In this episode, Daniel J. Levy speaks with Jonathan Javor as they look ahead to the 2026 Knesset election. Javor who broadly reflects a right-wing perspective explains how Israeli politics has shifted towards the right and examines the electoral challenges facing Likud and Prime Minister Netanyahu. The conversation also reviews the role of the ultra-Orthodox, the prospects for Naftali Bennett and how security, identity, and coalition considerations are shaping Israeli politics.
Jonathan Javor is a political consultant specialising in campaign strategy and management. He has worked in politics and consultancy for over fifteen years and has consulted many senior politicians both in Israel and abroad, including Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister.
Transcript
(This transcript has been automatically generated by AI — please excuse any potential errors.)
00:00:07:04 – 00:00:32:11
Hello and welcome to the BICOM podcast. I’m Daniel J. Levy, programmes manager, and today is 18th December 2025. Next year, 2026 will be the year that Israel goes to the polls with another general election. And given everything Israel has been through in the past two years, in particular, it’s going to be a particularly important year for Prime Minister Netanyahu as well as the Likud party.
00:00:32:13 – 00:00:59:13
Given the timing, I can’t think of many better guests to be joining us than Jonathan Jaber. He is a political consultant for senior politicians and world leaders, a commentator for IE 24 news and credited with establishing Yom Ha’Aliyah, which is a national holiday commemorating the emigration of Jews around the world. He has consulted on a Guinness World Record, Advance Knesset legislation and driving municipal reform.
00:00:59:15 – 00:01:21:15
He’s also an IDF veteran and holds a BA and Ma degrees from King’s College London. Jonathan, thanks for joining us. Is there anything we missed off that biography? No, I Daniel, thanks for having me. I think that’s pretty good. Yeah. Husband, husband and father, I think are the most important things. But, other than that, I, pretty spot on.
00:01:21:17 – 00:01:43:01
Good stuff. And then maybe on one, like, as we say, perhaps you give us in the listeners an overview of some of the political campaigns that you’ve managed. So just to give a flavour of what you do. People tend to forget that actually, politics is a big word. It’s, it’s a big discipline. And much the same to someone who goes into high tech.
00:01:43:01 – 00:02:11:07
There are so many different departments and angles and things to, to do the same in politics. And you can be, in legislation or in communications or, on or party politics or any one of these things. And, and what I really started to enjoy when I, when I got into politics 15, 20 years ago was the idea of managing big ideas, things, things that made a difference, big processes and that that sort of led me down the path of politics.
00:02:11:07 – 00:02:43:23
And one of the first campaigns I ever did was I was head of the English campaign for Likud way back in 2013. Which then I it was my first taste and I really enjoyed it. And even that was just one small aspect of the campaign, something that I really enjoyed. And I then went on to do campaigns for mayor of Tel Aviv called a and I consulted with, with Michael Oren when he ran and then to the bigger picture of running sort of national campaigns, but not just in Israel.
00:02:43:23 – 00:03:09:12
And then I got to have the opportunity to, to run national campaigns, in, in many European countries, you know, in, in Georgia, in Greece, in, in, in Kosovo, in, in, in Austria. So, it’s been it’s been a very, very interesting ride. And, and I generally speaking out prefer to do things internationally rather than just in Israel.
00:03:09:12 – 00:03:39:11
Israel is, is, is a very small market. It’s also, you know, it’s, we know everyone and, and better to be friends and then than have someone upset with you because you didn’t consult them. But the idea is, is to come in and take all the different aspects of a campaign. So, the, the, the, the strategy and the creative and the post-production and the, the, the, the, in the field and all this kind of stuff.
00:03:39:15 – 00:04:04:24
And somebody has to sort of, be a conductor, someone has to manage that whole aspect and usually it’s not a very glamorous position because, your job is to be in the office and making sure all the cogs are working in, in unison, so that if and when and ultimately, they do. If and when you have a crisis, you can manage it accordingly because you’re prepared and because everything is, is, is working in an organized manner.
00:04:05:01 – 00:04:27:11
And that’s sort of where, where, where I come in the, the ability to take all these different aspects of a campaign. And some of them are more fun than others. You know, data acquisition is not fun, but it’s important. Creative is more fun, because you get to translate the strategy of a campaign into something visual.
00:04:27:13 – 00:04:46:14
But someone has to bring all that together. How do we use the data together with the creative? How do we use the creative together with the communications, how to use the communications together with, getting your people out to vote, all these kinds of different things that are going on. And that’s what I do.
