Transcripts are lightly edited. Please excuse any imperfections.
Sruli Fruchter:
If you were making the case for Israel, where would you begin?
Efraim Inbar:
I’m here. I’m here. I’m here and I’m going to stay here and if somebody doesn’t like it, he has to fight me. Simple.
I am Efraim Inbar. I’ve been a professor for many years of strategic studies and considered an expert on national security in the Middle East. This is 18 Questions, 40 Israeli Thinkers, from 18Forty.
Sruli Fruchter:
From 18Forty, this is 18 Questions, 40 Israeli Thinkers, and I’m your host, Sruli Fruchter. 18 Questions, 40 Israeli Thinkers is a new podcast that interviews Israel’s leading voices to explore those critical questions people are having today on Zionism, the Israel-Hamas War, democracy, morality, Judaism, peace, Israel’s future, and so much more. Every week we introduce you to fresh perspectives and to challenging ideas about Israel from across the political spectrum that you won’t find anywhere else. So if you’re the kind of person who wants to learn, understand, and dive deeper into Israel, then join us on our journey as we pose 18 pressing questions to the 40 Israeli journalists, scholars, and religious thinkers, you need to hear from today.
Bullying isn’t always a bad thing. In a tough neighborhood, sometimes you need to be the bully. That’s not me saying that. That’s the opinion of today’s guest, Professor Efraim Inbar, a veteran Israeli political scientist and national security expert. He is president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and head of Shalem College’s program on strategy, diplomacy, and national security. His resume across the board is stacked with fellowships, scholarship, and all that you would expect from a world-class academic. His expertise extends to Israeli strategic doctrine, public opinion on national security issues, American policy in the Middle East, Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy, and Israel-Turkey relations. He was previously president of the Israel Association of International Studies, as a member of the Political Strategic Committee of the National Planning Council as chairman of the National Security Curriculum Committee in the Ministry of Education, and as a member of the Academic Committee of the IDF History Department.
One thing I want to note about the institute that he studies and specifically that more provocative quote or paraphrase that I began with is the JISS, the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, is according to its website, aimed at expressing a realistic worldview and promoting policies that will keep Israel strong and lead to stable political arrangements. I’m not sure if when it uses the word realistic, it’s referring to the realist perspective in international relations. So for those who don’t know, that is actually what my degree is in, in college. So that makes me next to nothing of an expert, but that does mean that I have heard from people who are much more knowledgeable about the topic. I think understanding realism and just thinking about that going into the interview will provide much needed context and background to understanding much of where Professor Efraim Inbar is coming from in international relations.
There are different theories about what moves world politics, what’s the underlying force that’s relevant, that’s moving things forward that makes things happen? According to the school of realism, it’s all about power and that the primary motive and driver of all states is ensuring their security, safety and stability, which fundamentally depends on being a powerful state. In much of our conversation today, Professor Inbar talks about his view, the necessity of strength, resilience and force that is necessary for Israel to survive and to thrive. In his view, is a fundamental reality that operates in the Middle East that many in the West don’t understand.
Now, I’ll speak personally, there was a lot that I disagreed with him on and felt uncomfortable with in terms of language, ideas, beliefs and so on, but my views are not relevant. The big reason that we are doing this, and David has spoken a ton about this on the 18Forty channel, where we’ve put up a bunch of our podcasts. We want to expose people to the diversity and the spectrum of legitimate Israeli thought and debate and discussion that is happening now and has been happening since and before its founding.
In all these interviews we, or I should say I, mitigate our bias and our views by platforming the guest and questioning their views. To probe deeper, to understand further, and to ask the kind of questions that will allow our listeners to hear what they have to say what they believe in a clear, concise and comprehensive fashion.
One very exciting thing that I will note, and I’ve said this a bunch in some of our other introductions for different podcasts, is that for those who have been sending in feedback and have been sending in their suggestions and preferences for guests, for questions, for style, I’ll note that I think Professor Efraim Inbar is probably the most conservative or right-wing viewpoint that we’ve had so far. I think that for many who don’t align with the more liberal or centrist perspectives in Israel, they’ll be able to learn a lot from his views and from his expertise. For many who did feel more comfortable with some of the more liberal and left-wing views that we’ve had on the podcast thus far, I think it’s incredibly worthwhile to confront, to reflect, and to think about his perspective and the beliefs that are underlying what he thinks is best for Israel.
