In 50 years, what will the history books say about 2023/2024? Did Israel begin to end, or did a new Israel begin? 🔷 "What was cannot be what will be"
Introducing our readers to the influential Israeli journalist, Kalman Liebskind, a longtime Likud and Bibi supporter, who now holds the coalition responsible for Israel's crisis.
Fifty years from now, someone is going to sit down to write a new history of the State of Israel. Here’s the question that consumes us all, whether or not we think of it in terms of books: will 2023/2024 be described as the beginning of Israel’s descent, as the pair of crises from which Israel did not manage to extricate itself before people started to leave, allies began to drift away and the Israel of today became just a memory, or, alternatively, did these two crises (judicial overhaul and Oct 7 war) spark something new that ultimately transformed and saved the Jewish state?
No one can know the answer to that question, but we do know some of the factors that will determine what the answer will be. The column we’re spotlighting today is one of many pinpointing what has to change for us to get the result we want, the result that the Jewish people needs. As Kalman Liebskind notes, the issue is the toxicity of Israeli political and social life. And, says Liebskind, "What was cannot be what will be.”
We’ll come back to that.
Last night, a some of the families of the hostages took the gloves off. They’re tired of pretending that Netanyahu has them or their captive family members in mind. He’s lying, they said, and they declared last night at the protest in Tel Aviv (Saturday night protests are taking off again, and are likely to grow much larger) that they are now going to work tirelessly to have him replaced by a new government.
It’s not clear how much influence they’ll have, but the powerful speech at the rally last night by their representative was yet another indication of the ice beneath the coalition continuing to crack.
With the plight of the hostages and the rest of the country in mind, here, once again, is the Yisrael Hayom (newspaper founded by Adelson to support Bibi which no longer supports Bibi) “dashboard.” From top right:
177 days of war
134 captives in Gaza
598 IDF soldiers killed (254 since the beginning of the ground war)
3,180 IDF soldiers wounded (1,544 since the beginning of the ground war)
Hostages in captivity for 176 days, 1 hour, 20 minutes …. (as of this morning)
SUNDAY (03/31—today): Kalman Liebskind, a leading right-leaning Israeli journalist, does what many others, in Israel—as well as among American Jewish journalists and community leaders— have not done. He has now apologized for supporting this government, and argues that this country needs a dramatic change from its toxicity.
MONDAY (04/01): Since Israel from the Inside first began appearing in May 2021, we have shown time and again that (a) one cannot really appreciate the condition of Israel’s soul without access to Israel’s soundtrack, and (b) the phenomenon of rewriting already classic songs is a powerful Israeli social tool. We’ll see yet another rewrite of the classic “The Children of the Winter of ‘73,” written about the children who were conceived by brokenhearted parents in the winter after the Yom Kippur War.
TUESDAY (04/02): Who are the Israelis? There’s a recurrent theme in Israeli journalism these days. Dana Weiss, Amit Segal (in the WSJ among other places), Benny Morris (in the WSJ, as well) and Havivi Rettig Gur (and many others) are saying to their readers, “first, you need to understand who we are.” We haven’t written about Dana Weiss yet, so today we’ll do that. With links to the others, of course.
WEDNESDAY (04/03): October 7 is by far the most documented pogrom in the history of the Jewish people. Many organizations are doing what they can to collect material, but behind all of it is the National Library of Israel. In this week’s podcast, Raquel Ukeles and Yaniv Levi-Korem of the NLI tell us how the project got started, give us a sense of its scope, and share some of the moral and technological challenges.
THURSDAY (04/04): Periodically, we are told that a hostages who hasn’t been seen since October 7 is suddenly declared dead. Why and how does that happen? It turns out that there are three doctors are the heart of this painful work; today we’ll meet them and find out more about how they do what they do.
FRIDAY (04/05): The stories just keep oozing out. The horror of what happened on October 7, young Israelis who saw their parents killed, tried to save them, etc. These children are far too young to have memories like that, and a new book in Israel has collected some of their self-written profiles. We’ll read a bit of the “essay” by a thirteen year old girl who went through what no human being should ever had to endure.
