We’ve had Matan Yaffe on the podcast before, to speak about the school for Bedouin kids that he established in the Negev after some Bedouin teenagers tried to rob him. As we’ll hear in today’s conversation once again, when they threatened him, he pulled out a gun, but instead of shooting them, decided to give them a future. Hence, “Stars of the Desert.”
I was in touch with Matan about El Ha-Degel, the new political party we’ve highlighted, and he mentioned that between Stars of the Desert and El Ha=Degel, he’d gone off to Harvard, for what he assumed would be the intellectual pinnacle of his education.
It didn’t quite work out that way. In fact, he ended up suing the university and winning—and I asked him to tell us his story. Today we hear about all three projects, and meet—once again—the kind of Israelis who are going to shape the future of this country.
You can follow Matan on his various social media platforms here.
Matan Yaffe was born in 1984 in Jerusalem, he served in the Armored Corps where he graduated with honors from an officer course.
Together with Dr. Muhammad Al-Nabari, he founded the organization "Stars of the Desert", which educates young Bedouin in entrepreneurship and leadership. Matan is also one of the founders of the “Kumzitz” association, which aims to bring together different segments of Israeli society.
Matan holds a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University. On October 7th, Matan was called up to the reserves and served about 300 days. At the same time, he founded the "Shoresh Foundation" with David Sherez and Chen Amit, which raised millions of shekels for the benefit of war victims.
Later, Matan turned to establish the organization “Tikun 2024” and continued with the organization’s leaders to found the “El Hadegel” movement and leads the movement’s approach on security issues.
The link at the top of this posting will take you to the full recording of our conversation; below you will find a transcript for those who prefer to read, prepared for our paid subscribers.
The last time I had the pleasure of having a long conversation with Matan Yaffe was in December of 2022, when he actually appeared on our podcast here at Israel From the Inside. I was in Jerusalem, and he was in Boston. We're going to hear the story today of why he was in Boston, writ large, and what happened in the years of Boston. Matan has done really extraordinary things in his relatively young life. Matan, first of all, thank you for joining us this time in person. It's great to be in the same country this time.
Thank you. It's my pleasure.
And before we talk about your experience at Harvard, just to give people a little bit of a hint where we're going. You ended up suing Harvard based on an experience that you had that you'll describe for us. But let's go way before Harvard. Tell us a little bit about how you grew up, about, let's say, your experience in the army, the major project that you initiated, which we spoke about in December of '22. And we're, of course, linking to that conversation today, so people can go back and hear it. Kol kohavei Hamidbar, Stars of the Desert, which is a program that you created for young Bedouines. You can maybe give us a quick reprise of the incident that led to the creation of that thing. Then you were also involved with El Hadegel, the new political party, which our listeners have heard about very recently because we interviewed David Sherez, who's also working with you, and we got incredible feedback about people are excited about new blood, new oxygen, new possibilities. Maybe you say something about El Hadegel and the new political party emerging, even though I know David already did it and you're other stuff today with us. Then we'll get to Harvard and that whole story. Tell us the story.
Sounds good. You want me to begin from the beginning?
Yeah. I mean, you were born. That's when you were born.
I was born actually here in Jerusalem. I grew up in a very Zionist family here in Jerusalem, and that's the story of my life. For me, the whole concept of Israel as an independent state, as a safe home that needs to be prosperous the Jewish people here in the land of Israel, was always very fundamental in my life. I served in the IDF for six years as a combat officer, and since then in Miluim.
How much reserve did you have done since the war started?
340 days so far.
There's five kids at home, right?
I have five boys at home, Nevo, Negev, Arbel, Tavor, and Sinai, so five boys.
We have a friend that just had a girl named Arbel. That's a great thing in Israeli society. A lot of these names could be for boys and girls at school.
It's a modern thing, but yeah, you're right.
It's a lot to leave five kids with a wife for 350 days.
It's a lot to leave five kids and a wife for 350 days, but under the existential threat that we are now facing, and I think that I don't want to diminish the word existential threat. I think it's much wider than we used to grasp before October 7th. I think that that's one of the big failures of the Israeli state, that it assumed that the existence of Israel is secured, and now we can do other things, and each one of us can pull to a particular ideology that represent their own values at full. That has made us neglect many things that we needed to do to secure the existence of Israel that is far from being secured.
You think even now, the existence of Israel is far from secure.
