Haaretz Weekly: Recent Episodes
Haaretz
From Haaretz – Israel's oldest daily newspaper – a weekly podcast in English on Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World, hosted by Amir Tibon.
While the polls in Israel have been relatively stagnant, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s personal standing has faltered. “The minute that Netanyahu's stock seems weak, people will start selling it, and that has begun to happen,” said Haaretz columnist Joshua Leifer, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast.
Joining Leifer on the podcast, Haaretz correspondent Linda Dayan observed that in her conversations with mainstream Israelis who “don’t identify as leftists,” they see a real alternative leader in challenger Gadi Eisenkot.
“People have said of Netanyahu in the past that there's no one who can replace him, who has the experience and the gravitas that we need. Now, for the first time in a very long time, people are saying it looks like there's someone who can actually do it.”
The two panelists joined host Allison Kaplan Sommer to discuss the debut of new right-wing parties who eschew Netanyahu and their “machinations” attempting to engineer a government coalition that would include the anti-Netanyahu center-right – while excluding Yair Golan’s Democrats Party, and, of course the Arab parties.
"There is maybe a hope or a fantasy of finding some way of creating a government that excludes Yair Golan and the Democrats, and that closes the door definitively on having a potential Arab party in the coalition,” said Leifer, referring to the right’s growing fear of the prospect of an Eisenkot-led government that includes Mansour Abbas’ United Arab List.
Read more:
How to Actually Read the Israeli Election Polls
Israel's Opposition Parties Are Courting New Immigrants With a New Set of Priorities
In Haifa, the 'Putin Aliyah' and Despairing Arab Citizens Warn of A Dire Future
Analysis by Joshua Leifer | Eisenkot Keeps Running Away From What Everyone Knows He Believes
Most Israelis Fear Upcoming Election Could Be Compromised, New Poll Finds
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Haaretz senior defense columnist Amos Harel joins the Haaretz Podcast to discuss Trump's latest U-turn on Iran, from threatening to bomb the country's infrastructure to once again negotiating with the Islamic Republic over reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Does the president have a plan, or is he just responding to pressure from different directions? How likely is a resumption of full-scale war between Tehran and Jerusalem? And is there truly a lack of interceptors protecting Israel from Iranian missiles? Amos answers all these questions, as we await the president's next step.
Meanwhile in Gaza, a new agreement has been announced by the Board of Peace, the international body overseeing the coastal enclave's painfully slow recovery. On paper, it looks great: Hamas will voluntarily disarm, Israel will then withdraw from the areas it occupied after October 7, and reconstruction will move ahead at a faster pace. There's just one problem: No one believes the deal will actually be implemented, and the two sides are already disagreeing over its content and interpretation.
Harel and guest host Amir Tibon will discuss the chances for success there, and also the growing danger of escalation in the West Bank after another wave of violent attacks by extremist settlers against Palestinian villages. At what point will the Palestinian population, and perhaps some of the Palestinian Authority's security forces, respond in kind to those attacks and throw the whole region into another round of fighting? And is such a scenario a foregone conclusion, or can it still be avoided?
Read more on Haaretz.com
The Art of the Deal – or the Art of Bullshit? Trump's Wariness of Another Iran War
Hormuz Deal Would Hand Iran an Unprecedented Geopolitical Victory
How Much Longer Can Lebanon Withstand Israeli and Hezbollah Obstruction?
How Netanyahu Convinced Trump's Board of Peace to Rewrite Its Gaza Deal With Hamas
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Gadi Eisenkot "hasn't finished his rise" in the polls after his party, Yashar, has overtaken Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party for several weeks in a row, while the potential coalition of opposition parties is soaring past that of the current government, said Haaretz columnist Dahlia Scheindlin, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast.
Scheindlin, a veteran political strategist and analyst, noted that even the right-wing pollsters, who are heavily biased in favor of Netanyahu's coalition, are showing numbers that point to "a decline ever since the ceasefire and the war with Iran," reflecting perceptions among supporters who once "saw him as a great global statesperson."
The podcast panel, including Haaretz correspondent Nagham Zbeedat and host Allison Kaplan Sommer, reviewed the noteworthy political events of the past week, most prominently the intriguing news that could shake up the coalition mathematics: the Arab Islamist Ra'am Party's plans to invite a former senior police officer and centrist Jewish politician to claim the number two position on its list.
"Having a Jewish Israeli politician join an Arab party, especially an Islamist political party," would represent a "significant milestone," Zbeedat said, predicting that the move would boost support for Ra'am and increase the chances that an anti-Netanyahu coalition would invite the party into a coalition, which could well be its key to winning power.
Zbeedat herself, however, is not lending her vote to Ra'am or any other political party. She explained on the podcast why, like many other Palestinian citizens of Israel, she chooses not to participate in elections. She does not believe, she said, in taking part in a "performance" of democracy and granting "legitimacy" to a government that "enables the daily occupation struggles" and "doesn't accept my existence."
Read more:
Game Changer? What if This Jewish Lawmaker Joins an Israeli Arab Party
Why I, a Palestinian Citizen, Don't Vote in Israeli Elections
Arab Parties Are Talking Unity. Their Voters Have Much Bigger Issues
With Confidence, Conviction and Even Talking Occupation: The Democrats Are a New Sight in Israeli Politics
How Arab Party Leader Mansour Abbas Changed Israel's Political Game
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On this week’s Haaretz Podcast, guest host Joshua Leifer talks to Pnina Pfeuffer, a liberal, feminist ultra-Orthodox social activist. The Jerusalem-based Pfeuffer, CEO of the New Haredim, recently petitioned against a Knesset bill that would permit gender-segregated study tracks for master's and doctoral degrees in Israeli academic institutions.
Pfeuffer represents a growing minority inside the Israeli ultra-Orthodox public that is interested in “full citizenship, with full obligations and rights” in the Jewish State. This is a public that wants the Israeli government to enforce the military draft on Haredim and teach math and English in Haredi schools, instead of continuing the de facto Haredi autonomy in which many Israeli rules and norms are absent.
According to Pfeuffer, the Haredi community reflects Israel as a whole, and younger Haredim - like their secular and religious Zionist counterparts - are radicalizing, and are more right wing than their parents. Some, as Leifer notes, are part of a “far-right Haredi street movement that is in the Ben-Gvir camp or even more right wing.”
Addressing the American Jewish community, Pfeuffer asks that those giving money to Israeli causes “educate themselves” about who they are supporting, “because a lot of liberal funding and good intentions” end up promoting gender segregation and far-right politics.
Read more:
Can Israel's New One-line Law Shield Haredim From IDF Service?
Israel Advances Bill Legalizing Gender Segregation in Universities
Gender Segregation in Academia Is the Government's Divide and Conquer Strategy
The Israeli Town Where Itamar Ben-Gvir Ranks Second Only to the Messiah
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on traveling to the White House three months before the Israeli election signals his desperation to boost his sinking fortunes at the polls, Haaretz senior columnist Esther Solomon told the Haaretz Election Podcast.
Despite his unpopularity with major portions of both American political parties and his turbulent relationship with President Donald Trump regarding the ongoing conflict with Iran, the Israeli leader “does still think that a photo op with Trump is going to play well for him, even though it's not entirely clear if Trump is going to provide exactly the kind of celebratory hugs” he wishes for, Solomon said.
But in his current political situation, the Israeli leader “has to pull out every single stop, and he is doing that across the board. Whether it's in terms of military operations, every kind of political manipulation or strategy that he has, in order to pull every last possible vote for the bloc of parties that would support him to be prime minister.”
Fellow Haaretz columnist Joshua Leifer added that over the past year, “when Netanyahu flies to the United States, it has been to convince President Trump to jump back into the war, and I think that that's probably what he wants to do under the pretense of going to mourn the late Senator Lindsey Graham."
On the podcast, Solomon and Leifer joined host Allison Kaplan Sommer to discuss the rising fortunes of Netanyahu’s opposition and the growing signs of concern in the ruling coalition camp, illustrated by an AI-generated video of rival Gadi Eisenkot featuring an image of his slain son, that was widely condemned as offensive.
The panelists also discussed how escalating settler violence in the West Bank is making the months until the election more volatile and dangerous.
Leifer said that Israelis must “take seriously” statements by Netanyahu’s extremist right-wing partners that “this is the last chance that the settler right is going to have for a long time to stake its claim in the ground and end the possibility of a two-state solution. We should not be naïve about the lengths to which they are willing to go to prevent that possibility from happening."
Read more:
In D.C., Netanyahu Will Bid Farewell Both to Lindsey Graham and Unconditional U.S. Support
Analysis by Joshua Leifer | Will Israel's Opposition Be Able to Undo Netanyahu's Damage?
'People Here Like Ben-Gvir's Tough-guy Approach': Will This Netanyahu Stronghold Near Gaza Go Further Right?
'Not a One-man Party': Likud Blocks Netanyahu Bid to Scrap Primaries
'The Israeli Government Has an Interest in Disrupting the Elections, Giving Free Rein to Thugs'
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Both Israeli leaders and the Israeli public – lulled by both President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden’s backing of Israel – are utterly unprepared for the generational tsunami taking place when it comes to American support for the Jewish state, Haaretz’s opinions editor Amir Tibon told the Haaretz Podcast
"Approximately 60 percent of Americans have a negative view of Israel, and the younger you go, the worse it gets – we're close to 80 percent," said Tibon, who previously served as Haaretz’s Washington and diplomatic correspondent. "Israelis are looking at the top line, which is what does Trump have to say about us? And they're ignoring the iceberg, which is hidden underneath the daily Trump noise, of negative views of the country."
"We’re going to have a lot of problems once this older generation leaves the American political scene, and most Israelis don't understand it yet," he said.
In his conversation with podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Tibon also addressed the topic engaging most Israelis: whether or not Israel will be pulled into the continuing military confrontation between Iran and the United States, either at the request of the U.S. president or in response to a potential strike by the Iranians.
He also addressed Gaza, both as a journalist and as a Gaza border resident. If Trump’s plan for rebuilding Gaza remains stagnant, he said, the situation is a “ticking-time bomb” with the “continuation of war” being inevitable. Tibon, who survived the October 7 attack on Kibbutz Nahal Oz, as detailed in his book, said that the ghosts of that day are ever present in daily life.
"The memory is still there, and the fear is still there, and the trauma. And I think what is most lacking is a sense of optimism that we will have a better reality a year from today."
Read more:
Americans Souring on Israel – but Not Warming to Palestinians, Pew Poll Finds
Haaretz Found Israel's U.S. Influence-op Accounts. No One Actually Follows Them
Half of Jewish Americans Don't Think Protesting Israel Is Antisemitic, Poll Finds
103 House Democrats Vote to Cut U.S. Aid to Israel in Landmark Symbolic Vote
The Constant Campaigner: Netanyahu Has Been Running for Reelection Since October 7
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be even more unpopular than the current polling demonstrates, Haaretz columnist Joshua Leifer said on this week’s edition of the Haaretz Election Podcast.
“I have begun to think the polling is not telling the whole story,” he said, in a discussion on how voters who believe Netanyahu is causing irreversible damage to Israeli democracy and want him removed are currently ping-ponging between “optimism and apocalyptic thinking.”
The “apocalyptic thinking,” Leifer said, involves speculation as to whether Netanyahu, anticipating defeat, somehow uses the precarious security situation to prevent free and fair elections on the scheduled date.
"After everything we've experienced over the last four years, can we rule out that apocalyptic scenario? We can't rule it out, sadly," he said.
Haaretz correspondent Judy Maltz, who joined Leifer and host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the weekly podcast panel, said she observed much of this disquiet with the country’s leader as she travels the country to speak with voters ahead of the October 27 election, from Arab cities to upscale suburbs to West Bank settlements where the most extreme elements of the government draw their support.
In the settlement of Alon Shvut, she met people “conflicted” over whether to support Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
“On the one hand, they're very angry at Bezalel Smotrich and his party for supporting [Netanyahu’s] draft exemption bill for the ultra-Orthodox,” she said. “It really, really bothers them and angers them that the party that is supposed to represent this community voted in favor of this bill.”
At the same time, “they tell you there has been nobody in history who has done more for us in preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state than Smotrich. He’s given them more than any other minister. So they don't know whether they should or shouldn’t vote for him.”
Read more:
Haaretz's 2026 Election Poll Tracker: The Latest Projections
Analysis by Joshua Leifer: If Netanyahu Loses the Election, Will He Go Full Trump?
Who Is Gadi Eisenkot, and What Does He Stand For?
Read Judy Maltz's election dispatches from across Israel and the West Bank:
'The Jews Turned Against Us, Even the Leftists': The Bedouin City Poised to Play Kingmaker in Israel's Election
In Haifa, the 'Putin Aliyah' and Despairing Arab Citizens Warn of A Dire Future
Many of the Voters Who Could Swing Israel's Next Election Are Naftali Bennett's Neighbors
'My Party Has Been Stolen': The West Bank Settlers Drifting Away From Israel's Far Right
Why Umm al-Fahm Is Drawing Attention From Both Ends of Israel's Political Spectrum
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In his first interview with an Israeli media outlet since his confrontation with armed settlers and Israeli soldiers in the southern West Bank last week, Representative Ro Khanna spoke with Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer in a wide-ranging conversation about the now-famous incident, the “cruelty” he witnessed in his visit to the West Bank, and how Israel’s “disproportionate and inhumane” behavior in the Gaza war has changed his policy positions and the way that both he – and Americans at large – view the Jewish state.
"Israel has lost Americans under 50 – not just Democrats but Republicans," he said. “It is one of the most foolish strategies to have antagonized an entire American generation, and that's what Bibi Netanyahu has accomplished."
In the interview, Khanna recounted how Israeli settlers mocked and antagonized his delegation, and parked their vehicle in front of his to block the road to Khirbet Zanuta, a Bedouin village in the South Hebron Hills that has been forcibly displaced by settler violence twice since 2023, despite a High Court ruling that requires Israeli authorities to safeguard the Palestinians’ return.
"We were quickly told to get into our van, and they blocked our van from exiting,” he said, saying that the settlers and the IDF forces who “took their side” should be investigated and prosecuted. “You can't do that. I've called it detainment. You could call it false imprisonment."
In reaction to subsequent statements on the incident issued by the Israeli military and top officials, he said that he was “more disturbed” by their “lies” than by “the incident itself.”
Khanna, a California Democrat who has made it clear that he is interested in a presidential run in 2028 and that he plans to make Palestinian rights a central issue on his platform, added, “the next American president will demand the arrest of violent settlers.”
Reiterating his belief that “Gaza was a genocide,” Khanna also said that anyone who “wants to see the cruelty of humanity” should “spend a day in the occupied West Bank."
He said he had visited Israel three times in the past – including trips with Jewish groups – and today, he is “saddened” and “pained” that Israel’s “contribution to human civilization is being corrupted because of an ugly occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, because of extreme elements that want to see the aspirations for a greater Israel, and because of an unwillingness to recognize the humanity and dignity of the Palestinian people.”
Read more:
Op-ed by Breaking the Silence's Nadav Weiman: I Joined Rep. Ro Khanna on His West Bank Visit. Here's What I Saw
Israel's Response to Settlers Detaining Ro Khanna? Call J Street's Judaism Into Question
West Bank Palestinians Flee Homes in Zanuta Amid Settler Violence, Failed IDF Protection
Erased: Israeli Settlers' Brutal War on Palestinian Communities in the West Bank
Israel to Fund Settler Group Sanctioned by U.K., France and Canada, Claiming Grant Will 'Reduce Youth Violence'
Israel Pushes Regulations to Legalize West Bank Farm Outposts
An Israeli Shooter Goes Free – and Returns to Terrorize a Grieving Palestinian Village
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With Israeli elections set for October 27, Iran is increasingly pairing its military actions with aggressive online campaigns designed to sow chaos and conflict – alongside ongoing efforts to recruit Israelis as spies, Haaretz cyber and disinformation correspondent Omer Benjakob warned on the Haaretz Election Podcast, in a roundtable with podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer and correspondent Linda Dayan.
“We’ve let the digital arena fester,” Benjakob said, in a stinging critique of the way in which Israel’s vaunted security services have dropped the ball in online foreign influence that has now been “supercharged” by AI.
One of the reasons the phenomenon has been difficult to combat is because “nine times out of 10, you can’t differentiate between a pro‑Iranian campaign and a pro‑Netanyahu campaign,” he added, noting that Israel’s prime minister and his far-right ruling coalition and the country’s enemies, he noted, have a stake in maximizing extremism and division in the months leading up to Election Day.
In their review of the week’s political headlines, the Election Podcast panel also discussed U.S. Democratic presidential hopefuls Rahm Emanuel, who addressed Israelis in Tel Aviv last week, and Ro Khanna, who was detained by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the southern West Bank – and the rise of former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot in the polls and the nature of the threat he poses to Netanyahu.
Eisenkot appeals to voters who identify as right-wing and voted Likud in the past, but are seeking a “sane right” this time around, Dayan observed. “He offers a security‑heavy, ‘big Z’ Zionist party” that, unlike Likud, “isn’t embarrassing itself by unleashing very loud but not very content‑rich people onto the public.”
Read more:
Iran's Other Weapon: How Israel Woke Up Late to the Threat of Election Interference
Gadi Eisenkot Is Quietly Gaining Ground Inside Likud Territory. Will It Be Enough to Defeat Netanyahu?
Latest Poll Shows ex-IDF Chief Eisenkot's Party Maintaining Lead Over Netanyahu's Likud
'The IDF Is Lying': Rep. Ro Khanna Calls for Arrest of IDF Soldiers He Says Were Involved in His West Bank Detention
Op-ed by Nadav Weiman: I Joined Rep. Ro Khanna on His West Bank Visit. Here's What I Saw
Rahm Emanuel's Tough Love Wins Warm Welcome in Tel Aviv
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The far-right religious Netanyahu government is doing its best to “push away” liberal non-Orthodox American Jews from Israel, said Rabbi Rick Jacobs, leader of the U.S. Reform movement, on the Haaretz Podcast.
“We’re not going away. We’re actually leaning in,” he said. “You can’t trade in non‑Orthodox Jews for evangelical Christians. We’re stuck, you’re stuck with us, we’re stuck with you – we’re the Jewish people.”
During the era of negotiations over the 2016 historic compromise between non-Orthodox movements and the Israeli government over an egalitarian plaza at the Western Wall for mixed-gender prayer, Jacobs said he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – and the premier’s close advisers – were in regular contact.
Today, he said, “it has been years” since there has been a phone call – let alone a meeting – between the leader of the largest American Jewish membership organization and the Israeli leader – and, nearly a decade after the collapse of the compromise effort, the government is moving legislation through the Knesset that would not only forbid but criminalize egalitarian prayer, as well as women reading Torah and wearing traditionally masculine ritual garments, at the Western Wall.
“It’s not just that you’re going to get hassled: You could literally spend seven years in jail,” said Jacobs, noting that additional proposed laws regarding the Law of Return and conversion, together with the Western Wall bill, “reflects a demonization – not just a difference, but a demonization – of non-Orthodox Jewry.”
On the podcast, Jacobs confronted the deep political challenges facing liberal and progressive American Jews regarding the “shockwaves” in the U.S.-Israel relationship, the spike in antisemitism since October 7 and Israel’s reaction to it.
“There's this notion I hear it all the time, particularly from officials of the Israeli government, which is: ‘They all hate us … Everybody hates Israel. Everybody hates the Jews. So it doesn't matter what we do here, [with] settler violence in the West Bank – if we eradicate that, they'd still hate us. And issues around pluralism and democracy don’t matter, because they'll always hate us.’
“I just would like to bring the view that says actually, it does matter.”
Read more:
Bill Banning Egalitarian Prayer at Western Wall Bound to Face Serious Legal Challenges, Warns Gov't Lawyer
Op-ed by Women of the Wall's Anat Hoffman: Israeli MKs Mull an Evil and Absurd Bill That Promises More Jail Time for Worshippers Than Rapists
Rahm Emanuel's Tough Love Wins Warm Welcome in Tel Aviv
30 Percent of Jewish American Adults Say Israel Committed Genocide in Gaza
Israel's U.S. Envoy Says Minister's Verbal Attack on Reform MK in Knesset Was 'Disgusting'
The Raucous and Roundabout History of Reform Judaism
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Unless something dramatic changes, the upcoming Israeli election will either end in a deadlock or a bold move to “get rid of the foolish self‑imposed arbitrary constraint of not forming coalitions with Arab parties,” political strategist and Haaretz columnist Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin said on the Haaretz Podcast.
With neither the pro-Netanyahu bloc nor the opposition parties coming close to the 61 Knesset seats they would need to take power, Scheindlin said that the Jewish Zionist Israeli parties – likely in the opposition – will be pushed to do what she believes is the right thing.
"Of course, there should be Arab parties in a governing coalition. They are 20 percent of the population. There should be no ban on parties that represent citizens of this country," Scheindlin said.
In the roundtable discussion with Haaretz correspondent Linda Dayan and host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Scheindlin discussed the new iterations of veteran parties on the center right and the left, vying for the voters who would like to see Netanyahu replaced – including those who previously voted for the prime minister and hold center-right views
These parties, Dayan said, are branding themselves as the “sane right” or the “non-schmuck right.” Their main differences with Netanyahu and his ruling coalition come down to drafting ultra-Orthodox young men to the army – and the government’s refusal to create a commission of inquiry on the events of October 7.
Dayan also discussed the phenomenon of family members of former hostages throwing their hats in the ring on “every side of the political spectrum.”
Read more:
How Israel's Soft Right Could Undo the anti-Netanyahu Opposition
Analysis by Dahlia Scheindlin: Can the Most Right-wing Government in Israel's History Lose an Election Over Security?
Analysis by Dahlia Scheindlin: In His Own Words: Naftali Bennett Is Committed to Annexing the West Bank
Arab Israelis Aren't Looking for Token MKs. They're Looking for Genuine Change
In Haifa, the 'Putin Aliyah' and Despairing Arab Citizens Warn of A Dire Future
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Brad Lander said on the Haaretz Podcast that his resounding victory in the race for the Democratic nomination for Congress in a New York City district reflected a desire for a "reset in the U.S. relationship with Israel in the Democratic Party voting base – including in one of the most Jewish districts in the country."
Lander won by more than 30 points in New York's 10th District, covering downtown Manhattan and western Brooklyn. His win over AIPAC-endorsed incumbent Dan Goldman was part of the primaries sweep by candidates backed by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Like the other Mamdani-backed candidates, Lander campaigned on a platform opposing additional U.S. military aid to Israel and condemning AIPAC as being "dangerous." Lander said on the podcast that, once he is in Congress, he will support "steps I think will help shift away from what I see as a catastrophic 'hug Bibi' policy, which both Joe Biden and Donald Trump essentially adopted."
At the same time, he told podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer that he still considers himself a "liberal Zionist" with ties to Israeli peace groups, and that he opposes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. The former NYC comptroller differentiated himself from Mamdani and other members of his progressive camp who do not recognize Israel as a Jewish state and oppose nearly all 'normalized' contact with Israeli representatives.
"When people hear I will sign on to the Block the Bombs Act, and that I won't vote in favor of additional U.S. military aid to Israel while it is violating Palestinian human rights and international law, people think that's someone who has joined the 'Israel haters.' But I promise you I haven't.
"What I want is a path toward rebuilding Gaza under Palestinian leadership, an end to settler violence and meaningful negotiations toward mutual recognition," he said. "I'm very clear about my politics. You can check my mentions – I get called a 'Zionist baby killer' in my mentions as often as I get called a 'kapo.' So people know who I am."
Read more:
Why Israelis Should Stop Being Afraid of Mamdani-backed Brad Lander
Mamdani-backed Candidates Sweep New York Democratic Primary, With Israel as Fault Line
New York's Primaries Send a Clear Message: Democrats Must Reckon With Israel and AIPAC
Dan Goldman Says Support for Israel Cost Him New York Democratic Primary
Israel Critic Scores Major Democratic Primary Upset as Progressive Wave Reaches Colorado
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In the inaugural episode of Haaretz’s new Election Podcast, host Allison Kaplan Sommer welcomes the first weekly panel of Haaretz analysts who will be examining and explaining developments in the intensifying countdown to the fateful elections this fall.
This week, senior analyst Esther Solomon and Palestinian affairs correspondent Nagham Zbeedat assess the state of a race in which neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his opposition currently have a path to victory according to the polls.
At the moment, “Netanyahu is more or less maxed out on however many people will still be loyal to him,” Solomon said. “He cannot crack the numbers to get anywhere near a majority to form a coalition.”
She discussed the ways in which Netanyahu visibly battled for political survival in a hastily called press conference Saturday night – from his reframing of the ongoing bloodshed in Lebanon to an invitation to his opponents to join him in a unity government.
Netanyahu’s call for unity and vow to do “everything to diffuse” a “civil war,” Solomon said, showed an extraordinary “degree of chutzpah” given that “there has been no issue he hasn’t tried to divide and inflame and incite within Israeli society.”
Zbeedat provided an update on ongoing negotiations between Hadash, Ta’al, Balad and United Arab List to run together as the Joint List, as the Arab parties did in previous elections. The four parties – which have the power to tip the balance when it comes to building a government coalition – remain divided over whether they would be willing to join a coalition led by the winning Jewish Zionist party.
The Gaza war and the lack of action to tackle the organized crime and gun violence tearing apart Arab society, Zbeedat noted, is likely to drive more Palestinian citizens of Israel to the polls than in years past.
In her reporting, she said, she has spoken to Arab Israelis who have ideologically boycotted elections in the past and “now want to vote – but more out of desperation, out of despair and out of fear, rather than faith in the election and democracy.”
Find the latest projections from Haaretz's 2026 election poll tracker
Read more:
Analysis: A Reality Check for Netanyahu's Delusional Post-Election Unity Ploy
Analysis: For Arabs, the Ballot Box Is the Last Resort to Tackle Israel's Crime Epidemic
Majority of Israel's First-time Voters Believe Their Ballot Can Change the Country, Poll Shows
Arab Parties Mull Partial Joint List as Rifts Over Joining anti-Netanyahu Coalition Continue
Jewish-Arab Movement Standing Together Launches Knesset Run With Party Built on 'Politics of Hope'
'The Jews Turned Against Us, Even the Leftists': The Bedouin City Poised to Play Kingmaker in Israel's Election
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For the Australian Jewish community, the date of December 14 carries as much gut-wrenching trauma as October 7 and September 11 does for Israelis and Americans, Daniel Hochberg, co-chair of the Union for Progressive Judaism's board, told the Haaretz Podcast.
On the six-month anniversary of the terrorist shooting attack on 1,000 Jews celebrating Hanukkah on Bondi Beach that killed 15 members of the tight-knit community, Hochberg and Haaretz editor Noa Levin reviewed the aftermath of the second most deadly attack in Australian history and its ongoing effect on the country’s politics and daily life for Australian Jews.
“We don't feel safe as we did before,” Hochberg said, describing an increased “closing of spaces” to Jews who once felt part of progressive circles. “It has affected our sense of self-worth, our belief in our contribution to Australia is in question, and we are struggling with that. Our walls are being built higher and higher, so there's this feeling that the Jewish community, by almost default, is being isolated from the rest of Australian society.”
On the podcast, Hochberg and Levin discussed the controversial formation and the ongoing testimony of the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, the national inquiry of the Bondi attacks which is focusing on growing antisemitic discourse in Australia, and the political impact of the attack inside and outside the Jewish community.
The “totally unimaginable” violent attack and the Jewish community’s reaction, Levin noted, has sparked a conversation among young Jews regarding “who gets to speak for us at a national and international level, and what recommendations would all kinds of Jews like to see to ensure their safety in Australia,” while “touching on the intersection between criticism of Israel and antisemitism.”
The Bondi attack, she said “has made the community incredibly sensitive to anything that looked, felt or smelt like something that could harm us, and that they have a right to do that, but I think it created something quite challenging in terms of discourse about Israel.”
Read more:
'Reckoning Without Consequence Is Performance': Australian Jews Cautiously Welcome Antisemitism Inquiry Findings
Australia's Historic National Inquiry Into Antisemitism, Explained
How a Portrait of an Australian Jewish Leader Humanizes an Anguished Community
The Australian Film About Jewish Fear and Unease Shot in Bondi Before the Massacre
Despite a Moderate Downturn, Antisemitic Incidents in Australia Remained High for Second Year Running
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In a special investigation on a "revolution" that has taken place over the past three years, Haaretz reporters Yarden Michaeli, Matan Golan and Yaniv Kubovich detailed the push to restore and drastically expand Israeli presence in the northern West Bank that was part of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Gaza disengagement plan in 2005.
On the Haaretz Podcast, Michaeli discusses how the settler movement and far-right politicians have spent the 20 years since the disengagement took place planning how to execute their "return" to four West Bank settlements located in the largest contiguous area of Palestinian population in the area.
With the ascent of the most far-right government in history in 2022, members of the movement have used their power and influence in what is essentially "the settlers' government" to "return big time," Michaeli said.
In the newly published Haaretz investigation, "Undoing History," Michaeli and his team reveal how 18 new settlements and eight new army bases are cutting through the largest contiguous Palestinian population in the West Bank.
The comprehensive effort includes military deployments, new bases and checkpoints, road construction, land expropriations, the displacement of more than 32,000 residents from three refugee camps and the terrorizing of daily Palestinian life in what senior military officials warn could destabilize an already volatile region.
Every aspect of the plan, Michaeli warned, is "bad news" and "harmful" to the Palestinians living there, and that the infrastructure in place "will be very hard to remove" – undermining the Oslo Accords and the possibility of a two-state solution.
Read more:
Undoing History: As the World Watched Gaza, Settlers Charged Ahead in the West Bank. A Clash Is Imminent
Foreign Ministry Rejects Smotrich's Claim He Axed 1997 Hebron Accord With PA, as Israel Takes Municipal Powers From Palestinians
How Israel Is Using Archaeology to Advance West Bank Annexation
Former PM Ehud Olmert: Israel Is Conducting a Systematic Campaign of Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes Against Humanity in the West Bank
'Nobody's Born a Soldier': The Israeli Teens Refusing the Military Draft Say They Can Take the Backlash
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As Israelis focused on the life-and-death issues around conflicts with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, the Netanyahu government has slowly but steadily progressed in its campaign to eliminate the gatekeepers of liberal democracy in order to consolidate the power of elected politicians, constitutional law expert Prof. Adam Shinar told the Haaretz Podcast.
The steps it has taken were “not exactly the package” of radical reforms it proposed in 2023 that brought hundreds of thousands of Israelis into the streets, Shinar said, but they are firmly marching Israel in the direction of a weakened judiciary, civil service and media, by putting more power in the hands of the ruling parties.
Initially, after October 7, the push for a judicial coup ground to a halt. But as the war continued, explained Shinar, a professor at Reichman University, changes were still made – if not directly through legislation, then by the appointment of Netanyahu loyalists in key positions.
"The government saw an opening. It said, 'Hey, we can do many, many things. The public is distracted, the public is concerned about other things, and we can do a lot.”
If Netanyahu remains in power after the fall elections, Shinar predicted, the push for a total judicial overhaul will return “on steroids.”
To succeed in moving Israel further from the democracy he emphasized, "You don't have to dismantle everything, it's enough that you dismantle several key components – limiting judicial review and changing the way the attorney general is appointed. … That's 60 to 70 percent of the way.”
Read more:
Haaretz Explainer: What Are the Judicial Overhaul Bills About, and Can the High Court Strike Them Down?
With the Election Clock Ticking, Netanyahu's Coalition Is Pushing Contentious Judicial Overhaul Bills
Anti-government Protests Take Place Across Israel, Five Arrested
Knesset Grants Likud Lawmaker Immunity After She Exposed Identity of Shin Bet Agent
When Roman Gofman Came to Israel, He Was a 'Stinking Russian.' Now He's Set to Head the Mossad
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Israel is in a strategically weakened position – and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will take a hard political hit if reports on the details of U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding are accurate, Haaretz columnist Joshua Leifer said on the Haaretz Podcast.
Netanyahu had been “riding high,” planning to face Israel’s upcoming elections in the fall having compensated for his failures that led to October 7 by boldly “reconfiguring the map of the Middle East, and disassembling Iran's proxy network of Hezbollah and Hamas, and taking on the Iranian regime itself,” Leifer said.
The Israeli leader thought “his legacy [would] be rehabilitated by those wars. Fast forward to where we are now, and that's not the case, and he’s having to confront that,” Leifer added. “Strategically, Israel's in a terrible place, where the Iranian regime is stronger than it was, and it is now able to enforce a new kind of equation where Israeli freedom of movement is limited by the potential threat of ballistic missiles from Iran – which wasn't the case prior to October 7.”
Netanyahu, Leifer said, has been “backed into a corner” on all of Israel’s fronts – Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and now Iran. He must follow Trump’s dictates and has turned Israel into “a total vassal state of the U.S.” and “Trump’s lapdog.” If he were to defy Trump, he runs the risk of losing American support, which could endanger the country even more.
Read more:
What You Need to Know About the U.S.-Iran Deal – and What It Means for Israel
Report: Billions in Frozen Iranian Assets May Be Released Under U.S.–Iran Deal
Israeli Withdrawal From Lebanon Not Part of U.S.-Iran Deal, White House Official Says
'Don't Bullshit Us, Trump': Netanyahu Loyalists Rage at 'Treacherous' United States Over Iran Deal
Netanyahu Says Israel to Remain in Security Buffer Zones in Lebanon, Gaza and Syria After U.S.-Iran Deal Signed
Amos Harel: The Iran Fiasco Is Netanyahu's Biggest Failure Since October 7
Read more analysis from Haaretz's Joshua Leifer
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When Mayor Zohran Mamdani refused to march in New York City’s Israel Day parade - the first mayor of the city to do so in over 60 years – “did not surprise” Rabbi Josh Weinberg, who participated in the parade. But the liberal Zionist Reform rabbi was surprised to discover that he was marching alongside far-right ministers like Bezalel Smotrich and members of the Kahanist Otzma Yehudit party.
Had he known, said Weinberg, Vice President of the URJ for Israel and Reform Zionism, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast, he would’ve held a sign making it clear that “Smotrich’s Zionism does not reflect our ideology at all, and is in fact antithetical to who we are as Jews and Zionists, and even as Americans. His brand of racism, discrimination, xenophobia – everything that he stands for – we want to totally reject while still maintaining our love and support for Israel."
Weinberg added that a statement by Smotrich that the New York event resembled the Jerusalem Day flag march – an event regularly marked by harassment and violence towards Palestinians in the city – made him “want to throw up.”
Also speaking on the podcast, Haaretz's New York correspondent Etan Nechin said that the Israeli ministers in the parade presented their presence as an “act of defiance by the Israeli Knesset and by the Israeli government” to “show” Mamdani.
Assessing the mayor’s relationship with the Jewish community over the first six months of his term, Weinberg praised Mamdani’s initiative to increase spending to secure Jewish institutions with the rise of antisemitism, but regretted his boycott of the parade and his high-profile commemoration of Nakba Day online.
Nechin countered with his belief that Mamdani had taken advantage of harnessing his popularity to take advantage of “this sudden historic opportunity to platform and champion Palestinian voices.” Mamdani, he said, “is a symptom of American public opinion – especially young Americans who are having conversations about Israel and Palestine, but not on Israeli or Jewish terms. It’s something that the Jewish community and Israelis will need to contend with.”
Read more:
Majority of Americans Hold Unfavorable Opinion of Israel as Confidence in Netanyahu Plummets, Pew Survey Finds
'We're Done Apologizing': Inside the Israeli Far Right's Big Weekend Out in New York
Mamdani 'Offended' by Participation of Far-right Israeli MKs in Israel Day Parade
Nearly Half of Young U.S. Jews Want to Replace Israel With Binational State, Poll Finds
How Trump's Second Term Marks the Ascendance of The New Jewish Orthodox Right
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U.S. President Donald Trump has tired of the Israel-Iran conflict, but a solution remains elusive as missile fire renewed Sunday following an Israeli attack on Beirut that provoked the Iranian regime.
“I think he's had enough of us,” said Haaretz senior defense analyst Amos Harel, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast. “He's fed up with this region. This is taking a lot longer than he thought, and it was less successful than he assumed. He’s paying a huge price at home domestically because of the economic effects, and he doesn't seem that tough anymore.”
Joining Harel on the podcast is former Mossad official Sima Shine, an Iran expert at Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies, who said that Iran clearly has the advantage in negotiations with the United States towards a long-term cease-fire.
While she said she doesn’t believe that Tehran wants to prolong the war, she said, they will only end the fighting “on their terms.”
“They are much more determined, they are willing to pay the price and therefore, they have the upper hand in negotiations” on the key issues – their nuclear capabilities and access to the Strait of Hormuz, despite the fact that their economic situation is “very bad.”
As a result, she said, she believes that ultimately “Iran will dictate the terms” of any agreement.
Read more:
Israel Strikes Multiple Targets Across Iran, Including Petrochemical Plant
'I Call the Shots': Trump Urges Netanyahu Not to Retaliate After Iranian Missile Attack
UN Nuclear Watchdog Says It's Been Unable to Inspect Iranian Facilities
Report: Pentagon Officials Suspect Israel Tried to Spy on U.S. Officials Involved in Iran Talks
Analysis by Amos Harel | As Israel Tips Back to War With Iran, Netanyahu Gets His Wish
Israel's New 'Iran Spies': Young, Broke and Mostly Clueless
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For B'Tselem executive director Yuli Novak, the firestorm around the New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof decrying sexual violence by Israelis against Palestinians in the West Bank and in Israeli prisons has had the wrong focus.
Speaking on the Haaretz Podcast, Novak said the Israeli government’s "propaganda machine" and other critics focused on challenging the facts regarding the abuse described in the piece, which she says are backed up by "dozens of testimonies" collected by her organization.
"I would say it's much less a question whether these things [sexual abuse of Palestinians] are happening or not happening, and much more about what it means for all of us, and first and foremost for the victims."
In its report on prisons, based on testimonies from Palestinians detained and then released from 16 detention facilities after October 7, B’Tselem documented "ongoing torture, physical and mental" abuse and the use of starvation and denial of medical treatment "as a policy."
B’Tselem’s conclusion: that these facilities represented "a network of torture camps," which Novak admitted "was hard to grasp as an Israeli. For me – torture camps have been something that happens somewhere else."
October 7 had been an opportunity and a “catalyst” for right-wing extremists in the government to influence policies in the direction of “their nationalist, racist, and in the case of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and the prison system – I would even say their sadistic agenda,” Novak said.
“We can keep telling ourselves that we're a democracy, but if Israel, holding almost half of its population under its control without the right to go and vote for the system that governs them, it's not a democracy.”
Read more:
B'Tselem Report: Testimonies Describe 'Pattern of Sexual Violence' Against Palestinian Prisoners
UN Secretary-General Report Accuses Israeli Forces of Rape, Sexual Abuse of Palestinian Detainees
Ben-Gvir Is Not Alone: These Are His Collaborators in the Illegal Treatment of Palestinian Prisoners
Op-ed by Yuli Novak: Even if You Call Israel a Democracy, It Is Still Apartheid
Israel Must Let Red Cross Visit Palestinian Security Prisoners, High Court Rules
Read B'Tselem's full report on Israeli prisons as a network of torture camps
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The Gulf countries are spending “enormous amounts of money to try to mask the economic consequences of the Iran war from their population,” Gregg Carlstrom, The Economist’s Middle East correspondent, said on the Haaretz Podcast.
Carlstrom, speaking from Dubai, explained that with the Strait of Hormuz blocked by Iran, Gulf states are flying in consumer goods, food and medicine normally imported by ship “at a huge expense” so their citizens don’t experience shortages or empty shelves in stores.
However, he warned, by the end of the summer, if the security situation remains precarious and the Strait remains blocked – and especially if active warfare with Iran is renewed – the economic toll will be impossible to avoid, and these countries will worry about their many expat residents packing up and leaving.
In a conversation with Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Carlstrom described a “roller coaster” of changing attitudes in the Gulf States regarding the ongoing U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict.
Initially, in March, he said, when the fighting was at its peak, leaders of most of the Gulf countries were “quietly urging the Trump administration to keep fighting until the Iranian regime was overthrown or severely weakened.” By now, he said, the U.S. president “really has lost the support he had in the Gulf,” as leaders unanimously tell Trump that “this needs to end.”
The same leaders, he said, are harboring “anger at Israel” for what they see as its “major role in pushing America into this war.” As a result, he said, he is skeptical of an expansion of the Abraham Accords, as promised by Trump, in the near future.
On the podcast, Carlstrom also discusses the expanding confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the failed negotiations to end it due to what he sees as the “poor job” Lebanon is doing managing its relationship with the United States.
Read more:
Israeli Plans for Beirut Strike Place Strain on U.S.-Iran Diplomacy
How Israel's Adventures in Lebanon Are Giving Iran a Second Chance
Report: Satellite Images Show Iran Clearing Entrances to Missile Facilities Buried in Strikes
A 'Stupid, Futile Waste of Lives': The Empty Triumph of Israel's Latest Conquest in Lebanon
Report: UAE Carried Out Dozens of Strikes on Iran in Coordination With Israel and U.S.
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Both of Israel’s wars in Iran have been “strategic failures” and critically damaged the country’s deterrence, Danny Citrinowicz, a former top Iran expert in Israeli military intelligence, told the Haaretz Podcast.
He cited a long list of missteps and misguided assumptions that led to the failure of the solo military operation in 2025 and the joint U.S. attack in February.
“We overestimated air power and underestimated Iranian resilience,” Citrinowicz said, resulting in the “worst possible strategic reality, with a more extreme, decentralized regime in Tehran,” and heightened tensions with the U.S. – all while highlighting Israel’s dependence on the U.S. as a weakness.
While Iran once feared an attack by Israel, he noted, its leaders have now learned that they can be attacked by the two strongest air forces in the world and emerge with its regime intact, as well as “the capacity to launch missiles and drones, and theoretically has the potential to move to a nuclear bomb.”
Moreover, in a boomerang effect, he noted, wars launched to deter Iran’s nuclear program have likely intensified Tehran’s motivation to acquire nuclear capacity in order to prevent future attacks.
In his conversation with podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Citrinowicz – a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies – also discussed the intensifying conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and U.S. President Donald Trump’s continued belief that Saudi Arabia will soon join the Abraham Accords, which he called a hope “detached from reality.”
Read more:
Iran and U.S. Trade Air Strikes After Trump Dismisses Report of Hormuz Deal
Trump's Iran Deal: Netanyahu's 2018 Dream Is The World's 2026 Nightmare
Analysis | Israel Demands to Disarm Its Regional Enemies, but Refuses to Pay the Price
Trump: Not Sure Iran Deal Possible Unless Saudis, Qatar Join Abraham Accords
U.S. May Need Years to Rebuild Weapons Stockpiles Depleted in Iran War, Report Says
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The first major primary battle in the 2026 U.S. midterm elections resulted in a significant victory for AIPAC and other pro-Israel megadonors, but Haaretz's Washington correspondent Ben Samuels warned that their celebrations could be premature.
The defeat of Representative Thomas Massie – a rare Republican antagonist of U.S. President Donald Trump and harsh critic of Israel whom AIPAC "has wanted to take down for years" – happened after more than $30 million was spent to defeat him in what was the most expensive Congressional primary in American history. Massie was targeted by Trump and his supporters for his disloyalty to the U.S. leader.
"They may have won the battle with Thomas Massie, but it's very clear that the ideology and the agenda and the vision that Thomas Massie embodies is not going anywhere – especially with younger voters and also with voters on the progressive left flank that found themselves to be weird ideological allies with this guy," Samuels told the Haaretz Podcast.
Samuels also discussed the role that Israel and Iran are playing on the campaign trail, and the contradictory messages from the Trump White House on the drawn-out negotiations toward a potential agreement with Iran.
"So little was actually accomplished from the kinetic military campaign that the United States and Israel launched, that any sort of negotiation that Trump is trying to eventually spin as a win wouldn't actually be that much of a win," Samuels said. It would just be moving the goalposts back."
Samuels was skeptical regarding reports that Trump is blaming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for dragging him into the Iran war – and that the U.S. is subsequently not keeping Israel in the loop regarding negotiations – as well as theories that the U.S. leader has soured on Netanyahu after singing his praises early in the war.
"If anything, Trump defies the odds and brings himself closer to Bibi. That being said, there is no doubt that Israel is effectively being sidelined in these current negotiations."
Read more:
GOP Rebel Thomas Massie Loses Kentucky Primary After Record-high Spending From pro-Israel Foes
Vocal Israel Critic Chris Rabb Wins Pennsylvania Primary, a Victory for Progressive Democrats
Analysis by Ben Samuels | Record Pro-Israel Lobby Spending May Have Achieved Its Goal in Kentucky. But at What Cost?
Texas Candidate's Antisemitic Conspiracies Trigger a National Democratic Backlash
In Unlikely Team-up, Hunter Biden and Candace Owens Trade Conspiracies on Israel and the 'Epstein Class'
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As Israel is fighting enemies on multiple fronts, it can't afford to lose any of its vital strategic assets. And according to Dr. Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis, a researcher at Tel Aviv's Institute for National Security Studies, it is in danger of losing one of those assets: the support of American Jews.
"The loss of the special relationship between Israel and the US will force Israel to reconsider its security priorities and matter greatly to the security and foreign policy of the State of Israel," Sasson-Gordis told the Haaretz Podcast. "Within that, the Jewish community over the decades has been a major pillar of that support."
A new report co-authored by Sasson-Gordis details the data behind the deterioration of support and explains the reasons for the dramatic drop – even as the Trump White House is offering "unprecedented levels of support" for Israel. The report is intended as a wake-up call for Israeli leaders and offers a list of policy recommendations designed to stave off the deterioration.
Polls show that among the U.S. public at large, "Israel is in the red in terms of net public support in every audience except older Republicans – even traditional groups that the current government and previous Israeli governments have seen as stalwart supporters of Israel."
The Jewish community faces a "generational cliff," he said, as American Jews, particularly young Jews, are deeply influenced by the multi-front wars waged by Israel.
"If you're today a young American Jew who is not very strongly affiliated with Israel to begin with, then the experiences that you've had – either on campus or where you work or on social media – cause you to wonder whether supporting Israel is worth it for you socially and morally."
But even older members of the U.S. Jewish establishment, including institutional leaders, he said, "feel like Israel is not listening to them and is not interested in their opinions, even as they are increasingly affected by Israeli actions on the ground."
Read more:
Most U.S. Jews Do Not Identify as 'Zionists,' Even When They Support Israel, JFNA Survey Finds
Netanyahu Minister to Reform Rabbi MK Kariv: 'You're Marrying Dogs in Your Delusional Synagogues'
Analysis by Joshua Leifer: J Street Isn't Out of Touch With American Jews, but Israel's Settler Right Is
'A Critical Mass of U.S. Jews Is Now Disgusted With Israel'
Analysis by David Rosenberg: The Future of American Jewry Looks Bleak
Read the full INSS report
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U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed his desire not to "get stuck" in Middle East conflict and clearly wants to avoid a renewal of full-on war with Iran – but he may not have a choice, Haaretz senior analyst Amos Harel told the Haaretz Podcast.
