149: Patriotism is too important to leave to extremists, with Prof. Alex Yakobson

Hi everybody, welcome to new episode of Aschavi of Anything. Today I have the privilege and honor of hosting one of my teachers, one of Israel's most interesting public intellectuals, Professor Alexander Jakobsson of Hebrew University. He's on the podcast for the third time, I think it was episode 8 and 118. This time we're going to focus exclusively on your questions. This is something we're continuing. We did this with Van Jones and we're going to keep doing it going forward. Subscribers, send in questions. We put those questions to the expert, to the guest. You sent in many, many dozens of wonderful questions. Thank you for that. We're going to drill down on a few. Let's get started. Professor Jakobsson is a professor in the Department of History at Hebrew University. He's a scholar of democracy, popular politics, public opinion, elections in the ancient world and today, Professor Jakobsson researches the themes of democracy, national identity, nation states, the rights of national minorities in Israel, in Western democracies. He co-authored a book on the subject with the late great Amnon Lubensstein, Israel and the family of nations, the Jewish nation state and human rights. He was published in Hebrew in 2003, in English in 2008, and many, many people who have listened to this podcast have heard me recommend that book several dozens of times. So let's get into it. Before we do, I just want to tell you, we have a sponsor for this episode, repeat sponsor for whom we are very grateful. This episode is sponsored by David Alush in honor of his dear friends, Ezra and Michelle Shama, for their enduring friendship and unconditional support throughout the years, as well as the memory of his late father, Abraham Ben Chaim, who passed away on the 25th of Elul in 2023, and his mother Salasim Khan, who passed away on the 6th of Adal 2025. Thank you so much, David. Really appreciate that dedication. I'd love to invite all of you also to join our Patreon, subscribe to our sub-stack. You ask the questions that I'm going to be posing here today to Alex and to our many experts when we do these episodes, you also get to take part in our monthly live streams where I answer your questions live. That's at patreon.com/as-chaviv-anything or-chaviv-gour.substack.com. Those links are in the show notes. Alex, how are you? Thank you. Glad to be here. Our first question comes from subscriber Joe. And Joe writes, Professor Jakobson. In episode 118 from May, 2026, you discussed the Arab's missed opportunities. In rejecting the 1947 UN partition plan and even the Minority Unscop plan, both of which provided for a Jewish state, we should just refresh people's memories. The minority opinion of the Unscop report was not two equal states, but in fact, a kind of federated state with no Jewish immigration. In other words, a permanent Arab majority state. And that was rejected in principle by the Arab states negotiating or dealing with Unscop at the UN. In hindsight, the rejections appear to be immense blunders, but at the time Joe says, from the Arab perspective, there was no chance they would agree that any proposal that allowed for Jewish sovereignty of any kind. Because one, their religion and culture forbade it. They spoke about that very explicitly and constantly in Arabic and even at the UN. And two, there was a consensus shared by the Americans, the Arabs, many other international observers that the creation of a Jewish state would provoke a war which the Jews would lose. Under these circumstances, if there was a war, the Arabs would win it. If Arab leaders had acquiesced to a Jewish state, how could they have explained the decision to their constituents? The Arab's rejection of partition was inevitable. Was there even a political capacity to have chosen any other path for them at the time? Well, you know, when one says, as one often does, that the Palestinians, or especially this is Abba Evans for a famous dictum, the Palestinians never miss an opportunity, a to miss an opportunity and if he meant first of all the rejection of the partition, when one says that they missed an opportunity, it means they missed an opportunity to have peace and unreasonable terms from their viewpoint, not that they missed an opportunity to go to start a war in the hope that they would win it. Of course, they hoped they would win if they expected to, and nobody starts a war expecting to lose it. Everyone who starts a war always assumes that they will win it and one of the bad things about wars is that you never know what happens, it's not the result, it's not tailor-made for you when you start it, but it is true that any Arab, I think with the Palestinian leadership there was never any chance that they would accept it, the Egyptians hesitated. There was internal opposition within the Egyptian government on that, and of course the king of Jordan famously hesitated until the last moment he was pressured into it by the Arab League. Can you tell us that story fleshed out? Some of our listeners will know the extent of Arab rejection, it wasn't literally just rejection of giving the land to the Jews, it was rejection of a small minority Jewish polity within an Arab Federation, that's what they rejected as well. But the UN report, the UN Commission that investigated the case, recommended partition by a majority, two states for two peoples, a Jewish state in an Arab state, giving independence to both peoples, whereas there was a minority report supported by Yugoslavia, India, and I don't know, I forgot whom. That recommended the federation, an Arab Jewish federation, whether or not. I think it was Iran. Iran was the third. Iran, okay, the federal government would control immigration, which is, of course, obvious with the result of it is that there would be no measure of immigration. They rejected that, the Arabs, the Arabs meaning the Palestinian Arab leadership, the Arab higher committee of Palestine, with the added by the Mofti, but also all the Arab governments. Now they rejected that and they insisted, they basically accepted that they accepted in principle that the Palestinian Arabs should decide, it's their issue, they are cause. And the Palestinian Arab cause was then that we had the, what we demand is a unitary Arab state in the whole of Palestine. That was nothing less, everything other than that was an act of aggression that they said explicitly, they would fight it. Any kind of dismemberment or any kind of giving a minority privileges, that was, they called a federal state giving a minority, meaning Jews, privileges, a privileged position. And also a minority that is consists of the legal immigrants and so on. In any case, I rejected, now it is true, of course, that it was objectively very difficult for any Aleppo leadership in '47 to accept any kind of a national compromise over the question of Palestine. But you know, they were, of course, they bore very heavy responsibility for the fact that it was difficult for them to accept it because suddenly they had done nothing to prepare, they are public opinion for any possibility of any kind of a compromise with the Jews. They did not recognize that, of course, the Jews has a legitimate side with which you are seeking a compromise and you want to compromise, which is as good as a convenient for you as possible. And so the Palestinian-Europe leadership totally rejected, of course, both those propositions and the Arab countries who went along with it, they diplomatically, they were very loyal to the Palestinian cause. In fact, they were quite probably with, if they were able to destroy the Jewish state, to put an end to the Jewish state, they would, you know, you never know whether they would have been allowed a Palestinian state or maybe they would have partitioned at the Jordanian. The trans-Jordanians took over then the West Bank and the Egyptians never annexed the Gaza strip. They kept it for the future Palestine, but they, so in any case, nobody, as we all recall, nobody thought of establishing a Palestinian