One of the pieces of feedback that we’ve actually gotten a lot both in person and on email, unsolicited almost always, was asking more follow-up questions. I want to give some context because as we mentioned way earlier on in the podcast, this was very much inspired by a 2020 program The New York Times did, interviewing 20 or 18 Democrats with a handful of questions. The model there was not to follow up and to just allow each guest to answer and to respond as they saw fit and as best expressed their views. Moving this into a podcast model while still being mindful of time and also thinking about what is most efficient and effective for sharing our guests’ views and making sure that they’re clear is that beginning in this episode, and for hopefully all the ones going forward, we’ll be asking a lot more follow-up questions as relevant to properly understand the details of our guests’ views, the extent of it, and the reason for it.
For all those who have been asking, your prayers have been answered, or whether your emails have been answered. I’ll make my classic pitch, if you have questions you want us to ask or guests that you want us to feature, shoot us an email at info@18forty.org and be sure to subscribe, rate and share with friends that we can reach new listeners. Agree or disagree, Professor Efraim Inbar is an expert on national security and Israeli policy for a reason, and it was a pleasure to join him to discuss these issues and some that are more timely including the Iranian threat. But without further ado, here is 18 Questions with Efraim Inbar.
As an Israeli and as a Jew, how are you feeling at this moment in Israeli history?
Efraim Inbar:
I think that I’m part of a special era of redemption, of having a Jewish State able to defend ourselves against our enemies and with the potential of fulfilling the Jewish destiny.
Sruli Fruchter:
Has that changed for you since October 7th?
Efraim Inbar:
It didn’t change. We are used to wars. We have fought in the past. After this war will end, we’ll probably have other wars in the future. In this region we have to live by our sword.
Sruli Fruchter:
Can you say more about that?
Efraim Inbar:
As long as our neighbors are not reconciling themselves to the idea of a Jewish State in their midst and as long as they try to eradicate the Jewish State, we’ll have to fight. This may take a long time. The learning process of nations is rather slow and unfortunately it comes only after much pain.
Sruli Fruchter:
What has been Israel’s greatest success and greatest mistake in its current war against Hamas?
Efraim Inbar:
The greatest mistake was of course the intelligence failure of not foreseeing that the attack is coming. Its success, which was expected I think by specialists, that it recuperated and it went on attack and we are in the middle of a long job of destroying the Hamas military capabilities and their administrative apparatus.
Sruli Fruchter:
In the war itself, so I know that you mentioned before the failure with the intelligence beforehand and being able to go into the war. But in the war itself, are there anything specific success that you think is the greatest or a specific mistake that you feel is the worst?
Efraim Inbar:
It’s very difficult to speak about things which maybe should have been done but were not done. We don’t know. I’m a bit disappointed by the tempo. I think we are a bit too slow, and I can understand why it happens. There are of course outside pressures, particularly from the United States, a lot of involvement. There is also a need to synchronize our attacks on the ground with the need to destroy the tunnels under the ground. This takes time. Of course there is another constraint, the fact that we know that in certain areas there are hostages and we don’t want to cause inadvertently to their death. We’ve seen such an incident during the war and I think that we are cautious, maybe too cautious sometimes. But this is my main criticism, primarily because I’m aware that the world is impatient with such a long war and they want us to finish it. I think we should make every effort to finish it as quickly as possible.
Sruli Fruchter:
How do you think Hamas views the outcome and aftermath of October 7th? Was it a success in their eyes?
Efraim Inbar:
The initial success of Hamas was tremendous. The cost, a huge number of casualties on our side. They were successful in apprehending prisoners, hostages and this success was resounding in the whole Arab world. I think it damaged seriously Israel’s deterrence. So the initial stage of the war was a great success on part of Hamas. Also, the mere war is a success of Iran because it diverted attention of Israel from the main arena of conflict, which is Iran, to a secondary arena and Iran indeed scored a huge success.
Sruli Fruchter:
So I’m actually curious because it’s a really timely point from when we’re interviewing today I think is August 6th, and obviously for us in Israel there’s a lot looming over with Iran. You mentioned before that the attention shifted from Iran to Hamas. Do you think that attention is going to shift back to Iran?