"The Iranians are not playing ball. They're not willing to make the concessions he's demanding," Harel said. "Under these circumstances, he may be pushed into a corner" and resume strikes on Iranian targets.
It is a scenario that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clearly desires, Harel said, but it isn't clear whether Trump will include Israel directly in the offensive if it returns to striking Iran. The Israeli military is, he notes, on "high alert."
On the podcast, Harel speaks to host Allison Kaplan Sommer about the "fake cease-fires" in Israel's multiple fronts – where agreements exist on paper, but attacks and drone strikes continue – in Gaza, between Iran and the Gulf states, and between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
In Lebanon, he noted, the number of IDF and Lebanese casualties – the latter of which recently passed 3,000 – are "massive" considering that there is no full-scale war officially raging and a recently renewed cease-fire agreement is supposed to be in place.
"We're shedding blood there, and this is not going anywhere positive soon," Harel said. "It all goes back to the fact that Netanyahu time and time again insists on not initiating any kind of diplomatic solution after the guns go silent."
"After operational success is achieved, he always refuses because of his political situation and refuses to undertake any kind of serious negotiations with the other side."
Read more:
Trump Says He Paused Attack on Iran, Signals Nuclear Deal May Be Possible
Analysis by Amos Harel: As Trump Hesitates With Iran, Israel Acts as if Return of War Inevitable
Unmoved by Trump's Ticking Clock, Iran Forms a New Reality in the Persian Gulf
Israeli Soldiers in Lebanon Complain of Risky, Pointless Missions in Broad Daylight
Israel and Hezbollah Trade Fire Across Lebanon Border Despite Cease-fire Extension
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On a special edition of the Haaretz Podcast celebrating its 500th episode, host Allison Kaplan Sommer speaks to iconic Israeli musician David Broza – the composer of "Things Will Be Better," one of Israel’s best-known peace anthems – on performing in a time of war, chaos and despair in his country.
“There’s no rationale to being Israeli,” Broza, 70, said on the podcast. "My mission is to exist as an artist and to be very much aware of where I come from and not just leave it behind and shy away from it."
Broza describes himself as being “sad but hopeful,” adding that he “would have to stop singing if I wasn’t hopeful.” Having lived in Francoist Spain in his youth, he observed that how "in fascist governments, the artists are the first ones to be burnt, banned, thrown out... And yet you can't erase the art. We need strength now. We need songs. We need art."
Broza’s music crosses cultures and genres – fusing Spanish guitar with contemporary rock and folk music, and emphasizing themes of peace and social justice. He has collaborated widely with top artists including Paul Simon, Sting, Van Morrison and Bob Dylan – and with Palestinian artists.
His belief in art to overcome conflict puts him at odds with advocates of boycotts.
"I am so adamantly anti-boycott that you can't even believe it. BDS is such a lie. It's bullshit," he declared on the podcast. "Boycott will put an end to any hope for future collaboration. If we stop talking to each other, if we do not communicate with each other, we will never step over the threshold."
At the same time, he added, "I don't disregard what's going on. I don't disregard the ultra right-wing government we have here, or the crazy government in America." But his role, he said, is clear – to play the role of the troubadour and sing “to anyone, settlers or leftists.”
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Jews in the United Kingdom watched voters in their country gravitate to parties on the extreme right and left in the country’s local elections – following a campaign where antisemitism was used as a political football, and controversies over the government’s relationship with Israel, pro-Palestinian protests and free speech factored into voting.
On the Haaretz Podcast, London-based correspondent Hagar Shezaf and senior analyst Esther Solomon discuss the impact of the results, which have been described as an “earthquake” for its rejection of the Labour Party led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
While covering the campaign, Shezaf said, she encountered a voter who told her “I voted for Labour my whole life. I won't be doing that anymore because of Gaza and Iran.”
The surge in support for the far-right anti-immigrant Reform U.K. party, Solomon observed, “leaves Jews in a very, very difficult position” as the party and its leader, Brexit architect Nigel Farage, made multiple bids for Jewish support during the campaign – including in the aftermath of the stabbing attacks in the Jewish neighborhood of Golders Green on April 29.
“Reform really wanted to put over the message that it was there to ‘look after’ the Jews – by cracking down on what it calls an invasion of migrants … and on the Muslim community of the U.K. … but it’s not just about protecting the Jews. It's putting them up on a pedestal in order to stamp on all sorts of other minorities.”
On the left, Solomon said the newly resurgent Green Party – led by leader Zack Polanski – “were not willing to really confront the issue of antisemitism, and constantly tried and deflect to the idea that is all about their criticism of Israel, and that they refuse to be silenced.”
Read more:
Analysis by Esther Solomon on Britain's Nationalist Surge: It's Not Only Reform's Farage That Disunites the Kingdom
How Antisemitism Can Push British Jews Into the Arms of Farage and the Far Right
Cheers for Reform, Boos for Labour: 5,000 U.K. Jews and Allies Rally in London Against 'Poisonous' Antisemitism
'No Longer Safe to Be Visibly Jewish': After Stabbing Spree, Some British Jews Say It's a Matter of When They Leave, Not If
U.K. Greens' Zack Polanski Discourages 'Globalize the Intifada' Phrase but Opposes Policing It
U.K. Greens' Polanski Slams Starmer for 'Weaponizing' Antisemitism After PM's Rebuke
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October 7 and the Gaza war radically changed the way many people around the world, including Diaspora Jews, viewed Israel.
For Toronto-based journalist Jesse Brown, the turning point came not with Hamas' massacre itself, but with the domestic backlash that followed.
“Canadians got angry with Jews after October 7, and the entire national discourse seemed to just turn against Jews in a way that I wouldn’t have imagined possible,” he told the Haaretz Podcast.
Using police-reported hate crime statistics from Canada and the United States, Brown argues that a Jew in Canada is now about nine times more likely to be the victim of a hate crime than a Jew in the United States.
Ironically, he explained to podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, the progressive political atmosphere in Canada has made things worse for Jews, not better.
Brown’s podcast series “What is Happening Here” documents the skyrocketing antisemitism targeting Jewish institutions and neighborhoods in Canada, including synagogues being shot at, firebombed or vandalized, and Jewish-owned businesses and individuals singled out for harassment campaigns.
Brown contends that debates over whether specific chants or actions are “anti-Israel,” “anti-Zionist” or “antisemitic” obscure the practical impact on Jewish communities. While he stops short of equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism, Brown said that contemporary anti-Zionism is “just as dangerous to Jews.”
Read more:
Canadian Watchdog Reports Record Number of Antisemitic Incidents in 2025
Canadian-Jewish Groups Decry Efforts by pro-Palestinian Groups to Strip Jewish Schools of Their Charity Status
Toronto Police Arrest Suspect in Passover Shooting at Jewish-owned Restaurant
Campaign Targeting Jewish Children's Summer Camps in Canada Condemned as Antisemitic
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War-weary Israelis have clearly tired of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership, but it is still uncertain as to whether opposition forces will be able to put aside their wide ideological differences to defeat him in the October election, Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin told the Haaretz Podcast.
Scheindlin, a veteran political analyst and strategist, said the recent announcement that Netanyahu challenger and former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett will join with Yair Lapid – also a former prime minister – is a harbinger of an opposition seeking to run in a united bloc.
What is unclear is whether this push for a united opposition is “an extremely sophisticated political strategy based on mathematical calculations, or it's absolutely an arbitrary guess – a finger in the wind.”
Lapid and Bennett are joining forces despite the fact that Bennett’s right-wing pro-occupation positions are firmly in line with Netanyahu’s, “minus the corruption and populism,” said Scheindlin, while Lapid supports a two-state solution.
Asked if this election is indeed as fateful as it is being framed, Scheindlin replied that in her experience, every election in Israel’s history is expected to “change the course of the country. And every time it was true.”
The difference is, she said, that even if Netanyahu is defeated, “Israel has gone so far in the direction of an undemocratic transformation and becoming a permanent expansionist, occupying undemocratic state – it will be much harder to turn the clock back.”
Read more:
Explained | What to Know About Israel's 2026 Election
Analysis by Dahlia Scheindlin | The Problem With Naftali Bennett
Far-right Minister Smotrich Says Forming Government With Arab Party Chairman 'Worse Than October 7'
Top Israeli Elections Official Resigns, Risking Electoral Integrity
Despite the Cascade of Crises, Israeli Politics Remains Stuck
Analysis by Dahila Scheindlin | Israel's Biggest Existential Threat Isn't Iran
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A diplomatic crisis over Israeli import of stolen grain from occupied Ukraine exploded this week following the publication of a Haaretz investigation that documents Ukrainian allegations that Russian ships were bringing the wheat and barley to Israeli ports.
National Security and Cyber editor Avi Scharf and diplomatic correspondent Liza Rozovsky explain on the Haaretz Podcast how the investigation unfolded, the international fallout, its effect on Israel-Ukraine relations and the harsh war of words between the two countries.
The story began in mid-April with Ukraine’s announcement that “they had warned the Israeli authorities about a ship arriving with stolen Ukrainian grain, and that they had asked Israel to take necessary actions to seize the ship,” Scharf said. “To their dismay, Israel did not adhere to the warnings and let the ship unload and leave Israel.”
The incident led Scharf to revive an investigation into the import of stolen Ukrainian grain that he had begun in late 2023, but was put on hold after October 7 and the all-encompassing Gaza war.
His story, documenting the systematic importation of wheat, sparked strong reactions both from Ukraine and the European Union, which threatened sanctions against Israel if such imports continue.
Rozovsky noted that the Ukrainian reaction was “the most straightforward attack on Israeli policy than we’ve seen since the beginning of the war” between Russian and Ukraine.
After the story was published – and Haaretz revealed the name of the company importing the grain – the company announced that it was cancelling the purchase.
Read more:
Haaretz investigation: How Ukrainian Wheat Stolen by Russia Is Smuggled to Israel
Zelenskyy Says Israel Broke Own Law by Buying Stolen Ukrainian Wheat From Russia, Vows Sanctions
EU Mulls Sanctions on Israelis Over Stolen Ukrainian Wheat Smuggled by Russia
Israeli Importer Drops Shipment of Allegedly Russian-stolen Ukrainian Grain
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The average American watched the Gaza war from afar as a "dramatic and gruesome humanitarian crisis that Israel was responsible for" – but the U.S.-Israel war in Iran is having a far greater impact on U.S. voters and politicians, Haaretz columnist Joshua Leifer said, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast.
"The perception is that this was a war that no one in America wanted," and "that America has been tricked into a war of choice, and that this is Israel’s fault."
This, he said, has fueled the erosion of congressional support for continuing massive military aid to Israel – and in the Democratic Party, growing support for refusing to sell arms to Israel entirely.
On the podcast, Leifer also discusses the state of the fragile cease-fire with Iran, and the "nightmare scenario" possibility of a prolonged period in which there will be no renewed fighting nor an agreement, leaving the region in dangerous limbo.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to suffer domestic political consequences for a failure to achieve the promised victory in Iran, Leifer added, noting that prior to October 7, Netanyahu had been positively perceived by voters as "a relatively cautious and conflict averse prime minister who chose not to get Israel involved in protracted wars. Here, he has really plunged Israel into quite a mess."
Read more:
Analysis by Joshua Leifer: Presidential Hopeful Rahm Emanuel Made Surprising Remarks on Israel. What He Left Unsaid Is Just as Big
Analysis by Joshua Leifer: Opposing Weapons Sales to Israel is the New Democratic Norm
Trump Not Happy With Latest Iran Proposal to End the War, U.S. Official Says
Former Top Biden Official Says Netanyahu Helped Create a 'Genocide in Gaza'
Iran War Has Depleted U.S. Ammunition Stockpile Significantly, Report Says
U.S. Asked IDF to Curb Gaza Strikes; Source: Israel Agreed, but Failed to Comply
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Fighting antisemitism online was meant to be the focus of the Israeli government’s multimillion-dollar digital PR campaign run by President Donald Trump’s former digital guru, Brad Parscale.
But instead, Haaretz disinformation and cyber correspondent Omer Benjakob said on the Haaretz Podcast, Parscale’s firm has built a network of pro-Israel websites targeting the U.S. evangelical right, stressing the contrast between Western and “Judeo-Christian” values while promoting negative messages regarding Palestinians and Islam.
Among them is “praise for international calls to recognize settlements,” and “articles dedicated to why giving the Palestinian Authority control of Gaza is a terrible idea, and almost worse than letting Hamas take control."
Repeatedly, he added, the websites reflect a “compulsive obsession with perception and narrative,” insisting that all negative content about Israel online is false and manipulated.
On the podcast, Benjakob explained that the multiple new websites created by Parscale's consulting firm are designed to look like research institutes and think tanks in order to optimize them for ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and other AI chatbots.
He questioned both their efficacy and value.
“They seem to be fueling a lot of the issues that, you know, led us here – for example, demonizing the Palestinians instead of solving our conflict.”
Read more:
Fighting the 'Jesus Was a Palestinian Lie': Inside Israel's MAGA Influence Campaigns
Losing the Republican Base, Israel Pours Millions to Target Evangelicals and Churchgoers
Your Car Is Spying on You – and Israeli Firms Are Leading the Surveillance Race
Spyware Firm NSO's Chief Steps Down as U.S. Lifts Sanctions on Intellexa Executives
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The final moments of Vivian Silver’s life were a “pivotal turning point” for her son Yonatan Zeigen, who now dedicates his life to Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation, following in the footsteps of his peace activist mother, who was slain in her home in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7.
Speaking on the eve of Israel’s Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers and terror victims, Zeigen recalled his final goodbyes with his mother with the gunshots of Hamas terrorists at her doorstep in the background, and the loss that he described as jolting him out of what he calls a “political coma” and moved him into full-time activism.
Zeigen is a board member of The Parents Circle-Families Forum that co-sponsors the annual alternative joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony.
He attended the ceremony in his youth together with his mother and immediately after her death, he knew that this would be the appropriate place to mourn her and continue her mission.
He said on the podcast that the alternative ceremony represented “how two peoples share a land: They don't share a land by creating artificial divisions and dehumanizing each other. They do it by looking each other in the eye by celebrating together and also crying together, mourning together.”
Zeigen said he was not comfortable being part of the government-sponsored ceremonies memorializing terror victims like his mother.
“Bereavement is framed in a political manner in Israel. It is utilized to boost morale by diving into our narrative of victimhood and rallying around and making heroes of those who die in the conflict. It’s not the way that I feel comfortable commemorating my mother.”
Read more:
'Swimming Against the Tide, but Swimming': More Israelis and Palestinians Now Choose to Grieve Together
Op-ed by Yonatan Zeigen: Most Israelis Are Willfully Ignorant, Opting to Deny or Justify. But There's an Alternative
Thousands of Israelis Sign Petition Urging TV Networks Not to Broadcast State Independence Day Ceremony
Op-ed by Yonatan Zeigen: When Justice Means Revenge, the Open Wounds of Israelis and Palestinians Won't Heal
'She Knew Peace Was the Only Way': Thousands Attend Funeral of Slain Canadian-Israeli Peace Activist Vivian Silver
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The dramatic landslide election in Hungary toppling authoritarian populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, resonated deeply for Israel in diverse ways, explained Haaretz’s David Issacharoff, who covered the election from Budapest, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast.
For Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his supporters, it meant the loss of his “closest ally” in Europe who would no longer stand up for Israel by pulling out of the International Criminal Court when it issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders – and bucking the European Union in defense of the Jewish state.
For Israelis desperate to rid themselves of Netanyahu’s leadership, the end of Orbán’s 16-year reign offers inspiration. Issacharoff noted that young anti-Orbán voters he interviewed “said exactly the same things that many young Israelis believe too: that he’s been making their country a pariah, and they don’t feel part of the wider world anymore.”
Although the two countries are very different, there are lessons from the Hungarian campaign of Péter Magyar, and Netanyahu’s opponents must learn them. The biggest lesson? "Turning the anxiety into hope."
Read more:
Hungary's PM-elect Magyar Signals Shift in Israel Policy With Return to International Criminal Court
'It Won't Get Worse': After 16-years Under Orbán, Hungary's Jews Are Split Over What Comes Next
'We Hope You Can Do It Too': How Israel Echoed in Hungary's Election
Hungry for Hungary: Why Are Netanyahu's Ministers Flocking to Budapest?
Could Orbán's Crushing Defeat Be a Blueprint for Netanyahu's Opponents?
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As diplomatic talks between Iran and the United States continue in an effort to extend the temporary cease-fire due to expire on April 22, public opinion surveys show that while a majority of Israelis oppose the cease-fire, support for the Iran war is declining.
Alon-Lee Green, the national co-director of Standing Together and one of the main organizers of demonstrations against the joint U.S.-Israel offensive in Iran, told the Haaretz Podcast that he is “encouraged” by the decrease in support among Israelis.
“I think a lot of people are waking up and joining this protest,” Green said. “It's delusional to believe that the promises that have been made to us at the beginning of the war are still valid somehow, and that we're still fighting to change the regime in Iran or to save Iranians while we're killing them and making them refugees.”
Through the protests, Standing Together “tried to remind the Israeli public that just eight months ago, we ended the first Iran war with big promises, with Netanyahu saying that we scored a historic win, that we annihilated the ballistic missile program of Iran, that we annihilated the nuclear threat of Iran,” Green said. “
Green was among the protesters who, after being detained by police at the April 4 antiwar protest in Tel Aviv, were not permitted to enter a shelter during a missile barrage. Police instead took detainees to the lobby of a nearby building that was enclosed entirely in glass. On the podcast, he also recounts being targeted by right-wing activists who have poured chemicals outside his door and repeatedly tried to break into his private residence.
Op-ed by Alon-Lee Green | I Trusted Israel Police to Protect Me at the anti-Iran War Protest. I Was Wrong
Israel's Top Court Orders Police to Allow Tel Aviv Anti-gov't Protests Despite IDF Gathering Limit
Most Israelis Disapprove of Government's Handling of Iran War, Survey Shows
Analysis by Dahlia Scheindlin | Chained to Netanyahu's Wars, Israelis Don't Know What to Do When They Are Over
At Israel's Anti-war Protests, You're Safer as a Horse Than a Human
Majority of Israelis Oppose Iran Cease-fire and Expect War to Resume, Poll Shows
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is "extremely disappointed" by the terms of the temporary cease-fire hammered out between Donald Trump's White House and Iran, but has little choice but to accept it and try to spin it as a victory, said Haaretz senior defense analyst Amos Harel, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast.
With none of Israel's declared goals of the war achieved - defeat of the regime and elimination of Iran's missile and nuclear threat, Netanyahu still "has to keep up appearances," said Harel. "He has to tell his public, his voters, that this was an enormous success. But this is not the way things actually happened. What we have is massive operational success, which - as we knew in advance - did not translate into a strategic victory."
Israel's leadership is concerned the clock may be ticking, Harel predicted, on Trump's position allowing Israel to continue fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is why Israel hit targets intensively immediately following the cease-fire announcement.
"It's quite clear that Netanyahu wants to keep the Lebanon front open," he noted. "It's beneficial for him to keep striking Hezbollah, to hit them and do damage, and also create the notion among Israelis that the war still goes on."
Read more:
Israel Botched the Iran War – and Shattered Its Standing in the U.S.
Fragile U.S.–Iran Cease-fire May Collapse Within Days, Even as Tehran Pushes to End War, Israeli Officials Say
As U.S. Retreats, Iran Seeks to Sway Cease-fire to Establish New Regional Order
Iran: Sanctions Relief, Reparation, Control of Hormuz to Be Discussed in Talks With U.S.
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As the war with Iran drags on and the conflict with Hezbollah intensifies, a growing number of Israelis are “losing faith” in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promises of a decisive victory, Haaretz senior defense analyst Amos Harel said on the Haaretz Podcast.
IDF senior officers admitted this week that Israel underestimated Hezbollah’s remaining capabilities following the November 2024 cease-fire, Harel said.
At the moment, he said, “It's clear to anybody watching this carefully that it's hard to reach a final victory again against Hezbollah. Hezbollah may no longer be the army of terror that it was in 2023, but it is capable of launching 100 rockets a day,” while coordinating their attacks with their Iranian sponsors, in a conflict that has now surpassed the length of the second Lebanon war.
In his conversation on the podcast, Harel noted that Israel’s enemies – Iran, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon – now share a common war philosophy: “You win by not losing.”
“At one point, Hamas assumed that it could defeat Israel. So did Iran. Now, after getting knocked so hard by Israel and the U.S., Iranian ambitions are different. What they're talking about is surviving, suffering blows and remaining on their feet.”
U.S. President Donald Trump fails to understand this, Harel said, which is why he continues to fail to get the deal he seeks to end the conflict. “They're not interested in long-term deals. It's about surviving through chaos; surviving through resistance.”
Read more:
Analysis by Amos Harel: Trump Ramps Up Threats Against Iran, and Braces for Longer War Than Planned
Despite the Netanyahu Government's Promises, the IDF Admits It Can't Disarm Hezbollah
How Hezbollah Turned Into Israel's Main Front in Its War With Iran
Without Evidence, IDF Claims Again That Hezbollah Is Extensively Using Ambulances for Military Purposes
Why Israelis Are Losing Faith in the Iran War
Haaretz Explains: How Does the Israeli Military Censor Work?
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With a high-profile conflict between IDF soldiers and a CNN crew, the establishment of five new Israeli settler outposts on territory meant to be under Palestinian Authority control in a single night, and skyrocketing settler violence aimed at erasing Palestinians from their land, the situation in the West Bank has “definitely worsened” during the Iran war, Haaretz West Bank correspondent Matan Golan told the Haaretz Podcast.
Golan joined her colleague, Yarden Michaeli, for a podcast conversation focused on what is unfolding in the West Bank and Gaza while the world’s attention is diverted to the major regional conflict between Iran, Israel and the United States.
“It’s hard to count how many incidents of cars set on fire, and raids of settlers on Palestinian villages” have occurred over the past month, Golan said.
What the West Bank and Gaza have in common, Michaeli noted, is a situation in which steps designed to be interim measures – such as the Yellow Line separating Gaza – don’t appear to be temporary.
Since last autumn’s cease-fire, the IDF has maintained control of more than half of the Gaza Strip, and, as Michaeli explained, a Haaretz investigation has revealed the construction of military outposts and infrastructure that point to plans for an entrenched long-term presence.
“All of this is happening in the context of the government pushing in a certain direction,” he explained, “and what makes us so concerned about it is the experience we have from the West Bank.”
In the rest of the Strip, which remains under Hamas’ control, he said, the humanitarian crisis continues.
“We have 2.1 million people now in Gaza that are crammed to less than half the size of the land that they had prior to the war” with hundreds of thousands living in tents or makeshift shelters amid destroyed buildings with no access to power, fuel or running water – and over 18,000 severely ill people who have been denied entry to the West Bank and Jerusalem to receive medical care by Israeli authorities, Michaeli explained.
Read more:
32 Outposts, 10 Miles of Ground Barrier: IDF Builds New Border Line Inside Gaza. Here's How It Looks
Gaza Aid Reduced by 80 Percent Since Start of Iran War as Food Prices Surge
IDF Suspends Reserve Battalion Whose Soldiers Detained CNN Crew in West Bank
Palestinian Man Shot Dead, 14 Wounded in West Bank Settler Raids as Five New Outposts Established in One Night
Analysis by Dahlia Scheindlin | Don't Buy the Israeli Right's Sudden Concern for Settler Violence
Who Gets to Decide What Counts as an Accident in the West Bank?
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As Israelis continue to run to bomb shelters for protection from deadly Iranian missile attacks, the prospect of hosting Passover meals has felt overwhelming.
On the Haaretz Podcast, acclaimed food writer and cookbook author Adeena Sussman offers her best advice and coping tips and shares recipes that are easy and fun to execute, even in wartime. Cooking for the holidays can be stressful, she said, but in challenging times, becoming immersed in what is happening in the kitchen “can be a little bit of an escape”
“This year, let’s focus on what is meaningful and what will keep us sane,” she suggested.
Sussman is the author of three cookbooks – the first was published as the COVID-19 epidemic was sweeping the world, the second on the eve of October 7. Now her upcoming cookbook is due to be published this month in the shadow of the war with Iran.
This makes her, she says, experienced with “simple cooking for complicated times,” which is the theme of her new book, "Zariz," the Hebrew word for “speedy.”
Also complicated: being one of the most prominent representatives of Israeli cuisine in the U.S. at a time when Israel is such a hot-button issue that mainstream media outlets balk at writing about her work. Despite that, she said, her audience continues to grow, particularly online.
As she prepares to tour to promote her new book, she said, “I'm not trying to hide where I live or who I am, and I'm neither trying to defend nor indict a political situation for which I personally have no control.”
On the podcast, Sussman shares her tales of running an informal “WarBnB” where she cooks for friends and family camped out at their home because of the lack of a bomb shelter where they live, plus the most popular bomb shelter snacks, and how the war has transformed the atmosphere of Tel Aviv's Carmel Market near her home.
Read more:Adeena Sussman Offers You Something for the Weekend in Her New ‘Shabbat’ Cookbook
This Love Letter to a Tel Aviv Food Market Is Getting a Lot of Love in America
Only the Shelves Remain: Inside Tel Aviv Wine Bar Shattered by Missiles
Tel Aviv-born Top Chef in London: 'It's Best Not to Say the Word 'Israel' Right Now'
Sex, Wine and Sacrifice: Jewish Holidays Used to Be Wild, Dramatic Affairs
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While at war with Iran and a civilian population under missile attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government “has been working relentlessly towards the goal of making the public sphere of Israel more religious, its governance more autocratic, and the chances of replacing its leader slimmer,” Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn said on the Haaretz Podcast.
The push for the anti-democratic judicial coup and empowerment of ultra-Orthodox autonomy “hasn't changed despite October 7,” Benn said. He observed that it had slowed significantly on that date, but today, the massacre and ensuing war has given Netanyahu “even more motivation” to “escape any responsibility and accountability for October” as he looks ahead to the election scheduled for this fall.
In Benn’s wide-ranging conversation with podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the four-week-old war and its impact on Israeli politics and society, Benn pointed out that the effort was not unusual, with many examples of wartime leaders taking advantage of “less public resistance” to consolidate their power.
“Governments at war use it to limit civil liberties. We see it in Russia in the past four years, very visibly, where the last remaining bastions of some sort of opposition to President Putin have been wiped out.”
Read more:
Netanyahu Says Israel 'Expanding' Lebanon Buffer Zone as Country's Death Toll Crosses 1,000
Stand-in Justice Minister Formally Recommends That President Herzog Pardon Netanyahu
Israel Preparing to Shift Pace, Targets of Iran Strikes if Trump Announces Cease-fire
Op-ed by Aluf Benn: The Strange Case of Dr. Bibi and Mr. Benjamin
Analysis by Anshel Pfeffer:In Iran, the Netanyahu Doctrine Is Now Facing Its Ultimate Test
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The U.S.-Israeli goal of initiating war in order to prevent Iran from going nuclear may result in a boomerang effect, according to former senior Mossad official Sima Shine, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast.
After the war, “if the regime stays in power, and there are good chances that it will,” Shine said, it will be far weaker, but it will possess “high emotional revenge” for what it has suffered and reinforce a belief that “only nuclear capability will deter future attacks, and I think they will do anything they can do to get to a nuclear bomb.”
Shine says that Western countries and Israel both fail to understand that “Iran is a system” – not driven by individual leaders, which is why the targeted assassinations of the country’s top officials have not harmed the country as much as expected.
While Iran would surely like the war to end sooner or later, she said, they have staying power and will only do so if they can exact a “high price,” and Tehran’s threats to disrupt world energy markets must be taken seriously.
In her conversation on the podcast, Shine categorized Iran’s hold on Lebanon through Hezbollah as a “tragedy” for Israel’s neighbor. She said it appeared that the strength of Hezbollah when it joined the war in Iran came as a “surprise to Israel. They have more capabilities than we saw before.”
The group, she said, will fight with all they have to preserve their political and military position in Lebanon. A buffer zone in southern Lebanon may be the only way to keep residents of northern Israel safe, “not from rockets and missiles, but from special forces of Hezbollah invading kibbutzim and cities” as Hamas did on October 7.
Read more:
Trump: U.S. in Truce Talks With Iran Aimed at 'Long-term, Guaranteed Peace for Israel'
Tehran's Next Top Leader? The Rise of Iran's Hardline Parliament Speaker Mohammad Ghalibaf
Despite Iran's Denials, Israeli Officials Believe the U.S. Is Talking to Tehran Directly
Survivors of the Iranian strike in Arad: 'We Came Out of the Shelter and Saw Everything Destroyed. Like What We Do in Lebanon'
Israel to Hold Southern Lebanon, Block Residents' Return, Defense Minister Says
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is getting high marks from the Israeli public regarding his performance leading the country in its war against Iran – but for now, these sentiments are not giving his coalition a significant boost in political polling, according to Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast.
Scheindlin, a Haaretz columnist and political analyst, noted the war’s “overwhelming support” among Israeli Jews – reaching over 92 percent.
Despite the “near consensus” supporting the war and high personal approval of Netanyahu as a war leader, she points out, “poll ratings for the Likud and for the coalition government have been flat and stuck at 40 percent, and Netanyahu does not have a majority,” which does not bode well for the election scheduled for October.
While support for the war cuts across partisan lines in Israel, despite attitudes towards Netanyahu, Scheindlin says that surveys in the United States paint a different picture.
"If you look at the results of the question: ‘Do you approve or disapprove of Trump's handling of Iran?’ Scheindlin said, “it basically mirrors his approval ratings in general.”
She added that poll numbers point to the fact that the talk of a split among Trump’s base – especially “America First” Republicans – may be overly “hyped.”
Instead, she observed that U.S. opinion surveys reflected “overwhelming support from Republican voters… close to 80 percent."
Read more:
Analysis by Dahlia Scheindlin: Why Israelis Aren't Giving Netanyahu an Iran Bump in the Polls
Most Israelis Back Iran War but Support Low Among Arab Citizens, Poll Shows
Just One in Four Americans Supports U.S. Strikes on Iran, Poll Finds
Analysis by Joshua Leifer: The post-October 7 Wars in Iran and Lebanon Are Turning Into Netanyahu's Vietnam
Netanyahu's Likud Party Makes No Gains Amid Iran War, Poll Finds
A Billion Shekels a Day: The Number That May Decide When Israel's War With Iran Ends
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U.S. President Donald Trump “needs to find an off ramp” from the war with Iran as soon as possible, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said on the Haaretz Podcast.
While Shapiro said the military results of the war – the decimation of Iranian military assets and elimination of top leaders – are “incredibly impressive,” the United States must recognize that “the weaker party has cards to play, and their cards grow more influential as this conflict drags on,” pointing to the choking of world oil supply in the Strait of Hormuz, draining of U.S. and Israeli anti-missile resources, and attacks by proxies and terrorist groups.
Shapiro, who was ambassador from 2011–2017, said he wants regime change in Iran, but “not through a military campaign. That's not really something we're capable of at any acceptable cost.”
Additionally, he warns, a fall of the Iranian regime will spark “a great deal of chaos, a great deal of spillover of instability to neighboring countries, perhaps a civil war, waves of terror outside of Iran” and more.
“All of that has the potential to suck the United States in much further to the whole region. I could imagine that this is not a high concern for Israelis. Israelis could live with that set of concerns in ways that the United States and the American people will maybe feel differently about and certainly have not been prepared for.”
Read more:
What a Difference 12 Days Make: Why This Israel-Iran War Is Different From the Last One
Trump 'Shocked' That Iran Attacked Gulf Neighbors in Retaliatory Strikes
House Democrats Urge Congressional Testimony by Trump Administration Officials on Iran War
Analysis by Amos Harel | IDF's Grandiose Plans for South Lebanon Ground Offensive Won't Topple Hezbollah
Netanyahu Isn't Dead. But Even His 'Proof of Life' Video Is Being Derided as AI
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Under the shadow of the Gaza war, even before the current conflict with Iran, Israeli filmmaker Hilla Medalia found it “very surprising” that her short film “Children No More: Were and Are Gone” was nominated for an Academy Award – but she was thrilled.
Despite the atmosphere in Hollywood even before the U.S.-Israel military attack in Iran, with petitions to boycott Israeli filmmakers circulated, two Israelis are nominated to take home golden statues at the March 16 ceremony: Medalia's film, in the category of Best Documentary Short, along with Meyer Levinson-Blount’s “Butcher’s Stain,” which is nominated for Best Live Action Short Film.
The nominations are “an incredible achievement of course for both Meyer and I, but also for the entire Israeli film community,” she said, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast.
Medalia’s film follows a group of Israeli activists who in March 2025, after the second cease-fire between Israel and Hamas collapsed, learned that 139 Palestinian children had been killed in a single day by IDF attacks in Gaza.
The small group decided to print out photographs of the children, and stand holding the images silently as an accompaniment to the raucous demonstrations taking place in Tel Aviv calling for a cease-fire that would bring back the Israeli hostages.
Over time their action, Medalia explained, “slowly grew into this bigger vigil that had more than 1,000 people. On each poster there is a picture of a child, their name, their age, where they're from, the day that they were killed. That's it. No political slogans. And they stood in silence.”
She was inspired and impressed by the group’s commitment to remaining silent – even as passersby insulted and cursed them.
Unlike the other films Medalia is competing against, “Children No More” did not make the rounds of the prestigious film festivals to increase its Oscar chances – its path from conception to filming to release was unusually rapid.
“We felt that we could not wait to share with the local Israeli audience and the world.”
Read more:
Oscar-nominated Israeli Filmmaker on Gaza: 'Focusing on Dead Children Does Not Diminish Our Pain'
Why Israel Fears the Faces of Dead Palestinian Children on Its Streets
It Looks Like a Memorial Day Ceremony: The Israelis Protesting With Photos of Dead Gazan Children
Student Oscar-winning Film 'Mirrors the Experiences of Palestinians in Israel'
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Reports of U.S. anger with Israel for targeting Iran’s oil fields in the intensifying conflict have been “massively exaggerated,” said Haaretz senior defense analyst Amos Harel on the Haaretz Podcast.
While the American president “probably felt that Israel took this a step too far,” Harel said, “the truth of the matter is that the Israelis and the U.S. military are deeply coordinated.”
Regarding the entrance of Hezbollah into the expanding war, Harel said that the Lebanese group is “still quite capable of creating damage” to Israel, which is why the IDF has deployed large-scale force against them with airstrikes across Lebanon. Still, he said, “most of the effort and most of the focus remains on Iran.”
Despite the disruption to life in Israel, he pointed out that in the first 12 days of this war, there has been far less actual damage and loss of life in Israel during the two weeks of war last June.
Also on the podcast, Haaretz Jewish World Editor Judy Maltz visits an underground parking lot tent city populated by Tel Aviv residents without adequate overnight protection from missiles - many of whom were second-time refugees.
“Most of the people I met had been there in June” she said. “When Israel and the U.S. attacked Iran, they just packed their bags and came back. They knew the drill already.”
Read more:
Israel Focuses on Hitting Iran's Regime After Exceeding Military Target Expectations
Trump Signals Iran War Nearing End Amid Oil Fears as Hezbollah Surprises Israel
'Priciest Real Estate in Town': Tel Avivians Ride Out the War Deep Underground
Sleepless in Tel Aviv: Iranian Missile Barrages Trigger All-night Sirens in Central Israel
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Recalling the first day of the war with Iran is still traumatic for journalist and activist Anat Saragusti, whose apartment building in central Tel Aviv began to shake as she ran to seek shelter from Iranian missiles targeting the city following the U.S.-Israel attack that morning.
"I didn't believe my eyes," she says of what awaited her when she returned. "The whole living room was covered with broken glass - the carpets, the sofa, the chairs - all over. It was really so scary."
Matching the shattering of the glass in her home, said Saragusti, who monitors press freedom at the Union of Journalists in Israel, is the ongoing shattering of her trust in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government as the war continues, and her dissatisfaction with what she views as an overly-compliant media.
Most Israelis, Saragusti said on the Haaretz Podcast, are "glued to television screens" where retired IDF generals spout military facts and statistics. "There is no room for alternative voices, questions or doubts" regarding the war and "what the end game will be."
"They promised us in the last war in Iran in June that we destroyed the majority of the infrastructure for the ballistic missiles and the nuclear plan of Iran. Then in nine months, [Iran rebuilt] everything from scratch? I don't understand that. I feel that they are lying to us."
Read more:
Op-ed by Anat Sargusti: Israeli Broadcasters Don Uniforms as the Media Becomes an Arm of the Military
Follow the latest updates from Haaretz on the U.S.-Israel war on Iran
One Killed, Two Wounded in Central Israel Following Iranian Missile Barrage, Emergency Services Say
'You Can't Live by the Sword': Israeli TV's Tel Aviv Street Interview Backfires
Iran's Cluster Missiles: What You Need to Know About the Controversial Weapon Targeting Israel
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While the Iranian regime “by and large, needed to be punished” and “did not deserve any mercy,” according to former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, it is possible that “a little bit more flexibility” in the negotiations for a nuclear agreement leading up to the U.S.-Israel assault might have meant they “would have resulted in a different way.”
Olmert made his remarks in a dialogue with Haaretz Global Editor Noa Landau, featured in a plenary at the J Street Convention in Washington D.C. – and coinciding with the initial days of the U.S.-Israel war with Iran.
Olmert expressed satisfaction that U.S. President Donald Trump pushed back on remarks from prominent Republicans that Israel pushed the US into the war and “did not pretend to say that he was fighting for us. He said in the most explicit manner: ‘They are American enemies. This is an American war. I'm fighting for America, and I had to do it for America.’ No one saved Israel, or no one got mixed up in a war in order to save Israel.”
In his dialogue with Landau, Olmert also discussed the Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative he is pursuing with former Palestinian Authority foreign minister Dr. Nasser al-Kidwa to “move forward into entirely new realities on the basis of cooperation and mutual respect and compromise and compassion.” He harshly condemned the ongoing and record-setting settler violence in the West Bank as “obnoxious” and “heartbreaking.”
Speaking out against such actions, he added, "is essential if you want, as a Jew, not to be linked to these actions. You have to speak up.”
Read more:
'I Might Have Forced Israel's Hand': Trump Denies Israel Dragged U.S. Into Iran War After Rubio Comments Draw Ire
As Israeli Defense Officials Push for a Long Offensive, Trump Still Has Doubts
'Both Sides Are Tired of War': Former PM Ehud Olmert Makes Two-state Proposal With Former Palestinian Minister
Police Report Average of Four Daily Incidents of West Bank Settler Violence in Early 2026
The latest reporting on West Bank settler violence
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“It is a time of fear and worry, but also a time of hope” in Iran after the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the early days of the U.S.-Israel assault on the regime in Tehran, said Iranian-American scholar and journalist Arash Azizi.
“The first thing [my family in Iran] told me was that they called me to say they were alive after Tehran was hit, and there are hundreds of civilian casualties,” said Azizi, speaking on a wartime edition of the Haaretz Podcast. Of Khamenei, he said “most Iranians are happy to see him gone.”
Azizi was sharply critical of U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s calls for Iranian civilians to rise up and overthrow their regime.
“It's absolutely bonkers,” he said. “If you had a population that had organized networks ready to take over, you could imagine perhaps something like that happening. But we don’t. So both Trump and Netanyahu keep saying this, and it makes me wonder, do they really believe it?”
He also had harsh words for Iranian exiles like himself, who he said were unprepared for this moment. “We have not done the work, we have not built organizations, we did not get our act together in a way that would be ready to make a successful transition to democracy.”
Also on the podcast: Gregg Carlstrom, The Economist’s Dubai-based Middle East correspondent, reports on the growing anger in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates sparked by the intensity of the Iranian assault that could fuel support among everyday people to pick sides in this conflict.
“The question is, what does that mean? Is it allowing America to use bases and Gulf countries to carry out attacks against Iran, or is it going a step further and militarily getting involved with their own warplanes and troops? I think it's more likely that they're willing to do the former than the latter.”
Read more:
Trump: U.S. Ahead of Schedule in Iran but Can Extend Fighting Beyond Projected 4-5 Weeks
Three Israeli Teenage Siblings Among Nine Killed in Iranian Missile Strike on Bomb Shelter
Analysis by Amos Harel | As Israeli Defense Officials Push for a Long Offensive, Trump Still Has Doubts
Analysis by Zvi Bar'el | Khamenei's Chosen Successor Could Offer Trump a 'Dream Deal' to End the Iran War
'Fire-Starter' or 'Historical Justice'? How Middle Eastern Media Frames the Iran War
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In this special edition of the Haaretz Podcast, recorded during the first hours of the dramatic joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, and as Tehran began its retaliatory strikes on Israel and on U.S. targets across the Middle East, Haaretz senior analyst Amos Harel joins host Allison Kaplan Sommer for a real-time update and discussion.
"The stakes are much higher than last time," Harel said, referring to the 12 day Israel-Iran war in June 2025. For Israelis, "there is a certain amount of danger," although it is impossible to say at this point how hard the country will be hit by Iran and its proxies. For Iranians, "this is going to get messy and bloody," not only because of the military strikes, but also because of growing clashes between government forces and those hoping to throw over the regime.
Read more on the escalating situation:
How the First Day of the Israel and U.S. War with Iran Unfolded
War for Regime Change in Iran: U.S. and Israel Have Ambitious Aims, but Will Trump Stay the Course? / Amos Harel
'Unnecessary, Idiotic, and Illegal' | After Strikes on Iran: U.S. Lawmakers Split on Party Lines As Congress Left in the Dark
Larnaca or Sharm el-Sheikh: Can Israelis Stuck Abroad Amid Iran War Get Back Home?
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For Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, the financial support and professional opportunities afforded by her fellowship at the Wexner Foundation, which plugged her into a network of the “the most powerful Jewish professionals in the country,” were substantial.
But as a feminist rabbi whose most recent book is titled “On Repentance and Repair,” she felt she could not ignore the disturbing reality of the close personal and financial ties between Leslie Wexner, the benefactor of the foundation, and the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, she tells the Haaretz Podcast.
In a personal act of accountability and repentance, in 2019, Ruttenberg – “shocked, disturbed and unsettled” by the early revelations regarding Epstein and Wexner – donated the funds she took from the foundation to an organization confronting sexual violence and challenged others to take similar steps.
There was little reaction to her call at the time. Now, with new details revealed in the Department of Justice release of the Epstein files, she says “my only regret is not speaking out earlier and more forcefully, no matter the cost.”
She warned that “when we try to pretend that none of this is happening, we feed every conspiracy theory. And when we say that who matters are raped children, and when we center the people who are harmed, and when we live the values of our Torah and of every other teaching that we claim is holy, then we dispel those theories, because we become the people who we are supposed to be … the people who are living our values.”
Read more:
Island Visit, NYC Flat and 'Belarusian Girls': Ex-Israel PM Ehud Barak Addresses Jeffrey Epstein Ties
The Ferrari, the Meetings and 'The Redhead': Latest Jeffrey Epstein Files Reveal Ties With Popular Israeli-American Researcher Dan Ariely
Memorializing Jeffrey Epstein? Pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 Confuses Convicted Sex Offender With Beloved Israeli Singer
Life After Harvard: What's in Store for Wexner Foundation's Israeli Leaders Program?
From 2020: Wexner Foundation Named After Billionaire Philanthropist Distancing Itself From Founder
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When an ultra-Orthodox mob attacked two women soldiers in the city of Bnei Brak earlier this week, Israelis were shocked and horrified.
But for Uri Keidar, CEO of Free Israel, this violent expression of ultra-Orthodox opposition to being drafted into the military did not come as a surprise.
“It’s not the first violent occurrence we have seen, and unfortunately, it probably also won't be the last incident. But it's definitely a sad moment for us as a country,” Keidar said, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast.
As the Netanyahu government continues to seek a way to pass legislation exempting tens of thousands of able-bodied ultra-Orthodox men from mandatory military service in order to preserve their political coalition, Keidar sees the country at a “historic” crossroads in which Israelis will stand up and refuse to let it happen.
“It's a very basic idea, I think, that the law applies to everyone,” he said on the podcast. In a post-October 7 reality alongside the IDF in a manpower crisis, he said, “the Israeli public just will not accept the fact” that “there are tens of thousands of young haredi men who are totally healthy, who can join the IDF at any given moment, and are refusing to do so.”
That refusal, he said, represents the country’s “biggest civil disobedience movement since its history” and Israelis “from the right, left and center” are uniting to oppose it.
Read more:
Explained: The Military Conscription Bill Driving Riots in Haredi Cities
Overturned Cars, Motorcycles on Fire: Police Arrest 26 in Haredi Riot Sparked When Two IDF Soldiers Visit Bnei Brak
Bnei Brak Riots Break From Ideology and Become an Outlet for Aimless Rage
Israel Police Tells IDF They Will Not Assist in Arrest of ultra-Orthodox Draft Dodgers
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Even by the most extreme “Romeo and Juliet” standards, Sari Bashi’s romance and marriage to her partner, Osama, has overcome impossible odds.
When the two met in 2006, she related on the Haaretz Podcast, “It was very confusing for both of us, both because of the overwhelming social taboos, and the fact that it was also literally illegal for us to meet up together.”
The two met after he had been “trapped” for six years in the city of Ramallah, where he was pursuing a career in academia. Registered as a resident of Gaza, where he was born, travelling elsewhere in the West Bank – or abroad – meant that the authorities would send him back to Gaza. Bashi had recently founded the human rights organization Gisha, and was assisting him gain permission from the Israeli authorities to study for his doctorate abroad.
Bashi’s new book “Upside-Down Love” – written diary-style from both Bashi’s and Osama’s perspective – chronicles the story of the logistics of their courtship, like a date in which they took a hike in a West Bank countryside and “as we encountered more and more settlers with guns, it became apparent that I had an identity and a language that was common with the people who terrified him.”
But despite the ongoing identity and security challenges, their love persevered. Bashi, who is also the newly appointed executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, talks about their life as a family in the West Bank – and the evolving complicated identities of their two Palestinian Jewish children, as she watches them “engage more in a process of trying to assert who they are. I think it'll change probably a million times before they become adults.”
Read more:
A Jewish Mom and a Palestinian Dad Raise a Family Full of Endless Contradictions
Browse the Umm Forat column (2019-2022) in Haaretz
Israeli Human Rights Groups Tell UN That Israel Increased Use of Torture During Gaza War
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Following the hastily arranged three-hour meeting between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, it still remains unclear whether a military attack on Iran is in the cards, but the two leaders appear “more aligned than not” on their positions, Haaretz’s Washington D.C. correspondent Ben Samuels said on the Haaretz Podcast.
“Whether or not that turns into a world war remains to be seen,” he added, in view of the “Armada in the Middle East and more military assets on their way” that the United States has positioned around Iran to keep the option of a military move on the table.
Netanyahu rushed to Washington to lobby Trump to hold firm in his negotiations with Iran to include demands beyond a halt to their nuclear program. The Israeli position is that in order to forestall an attack, Iran must be forced to limit their ballistic missile capabilities and support for regional proxy organizations – in addition to a commitment from Tehran to improve its treatment of protesters, who have been killed in the tens of thousands by the regime in since late December.