state over those territories. By the way, we could have done it even without recognizing the state of Israel. I thought it would not diplomatically, you could say, we are now establishing a Palestinian state and it will deal with the question later, you know, by diplomatic or by other means. That was also a possible, a possible solution, but of course, the Jordanians wanted it to themselves, I annexed it formally. Now, we go back to the question of misopportunities. The Palestinian leadership, if there was never any chance that it would accept anything, short of what they were demanding a unitary Arab state in the whole of Palestine, they rejected a binational option, just as they rejected an option of two states for two peoples. And in fact, after the war of dependence in Gaza, in Egyptian occupied Gaza strip, there was, they formed the government of all Palestine, of the whole of Palestine, the all Palestinian government, which is whose name tells you what they thought about their day of partition. that was headed by Mr. Khadja Minal Khousai. at the same of the old Jules, so what? So that was two, two, two follow ups. One, the reason the Palestinian leadership, specifically the Husaynis, specifically Khadjamin al-Husayni rejected in principle the idea of any kind of a federated state in which Jews can't come in when there's still only 600,000 of them, and their birth rate is far lower, and all the DPs in your stuck in Europe still have to find some other place. And that's a grade two by the UN, meaning it's agreed to by the Soviets and the Americans and the British and the French and everybody else. The people holding a quarter million Jewish refugees in Europe, right? And it's agreed to by the Arabs, so presumably the Iraqis won't then begin a mass complete total expulsion of their Jews. They, that's a Palestinian Arab Muslim state. And that was, they're not stupid, they know this. And yet Khadjamin said, the only Jews, I actually want to create a larger refugee problem. I want to expel 600,000 Jews. The only Jews who can remain are the ones who were here before 1914 or during Ottoman times. - It didn't exist. - What is that? That's religious, right? There was no motive like that. There was some Christian Palestinians who it was about nationalism for them. But for Khadjamin, it was a solid fist. It was Islamist, it was Palestine is, it was Iraq and Jews can't be allowed to push Islam back and all of that stuff, right? - They happily combined the Islamic rhetoric and the Arab Nationalist rhetoric, which they certainly used. And probably believed it, why not? There is no, there is no context. It's just a theoretical contradiction. Why wouldn't the Arab Nationalism be also Muslim? And why not? It was both, they certainly used Islamic rhetoric and they would have established, of course, a Muslim man on the, you know, they, you know, you are asking about this federal state, but they had rejected, Khadjamin was only had rejected. And even better British proposal in late '30s at the white paper, the thibat of infamous from Jewish point of view, white paper, which would have given them an Arab majority country without an autonomous Jewish entity within it. They just said Jews and there will be a large Jewish minority and they would, Jews and Arabs will somehow negotiate it, how would they would live together at peace, but it's just an Arab majority state, which is, of course, inevitably an Arab state and they rejected that too. By the way, they in there, they to be precise. And they did not say they would drive away all the Jews who had come. They refused to guarantee that they would, if they would not. They look, they basically thought and said, Palestine is ours. It's is our country. This Jewish immigration is foreign invasion. Jewish national home is a hostile foreign entity in the Arab and Islamic homeland. And we will fight it. And they also believed that they were there. They believed that they had a good chance to win. By the way, it's very, the question assumes, the question asks me how, how am I saying it's a missed opportunity when they had good reason to expect to win? My first answer is that an opportunity means sometimes that you give up the, you don't go to war, you go for a peace settlement, even if you don't like it, in order to avoid the war. And what the war entails and the price, the humanitarian and the national price of a war, although you will, in that situation often, might expect to win. For example, in the same year, in '47, in there was a partition of India. And you know, the Indian national movement that accepted the British proposed partition of the Indian, Raj, the Indian subcontinent between Indian Pakistan, they thought that partition was an outrageous injustice. That this is how they saw it. They thought that partitioning British India into two states, along religious lines, because the Pakistan, the Muslim League was arguing that the Muslims of the subcontinent are a nation. And the Indian, the Indian national movement refused to accept the idea of two nations, along religious lines. And that's one of the reasons why the Congress governments found it very difficult to accept the idea of Zionism, because they regarded it as nationalism and long religious lines, but never mind. They, although this idea of two nations was directly against their beliefs and their interests and what they wanted to establish. By the way, they were quite wrong, I think it was. It is very lucky for India that it was not in there and established, containing all the Muslim minority that later would become Pakistan and Bangladesh. But that just, they thought it was wrong. It was a historic injustice imposed by British imperialism. But they accepted it because they, you know, because obviously it was the only way to prevent the war and all out war. Now, very probably they might have thought that they would win this war if they went, but they didn't want to start as such a horrible thing. Now, what happened was pretty horrible, but it was much less horrible that then would have happened if there was an all-out war. These were just low conclashes with horrible results. But, you know, that is an example of a national movement that is faced with a compromise proposal. By the way, by the British Empire, rather than by the international community. That is also not an important. And believes that the proposal is unjust, but also believes that it's the only way that the accepting is the only way to prevent an all-out war and chooses a peace settlement, which of course at least reduced the number of casualties that would have resulted in if they rejected it. Now, you have a much less dramatic event. It sounds funny, but in the beginning of the 20th century, Norway quits with it. You know, there was a drama that the kingdom of Norway was ruled by the king of the Swedish king. There was a personal union between the two kingdoms. And Norwegian parliament decided they wanted a separate independent state. And you know what? There was a serious debate in Sweden about the possibility of sending troops to Norway in order to prevent this secession. As, you know, as you may remember, how America was the bridge that sent troops because these were the norms of the late 18th century. By the beginning of the 20th century, a country like Sweden discussed this possibility. By the way, the Swedish conservatives, I'm afraid, of many of them at least were in favor of that. And the Swedish Social Democratic Party opposed it and threatened the general strike. So sometimes social democrats have been right on the right side of history, historically, so. And in the end, the country of Sweden decided that it was not something worth fighting, okay. Now, of course I would have won the war. What do you think Sweden, you know? Of course I would have defeated Norway at what price, you know? We cannot even think about a Sweden Norwegian war, but Scandinavian peoples, you know, they fought each other and others very ferociously. So again, speaking of culture, now is it consistent with the Nord culture to allow a session