"The greatest danger that we're facing is internal. That's one part of it, but it's not the whole problem. For me, the bigger problem is the silence of most of the religious Zionist community in the face of the situation. Of the growing radicalization of what we used to call a fringe, but it's no longer a fringe. It's becoming more mainstream. And the silence of the rabbis, the silence of the educators, this is what I find so hard. But where does that come from, that silence? I agree with you. The religious Zionist community is not a monolithic community. It's actually divided into multiple sections, and the extremes are maybe 30% of the religious Zionist community. But why the silence? Why do the extreme voices get such a prominent place? Because there's a tendency to protect the tribe. And where much of the religious Zionist community is going wrong is in confusing the well-being of the tribe for the well-being of the Jewish people. And so you can't weaken the tribe. And okay, maybe there are some hotheads, but they're guilty of excessive devotion to the Jewish people. And how can you compare that to, quote, the left? Who are guilty of a deficient devotion to the Jewish people. And so there's a tendency to protect and to defend the indefensible. How do you see it? First of all, I want to stay with what you were saying for a moment, if we can. When you know what's best for the people, so the Haredim say, I know what's best, and I can keep it, and therefore I'm going to build my own community. When you're invested in working with the community, and you still think that you have it right, that you have the vision, I think that's what you were talking about. That's when there is this dichotomous, the left, the Tel Aviv, the vilification of that group of people that comes from when you have that truth, and you actually, precisely because you feel committed to them, you need to change them in order to win. I think there's another part which is actually connected, and this is the paradox, to what's the best of them. They're committed to Jewish peoplehood. In essence, Jewish nationalism has become a religious value. And I think that's for them. Jewish nationalism is not a secular movement, it's a religious movement. And it's precisely in the association of religion with nationalism that nationalism loses some of its core boundaries and protections. Every group creates distinctions between members of the group and those who are not members of the group. And the challenge is to have loyalty to your group, but to be able to transcend it. Because there's people both in your group, but all human beings are created in the image of God. So your group claims you, but it doesn't exhaust all claims of you. And when religion is associated with nationalism, it becomes, or has a tendency, or can become, ultra-nationalist and fascist. It's here, the nation above all, because now this is what God wants of us. There's all the commandments, I'm commanded. And where religious Zionism goes wrong, they love the Jewish people as a religious value, and that creates service. But their love of the Jewish people is not Jewish people as a religious value, also creates ultra-nationalism and fascism. And my biggest problem with religious Zionism is not on issues of state and religion, where they're usually pretty much more moderate. It's precisely in their attitude towards non-Jewish citizens of Israel, in their attitude to the world, in their attitude towards those who don't share their nationalist perspective. Nationalism and religion when they're together is a toxic It's an interesting thing, because there's a built-in paradox here. If your overriding commitment is to the unity of the Jewish people and to a relentless tribalism, what do you do with the significant numbers of Jews who feel connected to universal values, who feel connected to the non-Jewish world? And so the paradox is that in order to really embody Jewish unity, you have to make space for the non-Jewish people. And so the paradox is that in order to really embody Jewish unity, you have to make space for those who have universal values. But that's not what we're seeing happening in religious Zionism. We're seeing the opposite trend in large parts of religious Zionism. I think you even saw, when Bennett was prime minister, he gave a different expression of what religious Zionism was. He goes to a conservative synagogue in America after it was attacked, something that in his community would be more problematic. But there is this feature, this deep divide in the religious Zionist community between those who are able to transcend it and those who are angry at the Jewish people who are underperforming. And they're betraying the Jewish people. And there's a growing contempt in parts of the community for what the Western values and humanistic values, as if those were antithetical to Jewish values. And there's one more issue here that I think we really need to factor in. And that is the rise of the politics, of fantasy. The return of a strain of messianism, which I had thought really was waning. It's back. I just heard a rabbi from one of the leading military yeshivas in Judean Samaria. Explain what a military yeshiva is. It's a program that is sponsored by the army, where instead of serving for three years, you're in a five-year framework. And one and a half years, I think it is, is devoted to military service."

"Now, again, because there's confusion about this, I'm not claiming that because religious Zionism, 30% of the casualties. Today, everybody is serving. Everybody is serving and people serve in different units. And the religious Zionist community is serving. In particular. In particular units who are at the front of the fighting in the war in Gaza. So... Well, that's not a coincidence either. They volunteer for those units. They volunteer for those units. And Israel needs multiple... The whole country is volunteering. Everybody showed up. But still, 10% this community, today, this week, I think, you know, there's a deep sense of gratitude, of appreciation of a community who, by the way, in the midst of tremendous alienation from a lot of Israeli society. Just got up and said, I'm responsible. I'm responsible."