Sneak Peek: Amit Segal on why Israel can't address its long-term problems, and more...

0:00Amit Segal: Over the past couple of years, Call Me Back has grown into something much bigger than we ever expected. A place for clarity, context, and honest conversations at a time when those things can seem hard to find. That's what ARK Media is all about. Building a truly independent voice, which means no one shaping what we say or how we say it. To help support our rapidly expanding operations, we created Inside Call Me Back, our members-only feed. If Call Me Back has been meaningful to you and you want to be part of what we're building, I hope you'll join us. You can subscribe at ARKMedia.org or through the link in the show notes.

0:39Amit Segal: And to our insiders, thank you. Quick note before we start. Big things are coming to ARK Media. Somewhere in the small gaps of time between putting out three episodes each week, we've been secretly working on something we think all our listeners are going to be really excited about. We're announcing everything live on October 5th. If you want to be the first to hear about it, RSVP to our virtual announcement event. You can find the sign-up link in the show notes. See you there.

1:13Amit Segal: You are listening to an Art Media Podcast.

1:24Amit Segal: Welcome to Inside Call Me Back, our members-only edition, where we open the door and let you shape the conversation. And speaking of conversations, let's jump into it in the hot seat, addressing your questions and personal dilemmas, is ARC Media contributor Amit Segel. Amit joins us from Jerusalem. Welcome back to the Inside. Thanks for having me. Amit, before we get into the questions, there was this horrendous news yesterday regarding an Israeli soldier in critical condition who is the son, Neryeh Leiter, the son of Israeli ambassador to Washington. And Yechiel Leiter, you and I spoke late afternoon yesterday when you and I were both getting the word about this.

2:05Amit Segal: I was actually supposed to meet with Ambassador Leiter yesterday, but obviously he had to cancel. And he let me know he had to dash back to Israel. But can you tell us maybe a little bit about the family and then what actually happened yesterday and why the story is attracting the attention of so many of us?

2:19Dan Senor: So Yechiel Leiter has been in Netanyahu's entourage for the last 30 years. He worked when he was the head of the opposition who fought the Oslo Accords in the 90s. Then he's an advisor in the treasury ministries at the beginning of the century. And today he is the Israeli ambassador to Washington. Appointed the Israeli ambassador to Washington two months after his son Moshe, a platoon commander, was killed in Gaza at the very beginning of the ground offensive.

2:50Amit Segal: And he was in the Sheldag, just like his special forces, pretty elite fighter, right?

2:56Dan Senor: Absolutely.

2:56Amit Segal: Yeah.

2:57Dan Senor: He was killed. By the way, one of his soldiers was Elisha Meydan, who was heavily injured, critically injured. And today he's a candidate in the Likud list. So there are many, many connections here. It was a very famous incident. Now, Elayte was appointed the Israeli ambassador to Washington. And last night or last afternoon, Eastern time, he got a phone call telling him that his second son, Neria, was injured while in a reserves guarding a checkpoint between Judea and Samaria and Israel. And it's worth noting that every bereaved brother is exempted from military service in reserves. But Miriam insisted on going again and again to serve as reservist for 400 days over the last three years.

3:48Amit Segal: So his unit was being deployed and they said to him, you can stay back. And he was like, no, if my unit's going, I'm going.

3:54Dan Senor: You should stay back. And it means that he really tried to serve his country. And there he was injured. Now, I can't imagine the horrific flight back from New York City to Tel Aviv 12 long hours when you are under the impression that it's your son's last hours. Now, luckily, Nerya's situation now, Nerya's condition is slightly better than even his father had thought. He had gone through an eight-hour-long brain surgery in order to help him survive the situation, and we all hope he'll survive it.

4:29Amit Segal: If folks are interested in learning more, the episode of ARC News Daily that was released today, Thursday, opens with Ambassador Leiter and the story of his family and this development with tragic development with Niria. And there's some very moving clips, audio clips in it from Ambassador Leiter that's worth listening to. And we'll include that in the show notes. And obviously, we are truly praying for Niria and the entire Leiter family. So John from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania writes, I listened to Call Me Back. Back yesterday with Amit Nadav, where you spoke about Netanyahu's speech at the UN, you cited data stating that 84 % of young Democrats and 64 % of young Republicans have unfavorable views of Israel.

5:09Amit Segal: Assuming this data is reliable, this calls for drastic measures, which the Israeli electorate does not seem to be inclined to take. What kind of signal could sound the alarm for Israelis? So, first of all, why were you so surprised by this data? John seems to be surprised by it too, John from Pittsburgh. and two, his question is, what will it take for the Israeli electorate to wake up to what a big problem they have here?

5:31Dan Senor: Okay, so I think this Israel problem emanates from different factors. We have a problem within the Democratic Party. The problem is not Netanyahu, although Netanyahu might be the presenter of the problem, but it's a sharp deviation from the days of Scoop Jackson in the 70s and even Joe Biden of the beginning of the century and even Barack Obama of 2009. The second problem is within the Republican younger generation. And there, I think the problem is more about isolationism. It's not hatred towards Israel. It's not anti-Semitism, of course. It's just a sentiment that we have nothing to do with what's going on there and we should not be involved in other nations' fights.

6:17Dan Senor: Therefore, I think Israel should focus all of its efforts in order to go through a rehab from its former alliance with the United States, which was very efficient. You know, mutual values, the Judeo-Christian alliance, and to move towards something which is more J.D. Vance than George W. Bush. It's about self-sufficiency. It's about being an ally rather than being a patron of someone else. And I think Israel, in that respect, has a lot to offer. In terms of alliances, we have a lot to offer more than any other country in terms of defense tech and cyber and interceptors, Iron Dome, etc. Whereas if we speak about merely about values, which, of course, I appreciate, but against our Judeo-Christian alliance and the Bible and Jerusalem, etc., you will always have the competition of being the aggressors in the Middle East, of being too heavy a burden on the shoulders of the American taxpayer, etc.

7:16Dan Senor: Therefore, I think Israel should focus on this. Here is the problem. Israel, according to almost each and every poll, is not going to have a stable government after the election, to say the least. In the worst case scenario, we are going to enter again the loophole of consecutive election campaigns one after the other. The number one problem of having instability, political instability, is the lack of focus on long-term problems. Now, Israel standing within the American society is the number one or number two strategic problem and long-term project to deal with for the next government. But if the next government is to deal with ongoing political crisis or with election campaigns one after the other, the number one project to suffer from it is exactly this one.

8:05Amit Segal: There's a lot here, Amit, and obviously this data on young Republicans being increasingly negative on Israel, which is a very new dynamic. It's a problem. The data doesn't reveal the complexity. The top line data does not, meaning 64 % of young Republicans. I think you're touching on part of it, which is it's not necessarily anti-Semitism. It's being expressed as isolationism. It's isolationism being expressed as hostility to Israel, which we can get into the distinction. But I do think it requires a deeper dive on what's actually going on and what the implications are. And we're going to do that on Monday's episode next week.

8:42Amit Segal: So, John, stay tuned for that. We're going to get deeper into it. That's it for our sneak peek today. If you want to catch the full episode, please subscribe to Inside Call Me Back by following the link in the description or by going to arkmedia.org. That's A-R-K-Media dot org. Your support is what allows us to do what we do here at Ark Media. I hope to see you there. Thank you.