July 21, 2025 • 49 mins
In this episode of "JPost sits down with...," we meet with Dr. Yoav Heller, chairman of the Wingate Institute, leader of the Fourth Quarter Movement, and a distinguished Holocaust historian. Together, we explore the profound question of what constitutes true evil, in the context of the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7. Drawing on both Jewish and broader historical perspectives, Dr. Heller offers insight into how the past can illuminate the moral challenges of our present. We also delve into The Dina Project, an initiative focused on acknowledging and addressing the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. We also remember Alex Dancyg, Dr. Heller's long time friend and teacher, who was abducted on October 7 and subsequently murdered. Dr. Heller emphasizes the critical importance of believing and supporting the women who were brutally assaulted on October 7, and what justice and remembrance should look like moving forward
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is JPO sits down with and today we're going
to be sitting down with Dr Jopella Yabs, the chairman
of the Wingate Institute and the Fourth Quarter Movement, and
it's also a widely known Holocaust historian. During our conversation,
we touch on some sensitive topics such as sexual violence,
so please listen with care.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
There's a lot of ways I think this conversation can go.
I think we're going to discuss some heavy topics, but
I also think they're very important, relevant topics, and I'm
just I'm happy that you're hearing that we can discuss
this and kind of shine a light on these specific issues.
Before we get started with the conversation, I just want
to hear a little bit about you. If you could
(00:43):
introduce yourself a little bit and just kind of give
the audience a little brief of who you are.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Okay, So I'm your her. I'm from Tel Aviv currently
Mary Plisto. I grew up in northern Israel, very small
place called the Minahamia. I'm currently a lead I'm the
chairman of the fourth Quarter Movement, which is a grassroot
movement that was established three years ago to change Israeli
politics to a more centrist politics. And I'm also the
chairman of Israeli Wing It Institute, the National Sports Institute.
(01:12):
And I'm also an historian. I'm a Holocaust expert, dealt
with genocide, with the evilness. That's who I am.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
So I know you've spent a lot of your career
kind of focusing on really dark parts of history and
to connect it to what we're experiencing today. How has
October seventh shifted your perception?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
It's interesting. I'm an historian, but I've never sat in academia. Actually,
I'm a practition I was always in the social field.
I'm an historian that wants to live history and contribute
to changing history. So October seventh is a mixture for
me of in the first hours, where on the one hand,
(01:54):
I run to the fourth quarter headquarters and we create
a situation room and immediately we start acting. But every
you know, you have dead spots from time to time.
Then I wear not my social entrepreneur hat, but rather
the historian I had. And actually, I tell myself, what
(02:16):
are you seeing here? These are things that you wrote about,
studied about and the stories are coming, and we're getting
to the evening, and I'm hearing of people hiding in closets.
And as the days went past, I understood that there
are times in life, probably as an historian, that what
you studied about, what you wrote about, what you act
(02:39):
to change or to seek the change force. Suddenly it
appears that reality is what you wrote about. And I
think it changed my life as many as really think that.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
I felt, wow, this is like history happening in front
of me, all the things that I've heard, and that
was kind of shocking. How did you sort of get that?
I mean, it was happening to you at that point
as well.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
So how did you make the shift of.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
You know, okay, I have to put this hat on now,
and you know, look at it through the eyes of
a historian, look at it through the eyes of you know,
the determine. How how did you do that in real time?
Speaker 3 (03:14):
So once again, most most of what I did is
uh is act, you know, tell you an interesting story
on I think was ten am, no, not ten am.
A few hours later on Saturday, on October seven, I
saw tweeked by an Israeli journalist, Amiltibone, who was in
(03:35):
Alos and he wrote for the people of the North,
because people thought that in the north would be an invasion. Also,
this is the kit that I recommend that you possess
if you are in the mahmad in the shelter room.
What I did is, once again, this is a social
entrepreneur in historian hat. I just saw in the situation
some young guy and I told him, prepare read what
(03:56):
he wrote in the kit. I'm going to raise money
and tell me how many kids call municipalities the north.
How many kids do you need? And by the day
after four thousand kids were already on the way to
the north. So it was first of all, act first.
I think in historical perception that the trick is to
live history right now, already to learn immediately. It took
(04:18):
me a few days to understand when people started to
ask me, can we compare this to the Holocaust? It's
just so. I then started to put my history in
hat and understood and started to talk about what are
we actually seeing there? Why is this? What is this
war about? I thought was very important that the Zionists
(04:38):
mainstream would understand. I understood there were going to be
a big war. We need to explain what is this
war about, and how do we deal with the collective
memory if the Holocaust and Jewish history and what happened.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
If someone was to ask you that question, now.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
What would your answer be about the Holocaust?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah, about the comparison, But yes, I think that you
know that it still comes up today.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Yeah, I'm constantly I'm asked about it. So I think
three points there. One. Look, I owe my life. Resisted
comparing things to the Holocaust because I thought it was
almost flirting with the Holocaust denial. On the other hand,
I said to people, Holocaust is not sacred. You have
to learn from it. Otherwise it's not a part of
his story, so it's not interesting. So here three points. One.
(05:23):
I think we can talk here about Holocaust moments. When
you think about a child who is hiding ten hours
in a closet, when you think about a grandmother who
is holding the door for hours in order to protect
of the moment, to protect our grandchildren. I heard of
a young woman who was hiding beneath the body of
(05:46):
her boyfriend. These are Holocaust moments that, in effect what
we never thought we would see in Israel for Jewish
people since the Holocaust so Holocaust moments, you cannot ignore it.
There war Holocaust moments. There. The second thing, which will
probably talk about the phenomenon of evilness of a force
(06:09):
that tried to genocide Israelis and the Jewish people is
the second phenomenon that is comparable. But the third point
is it's not the Holocaust. It's not the magnitude of
the Holocaust. And we have a state which for a
(06:31):
few hours did not exist, but later it did exist
and we stopped the invasion and we went out to war.
So that I think is the three points where I
see it. But it does talk or communicate with a
collective memory of the Jewish people, that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Does a lot to be highlighted about a bunch of
different aspects of that day. And now I kind of
want to move a little bit more into something a
little bit more deeper and a little bit more difficult.
There's been a lot of reports recently about the Dina
Project kind of going into what happened on the seventh
and how sexual violence was used as a weapon against Israelis,
(07:13):
and I think a it's very important to talk about
and be I'd love to hear your perspective on the
project itself and also just in general.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
So I think Shifra, we need to establish an understanding
of how important projects like Project Dina is because we
are now two and a half years after October seven
and we can see even even more. We can see
that the collective memory abroad and also some of israelis
(07:47):
what actually happened in October seven. Naturally, is is actually
losing the perspective or the historical magnetu of what happened there.
That was not another round of attack between Israeli and Palestinians,
that was an attempt. The genocide is really is in
the Jewish people. So the accounts of what happened need
(08:10):
to be divided into two. All of the investigations regarding
the official occurrences. What did the Hamas leaders do, What
did the documents show, What does the intelligence show? That's
formal history, that's documented history. But I want to salute
the researchers, the three women who led the Dina report,
(08:31):
first of all, because they went into a field which
I also in my PhD used is oral history. Actually,
in order to complete the full picture, you need to
talk to the people on the ground and understand what
happened and there are methodologies to actually we call it
cross analysis narratives in order to compare the narratives to
(08:54):
see also the documentation and understand establish a picture of
what happened. The Diena Project talks about sexual violence which
was actually denied by many people and establishes a very
very broad picture of what happened there. And we'll go
into it. But if I need to give a headline,
(09:16):
is that sexual violence in the invasion and the attempt
of genocide the Israelise was not a coincident. What the
Dina Project proves and talks about, this was a tactical
weapon in order to dehumanize, humiliate, and actually portray the
victory picture against the victims. It was not a coincident,
(09:40):
and we can go into it. How do they prove that.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Something that I think about a lot.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
I think it's etched in my mind and also in
probably many Israelis is that video footage of Shanny. Look
when you know that was the day of I think
that footage was released, and I think even at that
point people still saw that video and kind of said no.
But you know, like there were already excuses coming out there,
already things where people you know, I don't know if
(10:04):
it was because they saw it and they couldn't believe it,
or they didn't want to believe it, or they really
wanted to deny the.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Fact that it happened for other purposes.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
But to me, that was a crazy point in time
where you see things like that visually with your eyes
and there's still people popping up, you know, saying no, no,
this isn't how it was.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I find that really troubling.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
So it's also interesting now that you talk about it.
I think one of the reasons that we had a
hard time to comprehend because if you look at the
history of the Israel Palestinian is really our conflict, sexual
violence on both sides was not the main artifact, if
you can call it, that of violence. And here you
(10:44):
suddenly see I would argue, what happens when they win
for a few hours, that is actually it is a
part of the practice of the attempt the genocide israelis.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah, and I think we're talking about something that really
kind of encapsulates to me, you know, what one evil
act is, And I'd love to hear your perspective as
well on just like what is evil?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
What does that look?