00:04:46:14 – 00:05:07:03
That’s, that’s what a campaign manager will do. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re the head of the campaign. It can be but doesn’t necessarily mean you have had a campaign. But that’s what the campaign manager does. He takes all the aspects, brings it all together and manages it in, in perfect harmony, as it were. Thank you for that.
00:05:07:04 – 00:05:30:06
You mentioned that you began your career working with the Likud. Likud sets within the right politically, but what actually constitutes the right in Israel? What does it mean to be right-wing in Israel? Political? It’s a very good question because, as, you know, as I’m sure the listeners know, being right wing in Israel doesn’t necessarily make you a capitalist.
00:05:30:08 – 00:05:52:23
And being left wing doesn’t necessarily make you a socialist. The lines are a bit different here. And now. That was something that I had to learn as well when I, when I got involved in politics in, I grew up obviously growing up in Britain and, the lines of a sort of very, quite clearly, on a on a, on a capitalist, on an economic agenda.
00:05:53:00 – 00:06:34:16
Whereas here the right left was always very more determined on security issues, on, on ideology of security, meaning that, someone like, Haim Katz, who’s he’s a minister in the current government, he’s, he’s actually a bit more socialist, but he’s right wing when it comes to dealing with the Palestinians. So, it’s, it’s only been recently in the last sort of, I would say maybe five years or so, that we’ve seen an influx of sort of, the, the, the capitalist right wing, the, the, the conservative, the Republicans come into Likud.
00:06:34:18 – 00:06:58:16
But it used to be, you know, very much a bit more socialist. So that was one of the differences. So, you’re, you’re being right wing in Israel was first and foremost about Judea and Samaria, that, that constitutes part of Israel. And that’s not up for negotiation. Neither is Jerusalem, that you’re, in favour of mass, I mean, mass immigration to Israel.
00:06:58:21 – 00:07:25:05
Those are the fundamental basics of being right wing in Israel. That no, to a Palestinian state that was also part of it. And then only further south of them starts getting into sort of economic, ideas. But that was the fundamental part of, of, of, of right wing, whereas the left wing was they were more socialist, from the beginning.
00:07:25:07 – 00:07:48:00
They had the little red book and when during the time of Mapai, and if you didn’t have a little red book and I’m not, it’s not a sort of metaphor that was literally if you didn’t have a little socialist red book in Israel, you couldn’t get a job. And then the other interesting thing that was that determines the left wing versus right wing, and this is quite unique, to Israel, that it’s, on lines of ethnicity.
00:07:48:00 – 00:08:21:11
And it what that basically means is if you’re European, Ashkenazi, you were traditionally a left-wing labour voter. And if you were, Sephardi, traditionally you would vote for Likud. And no matter what your ideology is, no matter whether you’re a capitalist or a socialist or an authoritarian or whatever it is, it just, oh, if I’m my family was originally from Morocco, if my father was from Yemen, I’m voting they could if my family was originally from Europe, I’m voting for labour.
00:08:21:11 – 00:08:51:23
That was traditionally. Which, by the way, is this big part of the issue that Israel has going on today, these, these, these ethnic, divisions. You know, the right still sees the, the, institutionalized left, as they call it, as part of the problem, as it is an institutionalized, old boys club, if you will. That works against them, on lines of ethnicity simply because they are seen as the Ashkenazi elites.
00:08:51:23 – 00:09:31:04
And these are the is for a second-class citizen. And this is where the battle lines are drawn. So, you’ve got, the two main issues of security and ethnicity. And then later on it’s about economics. Thank you for that. But beyond just to look at who else sits within the Israeli right in its current permutation. So that’s, that’s I think that’s one of the most interesting questions, right now, because if you look, if you look at the, the if you look at the map of Israel and over the last ten years and certainly since October 7th, Israel has shifted to the right, incredibly, it’s become more religious, it’s become more, conservative,
00:09:31:06 – 00:09:41:22
it’s become more nationalistic. It’s really shifted to the right. And yet there’s no one.
00:09:41:24 – 00:10:07:01
Entity on the right that unifies everyone now. And this question is, what does it mean to be right wing? And Likud in the last election was the largest party and yet only managed to get 25% of the vote, which is nothing. In the Grand scheme of things. You look at Bennett coming in, who’s going to be re-entering the race in the next elections, and he’s not unifying the right.