unconstitutional, you know, violation of, loyalty to the king without fighting? While it used to be consistent with the Nordic culture to do all kinds of things in European history, there was a horror of the whole of Europe, the people, the Nordic peoples' months, you know. If you remember, the Denmark used to rule parts of England, all kinds of things, you know. By the beginning of the 20th century, it was not yet inconceivable for the Swedes to fight, but it, in the end, they decided that they wouldn't do it and they didn't do it. And so, yeah, they accepted something which they thought was, by the way, they also said that Norway was important for Sweden because it was a defense against Russia. They needed it to defend the security of the, by the way, you know, as a Russian, as someone born in Moscow, I must tell you, that this argument was not at all groundless, you know. There was nothing flimsy about this. Sounds funny, everything, but, yeah. People could have thought, could have brought themselves to the feeling that we have to fight because it's a matter of national security, not just king's power. And, but they decided not to fight because, you know, some people think that a starting war is a horrible thing. That if you have to, you know, you have to take risk, then you have to make sacrifices in order to avoid it. And, you know, and again, the Palestinian leadership never, I think that they, then existing Palestinian leadership, never, I think, gave a thought to the possibility of accepting any kind of a compromise. But the Egyptians were wondering and hesitating and they decided, a way they decided. But the only, as far as I know, the only Palestinian Arabs who were in favor of accepting partition in order to avoid the war and moreover accepting the principle of self-determination for both peoples, were the Arab communists, not all of them. before the Soviet Union. union supported partition, the Arab Communists and Palestine supported Givi, accepting the rights of Jews as a national minority. That was the most liberal, the most non-nationalistic stance. I feel a very small group. Once the Soviet Union supported partition, they, of course, accepted government Stalin's line, but that was objectively progressive on their part, because it meant they were the only group of Palestinian Arabs, who openly and courageously supported partition were persecuted by the Arab governments, and Arab Communists were, there was a detention camp in Sinai of Arab Communists from Palestine, and when the Israeli forces entered Sinai, they took it over and released those people, brought them back to, and returned them to Israel, because the Arab Communists then, but that was a very small group, that had an idea that there is something other than the national and religious motivation. Now, historically speaking, that means that the Palestinian people lost an opportunity to have a solution that is on much better terms that are now proposed by those who speak of the Palestinian State and West Bank and Gaza, because the Arab State and Palestine were supposed to be much larger than that. And also I would say, at least as good as those who are now speaking about the binational State, because they rejected the binational State, of course, now, theoretically, binational State now would have, would contain a much larger percentage of Jews than it would have been at that time, although I don't believe that if there is a real binational State in Palestine, I don't believe this percentage would remain, but that's another story. Okay, we move on to Fritz. As a 30-year-old German, I got unconsciously ingrained with a deep mistrust of national identities. It was seen as a cultural answer to the Holocaust, and even though lately I have become more aware of the weaknesses of a nation-state without an identity, I still can't completely shake the worry that rebuilding this identity will lead to the suppression of our minorities, or maybe he means the oppression of our minorities. As has happened so often in European history, so my question is, how would you alleviate this concern in me and my fellow West Europeans and what cultural aspects must an identity entail so that it doesn't lead to the blaming of its own flaws on some imagined external enemy is, you know, worried about German history, but also I think he means also an imagined internal enemy. Can modern Europe, modern Germany, specifically, where it becomes a much more painful question, reclaim national identity without falling into the traps of old? Well, first of all, it is true that there is a danger. Whenever you accept anything that is national of anything national of any kind, then there is a danger of nationalism and in the negative sense of chauvinism, of racism, of exclusion or what. It is very often, the argument is very often made by people in my view are crazy and also dishonest because their condemnation of nationalism is only confined to Western nationalism. They do not really oppose nationalism. They are very happy accepting any kind of non-European nationalism that includes all kinds of characteristics that everyone would have found outrageous, but in any case, so they are at best and realistic and very often also dishonest and biased. But that doesn't mean that the argument is wholly wrong. It is not wholly wrong. It is true that whenever you accept any kind of national anything, you know, you are on the same continuum with very nasty things, you are on the same continuum with the in the German case with Adolf Hitler. This is true. This is simply the truth. And so what is the answer to that that you do not get to that continuum? I won't, by the way, first of all, I want to recall that it is equally true, that the moment you accept anything social, any kind of not just socialism, but any kind of social state of what is in Germany is called the social market economy, the social state of welfare state, any kind of a social arrangement, you are on the same continuum, you are on the same continuum with covered Stalin and covered Paul Pot and the North Korean comrades. It is true because it's about collectivism, giving the state power to do something for the common good. And so, yeah, so there is a danger. And by the same token, I would say that the moment your post-colonial is, you are in favor of giving independence to colonial people, which is okay, not a very radical view nowadays. The moment you do that, you are in danger of ending up with something like Saddam Hussein. And it's a very real danger, by the way. And Mugabe in Zimbabwe, and there's a whole lot of people who fill that vacuum of decolonization with terrible crimes. So the argument about the continuum is, I think you should bear in, of course, if you are a German, you must, you will always bear in, you must bear in mind the danger of nationalism above all else. It is true in Germany. I think it's a very topical question nowadays, when the IFT gets a 44% in a small and East German state, but it is on its way to become a very powerful party. And the IFT is a very nasty piece of work. It is nothing like, for example, Meloli's right in Italy, which is, may have originated in, she was a fascist as a young kid, but there is nothing like a fascist now. I don't think that is it. That's a decent, that's actually decent conservative government, and there is nothing fascist about the, I think, about the Italian Prime Minister, but the, IFT is a very problematic political force. Can you tell people why there's a big debate out there about IFT? Is it just a European response to mass immigration? Is it just populist right a little bit like you see in Britain? Or is it really something much, much worse? And the Jewish community, by the way, is very, very worried about them. And the Jewish community is mainly the, most of the violence and anti-Semitism in faces in Germany is from Muslim immigrants. And they're still more worried about IFT. Why are IFT so worrying to so many people? All European parties are moving in the direction of imposing greater limits on immigration, which in practice means mostly, Muslim