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Like, from a historical perspective, We've had so many different
things in history where you can say that was evil,
this was evil, But when we actually want to lay
it out, how would you describe that?
Speaker 3 (11:17):
So there are many definitions. I use the following definitions.
Evilness is the attempt to uh or not the attempt
the will to attempt people as a mean for redemption.
What does it mean? I draw this term from a scholar,
(11:38):
Professor schau Friedlander. He's a prominent Holocaust scholar who called
the Nazi antisemitism redemptive antisemitism. He said the uniqueness of
the Nazi antisemitism was that they promised that by killing
the Jews, you will be redempt you'll get you have redemption. Now,
why is that purrehalmness for me? Because it means that
(12:00):
biologically you have nothing to do in order to run
away from your destiny as a Jew. That's it. You
were born, You're destined to die in order for me
to get redemption. I think what we see in what
I call the annihilation axis, which is Iran Chris Boa
(12:23):
and specifically in October seven is Hamas is purity illness
because there's a redemptive narrative there. I think one of
the most important texts of October seven is the terrorists
who calls his mom from kiputsmi flacimi remember that, and
he says, Mom, I killed ten. I think if he
even says ten women or something like that, kill more,
(12:46):
kill more, and you see suddenly that she educated him,
and the whole establishment and whole ideology educated him that
this is redemption for him. So there's actually nothing I've
been saying that for years. Also, we're brought about Iran.
What can we do as Israel to change our destiny
(13:09):
to die by their Iranians? Same thing with Hamas. That's
why it's a lie to connect this attack to occupation
or to any rational or pragmatic vicious as it will
be or aggressive, it will be conflict. This was is
this is an ideology which is redemptive. Kill the Jews,
(13:32):
kill the Israeli is destroy the people Israel, and you
will be redempted. That's puritifulness. And that's for me what
we saw on October seven, and that's what that's a
wake up call from.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
A historical perspective. Then how do you on a personal level,
but also you know, with all the people that you
work with. How do you even answer begin to answer
that question of you know, what what do we do
in order to change that narrative? What do you look
back at history and kind of say, okay, we're using
this as evidence.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
How can we move forwards? Like what is the method
of what is the thinking there?
Speaker 3 (14:02):
I think we need to open our eyes. First of all,
I understand what is in front of us. We can't
lie to ourselves. You know. The first experience that I
had regarding this way of thought was in twenty ten,
actually in London. I went to university in University of London,
and I was, I think the only Israeli PhD in
(14:26):
history back then. And I started when people started to
attack me. And then they said, come to a debate
with the peace acts policy in societies. And I came
to a debate, and you know, I was a peachnick, Yeah,
come on to state solution and we love and peace,
We will will stop the occupation and everything will go right.
And suddenly they start arguing me, and I go back
(14:46):
to my wife and I said, something is wrong here.
They're not talking about sixty sixty seven, they're talking about
forty eight, talking about nineteen seventeen. They're talking about colonialism.
They're actually talking about replacing the State of Israel, not
living next to the State of Israel. So October seventh
(15:08):
is for me an understanding, And I think the heart
of the issue is the right of return. What is
the right of return as they call it. I think
it's a mean to fuel actually the aspiration to destroy
the state of Israel. If you want to see what
does it look like, that ideology of the right of return?
(15:28):
Seventh of October, That's what it looked like. It's not
something someone gently knocking on your door and saying, shifra.
Can we actually settle this argument between us, the one
hundred and twenty year argument between Zionism and the Arabs.
So we think for me, the lesson is one. It's
a cliche, but it's first of all, nobody will protect
(15:52):
it besides us. First of all, we need, we need
help from the world. We need, but we establish a
Jewish state in order for such things not to happen.
And by the way, we let ourselves down. We said
never again, and for a few hours for the inhabitants,
for example of neurals, never again did not exist. So
on we need to be strong. Two, we cannot afford
(16:15):
ourselves to go into practically a cold civil war and
almost on a verge of a civil war, because we're
not in Switzerland. We can actually have a conflict here
within Israeli society, but it cannot be a toxics conflict
which our enemies use. And three, we need to wake
(16:38):
up every morning and tell the world, Tell the Arabs,
tell the Palestinians. The main issue in order to solve
this conflict is for you to recognize Zionism and the
existing of a Jewish state here in the land of Israel,
and to give up the right of return, the concept
(17:01):
of return. They don't think you have the right of
return after the fifth generation, and then Israelly is in
the Jewish people is I think the possibilities for peace
are endless, but we need to be very, very awakened
to what happened there. It's not a coincident.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
I'm interested to hear about what that change looked like
for you. You said, you know, back in twenty ten, you
were more like a peacenick. That was more of your
I guess like ideology. And then it seems like now
I'm not saying that you're against peace, but I think
the way that you want to get peace is probably different.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Yeah, I am four piece. I think we need to include. Look,
it's not politically in Israel from left to right. It's
almost toxic to say the word piece. But peace is
the dream of the generations of the Jewish people. Peace
in our holy books, in the Torah is mentioned hundreds
of times. Piece is who we are. So I'll never
(17:56):
give up peace. But it can't be fake or fraud peace.
It needs to be real peace, and peace starts with
a recognition of Zionism and with recognition that the Jews
have a right to exist in a state in the
land of Israel. Now, what change in me is the
(18:17):
understanding that until you do not explain that to yourself
and to the world, nothing will be solved. And it
means that the concept of just ignoring forces of evilness
that exists in the air world, that exists in Palestinian society,
(18:41):
that exists in the Shiah axis in Iran and Chrisbola
and Ramas in Palestinian society, you cannot actually they cannot
live next to us. These forces needs to be destroyed.
That's why I think Kasa needs to be deradicalized. These
forces cannot live together. We cannot be tolerant in these forces,
(19:02):
and we cannot also be tolerant to double speech. You know,
all the years when they said to state solution, there
was one is a Palestinian state and the second. Never
you've seen a Palestinian say it's a Jewish state. No, No,
it's always state or citizen state. So what change for
me is that if we want peace, we need to
(19:27):
be true to ourselves and we actually need not to
lower our expectations from our surroundings. And by the way,
look at what is happening in the Gulf States. They're
changing their books. Muslim Islam is getting very much more
moderate perception the way they teach it. So I think
(19:52):
when you gradually insist on processes and the processes come
from within. Also, I think there's a lot of hope,
but let's not be foolish until then, because we'll die.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
I find that really interesting also because I think a
lot of people probably share that sentiment where they kind
of came from, especially after the Seventh maybe from before.
But I think it just shifted people's perceptions so much,
especially because of all the atrocities that happened, and it
was so shocking for people because again sometimes you don't think, oh,
I will live in this time. When you're living through history,
(20:26):
you don't always notice that it's happening until afterwards. I
think actually on that day we all knew. I think
everybody was like, Okay, yeah, this is We're never going
to forget this.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
It just before one comment on that. I want to
raise the bar even for what happened as a leader
of the movement and as a historian, for me to
October seven is not only and a lot happened there.
What happened in surrounding Gaza. For me, you need to
think Shifra, what happens when there's an invasion? It could
(20:55):
have happened. It was like in any moment it could
have happened. Then from the north there were one forces.
What happens if the Shia militians comes from Syria. We
saw what Ira Iranian missiles look like when three four fall.
Think of hundreds and tens of them falling in Israel.
(21:16):
I wouldn't say it was an existential threat, but it
could have come to fifty seventy eighty one hundred thousand
Israeli is dead. It could have come to rud one
forces in Haifa. We need to think of October seven
in that terms, otherwise we'll never understand historically what happened there.
For me, that's what happened. It did not actually manifest itself,
(21:40):
but for me, that's the picture of what happened. That's
how we need to look at it.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Something that again I don't think most people thought they
would have to think about. Then it comes into your mind,
as you know, what would I do if God forbid
I was in that situation? Something you never want to
have to think, but then you do, and that is
I think, a really strange time to be in. But again,
like you need to be aware of that. It was
just like you know, a snippet of what could have been,
(22:04):
and it could have been much greater. I want to
move back a little bit towards the sexual violence that
happened on October seventh and kind of look at it
from the perspective of why this was so unique. As
you said, we haven't really seen this in the conflict before,
in the sense of it being so massive, And I
want to get your perspective on that. Why do you
(22:25):
think we got to that point. I know you touched
on a little bit before about how you know you
kind of get to that point of victory, but how
did we get hit?
Speaker 3 (22:33):
So first of all, let's get into historical perspective, at
least in the modern era, of the usage of sexual
violence as a mean for in the usage in warfare.
So I think there are two types of sexual violence
that we saw in warfare. As one would be more barbarian,
not in the way it was performed, but rather in
(22:56):
its in connection to the older. Look at the Soviets
when they counter attack towards Germany in World War Two.
