Why We're Losing the War Over Israel's Legitimacy
5/20/202653 min
Is it possible to win every battle and still lose where it matters?
In this episode, Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi confront what may be the most dangerous front Israel faces today — the narrative. They lay bare the forces converging against Israel’s legitimacy: the collapse of Western institutions and the global spread of antisemitism amplified by social media and a systematic anti-Zionist campaign decades in the making. They reflect on the way this has reframed every chapter of Israel's story — from founding to present — as settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and genocide — and the psychological toll of this multi-front narrative war.
Watch the video version of our podcast on our Youtube channel.
Past episodes of this show, and other podcasts from Ark Media can be found at arkmedia.org.
For more ideas from the Shalom Hartman Institute, visit shalomhartman.org, or JOIN OUR EMAIL LIST.
Sponsor an upcoming episode of For Heaven’s Sake. Click here to learn more.
Here’s more from the Shalom Hartman Institute this week:
Watch the full Guidelines for Jewish-Democratic Policy Conference featuring Yair Lapid, Avigdor Lieberman, and Yair Golan.
Learn more about the Hartman Institute’s Center for Shared Society.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsDeborah Pardes0:00
[intro jingle] I'm Deborah Pardes, the host of Arc News Daily. What's happening in Israel and the Jewish world right now matters, but it can be hard to keep up, let alone make sense of it all. That's why we started Arc News Daily. Every weekday morning, I walk you through the most important news, give you the context you need, and let you know what to look out for next. I don't try to convince you of anything, and I don't waste your time. On most days, I'll be in your ears for about 10 minutes or less. Then you can move on with your day, hopefully a little bit smarter than before. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or follow the link in the show notes. I hope to see you tomorrow.
Speaker 20:42
[outro music] You are listening to an Arc Media podcast.
Donniel Hartman· Host0:54
A train crash has happened vis-à-vis Israel's perception, and for many Israelis, you get the feeling that they're not even looking to go to the train station.
Yossi Klein Halevi· Host1:07
We are no longer in a fact-driven conversation. We're in a narrative world, and narratives are formed instantly, often in the most superficial way, and we're still arguing facts. We veer as a people from outrage against the attacks against us to shame about what we ourselves are doing.
Donniel Hartman· Host1:28
We have phenomenal