In Conversation with Einat Wilf
on a New Israeli Vision
Interview by MAX BERGER
Founder, Editor-in-Chief
20 January 2025
Einat Wilf is a renowned Israeli political scientist, former Member of Knesset, and leading voice in contemporary Zionist thought and foreign policy. From her background in Israel’s Labor Party and later in the Independence Party under former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, to her critically acclaimed 2020 book The War of Return, to her expert analyses for the Washington Institute and the Jewish People Policy Institute, Wilf has offered incisive insights on issues of Jewish sovereignty, Israel’s security, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Her academic credentials are no less impressive: she holds degrees from Harvard, Cambridge, and INSEAD.
Over the years, Wilf has carved out a unique intellectual niche, applying a broad, liberal worldview to her steadfast commitment to the security and development of the Jewish state, always unafraid to break with conventional wisdom. She advocates for a Middle East in which Arab nations don’t simply coexist with Israel, but view it as an integral part of the region. Such cooperation rests on discarding what she has termed “Palestinianism” — the core ideology of Palestinian national consciousness that prioritizes the destruction of the Jewish state over the building of their own. Her public profile is equally shaped by her willingness to scrutinize international institutions, especially those that, in her analysis, perpetuate the conflict rather than resolve it.
As the Israel-Hamas war continues into its fifteenth month, Wilf remains laser-focused on confronting the ideological underpinnings that sustain the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, from the Middle East to American campuses. She sat down with Hatikvah’s founder, Max Berger, to discuss her vision for a Middle East free from the constraints of Palestinianism, how the U.S. might help shape its future, and why dismantling illusions about “trauma determinism” is essential to securing its lasting peace.
Max: So, I saw some reports that you registered a new party, Zeal for Equality in Service. Are we seeing Dr. Wilf’s much-anticipated return to politics?
Einat: One of the benefits of having been in politics is that going back to politics is no longer a goal. It’s very early to say, but I am interested in figuring out whether my ideas are relevant to Israel, whether they have support. I’m considering going on the road in Israel to find out if my ideas resonate. If they do, I will turn it into something political. But if not, I won’t.
Max: Would you be able to speak to the core mission or ideas behind it?
Einat: One core idea, if you want to define it positively, I call pursuing peace based on a vision of Arab Zionism. Or, defining it more negatively, is a battle to the end against Palestinianism as a core ideology. Either way, it’s the same thing. It means we get to a place where the Arabs — particularly the Palestinians — are no longer obsessed with the destruction of the Jewish state. Israel can do much, much more than we’ve done about this in the past, although I’m far from arguing that this is within Israel’s control. A lot of this has to do with how Israel conducts itself in the international arena and domestically.
“The other part is that until the Arab world, especially the Palestinians, lets go of its obsession with the destruction of the Jewish state, Israel will have to be a mobilized society.
The welfare state depends on solidarity. If there is no solidarity, the welfare state breaks. It’s not a matter of getting — it’s equally a matter of giving. So for me, all access to Israeli services from education, to healthcare, to welfare, should be dependent on military service. That recreates the original Zionist social contract.”
As far as I’m concerned, anyone can be a part of that. Jews and Arabs, Haredis and secular men and women, everyone should be a part of it. But it should be very clear — either you defend the state or you’re not really a part of it.
Another element will place greater emphasis on going back to the Zionist, I would even say secular ethos. Someone recently said at a conference that he’s “a religious Jew, but a secular Zionist.” And I thought that was brilliant.
Max: That’s great.
Einat: Isn’t it? He was saying look, as a Jew, I’m religious, but I’m a secular Zionist in the sense that Zionism does kind of reflect the secular ethos of action. That you act in history. It’s not a thoughts and prayers moment.
Max: Asserting agency rather than letting the wheels of history do to you what it will.
Einat: Exactly. So you could be religious or secular, but the spirit of action is a secular one.
The final element, I would say, is also making a global comeback: it’s competence. Putting the emphasis back on competence in governance. I want to place a special emphasis on women because I think they bring a specific competence to this that Israel needs.
The great thing about Israel is, that because it’s a small country, you can do the road show from your home. You can leave in the morning and come back in the evening. You can actually get a sense within a few weeks, a few months, if this falls flat, or if it’s creating a snowball effect. And my political experience taught me that as amazing as polling is, it’s nowhere near as good as being in the field.
