Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin, a scholar and writer, is an international political and strategic consultant. She has advised and conducted research on nine national campaigns in Israel over the past twenty years, and has provided research and advising for elections, referendums, and civil society campaigns in fifteen different countries. She is the author of The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel. 

Q. The Democratic Convention was considered a big success for Kamala Harris and the party here in the US. How did it play in Israel? Should they have included a Palestinian speaker? Did the Israeli press think the part of her speech that covered Israel/Palestine was basic Democratic doctrine or did it go further in sympathy for Palestinians in Gaza?

A. The Democratic Convention and enthusiasm for Kamala was duly covered but partly overshadowed (like all foreign news) in the mix of huge events for Israelis, particularly the hostage negotiations going on last week, which generated somewhat higher levels of anticipation for a possible breakthrough than other rounds. There are regular Israeli correspondents covering American affairs and they were obviously inside the US scene enough to be excited about it, but it's still a backstory here. One comment from the Israeli news has stayed with me, when one of the radio commentators observed that there was certainly excitement at the DNC around Kamala but that it was "somewhat stage managed" - not exactly fake, but as if the Democrats are making a big effort to rally around her, because they know that Trump is also likely to win. This reflects a certain wariness about her among Israelis due partly to unfamiliarity (just as Americans weren't entirely sure who she was as VP), but also an undercurrent of presumption that as a woman of color, her attitude towards Israel is similar to that of the Squad or Obama, and in the mainstream view, neither are good for Israel. Nevertheless, there was not excessive harping on her speech regarding the Palestinians, just a sort of resignation that this is the reality - Americans will defend Israel and acknowledge the Palestinian cause as well. 

The reality is that the prominent mention of Palestinians' "right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination" is both basic Democratic doctrine – and still went so much further by making an appearance at the DNC at all. The sad reality is that Hamas and Israel's war on Gaza is the reason it's there. Liel Leibovitz, a right-wing Israeli-American journalist, wrote on twitter (X) that this is the greatest influence Palestinians will have on the Democratic Convention since Sirhan Sirhan. It was a cynical, populist and generally not very useful quip - but it was also correct. The world needs to ask itself why, for most of modern history (with some notable exceptions), it only pays attention to Palestinians when violence is involved. As to whether Palestinians should have been given a chance to speak - why not equality? Israeli parents of a hostage spoke, Palestinians should have had a chance too. Once the interview with some of the voices for the cause went around, it's clear that this was simply a real loss for Americans to hear an earnest, pragmatic, thoughtful argument on the issues. 

Q. The exchange with Hezbollah seems a bit performative: Hezbollah can say they attacked Israel and Israel can respond that it wiped out a lot of their rocket capacity before the attack. Does it make a real war more or less likely?

A. It's not exactly performative; neither side knew exactly what the other would do. Israel didn't fully know Hezbollah's target and plans, and moved rapidly overnight to destroy thousands of launchers, knowing that some small portion of them were preparing to strike Israel. Hamas didn't know about the surprise preventive strike. I avoid saying "pre-emptive" because that carries the connotation of which side started it, and the deadly exchange of ever-escalating aggression between Israel and Hezbollah brings us all the way back to October 8 in the earliest hours, when Hezbollah joined Hamas' attack and lit the regional fuse. As I wrote today in Haaretz, Hezbollah’s role in the conflict has been almost entirely negative for many years now. 

Israel has not exactly de-escalated, but both sides are playing by an expanded, more dangerous version of the old rules, which are basically: if you don't break the new rules, I won't. We'll go back into our corners because the next stage, if it reaches all-out war, will kill us. But the chances of losing control of this situation are high and extremely dangerous. Never assume government decisions are as strategic as you might assume they are.

Q. Prospects for a Gaza ceasefire still seem dim.  And according to you, Netanyahu’s polling numbers are actually looking better. Does he think he can continue to stonewall the Americans, the hostage families et al and keep the war going? What would have to happen for this political calculus to change?

A. The short answer is yes, Netanyahu has been stonewalling the US for so many years he practically doesn't know how not to do it (unless the US President is giving him everything he wants, then he does not stonewall). He stonewalled peace negotiations during Obama's term and he tried to stonewall the Iran deal in 2015 (it didn't work, but he still got good practice). He has stonewalled Biden at every stage of the war, making only minor adjustments. So what he thinks about his ability to stonewall is the reality. The political calculus will only change if there is a ceasefire deal he can't refuse, but his coalition partners insist he must not, and instead of backing down from their threats to bolt the coalition, they keep the promise. The only other thing that can change the political calculus is five defectors from the coalition or the Haredi draft law when the Knesset is back in session. Otherwise, this government can continue straight through to the regularly scheduled 2026 elections. Netanyahu, the Likud and the government have all seen a steady but only moderate recovery since their collective nadir during the first six months of the war. But that means they are only back up to their pre-war levels; not back to the November 2022 election levels that gave them their majority.

Q. Colleges are opening again in the US and with students' return will come more protests. But the failure of the Palestinian protest at the DNC to attract large numbers means that college protests might have lesser impact.  Do these protests impact Israeli public opinion? And looking forward, what will continued protests mean for the way Israelis perceive support and opposition in the US?

A. Israelis were somewhat obsessed with the campus protests, perhaps as a matter of deflecting their inability to cope with the reality of what Israel was and is doing in Gaza. Not so much out of feelings of guilt as a sense that they preferred not to know the reality, and felt very comfortable in the conceptual notion that the world has gone mad and turned against the Jews once again, as it does cyclically throughout history. During the spring protests, a political scientist I know literally told Israeli radio that the last time there were nearly 16 million Jews in the world was on the eve of the Holocaust, and therefore it seems that the world has a saturation point after which it cannot cope and must cull Jews. It was a strange sort of reverse Protocols conspiracy, hinting that someone is sitting in a secret room counting Jews and thinking about what limit the world can handle; this from a trained political scientist. 

The campus protests are put into a basket of every genuine anti-semitic incident around the world, and many that are not: people calling for "free Palestine" (not antisemitic), people wearing a kaffiyeh (not antisemitic), people demonstrating for Palestinian freedom and an end to the war (not pro-Hamas). The equation of these actions with hatred of Jews is unquestioned in the Israeli portrayal - they are all manifestations of a wave of rabid global antisemitism. This contributes to Israelis' deep-seated collective conviction that Israel exists in a singular, unique realm of existential persecution, and no one can ever be trusted. In turn, this worldview contributes to a profoundly inward looking trend in Israeli society; we are losing touch with the world, and therefore losing perspective on what's real - so it's a spiral. And it's a spiral that needs to be changed, but trauma and survival instincts are hard to penetrate right now.