman: Hi, everyone. My name is Caroline Waxman. I'm from Englewood, New Jersey, and I'm a senior in the college. And Israel means to me future home or making Aliyah.
Keren Mozes: You took my word.
Vivian Shoukair: Aliyah to Israel?
Keren Mozes: No. Hi. My name is Karen. I'm from Israel. Israel is for me, is home, and I want to take the opportunity, and, everyone is here. And please pray for all the hostages. I think it's important to recognize them and keep them in our minds. And that's the most important thing for me right now.
Bonnie Kaplan: I'm Bonnie Kaplan. I'm on the Yale faculty in health informatics and at the law school and in bioethics. And Israel, for me, is homeland.
Osnat Hershkovich: Hi, everyone. Happy to be here. My name is Osnat Hershkovich. I'm with the program from the Reichman University of Law, Technology and Innovation. And for me, Israel is family, home. Everything that is closest to my heart.
Shahar Hershkovich: Hello? Can you hear me? Well.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: Yes. Louder! Yes.
Shahar Hershkovich: I can do. Louder. So my name is Shahar Hershkovich. And. Well. And we're married. Yes. It's not by chance that we have the same family name, although it's pretty common. But still we are married and, well, everyone said home and I thought, well, for me sitting here, I'm thinking of my kids and family who are in Israel. But then my wife said family, so she stole my word, but I'm still going to use it. I think it's fair enough.
Asaf Nakash: Hi everyone. My name is Asaf. I'm from Israel, Tel Aviv, and for me Israel is a home and family and hope.
Suzana Roth: Hi, I'm Suzy. I'm from the same program within Reichman. Louder than that. Okay, Suzy, I live actually, in Kfar Saba, which is a, I guess, a city or a town, you can call it a suburb, and I actually. Yes, Israel is home, of course, and family, but these days I actually I have a lot of fear also. So when I say Israel, I actually there is a lot of fear these days in Israel.
Trevor MacKay: Good evening everyone. My name is Trevor MacKay. I'm a senior in the college studying history from Vermont. That's not part of Canada. For those who don't know where it is. Yeah. And to me, Israel is a place with a deeply meaningful history.
Vivian Shoukair: My name is Vivian. I'm from Israel. I live in Haifa, Israel for me home. Thank you.
Esther Biniashvili: Hi. Good evening. My name is Esther. I'm live in Israel, in Holon. And the Israel for me is a unity.
Yam Bitton : Hi, my name is Yam. I live in Herzliya and for me Israel is life. Like it's my life. And what I see. I raise my kids and everything and the Jewish people. And thank you for having us.
Timothy Bang : Hello, I'm Timothy Bang. I'm a senior at Yale College and I'm from South Florida. For me, Israel is not home. As you can tell. But- yeah. Not yet. Yeah. But for me, the first word that came up in my mind and part of the reason why I'm here today is I think Israel is misunderstood is the word that I thought so. Thank you.
Keren Mozes: Thank you for that.
Zach Reich : Hi, I'm Zach Reich. I'm also not from Israel, but I do study graphic design and English at Yale. I think for me, as an American, Israel is heritage.
Romy Lalo: Hi. My name is Romy. I live in Israel, too. And Israel is interesting, I guess.
Yuval Katz: Hi, my name is Yuval. From Israel to. And Israel is a home. I can't think about another world.
Maayan Oren: Hi, my name is Maayan and I'm from Israel. For me, Israel is hope for the future and the next generation.
Graeme Mason: My name is Graeme. I'm a professor in radiology at the med school here at Yale. And so you took mine. I was going to. Let's hope.
Ofir Maman: Hi. My name is Ofir, from Ramat Gan, Israel. And for me, Israel is a family and hope.
Isaac Gilmore: Hi, my name is Isaac Gilmore. I'm originally from San Diego. I'm a friend of Shabtai. And for me, Israel is a crossroads for both our past and our future.
Meirav Sela : Can I see it because it will be hard to stand. Okay. Hi. My name is Meirav. Originally I'm from Israel. I'm from Kibbutz Nir near Itzhak. Now and from the last four years, I'm living here in Westville, New Haven as a research associate at Yale Immune Immunobiology Department. And for me, Israel, it's roots.
Caroline Utermann: Hi. My name is Caroline. I'm a junior in Yale College, and I'm originally from the United Kingdom. And for me, Israel is the place my friends call home.
Justin Kim : Hi everyone. I'm Justin, I'm a sophomore in Yale College. I'm from Hong Kong. For me, Israel means perseverance and strength.
Liram Koblentz-Stenzler : Hey everyone. So I'm Liram Koblentz-Stenzler and it's really nice to be here today since I'm here affiliated to Yale, but walking from university as well. So I feel that I'm belong to these two worlds. Thank you.
Danielle Frankel: Hi everyone. My name is Danielle Frankel. I'm a junior in the college from Boston and to me Israel is ruach or spirit.
Zhenya Podurets: Thank you. Hi everyone. My name is Zhenya. I'm originally from Ukraine and a junior at the Yale College studying economics and history. And to me, Israel means strength, determination and unity. So.
Ravit Kaul Cohen: Hi, my name is Ravit Kaul. I'm from Reichman University, from the MA program. I live in Tel Aviv, and for me, Israel is a home that you cannot take for granted. You have to fight for it.
Hagai Diamandi: Hello, my name is Hagai Diamandi. I'm a post-doc here at Yale Applied Physics and currently living in Beverly Hills. Originally from Israel, and for me, Israel is a triangle of the people, the tradition and the land.
Betty Kubovy-Weiss: Good evening everyone. My name is Betty Kubovy-Weiss. I am from New York City and I'm a senior studying philosophy in the college. For me, Israel means hummus.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: Good evening everyone. My name is Shmully Hecht. I am one of the founders of Shabtai. I'd like to thank God for giving us this opportunity for being here. I know it's one word, but I do have to, on behalf of the organization, thank a few people tonight. First of all, I'd like to thank Dov Greenbaum, who brought this wonderful group to join us this evening for dinner with Ravit. Sorry, from Reichman University. We are proud parents of an alum of half alum. He dropped out of the IDC, which is great. It's okay. He's doing well. Very well. You should all drop out and do as well as he's doing. But Dov was a very, very dear friend of Toby, my wife and myself, and a very strong pillar of this institution in our earlier days, more than two decades ago, when Shabtai got started, it was known as under another name at the time, and it was in another building at the time. But Dov gave us a lot of strength together with your brother Eli, who was here at the law school. Two just geniuses. And it was just- It's wonderful to have you back. You look as good as you did 25 years ago. And to evidence that we actually found a photograph of Dov from 25 years ago or 20 something years ago and it's on the mantel. So when you walk out and you want to get a lesson in how to not age, Dov is the guy to talk to.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: You look great. Thank you for bringing back so many wonderful young, vibrant and optimistic people from the promised Land that God gave the Jewish people the land of Israel. Considering what the Jewish people and the people of Israel are going through today, it's evidence of how we are going to continue to be a strong light to the nations of the world, of how to wage war, how to win wars, and how to bring peace to the world. And so it's an honor for us, Shabtai here at Yale to welcome you to our home as members of our family and know that we are in your hearts, minds, thoughts always. And you are in our minds and hearts and thoughts always here at Shabtai and obviously across campus and across the United States. I also want to thank, of course, professor, excuse me, Jeffrey Gedmin, who's here tonight, who you're going to hear from tonight, who's our keynote speaker. It's an honor to have you here, considering all the work you've done in so many different fields. And tonight you're going to talk about the organization that you run today, which is the voice of democracy in the Middle East, 21 countries that speak Arabic, both Muslim and Arabic countries, and the voice of America and the voice of democracy.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: And we'll hear from you tonight. We're honored to have you. You got on a train and came in from another state and staying overnight. We don't take it for granted. Thank you so much for all the great work that you're doing and have done your entire life to spread democracy around the world and the values and principles that Jews have taught the world, and frankly, that America embraced about 250 years ago when this country was founded. Lastly, I just want to say something about tonight's talk because it is titled Law and Technology. And I want to remind everyone in this room that there is a law in Judaism that says Haba Lihargichah Hashkeim Lihorgoi, that if, God forbid, one approaches to kill you, you have a commandment. It is a law to kill them first. Tough law, not something we want to talk about over dinner. But unfortunately the world is dealing with it today. So we have a law as Jews and the Jews brought law to the world, frankly, thousands of years ago, that if they come for you, you have an obligation to take them out first, because your blood is no less red than theirs. So that's the law. My perspective on your talk tonight. As far as technology goes, we had a good day today, so I'll pass the mic to the left.
