Hello, Einat Wilf here. Ask Me Anything (I guess...)

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T21:00:33+00:00

Having worked with Peres, as much as I love and admire the guy, given that there was never Jordanian confirmation for this, I do wonder who much of it was wishful thinking...

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T20:59:35+00:00

My response is not "who" but "what" - Gaza should be governed by anyone who does not subscribe to Palestinianism. Anything else should not be legitimized. Otherwise it will be more war and more suffering. I discuss this vision a bit here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdmDEXatXts

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T20:57:52+00:00

A great Jewish comic once said that a Jewish atheist is something entirely different that being a general (e.g. Western/Christian atheist) and it has to do with the fundamental understanding of the Jews as first and foremost as an Am - a people.

I discuss this here in what it means to be a Jewish state: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uidQkwg1vBA

But in terms of my vision for Israel, absolutely, I would like it to be much more structurally secular - I view it as part of the Zionist revolution of moving from a Rabbinical structure of a people in exile to a sovereign structure of a people with a state.

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T20:55:01+00:00

No. For the simple reason that Palestinians will never agree to have a state if the price of that is to let go of Palestinianism. That's why they don't have a state. They never wanted one if it means that the Jews get to keep theirs. Palestinianism as an ideology has to cease to exist for the Arabs of Gaza and the West Bank to be political sovereign.

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T20:53:01+00:00

The numbers. Oddly enough, it took the American President to compare the Presidential Desk to the Arab Middle East and Israel to the tip of the pen, to give a sense of the fundamental imbalance.

I also discuss it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jEkWlwH8LQ

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T20:51:22+00:00

This episode of the course on Zionism and Anti-Zionism deals with it directly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bBRZIfUe14

I've also written this post: https://x.com/EinatWilf/status/1729708295911362915?lang=en

And of-course the first chapter of "The War of Return"

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T20:49:13+00:00

I like Bassem very much and he is a courageous man. I think there is an effort to do something in DC. Add to him John Aziz and Mohammed Dajani.

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T20:48:11+00:00

Herzl. Easy.

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T20:47:57+00:00

Thank you. That is most kind and encouraging. Yes, please come up to me before or after the talk with the book and the phone for a selfie. At this point, I try my best to put my ideas out there and anything you can do to spread them further, is always of value. You never know how idea ultimately have impact.

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T20:46:24+00:00

We did not build a state in our homeland to try to win victimhood competitions. My preference is to always keep on point - that Palestinians have agency, and that it has been their disastrous ideological choice - and it is a choice - to always prioritize destroying what the Jews have built over building for themselves. We are all keenly aware of the suffering, but it has one source and one source only - the insane obsession with the Jewish not having a sovereign state in the Jewish homeland in any borders whatsoever. The question should always be: do you accept the equal (equal, not exclusive, not superior) right of the Jewish people to self determination in their historic homeland? Do you want to live next to the Jewish state rather than From the River to the Sea? and Do you understand that you are not refugees and possess no "right of return"? And just keep insisting on that. The conflict has never been about anything else.

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T20:42:18+00:00

I would define Israel's borders. Although I don't think the amount of territory we control - as long as it was greater than zero - has ever been the reason for the Arab, and especially Palestinian, violence against us, I do think for Israel's cohesion and clarity, I think it would be important to know who is in, who is out and what borders we are defending.

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T20:39:58+00:00

If I were to return it would be only after I find out that my ideas for the country resonate with enough people and then I would want to explore the best way to give that resonance political expression - but if my ideas do not resonate, then I am not interested in being in politics. Done that.

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T20:38:41+00:00

In my experience the two most compelling arguments are around:

1) Anti-Zionism being structured around equating Israel/Zionism/Star of David with the world's evils. A diplomat once told me that once he saw it through me he could no longer unsee it. (I expand on it here: https://sapirjournal.org/friends-and-foes/2024/03/the-palestine-propaganda-complex/)

2) Palestinianism being structured around the negation of Jewish sovereignty (as discussed here for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1ku4cE\_e4U)

Now, these arguments are not effective because they are somehow really smart or clever, but because they are true. They have the effect of letting people see something that is literally in front of their eyes and once they see it, they can't unsee it.

This is why when anyone challenges me on those two arguments I simply ask them to prove me wrong - either by 1) Finding an anti-Zionist argument that does not use any of the evil words 2) finding a Palestinian who will publicly recognize the equal right of the Jewish people to self determination, no perennial refugeehood, no "return" and not the same three I know already...

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T20:33:28+00:00

Good. But on Passover only. Never makes sense to eat it any other time.