immigration. Not just the German Christian Democrat, but the Danish social Democrats have accepted unprecedented limitations on immigration. I'm not sure they are more, they are less hawkish than IFT. Maybe IFT is, of course. Look, when the established parties move to the right, the IFT has to move further to the right. So they are now even more radical. But it's not a question of imposing limits on immigration, which is now a very widespread tendency among conservative and even not only conservative parties. And I think historically, there was a mistake made by the liberal establishment of Europe in assuming that there was no limit to the number and the pace of immigration and the cultural gap between the great numbers of immigrants. There was no substantial limit to immigration. But that's another debate. The IFT apart from that is, of course, tainted with, there is a very strong German nationalist and the negatives and sentiment within the IFT, including, of course, the attitude to the Nazis and to the Holocaust. I don't openly look in Germany. You cannot openly say, you know, Hitler was not all bad. There were good things about Hitler. If you say that, you will go to prison. I mean, it's the German state is very straightforward about dealing with those things. So you don't save it, but there are ways of, there are ways of, of, of sending this message. And this is a message with which they are sending. How do the Germans going forward reclaim enough of their identity to have a coherent policy, to have a defense posture, vis-a-vis Putin, all of the things that they're talking about now that they need a stronger identity for, that the dismantling of identity by the elites, the universities for generations may be left them a little bit unable to handle a real world. They now want to reclaim some of that. How do they do it safely? There is a, I want to say that there is, there is a danger that I pointed to, there is a danger that one has to be aware of, of excessive nationalism or excessive, but there is also another danger that I want to stress, and, and we have to do with two dangers here, all for them some intensive. There is a danger that if the democratic force is the decent democratic forces, I perceived by the people as an. as renouncing their national identity, their culture, their history. Dismantling, you call it, dismantling of national identity by their elite. There is a danger, a very grave danger, that if this happens, this will open the way to nasty nations. This is what makes nasty mission as a "provide" really. When they left and the center, and even the moderate right, I perceive there is anti-nationalism, accepting national humiliation, as accepting a national double standard when it comes to preserving one's culture. And when you go to German history, you know, this is the Nazi movement, which presented itself as a German liberation movement, the German freedom movement. This is how it defined itself. Of course, one of its main resources, one of its main pillars, what was the ability to present the social democratic party that was the main basis of the Vimer democracy as anti-national. The social democratic party was not at all anti-national. It was patriotic. It was nothing like those who are now dismantling national identities. It was very patriotic and national, and in fact, one may argue that it had been too patriotic in supporting Germany at the beginning of the First World War. That is the far left crisis in which was not groundless, I must say. But the problem with the German social democrats under the Vimer Republic was not their attitude, but the fact that they had been forced by the victorious powers to sign a humiliating Treaty of Versailles. They were the German government at the time, and the Treaty of Versailles was imposed on Germany, and the government that had, they had seized power in a revolution. And so they were, in order to put an end to the war and to the blockade, to the siege, to the blockade, they had to put a signature in the name of the German people to the Treaty that was widely perceived as a national humiliation, as unjust and humiliating. By the way, you don't have to be a Nazi or you don't have to be a Nazi to think that the Treaty of Versailles was a unnecessary humiliation of the German people. The same argument was accepted by all the left-wing parties, by the communists and the soldiers, and by the way, it was accepted by Mr. Churchill, who was neither a fascist nor a communist, but he thought it was a good British patriot and imperialist, in fact, but he thought it was a bad idea to humiliate Germany in such a way. And he said this would foster aggressive nationalism. Of course, you can say the German people should have considered how they would have treated the Western countries if they were to win the war. It didn't take much imagining, because as a someone born in Moscow, I can tell you that the Treaty of Bresletos, which they had imposed on their undefeated refreshments, because of the postural revolution, was certainly no better than the Treaty of Versailles. I think it was worse. It was a bit more unfair. So what? People's, you know, people's. - Or these, your friends? - Yeah. When peoples believe they have, they are being mistreated. They don't like it. And they don't ask themselves complicated questions, although it is up to then intellectuals and liberal people and good Democrats to ask them this question. So that's fine. Even at the cost of antagonizing a lot of your people. But if the democratic can, that was the catastrophe of the German democracy, of the Weimar democracy, and of Europe and of the world, as we know now, that the German democracy and the main forces that were sustaining it had been tainted by having to accept something that was widely and rightly, certainly not without foundation, considered as a national humiliation and injustice to German. And so that was the huge gap. There was nothing. You cannot understand the Nazi rise to power without understanding this dynamic. So if, when. So the liberal democratic forces have to be patriotic. - I have to be patriotic. - People don't need that much patriotism, but they do need some. That's an iron law. The nation is not willing to accept anything that it regards as anti-national. So if you are playing this game or you think that you want to be on the safe side of it, then you are playing into the hands of extreme nationalists. - Would you go as far as to say the project of erasing national identity, of erasing borders, of erasing, is going to create the exact opposite in deeply unhealthy ways? - The moment it is perceived as a national political issue. It's not always immediately perceived, but when you have a skillful politician on the other side, and who will use this, it is a winning card for every populist nation, on Earth. And as far as it is, I think it's a really part of basic human nature. Now I want to go back to the history of the German, of the new, of the Federal Republic of Germany, of the modern German democracy. There is a nice thing on YouTube, you can look for it. The moment the Bundestag, the German Parliament, receives a news that the Berlin Wall is falling when the government of East Germany decides to open the borders. That's the end of the Berlin Wall, and that's the end, but in the end, that, of course, it will cause the unification of Germany. The moment they receive this piece of news, they stand up and start singing Spatenius with a national anthem. All of them, not just the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats and the Free Democrats and everyone, all the German Parliament sings the German national anthem. Now, it's worth asking about the history of this song, because if you ask where exactly the boundary passes, it's not always easy to say, because I would say the boundary passes between the different stances of the German instrument of the Federal Republic. The German national anthem, the Deutschland League, the son of the Germans, is a 19th century song calling for unification of Germany. This song was accepted as a