Analysis of the News of the Day on Israel, the US and Iran w/ Rabbi Steven Pruzansky on JM in the AM

This is America's one and only Jewish moments in the morning radio program heard on listeners sponsored digital radio around the world web.com on the network and of course on the beloved NSN app. With us live via telephone is Rabbi Steven Pzanski, one of our favorite guests frankly. He is um serving as Israel region vice president of the coalition for Jewish values, senior rabbitic scholar, yeshiva mdalhat in Modí, senior research associate at the Jerusalem center for a pride applied policy and a longtime pro-Israel commentator, Rabbi Steven Pzanski, a pleasure to welcome you back to JM in the AM. >> No, good morning to you and all your listeners. >> Appreciate that. Um, I mean, the first thing I'm curious about, and thank God I've heard from people in Israel that it was a quiet night last night. Um, let's work our way backwards. We'll start with the news from yesterday, and then we'll go back to the whole, you know, Trump Israel thing. Um, in terms of yesterday, do you think that now that the president of the United States has declared that the um, ceasefire is over, uh, do you think we're in for another round of missiles and rockets at Israel? Do you think we're in for another round of a US/Iran/Israel war? What do you think's going to happen in the aftermath of his declaration? It's impossible to know because Trump could change his mind in five minutes and then change it back in 10 minutes. So he he literally is impossible to predict. But I would look at it like this. I don't think most people expected a quiet night last night because this is not directly our fight. This is really Trump exercising what he considers presidential privilege because he's been made to look like a fool. The Iranians played him. They stand to get whatever they want in exchange for promises which they have no inclination to fulfill. And therefore, Trump does not like to be played. And he realized he's being made look like a fool. In other words, at the end of the entire process of the war and all the the talk and the braggadocio, Iran wound up on one from one perspective in a better position than they were before. right >> now having asserted control over the straits of Hormuz. They never had that before. And this was to the horror of the Gulf countries, America's allies, which have been fighting for well over 80 years not to allow Iranian control over the straits of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. And here Trump agreed to it essentially. So I would say though in Israel, it's important to remember this. There are times when there's a surface calm and turmoil underneath. And I think that's where we are now. There's a surface calm, but we know that something has to happen. It's not going to just end like this. Other times there's surface turmoil and calm underneath, which is really when there's war. The the the the superficially there's a lot of turmoil going on, but we remain calm and resilient. The thing is with Israel, there's never calm on the exterior and the interior, and there's never turmoil on the exterior and the interior. It's always one or the other. >> Uh yeah, I guess I guess that only confirms the statement that there hasn't been a quiet day in 78 years because it's e it's either not quiet externally or it's not quiet internally. >> So there there many quiet days externally, but we know that it's not going to last indefinitely. And that's that's the turmoil underneath. >> So if you go ahead and um you know conclude as you just did that till now Iran has made a fool of President Trump and it's hard to argue with that. Uh if in fact Trump does feel that Israel dragged him into this war that really the impetus was to uh destroy the nuclear capability of Iran again you know a favor for US citizens but maybe more of a favor for Israel that's the way it's being perceived. Uh do you think there is an underlying uh resentment from the White House to Jerusalem even with the proposed visit of Netanyahu to Washington? Uh do you think that this is real? That there's a rift that could last a while between the two? >> I don't think there's a rift. I think it's it is exaggerated. There certainly are people in America who think that Israel dragged the US into war. I don't believe that. especially consider both the very recent and less recent history. I mean going back both this past April and February as well uh or a June in April and February because basically what Trump called the 12-day war was an 11 day 15-hour war that Israel fought and it was a 9-hour war that America fought. America essentially bombed Iran going back a year for 30 minutes. Yeah, the flights were much longer, but it was 30 minutes and only then after it was demonstrated that there was little to no risk coming to American planes from Iranian defenses. In other words, we eliminated Iranians air defense system over multiple months of attacks and Trump benefited from that, took advantage of that, which