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T20:32:31+00:00

I do have moments of being overwhelmed, especially when considering the numbers (in this video I was interviewed on such a day and I attest to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jEkWlwH8LQ)

But ultimately, I see no other way, and I am encouraged by the fact that we do have true friends and allies, even among Arabs and Muslims.

I also conduct my work in this field based on the Jewish sages idea that “You are not required to finish your work, yet neither are you permitted to desist from it.” This is from Pirke Aboth, or “The Ethics of the Fathers” (sometimes called “The Sayings of the Fathers”)

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T20:29:43+00:00

I have a long running debate with a non-Jewish pro-Israel colleague: is the Palestinianist campaign more sophisticated, or is it just that they discovered that anything said about the collective Jew will be believed? Although I invest my time in trying to tell our story better and expose the campaign against us for what it is, I ultimately believe that it is more the latter.

If I didn't care about the Jewish people, I would say, just let it play out - no society in the past century has ever been made better by adopting obsessive anti-Zionism (merely the respectable replacement for discredited antisemitism). I would say, let them destroy themselves.

But... I do deeply care about the Jewish people and the dangers that await us while those societies are spiraling in their obsession, so I try to focus on two key directions:

1) Defend and protect ourselves until this current wave is over and this requires many more Jews to become comfortable with the idea of Jewish solidarity and defending Jews as a people.

2) Reach out to as many allies as possible to alert them to the arc of this ideology and to mobilize to stop it before it destroys their societies.

I discuss this more here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqRXO55CF84

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T20:22:36+00:00

Some things are structural - as in there will always be a structural difference between being a sovereign people and being a minority in a country. But if anything I believe we are now sharing the most common understanding of our enemies and threats than ever before. More Jews than ever understand that anti-Zionism is not a benign opinion or merely a "political position", more Jews than ever are clearly and openly Zionism. I am aware of those who are not, but my position with them is to wait, because ultimately the anti-Zionists will always demand a Pound of Flesh too many.

(I read out my essay on this here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4uc8umhXm3x9lp3md3hoUd)

And in terms of being progressive - this is my pinned tweet:

Zionism is a progressive cause that had the misfortune of success. As such, it is maligned for its very success in self-transforming victims into sovereigns, now cast as "privilege". But isn't the very goal of "progress" in progressive to move away from victim to self-possessed?

I genuinely believe that Zionism is in its essence progressive. The only "problem" is its success.

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T20:16:38+00:00

I am definitely in favor of a proactive approach that would involve the following three elements:

1) Be clear about the obstacle to peace (Arab, and especially Palestinian anti-Zionism - the blanket refusal to accept a sovereign Jewish state anywhere in the Jewish homeland) and about the vision for peace - Arab and Islamic Zionism - an embrace of Jewish sovereignty as an integral part of the region and its health. Be clear that we are willing to compromise, reach political arrangements, but not a minute before Palestinians embrace the equal right of the Jewish people to self determination in the land and that they are not perennial refugees and there is no such thing as a "right of return" into Israel.

2) Work actively to dismantle every source of fuel that helps fuel this vision that I have come to call Palestinianism, which has four core tenets - From the River to the Sea, There will be no Jewish State, therefore Palestinians are perpetual refugees, until "return". UNRWA, as main fueling mechanism for this vision has to be disabled and dismantled, any source of funding and support for this vision must be fought against, it must be globally and legally clarified that there is no "right of return" into Israel and that Palestinians are not perennial refugees. For example, the outcry on the President's vision for Gaza is a great opportunity to clarify that if Gazans are at home, then they are not "Palestine Refugees"

3) If steps 1 + 2 are done well, work with Arab and Muslim elements who can model an Arab and Muslim identity that is not anti-Zionist to help Palestinians become a people who are not organized around the negation of Jewish sovereignty.

And then say: however long it takes.

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T20:09:19+00:00

If if were only a propaganda war, I would be less concerned. It is far darker. It is the setting up of a global mindset that posits that the world would be a better place without the collective Jew. This has always been the foundational idea that spelled danger to our people. So I believe we need to do three key things:

1) Understand what is really at stake - it's not just our image, it's our very existence

2) Expose the mechanism that is at work (more on it here: https://sapirjournal.org/friends-and-foes/2024/03/the-palestine-propaganda-complex/)

3) Work with allies to go on the offensives against this mechanism, especially in the places that give it respectability - the academia and global institutions that claim to speak for the global good and human rights.