Absolutely. I don't understand how you cannot see that. Looking at the world, looking at what's happening in all the diplomatic arena. Much of it, I'm not here to self-blame. However, instead of understanding what is happening, uniting the Zionist powers and actually do what needs to be done in order to make sure that your grandkids and my grandkids will be able to live here in a safe and prosperous home for them as Jews here in the land of Israel, instead of being united under that idea and do what needs to be done, we continue to do other things. That's our tragedy. To some extent, that ties up all the things that you just said about my personal journey in Desert Stars, in Harvard, and in El Hadegel. It's the attempt of building here the fundamentals that we need to make sure that our future is secure.
Okay. We mentioned the army service, six years in the army, 350 days of reserve duty since the war began. That's how we got onto this last part. Then you found the Desert Stars, which we have a podcast about, so we'll let people listen to that. But just to remind people, because a lot of people have joined this community of listeners since the war started, and we did this way before the war. Just give people a little bit of sense of the story of how that actually started, because I think it says something about Israel, and it says a lot about you, because Other people might have responded very differently to the incident that took place, and it led you to create a program that is now about to become a brand new campus in a high school with seventh grade to 12th grade and hundreds of Bedouin kids studying in a Jewish area so that there's cross-cultural ferment going on. But how did this whole thing come to be?
I will say that during my army service, I met quite a lot of Bedouins, and I developed stigmas and stereotypes that many of the Israelis, unfortunately, we have on the Bedouin community, very negative stigmas of them being thieves and criminals, etc. My story, my personal story with them, began at about 2012 when I had an off-road motorbike and I used to travel. In one of the trips, I traveled alone, and at some point, I saw a Jeep traveling with me. After a minute, I understood that they're not really traveling, but chasing me down. They go to me and took me off the path. Out of the Jeep came out four young Bedouins, probably 16 or 17 years old, very young, and started hustling me and negotiating my bike. Give it to us. We'll take it. We'll do this. We'll do that. I tried to talk my way out of the situation. It didn't work out very well. At some point, two of them went back to the Jeep and brought a metal bar. Quite unpleasant situation. Therefore, I'm on metal bar, middle of the desert. What these guys didn't know is that when I travel alone, I carry a gun with me.
The gun, that's right on my chair right here.
When I saw the metal bar, I pulled out my I told them, Look, if you want to be violent, I promise you I can do a better job than you can. I was slightly less polite, but the message was that. They understood, said some words to each other, went back to their Jeep, drove off. I went back home, hated all of them. All of the stigmas and stereotypes I had on them, got a face. But after a while, I understood that they're not going anywhere. I'm not going anywhere. We are doomed to live together regardless of what we think on one another. Because I understood that my kids, which I didn't have back then. But my future kids, it depends on my Bedouin neighbors, I understood that something needs to be done. I left everything I did, took a private loan of 31,000 shekels, and started going around meeting people and trying to harness them into the idea that we must develop a new generation of leadership amongst the Bedouin society who is able to actually integrate them within the Israeli state. That's how Desert Start was created, together with Mohamed Al-Nabari and many other people.
I led this organization as the founder and CEO for a decade, and you interviewed me right at the end of it. The organization has grown to be one of, or probably the largest organization working in the Negev today. We're building the the hussid campus for Bedouin leadership. Like you said, it's the largest educational project that was built in Israel for many, many decades. Project about 27,000 square meters. Now we're opening the first stage, which is the Hussidman School that will include 600 students from all over the region of the Negev. Then we bring there also the dormitories and the leadership incubator and many other things that I'll be more than happy to elaborate, but that's the core.
Okay. Now you're also doing El Hadegel, which is the party that we interviewed David Sherez about also. Because you're one of the main players in El Hadegel, just take a couple of minutes. You know what David said. I don't know if you've heard the interview, but you know what he said because I'm sure you guys talk and we each know each other's pitches very, very well. Give us your take on why this new political party is so critical to Israel's future.
I'll tell you something personal. I came back from Harvard in August of '23, just before the war, and we were already then, this Israeli society was very, very polarized. Well, were on the verge of two wars. One of them We actually broke on October 7th, but we didn't look into this war. For me, this is the main failure. It's what I said earlier about the conception that we were so busy in ourselves and fighting for Israel to be exactly what we want that every group in the Israeli society, basically, even if they didn't say it in words, that's the underlying, they said, If the state is not exactly what they want, then what's the point in having a state? If it's not a Halakha state, what's the point? If it's not the full land of Israel, what's the point? If it's not a liberal lighthouse, what's the point? We were so busy in that that we've forgotten that the mere existence of the state is far from being secure. God, and that's what we need to do. Because of that, what actually happened is that we've looked away from many challenges that are threatening the state of Israel, and October 7th occurred.