Since Purim is now in the rear-view mirror, Passover cannot be far away. We’ll provide more details as the holiday grows closer, but for now, a quick note that we’ll be taking most of Passover off.
As part of our efforts to afford those who do not have access to the Hebrew press a glimpse into the hearts and souls of Israelis and the pulse of Israeli public life, we strive to introduce a variety of important, influential and thoughtful Israeli journalists and writers, most of whose work does not appear in English.
Today we focus on Kalman Liebskind.
Liebskind, generally known as a solidly right of center figure(Twitter @KalmanLiebskind), was born in Nir Galim and studied at the Yeshivat Or Etzion. He was drafted into the Intelligence Corps of the Israel Defense Forces and upon discharge, worked as a private investigator. In 1997, he was one of the founding journalists at Makor Rishon and worked as an investigative reporter. In 2000, he began working at Ma’ariv. Liebskind is married with five children.
The headline of the Kalman Liebskind column from yesterday that we mentioned above begins with the Ma’ariv logo on the top right and then continues:
Warning, these instructions were written in blood: What was cannot be what will be.
On the “yesterday people,” the people of October 6, from the right and the left, who continue to hate, to argue, to incite people against each other, as if nothing has happened # On an agreed upon day for elections # On the composition of the next government # On the need to establish new ground rules
The column is very long: we’ve selected portions below. The entire piece can be read online on the Maariv newspaper site. The following is a Google-generated transcript, with only the most egregious errors corrected. The machine generated translation is hardly a masterpiece of style, but Liebskind’s exhortation is still clear—and given his “political home court,” courageous.
Since Simchat Torah, and this is increasing as time goes by, it seems that we are becoming one country with two peoples. There is no way to measure the exact composition of each of these peoples and their size, but the line of demarcation between them is clear and easy to identify. On one side are the people of October 8, on the other side are the people of October 6. The first group includes those who understand that the blow we received requires us to start something new. In the second group are those who think it is possible to continue from the point where we stopped just before the massacre, as if nothing had happened. To continue to hate, to continue to quarrel, to continue to fight, to continue to see anyone who thinks differently as a bitter enemy that must be defeated.
In a society that so desires to live, those who belong to this group, the group of people of schism and division—whose representatives are in the coalition and in the opposition, among the supporters of the government and among its opponents—should by now have been held in contempt and vomited out. A society that desires life should have echoed the plea heard in chorus from the soldiers returning from the battlefield, from the bereaved families and from the wounded fighting valiantly in the rehabilitation wards: “Let’s not go back to that. Let’s unite. Let’s stop the decline.”
For a moment, at the beginning of this war, it seemed that we were indeed going there. To a place of repair. To a place of “togetherness”. To a place of “something new is beginning.” But as the days go by, and as time passes, it seems that petty politics— like an addictive drug from which we cannot be weaned, like an old instinct that is difficult to break free from—is back and defeating us.
I remember a meeting I had, shortly after the ground maneuver in the Gaza Strip, with a friend who told me about a motivational conversation he had with a group of reservists from one of the elite units, a unit that paid a heavy price in blood, just before they entered Gaza for the first time. “There were young guys who supported reform alongside people who demonstrated against them at Kaplan just yesterday,” he shared with me. “Those who looked into their eyes and saw them together realized that we must not go back to the bad days we had. You there in the media,” he almost begged, “must do everything to reunite us. We owe it to them. They can’t go home, take off their uniforms and come back to that fratricidal war that was here before. They don’t deserve it. We don’t deserve it.”
And a word, in this context, should be said about us, the media.
Many times I found myself watching the press conferences and could have sworn that I knew how to determine, based on the questions asked, which of the journalists had a family member at the front, and which did not. Who tosses and turns in his bed at night, and who sleeps well. Who is worried about what happens to our soldiers in battle against the enemy, and who is worried about the politics and the question of what one person said to another person about a third person.