Max: Both long-standing and current debates within Israeli society. I’m also very interested to see how this resonates.
With regards to the new American administration, do you have initial hopes or concerns regarding what we’ve been seeing so far about President-elect Trump’s approach towards the Middle East?
Einat: I have both hopes and concerns. The hopes rest on the actions he took in his previous term. Recognizing the Golan Heights and Jerusalem sent an important message that enough is enough. Israel won in ‘48, Israel won in ‘67, just move on. It’s not a coincidence that he was able to have the Abraham Accords at the end of it. There was momentum for more, momentum the Biden Administration in many ways killed. That’s what the hope rests on.
There seems to be a little too much friendship with Qatar, that’s what I'm deeply concerned about.
Max: You’ve long discussed your shift in beliefs about the future of the two-state solution following the Second Intifada, more recently following October 7th. As you say, it was empirical. The hypothesis of a Palestinian state being what stands between us and peace has been tested by Barak and Olmert, and later in some form by Sharon, all attempts ultimately failing due to Palestinian rejectionism, the ideology you call Palestinianism. I see this as a difficult thing to bridge, because some see a very palpable trauma of the Palestinian people in the face of the destruction in Gaza which ultimately needs to be bridged with cooperation with Israel in some shape or form.
How do you see this going forward, where Palestinians do have to reshape their ideology to work with Israel, but at the same time, view Israel as the ultimate cause of their situation?
Einat: I will say I view it almost the opposite. First, I want to address something called trauma determinism, which seems to imply that there is a trauma, and therefore, people have no choice but to behave in a certain way as a result of that.
First of all, we know this is not true. Humans respond in a variety of ways to traumas. There are healthy ways, unhealthy ways, and it’s far from a deterministic process. I remember after October 7th, people started saying “what Israel is doing in Gaza will further radicalize the Palestinians.”
And I remember thinking, how much more exactly do you think they’re going to be radicalized?
I think it’s exactly the opposite. The Palestinians have never been radicalized by Israeli actions. This is easy to empirically prove. You can show again and again that their worst massacres are perpetrated when they are doing their ‘best’. The massacres of 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004 all happened when the Palestinians were at their zenith, at least from the perspective of constructive people. They effectively had a state in the making. They had institutions. They were doing financially and economically very well. They were being recognized. They were on the verge of getting an agreement. And they chose to go on a premeditated four-year campaign of senseless massacres in Israeli streets. Despite the whole “Gaza is an open-air prison” bit, on the eve of October 7th, the human development index of Gaza was better than that of half of the world’s countries.
They did not operate from a place of trauma, of poverty, of misery. This is my other term, westplaining. We as Westerners have such a difficult time accepting evil. It mixes with neocolonialism. Like, we have no problem accepting evil among Germans, but somehow if it’s Arabs, we fear to admit that they can be as evil as the Germans.
“To the credit of the Palestinians, their massacres and attacks are repeatedly conducted not when they are suffering from trauma but when they feel there is an opportunity to carry out their vision, their constant, consistent vision of no Jewish state.”
The big opportunity we’re about to miss, yet again, is the connection between their ideology and the consequences. What Palestinians for the last century have been safe from is any notion that their ideology and choices carry consequences.
They should be told that the destruction in Gaza is the direct consequence of their ideology for a century to prioritize destroying the Jewish state over building their own. They should be told there will be no money, no building, no reconstruction until they disavow that ideology.
I say Palestinianism has four key precepts:
- From the river to the sea,
-
No Jewish state,
-
A perpetual refugeehood,
- Until return.
Until those four elements are disavowed, nothing should be built. There should be an element of consequences. The reason Palestinianism keeps growing and growing is that there is never this meeting between choice and ideology and consequences and ruin. So that’s what I fear.
Max: Do you feel we’re at a better place for that message to be delivered to the Palestinians than if Kamala Harris had won the American election?
Einat: Well, here’s where my concerns about Qatar came in. The Trump of 2016–2020 absolutely would have been in a great place to deliver that message.
Enough is enough. Anti-Zionism is the ideology of losers. You have lost your battle to destroy the Jewish state. Move on.
Max: Period.
Einat: Absolutely, period. If Qatar has made inroads and Palestinianism will be viewed with favor, then no, he won’t be in a position to deliver that.
Max: How might U.S. policy nudge or support a transformation in that worldview?
