Illustrative Image: Ori Goldberg. (Photo: Sourced / 972 Magazine) | Smoke rises as the Israeli army detonates explosives in a residential area in the West Bank camp of Jenin, on 2 February 2025. (Photo: EPA / Alaa Badarneh) 
In the context of what went down on 13 June 2025, the title of Dr Ori Goldberg’s PhD dissertation — submitted to Tel Aviv University in 2008 — could hardly have been more relevant: The role of religious experience in the creation and praxis of Iranian Shi’i revolutionary discourse during the second half of the 20th century.
Goldberg, whose CV attests to a “proficiency” in spoken and written Arabic and Persian, a deep expertise in nationalism and Islam across the Middle East, and a two-year stint at Israel’s foremost military college, had long been a go-to mainstream voice on the inner workings of the Iranian regime.
After 7 October 2023, however, when he began to unsparingly call out what he would come to view as a genocide in Gaza, the invitations from conventional media in Israel dried up. Locally, it was only the most progressive outlets that would have him, and his views were increasingly — and perhaps even systematically — marginalised.
Still, for those Israelis who could stomach his heterodox position, Goldberg’s stance wasn’t hard to find. In September 2024, in an interview with +972 Magazine titled “What Israelis don’t want to hear about Iran and Hezbollah,” he persuasively laid out why the Islamic Republic did not have a “grand plan” backed up by regional proxies — “not for destroying Israel, not for exporting its Islamic revolution, and not for taking over the Middle East.”
And so, when Israel attacked Iran on 13 June, it was clear that Goldberg’s views would remain unwelcome at home. By then, though, he had already built a large following abroad.
“[Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pre-emptive strike] is a desperate attempt to rally the world behind Israel,” Goldberg wrote in a widely shared piece for Al Jazeera, “just as preparations are made to deny it the absolute impunity it has enjoyed since its creation”.
style="font-weight: 400;">echoed in a live TV interview with Al Jazeera, the timing of the attack had everything to do with the fact that “Israel had exhausted its options with respect to its genocidal campaign in Gaza”.
Two weeks later, less than 36 hours after the bombing stopped, Daily Maverick caught up with Goldberg for a no-holds-barred discussion — on the new status quo, on likely next steps, and on the potential role for South Africa and the Global South in the uncharted geopolitical terrain.
Kevin Bloom (KB): So, it seems that the ceasefire is holding, which is a relief for the whole world but mostly, of course, for the citizens of Israel and Iran. As someone who was in the direct line of ballistic missile fire for 12 days, your comment on three issues would be instructive. First, your experience of Israeli society during these unprecedented attacks. Was there more or less social cohesion? What was the mood in the bomb shelters? Second, with the skies now silent, do you think Israelis have emerged with a sense of what the Palestinians in Gaza have endured for the last 20 months? Finally, although Netanyahu and his cohort are claiming victory, the counter-narrative is that Israel called for the ceasefire out of sheer desperation, because the Iron Dome was failing and Iran’s bombs were threatening to flatten entire cities. Would you agree with that assessment?
Ori Goldberg (OG): So, let me do them in reverse order. Yes, I think there was an element of desperation, or at least a reckoning with the fact that Israel had exhausted its options with this attack on Iran, and that things could only get worse. The missile stocks for the Iron Dome and Arrow interceptors were very rapidly depleted, which is why I think that Israel asked for the ceasefire. Add to that the fact that American strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities were apparently less than optimal, and you have a situation where even with its stated war goal — of trying to set back Iran’s nuclear programme — Israel was not entirely successful.
In short, Israel did what Israel does best. It achieved tactical superiority very quickly. It assassinated a large number of senior Iranian leaders in the first few hours of its attack. But there was nothing after that, there was no strategic vision, no ability to open up a broader horizon, even though Israel is now talking up the idea of having changed the Middle East. To be clear, Israel hasn’t changed the Middle East; Israel has once again gone head-to-head with an inferior enemy, has won the tactical battle, but has absolutely no idea what to do about the strategic part.
As for your second question, the one about Israeli empathy for Gazans after this ceasefire, unfortunately the answer would be an emphatic “no”. As soon as the carpet-bombing of Gaza began, back in October 2023, there was a hardening of the collective Israeli heart. A lot of Israelis wrote about the phenomenon a month or two later, but it began in early October, at the very beginning.
Perhaps the most unshakeable point in the official Israeli narrative, the one that has been thoroughly internalised by a great majority of Jewish Israelis, is that whatever happens in Gaza — whatever happens — is not Israel’s fault. Every and all deaths in Gaza are not Israel’s responsibility; they are the result of a conscious Palestinian choice, which is why, by the way, there are “no innocents in Gaza” — because, according to this narrative, even the ones that did not actively participate in killing Israelis, they supported 7 October. And Israelis are, as we say in Hebrew, “like the camel that’s blind to its own hump.” You know, Israelis are not able to take what they are thinking and turn it, even for a second, against themselves.
As another example, you all saw that when the first Iranian missiles began to land, Israelis were aghast that “those fanatics” were shooting into civilian areas, whereas “we” were only targeting military installations. The fact that more than a thousand Iranians were killed, and at the same time more than a thousand Palestinians were killed in Gaza, did not seem to register.
And so to your opening question, the one about the mood in the bomb shelters — it was clear that there was a dissonance of sorts, a kind of schizophrenia. As a collective, Israelis are very proud of their ability to take one for the team, to suffer for the national cause. Of course, it’s always defined as, “living through this war because this will be the last war”. Because that’s all we want, right? We want the last war to be fought, and then we want peace. Added to that, we had all grown up with the notion that going to war with Iran was not only inevitable, it was also somehow “blessed”.