Barak Lilian: Well good evening. It's a tough line up here so I'll try my best. My name is Barak Lilian and I'm from Tel Aviv, Israel. For me, Israel is the past, the present and the looks. It's the future.
Toby Hecht: Good evening. My name is Toby Hecht. I'm married to Shmully. I'm also one of the directors here at Shabtai. I want to welcome both Dov and the whole team here, and Jeff for coming out tonight to have dinner with us and share with us some words of wisdom, and obviously leave us with something for sure impactful tonight. The one word I guess I would say about Israel is the well, it's not the one word, but it's the eternal homeland of the Jewish people. Thank you.
Chen Goldberg: Good evening everyone. I'm Ken. I'm from Tel Aviv. Study law. And one word I say. Diversity.
Matt Golden: Good evening everyone. My name is Matt Golden. I'm from Westchester, New York. I'm a second year MBA student here at the Yale School of Management. One word that comes to mind when I think of Israel is comfortable.
Erez Rachmil: Hello. My name is Erez, also from Israel, from Hod Hasharon, a from Hod Hasharon. And one word is sanctuary.
Toby Hecht: Sanctuary. Thank you.
Solenne Jackson: Hi everyone. My name is Solenne Jackson. I'm a senior in the college studying math, and when I think of Israel, I think of it's a name, but. Michaela.
Shay Shimonov : Hi everyone. I'm Shay Shimonov, I'm from Tel Aviv. I'm a PhD student here for applied math. And when you said, quote, I thought about Adam Nof Moladito, which basically means that a person is a reflection of his homeland. And I think that Israel is part of me. So that's Israel for me.
Jacob Martin: I'm Jacob Martin, I'm from New Haven and a senior in the college. I study trees, rocks, water, stuff like that. Israel to me is a place that is really good at managing trees, rocks, water, stuff like that.
Evyatar Edri: Hey everybody. My name is Evya. I'm from Giv'atayim. Israel to me is constant conflict.
Hila Tavdi: That's easy to talk after. Hi everyone. My name is Hila. I'm from the suburban of Tel Aviv. Like the city next to it. And for me, Israel is community and peace.
Alex Bavalsky : Hi everyone. My name is Alex. I'm a senior in the college from New York City. I study global affairs. And for me, Israel is a place where my family and I can always go if needed to find a new home.
Mitchell Dubin: Good evening everybody. My name is Mitchell Dubin. I am from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I am a senior in the college, I study economics. Israel is the center, the center of the world for me.
Dov Greenbaum: Hi, my name is Dov. I'm from Canada. My affiliation with, I now live in Zichron Yaakov in Israel. My affiliation with Yale is that I graduated from the with a doctorate in 2004. Although I stayed on over the last 25 years, I'm now officially in BIDS, which is a biological Informatics and data sciences, which is a new department here. I want to thank Shmully and Toby for hosting us. I spent a lot of time at the institute, now known as Shabtai, on Crown. I had a lot of great memories there. A lot of great friends there. And I'm glad that you guys can host us here. And hopefully the students are having a great time and meeting a lot of other people from Yale. When I think of Israel, I think of, oh, my God, they just cancelled my flight. How am I getting home?
Jeffrey Gedmin: Hi, my name is Jeff Gedmin. I'm from Washington, D.C. and for me, Israel is freedom's front line.
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Jack Boger: All right, well, thanks everyone for those beautiful introductions. It really is an honor to be here with so many brothers and sisters from all around the world. I'll go ahead and introduce our speaker and then turn it over to him for our remarks. And also wanted to say again, a special thanks to all of our Israeli guests from Reichman University. And thank you again for for making the journey here. So Dr. Jeffrey Goodman is the interim president and CEO of the Middle East Broadcasting Network. He's also the co-founder, alongside Francis Fukuyama of The American Purpose, which is a nonpartisan, international multi-platform media venture dedicated to the defense and future of liberal democracy. Jeffrey has served as the president and CEO of London based Legatum Institute, the Aspen Institute Berlin and Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic. Before assignments in Europe, Gedmin spent ten years at the American Enterprise Institute AEI in Washington, DC, where he was a resident scholar and executive director of the New Atlantic Initiative. He is the author of The Hidden Hand Gorbachev and the Collapse of East Germany. He served as a co-executive producer for two major PBS documentaries about the Germans and Spain's nine over 11 and Radical Islam in Europe. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on several boards, including the Institute for State Effectiveness, the justice for Journalists Foundation, the Paris based Tocqueville Conversations, and Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty. Together with former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic Norm Eisen, he is the co-chair of the Transatlantic Democracy Working Group, which is based at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and directed by Jonathan Katz. He holds a B.A. in music, a master's in German Literature, and a PhD from Georgetown University in German Area Studies. Thank you so much for having us.
Jeffrey Gedmin: Thank you for having me. Take this. So thank you, Jack. Thank you very much. And Shmully, I don't think you need your mic. I'm mic'd. Yeah. So, Jack, thank you, and Shmully and Toby, nice to meet you in person. Thank you all for having me. It's a privilege and honor to be here. Now, first, let me give you my unofficial bio. Okay. So I'm from Washington, D.C., grew up in Northern Virginia, in Vienna, Virginia, and went to a public school named James Madison High School. I didn't spend a lot of time in school during high school. I spent time doing extracurricular activities, including a lot of music, Mitchell. And so I went through these phases when I was 15, 16, 17, 18. I owned every guitar you could imagine, every dobro you could imagine, every banjo you can imagine, every mandolin you can imagine through rock and folk and bluegrass and so forth, and was determined to make a career in music without going to college, which was a big conflict with my parents. And so we did a deal which was try one year of music college, and then you can quit and that's okay. And of course, I went and I didn't stop going to school. Somehow along the way. So indeed, I did a bachelor's degree. I mean, the story of this is not the story. Could be that I can't hold a job or I have no attention span, but it could be that life is really not linear.