national anthem by the Viermaier Republic, then it was the national anthem of Nazi Germany. And the first stanza of this song is Dutchman, Dutchman Uber, Uber, Uber, Uber, Uber. Germany, Germany, above all, above everything in the world. Now, it is said that the original meaning of this is nothing very sinister. It doesn't, it was not supposed to mean that Germany is above any other country, but that everyone in Germany is German first and then Bavaria next to. You know, the interpretation that suddenly became prevalent is not impossible. It is very possible when you say Uber, Uber, Uber, Uber, Uber. Of course. So you can say, throw, what do you do after you, when the Federal Republic is, when the German democracy is reestablished in the after the war and you have a post-war, a German government, you might say, throw away the song. What they, what I didn't know it, this was I didn't know it as a decision and with the present of the Republic approving. The decision was not to throw away the song, but to change the stanzas, to sink, to make the third stanza of the song. The thing that is being sung, this is what they, what they were singing in the Bundestag when the Berlin World fell. They right and they left. They were singing the third stanza of the same anthem that had solved the Vimer Republic and the Nazis and those who were fighting for German identification in the 19th century. And the third stanza says, my German, I hope my German accent, my accent in German will not provoke much anti-Semitism, but it says, "Ainichkeit und Recht und Freiheit für das Deutsche Fraterment. Unity and justice and freedom for the German Fatherland." Okay, that is the, so they, okay, there's nothing wrong with that. And this is the Ainichkeit und Recht und Freiheit. Faheheit, this is kind of a motto, national motto. This is a libertäge, lite fraternite of the German, of the Federal Republic. Now, you know, it's a very complicated thing. Of course they could have, the democratic government in West Germany as it was then. Could have decided that this song is so much tainted. Of course it had been the song, the end time of the first German democracy at the Vimer Republic. They could say we are restoring it, okay? The Nazis distorted it, but let them burn in hell, and we are going back to this honorable national song to the Entom of the Vimer Republic. Or they could have said, we are throwing the song away, we are writing a new Entom, because it was tainted by the Nazis so much that we cannot touch it. So they would have then, there was a real danger that this would be used as a card by darker forces of German nationalists. So I think that except so this was, I think this was the right decision, at least or it I don't know, it was a good idea to think, how we preserve a national tradition, despite it's to say that this song had a chuckered history as an understatement, okay, this song had a horrible history. But if you are perceived as renouncing your national tradition, you make sure that very sinister forces would put this tradition to good use, very effective political use, and it's not a good idea. Question three, we're only on three, let's move faster. Leros, I hope I'm pronouncing that name correctly. Here's my question for Professor Jakobsson. I often have joke to my friends that the US today is like Rome, circa 400 CE, we're currently a once great, if imperfect empire, but we now see evidence of our decline in our crumbling physical infrastructure, the greed and venality of our leadership, the incoherence of the electorate, in the rise of our largest peer competitor, China, as an economic juggernaut. Love to hear your thoughts on this. The analogy doesn't really hold the Roman Empire, did something that the United States is not doing since the 19th century, it conquered territories and made them part of the Roman state, and by the way, in the end, not originally, but in the end, it also gave Roman citizenship to all the peoples that it conquered, so it was kind of an empire of all its citizens a few, it was a very radical thing to the other hand, while it was very inclusive ethnically, and really, they had emperors coming from non-letting and non-Italian peoples, they had an emperor called Philip Arabus, and he was exactly as he sounds, you know, so from Syrians, and Guy from Syria, so they were very politically correct in the sense of ethnic inclusivity on the other hand, they were extremely authoritarian, authoritarian, and there was an extreme social hierarchy that they created, so there was an ethnic, ethnic and ethnic culture inclusivity, but not social inclusivity and no political freedom at all, there was no where, how did you say incoherent electorate, there was no incoherent, there was no kind of electorate elections, there was no element of political freedom, so it cannot be paired with political, with free political, with the problems and the horrible problems of free political systems, it's a completely different situation, David. As Professor Jakobsson think that it would be a good idea to introduce a right to referendum in the Israeli system, in Switzerland, for example, if 50,000 citizens were cross to referendum, within 100 days after Parliament passes a new law, the law is suspended and all citizens are called to vote on it, would it not help solve issues linked, for instance, to the judicial overhaul, politicians would need to face the public instead of pretending to know what the majority of the public wants, do you think a referendum process would be useful to the Israeli system of government? The Israeli law provides for an option of a referendum, but the Knesset has to put the question, has to decide to hold a referendum, now, whether I am in favour of what is called initiative, the right of citizens to impose a referendum, no, I'm not in favour of that, I'm not saying it's an imprincipal and not a democratic feature, but it's a, I would say that it creates chances, but also it creates dangers, mentioning Switzerland, I would recall that there was a initiative imposed from below and adopted and made part of the Swiss constitution, that Minerates are not allowed, there's an article in the Constitution of Switzerland that says Minerates are not allowed, now, you know, if the Knesset, the Israeli parliament would pass a law outlaw in Minerates, targeting a specific religion, the supreme court as long as it has the power to another legislation would annul it, now, if, you know, if, and the world would be talking about nothing else, of course, we are, of course, of course, what would say we are Nazis, of course, but, you know, whether I would like, you know, you know, if, thinking of what would be, what would pass an Israeli referendum in the wake of the 7th of October, now, where, when you have a national conflict, when you have religious and national feelings and parties that appeal to them, imposing something by popular vote is, can be dangerous, the parliament has to be responsive to people, so people use that, so I think that's a basic logic of a parliamentary system. I would say we, I would be in favor of a written Constitution, and I would probably be now in favor, in principle, I don't know it, it doesn't have much, I would be in favor of the second house, we have, where I count to 10 million people, so maybe one chamber with a 120, 120 deputies is not enough, something or complicated, I would be in favor of giving the president of the state a suspensive veto, at least a right to initiate a reconsideration of a bill, not, maybe not a real veto like that can only be overcome by two thirds, but something, I would make some arrangements, but I'm not, I don't think it's a good idea to have an initiative in this one. But Dave asks, I hope this isn't too tough of a question to answer, no such thing, but I read your book, Israel and the family of nations, and absolutely loved it and learned so much from it. My question is whether international law and European norms, which the book discusses and is really almost about, that's the topic Israel in the context of international law and European