When October 7th it occurred, and I immediately went to the army, many of these old assumptions burnt for me, burnt, demolished, and were murdered. For me, when I came back in January after months of fighting, it was very clear for me that the state of Israel has changed forever.
Because of October 7th.
Because of October 7th. And the public has changed, and our political leaders are changed, and the media has changed. And imagine my surprise when I came back to the Israel that I left before and nothing have changed. The conversation was the same conversation. The politicians were the same politicians. Every one of them is doing the Heshbon Nefesh.
Self examination of the other side.
They're self-critical, but only self-critical for the others. They say, You see, they are to blame in everything that has happened. I understood it's an addiction. Every side became an addict for their narrative. There's so much sunk cost. Every Side has put so much energy into a certain narrative. The ability to say, wait, this narrative might be wrong, and I might need to listen to the other side and re examine my beliefs and my thoughts due to what has happened. But that's not what happened. Everyone went back to their core belief. When we came out from the Miluim and we saw that, we knew, sometimes you see something that you cannot forget. I think that what happened to us in the Miluim is that people that on October sixth were from the other side and were almost defined by us as enemies, became our best friends and people who will risk their life for us.
Because they're in the tanks together or they're in the Nagmashim together or whatever they're in.
Absolutely. We understood that we must take this energy from the battlefield and make sure it's being implemented on the Israeli political sphere. For a few months, we've been trying to influence them, them, the politicians. But very quickly, we understood that there's only one solution for this, and that's for all of them to disappear. All of the people who have touched this failing narrative that Israel has been living in the past decades-
You're talking about politicians across the political spectrum.
Across the political spectrum. People often hear that, and they're being offended. They But this politician, what is their fault? I'm saying, You know what? Don't remove 120. Remove only 119. Everyone can keep their single one. But we need fresh blood to enter the system, fresh blood, that does not people, who are not trying to integrate themselves into the political system, but rather disrupt it and change it, because today we're being led by two failing ideologies that each one of them prioritize a very particular set of belief above Zionism.
What are those two ideologies?
So one ideology in, I'll say the edges just to say. One ideology is that Israel needs to be a religious state, Eretz Israel, the full, the biblical land of Israel.
The greater land of Israel.
The greater land of Israel. And that's one ideology. And one ideology represents that Israel needs be a liberal lighthouse of morality, et cetera. Each side is willing to sacrifice Israel if it's not what they want it to be. I'm willing to sacrifice their own ideologies in order to Israel to be. That's a crucial difference. Now, I didn't invent it because Zionism was born, and we didn't even invent this argument, Daniel. In the end of the 19th century, the Jewish world was divided. Some people isolated themselves said, We need to reserve ourselves and build gettos to ourselves. Some said, We need to assimilate and become like others. Then Herzel and the Zionist movement came and kicked both of these ideologies aside and said, No, we need to build an independent state. That was the creation of Zionism, the idea. 40, 50 years down the line, Zionism became very practical with Yitzchak Sade and Ben Gurion and Chaim Weizmann, et cetera. The state of Israel was created. Now, when we look at Ben Gurion and his generation, we see that their first, second, third, and 10th priority was the mere existence of the State of Israel.
How do I know it? Because if at a certain point of time they needed to be with Communist Russia, then they were. If the next day they needed to be with France and England, et cetera, then they were with them because they didn't care not about Russia, not about France and England. They cared only about one thing, the existence of Israel. That was the compass. That was the lighthouse. Every day, the strategical situation of the state of Israel became better. Imagine that in these first decades that we were really under a severe existential threat. Still, all of the great big things that we've built were built then. All of our universities, all of our hospitals.
The National Water Carrier.
All the infrastructures that today make us flourish were built in the first four decades. Even the high tech and nation that we are is all sitting on foundations of the past because people prioritize the existence of Israel and how it turned better by the day. But now we have a generation of politicians and not leaders I want to distinguish between these two words. It's not the same. We are being led by politicians who do politics, who are popular, who are playing a game with our lives and not by true leaders. They must go because their failed ideologies are not representing the core of Zionism. That's what we're trying to do. We don't try to influence them because we can't. We want to create an alternative in El Hadegel. We say, and we come, and we need, We need a new generation of Zionism. It's your time to step aside and our time to step in, take responsibility, and lead Israel to be what it needs to be. There are many questions that this statement now opens. My biggest fear is us in 10 years. How will we not turn into them? Because I'm so fearful of that, I've dealt quite a lot in putting on ourselves all the needed restrictions in order to make sure that we don't slip this slippery slope.