They probably raped we don't know the exact number is
a million German women, but that was a part of
their privilege, as was in ancient times. You come, you conquer,
(23:22):
you rape. That's one type. It's awful. It created the
generation of German women that we cannot even imagine the
magnitude of what they experienced. And there's a second type,
which I would put Ramas's sexual violence under them. It's
actually a more strategic or tactical usage of rape as
(23:48):
a mean and sexual violence as a mean to actually
genocide in any ways, So we can see it in
nineteen thirty seven, for example, and then Nan king Mass
mass massacre and rape were the Japanese. Probably tenh of
thousands of Chinese women were raped there, but that was
(24:11):
an ideology. They came there to tell them, we own you.
It was pre planned. You could see it a very
very very high magnitude and volume in the Rwandan. In
Rwanda in nineteen ninety four when the Hutu committed genocide
towards the Tutsi and the ideology, there was a million Rwandans,
(24:36):
especially from Tutsi, were murdered. And you see there that
before that in the scripts of the Hutu leaders they
were talking about taking beautiful Tutsi women and humiliating them
as a symbol of destroying the Tutsi. And we're talking
of enormous number of rapes there and mass participation in them.
(25:03):
I think what the Dina report proves that were first
of all factor there were six sides where there was
sexual violence. But what's interesting they found out how do
they know that this was actually what they call it
tactical mean in the massacre is that they saw and
will not go in here to the graphic descriptions, but
(25:23):
they saw patrons that if you read the report, and
by the way, I don't necessarily recommend to read the
report unless you have to, because it is devastating, devastating, devastating, devastating.
But you see their patrons that are not are not
(25:44):
usual patterns of sexual violence that appear in the different sites.
Somebody gave a script of what do you do? And
that proves to us that this was a tactical meaning.
I think now asking me to go into the psychology
(26:06):
of what actually harmas meant to do. So, I think
as an evil ideology, they wanted to doomanize, they want
to humiliate, they wanted to conquer in the deepest way,
and I think that's where they aim the sexual violence towards,
(26:28):
and we need to understand that. In the other hand,
always as an historian and also a leader of a movement,
I say that on the other side of these descriptions,
there are victims, some of them are not with us anymore,
and some of them need to live through these horrors,
(26:49):
and we as a society need to take an account
and be very sensitive in dealing with this issue.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yeah, I think that also the idea of denying connects
a lot to what you've studied. And also what's happening
now something that I'll never forget. I was watching a
clip of Yard and Romie Gone's sister on a news
channel in the US, and she was trying to use
her last like ten seconds or something to say, hey,
(27:17):
there was sexual violence on October seventh. You need to
make sure that people know that that actually happened.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
And the broadcaster that she was.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Talking to, which just rolled her eyes, and I think
she ended up actually being fired for that. But the
fact that that is even a thing that happens, I
can't imagine that scenario happening in any other context. So
it's it's super, super shocking, And I wonder also, what
does that then say about Harmasa's ideology at that point,
(27:45):
I think, or in general, what does that say about
Hamas's ideology that mutilation, rape, these kinds of disgusting acts
were used, as a sense, as a weapon.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
I think there was a weapon, because this is an evil,
redemptive regime. But I want to address what you said
about denial. Look, the Hamasa ide ideology or these redemptive
evil ideologists that exist in Middle East or the Jews
(28:20):
and Israelis are fueled by also partners around the world.
And this was I think for many Israeli liberals devastating
to see their counterparts in business. For me, in academia,
women who are who fought all the lives I say,
with the respect for the rights of women, for sexual
(28:42):
and violent victims, and suddenly you see them actually involve
politics or create actually confused between facts and their political
views and adopt the Hamas narrative and actually look to
(29:03):
Israeli women in the eyes that says we were sexually violated,
and they don't believe them. And I think that if
you look at what happened in dark, dark, darker times
in the Western civilization, in the academia, in the elites
(29:26):
I see from my perspective, in Germany and other places
in the world where the academia was tainted, I think
we see this now, not in all places, but in
many places in the West. We found out that actually politics,
radical politics that confuses between good and bad, between malign
(29:47):
and benign acts, between political pragmatic conflict, which is okay
to criticize Israel, and between the fact that this was
a massacre, a barbarian invasion with an evil redemptive ideology
committing the most worst atrocities that we heard, at least
(30:10):
in the past few years. And I was shocked already
in the eighth ninth of October, we see demonstration in
the world. What were you demonstrating against Israel war? So
I think the Dina project is so important. That's what
I said. Oral history is there to establish a body
of knowledge next to the formal history in order to
(30:32):
fight for the case of these victims and for the
case of Israel in the West. I think against this redemptive,
evil ideologist cycling back.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
I guess too, I don't want to say the comparisons,
but I guess the things that we were drawing that
kind of connected things that happened in the Holocaust. And
today I remember, just like, as a woman who is Jewish,
who is ISRAELI that feeling when I realized that people
weren't going to speak up for the women. And I
remember thinking to myself, you know, okay, that means that
(31:05):
I might not count, you know. And I think a
lot of people had that feeling, and it's shocking. I think,
you know, a couple of years ago, the Metio movement started,
you know, really being very very big, and I felt,
you know, that people came together and it was like
this group of people and then all of a sudden,
the same people that I felt, you know, you know,
we're together and all of these things, it just didn't
(31:26):
matter anymore. It didn't really feel like it existed.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
This is an essential point in order to understand how
dark is these evil ideologies. Why because you said something
important here when there's a redemptive ideology meaning I you
can be raped, killed, whatever you don't count because I
will be redempted. And you know when you offer me redemption,
(31:49):
we all of us want to bring. So you, as
a young Gazi in Palestini, you redempt it when you
will rape her and then kill her. Then when it
trickles into the academia in the world, world and so
on to the streets, suddenly you shift. For what are
you saying? I'm totally exposed and there's nothing that I
can do besides hyde in order to prevent this exposure.
(32:13):
Now I'm not saying now Jews are being chased in
the streets in the West. By the way, there are
also phenomenons like that. But I want our listeners to
think how exposed you are when for your mere identity,
that you're Jewish or that you're a Jewish woman, you
have nothing to do. You come into a debate, maybe
(32:33):
you're an ultra liberal, you're a progressive. And we hear
this these stories from progressives also in the States and
academic when suddenly people find out they're Jews and they're
kicked out, or they're mocked, or they're That is how
dangerous this evil ideology, redemptive ideologies, and that's why it
(32:54):
can also exponentially spread, and we need to speak up
against it and explain this phenomenon.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
That's why I was so enthusiastic about having this conversation
with you, because I think it's not being talked about enough.
I think this is just the beginning, and the awareness
aspect of it I think needs to be elevated and elevated.
I want to move on to maybe a little bit
more of a personal sort of note. I know that
you were a student of Alex Danzig, and Alex was
(33:23):
kidnapped and murdered from his home in October seventh, and
I think there's so much loss that's been experienced, and
I want to ask you, and I know it's personal,
but how did the lost shape your perspective on this,
because I think I know for me, you know, a
friend of mine was killed at Nova, and I always
(33:44):
ask myself, what would October seventh have looked like if
that wouldn't have happened, what would my experience be? But
there's no way to think that it changes every single
part of the story so far.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
It's crazy to think about the fact that this is
a small country and with the magnitude of casualties death
that we're here, almost every Israeli has a story of
someone that he or she lost. Alex Danzig I came
as a twenty five year old to Yad Vashem to
(34:20):
I dreamt about being an instructor for delegations to Poland
on the Holocaust, and from the first second that I
saw him, we changed my life and my perspective about history,
about history being reality. Alex taught me history is a
mean to actually understand people's story and through that to
(34:40):
explain to yourself the present and also to talk about
the future, not only the past. Now, why is it
important for me that you're asking about Alex or anyone
who is talking about October seven? Because Alex taught us.
And by the way, Alex educated generations of Holocaust and
(35:00):
in Israel. But he was a provocative guy. He was
not a gentle guy. He was from Neros and for
the first moment of the course in Adva Sham, he
comes and he says the following, we're not going to
Poland in order to look for blood. If you want
to look for blood, don't come. He suddenly said, what
(35:23):
welcome and then he explains. He says, in the Holocaust,
will people were murdered. They had their dreams, they had
their aspirations, they had their jobs, they had their families.
A whole civilization, a Jewish civilization, culture was destroyed there.
If you want to study the Holocaust, don't study about death.
(35:44):
Only study about life. So that's why, in a way,
when you ask me about Alex, and when I talk
about him, it's also in my mind his vision and
how to talk about these atrocities, talk about the people
who were killed world, talk about their lives. So Alex
was bigger than life. How Alex was an autod DUCTI
(36:08):
didn't did even study formally history, and he knew everything
about history, and he loved Poland and he loved to
talk about Polish and Jewish relationship. And he taught me
about Polish jury, and he taught us about how to
look at the Holocaust and so on and so on.
