State of the Jews

[MUSIC] >> Welcome to the commentary magazine Daily Podcast. Today is Monday, November 9th, 2026. I'm Jon Pauhr, it's the editor of commentary magazine. We have a special episode today because we have a guest and me, together, two people known for talking too much. I am, of course, known for talking too much. And I would say that our guest commentaries, Rosti last night, are 16th, 17th, Rosti, 16th. >> Six former Israeli ambassadors to the United States, right hand man to Benjamin Netanyahu, now head of the Dürmer Group, a consulting firm, and a fellow at Jinsa. Ron Dürmer is joining me, so we're going to have a fight over who talks more. But I am going to have to let say- >> I'm going to interrupt you. We're going to have to let the listeners decide, you can tape how long we go. And it's like that speed chess, who gets more time, who uses more time. So we'll see, I'm going to bet on me, but you know, you have the ability to probably mute me because you're controlling the producer. >> Well, let's just put it this way. We had a fantastic Rosti last night, 475 people, electricity in the ballroom, commentary community coming together, obviously at a moment of great confusion, worry about the results of the midterms about the words and spoken, not only by Democrats, but by the Vice President of the United States, some stuff said last night by the President of the United States to Rost out that, and of course, the incredible instability that is now facing Israel over the next 60 to 90 days as efforts are made to form a new government. So I want to say first, you concluded the Rost with a very heartfelt and powerful statement, I would say, which is that Israel has already proved that it can survive having an anti-Israel President. I think we can all agree that there have been anti-Israel Presidents before that Barack Obama fundamentally functioned as an anti-Israel President, particularly at the end of his term. And that we've, of course, had this very pro-Israel President in Trump in 2016 to 2020 and then from 2025 on to the President, but you say as you look at the, as you survey the American political field as it now stands that while Israel can survive and has survived an anti-Israel President, Israel may not be able to survive an anti-American President. And I found that a very striking formulation, because of course, I don't think we've ever really had an anti-American President before, and I do see on the horizon candidates in the Democratic Party, who, and in the Republican Party, who, who's outlook and me in an idea about the United States and about where we should go and all that, fundamentally or in conflict with the American experiment itself, which you spoke about last night. So I didn't use the term survive, because I believe Israel will survive even anti-American President. I said that Israel can deal with an anti-Israel President, but we can't deal with an anti-American President, and let me unwrap that a little bit. The point that I was making is that I'm a big believer, and I've said it, said it the first time when I was privileged to give a speech as the sitting ambassador in 2014 at our Independence Day event, I said Israel is going to be the most important ally of the United States in the 21st century. And that's a big statement to make by a country that had a population back then, I think, around 8,000,000, and 1/2 million ends the size of New Jersey, but I explained it's really two areas, security and technology, which we can talk about if we want to. But my point is, when you're dealing with a President who doesn't like Israel, assuming that they actually support the United States of America, and they want to advance American interests, you can appeal to such a President on the basis of American interests. Meaning here we have this wonderful ally in the region that's actually helping project American power in the region, and it's actually defending our security interests. That has a military that's willing to fight, that has a formidable intelligence capability, that has cyber capability, that has weapons-making capability, and to the extent that the America wants to go to other regions of the world, and does not want to fight wars in the Middle East, actually having a strong and thriving Israel, and that region is very important to American interests. And the second thing, which I tell people for a long time, the 21st century is going to be determined by who's going to be the innovation nation of the 21st century. And if you're the CEO of America, the President of the United States, let's call them the CEO of America, and you're in competition with the CEO of China, and that's the competition for the 21st century, and who's going to lead the world in innovation, first order of business on the first day for that CEO by Israel, because we are the second great center of innovation. So if you only look at American interests, it actually behooves every single President who supports the United States to actually have a stronger relationship with Israel, whatever they feel about Gaza or about another issue. When they sit in that chair and they say to themselves, "I want to make America stronger," and actually that will lead to a greater relationship with Israel. I'm pretty confident about that. The problem is, what if you have a President who doesn't want to actually advance American interests? That's a whole different story. I wouldn't say that we've actually had an anti-Israel President, John. I don't think we've faced that. And by that, I mean, there are a lot of Presidents, and I think if you ask this to President Obama, if you ask this to Presidents in the President Carter, all sorts of people throughout history, there were actions that they took that the pro-Israel community would say this is really bad for Israel. If you actually had them on a show hooked up to a chair, okay, there was a truth detector. And you said, "Do you think what you did makes Israel stronger or weaker?" They would actually say it makes Israel stronger. Now, they're wrong. I think they're wrong. You think they're wrong, but their intention was not to bring harm to Israel. When you have an anti-Israel President, I'm talking about somebody who actually wants to see Israel harm. They have to be very careful to not confuse opponents, political adversaries, with enemies. Because enemies, it's all about intention. I mean, they want you dead. Your political opponents can put in place policies that actually make you much less safe. Like the nuclear deal with Iran, let's take that as I think that's probably the most prominent issue. If President Obama were sitting here talking to you, he probably hasn't been in this chair for a long time. It probably won't be in this chair. And you asked him, "Do you think the nuclear deal makes Israel safer?" He would actually say yes. And that's what he believes. I totally disagree, and I think it was a disaster. So what I'm talking about is a President of the United States that wants to bring harm to Israel. That's a President who said, "Well, let's have an arms embargo on Israel. Let's deny