Jeffrey Gedmin: You know, you think it is. And you think A goes to B, goes to C, goes to D, sometimes for some people, but for most of us it really doesn't. So I did an undergraduate degree in music, studied for a year in Austria, in Salzburg. Great place to study, and then realized that Mitchell is going to be a conductor. Right? Or studying and endeavoring and striving toward that. And then I realized that I was quite a failed musician. And of course, for classical music, if you want to do things like piano, as they say, you have to start playing Haydn in the womb and then practice 13 hours a day, every day. That was not for me. So I did music as an undergraduate. After a year in Austria, I was bitten by a different bug. You know, Germany, German history, German language, German culture, German music, of course. So I came back to the United States, did a master's degree in German literature, and thought, now I really want to be a literature professor. Could there be anything better than that? So I went to Georgetown University and got a PhD in German History and Linguistics. During the day, you got to make a living. I taught in high school in Washington, DC, a Jesuit, Catholic, Catholic, Jesuit boys school called Gonzaga College High School.
Jeffrey Gedmin: That's why it took me seven years to do my dissertation. But I did that. But by that time I was on to something very different. And that was politics, public policy and foreign policy. And so I go fast forward. I finished my PhD. I hustled and got a job as a research assistant in a so-called think tank in Washington, DC called American Enterprise Institute. And I found out quickly, if you want to do anything in this business, you've got to write. You've got to publish help if you raise money and organize conferences and so forth. And I did that for a number of years. And then all of a sudden funny things started happening to me. Life is not linear. I speed it up. But you should know you're dealing with a rather eclectic person who is really mile wide, inch deep. You'll find that out very quickly here. But then I'm in Washington, D.C., in this Washington, D.C. think tank, and the phone rings and the fellow on the other end says, I'm the CFO of DaimlerChrysler in Germany, but that's not why I'm calling. I'm the chairman of an institute in Berlin, and I want to know if you want to be the director of it. I said, absolutely not. I mean, I'm here. Why do I want to move to Berlin? And I'm here and I'm happy.
Jeffrey Gedmin: And what think tank and didn't make sense. And so he said, look, I'm coming to New York in two weeks. Would you just come up and have dinner with me? I said, sure, but I don't want to lead you on because I'm really planted here. So then I went to Berlin, of course, and I said, this is going to be good for two years, right? So I stayed for five years and then privileged because we all like being flattered. I was headhunted to run a US congressional media company called Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, based in Prague. And thereto I said, well, you know, thank you. I'm ready to go back to the United States. I miss America. So I went to Prague, I took that job, and I stayed for four and a half years because I loved it. Everything I've done, I've been privileged and I love. And then once again, I was coming back to the United States, and I got sidetracked, and I went to London to run an institute there for a little bit over three years, came back to the United States, set up this magazine that you mentioned with this political scientist named Frank Fukuyama or Francis Fukuyama. And if you know that name at all, teaches at Stanford right now. And then life kept happening to me. I'll get to the point in a moment.
Jeffrey Gedmin: I was drafted out of the blue to go back to Prague last fall. Again, it wasn't practical because I have a partner and she teaches here and we have a dog, but, you know, drafted and went back to Prague as the interim president of this Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, June to January because they needed someone in the interim role. And then finally to what Shmully mentioned, I'm kind of minding my own business in Washington DC, and in April I get a call. It's great to get calls, by the way. We got to get a call from a fellow named Ryan Crocker, who is a retired American diplomat. He was U.S. ambassador to Syria, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan. And he says, I'm on this board of something called Middle East Broadcasting Networks. It's Arabic language. It's linear television. It's digital. It's based in the Washington, D.C. area, bureaus across Northern Africa and Middle East. And he said it's really badly broken. I mean, really neglected and badly broken. Would you come in and work on fixing it? And of course, you know, it's good for your self-esteem when someone like that calls you and they think that you can fix it. And I'm there and it's really badly broken and we're working to fix it. That's who I am a little bit longer, but you know, a little bit background. Let me give you a handful of remarks kind of scene setting.
Jeffrey Gedmin: And then I hope we can have a good conversation about America, Israel and the world. First thing I want to say in introduction is, it seems to me that we really it sounds trite to say this, but it seems to me that we really do now live in, what, an age of surprise and an era of improbability. And when I tell you this in bullet form, it's age. Age of surprise and era of improbability. And when I tell you this in bullet form, you'll say, well, yeah, it's kind of obvious, but it wasn't obvious a very short time ago. So, so imagine in a relatively short time Brexit. Remember, Donald J. Trump. Global pandemic. If you step back 9/11, if you step back forward January 6th, October 7th, I'll even say Kamala Harris. I'll even say that it's so close in this election right now. On the eve of Russia's full scale invasion, Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine, I hosted sequentially two of the top generals in the United States of America who, with full conviction, said he's not doing that and here are the reasons why. He's doing this and that and the other, but he's not invading full scale this, that and the other reason why. And then you remember when he did this, all the experts and a lot of knowledge. This war is over in a week.
Jeffrey Gedmin: Do you remember that? This war is over in a week. And here we are. It's also a period, if you think about it, where, weirdly, the seemingly marginal has become mainstream and massively disruptive. You watch the news, you follow the news of the Houthis, Iran backed in Yemen, and they attacked these vessels in the Red sea. Do you know when they started attacking vessels in the Red sea? 2015. It's almost a decade ago, and if you count in the last year, 83 vessels have been attacked, disrupting international trade, affecting the freedom of navigation. It's remarkable. So if you put all this together, in my view, the rapidity of change, the frequency of surprise leads to this moment where I think we start to lose perspective and compass, I think. There's an art historian at Harvard named Jennifer Roberts. I don't know if she still does this, but she used to do this. It's a fantastic exercise. She has her students go to an art gallery to sit with any work of art of their choice, ready? For three hours. Mad. You know what? You know, I would get a little nervous myself, I have to admit. Three hours and first the fidgeting. No devices, by the way. Right off and all that. They can have a notebook and a pen, and each and every one finds, which is the purpose of the exercise, that if you sit with it and you concentrate and you take a deep breath and you follow that paint, if it's a painting, you discover things that you can't see or understand at first glance.
Jeffrey Gedmin: We think that at first glance you capture it all, but you don't. You capture one dimension. Maybe. So it's an interesting exercise. I think we live in a moment now where we're magnificent in detail, but we lose the big picture and the perspective. I think we live in a moment where we're masters of transaction, but we're falling way short, as you and I discussed before dinner or during dinner, fall way short on purpose and meaning. And I think it's that moment civilizationally, metaphorically, where we need to find ways to activate, if I may put it this way, both hemispheres of the brain. Not one versus the other, but integrated in line, both hemispheres of the brain. It's my own view that when we look back on this point in American history, my view, no historian will say, you know what? They really lacked IQ points. They just weren't working hard enough. More industriousness. You know what? America lost its ambition as a nation. I don't think that's it at all. I think we're missing something else, which is hard to describe, difficult to quantify, but fits under the rubric of empathy, humility, wisdom, judgment. It's not those other.
Jeffrey Gedmin: Now, how do you train for that? Or how do you teach that? Well, you can tell me tonight how you work around those things. So with that said, let me make three points about America, America Israel in the world. Then we open up for discussion. Okay. Point number one, in the United States, we concentrate and understandably on the people and the personalities, and we should because they matter greatly. But I think something deeper, more cultural and more structural is afoot. And that makes it harder to tackle and manage and change. I gave you this example. If you go back to 2016 and the American primaries, the two candidates that fared best were Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. And people say to me, well, they have nothing in common, but they do in one respect. They were the two candidates who ran against the establishment, ran against elites, ran against the status quo, ran against, respectively, Washington and Wall Street. And I think you like him or dislike him. It said something. It was a revealing moment of a problem in our politics, with our mainstream parties and with the way the country was and is being run. If you look back before Bernie and Donald Trump, from the political science of it, voter ties had been listening to our mainstream parties for some time. Actually, that structural and I think that's important to observe. It's not just the United States.