“What you're seeing from Israel is a very articulated view that any sort of negotiation at any deal has to be all inclusive,” Samuels said.
The Trump administration’s position, by contrast, he said, is far from clear.
“Part of this is intentional misdirection on Trump's part, but part of it is also very unintentional. Trump is doing diplomacy by the seat of his pants and by whatever whims are taking over him at that very moment.”
Read more:
Analysis by Ben Samuels | Trump and Netanyahu Prioritize a United Front Over Rocking the Boat on Iran
Trump Says He 'Insisted' That Negotiations With Iran Continue in Meeting With Netanyahu
Netanyahu Joins Trump's Board of Peace Set to Discuss Gaza Reconstruction, Hamas Disarmament Sidelined
Why This Iranian Revolution Scholar Won't Encourage Iranians to Topple the Regime
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The Netanyahu government may not have officially annexed the West Bank, but the ongoing settler violence expelling Palestinian communities from their land – plus the changes in regulation imposing Israeli authority and areas meant for Palestinian self-rule – is driving momentum in that direction, Haaretz West Bank correspondent Matan Golan said on the Haaretz Podcast.
Golan described the ongoing ordeal in the Bedouin community of Mukhmas on the podcast, a case study which illustrates the settlers' use of daily harassment and ongoing attacks on both residents and their property to force Palestinians to relocate into an increasingly small portion of the territory.
The settler outpost of Kol Mevaser terrorizing Mukhmas "has been depopulated and destroyed at least nine times," by Israeli authorities since its establishment in late October, when the young settlers living there engaged in their first spree of beatings, assaults and arson. "Each time, the settlers just escape to the hills below – and despite the fact that it's a closed military zone," she said, they return – and later brag of their destructive acts against Palestinians on social media.
The IDF has consistently failed to provide enough protection for Palestinian residents to remain in their homes, she said. The Israeli and international activists try to provide a protective presence, which helps prolong the Palestinians' struggles to remain, but it has proven unsuccessful: Nearly 50 communities have been forcibly displaced since summer 2023, according to B'Tselem.
On the podcast, Golan also discusses the recent announcement by Netanyahu government officials declaring that it is taking authority in areas meant to be controlled by the Palestinian Authority, in violation of the Oslo Accords. The fact that such measures are being taken to weaken the Palestinian Authority and prevent a two-state solution, she said, "are no secret."
Read more:
Out-of-control Hooded Settlers: Jewish Outpost Was Evacuated 9 Times – and Rebuilt Immediately
How Israeli Settlers Destroyed Mukhmas In Four Minutes
Israeli Settler Violence Against Palestinians in West Bank Rose 25 Percent in 2025, IDF Finds
'How Can a Father Tell Their Child That Settlers Burned Down Their House?'
Israel to Expand Law Enforcement in Palestinian-controlled West Bank Areas, Defying Oslo Accords
Israel Claims It Can't Protect Palestinians From Settler Attacks Due to IDF Personnel Shortage
Investigation: Netanyahu's Government Not Only Permits Jewish Terror in the West Bank, but Also Finances It
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This week, President Isaac Herzog declared that the record-high homicide rate in Israel’s Arab sector constitutes a “national emergency.” But according to Knesset member Aida Touma-Sliman, the organized crime groups behind the violence in Israel thrive because “this is a policy conducted by the government.”
“Crime groups are their subcontractor for the destruction of our society, making us terrorized individuals looking only to live their lives quietly. When you are struggling for the basic right to live, you forget all about struggling for other political, economic and social rights,” Touma-Sliman said.
She noted that only 10 percent of the murders of Arabs are solved – down from 40 percent under past governments – and in stark contrast with the Jewish sector, in which a vast majority of cases are closed. “A very bad message is being sent by the police to the murderers and criminals: that you can do whatever you want and nobody will touch you as long as it remains among the Arabs,” she said.
Touma-Sliman said she was convinced that if National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir believed that the stashes of deadly weapons in the hands of Arab crime organizations were to be used against Jews, “he would know exactly how to smash them down. But he is not willing to do it, as long as they are only committing crimes among the Arabs. He is enjoying the scene.”
Touma-Sliman also discussed the reunion of the Joint List, the reasons behind her decision not to run in the coming election, and her deep disappointment with Israel’s opposition parties and “so-called left.”
Opposition leaders “are not supposed to personally replace Netanyahu,” she said. “If you want to be an alternative, be courageous enough to create a different vision for how the citizens of Israel should be living and how Israel should be as a state.”
Read more:
Netanyahu Moves to Pass Off Arab Crime Task Force From PM's Office to Ben-Gvir
MK Aida Touma-Sliman: 'The Knesset Symbolizes Everything I've Fought Against. I Don't Want to Be There. I Want to Fight It'
Analysis: Israeli Arab Leaders at a Crossroads: Will Escalating Protests Fuel Right-wing Incitement?
Explained:What Part Israel's Arab Parties Can Play in Toppling Netanyahu in the 2026 Vote
Poll: Coalition Remains Stable at 51 Seats as Reunited Joint Arab List Surges to 12
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With U.S. warships in place positioned around Iran, Israelis are bracing for the regime-toppling attack that U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened against Tehran and the government that cracked down so brutally on protesters last month. In response, Iranian leaders warned they would “hit the heart of Tel Aviv” in retaliation to any American offensive.
However, noted Haaretz senior defense analyst Amos Harel, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast, it seems that Trump “has lost a little bit of his appetite for destruction” in recent days, angling to push a weakened Iran to the negotiating table.
Not only is Trump encouraging a diplomatic solution, Harel said, but “when we talk about negotiations, then there's a difference between what was on the table about a month ago, which was an American demand for more or less destroying the regime, or for the regime to step down and for the democracy to be installed in Iran. Now we're talking about something completely different” – a deal limiting Iran’s nuclear capabilities instead.
“What the president is trying to do is to force the Iranians to agree to major concessions regarding their nuclear project. But it doesn't solve the number one issue for most Iranians: getting rid of the regime.” Harel said.
Will the Iranian leadership take the deal? Judging from their statements, Harel said, “they are in panic.”
On the podcast, Harel also assesses the situation in Gaza as the U.S.-brokered Israel-Hamas cease-fire deal enters its second phase, which took a step forward this week with the opening of the Rafah crossing. The real test of the deal, however, depends on whether the international coalition Trump has built is enough to pressure Hamas to lay down its arms.
If Hamas’s military capabilities “aren’t dismantled,” Harel said, “it will be hard to proceed.”
Read more:
Report: U.S.-Iran Talks Could Begin Soon; Witkoff to Meet With Netanyahu
Iran's Supreme Leader Warns of Regional Conflict if U.S. Attacks After IDF Chief Visits Washington
Trump 'Hopeful' for Iran Deal, but Warns of 'Very Big, Powerful Ships Heading That Way'
Iran-U.S. Negotiations Are 'Fruitful', Iranian Foreign Minister Tells CNN
Analysis by Amos Harel | Trump Is Determined to Launch Phase Two of His Gaza Plan. The Israeli Government's Last Hope Is That He Fails
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For the right-wing populist political leaders who gathered in Jerusalem for the Netanyahu government’s second International Conference on Combating Antisemitism this week, the formula for fighting Jew hatred is simple, according to Haaretz correspondent Linda Dayan, who attended and reported on the two-day event.
Organized by the Diaspora Affairs Ministry led by far-right Likud MK Amichai Chikli, Dayan tells the Haaretz Podcast that the message of the majority of prominent speakers at the conference is that Jews “have one enemy” – radical Islam – “and that enemy is propped up by the woke left” with a shared agenda of destroying the West.
Later on the podcast, Dayan – who has covered the protest movement in Israel for the return of the hostages led by their families since October 7 – reflected on the end of the struggle following the return of the final hostage’s remains earlier this week and the end of the vigil in Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square.
The movement, she said, transcended politics; it was a deeper fight to preserve the national ethos of never leaving anyone behind. Dayan explained: “From the very beginning, you would hear in the speeches in the square that this isn't just a battle to return our daughters and sons and parents and grandparents. This is a battle for the values of the country – a battle for the version of the country we want our children to grow up in and we want the next generation to inherit.”
Read more:
Global Far Right Flocks to Jerusalem to Bash Muslims and Migration at Israel's Antisemitism Confab
Netanyahu Claims There Is a Progressive/Muslim Plot to 'Destroy the West' at Israeli Government's Antisemitism Conference
Why Charlie Kirk, Fan of Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories, Is Loved by Israel's Government
Tel Aviv Clock Counting Hostages' Captivity Stopped Following Retrieval of Ran Gvili's Body
Ran Gvili, Last Hostage to Be Returned From Gaza, Laid to Rest in Israel
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The brutal crackdown on protesters killing tens of thousands has been a "sledgehammer" to Iranians everywhere, said Dr. Meir Javedanfar, an Israeli-Iranian expert on the government led by Ayatollah Ali Khameini.
"The people of Iran have just gone through their own Babi Yar massacre," Javedanfar said on the Haaretz Podcast, referring to the largest single mass-killing during the Holocaust. "The Nazis killed 30,000 people in the space of two days. The Iranian regime – if we accept the 30,000 number – has done the same in less than a month. … The level of cruelty is unlike anything Iranians have seen before. The people of Iran are being massacred in unprecedented and historic numbers."
The killings in the decade-long Syrian civil war was a laboratory for Iranian techniques of repression, he said, noting that Iranian leaders were often "disappointed when Bashar al-Assad was not violent enough against the people of Syria when they rose up." In Syria, he said, the Iranians "honed their skills" of deadly repression and are now using them "against their own people on the streets of Iran."
On the question of whether a U.S. attack on Iran could be averted by a change of heart by the regime, bringing them to the negotiating table, Javedanfar said he sees no chance of concessions unless Khamenei believes that "the Americans could kill him and his family."
If the U.S. attacks and Iran retaliates against Israel, he noted, the Israeli military will quickly join in the attack.
"If the Iranian regime makes a mistake of attacking us, we have very genuine targets in Iran to attack, especially Iran's missile program," Javedanfar said, adding "I also hope Israel targets regime officials who are taking part in the oppression and suppression of the people of Iran in such a violent manner, I think that would hold Israel in very good stead in future history books of Iran."
Read more:
Some 30,000 Iranian Protesters May Have Been Killed in Two Days, Officials Reportedly Say
U.S. Central Command Head to Coordinate With Israeli Defense Chiefs Ahead of Possible Iran Strike
Trump Says 'Armada' Heading Toward Iran: 'Maybe We Won't Have to Use It'; Officials Confirm Warships en Route to Mideast
UN Probe Condemns Iran Protest Deaths as Regime Provides Conflicting Casualty Reports
Iran Will Treat Any Attack as 'All-out War Against Us,' Says Senior Iran Official
Why the pro-Israel Right Is Suddenly Committed to Human Rights – for Iranians, Not Palestinians
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Palestinians in Gaza view a future of rule by U.S. President Donald Trump’s newly inaugurated Board of Peace as representing “another form of occupation” said Haaretz correspondent Nagham Zbeedat, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast.
Zbeedat, who covers Palestinian affairs and the Arab world, said that Trump’s vision of an American-led international stabilization force – intended to replace Hamas after it disarms – is likely to be problematic.
American “complicity and cooperation with the Israeli army” during the war means that for Palestinians, “the U.S. is the same as Israel. So any government or group that comes from the U.S. will not be welcomed with open arms.”
In the short-term, Zbeedat said, the desperate humanitarian situation means that Gazans will “accept the circumstances that they are put in, as long as there are no more airstrikes, as long as food is on the shelves, and as long as there is water, shelter, clothes coming in, and medical care.”
But overall, Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere are “not excited” about the Trump plan because of the lack of “any Palestinian presence or voice” at the decision-making level.
Also on the podcast: Haaretz diplomatic correspondent Liza Rozovsky discusses the challenges ahead for the new Board of Peace – most prominently, the disinterest of major Western European countries in signing on.
“When you are being squeezed and threatened by the U.S. over Greenland, it is pretty bad timing to be joining a Board of Peace chaired by Trump,” Rozovsky noted. For these countries, “giving up your veto power in the United Nations Security Council and just bowing to Trump is not a very attractive offer.”
Read more:
Trump's Board of Peace Finds Few Enthusiasts Among Palestinians in Gaza
Israel's Netanyahu to Join Trump's Board of Peace Alongside Saudis, Qatar and Turkey
Trump's Board of Peace Has European States Worried, but Most Refrain From Direct Criticism
Trump's Gaza Board of Peace Aims to Rival UN, Charter Shows
'It Never Ended': As the World Moves On, For Gazans It's War as Usual
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California State Senator Scott Wiener, the frontrunner for former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s congressional seat, insisted on the Haaretz Podcast that his change of heart regarding whether Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a genocide did not represent a political flip-flop.
In early January, Wiener faced an angry audience at a candidate’s forum, in which he debated his two rivals in the California Democratic primary to replace retiring Representative Pelosi. In a lightning round question, Wiener was asked to answer “yes” or “no” to the question of whether Israel was "committing genocide in Gaza." His rivals answered “yes” while Wiener refused to respond, prompting boos and jeers. Shortly afterwards, he released a video in which he clarified that he did believe Israel’s actions in Gaza should be defined as genocide.
On the podcast, Wiener said that in the past, “I've used very, very stark language that, frankly, has not been particularly different from genocide. I chose not to use the word genocide for a variety of reasons, because, it has been weaponized against Israel and against Jews over time.”
Wiener also responded to the harsh backlash from the Jewish community following the release of the video. Wiener, the co-chair of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, said he “respects and honors” why the Jewish community feels “hurt and betrayed” by his word choice. “I also believe that we have a responsibility to call this what I believe it is,” he said.
He pointed to the Quinnipiac poll published in August in which half of Americans defined Israel’s actions as a genocide and noted that it will likely be officially declared as such by the International Court of Justice. “The institutional Jewish community in this country has not grappled with that reality.”
Read more:
Jewish California Congressional Hopeful Says Israel Committed Genocide in Gaza, After Earlier Refusal to Do So
Half of Registered U.S. Voters Say Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza, Poll Finds
California Governor Gavin Newsom Says Israel's War in Gaza Was Not Genocide, but 'Destruction Broke My Heart'
Analysis | Is It Important to Call Israel's Carnage in Gaza 'Genocide'?
Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza, Genocide Scholars' Association Says
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Birthright Israel is celebrating 25 years of offering a free 10-day trip to Israel to every young Diaspora Jew with the hope of fighting assimilation. The celebrations include a $900 million fundraising campaign.
But, as Haaretz Jewish World editor Judy Maltz told the Haaretz Podcast, their traditional mission and "fun in the sun" marketing campaign have become deeply problematic, given the battering of the image of the Jewish state in the eyes of many young people around the world.
Instead of unaffiliated Jews, Maltz said, the programs are increasingly filled with participants who are "presumably already very much in touch with their Jewish identity," begging the question as to whether this is where hundreds of millions in Jewish philanthropic dollars and funding by the state of Israel should be going.
On the podcast, Maltz discusses the reasons behind the shift, based on more than 30 interviews with Birthright participants, and those who chose not to go.
Many of those interviewees, she reports "feel very distant from Israel. They feel very uncomfortable with its actions, especially over the past two years with what's happened in Gaza."
Maltz also discusses a new and different trend she has reported on: trips to Israel by young leftist Jews who choose to spend their time off providing "protective presence" in West Bank Palestinian villages menaced by violent settlers. "Being on the ground is really the only way to bear witness," she was told by the young Americans camping out in the villages.
Read more:
Has Birthright Become a Toxic Brand?
Not Masada or the Dead Sea: Young Diaspora Jews Provide Protective Presence in the West Bank
Birthright Is Resuming Its Free Trips to Israel for the First Time Since October 7
Haaretz Editorial: Birthright Israel: The Problem Is Reality, Not Money
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dropped a bombshell in a recent interview when he declared he had told U.S. President Donald Trump that Israel no longer needed a long-term commitment from the U.S. for military aid, and that he planned to “taper off” the $3.8 billion Israel now receives to “zero” within ten years.
On the Haaretz Podcast, Washington correspondent Ben Samuels and senior defense analyst Amos Harel discuss the implications of Netanyahu’s announcement and the circumstances behind it.
Both say it is clear that Trump had signaled that aid would be significantly reduced, and that Netanyahu’s announcement was intended to avoid the appearance that the cuts were being forced on Israel.
“Netanyahu did not have much choice. I think this is something that Trump expected him to do,” Harel said. “It was bound to happen, and it was better for Netanyahu to appear as if he's the one who initiated it.”
Samuels noted that both Republicans and Democrats – for different reasons – were questioning the level of aid Israel receives, despite the fact that the majority of the billions in assistance are spent on weapons purchased from U.S. manufacturers.
Looking ahead, Samuels discussed potential “cognitive dissonance” for pro-Israel lobbying organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee as they grapple with a future in which substantial military aid will no longer be part of the equation of when it comes to U.S. support for the Jewish state.
“Supporters of AIPAC have treated military aid as this sacrosanct thing - saying that if you dare question it, then you are not only in support of endangering Israeli lives, but it makes you borderline antisemitic,” Samuels said. “How are they now going to just turn around and flip the script and say: ‘You know what? You're right. We don't need U.S. military assistance to Israel.’”
Read more:
Top GOP Senator Urges Halt to U.S. Military Aid After Netanyahu Says Israel Aims to End Reliance Within Decade
On Ending U.S. Military Aid to Israel, Netanyahu Is Trying to Spin His Failure as Success
Today Marks the End of an Era for pro-Israel Democrats – and for AIPAC
It Didn't End Well for Sparta, and It Won't for Israel Either
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Once again, Iranians have taken to the streets. Starting in late December, the plummeting value of the national currency, along with the soaring cost of living, were the catalyst for a fresh wave of protest – and one that soon turned political.
Although the government has been quick to crack down on the demonstrations, the regime has been dealt some heavy blows in the past year, and analysts are pondering whether this could be the movement that ends the ayatollahs’ reign for good.
Haaretz reporter Linda Dayan was joined by Arash Azizi, lecturer at Yale University and author of "What Iranians Want: Women, Life, Freedom" and "The Shadow Commander: Soleimani, the U.S., and Iran's Global Ambitions” to talk about these protests, and what they mean for Iran, for Israel, for the region and for the world.
“In some of the previous protests, there was always a mix of hope and anger,” explains Azizi. “This time, there’s a lot more anger, because people know that they want an end to this regime, but they can’t find an easy path… there’s a lot more despondency and desperation.”
Azizi explains that one of the key obstacles in realizing this aspiration is Iran’s fractured would-be opposition, including the ousted Shah’s son Reza Pahlavi, who’s found support from some Israeli lawmakers. The protesters “don’t have a disciplined political leadership that you need to bring about that kind of change,” Azizi says. Iran’s developments will likely “have the color of a coup, perhaps even more than a revolution” – and be led by figures currently inside the regime.
U.S. President Donald Trump has also warned the Iranian regime against violently repressing the protests. The ouster of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela – a key Iranian ally – by U.S. forces “was a reminder to the Iranians that Trump is not bluffing, and that he could take action against them,” notes Azizi.
“The idea that Trump would assassinate Khamenei, let’s say, with the help of Israel would have been unthinkable a few years ago… now, it’s really a possibility.”
Read more:
At Least 35 Killed, 1,200 Detained in Iran Protests as Threat of U.S. Intervention Looms
Analysis by Zvi Bar'el | Why Trump's Venezuela Playbook Won't Work in Iran
Israeli Officials Warn Iran May Strike Across the Middle East to Quell Protests
Analysis by Ben Samuels | What Trump's Attack on Venezuela Means for Iran and MAGA Isolationists
The Israeli Influence Operation Aiming to Install Reza Pahlavi as Shah of Iran
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It was a challenging year to be a Diaspora Jew.
The war in Gaza and growing hostility to Israel had an undeniable impact on Jewish life across the world in 2025. Events in Israel became a focus in local and national politics around the world – and served as a catalyst in a global surge in antisemitism. The year was punctuated by horrific and deadly attacks against Jews from Washington D.C. to Manchester to Australia’s Bondi Beach.
On this special episode of the Haaretz Podcast, we revisit episodes from the past year featuring the voices of Diaspora Jews, along with Haaretz journalists covering the Jewish world.
The conversations include Brooklyn Rabbi Rachel Timoner on the impact of Zohran Mamdani’s candidacy for New York City mayor, Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur on the complexity of advocating for the hostages and a cease-fire agreement. Also on the podcast: American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutsch following the terror attack at his organization’s event, and Lynda Ben Menashe, a Jewish leader in Sydney Australia after the Bondi Beach massacre, and many more. Among the featured Haaretz journalists: English edition editor-in-chief Esther Solomon, Washington D.C. correspondent Ben Samuels and Jewish world correspondent Judy Maltz.
Read more:
How Antisemitism Haunts Jewish Communities Around the World
Fire, Fear and Freedom: Israel in 2025, Through the Eyes of Haaretz Photographers
From Mamdani to Bondi, Trump to War Crimes: Top Haaretz Opinions of 2025
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For Israel, 2025 was a year in which war turned the unimaginable into reality: from the terrifying exchange of missiles with Iran to the horrors of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, to the joy and relief when U.S. President Donald Trump secured a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas to bring the painful hostage ordeal to an end.
This special year-end episode highlights the reporting and analysis on the Haaretz Podcast that accompanied the year's dramatic events: from the Gaza war, hostage crisis, the 12-day war with Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing criminal trial and the emergence of the shocking Qatargate scandal.
The episode features conversations with Israeli and Palestinians who experienced it all, along with the many Haaretz journalists who offered their insights throughout the year, including editor-in-chief Aluf Benn, Amos Harel, Dahlia Scheindlin, Nir Hasson, Bar Peleg and Nagham Zbeedat.
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France’s ambassador to Israel Frédéric Journès said on the Haaretz Podcast that any postwar Gaza plan must acknowledge that completely disarming and ridding the Strip of Hamas militia members is not an achievable goal.
“You're not going to eliminate all of those people, so you basically need to find them a job in local police, find them a little job in society and de-radicalize them to the greatest extent possible,” he contended. This is possible, he said, because over the course of the war, Israel “got rid of the leadership."
Journès, who has been France’s envoy to Israel since July 2023, sat down for a wide-ranging interview with host Allison Kaplan Sommer and Haaretz diplomatic correspondent Liza Rozovsky, discussing Gaza, Lebanon, Iran and antisemitism in France. The ambassador also explains why he believes the four countries strengthened by the past two years of war are Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt.
Pressed on the podcast as to whether he supports renewing strikes on Iran aimed at its ballistic missile program, which Israel reportedly desires, Journès replied, “I'm not saying that. I will see what will happen.”
Read more:
Opinion by Frédéric Journès | Declaring a Palestinian State Is a Blow to Terror
Opinion by Frédéric Journès | Israel, Help Us Protect Our Seas and Oceans
U.S. Leaning Toward Setting Up Palestinian-run Regime for Gaza Before International Forces
Saudi, French and U.S. Officials Discuss Hezbollah Disarmament With Lebanese Army Chief
France Demands Heightened Security Measures at French Consulate in Jerusalem After Israeli MKs Harass Staffer
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Before October 7th, Trump’s second term and the election of Zohran Mamdani rocked New York’s Jewish community, Manhattan’s famed 92nd Street Y – like most mainstream Jewish institutions – played it relatively safe when it came to programs about Israel.
Susan Engel, executive producer of the 92nd St. Y Talks, tells the Haaretz Podcast that the famed Manhattan cultural center has undergone “a soul-searching since October 7 around our own Jewish identity and around who we are as a Jewish institution. And I think we've had to double down on our values and what it means to present different views, sometimes critical of Israel – because it's important to hear what someone else who thinks differently” has to say.
Her audiences – in-person and the millions who watch her events online – she believes, greatly “appreciate” the fact that she can bring together people who “really disagree strongly” yet can “have a conversation and be civil.”
At the same time, she said, the Y – founded as a center for Jewish life and culture in 1874 – experienced a boycott and staff walkouts after October 7 – maintains “red lines.” They will not platform those who have expressed “homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic” views or “if we feel that someone believes that Israel should be destroyed.”
On the podcast, Engel also discusses the big-name cultural, political and Hollywood figures who have taken to the 92nd St. Y stage, including a recent appearance by Rob Reiner, who died tragically earlier this month, the art of creating an intimate space for interviews when millions are watching, and her experience as a judge at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival.
Read more:
How October 7 Is Impacting Jewish Cultural Life in America
ADL Accuses Mamdani Transition Members of Engaging in 'Antisemitic, anti-Zionist' Activities
Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival coverage: From NYC to Jerusalem, This Radical Artist Asks 'After the Revolution, Who's Going to Pick Up the Garbage?'
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Over the past two years, many filmmakers have hesitated or refrained from bringing their films to Israeli film festivals as part of cultural boycott of Israel over the Gaza war.
But for Joshua Zeman, the decision to bring his powerful new documentary “Checkpoint Zoo” to the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival was “merely part and parcel of the whole experience of making a film about something that's been politicized that shouldn’t be politicized.”
Zeman’s film tells the dramatic story of the 2022 rescue of nearly 5,000 animals from the Feldman Ecopark zoo in Ukraine located on the Russian border outside the city of Kharkiv – on the front lines of the war – lovingly built and maintained by an animal-loving Orthodox Jewish oligarch, Oleksandr Feldman.
“There has been a lot of backlash against Ukraine here in the States, even though the film is just about people rescuing animals, so the film was already complicated for me in terms of getting distribution,” Zeman said on the Haaretz Podcast.
“Checkpoint Zoo” chronicles the efforts of Feldman, a handful of zoo workers who did not flee Kharkiv during the war and four idealistic volunteers as they risked their lives under fire from drones and bombs to remove lions, tigers, monkeys, ostriches and other animals out of from harm’s way in a modern-day Noah’s Ark.
“War by definition is brutality created to strip away your humanity. But in rescuing these animals, these volunteers not only refound their humanity, but found this unbelievable well of courage.”
Zeman sees Feldman – who allowed his luxurious mansion to be taken over by the rescued animals – as “a Schindler-esque character.”
After Feldman’s businesses in Kharkiv were destroyed by the war, he was forced to “basically sell everything to care for these animals,” Zeman recounted. “Whenever we talked about the animals, he immediately cried. He's a big crier – he is a fascinating character who espouses a lot of values from the Torah.”
Read more:
Meet Oleksander Feldman, the Lonely Ukrainian Jew Fighting His Country’s New Fondness for Nazis
'It Is a Fascist Project': The Ukrainian Filmmaker Who Withdrew From a Prestigious Amsterdam Film Festival Because of the Israel Boycott
Read all of Haaretz's film coverage
Russian Strikes Destroy Centers of Jewish Life in Kharkiv as Community Members Flee
The Tragic End of the Ukrainian Community in Gaza
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Australian Jews are “shocked but not surprised” by the “horrific” mass shooting on Bondi Beach, which turned a Hanukkah celebration into a tragic massacre, Australian Jewish leader Lynda Ben-Menashe said on the Haaretz Podcast.
In the two years since the October 7 attack in Israel, the Australian Jewish community “begged” their government officials to enforce laws against incitement and hate speech, which has led to an unprecedented spike in antisemitic violence. But, she said, the government’s response has been “lip service” but “no real consequences.”
“Our prime minister has said that he was distressed and shocked,” said Ben-Menashe, the head of Australia’s National Council of Jewish Women. “The Jewish community has been distressed for the past two years at the lack of action from the government, and also at the growing lack of safety that we have felt. And so we weren't shocked that this happened.”
Also on the podcast, Haaretz senior defense analyst Amos Harel reports on the numerous warnings passed by Israeli intelligence agencies to the Australian government, warning of the growing terrorist threats in their country.
Harel also commented on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government’s reaction to the Bondi Beach attack – namely blaming Australia’s leaders for their failure to prevent it.
Harel said it was “hard to resist noticing [the] paradox regarding the fact that Israeli ministers were so quick to blame the Australian government for its failures and note their responsibility for what has happened, while they're insisting that Netanyahu holds no blame whatsoever for what happened two years ago” on October 7.
Read more:
Analysis by Amos Harel | After the Deadly Attack at Bondi Beach, Israel Warns: Sydney Won't Be the Last Target
The First Deadly Attack Against Jews in Australia Follows Two Years of Unprecedented Antisemitism
Albanese Rejects Netanyahu Linking Palestinian State to Deadly Bondi Beach Attack
The Victims of the Bondi Beach Hanukkah Celebration Shooting
From March 2025: 'It Will Only Get Worse': Why These Australian Jews Are Leaving Down Under
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When it comes to liberal American Jews and President Donald Trump, the “cognitive dissonance is real,” said award-winning journalist Dahlia Lithwick on the Haaretz Podcast.
While Lithwick “doesn’t dispute for a minute" the fact that the U.S. president and his envoys “did yeoman’s work” negotiating a cease-fire deal, it is not enough for her to soften her perception of the level of danger that Trump represents.
With democracy and rule of law being challenged, “You have to ask yourself, am I transactional enough to say that I will subordinate all of that to parochial interests?” she said in her conversation with Haaretz columnist Joshua Leifer and podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer.
“If you say you can pick and choose which authoritarian you want to align yourself with, cross your fingers and hope you know this time, being a court Jew is going to work out – history suggests otherwise.”
In their in-depth discussion, Lithwick and Leifer also consider the trends in U.S. politics on the right and left, which are upending the long-held assumptions of American Jewish life and the urgent need to confront the new “transactional” reality and abandon “magical thinking.”
“American Jewish organizations sold the idea to American Jews that they were more powerful than they were. And I think Israel sold to American Jews – and also Israelis – that Israel is more powerful than it is,” Leifer said.
For U.S. Jews to effectively fight for their interests, including the battle against antisemitism, he said, they must leave behind “the old rhetoric and strategies – because no one cares anymore.”
Read more from Haaretz columnist Joshua Leifer:
In Blood-soaked Israel-Palestine, the Dangerous Status Quo of Before October 7 Has Returned
It's Clear What Defendant Netanyahu Gets Out of a Pardon. But What's in It for Trump?
The Ultra-hawkish Right and anti-Zionist Left Have Drowned the American Jewish Majority
Why Netanyahu Is Sharing Leftist Conspiracy Theories About a Mossad Sex Cabal
Israel's Right Wing Bet the Country's Future on American Christian Nationalists. That Has Backfired
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After Russian-Israeli academic Elizabeth Tsurkov was freed from captivity in Iraq in September following two and a half years of imprisonment and torture, she returned to a very different Israel, she said in a wide-ranging interview on the Haaretz Podcast.
Israelis “have changed in very fundamental ways,” she said. “After October 7, the circle of people towards whom Israelis feel compassion shrunk very significantly.”
As she returns to public life as a researcher and commentator on Middle East affairs, while undergoing physical rehabilitation from injuries she suffered as the prisoner of Kata’ib Hezbollah, she has already been attacked by the Israeli right for social media posts in support of human rights and critical of Israel’s policies in Gaza.
Despite being held in captivity, she said, her political views “have not substantially changed: I still see Arabs as human beings, which is an unpopular opinion, it seems.”
In her conversation with host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Tsurkov discusses the politics of Iraq – the country where she was kidnapped and held – following their recent elections, calling it a “failed oil state” driven by the behavior of Iranian-backed militias with “no clear path for reform and change.”
She also analyzes the impact of the new regime in Syria, praising the policies of U.S. President Donald Trump towards the year-old government.
She also credits the president with her release. “Trump is the reason I'm free. This is not an interpretation, this is a fact. I know exactly how I came to be released: It was because of threats that were made on his behalf.”
Read more:
Right-wing Pundit Amit Segal: Tsurkov 'Should Do Some Soul-searching About the Price Her Stupid Adventures Cost Israel'
'Strung Up and Tortured': Elizabeth Tsurkov Recounts Over Two Years of Captivity in Iraq
'Things Weren't Easy': After Iraq Captivity, Elizabeth Tsurkov Tells Netanyahu She Was Tortured
What Is Kata'ib Hezbollah?
Opinion | Through My Friend Elizabeth Tsurkov, I Learned That Syrians and Israelis Desire the Same Thing
Elizabeth Tsurkov's past writing for Haaretz
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In his first interview since his release, former hostage Alon Ohel called the International Committee of the Red Cross a “disgraceful organization.” His anger reflects a general bitterness among Israelis who believe ICRC failed to ensure the Israeli hostages’ received humanitarian treatment in captivity and their silence in the face of Hamas’ refusal to grant them access.
On the Haaretz Podcast, the head of ICRC’s Israel sub-delegation, Yuval Arie Nevo, admitted in an interview that the hostility on the part of the Israeli public was “totally understandable” given the group’s persistent but ultimately “unsuccessful” efforts to gain access to the hostages to assess their condition and offer medical and humanitarian assistance.
While acknowledging the failures, “we are very proud of our work,” said Nevo, referring to the implementation of the transfer of the hostages from Hamas to Israel under the cease-fire agreement in October, coordinated with the release and exchange of Palestinian prisoners – and ICRC’s role in returning the remains of slain hostages as well.
The “reputation crisis” the ICRC is suffering in Israel, he said, is due in large part to the constraints of the organization’s commitment to “impartiality” and the use of “bilateral confidential dialogue,” or refraining from taking sides in public statements. Without such a policy, he argued, ICRC would not be able to effectively conduct humanitarian operations and return prisoners and hostages anywhere in the world.
Still, “I know it is a source of great frustration in the Israeli public,” he said. “Neutrality is not a sexy choice to make.”
Read more:
Sexual Assault, Starvation, Stitches Without Anesthesia: Alon Ohel Details Hamas Captivity
Opinion | For the Hostages in Gaza, the Red Cross Is Neutral. But We Are Not Bystanders
Far-right MKs Cite Classified Report on Red Cross Visits to Israeli Prisons, Refuse to Share It With Arab Lawmaker
Israeli Defense Ministry Renews Its Ban on Red Cross Visits to Palestinian Security Prisoners Before High Court
Israel Allows Hamas to Join Red Cross in IDF-held Gaza Areas to Recover Hostage Bodies
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There was a clear “threat” delivered in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s formal letter to the President Isaac Herzog requesting a pardon in his corruption case, senior Haaretz columnist Dahlia Scheindlin said on the Haaretz Podcast.
Netanyahu’s government continues to conduct a “campaign of vicious political incitement against the Israeli judiciary,” Scheindlin noted. “And what he's basically saying in the request is: ‘You see how bad I can make things. This is what will happen and continue to happen if you don't end this.’ It’s a very severe statement.’’
On Sunday, Netanyahu formally submitted a pardon request to the Israeli president. He has been on trial for three separate criminal cases – charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust – since 2020 and is currently being cross-examined by prosecutors in court.
On the podcast, Scheindlin discusses the impact a pardon would have on a future election and the U.S.-led efforts to pursue the goals laid out in the Gaza cease-fire agreement, as well as what she believes Israel’s opposition needs to do to seize this moment ahead of next October’s election in order to formulate a “winning strategy” to defeat Netanyahu.
Read more from Dahlia Scheindlin:
The Visionary Palestinian Peace Plan for Israel and Gaza That You've Never Heard Of
Nobody Wants This? Netanyahu Is Gaslighting Israelis Over October 7 Investigation
What Israel's Opposition Should Learn From Mamdani
Read more on Netanyahu's pardon request:
What You Need to Know About Netanyahu's Bid for a Presidential Pardon in His Corruption Trial
43 Percent of Israelis Oppose Pardoning Netanyahu in Corruption Trials, Polls Show
It's Clear What Defendant Netanyahu Gets Out of a Pardon. But What's in It for Trump?
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The feud between U.S. President Donald Trump and MAGA congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene may not be exclusively about Israel, “but Israel is one of the pillars of the narrative” that fueled Greene’s decision to resign earlier this week, Haaretz’s Washington correspondent Ben Samuels told the Haaretz Podcast.
Until recently, the right was viewed as an unshakeable mainstay of American support for Israel. Schisms within the Republican Party have ruptured over Israel’s compatibility with MAGA-style isolationism, critiques of Israel’s wartime conduct and commentator Tucker Carlson’s embrace of Nick Fuentes.
Greene’s departure, which also comes amid a swirl of conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein and the Mossad, is a red flag regarding the “deep realignment” taking place in the GOP and among evangelical Christians, Samuels said – and Israeli leaders are worried.
Omer Benjakob, Haaretz’s cyber and disinformation correspondent, joined the podcast to discuss his recent investigation into a major multi-platform online campaign by the Israeli government that seeks to rehabilitate its image among the American Christian right.
Benjakob said the multimillion-dollar campaign seems to be “less about pro- or anti- Israel arguments and more about trying to quell a growing wave of antisemitism.”
He noted that the “rapid decline of this ‘unshakable bond’ points to a dependency on a population that progressive voices have warned Israel for years against getting in bed with.”
Read more:
Losing the Republican Base, Israel Pours Millions to Target Evangelicals and Churchgoers
Between Mamdani and Marjorie Taylor Greene, Netanyahu's Allies in Washington Have Cause to Be Alarmed
Why Netanyahu Is Sharing Leftist Conspiracy Theories About a Mossad Sex Cabal
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Resigns From Office, After Trump's Support Withdrawal Last Week
Israel's Right Wing Bet the Country's Future on American Christian Nationalists. That Has Backfired
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Now that all of Israel’s living hostages are home and the vast majority of the bodies of deceased hostages have been returned, the “line of thinking” among many Israeli military and political leaders is “we have nothing to lose” and “we can continue our fight against Hamas,” says Haaretz senior security analyst Amos Harel.
Members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, he believes, are clearly “looking for an excuse” to return to full-fledged war.
Speaking on the Haaretz Podcast, Harel discussed the challenges of ensuring security on Israel’s southern and northern borders and rebuilding and rehabilitating Gaza, given the “vague” nature of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan for an international stabilization force and a ruling Board of Peace. In the meantime, Hamas remains fully armed and in control of nearly half of Gaza.
The Americans “have some vague ideas about how to solve things, but nothing ever moves ahead,” Harel observed. “Will there be an international force? Will any country in the world risk the lives of its soldiers and put them in harm's way trying to restrain Hamas? These are big challenges for the Americans.”
On the podcast, Harel also discussed the fragile cease-fire with Hezbollah on its northern border and the firestorm in Israel's military and political arenas over accountability for the October 7 attacks.
Read more:
Analysis by Amos Harel | Latest Lebanon Escalation Is an Israeli Initiative That Serves Netanyahu's Interests – and Has Trump's Blessing
Israel Kills Hezbollah Military Chief in Beirut Airstrike, IDF Confirms
Lebanese Sources Worry That Israeli Escalation Will Weaken Gov't, Thwart Hezbollah Disarmament
Analysis by Amos Harel | As It Prepares for Multifront Wars of Attrition, the IDF Faces a Manpower Crunch and Spiraling Costs
U.S. to Pull Troops Out of Command Center in Israel, Try to Relocate Gazans to Israeli-held Areas
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Haaretz held its first-ever conference in Berlin, “Fault Lines and Futures: Israel, Gaza and Germany in Wartime and After," to explore the dynamic between Israelis, Palestinians and Germans at this charged moment; this special edition of the Haaretz Podcast features highlights of those conversations.
Among the conference speakers was Hadash MK Ayman Odeh, who called on German politicians to follow other European leaders in recognizing a Palestinian state and acknowledge that “there are two peoples in our shared homeland, both with the right to self-determination.”
John Philipp Albrecht, president of the Heinrich Boell Foundation – a co-sponsor of the Haaretz conference – took the stage to denounce the attempts of the Netanyahu government's “attacks and intimidation” against European NGOs that promote democracy and Israeli-Palestinian coexistence, noting that “alienating friends and partners of Israel is a strange strategy to strengthen Israel's security.”
Also speaking was Prof. Meron Mendel, director of the Anne Frank Center in Frankfurt, who warned against the way in which German and other European far-right anti-immigration parties misleadingly present themselves as defenders of Israel and opponents of antisemitism, as they enjoy the embrace of Israel’s current right-wing coalition.
These extremist politicians do not “love Jews,” said Mendel. “They hate Jews, but they hate Muslims more.” So they say, “we are for Israel” to “justify discriminating against Muslims for a ‘good cause’ – the cause of fighting antisemitism.”
This episode also features Berliner festival director Matthias Pees and Dr. Ofer Waldman, who heads the Heinrich Boell Foundation’s Tel Aviv office. Watch a recording of the full conference here.
Read more:
Haaretz Conference in Berlin: What Lies Ahead for Israel and Germany After the Gaza War
Germany's Antisemitism Czar Braces for Backlash Over Move to Rein in pro-Palestinian Protests
Angela Merkel's Visit to My Gaza-border Kibbutz: A Lesson in Leadership That Israel Lacks
Two Israeli DJs in Berlin Renounced Their Israeliness. It Didn't Stop the Boycott Calls
The Far-right German Party AfD Says It Has Nothing Against Jews. This Book Proves Otherwise
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Iran remains a major threat to Israel and the United States – with clear ambitions to expand its influence and terror activity into the Western hemisphere, said Danny Citrinowicz, a former IDF military intelligence officer and Iran expert at the Institute for National Security Studies, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast.
Those ambitions were recently highlighted when a U.S. official revealed an advanced plan by Iran to assassinate Israel’s ambassador to Mexico, using a base of operations in Venezuela. The official said the plot was foiled earlier this year.
“Venezuela is the hub” of Iran’s activity in the region, Citrinowicz said, adding that Tehran is developing relationships with other South American countries with a sizable Shi’ite Muslim population and “controlled by the left” in the hope of uniting against a common enemy: the United States and its allies. “Iran can find a mutual language with every country that opposes the West,” he said.
In his conversation with host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Citriowicz also discussed Iran’s renewal of its nuclear capabilities, as reported by the New York Times, and the potential Israeli response to the prospect that they appear to be increasing their missile capabilities to the point where they can rain thousands more explosives on Israel than they did in June’s 12-day war.
“We’re in a very risky and unstable situation, and I don't think we’ve seen the last of the clashes between Israel and Iran.”
Read more:
What the Next Israel-Iran Missile War Will Look Like
The Israeli Influence Operation Aiming to Install Reza Pahlavi as Shah of Iran
Israeli FM: Iran Tried to Attack Multiple Israeli Embassies and Diplomats, Not Only Envoy in Mexico
Paradox of Success: Israelis Fail to See That the Next Iran War Will Be Worse
Opinion by Danny Citrinowicz | How a Historic Israel-Iran Non-aggression Pact Could Change the Middle East
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Olive harvest season has become a flashpoint in the West Bank in recent years as extremist Israeli settlers regularly threaten and physically harm Palestinian harvesters, but this year, “the situation on the ground is out of control,” Anton Goodman of Rabbis for Human Rights said on the Haaretz Podcast.
“We have never seen anything like this,” Goodman emphasized, noting that in the past, “We've seen settler attacks, and we've seen unnecessary army aggression and restrictions, but we've never seen such a peak moment of violence affecting so many communities.”
Goodman described the situation as a “perfect storm” with “extremists at the heart of the Israeli government, who have sent clear policy recommendations to the police” to refrain from arresting violent settlers so that “the rule of law is totally diminished.”
He also outlined the ways in which mainstream Religious Zionist institutions and their leaders are complicit – such as when the prominent rabbi Yaakov Medan encouraged his yeshiva students to spend the High Holidays at outposts that are illegal even under Israeli law.
Also on the podcast, Leila Stillman-Utterback recounts her experience as an 18-year-old Jewish American volunteer who was recently arrested at an olive harvest and then deported and banned from Israel for 10 years. While Israel has deported non-Jewish solidarity volunteers for years, Stillman-Utterback’s case is believed to be the first time Israel has deported a Diaspora Jew from the West Bank.
Speaking from the United States, Stillman-Utterback said a court challenge to banning her entry to Israel is underway.
Maintaining her connection to Israel, she said, is “incredibly important to me, even though I am extremely frustrated with the actions of the Israeli government, both in terms of the impunity for settler violence and their actions in Gaza.”
Read more:
Erased: Israeli Settlers' Brutal War on Palestinian Communities in the West Bank
IDF Reports Surge in West Bank Settler Attacks Against Palestinians, Says Police and Shin Bet Looking Away Amid Political Pressure
'We May Have Reached the Point Where Settlers Try to Kill Jews'
Analysis | There Will Be No Middle East Peace if Trump Turns a Blind Eye to Wild Settler Violence in the West Bank
Op-ed by Anton Goodman: How Israel's Violent West Bank Settlers Place Minors in the Line of Fire
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After October 7, actor, singer and writer Jonah Platt pivoted away from his entertainment career and poured all of his energy into what until then had been his “side hustle” – advocating for more “joyful” portrayals of Jews in Hollywood, and broadening his focus to include pro-Israel advocacy and fighting antisemitism.
Platt joins the Haaretz Podcast where he discusses his own top-ranked Jewish podcast aimed at what he calls the “middle majority” of American Jews – engaging in pro-Israel advocacy while not hiding his misgivings and ambivalence about both U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
This, he tells podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, has drawn both admiration and attacks from across the political spectrum in the Jewish community and beyond.
Platt notes that the criticism he gets from the Jewish left “mimics the hate that I get from non-Jews on the left, which is that I'm a nepo baby genocidal baby killer” while the attacks from the MAGA Jewish right “feels more like getting it from my own team.”
On the podcast, Platt also shares his views on conflicts within Jewish families over the Gaza war – including his own – and why he believes so many young New York Jews voted for Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
Read more:
Paramount Studios Reportedly Keeps Internal Blacklist of Antisemitic Industry Figures
Pledge to Boycott Israeli Film Institutions Grows to Over 4,000 Signatories Since Monday
Israeli Artists React to Filmmakers' Boycott: 'We Aren't Doing Enough'
Uncanceled Nation: The Artists Who Perform in Israel, Despite Everything
Debra Messing, Liev Schreiber Among 1,200 Hollywood Figures Opposing Israeli Film Boycott
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The scandal rocking Israel’s military justice system has “serious ramifications” that could undermine the country both internally and in its ability to address accusations of war crimes overseas, Dr. Eran Shamir-Borer said on the Haaretz Podcast.
Shamir-Borer, who served for over 20 years in the IDF Military Advocate General's Corps, and currently heads the Israel Democracy Institute’s Center for National Security and Democracy, said he was “personally and professionally shocked” by the admission of now-former Military Advocate General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi.
She was arrested and is now in detention after she admitted to leaking video documentation from July 2024 of IDF soldiers physically and sexually abusing a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman detention camp. Tomer-Yerushalmi is likely facing charges of participating in a cover-up of the leak, which involved misleading both the State Prosecutor’s office and the Supreme Court.
On the podcast, Shamir-Borer, with host Allison Kaplan Sommer, lays out the dramatic events behind what’s being called the Sde Teiman Affair – and how the affair that “shocked him on so many levels” unfolded in his former military unit.
The affair, he fears, will both boost the power of those in the Netanyahu government working “trying to undermine the independence and professionalism of the justice system,” as well as “undermine the credibility of the IDF justice system overseas with serious repercussions for Israel and for those in its military service.”