A day or two after the massacre, Assaf Lieberman, my partner in the radio show on Network B, and I made a joint decision. After years in which we specialized in challenging interviews with politicians, and in the art of pushing them into the corner, we decided that this cannot continue. At least for now, when our soldiers are fighting ferociously, and every day the names of those who fall from all genders and all shades and from all sections of the people are published, we would not give a hand to the continuation of the bickering. And so, since October 7, almost six months ago, we have not interviewed a single politician.
Instead, we have spoken to countless bereaved families, heard stories of heroism, gave air time to inspiring people and talked to wounded people for whom it was important to help lift their spirits from the depths of the rehabilitation department. A fascinating interview with Rabbi Shmuel Slotaki, whose two sons were killed after jumping from their homes into the Gaza envelope to save people they did not know, is no less topical than an interview with Minister Israel Katz or with Knesset member Ram Ben Barak. We only have to choose what is important to us now, and what contributes more to the nation.
To the extent that it depended on me personally, I took it upon myself, beyond the consolation visits to mourners I was required to go to for friends and acquaintances whose children were murdered or fell in battle, to visit the homes of those who are as far away as possible from my political, ideological and social area code. If October 7 brought to a climax the social rift within us, October 7 must also be the starting point of the correction. And no, the intention is not to stop arguing and to stop standing up for our positions against each other. In this sense, I did not join the campaign that said “no more right and no more left.” I believe that its creators meant well, but they made a mistake. There is the right and there is the left, there are supporters of this legal approach and there are supporters of the second approach, some want such an identity for the country and some aspire to a different identity. What happened to us should not obscure the differences between us, and should not make us tell ourselves that we all think the same.
All we need is to decide that we will conduct these debates differently. How? Very simple. Look around you, on the networks, in the Knesset, in the studios and on the streets, and you will see that you can easily identify who wants to lead the discussion through arguments and matters that are important to assert when arguing, and who prefers to do it through swearing and shouting and violence and personal attacks.
Refueling panic
And because I am convinced that something here must change, and because nothing I write here will be credible if I do not first talk about my camp, and because in the last year I have not reined in my harsh criticism of the other camp—for the incitement, for the refusal, for the chaos, for the willingness to harm the country, in its economy and in its security in order to win politically, and about the press that promoted all of these—I will begin by looking inward at the political camp for which I voted and which makes up the current coalition.
I will begin by looking inward at the political camp for which I voted and which makes up the current coalition. … The sick evil of this coalition, from the day it was founded, at least in my view, lies less in “what” and mainly in “how.”
Too many times this year it seemed that for many members of the coalition it was less important to eat the grapes, and more important to fight with the vineyard’s guard. Not just to fight with him. To poke fingers in his eyes, annoy him, take him out of his shell.
The sick evil of this coalition, from the day it was founded, at least in my view, lies less in “what” and mainly in “how.” Too many times this year it seemed that for many members of the coalition it was less important to eat the grapes, and more important to fight with the vineyard’s guard. Not just to fight with him. To poke fingers in his eyes, annoy him, take him out.
I had countless conversations this year with good friends, left-wing people, who were terrified of what this government wanted to do, according to them of course. I worked hard to explain to them that it was all in their heads. That they draw dragons on the walls and then wake up at night frightened and drenched in sweat at the picture that appears to them and that they themselves drew. I promised them that we are not on the way to becoming Iran, I swore to them that contrary to what they were told on stage at Kaplan, we will not become a dictatorship, and Avi Maoz will not change anything here, and no one will harm LGBT people and no one will force their daughters to wear a head covering.
These worries were the result of a cynical and ugly propaganda campaign, but it doesn’t really matter. Even if there were elements in the opposition who ignited this panic and rode it for their own reasons, there were still too many good and innocent citizens in Israel who needed to be reassured. Put a metaphorical hand on their shoulders and speak nicely to them. Just as a government that cares is supposed to speak to its citizens.