Jeffrey Gedmin: It's across the Democratic West world. In a country like Germany, okay, everybody talks about the AFD, right? The right wing populist party. And they should. Okay. But the voter ties have been loosening in Germany to the mainstream parties for some years now. And so what happens when the establishment fails or weakens when the center fails or weakens? Vacuums occur and vacuums get filled. And now, from right wing and left wing populist leaders and parties. The second point I want to make is if this is a reflection on what's happening inside the United States and other democracies, I think if you look broadly around the globe, world order, if I may put it that way, is fraying too. So I paint in broad brush strokes. But again, vacuums and nature America in relative terms has started stepping back. I think it goes back to President Obama. I'm an equal opportunity criticizer, if I may say. America steps back. Well what happens? Vacuums get created and now others step forward, notably China, notably Iran, and notably Vladimir Putin's Russia. Most of, in my view, foreign policy kind of like life, if I may say, but most of foreign policy involves navigating ambiguity. It's just not so simple. It's not so black and white. You have to wrestle with dilemmas. However, I think there are moments in history where things become relatively clear and I believe I can't prove it to you, but I believe that we're in one of those relatively clear moments where there's a struggle between the liberal world and world order, and those who want spheres of influence, and between those who believe broadly in liberalism and those who believe in different brands and different shapes and shades of authoritarianism.
Jeffrey Gedmin: And I think if you look at what's happening now, it's a very unfortunate confluence of events that brings us to a big moment. It has to do with technology. It has to do with fragmentation. It has to do with America, in my view, in relative terms, turning inward, and it has to do with Israel as I said, in my view, being a key part of the front line of freedom. And it manifests itself in so many ways. But it's also a surprise and to me, a profoundly disappointing one that in my view, Israel now is under attack from so many different sources. Maybe it was always the case, but I don't know it to be quite this case. A story and then to the close. Because I want to say something about the Middle East broadcasting networks. The story is two weeks ago, I was at Duke University giving a talk to students, and they described themselves as moderate progressive liberals. And after talking to them and spending the evening with them, this was not left wing or Marxist or radical.
Jeffrey Gedmin: It was just what they said moderate liberal progressives. Then they told me that they had gone - some of them - they had gone to a campus protest for Gaza or for Palestine, whatever language you want to use. And they said, well, we don't have our iPhone with us. We don't have a camera with us, but they said we went out there and we saw the students displaying banners that were anti-Semitic and Pro-terrorist. They said like, blatantly, brazenly, explicitly. And then when they went up to take pictures, photos, the students turned the banners around to something more innocuous, you know, whatever that was. And then they were shooed away by the people protesting. And then I said, were these folks, these were undergrads I was talking to, I said, were they coming from on campus or off campus? On campus? And I said, were they Palestinian or Non-palestinian? They said, no, no, no, they were all Americans, undergraduates. We go to class with them. I said really? Openly anti-Semitic, anti-Semitic and Pro Terrorist? It is very jarring. So finally, where do I work right now? You have to have some. Someone said optimism. Hope. Everybody said hope is real. You have to, you know, in this world, you have to be a pathological optimist. Why else are we here? You know, manage problems, make things better. I work now for this group called the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.
Jeffrey Gedmin: It's congressionally funded. It is journalistically independent. I can tell you more about it. It is linear television and digital northern Africa, Middle East, Arabic language. And here's what surprised me. I told you about surprise and improbability. And now I'm there four months, four and a half months on the job and virtually meeting with people on the ground, the bureaus in outside Washington, we have 500 people: journalists, editors, producers, technicians and so forth. You know, what's really surprised me is the following. You know, I'm generalizing. Okay. I'm generalizing. You know what they think? They think they don't think like a lot of students on American campuses, if I may say. They think that Iran is the enemy. They think that America is the ally. They think that Israel is not the enemy. They think that Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis are terrorist organizations. And you know what they think about the United States. This is a select group. This is impressionistic. This is, you know, the entire region. They think the United States is a place of inspiration and hope. And anytime I try to play devil's advocate, because, you know, the streets are not paved with gold and not everybody gets everything they want, they always say to me. Compared to what? Try living in Egypt right now. So it is kind of compared to what? So Jack, Shmully everybody. Thank you. Happy to have a conversation.
Dov Greenbaum: As Shmully said, you know, part of the topic of this evening is both law and technology. And I'm wondering how as a media company, you're dealing with sort of this rash of or this new rash of sort of fake news, deepfakes, AI, this feeling that we all have that in a couple of years when we hear the news, when we see the news, when we hear things associated with the news, we'll have no clue as to whether or not anything is real anymore. Anything can be concretely seen as something that we can trust. So how do you, as a news organization, you know, think about dealing with this? Actually deal with this? And where do you see, you know, your role in sort of dealing with this?
Jeffrey Gedmin: Thank you. So, that's a great question. I do not have a very strong and compelling answer. First of all, I don't. So I'll tell you what I think. But I don't have a good answer. You know, to those who provide state, non-state actors, fake news, disinformation, all that, I am a great skeptic of combating encountering it because it's like putting your finger in the holes of the- I mean, it springs out everywhere. You run yourself ragged, you know? So so there's a temptation to do that. I understand that I don't think it's entirely wrongheaded, but that can't be the answer, because there's two it's a tsunami now coming at us from all sources lies, manipulation, mischaracterization and so forth. First observation. Second observation is where is this successful? Whether it's here or abroad. The disinformation - propaganda, disinformation - it's virtually always successful when the soil is fertile. So, generally speaking, if I'm walking along the street and I'm educated at Yale or your university in outside of Tel Aviv, I'm not just susceptible to wild nonsense, because the wild nonsense was so well presented. It has some sort of resonance. I'll give you an example back to Ukraine. I had a student at Georgetown. Taught at Georgetown for a little bit. A student at Georgetown who taught before the war English in a small village in East Ukraine.
Jeffrey Gedmin: Okay. I can't tell you where, but somewhere. And he tells me the following story. He says, you know, I was befriending- it was an ethnic Russian village. So I was befriending people and we're playing in a band and drinking beer and socializing and all this. And then when the war began, everything flipped and they wanted to go off and fight and everything flipped. And all of a sudden the United States was a perpetrator of genocide. And he said, all the friendships broke. So why don't I tell you that there must have been something dormant there. It wasn't just they tuned in one day to RT, you know, Russian propaganda. Oh, that's very convincing. You know, America is perpetrator of genocide. I think Putin was very, very and is very good at tapping into grievance or something that he knows how to manipulate very, very effectively. If I may say, I don't know what your politics are, let them be varied. Donald J. Trump, in my view, is a demagogic figure, and he knows he he walks into the room, he smells grievance. He knows exactly there there and he knows exactly how to play that. And by the way, not all grievance is illegitimate, you know, because he you know, he knows one knows that we had Iraq, the 2008 financial crisis, people who didn't turn out on the winning side of globalization and free trade and other things.