them any kind of basic protection." Remember, at the UN, that's one of the things that are very important that a President does, prevents the jackals, as they were writing in commentary decades ago, the jackals from ganging up on Israel. President Obama did it once at the end of his term. Now could you get a President in two years or six years that will do it throughout his term? It's going to be a very different story. So what I'm talking about is an anti-Israel President. I don't think we've seen one that intended harm to come to Israel yet. I think we might see one. But when they sit in that chair and the head of the CIA, Combson says, "Mr. President, Madam President, I know you don't like those Israelis." But if we were up to our relations with the Mossad, that's going to bring a lot of harm to the American people and the head of AI in the White House, whoever's dealing with that policy is going to say, "Madam President, Mr. President, I know you don't like those Israelis. But if we don't want to see the future to China, we need Israel." Because here's a fact, Israel has always mattered to Jews. We have always mattered to Jews. We have not always mattered to the United States of America in terms of America's national security and national prosperity. And my claim is we matter today much more than we did even 10 years ago and we're going to matter even more. So that's the case that I was making yesterday. And I think I'm up about five minutes already over you. So the floor is-- You're good. You're good. Dancing or who roasted you last night and was on the podcast a couple of weeks ago pointed out that in the realm of quantum computing, for example, on election day in Israel, on October 27th of Election Day, in a group chat that he has with people in the startup nation world, all the excitement was not about the election in Israel. It was about a deal, a $40 billion deal that had been made to purchase an Israeli quantum computing company. I can't remember which, in video, I think, purchased this company that I've never heard of for an enormous amount of money that places Israel at the center of AI quantum computing, quantum mechanics, the stuff that I can't even begin to even understand, and that this This is the end. an example of what you were talking about. The other example I used on that and that same conversation was militarily, and the analogy was that the United States used to have a place in Puerto Rico. There's a place in Puerto Rico called VIECAS, VIECAS, which is an area sort of out on a sort of peninsula slip, was the most bombed place on Earth because it was where the United States went to test its weaponry. It did so for 40 years until the people of Puerto Rico, the government said, "Can you please stop? Can we stop? Let us have VIECAS, this is horrible. Bombing 30 square miles of our territory. We'd like it back. We'd like to book us on it." And that we stopped. I'm not saying that Israel is a place where they build resorts on it because I don't know if I want to stay in a five-star hotel and a place where you got a fair point. Going down to the ballroom. It will be quite a blast. Yeah. So the United States stopped having, basically stopped having a testing ground for its weaponry. And in some odd way, in the high tech world of the 21st century, Israel has become that VIECAS. That is to say that Iron Dome and Golden Dome, and of course, the things that have been happening over the last several years with Iran, toward Iran against Iran, that Israel is, in real time, showing, demonstrating, using, testing, perfecting, the weaponry that is going to protect America, on the front lines, and showing how it can be used, what we can expect from it. In real-world situations in which should they fail, and you lived under it for, you were not only there in the government, you were also a person with a family living in Drew. You also had to go run into the shelters 200 times in the last three years, or whatever, however many times it was, that this is the benefit to the United States without question that we are, we benefit from Israel being there, taking some hits, and showing us how our systems can be perfected to protect us on the mainland here, when inevitably somebody is going to try to cross those oceans with weaponry that we are going to have to try to knock down. Well, 100%. So, just a couple things on that, and also that I can eat up enough time, because I'm going to win this battle over the next hour or whatever. I want you to win. So, the first thing, you know, you say you want me to win, but I think most of your audience doesn't want me to win, and I understand that when we do this on television, because my brother is a big listener, until your show, he doesn't hear the commercials, and I listened to him, and those commercials I said, you are the grand puba of the infomercial space. I think you're fantastic, and you certainly have a future career in that. But let me relate to what you said. So, you mentioned this thing about the quantum and the video. The video to the best of my understanding has one-tenth of its global workforce in Israel, and that's more workers in Israel than all of Europe combined. Okay? So, it's important for your listeners to understand when I'm talking about this alliance, like Israel is a very small country, but we're a global technological power in many areas. You have not just agriculture and water, but let's say in cyber. Israel's one-tenth of one percent of the world's population, and we have accounted over the last decade of so, of about 20 percent of global private investment in cyber. That's a remarkable number. That means Israel is punching 200 times above its weight. So, in cyber, we're bigger than a China in terms of relative size. Then you have the AI space. You have quantum space, and you have all the innovation that's happening in Israel, and that's why I say that this partnership is very important. A lot of global high-tech companies have R&D facilities in Israel, and it's not because a wave of Zionism is spread across the boardrooms. It's about because they want access to the talent in Israel and their capacity for innovation, and we could talk about that why that is. What's the secret of Israeli innovation? Because I think it's very interesting. But if you look at the security space, when you are, if I made you the President of the United States, and I demoted you to that position from being the Grand Puba of infomercials running this whole commentary podcast kingdom, and you have to choose only one ally in the next 50 years in security. And think about a military who's prepared to fight, send their sons and daughters to fight, an intel capability, think about the cyber capability, and weapons-making capability. You can go around the horn. Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Britain, you're really down actually to Israel and Britain when you think about the punch that we have. And I think that's something that is lost. Now, you mentioned the laboratory. Of course, that laboratory is worth tens of billions of dollars to the United States. There's a debate right now about A to Israel, and maybe we'll get into it. But you have to understand, having such a laboratory saves the United States defense contractors huge amounts of money. As I understand it, the best F-35 plane in the world is the one that is flown by an Israeli pilot because it goes into battle over and over and over again, and that creates a system that allows headquarters to learn a lot about that system. And beyond that, John, there's something else that your people who care about your defense industries should consider. We're not just a laboratory for all this weaponry, and that helps hone them and improve them and ultimately help protect America. We're also a showcase for them. If you wanted to sell a pair of jeans, I suppose you'd give them to Taylor Swift to wear for free or some product. When Israel is actually using a defense system, that is the single greatest selling point for an American defense contractor to go around the world, whether it's Europe, whether it's Asia, whether it's Africa, wherever, and to sell that system. From my point of view, the amount that the United States gets and how much it has benefited from the partnership with Israel has been huge. You look at Afghanistan and Iraq just throw out some numbers. I think the latest estimate I saw that the amount of money that the United States has spent on Afghanistan and Iraq is close to $7 trillion. That's about 2,000 years of support for Israel if you take the $3.8 billion a year. The United States doesn't have another two or three countries like Israel. Even if you give the aid or you don't give the aid, if you zero out the aid, what you need are more countries like Israel in different regions of the world that are willing, actually, to fight, that have capabilities that are important for you that can do these partnerships. What the United States will spend in Japan or in Korea or in Germany or in elsewhere is actually much higher than the aid they're giving to Israel because the aid is actually them basically buying weapons systems and transferring those weapons systems to Israel. Then we not only are a laboratory for those weapons systems, we're actually a showcase for them. I think it actually is very good for the defense contractors. I think somebody who's probably not that happy with the idea of phasing out assistance to Israel is probably those American defense contractors working in different communities around the United States because they know having Israel as a customer pays huge dividends to them around the world. Okay, let's talk about home served. Now you're taking a shower and suddenly you got no hot water or you got only hot water, you got shampoo in your hair, you got soap on your face, disaster. There's no good time for that and you're going to need a repair right away and it's going to cost a lot of money. You know, it's going to help in that circumstance, having a home protection plan from home serve in place that can help you get ahead of the inconvenience and avoid getting underwater on that water heater replacement or some other plumbing issue, HVAC issue or electrical issue because this is what happens in your house. You repairs come, you need them fast and it's hard to find people sometimes. Home serve has a 24/7 hotline to help you schedule a repair, find a contractor, choose a plan for your needs in budget and when something on your plan goes wrong just call that 24/7 hotline to start the repair process. They've helped homeers like you for over 20 years with a trusted national network of 2600 local contractors. They got 4.5 million customers, a 4.8 out of 5 post repair rating and an A plus BBB rating. They're the real deal. So join the millions of customers who trust home serve for 50% less your first year go to home serve.com/commentary. That's home serve.com/commentary for 50% less savings compared to a new price void in California and Florida. Okay, it's time to talk about Quince. You know the best pieces in your closet are the ones you can count on for work, for going out, for keeping things casual. Sometimes we do all three in the same piece of clothing which is one of the great things about Quince is that it looks good formal, it looks good casual, it looks good at work. This time of year in particular, Quince makes finding something great for everyone else just as easy as we go into the holiday season. It's where I'm shopping for myself and everyone on my list right now. I am wearing a Quince hollow shirt. It's called the PK. It's beautiful and I'm lime green and it is the most comfortable shirt that I wear and I recommend it to everybody. But you know they got We got cashmere sweaters at $60, they got high quality. these staples made with premium materials, like 100% Mongolian cashmere, you can get things in 14 karat gold, not clothing, but gold, and Italian leather. So when it comes to gifting, Quinn says a lot more than clothing is what I'm trying to tell you, give the gift of quality this holiday season, download the Quintz app for app exclusive offers or go to quintz.com, get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quintz asks to where he heard about him, let him know it was the commentary magazine podcast, it's the best way to support the show. So when we get back to your idea that an anti-American president is a threat to the good working order of the planet, to the good working order of the United States and to the good working order of Israel, part of this goes exactly to where you're going, which is I think we can agree that the forward projection of American power, the conthan assertion of American greatness that is represented by that, by the example of the United States in a previous era of your life. I wrote the case for democracy with Natan Sharansky, a book that tried to express or provide a philosophical framework for why places that were inhospit, seemed inhospitable to democracy could in fact find help with their ways to help them find roots and to grow democracy where the field seemed to be less fertile. If in the United States we lose confidence in our own abilities to do that positively and in fact think that we're a problem, we are bad, we are bad actors and we need to restrain ourselves or be restrained and domestically that we need to retrench pullback so that we can cure the evils of our own system and our own society. That person is going to look at this example of American, of the common idea of American and Israel and say, "Look, if I don't like it here, I'm not going to like it there either." If you don't like it there and you don't like it here either, we're all in trouble. You as a child of Miami Beach and a citizen of Israel, so as someone noted last night, you were compelled by law, by American law, to surrender your American, your joint American Israeli citizenship when you became an official of the Israeli government in what, 2004, 2005? 