norms, have gone through changes. In regards to the subject of nation-states, laws of return, et cetera, it is a rousing and powerful and deeply convincing and very historically grounded defense of Israel. It forces you out of the categories, it forces you out of the rhetoric. That's 20 years ago. How are we doing right now? Have the actual morals and standards changed and also obviously has Israel changed? I would say that the norms in the Western world have not changed. The rhetoric has changed, I think, the rhetoric of denying the legitimacy of anything that is national or culture oriented is much louder and aggressive as we have discussed, but the actual practice of democratic states in this respect has not changed. For example, let me give you an example. There is a country called Norway, we discussed it previously. It is certainly, and if it is nothing, if this is not a liberal democracy, European-liberal democracy, there is no liberal democracy in Europe, it is also politically, very politically correct, and then it is really nowadays. But the flag of Norway still features the sign of the cross, the cross, which means that the idea that a country is a freak, a democratic country and inclusive democracy, has to be culturally neutral. And its symbols should be such that all its citizens, regardless of the ethnicity or religion, that people who are religion, must be equally close to them. Doesn't hold, doesn't exist. And this, of course, the Jewish state, the idea of the Jewish state, and all these states and bills that are Jewish, they are attacked in the name of the idea, which, you know, in principle, you can think of it, that there is a theoretically, you could say, that there is a price to the national symbols not being neutral. From the viewpoint of the ability of the different groups of communities, of citizens to identify with them and with the state, but the Norwegian state still has a cross, not just Norway, all the Northern countries, but also Britain and Greece and Switzerland. Have the cross on their flag, which is not, this is not a new high one, tell the German gentleman who was criticizing the very politely, Germans a very politely, please use to be, and he was criticizing the non-neutral character of the Jewish states, but I told him, you know, the cross, if you insist on the notion of neutrality, the cross is much more non-neutral than the star of David, because the star of David is not, it's a tradition Jewish symbol, but it's nothing from the religious point of view, it's nothing. There's no meaning at all. It is really an invention of tradition in the best of it. Cross is something very serious. And I tell them, you have no idea what it means for an observant Jew, not someone like me, but for the serious observant Jew, and perhaps for a Muslim, to salute to a flag with a cross. And I tell them, the reason why you don't know that in Europe is because a Jew is never there to tell you, but you'll be hearing from the Muslims down to it. Okay, it will come soon enough, and he changes such. Now I'm going back to Norway since the publication of our book. It is not just the cross is still on the flag, but they amended the Constitution of Norway in 2012, which is within the relevant period. And they changed the definition of the relations between the Lutheran Church and the state. And as we wrote in our book, amazingly for many people, of course, for Americans, for whom separate separation of religion state is an as an article of faith of the American civil, religious, civic religion, but there are other democracies, you know, and in some European democracies, in Norway, in Norway, the Constitution used to say that the Lutheran Church is a Church of State. They no longer save it. But when we were writing our book, we quoted the Norwegian Constitution that said that the Lutheran Church is a Church of State, which is a very flagrant violation of the supposed principle of neutrality, although the principle of equality and religious freedom was already then enshrined, of course, in the Norwegian Constitution and in practice. Since then, they amended the Constitution. They removed the definition of religion of Church of State Church, but they say no. In the Norwegian Constitution, the fresh, fresh, relatively freshly adopted as constitutions go, Norwegian Constitution, that the Lutheran Church remains the people's Church of Norway, something more fuzzy than State Church, but it's a purely symbolic statement. It doesn't give it any, any, you know, it doesn't make a Lutheran more of an Norwegian citizen and a non-Lutheran, but it says it makes a cultural and historic statement about Norwegian identity. It also says that the King shall always remain a member, the King shall always remain a member of the Lutheran Church. Now, you could say it's discrimination but the Office of King, of course, doesn't observe the rules of democracy. It has only legitimate, illegitimate because the King has no real powers. It is only legitimate because it's purely symbolic, but what it symbolizes, the provision that the King should be Lutheran is again something which is not at all state neutrality when it comes to culture and tradition. And they added an article, that says, our values remain our Christian and humanistic tradition. Our values, they didn't, they didn't used to have it, our values, our values. Think of it, what it means, for non, there are some non-Christian cities, plenty in every European country of non-Christian cities. Compare that with the Israeli nation's state law, I cannot avoid saying that, then they pass the law in trining the Jewish character of the state, which is fine, but they refuse to say anything apart from the fact that the state has Jewish, Jewish days, they repeat it a hundred times, they refuse to include the principle of civic equality in the basic law. Doesn't mean that civic equality is not part of the Israeli constitution or law, although they refuse to write it in the nation's state law. They were afraid to strengthen the supreme court, that's what they explained, or I think that's really what they were thinking, that we have a very active supreme court, and it was in that debate. The pretext was that they afraid how the supreme court might interpret the principle of equality, but the truth is that whatever the supreme court once turned to operate as a violation of the equality, it is still entitled under the present system basic laws to strike down because the supreme court has ruled that a violation of equality among ethnic clans is a violation of human dignity, and because human dignity is still a constitutional right, anything that the court rightly or wrongly, never mind, it's the arguments about judicial activism is a different argument, but they did not limit the right of the supreme court, they did not influence the interpretation, the disability to interpret rightly or wrong, what they made a symbolic step saying we don't want the non-Jewish citizens of Israel to be able to feel that the state is also theirs, and one of the, yeah, this is different, in other words, a nation stayed with an explicit religious character, even if it has minorities that don't fit that religious character in its constitution, it's still a democratic European norm, but yeah, but then say something about Israel, so Israel moved back from those standards explicitly, legally constitutionally, so the Norwegians did it the right way, the Israeli right under this government, I wouldn't say the Israeli right on the whole since the 20 years ago, but this government, the Israeli, originally much of the Israeli right supported the basic laws, including the basic laws of human dignity, and they explicitly supported judicial review or parliamentary legislation, explicitly could as a party, there is a document adopted by a liquid conference shortly after the basic laws were adopted, taking pride in the fact that human rights are now thanks to the liquid under the liquid government, basically could by the way shepherded the basic law of human dignity and liberty through the crisis, proud