But Israelis at the same time are confused — and so what we did was completely detach ourselves from the situation and go into personal survival mode. The lines to stock up on supplies stretched around the block. Both of those situations were going on at once.
KB: You were outspoken at the outset that Netanyahu attacked Iran, on 13 June, to divert attention from Gaza. The world had reached boiling point with the live-streamed genocide, you noted, and more and more countries were calling for the recognition of a Palestinian state. But now, with Netanyahu having played what we all assumed was his ace card, can there be any more hiding?
OG: No, the lies have surfaced. As you said, Netanyahu gambled with everything he had. But it was a stupid gamble, because Trump doesn’t really care. I don’t remember any American president ever forcing Israeli bombers to turn around in the air, like Trump did on Tuesday [24 March]. Trump doesn’t like losers, he’s in it to leverage it and not to demonstrate his commitment to “shared values,” as was the case with previous US presidents. So, I am pretty sure that we will soon see a ceasefire deal in Gaza as well. Israel is out of options. Netanyahu will try to spin the deal as the consequence of a historic victory in Iran, but as far as I see it, it’s completely the other way around.
KB: In the medium term, then, can we expect to see some sort of geopolitical or even moral reckoning? Outside of the case at the International Court of Justice, do you foresee a role for the Global South in general and South Africa in particular? Would something like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission ever be exportable to Israel/Palestine?
OG: I think a model like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is the only one that can work here. But right now, there is absolutely nothing to talk about. Israelis are not prepared to do anything of the sort, and I don’t know if Palestinians are either. If I was a Palestinian, I don’t know how much I would be into that sort of work. Time has to pass, things have to quieten down, and new ways of using the old words have to be generated. You know, what the hell does “peace” even mean after a genocide?
This wasn’t a “war,” after all. The effect of it has been profound, on everyone, including Israeli society. Even though Israelis have been constantly trying to downplay it, to present it as a necessity — what would you do, what would you suggest? — it has changed us completely. And we need to be able to do something about that, or at least try to do something. At the moment, of course, we are not trying, but we are going to have to, and we won’t until it all sinks in, until we are chastised by the world loudly enough. The impetus will only come from the outside, because Israeli society right now is completely incapable of even considering the possibility of change.
But yes, I think South Africa has a tremendous role to play as far as the Global South goes. Look, at the moment, the situation is such that all the interested parties, all the relevant players, can do whatever they choose to do. If the Global South chooses to play an organised role in this, if BRICS comes together, if South Africa is joined by Brazil, for example — there is a lot that can be done, because there is a lot that must be done.
There is a lot to be done in terms of providing Marshall Plan-style aid. There is a lot to be done in terms of providing the political backing for any attempt to create a sustainable resolution. But the Global South has to decide on a course of action, it should not passively allow itself to be swallowed up by Chinese interests, which are all about doing very little and then leveraging the economic benefits.
This is a time for politics, not economics; a time for articulating a politics of solidarity and sustainability. Just look to Zohran Mamdani’s historic victory in New York, it’s earth-shattering. Even without knowing how the victory can be replicated in the national or international arena, it’s just mind-blowing that he won. And he won because he did politics, he persuaded young voters that politics presents a real option for the way forward.
If there’s a role for the Global South, if there’s a role for South Africa, it’s there, in being political. Because the Global North will do everything in its power to depoliticise the situation. The Global North will continue to talk about the same “middle” that has been taken hostage by extremists on both sides; it will continue to demand fealty to a “good stable life” and the same capitalist system; it will continue to appeal to notions like the “Judeo-Christian morals” of the West. These are all notions that need to be resisted, in my opinion.
And I am hopeful. I don’t know if my optimism is warranted, but it feels like the lines have been drawn — perhaps more sharply than ever.
KB: So I am pretty hopeful too, and I believe that South Africa is going to insist on an expanded role. I can’t help thinking here about our DNA as a country, about how — after we incorporated the Bantustans at the dawn of the democratic era — we effectively instituted our own one-state solution. And from my perspective, at least, that’s the only way forward for Israel/Palestine. Would you agree with that assessment?
OG: The only word that I might take issue with here, from all the words that you use, is “solution”. I don’t know if it’s useful to define this as a “problem and solution” situation. Part of what enabled Israel to do what it did was talk of the “Palestinian problem”. I don’t know that there are solutions, but I do know that politics is not only the way forward, it is also the foundation. The political space, after all, is the only space that allows human beings to live with one another.
For instance, I get a lot of responses that say: “You’re a good man, but you should provide a personal example and give your stolen land to a Palestinian — and then move back to Europe where you’re from.”
So, that’s not going to happen.
What is going to happen is something along the lines of the one-state or two-state “solution”. I grew up a “two-stater” because that was the legitimate position of the Israeli left, the Zionist left. The more removed I became from the official Zionist narrative, the more the one-state option appealed to me. I can’t really say anything concrete about it, except that it will have to be equitable and just, and it will have to devote itself to fighting the toxic remnants of Jewish supremacy. In that sense, I think it’s the only option.
But I don’t know if this is the time to be talking about whether you’re a one-stater or a two-stater. To do that is to deny, to some extent, the effects of the last two years. I mean, I think it’s mainly just people holding on to “what was”.
Right now, we should talk about how Gaza is going to be put on life support. And then slowly and gradually healed, if it can be healed.
And not much more — it should be a limited discussion in that respect. DM