2005, early 2005. And this was something that you did with regret and with sorrow. It was very hard. I wrote, you know, what you do is then we had the embassy in Tel Aviv, not in Jerusalem. And I went to the embassy and you have to fill out these forms and it's like renunciation of your American citizenship, which is a very tough word because, you know, I love America. I was born and raised there. I've always felt a tremendous closeness and I was really inspired by American ideals. And so culturally, I'll always be deeply American and very grateful. And there was a place on the application where you could write your reasons. And I sat down and I wrote my reasons, actually, in that embassy in Tel Aviv. And then when I came back and I had these papers, a friend of mine who was visiting red what I wrote and he goes, you know, you have to have this published. So it actually was published in the New York Sun and the Jerusalem Post. And it was, it's an essay called, what I wrote at the time, proud to have been an American. And I explained my reasons why I did this. You know, I'm not a flag burner. I'm not somebody who was trying to avoid taxes and stuff. That's the situation in Israel that if you serve as a diplomat in America, I could have been the Israeli ambassador to the UK and kept by America's citizenship. But when you serve in America, you know, America won't give a citizen immunities. And Israel wants to make sure all of its diplomats have immunity. So you're sort of stuck in this problem. And that's why I gave up the citizenship. But it was actually very hard. It was very hard emotionally because of how grateful I am. And I think a lot of American Jews, I mean, one thing that unites American Jews, I think probably across the political spectrum is the gratitude that we have for the United States. And if you have any knowledge of Jewish history, you understand how special a place America has been for Jews. And you know, what I, and I'll just tell you one story that I think you'll like about the case for democracy. Because you mentioned that actually one of the threats that I had is that I listened to the publisher actually was not Tom's ideas. And I was just taking his gulagian Russian and turning it into English that Americans could understand, but the original title was the case for freedom. It actually wasn't the case for democracy. And this was in 2004, our publisher hated George W. Bush, hated him. It's interesting. You know, Obama, President Obama got the Nobel Prize for not being George W. Bush. George W. Bush would probably get the Nobel Prize today for not being Donald Trump. But at the time, the hatred for Bush was so great. And he said Bush has destroyed the idea of freedom. Remember, after 9/11, the freedom fries and you can't use the word freedom because it is so weighted, he says, you should call the case for democracy. And I said, well, it's not really the case for democracy because we're not calling to have elections everywhere. We're calling to build free societies. And to the extent that you have more freedom in these societies, more degrees of openness, more rights, then they tend to become less belligerent. And I think, by the way, you see that in the Middle East today. I mean, one of the things the partnership that we have that Israel has with the Emirates is unlike, and the peace we have is unlike any other partnership we have. And part of that is, you know, we don't have a border with him. But beyond that, it's because they're a relatively freer society than a lot of other countries. Those of you who've been to Abu Dhabi will know walking around. There is not the same thing as walking around in other places and there are other places like Morocco. And it's actually people who are fighting against sort of radical forces within. Anyway, so that's, it should have been the case for freedom. But I was talking about last night and gets to the whole anti-American thing. What I've always appreciated about Commentary Magazine, and I know you got a listeners, but probably you have some readers, a lot of readers as well. Whenever I would read this magazine, and I started reading it when I was maybe 18 or 19, it always made me proud to be an American and it always made me love America. It was like listening to speeches of Ronald Reagan when I was a kid growing up. And I think you were able to distill the highest ideals of the country and publish, you know, this ode to the United States of America month after month, and you've been doing it decade after decade. And the problem that I see today, the problem that I see today is the crisis that the United States is facing is different than I think any other crisis that you have had in previous generations. Because in previous generations, there were presidents, Lincoln, FDR, Reagan. They could appeal to the founding ideals of the United States. And they could appeal to a people who actually loved America. And I think the situation you have now, where you have millions, perhaps tens of millions, who are actually educated not to love America or even to hate America. And it's in the school systems and people know it. And they learn, like I'm all for learning the blemishes of American society because there are blemishes. But America is not defined by 1619. You know, there are 50 countries around the world that have a story of a slave ship. There's only one country that has a story of 1776, those ideals. That's what makes America unique. And I saw this when my kids went to school, went to a Jewish day school in Maryland. When I was ambassador, I was ambassador here for eight years, you know, around the table Friday night, I'd ask my kids, you know, what are they learning? And this is like a Jewish day school in Maryland. It's not like a hotbed of anti-Americanism. But my kids were learning all of the flaws and all of the blemishes of the United States. And there are many. But I asked them, well, did you learn the Federalist papers? Did you learn all of these things that made America the inspiration of the world and has made America the inspiration of the world for 200 years? And they didn't learn that. And I think that's the problem. And so you're facing a generation today where it is much harder to appeal for a basic love of the United States, and the example I gave last night was 9/11. And 25 years ago, 9/11, when it happened, my wife actually when the first tower was struck was in a subway underneath those twin towers. She was working at a law firm right down in that area. And I remember right after that plane, I guess it was the second plane that hit, I was watching it already at that point in CNN, I immediately went over to Netanyahu's office, who then was a former prime minister, was after his first term. And we sat down and we were talking about what the response of the United States were going to be. And there were other people there. And a lot of people were concerned that Israel would somehow be blamed for, because Israel gets blamed for all sorts of stuff that we have nothing to do with. So it would be par for the course. There's been a year of the Second Intifada, you had a lot of suicide bombings in Israel. And a lot of people in Israel and those first few hours were feeling, you know what? They're going to blame us because it looks like a terror attack. It's probably somewhere in from the