Efraim Inbar:
Definitely. There is a clear need to shift the attention to Iran, particularly because it’s advancing quickly towards a nuclear bomb and this is an existential threat for Israel, which nobody will take care of. It’s only Israel that will take care of this threat and therefore we should try to end the war quickly in order to be able to focus on the main threat to the State of Israel.
Sruli Fruchter:
What do you look for in deciding which Knesset party to vote for?
Efraim Inbar:
Voting behavior is not necessarily rational and I try to be as rational as possible. Of course, I am looking for a parties that expresses my views on issues of nat security, on economics, on social issues. Of course it’s a leadership. Those are the criteria that I try to measure a party by, but it’s not easy.
Sruli Fruchter:
Which is more important for Israel, Judaism or democracy?
Efraim Inbar:
We are Jews. Jews is part of us. I don’t think that those things should be one against the other. I think we should be able to blend Judaism with democracy. I think that Judaism contains many aspects of democracy. There is no central authority. Everybody can choose his own rabbi, and the king as described in Deuteronomy is a weak king, basically, with a lot of constraints, almost a constitutional king. Of course it’s a constitutional king, he has to abide by the Torah. So there is no absolute power according to Jewish tenets. I think that those things can be accommodated and there are many expressions in Judaism that lead us to political entity that is not centralized. Every Jewish community in the diaspora, the leadership contains its rabbinical leadership, the plutocrats with the money, and people that are willing to give their time to the community. So it’s a variety of leaderships that come together and lead the community … I think, that democracy is not something that is opposed to Judaism. Actually Judaism tells you that there is a moral code above us that we should not transgress.
Sruli Fruchter:
What role should the Israeli government have in religious matters?
Efraim Inbar:
We copied to some extent the roles that it was played during the mandate terms under the British. Of course, I think some of the legislation should be rooted in Jewish law. We have a rich legal tradition unparalleled actually in the Western world. Many things can be decided by Jewish law, but I’m not sure that involvement of the government in nominating rabbis, intervening on many issue, is positive. I think the religious parties particularly this time when we are speaking about who’s going to have a role in the army is very counterproductive.
Sruli Fruchter:
What do you mean by that?
Efraim Inbar:
The parties actually defend the dodgers from serving in the military. I value very much the study of Torah, but not everybody that is part of the Haredi community should be exempt from service. We are enduring a milhemet mitzvah and everybody should go and join and hiding behind a Torah page or a Talmud page is immoral.
Sruli Fruchter:
Should Israel treat its Jewish and non-Jewish citizens the same?
Efraim Inbar:
I think yes. We are democratic country, everybody has equal rights. There is difference between the individual and the collective. I think the collective should be Jewish. It should be clear to everybody that we are a Jewish nation and our intellectual, spiritual, cultural infrastructure is Jewish. Minorities our to be treated equally, but it is a Jewish country and they should accept it.
Sruli Fruchter:
Now that Israel already exists, what’s the purpose of Zionism?
Efraim Inbar:
Zionism is the movement for the revival of the Jewish people to build a just society, to build a society that is full of Judaism. We are not there yet. I think there is still a lot of things to do. Zionism as such has been an extremely successful national movement to establish a state, to bring millions of Jews to the homeland, to build a flourishing economy, to build a military that is successful in defending the country for many enemies. We are a great success story. But it’s not over.
Sruli Fruchter:
Is opposing Zionism inherently antisemitic?
Efraim Inbar:
I am not sure what you mean by antisemitic, but opposing Zionism basically says the Jews are not a nation and not entitled to self-determination.
Call it racism, call it whatever you want. I think every nation basically has a right for self-determination. I don’t think that this should be denied to the Jewish People. Basically they’re saying you are not a people, you are just a religion. Not understanding or not willing to accept the nature of the Jewish People, that there is such a thing as Jewish People. They, like other people, are entitled to have a state are entitled to determine that Jerusalem is their capital. If they don’t accept it, they are my enemies. I don’t care how you call them.
Sruli Fruchter:
It’s interesting to hear your explanation. It’s making me think. I’m wondering, do you support a two-state solution and that explanation of people’s right to nationality or national determination?
