Inside Israel Today: Why I Don't Want to be a Politician

you're listening to inside Israel today with your Hoffman on the land of Israel Network hello and welcome to inside Israel today broadcasting from Jerusalem here on a chilly January morning it's a pleasure being with you yesterday I had a very interesting experience I've been covering the Knesset for twenty years and I've never had the opportunity to set foot in the bottom floor of the Knesset plenum where the members of Knesset actually sit I've been hundreds and hundreds of times in the upper gallery with the press sets and in the upper upper gallery where the public comes when they visit the Knesset I've been a lot of places all over the building that nobody else has been in spent a lot of time there the Knesset is very much a home to me it's a where my gym is where the food used to be much better and where I've had a lot of wonderful experiences that have made me what I am today and I never forget what an honor and privilege it is to work in the Knesset I remember my first experience there I was visiting as an intern in the summer of 98 being taken around by Lee AB Collins the veteran Knesset correspondent for The Jerusalem Post at the time and I was given permission to enter the plenum to sit in that journalist area up in the gallery and because I climbed over a seat in order to get to Lee OTT they kicked me out so my first day in the Knesset I got kicked out now yesterday I kind of behaved in a way that should have gotten me kicked out because this was a tour organised for about 25 reporters and it was very formal the Knesset speaker spoke to us the Knesset secretary could as its speaker we all knows Yuli Edelstein the Knesset Terry is a woman he'll never hear that name again and she was talking to us about procedural things with the Knesset and thinking hey we all know this and B we don't care to listen to you and see we're really only here to take pictures in the seats and walk around then you're treating us like third graders so I started to drift off and first I took a picture of myself in the first seat that was next to us which happened to be the seat of any beggin a very esteemed member of Knesset and I sent this to my family and I told him how special it was that I was getting to sit in Benny bagans seat but then we started being allowed to wander off more and so I went up to this where the Knesset speaker sits and the rostrum there where where the people speaking in the Knesset actually speak from had pictures taken over there and then nobody was looking so I went over to the Netanyahu seat and I actually sat in Netanyahu's chair and then maybe we'll make this the picture that goes along with this particular show here on the Land of Israel not calm and so my friend Lahav took a picture of me sitting there and then she said like five minutes later she said I didn't push a portrait maybe the picture would be better if i push portrait and when I came back there the guards were already telling people you're not allowed to sit there so in the next picture I took was standing up near there and which I made a better face but it's not sitting in his seat and so I'm saying this because after I posted these two pictures of me sitting in a teeny house seat or almost sitting in a house seat I got people on social media saying oh this will be your seat one day or you never know and I'm thinking I know and the answer ladies and gentlemen is no I don't want to be a politician at some point most people in your life want to be a politician for a short period of time with most people it's usually when they're really young so when I was in second grade I believe I already knew all the names of all the presidents from Washington to Reagan and could recite them and people were grown-ups were very impressed by this back then and at that point I believe I told people that I wanted to be the President of the United States I got over it ladies and gentlemen I got over the desire to be in politics and I got over the desire to live in America coming to Israel every summer made me realize how wonderful it is to live here having so much family here having parents who are both raised here who raised us with an awareness of the honor that we have of having a Jewish Democratic state and we can be a part of and help with be a part of history I realized that's what was for me and I realized that I liked writing about it that I like telling people around the world about what's happening behind the scenes here and so I studied journalism at Northwestern the best journalism school in the world though with a an administration that's made some poor decisions opening a campus in Qatar a state sponsor of terror going to war against its Habad house and making its rabbi persona non-grata on the at the university level not stopping the student government from passing a meaningless but very symbolic Pro BDS resolution so I'm not very proud to be a northwestern alum right now but I am proud that I went to the top journalism school in the world and that led to me meeting the publisher of The Jerusalem Post at an event called do the right thing WR ite for young Jewish journalists at a General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America that event is sponsored by the World Zionist Organization that I have to give credit to that led to an internship in the summer of 98 and that led to who the job that I've had since the fall of 1999 and so I like being a journalist ladies and gentlemen I like telling people what's going on uh I we'll leave politics for other hosts here at the Land of Israel Network Yishai Fleischer is running for Knesset good luck to him he's a great guy he's inspirational as you hear listening to his show which I encourage you to do RV and Jeremy ran for Knesset maybe they will again they're great people I'm not just saying this I'm saying because they really they're really great people with deep thinkers and good ideas at everything and would be great public servants not for me ladies and gentlemen and I'm saying this all this has been well one long prelude to what's gone on since I wrote an article last week in The Jerusalem Post in which I appeared to criticize the Vice President of the United States okay I basically wrote in an analysis that one's on page one that the visit of Mike Pence to Israel was much ado about nothing that it wasn't a big deal that here he is