Read more:
Haaretz Explains | Two Leaks, Two Tales: Why the Prisoner Abuse Video Leak and the Bild Hamas Document Are Different
How the IDF Legal Chief Drama Overshadows the Abuse of Palestinian Prisoners
IDF Probe Into Sde Teiman Video Leak May Disrupt Abuse Investigation, Legal Sources Say
Ex-IDF Top Lawyer Sticks to Story in Initial Police Interrogation on Leaked Abuse Video
Israel Released Palestinian Detainee Allegedly Seen in Leaked Abuse Video Back to Gaza
We Served on Israel's Sde Teiman Base. Here's What We Did to Gazans Detained There
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The prospect of a New York City mayor who “won’t march in the Israel Day Parade, will not travel to Israel, who will divest from Israel” with a history of pro-Palestinian advocacy has brought many Jews to a place of “caution and worry” as they choose the city’s next leader, New York political reporter Jacob Kornbluh said on the Haaretz Podcast.
At the same time, he stressed, despite the “fear campaign” that Jewish leaders and rabbis pursued against the 34-year-old Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, a large number of Jewish New Yorkers were casting their ballots for the man poised to make history as the city’s first Muslim mayor.
Leading up to Election Day, Kornbluh noted “a changing mood among Jewish voters who say they disagree with Mamdani” and were “worried” about his positions on Israel – but “since they hate [Independent candidate] Andrew Cuomo, since they are Democrats, and since they want to participate in this election, they will hold their nose and vote for Mamdani.”
University administrator Dov Scheindlin, who is voting for Mamdani, also spoke with host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the podcast and explained the reasons for his choice despite disagreeing with the candidate on issues related to Israel.
“On a personal level, I feel Mamdani’s demonstrated a tremendous commitment to the Jews of New York City,” Scheindlin said, attributing the candidate’s stated position as a reflection of his “sympathy with the Palestinians and a sense that the cause of Palestinian self-determination has been inhibited by the unfettered support for Israel the United States has offered.”
Join Haaretz and meet our journalists at the Other Israel Film Festival, running from November 6-13 in New York City. Use the code haaretz25 at checkout for 20 percent off admission. View the event schedule and buy tickets here.
Read more:
Rabbi Angela Buchdahl Slams Zohran Mamdani's Past Remarks as Antisemitic, 'Demonizing' Israelis
NYC Candidates Court Final Endorsements as Hasidic Leaders Criticize 'Scare Campaign' Against Mamdani
Cuomo Faces Backlash in New York Mayoral Race After 'Racist' Attack on Rival Mamdani
Opinion | I Oppose Mamdani's Stance on Israel. This Is Why I Am Voting for Him
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Throughout the Gaza war, the tremendous difference between international coverage and Israeli media coverage was obvious to anyone exposed to both.
In a new report, media scholar Dr. Ayala Panievsky’s research quantifies precisely how pronounced that difference was. On the Haaretz Podcast, she said the silencing of dissent in Israel’s mainstream media was unprecedented.
“The professional journalists, people who Israelis spend their entire lives trusting to tell them the truth, rallied around the military in many ways – any criticism of what our soldiers were doing was just out of bounds. It wasn't part of the conversation.”
In past coverage of war and conflict, she stressed, “there was no such silencing of any criticism and alternative voices,” attributing the difference to the tremendous amount of pressure by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on media outlets in recent years.
"The Netanyahu camp declared war on the media a decade ago. And when the war in Gaza broke, the mainstream media was already very much undermined, intimidated and exhausted.”
In her conversation with host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Panievsky, author of “The New Censorship: How the War on the Media is Taking Us Down,” also discussed how the phenomenon of self-censorship is plaguing journalism worldwide.
In many countries, she said, authoritarian leaders “claim to speak on behalf of democracy” while “doing everything to undermine journalism and its role in society. … This is something very, very confusing, and difficult to tackle.
Join Haaretz and meet our journalists at the Other Israel Film Festival, running from November 6-13 in New York City. Use the code haaretz25 at checkout for 20 percent off admission. View the event schedule and buy tickets here.
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The turmoil around the Gaza war has transformed French Jews into “different people” than they were two years ago, pioneering rabbi Delphine Horvilleur said on the Haaretz Podcast.
“I don't know any of any Jewish family in France who hasn’t had a conversation around the Shabbat table,” Horvilleur said, contemplating possible emigration and wondering what will remain of Jews in France a decade from now.
In her discussion with podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Horvilleur talks about inspiring the hit HBO show "Reformed" and the books she's penned herself: "Living with Our Dead" and "How Isn't It Going? Conversations After October 7."
The rabbi also addressed the hate mail and death threats she received after writing a column in a French Jewish magazine last spring that was critical of far-right members of the Israeli government who justified denying humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza as legitimate acts of war. She noted the “really harsh” threats she received were smaller in number than the amount of support.
“Even today, I walk in the streets of Paris, and Jews stop me and say, ‘thank you for speaking out, because we believe exactly what you said, but we cannot say it anymore.’ Somehow the crisis and the war and the pain and the trauma created an inability to talk.
"And for me, the real threat today lies in not being able to say what we think, to talk and re-engage in the Jewish conversation” in which, Horvilleur said, it is possible to be “both supportive of and critical of” Israel.
Join Haaretz and meet our journalists at the Other Israel Film Festival, running from November 6-13 in New York City. Use the code haaretz25 at checkout for 20 percent off admission. View the event schedule and buy tickets here.
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The flow of high-level Trump administration officials to Israel in the wake of the Gaza cease-fire agreement has sent a clear signal to Israel’s prime minister and his government, columnist Joshua Leifer said on the Haaretz Podcast.
In a single week, envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived for an extended stay, followed by the first state visit of Vice President JD Vance. Secretary of State Marco Rubio followed on Thursday evening.
For Leifer, “the bottom-line message to the world that the Trump administration is sending with these visits is ‘We don't trust Netanyahu to follow through on what he's agreed to,’ and they have a good reason to think that. At every opportunity, Netanyahu has made it clear that he is unhappy with the Gaza deal.”
Trump’s close supervision of Israel during the war – and afterwards, Leifer added, has been so unrelenting and it feels as if “in some sense, Israel has been put under a U.S. mandate.”
In his conversation with podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Leifer also discussed the way in which Trump “has completely scrambled American Jewish politics.” On one hand, he said, “American Jewish liberals loathe him and experience him and his followers as racist, sexist, homophobic and antisemitic” while “on the other hand, it's true that he managed to do what Joe Biden couldn’t: end the war and bring the hostages home.”
Read more:
Hamas Disarmament and Turkey's Role: Vance's Israel Visit Aims to Address Key Postwar Gaza Questions
Vance Spotlights Hamas Violence on Israel Visit, but Netanyahu Is on a Short Leash
From Bear-hug to Bibi-sitting: Marco Rubio Flies Into a Tense Moment in U.S.-Israel Relations
Analysis | With One Eye on Reconstruction, U.S. Won't Let Fragile Gaza Cease-fire Go Up in Smoke
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From the international success of “Fauda” to Academy Award nominations and prestigious festival awards, the Israeli film and television industry was at a high point before the October 7 attacks.
Throughout the two-year Gaza war, the industry has struggled as international funding and festival invitations dried up, and Hollywood A-listers circulated petitions to boycott any association with the Israeli industry. Domestically, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has been hostile, especially when infuriated by films they view as too sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.
Assaf Amir, chairman of the Israeli Academy of Film and Television, joins host Allison Kaplan Sommer to talk about the threat by Culture Minister Miki Zohar’s extreme reaction to the fact that the film winning this year’s Academy for Israel’s Best Picture was “The Sea” – about a Palestinian boy’s journey from the West Bank to Tel Aviv – which is now poised for submission in the Best Foreign Language film category at the Oscars.
As a result, Zohar said he will defund the Academy prize and set up an alternative government award ceremony to choose a different Best Picture. Amir said on the podcast that he was unimpressed by the threat.
“We'll see who submits their films to his prize and who he chooses to decide which of the films should win,” Amir said.
As for the Hollywood boycotts, Amir said he would point to Israel’s Best Picture this year and ask the professionals signing the petitions where they stand on it.
“Will they watch this Arabic-language film that was made by an Israeli and a Palestinian about a Palestinian boy from the West Bank trying to go to Tel Aviv – or would they boycott it? I think that's the question they should ask themselves, and I'm wondering what the answer is – because I would definitely urge them to watch this film.”
Read more:
Israel's Best Film Award Goes to 'The Sea,' Chosen to Represent Country at the Oscars
Government Says It Will Cut Israel Film Academy Funding After Film 'Depicting Israel Negatively' Wins
'If We Stop Deteriorating': Head of Israel's Film Academy Still Sees a Bright Future, Despite Political Pressures
1,300 International Actors and Filmmakers Pledge to Avoid Israeli Film Institutions 'Implicated in Gaza Genocide'
Debra Messing, Liev Schreiber Among 1,200 Hollywood Figures Opposing Israeli Film Boycott
Opinion | As an Israeli Filmmaker, Thank You to Everyone Who Is Boycotting My Works
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The miraculous release of Israel’s remaining 20 living hostages in Gaza may have been “the best news we’ve had for the last two years,” Haaretz senior security analyst Amos Harel said on the Haaretz Podcast. Yet a great deal remains to be resolved before anything resembling security is in place for Palestinians in Gaza or for Israelis.
Inside Gaza, Harel noted, “Hamas is already making its intentions clear – to remain by any means necessary. They're not going anywhere. They do not intend to dismantle their weapons.” He points to their recent violent execution of suspected Israeli collaborators and aggressive attacks on clans and factions who challenge their authority.
With host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Harel breaks down the various complications regarding a postwar Gaza: Hamas’ failure to return a significant number of the bodies of the deceased hostages, the possible involvement of international forces to reign in Hamas after the IDF withdraws, the flow of humanitarian aid and how the Strip will be governed.
He also reflected on Donald Trump’s boldly frank speech in the Knesset in which the U.S. leader openly called on Israel’s president to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his corruption trial.
“Netanyahu’s crowd has been complaining and whining for the last two days that he's not getting enough respect and not enough ‘thank you’s’ for bringing the hostages back,” Harel said. “Well, there's a simple reason for that. ...It was not thanks to Netanyahu. It was because Trump finally pulled weight and forced Netanyahu’s hand. This is what happened.”
Read more:
Analysis by Amos Harel | End of Gaza War Could Open Door to Major Diplomatic Shifts in the Middle East
Trump: I Spoke to Hamas; They Said They Will Disarm. If They Don't, We Will, 'Perhaps Violently'
This Isn't Over': Families of Deceased Israeli Hostages Warn of Government Neglect, Public Fatigue
Trump Urges Pardon for Netanyahu in Knesset Address: 'Give Him a Pardon, Come On'
'The Color Is Returning to His Face': Parents of Freed Hostages Share Details From Gaza Captivity
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The Gaza war may be finally coming to an end, but it has made a long-term impact on Israel and the way the world views the Jewish state – including Diaspora Jews – especially those who spent the war on turbulent university campuses.
Judy Maltz, Haaretz's Jewish World Editor, surveyed the effect of the two-year conflict on a group of young Jews from around the world, seeking to understand how their evolving views on Israel, antisemitism and Jewish identity changed since October 7.
She found that a “vast majority of them” were “very, very troubled and distressed” after the October 7 attacks and were initially fully supportive of the Israeli incursion into Gaza. But two years into the war, “I did not find even one who could say wholeheartedly that they supported its continuation.”
For some of the students, their changing sentiments propelled them into activism supporting protests to end the war. Others were motivated to step up their involvement in fighting campus antisemitism, which many experienced for the first time in their lives.
Sometimes, students in the same country had completely contradictory experiences, Maltz reported. In Australia, she found one student who said they had encountered no hostility whatsoever, even as she was out demonstrating for the hostages with an Israeli flag. Yet another “had such a horrific experience that he's moving to Israel at the end of the year. He says Australia is no longer his home.”
Read more:
'I Was Defending Something I No Longer Believed In': How Two Years of the Gaza War Changed Jewish Students Around the World
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The lesson of U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest diplomatic gambit is that in Middle East deal-making, “the devil is in the details, but the most important thing is political willpower,” said Anshel Pfeffer, The Economist’s Israel correspondent and former Haaretz columnist, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast.
Trump, he noted, “has supplied that political willpower in bucket loads.”
Hours after Israel and Hamas agreed on a deal to end the war in Gaza and release the hostages, Pfeffer spoke with host Allison Kaplan Sommer about the long road to the deal, the obstacles that lie ahead and the joyful yet nervous mood among Israelis as they anticipate the long-awaited return of all the hostages.
Pfeffer, a biographer of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, also discussed how he expects Israel’s leader to shape the narrative of the cease-fire to serve his political goals ahead of next year’s general election.
“We know how hard Donald Trump had to press him to accept this plan, but he is a very pragmatic person," Pfeffer said. "The moment something is forced upon him, he immediately makes it look as if it was his idea all along.”
Read more:
Analysis by Anshel Pfeffer | Netanyahu's Last Stand: How Rewriting the Gaza War Will Decide the Israeli Leader's Political Destiny
Israel, Hamas Reach Gaza Cease-fire Deal; Trump: Hostages Will Be Released Monday
'A Day of Joy': Hundreds of Israelis Stream to Hostage Square to Celebrate Israel-Hamas Deal With Families
'We'll Go Back Home, Rebuild Our Lives': Gaza's Palestinians Celebrate Deal to End Israel-Hamas War
Turkey, Egypt and Qatar Will Help Israel and U.S. Recover Bodies of Hostages From Gaza
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"It is hard to overstate the almost tribal, pathological inability of folks who are pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli to acknowledge the humanity of the other," said filmmaker and Palestinian American activist Mo Husseini on the Haaretz Podcast.
"People are operating on the assumption that everyone on the other side is an inhumane, hateful asshole who wants to kill all of us."
Husseini said that's the reason he chose to join Jewish American award-winning documentary filmmaker Julie Cohen to create "The Path Forward," which spotlights pairs of Israeli and Palestinian activists who joined forces after October 7.
Cohen, also speaking on the podcast, said she conceived the film as offering an alternative to what she saw as the sole emphasis on violence and hostility when it came to interactions between Israelis and Palestinians.
Whenever there is coverage of dialogue, she said, it is framed as "Oh my God, there's an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian, and they're talking to each other. This is nuts, this is insane, this is the craziest thing we've ever seen!" But actually, says Cohen, "it's happening all the time. You're just not seeing it."
The film was made in the first year of the war. As the second anniversary of October 7 approaches, Cohen admits that when she re-watches it now, the activists' hope can be "painful to watch in the context of … what is now a genocide in Gaza."
Still, Cohen and Husseini said if they had to make a film today, they would strike the same hopeful chord.
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The two years that have passed since October 7, 2023 have transformed Israel and its people, its leaders, its status on the world stage and its relationship with Diaspora Jewry.
On the Haaretz Podcast, Joshua Leifer, the newest Haaretz columnist, spoke with host Allison Kaplan Sommer the many dimensions of change the war has wrought - including the changes in his own life and thinking.
In their conversation, Leifer noted that while Israelis on the far right can indulge in "a perverse and spectacular kind of denial" regarding the death and suffering in Gaza every day, the situation is more complex and contradictory for the Israeli mainstream and people on the left.
"We know that what Israel is doing in Gaza is terrible," Leifer said. And yet, even at times when the war is visibly and audibly present, "we go to the beach, we go to family, we carry on. I think we're only at the beginning of being able to understand what that does to a society, and what that does to people over time, as they acclimate to a reality that should be unbearable but isn't."
Regarding his decision to move to Israel at a time when he opposed so much of what its government is doing, Leifer said: "If you want to change a place, I think you have to be there... I didn't want to just be stuck in the meta discourse over Zionism and progressivism. I wanted to try to intervene - if possible - in the reality."
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In this special Haaretz Podcast episode, Haaretz columnist Amir Tibon offers his analysis of the comprehensive 20-point peace plan unveiled by U.S. President Donald Trump in a White House press conference on Monday as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood beside him.
“What we saw was a plan with big headlines, but a lack of details,” Tibon said in his conversation with podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer. “We don't know yet if there is actually the political will to carry it forward.”
While Netanyahu has officially endorsed and even praised the plan, Tibon added, it will be difficult for the Israeli leader to convince the hard-right wing of his coalition to accept many of the terms – particularly a full withdrawal from the Strip by the IDF. A political crisis over the deal could lead to the collapse of the government and force a new general election.
Hamas has yet to fully weigh in on the plan that requires the massive concession of disarming and ceding power in Gaza to “Palestinians technocrats.”
After two years of the war in Gaza, Tibon said, Trump clearly “hopes he can get a Nobel Peace Prize for ending the war and opening an opportunity for wider peace in the Middle East.”
But the U.S. president “still doesn't understand that actually ending the war will require more pressure. The idea that he will simply impose all of these terms on Hamas, I think, is unrealistic. I would love to be wrong on this, but I don't see it happening so quickly.”
Read more:
Trump's 'New Gaza' Plan Revealed: Hostage Deal, Hamas Disarmament and 'Gaza Deradicalized'
Far-right Minister Smotrich Slams Netanyahu's Assent to Trump's Plan: 'Missed Chance to Break Free From Shackles of Oslo'
Hamas to Review Trump's 'New Gaza' Cease-fire Plan 'In Good Faith,' Foreign Diplomat Tells Haaretz
Amir Tibon: The 'Magic Number' That Could Convince Hamas to Accept the Trump Plan
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On a special edition of the Haaretz Podcast – as Israel faces the Jewish High Holidays mired in war and political division, host Allison Kaplan Sommer speaks to Prof. Adam Ferziger about soul-searching and atonement with a focus on the Orthodox Jewish community in Israel and the Diaspora.
Ferziger, who is also an ordained rabbi, believes the process of observing Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur “is all about humility.”
“Rosh Hashanah comes before Yom Kippur, because in order to be able to go before God and do some sort of atonement, I have to first acknowledge my place in the world,” he said. Following October 7 and over the past two years of war, “so many of the players involved, unfortunately, feel that they know all the right answers, and there is a real lack of humility on many sides.”
Faith and belief in God, he said, should not “be a cause for saying ‘I am more powerful and better, and I know the truth more than you do.’”
In his new book, "Agents of Change: American Jews and the Transformation of Israeli Judaism," the Bar-Ilan University professor chronicles the rise of what he calls “moderate Orthodox Judaism” in Israel, the pioneering immigrant Diaspora Jews behind a more liberal and tolerant religious outlook – even as, politically, their presence in Israel strengthened the right and the settler movement.
“Many are right-wing by most standards when it comes to politics, but that does not necessarily go along with their attitude towards Jews who differ from them, or on sexual identity, or the role of women in leadership – and many other subjects.”
While it can be “very hard to pull those things apart,” Ferziger sees this dichotomy as an opportunity for “conversation between people in Israel who are moderate in a lot of areas and the broader community in America,” even when there are deep political disagreements.
Read more:
Israel's Religious Left Finds New Purpose Amid Gaza War
What Future Is There for a Young, Leftist, Secular Family in the Israel of 2026?
Opinion | What I Wish Rabbis Would Say About Israel, Gaza and the Palestinians in Their High Holy Day Sermons
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In a special guest episode of the Haaretz Podcast, German ambassador Steffen Seibert sits down with Guy Rolnik and Anat Georgy, co-hosts of “The Markers” – the Hebrew-language podcast of Haaretz’s sister publication, The Marker.
In the interview, Seibert addressed the increasingly complicated relationship between the two countries since the Gaza war and said he was “not optimistic” about Israel’s future if its government continues in its current direction.
“My country is very clearly against the extension and escalation of the war," Seibert said.
At the same time, he expressed both affection and sympathy for the “exhausted” citizens of the Jewish state and concerns about growing antisemitism across Europe.
“It's a difficult time to be an Israeli. The idea that when you go abroad as a tourist, you have to worry about your personal safety, and you have to worry if it's okay to speak Hebrew in the street – this is horrible, and it is a challenge to all of us Europeans to make sure that that doesn't become the new reality forever.”
Rolnik and Georgy also engaged in an in-depth exchange with Seibert on the nature of German democracy and what Israel might learn from it as it wrestles with the judicial reform crisis and when free speech crosses the line and becomes incitement.
Ultimately, he said, despite Germany’s “serious disagreements” regarding both Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank, “the fact remains that we consider ourselves forever friends of Israel and supporters of the right of Israel to be here, to be safe and to have this Jewish and democratic state. This is not a fashion in German politics. This is one of the pillars of our political identity.”
Read more:
EU Proposes Sanctions on Israel: Suspending Trade Benefits, Targeting Far-right Ministers
Germany Will Not Join Western Allies in Recognizing Palestine, Chancellor Merz Says
'Some Artists Blur Their Identity,' as the World Turns a Deaf Ear to Israeli Musicians
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New York University professor Lila Corwin Berman has a warning for her colleagues. Corwin Berman, along with two fellow academics, recently penned a provocative piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education headlined "Jewish Studies Scholars, Beware: Trump's Deal Will Corrupt You."
On the Haaretz Podcast, Corwin Berman explains how, in her view, the agreements that the Trump White House has hammered out with Ivy League universities, making their federal grant money dependent on investing in Judaic Studies and developing cooperation with Israeli universities, will result in turning them into "court Jews."
What the White House is doing, she said "is not about free academic scholarship or inquiry, but is really about serving a particular kind of master. And I think that that is deeply, deeply dangerous for universities for Jewish Studies and for American Jews."
Corwin Berman and host Allison Kaplan Sommer also discussed the atmosphere on campuses under the shadow of the Gaza War, and what Hannah Einbinder's remarks at the Emmy Awards says about the young generation of American Jews.
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This special episode of the Haaretz Podcast features voices from the September 14 conference held in Toronto jointly sponsored by the New Israel Fund of Canada and JSpace Canada.
The event brought together current and former Israeli and Canadian politicians, journalists, academics with Israeli and Palestinian peace advocates to assess the current troubling conflict in Gaza. Speakers also explore a roadmap for peace, Palestinian sovereignty, the crisis of democracy and growing authoritarianism in Israel and around the world.
Among those included in the podcast: MKs Ayman Odeh and Naama Lazimi; former Justice Minister Dan Meridor; and Julie Dabrusin, Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change.
In her remarks, Democrats MK Lazimi said the “profound humanitarian disaster” playing out in Gaza is “not only a Palestinian tragedy; it is also a moral stain and a security risk for Israel.”
Calling for an end to the bloodshed in Gaza, Lazimi said that the only "alternative to terror and war are secure peace agreements.”
Meridor paired his harsh critique of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s autocratic direction with a call to fight the government’s assault on the Supreme Court and other gatekeepers of democracy.
All Israelis and those who care about the Jewish state, he said, “should ask himself, as I try to do every day, not only what's going to be the future, but what do I do today to stop it.”
Read more:
Watch the full conference from Toronto on YouTube
Haaretz conference in New York explores Israel's fractured democracy during Gaza war
IDF says ground incursion into Gaza City has begun; Defense Chief: Gaza is burning
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The Israeli decision to bomb Doha, targeting Hamas leadership as they met to consider a cease-fire proposal, made little sense if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is truly concerned with the fate of Israel’s hostages, said Haaretz senior security analyst Amos Harel, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast.
While it may “work against our basic instincts of assuming that the government is looking out for our collective good,” Harel concluded with an air of regret: “That's not the situation we're in. My sense is that Netanyahu gave up on them long ago, and what he's doing right now is about his political survival, nothing else.”
While U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed his “unhappiness” with the bold Israeli move to attack the country housing the largest American military base in the region, he has yet to chastise Netanyahu publicly the way he has chastised other foreign leaders, Harel said in his conversation with podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer.
“Unlike his relationships with every other world leader except [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, we haven't seen Trump ever confronting Netanyahu directly, demanding answers or changes in positions,” Harel said. “It is early to tell, but this may be a watershed moment. Trump is losing patience, and he may be close to the edge.”
Harel warned that “if indeed we did kill somebody important in Doha, there could be retaliation. I hope it doesn't get to anybody torturing or killing hostages. In the end, live hostages are an asset to Hamas, but there's a danger there. We're playing with fire.”
Read more:
IDF Strikes Hamas Leaders in Doha; White House: Strike Won't Advance Israeli Goals
Analysis from Amos Harel | Netanyahu Is Taking Ever-greater Risks to Keep the Gaza War Going
Analysis from Amos Harel | With Doha Strike, Israel Signals a Strategic Shift and an Indifference to Consequences
Who Died? Did Trump Know? What About the Hostages? Five Key Questions on Israel's Strike in Doha
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As Israel’s Gaza City offensive intensifies, the lack of a “fully articulated policy” on the part of Donald Trump’s White House means that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can move ahead with a “blank check” from the U.S., said Haaretz Washington correspondent Ben Samuels, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast.
The message from Trump officials to Israel is “do what you need to do, just get it over with fast,” while in public statements, they have shifted to align with Israel’s “all-or-nothing” approach to a hostage deal.
“Trump is not giving Israel a red light,” Samuels said. “To Israel, that means a green light.”
On the podcast, Samuels analyzed the dramatic shifts in both the Republican and Democratic parties regarding Israel ahead of the 2026 midterms, predicting that the upcoming election will “be the one where Israel becomes a top-tier front-of-mind issue that could really divide voters and could really sway races one way or another” in both of the parties.
With the GOP in particular, he noted, “a growing number of mainstream Republicans, along with the isolationist MAGA wing are openly asking, ‘Why are our dollars going to funding a foreign war rather than making the lives better for Americans at home?’”
Democrats, he added, “are just not going to take what Israel's saying at face value anymore.” All of this contributes, he said, to the “inflection point” at which American Jews find themselves nearly two years into the Gaza war.
“I think we are going to look at this as a foundational shift in how this generation and the next views the U.S.-Israel relationship, as well as the relationship of American Jews to Israel.”
Read more:
'They Tend to Die': Trump Says Israel, Hamas May Sign Gaza Cease-fire Deal 'Very Soon,' and Repeated That Some of the Living Hostages May Have Died
Trump Says Israel Has Lost Its 'Total Control' of Congress, Is Losing PR War Over Gaza
The Dam Has Broken. For Mainstream Democrats, Israel Is Now a Pariah
The Next Generation of Republicans Is Turning Away From Israel
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Former foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami invested substantial time and effort into shaping a two-state solution during his political career – and ultimately came to the conclusion that it was not viable.
On the Haaretz Podcast, Ben-Ami cast a critical eye on the current push by French President Emmanuel Macron and a long list of countries including the U.K., Australia and Canada to recognize a Palestinian state at the upcoming United Nations General Assembly.
He sees the move more as "a sign of despair" over the leaders' powerlessness to end the Gaza war rather than "a practical solution" that lacks a roadmap for turning the concept into reality. Calling the two-state formula on the table "utterly irrelevant," Ben-Ami expressed "surprise that statesmen such as Macron and the others were pulling it out of the attic of lost causes."
In his conversation with host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Ben-Ami spoke on the podcast of the deterioration of the Gaza conflict from a "legitimate war of self-defense" one of "merciless, cruel vengeance."
He also explained why "total victory" over Hamas remains impossible. Whatever the outcome in Gaza, he noted, the war will be framed as a success and "will remain in the collective memory of the Palestinian nation that they forced Israel into a war that lasted more than two years, that Hamas pulled the two-state solution out of oblivion, emptied Israeli prisons of Palestinian prisoners, blocked the Israel-Saudi normalization and Israel's dream of regional peace."
Read more:
Shlomo Ben Ami: A Total Victory in Gaza Is a Dangerous Delusion. Just Ask Kissinger
Israel Facing Mounting International Pressure as Belgium Says Will Recognize Palestine at UN
Trump's Ban on Mahmoud Abbas Is Bad News for Palestine. But It's Dangerous for the UN
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Rabbi Yosef Blau has been the focus of both fury and admiration over the past week, called both a hero and a traitor, and garnered attention at a level that has astonished him, he said on the Haaretz Podcast.
The pushback comes after Blau spearheaded an open letter signed by 80 Orthodox rabbis that called the humanitarian crisis in Gaza “one of the most severe in recent history” and called on Israel to assume “its share of the responsibility” for Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The letter also condemned settler violence in the West Bank.
As a pillar of the mainstream modern Orthodox world, Blau is an unlikely political maverick. The 86-year-old was a leader at Yeshiva University for 48 years and led the Religious Zionists of America for more than a decade.
On the podcast, Blau – who moved from New York to Israel five months ago – describes a "shift in the world of religious Zionism” – a change he describes as transforming from “the most moderate force in the Israeli government that reflected a large variety of views on pretty much every issue outside of religion, to become more and more associated with the extreme right.”
Addressing critics who say the letter he wrote could fuel antisemitism outside Israel, Blau says such thinking is “a mistake in judgment,” adding “I think not taking a stand increases antisemitism.”
Read more:
Over 80 Orthodox Rabbis Urge Israel to Address Gaza Humanitarian Situation, Condemn Settler Violence
Leftist? This U.S. Orthodox Rabbi Speaking Against the Israeli Government Prefers 'Realist'
Explore Haaretz's coverage of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza
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While the world has been focused on the devastation in Gaza, "the annexation of the West Bank has become reality," Hagar Shezaf, Haaretz's West Bank correspondent, said on the Haaretz Podcast.
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Shezaf explained, has created a system "that is accelerating" the process of integrating the West Bank into state institutions "while keeping the empty shell of the Civil Administration that represents military rule."
Shezaf is stepping down from her beat for a year of studies after six years of covering what she describes as a "deteriorating" situation in the territories, that is generally neglected by the Israeli media.
Despite settlement expansion continuing apace, violent extremist settlers becoming increasingly bold, and the direct and indirect displacement of Palestinian civilians from their homes by the Israeli military, "the West Bank is totally uncovered by Israeli news journalists," Shezaf said.
Most recently, her reporting called attention to the uprooting of 3,100 trees by the IDF alongside a village after an attempted terror attack by one of its residents. Shezaf described it as an "outrageous" act, and the army's attempts to justify it, she said, "cannot convince me that this is not collective punishment."
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On this episode of the Haaretz Podcast, Dutch journalist David de Jong and host Allison Kaplan Sommer discuss the violence against Israeli soccer fans on the streets of Amsterdam last weekend, and the media coverage of the events in Israel and the Netherlands, characterized by conflicting narratives and a flurry of viral videos that were often misleading.
De Jong, a financial journalist who has covered the Gaza War over the past year, said the streets of Amsterdam were the last place he expected to watch the Middle East conflict play out. He also explained why the violence that erupted following the Maccabi Tel Aviv - Ajax match is a "boon" for the anti-immigration far-right parties in the Netherlands and across Europe.
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What do Donald Trump’s team choices signal about future policies on Iran, Gaza and Israel? How is the isolationist wing in Trump’s circle already influencing his decisions? And why is the U.S. Jewish community caught in a battle of narratives over the number of Jews who voted for Trump for president?
In this episode of the Haaretz Podcast, host Allison Kaplan Sommer and Haaretz Washington correspondent Ben Samuels delve into Trump’s upcoming return to the White House and its potential impact on the Middle East and American Jews.
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*The sound of a siren warning of rocket fire is heard in this episode of the Haaretz Podcast*
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "gamble" on extending the war in Gaza in anticipation of Donald Trump winning the U.S. election seems to have paid off, according to Haaretz senior military analyst Amos Harel.
In conversation with Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Harel said that Netanyahu "kept promising total victory, what he actually had was sort of a Forever War. It was not forever, but he was waiting for November, and for January 20 and for his friend Trump to be back in the White House."
What is the Israeli premier hoping to get out of his bet? Harel believes that in renewing the Bibi-Trump bromance, Netanyahu believes he can win U.S. support for measures that will stop his criminal trial - Trump after all, will certainly sympathize - and move ahead with the judicial coup that will damage Israeli democracy.
Also on the podcast, Harel discusses and explains what stood behind Netanyahu's decision to fire Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on the day of the U.S. election, and his not-so-veiled threat that the IDF Chief of Staff and head of Shin Bet security service may be next if they don't fall in line.
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Normally, foreign policy doesn't play a major role in presidential politics, but the 2024 race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump has been an exception. Israel's wars in Gaza and Lebanon have become hotly debated issues.
Susan Glasser, a staff writer at The New Yorker and co-author of “The Divider,” which chronicled the first Trump term, spoke to Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the eve of one of the closest elections is U.S. history.
Glasser discussed the potential impact of the election on the Middle East and global politics, how a second Trump term would differ radically from a Harris presidency as far as U.S.-Israel relations are concerned, the influence of big Trump donors like Miriam Adelson and Elon Musk on the race, and her experience covering Trump's massive Madison Square Garden rally, the climactic pre-election event for Trump and the MAGA movement.
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In a special edition of the Haaretz Podcast ahead of Tuesday’s 2024 U.S. presidential election, Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America and Peter Deutsch, a former Florida congressman, faced off in a heated exchange of views, debating whether a victory by Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump in the race for the White House would best serve the interests of Israel and the American Jewish community.
The debate was moderated by Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer and Haaretz Washington correspondent, Ben Samuels.
Deutsch argued that for American Jewish voters “effectively, there are two candidates in the race, one that's giving money to people that are literally killing your family, and another who, for four years, protected your family and kept peace in the world.”
Soifer staunchly defended Harris, saying the current administration provided Israel with “more military assistance than any White House in a year in history.” She had her own harsh words for the Republican nominee, calling him an "indecent and immoral man" and a “bigot” and “felon” who “aligns with and dines with Holocaust deniers and right wing extremists.”
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No one in Israel will ever forget where they were at 6:29 A.M. on Saturday October 7, when Hamas attacked Israel. For Haaretz journalists, it was a day that the personal and professional collided, whether they were trying to survive the assault on their own home, reporting from the south under a hail of bullets, editing news about massacres at their parents' kibbutz, filing amid ceaseless rocket fire or contacting friends in Gaza, knowing the coming war would destroy the fabric of their lives.
Journalists are often resistant to 'pull back the curtain' to talk about how, rather than what, they report. In this podcast, three Haaretz journalists - Bar Peleg, Sheren Falah Saab and Linda Dayan - interviewed by Haaretz English editor-in-chief Esther Solomon, give a unique look into their work on October 7 and since, and what motivates them after more than a year of savage and expanding conflict.
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In retrospect, Israel should not have endured a year of Hezbollah missile attacks that decimated its northern region before fighting back, Orna Mizrahi, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies said on the Haaretz Podcast, but waiting appeared to be the best strategy following the Hamas attacks of October 7.
After that trauma, "the decision of the Israeli cabinet was to focus on the war against Hamas in Gaza. And I thought that this was the right decision, because we had no other choice but to go after Hamas and try to save our hostages," and the north, from where Hezbollah began firing on October 8, "would be a secondary front," said Mizrahi, a veteran of Israel's security establishment who served in the Israel Defense Forces for 26 years and spent 12 years in the National Security Council (NSC) in the Prime Minister's Office.
"So for 11 months, the IDF adapted the strategy they called an 'aggressive response' to the attacks of Hezbollah, and refrained from deviating from the rules of the game that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was shaping."
Nasrallah "realized that this kind of war of attrition is the best way... to weaken Israel and help Hamas in the war," she said. "It would have been desirable to act more forcefully earlier, but I think it's unfair to judge it in retrospect," adding, "it was impossible to estimate that we are going to have such a series of successful operations as we have had" over the past month.
Recent deadly missile and drone attacks, however, point to the fact that Hezbollah is far from being defeated.
They are clearly able to continue attacking Israel, "and I think they are going to do that until the last day and the last missile that they have," said Mizrahi.
The U.S. has been pushing since early in the war to pursue a cease-fire agreement that would resolve all of Israel's conflicts with Iranian proxies –both Hamas and Hezbollah. The Netanyahu government has consistently resisted this pressure, and the current campaign in the north is designed to sever the linkage between the conflicts in the north and the south.
"There are differing opinions in Israel on this matter," Mizrahi said. "I don't believe that the link between the arenas will advance the hostage deal. And in my opinion, we should look to separate the arenas. I say: If the late Nasrallah and [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar want this linkage between the fronts so much, it must not be so good for Israel."
She believes that linking the two war fronts "serves Sinwar because he wants a regional war," and believes it could help guarantee "the survival of Hamas."
In her view, each front should be dealt with separately, and the relative success against Hezbollah in the north, should lead, if possible, to a resolution before the more complicated matter of Gaza.
While Israel's ability to influence events in Lebanon after Hezbollah's weakening is limited, Mizrahi says the opportunity to try to free Israel's northern neighbor from Iran's grip shouldn't be squandered.
"Following the war, there will be a competition for the future of Lebanon, mainly between two main parties. One is the U.S. and the West," and the other is "Iran and the Shi'ite axis.
"We cannot leave Lebanon for the Iranians, and this is why I think that it's required that the West," along with moderate Arab countries, "use all their means to prevent the complete fall of Lebanon into the hands of Iran."
The ongoing war in Lebanon presents an "opportunity," Mizrahi said, which the Western world must grab in order to "shape a new political system in Lebanon in which Hezbollah and Iran are not so influential."
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The U.S. has strongly cautioned Israel against targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities and oil fields in a possible retaliatory strike for the 181 ballistic missiles Tehran launched last week. On the Haaretz Podcast, strategic and intelligence expert and Haaretz columnist Yossi Melman argues that such targets should be “off limits and out of bounds,” and not only because of the American objections.
Israel should limit its response to military installations such as the “depots of long range missiles threatening Israel, the headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and communication command centers and air defense systems,” says Melman.
He adds that hitting Iran’s oil fields and potentially paralyzing the world oil market - if Iran strikes back at Saudi oil fields - “is a very dangerous game.”
Also on the podcast, Melman discusses the deep contrast between the “colossal failure” of Israel’s vaunted intelligence services before October 7 and the way they have “salvaged their image and reputation” in recent months in their penetration of both Hezbollah and Iran.
“Even within the Israeli intelligence community, they cannot explain this huge, huge gap between their performance on October 7 and their performance during the war,” he says.
At the same time, he warns, “we need to put it into perspective. Israeli intelligence is excellent, but at the end of the day - it is just a tool” meant to support war goals and diplomatic efforts.
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Hannah Wacholder Katsman knew that facing the anniversary of her son's death on October 7 would be difficult, but grieving in wartime Israel has been a challenge over the whole year, ever since her son was killed by Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Holit, she said on the Haaretz Podcast.
Hayim Katsman, an American-Israeli who would have turned 33 on October 3, was a political scientist specializing in right-wing religious Zionism and a devoted peace activist, with eclectic interests and hobbies which he pursued alongside his teaching and research: gardening, music and auto mechanics. His dissertation was dedicated to "all life forms that exist between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea."
He was shot to death at his kibbutz home while protecting his next-door neighbor Avital Alajem.
His mother said that her year of mourning has included the experience of being "screamed at" while attending rallies and demonstrations in support of the families of those being held hostage in Gaza by Hamas and advocating for a deal for a cease-fire that would bring them home.
"There's just been a lot of hostility toward hostage families and toward peace activists like my son," she said, pointing to "offensive" comments from right-wing Israelis regarding victims of October 7 who were politically left-wing, "blaming the victims" for their fate.
She noted that in the months following her son's death, she received "a lot more support from the United States government" than from Israel's. No government representatives made in-person or phone contact with her or her family, or attended the funeral, visited her while mourning or attended memorial events.
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Amir Tibon will never forget what it felt like to be hunkered down in his safe room with his wife and two young daughters for hours on end, listening to the sound of Hamas terrorists on a murderous rampage in his neighborhood, Kibbutz Nahal Oz on the Gaza border, on October 7.
"You're on automatic pilot. You're hearing gunfire inside your house," he recalled. "You're locked inside with two very young girls, and you're just operating in the situation, trying to keep the girls calm and quiet and reserved, trying to keep yourself calm and quiet and reserved, because if we were to exhibit any signs of distress, the girls would immediately see it."
On the Haaretz Podcast, Tibon discussed the dramatic rescue of his family carried out by his father, retired IDF general Noam Tibon, a story he shares in his new book, "The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival and Hope on Israel's Borderlands."
The book fuses his personal story with that of Israel and Gaza, sharing the 70-year history of his home of Nahal Oz – the closest Israeli community to Gaza – and the steps that led to the war that is still grinding on today, a year after it began.
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If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu enjoys a popularity comeback as a result of Israel's military operation against Hezbollah and the assassination of the group's chief Hassan Nasrallah, he is likely to be tempted to call early elections, Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn said on the Haaretz Podcast.
"It's a tried and true Netanyahu trick when he sees that his adversaries are weak," Benn noted, pointing to the reasons why doing so may be in the Israeli leader's interest, including "getting rid of" his far-right coalition partners Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich and his dependence on them.
Benn, a veteran commentator on military and security affairs, said that the decapitation of Hezbollah leadership and its current paralysis represents a significant military victory for Israel. Nasrallah, he said, was a victim of hubris and his downfall came as a shock to allies and enemies alike.
"Nasrallah was the symbol of Arab resistance to Israel and the United States," Benn said. "Over the years, he acquired a mythological image, even in Israel, as the man who understands Israel better than the Israelis themselves. But at the end of the day, even he was taken by surprise."
The planning and execution of the ongoing offensive against Hezbollah stands in sharp contrast to the failures and missteps of October 7 and difficulties in Gaza when fighting Hamas, said Benn.
"The IDF prepared for this attack for 18 years after the humiliation of the Second Lebanon War in 2006, when the IDF was caught unprepared for the kind of war that was waged. So for many years, the focus of Israeli intelligence, of Israeli drills, of operational planning, was Hezbollah."
While applauding the operation against Hezbollah, Benn warned that Israel still faces a substantial threat from the "ring of fire" Iran has built around the country.
"The Houthis in Yemen are still able to fire missiles at Israel... and the port of Eilat is still closed under the Houthi blockade. Pro-Iranian militias in Syria and Iraq are still there and Iran is still there. And most of the Hezbollah fighting force is alive and can be regrouped, even if not tomorrow or the next day."
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Despite the recent dramatic escalation in its conflict with Israel, Hezbollah appears to be - for now - refraining from launching a large-scale missile attack into the Tel Aviv area, says Amos Harel, Haaretz senior military and defense analyst on the Haaretz Podcast.
Harel outlined the dramatic week-long chain of events that began with the stunning detonation of pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members, followed by a targeted attack in Beirut Friday killing top commanders in the organization, and assault on its missile infrastructure triggering a fast-moving escalation of hostilities, including daily rocket attacks on large parts of Israel.
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The presidential campaigns of both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are focusing substantial energy on Jewish voters who are closely watching Israel and Gaza, as well as rising antisemitism in the United States.
Haaretz Washington correspondent Ben Samuels joined Haaretz Podcast for a special episode devoted to answering questions from Haaretz subscribers. Samuels describes how campaigns have been targeting the American Jewish community – both because they reflect an outsized proportion of significant donations to campaigns on both sides, but also because they can tip the balance in key states.
In the third installment of this series, in which Haaretz journalists address the issues on the minds of their readers, Samuels said that "In swing states, Jewish voters really turn out in a way that isn't necessarily consistent with the size of the population, So you've seen both Jewish political organizations on both sides of the aisle and the Harris and Trump campaigns really try to focus on the Jewish vote as the election comes closer."
What happens in the war between now and November 5th could be a game-changer "if it has an effect on the U.S. economy, or if U.S. troops get embroiled in the fighting," he said.
While the polls so far have demonstrated that Jewish voters are consistently committed to voting Democrat in their traditional overwhelming majority, Jewish Republican leaders reject these findings and are promoting a different narrative.
"They're saying that Jewish Americans have really been alienated and disillusioned by the Democratic Party, both in terms of the White House's approach to the aftermath of October 7, the failure to combat rising antisemitism and supposed enablement of antisemitic protests on college campuses," said Samuels. "Jewish Republicans are really trying to set the tone" and prepare the ground for an unprecedented shift away from Democrats.
But despite this wishful thinking, Samuels said, it remains true that more than 70 percent of Jewish Americans "not only do not like Donald Trump, but" also find that "everything he says traffics in dual loyalty tropes and either flirts with antisemitism or is allegedly openly antisemitic."
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In the relentless swirl of war and politics over the past year, the inhabitants of Gaza have often been treated more as pawns than as human beings by political and military leaders, activists, media and even those who claim to be their advocates and allies.
"People outside of Gaza sometimes forget that their lives are actual lives," Haaretz correspondent Nagham Zbeedat said on the Haaretz Podcast. The result – as with the circulation of conspiracy theories regarding the campaign to administer polio vaccines that is currently underway – can be dangerous.
Zbeedat closely follows and reports on developments in Gaza, including a video casting doubt on the World Health Organization's vaccination effort posted by Gazan social media activist Bisan Owda. In it, Owda questions whether Gazans should allow their children to be injected with material permitted by Israeli authorities and questions the motive behind Israel's seemingly humanitarian gesture.
"Palestinians in Gaza actually asked her to remove the video, to delete it, and even to publicly apologize for it," Zbeedat said, while outside Gaza Owda "was being praised, supported and even more [speculation and] theories were introduced in the comment section" under her video.
In view of this phenomenon, Zbeedat believes that her own reporting on all aspects of life inside Gaza – from creative cooking using ingredients found in aid packages to water storage to the struggle of Gazan women to obtain menstrual products – emphasizes that "these people had normal lives and should have a normal life, but they are not given that opportunity."
Zbeedat also discussed life in Israel at the moment for Israeli Palestinians, from being "hunted" by Israeli authorities when their social media posts are too explicitly supportive of their Gazan friends and relatives, to discomfort around allying with Jewish Israelis.
"Just yesterday, I saw a post about an image from one of the demonstrations: "Bring them back and then return," referring to bringing back the Israeli hostages and then re-settling Gaza. "How can we expect Palestinians in Israel to join people who are asking for the hostages back, but also for the destruction of Gaza?"
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If Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "ever had a moral compass, he lost it long ago," said Jonathan Dekel-Chen, father of Israeli hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen on the Haaretz Podcast. The six hostages brutally murdered by Hamas after surviving eleven months of captivity "should not have been allowed to die" by their country's leadership, he added.
"My heart breaks for their families," said Dekel-Chen, describing the news as "part of the living nightmare we've been in since October 7."
The government's "abominable handling" of the hostage crisis, he continued, "has taken Israeli society to a place that it's never been, and the only hope for recovery is if the prime minister is able to grow a moral backbone strong enough to bear the weight of his own coalition partners."
The fact that U.S. President Joe Biden offered his condolences to the families before Netanyahu "should demonstrate not just to all Israelis, but sadly to Jews in the diaspora as well, that our government and our prime minister are in a state of utter moral corruption."
Also on the podcast, Haaretz senior defense analyst Amos Harel discussed how the killings of the hostages has made it clear to the Israeli public that Netanyahu's "cliche about military pressure being the only way to move and to allow hostages to be freed is wrong. It may have been the case in the beginning that there was some leeway that we could push through military pressure. But now Hamas knows exactly what's happening, and has decided to kill hostages rather than to allow them to be freed by Israeli soldiers.
"The outcome is clear to everybody: If in these operations, especially tunnels, we lose the element of surprise, there's a good chance more hostages will die under similar circumstances."
Netanyahu's response to the massive public outcry Sunday has brought Harel to the conclusion that the leader, who usually appears to feel in control, is now in a "tight spot."
While Harel remains pessimistic that Netanyahu has been shaken enough to change his policies, "I think that for the first time in months, he's really fearing the outcome of the public outcry."