is fine. He's now in a situation even with the the increased fighting, the escalation of the last few days, he's basically only bombing infrastructure and small ships that are affecting the navigation through the straits of Hormuz. He's not doing anything that is going to transform the situation or ultimately weaken the regime. as for example if he attacked conquered Kar island or decided to destroy their oil wells or energy infrastructure or bridges which is what Iran is trying to do in the Gulf states. So he could blame Israel for not having a perfect outcome, but the imperfection of the outcome is more attributable to him and to what his application of American force was to be in this conflict. He's minimalizing what America's capable of doing in order to limit the number of American casualties, >> which is fine in and of itself, but then don't expect outcomes that presuppose a massive surge of power and force because that he's not willing to do. So, in essence, he's not he's not willing to win the war, >> right? >> What about the other side of the coin then? If if if that's the perspective of whether you know the US should be blaming Israel, what about Israel blaming the US? Is it legitimate when so many uh when so many Israel lovers are going out there saying, "Wow, Trump really betrayed us. Trump had the opportunity to finish the job. Trump had the opportunity to do what Israel has has asked them to do and and and he completely neglected us." Is there any legitimacy to that? >> I wouldn't say that myself. Look, the fact is that there is a sense here that the American military did underperform. Now, they may have underperformed because of limited objectives, but they did underperform. You just look at the number of American aircraft that was shot down, it's about 25 versus those Israeli that was shot down, which is zero. So, there was an underperformance, but then again, there was also limited objectives that they tried to approve that they approved. But I would say that from a a Trump perspective and really from a mature Israeli perspective, I don't want the Americans fighting our bidles and I don't want America risking its troops except to something that advances American interests. Now obviously a weakened Iran does advance American interests because it does boost the standing of America's allies and it does weaken Iran as a nefarious force which as we recall has been attacking America since 1979. >> So there is an American interest in weakening Iran and certainly in regime change. But if the US is not willing to do what's necessary to bring that about then that's and that is a a sober I would say rational analysis of what their interests are. That doesn't mean it's right. Understood. Rabbi Steven presents he's with us live from Israel. You understand the military and naval stuff a lot better than I do. How does a country uh especially when Trump declares that he's destroyed their navy and we know how much of their leadership has been eliminated over the last few months. How does a country like that go ahead and effectively shut down the straits of Hormuz? How do they take it over uh to a point where where you know where where they where they've got the US where they want them? How's it possible when the when so much of the leadership is gone and apparently so much of their military and navy no longer exists? Yes. Well, I mean, part of the issue is, of course, very Trumpian, he has a tendency to exaggerate and um maybe put it like this in a gentle way, not all of his words have a counterpart in reality. >> The fact is they have they have military capabilities. They in fact, just yesterday was reported they've regained uh use of half the missile launchers that were destroyed by Israel over a year ago. So they did suffer losses. Those losses could have been more meaningful had they been followed up with real action that could have produced uh regime change. One of the more dangerous elements that we're dealing with now that at the Jerusalem Center for Applied Policy we're dealing with as well is the rise of Turkey. Turkey is a very going to be very difficult uh foe in the future because they share the same hegemonic genocidal ambitions towards Israel as Iran, but they're also an American ally and a member of NATO and the particularly harmful force. So I was just reading the other day that the Americans and others whether it's Israel, I don't know, I won't say have already armed the Kurds. But it was Erdogan who put a stop to a Kurdish advance in the northern part of Iran which could have then been a Pinsir movement. The Kurds from the north and the Americans from the south with or without the Israelis that would have really uh crushed the regime. Erdogan put a stop to that because he's afraid of his own Kurds and a Kurdish uprising because the Kurds are the most oppressed minority in the world today. And because he's afraid of his own Kurds, that's why he stopped this plan. Big problem because the only way to to topple the regime is to have the regime feel that