And suddenly, think of it, Think of it. He is
(36:32):
the guy that taught you all your life of these atrocities.
And suddenly I hear Alex Dantink was kidnapped. I couldn't
believe it. At the beginning, I said, this is this
is a this is a twist in history that I
can't believe it. So I wanted to actually understand that
it's true. And then we heard it's true, and I'll
never forget when one of the cycles of the hostages
(36:55):
went out said that Alex was teaching them, uh history
in in the tunnels. And I think his son in
laws had a joke because Alex was a very funny guy.
And uh, he said, I don't know if it translates
the joke to English. He said in Hebrew it means
(37:17):
he had, Uh how do you say he had? Like
they were kidnapped. It they couldn't go anywhere.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
His audience was held captive. But it's not really Yes,
they had no choice. Basically I had no choice.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
That that's the spirit of Alex making that making in
the darkest of time, jokes that they'd had another no
other choice. They were in the tunnels. He told them
about history. And later we found out UH that Alex
Uh was died from UH one of the bombings. UH
(37:51):
probably with the idea f but of course Hamas is
the one that kidnapped him and killed him. And since then, UH,
I take delegations. When I take delegations to Poland, I
talk about him. I talk about the legacy, his legacy.
I got to know his son Yuval, and we're working
with other good people to create some kind of institute
(38:15):
commemorating him but also his legacy. And for me, it's
it's now a lifetime mission to by the way it
was before this happened also, but now even more so
UH to bring Alex to people and what Alex wanted
(38:40):
to say, and his love for Zionism and his he
was a great human being, and talk about humanity and
peace and everything. So yeah, it's very personal for me.
As you see, I'm not even making sense in what
I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
No, I think I hear a lot of sense. And
I also think that it's almost it's almost beautiful in
a way that what Alex taught you about celebrating people's life.
Don't focus on the way that they were killed or
how they died, focus on the way that they lived.
And you get to do that for him, which obviously
I wish you didn't need to, but it's very beautiful
(39:15):
that you get to do that.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
I remember that Vivian.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Silver was also in one of the people who I
saw the name on the list, and I used to
work in co esistence groups and we did a lot
of different shared projects with women wage piece. Remember when
I saw that again, like, you just reminded me of this.
You see somebody who dedicates their life to the betterment
and the peace chasing world, and in an instant everything changes.
(39:47):
And it's that you said you felt shocked. It's just
it's completely completely shocking.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
That's why it's important to tell all the stories and
eventually it will happen of all the people that were
massacred on Ocadober's And because as I tell people when
we talk about the Holocaust, don't politicize the victims, because
the victims were right and were left. The victims were
haready and secular. The victims were society and also here
(40:16):
the Hamas redemptive evilness ideology does not care who you
were if you're in Israeli because also Muslims were killed,
and specifically a Jew, you're doomed to die. And let's say,
let's let's celebrate life and diversity and the fact that
we're a Jewish democratic state through the different stories that show, yes,
(40:42):
that there was an extreme picnic like Vivian and people
were far right. They were all massacred there. Let's tell
all their stories.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
What do you think about the international community's response to
a the atrocities that happened in general, typically the sexual
violence that occurred.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
So as I said, when we say in the international community,
I spoke about the academia, I think a lot of
the press, the progressive movement in the States, it's shameful
and it's actually they don't understand, or they do understand.
It's fueling the evil, redemptive ideology that will backlash to
the West. We are fighting here war, which is the
(41:24):
forefront of an ideology that basically it doesn't hate only Jews.
They perceive the Zionist movement and the Jewish people as
the proxy, as the forefront of colonialism of the people
who want to actually destroy their civilization. And I think
(41:48):
there are people in the West that understand that and
that advocate for the case of Israel and advocate to
actually set apart the people in the Muslim world who
want peace and have an argument with Israel. What does
peace look like versus the ideologies that we see, these
(42:11):
redemptive evil ideologies like Hamas Chris bala Iran and widespread
also in the Palestinian society beyond Haramas, and which is
also very popular there and also in the air world.
So you see, I think some of the international community
in some instances standing for Israel, and other instances having
(42:35):
a hard time what Israel is doing. And on some
levels it's legitimate, but fundamentally I think many people in
the West don't get what are we fighting for. Are
fighting for the right of the Jewish people and the
state of Israel to exist, but actually the right of
(42:57):
the Western civilization to live peacefully and not be constantly
threatened by people who challenge it. And because of self guilt.
I always said in London that some people in academias
there this was London of post Holocaust, post World War
two and post colonialism, and so much self guilt trickled
(43:23):
into the minds of people that at some point they
were confused and start self hating themselves, and through that
always easy to self hate, through the self to actually
bring Israel into Jews into the picture. So I don't
think we're the ultimate victims, and I think we have
a lot of things to improve. But I think the
(43:44):
international community one day will actually, like they did with
the Iran, recognize that Israel is in the forefront and
fighting the war of the free world.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
How do you think this will shape the work ahead
for the fourth quarter? And by this I mean really
everything that we've discussed.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
Yes, we need to see something that if we look
at the northern front all the way to Iran and
I'll get to Gaza in the moment, this war actually
change Israel's strategic position in the Middle East. Now, the
Shia access, the redemptive evil access is weaker dramatically. I
(44:25):
think Israel is a safer place than it was in
October six and October eighth, and of course October seven.
I think we have a very big problem with Hamas
in Gaza. In my mind, on some conditions, we need
to go end the war there. Once again, not an
(44:48):
any term but we need our hostages back home, and
we need actually to recognize that we could get here
there to seventy five eighty percent of what we wanted
to achieve another one hundred percent, and what is that
connect to the fourth quarter? We now have an historical mission.
We need now a peace agreement within Israeli society. There
are fundamental issues in Israeli society, our social contract, our
(45:13):
lack of constitution, our decreasing education system, which is all
we have in my mind, the integration of the Arab
and the Hareadi societies. These are four historical missions that
will actually project whether the state of Israel in the
fourth quarter for its existence, will be positioned for the
(45:34):
next hundred of years. And we need to lead a
moderate access in the Middle East, fight these evil forces,
but have a peace treaty within Israeli society, and that's
the mission of fourth quarter. If we don't lower the
polarization in society, we don't change politics to the fact
(45:55):
that we understand that we need to broad consensus on
these issues. We just need to organize differently political system.
If we don't do that, Israel will not succeed. But
there's an opportunity and in the fourth quarters, we have
Probaby two hundred thousand, two hundred thousand activists. We see
(46:15):
that we're organizing differently the way is really perceived politics.
It's not yes, BB no BIB. It's not the traditional
right left is who wants to solve these problems from
the Zionis mainstream and include Arabs and Haredis who want
to be a part of this project without losing their identity.
And that's our mission in the fourth quarter. And we're
(46:37):
going to go and we're going full power since October seven.
Because this is an historical mission.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
And as we start to wrap up, I want to
sort of present to you, I guess a question of
as a historian, looking at all of these things, what
do you think moral responsibility is to understand what happened,
to remember what happened, and to continue on.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
How do we act now? How do we respond?
Speaker 3 (47:05):
You know, there was always an argument which I found
very disturbing in Israel. What is the Holocaust? Is it
a Jewish phenomenon or a universal phenomenon. I always told people, guys,
it's a Jewish phenomenon and a universal phenomenon. It's a
Jewish phenomenon because it was first of all the Holocaust
(47:25):
and all of its gravity was the ideology was aimed
towards the Jews, and mass killing was towards the Jews.
Was universal because first of all, many people in international
not also non Jews were killed. But also we need
to see it came from the center of the Western civilization.
(47:46):
So I think our obligation regarding the massacre the invasion
of October seven is first of all to understand that
internally we have two obligations or three obligations. One, we
need to fight these evil forces. We need to be
strong too. We need to lead the peace forces in
(48:07):
the Middle East, people to people and government to government.
Wherever there is a place a whole we need, we
need to lead it. We need to be a part
of the leaders no Middleast. And three we need a
peace agreement and within Israeli society. So that's the broad lesson.
In order to do that, in historical perspective and moral perspective,
(48:29):
we need to tell people there's a Jewish context here,
in Israeli context, they attempted to kill us, but also
in universal context, we cannot allow these massacres to occur.
We cannot allow these evil redemptive ideologies to exist. That's why,
by the way that the UN defined after World War
(48:49):
Two the term genocide. Do not torment it. Let's let's
use it to where it's really happening. And this is
a voice that I want to hear more from the
Jewish state in the future, especially after the massacre of
the seventheth of October, not only particularly toward Israel inde Jews,
but also globally.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
Wow, thank you so much for sharing just your expertise
on these issues, and we're so happy that we had
you on the show and I wish you all the
success in the future for changing Israeli society for good.
