I traveled to Israel in mid-November and had the opportunity to interview Manuel Trajtenberg, professor emeritus of economics at Tel Aviv University and senior faculty at the Mandel Leadership Institute. He has held many diverse positions in the Israeli government, including chairman of the National Economic Council at the Prime Minister’s Office (2006-09), chairman of the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Council for Higher Education (2009-2014), chairman of the Committee for Socioeconomic Change (2011), member of the Knesset (2015-17), and executive director of the Institute for National Security Studies (2021 to 2024). In those positions he has been at the forefront of social and economic reform in Israel.
Professor Trajtenberg and I discussed the current war, his expectations for political reform and his hopes for Israel’s future. He believes (a) it will be very difficult to reach an agreement with Hamas; (b) Netanyahu may well call for an election in the next few months; and (c) there is a split within the current right wing between the religious Zionists and the Haredim over the Haredi refusal to enter the IDF. He also has a “deep faith” that Israel’s youth, especially those in high tech, will take responsibility for Israel’s future. Below is an edited version of our discussion. (Note: Since the time I conducted this interview, Israel and Hezbollah have agreed to a 60-day cease-fire.)
What is the situation today regarding the war with Hamas and Hezbollah?
There are now realistic prospects for some sort of settlement, not just wishful thinking. I expect that the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon will end very soon. Israel and Hezbollah on the one hand, and Iran and the United States on the other hand, all have a strong interests in putting an end to that war.
And so, this reverses the course of action that was foreseen six months ago. Back then, the prerequisite for a cease-fire in the north was to end the war in Gaza. But that did not happen. The blows we inflicted on Hezbollah have brought them to a place where they have to agree to some form of settlement with Israel.
We need to settle things there in order to be able to bring back the Israeli population that was evacuated from the area. In fact, Hezbollah has many more people displaced, not just from Southern Lebanon, but also from Beirut. We destroyed much of the military infrastructure that Hezbollah had built along the border. To have such an offensive force just over the border was something no state could accept.
On the other hand, I believe that Hamas may not be able to reach an agreement with Israel. They are fanatics—driven by ideology and their fundamentalist version of Islam. They cannot “elect” a different government. And, for ideological reasons, the current Israeli government cannot bring itself to seek a political settlement based on the Palestinian Authority (PA), which would necessitate far reaching reforms in the PA. So, there is a stalemate. The hostages are in terrible conditions, and IDF soldiers are falling almost every day. What could perhaps bring an end to all that is if Trump were to declare that he wants to end the war even before his inauguration.
In fact, Trump may be able to exert more pressure on Netanyahu to end the war than Biden or Harris, if she had won, could have been capable of. Ironically, I put my hopes in Trump to pressure Netanyahu, Saudi Arabia and the Hamas leadership outside Gaza to reach some sort of settlement. That is not a vision, it is an analysis of possibilities.
Tom Friedman’s recent New York Times article said Trump can go in the direction you described, or he can encourage annexation of the West Bank and colonization of Gaza.
Yes. But it is impossible to predict what Trump will do. He wants to put an end to the war in Ukraine. He wants “deals,” not necessarily peace, but quiet. At the same time, I believe that the appointment of the new pro-annexation U.S. ambassador to Israel probably will not influence policy.
Tell me about the political situation in Israel.
A key question is: will there be elections anytime soon? Without elections, nothing will change. At the same time, Netanyahu has a problem that he has not been able to solve—his trial. To stand and be questioned by hostile prosecutors is a prospect that he can hardly contemplate. He has been granted an extension of a few days, but right now it looks like the trial is going to take place. One course of action he could choose to avoid testifying would be to announce a forthcoming election. Then the court would likely agree that a trial would jeopardize the democratic process.