Efraim Inbar:
I think that we’ve seen over the years a clear emergence of a group of Arabs that their self-declared identity is Palestinian. In principle I don’t deny their right to have their own political entity. The problem is that the Palestinian national movement is not willing to accept basically a Jewish State next to it. We’ve seen the polls after October 7th were 70%, 80% of the Palestinian population in the West Bank, Judea and Samaria, or in Gaza, support Hamas activities. We’ve seen for years after Oslo, the education, the Palestinian education system which instills antisemitic messages that denies the right of the Jews to have a state. So in principle, I don’t mind the Palestinian entity that is ready to live peacefully next to us. Unfortunately this is not the case and we’ll have to fight them and to cause them pain until they learn that they have to change.
Sruli Fruchter:
It’s interesting. I know you’ve written a few different books specifically in that time period of Oslo and before and afterward. At the time, did you expect things to take the course that they did of history?
Efraim Inbar:
I’ve been always suspicious of the Palestinian national movement. After a short while I realized that they’re not sincere and basically the Palestinian national movement … So Oslo … acquire the territorial base next to Israel into in order to continue their struggle against the State of Israel.
Sruli Fruchter:
Can you just very quickly say what Oslo is for people who may not be familiar?
Efraim Inbar:
The Oslo agreements, which were signed in 1993, basically envisioned a certain development in which the basis for it was the transfer of the cities in Judea and Samaria, which are heavily populated by the Arabs, to the PLO and Rabin at that time emphasized that he wanted a Palestinian entity, Palestinian Authority, with a good enough police force to be able to prevent terrorism. In my understanding of what Rabin wanted, and I wrote a book on Rabin, I think that I understand Rabin, the deal was not so much territories for peace but territories for security. In that respect, the Palestinian authority failed miserably because it continued to be a base for terrorism against Israel. Until this very day.
Sruli Fruchter:
Is the IDF the world’s most moral army.
Efraim Inbar:
There is no clear measurement who is more moral , who is less moral. I’ve been a combat soldier for many years. I always believed in what Israeli military says, the purity of arms. I tried to behave in such a way in the wars I participated, and in many other warlike activities. I think that the Israeli army makes more efforts than any other army to minimize the amount of collateral damage of civilian casualties. I talk to American lawyers in the U.S. Army and some of them say to me, you are crazy. That’s no way to conduct a war. We still do it. What’s happening in Gaza, we tell the civilians move from this area to another area because this area is going to be bombed. Actually denying ourselves the element of surprise, which is important. We send flyers, we make telephone calls, we speak to them in Arabic so they’ll understand.
So I think we are doing huge efforts. For part of the world, this is not enough. But I think we should understand that you cannot conduct a war deluxe. War is war. War is hell. As General Sherman said during the Civil War in the United States. Unfortunately there are also a lot of civilians. In Gaza in particular, it’s very difficult to differentiate between civilians and militants because many Gazans are hiding, in their homes, weapons and explosives. So I think we do it. We conduct the war in such a way, not because of the international criticism, but because we want to be able to look into the mirror next day and say to ourselves, I was okay.
Sruli Fruchter:
If you were making the case for Israel, where would you begin?
Efraim Inbar:
I’m here, I’m here. I’m here and I’m going to stay here. If somebody doesn’t like it, he has to fight me. Simple. I don’t have to explain why I’m here.
Sruli Fruchter:
Can you say more about that?
Efraim Inbar:
I’m a Jew. I think that’s my country. Most Jews believe that this is our country. Many gentiles believe this is our country. If somebody has a problem with it, has to try to change the reality, and it can be done only by force. We are here to stay.
Sruli Fruchter:
Can questioning the actions of Israel’s government and the army, even in the context of this current war, be considered a valid form of love and patriotism?
Efraim Inbar:
I’m not sure I understand your question.
Sruli Fruchter:
Which part of it? All of it.
Efraim Inbar:
Civil-military relations or what?
Sruli Fruchter:
No. Can people questioning the actions of Israel’s government and army be considered a valid form of love and patriotism?
Efraim Inbar:
Everybody can criticize and question what we are doing. Israelis do this all the time, so of course there are others are relying on Haaretz for questioning Israel. This is something that I have no problem with. The problem is that they’re not always to listen to the explanations, but if they question, fine, you cannot please everybody in this world.