Jeffrey Gedmin: And there's legitimate frustration or disappointment in Washington at Wall Street elites, cosmopolitans, we're all cosmopolitans here. And he knows how to play that. Putin knows how to play that. Where am I going with that? I think one, it's hard to combat because it comes from all directions. Two, it's effective where the soil is very fertile. And three, I think we have to do two things and play the long game. It's not a very satisfactory answer. One is we have to believe in truth, accuracy, honesty, truth, truth seeking, you know, truth seeking, have to believe in that. And then somehow societies, we have to do a much better job of educating and training discerning consumers. You know, once upon a time, we were great in educating consumers about products. And now if I get a candy bar or anything, probably here, there's probably a 1-800 hundred number on the Pellegrino bottle. If you have any questions about this bottle of Pellegrino, you know, and here's the social media and this and that and the other. But when we consume media, that's our bodies. When we consume media, we have no idea where it's coming from and who's paying for it. That's going to be part of the solution. But it surely is long, long term. Who else? What else? Yes, sir.
Jacob Martin: Thank you, sir, for joining us again. My name is Jacob Martin and I'm a senior at the college. I think one of the themes that I picked up on in your remarks is the concept of education versus re-education. And I'm curious if you see in your current capacity your current role, if you are a practitioner of education or re-education. And what I mean by that is, do you feel that you are dispensing truths that people are sort of encountering for the first time, or do you see your role as sort of addressing maybe misconceptions? And I'm also curious if you see one as more difficult than the other education versus addressing misconceptions.
Jeffrey Gedmin: So, Jake, thank you. So this Middle East Broadcasting Networks has a mission. Mission is important. Purpose is important. Does three things. One, it tells the American story, not propaganda, but the story, journalistically. It's a very complicated country, if you haven't noticed. 333 million people and all the levels and layers of faith and race and crime and justice and all these things. But it's an interesting country, and there's a way to tell it both accurately and honestly with some measure of respect and affection. So that's one point. The second thing that we do is we cover human rights and governance and civil society issues. Third thing we do is offer audiences an alternative to what the Russians and the Chinese and the Iranians do. So those are the three things. And then I'm just going to take the liberty of saying, because I mentioned truth before, do you know who Vaclav Havel was? Right. Playwright, dissident, president of the first Free Czechoslovakia in 1995. And five years in change in prison. He had this wonderful phrase. He said, always be seeking truth and beware of those who claim they found it. That was kind of interesting, you know, for politics and for journalism.
Jeffrey Gedmin: So we're not trying to teach people, sermonize to people, impose on people. My own view is it doesn't work, actually, as a practical matter. And most people in most countries around the world don't want to be dictated to. They want choice and opportunity to make their own judgments. So, broadly speaking, I suppose it's a mission that's that's educating, but not in an imposing or I would say condescending or a dictating sort of way. It's a journalistic organization. Members of Congress, they fund this. They always ask me, how are you moving the needle this quarter? I said, well, we don't. I know you want that. You know, someone said to me, you know this phrase, it's popular. Where does it come from? I don't know if it if it can't be counted, it doesn't count. Well, that can't possibly be true. You know who wants to live that kind of life or in that kind of nation or society. So this is journalism with a compass. Journalism with a purpose. And it's all the long term stuff. It's investment. So who else? What else? Yes, sir.
Timothy Bang : Once again, I'm Timothy Bang. I'm in a third year at Yale College. I really appreciate you sharing about your background myself. I went to music school for two years, quit it, joined the military. I was an Arabic linguist for the US military and I came back to school here. But over the last year, I felt the most disconnect I've ever had with the undergraduate student population, nationwide, particularly in their response to what happened in October 7th. I was wondering if you had any perspective on, like, what role, even, like, media or social media would play in, especially because these were peers that, you know, I respected. I thought that were very smart, but at the same time, it was the first time where I really felt such an ideological kind of divide or difference, you know, between their perspective. So I was wondering if you had any perspective of like how like maybe like TikTok or like maybe modern media might be playing a role if you had any perspective on that.
Jeffrey Gedmin: So, so I have an observation that I ask the table a question. So the observation is obviously technology and social media are driving lots and lots of things in our political discourse and perceptions. And as you know as well as I, the good news about the advent of these new technologies is everybody has a voice. The bad news is everybody has a voice. Okay. And what we used to call considered opinion is this dinosaur or this ancient thing considered opinion because now instant opinion is just so. I mean, I see social media and still on cable television anyway, people I know who know less than I do. And three minutes after X, the fed adjusts interest rates. They're pining on what it actually means. I say you don't know what it means. We had dinner last night. You're not a financial journalist or economist. I should do that show. And you're doing it three minutes. Well, it means three things, John, and here's why. So the rush to instant opinion and the democratization, where we're less and less discerning and everybody's weighing in. Here's my question at the table to you all, for you all, and generationally so Israel, the United States, how is it that suddenly I think I can't quantify it, but more and more younger people, 20 something, 30 something, maybe early 40 something.
Jeffrey Gedmin: See, it's not new, but it seems to me accentuated that Israel is the perpetrator that violence against Israel has to be understood, it's rationalized, it's minimized that the narratives get flipped. Because, in my view, what happened on October 7th was inarguably an attack by forces that had genocidal intent, intent and genocidal method, and that suddenly that's been twisted entirely to a reverse narrative. There are seeds of this over years and years, but it strikes me that in the United States of America, more and more younger people now adopt and promote the view that Israel is an imperialist, colonialist, Oppressor state and a violator of human rights. Am I right that it's actually worse than it was 5 or 10 years ago? And if I'm right, what happened? And how did we get here? You said yes. Who said yes? I said, well, then explain why. How so? If you think that's right.
Yam Bitton : Okay. For me, the short answer is anti-Semitism and the long.
Jeffrey Gedmin: I don't think the mic is on, actually. What?
Toby Hecht: It's actually not on.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: It's not amplifying. It's just recording. So you speak up and stand up, please. Okay. Especially when you're talking about colonialism.
Yam Bitton : Well, I didn't mean. I didn't mean to speak, but. Okay. The short answer. I think it's anti-Semitism. Like it's growing. And for me, the long answer I think people don't really have, like, their own point of view of things. They just see something online and they share. And this is their opinion now. So that's it.
Timothy Bang : You know, we were talking, actually, over dinner. Oh, sorry. We were talking over dinner. And I did have one just unwarranted, like, just observation. And it's nothing I fleshed out completely, but I felt that in youth, especially in the younger youth, they might, in America in particular, especially in these academic institutions, there tend to be higher achieving, very ambitious individuals. And I felt like we could almost feel like they are always looking to find something to put their like young energy behind, you know, whatever movement it might be. And for them the first one it happened to be, what happened? And, anyways.
Jeffrey Gedmin: Anybody else on that? Yes.
Betty Kubovy-Weiss: I'm going to be an annoying philosophy major for a second and say that I read Husserl's Crisis of Man for a class this morning, and we were discussing it, and I was just, it seems so prescient and like, relevant for this current moment that you're talking about. And he argues that, you know, all of Europe's problems in the 1930s have come from this, straying away from rationality and hearing you talk about, you know, this like dissipation of truth and people having, you know, being soil that's ready to hear this kind of irrational dialogue. I'm just wondering, I don't need you to give a lecture about Husserl, but just sort of these same ideas about, you know, how we strain from rationality and what you know, how you think that this kind of thing could be remedied. And then also, yeah, just following up on the strands of kind of your perspective on perhaps even the similarities between the current state of things now and perhaps like 1930s esque state of things. That's a lot of questions, but would love to hear your thoughts.
