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Welcome to Holy Smoke, the Spectator's Religion podcast.

I'm Damien Thompson.

In an age of seemingly irreconcilable differences, argument is increasingly seen as a plague to be avoided or a contest to be won.

Now, I couldn't agree more with that verdict, which comes from Daniel Taub, author of Beyond Dispute,

rediscovering the Jewish art of constructive disagreement,

and also a former Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom.

And he joins me today.

Good to be with you, Damien. Your book is extremely intriguing, full of good good stories much of it based on the

wisdom and disputation of the Talmud but I must say your book is very likable

and you're a very clever man and your range of cultural references is very

impressive as I'd expect is the toughest, I think I want to ask you.

You talk about October the 7th, and you presented as first and foremost, I must get your

exact words, but a failure of Israeli intelligence.

When I read that, I thought, blind me, here's a former Israeli ambassador

of the United Kingdom telling me it was a failure of Israeli intelligence, which I think is

very well established. But what it really was, first and foremost, was the most barbaric

slaughter of Jews by Palestinian Hamas fanatics, one that will go down in history

is one of the most brutal, murderous episodes of the modern era. And yet Hamas isn't in the

...