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Democrats or Republicans who believe that a Kamala Harris presidency will shift her party's Israel policy to a place favorable to its pro-Palestinian progressive wing found little evidence to back their theory at last week's Democratic National Convention, Haaretz Washington correspondent Ben Samuels told the Haaretz Podcast this week.
From the warm reception given to the parents of an Israeli hostage who were featured speakers to the sympathetic but firm negotiations with the demands of members of the party's progressive wing who unsuccessfully pushed for a Palestinian-American pro-Palestinian speaker at the DNC, there was no daylight between her stance and Biden's backing of Israel.
While Harris was basking in the spotlight of the convention, Samuels noted, Biden's Secretary of State Antony Blinken was busy in the Middle East working intensely towards a Gaza cease-fire deal that would return Israeli hostages and contain the hostilities between Israel, Hezbollah and Iran.
He succeeded in the latter and not in the former – much to the disappointment of the American-Israeli hostage families who were present at the DNC. "They are pissed. I just cannot overstate enough just how angry and disappointed they are in the reaction that has been coming from the Israeli government and right-wing cabinet ministers who don't prioritize the release of their loved ones," added Samuels.
After attending both party conventions, Samuels believes that, short of triggering a large-scale regional war that would involve the United States, "it's very unlikely that Israel will move the needle in terms of who will be the next president."
That doesn't mean Netanyahu won't use elections season to his advantage. "The presidential election creates just one other sort of channel where he can feed his chaos through," Samuels concludes, "where he can play the candidates off each other, and use this to manipulate the Israeli public into fearing what stands on the other side of his Premiership."
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been enjoying a "dramatic but quite consistent recovery" in the polls in past months, after the failures of October 7 sent his popularity plummeting to unprecedented lows, according to public opinion expert and Haaretz columnist Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin.
On this week's Haaretz Podcast, Scheindlin analyzes what may be Netanyahu's slow but steady political comeback despite the fact that the war has continued while a deal to return the country's remaining hostages still has not actualized. She says recent escalations with Iran, particularly the daring assassination of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, which Israel has not claimed responsibility for, have restored some of the public's faith in his leadership.
Also on the podcast, Haaretz cyber and disinformation reporter Omer Benjakob reviews the "dangerous" breaches of cybersecurity within the Israeli military and how the same Iranian military units devoted to hacking in order to harm Israel are now setting their sights on the U.S. presidential elections.
With an "endless stream" of Iranian hacks of sensitive information from its top-secret bases and tracking of soldiers through their smartwatches, the country's most dangerous enemy is collecting and publishing dossiers he describes as a "very dangerous cyber nightmare" that should be feared and fought against as vigorously as missiles, rockets and drones.
It is already clear that during the U.S. election campaign, Benjakob says, Iran is doing its best to "foment tensions" around what has already proved to be a dividing issue and the Israel-Hamas conflict "is being amplified at a level that is unprecedented."
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Renewed US efforts to reach a hostage deal represent "a last ditch attempt" by the Biden White House for a diplomatic win that could stave off a major Middle East conflagration ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Amos Harel, Haaretz senior military and security analyst said on the Haaretz Podcast, ahead of American-led negotiations set to take place at a summit in Doha, Qatar.
The efforts are taking place as Israel faces a "dangerous" and "desperate" situation as it remains prepared for a serious attack, Harel assessed and "the efforts made by the Americans right now show us how seriously they've been taking this threat of regional escalation."
Speaking to Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Harel pointed to mixed signals from the Israeli side as to whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is, on any level, interested in making a deal that would return the remaining living hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza.
Also on the podcast, Haaretz sportswriter Ido Rakovsky discusses the more heartening and cheerful development of the past weeks - the unprecedented successes of Israel's Olympic athletes in the Paris summer games and the "roller coaster of emotions" as they competed in wartime under tight security.
"It's a historic moment," declared Rakovsky, noting that Israel has only won 13 Olympic medals in the first 78 years of its existence "and suddenly, in Paris, we finish with seven medals," after even optimistic assessments predicted winning four or five.
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Over the course of two days last week, two major assassinations shook the Middle East. The first was of senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, for which the Israeli military took credit, in Beirut. The second was a much more daring operation – the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, right under the nose of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Iran and other sources have blamed Israel for the strike, and are vowing retaliation – and Israel is gearing up for an attack. For the Haaretz Podcast, correspondent Linda Dayan spoke to Dr. Raz Zimmt, a senior researcher and expert on Iran from the Institute of National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University about this threat.
After April's Iranian attack on Israel, Zimmt explained, "Iran has come up with this so-called 'new equation,' according to which every Israeli attack on Iranian interests – personalities or facilities, either inside Iran or outside Iran – would be considered a major blow, which deserves a direct attack by Iran."
Compared to previous incidents, "Iran and Hezbollah are more willing today to take the risk of escalation," Zimmt said, "even if it means dragging themselves into a full-scale confrontation."
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It was a scene of "complete chaos" in the town of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights following the devastating Hezbollah strike that killed 12 Druze children playing soccer on Saturday, Haaretz correspondent Sheren Falah Saab, who was at the scene just an hour after the attack, recounted emotionally on Haaretz Podcast.
"There were ambulances everywhere and hundreds of people surrounding the wounded children and the bodies of the children," said Falah Saab, who is a member of the Druze community, and has spent the days since the tragedy in the hospital at the bedside of her own relatives wounded in most deadly attack on civilians in Israeli territory since October 7.
Falah Saab recalled that "one of most painful sights was the blood-stained bicycles of the children" who were playing on the soccer field and who had no time to run for safety when the siren sounded.
The disaster struck a community already hit hard by the Gaza war, she noted. Ten Druze soldiers have been killed in fighting since the start of the war in Gaza. There has also been damage to agriculture and property. But the greatest economic blow is the near-cessation of tourism by both Israelis and foreign visitors in northern Israel, on which much of the Druze population relies to make a living.
In the midst of calls for massive retaliation by Israeli leaders, including some Druze, Falah Saab maintained that a majority of Druze "say they don't want war, and they don't want this tragedy to cause more tragedy and more killing of children."
Also on the podcast, Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America discusses the excitement among Jewish Democrats about the candidacy of Kamala Harris for president, following President Joe Biden's decision to bow out of the race.
Soifer said that there will "continue to be no daylight" between the policies of Harris and Biden regarding Israel and the Gaza war.
"She came into this White House with a deep commitment to Israel and in this White House she has been in lockstep with the president on every key issue related to Israel in the lead up to – and now in the aftermath of – the horrific attacks of October 7," Soifer said, dismissing the "vitriol, hate and lies" of GOP nominee Donald Trump who recently charged Democrats with "hating Israel."
Given that three-quarters of US Jews vote for the Democrats, she said, Trump is essentially saying that nearly all of them "are uninformed and disloyal, that we hate Israel, that we hate our religion." His charge that "Kamala Harris doesn't stand with Israel is patently false and yet another iteration of his toxic vitriol, and it's targeting Jewish voters. We should call it out for what it is. It is hate, and we reject it."
According to Soifer, the Jewish vote will be unusually significant in this election, given the presence of Jewish population in key battleground states, in which Harris and GOP nominee Donald Trump are deadlocked.
"This election is going to be close, just like the last one was, and it will be decided by probably about 6 percent of voters in six states: Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. We're not talking about a lot of voters who are going to decide the outcome of this election, which is why the Jewish vote is so important."
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It's a time of goodbyes: As Joe Biden says goodbye to the U.S. presidency, Netanyahu said goodbye to Israel while the Gaza war is raging, while hostages are both suffering and dying, so that he could speak to the U.S. Congress and hold a few high-level meetings. It may not have been ideal timing, but Netanyahu got what he wanted: too many standing ovations to count.
Did Israelis get anything out of the speech? Did Netanyahu lay out a vision for the future or a path to get there? One (or two) might even ask: What was Netanyahu even thinking?
In a final revival-farewell, Election Overdose podcast hosts Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin do their utmost to answer it in a special episode of the Haaretz Podcast. Come for the banter, stay for the breakdown. And there's one more farewell at the end of it all.
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President Joe Biden's stunning decision to step aside and forgo a second term, throwing his support behind the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris is unlikely to dramatically change U.S. policy towards Israel's conflict with Hamas in Gaza, according to former diplomat and senior Haaretz columnist Alon Pinkas, who reacted to the bombshell news from Washington on the Haaretz Podcast this week.
Biden is planning to remain president until his successor takes office in January 2025, so presumably till then, says Pinkas, all policy regarding Israel and the war - in Gaza and beyond - will be coordinated "vis a vis Joe Biden, not Kamala Harris. In fact, Harris is probably not going to deal with foreign policy because she will be preoccupied and very hectically busy running for president in Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia and other places. And so she's not going to want to deal with foreign policy, certainly not thorny issues like the Middle East."
To U.S. supporters of Israel - and Israelis - whose concerns about Harris might lead them to consider backing Republican nominee Donald Trump, Pinkas warns against what he views as "plain idiocy."
Pinkas assesses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's trip to Washington this week as "a Seinfeld visit about nothing that wasn't meant to be about anything except a vanity tour that Mr. Netanyahu thought he would sell to his electoral base." With war raging in Israel and hostages in Gaza, Pinkas calls the decision to travel to Washington "recklessness of the highest order."
Also on the podcast, family members of hostages, who traveled to Washington, explain why they felt the need to make their voices heard during Netanyahu's visit, and pressure U.S. leaders to push Netanyahu in the direction of a deal that would end the war and free their loved ones from Hamas captivity.
"We're here send a message that (Netanyahu) cannot just go to America and get a standing ovation in Congress as if he won this war and freed the hostages," says Zahiro Shachar Mor, the nephew of 79-year-old hostage Avraham Mundar. "We are here to show the world that… the voice of Netanyahu is not the voice of Israel."
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If indeed Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif was killed when IDF forces targeted him on Saturday, "it would be a very important achievement for Israel but it's not the end of the world for Hamas or the end of the war" according to Haaretz senior security analyst Amos Harel, speaking to host Allison Kaplan Sommer on this week's Haaretz Podcast about the events that rocked the past weekend - the targeting of Deif and the attempt on the life of former President Donald Trump.
Although many Israeli security officials believe Deif was eliminated in the air assault in Gaza's Khan Yunis, Harel was cautious in his assessment, given that the head of Hamas's military wing has escaped multiple attempts on his life in the past.
As one of the "two major planners involved every inch of the way" when it came to the horrific massacres of October 7, Harel said it was "very important from an Israeli perspective to settle the score."
Also on the podcast, Haaretz Washington correspondent Ben Samuels discusses the effects of the Trump assassination attempt on the Republican National Convention, which is set to showcase campus antisemitism as one of it's "top tier issues."
Samuels, speaking from Milwaukee where he is covering the convention says the reason, is "because it hits at so many issues that Republicans in America these days really care about - it touches on immigration, foreign policy, and national security. So it makes sense that Republicans will really try to seize upon this as a key theme over the next few days" and point to it as a negative development that happened on Joe Biden's watch.
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While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledges to keep up the fighting in Gaza, thousands of Israelis joined together at a conference on Monday to deliver a message to his government and the world: It's time to reach a deal, to stop the war, to make peace.
One of the many groups behind the peace conference was Women Wage Peace, whose co-founder Yael Admi told Haaretz reporter and special host of Haaretz Podcast Linda Dayan that within the peace camp, "We have to unite our voices, and that's what we did."
Discussing how the event came about, how to keep the momentum and the role of women in ending the conflict, Admi said, "We have one common target: To bring back the hostages, to make this terrible war end and to begin a process of diplomatic agreements to give a horizon of solutions for these awful days."
Dayan also interviewed activists Ibrahim Abu Ahmad and Josh Drill, bereaved mother Elana Kaminka and Standing Together co-director Alon-Lee Green, who said "After nine months of war... It's not enough to point out what we hate," adding, "we must put forward a vision of which kind of reality we are demanding."
As Israelis dream of a better future, in Europe, France is gearing up for a far-right government after the National Rally party emerged victorious in the first round of voting on Sunday. Haaretz correspondent and France 24 journalist Shirli Sitbon joined the podcast to explain where France and its Jewish citizens, who have become a political football, go from here.
The Jewish community "is very divided" on the results, she said. "At the same time, they feel that [it's] a strong party that will be tough on anyone who attacks Jews – that's what the National Rally promises, to defend Jews – but at the same time, a lot of Jews know very well what this party is made of, its history, its program, and they see it as extremely dangerous."
Still, some French Jews are willing to live with antisemitism in parliament "if it means, they believe, more security on a daily basis," she said.
Until now, she added, French Jews have never had official contact with the far right beyond condemning them. But suddenly, with a high likelihood of a far-right total majority, "some Jewish officials are already officially starting to talk to the National Rally, because they want to know what's going to happen, to see what's next."
But, "with Jews in a situation we've never known before," she said, "we don't really know what's going to happen tomorrow when they're in power."
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The key to avoiding full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah is ending the conflict in southern Israel with Hamas, asserts Yoram Schweitzer, an expert on the Palestinian and Lebanese terror groups, on the Haaretz Podcast.
Schweitzer tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer that it is in Israel's power to "extricate itself" from what is already an ongoing two-front war. He blames the "illusion of a total victory" promoted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza for dragging on the war for months, what he calls a "misguided policy" that has also led to the war of attrition between Lebanon and Israel.
"I think it's in our hands to determine the future in the north" when it comes to preventing a slide into a larger war, Schweitzer says. "I think Israel has a great and significant role to play in calming down the situation."
A former strategist in negotiating for Israeli soldiers missing in action, Schweitzer believes that a deal must be made with Hamas exchanging hostages for Palestinian prisoners and ending the war. Afterward, Israel should work to "redesign our preparedness and our military readiness both in the south and in the north and prepare for a potential future war with Hezbollah, if needed" – unless a comprehensive regional political settlement can be reached.
Schweitzer says he believes internal political pressure in Lebanon and the potential devastation of a full-scale conflict means that Hezbollah is "under pressure" to accept a cease-fire that would avoid a conflagration in which Iran would be sure to join, thus sparking regional war.
While he believes Hezbollah and Iran are not interested in the all-out war that has panicked Israelis into buying generators and stocking up on bottled water, "it's in their interest to stick to their policy and to the war of attrition. I think that we need to understand that Israel is the one who determines the scale and the height of the flames of the war."
Acknowledging that Hezbollah's Iran-backed forces initiated the current conflict and is "not an innocent bystander," he notes that "Hezbollah is mostly reactive to Israeli maneuvers and attacks" and so Israel determines "where the trend in Lebanon is going."
Netanyahu's seemingly concerted efforts to alienate the Biden White House weakens Israel's position vis-a-vis both Hamas and Hezbollah, Schweitzer says, calling it a "very dangerous" and "stupid, foolish and irresponsible" policy.
"It is definitely a strategic mistake by our prime minister to attack what may be one of the most friendly administrations that Israel has enjoyed throughout the years. I don't want to use foul language, but it's definitely an unrealistic and irresponsible policy to attack Israel's most significant ally."
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Israelis should expect Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "poison machine" to be working overtime with the coalition government attacking its own military leaders on a daily basis, says Haaretz senior defense analyst Amos Harel on the Haaretz Podcast.
After a brief "honeymoon" period last week, following the IDF's daring rescue of four Israeli hostages held in Gaza, he said, "The hunt is on again. We'll see Netanyahu attacking them almost on a daily basis on the one hand, and also, what we call the poison machine run by his son and his supporters. We'll see more and more accusations pointed towards Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and Ronen Bar, the head of the [Shin Bet security service]."
The goal of these attacks, Harel says, is to distract the Israeli public from Netanyahu's "dirty political trickery" and "the terrible, terrible price of the ongoing war."
"Netanyahu's interests are no longer in line with Israel's strategic interest," Harel asserts. What about the "Decisive victory" the prime minister keeps talking about? "It's absolute nonsense," He said, "and Netanyahu knows that better than anyone else."
Also on the podcast, French journalist Shirli Sitbon, a long time Haaretz contributor, reports on how French Jews, along with the rest of the country, were "shocked" by the snap elections declared by President Emmanuel Macron.
She said they are themselves caught between political blocs on the left and the right, and with the center weakened, now embrace extremist parties.
On the far left, she said, the bloc includes MPs "saying Israel is solely responsible" for the war in Gaza, who view Hamas as a legitimate resistance movement, support a full boycott and sanctioning of the country as well as arresting Israeli soldiers traveling in Europe and protesters carrying signs portraying French Jewish politicians as pigs. The alternative is a right-wing coalition led by Marine Le Pen's extreme xenophobic National Rally.
The polarization, she said, leaves many Jews frightened and confused, with indications that more than half might consider leaving the country if the far left or the far right win a decisive victory and the country "changes on a fundamental level."
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If they ever imagined that they were dwelling in an ivory tower, the fierce and sometimes violent confrontations on their campuses have knocked academics who teach about Israel and the Middle East into a harsh new reality, Professor Dov Waxman, director of UCLA's Nazarian Center for Israel Studies told the Haaretz Podcast on the eve of a charged graduation week for his campus.
Waxman described the clash last month between pro-Palestinian protestors and Israel advocacy groups who came to confront them – and how he and other professors found themselves keeping the two sides apart with campus security nowhere to be found.
"I had felt like it was necessary to be there to observe and to try to be a witness and to provide an account, if that was needed. I didn't imagine that I'd be kind of brought into these protests or that I'd be required at all to keep protesters apart," Waxman said in a conversation with podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer.
"Ultimately," he said "being there on the campus, particularly in the hours before the big protest encampment was dismantled by the police and "see[ing] hundreds of heavily armed riot police lining up on what is normally the quad in the center of our campus where students hang out" and "the world's media converging on our campus" was a "disturbing' and "very, very surreal experience."
Also on the podcast, Haaretz correspondent Linda Dayan recounts her reporting from campus protests at several California universities.
She said that it was impossible to paint a simple picture of the typical campus protester or generalize about their messaging. Some programming criticizing Israel was no more extreme than what one might find in an Israeli newspaper, she said. Other sessions contained inflammatory and even antisemitic content.
"I've gone to magnificently different events on the same campus at the same encampment with wildly different messaging," Dayan said.
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There is "an abyss" between how the U.S. and Israeli governments treat the families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, says Prof. Jonathan Dekel-Chen, whose son Sagui, 35, was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 while trying to protect his family and other residents of Kibbutz Nir Oz. Sagui Dekel-Chen's wife, Avital, gave birth to the couple's third daughter in January.
Speaking with Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, the dual Israeli-U.S. citizen – who hasn't received new information about his son in eight months – compared the "inexplicably infuriating" behavior of members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government with their American counterparts.
Dekel-Chen said he has felt "privileged" to receive the attention and sympathy offered by U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration – along with the other dual citizens caught in the hostage nightmare. He also noted that he felt similar "wall to wall" support from members of Congress, "regardless of what their views are on the conduct of Israel's war."
In Israel, by contrast, "we've had no direct communication from senior ministers, nothing – it's unthinkable in a small intimate country like ours." He suggested that perhaps more sympathy and support would be forthcoming if those whose communities and lives were "destroyed" by the events of October 7 had come from the right-wing religious constituencies that make up Netanyahu's governing coalition.
While Biden has put another cease-fire and hostage deal on the table, urging Netanyahu and Hamas to agree to its terms, "Israel's government has a distorted view of what victory is," according to Dekel-Chen. "This war is more like a crusade ... its goals are dictated by the fringe, radical, far right."
On the podcast, Dekel-Chen also explains why, as a Hebrew University history professor, he feels that comparisons between October 7 and the Holocaust are inaccurate and dangerous. "Other than the death on that day, there are no real similarities," he says, "and it simply serves as a much too-easy-explanation for a horrific day and lets people off the hook who should be held accountable. It invokes some greater force that's so far beyond our control that it was almost inevitable. That's absolute nonsense."
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Rabbi Delphine Horveilleur, considered one of the most powerful and prominent voices of French Jewry, spoke with Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer during her first visit to Israel since the October 7 attacks and the beginning of Israel's war in Gaza, and discussed the way in which for Diaspora Jews, the attacks meant "that our refuge isn't safe anymore."
Horveilleur describes 'a feeling of vulnerability and exile that came back to us. And even in Israel, there's a feeling that we're all in a way in a kind of 'galut" - exile - and there is an awareness of brokenness in us."
At the same time, she says, the current situation presents an opportunity for a "renewed conversation" between Israel and the Diaspora. She feels Israelis, who are usually "focused on strength," are currently more able to relate to feelings of "fragility and the vulnerability," that Diaspora Jews deal with more openly.
Contemplating the rise of antisemitism around the world, Horveilleur says confronting people about their antisemitism is "totally useless."
"It never even makes them aware of the problem," she expands. "Many people say 'I am not an antisemite' but they speak in an antisemitic language, it's almost an ancient antisemitic tongue that people use without knowing."
Also on the podcast, Hebrew University professor Tamar Megiddo, an expert in public international law, lays out the challenges that face Israel in the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court. Megiddo discusses the likely consequences of the request for arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of violating international humanitarian law.
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Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn understands the incredulity abroad regarding the political survival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his grip on power despite the failures of October 7, terrible poll numbers, thousands of Israelis in the streets protesting weekly and his policies creating unprecedented tensions with the United States.
In the second in a series of special podcast episodes in which subscribers from around the world were given the opportunity to ask questions, Benn emphasized in his responses Netanyahu isn't going away anytime soon.
"Netanyahu did lose a lot of his popularity after October 7 - and rightly so. But he has been able to hold on to his coalition. And there is no sign of any imminent collapse of this coalition, or any cracks within it that might bring him down." Benn noted while answering a range of questions on security and political issues.
"We have to bear in mind that while his government is unpopular, it's leading a very popular policy. There is very strong support in the Israeli Jewish society to continue the war until the defeat of Hamas and hopefully also of Hezbollah, the return of Israelis to live along the borders in the south and the north, and a more quiet future."
Worryingly, Benn points out that the only clear-cut vision for post-war Gaza without Hamas rule is a long-term occupation of Gaza, coming from the the government's far right flank, with tacit cooperation from Netanyahu.
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As Israel prepares to celebrate Memorial Day, or Yom Hazikaron, on Monday and Independence Day, or Yom Haatzmaut, the following day, the abrupt transition from commemoration to celebration will look different in the shadow of October 7 and the war in Gaza.
Abbey Onn lost two members of her family in Hamas' murderous attack, while three were taken hostage (two of them, 12-year-old Erez and 16-year-old Sahar, were released in November). She tells Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer that she's helping to organize an alternative memorial ceremony powered by a group of families of hostages as a way "to say that we're building a new reality together, that we need to strengthen one another."
While Onn doesn't discount the efforts of the army which is "fighting on our behalf," rather "than commemorating or talking about heroism, which we absolutely believe has happened," the event is an "effort to try to heal and rebuild."
"We can't move forward until these people come back," she says. "[My family] needs to know that there is a strong movement of civilians who are willing to acknowledge that things are not as they were."
Also on the podcast, Carly Rosenthal, from the pro-peace, anti-occupation NGO Combatants for Peace, talks about the organization's 19-year-old tradition of offering an alternative memorial ceremony to the government-sponsored event, which allows "Israelis and Palestinians to mourn together, to grieve for their loved ones that they've lost throughout the conflict."
This year, she says, the theme centers on children during war. "Too many children, too many people, have been killed and are suffering. And the ceremony is an opportunity to honor them and to remember them, and to also say that we don't want this for them. We want a better future for them."
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Journalist and public intellectual Masha Gessen is dismayed that the Biden White House has been condemning, not supporting, the numerous tent protests against Israel's war in Gaza on American campuses and worried that this decision will hand the 2024 presidential election to Donald Trump.
Speaking with host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the Haaretz Podcast, Gessen said that the fact that "Biden and his administration are willing to sacrifice the election, effectively, to its ongoing engagement with Israel is shocking, heartbreaking and very dangerous for this country."
Gessen is a staff writer for The New Yorker and a senior lecturer in journalism at the City University of New York. In a wide-ranging conversation, Gessen recounted experiences on their recent reporting trip to Israel – including a visit to relatives living in a West Bank settlement – discussed the recent controversy over their comparison between the Gaza and Nazi-era Jewish ghettos and their views on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who they described as "very much in the mold of all contemporary autocrats."
While they expressed "empathy" for the "fear, pain and terror" elicited by their Holocaust analogy, they said "I'm very critical of the way that [the Holocaust] is being used politically," especially by "creating a sort of blindness to everything but that experience of fear and victimhood."
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In her first visit to Israel since October 7, Berkeley-based author and screenwriter Ayelet Waldman made the news carrying a sack of rice on her shoulder, she was arrested with a group of rabbis participating in a symbolic march to the Gaza border to deliver humanitarian aid.
Neither she nor members of the group, Waldman tells Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, were under the illusion that they would actually get through the Erez checkpoint to feed Palestinians - but she felt it was important to her, while in Israel, to take an action in line with her values "and this struck me as an action that would feel personally meaningful, because the news of the famine has been particularly horrific."
Waldman, the parent of two children in U.S. universities, also weighs in on the "obsession" of the American Jewish community - and Israelis - with antisemitism on campuses in the midst of the pro-Palestinian protests taking place in Columbia University and colleges all over the States. "I really do believe that [the antisemitism] is overstated," she says.
Also on the podcast, Haaretz senior defense and security analyst Amos Harel gives a pessimistic view of the chances of progress when it comes to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government reaching a deal for the release of hostages and a cease-fire, that would stave off an IDF operation in Rafah.
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If support for Israel becomes a truly partisan issue and political football in the United States, it will be "a disaster" that the people and the leaders of the Jewish state don't fully comprehend, says Professor Noah Feldman in a conversation with host of the Haaretz Podcast Allison Kaplan Sommer.
Feldman is a Harvard Law School professor and public intellectual who has written ten books on law, politics, religion and Middle East geopolitics. In his new book, "To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People," he applies rigorous thinking to the foundational question of what it means to be Jewish, with a special emphasis on how the founding of the state of Israel fundamentally transformed the religion.
Feldman says much of what has unfolded since October 7 reinforced the thesis of his book as to the key role Israel plays in Jewish religious identity. "I know a lot of American Jews who went from being once in a while, vacation on the beach Zionists to very intensely committed active Zionist because of October 7 – that's one form of engagement."
"And then on the other side, you have people who were kind of trying to put their heads in the sand and never think about Israel, lest they be forced to criticize it, who basically felt after October 7: 'I have to say that what is happening in Gaza is not in my name.'" For Jews around the world, he says, "Israel has become a central part of their Jewishness that they must react to, whether positively or negatively."
In the wide-ranging interview, Feldman, who is also an expert on constitutional and international law, addresses the hot button issue of accusing Israel of genocide, which has gripped college campuses like Harvard.
"There is no evidence that would satisfy an international court engaged in an ordinary criminal evaluation of genocide to support the charge that Israel has engaged in a genocide in Gaza," he asserts. "To emphasize that charge, over time and aggressively, in the absence of such evidence, has the possibility of crossing into a type of antisemitism that imagines Jews as always and everywhere the oppressors, and never as victims."
At the same time, he stresses, "one can hold the view that I just described, of rejecting the genocide charge, and still believe that Israel's conduct in Gaza is excessive, even under international law potentially. But the genocide charge is so richly embedded in a discourse of definitional evil. And it's so associated with the Holocaust, that it's worrisome to me when, for example, the South African government goes to The Hague and says Israel are actually the genocidal actors because I think there's a conscious desire to flip a narrative here."
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Iran's firing of hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel on Saturday night marked a new escalation in a simmering war usually fought by proxies miles from Tehran. Iran's strike, which was largely intercepted by Israel and its allies, leaves lingering questions of global significance.
On a special edition of the podcast, Haaretz reporter Linda Dayan speaks to Haaretz Editor-in-Chief Aluf Benn, who explains how this unprecedented attack came to be – and what might follow. Although this particular barrage failed to inflict mass casualties, in its aftermath, "Israeli decision-makers" must now think "not twice, but ten times, about the consequences" of striking Iranian targets or their proxies in the future. "After October 7, I think we all need to be very skeptical of premediated military outcomes, both for Israel and for Hamas as well."
If you want to fight Iran, Benn says, "you need the early warning capabilities, if not the defensive capabilities, of your allies in the region and first and foremost the United States." But the same alliances that helped Israel are absent for Hamas. Iran's actions "shows Hamas that, at this stage at least, they're still friendless. Nobody is going to come help them," Benn says. "They did not say once that if Israel would be willing to stop the fire in Gaza… they would not retaliate."
As Israelis are worrying about a new front to this war, so, it seems, are Iranians. Arash Azizi contributing writer at The Atlantic and author of "What Iranians Want: Women, Life, Freedom," explains how average Iranians are responding to the threat. "Average Iranians have a lot of problems – economic, the repression they face from the government," he says. "The last thing they can afford is to enter a war with Israel, a country for which there is very little hostility amongst the Iranian public."
"Iranians don't have that hostility to Israel that I think you do have in other Arab countries – it's just not the same thing for us." The warmongers and champions of the regime's aggression toward the Jewish State are a small minority, he says.
The very day of Iran's launches at Israel, the regime ramped up its persecution of women who do not cover their hair, Azizi notes. "The regime will use whatever this conflict is going to be to repress critique," he says, but at the same time, "it's a new vista for the Iranian opposition to oppose the war – and also to oppose this regime that has brought nothing good for Iranians, and has threatened our country with a war that none of us want."
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Six months into Israel's conflict with Hamas, the solid support U.S. President Joe Biden's White House gave to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has taken a serious hit.
Following the deaths of seven World Central Kitchen humanitarian aid workers, a clash over a possible military operation in Rafah, and Israel's failure to provide a vision for the "day after" the war in Gaza, there has been a "precipitous drop" in the standing of the Israeli prime minister both in the White House and Congress, Haaretz Washington correspondent Ben Samuels tells Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer.
"World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres is a close friend of Joe Biden. And when seven of his employees are killed, that made it personal for the president in a way that unfortunately 30,000 Palestinian casualties has not been," he said, sparking an unprecedented tough phone call from the president to Netanyahu in which Biden "really put his foot down."
Behind the scenes at the White House, Samuels said, officials are "incredibly frustrated, and I think they feel a little personally betrayed by Netanyahu as well.
"I think they really believe that they have been going out on a limb providing coverage and support when it is becoming extremely unpopular both within the United States and in the international community. So I think there is a very real sense of resentment," Samuels said.
Also on the podcast, Hadar Susskind, President and CEO of Americans for Peace Now discusses his organization's support for Congress conditioning aid to Israel, a stance that has traditionally been controversial within the world of American Jewish advocacy groups but is gaining traction on Capitol Hill.
As Susskind sees it, "aid to Israel is endangered" because Israel's behavior in Gaza and the West Bank "often does not align with American policy and American values. When that happens, you will see far greater pushback, as we are seeing right now [with] people saying aid should be cut."
As a result, "if you want there to be a path for U.S. aid to Israel to continue, that aid, like all the other aid we give every other country, "needs to be conditioned."
Susskind, a longtime progressive activist in Washington, also discussed the perception that there is an epidemic of antisemitism on the U.S. left.
"I still think it is overwhelmingly actually on the far right," he contends. "That's not to say it doesn't exist on the left. It does, and I've seen it, but... so much of what is reported breathlessly as horrible antisemitism on college campuses is college students chanting 'Free Palestine.' You may dislike that – it might make you or your kid on campus uncomfortable – but I personally don't believe that saying 'Free Palestine' is itself an antisemitic act."
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The controversy in Israel over the exemption of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students from military service "has reached a boiling point," former Haaretz journalist and author Yair Ettinger tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the Haaretz Podcast.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has continually delayed confronting the issue in his years in power, Ettinger notes. But this week, the High Court's deadline for either enshrining exemptions in legislation or enlisting yeshiva students expired. And it did so during a war in which Israelis serving in the army have made tremendous sacrifices, and amid severe discontent with Netanyahu's coalition, which depends on ultra-Orthodox support.
And so, Ettinger says, Israelis who disliked but tolerated the ability of the ultra-Orthodox to avoid army service in the past have now "run out of patience."
"There is a big dissonance in Israel right now regarding the Haredim. Why? Because they are at the peak of their political power, and yet they don't share the duties [of defending the country]." On one hand, "they are the government. They have been the senior partners of Netanyahu for many, many years. And now, when we have an existential moment, and we are fighting a really difficult war, they don't pay any price."
Ettinger, author of the book, "Frayed, the Disputes Unraveling Religious Zionists," also looks at how the judicial overhaul battle is inextricably intertwined with the military exemption controversy, and discusses the growing rift in Orthodox society over religion and society, the role of women and tolerance of LGBTQ individuals.
That rift, he says, is exemplified at the Pride Parade each year, where "you can see many religious Zionists marching and many others [among] them protesting against the parade."
He also notes that while the Gaza war has underlined the cracks between secular Israelis and their Diaspora counterparts, "the opposite is true" among the Orthodox. "Today, they are closer than ever," Ettinger says.
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Haaretz journalist Sheren Falah Saab has been covering the unfolding disastrous humanitarian situation in Gaza for months. Even now, aside from reporting on the lives of Gazans as the war rages, she manages, from time to time, to deep dive into Arab culture, and write the kind of articles that she used to send in all the time before October 7.
But, she confesses in this week's conversation with Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, the things she hears from Gazans often break her heart.
In the first of three special episodes in which Haaretz subscribers from around the world were given the opportunity to ask Haaretz journalists their questions, Falah Saab responded to a wide range of queries from readers and talked openly about her life as a Druze citizen working as a journalist in Israel, before and after October 7.
She talks about the complex identity issues embedded in the question whether minorities prefer to be called "Israeli Arabs" or "Palestinian citizens of Israel," and the challenging process of sourcing and verifying information inside Gaza, almost six months into the war.
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This special episode of the Haaretz Podcast features two of the standout sessions from the recent Haaretz-UCLA conference: Israel After October 7
First, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman sits down with Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn to discuss the “perils” and “opportunities” that lie ahead for Israel in the aftermath of the war in Gaza.
Friedman predicts that "Israel is either going to come out of this with a new relationship with the Palestinians in 2024” or will “go back to 1947-48 with new weapons,” if it fails to develop a coherent vision for the future of Gaza and a wider strategic plan for the region.
The latter option, he fears, becomes increasingly likely the longer that the extreme right-wing coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - a group of “incompetent” ministers he would not want “as waiters at my grandson’s bar mitzvah” remains in power.
Then, Haaretz diplomatic correspondent Amir Tibon and his father retired Major General Noam Tibon join deputy editor-in-chief of Haaretz English, Maya Lecker, to recount the dramatic episode on October 7 when armed Hamas militants infiltrated Kibbutz Nahal Oz, where Amir lives. He, his wife, and their two little girls spent tense hours locked in their safe room without food or electricity, before Amir's father undertook what he called "the mission of his life" and drove south in a daring campaign to rescue them on his own.
"On the morning of October 8, I said that everyone responsible for this failure, the biggest failure in the history of the state of Israel, needs to go," Noam Tibon said, echoing Thomas Friedman's message - that Israel needs a change in leadership. "The leadership of the IDF, the Shin Bet – they took responsibility and I know they will go. All of the government too. But the first one who needs to take responsibility is Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister. I believe that Netanyahu is personally in charge of this failure, he basically developed Hamas as an asset. He needs to go as soon as possible."
The entire conference is available for viewing on YouTube here.
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Award-winning playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner, one of the first high-profile American Jewish artists to sharply and publicly criticize Israel's treatment of Palestinians, speaks to Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer about Jonathan Glazer's Oscar speech, the Gaza War, antisemitism in the U.S., and the current production of "Angels in America" in Tel Aviv.
He calls the events of October 7 "gutting" and as the months have passed since, has been horrified by the "unimaginable proportions" of the civilian death toll in Gaza and the result of actions by Israel which, he says "really looks a lot like ethnic cleansing to me" and explains the level of "passion and rage" in denunciations of the war around the world.
"If you had asked me, even on October 7, would Israel allow, 30,000 people, many of them civilians, to be killed by the IDF I would have said no. Or what the UN is warning of now and imminent famine, I would have said no."
He confesses on the podcast that over the five months since October 7, he has "moved closer to the idea that maybe boycott [of Israel] is is necessary." At the same time, he says: "I can't do it. I don't want to do it. I can't separate myself from Israel in that way. It just doesn't feel right."
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In a bold cover story in The Atlantic, journalist Franklin Foer declared "The Golden Age of American Jewry is Ending." On the Haaretz Podcast, he tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer how and why he reached the sobering conclusion that "an unprecedented period of safety and prosperity for Jewish Americans" is over.
Allegiance to the Palestinian cause on the progressive left, he says, is understandable – even after the atrocities of October 7 – as is opposition to the war in Gaza and calls for a cease-fire.
But "in that window after the horrific attacks of October 7 and before the Israeli war truly began, you had all of these people who had no sympathy for what had happened to Jews and immediately started blaming Israel for what had happened. And in that window there was just this sense of abandonment and disappointment that felt like a harbinger of something much worse that was to come."
According to Foer, people like him had a "sort of blind spot" when it came to antisemitism on the left before October 7.
Foer says he was particularly stunned after traveling to California to report on the "epidemic of bullying" of Jewish schoolchildren in Berkeley. The stories he heard were "horrifying," exemplifying a "kind of simplistic moralism, the dividing of the world into good and evil, where Jews are placed on the side of evil."
He sees what is happening as "a return to a more normal form of Jewish history where it's possible to live everyday Jewish life, but it is punctuated by episodes of antisemitism that cause a sense of insecurity and fear. I think that that that could be something closer to the new status quo."
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Veteran columnist Bradley Burston opens his new book "The End of Israel: Dispatches from a Path to Catastrophe" with a stinging indictment of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who he believes is leading the country towards what could be its final chapter.
He tells Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer that in recent years, when the country was embroiled in the battle over Netanyahu's judicial overhaul, "it was clear to me already that the Israel that we all once knew was not going to return and that something huge had already happened, some enormous abyss had already opened that would make it impossible for that Israel... to continue."
Calling the Gaza war a "man-made natural disaster," Burston asserts that Netanyahu has a vested interest in endless conflict and instability. "He wants the world to accuse Israel of genocide and apartheid, violent occupation and ethnic cleansing" so that Israelis believe "the world hates us, and he is the only one who can save them."
Also on the podcast, Haaretz Washington correspondent Ben Samuels provides an update on National Unity Party Benny Gantz's visit to Washington, and Vice President Kamala Harris' forceful speech in which she called for a cease-fire in Gaza.
Samuels also notes that in one of the major races on Super Tuesday, AIPAC made its biggest investment in the 2024 election season thus far, targeting California congressional candidate Dave Min who is "ostensibly pro-Israel." Yet the lobby organization and its super PAC, the United Democracy Project, flooded the airwaves with negative ads, none of which had to do with Israel.
The race, Samuels says, is sending a signal to other candidates that if they fail to "meet this threshold of what AIPAC defines as pro-Israel, they will be faced with millions of dollars in attack ads."
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In a recent op-ed in Haaretz, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right ministers of knowingly steering Israel into an all-out war.
During a wide-ranging conversation on this week's Haaretz Podcast, Olmert tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer that for Ben-Gvir, Smotrich and Netanyahu, Gaza is only the beginning - they are aiming for "Armageddon, that will make it possible to expel many of the Palestinians in the West Bank."
He mentions the government minister's backing of violent groups of settlers, who are beating Palestinians and looting their homes, and goes as far as saying, "A great majority of Palestinians killed in the West Bank [since October 7] were killed not necessarily for good reasons, and not by qualified Israeli security forces, but by volunteers - such as the hilltop youth."
Olmert, who a year and a half ago lost a defamation suit filed against him by the Netanyahu family for asserting they were mentally ill, doesn't seem deterred from using strong language to describe the prime minister. Over the time that has elapsed, he believes he has "won the understanding of the vast majority of the Israeli people" that the Prime Minister's behavior points to "a nervous breakdown."
"Nothing would have happened on October 7," Olmert says, if a different government with different priorities was in charge. "The failure starts with the overconfidence spread by the prime minister," that his "sophisticated manipulations" deterred Hamas.
"5,000 Palestinian terrorists shook the foundations of the state of Israel because of the overconfidence and arrogance," he concludes.
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You can hear the drumbeats for immediate elections in Israel in demonstrations in the streets, on highway billboards, and in the headlines. After four months of putting politics aside to focus on the war in Gaza and the northern border, Israelis - in growing numbers - are finally asking when they will be able to take their growing frustration with their current leaders to the polls.
Politics is also in the air when it comes to the Palestinian future - as the issue over who will rule Gaza and who will decide that - heats up. And as the 2024 November election looms in the United States, Israel and Gaza has become a hot potato in the race for the White House.
Public opinion expert and Haaretz columnist Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin joins host Allison Kaplan Sommer on this week's Haaretz Podcast to analyze the political map in each of these arenas in detail.
Scheindlin warns against misinterpreting the consistent polls showing that Israelis are ready to rid themselves of Benjamin Netanyahu following October 7 as evidence that they oppose his wartime policies, as well as the reason for why how Hamas appears to be far more politically popular in the West Bank than they are in Gaza.
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The decision by Moody's credit rating agency to downgrade Israel's rating and outlook last week was a shock to the country after decades of growth and a rosy outlook for the future as its technology-driven industries flourished.
Haaretz economics editor and commentator David Rosenberg explains to Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer why Israel received this "black mark," what it means, Israel's finance minister's "abnormal reaction" to the news and how it reflects the world's distrust of a far-right Orthodox-dominated government with an "agenda that, whatever else you might think about it, is not positive for the start-up nation phenomenon."
The Gaza war, he suggests, marks the end of "a view that was shared by many people in the Middle East – not just by Israelis – that there was an alternative to war and terrorism and constant political upheaval. That alternative, which we've seen happening in the Gulf, especially in the United Arab Emirates, and to a degree in Saudi Arabia, was 'let's focus on economic development and creating normal middle class societies' while pushing the Palestinian problem and try to put our political troubles behind us."
Also on the podcast, Haaretz's Washington correspondent Ben Samuels outlines the growing tensions between the Biden White House and the Israeli government over a full-on ground invasion in Rafah, where Hamas military presence remains, among 1.3 million Palestinian refugees crammed into the southern Strip.
Will Netanyahu defy the Biden administration's concerns and forge ahead? Samuels says that as long as the White House offers carrots without sticks, he believes it will. "The warnings are falling on deaf ears because Israel understands that there aren't going to be significant consequences other than rhetorical reprimands. Until there's really some sort of conditionality on U.S. support, the warnings of the administration will be relatively ineffective."
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Israel's former head of military intelligence, Tamir Hayman, now the managing director of the Institute for National Security Studies, joins host Allison Kaplan Sommer on Haaretz Podcast to discuss Israel's war with Hamas and the key question: How far is Israel willing to go to bring 130-plus hostages home?
While Hayman believes that the terms of a ceasefire are negotiable on both sides, he is skeptical that Israel's current government would release the political prisoners with blood on their hands that Hamas will demand in exchange. Therefore, "a large-scale hostage deal is not in the cards."
Israeli political considerations, he adds, also stand in the way of what he believes is Israel's best chance: embracing the Biden administration's "American Initiative for Regional Change" which packages a ceasefire in Gaza, acceptance of the Palestinian Authority as a central civilian authority there, and Saudi normalization and regional integration.
"It comes down to this: What is more important – the survival of the prime minister in the current government, or… whether from the atrocities of the 7th of October, the lowest point in our history, we can achieve something grand, something that will create a new horizon," Hayman asserts, stressing that Israel has the most to lose by continuing to avoid the question of what will happen in Gaza "the day after" the war.
"If you don't give an alternative... for the population, eventually you will have chaos, and you will end up with Hamas rule," he says.
Four months after October 7, Hayman says that the question of the failures that led to the surprise attack continue to occupy him. "There is no night that I go to sleep and I don't think about my time as head of intelligence and ask myself whether I was wrong in my assumptions regarding Hamas."
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Thousands of Israelis are back on the streets, four months after the October 7 Hamas attack and the war in Gaza halted historic demonstrations against the Netanyahu government's plan to overhaul the judiciary.
Joining host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the Haaretz Podcast, reporter Linda Dayan explains how the protest movement has reemerged, and how wartime demonstrations differ.
While the current wave of protests began with vigils and rallies for the hostages' return, "as the objectives of the war got a little bit muddier [and] military casualties started to mount, we started to see that the hostages weren't coming back and that we didn't have a deal on the table to bring them back – we started to get more political anti-government protests demanding 'elections now,'" Dayan says.
These two movements – one for bringing the hostages home and the other consisting of anti-government action – "are being held concurrently in two separate locations in Tel Aviv."
Along with Dayan, Moran Zer Katzenstein, leader of Bonot Alternativa, the women's rights organization whose Handmaid's Tale-inspired costumes became a symbol of the pro-democracy protests last year, explains why her group has returned to the streets despite calls for unity in wartime.
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On this week's Haaretz Podcast, host Allison Kaplan Sommer holds a wide-ranging conversation with Chuck Freilich, Israel's former deputy national security adviser.
Freilich, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, discusses the numerous troubling issues arising from Israel's conflict with Hamas. He says that in the "hot atmosphere" following October 7, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government set problematic goals when it declared its intention to destroy Hamas as a military organization and topple it from being the governing body in Gaza.
A deal to bring the hostages back, says Freilich, "will mean thousands of Hamas terrorists being released. And we know that a lot of them will go back and conduct terrorist operations in the future... but this is the price one pays for the decision-making failures that led to October 7. It's ugly."
The deterioration in the relationship between Biden, "a remarkable friend to Israel" and Netanyahu, and the loss of U.S. support, is what he fears may ultimately be the most dangerous consequence of this war.
"I think our relationship with the United States is an existential one," he says, " and the war with Hamas shows we are far more dependent on the U.S. than we ever knew."
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In a special edition of the Haaretz Podcast, host Allison Kaplan Sommer and the Haaretz editorial team asked subscribers worldwide what they saw as the most urgent questions as the Israel-Hamas conflict passed the 100-day mark. The questions poured in.
Is there any way to get rid of Netanyahu? What do Israelis know - and think about the level of death and destruction in Gaza? How does Israel decide when to assassinate a Hamas leader? Should Israel be more worried about progressive Democrats or the possible election of Donald Trump and the rise of the far-right? What will the future look like for Israel and Gaza once this conflict is over? Should Israel go out of its way to protect diaspora Jews?
Listen to the answers given by Haaretz editor in chief Aluf Ben, Haaretz English editor in chief Esther Solomon, Haaretz analysts Anshel Pfeffer, Yossi Melman, Alon Pinkas and Dahlia Scheindlin, and Haaretz correspondents Sheren Falah Saab and Ben Samuels.
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Rabbi Sharon Brous, founder of the IKAR synagogue in Los Angeles, has been progressive Judaism's leading voice over the past decade speaking out for equality and human rights, as well as the rabbinic figure of choice for the Biden-Harris White House.
Author of the new book "The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World," Brous told Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer that her world changed since October 7 and that, among other realizations, she reached the "painful awareness" that some of her allies on the left still "don't see Jews in that utopian anti-racist society that we have been dreaming about together."