00:10:07:01 – 00:10:31:10
And you’ve got Lieberman, who is the head of Israel Beiteinu. Israel is our home. And he is he’s very, very clear on, security. And he’s very clear on, anti-grade. He’s a very much against the ultra-orthodox. But that doesn’t unify the right either. So, to your question of, of what is it, what is the right today?
00:10:31:10 – 00:11:00:12
I’m, I’m not sure, but I can guarantee you these are kind of the questions will be asking in polling when we start moving into sort of that election cycle. Because that’s going to give you the answer of how it where the votes are coming from. If you look at, sort of the, the liberal right, the centre right, who, who were very clear on security were very clear on, on their, their hawkish outlook.
00:11:00:14 – 00:11:28:17
But are they going to vote for a right-wing government that keeps the ultra-orthodox from doing the Army, or are they not? This is a huge question. This is a this is a big, big deal. People feel that that even though Likud’s what, you know, has the is the big tent right wing party, it’s failing to get the votes because of that one issue, because that one thing is being so like, what does it mean?
00:11:28:19 – 00:11:41:08
We’re not entirely sure today because it and who’s leading the right. You know, you say Bibi Netanyahu and undeclared, but that’s simply because no one else is there.
00:11:41:10 – 00:12:03:14
That and apart from alluding to sort of the fact that maybe we don’t know what constitutes the Israeli right to maybe the Israeli right doesn’t really know what constitutes the Israeli right at this point. What’s the general state at the end of 25? How are they looking going into an election, and how have they weathered the past two electoral cycles, say, up to this point?
00:12:03:16 – 00:12:20:14
So again, we can’t say the Israeli right. We have to be if when we look at the election cycle, you have to we have to be specific about the parties. So, let’s look at the Likud right now. Is in a, a huge problem because it’s, it’s looking at the polls and it’s not doing very, very well in the polls.
00:12:20:14 – 00:12:41:16
And it’s not doing very well in the polls because of the ultra-Orthodox issue. And that’s the big thing. So, all the other issues don’t really seem to have a big impact. Even then, the, the notion of a, of, of, of Netanyahu’s court case and, and Trump getting involved. And now the president has to look at it.
00:12:41:21 – 00:13:24:23
That’s not even making a big impact. So, it if we look at them, they have to get rid of the ultra-Orthodox issue for them. That’s going to be their biggest downfall. If, if the left or the so-called centre, which doesn’t really exist, but that’s a whole different conversation. If, if, if the left can focus on the, the ultra-Orthodox issue, it can bring down the Likud government, but it’s the Likud government can get the issue off the table, then it’s most likely going to win again, not necessarily cause it’s right wing, but because it’s been in power for so long, it knows how to yield that power.
00:13:25:03 – 00:13:55:16
It knows how to win elections. And at the end of the day, because of the shift to the right in the country, people will be happier with, with a badly could government than a left government that they just don’t trust. And what do you think accounts for that shift to the right? You mentioned. So, part of it is just part of it is just, you know, part of it is natural meaning, religious people have more babies than secular people.
00:13:55:18 – 00:14:15:23
Part of it is, you can see it even in there’s just been a natural shift towards being more religious aware in Israel. You can see that in the number of kosher restaurants has suddenly popped up in Tel Aviv, whereas was when I moved to Tel Aviv 15 or so years ago. There were barely any restaurants.
00:14:15:23 – 00:14:52:06
Now there’s, they’re dime a dozen. So, part of it is natural. Part of it is, just a sort of an opening of the eyes of, of people in the country going, we’re going nowhere with, with, with, with leaders on the left who are more, concerned with making sure they would never sit with Netanyahu than actually coming up with concrete plans on how to improve the country.
00:14:52:08 – 00:15:10:23
And then you’ve got October 7th, where people in, in the around the country woke up to the worst massacre, of Jews since the Holocaust. And even people on the left when I these are not people that can make peace with. These are not people that I can engage with.
00:15:10:23 – 00:15:52:16
It wasn’t just the people that took part in the acts and cells. It was the rest of the Palestinian population that was supported it. And the that cheered it and shared it on social media. So, it’s interesting because it just it shows basically how wrong and how badly they misjudged October 7th. Because it turns out, that it made Israel go much more, I don’t want to say right wing, but much more conservative, much more hawkish, and much less likely to give anything, in return for a so-called peace.