Middle East and all of a sudden Israel is going to be to blame. And then Netanyahu asked me what I thought. And I said, listen, America is a healthy country. And a healthy country is going to respond like a healthy person does when they get punched in the face. They're going to punch back. They're not going to have blamed themselves. And I was 100% certain of that and that's what happened and you saw this sort of sea change in the United States. Now, how then what followed next? What was the policy? Afghanistan and Iraq? How you prosecuted, but that moment of unity among the American people was very palpable to everybody. And my point that I was saying yesterday is God forbid there'd be another 9/11 like attack. How would America respond? And my answer is I don't know. I'm not certainly not as certain as I was before because I see too many blame America people, especially among the youth that have been educated in this nonsense for really over a generation. And you go back to your, you know, your readers, you go look at the closing of the American mind by Alan Bloom and you see what's happened in higher education over the last 35 or 40 years. You can't educate a generation or more of a country to hate their country. You cannot do that and expect that there's not going to be an outcome. So the bottom line is this, I would hope that the United States would rally in support. I think there are enough forces there within the United States that would do it, but it's not what it was 25 years ago. And that's clear to me when I see who got elected the mayor in New York or who got elected the Senator of Michigan, it's clear that this is a very different country. And I think there's a lot of work to be done. It's not my job, it's your job because if you have an anti-American president, that's not just bad for Israel, it's bad for America. I think it's in the school boards. It's pushing back against this zeitgeist and really making Americans love America again. And that's something that your father preached about you showed it last night on a clip. This is 30 years ago when he wrote my love affair with America. That's exactly what you need, and I know I'm not going to give you your infomercial, the Graham Puba, but this is what commentary magazine has done. And I think that it's now more necessary than ever to make Americans love America again. And as long as we have a president in America who loves this country, I think Israel will be fine and I think America will be fine. And in order for that to happen, we need to step up and people around the country have to work at this, roll up their sleeves, and on the grass roots to make sure that the next generation actually understands how unique a place America is and to do everything to preserve it. Now you're taking a shower and suddenly you've got no hot water or you've got only hot water, you've got shampoo in your hair, you've got soap on your face, disaster. There's no good time for that, and you're going to need a repair right away and it's going to cost a lot of money. You know, it's going to help in that circumstance, having a home protection plan from home serve in place that can help you get ahead of the inconvenience and avoid getting underwater on that water heater replacement or some other plumbing issue, HVAC issue, or electrical issue. Because this is what happens in your house, you repairs come, you need them fast, and it's hard to find people sometimes, home serve has a 24/7 hotline to help you schedule a repair, find a contractor, choose a plan for your needs and budget and when something on your plan goes wrong, just call that 24/7 hotline to start the repair process, they've helped homeowners like you for over 20 years with a trusted national network of 2600 local contractors. They got 4.5 million customers, a 4.8 out of 5 post repair rating, and an A+ BBB rating. So join the millions of customers who trust home serve for 50% less your first year go to homeserve.com/commentary, that's homeserve.com/commentary for 50% less savings compared to a fuel price void in California and Florida. Sometimes we do all three in the same piece of clothing, which is one of the great things about Quince is that it looks good formal, it looks good casual, it looks good at work. I am wearing a Quince holo shirt. It's called the PK, it's beautiful, and I'm blind green. And it is the most comfortable shirt that I wear and I recommend it to everybody. But you know, they got cashmere sweaters at $60. They got high quality staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere. You can get things in 14 karat gold, not clothing, but gold, and Italian leather. So when it comes to gifting, Quince says a lot more than clothing is what I'm trying to tell you. Give the gift of quality this holiday season, download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com, get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about him, let him know it was the commentary magazine podcast, it's the best way to support the show. So let's, I've, you deserve that 10 minutes exclusive that was I'm only filibustering because I want to win this content and the filibuster may be taken away anyway. So I might as well filibuster while I still can't. So I can't, I can't not ask you about what you think is going on at home. And obviously the news of the weekend is that the president of, of Israel, bougie Herzog was his job after an election to ask the, ask someone to be the first person to form the government. And though the liquid party and the BB coalition, as it's called, nominally had more, got more seats in the election than the anti BB coalition. Nonetheless, the anti BB coalition's leader, goddess and Cobb was asked was given the right to, to see if he could form the, the government before Netanyahu. There's a lot of moving pieces here because right now, if you look at the order battle, there's nobody can form, can get to 61 seats. And so he has six weeks or something like that before, before he's got four weeks and then you can extend it for another two weeks. Okay. So it would be impossible to explain to Americans the, the, the contrasting issues here and whether or not one guy, your friend, not a friend of BBs, Avigdor Lieberman, the games that he's playing with his issues and who he's willing to rely with, who he's not willing to rely with. Do you, but we do see these numbers in the, in the, I would say the anti BB coalition or polling of the anti BB coalition that says that they are, they are more, they are more excited or more willing to go into a government that is bolstered or supported by anti Zionist Arab parties than they are for Eisenkot to create a unity government with BBs, LeCoude. They are 69% willing to go into, to at least have some kind of a loose alliance with what's called the joint list or ROM, which probably wouldn't be in the government, but would not vote against the government and 27% say sure let's have a unity government with LeCoude. That is an astonishing fact and LeCoude is the largest party, isn't LeCoude, LeCoude has 27 seats in at 120 and, and this Eisenkot coalition has 