Einat: If it were to go all-in, step one would essentially be the equivalent of the Obama Cairo speech, but a different one. This time it will probably take place in Riyadh or something. The essence of that speech would be that anti-Zionism, the obsession with the destruction of the Jewish state, has only been a mark of failure, has held the Arab world back, and that the glory of the Arab world will not be on the path of the Muslim Brotherhood. It would be a speech saying we assume the Iranian camp is on the way out. We see a big battle in the Sunni world between the Muslim Brotherhood, so Qatar and Turkey. Turkey is certainly positioning itself to be the new sponsor of Palestinianism as Iran moves away.
“Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon are all battleground states between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Gulf vision — not Qatari, but Emirati and Saudi vision — of an Arab and Muslim identity that is modern, inclusive, and tolerant. One that can actually view the existence of a Jewish state in the region as complementary.”
The idea would be to make it clear where America stands between those two competing visions of the Sunni world. I call it the reformation of Islam, a vision of Muslim and Arab identity that is modern and inclusive and forward-looking, and provides a vision, especially to young Arab men, that can compete with that of ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Palestinianism, in many ways, sits at the core of that. This is why Saudis and Emiratis should have an interest in ensuring that Palestinianism dies so that their projects can succeed. Nothing with Israel.
Then, the U.S. should follow it with a series of actions. You know my favorite, defund UNRWA, is not enough anymore. We need to make sure that every country that is an American ally defunds UNRWA. The UN is riddled with committee structures and organs all intended to promote Palestinianism. Make it clear that America will no longer view these organizations as part of a world order unless they are cleared of that. All funding for Palestinians should be dependent on disavowing the four core tenets of Palestinianism.
Tell Saudis and Emiratis that we’re going to work with you to ensure that your vision for the Arab and Muslim world is the vision that wins over in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, rather than the one of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Move the American air base from Qatar to the UAE. That would send a message.
Max: It would certainly be a start.
What are your thoughts on the hostage/ceasefire deal that’s expected to be finalized this week? Do you think it’ll finally lead to the war’s end, or are you concerned that domestic pressure from elements of the coalition will lead Israel back to war after a brief ceasefire?
Einat: In many ways, we got the worst of both worlds, because we got the terrible normalizing of the idea that Israel even has to negotiate. It’s both on Israeli and American leadership that this was made acceptable — that you can actually invade a country, butcher its people, kidnap them, and then the invaded country has to negotiate their release.
So we’re paying for normalizing that idea. Then we’re paying for the bizarre structured deal in phases, which is terrible.
Then it combined with Trump’s impatience, his desire for a Reagan moment, an inauguration with the release of hostages. But it was impatience that was placed on a terrible substructure.
Someone asked me recently, is it a good deal? And did we have a choice? And my answer was those are two different questions. It’s a terrible deal. And at this point, we probably have no more choice. It’s bad to begin with that it’s even a deal rather than Hamas being driven to unconditional surrender.
The deal itself should have been one — everyone gets released and nothing happens until everyone gets released. So nobody returns to the North. We don’t know if it will be carried out because of this terrible structure being drawn over weeks and weeks and multiple negotiating rounds.
Max: Where so much can go wrong at every step.
Einat: Exactly, exactly.
Max: There are two sides to this coin, where some 70 percent of Israelis support a hostage deal, according to a poll I saw from the Israel Democracy Institute this week. But the 23 percent who don’t support a deal are crucial to Netanyahu’s support.
I’m split somewhere along these lines. I’m overjoyed that all these hostages will finally be released after so many days, yet–
Einat: First of all, wait. Let’s see if that even happens!
Max: If, right? And the ones that are released are alive and the right ones. If, on October 8, Biden had threatened to unleash hell on Doha if the hostages weren’t released immediately, I am sure they would have all been released by the fiftieth day. Much more of a threat than unleashing it on Hamas.
Einat: For sure.
Max: But here we are, stretching this out and killing Palestinians and Israelis while having all these shows in the courts. It feels like we’re pawns on a chessboard. So, on the other side, I’m very anxious about a future where thousands of convicted terrorists are released from prisons and Hamas potentially survives all of this. Where’s your head at there?