Jeffrey Gedmin: So, so let me, let me take 19-30 second. And let me ask you another question. Each of these countries are different, but across the West, the liberal democracies. Do you have the sense that some people or some parts of our societies are growing tired of liberalism? I don't mean Democratic Party, but liberalism. And that that in a search for what, you know, place, community, purpose, identity, they're finding refuge in all sorts of new authoritarian form. I mean, why is it? I'm going to name some people, they're different. Okay. I'm going to suggest that they're cut from a somewhat similar cloth. Vladimir Putin, Turkish leader, Erdogan. You're going to say Donald Trump. Might even say Bibi Netanyahu. They're all men, by the way. Viktor Orban in Hungary, they're all men. They're all. You can fuss with the language, but they're all consolidators of power. Politicians are always egotistical, but these men tend toward a kind of narcissism, I believe different. I'm going to say similar cloth. And yet, in each and every case, they do have followers. You know, they're not operating in a vacuum. They have people who connect with whom they resonate. So my question to the table is are some are more and more people across Western societies, from Israel to France to Germany to the United States, tiring of liberalism and the search for purpose and meaning, finding refuge in new forms of authoritarianism. People talk about Viktor Orban in Hungary all the time, for example. Orban is a problem, but what about the people who vote for him? I mean, people actually vote for him and support him. They're not in Budapest, by the way. They're in the rural districts. They think Budapest is filled with cosmopolitan, condescending elites, is not all wrong, but it's interesting. So could someone speak to that? Yes, we are speaking all the time.
Timothy Bang : I'm so sorry. I will give up this mic. We'll take it away. Please take it away.
Jeffrey Gedmin: You have 10 seconds.
Timothy Bang : Oh, yes. Absolutely. I was going to say, I actually think that you really alluded to that by mentioning disenfranchisement.
Jeffrey Gedmin: You're on second nine.
Timothy Bang : Oh, sorry.
Jeffrey Gedmin: You have one second left.
Timothy Bang : Essentially, I feel like it's a natural process that happens when a vacuum is formed and people are seeking power, and people themselves aren't even aware that they're giving away their liberalist ideals. They're just finding ways to attach themselves to something different and new.
Jeffrey Gedmin: Plausible. Who else wants to speak to that who hasn't spoken? Oh. Down here.
Shay Shimonov : So my name is Shay Shimonov. I'm an applied math PhD student here, and I have like, a few questions that kind of relate to what you said. And they are all in the same theme. So my first is more and some of them are a bit controversial. So the first is just the background. It seems like you come from a very eclectic background, knowing Europe and the US and now the Arab world, which has come, which like Europe kind of moved in order for the US to rise. The old world, like the new democracy and now the more fundamentalist fundamentalism approach that is now clashing in a way. And I would love to hear your thoughts on it. And you can also you're said to be like, basically, your work right now is to market the democracy in a way, in the Middle East. So also kind of relating to October 7th, there is a belief that most of the people want democracy. They care about their children, they care about their life, basically. And they don't want with the government's regime. Do you think it's the case? Because if you are marketing people who want democracy, probably your work is pretty easy. But if these people don't believe in these ideas, it's something else.
Shay Shimonov : And another thing that is kind of occurred to me while we were speaking is that there's a lot of tension right now in the idea of democracy and the fact that everyone has an equal stake in the future of the country now is kind of a challenge because of globalism or because like before, it was people with similar ideas. They founded a country and they were kind of like minded. And now in Europe, maybe it's because of immigration in Israel. Maybe it's because because of religion. Like for example, there is a person who never went to the army who is commanding the war, was sitting in jail and commanding the police forces. And maybe democracy is not the best way. Maybe, maybe like you have a credit score in the bank to get a loan. Your past means something when you want to make a to take a loan or to make a decision. So I would love to hear your thoughts on that situation right now, and if it says something about democracy and specifically the climate in the Middle East of trying to push democracy towards people that not necessarily wanting. Yeah.
Jeffrey Gedmin: So fair question. So I'm not pushing democracy on anybody. Me personally, I believe in democracy. I believe in accountable government and rule of law and checks and balances with all its imperfections. But I am a big believer in democracy. In the Middle East, you would know as well as I, it's complicated. Let me switch for a second to the colleague who comes from Ukraine. Russia today. It's not always popular in all circles to say this, but I don't think a majority of the Russian population today is interested or receptive to democracy. I don't think it's a genetic thing, actually. But I do think it's a cultural thing. And I think there are reasons, deep and complex, but it's a fact that far too many people in Russia, like Putin, like Putinism, and like the war in Ukraine, it's shocking, it's jarring, it's bitter. But I think it's true. If Putin dropped dead tomorrow. I don't think we have free elections and, you know, peace and flowers and all that sort of thing. So hold that thought. In the Middle East for reasons of I don't think it's a genetic thing, but for reasons of history and culture and practice, I don't think that many populations there are receptive to my definition of democracy.
Jeffrey Gedmin: And in fact, if you look historically, democracy is really hard. It's institutions, it's systems, it's processes, it's habits, it's values, it's behaviors. For us Americans, we can be a little bit self-critical. Democracy depends on things like accepting the result of elections, you know, joining the loyal opposition. You know, these are habits and values that are really central. And they can erode and they can atrophy. And it takes a tremendous amount of work. Me pathological optimist. I would like to think that there is a constituency. I can't tell you how large country by country, but there's a constituency for more pluralism, more tolerance, more respect for diversity. And wherever that constituency is, I would like to support it and help grow it. Two. You didn't say Germany in the 1930s, but 1930s Germany comes to mind. So you know this quote from Mark Twain. Mark Twain said, history doesn't repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme a lot of the time. And, you know, there are rhymes today just rhymes. But, you know, Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, it was again this unfortunate confluence of factors, economic woes, grievance, issues of identity, exploitation by effective demagogues and also watch American and European politics and maybe Israel too.
Jeffrey Gedmin: Incredible fragmentation and sectarianism. Everybody says about America, we're so polarized. That doesn't do justice to it. This is not just a red state blue state issue any longer. Things are fragmenting, I think. Things are going more and more sectarian. What does that mean? Think about it for American politics when Liz Cheney, you know who she is, and her father, Dick Cheney, knew who he is, and you know how they've weighed in on this election. And you know what it means in the Republican Party, by the way, I'm a conservative person. I'm not a liberal left person. You know, it means the Republican Party. It means nothing. It means absolutely nothing. It has absolutely zero influence. So what I want to say with that is like the 1930s, there's grievance, there's demagogic exploitation, and there's suddenly this fragmentation and growing sectarianism. Even small countries like the Netherlands, you know how many parties they have in their parliament? 17. So democratic. Everybody has a voice. Wait until it stops functioning and people say it's not functioning. We need one party. I exaggerate, except we've been there before. What else? You all. Yes, sir.
Graeme Mason: I'd like advice. So. Okay, I'd like advice. I'm a researcher, so my go to position is to try to use logic and convince people. And a week or so ago, two weeks ago, I was lamenting to one of my colleagues that as far as antisemitism or perspectives on Israel, I haven't been able to convince anybody. I feel like I we go through the exercise and I'm making progress, and when I'm just about there, they say, well, it's terrible. That the Jews are this or Jews that. So obviously I'm doing the wrong approach. And through your experience with broadcast, maybe one on one, is different from when you're trying to reach whole populations. But do you have any guidance for trying to change people's perspectives?