Speaker 3 (49:19):
Thank you for having me Shiffer.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
This episode is supported by third party advertising and was
hosted by shiff for Jacobs. Editing was done by Ship
for Jacobs and Kashatny. Production for this podcast is done
by Ship for Jacobs and was recorded in the j
Post Studios in Jerusalem.
This is JPO sits down with and today we're going
to be sitting down with Dr Jopella Yabs, the chairman
of the Wingate Institute and the Fourth Quarter Movement, and
it's also a widely known Holocaust historian. During our conversation,
we touch on some sensitive topics such as sexual violence,
so please listen with care.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
There's a lot of ways I think this conversation can go.
I think we're going to discuss some heavy topics, but
I also think they're very important, relevant topics, and I'm
just I'm happy that you're hearing that we can discuss
this and kind of shine a light on these specific issues.
Before we get started with the conversation, I just want
to hear a little bit about you. If you could
(00:43):
introduce yourself a little bit and just kind of give
the audience a little brief of who you are.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Okay, So I'm your her. I'm from Tel Aviv currently
Mary Plisto. I grew up in northern Israel, very small
place called the Minahamia. I'm currently a lead I'm the
chairman of the fourth Quarter Movement, which is a grassroot
movement that was established three years ago to change Israeli
politics to a more centrist politics. And I'm also the
chairman of Israeli Wing It Institute, the National Sports Institute.
(01:12):
And I'm also an historian. I'm a Holocaust expert, dealt
with genocide, with the evilness. That's who I am.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
So I know you've spent a lot of your career
kind of focusing on really dark parts of history and
to connect it to what we're experiencing today. How has
October seventh shifted your perception?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
It's interesting. I'm an historian, but I've never sat in academia. Actually,
I'm a practition I was always in the social field.
I'm an historian that wants to live history and contribute
to changing history. So October seventh is a mixture for
me of in the first hours, where on the one hand,
(01:54):
I run to the fourth quarter headquarters and we create
a situation room and immediately we start acting. But every
you know, you have dead spots from time to time.
Then I wear not my social entrepreneur hat, but rather
the historian I had. And actually, I tell myself, what
(02:16):
are you seeing here? These are things that you wrote about,
studied about and the stories are coming, and we're getting
to the evening, and I'm hearing of people hiding in closets.
And as the days went past, I understood that there
are times in life, probably as an historian, that what
you studied about, what you wrote about, what you act
(02:39):
to change or to seek the change force. Suddenly it
appears that reality is what you wrote about. And I
think it changed my life as many as really think that.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
I felt, wow, this is like history happening in front
of me, all the things that I've heard, and that
was kind of shocking. How did you sort of get that?
I mean, it was happening to you at that point
as well.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
So how did you make the shift of.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
You know, okay, I have to put this hat on now,
and you know, look at it through the eyes of
a historian, look at it through the eyes of you know,
the determine. How how did you do that in real time?
Speaker 3 (03:14):
So once again, most most of what I did is
uh is act, you know, tell you an interesting story
on I think was ten am, no, not ten am.
A few hours later on Saturday, on October seven, I
saw tweeked by an Israeli journalist, Amiltibone, who was in
(03:35):
Alos and he wrote for the people of the North,
because people thought that in the north would be an invasion. Also,
this is the kit that I recommend that you possess
if you are in the mahmad in the shelter room.
What I did is, once again, this is a social
entrepreneur in historian hat. I just saw in the situation
some young guy and I told him, prepare read what
(03:56):
he wrote in the kit. I'm going to raise money
and tell me how many kids call municipalities the north.
How many kids do you need? And by the day
after four thousand kids were already on the way to
the north. So it was first of all, act first.
I think in historical perception that the trick is to
live history right now, already to learn immediately. It took
(04:18):
me a few days to understand when people started to
ask me, can we compare this to the Holocaust? It's
just so. I then started to put my history in
hat and understood and started to talk about what are
we actually seeing there? Why is this? What is this
war about? I thought was very important that the Zionists
(04:38):
mainstream would understand. I understood there were going to be
a big war. We need to explain what is this
war about, and how do we deal with the collective
memory if the Holocaust and Jewish history and what happened.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
If someone was to ask you that question, now.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
What would your answer be about the Holocaust?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah, about the comparison, But yes, I think that you
know that it still comes up today.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Yeah, I'm constantly I'm asked about it. So I think
three points there. One. Look, I owe my life. Resisted
comparing things to the Holocaust because I thought it was
almost flirting with the Holocaust denial. On the other hand,
I said to people, Holocaust is not sacred. You have
to learn from it. Otherwise it's not a part of
his story, so it's not interesting. So here three points. One.
(05:23):
I think we can talk here about Holocaust moments. When
you think about a child who is hiding ten hours
in a closet, when you think about a grandmother who
is holding the door for hours in order to protect
of the moment, to protect our grandchildren. I heard of
a young woman who was hiding beneath the body of
(05:46):
her boyfriend. These are Holocaust moments that, in effect what
we never thought we would see in Israel for Jewish
people since the Holocaust so Holocaust moments, you cannot ignore it.
There war Holocaust moments. There. The second thing, which will
probably talk about the phenomenon of evilness of a force
(06:09):
that tried to genocide Israelis and the Jewish people is
the second phenomenon that is comparable. But the third point
is it's not the Holocaust. It's not the magnitude of
the Holocaust. And we have a state which for a
(06:31):
few hours did not exist, but later it did exist
and we stopped the invasion and we went out to war.
So that I think is the three points where I
see it. But it does talk or communicate with a
collective memory of the Jewish people, that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Does a lot to be highlighted about a bunch of
different aspects of that day. And now I kind of
want to move a little bit more into something a
little bit more deeper and a little bit more difficult.
There's been a lot of reports recently about the Dina
Project kind of going into what happened on the seventh
and how sexual violence was used as a weapon against Israelis,
(07:13):
and I think a it's very important to talk about
and be I'd love to hear your perspective on the
project itself and also just in general.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
So I think Shifra, we need to establish an understanding
of how important projects like Project Dina is because we
are now two and a half years after October seven
and we can see even even more. We can see
that the collective memory abroad and also some of israelis
(07:47):
what actually happened in October seven. Naturally, is is actually
losing the perspective or the historical magnetu of what happened there.
That was not another round of attack between Israeli and Palestinians,
that was an attempt. The genocide is really is in
the Jewish people. So the accounts of what happened need
(08:10):
to be divided into two. All of the investigations regarding
the official occurrences. What did the Hamas leaders do, What
did the documents show, What does the intelligence show? That's
formal history, that's documented history. But I want to salute
the researchers, the three women who led the Dina report,
(08:31):
first of all, because they went into a field which
I also in my PhD used is oral history. Actually,
in order to complete the full picture, you need to
talk to the people on the ground and understand what
happened and there are methodologies to actually we call it
cross analysis narratives in order to compare the narratives to
(08:54):
see also the documentation and understand establish a picture of
what happened. The Diena Project talks about sexual violence which
was actually denied by many people and establishes a very
very broad picture of what happened there. And we'll go
into it. But if I need to give a headline,
(09:16):
is that sexual violence in the invasion and the attempt
of genocide the Israelise was not a coincident. What the
Dina Project proves and talks about, this was a tactical
weapon in order to dehumanize, humiliate, and actually portray the
victory picture against the victims. It was not a coincident,
(09:40):
and we can go into it. How do they prove that.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Something that I think about a lot.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
I think it's etched in my mind and also in
probably many Israelis is that video footage of Shanny. Look
when you know that was the day of I think
that footage was released, and I think even at that
point people still saw that video and kind of said no.
But you know, like there were already excuses coming out there,
already things where people you know, I don't know if
(10:04):
it was because they saw it and they couldn't believe it,
or they didn't want to believe it, or they really
wanted to deny the.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Fact that it happened for other purposes.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
But to me, that was a crazy point in time
where you see things like that visually with your eyes
and there's still people popping up, you know, saying no, no,
this isn't how it was.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I find that really troubling.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
So it's also interesting now that you talk about it.
I think one of the reasons that we had a
hard time to comprehend because if you look at the
history of the Israel Palestinian is really our conflict, sexual
violence on both sides was not the main artifact, if
you can call it, that of violence. And here you
(10:44):
suddenly see I would argue, what happens when they win
for a few hours, that is actually it is a
part of the practice of the attempt the genocide israelis.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah, and I think we're talking about something that really
kind of encapsulates to me, you know, what one evil
act is, And I'd love to hear your perspective as
well on just like what is evil?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
What does that look?
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Like, from a historical perspective, We've had so many different
things in history where you can say that was evil,
this was evil, But when we actually want to lay
it out, how would you describe that?
Speaker 3 (11:17):
So there are many definitions. I use the following definitions.