Brous, whose new book focuses on Jewish mourning rituals, said it is understandable that even Jews on the progressive left are currently enmeshed in tribal grief as the war rages on. Her own congregation in Los Angeles includes families of those murdered and kidnapped by Hamas.
Still, she said, "Each of us, in our own way, has to find when we're ready to step out of our shiva, and see that there is a world of human suffering that is happening just over the border."
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Ambassador Dennis Ross has played an important part in U.S. Middle East policy over the last decades, and was the point man in the peace process in both the George W. Bush administration and Bill Clinton's administration. On Saturday night, he made a speech on the stage of the weekly Tel Aviv rally in solidarity with Israeli hostages still held by Hamas, making the case for a more long-term vision in the fight to dismantle Hamas and shape the future of Gaza.
In this week's Haaretz podcast, Ross spoke to host Allison Kaplan Sommer about the impact of October 7 on Israelis and Palestinians, on the things that have shaken him most on his current visit to the region and what has to be done to move forward after the horrors of the Gaza war.
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As the number of Palestinian deaths in Gaza climbs to 20,000 while the number of Israeli soldiers killed in fighting grows daily, it is becoming harder every day for the two sides of the bloody conflict to see the humanity in the other side, says Sheren Falah Saab, who is covering the Gazan side of the conflict for Haaretz.
Falah Saab tells Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer about the difficulty of covering a war when you can't be on the ground and the individual human stories among the thousands of Gazan victims of the war she has chosen to bring the world through her journalism.
"In the end, they are human beings and Hamas didn't ask Gazans if they wanted to go to war or not," Falah Saab says, as she discusses the challenges of being an Arab citizen of Israel writing in Hebrew to Israeli readers at a time when speaking of death in Gaza "is taboo." She has personally lost friends on both sides of the conflict.
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The Houthis in Yemen, the Islamist rebel group that has shot missiles and drones at Israel and is now intensifying attacks on key shipping lanes in the Red Sea, have progressed from being "a nuisance and a headache to a major strategic threat to Israel," according to Dr. Yoel Guzansky, a former member of Israel's National Security Council and a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies.
Their escalating attacks on international shipping over the course of the Israel-Hamas conflict have raised the stakes of Israel's conflict with its neighbors into a global concern. On Monday, the U.S. announced the formation of a coalition of ten nations to take action against the Houthi aggression against cargo ships which threatens global trade.
On the Haaretz Weekly podcast, Guzansky, and Haaretz National Security editor Avi Scharf, sit down with host Allison Kaplan Sommer to discuss who the Houthis are and how Israel - and the world - should respond to them.
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From the horrifying live videos broadcasted by Hamas militants on the morning of October 7 during their invasion of Israeli villages, to IDF soldiers entering Gaza, the bombarded buildings, and the long lines of refugees with few belongings – The Israel-Hamas war is probably the most continuously, visually, documented war in history.
Pictures have great power. And that means those in power have a great interest in directing images towards their political narrative. On this episode of the Haaretz Weekly podcast, Israeli journalist and activist Anat Saragusti, who has lived and reported from both southern Israel and the Gaza Strip, and is recognized as Israel's first woman war photographer, talks to Esther Solomon about the striking visuals we have been exposed to since the October 7 massacre, and the one's that are missing in Israeli media.
Saragusti is currently the curator of an exhibition called 'Local Testimony': a collection of the iconic photographs from the past year in Israel.
In the conversation, Saragusti also addresses the fact that Israeli mainstream media barely shows images of what's happening in Gaza and isn't regularly reporting on the dire situation in the Strip. "The fact that Israeli audiences don't see images from Gaza means that journalists are not doing their jobs," she states matter-of-factly. "They have to show the images. Hebrew speaking Israelis watching television news are not exposed at all to what's going on in Gaza. We don't see the atrocities, the rubble, the destruction and the humanitarian crisis. The world sees something completely different."
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In this week's episode of the Haaretz Weekly podcast, Haaretz English editor-in-chief Esther Solomon explores a topic that has angered the Israeli public since the start of the Israel-Hamas War: Why haven't representatives of the Red Cross been able to visit Israeli hostages who are being held in Gaza in unknown locations and conditions for almost two months?
As some captives were released by Hamas during a temporary cease-fire, Israelis – who were closely watching the daily releases on television - have started to see the Red Cross's representatives as taxi drivers, who can do nothing more than drive the hostages to the border.
Yael Friedson, Haaretz’s legal correspondent, has been reporting on the plight of the hostages held by Hamas. She says, “Everyone hopes that the Red Cross representatives could visit the hostages and pass on medicine and messages from the families,” but, she notes, there is a knowledge gap about what a neutral humanitarian organization can actually do without the consent of both parties.
Sarah Elizabeth Davies, ICRC spokesperson based in Jerusalem, explains that the anger directed at the organization is misdirected. “We cannot force our way in, we don't have weapons, and we don't have political power. We stay neutral, so that we can be trusted. And this is not something that is always easily understood, particularly in the emotional reality of a conflict.”
Jonathan Adiri, former IDF chief liaison officer to the Red Cross, tells Haaretz that Israel’s relationship with the Red Cross “has had its ups and downs”, but stresses: “Their neutrality is critical. The fact that there’s an organization with enough carrying capacity to receive our hostages [from Hamas] and bring them to safety is not to be taken lightly.”
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While the world is watching the Israel-Hamas war unfold in Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank are suffering some of the worst violence and restrictions on their daily life in years.
Since Hamas militants entered Israel on October 7 and killed an estimated 1,200 people, Israel's security forces have cracked down on Palestinian factions in West Bank cities, while also detaining a huge number of Palestinians and allowing settlers threaten and attack West Bank residents without consequences.
In this week's episode of the Haaretz Weekly podcast, Haaretz West Bank correspondent Hagar Shezaf speaks to host Allison Kaplan Sommer about why ignoring settler violence and other deepening problems in the occupied West Bank is a very dangerous course of action for Israel.
Since October 7, more than 200 Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces in the West Bank. "There have been mass arrests of Palestinians suspected of being part of Hamas and also other groups, and settler violence has increased – not that it wasn't very high before the war," says Shezaf. "This has resulted in some Palestinian villages evacuating themselves due to the settlers threats and violence."
One of the main friction points has been the olive harvest. According to Shezaf, many Palestinians find themselves unable to harvest this year at all: "They [young settlers] have WhatsApp groups where they notify others about where there are Palestinians picking olives, and then they show up to scare them."
Another critical issue in the conversation was the number of Palestinians detained in Israel since the start of the Gaza war. "One of the first things that Israel did on October 7 is cancel the work permits of thousands of Gazans," who were in Israel, working legally at the time.
This has led to overpopulation and mistreatment of detainees. "A couple weeks into the war, I found out that two Palestinians had died in Israeli detention," in unrelated incidents, Shezaf shares. "Both of them were sick. One had diabetes and one was a cancer patient. When I spoke to the family of the detainee that had diabetes, they did not know that he died. It was a very unfortunate role that I played, confirming to his family that he died. He was a diabetic, but he basically died because no one gave him his medicine."
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A disinformation war is raging online and Israel is losing, says Omer Benjakob, Haaretz cyber and technology correspondent at Haaretz.
It isn’t as if an effort isn’t being made by Israel to professionally curate and manage information about its war with Hamas in a responsible and reliable “high value content,” he told to Allison Kaplan Sommer on the Haaretz Weekly podcast. “The problem is that when you juxtapose that to what Hamas is doing.”
In today’s digital space, Benjakob explains, “highly produced graphics looks like your country hired a PR company to do PR for you, which is literally what we do and what we've always done. The whole idea of Hasbara - that you need to do professional level kind of explanation - is actually shooting us in the foot right now. Hamas is just flooding the internet with raw materials that people can then supposedly check on their own.” When it’s checked, much of it is unreliable and untrue but by then it’s too late because they have controlled the discourse for days.
Also on the podcast, 88-year-old Holocaust survivor Gidon Lev, who became a Tiktok sensation with nearly half a million followers, and his life partner Julie Gray. They explain why, with “grief and anger,” they deactivated their account this week as the platform was unwilling to confront the unprecedented wave of antisemitism that has overwhelmed Tiktok since the October 7 Hamas massacres.
When asked about his initial reaction to October 7, Lev says: "I said to my son: ‘these people that did the massacre, they must have had Nazi instructors.’ In some ways, they were even worse. I can’t describe what they did.”
Gray talked about the helplessness in the face of a wave of denialism and antisemitism that came with the Gaza War. "Our followers, who thanked us for learning [about the Holocaust], are the same people who are hating us now," she says. "They liked this little holocaust survivor with a sad sad tale. I’m used to getting hate from Nazis, the ones with the thunderbolts and swastikas, but the people that are sending us this hate now, their bios say ‘vegan’ and ‘organic fiber creators’ - they are our followers. So I feel like our three years of work have unraveled. That nothing was taught to them at all."
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“I knew right away that sexual violence was part of the events of October 7, but obviously, I could not have known the extent of the cruelty that Hamas engaged in,” says Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, who served for 12 years on the UN Committee on Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women.
Halperin-Kaddari now feels “completely betrayed” by the international women’s rights organizations with whom she’s worked for years, for their failure to condemn - or even recognize - the rape, kidnapping and other atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists against Israeli citizens on October 7.
In conversation with Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Halperin-Kaddari, a member of the newly-formed Civil Commission on Hamas’s Oct. 7th Crimes Against Women and director of the Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women at Bar-Ilan University, explains that “unlike any previous incidents of 'conflict related sexual violence,' as the UN calls it, the Hamas terrorists had body camera and they filmed their actions. They broadcasted it both to the families of the victims and on social media, so the horrific footage emerged right away.”
Also on the podcast, domestic violence advocate Lili Ben Ami, founder of the Michal Sela Forum, expresses her deep concern over the dramatic expansion of the ability of Israelis to obtain personal weapons in a campaign initiated by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
Her organization, she says, “is now receiving calls every day from worried women and domestic violence survivors” that their abusers will now get access to a firearm. When her group looked into the matter, she tells Haaretz Weekly, they found that the distribution plan did not contain a screening mechanism that would prevent men with a criminal record related to domestic violence from obtaining a gun.
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One of the first journalists to be embedded with forces in the Israeli army’s ground operation in Gaza, Haaretz senior columnist Anshel Pfeffer shares his observations with Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer after returning from a challenging battlefield.
Pfeffer, who accompanied a Givati infantry unit, tells how the maze of tunnels under Gaza forces the soldiers to continually sweep the territory from every angle so “gunners and the commanders can constantly look at every point where they think a tunnel could open up and to try and spot it before it's used to launch a missile against them.”
He also addresses the “many convenient but very inaccurate comparisons” between the Russia-Ukraine war, which he also covered, and Israel’s operation in Gaza, which is “totally different” both operationally and emotionally. While Russians ran away from serving in their war, he points to the highly motivated IDF soldiers who rushed to join in the fight after the atrocities of October 7.
“Many of them know people who were killed, who were taken hostage, or wounded. Some of them are from families which have been forced to leave their homes because of the war. It’s very personal for everybody. There's no question about it.”
While the soldiers on the ground “are very focused on their mission,” Pfeffer says, “when you go up the IDF hierarchy to the top, there is a growing sense of frustration that there is no clear strategic idea of the next stage.”
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Prof. Dov Waxman has been on university campuses for several decades and experienced bursts of unrest following violence in the region and controversy over Israeli policies since the second intifada in the early 2000s.
But what has happened since the brutal attack by Hamas on Israeli citizens on October 7 and Israel’s retaliation in Gaza, he says, “has felt qualitatively different. The atmosphere is different from anything I’ve experienced in the past. The tensions are greater. The animosity is greater, the fear is greater,” Waxman, the director of UCLA’s Israel Studies Center, tells Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer.
In the past, Waxman says, he has felt that Jewish and Israeli advocacy groups tended to exaggerate the levels of antisemitism on campuses and that “it’s grossly simplistic and reductionist to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism.” But in the last few weeks, there have been “manifestations and expressions of anti-Zionism that are antisemitic,” and “some campuses have actually become hostile environments for Jewish students.”
Waxman believes that today, a vocal minority of students “have come to see Israel in such a negative way, to see it as essentially this kind of settler-colonial entity that has no right to exist.” He says “they have come to see all Israelis as effectively colonists and colonizers. That has led them to somehow think it’s acceptable or tolerable or defensible to slaughter innocent Israeli civilians. And it’s something that I and many of my colleagues have really been shocked by.”
Also joining the podcast is Haaretz New York correspondent Judy Maltz, who has covered anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian protests in the U.S. since the start of the war. She believes the controversies and confrontations on campuses may change the way even the most status-conscious American Jewish parents view their children’s options for higher education.
“Many parents are asking themselves ‘What would be a safer school for my kids?’ and whether they would rather send them to a place that’s safe, but maybe not as prestigious – or a place that’s prestigious but where they will have to walk around looking down as they move around campus and rush into their dorms so they don’t have to confront anything that’s very ugly.”
Like Waxman, Maltz always felt the issue of antisemitism on campuses was overblown – until recently. “That has changed now,” she says. “I really think Jewish students don’t feel safe on campuses, certainly those students that I have spoken to in the New York area. They don’t feel safe walking around with a yarmulke on their head, while students are talking about the need to resist ‘Zionist genocide by any means necessary.’ What I’m hearing from them is that they try to avoid campus. They don’t hang out.”
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The “alternative universe” Rachel Goldberg has been living in since her son Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, was kidnapped by Hamas, has included non-stop interviews with the media. Rachel and her husband Jonathan have appeared on the cover of TIME Magazine and spoke to “any outlet that would talk” to them, to advocate for humanitarian treatment and expedited release of their son and over 220 hostages being held captive in Gaza.
An appearance on CNN last week, she recounts to Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer, took an unexpected turn when anchor Anderson Cooper – who is making a documentary about the Supernova music festival massacre - put together her account of witnesses saying her son’s arm had been severed, and something he had seen while in the field reporting on the deadly attack.
“At the end of the interview, Anderson Cooper said: have you guys seen any video of Hersh? We said no - and we've had a friend who has been trying - searching through all the horrible videos that are out there. And then Anderson said, ‘I have a video of your son.'“
As to how the continuing efforts to release the hostages will play out, Goldberg hopes that even though "you have people in the street who have gone through complete and utter trauma and are thirsty for an aggressive response… the government is using every ounce of thoughtfulness and wisdom when making its plan."
"There are hundreds of innocent hostages, and I'll also mention there are hundreds of thousands of innocent Gazans who are trapped there," she says. "We have to be very careful about not causing harm that we can't undo, and I think there is time to plan this out in a way that our soldiers are not embroiled in a situation that will bring us so much more pain, danger and loss of life."
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Brouria Carni Hadass lives in the tiny Kibbutz of Kerem Shalom on the Israel-Gaza border. On Saturday, October 7th, she went into the fortified safe room in her house when the first alarm sounded, quickly realizing this attack was "unlike anything we went through before. It felt like something else."
On this week's episode of the Harretz Weekly podcast, Carni Hadass spoke to host Allison Kaplan Sommer from the hotel in the southern city of Eilat, where the members of her community are staying since they were evacuated from their homes following the Hamas attack on Israel's Gaza border communities, which killed over 1,300 people.
"Every simple thing is complicated now," she says, though she acknowledges that compared to so many other people affected by the massacres, she and her family are "spoiled refugees," trying to maintain some sense of normalcy while living in a hotel.
In the conversation, she describes how shortly after the attack began, a friend from a nearby Kibbutz – Holit – contacted Brouria to see how she was doing. The friend, Shahar Debbie Mathias, said her son Rotem was worried about his friend, Brouria's son. But their next conversation was the last. Hamas gunmen were already inside Debbie's house, and she was hiding with her husband Shlomi and their son in the safe room. The gunmen managed to shoot into the room and get in.
When Debbie stopped replying to Brouria's messages, she asked her son to text his Rotem, who texted back: "My parents are dead, I need help."
"We were lucky. We're alive, but we are devastated," Carni Hadass says now.
In the second part of this week's episode, Haaretz columnist Alon Pinkas explains why U.S. President Joe Biden has proved to be a true friend of Israel this week, why the current Israel-Hamas War is the last thing that Washington wanted to deal with at the moment and how he "doesn't see Netanyahu surviving this, nor should he."
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Israel's reality transformed overnight this weekend and what looks like a major war is unfolding. Events are progressing rapidly, so in this week's Haaretz podcast, editor in chief of Haaretz, Aluf Benn, and Haaretz senior analyst Yossi Melman explain in conversation with Allison Kaplan Sommer how a country that has prided itself with having the best intelligence in the world was hit hard by an unprecedented surprise attack from the Gaza Strip.
Benn says the Hamas orchestrated attack – that has already claimed the lives of over 600 Israelis - was a "total surprise," and that "there was no intelligence indicating anything remotely like this."
Even though there was a sense that Israel's enemies would take advantage of its inner rifts, "none of the warnings included anything similar to what happened yesterday."
According to Benn, "This is the worst blow to Israel in any war, since 1948, and of any terrorist attacks inside Israel or abroad. In 1973 Israel was taken by surprise, but the fighting took place far away from civilians. Now this is first and foremost an attack against civilians, and for the first time we have dozens of military prisoners of war and civilians taken hostage in Gaza. People are desperately trying to find out what happened to their family members. We know people, friends, that have children who are missing or dead. It's a very sad, unprecedented situation for all of us."
Melman addresses the "huge failure" of Israel's Intelligence. "When you talk to people in the intelligence community, they are confused, they are puzzled, they don't know what happened. They have no explanation," he says. "Certainly it was a huge failure, Israel has been prided with having the best intelligence in the world, and the intelligence failed. For many Israelis, what happened on Saturday, 50 years and one day after the Yom Kippur War started, is reminiscent of the same failure. But there is a big difference: Before the war in 1973, the intelligence was there. Israel had a lot of pieces of intelligence but didn't know how to read it or didn't want to analyze it in the correct way. This time there was nothing."
The Gaza Strip is an area Israel was supposedly watching very closely, so having hundreds of militants cross into Israel on a holiday morning was unimaginable. "It's a failure of the military intelligence, it's a failure of the domestic security service - the Shin Bet – both the organizations have the technological means to listen to the other side, to recruit agents for human intelligence. It's a huge machine of intelligence gathering that didn't function."
Looking forward, both Benn and Melman think the wounds will take years to heal. "It's going to take time for the public to realize what happened," Benn says. "We are talking about hundreds of bereaved families, hundreds of hostage families, it's still unthinkable. I'm hearing horrible stories from people I know."
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The prospect of a U.S-Saudi-Israeli deal, that would include the normalization of relations between the Jewish state and one of the most influential forces in the Arab world, intrigues citizens in all three countries. But while the opinions of Israelis and Americans are covered widely, the media seems to be overlooking the Saudi angle.
Dr. Nora Derbal, an expert on Saudi Arabia currently at the Martin Buber post doctoral program at the Hebrew University, tells Haaretz podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, that Saudi society is drastically changing, and any step towards normalizing relations with Israel should be seen in a wider context.
"10 years ago, if you arrived in Riyadh as a woman you would probably just go to your hotel and wait there for your next meeting," says Drbal, "but nowadays, there is so much to do in Riyadh... many Saudis want to prove to the world that it is possible for Saudi Arabia to change and to be the best. If we break it down to the individual Saudi, many Saudis at the moment have the feeling that everything is possible."
Young Saudis, and also middle class and upper class older people, says Derbal, "Have an interest in sidelining politics for prosperity and stability in the region, and for a good future for their own children… they are looking at the economic side of things."
Derbal also discusses the way that the debate over women’s rights, religion and gender segregation in the public sphere parallels that of conversations she hears in Israel. “I think this is really something where Israelis and Saudis would have a lot to share and discuss and maybe also to learn from each other,” she says.
Also on the podcast, Haaretz diplomatic correspondent Amir Tibon assesses the possible Saudi deal and the reasons that President Joe Biden seems determined to make it happen, and what it would mean for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political future.
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How did Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff square become a battleground for religion and gender segregation on Yom Kippur and how did the conflict become so charged and bitter?
In conversation with Allison Kaplan Sommer on the Haaretz Weekly podcast, Orly Erez-Lizhovski, executive director of the Israel Religious Action Center and the country’s leading attorney on gender segregation cases, explains the background to the disturbing pictures that dominated Israeli media over Judaism’s most solemn holiday.
The sight of Jews battling each other in the first Hebrew city were “heartbreaking” and “hard to watch” she said, and were caused by the “failed decisions” of the Israeli police and the Tel Aviv municipality, who refused to intervene when an illegal gender separation barrier was erected in the center of a public square.
At the same time, she believes, this moment may represent a turning point, since it “marks a tremendous change in the attitude of this very liberal public toward both issues of religious pluralism and gender segregation. I think it's a very hard and difficult period, but it also signals change into what may be a better future.”
This “awakening” she says is happening in the context of the battle against the Netanyahu government’s judicial overhaul. “What people may have been willing to accept up until a few years ago, or up until basically the last few months, they are not willing to accept anymore.”
The far right anti-liberal group that organized the prayer in Dizengoff square - Rosh Yehudi - "holds extremist views and has been trying to bring these views into the public sphere of Tel Aviv for years," adds Erez-Lizhovski, "But now they were confronted with a reality they have never met before."
Israelis like the ones who went out on Yom Kippur eve to confront the extremists who are trying to force a certain kind of Judaism on society, she says, now “understand that this is not only a fight for the democratic structure of Israel, it's a fight for our Jewish identity.”
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On this week’s podcast, Haaretz New York correspondent Judy Maltz talks to Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to the U.S. and the unprecedented demonstrations against him on American soil.
Thousands of Israeli expats calling the Prime Minister of the Jewish state a “fascist” and a “dictator” on the streets of New York is not a site American Jews are used to, and as Maltz notes, many of them still haven't understood “the gravity, the severity, and the existential crisis” that the judicial overhaul represents for Israelis.
“For American Jews, it is much more difficult to make sense of it all,” explains Maltz. “One woman I met at a meeting with Brothers and Sisters in Arms said: 'Israelis are always crying for help, there's terror attacks, or wars, missiles, or an election, there's always some crisis going on.' In a way, they are crying wolf… so Americans don't understand yet that this is something different, something we haven't seen before, an attack on the people from within. But it is starting to seep through."
The expats, says Maltz, “understood from day one what this judicial overhaul means... Israelis in the diaspora want to know that there is a place to go back to. I think, that since the Yom Kippur war, there has not been an event that has shaken them up as much as the judicial overhaul."
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Constitutional expert Prof. Yaniv Roznai, an associate professor and Vice-Dean at Reichman University's Harry Radzyner Law School - and one of the leading academic voices in the protest movement against the judicial coup - attended the historic hearing at Israel's supreme court this week.
After watching the sides debating the petitions against the first judicial overhaul law that the Netanyahu government had passed, Roznai joined Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer for a discussion about the anti-reasonableness law, the "inappropriate political speech" by judicial overhaul architect MK Simcha Rothman, the attacks by the coalition's attorney on Israel's Declaration of Independence and what the different outcomes of the court session could mean for Israel.
Speaking about how the court ruling will impact Israel's future, Roznai finds it hard to believe that the government won't abide by it, but said "It's difficult to predict if the judges will strike down the anti-reasonableness law. It seems there is a majority of judges that would accept the proposition that the court has the authority to strike down basic laws. And this is the most important issue. But then the second part is whether this is the case they will intervene in. And here it's quite difficult to predict".
If the government really does decide to ignore a supreme court ruling, Rozani warns, "That would mean complete anarchy." Because, "If the government doesn't abide by the ruling, why would ordinary citizens abide by it? Just imagine what it would mean for our partners in the EU and the U.S. I can't see it happening. It would be a complete destruction of the rule of law".
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After dominating political conversation in Israel for the past eight months, the protest movement against the judicial coup – which has brought millions of Israelis out to the streets – made a strategic decision.
In the nationwide municipal elections on October 31, various protest groups will field candidates in mayoral and city council races, hoping that voters will use the local political sphere to send a resolute national message against the Netanyahu government’s attempts to change Israeli democracy.
On Haaretz Weekly, two Tel Aviv City Council candidates join host Allison Kaplan Sommer to discuss the bold move.
Noah Efron is head of the Green Party – which, together with Meretz and a list of protest activists, is running as the “New Contract” slate in Tel Aviv. He says on the podcast that he believes when we wake up in Israel on November 1, “there will be council members and a number of mayors whose identity was forged primarily politically in these protests. It will be dramatic.”
Efron, who served on the Tel Aviv Municipality in the past, also discusses the complexities of integrating the protest movement into the framework of local politics, calling it “an extremely exciting challenge to turn the big words with capital letters like ‘Freedom’ and ‘Democracy’ into policy.”
Together with Efron is Inbal Orpaz, a high-tech marketing executive and active member of the tech protest. She talks about what has driven members of her industry – who were previously politically uninvolved, focusing instead on their world of startups and company sales – to become some of the most outspoken and active leaders of the protests. She discusses her motivations for becoming active in the protest movement – and her recent decision to run for city councilor alongside Efron.
“When this government was elected, I felt as if all of my identities were under attack: as a woman, as a secular person, as someone who’s part of the tech sector. I understood if I want to live here – and I want to live here – to live in Israel and to live in Tel Aviv, I must fight for the future of this country. Living in the place they want this country to become is not an option for me.”
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As Israel wrestled with the assault of COVID-19 on its health care system, politics and public life, Professor Haggai Levine, an epidemiologist and chairman of Israel’s Association of Public Health Physicians, became a familiar face on Israeli television screens.
Today, Levine has moved from battling the coronavirus to fighting the Netanyahu government’s judicial overhaul. He is a founding member of the “White Coats” collective, a grass-roots organization of doctors fighting the judicial coup, and has, each week, spoken at the mass protests against the overhaul, delivering the message that “in order for Israel's citizens to be healthy, we need a healthy government and a healthy democracy.”
Speaking to Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Levine said that in his view, the threat to democracy - and the related threat to public health - “feels worse than the pandemic in terms of how we feel and in terms of what the future looks like.” He attributes this to the fact that this time, the country is facing an “internal threat” instead of battling together against a hostile nation or a rampaging virus.
Levine notes that he wasn’t totally taken by surprise by the current crisis since “we know from history, that after pandemics, there are often aftershocks… I expected that we would have several very tough years in Israel, and that there would be an unstable government.”
In addition to other reasons that the overhaul is bad for health in Israel, he discusses the alarming brain drain statistics regarding the number of young doctors planning to emigrate after their training if the overhaul moves forward, and his colleagues who are training abroad “and are now extending the fellowship because they feel it's not a good time to go back to Israel.”
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As settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank continues to intensify, Haaretz West Bank correspondent Hagar Shezaf joins host Allison Kaplan Sommer to share her experiences covering the deadly incidents in Hawara, Turmus Aya, Um Safr, and, over the past weekend, the clashes in the village of Burqa that resulted in the killing of 19-year-old Qosai Jammal Mi'tan. Two settlers are suspected in the shooting.
Friction between settlers living in the outposts that ring and encroach on Palestinian villages is nothing new, Shezaf explains, but their level of violence has been on the rise since the ascendance of the Netanyahu government, whom she says seem to be emboldening the perpetrators.
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Israeli democracy is facing its biggest challenge since the founding of the state, after the Knesset passed the first law in its package of legislation designed to cripple the judicial branch.
Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute joins Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer to discuss what comes next in the battle between Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, which appears determined to move forward with its “radical and extreme” judicial overhaul, and the protest movement that has been battling the move for the past 30 weeks.
Plesner looks ahead to the Knesset session in the fall and before that, the upcoming petitions against the law in the Supreme Court, and reacts to Netanyahu’s refusal to state - in reply to a question he was asked on CNN and on Fox News - that he would abide by any potential Supreme Court ruling striking down the Reasonableness Law that was passed last week.
“I think it's despicable and a new low,” he said of Netanyahu’s remarks. “Israel is a democracy and the basic character of democracies is the rule of law, human rights, an independent judiciary, and everyone in the land - including the politicians - obeying court decisions, and Netanyahu was elusive. I think this is very bad …”
The fact that the Prime Minister of the country “is conveying such a message is extremely reckless and disappointing.”
Plesner, a military reservist in the elite Sayeret Matkal unit, also discusses the “heartbreaking” choice by his fellow soldiers to suspend their service due to opposition of the overhaul as well as his recent call to the United States and American Jews not to give up on Israel.
To American Jews who insist that internal Israeli affairs are none of their business, he contends “of course, it's your business if Israel ceases to be a Jewish and democratic state, and it turns into a religious ethno-nationalistic state - this will end the relationship between Israel and the majority of diaspora Jewry.”
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As former US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk experienced one of the most devastating moments of the country’s history - the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, during the time of Israel’s deep divisions over the Oslo Peace Accords.
And yet, Indyk tells Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer, the current split over the judicial overhaul, following the passage of its first piece of legislation on Monday, is a “more fundamental” crisis. One that he says has left him “heartsick.”
“Israel was born as a Jewish and democratic state. And throughout its history, for 75 years, there has always been that tension between its Jewish nature and its democratic nature and they remained in balance for those 75 years. Now they are out of balance.”
Indyk said he is “deeply worried” both for the future of the US-Israel relationship and for Israel’s security after it has become clear that that the government’s unilateral actions have “undermined Israel's deterrent capability” given the decision of crucial fighter pilots to suspend their military service in protest of the overhaul.
“I think it's a very dark day in Israel's history,” Indyk said. “And I know that the Iranians in particular and their proxies around Israel's borders, and Israel's other enemies, were just sitting back and watching this in amazement, as Israel tears itself apart.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he says, has been “taken hostage” by the far-right parties in his coalition. On the podcast, Indyk also discusses his statements in a recent New York Times column in which he endorses an end to the $3.8 billion in U.S. military aid that Israel receives annually.
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Among the numerous mass protests against the Israeli government’s controversial legislative moves to weaken Israel’s judicial system, the most influential effort has come from reservists in the country’s elite military units threatening to refuse to report for duty.
One of the reservists, Yiftach Golov, tells Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer that he and his comrades in the group Brothers and Sisters in Arms – who are visibly on the front lines of the protest movement – are determined to do all they can to fight what he calls Benjamin Netanyahu’s “government of destruction.”
“We haven’t even moved our queen yet in this chess game,” Golov warns. “The fact that we are threatening not to volunteer in Israel’s elite special units is only the beginning. We have much more ammunition in our arsenal.”
Golov rejects critics in the government camp who say the defense of the country shouldn’t be put at risk for political goals. As a soldier, he says, he vowed to fight any force that was putting the survival of the country at risk – even when the threat isn’t an external one. “It’s a crazy situation, but right now, our enemy comes from within. ... I feel that I’m serving my country for exactly the same values” as on the battlefield.
Also on the podcast, Haaretz defense analyst Amos Harel talks about the reservists’ actions, and their impact on the government’s behavior.
Harel says Netanyahu is “extremely concerned” about the reservists’ actions – particularly those of its elite fighter pilots, who are vital to the Israel Defense Forces’ combat readiness in case of attack, and the coalition is struggling with its response to a phenomenon that he says is “getting bigger” by the day.
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As the Israeli streets explode in protests against the renewed effort by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to “neuter the judiciary,” Haaretz English editor-in-chief Esther Solomon joins host Allison Kaplan Sommer on Haaretz for an overview and explanation of the charged state of Israeli politics.
The current push in the Knesset to eliminate the “reasonableness standard” which allows the High Court of Justice to block irrational government decisions has been a dramatic turning point, Solomon says, and is just the first step in executing a full overhaul to weaken Israel’s courts in favor of its politicians.
It is all part of Netanyahu’s efforts “to try and appease the most extreme members of his government ever since he set up… the most theocratic and ideologically pro-settler government that Israel has ever seen. And what happens if you sit down with the far-right is that you end up being pulled towards where they are.”
Also on the podcast, Haaretz writer Anat Peled tells the story behind the kidnapping of high-profile Princeton researcher Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Russian-Israeli citizen who is being held by an Iran-backed militia in Iraq, why Israeli academics like Tsurkov take the risks they do when researching the Middle East, and the efforts underway to bring her home safely,
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Despite the weakened position of Russian President Vladimir Putin following the weekend’s aborted coup, chances that Israel’s government will change its policy in the Russia-Ukraine conflict are extremely low, says Haaretz senior correspondent Anshel Pfeffer, who has covered the war from the ground.
“Israel has - both on a moral level and on a strategic level - been making a mistake by staying on the sidelines and keeping its relationship intact with the Russians,” Pfeffer tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer on Haaretz Weekly podcast.
In a wide-ranging conversation, Sommer and Pfeffer, author of the book “Bibi: The Life and Turbulent Times of Benjamin Netanyahu” discuss producer Arnon Milchan’s testimony in the Prime Minister’s corruption trial that kicked off in Brighton, England this week, his sinking numbers in the polls, and the renewed effort to reboot the controversial judicial revolution.
He also addresses the violent attacks on Palestinian towns by West Bank settlers in the wake of a deadly terror attack, and the response by far-right ministers in the government “who openly support this kind of vigilantism.”
While they pay lip service against settlers taking the law into their own hands, “We know what Minister of National Missions Orit Struck, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have said in the past. And you can see it now in their body language when they're not saying it: that they're perfectly okay with, with the settlers going on rampage. So the only difference between this government (and those in the past) is that it's out in the open.”
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The Trump indictment rocking the United States contains numerous references to foreign countries and military battle plans that many believe relate directly to Iran and Israel – and may have even originated in Israeli intelligence sources.
Haaretz diplomatic correspondent Amir Tibon joins Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer to discuss the indictment as well as the similarities between Trump’s latest legal headaches and those of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was elected to Israel’s highest office while on trial for corruption.
“If you’re an American watching anxiously and wondering what it’s like to have a clash between a former president running for [office] again and the legal authorities, I don’t think there’s a lot of good news we can bring you from Israel,” Tibon said.
If the documents squirreled away in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom were indeed Israel-related, “it wouldn’t be the first time that Trump revealed secret information related to Israeli activities,” he added, recalling the 2017 incident in which the-then president reportedly gave Mossad intelligence to the Russians.
If they were, he predicts that “it won’t be good for Israel to be part of the legal and political circus that will happen around this indictment.
Tibon also gives an update on the U.S.-Iran negotiations to revive a nuclear deal over Israeli objections – and the continuing signs that full diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia may come sooner than we think.
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An unprecedented number of Israeli ministers and governing coalition lawmakers flew to New York City last week to participate in the annual Celebrate Israel Parade and the conferences and meetings surrounding it.
Haaretz Washington correspondent Ben Samuels joins Allison Kaplan Sommer with all the highlights of what happened next – from the historic “inflection point” of progressive American Jews and Israelis joining forces to bring pro-democracy and anti-judicial overhaul voices to the parade, to MK Simcha Rothman grabbing a megaphone from a protester following him on the street, to Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli giving the middle finger to the crowd.
“It all showcased just how much of a fault line Israel has become, particularly under this government, in the conversation here,” Samuels said, speaking from New York. “And the optics of Israelis protesting the Israeli government at the Israel Day Parade? That’s the worst PR you can get.”
Also on the podcast, a look at the Israeli under-20 soccer team that shocked and delighted the nation in a come-from-behind victory against powerhouse Brazil in the quarterfinals of the FIFA world championship last Sunday. Haaretz sportswriter Ido Rakovsky joins the podcast to discuss the unique qualities of a dream team made up of both Arabs and Jews, what their success means to Israeli soccer and what their coach has in common with Ted Lasso.
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June 1 marks the beginning of Pride Month around the world, and in Israel, it is being launched with the annual Jerusalem March of Pride and Tolerance, the most tense of the month’s events. Alona Nir Keren, a lesbian Reform rabbi who offers its opening blessing this year, has been part of the parade since it began in 2002.
In this episode of Haaretz Weekly, she shares her memories of the early years, when the men who are today the country’s national security and finance ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, waited for the revelers with donkeys on the parade route – “to send the message that homosexuality was the equivalent of sex with animals.”
“These people are mean and they are vicious,” she says in conversation with host Allison Kaplan Sommer. “They’re using fascist metaphors and ideas, and spreading hate. And this person [Ben-Gvir] is supposed to be in charge of my safety while I’m marching in this parade?”
Despite the challenges, Nir Keren says she is determined to raise children who can “celebrate their Judaism but also the fact that they have two moms and not be ashamed of it.”
Haaretz correspondent Linda Dayan also joins the podcast to describe the protests surrounding an event honoring U.S. author Abigail Shrier, who has written a book warning that a predatory transgender movement “is coming for” young girls.
Dayan then shares her experiences at similar events where North American social conservatives Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson addressed Israeli audiences, and her observation that “suddenly very American, very British and very Western ideas about gender identity are making their way here” – sparking “a kind of discussion different from those I had ever heard before” in Israel.
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As the protest movement against the Netanyahu government’s judicial overhaul moved into its 20th week, there has been a clear shift in its focus.
From battles over the billions of shekels in government budget expenditures on ultra-Orthodox schools that don’t offer basic education, to turf wars over a yeshiva in downtown Tel Aviv and an indoor playground open on Shabbat, to a firestorm around a television talk show host calling ultra-Orthodox Israelis “bloodsuckers.” These days, the public discourse is all about the secular-Orthodox divide.
Uri Keidar, CEO of Israel Hofsheet ("Be Free Israel") and Haaretz correspondent Judy Maltz join host Allison Kaplan Sommer on Haaretz Weekly to discuss the growing rift, how it relates to the wider struggle against the judicial coup, and the increasing frustration in the secular public.
"I think we are starting to see the majority wake up," says Keidar, who believes that this majority is "over and done with" an ultra-Orthodox political agenda which "are not up to speed with the fact that we live in the 21st century."
"A lot of angry, secular people are saying: enough is enough. We're sick and tired of sending our kids to the army, while ultra-Orthodox kids don't have to go, we're sick and tired of paying more and more taxes for things that we not only don't believe in, but that we are vehemently opposed to. And this is it. We're not going to put up with it anymore," observes Maltz.
"A year ago, if somebody secular in Israel spoke out against the ultra-Orthodox sector, they would have been called anti-Semitic or a self-hating Jew - and that would have shut them up. Today, it's not shutting them up."
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When journalist Barak Ravid’s book "Trump's Peace: the Abraham Accords and the Reshaping of the Middle East" was published in Hebrew in 2021, two words in his text made international headlines.
Bitter about the Israeli Prime Minister’s eagerness to congratulate President Joe Biden on his win, Trump said of Benjamin Netanyahu in their 90-minute interview for the book: "Fuck him," making a point of declaring "I haven’t spoken to him since."
In a conversation with Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Ravid reports that two full years later, Trump and Netanyahu still haven’t exchanged a word.
On the occasion of the publication of his book in English - with new chapters updating the state of the Abraham Accords under the Biden administration, Ravid offers a look behind the scenes of his two lengthy interviews with Trump and how eager he was to express his unhappiness with Netanyahu’s behavior.
When Trump used the F-word, "It was at the end of a 20-minute monologue about all the bad things he thought about Netanyahu," Ravid shared, saying the interview revealed to him that the Trump-Netanyahu bromance "was like watching a show for four years. And then you realize that everything you saw was just BS, because the reality between those two was completely different."
Also on this week’s podcast, Haaretz English Editor in Chief Esther Solomon and correspondent Simon Waldman in Istanbul assess the political situation in Turkey after the election results leading to a second-round face-off for the presidency between incumbent Tayyip Erdogan and opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu. According to Waldman, the first round outcome is “the worst-case scenario” for the opposition.
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After Israel assassinated three senior members of Islamic Jihad and killed at least ten civilians in airstrikes on the Gaza Strip in the wee hours of Tuesday morning in a military operation, the country tensely braced for expected retaliation.
Haaretz national security analyst Amos Harel joined Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer on Tuesday to assess what has been dubbed Operation Shield and Arrow. On the podcast, they discuss Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political motives for greenlighting the assassinations.
The operation, Harel says, “is mostly a result of Israeli domestic considerations. Last week, after the death of jailed Islamic Jihad terrorists in an Israeli jail after a long hunger strike, Islamic Jihad reacted by launching more than 100 rockets and mortar bombs towards Israeli towns and villages around the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu hesitated, receiving a lot of criticism from both the opposition and the protest movement, and from within his government. So I don't think he had much choice.”
Harel addresses the many questions Israelis were asking themselves Tuesday: should Israel batten down the hatches for a major extended military conflict with both Islamic Jihad and with Hamas in Gaza? What are the chances the conflict could extend to the West Bank and Israel’s northern border? How aggressively will the Biden White House move to lower the flames and could the tense relationship between Washington and Jerusalem affect the US reaction to this crisis?
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Is it time for the international community to stop talking about a ‘two-state solution’ for Israel and the Palestinians, and begin instead to grapple with a ‘one-state reality’? That’s the argument four leading political scientists recently made in a thought-provoking, and provocative, article that was published in Foreign Affairs.
Two of the authors, Profs. Shibley Telhami and Marc Lynch, joined the Haaretz Weekly podcast to explain why they are calling on decision makers in Washington and elsewhere to ‘drop the façade’ and recognize an ‘uncomfortable reality’, and what could be the policy consequences of such a step. In their conversation with host Amir Tibon, they also discuss the prospect of violence and instability in the region, the impact of Netanyahu’s new government, and the political crisis in the Palestinian national movement.
Read more on the one-state reality and the two-state solution, on Haaretz.com:
Israeli-Palestinian poll shows support for two-state solution at all-time low
So You Don’t Like the Two-state Solution? Meet the One-state Model
CIA chief sees ‘unhappy resemblance’ between current tensions and leadup to second Intifada
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Prof. Karnit Flug was appointed as the first female governor of the Bank of Israel by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2013. Together they worked to stabilize and grow the country’s economy – particularly its flourishing high-tech sector.
Now, she tells Haaretz Weekly, she no longer recognizes Netanyahu. He's not the same leader. The prime minister has ignored the alarm bells that she and other experts have been ringing regarding the harm his controversial judicial overhaul will cause Israel's economy.
“The warnings by experts on the economic effects and the effects on our national security are not falling on ears that are listening,” she tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer. “It’s very hard to understand.”
Countries that have passed laws weakening their judicial branches, like Hungary and Poland, have paid economic consequences. However, Flug stresses that the price is likely to be far higher in Israel. Not only will an expected decline in international credit ratings lead to “really detrimental long-term effects,” but the harm to the country’s high-tech sector would be particularly devastating. Unlike Poland and Hungary, she notes, Israel’s tech companies account for 10 percent of employment, 50 percent of exports and 25 percent of tax revenues.
Moreover, high-tech is “a very mobile sector” where companies can - and do - easily move to other countries. “Our vulnerability is very, very strong,” says Flug, admitting that she is feeling “anxiety about what kind of country will be here for my children and for my grandchild.”
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Women’s rights in Israel are under danger, warns Prof. Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, a legal scholar and founding director of the Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women at Bar Ilan University. The risk is coming from their own government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu a host of far-right, ultra-religious parties.
The judicial overhaul led by Netanyahu, Halperin-Kaddari explains, poses great risks to Israeli women, since “the weakening of the power of the High Court of Justice will have a devastating impact on the ability of women to fight back against discriminatory laws.”
In a conversation with host Allison Kaplan Sommer, she adds that “We have the clear examples of states in Europe who have been through this. It is exactly the way that Poland had gone, as well as Hungary and Turkey. And in each of these states, it was - and it still is - women who are paying the highest price.”1
She applauds the use of the image of the women in Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel-turned-TV series “The Handmaid’s Tale” as having been effective in focusing the Israeli public’s attention on these imminent threats. “The intentions of this government regarding women are very clear,” she says. “I truly fear that all these dystopian visions of the future are totally realistic.”
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Martin Indyk, who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel twice, made an unusual stop during a recent trip to Israel: He joined the massive Tel Aviv demonstration against Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to weaken the Israeli judicial system.
“I am dismayed and very concerned about this judicial revolution and the impact it will have on Israel’s democracy – and therefore the impact it will have on U.S.-Israel relations,” Indyk told hosts Amir Tibon and Allison Kaplan Sommer on the latest episode of Haaretz Weekly.
“Undermining the basic tenets of the Israeli Declaration of Independence and the idea of being Jewish and democratic goes against everything American Jews believe in and support, and that’s deeply troubling to the vast majority of them,” he added.
While the United States has in recent years been acting like an “indulgent uncle that is not willing to hold Israel to account when it acts against U.S. interests,” Indyk warned that this may not last forever. “The United States is a dinosaur that you can poke and poke, but it doesn’t respond until one day it wakes up. And then it lifts its tail and comes down with a mighty thump.”
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On this episode of Haaretz Weekly, Israel's top analysts and experts discuss one year to the war in Ukraine from an Israeli perspective. The conversation was recorded as part of the 2023 Haaretz-UCLA conference on Israel and the New World (Dis)Order, and is now presented in audio version for our listeners to enjoy.
Efraim Halaevy, former chief of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, recalls his first-ever meeting with Vladimir Putin, and explains why it is a humiliation for the Russian autocrat to beg Iran for help in his disastrous war on Ukraine. Ksenia Svetlova, a former Israeli lawmaker, discusses the similiarities between Putin and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Our national security analyst Amos Harel shares what Israel's intelligence got wrong in the war's early stages, and Israeli journalist Yair Navot, a former Moscow correspondents, describes the dilemmas of Russia's remaining Jews.
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It hasn’t taken long for the protests against the Netanyahu government’s judicial overhaul in Israel, to find their way to the United States. On this episode of Haaretz Weekly, attorney Oz Benamram – an Israeli living in New York – talks about how the protest wave has spread to multiple U.S. cities, drawing both Israeli expats and worried American Jews.
“Normally, demonstrations in the United States are either pro-Israel or against Israel. This one is unique – because it's for Israel and also against the government, because this government works against the interests of Israel. So we’re seeing people who have never demonstrated before,” Benamram tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer.
Also on the podcast, Haaretz’s Washington correspondent Ben Samuels rounds up the reaction in the White House and Congress to the judicial plan, and explains U.S. President Joe Biden’s “dilemma”: attempting to quell the violence in the West Bank, without directly addressing the extremist ministers who wield the power in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Join us on Sunday, March 5th, for the Haaretz-UCLA virtual conference on 'Israel and the New World (Dis)Order', broadcast live on the Haaretz website. Watch top experts and officials from Israel and the world discuss the most pressing issues of our time, from the rise of far-right nationalism to the global battle for democracy. Registration is FREE at this link.
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On this episode of Haaretz Weekly, host Allison Kaplan Sommer talks to investigative journalists Omer Benjakob and Gur Megiddo about their months-long investigation, in collaboration with Radio France, The Guardian and other leading international media outlets, that revealed the dirty, secret methods of Israel's 'agents of chaos'. This investigation revealed how, from a small office building in a quiet suburb of Tel Aviv, a group of Israelis is disrupting democracy in various countries around the world, spreading dangerous misinformation and undermining the results of democratic elections. Their unbelievable and extremely disturbing story takes us from Israel to Kenya, Mexico, France and Burkina Faso, as influence ops, hacking, avatars and false information come together to paint a freightening picture.
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The fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is running the country as his corruption trial continues no longer shocks Israelis. But maybe it should?