Jeffrey Gedmin: Good heavens. I don't, I really don't. I'll tell you, I experienced the same thing. And I'll tell you in my this is also bad. It's unhealthy. I start to self-censor myself. So we had dinner recently with neighbors and it got into Gaza and it was a disastrous dinner. It was an absolute disaster because the perspectives were so widely varied. And then I was hearing from neighbors, this is in Washington, D.C. and educated and international, and everybody's been abroad and all that sort of thing. I was hearing that Israel was guilty of mass murder, that Palestinians were victims. That this was a horror unprecedented. And at one point I said, so I failed. I said, well, you ought to come to Middle East broadcasting networks. Everybody's working for me. Comes from the region. And I'm not saying they love Israel. Don't don't worry about that. They have plenty of quarrels with Israel. But they do not share this view. And then these neighbors said, haven't you watched the television and seen the pictures? And then when I hear that, the conversation is over, what am I going to do? Well, here are the three reasons why the pictures you're looking at aren't fully so I don't know. It's back to the narratives, these deeply, deeply entrenched narratives that then and of course they think that about us.
Jeffrey Gedmin: Look at me. Us and them. But anyway. Well, you know, he's just a mouthpiece for Israel or whatever that is. Probably. But the narratives are so entrenched, I don't know how you move people, I don't. I'll tell you one thing I did. I'm not Jewish or Israeli, by the way. Can I still stay? Where? I was raised Roman Catholic. When I was running an institute. When I was running this institute in Berlin, I did this program, if I may say, it was very good. I took young German journalist, 20 something, 30 something to Israel for a week, 3 or 4 times a year. And you know what we did? We just went to Israel and we went into politics and technology and culture and culinary and the diversity and richness and volatility that is Israel, because lo and behold, many European journalists, lo and behold, they think that Israel is a tank with a little kid with a slingshot. I mean, it sounds ridiculous, and I overstayed a little bit for a fact. And then I had one person say to me in Tel Aviv, a German journalist from Der Spiegel, 30 years old, she says, oh my God, you could take holiday here. How about that? It's almost like a normal country, you know, almost. You can eat a salad here too, you know.
Jeffrey Gedmin: And look, that person smiled. Amazing, by the way. Also, I did conference in Israel back to with Arab participants. I did a conference, one in Israel, did a two part conference, Tel Aviv and Amman, and I had an Egyptian, young Egyptian academic, 29 years old, who in a cafe at the last night of the conference. I guess I do have some of an answer, but it's really long term. 29 year old female academic from Cairo. And first she told me that before she left, the security services came. This is not Iran, by the way. It's Egypt. Peace treaty, in some fashion with Israel said security services came and interviewed me before my trip. They said they would require a debrief after my trip, and I had family members scolding me and even denouncing me for even going to Israel. And there she is. You know, in Israel, after a three day conference with tears in her eyes, she's saying, oh my God, it looks so normal and inviting. I had no idea growing up in my family, my country, my system, my culture. So somehow it has to be the long game of what bringing, showing, telling, investing. But I have to say, it hasn't worked well yet, has it? I mean, I don't know, why are we where we are?
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Graeme Mason: I'd like advice. I'm a researcher, so my go to position is to try to use logic and convince people. And a week or so ago, two weeks ago, I was lamenting to one of my colleagues that as far as antisemitism or perspectives on Israel, I haven't been able to convince anybody. I feel like I we go through the exercise and I'm making progress, and when I'm just about there, they say, well, it's terrible. That the Jews are this or Jews that. So obviously I'm doing the wrong approach. And through your experience with broadcast, maybe one on one, is different from when you're trying to reach whole populations. But do you have any guidance for trying to change people's perspectives?
Keren Mozes: Do you think Israel can do something different?
Jeffrey Gedmin: Can Israel do something different? Good question. Let me think about it. Do you think Israel can do something different?
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: You're asking the victim to apologize?
Keren Mozes: No. I think we're trying to.
Shahar Hershkovich: Find a solution. I don't think it's a matter of victim or a matter of asking. We're trying to find a solution because we are the liberal ones. We're the ones that. At least that's how we perceive ourselves.
Jeffrey Gedmin: Yeah.
Shahar Hershkovich: We're liberals. Live and let live. You do you. I'll do me. All good?
Jeffrey Gedmin: Yeah.
Shahar Hershkovich: And we keep encountering the the other side. And I'm from the left wing of the country I believe is if again, very liberal. And one of the things that was in my face and in October was that even if you provide some kind of an environment and you try to live and try to let live again, and there are discussions about what extent it really happened, but I think it did happen to a large extent, and there is no real separation that happens. We are stuck, head against the wall, trying to do something, trying to get away, trying to live our lives.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: So, Jeff, would you mind if I maybe try to answer the question because the question we're asking is, can Israel do something different? And I think it's a great question. I'm also liberal, by the way. And I want to answer the question by first asking a question as I'm also a rabbi. My question to you would be your organization that broadcasts to the Middle East, I have to assume is an outgrowth of an organization which was Radio Free Europe during the Cold War and the Cold War, America was broadcasting to people living in communist countries to essentially tell the story of what it was like in the West: capitalism, freedom, free markets, etc. And to tell them there was another there was there was another, there was an alternative to life in Russia standing online for a week to get some bread. You come into a supermarket in America and you know, you pull the Cheerios and the, you know, the chocolate bars off the shelf. Now, communism lasted from 1917 until 89, 1991. So approximately 50 something years, right? And then in one day, it just collapsed. 70 years. Thank you. So it just collapsed. It imploded, essentially. Now you go to an Islamic world, which is not a political structure. It's a religious. It's really religious. You're talking about 21 countries in the Middle East that are Islamic countries of some sort, 20 maybe Arabic ones, and one Iran, an Islamic country.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: And you're broadcasting to that world. And Islam is, you know, from the seventh century. So it goes back quite a way. And we're asking ourselves, can we reconcile with that world? Right. So the argument is, well, there's been peace with this country and that country and the Abraham Accords, and there's some trade and. We need, I think, to answer your question, to zoom in on this distinction between broadcasting to communists and broadcasting to people who live in the Islamic world. We, being the West, or Jews or Israelis, have principles and values. You want to be able to surf on Yom Kippur in Tel Aviv, in a Jewish state, and not get hit over the head by a rabbi. Right? You want to be able to travel on a bus in Tel Aviv on the Sabbath. And you expect that in an Israeli Jewish democracy, democratic country, we're going to live together and we're going to treat our Arab population with equal rights and equal votes. That's what we ideally all most of us, 90, 80, 90% of Jews believe in that ideal state of Israel. And we assume and we we almost want to force those principles and values on a world that actually doesn't believe in those things. They just don't. Most of these regimes don't believe, and I salute you for what you're doing.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: And it's an unbelievable institution, which is why we invited you to speak here tonight. If there's one thing October 7th taught us in the West, and if there's one thing October 7th taught us as Israelis, I'm not an Israeli. I'm a sixth generation American, but I'm a Jew and it is the promised land for the Jewish people is. And the one thing that we liberals, quote unquote, need to wake up and smell the coffee is you're trying to impose something on people that don't don't really believe in the same things. They don't believe in the same values that we believe in. And if you haven't woken up on October 7th, you're still in a delusion. I mean, it's so black and white. It's so in front of us that the people who worked in the gardens of the kibbutzim from Gaza came back to slaughter the people in those kibbutzim. Men, women, children in ovens and raped them and slaughtered them. That the people that allegedly the leftists, the secular Israeli kibbutzim, the socialists of Israel, who had been since Oslo, dreaming of some dream, some utopian messianic era. Im a Chabadnik I believe in Moshiach. We attached ourselves to a messianic notion that we are going to live in peace while they, for a decade and more, have been digging tunnels to wage war and slaughter the people they were talking to.