preaching to the converted and who's the vice president anyway what does he really do what responsibilities does he have is that even a real job fine so I got carried away I tried to be funny I'll tell you ladies and gentlemen I meant no disrespect to the vice president United States who I realize is a great man who I realize has had an influence on the president of United States who I realize cares for Israel very deeply due to his evangelical Christian religious faith which is a totally legitimate reason to love Israel and because he understands the history and because he's a smart man who has realized that when it comes to the Land of Israel belonging to the Jewish people history not just God justice not just religion is on our side and so I've gotten a lot of letters they were some of them were printed in The Jerusalem Post I have my own rabbi try to disown me and it hasn't stopped this morning I received an email from a woman I I respect tremendously who has organized lectures from me in the past in the United States and maybe because of that article won't again I hope not but she wrote me I feel unkind criticizing what you have written or retweeted however I think you're missing the mark about what's going on in the u.s. what Penn said in Israel was historic whether certain Americans agree or not agree I agree miss wonderful person there in New York and if you received an impression that I don't think that what Penson is said in Israel was historic or special or correct then I'm putting that to rest it was indeed she wrote second the average Democrat or Jew has no idea about the conversion issues or women praying at the wall or at a window it's absurd that any Israeli thinks this is why the Democratic Party is shifting away from Israel what it tells me is that Israelis who think they are in the know are tone deaf to the changes that are going on in the u.s. that are directed to Israel in the first instance but are sweeping Israel into its awake okay so in this paragraph she's referring to a news article that I wrote in today's Jerusalem Post in which I wrote as I do every Monday I visit the faction meetings of the faction heads in the Knesset and I write down what they say the faction heads who have meetings every single week are yalla Peter via Tina Navi gob I of the Zionist union / labor party others do it sometimes Netanyahu was abroad yesterday in Moscow so he didn't do it he often doesn't do it and so it happens to be than a lot of Monday's my articles are what Lapita and gob I had to say okay that not make it my opinion I am a news reporter I'm reporting what they say and they said they believe that Netanyahu is to blame for the study that was released by the Pew Research Center which found that there is a widening gap between Republicans and Democrats about Israel when it comes to the arab-israeli conflict the question was worded strictly in a conflict way they weren't saying we don't like Israel they were saying that when it comes to the conflict we understand both sides and we don't feel comfortable saying we are pro-israel and not pro palestinian those things do not have to be mutually exclusive and the poll was really written in a way that would make them and they didn't feel comfortable with that and that in a sense it's a problem but it's not as big a problem as them saying they don't like Israel we like only the Palestinians that is not what they were saying but l'épée dand gob I kind of made it look that way for their own narrow political interests that's what they do they are not journalists Lapita was once he's not now he is a politician and so they not me Gail Hoffman is a reporter said that the Democrats are shifting away from Israel and it is Netanyahu's fault they said now this is Livni Tzipi Livni said as after meeting with conservative Jewish leaders who put this in her head they said it's because of the western wall dispute in which Nitin Yau abandoned an agreement reached with the ultra-orthodox which would have done two main things it would have created an entrance from the current western wall area to a current area where there is egalitarian prayer on the side of the western wall it already exists there is egalitarian prayer there the entrance right now is all the way around it would there would be an an entrance create people mistakenly think they're going to create an egalitarian prayer area at the Western Wall they're gonna take the current existing places that are reserved for men and for women and make it be three men women and everybody no nobody thinks that's gonna happen that wasn't the agreement the agreement was just to create another entrance to a current egalitarian prayer site the other thing it would have done is to have reform and conservative rabbis or officials who would be part of the committee that would oversee that egalitarian parasite which they already do now but it would be formally under the auspices of the western wall that's all it would do and it's a neo reneged on it because the ultra-orthodox got pressure from their own constituencies that made them say they can't even accept that even though it's not that big a deal okay Netanyahu looked really bad to the reform and conservative movements who themselves milked this and maintenance in Yale look bad and definitely brought people in like Tzipi Livni to say this is going to distance American Jews from Israel and so then they pounced on a Pew poll and say this is the reason it's happened also the conversion issue which is too complicated to get into I'd require another show for it and there's no evidence that a poll taken about support for Israel or the Palestinians both is not an option indicates that condemn ik rats or left-wing Americans left-wing American Jews in particular are mad at Israel because of the Western Wall Dan Shapiro wrote about this in the Atlantic you could read that online Dan Shapiro is not a friend of Netanyahu Dan Shapiro former Obama ambassador Israel had very difficult times in Netanyahu it's partly responsible for the terrible relationship there was between Netanyahu and Obama really exacerbated that relationship he does not have an interest in making the tea now look good and in fact he even wrote a throw-in a things that made him look bad but uh he said this is not the reason why the nice woman in New York who wrote the letter and Dan Shapiro actually agree on that there have been studies