22. So it's the biggest party, I think that 21, yeah, is it, are they 21? So no, this, this, that party is smaller than the biggest party and it would rather play roulette with Israel Zionist definition than it would go into coalition with LeCoude. Well, do I, well, first of all, I don't know if, if we've now lost 97% of your audience talking about all the ins and outs of Israel because it, just I'll tell Americans that if you think you have a tough two party system, try 12, see how that works out for you. So yeah, I think it's, look, I think it's a big mess in Israel and I think with the coalition with the anti-Nitanyahu block, okay, there's really like three blocks, maybe actually four, which is an interesting little change that has happened, meaning you had the block of the current government, which ended up with like 53 seats, but it includes the ultra-orthodox parties, which I'll get to. Then you have what's the so-called anti-Nitanyahu block, which was 48. All the polls showed that the anti-Nitanyahu block would be bigger than the Nitanyahu block and that has changed. So the Nitanyahu block is actually bigger than them and then you have these 19 seats of two Arab parties based on a massive turnout and a massive increase in turnout from about 52% I think in the last election, to 80%, certainly unprecedented in Israel. I don't know of another example anywhere in the world that it had such an increase in turnout. So I think that has made it much more complicated to form a coalition and you're right. It's really, I remember many years ago, the Prime Minister said to me, this is like 15, 20 years ago. He said to me that the Arabs are fine. finally thinking strategically, the Arab states. And I said, well, what do you mean by that? He said, well, they're prioritizing threats, okay? And they're understanding that Israel is not their enemy, that all Iran is a bigger enemy, Sunni radicalism, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, whatever is a bigger enemy. And so therefore, once you prioritize threats, then it's possible to actually do things together to deal with the greater threat, okay? And so the problem that you have, and I hope I'm gonna retain your audience and explaining it, the problem that you have with the anti-Nitanyahu block has four parties. It has the Democrats party, which is the old Maritz and Labor party together. It has-- - That's far left. That's the far left party that-- - That's far left. Our version of the Democratic, so you're a version of the Democratic Socialists of America. - So they would be eight seats. And just to understand, we're 120-seat parliament. So eight seats is like 6% of the national vote, something like that. Because you have to reach a threshold and they throw seats out, but let's say it's around 6%. They got eight seats. And then you have Isaac Cuts party, which is 21 seats. Then you have Bennett and Lapid that went together, which is 12 seats. And then you have Lieberman's party, which is seven seats. And the problem is there's three hatreds on that side, okay? Three things they dislike. They dislike Netanyahu. They dislike the Kharidim, the ultra orthodox, and they dislike the Arabs, okay? But each party has a different order of dislikes, okay? So if you take the Democrat party, the ones that they hate the most are certainly Netanyahu. And then it's probably be the Kharidim. And the least problematic for them are the Arab parties. And they would want to swear in a government with the Arab parties and have them in a government. And I think you're Golan, who's the head of that party has already said that. Then when you move over to Isaac Cuts, I think Isaac Cuts actually is pretty close to the same lineup. He would be Arabs would be the least worst of the three than the ultra orthodox, because they made a lot of commitments to the ultra orthodox that they're going to draft everybody. They took a very hard line. So I think he wants to-- >> But against right, they made commitments to confront and take down the issues of the orthodox, no? >> Exactly, so-- >> To the orthodox, yeah. >> He actually would have the same category. So the worst for him, I'll say it again, for both Isaac Cuts and Golan is based in Staus worst. Then you have the issue of the ultra orthodox and then it's the Arabs. Now you move over to Lieberman. Lieberman has a different order. For him, he probably agrees that Netanyahu is the worst. But he actually thinks the Arabs are much worse than the ultra orthodox. And he's left a little wiggle room open for the ultra orthodox, okay? And then you have Bennett. And Bennett, my reading of Bennett, is that Bennett actually doesn't put Netanyahu is the worst. He would put the worst as being with the Arab states, I mean, with the Arab parties. Then he would probably say the ultra orthodox and the least problematic thing would be Netanyahu. So if Bennett had 20 seats and Isaac Cuts had 12, you might see an easier path to a unity government. So to put this Rubik's Cube together on their side is very, very complicated. And the way it works in our system is once you have the election, everyone goes to the president. They recommend somebody to be given the mandate to form a new government. You have four weeks to do that 28 days. Then you can ask for another 14 days. So Isaac kind of has 42 days to figure out if he's going to get this Rubik's Cube. And for your listeners who are still with us, who haven't, you know, haven't shot themselves yet. This is this this period that you have, you don't have to get an absolute majority of 61. Meaning of the 120 seat can ask it. All you have to do is majority. Other parties can abstain. And so as this whole process works out, you have to see Ken Eisenkader, the next 28 plus 14 days, can he swear in a government? And that's very, very difficult because these parties have different priorities. And he may start negotiating with a party in all of a sudden, like Lucy and Charlie Brown, all of a sudden, you know, the ultra orthodox could pull the football back. And the next thing you know, Eisenkader falls on his head. And then it will go to some, yeah. Or he can form that government and six weeks into that government. Lucy can pull the football away from Charlie Brown. Well, actually, no, it's much more complicated than I'll explain to you why. Because while you can, while you can swear in a government with a very narrow majority, I don't even know if you need a quorum. You might be able to do a three to two and 115 people abstaining, but I don't know enough of the law. But once you swear in a government to change that government, is only two ways that you can do that. One is what's called a constructive vote of no confidence. Meaning you have to have 61 people around an alternative candidate. And since that government would probably have both on the far left or the Arab parties and then the far right, the chances of them rallying in the opposition to get 61 are infinitesimally small. Or you'd have to go to a new election. And generally speaking, people get elected, don't like to right away go to a new election. So it might hold longer than you think. We do have one thing that in Israel that you have to do, you have to pass a budget by March. But if you're really in a throwin' enough money around, then usually you can pass a budget. So I think actually the most difficult hurdle is to swear in the government. But taking out that government, bringing it down very hard in Israel's system. - Well, it wasn't that hard. I mean, okay, so it didn't take six weeks. It took 14 months or whatever it was for the government before this election. That is the government that brought, Netanyahu brought down the caretaker government. There was an election and Bennett and Lapid formed a government and basically lost the government after 14 months. So maybe it's not a week. But it was not a stable. - Yeah, it will definitely not be stable. And the bigger issue will be, what is the policy gonna be? Are you gonna be able to enact a policy? 