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: I mean, this is what has happened. I'm going to finish, I promise. This is what has happened to us. We're so shocked. We're so shocked because it means we've been living a lie and people don't like to admit to the fact that we've lived a lie. It's very difficult. It actually offends our egos. It offends our egos, and we love peace so much. As Jews, because that's what we've been taught every single day in our prayers religious, secular, Passover, Hanukkah, Purim. It's what we brought to the world as a distinct nation. Not apologizing for being a chosen people, a chosen people that are supposed to teach the world peace. And so we got so hit on the head that we've lived a lie, that we don't want to admit it because to admit it, to actually admit today as Westerners and as an Israelis and, and or as Jews, that there is a segment of the world's population that has zero interest in what you're talking about, dismantles our Weltanschauung. It totally disrupts it and it destroys it. And you can trade and you can sell and you can buy, and you can travel to those countries. And you can sleep. You can sleep with them. You can date them and sleep with them and have kids with them and do business with them and and have joint ventures with them.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: But if you haven't woken up to the notion that there's a big divide, there's a big divide in the world today. And we have to we have to declare, we have to come to terms with it. We have to declare it. Frankly, a lot of it has to be destroyed in order for there to be a world order. It just has to be utterly destroyed. People who put babies in ovens have no place in human civilization. They just don't. People who send rockets to playgrounds consciously, constantly and trained thousands of people to do that as a civilization, literally as a civilization, whether they're in Gaza or they're in Lebanon or they're in Tehran, or they're marching on the streets in 21 countries promoting those convictions and promoting those policies. We haven't seen demonstrations in any Arab country, not one. I mean, have you seen a demonstration in a Muslim country anywhere in the world against October 7th? So when you start seeing those demonstrations and when you start seeing a mass world outcry from the Islamic world for peace, the way you see it from the Jewish people, the way you see it from some European countries that are still sane and from the United States, then you can have a conversation. And until then, I just hope that we have woken up to the reality. I salute you for a task that I think is going to be a lot more difficult than 1989 or 1991, where the wall just came down and all that broadcasting, in retrospect, had been so, so, so important because people realized it was on eggshells to begin with.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: It didn't have a third leg. In your case, you're going to have to figure out what speaks to a people who for since the seventh century have taught generations of people a very different narrative about the world order and about people that are not like them, and what that message is going to have to be. And you said you don't want to indoctrinate, which I respect, and you don't want to be condescending and we don't want to push. You know, we failed in Iraq. We failed in a lot of countries. We don't want to push America in, how to wake up the Islamic world and the Arabic world to coexistence with the West and everything the West has contributed, is Herculean. And you say long term, I agree. It has to be long term. Because it's a full flip. It's a full turnover of the way people think in a civilization about the world. They have not come out of the dark ages. Let's just call it what it is. I mean, when is the last time we bought a computer, a piece of software, a freaking light bulb, a piece of medicine? I mean, anything, frankly, other than oil from that region of the world.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: I mean, and so what does that tell us about what we're dealing with, what we're dealing with. And I respect their right to go to mosques and to pray and to be religious and to worship Muhammad and to go to Mecca, just like I want to go to my shul, my synagogue, and my temple every single day. And I hope Christians want to go to their churches and Catholics to theirs, and Mormons to those. But the extent to which we can sit down and reconcile with a civilization like that is this is it, October 7th told it to us. And the more we want to go back to the old narratives and try to push it again and push it again and push it again, you know what they're going to do? They're coming back. They're not going anywhere. So thank you. And thank you for being a liberal. And thank you for being here tonight. And I know that Isaac Gilmore, who fought for the US military for many years and in the Marine Corps, right, Seal, Navy Seal, who's visiting us tonight and spoke here once a couple of months ago has something to say, so I'll let you take it from there. Guys. Stand up.
Isaac Gilmore: Well, now I have a huge tie in. Or at least I got to make one up. Thank you again for, you know, being here. And I really appreciate what you're doing. And there's a question I have for you based on something I'm embarking on, when I get to the end of this. But as Rabbi Shmully was just going on a bit of a rant, a beautiful one there. I think there's a corollary to some of the other questions that were proffered tonight around where the West is. And just for some context, I was in the Seal teams from right after 9/11 till 2011, and I've worked in a lot of different industries, but some other aspects of my experience that that have weight here is in 2015 to 16, myself as a private individual with an Israeli, did a deal with the Emirati government to go after al Qaeda in Yemen to keep them from what the Houthis were doing. And the reason there was need for us was the, I think, misplaced compassion for the Houthis based on Saudi's behavior, allowed the Houthis to be intact, a vacuum to be created in southern Yemen that Al Qaida was kind of slipped into. The really neat part about that experience was our broker was a former head of security for Yasser Arafat, who was exiled by Mahmoud Abbas because he probably could have wrangled Hamas a little bit. And at that moment, Sisi, Israel, Bahrain, a couple other countries would have actually liked to have seen him as president of Palestine. And where this comes back to media and sentiment is much like the Abraham Accords, because they happen under Trump and because of how easy it is to disdain him.
Isaac Gilmore: Most people, especially on the liberal side in the US, don't know what the Abraham Accords are. And BBC did a documentary on what we did recently, an Israeli, a Palestinian, an American working with an Arab monarchy against al Qaeda. And the BBC was big, bad Americans go kill poor Yemenis. That's shallow when there is so much depth to be had. And in the tie in to understanding where the world is and the Islamic world is in kind of their life cycle, and the lack of separation of church and state, so to speak, where there are no really secular laws. And it's very hard to install democracy when you do have the will and the authority of the imams, a refusal to understand that, the denial, I think, that exists somewhat in Israel is also the dissonance we have in the US and the West at large, in the belief that this veneer that we've created just magically continues on its own. And I'm incredibly optimistic for the future of the West. I see where we are as kind of a natural step. If you create self-determination and an intentionally non-homogenous nation and give it 250 years, human nature is to bracket, we're going to find ourselves with self-obsession and all the corresponding lack of purpose and community that comes with that, which then leaves people vulnerable to literally just, you know, go on their Instagram and it's George Floyd, it's Ukraine, it's Palestine, with not much further thought. But I think that having more concrete conversation, this goes to my question for you.
Isaac Gilmore: I spent a huge amount of the summer, just as friends with the Kennedy campaign and seeing the lack of media attention actually blackout to include cutting livestreams off in the middle of discussions and the blockade within ballot access that's made it nearly impossible for the average person to get a clear picture of what's going on in our world. And for my part, my question is to you, after just kind of sharing my perspectives, it led me and I was in DC and so I worked a lot in psychedelic medicine policy, mental health in general. And I had this, I don't think I've told Shmully this yet. I had this evening where I was on the hill with a bunch of other special operations guys, our philanthropic backers, senators, congressmen kind of doing that dance. And that evening I went and talked to a bunch of really ghetto kids at a bar around the corner from my house, and I talked to a guy who had only been in our country from Eritrea for like six months. And what I'm embarking on is I'm going to spend seven months going to every state in the lower 48 by driving, and then to Alaska and Hawaii at the end of it, and release a documentary to stand outside of the bias of traditional media and the algorithmic echo chamber of social media. So my question for you is one off the cuff, and hopefully I can get your information and get some more later. What would you want to know if you could go face to face in different demographics within the US? What questions would be most important to you to ask?