it has no alternative. It has no economy and it has no vision for the future. Right now, Trump helped them rebuild the economy and replenish some of their coffers. And at the same time he succeeded in depressing both psychologically and realistically all the opposition elements in Iran when he promised help was on the way but help really was not on the way. >> Well two points then on the Erdogan thing in Turkey in general. What what happened? What was the watershed moment that turned Israel and Turkey from friendliness to now as you called them foes? Oh, well that's a very simple uh there's a simple answer to that question. Erdogan is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood has a 100red-year plan to take over the West. Part of the plan is already being uh activated and visible in America. They've succeeded in taking over many college campuses as well as local school boards of education. And and that's why you see like on October 8th already there was an infrastructure in place to oppose Israel and to defend radical Islamic terrorism. That all comes from the Muslim Brotherhood which the tip of the spear in the US today is both Turkey and Qatar. >> So why' they get along before that? Why did Erdogan >> because Turkey was a secular Muslim republic and when Erdogan took power and by the way he's maintain power as a dictator by rigging elections now going on more than two decades his goal was to become the hedgeman in the region and that involves of course one of the goals of the Muslim Brotherhood is to allow is to destroy any nonIslamic presence in the Middle East. That was Iran's goal and now this is Turkeykey's goal. But the nature of Turkish society changed. It became a heavily Islamic society as opposed to one which was secular. I visited Turkey in 2000. It's a very open society. I wouldn't go back there today. So if I remember a radical Muslim society. >> So if I remember Turkey and Israel 2000 to 2010, that was a transition time. It was still good. You traveled there as you said. Well, the ma the ma'ami marurer was a turning point because then you saw that Turkey was already allied openly with kamas arming and funding kamas and they're the ones who sent this it was a Turkish ship the Mauvi Mamura uh that was all Erdogan and the fact that we apologized for defending ourselves was a big mistake going back 15 years but you know the Israeli foreign ministry establishment has always had this vision of restoring ties with Turkey to the way they were while it was a secular Muslim uh republic. Remember Turkey was the first and only Muslim state to recognize Israel 1949 until Erdogan. >> And you think that's ridiculous at this point that they >> of course right someone just wrote recently uh nostalgia is not a policy or strategy. >> That's so good. I love that. >> And this is exactly what the Israeli foreign ministry establishment has been relying on for the better part of two decades. nostalgia for what once was. Hey, yeah, we still import dates from Turkey and there is a Jewish community there, but it's a it's an endangered community because of the nature of Turkey society. It's completely changed. It could change back, but now it's it's not what it was. >> I got to share that with my staff. Nostalgia is not a policy. You could use that in a lot of situations or by Steven Bzanski is with us also on and the second point is on the on the Iranian people piece here in the US. I hear so many commentators uh saying how the Iranian people, the people, the street, however you want to refer to them, are so much in favor of what the US is doing and hope they topple the government, etc., etc., etc. Don't you think that's exaggerated and overblown? Don't you get the feeling, especially in this week of the funeral in Iran, don't you get the feeling that the majority of the people in Iran really are with their government and with their regime? >> I believe you're correct. And I believe that is a western fantasy that really comes from projection. Meaning they think, well, how would we like to live right >> in a radical Muslim state and we wouldn't want it. So we assume that others would not want it as well. I think most of Iran actually supports the government. Most of Iran, they like you say, look at the tens of millions showing up for the funeral. All right, we could say that some of them might be coerced into coming, but not all of them. Not all of them. I mean there is the the North Korea phenomenon where people you know for a couple of shackles could start to cry also at the death of a leader. There is that too but I don't get that sense with Iranian society. They're they're sophisticated group and yet they have adopted embraced this radical Islamic philosophy. >> Right. And and and it's not outrageous to say that most of them are okay with it. like they it's hard for us to comprehend that but >> right most of them support the government because look it is a tyranny and it is a government that encroaches brutally on what we deem to be people's freedoms. I mean until