Yael Freidson, Haaretz’s legal correspondent, has covered the Netanyahu trial every day since it began in 2020. On this episode of Haaretz Weekly she tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer there is no way to avoid the clear conflict of interest when a leader facing serious charges heads a government that wants to radically transform the legal system.
"There are several ways in which Netanyahu could influence the course of his trial,” she explains. Freidson also reflects on the atmosphere of the court proceedings in Jerusalem – at which Netanyahu is completely absent.
Also on the podcast, Haaretz correspondent Judy Maltz shares the experience of covering the historic mass demonstration last Monday, in which more than 100,000 Israelis flooded into Jerusalem to protest the judicial overhaul.
Read more about Israel's democratic crisis on Haaretz.com, and sign up for our daily newsletter, Haaretz Today, to get the most important stories from Israel straight into your inbox.
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Trouble is brewing in Israel and the Palestinian territories, and an eruption of violence may be coming, warns veteran journalist Avi Issacharoff on the latest episode of Haaretz Weekly.
Issacharoff should know: he is not only a leading journalist covering Arab and Palestinian affairs, but also the co-creator of the international smash hit 'Fauda', which goes inside the lives of Israeli commandos, Palestinian terrorists and the ordinary people around them trying to to live their lives.
“You see the number of terrorist attacks. You see the number of casualties on the Palestinian side and casualties on the Israeli side. If it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck - at the end of the day - this is a duck and we are in a military confrontation.”
In his conversation with host Allison Kaplan Sommer, he shares his reaction to the fact that Fauda, now in its fourth season, is currently the top Netflix show in Lebanon and enjoys popularity across the Arab world. Issacharoff also explains why he “couldn’t invent a character” like far-right leader Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is trying to sell a “childish and infantile fantasy” to Israelis.
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Each year, the Institute for National Security Studies publishes a list of Israel's most urgent security threats. In the past, it has pointed to threats from neighboring states and terror groups. But this year, the well-respected think-tank chose to highlight a different kind of threat: losing America.
Major General (ret.) Tamir Hayman, the institute’s managing director and previously the head of Israel's military intelligence, joined the podcast to explain why a break with the United States is more dangerous to Israel at this moment than any regional challenge.
In a conversation with host Allison Kaplan Sommer he warned that the judicial overhaul being pushed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition represents a “long-term threat" to the special relationship between Israel and the United States. “A relationship based on values is stronger – and we need the United States," he added.
In the conversation, Hayman also shares his assessment of the recent attacks in Iran, and discusses the recent escalation on the Palestinian front.
Also on the podcast, Haaretz Hebrew Deputy Editor Noa Landau shares her thoughts on the Israeli protest movement against the judicial overhaul, and the 'moment of truth' it just faced.
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Legal scholar Alan Dershowitz has been a friend and adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for decades. But when it comes to Netanyahu’s plan to significantly weaken the Israeli Supreme Court, Dershowitz has a sharp warning for the prime minister. The move would be a “terrible mistake” and Netanyahu is “wrong” to push it through, Dershowitz tells hosts Amir Tibon and Allison Kaplan Sommer on Haaretz Weekly.
Dershowitz warns that an ‘override clause’ giving the government the power to cancel Supreme Court decisions on human rights would be extremely harmful to Israel, and that giving politicians ultimate control over judicial appointments is just as bad, even if some Israelis point to the United States as a source of inspiration (“why copy from us something that’s been a disaster over here?”).
Later on the podcast, starting at time code 18:25, we hear from Dr. Shikma Bressler – a physicist and one of the leaders of the protest movement against Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul. Bressler, who was also involved in the demonstrations that brought down Netanyahu’s previous government, explains why this time, just protesting in the streets won’t be enough. “We have to be a lot more creative, and much more aggressive,” she says.
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Israel's Jewish fundamentalists hold an unprecedented level of power in Benjamin Netanyahu's current government. What does that mean for Israeli democracy, for the U.S.-Israel relationship and for the broader Middle East? Our guest Dr. Tomer Persico, an expert on Jewish religion and identity, joins the podcast to explain the rise of the Religious Zionism party and how it wants to reshape Israel forever.
Persico also speaks about what the Israeli far-right shares with U.S. Christian Evangelicals, and why this year's Passover holiday could end in bloodshed. Listen to his full conversation with host Amir Tibon, and read more on Netanyahu's new government on Haaretz.com.
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The Israeli Supreme Court has a “huge amount of power while the foundation of that power is paper thin,” says Benjamin Wittes, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and editor-in-chief of the Lawfare Blog, in an interview with Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer.
This problematic combination, Wittes says, is why the Supreme Court is now “particularly vulnerable. It's as if you’ve built this giant and extremely powerful weapon, but built it on a pillar of sand.”
In a deep dive, Wittes explains and analyzes each of the controversial reforms planned by the Netanyahu government, their implications for the U.S.-Israel relationship and the likelihood that, if they pass, Israel’s arguments for resisting international tribunals will be weakened.
Some elements of the judicial reform, Wittes warns, are “corrupt” and “very dangerous.” And speaking personally as a legal scholar and expert who has “engaged deeply” with Israel in the past, he says that if the reforms are implemented, it would “fundamentally change my regard for the integrity of the Israeli legal system.
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Less than a week into his new government, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had his first confrontation with one of his coalition partners when National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir insisted on going to the Temple Mount, the most provocative act possible for a senior Israeli government official.
Netanyahu tried to delay the visit in the interest of calming the diplomatic waters ahead of his planned diplomatic trip to the United Arab Emirates. Ben Gvir ignored his concerns and went anyway; the UAE followed up by convening the UN Security Council to denounce Israel.
Haaretz columnist and Netanyahu biographer Anshel Pfefferjoins the podcast to discuss the dynamics between a weak Netanyahu and his assertive coalition partners and what we can expect from them in the future. Listen to his full conversation with host Allison Kaplan Sommer.
Note: this episode was recorded before the announcement of Justice Minister Yariv Levin's plans to weaken the Israeli Supreme Court. For a discussion of the threats to Israel's legal system, listen to this previous episode with legal scholar Yaniv Roznai.
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“We live in a terrifying time, facing realities that we couldn’t have dreamt about in our worst nightmares,” says the executive director of Israel’s largest human rights organization, Noa Sattath, speaking with host Allison Kaplan Sommer on Haaretz Weekly.
The incoming government is threatening human and civil rights on so many different fronts, the head of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel says. She warns of assaults on the rights of Palestinians, refugees and asylum seekers, the LGBT community, and a general crackdown on freedom of speech and protest.
Yet despite the daunting situation, Sattath is confident in the ability of civil society to rally and blunt the worst of what she sees as the potential harm to Israeli democracy on the horizon. “On the one hand, I am overwhelmed by the damage that I worry this government will cause for generations. But on the other, I know we have a lot of power and the ability to block and mitigate everything that we can – and that will also have an impact over generations.”
Listen to the full conversation, and read more about Israel's far-right government on Haaretz.com.
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Benjamin Netanyahu's new government, based on the support of Israel's far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties, presents a real threat to the rights of Israeli women, warns Dr. Yofi Tirosh on this episode of Haaretz Weekly.
Increasing the powers of religious courts that discriminate against women, increasing gender segregation in the public sphere, and resisting initiatives combating violence against women in the name of preserving male authority in the home - these are only some of the hallmarks of the incoming coalition's agenda.
“We have major forces in the coalition who not only feel that women's issues and gender equality issues aren’t high on their to-do list, but feel that the Israeli culture should be redesigned such that women step back from leadership positions in politics, science, economics and the media, and should resort to their true nature - their domestic roles,” says Tirosh, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University and a human rights activist.
In her conversation with host Allison Kaplan Sommer, which took place hours before Netanyahu formally announced he has succeeded in forming a government, Tirosh reviews the various areas in which she believes the new male-dominated government will likely lead to “a dire regression” when it comes to the status of women.
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Israel's incoming government led by Benjamin Netanyahu is gearing up to mortally wound Israeli democracy, warns Prof. Yaniv Roznai, a leading Israeli legal expert who is sounding the alarm over the 'override clause' - a piece of legislation that would dramatically alter the balance of power between Israel's politicians and the country's Supreme Court.
Roznai, an Associate Professor and Vice-Dean at Reichman University's Harry Radzyner Law School, joins host Allison Kaplan Sommer on Haaretz Weekly to explain exactly what the override clause is and why he believes it is so dangerous for Israel.
The measure, he says, would weaken the power of Israeli courts to protect the basic rights of the country’s citizens and hand the ruling coalition excessive power, in a country that already lacks sufficient checks and balances.
What is happening now, he says, “kind of reminds me of Brexit. A day after Brexit was passed, people in the UK were Googling 'What is the EU?' I don’t want to reach that point. It is too risky.”
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What exactly happened in the Israeli election? Where is the country heading as Benjamin Netanyahu returns to power with the most right-wing government in Israeli history? And do long-term voting trends offer any hope for the center-left?
At the recent J Street annual conference in Washington, Haaretz Weekly podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer moderated a panel titled “A Deep Dive Into Israeli Politics.” The panelists analyzed and explored these questions, pointing to the profound challenges – and possible opportunities – the new political landscape holds.
The panel was recorded to share with Haaretz podcast listeners.
On the panel:
- Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin, a public opinion expert and strategic consultant, fellow at the Century Foundation, columnist for Haaretz and co-host of the Elections Overdose podcast who has been a consultant for nine national campaigns in Israel.
- Gadi Baltiansky, director general of the Geneva Initiative, an NGO that promotes the need to reach a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians through educational, diplomatic and political tools. He served as press secretary for former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and was a member of the Israeli official negotiation teams with Syria and the Palestinians.
- Sally Abed, a member of the national leadership at Standing Together, a grassroots social movement comprising Jews and Palestinians that promotes social, economic and climate justice.
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Terror attacks in Jerusalem and southern Israel; Palestinians killed in IDF raids across the occupied territories; tensions between Israel's military leadership and the country's incoming government; and an unstable, weakened Palestinian Authority on the verge of losing control. When these are the top headlines in Israel and the Palestinian territories over the past week and a half, it's clear that a dangerous security escalation is cooking.
Haaretz's national security analyst Amos Harel joins the podcast to discuss the worrying trends on the ground, and how Israel's far-right, which is about to take power as part of Benjamin Netanyahu's new coalition, could make things even worse. He also talks about Netanyahu's combative rhetoric on Iran and whether or not to take it seriously, and what the Biden administration should expect from the 'unleashed' prime minister. Listen to his full conversation with host Amir Tibon.
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Journalist and historian Eric Alterman joins Haaretz Weekly to discuss his new book "We Are Not One: A History of America's Fight Over Israel." From Eisenhower's confrontation with Ben Gurion to Netanyahu's clashes with Obama, Alterman walks us through some of the most important moments in the history of the U.S.-Israel relationship, and explains how the pro-Israeli lobby in America grew and transformed over the years.
Alterman also spoke about the trends within the Democratic party regarding Israel, and the divide between young, progressive American Jews and the community's establishment organizations when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians. How will Israel's new right-wing government impact these changes, and will Joe Biden be the last pro-Israeli president from his party? Listen to the full conversation with host Amir Tibon.
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On this week’s edition of Haaretz Weekly, host Amir Tibon welcomes Washington Post political columnist E.J. Dionne and Haaretz journalist Allison Kaplan Sommer for an in-depth discussion of the results of the 2022 midterms and their impact on the U.S.-Israel relationship.
The results represented a defeat not just for Donald Trump but for his entire wing of the Republican Party, says Dionne, who is also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and professor at Georgetown University.
Coming right after a right-wing victory in Israel's election two weeks ago, the results in the U.S. were a disappointment for incoming prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will have to work for the next two years with an emboldened President Biden and a stronger Democratic party.
Taken together the two sets of election results present “a real challenge" for Israel, says Dionne. “The swing vote in American opinion on Israel are liberal and democratic voters who have long supported the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, but also oppose settlements, are critical of Netanyahu and want a two state solution.”
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With the most religious and right-wing Israeli government in history about to be formed following last week’s dramatic elections, what’s ahead for the U.S.-Israel relationship, and especially for Israel’s ties with American Jews?
On Haaretz Weekly, host Amir Tibon and Haaretz journalists Allison Kaplan Sommer and Ben Samuels analyze the fallout from the Israeli election and the implications of the expected outcome of the U.S. midterms, where the Republican Party is strongly favored to regain control of Congress. This follows a pitched campaign in which antisemitism and extremism played a major role.
How will the Biden administration work with an Israeli government based on the far-right? Will Benjamin Netanyahu work with Republicans in Congress against the president? And will the rise of antisemitism in the U.S. create even more distance between American Jews and Israel? Listen to the full conversation to get the answers to these and other important questions.
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Have Israel's election results got you down? No one parses the voters' choice like Election Overdose hosts Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin. In the special one-hour season finale, they walk through all the nerdy data and critical commentary to make sense of what just happened.
Learn why Netanyahu won big, but Likud fared poorly; where we think Naftali Bennett's voters went, and who really should be blamed for Meretz failing to enter the Knesset. Find out about turnout in Likud strongholds, voter breakdown in a small kibbutz in the Negev, and which Overdose host was once an outstanding dairy farmer. Bring a glass of whiskey, take two aspirin before bed, and see you for the next election.
Overdose is over, but don't stop following Dahlia (@dahliasc) and Anshel (@AnshelPfeffer) on twitter and keep read their articles and columns on Haaretz.com.
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If one major story dominated Israel’s 2022 Knesset election, it was the surging popularity of the Religious Zionism Party. The party’s leaders Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, claim to have moderated their extremism, but their party platform reflects their racist, supremacist, homophobic, and theocratic views.
On this episode of Haaretz Weekly, which was recorded hours before Israelis went to the polls on Tuesday, Professor Jonathan Rynhold joins host Allison Kaplan Sommer to explain the reasons behind the rise of the party and why he holds Benjamin Netanyahu responsible for mainstreaming it.
In a wider context, Rynhold does not see believe that the surge in popularity of the far-right in Israel means that the country is following behind the trend of strengthening right-wing populist and xenophobic parties in Europe or Christian nationalism and Trumpism in the United States.
Instead, he says, “I think the rest of the world has become more like Israel.”
Follow live coverage of Israel's political drama today on Haaretz.com.
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What in the world will happen on Tuesday? In the final episode ahead of the Israeli elections next week, Election Overdose hosts Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin walk through the permutations of electoral outcomes, analyze the projected deadlock between party blocs in the polls and consider the greatest uncertainties that could tip the results one way or another.
Special guest Amir Tibon, deputy editor of Haaretz English Edition, joins us to reflect on the media coverage of this campaign. We also ask, will late-breaking news, such as the Israel-Lebanon maritime border agreement, make a difference?
Subscribe to Election Overdose for the right dose of parties, people, politicians and polls in Israel's fifth election in three years. Follow Dahlia (@dahliasc) and Anshel (@AnshelPfeffer) on twitter and read more of their articles and columns on Haaretz.com.
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Ukraine has been begging Israel for defensive weapons systems since the start of the Russian invasion, but Israel has refused, fearing the wrath of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Security expert and Haaretz journalist Yossi Melman tells Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer that Russian’s recent use of Iranian suicide drones and expected deployment of Iranian-made ballistic missiles in Ukraine should drastically changes the equation for Israeli leaders.
“Israel has always said that Iran is its number one enemy and they will fight Iran wherever they are - in Yemin, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. So what's the difference now with Ukraine? Iran is acquiring experience on the battlefield there which will turn against Israel in the near future: they are learning, they are improving their systems, and as a result, they will be able to upgrade their drones and their missiles, and send them all over the Middle East, including against Israel.”
Also on the podcast, Haaretz journalist Sam Sokol shares stories from his recent journey across a “very very surreal” wartime Ukraine, and discusses the efforts to sustain Jewish life there and the “bitterness” he encountered regarding Israel’s refusal to offer military assistance.
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With less than two weeks to go until Election Day, the campaign has moved to high-tempo. Or has it? This week’s Election Overdose episode tries to work out why no issues have caught the public’s attention so far in the long campaign and asks whether the controversial judicial reform proposals of the far-right Religious Zionism party will gain traction. Also: Will the public opinion polls ever move before November 1?
Subscribe to Election Overdose for the right dose of parties, people, politicians and polls in Israel's fifth in the never-ending election cycle. Follow Dahlia (@dahliasc) and Anshel (@AnshelPfeffer) on twitter and read more of their articles and columns on Haaretz.com.
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Will religious Jewish voters tip the scales in Israel's elections? With just 25 days to go and each electoral bloc desperate for the final push to reach a 61-seat majority, Israel's national religious community faces surprisingly tough choices.
Which parties could be attractive to moderate religious right-wing voters in Israel? Why did the ultra-nationalist Jewish supremacist party call itself Religious Zionism, and why is it doing so well in all electoral surveys?
To answer these questions, Overdose hosts Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin talk with Yair Ettinger, religious affairs commentator for Israel's Kan news, and author of The Great Split, a new book about the dilemmas defining and dividing the national religious community in Israel today.
Subscribe to Election Overdose for the right dose of parties, people, politicians and polls in Israel's fifth in the never-ending election cycle. Follow Dahlia (@dahliasc) and Anshel (@AnshelPfeffer) on twitter and read more of their articles and columns on Haaretz.com.
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Former U.S. president Donald Trump divided the Jewish community and American Jews from Israel “just like he divided his political party, he divided his White House staff and he divided even his own family,” says Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for the New York Times on the latest episode of Haaretz Weekly.
Sowing discord was no “unfortunate consequence” of Trump’s behavior: it was consistently his strategy, Baker told host Allison Kaplan Sommer in a wide-ranging interview on his new book “The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021” co-authored with his wife Susan Glasser, a staff writer at the New Yorker (and previous Haaretz Weekly guest).
Baker offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at Trump’s Israel policies, his falling out with former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the ‘deal of the century’ and how those tensions inadvertently led to his greatest foreign policy achievement: the Abraham Accords. He also makes a prediction that if Trump were to win another term as president in 2024, his policy on Israel would look “very different” than what he did previously.
In the interview, Baker also shares juicy anecdotes about the time King Abdullah of Jordan “nearly had a heart attack” when Trump told him on the phone that he was “gonna give him the West Bank” and when President Vladimir Putin got so tired of Trump’s bragging about places being named for him that Putin said, “maybe they should just name all of Israel after you, Donald.”
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All eyes are on Arab voters, as the Israeli election campaign begins in earnest. In the final hours before last week's deadline for finalizing party slates, the Joint List disintegrated, leaving three different parties to compete for the votes of Palestinian citizens of Israel. But the Joint List breakdown could also demoralize those voters so badly that their already-tepid participation rate falls even lower.
Professor Amal Jamal of Tel Aviv University joins Election Overdose to discuss what Arab voters want and what their parties are offering, from ideology to political integration to immediate social interests. This week we also track Prime Minister Lapid's United Nations speech, and why efforts to disqualify parties from running mostly fail (but not always). And what do the new polls tell us?
Subscribe to Election Overdose for the right dose of parties, people, politicians and polls in Israel's fifth and best election campaign yet. Follow Dahlia (@dahliasc) and Anshel (@AnshelPfeffer) on twitter and read more of their articles and columns on Haaretz.com.
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As the Jewish year 5782 comes to a close, we devote the first half of this week's Haaretz Weekly to discussing the biggest stories of the outgoing year – from Israel's short-lived “government of change” to the Jewish aspects of the war in Ukraine. Haaretz Deputy Editor Noa Landau joins host Amir Tibon in the studio, and they also discuss the happy dictators of the Middle East and whether next year will bring with it another Israeli election.
Later on the show, author Nir Baram, whose novel “World Shadow” was recently published in English, joins the podcast to discuss the fate of the Israeli left, the one-state reality on the ground in Israel-Palestine, and the thought-provoking idea of a billion-man strike, which is at the heart of his book. Listen to the full conversation with Nir starting at time code 17:45.
Next week, due to Rosh Hashanah, we'll be taking a short holiday break. Shanah Tova to our listeners, we'll meet again in early October.
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As Israeli parties submit their final lists of candidates to the Central Election Commission, the latest episode of Election Overdose goes deep into the emerging battlefield.
Why has Benjamin Netanyahu added new names to Likud's list? Who are the potential voters of the far-right Religious Zionism party? And what does the drama surrounding the Joint List tell us about Arab-Israeli voters? We’ll also be asking which list in Israeli political history represented the largest number of parties running under the same roof.
Each week, hosts Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin discuss all the news, polls, history and party trivia you need to know for Israel's upcoming election. Subscribe to the show on your podcast app, follow Dahlia (@dahliasc) and Anshel (@AnshelPfeffer) on twitter and read more of their articles and columns on Haaretz.com.
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When Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein began work on the documentary series “The US and the Holocaust” together with acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns, they, like other Americans, shared the common belief that America only rescued a small fraction of Europe’s Jews because it was unaware of the systematic Nazi extermination in real time.
But, as they tell Allison Kaplan Sommer on Haaretz Weekly, an abundance of research shows that this myth has little basis. Among those “desperately” trying to seek refuge in the United States - and failing - was the family of Anne Frank, one of the Holocaust’s most famous victims.
“We could have done so much more,” said Novick. “And that idea is very much in conflict with Americans’ sense that we hold ourselves to a higher standard.”
Earlier on the show, Haaretz English editor-in-chief Esther Solomon reviews the life and legacy of Elizabeth II, and explains why so many British Jews revered the monarchy: “There is a strong connection between the welfare of a minority community like the Jewish community, and a stable political entity, of which the queen was the ultimate symbol.”
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On September 15th, Israeli parties must submit their final lists of candidates and be inscribed in the book of parties for the upcoming election. One week from now, parties of the left and right that have been flirting with merging or splitting must make a final decision.
Will the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism split into two factions and what would that mean for Benjamin Netanyahu's chances to return to the prime minister's office?
Why do Arab voters want the three parties of the Joint List to remain glued together, and can Israel's left-wing parties Labor and Meretz work it out this time?
This week's Election Overdose breaks down the final party dilemmas and the consequences of each scenario. We also survey the dazzling new posters of Benny Gantz around town and ask what exactly was Netanyahu doing in a 700,000-shekel bulletproof glass, air-conditioned Bibi-mobile this week on a tour named "Bibiba"?
Each week, hosts Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin discuss all the news, polls, history and party trivia you need to know for Israel's upcoming election. Subscribe to the show on your podcast app, follow Dahlia (@dahliasc) and Anshel (@AnshelPfeffer) on twitter and read more of their articles and columns on Haaretz.com.
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As talks between Iran and world powers over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program continue, Israel is facing a difficult choice between bad and worse options. Should it accept a flawed deal in order to postpone a potential confrontation with Tehran? Or should it ring every alarm bell and try to stop the emerging deal, even if that means risking a regional escalation with thousands of missiles falling on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem?
On this week's episode, two of the top experts on the subject in Israel and Washington join the podcast for a heated exchange. Chuck Freilich, Israel's former deputy national security adviser, argues that a bad deal is still the best option and preferable to the current situation; Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, warns of a nightmare scenario that will strengthen both Iran and Vladimir Putin.
Hosts Amir Tibon and Allison Kaplan Sommer ask them both about the prospect of an Israeli military strike against Iran, the impact of Trump's decision to destroy the previous nuclear deal in 2018, and whether Israel can trust the U.S. to use military force against Iran if needed.
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Our guest this week is Member of Knesset Yossi Shain, who joins the podcast to discuss how Yisrael Beitenu, his party, is preparing for the November 1 election. Shain argues that the secular right-wing party led by Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman represents 'the true right-wing' in Israel, unlike the religious and far-right alliance of parties that was merged last week under pressure from opposition leader Netanyahu.
Shain also explains how Lieberman, who has a long history of harsh statements against Israel's Arab politicians, found himself in a coalition together with Mansour Abbas of the United Arab List. In his view, Lieberman hasn’t changed; but Mansour Abbas recognized Israel as a Jewish state, which made it possible for Yisrael Beitenu to cooperate with him.
In other news, Meretz elected Zehava Galon as its old-new leader; Prime Minister Yair Lapid had a heart-to-heart with President Biden about Iran, and Israel narrowly averted a teacher's strike ahead of the new school year. But will any of it matter to the voters by November?
Each week, hosts Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin discuss all the news, polls, history and party trivia you need to know for Israel's upcoming election. Subscribe to the show on your podcast app, follow Dahlia (@dahliasc) and Anshel (@AnshelPfeffer) on twitter and read more of their articles and columns on Haaretz.com.
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What lies behind the charm offensive launched by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan toward Israel that has resulted in the restoration of full diplomatic ties between the two countries last week, and how long will the honeymoon last?
Dr. Gallia Lindenstrauss, a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, and an expert in Turkish foreign policy joins Haaretz Weekly and says that when Erdogan reaches out to Israel, it’s usually a sign of weakness.
“He's at his worst point in terms of public support since he took power,” she tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer, noting that both Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid are facing elections in the coming year, and this fact also contributed to their reconciliation.
Also on this episode, Avi Scharf and Omer Benjakob unveil the new Haaretz Security, Cyber & Aviation desk and talk about some of its most interesting stories, from cyber-interference in the Israeli elections to arms trades between Russia and Iran, and also how they uncovered a fake news operation imitating a blog written by the editor-in-chief of Haaretz.
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On this episode of Election Overdose, we ask if the famous rule of American elections, is finally making its way to Israel as well. Our guest Karnit Flug, former governor of the Bank of Israel, now at the Israel Democracy Institute and a professor at Hebrew University, breaks down myth and reality about the non-political economics of Israel. Why do Israelis constantly complain of economic woes, but hardly ever vote based on economic platforms?
Earlier on the show, we discuss the latest senior general to enter politics, former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot. Do the political achievements of Israel's generals justify the hype? And why did Eisenkot flirt with Prime Minister Yair Lapid for months before joining the new National Unity party of Defense Minister Benny Gantz?
Each week, hosts Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin discuss all the news, polls, history and party trivia you need to know for Israel's upcoming election. Subscribe to the show on your podcast app, follow Dahlia (@dahliasc) and Anshel (@AnshelPfeffer) on twitter and read more of their articles and columns on Haaretz.com
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After a series of dramatic decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court, the “wall between church and state is almost completely eroded,” warns our guest Dahlia Lithwick, a senior journalist at Slate and legal commentator for MSNBC.
In a conversation with host Allison Kaplan Sommer, she highlights two recent cases decided by the new conservative court majority that prioritized the “religious liberty” of school employees and have “wiped away” the idea that “schools, particularly public schools, are meant to be a place where students could not face religious proselytizing.”
Lithwick, who lived in Charlottesville during the 2017 “Unite the Right” march, also discussed the five-year anniversary of that frightening event, saying that “the deep unease that American Jews feel with being both the recipients of Christian nationalism … while also recognizing that they are white and have the privilege of whiteness even when the Nazis march … is a faultline in how American Jews think about themselves and their power.”
Lithwick, whose new book "Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America" comes out in September, also discusses why the religious beliefs of justices - from RBG’s Judaism to the Catholic judges who have banned abortion - is a “third rail” for journalists like herself, and the difference between “cynical” Israelis who have long considered their Supreme Court to be highly politicized, and Americans who have been “gobsmacked” to discover that the court “is a partisan political body.”
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On this week's episode, Haaretz's national security analyst Amos Harel joins the podcast to discuss the dramatic events in Israel and Gaza. Why did Israel strike the Iran-backed Islamic Jihad organization, and why is Hamas, the most powerful group in Gaza, staying out of this round of fighting? Amos explains the behind-the-scenes dynamic between Israel and the different Palestinian organizations, and warns Israel's leadership of the law of unintended consequences as the death toll rises in Gaza.
Later on the show, hosts Allison Kaplan Sommer and Amir Tibon talk about the political implications of the fighting, which is taking place amidst an Israeli election campaign. How do Israelis view prime minister Yair Lapid's handling of this crisis, and where did he find a symbolic victory over opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu? In addition, Allison asks Amir what his neighbors in a kibbutz right next to the Gaza border think about this round of fighting.
For more updates on the Gaza fighting and the negotiations for a ceasefire, visit Haaretz.com and follow @hareetzcom on Twitter.
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Before Shtisel and Unorthodox became Netflix hits, writer and director Rama Burshtein-Shai was pulling back the curtain on life and love in the ultra-Orthodox community. Following Burshtein’s internationally acclaimed films “Fill the Void” and “The Wedding Plan,” comes her first venture into television, “Fire Dance.”
On Haaretz Weekly, she talks to host Allison Kaplan Sommer about her efforts to give women in that community a voice and why she believes audiences find drama set in a world with such strict rules between men and women so compelling.
“We look for boundaries to preserve our energy, to preserve our feelings. When the boundaries are not there and we're able to take everything we actually want, then we get bored,” Burshtein-Shai said.
Earlier on the show, co-host Amir Tibon joins the podcast for a discussion of revelations in Jared Kushner’s new memoir, which includes behind-the-scenes tension between former U.S. president Donald Trump and then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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January 15, 2022, began as a quiet Saturday morning for Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, then the rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. When a stranger knocked on the synagogue’s glass door and inquired about a night shelter, Cytron-Walker performed an act of kindness: he invited the man inside and made him a cup of tea.
For the next 11 hours, the man, who happened to have a gun, held Cytron-Walker and several congregants hostage, demanding the release of an Al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist from prison and stating that Jews control the world.
Six months after the attack, Cytron-Walker joins host Amir Tibon to tell the incredible story of how he eventually threw a chair at the attacker and led his congregants in a run for their lives. He also discusses national lessons on guns, mental health and security, and reflects on how spending a year in Israel prepared him for that moment. The full interview with Rabbi Cytron-Walker starts at time code 08:20.
Earlier on the show, Haaretz reporter Sam Sokol talks about the escalating crisis between Israel and Russia following Moscow’s threat to shut down the Jewish Agency’s activities on its soil. Is Putin trying to punish Israel for its position on Ukraine? Is there any danger for Jews in Russia? And what can Israel do about this situation? Listen to the full conversation to learn more on the subject.
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Last week, Haaretz reporter Ben Samuels was the only Israeli journalist to fly with the White House press delegation from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – a first-of-its-kind historic flight between two countries that officially still don’t recognize one another.
Almost 30 years ago, David Makovsky, then Haaretz’s diplomatic correspondent, also visited Jeddah, accompanying U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher as part of the Oslo Accords-era flurry of Middle Eastern negotiations.
Two rare visits by Haaretz reporters to the most powerful country in the Arab world, and three decades of historical change in between them. On this week’s episode, Samuels and Makovsky join host Allison Kaplan Sommer to talk about their unique experiences writing for an Israeli newspaper from the kingdom.
Makovsky, today a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, shares why he is optimistic about Biden’s Middle East trip, even though the president did not “break ground” on the Palestinian or Iran issues. Samuels, our Washington correspondent, explains why the trip “marked the conscious uncoupling of Israel and the Palestinians in the eyes of U.S. policymakers.”
Listen to the full conversation to also hear what they see next for Biden’s Middle East policy.
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As President Joe Biden takes off from Washington for his long-awaited visit to Israel and Saudi Arabia, The Economist's Middle East correspondent Gregg Carlstrom joins the podcast for a wide-ranging conversation on U.S. policy in the region.
Hosts Allison Kaplan Sommer and Amir Tibon ask him what Biden will try to extract from the Saudis; how the Gulf states view the Abraham Accords, almost two years after they were signed; and whether Vladimir Putin is the one who should actually get the credit for this visit. Carlstrom also shares his observations from a visit to Gaza earlier this week and his conversations with senior Hamas officials.
Later on the show, Emily Tamkin, U.S. editor for The New Statesman, joins from Washington to discuss the political reality facing Biden at home, and how his trip to the Middle East is viewed inside the Democratic Party. She also comments on Donald Trump's current standing in the Republican Party following the January 6 hearings in Congress, and outlines the factors that will determine the outcome of the midterm elections in November.
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U.S. President Joe Biden is set to arrive in Israel next week, and his top diplomat in the country says that the long-expected visit won’t be affected by Israel’s recently-announced election. “The show will go on,” Ambassador Thomas Nides told the Haaretz Weekly podcast in a special July 4th interview.
“Joe Biden is coming here for the Israeli people. He's not coming for one political party or another,” Nides told hosts Allison Kaplan Sommer and Amir Tibon, describing the U.S. president as a “Zionist” who “knows more about the Middle East and Israel than probably any politician in the history of the United States.”
In a wide-ranging interview held on the eve of the Knesset’s vote to dissolve itself and Yair Lapid’s instatement as caretaker prime minister, Nides lays out the goals of Biden’s Mideast tour, with stops in Israel, the West Bank and Saudi Arabia. He also answers our questions on related policy issues from Ukraine and China to Iran.
Also on this week’s episode, a special announcement: Haaretz’s Election Overdose podcast is back! As we begin the journey toward Israel’s fifth election in three years, Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin will be in our studio each week to talk about the biggest political stories of the hour, and how they could impact the results in November. Listen to them discussing the Knesset’s dissolution and Lapid’s appointment, starting at time code 27:50.
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When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, ending the federal right to abortion, it was “devastating,” says Sheila Katz, CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women, in an interview with Haaretz Weekly.
“We had been mapping out every possible path this decision could go down. And the one the court chose was absolutely the worst,” Katz tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer. Katz has been spearheading the fight for abortion rights in the Jewish community under the banner of religious freedom.
“Judaism not only permits abortion: our tradition commands it when it comes to protecting the life of the mother,” she says.
Also on this week’s episode: political consultant Dahlia Scheindlin analyzes the dissolution of the Knesset and what lies ahead as Israel faces its fifth election in three and a half years, and weighs the odds of a comeback for former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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For the fifth time since 2019, Israel will hold an election as the country's political crisis grows ever worse, with no end in sight. Why did Prime Minister Naftali Bennett decide to shock the political scene by blowing up his own government? What kind of leader will his interim successor, Yair Lapid, be? And is it too soon to discuss a comeback by Benjamin Netanyahu?
Our team in the studio – Amir Tibon, Anshel Pfeffer and Allison Kaplan Sommer – answer all your most pressing questions on the political drama.
Later on this episode, an in-depth interview with former Israeli national security adviser Uzi Arad, on his years working next to Netanyahu, the books he used to buy for the former prime minister in London's best bookstores, and what Joe Biden whispered in his ear outside the Oval Office. Arad, today a sharp critic of his former boss Netanyahu, also has some harsh words for the government that replaced him.
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Trump adviser Steve Bannon has refused to testify to the congressional January 6 committee about his role in the Capitol insurrection. But he agreed to speak to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jennifer Senior – though when confronted he didn’t tell her the truth.
“He was definitely working the phones all day. And he was lying to me about it,” Senior tells Haaretz Weekly podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, discussing her recent profile of Bannon in The Atlantic.
Senior also talks about how the U.S. alt-right movement has fanned the flames of antisemitism, and how Bannon dealt with being profiled by a Jewish woman.
“He knew early on that I was Jewish and was therefore extremely awkward, almost clumsy, and trying to bring up how much he loved the Jews,” she says. “It was almost like that movie scene where Austin Powers sees a person with a mole and keeps accidentally saying the word ‘mole’ out loud. Like he was staring at me and thinking, ‘Jew, Jew.’“
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Haaretz Weekend host Allison Kaplan Sommer and Haaretz English Deputy Editor Amir Tibon review the turbulent Israeli political scene after Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s embattled governing coalition failed to pass a contentious West Bank bill this week – and ask if this could be the death knell for the anti-Netanyahu "change government."
Later on the show, Prof. Joshua Shanes joins the podcast to discuss changes in ultra-Orthodoxy – a community that will soon represent a fifth of all U.S. Jews, their affinity for Donald Trump and his camp, and the activism that emerged during the pandemic.
Shanes, who directs the Arnold Center for Israel Studies at the College of Charleston, also talks about the antisemitism panel he attended during a recent visit to Jerusalem. He was “shocked and scared” to hear former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer – a confidant of Benjamin Netanyahu – use “violent language” that sounded “straight out of Kahane.”
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Rep. Andy Levin, a progressive Democrat from Michigan, is facing a tough primary race against fellow lawmaker Haley Stevens, as the two politicians battle in a newly redrawn Congressional district in the Detroit area. Their election has become the latest front in the political war between AIPAC, which is supporting Stevens, and J Street, which has endorsed Levin.
Joining host Allison Kaplan Sommer on this episode, Levin responds to what he calls “sad and pathetic” personal attacks from a former AIPAC president who called him “arguably the most corrosive member of Congress to the U.S.-Israel relationship.”
He explains his views on the subject by stating: “I love Israel. I'm a supporter of Israel and always have been, I voted for all our aid to Israel. I'm against the BDS movement. I voted to replenish Iron Dome. To use the kind of language that they're using against me, just because I won't tow AIPAC’s exact line is wrong, and it's not going to work.”
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U.S. President Joe Biden visited Asia this week, where he made headlines by promising to defend Taiwan in case of a Chinese attack on the island. At home, his administration has been struggling with rising inflation ahead of this year's midterm elections. So why, in the face of multiple internal and international crises, is the president soon planning a visit to Israel and potentially also Saudi Arabia?
On this week's episode, we asked leading U.S. foreign policy expert Aaron David Miller what Biden will try to achieve during the trip – from a diplomatic breakthrough between Israel and Saudi Arabia, to improved ties with the region's major oil producers. Miller also told host Amir Tibon why America's greatest global challenge today is actually coming from within.
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Ending a decades-long policy of neutrality, Sweden and Finland have decided to join NATO in response to Vladimir Putin's botched invasion of Ukraine. On this episode of Haaretz Weekend, our correspondent in Stockholm, David Stavrou, explains why this decision is an earthquake for the two Scandinavian countries, and veteran national security analyst Amir Oren discusses the global implications it will have, ranging from Washington and Moscow to Israel and the Middle East. They also tell host Amir Tibon how Putin could punish the two countries in the interim period until they are accepted to NATO, and what it would take to remove Turkish President Erdogan's opposition to their application.
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“If I thought that I was going to win the Pulitzer for a book called ‘The Netanyahus’ I would have to be crazy to want to be in Israel when that happened,” novelist Joshua Cohen tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer on Haaretz Weekly, shortly after arriving in Israel for the Jerusalem International Book Forum and Writers Festival.
In the interview, recorded in Tel Aviv days after he got the news, Cohen says he is still in shock that he had won the biggest literary prize in the United States for a novel “that has characters in it that most Americans can't pronounce their names.”
Cohen’s part-historical, part-fictional satire is subtitled “An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family.” Its main character is the brilliant but embittered Prof. Benzion Netanyahu, best-known today as the father of Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
As he was writing, Cohen says, he “kept on thinking of the line in ‘The Big Lebowski’ where the Dude says to Walter: ‘You’re not wrong, you’re just an asshole.’ And that was Benzion Netanyahu."
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As the Israeli Knesset begins its summer session, political expert and Haaretz columnist Dahlia Scheindlin joins host Allison Kaplan Sommer to discuss Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s chances of survival, and why United Arab List leader Mansour Abbas pulled his party back from the brink after threatening to leave the coalition.
Abbas is taking “a huge risk," she notes, amidst growing criticism from within the Arab camp “attacking him every day for being some kind of collaborator in this government. But his strategy is that he will achieve long-term goals and ultimately be rewarded.”
Also on the show, Acre hotel owner Evan Fallenberg reflects on the events of May 2021, when his business was decimated during the riots in mixed Jewish-Arab cities, and why he still believes coexistence is possible.
“It’s easy for people to point fingers, blame the other side and not feel that they’re responsible. But I think it’s the only way we’re going to find a way out of this situation. We’re all responsible in some way.”
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Robi Damelin’s life was transformed in 2002 when she received the bitter news that her beloved son David was gunned down by a Palestinian while serving as a reserve soldier in the Israel Defense Forces.
In an emotional interview, she tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer about the personal journey that led her to peace activism and leadership in the Parents Circle-Families Forum – a co-sponsor of the annual Israeli-Palestinian Joint Memorial Day Ceremony.
“I remember sitting around the table and looking into the eyes of the Palestinian mothers for the first time, and realizing that we shared the same pain and that our tears were the same color,” Damelin says. “If we can stand on the stage and talk in the same voice, for reconciliation and nonviolence, surely that can be an example for the whole world.”
Later in the podcast, Haaretz’s Washington correspondent, Ben Samuels, checks in to discuss the political earthquake sparked by the leak of the Supreme Court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade; the “evolving battle” between AIPAC and J Street ahead of the 2022 midterms; the Anti-Defamation League’s new campaign equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism; and the revelations in a new book by an aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders.
This episode of Haaretz Weekend was released early in light of Israel’s Memorial Day and Independence Day.
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Dr. Raz Zimmt, a leading Israeli expert on Iran, joins the podcast to talk about the ambitions, fears and concerns of Iran's current leadership. We ask him: Does Tehran really want to go back to a nuclear agreement with the United States and other world powers, or is it just buying time? Is the aging supreme religious leader Ali Khamenei still the top decision-maker in the country? And what have Israeli governments gotten wrong about Iran in recent decades? Zimmt, who recently published the book "Iran From Within: State and Society in the Islamic Republic," discusses these questions and more with host Amir Tibon. Listen to their full conversation.
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Zehava Galon, former head of the left-wing Meretz Party, who served in the Knesset for 16 years, is also the child of Holocaust survivors. For this reason, she finds it personally painful to see Israel’s government refusing to explicitly condemn Vladimir Putin and refraining from sending arms to Ukraine.
“We have to protect the rights of people around the world – people who need our help,” says Galon, who now heads the human rights organization Zulat, on the latest episode of Haaretz Weeekend. In an interview with host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Galon also discusses the state of Naftali Bennett’s “coalition of change” and how many bitter pills she believes the left should be willing to swallow in order to keep it intact.
Later on the podcast, Haaretz technology editor Omer Benjakob explains the latest revelations regarding NSO Group and its Pegasus spyware. While most of the headlines in recent years have focused on how authoritarian governments are using the Israeli spyware, new reporting shows that even democratic countries are not immune to the dangers of the surveillance age.
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It was supposed to be a week of celebrations as Jews, Muslims and Christians in the Holy Land all marked their holidays at the same time. But in Jerusalem, and particularly on the sensitive Temple Mount / Al-Aqsa compound, the biggest story in recent days has been the outbreak of violent clashes between Palestinians and the Israeli police.
Nir Hasson, Haaretz's Jerusalem correspondent, and our senior analyst Anshel Pfeffer, join the podcast to explain what's behind this wave of violence and why, despite the fears that it will deteriorate into an all-out war, both Hamas and Israel will likely try to avoid that scenario. Nir also describes what most Jerusalemites really think about the headlines, while Anshel discusses the political effect of these events, and the likelihood of this crisis bringing down Naftali Bennett's government.
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Ahead of the second round of the French presidential election, our in-house experts on French politics join the podcast to explain what's behind the "great anger" expressed by voters in the first round, and how President Emmanuel Macron can become the first in two decades to secure a second term in office.
Emmanuelle Elbaz-Phelps, host of Haaretz's Hebrew-language podcast on the French election, and Haaretz editor and writer Eléonore Weil, share their conversations with family and friends in France, analyze how the upcoming Macron-Le Pen debate could be a game-changer, and predict what a victory by either candidate would mean for French-Israeli relations. They also discuss Le Pen's ties to Russia and the antisemitic legacy of her party and family.
Later on the show, we discuss how a disagreement over the right to eat bread in Israeli hospitals during Passover could end up bringing down Israel's anti-Netanyahu "government of change." Uri Keidar, executive director of Israel Hofsheet, an organization promoting liberal policies on religion and state in Israel, joins the podcast to explain the origins of this crisis. Listen to his conversation with host Amir Tibon, starting at time code 33:45.
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Susan Glasser has been one of the most prominent journalists covering Washington's political dramas in the Obama, Trump and Biden years. But earlier in her career, as an American reporter stationed in Moscow, she witnessed the rise of a man who has had just as much influence on world affairs over the years: Vladimir Putin.
On this episode of Haaretz Weekend, Glasser joins hosts Allison Kaplan Sommer and Amir Tibon to discuss Putin's evolution from "an obscure KGB officer" to a murderous autocrat who is challenging the entire world order. Sharing an incredible story from her first ever meeting with Putin, she explains why many in the West misread him for a reformer before realizing who they were truly dealing with.
She also comments on Biden's response to the war, Trump's embrace of Russian talking points, and the anger in Washington over Israel's hesitant approach since the start of the fighting.
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More than a month into the Ukraine war, is it too soon to call the Russian invasion a failure? What impact will it have on America's international standing, and why has it increased Iran's motivation to acquire nuclear weapons? Retired Israeli general Amos Yadlin, former head of Israel's military intelligence, joins the podcast to discuss these questions amid reports of Russian war crimes on the outskirts of Kyiv.
Yadlin tells host Amir Tibon that Putin's "barbaric" war is a reflection of Russia's failure to "march into Kyiv and be greeted as liberators." Putin, in his view, "lost the war he planned," but can still win another, more brutal one. Listen to the full conversation, which also touches on Israel's ties with China, and the Biden administration's approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Read more of our Ukraine coverage:
* Russian War Crimes in Ukraine Are Exposed. Will That Change Anything?
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Why Jewish Refugees From Ukraine Are Choosing Germany Over Israel
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How D.C. Emboldened Putin, According to Key Trump Impeachment Witness
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Opinion: Why Most Israelis Blame Putin, but Most Palestinians Don't
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Former U.S. National Security Adviser, retired General H.R. McMaster, joins Haaretz Weekend for a frank conversation about Ukraine, Iran and the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship.
McMaster told host Allison Kaplan Sommer that Israel “ought to be embarrassed” for failing to “fully support” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his fight against the Russian invasion.
The Ukrainian situation “is at least a little bit analogous to the situation of Israel” having been “attacked without provocation from a more powerful neighbor,” McMaster said. “This idea that you hedge [your bets] with Vladimir Putin to compensate for concerns that the American administration might attenuate or lessen support for Israel – that’s part of a long pattern and it’s always been wrong.”
A longtime harsh critic of the Biden White House’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan last summer, McMaster is certain that “you can draw a direct line from the humiliating surrender to a terrorist organization and withdrawal from Afghanistan to Putin’s decision to attack Ukraine.”
McMaster also explains why he thinks the chances that Biden’s Iran negotiators will ever be able to improve the terms of the nuclear deal are “zero,” and that Iran will never give up its fight to “place a proxy army on the border of Israel and to threaten Israel with destruction.”
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The images from the north-central city of Hadera on Sunday sent many Israelis back in time to the dark days of the second intifada: two terrorists, armed with multiple weapons, standing in the middle of a busy street and opening fire.
The fact that the perpetrators turned out to be Arab citizens of Israel who had pledged allegiance to ISIS, and that an attack by another Arab-Israeli ISIS supporter took place just days earlier in the south of the country, made the situation even more shocking. Haaretz's senior defense analyst Amos Harel joins the podcast to explain the background to these attacks, and why they are so concerning in the eyes of Israel's security services.
Later on this episode, Israeli foreign policy expert Ksenia Svetlova, a former member of the Knesset, talks with host Amir Tibon about the war in Ukraine, a month after Putin's tanks first invaded the country. What has caused the Russians to get stuck in the mud, how is Putin trying to suffocate the Ukrainian economy, and what should Israel do differently in its response to the refugee crisis? Listen to the full conversation, starting at time code 12:40.