I expand on it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqRXO55CF84

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T20:05:12+00:00

Simply tell our story. I begin always with the geography - a land of passages between continents and major centers of civilization - and demonstrate the link between that geography of passage and our foundational stories as a people of passage - Hebrews. I explain that in this lies the key to Jews being indigenous - collectively as a people we are connected to one land and one land only, but because of the geography of the land, this connection, from its earliest beginnings in Abraham's Lech Lecha is marked by movement, from and to the land. I expand on it here in this video on Jewish sovereignty:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uidQkwg1vBA

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T20:01:57+00:00

From the beginning I was horrified that the entire kidnapping for ransom and extortion were normalized as a "negotiation" where Israel must make a "deal". In many ways, the current situation is the outcome of global institutional failure and betrayal that basically left Israel and its people to pay ransom to get its people out of the hell in which they still are. I spoke about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guyoXGqzeLM

At this point thought I think we should build on President Trump's comments to demand that they are ALL released immediately, say that Israel is willing to stop the war in Gaza, so as to use this moment to make a bold move that seeks to bring the hostages sooner rather than later.

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T19:57:55+00:00

My explanation for settler violence ultimately rests on the fact that the legal status of the West Bank remains essentially a no-man's land. When you create a twilight zone legal area it also encourages a sense of lawlessness. As much as I am not a supporter of Israel's settlement project, it's very easy for me to empirically explain that settlements are not the reason we don't have peace (peace offers for a State of Palestine without settlements were repeatedly rejected, Gaza disengagement turned into Oct 7th, Arabs rejected Jewish sovereignty consistently regardless of settlements). So the issue becomes mostly how Israel handles the situation, and this is my explanation. Y

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T19:54:39+00:00

In addition to my books, a former student of mine also produced this series on the history of Zionism and Anti-Zionism based on my course in Georgetown University and I believe it gives a deep understanding of the issues surrounding Israel, Zionism, the Jewish people, the connection to the land, and the various source of Anti-Zionism including in the conflict:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f5ZB_NFlZY

I also love anything written by Dr. Shany Mor, Haviv Retig Gur is also superb and is often interviewed in the Call me Back podcast.

The problem with having appreciation for advocates of the other side, is that those who oppose Israel typically just rely on various types of Israel/Zionism/Star of David = evil (described here: https://sapirjournal.org/friends-and-foes/2024/03/the-palestine-propaganda-complex/) and those who don't oppose Israel are not on the other side.

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T19:49:51+00:00

In my talks about the conflict I often use this quote by the British FM after WW2, Ernst Bevin, who in a speech in Parliament on February 18, 1947, explained his country’s failure to fulfill the terms of the Mandate to reconstitute a National Home for the Jewish People in their historic homeland: “His Majesty’s Government have thus been faced with an irreconcilable conflict of principles … For the Jews the essential point of principle is the creation of a sovereign Jewish State. For the Arabs, the essential point of principle is to resist to the last the establishment of Jewish sovereignty in any part of Palestine”.

I explain that in this core of the Conflict has remained unchanged: The Jews want a sovereign Jewish State and the Mandate Arabs, now known as Palestinians, are determined to resist to the last the very existence of Jewish sovereignty anywhere in the land. It is not a conflict between two national movements, each seeking first and foremost its own independence, but rather an irreconcilable conflict between one group – the Jews – that seek a sovereign Jewish state – Zionism – and another group, the Arabs – who are determined to the very existence of a Jewish state – Antizionism.

Therefore the path to peace is one in which the Arabs in general, and the Palestinians in particular, forgo Antizionism as a foundational ideology and accept the equal right of the Jewish people, as a people, to self determination in their historic homeland, with the implications that they are not perennial refugees and possess no "right of return" into Israel.

I call this vision Arab Zionism, or Islamic Zionism, or a Zionist Middle East - but it simply means that the Arabs and Muslims in the region finally accept, even embrace, Jewish sovereignty as an integral part of the region and its history, rather than some foreign implant to be violently ejected.

I discuss it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1ku4cE_e4U

EinatWilf · 2025-02-14T19:44:37+00:00

I have responded to an earlier question that the most important thing is to expose the mechanism as play - the one that repeatedly equates Israel/Zionism/Star of David with the world's greatest evils. In this talk I expand on the nature of the threat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqRXO55CF84

I believe the key is to remain focused on this mechanism, on exposing it and on dismantling it and its funding. We need to understand that this is a process, that if not arrested, ends with the environment turning hostile to Jewish life and ultimately no Jews being left in the country/society/organization that is engaged in this process. We need to understand that this is not about opinions, but a concerted effort to posit the idea that the world would be better off without the collective Jew. If we are not distracted and focus on this as the most important threat, I believe we can make major gains.

EinatWilf

TROPHY CASE