And it didn’t happen. Not only did it not happen, but instead it seemed that the dominant voice in the coalition was the voice of those who wanted to inform everyone who doesn’t think like them, that there is a group here that had finally come to defeat them. … …
The fact is that instead of speaking to them as brother to brother, the current coalition has done everything to stick fingers in their eyes and increase their fears. There is no need to give too many examples, we all know them, but these are even more mind-boggling when they come in days like this, when the people of Israel are completely engulfed in worry deep of war, of bereavement and of an astronomical number of abductees.
Here, just in the last few days, the Minister of Communications, Shlomo Karai, tweeted that “the real manipulator here is Mr. Benny Gantz and his double/deputy, Mr. Yoav Galant.” The Minister of Transportation, Miri Regev, also attacked the chairman of the National Unity Party [DG — headed by Gantz and Eizenkot] and explained that he is the source of the withdrawal of American support for Israel.
And the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, felt it was critical to lay into the fans of HaPo’el Tel Aviv. was very important to rudely attack the Hapoel Tel Aviv fans.
Tell me, does any of this help the people of Israel in his time of hardship? Does any of this advance the State of Israel? And yes, there are many of them on the other side as well. Of course there is. There is Yair Lapid who has not stopped engaging in politics even for a single moment throughout this war, and there is Yair Golan [DG - forming a new political party, which we will soon cover] who has not tweeted a single tweet that does not contain elements of hatred and of derision, and there are those who, while our soldiers are fighting in the streets of Khan Yunis, it is important to them to ignite a foreign fire in the streets of Tel Aviv again, and there are Dan Halutz and Bogi Ya’alon for whom hatred is their way of life, and there are others.
The prayer of the bereaved families
These are all yesterday’s people. October 6 people. And when we have been informed for many months about the lists of the victims and the places they come from, and we see senior members of the Kohelet Forum [DG - the intellectual architects of the judicial overhaul] together with the family members of those who stood on the stages and demonstrated against them, we must understand that we cannot let the people of yesterday rule us tomorrow. We just can’t.
And it doesn’t matter who is right about what happened before, and who started it and who caused it. There is a big debate about this and it will not advance us anywhere. What happened here in the last year brought us to the edge of the cliff, a step before a collective fall into the abyss, and only lunatics with no national responsibility can want to stand again and stand at this dangerous point and continue to struggle.
…
Because those who conduct themselves as they were before spit in the faces of the IDF soldiers, spit in the faces of the fallen, and spit in the faces of the wounded and the bereaved families. We have heard from hundreds of them in the last few months. I interviewed some myself. I saw and heard many others in other places. “Let’s stop bickering,” they cry, “that’s not why we paid such high prices.”
I interviewed Rabbi Shmuel Slutki, mentioned earlier, whose two sons, Yishai and Noam, fell during Simchat Torah, while defending the kibbutzim of the Gaza envelope. “We must turn this event into a founding event, a symbol and an example,” their father begged, “a message of responsibility and mutual guarantee that is required of us as a society. After such a difficult year in which we bled ourselves with quarrels, divisions, protests and mutual injuries that weakened our national resilience, we now have a chance to make amends. If we don’t take advantage of this opportunity for a huge transformation that is required in Israeli society, to create a new common and broad social contract, agreed on the wide range that exists in Israeli society, we may lose the hour.”
How can we ignore the pleas of this man, who gave everything?
We interviewed on the radio Shalom Sheetrit, a soldier of Golani’s 13th Battalion, who lost his leg in battle, and from his hospital bed he insisted on telling us that there were also good things that that terrible day brought us. “I know it sounds a bit corny,” he apologized, “but I think that we got together in a crazy way. I don’t know if it would have happened any other way. And this is my greatest consolation for the loss of my friends... I have a request for the people of Israel: ‘People of Israel, you see that we are united, let’s keep it that way always.’” We ended the conversation with this young warrior choked with tears.