Einat: Exactly what you described. The other day I just tweeted two words, Sophie’s Choice. Because there is that sense of helplessness, that, like you said, we’ve been driven to this absurd situation in the most tragic sense of the word. A lot of my speaking the last fifteen months was to constantly tell people, this is not normal. It’s not normal that everyone’s talking about a deal, a deal, negotiate, pressure Israel. I think it was one of my first tweets after October 7th, that in a different world, the head of the UN and the ICRC would have come to the Rafah crossing on October 8th and said, Israel owes you nothing, release the hostages. Nothing goes in until the hostages come out. You actually do not get to do those things and consider yourself a legitimate negotiating partner. A few months ago, there was a big piece in The Atlantic about the first 10 months of the whole thing. And it described how Qatar called Blinken fairly quickly to say that they want to negotiate. And Blinken was like, oh, let me go check. And I was like, I would have wanted him to say, tell your people to release the hostages. I’m not checking any negotiating situation or we’re moving our base.
Max: America has a lot of leverage there, which is why it’s shocking to me that it didn’t want to employ it.
Einat: You say that — I was in meetings with senior American officials who say we have no leverage over Qatar. And I remember listening to that and thinking, oh, we’re screwed.
If America and senior American officials believe they have no leverage over Qatar, then we could close shop and go home.
Max: There are many actors here. ICC and the ICJ with South Africa, and Ireland arguing to change the legal scope of genocide so it could apply to Israel. Then there’s the diplomatic side of it, where the UN and ICRC are failing, along with Israel’s allies. Is it a failure of international law? Is it a failure of diplomacy? Is it a failure of the most powerful nations to have not taken a stronger stance on October 8? Or is it the combination of these factors crystallizing post-war?
Einat: They work together. They lead to a situation where indeed some of the strongest nations feel themselves to be weak. I spoke a lot after October 7 comparing it to Japan and Nazi Germany to use it actually as a beacon of hope that murderous, annihilationist, supremacist societies can change. That Palestinianism can become a marginal ideology of a few crazy people. I remember it took me a few months to begin to realize the missing factor. People would write me a lot of letters, “Einat, no, it’s not exactly like Japan.” I’m aware of all the differences between Palestinians and Japan and Nazi Germany but as more months passed by, I realized that the one big difference is that it's not the same America. That sunny, confident America that believed it could occupy Japan, demand unconditional surrender, and transform Japanese society and make it a pillar of peace. That sunny, optimistic America is no more. I don’t know.
Max: How do you see Turkey’s growing role in Syria? Will they become the next state sponsor of Palestinianism?
Einat: They’re certainly working very hard to make sure of that. Bernard Lewis said at some point that Iran will one day be Turkey and Turkey will one day be Iran. I think 20, 30 years ago, he saw they were on a path in many ways, precisely because Iran went through this revolutionary Islamic zeal. At one point you realize that you’re not getting the global proletariat utopia. You see the gap between the ideals and reality. And as a result, a new generation begins to emerge with this Islamic revolutionary zeal. And in Turkey, the opposite, the secularism that built the country is loosened in favor of rising Islamism.
I think he’s right, and in the next decade we’ll see that process blossom. But Turkey will definitely emerge as a much larger foe of Israel.
Max: I am fascinated by the way this will coalesce over the next months and years. Fascinated and curious might be the underlining words for scared and concerned. But we’ll emerge on the other side, as always.
Einat: A part of me says, if I wasn’t Jewish, I’d be like, let it all play out. Let’s see how some societies destroy themselves, how some organizations implode. It’s just concerning as to how it all plays out with us.
Max: The historian in me is like ooh, let’s see what history has to say. The Jew in me doesn’t appreciate.
Einat: Exactly.
Max: Einat, if there was one thing you wanted to get across to the younger generation, what would you say? How should they frame their thoughts on the conflict?
Einat: The only aggression was the Jewish expectation that they could be sovereign. In both the Arab world and the Western world, if you go into the deep kishkos of this entire story, you’ll see that what they call “Zionist aggression” is actually a very accurate term, because the aggression is the daring of Jews to be Zionist. A lot of what played out in the last fifteen months, if not long before it, is that Palestinianism is fed by the desire to keep Jews still contained in their ability to fully flourish, be sovereign and masters of their fate, rather they are contained to play the role of those who suffer, who are never at peace. It all touches on those very, very foundational issues.
“But the only Zionist aggression has really ever been, indeed, the daring of Jews to imagine themselves as sovereign. It’s never been about anything else.”
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