of it for many years, yeah, I'm not trying to write a constitution as chairman of the Knesset constitution committee, yeah, but the the liquid took pride in it, now we have a very different liquid and a very different kind of a right-wing coalition, but they have not succeeded in changing the constitutional law of the country, certainly not this thing, it is still true that anything that the Supreme Court of Israel regards as discriminating on the basis of religion and ethnicity is unconstitutional in the sense that it contradicts an existing and valid basic law because of this interpretation that ethnic discrimination is violation of human dignity, by the way, as a Jew and someone who was born in the Soviet Union, and I find it difficult to, I don't find it difficult to understand how ethnic discrimination can be construed as a violation of human dignity, I can tell you that, anti-Semitism is a violation of human dignity, so I don't find this interpretation surprise, in any case they have not, they are trying all kinds of things, you know, it's complicated, they are not, they have not changed, they have not changed the constitutional law, okay, moving on, Robert, professor, do you think that Israel should adopt or develop a constitution? Yeah, it should, but it, it's not, it has a serious of basic laws, they have to be, have to be, I think, there is a decision of the first Knesset, the first Knesset, when the state was established, they were discussing in Constitution, the Constitute Assembly, the first Knesset was elected as a Constitute Assembly, they decided not to have a Constitution, but the Constitution would be legislated step by step by a series of basic laws, I think that we should complete this process, assemble all the basic laws in a, in a single constitutional document and also decide on the way to procedures to legislate basic laws and to amend that's a complicated issue, but I think that we should have a, it is not a, you know, it is, when people say Israel lacks a Constitution, sometimes that implies much more than what reality actually consists of, because we have since early 90s, we have judicial review of legislation that violates human rights, that we have, that is, I would say, the most basic element of constitutionality in a liberal democracy, but it's not, it's not enshrined, it is controversial, it's not, it's not enshrined in a single document, there isn't an agreed upon, it is debated in various ways, I think there should be kind of a, we should attempt to have some kind of a national compromise, a national agreement on basic laws, on constitution, and of course, I'm not saying at all that the judicial system is above criticism, or there's a supreme court, some, I have often thought that the supreme court, in it's, by the way, not so much in, yeah, maybe lately also in review and legislation, but basically in interfering what the government does, and they have to interfere, that judiciary has to interfere with the, what the executive is doing, absolutely, there is no, we are not a free country if there is no right of judicial review against executive actions, and legislate But it doesn't mean that I support every specific decision to interfere. There is a very fine line that is very difficult to define theoretically between interfering in government in order to protect civil rights and the rule of law, which is vital. And interfere in government in such a way that you are running the state or making political decisions instead of the elected government. Let's do two more quick questions with quick answers. And then wrap up, Jesse, I am consistently amazed by the scientific innovations in medicine, technology, etc. coming out of Israel. My fear is that the way the mukawama, the resistance ideology of Khamas, Khazbullah, Iran, etc. ultimately succeeds is by mass emigration of the secular, Jewish, intellectual, professional and academic class that exhausted by war and isolation that Israel's best and brightest will decide it's easier to pursue their careers abroad. While Israel more and more resembles other Middle Eastern countries led by strong men and religious extremists with the growing crazy population that doesn't want to participate in society. As a professor, I'm wondering what the mood is in Israeli universities as I know that researchers are becoming less able to collaborate with institutions abroad. How the election results could affect this and also how greater Arab integration could possibly balance and/or create even more dissonance in Israeli society and its characters in advanced democratic yet Jewish state. Do you feel in the universities and what do you think more broadly about the question? Well, first of all, up to three years ago, this strategy had failed as a matter of fact, as a matter of numbers because the truth is that immigration, what we call the iridim, going down from Israel had decreased very substantially since the 70s and the 80s until three years ago. Less is left, the number of Israelis leaving the country was going down, went down very substantially. Basically, because Israel had been the meantime become a much more prosperous Western economy, that is the overwhelming thing. And so, although there was a much more talk about immigration, that is the talk, the lose talk about immigration became very popular and gained because Israelis became more liberal, less mobilized, more, more whatever, but more hedonistic, but you know, you can be hedonistic and relaxed and not feel that you have to swear religions to Zionism, but as a matter of fact, Israel is up till three years ago, tended to, including all those professions that the question asks about, as a matter of fact, left Israel in lesson numbers and the good old days when it was a taboo to speak about living the country. So, that's a good deal, a country is more liberal, but Jews want to live in Israel more than in the past, that for me was a good day. Three years ago, things changed. There is now a real phenomenon of immigration, that is, it is motivated by tiredness of the horrible things, of the chronicle warfare of the last three years. And opposition to this government and to the, I would say not just to this government, but to the forces that are behind it and to the direction in which it is taking the country. There is a combination of war, fatigue and political and philosophical and cultural resentment of what is going on. And I hope very much that this is a temporary phenomenon, and it is a very dangerous phenomenon. I hope very much that it is a temporary phenomenon in our world when you leave a country, you can also, it is also more, it is more easy to emigrate, but it is also easier to come back and that has also happened. It is not what has been happening in the last three years, I am not dismissing the gravity of the problem, but I just hope that there will be a change, the frankly speaking. I hope that there will be a change of government, and at least one component will be radically changed. If the present coalition remains at power, I think the result of that would be very bad in terms of the problem that we are discussing, but I hope it will not happen. I have to push back here. There are two questions. One question is the culture and character of Israel. It could very much become much more religious, and by the way politically less liberal. That is extremely possible. The gay pride parade in Tel Aviv is the biggest party in the streets of Tel Aviv every year. I can imagine in Israel in which that becomes problematic for political forces and enough people that, and that's a different Israel. Right now we have an Israel where you could be very, very conservative in many different areas, Muslim and Jewish, and very liberal in other areas, and that's how it's always been, and that's how everybody always likes it. The ultra orthodox talk about that is the status quo that we have to respect, but that might change. If that doesn't work for you, God bless you. The vast vast majority of Olim came because they had this was their best option, and people make their decisions