As part of its 2025 Winter Webinar Series, the Visiting Fellows in Israel Studies program at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) hosted a webinar featuring Eugene Kandel in conversation with Amichai Magen. Kandel, the former head of Israel’s National Economic Council and a professor of economics and finance at Hebrew University, is the co-founder of the Israel Strategic Futures Institute (ISFI). The talk focused on Kandel’s work at ISFI in diagnosing what Kandel and his colleagues identify as internal existential risks for Israel, and the policy ideas generated by ISFI in response to those risks.

Kandel began his analysis by pointing out the fact that the post-Cold War era has been one of spectacular economic success for Israel. The country entered 2022 with a budget surplus, record employment, and low public debt. But this, Kandel believes, is an increasingly precarious, indeed unsustainable reality. Describing a deep demographic shift towards the Haredi (ultraorthodox) and religious-nationalist population, as well as growing structural weaknesses in Israel’s economy and government, Kandel warned that Israel could face a "run on the country" if it did not provide the most productive parts of its population with guarantees that their values would be protected.

Kandel outlined the three incompatible ideological groupings found in Israeli society. One group believes in Jewish liberal democracy, one is primarily Hasidic and believes in the Torah’s centrality, and one desires a non-Jewish country for all citizens. Disproportionate population growth in the Hasidic group puts liberal democracy at risk, while Hasidic citizens rely heavily on social services, which will soon be unsustainable.

Drawing on examples in Northern Ireland, Switzerland, and Belgium, Kandel proposes a professional, easily replaceable, non-political government. Every Israeli citizen would be a member of one of three "Alumot"—a word meaning clusters—each with their own constitutions, taxes, social services, and elections. Changes in government would require consensus from all three Alumot. Since citizens would choose their Alumot freely and could even switch between them, the Alumot serving members would be motivated to improve citizens’ lives and economic conditions.

Magen countered that Kandel's proposals wrongly gave up on a shared Israeliness that - with all its difficulties - has proven highly successful in the past seven and a half decacdes, and that the Alumot idea is politically impractical. Kandel and Magen discussed how the current issues with Israeli society, namely its division, are the same limiting factor in adapting a new political system. They also discussed how Jews outside Israel can help the Israeli government thrive, and how Israel needs to address its internal conflicts if it has a realistic prospect of successfully managing its external challenges.

A full recording of the conversation can be viewed below.

As part of its 2025 Winter Webinar Series, the Visiting Fellows in Israel Studies program at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) hosted a webinar featuring Ari Shavit in conversation with Amichai Magen. One of Israel's most seasoned and informed journalists and political analysts, Shavit is also the author of the New York Times bestseller My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel (2013). In the aftermath of the October 7th Hamas attack, Shavit was one of the first to grapple with the strategic causes and consequences of the attack and subsequent war, publishing a short book on the subject in the spring of 2024, titled Existential War: From Catastrophe, to Victory, to Revival (2024) [Hebrew]. 

Taking Existential War as the starting point for their conversation, Magen and Shavit discussed how a combination of Israeli complacency, miscalculations vis-a-vis Hamas, internal divisions, and overreliance on defensive technologies allowed the October 7th attacks to occur. They discussed Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s 1923 essay, The Iron Wall, and David Ben-Gurion's national defense strategy as a means of understanding the contemporary struggle between Iran and its proxies, on the one hand, and Israel and its allies, on the other hand. Shavit outlined Israel’s past successes and the need to update Jabotinsky’s and Ben-Gurion's strategic doctrines for 21st-century realities. For Shavit, Iran poses the greatest threat to stability and safety in the Middle East and the West. Magen and Shavit also discussed the future of Gaza and Syria, the roles that Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia play in the region, and the risk that the weakening of the Iran-led Shi'a axis could be replaced by a Syria-centered radical Sunni axis in the Middle East. Against this background, it is imperative that the United States work closely with Israel and pragmatic Sunni Arab countries in the region — most importantly, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the UAE — to shape a new regional framework for the Middle East.

A full recording of the conversation can be viewed below.

Lore has it that the late President Ronald Reagan loved telling “the one about the pony.” In his rendition of the story, the parents of twin brothers—one a diehard pessimist, the other an eternal optimist—consulted a psychologist who recommended a unique experiment. On the twins’ next birthday the pessimist was shown into a room packed with the most expensive gifts the parents could afford, while the optimist was invited into a room full of horse manure. An hour later, when the parents checked on the pessimist, he complained bitterly about some arcane detail in one of his expensive gifts. In contrast, when they cautiously opened the door to check in on the optimist, they found him digging joyfully through the manure. “Mom! Dad! This is incredible!” the optimist shouted with glee. “With all the shit piled up in this room, there’s got to be a pony!”

Read the full article in Persuasion.

Sheryl Sandberg, former Chief Operating Officer of Meta and founder of LeanIn.org — an NGO dedicated to empowering women and girls — told a Stanford audience that the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks and sexual violence against women drew her back to the spotlight with a message for the world:

“What is at stake is actually important for all of humanity,” she said at a Nov. 19 film screening of her documentary, Screams Before Silence. The event was hosted by the Visiting Fellows in Israel Studies program, housed at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and Hillel at Stanford.

The film included eyewitness accounts from released hostages, survivors, and first responders. During the Hamas attacks on Israeli towns and at the Nova Music Festival, women and girls were raped, assaulted, mutilated, and killed. Released hostages have revealed that Israeli captives in Gaza have also been sexually assaulted.

Yet, as Sandberg noted, the atrocities have received little scrutiny or attention from human rights and feminist groups, international organizations, and others. Some denialists have even said Hamas’ sexual violence never took place or that it was invented by Israel itself — an echo of 9/11 denialism and antisemitic conspiracy theories. So, Sandberg undertook the challenge of creating a 60-minute documentary, which has now registered almost three million YouTube views while also being screened around the world.

‘Make people see this’

Sandberg interviewed survivors and witnesses and survivors and traveled to the site of the Nova Music Festival, where 364, mostly young revelers, were murdered in the worst terrorist attack in the country’s history. She viewed hundreds of photos of dead bodies of women who displayed clear signs of sexual abuse and harm.

She noted that even war has rules of law and that what she discovered while making the film was often incomprehensible, tragic, and heartbreaking.

Rape should never be used as an act of war, she said, and silence is complicity. “We know we have to keep fighting and trying to make people see this.”