just a short time ago they were beating and imprisoning women who were not wearing a hijab. Now we would think that if indeed many women most women did not want that we would hear about it. Certainly some didn't. They're the ones who were executed or otherwise in prison. But did tens of millions of women go out to protest the government? No. Maybe hundreds did. Maybe in the low thousands. Well, the low thousands in a country of 91 million people is not a large number. >> Yeah. Sometimes you have to wake up to reality and I think that's the reality. >> Right. I think if the government was toppled and let's say a more moderate regime was installed then people would say okay so let's go back to living a normal remember Iran just like Turkey Iran was also a a Muslim state non-Arab Muslim as was Turkey that also had relations with Israel through up until >> and that's completely changed. >> Uh Robert Pzanski you you spent some time in the United States of America. Do you remember that? You remember your time in the United States of America? >> I did. I did. It's a fading memory, but I do come back on occasion to revive those memories. >> I speak to you, in fact, from West Anglewood Avenue where you have about eight choices of where to eat across the street from me. Yes. >> Just letting you know. Anyway, what's my point? My point is I don't have to tell you, but uh I do have to remind the audience how different, special, and um and distinguishable days are in Israel compared to the diaspora. Shabases has a flavor of it in Israel we don't have in the diaspora. Uh Kaneka name any holiday you want and we can make that argument. I'm curious about the three weeks. Does it feel different in Israel than it would in the diaspora? >> It does. I feel it. I do sense though I'm not blaming them. I'm just pointing this out that because the misra do not generally begin the avail until the nine days until next Wednesday. And some of them not even until >> especially this year. Right. >> Right. So you don't really feel it until then. But uh one would be surprised at the number of public figures that we'll start seeing next week who will not shave during the nine days. People keep they will not shave during the nine days. And that's why they feel the the real uh that's when you feel the real avail. It builds to that. Certainly during the nine days things start to slow down. entirely the country comes to a halt. Most stores don't open till the after the malls don't open until the afternoon of tishab. So really uh you feel it more but uh in the early days I feel it all right but I can't say you feel it necessarily in the country then it's completely different. >> Uh you feel like a nation where you are people who think that they feel like a nation here I think they're fooling themselves a bit. You feel like a >> right. Well, Raf Cook Raf Cook said many times that in the exile, Jews are really a conglomerate of individuals. There is no national sense. There could be brotherhood and solidarity, etc., but basic people live their own lives. In Israel, there's a nation. It's a family. And so, as a nation in a family, you feel for one another, you feud with one another, and uh ultimately you you build a society. >> Wow. And you're lucky enough to be there. Thank God. >> Thank God. Thank God. It's uh wonderful. By the way, I mentioned the turmoil underneath. It's not for now, but the turmoil underneath is the upcoming election campaign. It's going to be very, very bitter, but we can save them for another time. >> And I think we're lucky that uh there's a long holiday season in the entire month of September. So, so what you just described will hopefully only be happening over a period of a few weeks. >> Yes. I think once the parties become once the date of the election is set then more or less they've agreed sometime around October 20th but once it's officially set and then new parties are created see it's different than the American experience you have the two parties and that's it and they've been the same basically for almost 170 years in Israel new parties will be arising doesn't mean they'll be successful but they will make an initial impact and there'll be a also a musical chair sort of approach to people jumping from one party to another. Those in the Knesset want to stay there, they'll go wherever they think they have the best chance and others will start their own party. So, it gets very lively, >> very lively. It'll be very bitter though this year also because the residual hatred of Nataniel from the left grows each time he wins an election. >> Do you think uh November 1 there'll be a different prime minister than now? >> If you ask me, at this point, I would think not. >> Wow. I would think he's going to succeed again. I mean the accurate polls still predict is going to be the largest party. There'll be very fine margins. The religious Zionist party is going to uh struggle to to surpass the threshold. I think they will. Again, it all depends on who else is running in the party. I think they