that are actually about whether the western wall and conversion decisions have resulted in less giving to Israel less charitable contributions and less support for Israel in general unrelated to the conflict and those studies have found that it had no impact with all due respect and a little beacon they'll continue to be people try to take various decisions about Israel that they feel upset about and say now this is gonna turn people away it's always been that way there's always been something like that and there's always been people who have an interest in saying it and every once in a while there will be a major donor who gets so upset that he'll put his money where his mouth is the best example lately has been a guy named Joey Lowe who founded an organization called I heart Israel which was a pro-israel advocacy organization that even hosted the winner of the Israeli reality show the Ambassador worked as an ambassador for Israel via this organization I heart Israel and what is he mad at he's mad at Israel for expelling a little bit too strong a word but facilitating the departure of African Margaret workers to Israel and so because of that he is taking money away from the country okay he has a right to do that that's his money and he can spend it however he wants but in general is there a trend of American Jewish donors not giving money to Israel because Netanyahu for his own political reasons decided that he would not implement the Western Wall decision that instead he would take steps to facilitate that egalitarian prayer but more of a prayer site but not open that entrance no there-there is not evidence of that going on right now so why is support for Israel among Democrats going down when it comes specifically to the israeli-palestinian conflict it happens to be that there's an air of moral relativism in the United States especially when it comes to Democrats and to liberals especially when it comes to liberal American Jews and they don't feel comfortable with absolutes anymore and that applies to Israel that applies to a lot of people to a lot of different issues and yet we have to be careful we have to be careful because Israel is very appreciative correct correctly so of the important steps that the Trump administration that yes includes Mike Pence has done for Israel whether it's the Western whether it's visiting the Western Wall becoming the first sitting presidents in the United States to visit the western wall and I don't know if my friends were the first sitting vice president to do it but if so more power to him certainly the the beautiful picture of Ivanka crying at the western wall in a picture seen by Israelis as a very sincere and by American Jews as not so much certainly this is a very different situation than we had before we have to appreciate the Western with the decision by the Trump administration to move the Embassy of the United States from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and to do it quickly to not let it take several years like they initially said it would we have to appreciate completely the change of tone that there has been on Iran we have to appreciate that the efforts to solve the israeli-palestinian conflict which will go on despite the sub earnest of the Palestina leaders right now will be very different than it was under Obama and much more in Israel's Faye though not as much in Israel's favor as the Palestinians and the international community think if we go back to Mike Pence I've covered visits to Israel of Joe Biden his predecessor and he saw himself as also very pro-israel but he was also very critical when he came here there was an incident of a building project in the Ramat neighborhood of Jerusalem that was advanced from stage three to stage four in a twenty stage building process there was someone from a left-wing organization that wanted to make Netanyahu look bad at that Zoning Board hearing and then leaked it to the Foreign Press and made it look as if Netanyahu decided to greet Biden with the construction of a new settlement as it was put in the American media it was a housing project apartments in a Jewish neighborhood and ultra-orthodox neighborhood surrounded by ultra-orthodox and a roads where no Arab lever ever lived in no Arab ever will it was not that big a deal and Biden and Hillary Clinton and Obama himself making a big deal out of that made it harder to advance the peace of process that construction project did not in any way and so that visit is a very great contrast to the visit of Mike Pence and so we have to appreciate that there was no butt and there was no blow-up during the visit of Mike Pence we can't take that for granted anymore and so I did not write that other people writing that at the time it was not creative to do I instead focused any perhaps in an attempt to be somewhat humorous or to at least present a different point of view there wasn't being said at the time and maybe it didn't go too well and so in that regard those of you who love and appreciate the Trump administration I apologize if you received that impression that I was disrespectful in any way to him and those who hate the Trump administration there's plenty to criticize there as well but I'm an analyst ladies and gentlemen I explained the different of you I'm not a politician I'm not going to endorse a party in Israel I'm not going to endorse a party in the United States I'm gonna leave that for the other show host here at the Land of Israel network on the Land of Israel calm who feel a lot more comfortable doing that and so that being said uh this is the last show for a week next week I'm going to be in California I'm going to be on a speaking tour that is one week long I'll be speaking in Passaic New Jersey this coming Sunday I'll be speaking on Monday at the University of Oregon and at the Portland Jewish community at night then I'll be speaking in Los Angeles Orange County and Palm Springs California and then I'll be back in New Jersey for Shabbat and then doing events there over the weekend if you ever need a speaker there in your community and analyst not a politician but an analyst who has a really good access and got to sit in at any house chair you could find me at Gila at Jay post com it's been a pleasure being with you over here on the Land of Israel network on the Land of Israel calm looking forward to being with you again in two weeks from here in Jerusalem