Evilness is the attempt to uh or not the attempt
the will to attempt people as a mean for redemption.
What does it mean? I draw this term from a scholar,
(11:38):
Professor schau Friedlander. He's a prominent Holocaust scholar who called
the Nazi antisemitism redemptive antisemitism. He said the uniqueness of
the Nazi antisemitism was that they promised that by killing
the Jews, you will be redempt you'll get you have redemption. Now,
why is that purrehalmness for me? Because it means that
(12:00):
biologically you have nothing to do in order to run
away from your destiny as a Jew. That's it. You
were born, You're destined to die in order for me
to get redemption. I think what we see in what
I call the annihilation axis, which is Iran Chris Boa
(12:23):
and specifically in October seven is Hamas is purity illness
because there's a redemptive narrative there. I think one of
the most important texts of October seven is the terrorists
who calls his mom from kiputsmi flacimi remember that, and
he says, Mom, I killed ten. I think if he
even says ten women or something like that, kill more,
(12:46):
kill more, and you see suddenly that she educated him,
and the whole establishment and whole ideology educated him that
this is redemption for him. So there's actually nothing I've
been saying that for years. Also, we're brought about Iran.
What can we do as Israel to change our destiny
(13:09):
to die by their Iranians? Same thing with Hamas. That's
why it's a lie to connect this attack to occupation
or to any rational or pragmatic vicious as it will
be or aggressive, it will be conflict. This was is
this is an ideology which is redemptive. Kill the Jews,
(13:32):
kill the Israeli is destroy the people Israel, and you
will be redempted. That's puritifulness. And that's for me what
we saw on October seven, and that's what that's a
wake up call from.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
A historical perspective. Then how do you on a personal level,
but also you know, with all the people that you
work with. How do you even answer begin to answer
that question of you know, what what do we do
in order to change that narrative? What do you look
back at history and kind of say, okay, we're using
this as evidence.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
How can we move forwards? Like what is the method
of what is the thinking there?
Speaker 3 (14:02):
I think we need to open our eyes. First of all,
I understand what is in front of us. We can't
lie to ourselves. You know. The first experience that I
had regarding this way of thought was in twenty ten,
actually in London. I went to university in University of London,
and I was, I think the only Israeli PhD in
(14:26):
history back then. And I started when people started to
attack me. And then they said, come to a debate
with the peace acts policy in societies. And I came
to a debate, and you know, I was a peachnick, Yeah,
come on to state solution and we love and peace,
We will will stop the occupation and everything will go right.
And suddenly they start arguing me, and I go back
(14:46):
to my wife and I said, something is wrong here.
They're not talking about sixty sixty seven, they're talking about
forty eight, talking about nineteen seventeen. They're talking about colonialism.
They're actually talking about replacing the State of Israel, not
living next to the State of Israel. So October seventh
(15:08):
is for me an understanding, And I think the heart
of the issue is the right of return. What is
the right of return as they call it. I think
it's a mean to fuel actually the aspiration to destroy
the state of Israel. If you want to see what
does it look like, that ideology of the right of return?
(15:28):
Seventh of October, That's what it looked like. It's not
something someone gently knocking on your door and saying, shifra.
Can we actually settle this argument between us, the one
hundred and twenty year argument between Zionism and the Arabs.
So we think for me, the lesson is one. It's
a cliche, but it's first of all, nobody will protect
(15:52):
it besides us. First of all, we need, we need
help from the world. We need, but we establish a
Jewish state in order for such things not to happen.
And by the way, we let ourselves down. We said
never again, and for a few hours for the inhabitants,
for example of neurals, never again did not exist. So
on we need to be strong. Two, we cannot afford
(16:15):
ourselves to go into practically a cold civil war and
almost on a verge of a civil war, because we're
not in Switzerland. We can actually have a conflict here
within Israeli society, but it cannot be a toxics conflict
which our enemies use. And three, we need to wake
(16:38):
up every morning and tell the world, Tell the Arabs,
tell the Palestinians. The main issue in order to solve
this conflict is for you to recognize Zionism and the
existing of a Jewish state here in the land of Israel,
and to give up the right of return, the concept
(17:01):
of return. They don't think you have the right of
return after the fifth generation, and then Israelly is in
the Jewish people is I think the possibilities for peace
are endless, but we need to be very, very awakened
to what happened there. It's not a coincident.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
I'm interested to hear about what that change looked like
for you. You said, you know, back in twenty ten, you
were more like a peacenick. That was more of your
I guess like ideology. And then it seems like now
I'm not saying that you're against peace, but I think
the way that you want to get peace is probably different.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Yeah, I am four piece. I think we need to include. Look,
it's not politically in Israel from left to right. It's
almost toxic to say the word piece. But peace is
the dream of the generations of the Jewish people. Peace
in our holy books, in the Torah is mentioned hundreds
of times. Piece is who we are. So I'll never
(17:56):
give up peace. But it can't be fake or fraud peace.
It needs to be real peace, and peace starts with
a recognition of Zionism and with recognition that the Jews
have a right to exist in a state in the
land of Israel. Now, what change in me is the
(18:17):
understanding that until you do not explain that to yourself
and to the world, nothing will be solved. And it
means that the concept of just ignoring forces of evilness
that exists in the air world, that exists in Palestinian society,
(18:41):
that exists in the Shiah axis in Iran and Chrisbola
and Ramas in Palestinian society, you cannot actually they cannot
live next to us. These forces needs to be destroyed.
That's why I think Kasa needs to be deradicalized. These
forces cannot live together. We cannot be tolerant in these forces,
(19:02):
and we cannot also be tolerant to double speech. You know,
all the years when they said to state solution, there
was one is a Palestinian state and the second. Never
you've seen a Palestinian say it's a Jewish state. No, No,
it's always state or citizen state. So what change for
me is that if we want peace, we need to
(19:27):
be true to ourselves and we actually need not to
lower our expectations from our surroundings. And by the way,
look at what is happening in the Gulf States. They're
changing their books. Muslim Islam is getting very much more
moderate perception the way they teach it. So I think
(19:52):
when you gradually insist on processes and the processes come
from within. Also, I think there's a lot of hope,
but let's not be foolish until then, because we'll die.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
I find that really interesting also because I think a
lot of people probably share that sentiment where they kind
of came from, especially after the Seventh maybe from before.
But I think it just shifted people's perceptions so much,
especially because of all the atrocities that happened, and it
was so shocking for people because again sometimes you don't think, oh,
I will live in this time. When you're living through history,
(20:26):
you don't always notice that it's happening until afterwards. I
think actually on that day we all knew. I think
everybody was like, Okay, yeah, this is We're never going
to forget this.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
It just before one comment on that. I want to
raise the bar even for what happened as a leader
of the movement and as a historian, for me to
October seven is not only and a lot happened there.
What happened in surrounding Gaza. For me, you need to
think Shifra, what happens when there's an invasion? It could
(20:55):
have happened. It was like in any moment it could
have happened. Then from the north there were one forces.
What happens if the Shia militians comes from Syria. We
saw what Ira Iranian missiles look like when three four fall.
Think of hundreds and tens of them falling in Israel.
(21:16):
I wouldn't say it was an existential threat, but it
could have come to fifty seventy eighty one hundred thousand
Israeli is dead. It could have come to rud one
forces in Haifa. We need to think of October seven
in that terms, otherwise we'll never understand historically what happened there.
For me, that's what happened. It did not actually manifest itself,
(21:40):
but for me, that's the picture of what happened. That's
how we need to look at it.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Something that again I don't think most people thought they
would have to think about. Then it comes into your mind,
as you know, what would I do if God forbid
I was in that situation? Something you never want to
have to think, but then you do, and that is
I think, a really strange time to be in. But again,
like you need to be aware of that. It was
just like you know, a snippet of what could have been,
(22:04):
and it could have been much greater. I want to
move back a little bit towards the sexual violence that
happened on October seventh and kind of look at it
from the perspective of why this was so unique. As
you said, we haven't really seen this in the conflict before,
in the sense of it being so massive, And I
want to get your perspective on that. Why do you
(22:25):
think we got to that point. I know you touched
on a little bit before about how you know you
kind of get to that point of victory, but how
did we get hit?
Speaker 3 (22:33):
So first of all, let's get into historical perspective, at
least in the modern era, of the usage of sexual
violence as a mean for in the usage in warfare.
So I think there are two types of sexual violence
that we saw in warfare. As one would be more barbarian,
not in the way it was performed, but rather in
(22:56):
its in connection to the older. Look at the Soviets
when they counter attack towards Germany in World War Two.