The segment in which Elisha Madan, amputated with both legs, talked to Benjamin Netanyahu while he was sitting next to him on his bed in the hospital, and after he told how much he was pleased with his decision to enter Gaza even though he himself was exempt, and after he asked the Prime Minister to go all the way against Hamas, he turned to Netanyahu and added more A little something: “Not to go back to October 6. Not in terms of security, nor in terms of what we had done to the nation. I will do everything I can so that we don’t go back there,” he swore. …
And how can we forget the obituary of Michal, a fallen soldier’s mother in Nir Binyamin? Just before she asked the crowd that came to the funeral to shout together with her three times “Am Yisrael Chai”, she said: “A week before Nir fell I was for the first time in my life at Yad Vashem. I went there following my visit to the burnt houses in Kfar Gaza. And finally I realized that only if we are united together and do each other’s best, with strong faith, our strength will repel any enemy.”
And like her, Gadi Eisenkot, on the grave of his son Gal, told of his friendship with Eyal Berkowitz, who grew up on Mount Hebron and fell by his side. “The fact that a young man from Herzliya and a young man from Susya [DG - a right wing settlement] are fighting together after the year we’ve been through should make us all think,” he said, choking up. .. “They say that in their death they commanded us life,” he concluded, “and I say in their death they commanded us unity.”
… … And we heard David, the father of the late Adir Tahar, a Golani fighter, who offered a prayer to the Creator of the world “that the death of my son and the other fallen martyrs will not be in vain, that we will not return to the hatred and division that were here before October 7 and that we will honor the fall of our sons.” And we saw Amichai Ressler, just before he saluted Dvir, his dead son, shout from his grave and asks the crowd to chant after him in a loud voice “Joy, Unity, Am Yisrael Hai”.
And you watch all of this and do not understand how you co uld possibly ignore their cry. People who gave their lives, their bodies, their children, for the sake of the country, for the sake of all of us, are facing the most difficult moment in their lives, and instead of talking about what the child loved and the life that was cut short and the grandchildren that will not be born, this is what is important to them. Unity. Connection. Together the tribes of Israel. What power. What greatness. And the immense call. This one, which even a deaf person can hear, is heard from the direction of the multitudes of warriors returning from the battle. Anyone who insists on continuing to fight amongst ourselves as if nothing had happened is testifying to himself that this war and this disaster and this trouble that we are all in, all of these had no influence on him.
Who is to blame? Who is responsible ? How did we get to where we are? I have my opinion. Others have the opposite opinion. All this is not important now, because now we have to think about how to move on.
We cannot wait for October 2026
[DG — here, he discusses the pros and cons of early elections, but we’re not including that portion]
… … But more important than the question of when the elections will be held, if what will emerge from them. And here there must be only one correct answer—with as broad a unity government as possible. True, such governments have great potential to lead to stagnation and paralysis in many areas, but in the current Israeli reality the alternative is much worse. There are periods when it is perfectly fine for a politically homogeneous coalition of 64 members to run the country, but we are not in such a period. After the rift we went through, and it doesn’t matter which of the parties is responsible for what percentage of it, since there is also a debate about that. Bringing calm and a sense of connection are now our primary strategic value.
Don’t drag the IDF into this
… … But before we decide that we are ahead of the elections, and before we swear to cooperate the day after them, there are rules of the game that must be agreed upon between us , and the first of which is the commitment to accept the election results. I, on a personal level, for many, many reasons, prefer to see Netanyahu finish his post. But I’m just one citizen with one voice. And if in free elections the general public wants him as Prime Minister again, he will be the legitimate Prime Minister of the State of Israel and we will all have to respect that. Respect the one who was chosen, and respect the ones who chose. This is what democracy looks like. And there is another rule that should be clear after what happened here last year. If we act as a team and play as a team and fight for our home as a team—harming the team must be out of bounds.