00:15:52:22 – 00:16:26:13
And given that those attacks on 7th October happened under the Likud’s watch and happened under Netanyahu’s watch, and he seems to be doing his best to avoid any kind of scrutiny with an independent national inquiry. How does that impact his electoral chances? Any of that’s a really interesting question, and I think we’ve seen that. I think if you ask most people in the country, most people will say 120 MKs need to resign and we need to elect 120 new cases left, right, up, down, secular.
00:16:26:17 – 00:17:02:06
It just doesn’t matter. They all failed. Then there’s specific blame on the government because it’s on their watch 100% from the lowest MK to the Prime Minister. They all failed and none of them have taken any kind of responsibility whatsoever. In fact, they’ve done everything they can to show how it wasn’t their responsibility. I remember a few years ago, after the, the, the horrible events that happened on the macron, I was like, oh, man, where, the current speaker of the Knesset, Emiliano, was minister of Internal Security at the time.
00:17:02:08 – 00:17:25:20
He said, I am, it’s my responsibility, but I’m not to blame. In Hebrew, it’s, it’s just this wonderful idea that it’s my responsibility, but I’m not to blame. And that’s kind of this continuation of us policy ever since, whether the government has done everything it can to not, take any kind of responsibility for it.
00:17:25:20 – 00:17:48:13
But they know if they take responsibility, then that’s a sure way to get hold it out by not taking any responsibility. No one, no one really is voting on that. The people who were on the streets for every single demonstration, on every single issue over the last ten years are the same people on the streets and the people that are saying, I’d rather stick with the elected government are saying the same thing.
00:17:48:13 – 00:18:13:02
It hasn’t shifted the needle. And everyone is angry that no one’s taken responsibility. But it hasn’t really shifted votes. I remember during sort of, working with, people in the markets during Covid, and you just sort of goes to show the point, met with all the people who ran the stalls in the market, and they’re all good voters, by the way.
00:18:13:02 – 00:18:31:17
All these people, we run these stores in every market, in every town in Israel, they all vote. So, they could pretty much. And I met with them and asking them, you know, because at the time it was the everything was shut down. You couldn’t go into stores. That was numbers were limited. Probably, you know, inside, outside masks, gloves, all the, you know, the height of cars, Covid.
00:18:31:19 – 00:18:49:12
I asked them like what? You know, what would you suggest? And they, they said, listen, we’re outside. There’s no reason why you should shut us down. And fair enough. And the government has failed us, and the government is against us. And, you know, just shouting anti-government slogans. And then from Austin, quietly, okay, so who are you going to vote for?
00:18:49:12 – 00:18:50:11
And I went, we could
00:18:50:13 – 00:19:03:22
some people just not going to change. It doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter what you do. And these are the people. Just doesn’t matter how badly they messed up, how badly of a failure this was, they’re still going to vote for good. They’re not capable of voting for anything else.
00:19:04:02 – 00:19:04:22
So where does this lead?
00:19:04:22 – 00:19:05:20
Naftali Bennett,
00:19:05:24 – 00:19:26:07
It’s a really good question. So, Naftali doesn’t want to be the successor in that way. He wants to win. He doesn’t want to inherit. He wants to win. And successor implies inheritance. He is still trying to find himself. He is trying to, he’s trying to sort of get the disappointed, centre right, pragmatic.
00:19:26:07 – 00:19:50:10
Right. All over the non-religious. Right. And he’s also trying to get the, the, the, the, the centre. He’s trying to get those people to vote for him. Naftali Bennett has a history. And I think he’s a very worthy, candidate. But he has a history of being very, very strong in the polls.
00:19:50:12 – 00:20:15:02
And then when push comes to shove on Election Day, he’s very weak. He comes out very low. He doesn’t know his campaigns, don’t know how to turn polling success into voting success. And that’s, that’s very, very, whereas Likud very much does, the way you win elections is it doesn’t necessarily matter how many people you have to vote for you.
00:20:15:02 – 00:20:32:15
You have to get those people out to vote. It doesn’t matter. It’s 50 or 50,000, but every single person has to get out to vote. And you have to check that they that they voted for you. And Bennett’s process of doing that was not very good. And therefore, he didn’t convert the polling into actual votes.
00:20:32:17 – 00:20:35:04
Bennett has got a chance.
00:20:35:06 – 00:20:36:08
But he,
00:20:36:10 – 00:20:58:18
he has to, focus just like everyone else on the one issue that weakens the government and that is the ultra-Orthodox. No one. It’s the one issue that can get pretty much the entire country on the street. It’s the one issue that everybody agrees on, because everybody has been in military and everybody’s been in reserve duty.