Okay. It's already clear to people who are listening to you that you're a person who sees a problem and you address it. You get followed, quote, unquote, or traveled with by this Jeep with four Bedouin kids, and you see the day itself was very unpleasant. But when you went home, you actually had the very different response from what most people would have. Most people would say, that just confirms all my suspicions. These guys are horrible, and I'm going to make sure they don't get any power or whatever. And you said, no, I'm going to help them become different. We're going to build a different relationship. You came out of the army after all these days of reserve duty, and you're now saying there's a problem in Israel's political system. We're going to change it. We're going to build a new political party. You see a problem, you address it. You went to Harvard a couple of years ago to go to the Kennedy School, and you bumped into a problem. Let's talk a little bit about why you went to the Kennedy School, what were you hoping to accomplish there, and then the specific thing that occurred, and and how it's played out.
I'll be very honest with you. My reason to go to the Kennedy School was not Harvard, nor the Kennedy School. I wanted to spend a year abroad with my family, and I understood that the only way for me to actually fund it was through getting a scholarship, and I applied for the Wexner program, and I happily was accepted. In June of '22, where I flew with my wife, Aviv, and my five kids to Cambridge, and to one of the most magnificent years of my life. In that sense, the living abroad opened my eyes, exposed my kids to English, and we traveled the West Coast of the United States for two months and Canada for one month. It was It was incredible. Harvard, for me in person, was something that I needed to do until it became super interesting. I'll tell you two things that for me stood out in Harvard in my time there. One was that I took an Arabic course, and I got four books, four study books for Arabic. Four textbooks. In all the textbooks, All the texts that we needed to read were about Palestine. At some point, I looked and said, That's weird. We have so many Muslim countries. Why only Palestine? It suddenly stood out to me that while we were sleeping on our It was like we say in Hebrew, I'm not sure.
Sleeping on our watch, that was the American phrase.
While we were sleeping on our watch, the other side has been working, and they created a very vast network of explaining of advocacy for themselves in many, many layers. Some of them are very clever, light textbook, not just direct. That was one meaningful thing for me to understand how we, the startup nation, the nation that can really solve any problem, we were not focused on the right things. We were focused on many other things, but not in make sure that Israel has the infrastructure to flourish for another 100 years forward. That's a failure of this state.
It's a failure of telling the story of the state, right?
Exactly.
It's a failure of Hasbara, as we would say.
It's a failure of Hasbara, exactly. The system of Hasbara does not exist. Now, many people take it to the place of self-blaming and to say the product of the state of Israel is not good enough. I want to quote here Ben Gurion who said, We need to fight the Nazis as if there's no white book and fight the white book as if there's no Nazis. We need to fight anti-Semitism, and soon I'll get to it, as if Israel is perfect. We need to fight to make Israel perfect as if the world is perfect. El Hadegel is my battle to make Israel perfect. The anti-Semitism and the Hasbara is my fight against this evil, evil that exists in the world. The second incident that happened in Harvard for me was that I took a course in the Kennedy School. In this course, I had a good relationship with the professor to begin with. A very good relationship. I met him even before the course, and I presented him the work that I want to do. All of my works in the Kennedy School were on one topic. Can you guess?
Zionism, Israel, et cetera.
Exactly. Easy guess. All of them. Because I went there and I wanted to extract real value that is very practical. Like you said, for me, nothing theoretical. I want to implement. I did works on Israel, like all the papers on Israel. I presented him the program, the plan, what I wanted to do together with Amnon, who studied with me also in Israeli. He loved it. He loved it. He accepted us to the course, and everything was good. Then on the first, it was an intensive course, two weeks, two weekends, two straight weekends. On the first day of the official course, things started to not work according to plan. First of all, he had many TAs, teacher assistants, and about seven, four of them gave examples of what you need to do in the course. It doesn't matter to present something. Four of them presented something that is anti-Israeli, something about Gaza, something about Lebanon. That was peculiar. It was weird. But they said, All right, whatever. We didn't take it too seriously. Let's say it like that. Then we presented what we want to do, and everything was fine. At the end of the first day, I get an email, Please come and meet me in my office, urgently.
