A MART脥NEZ, HOST:
Two Israelis are doing some soul-searching about the war in Gaza, and they're doing it through a weekly English-language podcast. NPR's Michele Kelemen met them in Jerusalem.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Donniel Hartman is just back from the U.S. and is catching up with Yossi Klein Halevi, his co-host in the podcast "For Heaven's Sake."
YOSSI KLEIN HALEVI: Welcome back.
KELEMEN: We meet in their office at the Shalom Hartman Institute, a research and educational center that's committed to Israel's Jewish and democratic character and is named for Donniel Hartman's grandfather. Hartman, a Canadian-born rabbi, says he used to be a leftist and was convinced that if Israel would just commit itself to peace, there could be a two-state solution with the Palestinians. But now he's more in the center and worried about security.
DONNIEL HARTMAN: Inherent to my Judaism and my Zionism is a belief that all human beings are created in the image of God and that the rights that Jews have to national sovereignty Palestinians should have. But we realize that the Middle East is actually more complicated than some of my aspirations. That's center left.
HALEVI: I'm Yossi Klein Halevi. And I have to say, Donniel, that was fascinating. I've never heard you explain that before, and I think we ought to do an episode of that.
KELEMEN: Halevi says he's been a centrist since he moved to Israel 43 years ago from the U.S. A journalist and writer, he says his concerns for Israel's security take up so much space that his moral aspirations for the country come in second. But the war in Gaza has tested them both. Hartman says Israel had an obligation to provide food and health care to Palestinian civilians in Gaza, but he says Israelis didn't talk about this much during the war.
HARTMAN: The trauma of October 7 challenged our decency. And I think as a society, we have to give an accounting. We have to reclaim our national decency. And that's not a public relations campaign. That's a moral educational agenda.
KELEMEN: He said Israel is losing friends both on the left and the right in the United States now and around the world. And that's a huge concern for him. On the podcast, they've talked about the criticism of Israel coming both from inside President Trump's MAGA movement and the left-wing campus protesters accusing Israel of genocide, something Israel denies.
HARTMAN: That is a long-standing price of this war that we're going to have to repair. I think we can. I don't think we can repair it with this government.
KELEMEN: Meaning as long as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in power with right-wing ministers bent on annexing the West Bank and keeping forces in Gaza indefinitely. Yossi Klein Halevi says Netanyahu has let Jewish settlers run wild in the West Bank, and he describes that as one of the greatest moral failings of this government.
HALEVI: The only way Netanyahu can repair the enormous damage he's done to Israeli democracy, Israeli cohesiveness is by...
HARTMAN: Or Israel's moral image.
HALEVI: ...Or Israel's moral image is to leave.
KELEMEN: The two men are strongly opposed to Netanyahu and are looking to elections this year as a chance for Israelis to turn the page. But Israeli politics are polarized and centrist voices are drowned out. They worry that Israelis aren't listening to each other, and that's where their podcast fits in. Halevi explains that it's like a weekly Jewish study session or a chavruta.
HALEVI: Chavruta are two friends who sit and study sacred texts and argue sometimes vehemently, but they're arguing for the sake of heaven and they're teaching each other.
KELEMEN: The two of them still disagree on some nuances but have come closer together to try to put forward a vision for Israel that is more in line with their values and one that takes into consideration Palestinian desires for statehood.
Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Jerusalem. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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