they've done a good job, but they have offended people by not opposing the enough. But be that as it may, we won't know more until the parties are established right and the campaign is underway. But at this juncture, I would say Natao clearly has the advantage. >> Do you agree with me that um obviously there should be an effort, at least I feel so uh to incorporate those in the Karedi community into army service or whatever type of national service u they would, you know, compromise to or agree to. uh but but imprisoning members of that segment of the community is only counterproductive. Do you agree with that? >> I do agree. The bottom line is, and this may surprise some of your viewers, this will be a problem that will never be solved. It will never be solved, especially now that it's a political football. It will never be solved for a number of reasons, including among them, the Karedi politicians are elected for two reasons. to keep them out of the army and to funnel money to their institutions. So to expect them to essentially repudiate one of the re one of the two major reasons that they were elected is not going to happen. So >> the army will never accommodate them in a way that's realistic. >> But do you agree but do you agree that if we get to you know yester year where there are two major parties with a large number of seats they could make a coalition that kept the out of the government. Do you don't think that's realistic? >> No. No. That could very well happen. It will not matter what law is passed. That will not matter. It will not help. They'll go to prison. I mean, I wrote a couple years ago they could sit and learn in prison that could sit and learn yeshiva. It's the same thing. And it'll cost the government less. So prison doesn't affect them. The notion that you're imprisoning people for learning Torah, of course, is obviously troubling. But you're not going to affect them by threatening them with prison. The bottom line is at this point they think it's an a sin to go to the army. Everyone else thinks it's a mitzvah to go into the army. You can't convince someone who thinks that it's a mitzvah that something is actually a sin. And that's that's where we are. It'll only change at one point. It won't change through any legislation which won't help. If it's legislation that force them to serve, then they're not going to listen. If it's legislation exempts them, the Supreme Court will invalidate it. It'll never be solved. But the bottom line is the only change that can ever come when more will enter the army and the workforce is if they develop a sense of shame. Shame that like the Torah says this week, you're going to you're going to send your brethren out to battle and you just sit. You know, Ruin and God, they could have said to Moshe, "We don't it's not it's not about the cattle. We just want to sit and learn." Somehow I think that would not have impressed Mo Abenu who himself went to battle. So that's why it'll never be solved. They if they develop as a community a sense of shame and there's no doubt some of them do and some of them are enlisted. >> Well, there's one other piece. If some of their rabbitic leaders would adjust uh accordingly then then >> right I wish I could say I agree with you be you are right but on the other hand the leadership is tethered to a philosophy that goes back 75 years which if they would try to modify they'd be accused of being heretics. I mean you you should understand and so I hate to bring it up but you should understand and should the listeners when he supported even Sly two thugs came to his house to beat him up he was at the time a 100red years old they beat up a 100-year-old Guttlebra because they didn't like the fact that he winked at service in the for those who are not learning. If that's the level of the people that we're dealing with, then you can understand why it's not going to be resolved. It'll only be resolved if they develop a sense of shame and a greater attachment to Claudius, a real attachment to all Jews and not just their dalmat. >> Oh boy. Well, I guess this is a time of year to be somewhat downtroddened. So, you you've accomplished that, I thought. >> No, no. It's a when by the way when I say it'll never be resolved that's meant to be optimistic because it gives the politicians something to fight about right look at present what are we dealing with the run away from the draft law the secular run towards the draft law I'm sorry the run against the draft law the secular run for the draft law and the religious honors run away from the draft law so everyone's running away from it it's not going to change but it makes for interesting conversation and debate That's for sure. All right, Roseski. Always enjoy your insight. Thank you so much for joining us today. >> Thank you and greetings from the holy, beautiful land of Israel to all your listeners. Amazing. >> Oh, how lucky you are. All right, Stephen Pzanski. Always love his insight. Uh here for you on a Thursday morning broadcast at JM in the A.M.