This is from the professor? Okay, now I understand that you, by virtue of the agreement that's been signed with Harvard, you can't say anything about who the professor was or the course. All I'll say is on my laptop, there is this thing called Google If you go around, it appears very likely that the course you're talking is about, is Professor Marshall-Gantz's course called Organizing People, Power, and Change. Just put it out there. It looks like it might be the course. But anyway, okay, so the professor calls you in and says, and says, You must change the topic of the work that you're doing.
It was so bizarre because the work was about Israel as a liberal and Jewish democracy that needs to be prosperous for all its citizens. Something super, I don't know, for me, neutral. He said, You must change it. We told him, How come? He says, It's offensive. I can't support nations that prioritize race or religion, et cetera. I went to the same Google you just mentioned, and I asked him the question about nations that define themselves according to religious or ethnicity, whatever. 48% of the world's nation define themselves like that, including 100% of the Muslim states, of course, which many of the students in the course were from these Muslim states. I told them, but why is it different? All these states how they find themselves. It's not exactly the same. When you say a Jewish democracy, it's like white supremacy. I told them, How come white supremacy? I told them, You know what? Forget it. You are a professor here for 40 years. Have you ever asked a student to change the topic. This is academy, we come to speak, and I'm more than happy if the topic of the work bothers someone, I'm more than happy to discuss it, to explain it, to have a conversation about it, use it as an academic opportunity to actually open it and maybe we can educate one another and see that what we used to think is not necessarily what is. Let's use it. No, you have to change the topic. You have until tomorrow to submit a new topic. We went out and we were shocked.
Now, I'll be very honest with you. I'm 40 years old. I'm an IDF combat officer. I have kids. I'm married. I'm Israeli. I have backbone. It didn't move me on the emotional level. However, I understood that had I been an 18-year-old American that actually takes this degree seriously in terms of affecting their life, 100% they would break and it would change the topic. Once I understood that, I came out of his office and I said to Amnon who was with me, and we looked at each other and I told him, This is the most important thing we are going to do this year. We're going to fight this battle all the way to the end to get one thing, impact. I want this to never happen again. I know it's naive, but the way to make sure it won't happen again is to not give up even on a sentiment there.
The next day we came, he told us, What's your new topic? We said, No new topic, same topic. He, stupidly have sent me an email that we must change the topic until the end of the next day or it'll have consequences. Over email, I sent an email back, said, What consequences? What do you mean? He He said, Academical consequences, etc. From that point onward, all the groups presented, it's a course of 150 students, all the other groups were presented, were able to present their progress in the work to the entire class. We could not. We asked, he said, You caused enough damage. I don't want you to do it. We told him, You're just being anti-Semitic.
By the way, assuming that Google is correct, and it was as Professor Marshall Gantz. He is also, according to Google, Jewish. You're telling this Jewish professor at Harvard, assuming that that was him, that he's being anti-Semitic. Just adds a little bit of complexity to the story. It's not surprising that this person would be Jewish because it's a not uncommon position among American Jews. But I just think that adds a little bit of spice to the story.
Absolutely. Especially, Daniel, in this environment where you're trying to be, we say in Hebrew, more just than the Pope. You're trying to prove everyone that you're so Enlighted that you don't see the bishop on your back. Anyway, that was absurd for us. From day to day, it became worse. You suddenly saw that all the TAs are doing an extra effort for every present that they do to speak about the topic of Israel-Palestine. Before the war. We're speaking about the winter of 2023. So eight months, nine months before war. We, of course, continued with the work. We submitted it the last day when they do a photo of all the people in the course. A student brought a handbag with 50 kafias, and gave everyone, including the professor, whoever it was.
Everybody put it on?
Of course, they put it on. They took a picture and we said, All right, we are going all the way with that. Yeah, I know. It's crazy. It's right.
I'm stunned because I read some stuff online about this whole thing, both in the Hebrew press and in the English press. I don't think that little tidbit got in there. If it did, I missed it. But again, this whole Kafia thing. People think the Kafia thing is a post October 8th, they say, because that's when Israel started to pound Gaza. This is long, long, long before.
Much before. Absolutely. No, it was crazy. We came out, finished this course, and we said, All right, we need impact. Then we were trying to understand what's the next phase is for us. Then someone connected us to the Brandai Center, which I think probably most of your listeners know them, and to Ken, and we started working with them. They said, of course, that there's a lot of material here and much that can be done and should be done. They gave us an extraordinary service in that sense. They were incredible, and we were working with them. Basically, the process with them is that first we sent a letter to the dean asking them to say this is outrageous, and we want sanctions, personal sanctions on that date.