Sruli Fruchter:
Can you say more about that? Any particular examples that stand out to you?
Efraim Inbar:
Many people simply don’t understand what’s happening in the Middle East, particularly westerners.
Sruli Fruchter:
What do they misunderstand?
Efraim Inbar:
We live in a tough neighborhood. In a tough neighborhood, often you have to behave like a bully in order to gain respect, in order to acquire deterrence, you have to use force. In many Western quarters, use of force is anachronistic. Is a non-civilized? Well, it may be true, but here it is very timely and that’s the way to survive. So I have no problem that Israelis use this force. I think it doesn’t use enough. We have conducted for many years a policy of containment which was partly responsible for the October 7th attack.
Sruli Fruchter:
Can you explain what containment is for people who aren’t familiar?
Efraim Inbar:
Yeah. Containment is after you are attacked, you feel that you do not to escalate. Escalation became a dirty word and you don’t want to respond in order to have quiet afterwards, hoping that the other side understand that only a moderate response is appropriate. But this is construed in the Middle East as weakness. It also gives time to the other side to build its forces and the tunnels in Gaza a result of our inactivity for so many years. We should have acted much earlier in order to destroy Hamas capabilities. But we wanted quiet. We didn’t want casualties. We didn’t want the economy to be hurt. So there are many good reason for doing nothing or not doing enough. Good reason, I would say. But the result is that you lose deterrence, you allow the enemy serious buildup and actually the world gets used as the Jews are being attacked and you don’t do much about it, which is terrible.
Sruli Fruchter:
Can you talk more? What do you think Israel should have done and when do you think they should have done it?
Efraim Inbar:
I think that we should have mowed the grass basically quite often going into Gaza to debilitate their military capabilities and go, in order to reduce the threat they are constituting to Israel. This unfortunately has not been done. I think the government was too passive. This is a policy actually we are implementing more or less in Judea and Samaria. We go once in a while find the bad guys, kill them or bring them into custody and reduce their capabilities to harm Israel. This should have been done in Gaza as well. We should not forget that in year 2002, the West Bank cities, Arab cities, were conquered by Israel, cleaned of terrorism. Since then, we mow the grass all the time. This type of treatment was not part of Gaza and we pay the consequences.
Sruli Fruchter:
Why do you think that wasn’t part of the treatment?
Efraim Inbar:
Because the strategy, and I do not disagree with the strategy, was to have a weak Hamas in order to splinter the Palestinian national movement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, PLO. This was a good strategy, but it was not implemented. Basically, Hamas as we all know now, is not weak, was not weak. So we have not weakened enough Hamas in order to preserve the results of this strategy.
Sruli Fruchter:
What do you think is the most legitimate criticism leveled against Israel today?
Efraim Inbar:
Listen, tell me the criticism. I’ll tell you if it’s legitimate or not.
Sruli Fruchter:
You tell me from what you hear. Is there anything that you hear that you think that’s the most legitimate thing that I’ve heard against Israel?
Efraim Inbar:
I think that we are behaving in a moral way. I think that making decisions in the Israeli environment is not easy. There is a lot of uncertainty. Even if the wrong decisions have been made, I think there is in most cases an explanation, not necessarily a good one. I want to quote a professor of mine, Professor Yehezkel Dror who said that many times the output of government, if it’s not well understood, is basically a result of stupidity. We also have some stupid people in our midst who make mistakes and we pay for them.
Sruli Fruchter:
Do you think peace between Israelis and Palestinians will happen within your lifetime?
Efraim Inbar:
Oh, I’m old. No, I don’t think so. You see I have white hair. No, I don’t think. Even if I live until 120, I am not sure I want it. No, I don’t think I’ll see it. I’ll see it changes in the behavior of collectives take time. You see the Germans had to lose two World Wars in order to change and to be less belligerent. The Japanese suffered two atomic bombs and they became pacifists for a while until China resurges. The Palestinians, and I admit, have great ability for suffering, for absorbing pain. Probably we didn’t exact enough pain from the Palestinians in order to change, but history goes on. So we’ll see what happens. But wars are not won only by who has more force and who can kill more people, but also by the ability to sustain pain, to bear the costs of conflict. For the time being, the Israeli society has demonstrated great ability to sustain pain. We go to wars, mothers send their children to the military knowing well that there is a danger. After October 7th, Israeli society performed admirably. So it’s not clear what will happen in the future.