00:20:58:23 – 00:21:31:09
Everybody’s had to, to, to, to, to go away from their families in their homes. My, my, my both my brother in laws have done 300 plus days of, of middlegame and, and, and once those numbers rack up and you and you see, the, the these young kids, ultra-Orthodox kids who not only don’t go but, you know, who are demonstrating and blocking streets and doing everything they can to, to, to prevent it.
00:21:31:09 – 00:21:50:22
And then you also see cases where somebody who’s been done, God knows how many days of midway and suddenly gets arrested because they didn’t turn up, because they, they were about to lose their business. And the MPs come and arrest them and then, well, why the arresting thousands of young, karate kids who are just not turning up?
00:21:50:24 – 00:22:16:10
So, it’s the one thing that that can really, unite any candidate, and it’s the one thing that can hurt. So now and the reason he’s not being hurt that badly is because no matter now what he’s doing in his it’s very, very small. I think he’s throwing up little lots of different issues. Right. So, one week gets the pardon and then that’s the, the, the, the law about shutting down the TV channels.
00:22:16:14 – 00:22:38:16
And then it’s a law about, the AG and then and he, he’s showing all these balls and, and keep out of, of, of a campaign is one message 500 times, not 500 messages once. And what it causes the opposition to do is it causes them to start reacting to all these different balls that are going on in the air, rather than just focusing on this one issue, you know, what’s the weather like today?
00:22:38:22 – 00:22:53:15
I don’t know, but I’ll go outside and I’ll check. And by the way, we need to deal with the geranium not going into the into the military. Did you have a nice lunch? Yes, it was lovely. Thank you very much. Now we have to deal with the haredim going into the army. That’s what it boils down to. It has to keep coming back to that.
00:22:53:17 – 00:23:11:21
And that’s how they can. It’s. That’s the way they’re going to win. That’s it’s not going to be about economics even though economics is a sore point, especially now with another, rise in the cost of living here in Israel. It’s not going to be public transportation. It’s not going to be the NHS there.
00:23:11:21 – 00:23:29:00
It’s not going to be, the, the, the Army. It’s not even going to be the Palestinians. It’s, it’s guy. Whoever can get the issue of the haredim on the table, that’s the way to be, Bibi. Otherwise, you’re going to have another Likud government.
00:23:29:02 – 00:23:36:14
And given his various trials particularly legal, what does that next Likud government look like to its best? So, you can say
00:23:36:16 – 00:24:03:18
so that’s a really interesting question. And it’s interesting because in the past, Likud and the centre for the left have always found a way to work together. There’s been several governments where left and right have worked together because, there’s common values, there’s shared beliefs, and there’s, a sense of the bigger picture is more important than the individual.
00:24:03:20 – 00:24:29:21
And then the left started with this boycott Bibi policy, which was ridiculous. Because as soon as they boycotted Bibi, they left and he kept winning elections. Then they left him no choice but to go and bring in the extremes into the mainstream, which is what he did. So that’s the Smotrich is the bench. There’s all these that, that these characters that, that the majority of the world see is extreme.
00:24:29:23 – 00:24:57:12
And at the same time, because the left was getting more frustrated and losing and losing and losing, the extremes are taking over the left and now you’ve got a situation where the extremes on the left and the extremes on the right are the mainstream. There’s no way for them to cooperate. Meaning, you don’t see someone like Tali Gottlieb on the Kurds cooperating with the Golan, who’s now head of, Meretz slash labour, slash the Democratic Party.
00:24:57:14 – 00:25:16:19
It’s just these are these are two sides of the same coin, both extreme. And there’s just no way that they’re going to work together. So, when you ask what’s Bibi’s government going to look like? I would love to be able to say to you, it’s going to look like it’s going to bring all the practical and the, the logic all together.
00:25:16:21 – 00:25:42:03
But the practical and the logical is, is going the way of the dodo, and you’re going to be left to the extremes. So, you’re going to end up with a, a coalition if Netanyahu wins said basically similar to what you have today, it’s there. Don’t forget that ultimately having the ultra-Orthodox having him in your government is actually very easy.
00:25:42:05 – 00:26:03:07
They just give them money, and they’ll do whatever you want. You know Aria Dairy, who says he’s very much part of the national camp and he’s right wing and all of this, he signed on us, right? Right. He was a signature to also. So, they’ll be anything you want. Just give them the money. So, to have the haredim in your government makes it very easy to maintain the government.