On the professor?
Yes. To begin with, that's what we wanted. Then they sent some letter basically says nothing, and we started publishing more and more op-eds in all the papers. You can see it also in Google and in the website.
Without to finish the course, did you get credit for the course?
I did, but lower grades than all the rest of the courses we took.
That's going to hold your career back. Absolutely.
It sits on me until today. Once we understood that really nothing substantial, they appointed an investigator of their behalf that was supposedly external. She interviewed us. She interviewed all the people in case, wrote a good American report of 200 pages. But the bottom line was that title nine and all these things were violated, and that created an unsafe environment for us.
For you and Amnon.
Yes, correct. It created an unsafe environment. From that point on, and then they offered mental support. We told them, We don't want mental support. We want implementation of a reality to make sure this will never happen again. Nothing serious came about it. We filed a lawsuit. Again, They were using the Brandai Center. They did the legal work. Then through the process, several times, they tried to say, Okay, we'll do this, we'll do that. But it was all count to nothing. At some point, they filed to the court. I'm not sure about the legal phrase, but you can interview, you can. You'll be more than happy to expand it. But they filed something to the court to dismiss it, to say that it's not worth it to go to court. But the threw them out and said that it was and it is going to court. At that point, it was already after October 7th, so the whole climate became more rough for them. Also, several others complaints have joined our complaint.
That was Shabbos Kestenbaum.
Shabbos Kestenbaum and others. Suddenly, there was a mess. Then a few months ago, they offered a settlement, which I'll tell you the truth, we had a big dilemma whether we need to sign it off, the big achievement of the settlement was for them to adopt the IHRA policy, which the IHRA policy is the policy against anti-Semitism. That basically, to simplify, it says that anti-Israeli and anti-Semitism are the same, and both are not allowed. Now, we didn't know, I'll say it like that, we suspected that it won't be implemented properly. But we understood that saying no to this won't serve us in the long run because we are positive people. We don't want to fight.
Well, also you'll be the naysayers. Everybody will say, We tried to help, and you guys turned it down.
Including the court, that if we'll go to court. We understood that, and there was a dilemma there, and it was a discussion Eventually, we decided, again, with one opinion, with the Brandai Center, to sign the settlement and to come in good faith. Let's say it like that. We come in good faith. You say you'll implement the IHRA, come on, let us see it. There's a window of time that in that time, they need to appoint someone that will be in charge of that and do some process. We are supposed to go back there in the next few months and do a seminar on the work that we were not allowed by the professor to submit.
And he's supposed to come to this? He's supposed to be part of it? Yes. The professor is going to be part of this when you go?
I certainly hope so. Maybe he'll call in sick, but supposedly He should come and other people from the staff should come, et cetera. I will tell you that through this time, there was one staff member who I won't say his name because I don't want to put him in trouble, but he was great and was very supportive of us. And he told me, It's crazy. Israel is very unique in one thing. When people don't like their administration, they say the state doesn't have the right to exist. In the same time, I remind you, it's the Ukraine, Russia war, et cetera. He said, You don't see anyone going around saying Russia doesn't have the right to exist. They say, Putin is a bad leader. With Israel, the jump between we don't like the administration to the state doesn't have a right to exist is immediate. In that sense, I think that our battle was very important to also show this young 18 year old American student anywhere in the States that when you stand up and when you fight for that, we can definitely bend even the top of the Ivy League University. It's crucial because our That settlement now became the benchmark for the entire universities in Israel, because so far, the higher policy was adopted only by very few institutions and not the Ivy League institutions. Now, when the settlement is signed, that becomes the new benchmark. But for me and for us, it's not the end of the story. We look very closely at every violation of the higher policy.
At Harvard or beyond Harvard?
At Harvard. Because my case is with Harvard. And once we'll understand they crossed the threshold of things that happened that violate the policy, we will definitely go back and say, If that will happen, I don't want to assume that it will happen. I come in good faith. But if that will happen, be sure that they will find us there saying this is a core violation of the settlement and go for another round. This time, we We said, yes, we came in good faith. We wanted it to work. It didn't work. Let's make sure that now we do all the needed corrections in order to make sure that this will never, ever happen again. And that's what I meant in fighting anti-Semitism as if Israel is perfect. Because the fact that I like or dislike the administration in Israel, and just to be honest, I hate it, and I fight against it here with all of my power, despite the fact I'm in Miluim all of my time, I left I don't work. I don't do anything apart from establishing El Hadegel. Nevertheless, this fight against anti-Semitism and against the outrageous discrimination and weaponization of all bullshit, forgive my French, to hurt Israel, we must stand united against it.