Sruli Fruchter:
Can you talk more about what’s preventing it in your view?
Efraim Inbar:
What is preventing what?
Sruli Fruchter:
Peace.
Efraim Inbar:
Peace?
Sruli Fruchter:
Yeah.
Efraim Inbar:
They don’t want peace. They want to kill us. Simply.
Sruli Fruchter:
Can you talk more about that? You mentioned you were talking a little about history and just more generally about national security and whatnot. I’m curious if you can elaborate a little bit more.
Efraim Inbar:
As long as the Palestinians have not given the hope of destroying the Jewish state, and you can see it in the refugee camps, which are nourished by UNRWA. Some families have a key and they show the key and they say, I want to go back to the place my forefathers lived. I understand the feeling, the Zionist movement is exactly about that. We came back after 2000 years. We didn’t kill any people that were living here … But this is the Palestinian policy. Now, it may change in the future. So as long as they are willing to fight for going back to where their grandfather, great-grandfather was, there’s not going to be peace. It’s simple.
Sruli Fruchter:
What should happen with Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict after the war?
Efraim Inbar:
I was asked what I suggest the day after. Basically I think the day after will not be the difference from the day before. The Gazans, the people of Gaza, should decide their future. I’m very much afraid that if they are earth, what is their future? They’ll say Hamas is our future. This is not very optimistic, so this is what will happen in Gaza. I don’t think Israel can occupy Gaza and re-educate the Palestinians. We are not good at political engineering. The Americans are not good at political engineering. They invested huge amounts of blood and treasure in Iraq to change Iraq. They didn’t change Iraq, they didn’t change Afghanistan. This region is very much resilient to foreign intervention because of a variety of reasons. It is not like Germany or Japan in which Americans conquered, stayed for a while and re-educated the people here. It’s not going to work anytime soon.
Sruli Fruchter:
I have two questions. I’ll start with two follow-ups on that. One is what would you say is different about the situation with Germany and Japan that you don’t think it would be relevant to this situation?
Efraim Inbar:
Both countries, Germany as well as Japan, were very advanced economically, technologically. They were at a different stage of development. Their political culture had some elements of Western political tradition. This is missing in the region, so therefore it’s not going to succeed. Look at Arab Spring. I remember it was in San Francisco at the time of the Arab Spring, the beginning and everybody was in hubris, oh, the Middle East is going to change. I was looking at my American colleagues-
Sruli Fruchter:
The Arab Spring, for people who aren’t familiar. In 2011 when there was the big wave-
Efraim Inbar:
In 2011, there was a huge attempt by the masses to change the authoritarian system. I was looking, at the time, I was at an American university on the West Coast and I told them, hey, you don’t get it. It’s not going to change. They were looking at me and some of them said, oh, you are a racist.
But it didn’t change, not because I was a racist, but because Europe became democratic after a few centuries of political development. This is not here. It’s different people. Not every people is the same. I remember I had a big argument with Natan Sharansky. Sharansky wrote a famous book that even President Bush quoted before going into Iraq and he believes that everybody wants liberty, freedom. I told him, it ain’t so. People want stability, want to send their kids to school and to make a living and quiet life. Not everybody’s political. Most people don’t care about politics and most people don’t fight for liberty, democracy. This is definitely true here.
Sruli Fruchter:
So you think that is the case with Palestinians and Gaza or that’s not the case?
Efraim Inbar:
They are in favor of Hamas. Hamas is an Islamist radical organization and all of them want to kill Jews. So this is not a good beginning for democracy.
Sruli Fruchter:
So what do you think Israel should do with Gaza after the war? That was my other follow up to the question. You spoke a little bit about what you think Gaza will be like after the war. I’m curious what you would recommend or what you think Israel should do after the war.