'Cause I'm always looking about different coalitions. A lot of people look what parties are in the coalition. I'm trying to say, okay, what's the policy gonna be? Can you have a coherent policy moving forward? And when you're trying to make this government of parties that disagree fundamentally on things, it's almost impossible to govern and that's what will bring it down. And when I look at some of the issues, I mean, what happens if you have, for instance, you have the Arab parties support a government from the outside, but within a month or two months or three months, something happens in Gaza or in Lebanon or in Syria. And then Israel has to use military action. So those Arab parties will oppose it. They may threaten to bring down the government, what will happen then? So this becomes extremely complicated and we'll just have to wait and see. You have these 42 days. And then if he fails, you'll get another 28 days to go to a second person to do it. Then the mandate gets thrown into a Knesset where any member of Knesset can pick it up for 21 days. So you pretty much have 90 days of all the twists and turns of Israeli politics. And until that time, you have Netanyahu and his current coalition are running Israel. So it's not a paralysis in terms of our ability to defend ourselves on different fronts, but you can't actually advance anything. And so the question that, I mean, I will tell you my own personal view is, I would like to see a broad unity government in Israel, okay? That has, in general, been my view, going back many, many, many elections. 'Cause I think both in terms of the internal challenges we face and also the external challenges we face, I think a broad national unity government is the best. I think this issue, the ultra orthodox, if you wanna solve this issue, you need to have the ultra orthodox in a coalition that they can't topple. A lot of people don't understand that, but I'll explain it to you. If they can topple a coalition, the pressure from the street will be so great that they'll have no choice but to do it. And if they're outside, what will happen is you can pass anything you want, but two or three or four years later, they'll be the balance of power, they'll come in and they'll wipe out everything that you did. Whereas if you put them in the coalition as a fifth wheel, you're liable to get about 70, 80% of the reform that you want, but it will endure over time. And that's what we need. Another issue in Israel is judicial reform. - So just numerically, that would mean that you would need somewhere in excess of 70 seats in that government to give it the stability to do what you're talking about, which is, go ahead, pull out, we'll still be here. So you might as well stay here and get what you can get out of us because you're pulling out is not going to help you. You're just cutting off your nose despite your face because we're strong enough to keep going without you. But that requires a number larger than we've seen. The last real successful union government in the 1980s when we could in labor war and unity together was almost 90 seats over four years. So no party is, I mean, most that any individual party has gotten, BB got what 31 or 32 in the 20s. - 32 in the last government, 32 in the 20s. - Which is the most that I think Sharon got 38 in 2003. But I don't think you've had a party get to the 40s. - So this is the 1980s. - This atomization has gotten more and more and more extreme here. the time as time has gone by. So therefore, the only way to enact national legislation on controversial matters where the controversy involves somebody who can break up the government is to make the government big enough so that they don't have the ability to either, as you say, either pull out and kill it or come right back in and change all the rules. Right. All right. And you know, look, I think one of the things that's going to happen is people go to vote and they have three or four things that they want. And when you look at the math, it doesn't work. You can't both be against, against the Arabs, against the ultra-orthodox, against the Tengau. It like, it doesn't work with the math. And so then you'll have to decide what is most important to you or not most important to you. And I think what happens in the process, you know, Israel is a country that time is measured in dog ears. So if you're like a day in Israel, you feel like you've been there a week and a week, you know, your feel you like you've been there for two months because the place is so vibrant and exciting. I tell Americans all the time that Israel is so exciting that Israelis go to Manhattan to relax and unwind, okay? And Americans will laugh at them. Israel is really saying, yeah, why is that funny? Because the place is so tense. And I think what may happen is this process unfolds. We'll see. I think Eisenkaught wants to do something very, very fast and to see if he could just swear in a government very fast. But if he doesn't succeed in doing it, as the days go by and the options shrink and the only way I think you're going to get an outcome of a unity government for people who really don't want it is if the only other choice is going to an election. Right now, like all possibilities are there and maybe he'll succeed in going through one of those doors. But if those doors end up closing and the only possibility is an election or a unity government, that's when you have the greatest chance of a unity government being established really at the last minute. Now, I say that with one caveat. If I would have been on your show seven years ago, I would have said there is no chance that Israel is going to go from one election to another. And it happened not once. It happened twice. So it's actually happened before. So I certainly don't rule it out. I don't think it's a good situation for Israel. But it might be that people are unwilling to make compromises and even think strategically and they're only going to keep, they want to keep all their hatreds together and they don't want to give up on any one of them. And I don't know how that process is going to play out. So let me just ask you one final question. Looking at this, looking at the range of parties here outside of