Not we, Israel, we, the Jewish people. That's another failure of the state, that they were not able to unite the Jewish people globally to be together and to feel a shared future. Even all the things that are happening with the religious here, conservative reform, etc. The state of Israel needs to be the best place for every Jewish person to live at, not some Jewish people, all the Jewish people. If it won't be the best place to live at, it won't exist. I know it deep in my heart, I really believe in that. That's why, again, we're fighting these two venues at once to make Israel better and against anti-Semitism.
Can I ask you two last questions before we wrap up? One of them is about your experience at Harvard. I don't think a lot of people probably experience somebody like you standing up to the culture. I think you had this incident long before this course, right? About some incident when we're talking about the legacy of white people, European people. I'm I'm not quite sure. And you modeled for people, had nothing to do with this course, had nothing to do with Israel, standing up for something in a way that I think Israelis would say, well, of course, but for a lot of Americans was actually surprising and unusual. Can you give us a quick reprise of that?
Yeah. So first I have to say that Israel is not a political correct state, not the state, and definitely not the people. In that sense, the whole encounter with Harvard was very new and interesting for me to see how these things are going. The opening seminar in the Kennedy School in this program was about, it's two months about race, racism, and colonialism. For me, it was a brand new topic. I admit I knew nothing about the American history, apart from the things that everyone know, but they didn't know. It was very interesting to learn and to see, and to also see the many, many wrongs that were being done over there to the Afro-Americans and to the Indians, et cetera, et But for two months straight, all the lectures that they brought us told about how horrible everything was. I'm not judgmental. I came and I listened and I learned. It was incredible.
However, apart from all these blaming against all the white people on how terrible it was, at some point it became ridiculous because you understand that there's no complexity in how they present reality. There are good people, bad people, c'est tout. For me, that bothered me because I understand that reality is more complex than that. At some point, there's the central corridor in the Kennedy School. They call it the Forum, and there was a lecture, and I stood up and I took the mic and I told them, I understand that the white people here did many terrible things and used people and the Sugar plantations, and slavery, everything. I understand everything, and I'm really not cynical about it. I genuinely understand it. In order for me to establish a point of view that is balanced and not polarized, are there also any good things that these people are doing? Because we're standing here in the United States of America, all in all, apart from all the terrible things that have happened here and happened all around the world through history, your state is quite good, I would say, quite strong, quite prosperous, US, economy, army, leader of the free world. Can you also present some good things that have happened so we'll be able to come out here with a balanced point of view? Again, I'm not politically correct. I didn't understand just how much this reaction will backfire. So many people, Yeah, how are you there to say it, et cetera, et cetera. The interesting thing for me that many people offline, after school, came to me, me a way to go to stand up. I told them, I don't know if you can swear in this podcast. I told them, Are you morons? Why aren't you speaking?
We used to say in the army that if you don't do anything, you do nothing. When you don't try to balance, then people get a wrong concept of the state. I'm not here to diminish anything from the wrongs that were done. And everywhere in Australia and in New Zealand, we all know the history in that sense. But we must be more balanced in how we see the world and present both sides, the goods and the bad, learn from the bad, and increase the good. But it can't be so unsighted and so twisted because that creates a very unbalanced world, like we see today, by the way, that is very polarized, that it's binary, one or zero, no complexity, no middle, and that is a catastrophic. It's a catastrophe for democracies. It's a catastrophe for liberalism because You see that the circle ends up by that the far right and the far left are actually the same. They represent the same opinions. They do covenant in political systems between the far right and the far left.
And I see it even Here in Israel, we talked about the Bedouins. There was a settlement with the Bedouins above the lands. You know who voted against the settlement? You guess right. The far right who didn't want the Bedouins to have nothing, and the far left who wanted them to have everything. That's the craziness of the world. By not speaking up to this awfulness, we allow it to happen. We, the normal people, and in Israel, they're a majority. I'm sure that also in the United States, I hope it's not some criticism for me of people. But I think that the people who are balanced must speak up. We must stand up and say our opinion, and we need to fight for it because otherwise, we leave the court empty. The extremists, they take the mic. Be sure of that.