The IDF must no longer be dragged into our political debates, no longer threatened with refusal to serve or all the threats whose bottom line is one: damage to our collective security….
I have been talking lately with people from various groups who have taken it upon themselves to write the plan for the day after. There are people of the Genesis Treaty. There are the reserves of Amendment 2024. There are many others. It is possible to deal with this or that clause in the plans of each one of them, but the bottom line is that these are people whose hearts are in the right place. “We will no longer dismiss each other. We will act with mutual respect... We will not involve the IDF and the volunteering for the reserves in the political debate,” wrote Tikun 2024 in the epistle they published.
And this must be the basis for any dialogue. I recently read several interviews with members of the Brothers in Arms and I was amazed to see that even today, after what happened, they do not understand it. They refuse to take stock, they refuse to look back and wonder if they haven’t gone too far, and most importantly, they refuse to promise not to involve the IDF in their protests going forward.
… …
I have pledged here in the past, above the pages of this column, that even if the left comes to power and enthrones Mossi Raz [DG - a very left wing politician from the Meretz party] as king, and returns us, not to the borders of ‘67 nor to the borders of ‘47, but to a country whose southern border is the Azrieli Mall [DG - in central Tel Aviv] and its northern border is the Ramat Aviv Mall [DG - in northern Tel Aviv], I will stand on the banks of the Yarkon [River, in the middle of Tel Aviv] and recite the Prayer for the State of Israel and I will recite a full Hallel on Independence Day and thank God for all the good things he has done for us.
Those who are here on condition, and warn that if their opinion is not accepted, they leave the country or leave volunteering for the IDF to others, cannot be a part of any connection. These are the basic conditions. They are simple, they should be self-evident, and every Israeli should accept them.
From here on, we will only be able to move forward when a large enough mass of us becomes the People of Together, and pushes the people of strife off to the side. We have no other choice.
I read Liebskinds’ column, and asked myself what I should have done differently. What I would not do again were the same situation to arise. And I have my list, which I’m sure will grow.
Now, it would be lovely to hear from across the coNow, if we start to hear that from the American Jewish journalists and magazine editors who were no less responsible for the vilification of the anti-judicial reform movement, we’ll know that as a people, we’ve made some progress.
Anyone taking bets on if or when that will happen?
Might Liebskinds’ column engender precisely that conversation across the ocean?
Impossible Takes Longer is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and at other booksellers.
I think you meant to say: “Now, if we start to hear that from the American Jewish journalists and magazine editors who were no less responsible for the vilification of the [. . .] judicial reform movement, we’ll know that as a people, we’ve made some progress.” Seriously, I agree that the present moment calls for a different conversation than before 7/10, but calls for unity cannot just be used as a way to silence the legitimate and significant concerns of either side. And, the need for unity also cannot just be used as a weapon to entrench the status quo, however inequitable. The decades of the crisis of democracy that preceded 2023, with its deliberate thwarting of electoral majorities, led to the vehemence of the pro-judicial-reform side. And, if we just say to those Israelis that supported it, “Sit down and shut up,” we will ensure that the bitterness will well up again. How we can balance those competing imperatives, I do not know.
Daniel, you write that, inspired by Kalman Liebskind, you are making a list of what you what do differently. Does that include not celebrating the street protests that divided the nation? You started today's column with a photo of the increasing anti-government protests, writing approvingly, "They’re tired of pretending that Netanyahu has them or their captive family members in mind. He’s lying, they said, and they declared last night at the protest in Tel Aviv (Saturday night protests are taking off again, and are likely to grow much larger) that they are now going to work tirelessly to have him replaced by a new government." Your hatred of Netanyahu seethed from this post. This is the opposite of what Mr. Liebskind wrote. He wrote about respecting the other side even when you don't agree with them, of discussing issues rather than personal attacks, of making unity the ultimate value. As an Israeli whose son just got out of five months in the reserves, nothing worries me more than these street protests that tear us apart and return us to October 6. You should be condemning them, not celebrating them.