the, outside of the Arab, the two Arab parties, from the Democrats on the, on the far left to the Hari deem on the far right. And, and where we are in terms of Israel's military position and the choices that it has to make. Do you see, is this governmental coalition forming? What practical effect would a non a government that is not run by Netanyahu or that is a post Netanyahu government in security terms? Would it differ substantially from the government? No question. On one issue, Iran. You know, the policy on Iran is something that Netanyahu is unique in leading this effort to confront this regime. I can tell you, as somebody said in the war cabinet, I'm pretty confident that if Netanyahu not been Prime Minister in Australia would be alive today, just because he had to overcome, like you, overcome a lot of internal obstacles to it. There's no question, when I look at the parties, I say, okay, what would be the Iran policy with different coalitions? Like Netanyahu leading that, making it his almost mission, you know, for 25 years. And I've been by his side for 25 years. And I can tell you with certainty that not every Prime Minister is acted like him when it came to this threat. You could say, had it been anybody but Churchill would have not been the same outcome. And everybody knows that's ridiculous now. Look back. I mean, he was critical in that moment of leading the country to stand up to the Nazis. And another person would have taken another, I mean, Halifax wanted to do it. Those historians will know if it wouldn't have been him. Netanyahu on Iran, I think, is unique in his leadership. With another Israeli Prime Minister, it wouldn't have been the same result. By the way, with another American president and not Trump, I don't know if it would have been the same result. So it's almost those two people being in the positions at the same time. And I just, I mentioned World War II. Look, to me, what is remarkable is they have both Netanyahu and Trump working together have confronted the danger before the attack happened. You know, Winston Churchill, for all of his greatness and all of his rhetorical abilities, he wasn't the person that convinced the United States of America to go and confront Nazi Germany or Japan. The ones who convinced him were the Japanese Bombers who bomped Pearl Harbor because America after World War I was deeply isolationist. In World War I, 16 million people were killed and what was probably the dumbest war in human history and a whole generation of politicians were elected to avoid war at all costs. And FDR was working in this environment. When the attack happened, that's when he was able to turn it. But before that it didn, what I think is remarkable. And I give credit to President Trump, a lot of credit to President Trump because for him, it's, it's, do you understand this danger and are you willing to act before everybody gets it? I mean, the job of a leader is to act to thwart a danger when you see it and everybody doesn't. And I think his decision in June 2025, especially in the operation to take out the nuclear program, but his decision then subsequent decisions are we're going to confront this threat before it becomes a problem to us. And I give credit to both leaders. So on Iran, I think he's unique in his leadership of Israel. I think, when I look at the other parties, I think Lieberman is pretty very hawkish on Iran. I think Bennett is hawkish in Iran. I think Eisencat is less so. Somebody who worked with him, he's had a very different view of the Iranian threat. He has not seen it in the existential terms that Netanyahu has seen it. And therefore, I don't believe that he would lead Israel on that issue in the same direction, but take another issue like Gaza. I think when I look at Gaza, I see Eisencat as a very good partner with Netanyahu working on advancing policies in Gaza. Let's say the Trump board of peace, which I'm a supporter of moving down this route, because I think you cannot leave Hamas and charge of Gaza. You have to disarm and demilitarize Gaza, but you also can't put the PA back in Gaza. I think he will clearly be a partner there on Gaza in a way that actually Bennett and Lieberman will be more difficult than somebody like Eisencat. I think if you look at Lebanon and Syria, my guess is that that's more of a consensus position. And I think you could forge a common policy. But I think Netanyahu's uniqueness in dealing with the Iranian threat is not something that can be underestimated. I've seen it firsthand. I've seen how he's had to confront enormous internal obstacles to go and do what was necessary. And also, obviously, external obstacles from the speech to Congress. And well before that, a decade before that, raising awareness about these dangers. So I think for that, I think Iran policy would change if Netanyahu's not at the helm. Well, this is a very revelatory. And you're, I'm extremely grateful for your time. And I believe you win. I believe you win on the word count. Was it as big a victory as the midterm route? I mean, how much did I win? I think it's pretty close. I would say you were you're at least 14 percentage points up on me in terms of the word count. So, so I do, I do believe that I do believe that I must bow before you in this in this respect. I'm thrilled to have done. The grand puba. I don't think the puba bows to anybody. Well, you know what? Sometimes reality got a confront reality and deal with it as it as it is. Anyway, Ron Durmer, thank you so much. Thank you for participating and being our our loving target last night at the at the commentary roast and and for everything that you have done and do for the Jewish people and your support for the ideas that will make America stronger. If Americans can be taught to love America again, as you say. I noticed by the way, yesterday you really went after my my football, my American football and Israel career. Everybody had really knocked into it and I learned that the key to when I moved to Israel, the the key to becoming a great Jewish athlete, play with Jews. That's what I learned. Okay. This is very important. Just to finish up Ron, Ron is a member of the flag football Hall of Fame in Israel, Israeli flag football. And as I and as I after which I did not know about and when Dancing or who was the first person to roast, Ron brought this up and made some jokes about it and all of that Dan being a big New York Jets fan. I did point out that in fact yesterday in the Jets lost to the Israeli flag football team 42-7. So so there you go. So that that is Israeli flag football at least. You know what it could do? It can beat the Jets. That's all I'm saying. Anyway, anyway, so that's a low bar. That's the definition of bar. It's like when somebody tells me that Israel has the largest gay pride parade in the Middle East. I said really like what's number two? It's like three people on a street corner and Istanbul is number two. It's like, yeah. So you're ruining the Hasbara. Let it stand. Let it stand. So anyway, thank you so much again. It's been thrilling to have you. 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