A settlement in the north is a major achievement. It’s also increasingly less plausible that Iran will attack Israel. And Netanyahu has removed Gallant from office—in his mind, another achievement. At the same time, the new budget must be presented to the Knesset soon. That budget will necessarily bring an increase in taxes, and a cut in services. So, he could dissolve the Knesset, put off the budget, and call for elections. But, at this time, the polls show that Naftali Bennett and the center-left coalition would win if Bennett runs.
More than ten years ago, Israeli president Reuven Rivlin talked about the internal divisions that Israel faced, which he called the four tribes—secular, Orthodox, ultra-Orthodox and Arab. How would you define the divisions that Israel faces now?
A more manageable objective than undoing these divisions would be to define a common ground, in terms of the rules of the game and the institutions that we can respect. There will always be fringe groups that will not accept these rules. But there is a big difference if 70 percent of the Israeli public share a common ground, as opposed to the current 50/50 split.
At the same time, Netanyahu and others on the right and ultra-right argue that the political division between the right and left is the only split that matters.
If you are, first and foremost, Jewish, then you are “right,” and if you are more democratic than Jewish, you are “left.” And the Arabs are out of the game. The right would label them terrorists, in spite of the fact that Mansour Abbas, the head of one of the Arab parties, is one of the best parliamentarians I have known.
In the last half year or so of the war, the conflict between those who serve in the army and fight and those who escape military service has greatly exacerbated. The national religious factions, whose youth belong politically to the right, cannot accept the fact that the Haredim will not serve. And so, there is a new schism, which Netanyahu cannot solve. And the Haredim will not relent or compromise.
Can many young Haredim be convinced to enter the army?
The young Haredim are essentially prisoners of a powerful system of patronage created by the Haredi leadership. Housing and where you send your children to study Talmud and Torah are determined by the leadership. Everything is regimented and controlled. In fact, the situation reminds me of living in the Soviet Union! Very small numbers of youths leave and abandon the Haredi world.
Because of conflicts within his coalition, Netanyahu has not been able to pass a law that would grant an exception to military service for the Haredim. Meanwhile, the Army has issued over a thousand warrants to detain those that are not presenting themselves for military service. Netanyahu cannot fix this. That is another reason he may want elections.
You worked for many years in higher education, and you were also involved in issues related to education, social justice and equity. It has been said that the divided education system (between secular, Orthodox, ultra-Orthodox and Arab) is one of the key factors dividing Israeli society. Tell me about what you think about that divide and also what you sought to do in higher education.
I absolutely agree that the segmented education system has generated the divisions, the tribes, that President Rivlin described. That is a disaster in my view. And we ourselves generated it from the beginning.
When I was heading the Higher Education Council, I embarked on two big projects. One was to bring the Israeli Arabs into higher education and the second was to bring in the Haredim. For the Arabs, we succeeded beyond expectations. The share of Israeli Arab students in higher education is now higher than their ratio in the population. More importantly, they have made huge strides in STEM subjects. Twenty seven percent of Technion students are now Arab. But there is one drawback. The majority of the Arab students are women, not men. That creates problems within Arab society.
We made some progress in recruiting Haredim into higher education. In 2015, when we lost in that election, much of the progress was undone. Overall, we have not been successful in integrating Haredim into higher education. And again, the vast majority who have been integrated are women.
I have spoken to Israelis who are considering leaving the country. Is the future of Israel mass emigration, or do you believe that Israel will bring itself together?
I have a deep faith that the situation will improve. Until two years ago, most of the population went about their own businesses, high tech especially, and were not involved politically. But over the last two years, which have been so difficult, young people have become deeply involved, first with the judicial reform challenge and now with the war itself. They now say, “We are taking responsibility for the future of the country. We are not letting go.” They are invested. This is the younger generation, not my generation. Some may leave, but the majority will stay. Their commitment is coupled with the realization that the situation is not much better elsewhere, where you can find antisemitism, Trumpism and increasingly nondemocratic regimes. This gives me hope for Israel’s future.
Top image: Miguel Trajtenberg (Credit: Laurence Wolff).