They probably raped we don't know the exact number is
a million German women, but that was a part of
their privilege, as was in ancient times. You come, you conquer,
(23:22):
you rape. That's one type. It's awful. It created the
generation of German women that we cannot even imagine the
magnitude of what they experienced. And there's a second type,
which I would put Ramas's sexual violence under them. It's
actually a more strategic or tactical usage of rape as
(23:48):
a mean and sexual violence as a mean to actually
genocide in any ways, So we can see it in
nineteen thirty seven, for example, and then Nan king Mass
mass massacre and rape were the Japanese. Probably tenh of
thousands of Chinese women were raped there, but that was
(24:11):
an ideology. They came there to tell them, we own you.
It was pre planned. You could see it a very
very very high magnitude and volume in the Rwandan. In
Rwanda in nineteen ninety four when the Hutu committed genocide
towards the Tutsi and the ideology, there was a million Rwandans,
(24:36):
especially from Tutsi, were murdered. And you see there that
before that in the scripts of the Hutu leaders they
were talking about taking beautiful Tutsi women and humiliating them
as a symbol of destroying the Tutsi. And we're talking
of enormous number of rapes there and mass participation in them.
(25:03):
I think what the Dina report proves that were first
of all factor there were six sides where there was
sexual violence. But what's interesting they found out how do
they know that this was actually what they call it
tactical mean in the massacre is that they saw and
will not go in here to the graphic descriptions, but
(25:23):
they saw patrons that if you read the report, and
by the way, I don't necessarily recommend to read the
report unless you have to, because it is devastating, devastating, devastating, devastating.
But you see their patrons that are not are not
(25:44):
usual patterns of sexual violence that appear in the different sites.
Somebody gave a script of what do you do? And
that proves to us that this was a tactical meaning.
I think now asking me to go into the psychology
(26:06):
of what actually harmas meant to do. So, I think
as an evil ideology, they wanted to doomanize, they want
to humiliate, they wanted to conquer in the deepest way,
and I think that's where they aim the sexual violence towards,
(26:28):
and we need to understand that. In the other hand,
always as an historian and also a leader of a movement,
I say that on the other side of these descriptions,
there are victims, some of them are not with us anymore,
and some of them need to live through these horrors,
(26:49):
and we as a society need to take an account
and be very sensitive in dealing with this issue.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yeah, I think that also the idea of denying connects
a lot to what you've studied. And also what's happening
now something that I'll never forget. I was watching a
clip of Yard and Romie Gone's sister on a news
channel in the US, and she was trying to use
her last like ten seconds or something to say, hey,
(27:17):
there was sexual violence on October seventh. You need to
make sure that people know that that actually happened.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
And the broadcaster that she was.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Talking to, which just rolled her eyes, and I think
she ended up actually being fired for that. But the
fact that that is even a thing that happens, I
can't imagine that scenario happening in any other context. So
it's it's super, super shocking, And I wonder also, what
does that then say about Harmasa's ideology at that point,
(27:45):
I think, or in general, what does that say about
Hamas's ideology that mutilation, rape, these kinds of disgusting acts
were used, as a sense, as a weapon.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
I think there was a weapon, because this is an evil,
redemptive regime. But I want to address what you said
about denial. Look, the Hamasa ide ideology or these redemptive
evil ideologists that exist in Middle East or the Jews
(28:20):
and Israelis are fueled by also partners around the world.
And this was I think for many Israeli liberals devastating
to see their counterparts in business. For me, in academia,
women who are who fought all the lives I say,
with the respect for the rights of women, for sexual
(28:42):
and violent victims, and suddenly you see them actually involve
politics or create actually confused between facts and their political
views and adopt the Hamas narrative and actually look to
(29:03):
Israeli women in the eyes that says we were sexually violated,
and they don't believe them. And I think that if
you look at what happened in dark, dark, darker times
in the Western civilization, in the academia, in the elites
(29:26):
I see from my perspective, in Germany and other places
in the world where the academia was tainted, I think
we see this now, not in all places, but in
many places in the West. We found out that actually politics,
radical politics that confuses between good and bad, between malign
(29:47):
and benign acts, between political pragmatic conflict, which is okay
to criticize Israel, and between the fact that this was
a massacre, a barbarian invasion with an evil redemptive ideology
committing the most worst atrocities that we heard, at least
(30:10):
in the past few years. And I was shocked already
in the eighth ninth of October, we see demonstration in
the world. What were you demonstrating against Israel war? So
I think the Dina project is so important. That's what
I said. Oral history is there to establish a body
of knowledge next to the formal history in order to
(30:32):
fight for the case of these victims and for the
case of Israel in the West. I think against this redemptive,
evil ideologist cycling back.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
I guess too, I don't want to say the comparisons,
but I guess the things that we were drawing that
kind of connected things that happened in the Holocaust. And
today I remember, just like, as a woman who is Jewish,
who is ISRAELI that feeling when I realized that people
weren't going to speak up for the women. And I
remember thinking to myself, you know, okay, that means that
(31:05):
I might not count, you know. And I think a
lot of people had that feeling, and it's shocking. I think,
you know, a couple of years ago, the Metio movement started,
you know, really being very very big, and I felt,
you know, that people came together and it was like
this group of people and then all of a sudden,
the same people that I felt, you know, you know,
we're together and all of these things, it just didn't
(31:26):
matter anymore. It didn't really feel like it existed.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
This is an essential point in order to understand how
dark is these evil ideologies. Why because you said something
important here when there's a redemptive ideology meaning I you
can be raped, killed, whatever you don't count because I
will be redempted. And you know when you offer me redemption,
(31:49):
we all of us want to bring. So you, as
a young Gazi in Palestini, you redempt it when you
will rape her and then kill her. Then when it
trickles into the academia in the world, world and so
on to the streets, suddenly you shift. For what are
you saying? I'm totally exposed and there's nothing that I
can do besides hyde in order to prevent this exposure.
(32:13):
Now I'm not saying now Jews are being chased in
the streets in the West. By the way, there are
also phenomenons like that. But I want our listeners to
think how exposed you are when for your mere identity,
that you're Jewish or that you're a Jewish woman, you
have nothing to do. You come into a debate, maybe
(32:33):
you're an ultra liberal, you're a progressive. And we hear
this these stories from progressives also in the States and
academic when suddenly people find out they're Jews and they're
kicked out, or they're mocked, or they're That is how
dangerous this evil ideology, redemptive ideologies, and that's why it
(32:54):
can also exponentially spread, and we need to speak up
against it and explain this phenomenon.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
That's why I was so enthusiastic about having this conversation
with you, because I think it's not being talked about enough.
I think this is just the beginning, and the awareness
aspect of it I think needs to be elevated and elevated.
I want to move on to maybe a little bit
more of a personal sort of note. I know that
you were a student of Alex Danzig, and Alex was
(33:23):
kidnapped and murdered from his home in October seventh, and
I think there's so much loss that's been experienced, and
I want to ask you, and I know it's personal,
but how did the lost shape your perspective on this,
because I think I know for me, you know, a
friend of mine was killed at Nova, and I always
(33:44):
ask myself, what would October seventh have looked like if
that wouldn't have happened, what would my experience be? But
there's no way to think that it changes every single
part of the story so far.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
It's crazy to think about the fact that this is
a small country and with the magnitude of casualties death
that we're here, almost every Israeli has a story of
someone that he or she lost. Alex Danzig I came
as a twenty five year old to Yad Vashem to
(34:20):
I dreamt about being an instructor for delegations to Poland
on the Holocaust, and from the first second that I
saw him, we changed my life and my perspective about history,
about history being reality. Alex taught me history is a
mean to actually understand people's story and through that to
(34:40):
explain to yourself the present and also to talk about
the future, not only the past. Now, why is it
important for me that you're asking about Alex or anyone
who is talking about October seven? Because Alex taught us.
And by the way, Alex educated generations of Holocaust and
(35:00):
in Israel. But he was a provocative guy. He was
not a gentle guy. He was from Neros and for
the first moment of the course in Adva Sham, he
comes and he says the following, we're not going to
Poland in order to look for blood. If you want
to look for blood, don't come. He suddenly said, what
(35:23):
welcome and then he explains. He says, in the Holocaust,
will people were murdered. They had their dreams, they had
their aspirations, they had their jobs, they had their families.
A whole civilization, a Jewish civilization, culture was destroyed there.
If you want to study the Holocaust, don't study about death.
(35:44):
Only study about life. So that's why, in a way,
when you ask me about Alex, and when I talk
about him, it's also in my mind his vision and
how to talk about these atrocities, talk about the people
who were killed world, talk about their lives. So Alex
was bigger than life. How Alex was an autod DUCTI
(36:08):
didn't did even study formally history, and he knew everything
about history, and he loved Poland and he loved to
talk about Polish and Jewish relationship. And he taught me
about Polish jury, and he taught us about how to
look at the Holocaust and so on and so on.
And suddenly, think of it, Think of it. He is
(36:32):
the guy that taught you all your life of these atrocities.