for their families, not for grand ideologies, that's why Israel is so sticky, so hard to remove, because it's real people navigating a complicated world with very few other options for a century. And if the Arabs understood that, they might not have made those bad choices in '47, or in '36, or in '29, or every day since. But, so I have a deep love and respect for people making the best decision for their family and cultural decision. But if they succeed, there are Israeli Jews who can't leave, won't leave, ever, not ever. If there are any and succeed in removing or in causing indirectly, in contributing to the removal from Israel, of the born modern part of the Israeli society, which has to be secular, but it has to be modern, and we know that for the overwhelming majority of the ultra orthodox are not part of that, I hope that that won't change, but they are at the moment, not part of that. But if there are processes that remove from Israel, the more modern part of the Israeli society, it will create a more conservative, more right-wing government, but it will create a weaker Israel. They will, don't care about whether an Israeli government is right or left or not. It's not, you know, all those differences are only matter for those who would like to have some kind of a political arrangement or some kind of Israel. The Iranians really want, well, you know, a man and if they want all the Jews, the Jewish state debt, okay, in any shape or form. But Alex, though that weaker Israel will still defeat them. And that weaker Israel will still defeat them. Look at what Hizbollah has done to Lebanon. Look at what Hamas has done to Gaza. Look at what they are told to have done to Iran. They are unbelievably weak. They never finally defeat the Arab Muslim world simply because of its size and its democracy. We can defeat them many times, okay, they need to defeat us only once. But we can defeat them a hundred times. We will not have defeated them strategically in the sense that, you know, there will not be an Israeli empire the way there was a Roman empire that just conquered all the people that defeated. As you know, as I told you, as I taught you in just wars because the Roman people always insisted that all their wars were just and defensive, okay, but never mind. But the Roman had the capability of ruling of eventually tens of millions of people. We don't have that. We will always be a small state in the heart of the Arab Muslim Middle East. And if this state is less modern, it means that it would have less economic and technological capacity. But the Israeli pilots who flew over Tehran, I'm not saying all of them were liberal, many of them were, but they were all modern and they were all modern. And you need the kind of technological ability and you need also the Israeli economy, all these Tel Aviv startups, they bring the technology that makes those things work. And the Israeli intelligence that enable us to know where Mr. Khomeini was hiding and to get him there. For this, you need all the Tel Aviv and others, but in particular in Tel Aviv people, many of whom are intensely disliked by the Israeli right, you need their ingenuity, you need their talent, you need the money and you need the technology, including military technology that they produce. You need that. If you get less of that, you get a country that is less strong, and less strong economically, militarily, of course, international and diplomatically, and that's a very, very bad direction. And now many people fear that the present government and the coalition, and the logic, the cult. and philosophical logic behind what is now the Israeli right? As it looks now, I always oppose the cruel generalization against the Israeli right. The problem is the Israeli right has worked very hard to justify those generalizations. We know that how it often happens with cruel generalizations. But in any case, this govern this coalition is taking us in the direction of becoming not just a less liberal, a less humane country, but a much less powerful country. I hope the Iranian regime will collapse before they have a chance of getting there. And I hope that there will be a change, by the way, as everyone understands, if this government is changed, what will come in its place will not at all be a left-wing government. It will be a white coalition of center, right and left, and the left will not be the main component, but very powerful, being the main component. I have to say, I'm glad this person asked this question. I agree with you about what happened to Likud. Incidentally, huge numbers of Likud voters say they might not tell posters that they don't want to vote for this, Likud. It's when it's in Yao purge the party list in the primaries, by literally threatening to cancel the primaries, if you didn't get his way, of the more populist people to make it a much more respectable looking list, so that those huge numbers of Likud voters, multiple seats worth, come back to the party on election day, because he knows that what you and I are saying, Likud has the gross generalization of the right that the right then spent 15 years trying to match, a lot of right-wing voters, traditional, long-standing right-wing voters are saying that right now, and the old Orthodox question, because everyone's been drafted for so long, is no longer avoidable in all of these questions. Everything we're talking about isn't a representation of opposition parties. It's a representation of surprisingly large numbers of right-wing voters. I really really share that. I want to stay very modern, I want to stay very liberal, I want to stay very successful. If we're not a liberal democracy, it's going to be a lot harder for the government to ask people to send their kids to war. My point is just, if the enemy is clever, and this is the good strategy, the best strategy available to them, and they succeed, and we lose a lead after a lead, and our high-tech sector is gutted, and the economy shrinks, by the way, Kharidium will go to work, nobody will be able to afford the welfare state they live on. I'm not saying, they're silver linings is what I'm saying. If we undergo that disaster, and it is absolutely a disaster, then we will still be the most powerful tribe in the Middle East with 200 noobs, and a lot less likely to care what the world thinks if they were on since 300 missiles at Tel Aviv again. And so I genuinely think this is a disaster for. It's a manageable disaster for this nation, which doesn't know how to go anywhere. And the day after the disaster, people keep saying to me, "What happens if this collapses? What happens if that collapses?" And I'm like, "Well, the sun will still rise the next day, and we still have to build." The history is not over at any moment. And the day after, we'll still have to rebuild it, and whatever is broken, our enemies will suffer more than we will if we go in that direction. That will suffer, but you know, the Iranian mindset that you refer to, if they don't mind suffering, they don't mind the Iranian people's suffering. This is true, this is their great strength. Their problem is not the stuff. You know, this will love your life, will love death. Well, they love other people's deaths, but they don't mind it, of course. Now, of course, I'm not saying that Israel will quickly, even under a very bad scenario, it will not soon become militarily and economically weaker than Iran. But if you want to. If your ideas have a serious of wars every several years, in the hope that in the end, people will start just turning away, then a weaker Israel is a good thing, and not a bad thing, although your people will inevitably suffer. But when did it stop these guys? I mean, of course. And you say Israel will care less about what others say. Others will also care less, you know, providing defense against missiles, which we enjoy it in the sword. Yes, and we will become more fierce. Alex Yakovsson, thank you so much for joining me for answering all of these questions. And I don't know if we came out of it optimistic, but I learned a lot. Thanks so much. Thank you.