Okay, to wrap up, you talked about the two battles that you're waging. You said the white paper, we're going to fight the Nazis as if there's no white paper. What's white paper in English? The white paper And the one fight the white paper is if there's no Nazis. That was Ben Gurion's famous claim and whatever. So you're saying you're fighting these two battles. We're going to fight anti-Semitism as if this world's perfect, and we're going to fight to make it as well perfect as if there's no anti-Semitism, or if the world was perfect. So you spoke now about one of the two battles, the anti-Semitism battle. I just want to come back to Israel, and we'll wrap up on this. You're pouring your heart and your soul into this whole project called El Hadegel. Your whole life has been, as you said, from the time that you were raised by your family, not far from here, Zionism and belief in the importance of the Jewish state has been just part of the DNA of how you were raised and who you are as a human being, I'm sure, as a father now yourself. Give us your take on why you're optimistic that we're going to become not perfect because country is going to become perfect, but why are you optimistic about our survival and our increasing decency.
It's a good question. First of all, we talked a lot about Ben Gurion. So Ben Gurion said that in Israel, the miracle is part of the strategy. So definitely in these times, both globally and nationally, we need a miracle. But in order for miracle to happen, we need to allow it to happen. And I think that in Israel, a We have many obstacles and many challenges and many reasons why. But we also have a good reason why we must fight with everything we have. I think that the good news is that the positive energies in Israel, still within the nation, you have the ultra-autodox, which is for us a big fight, especially now in these two years where they don't want a draft. They say, We'll die and we won't draft in this existential war. We have 20% of the population here that are Arabs. We have very large extremes on both ends. Still, nevertheless, the majority of Israelis are what I quote from the third sector. They are too quiet. They don't have political representation. But I think that in their core, they are people who, when I look at them, there's no other place I would rather be.
Now, unfortunately, these people, because they're balanced, for many, many years, they've neglected all the public arenas. For me, the good news is that when these people act together, they win. The bad news is they need to act together. So far for a few decades, they haven't. Now, October 7th was the most biggest tragedy we can imagine in a life. But it did also open a window of an an opportunity, probably the last window of an opportunity to actually come back into the Zionist way, which is the one thing that worked for us for 2000 years. I see that people are anxious for new blood, for new answers, for new direction. We do about 20 house gatherings every month. People want to hear more. They want to make it happen. Now, it's a big challenge. It cost a lot of money. I never wanted to be a politician. Never in my life. I didn't want to be the chairperson of my high school nor the university. It was never my intention. I'm an entrepreneur, and the rest of us, we come from different backgrounds. But for me, Daniel, this is a war. Like I fight. When they call me to the army, I go and fight. Here on my civil uniforms, I fight with everything I got because it's an existential fight. I can't tell you the house is burning and be intellectual about it and be theoretical about it and say, The house is burning. It's very bad. No, if the house is burning, we jump and we fight. We need to bring the water hose. We need to jump inside and bring the people. We do everything in our power.
We don't have the luxury nor the privilege to give up because so many people have sacrificed everything they have in order for this miracle of the state of Israel to exist. People that have lived here for hundreds of years, people who lived in America and in Europe and funded this miracle we call Israel. We used to work together. We We used to build great things. We used to bring ideas that were the chances, and maybe this is a good wrap-up, the chances of us establishing a state back in the '40s was far, far lower than our chances now of making this state the dream of every Jew person in the world. I think that this is the opportunity that all of us, you, me, our listeners from all around the globe, this is now our opportunity to step in, not to step back and to see what's happening. No, the contrary, to take a step forward and say, This is on me. There was a generation here that took all the weight and all the burden and established this miracle and now it's on us. Every person that listens to me doesn't have the privilege to close your amazing podcast and say, that was interesting and intellectual. No, there is something that must be done about it, and I'll be more than happy for people to reach out and to consult and to help either in the war with anti-Semitism or on the war on making Israel perfect. It doesn't matter. But we must act. The people who are balanced, who want to live a better life, who understand that the contradictions is part of Judaism. It's not something that either or. No, it's this and that. We want both ends, and it can be. Our chances of making it happen are far better than what it was in the '40s. They have been able to do it. We will be able to do it, too, if we work together.
No better way to end than that. Matan Yaffe, who really, I think, embodies the very, very best of Zionism here in Israel and Zionism when you go abroad. Thank you for all you've done. Thank you for who you are, and thank you for taking the time to have this conversation with us today.
Thank you so much for this exposure, and hopefully we'll be able to combine forces and work together and save Israel and save the world. It's on us.
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