And suddenly I hear Alex Dantink was kidnapped. I couldn't
believe it. At the beginning, I said, this is this
is a this is a twist in history that I
can't believe it. So I wanted to actually understand that
it's true. And then we heard it's true, and I'll
never forget when one of the cycles of the hostages
(36:55):
went out said that Alex was teaching them, uh history
in in the tunnels. And I think his son in
laws had a joke because Alex was a very funny guy.
And uh, he said, I don't know if it translates
the joke to English. He said in Hebrew it means
(37:17):
he had, Uh how do you say he had? Like
they were kidnapped. It they couldn't go anywhere.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
His audience was held captive. But it's not really Yes,
they had no choice. Basically I had no choice.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
That that's the spirit of Alex making that making in
the darkest of time, jokes that they'd had another no
other choice. They were in the tunnels. He told them
about history. And later we found out UH that Alex
Uh was died from UH one of the bombings. UH
(37:51):
probably with the idea f but of course Hamas is
the one that kidnapped him and killed him. And since then, UH,
I take delegations. When I take delegations to Poland, I
talk about him. I talk about the legacy, his legacy.
I got to know his son Yuval, and we're working
with other good people to create some kind of institute
(38:15):
commemorating him but also his legacy. And for me, it's
it's now a lifetime mission to by the way it
was before this happened also, but now even more so
UH to bring Alex to people and what Alex wanted
(38:40):
to say, and his love for Zionism and his he
was a great human being, and talk about humanity and
peace and everything. So yeah, it's very personal for me.
As you see, I'm not even making sense in what
I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
No, I think I hear a lot of sense. And
I also think that it's almost it's almost beautiful in
a way that what Alex taught you about celebrating people's life.
Don't focus on the way that they were killed or
how they died, focus on the way that they lived.
And you get to do that for him, which obviously
I wish you didn't need to, but it's very beautiful
(39:15):
that you get to do that.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
I remember that Vivian.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Silver was also in one of the people who I
saw the name on the list, and I used to
work in co esistence groups and we did a lot
of different shared projects with women wage piece. Remember when
I saw that again, like, you just reminded me of this.
You see somebody who dedicates their life to the betterment
and the peace chasing world, and in an instant everything changes.
(39:47):
And it's that you said you felt shocked. It's just
it's completely completely shocking.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
That's why it's important to tell all the stories and
eventually it will happen of all the people that were
massacred on Ocadober's And because as I tell people when
we talk about the Holocaust, don't politicize the victims, because
the victims were right and were left. The victims were
haready and secular. The victims were society and also here
(40:16):
the Hamas redemptive evilness ideology does not care who you
were if you're in Israeli because also Muslims were killed,
and specifically a Jew, you're doomed to die. And let's say,
let's let's celebrate life and diversity and the fact that
we're a Jewish democratic state through the different stories that show, yes,
(40:42):
that there was an extreme picnic like Vivian and people
were far right. They were all massacred there. Let's tell
all their stories.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
What do you think about the international community's response to
a the atrocities that happened in general, typically the sexual
violence that occurred.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
So as I said, when we say in the international community,
I spoke about the academia, I think a lot of
the press, the progressive movement in the States, it's shameful
and it's actually they don't understand, or they do understand.
It's fueling the evil, redemptive ideology that will backlash to
the West. We are fighting here war, which is the
(41:24):
forefront of an ideology that basically it doesn't hate only Jews.
They perceive the Zionist movement and the Jewish people as
the proxy, as the forefront of colonialism of the people
who want to actually destroy their civilization. And I think
(41:48):
there are people in the West that understand that and
that advocate for the case of Israel and advocate to
actually set apart the people in the Muslim world who
want peace and have an argument with Israel. What does
peace look like versus the ideologies that we see, these
(42:11):
redemptive evil ideologies like Hamas Chris bala Iran and widespread
also in the Palestinian society beyond Haramas, and which is
also very popular there and also in the air world.
So you see, I think some of the international community
in some instances standing for Israel, and other instances having
(42:35):
a hard time what Israel is doing. And on some
levels it's legitimate, but fundamentally I think many people in
the West don't get what are we fighting for. Are
fighting for the right of the Jewish people and the
state of Israel to exist, but actually the right of
(42:57):
the Western civilization to live peacefully and not be constantly
threatened by people who challenge it. And because of self guilt.
I always said in London that some people in academias
there this was London of post Holocaust, post World War
two and post colonialism, and so much self guilt trickled
(43:23):
into the minds of people that at some point they
were confused and start self hating themselves, and through that
always easy to self hate, through the self to actually
bring Israel into Jews into the picture. So I don't
think we're the ultimate victims, and I think we have
a lot of things to improve. But I think the
(43:44):
international community one day will actually, like they did with
the Iran, recognize that Israel is in the forefront and
fighting the war of the free world.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
How do you think this will shape the work ahead
for the fourth quarter? And by this I mean really
everything that we've discussed.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
Yes, we need to see something that if we look
at the northern front all the way to Iran and
I'll get to Gaza in the moment, this war actually
change Israel's strategic position in the Middle East. Now, the
Shia access, the redemptive evil access is weaker dramatically. I
(44:25):
think Israel is a safer place than it was in
October six and October eighth, and of course October seven.
I think we have a very big problem with Hamas
in Gaza. In my mind, on some conditions, we need
to go end the war there. Once again, not an
(44:48):
any term but we need our hostages back home, and
we need actually to recognize that we could get here
there to seventy five eighty percent of what we wanted
to achieve another one hundred percent, and what is that
connect to the fourth quarter? We now have an historical mission.
We need now a peace agreement within Israeli society. There
are fundamental issues in Israeli society, our social contract, our
(45:13):
lack of constitution, our decreasing education system, which is all
we have in my mind, the integration of the Arab
and the Hareadi societies. These are four historical missions that
will actually project whether the state of Israel in the
fourth quarter for its existence, will be positioned for the
(45:34):
next hundred of years. And we need to lead a
moderate access in the Middle East, fight these evil forces,
but have a peace treaty within Israeli society, and that's
the mission of fourth quarter. If we don't lower the
polarization in society, we don't change politics to the fact
(45:55):
that we understand that we need to broad consensus on
these issues. We just need to organize differently political system.
If we don't do that, Israel will not succeed. But
there's an opportunity and in the fourth quarters, we have
Probaby two hundred thousand, two hundred thousand activists. We see
(46:15):
that we're organizing differently the way is really perceived politics.
It's not yes, BB no BIB. It's not the traditional
right left is who wants to solve these problems from
the Zionis mainstream and include Arabs and Haredis who want
to be a part of this project without losing their identity.
And that's our mission in the fourth quarter. And we're
(46:37):
going to go and we're going full power since October seven.
Because this is an historical mission.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
And as we start to wrap up, I want to
sort of present to you, I guess a question of
as a historian, looking at all of these things, what
do you think moral responsibility is to understand what happened,
to remember what happened, and to continue on.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
How do we act now? How do we respond?
Speaker 3 (47:05):
You know, there was always an argument which I found
very disturbing in Israel. What is the Holocaust? Is it
a Jewish phenomenon or a universal phenomenon. I always told people, guys,
it's a Jewish phenomenon and a universal phenomenon. It's a
Jewish phenomenon because it was first of all the Holocaust
(47:25):
and all of its gravity was the ideology was aimed
towards the Jews, and mass killing was towards the Jews.
Was universal because first of all, many people in international
not also non Jews were killed. But also we need
to see it came from the center of the Western civilization.
(47:46):
So I think our obligation regarding the massacre the invasion
of October seven is first of all to understand that
internally we have two obligations or three obligations. One, we
need to fight these evil forces. We need to be
strong too. We need to lead the peace forces in
(48:07):
the Middle East, people to people and government to government.
Wherever there is a place a whole we need, we
need to lead it. We need to be a part
of the leaders no Middleast. And three we need a
peace agreement and within Israeli society. So that's the broad lesson.
In order to do that, in historical perspective and moral perspective,
(48:29):
we need to tell people there's a Jewish context here,
in Israeli context, they attempted to kill us, but also
in universal context, we cannot allow these massacres to occur.
We cannot allow these evil redemptive ideologies to exist. That's why,
by the way that the UN defined after World War
(48:49):
Two the term genocide. Do not torment it. Let's let's
use it to where it's really happening. And this is
a voice that I want to hear more from the
Jewish state in the future, especially after the massacre of
the seventheth of October, not only particularly toward Israel inde Jews,
but also globally.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
Wow, thank you so much for sharing just your expertise
on these issues, and we're so happy that we had
you on the show and I wish you all the
success in the future for changing Israeli society for good.
Speaker 3 (49:19):
Thank you for having me Shiffer.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
This episode is supported by third party advertising and was
hosted by shiff for Jacobs. Editing was done by Ship
for Jacobs and Kashatny. Production for this podcast is done
by Ship for Jacobs and was recorded in the j
Post Studios in Jerusalem.
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