Efraim Inbar:
I don’t know what will be in Gaza after the war. I think we should disengage and mow the grass. What is important for us in Gaza is freedom of military action. Like in the West Bank, whenever there is a threat, we should go in and mow the grass, kill the bad guys and go back. Don’t try to win the hearts and minds, all this insurgency theories, this nonsense in most countries. I know this goes against American thinking, no, I’m in favor of punitive expeditions, Roman punitive expeditions, this is what works.
Sruli Fruchter:
Do you think Israel is properly handling the Iranian threat?
Efraim Inbar:
No. We should have attacked long time ago. I think we missed opportunities. We expect, or some people expect, that the Americans will do the job for us and this is an illusion. We should take care of the threat as quickly as possible. We should invest in preparing the military option. We waited for too long, and what we see in nowadays is partly the result of our unwillingness to face the bitter truth that nobody is going to do the job for us.
Sruli Fruchter:
Where do you identify on Israel’s political and religious spectrum? Do you have any friends on the “other side”?
Efraim Inbar:
What do you think? Where am I politically?
Sruli Fruchter:
I’ll tell you my guess after you.
Efraim Inbar:
Obviously I am right of center and I’m identified as such. But I believe that we should have civil discourse with people that disagree. I have friends on the other side, I can talk to them, we can discuss things, not agree, but we are fighting the same army.
Sruli Fruchter:
Where do you identify in the religious spectrum?
Efraim Inbar:
I’m a liberal Orthodox.
Sruli Fruchter:
So for our last question, there were 18, there were just a lot of follow-ups to dive a little bit deeper, this is not false advertisement. Do you have more hope or fear for Israel and the Jewish people?
Efraim Inbar:
It’s a difficult question. First of all, I believe it’s in our hands. Our future is in our hands and depends much upon our own behavior. We are an extremely creative and smart people. Everybody knows it. We are adored and hated because of that. I was very hopeful until the last year. But then in the last year we’ve seen self-destructive impulses within the Israeli society, during the debate, over the legal reform. Those expressions, we see them today, it’s not over. This is a pity because we are ahead of Tisha B’Av next week and we should remember that if we don’t behave properly, bad things can happen to us. So I’m hopeful and fearful as well. So there are days I’m more optimistic, there are days I am less optimistic. But generally I don’t leave the country. I’m here to stay.
Sruli Fruchter:
Today are you more optimistic or less optimistic?
Efraim Inbar:
Less. Everywhere you see Jews are doing the war, Jews go and fight. The state failed, but the civil society went and provided all the services to the people in the rear, to the soldiers. So there was a huge mobilization of the Israeli people to do the right things. So this gives me hope. At the same time, we have demonstrations on the left, on the right, violations of law, we have Sicariis, the zealots of the Second Temple. So this is a problem.
Sruli Fruchter:
Okay, great. Well, Efraim Inbar, those were our 18 questions. Thank you so much for your time. Anything that I didn’t ask that you wish I asked?
Efraim Inbar:
I don’t know.
Sruli Fruchter:
Maybe how you’re doing.
Efraim Inbar:
Huh?
Sruli Fruchter:
Maybe I should have asked how you’re doing.
Efraim Inbar:
I’m fine.
Sruli Fruchter:
So you just listened to my interview with Efraim Inbar, and I think one thing that was very clear for those who have been following along throughout the entire series is the extent and the depth of the types of questions I followed up with to try and ascertain how far his views went, the implications of them, and to gain a better understanding of how his mind works. If you’re looking to learn more about him and learn more about his work, you will have no problem Googling his name Efraim Inbar. You can look at the title for this episode, E-F-R-A-I-M, last name I-N-B-A-R.
He’s a columnist for the Jerusalem Post, or he writes frequently for the Jerusalem Post I should say. I’m not sure if he’s a columnist, but I wouldn’t be surprised. He has five books out, I believe from the 1980s through the early 2000s, on many different aspects of Israeli policy, national security and the like. You can find a ton of his academic papers and work online. So if you do your due diligence, you’ll have no problem diving more into his thought and his perspective.
So again, that classic pitch, if you have questions you want us to ask or future guests that you want us to be featuring, shoot us an email at info@18forty.org, and for my self-esteem and so that we can reach new listeners. The two most important things on everyone’s minds right now, subscribe, rate, and review and come back next week for more 18 questions. So until then, keep questioning and keep thinking.