00:26:03:09 – 00:26:26:23
Thank you. And probably final question before we wrap up, we know that the election will or should be called next year from the moment that it’s called and the government is dissolved, what is the process up to Election Day? So now it’s aftermath. So, it’s an interesting it’s an interesting process. It’s also a really, bad process. And because the people of Israel are the ones who lose in this process.
00:26:27:00 – 00:26:51:04
First and foremost, the election has to happen, by October 2026. Currently, so this went backwards, so 2020, by October 2026, as soon as an election is called, an election must take place within 90 days. After 90 days. It takes you have an election, actual results of basically that day or then or the next morning, the final results.
00:26:51:06 – 00:27:20:20
And then it basically takes them about two months to put together a coalition, which is quite bad in itself. So, what that basically means is for five months you have no functioning government in Israel. You are not allowed to make any political decisions and are allowed to enact any policies. You just have to, you know, just on this holding pattern of whatever has been done just gets continued until, the new government, which again, five months later comes into office, which is, which is very bad.
00:27:20:22 – 00:27:51:10
That being said, currently they are working on the draft budget for 2026, which initially has to be passed by December 31st, but then you can get an extension till March. It’s very, very unlikely that that bill will, pass, that the budget will be approved, in conjunction with the budget that there is, the there’s a bill that by law has to be passed with a budget, which is basically called the arrangements Bill.
00:27:51:12 – 00:28:19:06
And it’s the best and worst in law that we have in Israel, because basically it’s anything that doesn’t go in the budget goes into the arrangements bill, meaning if you want a budget for, make sure that everybody smiles on a Tuesday. It’d be the craziest policy. And there have been crazy, crazy policies. But let’s say your crazy idea is that you want a budget so that you can run a campaign, a public campaign that everybody has to smile on a Tuesday.
00:28:19:08 – 00:28:39:11
It doesn’t go into the budget. It goes into the arrangements bill, which is erasures. There are all the additional funds for all these extra, extracurricular activities, right? All these extra policies. And that has to be passed at the same time as the budget. That’s where the horse trading is done. The budget is pretty much agreed upon. The budget is very simple because the budget is salaries.
00:28:39:13 – 00:28:57:05
It’s how many tanks do you need? How many, schools are there, how many hospitals? You know, these are these are very, standard things that don’t change that much. And then also, you have to bring in all the pointless ministries that we have here in Israel. Yeah. Let’s be honest. Yeah. A lot of them are pointless.
00:28:57:05 – 00:29:15:01
And it all the in the range resort. So, it’s unlikely that they’re going to pass all of this by the end of December, which they’re not going to do, because while the government has approved the budget, it hasn’t gone to the it hasn’t been approved by the Knesset yet. Right. And we’re now, two weeks away from the end of the year.
00:29:15:03 – 00:29:43:11
So, can they pass everything by the end of March? It’s very unlikely that’s going to happen. So, it’s likely that somewhere around end of January, February, they’ll dissolve parliament and call for elections. And then we’ll have an election in May. June is. And then don’t forget, if you have an election May, June, then obviously everyone breaks for recess in the summer as well.
00:29:43:13 – 00:29:47:14
So basically, May June and then there’s no government till after the.
00:29:47:16 – 00:29:52:21
Jonathan, thank you very much for that. Do you have anything else to add before we close the podcast?
00:29:52:23 – 00:30:28:01
it seems all doom and gloom. From, from everything we’ve been talking about, all the struggles of the old problems, all the sort of the reality of, of what is actually happening in politics. But, I would say this, despite all of that, and despite all the pessimism and, and the problems that exist within, political, discourse and within the system, we have seen, people here and that, I would suggest that people take note, not just in the Jewish communities around the world, but, in all communities around
00:30:28:01 – 00:31:04:04
the world. What resilient Israelis, the Israeli public are and how strong that despite all this, they will succeed. And, whatever government Israel ends up with, good or bad, it is still inherently good because it makes sure that Israel stays vibrant and make sure that Israel stays democratic. Its state makes sure that Israel remains the shining beacon of light in a dark, dark neighbourhood.
00:31:04:06 – 00:31:23:09
And it may keep us on our toes, and it keeps us, ultimately gives us something to unify us. Because as Jews, we always need to be unified. As Jews, we always need to remember that we we’re in it for the long haul, and we’re in it together.
00:31:23:11 – 00:31:27:00
Fantastic. Jonathan, thank you so much for joining. Thanks, Daniel.