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Tom Dine, executive director of AIPAC from 1980-1993, is extremely worried that the organization’s controversial decision to endorse and fund congressional candidates who refused to certify the 2020 election will prove to be an “existential mistake.”
The pro-Israel lobby has “walked into a trap they set themselves” and are now being seen as supporting “antidemocratic” forces, he tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer on Haaretz Weekend. The current AIPAC leadership's efforts to defend their choice with “no apologies” is “bullshit,” he says bluntly.
“There is no compromise when it comes to democracy,” Dine says. “If you get too many people saying AIPAC ought to go out of business, it's no longer relevant – then you don't have the grassroots support that I think is essential.”
Also on the show, Haaretz reporter Judy Maltz explains why it seems that just as many – or more – Ukrainian Jews fleeing the war in their homeland are heading to Berlin instead of immigrating to Israel. With Germany offering them free housing, and a community of former Soviet Jews already settled there to welcome them, “for many of them it makes more sense to go to Germany.”
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As the war in Ukraine rages on, Vladimir Putin's army is being exposed as less effective than previously thought, argues Haaretz senior correspondent Anshel Pfeffer on this week's episode. Joining from Kyiv, where he has been covering the war with photographer Ohad Zwigenberg, he shares what "normal life" currently looks like in the bombarded Ukrainian capital, explains what it takes for a journalist to enter Ukraine these days, and offers a grim assessment about the possibility of the war ending via diplomatic negotiations.
Later on this episode, senior Haaretz analyst Alon Pinkas joins host Amir Tibon to discuss China's role in the war, and why Beijing's position is of such great interest to U.S. President Joe Biden. Can China stop Putin from further escalating the situation? Does it even want to? Listen to the full conversation starting at time code 18:24.
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Read more of our Ukraine coverage:
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With Machine Guns From a Museum, Kyiv Takes the Fight to Russia
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Zelensky Tells Israeli Lawmakers: Russsia Is Plotting 'Final Solution' Like the Nazis
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Why Jewish Refugees from Ukraine Are Choosing Germany Over Israel
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Israel's attempts to mediate between Russia and Ukraine represent an important shift in the country's foreign policy, says Eran Etzion, a former senior Israeli diplomat and previously the deputy head of Israel's national security council. A country that for decades was clearly aligned with the U.S. and the West, says Etzion, has been drifting toward a more neutral position in the global arena, but now it must choose between the democratic world and an authoritarian axis trying to destroy it. Listen to his full interview with host Amir Tibon.
Later on the show, we hear from Anat Peled, co-author of a recent Haaretz article on Israelis who have gone to Ukraine to fight with the Ukrainian military against Putin's invasion. What brings young Israelis to leave everything behind for this war, and how does the government view the phenomenon? The conversation with her starts at time code 28:20.
This week, because of the Purim holiday, there will not be a new episode of Haaretz Weekend. See you next week.
Read more of our Ukraine coverage:
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Anshel Pfeffer reports from Odessa, the city that believes it is Putin's next target.
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Putin wanted another Crimea. He may get another Chechnya instead.
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Israel plans to airlift tens of thousands of Ukrainian Jews.
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Journalist Julia Ioffe was born in the former Soviet Union, immigrated to the U.S. as a child, and returned many times since to Russia as a reporter covering the country's politics, wars and relations with the world. On this episode of Haaretz Weekend, she explains why Vladimir Putin was surprised by U.S. President Joe Biden's tough sanctions, but why the economic damage caused to Russia won't deter him from continuing his cruel war in Ukraine. Putin, she warns, is cornered, and is far from the strategic genius some analysts make of him. But that doesn't make him any less dangerous.
Also on this episode, host Allison Kaplan Sommer talks to immigration attorney Yadim Elam about Israel's policy toward Ukarinian refugees, which is casuing tensions within the government. His phone hasn't stopped ringing since the start of the war, with people telling desperate stories about trying to enter the country and facing endless beuarucratic hardships. He explains who are the Ukrainian refugees arriving to Israel, and voices his disappointment and frustration with the welcome they're receiving.
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What is it like to cover the Ukraine war from inside the beleaguered country? Who are the people escaping the Russian onslaught? And is Israel doing enough to help the refugees arriving at its gates?
Haaretz correspondents Yarden Michaeli and Judy Maltz, who recently returned from Ukraine and Moldova, respectively, share their experiences on the ground, offer a dark assessment of the war's next steps and end with some optimistic stories of resilience and generosity despite the enormous crisis. Listen to their full conversation with host Amir Tibon, starting at time code 10:30.
But first up, our national security analyst, Amos Harel, delivers an update on Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's attempts to broker a cease-fire in Eastern Europe and tries to answer the most frightening question of all: What will it take for a cornered Vladimir Putin to turn this conflict into a nuclear one?
Read more of our Ukraine coverage:
* 'I Fled the Nazis, Now I'm Fleeing the Russians': Jewish Refugees From Ukraine Find Shelter in Moldova
* This Ukrainian Synagogue Survived World War II. Now It’s Trying to Stop the Russians
- Time Is No Longer on Putin's Side
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Dani Dayan, chairman of Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Center, joins host Allison Kaplan Sommer to discuss the war in Ukraine and how it affects his organization's main mission, preserving the memory of the Holocaust. He finds reason for concern in some recent developments: “Both sides are trivializing and distorting the Holocaust. I regret that both sides are using their propagandistic comparisons to the Holocaust that are completely inaccurate and completely improper.”
Dayan chose to speak out after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed the invasion is aimed at “denazification,” and a Kremlin spokesman mocked Yad Vashem and promised to organize a visit to “mass graves” in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, accused Moscow of “killing the victims of the Holocaust for the second time." Dayan also addressed criticism directed at his organization for signing a letter asking the United States not to sanction Russian billionaire and major donor Roman Abramovich.
Later on the show, Haaretz deputy-editor-in-chief Noa Landau explains why multimillion-dollar gifts to Yad Vashem, like the recent controversial donation by Abramovich, must end. She advocates a law that would require Yad Vashem be fully funded by the Israeli government so it can refuse private donations that could affect its mission.
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Through the fog of war, details are beginning to emerge from the war in Ukraine – but the full picture is still unknown. Has Putin achieved any of his objectives so far? Why is the world surprised by Ukraine's defiance and resolve? And what does Israel stand to lose by refusing to take a stronger position against Russia? Israeli strategic planning expert and former army colonel Udi Evental joins the podcast to discuss the latest developments in the fighting, and how Syria was Putin's laboratory for the Ukraine war. Listen to his conversation with host Amir Tibon, starting at time code 07:15.
Earlier on this episode, Haaretz's Jewish World correspondent Judy Maltz brings an update on the expected wave of immigration from Ukraine to Israel, which could break all previous records in light of the war. Thousands of Ukrainian Jews have already asked for help to relocate to Israel, and many more could join them. She also discusses the disappointment among Israelis of Ukrainian origin who feel the government in Jerusalem has let them down.
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“We see a voice in Congress that is not talking about Palestinian human rights, that isn’t a progressive pro-Israel voice. It is a voice saying ‘Israel is completely illegitimate and you shouldn’t engage with it at all.’”
Americans for Peace Now CEO Hadar Susskind joins host Allison Kaplan Sommer this week to talk about the pressure being put on a group of left-wing Democratic lawmakers who have participated in delegations to Israel – even when those delegations meet with Palestinian leaders and representatives to hear and amplify their cause.
He notes that activists are seeking out “progressive members of color because that’s who they think they can impact and influence,” calling the pressure to boycott Israel entirely a “terrible, terrible tactic.”
Later on the podcast, former Israel Defense Forces international spokesman Peter Lerner discusses how Israel should confront the phenomenon of it being “canceled.”
“Israel needs to be very cautious not to give the fringe elements a platform,” Lerner says. “We can’t get involved in internal U.S. politics, but we need to empower those who want to come and learn and listen and see – and criticize,” he adds.
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As war gets closer in Ukraine, signs of progress are being reported from Vienna, where Iran and world powers are discussing a new nuclear agreement. Is a new deal actually within reach, and will it be a weaker, more dangerous agreement as Israeli officials have been warning? Nuclear historian Avner Cohen joins the podcast to answer these questions, and also to explain how Putin is using the Iran card against America, and why China won't mind if Iran becomes a nuclear threshold state.
Later on this episode, host Amir Tibon hears from EcoPeace Israel director Gidon Bromberg about the unique threats of climate change in the Middle East, but also how it can be used to foster greater cooperation in the region. Ahead of this week's Haaretz climate conference, featuring Biden's special climate envoy John Kerry, hear what can be done to reverse the worrying rise of global temperatures, and how a crisis can be an opportunity for peace, starting at time code 25:30.
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Haaretz senior writer Judy Maltz joins the podcast to talk about the plight of Ukrainian Jews living in the shadow of a possible Russian invasion, and whether she believes a massive wave of aliyah is likely should a military conflict begin.
She also talks about why the Israeli government may soon be taking steps that would actually make it harder, not easier, for many of those Ukrainian Jews to come to Israel if they want to do so, due to political horse-trading that would see a radical change in Israel’s Law of Return.
Earlier on the show, Israel’s top human rights attorney, Michael Sfard, discusses his explosive article comparing Israeli settler violence in the West Bank to the activities of the Ku Klux Klan. In an interview with host Allison Kaplan Sommer, he calls the perpetrators “the new antisemites,” and talks about why denouncements from Israeli authorities and settler leaders ring hollow.
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The biggest story in Israel in recent weeks has been the alleged use of Pegasus spyware by the Israeli police against journalists, directors of government ministries, witnesses in the Netanyahu trial and other civilians. But did it really happen, or is the entire situation one big conspiracy theory? And what lessons can democratic governments learn from Israel's spyware scandal?
To answer these questions, our guests on this week's episode are Haaretz cybertech editor Omer Benjakob and Dr. Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, a senior fellow at the Israeli Democracy Institute and an expert on law and technology. They also explain how Israel used Pegasus and similar cyberweaponry for foreign policy purposes, and what you, the listener, can do to find out if your phone has been hacked. Listen to their full conversation with host Amir Tibon.
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Haaretz television critic Adrian Hennigan reviews the two latest Israeli hit shows to receive English-language reboots: “Suspicion” on Apple TV+ and “As We See It” on Amazon Prime, and takes a deep dive into the global phenomenon the Israeli television industry has become. Hear the full conversation with him, starting at time code 21:00.
Also on this episode, feminist activist Samah Salaime – a leading voice on violence against women in the Arab community – talks with host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the struggle for equality in a conservative and discriminated society.
“We can’t, as Palestinians, say that we want freedom of speech and movement, we want to be equal in a democratic state, but we don’t want this voice to be heard,” she said, pointing to recent troubling examples of limiting women’s freedom in Israel’s Arab community. “The conservative fundamental agenda of religious people is taking over and this is a dangerous thing for us,” she added.
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From Iran and Ukraine to China and India, on this week's episode we have a wide-ranging discussion of Israel's foreign policy with Yossi Shain – one of the country's top political science experts and a recently elected member of the Knesset. Shain explains how former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a bet on Donald Trump winning reelection, and how that bet put Israel in a terrible situation regarding Iran.
He also discusses Israel's alliance with India, and tells host Amir Tibon that Jerusalem will do everything it can to avoid being dragged into the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Also on this episode, an interview with Union for Reform Judaism President Rabbi Rick Jacobs, who has a warning for Prime Minister Naftali Bennett: Liberal American Jews are losing patience with the new Israeli government, and "not being Bibi" is not enough to win their support. Listen to his full conversation with Allison Kaplan Sommer, starting at time code 31:00.
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As Russian troops mass on the Ukrainian border and fears of an invasion grow, Haaretz’s Alon Pinkas talks to Allison Kaplan Sommer about Vladimir Putin’s motivations and the reaction of President Joe Biden to the crisis. “Anything having to do with America’s image, with America’s power and ability to project power has a direct impact on Israel’s national security,” Pinkas says.
Also, Haaretz correspondent Liza Rozovsky joins the podcast from the ground in Ukraine. While Ukrainians in the border regions are not visibly panicking, she reports, “in order to really feel the anxiety, you need to meet the people and sit and talk to them in their homes.”
Rozovsky discusses why even Russian-speaking Ukrainians want nothing to do with Putin, her visits with volunteers who spend their days supporting the Ukrainian military effort against Russian separatists, and whether or not Ukrainian Jews in the border region are considering a move to Israel if war breaks out.
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Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin dissect Bibi's latest legal drama, and listen in as Omer Benjakob discusses the latest NSO scandal with host Allison Kaplan Sommer
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When news broke that four middle-aged women in Israel had been recruited by an Iranian intelligence agent on social media and dispatched on a series of bizarre missions, many Israeli commentators found the story amusing.
Haaretz intelligence and security analyst Yossi Melman tells podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer why he believes the episode is no joking matter.
Additionally, he delves into the ongoing controversy over why Princeton University continues to employ Seyed Mousavian, a propagandist for the Iranian regime who gleefully smirked when discussing death threats against a U.S. State Department official. He also asks why top Israeli intelligence officials haven’t been able to keep their mouths shut lately, being so eager to brag about their exploits.
Also in this episode: Palestinian-Israeli activist Sally Abed explains how tree planting by the Jewish National Fund ignited Bedouin protests in the Negev and why Bedouin youth are so angry. The incident nearly brought down the Israeli government after United Arab List leader Mahmoud Abbas, a key member of the Bennett-Lapid coalition, refused to vote the party line until the forestation stopped.
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Days after America marked one year to the January 6 attack on Congress and the attempt to subvert American democracy, author and political analyst John Judis joins the podcast to offer a disturbing view of these events and their place in U.S. history. Judis, famous for predicting an "emerging Democratic majority" ahead of Obama's rise to power, now warns of a possible Trump comeback. Listen to his full conversation with host Amir Tibon starting at time code 13:35.
Also on this episode: Israel's COVID infection rate broke all-time records this week as the omicron variant washed over the country. We discuss this evolving situation with Prof. Diane Levin from Clalit, Israel's largest health care provider.
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Can Israel conduct a military strike to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program? What will it take for the country’s leadership to reach such a decision? And what are the chances that the ensuing conflict with Tehran will include the United States? Former Israeli deputy national security adviser, Chuck Freilich, joins the podcast to discuss his recent article on the subject, and explains why a military strike is doable but should remain Israel’s absolute last resort.
Also on this week’s episode, we discuss the recent escalation in Gaza: over the weekend, two rockets were launched from the coastal enclave toward Tel Aviv; Israel blamed Hamas for the incident and hit targets in Gaza, while Hamas claimed it was an accident caused by stormy weather.
Dr. Shira Efron of the RAND Corporation and Israel Policy Forum joins host Amir Tibon to discuss the economic and humanitarian situation in Gaza, and its impacts on regional security.
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In Israeli history, 2021 will be remembered as the end of an era. After 12 years, Benjamin Netanyahu lost power – something many Israelis found unimaginable.
But this big development was only one event in a tempestuous year. There were multiple waves of COVID-19 , a vaccine campaign and a world-leading push for a booster shot. U.S. President Joe Biden entered the White House with a very different attitude toward Iran than his predecessor.
In May, Israel experienced a traumatic 11 days that sent Israelis to the bomb shelters and upended the relationship between the country's Arabs and Jews. This was followed by a major unexpected development: Mansour Abbas, the head of the United Arab List party, joined the new post-Netanyahu government and became a key player.
Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn and senior national security analyst Amos Harel join host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the podעcast to analyze the most dramatic stories of the year – and speculate on what’s in store for 2022, from COVID to the stability of Naftali Bennett's government.
Plus, Haaretz reporters share their favorite stories of the year - from Capitol Hill to the ruins of ancient Yavneh, and also, Israel's worst falafel.
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William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Organizations, joins the podcast to talk about what it means for Diaspora Jews to be barred from Israel for nearly two years. He sits down with host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the day Israel officially declared the United States a “red” country in its ongoing battle against COVID and the omicron variant, barring travel between the two countries. Later in the episode, Haaretz Opinion Editor Esther Solomon explains why it is imperative that Jews and Israel speak out over growing incitement against Muslims in Bosnia by the Serbs.
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Journalist, activist, poet and Haaretz’s new Europe correspondent, Rajaa Natour, tells host Simon Spungin why Netflix’s collection of “Palestinian Stories” is not a watershed moment for Palestinian cinema or the Palestinian struggle, but a cowardly attempt to cash in on the never-ending narrative of victimhood.
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Israeli historian Adam Raz joins the podcast to discuss his explosive report on declassified documents from 1948, showing how Israel's early leadership grappled with the moral and political questions arising from a series of massacres against Palestinians. What did the government know in real time, how were the soldiers responsible treated, and why did David Ben-Gurion try to bury the subject? The conversation starts at time code 17:45.
Earlier on this episode, we hear from Prof. Gisela Dachs on the new government in Germany, sworn in just last week, and what to expect from it regarding Israel and the Middle East. Will new chancellor and Social Democrats leader Olaf Scholz continue Angela Merkel's strong commitment to Israel's security, and what do young Germans think about the issue? Listen to her discussion with host Amir Tibon and Haaretz's visiting fellow from Germany, Konstantin Nowotny.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Judy Maltz and Adrian Hennigan to discuss: Immigration in the shadow of the Coronavirus pandemic; the never-ending race to become head of the Jewish Agency; and why an Israeli video-on-demand service has just added Sally Rooney’s hit TV show ‘Normal People’ to its catalog – despite calls to boycott the BDS-supporting author.
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All across the Middle East, Christian communities are in decline. In Gaza, once an early Christian city, there are only 800 Christians left. In Iraq, Christians whose lands were taken over by the Islamic State were forced to convert – or die.
Author Janine di Giovanni joins Haaretz Weekly to discuss her book “The Vanishing: Faith, Loss, and the Twilight of Christianity in the Land of the Prophets," which documents this process. We ask her: Why are Christians leaving the region, what impact did Pope Francis' visit to Iraq have on the local community there, and what is Christianity's future in the land where it first appeared. The conversation starts at time code 13:30.
Earlier on this week's episode, senior Haaretz journalist Noa Landau joins host Amir Tibon to discuss Israel's controversial decision to spy on its own citizens in response to the omicron variant's arrival. Why did left-wing politicians who previously opposed this policy now decide to allow it, and what eventually made the government change course? Listen to the full conversation, and make sure to also read Noa's recent op-ed on the subject.
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In this week's episode, we hear from two of Israel's top COVID experts about vaccines, the new omicron variant and medications against the virus. Our guest in the studio, Dr. Oren Kobiler of Tel Aviv University, explains how the new variant arrived, and says that while we should take it seriously, there is "no need to panic." We ask him if vaccines will hold the line against this mutation, and seek his views on shutting Israel's border to tourists.
In the second part of the episode, we bring you a 10-minute segment from an exclusive Haaretz briefing with Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, the top public health official in the Israeli Health Ministry. She tells us why she just vaccinated two of her children, and explains that vaccinating 5 to 11 year-olds isn't about controlling the pandemic, "it's about protecting the kids." The full briefing can be watched here.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Alan Leveritt, the publisher and owner of the Arkansas Times, who finds himself inadvertently on the frontlines of the battle against Israeli-sponsored legislation against the BDS movement. PLUS: Gideon Levy on his dinner with Benjamin Netanyahu and the furious responses it provoked among the Israeli left.
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A famous ultra-Orthodox author of children's books, Chaim Walder, was accused by multiple women of sexual abuse. Their disturbing accounts, first reported in Haaretz, are creating shock waves in Haredi communities, from Jerusalem to Brooklyn. Senior analyst Anshel Pfeffer joins the podcast to discuss the story, starting at time code 11:00.
Earlier on this week's episode, we ask: Why did Turkey arrest two innocent Israeli tourists and accuse them of espionage, and why did 'Sultan' Recep Tayyip Erdogan agree to release them? Turkey expert Dr. Gallia Lindenstrauss says the incident could open the door to broader rapprochement between Israel and Turkey. Listen to her conversation with host Amir Tibon.
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Ahead of the Israeli National Security Conference which is being hosted by the Nazarian Center for Israel studies at UCLA – in partnership with Haaretz – Prof. Dov Waxman joins host Simon Spungin to look ahead at the gathering and to discuss some of the issues that will be coming up: the shadow war with Iran and the Iranian nuclear threat; Israel, the Palestinians, and the region; and the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship. Click here to register free for the conference: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/israeli-national-security-haaretz-ucla-nazarian-center-online-conference-registration-194340195757
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In this week's episode, we hear from an evangelical Christian and Israeli citizen, Joel Rosenberg, on his unusual meetings with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, the king of Jordan and president of Egypt, all documented in a new book he just published. Why did these Arab leaders invite him to their palaces, and how can Joe Biden get a big diplomatic win in the Middle East? Listen to the full conversation, starting at time code 10:20.
Earlier on the show, Haaretz correspondent Allison Kaplan Sommer warns about Israel's failed enforcement of rules barring unvaccinated tourists from entering the country. Her recent scoop on the subject led the Israeli Health Ministry to promise a quick fix, but so far, she tells host Amir Tibon, the disturbing loopholes she discovered still exist.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by human rights lawyer and LGBTQ+ activist Eitay Mack for a deep dive into the Israeli gay community’s #metoo moment, conversion therapy and the price the LGBTQ+ community in Israel is paying for its alliance with companies that sell technology used to repress gays elsewhere. Support groups: The Aguda - The Association for LGBTQ Equality in Israel; Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel.
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Violence broke out again last week at the Western Wall, as female activists gathered to pray at the holy Jewish site and were met with an ultra-Orthodox mob. Why is the battle over women's prayer there making headlines in Israel again, and how is it related to the ultra-Orthodox parties being out of power for the first time in a decade? Jewish World correspondent Judy Maltz discusses the latest developments with host Amir Tibon.
Also on this week's episode, Haaretz's U.S. correspondent, Ben Samuels, joins us from Washington with an update on the Biden administration's plans to reopen the American consulate in Jerusalem. After passing his landmark infrastructure package, does President Biden finally have time to pay attention to the Middle East? Listen to the full conversation.
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Prof. Michel Wieviorka, from the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris, and France 24 journalist, Shirli Sitbon join host Simon Spungin to discuss the rise and rise of Éric Zemmour – the leading noncandidate who is already disrupting next year’s French presidential election with his hashtag provocations, his anti-immigrant rhetoric, and his outrageous rewriting of French history.
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In this week's episode, guest Danny Citrinowicz, a leading Israeli expert on Iran, talks about the expected renewal of nuclear negotiations between Tehran and world powers. He warns that for the Biden administration there is only one realistic option on the table – and Israel will have to adjust to it, even if it doesn't want to.
Later in the show, Haaretz West Bank correspondent Hagar Shezaf breaks down Defense Minister Benny Gantz's recent designation of six Palestinian human rights groups as terror organizations. Why did it happen, what are the reactions from Israel's friends abroad, and how could it impact civil society in the Palestinian territories? Listen to the full conversation with host Amir Tibon.
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Haaretz’s Ruth Schuster joins host Simon Spungin to discuss Israel, the COP26 conference and pie-in-the-sky climate tech; the lost Church of the Apostles and Crusader camps; and the scientific truth about benefits of intermittent fasting – for mice.
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Within the space of a few days, Turkey announced that it had arrested a supposed spy ring operated by Israel's Mossad, and informed the ambassadors of the U.S., France and Germany that they should expect a deportation order from Ankara. What is all the noise about? We discuss the latest developments with Louis Fishman, an expert on Turkish politics who divides his time between Istanbul and Tel Aviv.
Starting at the 11:30 mark, we hear from Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and author of the newly released "Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger and the Art of Middle East Diplomacy." How would Kissinger respond to this week's Israeli announcement of new construction in West Bank settlements, and what did the Clinton administration fail to learn from the master? Listen to the full discussion with host Amir Tibon.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Stockholm-based journalist David Stavrou to discuss the International Forum on Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism hosted by the Swedish city of Malmo; and by Judy Maltz, to discuss the multi-candidate race to become the next chair of the Jewish Agency.
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In this week's episode, we discuss intriguing findings from the Pandora Papers leak regarding Israel – from offshore companies in tax havens that finance settlement purchases, to the business empire of Israel's richest politician. Uri Blau, a member of the investigative journalistic consortium that uncovered the documents, joins host Amir Tibon for a fascinating conversation (starting at time code 11:30).
Also on the show, Allison Kaplan Sommer takes us inside last week's Trump administration reunion in Jerusalem, which featured everything from an evangelical-funded documentary series to the potential launching of a 2024 presidential campaign. Hear the full story and the evening's highlights.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Anshel Pfeffer and Uzi Dann to discuss the Saudi Arabian takeover of a English Premier League football team, whether or not to attend the World Cup in Qatar next year and why Israeli soccer stadia are still bastions of racism and xenophobia.
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Former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy discusses Israel's strategy toward Iran and warns that Jerusalem's relationship with China could come at a heavy price. Halevy, who was appointed to lead the Mossad during Benjamin Netanyahu's first term as prime minister, accuses his ex-boss of pushing Tehran closer to obtaining a nuclear bomb. Listen to his full conversation with host Amir Tibon.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz correspondent Ofer Aderet and Gideon Taylor, the head of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, to discuss the crisis between Israel and Poland over a new law that prevents Holocaust survivors from regaining property seized after World War II. PLUS: Adrian Hennigan discusses “Jewface” in Hollywood and on television.
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On this week's episode, we dive into the fascinating phenomenon of Afrikaners who were born and raised as Christians in South Africa, yet decided to become Jews and make aliyah to Israel. Judy Maltz and host Amir Tibon present their voices and stories. In addition, former lawmaker Stav Shaffir, the chairwoman of Israel's Green Party, talks about her attempts to reach out to like-minded progressives in the U.S., and offers new ways for Israel's post-Netanyahu government to rebuild ties with the Democratic Party.
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Host Simon Spungin talks about grassroots activism with Dina Kraft and Sally Abed – the hosts of Groundwork, a new podcast about Jews and Palestinians working in Israel’s mixed cities for a better future. How the escape and recapture of six Palestinians from an Israeli prison could shake up the discourse within Israel – if the Palestinian narrative is given space alongside the Zionist one. PLUS: Jotam Confino on Angela Merkel’s legacy in terms of German-Israeli relations and the fight against antisemitism.
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One year exactly after Israel signed historic normalization deals with two Gulf countries, and on the day Prime Minister Naftali Bennett visited Egypt, we try to find out what's next for Israel's ties with the Arab world. Gili Cohen, diplomatic correspondent for Israel's Kan Broadcasting, talks about the secrets behind the Abraham Accords with hosts Amir Tibon and Allison Kaplan Sommer. In addition, Member of Knesset Gilad Kariv, the first Reform Rabbi to get elected in Israel, joins the podcast to discuss the new government's religious reforms, and his own personal battle with COVID-19.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz’s Anshel Pfeffer and Amir Tibon to discuss the first meeting between Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and U.S. President Joe Biden. We ask: Was the meeting a success? Who were the winners and losers? Is this a fresh start for bilateral relations between Jerusalem and Washington? And, now that he’s safely back in Israel, what challenges await the prime minister and his cobbled-together coalition - and why did Defense Minister Benny Gantz meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah?
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by senior U.S. analyst Alon Pinkas and senior military commentator Amos Harel to look ahead to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s upcoming visit to the White House – the first meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and the new Israeli leader. We discuss what issues will be on the agenda (Iran and China), and which ones the sides have already agreed not to mention (Palestine). We also look at the significance of an invitation from Cairo for Bennett to meet with Egypt’s President Al-Sissi.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by photographer and artist Spencer Tunick, who is best known for organizing large-scale naked photoshoots – including a 2011 project at the Dead Sea, where he photographed 1,200 naked Israelis. Ten years on, Tunick is set to return to the Dead Sea for another art installation – in conjunction with the Dead Sea Revival Project and the Dead Sea Museum – to emphasize the importance of and the need to restore and preserve the Dead Sea. To volunteer and donate, click here.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz’s Anshel Pfeffer and political scientist and public opinion expert Dahlia Scheindlin to discuss the latest on Israel’s delta wave of the coronavirus. We ask: Should Israelis be getting a third shot of the vaccine? What role is former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu playing in the dangerous anti-vaxx movement? And how will his successor, Naftali Bennett, handle the growing number of infections?
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz’s West Bank correspondent Hagar Shezaf to discuss the ongoing killing of Palestinians by Israeli forces in the West Bank – including 11 children in the first seven months of 2021 – and the relationship between the IDF and the settlers. We ask: Is the IDF’s finger getting lighter on the trigger when it comes to policing Palestinian demonstrations?
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz’s environment correspondent, Zafrir Rinat, and by science and archaeology editor Ruth Schuster to discuss the intense heatwave that has been cooking Israel, the newIsraeligovernment’s‘green’ legislation and why mitigation and adaptation are the best way for countries to deal with the climate emergency.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Noa Landau and Anshel Pfeffer to discuss Artem Dolgopyat’s historic Olympic gold medal in gymnastics – his country’s second ever and its first in one of the core Olympic disciplines. Will Dolgopyat, who is not halakhically Jewish and cannot marry in the country, lead to a national rethink on the relationship between religion and state? PLUS: What’s behind the government’s rush to give citizens a third COVID vaccine shot?
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Judy Maltz and Samuel Sokol to discuss the government’s far-reaching plans for reform the system by which food is certified as kosher in Israel. What’s wrong with the old system? Who stands to benefit from the reform? PLUS: Why is Ben & Jerry’s ice cream no longer kosher in some places? And why women running their own synagogues can’t call themselves rabbis.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by senior intelligence analyst Yossi Melman, opinions editor Esther Solomon, and tech and cyber editor Omer Benjakob. We discuss the fallout from the Pegasus Project and ask: What limitations does and should Israel place on the export of these technologies? Did Benjamin Netanyahu act as a travelling salesman for the NSO Group? And will internationalpressure lead to a change in Israeli policy?
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz’s chief sports writer Uzi Dann and Allison Kaplan Sommer to discuss the record-breaking Israeli delegation to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. How many medals will the 90 athletes bag for Israel? Why is the Israeli baseball team predominantly made up of American Jews? And why are there no Arabs representing Israel – yet again?
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by senior Haaretz writers Alon Pinkas and Bradley Burston, to discuss a poll which found that one in four American Jews sees Israel as an apartheid state. We ask: Is it an accurate description of Israel in 2021? If Israel gets rids of the occupied Palestinian territories, will allegations of ‘apartheid’ end immediately? What role did former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the moribund peace process play in mainstreaming the term? And in what other manifestations of ‘apartheid’ have become evident in Israeli society?
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz’s senior editor for archaeology and science, Ruth Schuster, and archaeology correspondent Ariel David. The panel discusses the discovery of piglet skeleton in a First Temple-period home in Jerusalem. We ask: Does this mean that the Israelites ignored the prohibition against eating pork and what does it tell us about when Judaism as we know it was born? PLUS: A new type of human found in Nesher Ramla, Israel's unnoticed killer heat and dog poop DNA in Tel Aviv.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Noa Landau and Michael Hauser-Tov to discuss a stormy few days in the Knesset – and landmark rulings from the High Court: the justices’ decision that the Nation-State Law does not violate Israel’s unwritten constitution; the embarrassing scenes in the Knesset, where ideology was trumped by spite over the Citizenship Law; the court’s ruling that surrogacy should be offered to all; and the departure of Benjamin Netanyahu from the prime minister’s residence on Balfour Street.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Anshel Pfeffer for a presidential episode of Haaretz Weekend, in which we discuss the legacy of outgoing president Reuven Rivlin, and his successor, Isaac Herzog, who was sworn in as Israel’s 11th president this week. We ask: Was Rivlin the best president Israel could have expected in such fraught times? Was it Herzog’s destiny to follow in his father’s footsteps and become Israel’s No. 1 citizen? And how will he respond if – and when – former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu asks him for a pardon?
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz's Amira Hass to discuss the recent demonstrations in the Palestinian territories and the Palestinian Authority's violent repression of those protests. We ask: What role does the Israeli occupation play in Mahmoud Abbas' ability to crush dissent? How is the Palestinian national struggle also a struggle for democracy? And why are Palestinian security forces targeting women?
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz.com’s Linda Dayan and LGBTQ activist Muhammad Zoabi to discuss a broad spectrum of LGBTQ issues in Israel. How does a gay Muslim deal with multiple and often conflicting identities? What about pinkwashing? What does the new LGBTQ-friendly government mean for the community – in terms of acceptance and legislation? How does the presence of self-professed homophobes in the Knesset affect the community? And how did one ultra-Orthodox family cope with their transgender son?
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On this week’s episode, host Simon Spungin is joined by Amos Harel and Zvi Bar’el for a two-part discussion on Israel’s handling of two current threats: the delta variant of the Coronavirus and the Iranian nuclear program. In Part 1, Amos advises against panic in the face of the mini-wave of COVID-19 infections, says that the government must act quickly and responsibly – and warns that the August 1 target date for reopening to tourists might be postponed again. In Part 2, Zvi comments on the state of play in talks between world powers and Iran, the significance of Iranian noncompliance with inspection regimes and how Israel will continue to wage its shadow war against the Islamic Republic.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Gideon Levy, the recent recipient of Israel's top journalistic award – the Sokolow Prize. Gideon answers listeners' questions on his prize-winning writing, the best way to reach out to Israeli Jews and why he no longer has any hesitation about calling Israel an apartheid state. Gideon also answer questions on the new Israeli government and how he feels about readers who cancel their subscriptions in protest at his writing.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz’s chief military analyst, Amos Harel, to discuss the challenges facing the new Israeli government, from Washington to the West Bank and from Tehran to the Gaza Strip. Was ask: Has the Israeli rhetoric on Iran changed since Benjamin Netanyahu was removed from office? How, if at all, will the election of Ebrahim Raisi as Iranian president affect Israel? How did the Bennett-Lapid government handle its first test on the Gaza front – and how does it hope to prevent future flare-ups? We also examine the significance of the IDF’s decision to stop conducting intelligence-collecting raids on Palestinian homes in the West Bank and what exactly happened with the Israeli offer of 1.2 million COVID-19 vaccines to the Palestinian Authority.
To submit a question for the Gideon Levy AMA, mail us at weekpod@haaretz.co.il.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined for an escapist episode by: Shany Littman, who talks about the soon-to-be-opened Culinary Institute of Israel and gastronomic appropriation; Shaina Oppenheimer tells us about an 18-year-old Black Israelite rapper from Dimona who faces deportation; and Adrian Hennigan on how Israel became the ‘television nation’ – and how to watch hit shows even if you don’t speak Hebrew. To submit a question for the Gideon Levy AMA, mail us at weekpod@haaretz.co.il.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz’s Ravit Hecht and Anshel Pfeffer, the day after a coalition headed by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid unseated Benjamin Netanyahu and brought his 12-year reign to an end. We discuss Netanyahu’s legacy, his farewell speech to the Knesset and his plans for the future – which, he insists, includes bringing down the new government. We also discuss the new coalition, its priorities and its chances of living to a ripe old age. ICYMI: Haaretz Weekend Episode #1 is still available!
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Judy Maltz, Ruth Schuster, Ariel David and Adrian Hennigan for the inaugural episode of Haaretz Weekend. We discuss: The impact the new government will have on matters of state and religion in Israel; ancient atrocities, Judean eating habits and broken eggs; and a new biopic of Menachem Begin plus what it was like being back in a movie theater.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Anshel Pfeffer, Allison Kaplan Sommer, and Haaretz’s new political correspondent Michael Hauser Tov. We discuss what looks increasingly like Benjamin Netanyahu’s final days in office, the toxic minions he has unleashed to delegitimize the incoming government and the task facing the Naftali Bennett-Yair Lapid government – should it pass its final parliamentary hurdles. PLUS: Look out for the first episode of Haaretz Weekend, coming June 11.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz’s Amir Tibon and, from the Financial Times, Mehul Srivastava, who has just returned from a post-war visit to the Gaza Strip. What do 11 days of Israeli bombardments look like on the ground? Do the people of Gaza believe that Hamas won? And Amir tells us what it’s like living less than a mile from the Gaza border. PLUS: Starting June 11 – Haaretz Weekend. Follow us on Twitter: @spungin@amirtibon@MehulAtLarge
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Aluf Benn, Noa Landau and Anshel Pfeffer to discuss the 15-day war between Israel and Gaza, the cease fire that ended it and the immediate implications for Israel, the region and the world. We ask: Is there any chance of meaningful change? What is the significance of the internecine violence between Jews and Palestinians inside Israel? And will ‘Bibi fatigue’ end the electoral impasse that has paralyzed the Israeli government for so long?
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz senior intelligence analyst Yossi Melman and Haaretz.com’s tech editor, Omer Benjakob, to discuss the ongoing hostilities between Israel and Hamas. What, if any, were both sides hoping to achieve? What role has social media disinformation played in the conflict? And is there a way to avoid a repetition in the near future?
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz's chief military analyst, Amos Harel, and Muhammad Shehada, a writer and civil society activist from the Gaza Strip. More than a week into the fighting between Israel and the Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, which has been accompanied by widespread disturbances among Israel's Palestinian citizens, we ask: Has Israel achieved anything in its attacks against Hamas targets in Gaza? What would be considered a victory for the Israeli side? Has Hamas already achieved everything it hoped to in this round of fighting? And is Israel, in fact, playing into the Islamist organization's ' hands?
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In this breaking news episode, host Simon Spungin is joined by Anshel Pfeffer to discuss the deadly escalation between Israel and Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip – and, perhaps more worryingly, inside Israel itself. How did we get from what Israel referred to as a “real estate dispute in Jerusalem” to what looks very much like war? What should concern us more: the Gaza rockets or the internecine violence inside Israel? And what about the political process and efforts to form a new government?
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz's Jerusalem correspondent, Nir Hasson, to discuss the violence that has left dozens injured in the capital. We also talk to Chaim Levinson [15:22] about ongoing efforts to form a government without Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party. PLUS: Judy Maltz [27:15] on Israel's decision to deport 70 members of the Black Hebrew Israelites - many of whom were born in the county.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Anshel Pfeffer for a quick-fire guide to the breaking news from Israel, brought to you by Haaretz.com. Anshel answers the burning questions raised by the latest Israeli electoral drama: What happened last night at midnight? What’s happening now? Is this the end for Bibi? Who’s your money on to become Israel’s next prime minister?
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz’s Anshel Pfeffer and ultra-Orthodox journalist and activist Pnina Pfeuffer to discuss the aftermath of the Mount Meron tragedy, in which 45 people were crushed to death at a Jewish festival. We ask: Will Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu establish a commission of inquiry to investigate the incident? Will ultra-Orthodox Israelis respond to this disaster with anger – and in which direction? And could this tragedy be the catalyst for a change in the often fraught coexistence between secular and Haredi Israelis?
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Noa Landau and Judy Maltz to discuss the violence in Jerusalem and how recently emboldened Jewish supremacists were allowed to march through the city chanting ‘Death to Arabs.’ We also discuss the Jewish National Fund’s plan to buy land for settlement expansion and a boycott against the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom – by a Jewish youth group.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz’s senior intelligence analyst Yossi Melman to discuss the latest developments in the shadow war between Israel and Iran, the nuclear talks in Vienna, and Jonathan Pollard’s excruciating and arguably antisemitic Independence Day interview.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz’s assignment editor, Amir Tibon, who talks about his experiences as diplomatic correspondent for the news website at the center of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial. We also talk with Haaretz’s U.S. correspondent, Ben Samuels, about the Biden Administration’s approach to Israel, Iran and the Palestinians – and a resurgent J Street.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by senior Haaretz columnist and Netanyahu biographer, Anshel Pfeffer, to discuss the aftermath of Israel’s unprecedented fourth election in two years, the prospects for a fifth election, the resumption of the prime minister’s corruption trial and why there’s a silver lining in 220,000 Israelis voting for a racist, misogynist and homophobic party. We also discuss the Iranian nuclear talks and the International Criminal Court’s probe into alleged Israeli war crimes.
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As the dust of Israel's 2021 election - at least the first one - settles, there are winners and losers, with results ranging from Shakespearean tragedy to miraculous political resurrection. But the one thing Israel doesn't yet have is a new government.
With many kingmakers but still no king, Israel is now counting every last vote to find out what happens next. In the final episode of Election Overdose, Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin end where they began, by asking "what just happened?" And answering.
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In a special extra episode of Haaretz's Election Overdose podcast, with just one day left to Election Day, Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin, together with special guest, public opinion expert Tamar Hermann, try and work out what the latest polls are telling us and why they may be wrong.
Also, what was Benjamin Netanyahu hoping to achieve by stalking Naftali Bennett, why have there been no election debates for twenty years and has Yair Lapid launched his anti-Kahanist, anti-Haredi campaign too late?
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz’s environmental affairs correspondent, Zafrir Rinat, and senior editor for science and archaeology, Ruth Schuster, to discuss the worst oil spill to hit Israel’s beaches. Who was responsible? Which regional rival was immediately blamed? How did the clean-up go? And why are environmental issues nowhere to be seen in this week’s election?
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In Episode 12 of Haaretz’s Election Overdose podcast, with just five days to go before the big day, Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin are joined by journalist and author Nadav Eyal to discuss whether Netanyahu’s handling of the covid-19 pandemic over the past year has helped or harmed his electoral prospects and why the center-left opposition failed so miserably in presenting any alternative Coronavirus policies? And of course polls galore, last-minute election day surprises and the intriguing new version of Likud’s anthem.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Judy Maltz and Allison Kaplan Sommer to discuss their investigation into how Christian Zionist organizations from across the globe are funding a large proportion of Jewish immigration to Israel. What is the motivation, why could it be problem and why does the Israeli government seem embarrassed by the phenomenon? Plus: How Netanyahu’s UAE visit was shot down for a fourth time. Read the full investigation here: http://htz.li/6TJ
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Why are Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem concerned about Israel's March elections, and do they see any difference between the Israeli political parties in ways that will affect their lives?
In Election Overdose Episode 11, co-hosts Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin speak to special guest Dr. Khalil Shikaki, the leading Palestinian public opinion researcher, who explains why the Palestinian political elite differ from the public on whether Israel's election results matter for them, and how. And as the two-state solution recedes, would Palestinians consider voting in Israeli elections? In other news, the Israeli campaign enters its final stretch: television advertising has begun, the polls are stuck, and Yair Lapid offers Israelis a government of "sanity," while Naftali Bennett's Yamina threatens to overtake Gideon Sa'ar's New Hope party.
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz’s diplomatic correspondent Judy Maltz and senior analyst Alon Pinkas to discuss the High Court ruling on Reform and Conservative conversions to Judaism – and the racist response to that decision by some ultra-Orthodox politicians. We also discuss the International Criminal Court’s decision to formally open a war crimes investigation against Israel and the Palestinians.
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In Episode 10 of our Election Overdose podcast, with two and a half weeks left, Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin ask these key questions: What can still change in the polling trends, will the High Court ruling on conversion have an effect on voting and why is no-one talking about the parties’ economic plans?
With special guest Rachel Azaria we tackle one of the biggest historic rifts in Israeli life, the Ashkenazi-Mizrahi divide. We ask whether Mizrahi voters choose based on identity, issues, values or legacy, and why they barely vote for the left. And there’s a classic election jingle as well.
As Israel embarks on its fourth election in two years, Anshel and Dahlia, along with guests, will guide you every week through Israel’s electoral thickets, the issues, the personalities, the polls and a history of elections in campaign jingles. Have questions for Anshel and Dahlia? Follow them on twitter and leave your comments there @AnshelPfeffer @dahliasc. Read more from Anshel and Dahlia on Haaretz.com.
Related reading:
The real reason Mizrahim vote for Netanyahu, and why the left can't win them over
Beautiful kibbutz waterway turns ground zero for Israel's culture wars
How Israel’s Jewish conversions ruling entraps Netanyahu
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Prof. Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University and a former UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Occupied Palestine, who talks to Haaretz Weekly about the International Criminal Court, Zionism and his new political memoir, “Public Intellectual.” PLUS: A world exclusive of Daniel Guri de Lima’s first TikTok news rap in English.
Links:
Public Intellectual: The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim
Haaretz's rap news with de Lima
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In Episode 9 of Election Overdose podcast, Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin try to make sense of the new Israeli right-wing, with the help of 'New Hope' candidate Dani Dayan, former Israeli consul to New York and ex-Yesha Council head. Is it all about replacing Benjamin Netanyahu or is there some ideology there as well?
We’ll also ask whether the 130 generals calling upon Benny Gantz to drop out of the race may have actually increased Gantz’s chances to stay until the end? What was Netanyahu hoping to achieve by demanding his allies sign a pledge of allegiance to him? And who is preparing a voting fraud conspiracy theory for the day after? Oh, and what did Producer Jonathan dress up as for Purim?
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz’s West Bank correspondent Hagar Shezaf, to discuss a change in policy at the Jewish National Fund, which will now openly purchase land in the occupied West Bank for the purpose of expanding Israeli settlements. Haaretz’s Ben Samuels contributes from Washington, while chief sports writer Uzi Dann joins to discuss the failed takeover of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer club by an Emirati sheikh.
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In Episode 8 of our Election Overdose podcast Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin together with this week’s guest Ksenia Svetlova ask who are the 'Russian' voters? Why do they vote mainly for the right-wing? Why are some of their representatives in the Knesset vaccination-skeptics and does that attract voters?
Also, what was Benjamin Netanyahu trying to achieve in his rare prime-time TV interview this week? Why is everyone ganging up on Labor’s Arab-Israeli candidate? And will the battle between Naftali Bennett and Gideon Sa’ar decide the outcome of the election?
Related reading:
The eight issues that will decide the outcome of the Israeli election
Elections committee disqualifies Israeli Arab Labor candidate
FACT CHECK: Netanyahu gave a rare interview. Here are eight lies he told
The idiot’s guide to Israel’s idiotic election, Part II: The Seinfeld factor
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Labor was on the brink of extinction only a couple of weeks ago. Now it’s Meretz’s turn to signal polling distress. Why are Israel’s old parties of the left, once in power, now on life-support?
In episode 7 of Haaretz’s Election Overdose podcast, co-hosts Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin, along with this week’s guest, recovering lefty Ben-Dror Yemini, diagnose the Israeli left’s chronic decline. Also, how deep is Netanyahu in league with the far-right and will his trial or Joe Biden’s ghosting of him damage him at the polls?
Further reading: Israel Voice Index Survey, February 7, 2021 - https://en.idi.org.il/articles/33594
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz’s new senior writer on Israeli and U.S. politics, Alon Pinkas, to discuss relations between Jerusalem and Washington in the Biden era. Is it significant that the new American president is yet to call Benjamin Netanyahu? Why could a ruling by the International Criminal Court force the Israeli prime minister to play ball with Biden as he tries to reengage with Iran. PLUS: BDS and the Dems; QAnon and the GOP; and Trump’s second impeachment.
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The deadline for filing candidates lists for Israel's March 23rd election has finally passed and Haaretz’s Election Overdose podcast is here to go through all the last-minute details.
Co-hosts Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin together with this week’s guest Amir Tibon chart this week’s developments: What’s the life span of a new center-left party in Israel? Why has Netanyahu embraced the Jewish supremacists? Which of the parties still in the running are in danger of extinction and which lawmaker will we most miss in the new Knesset?
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Guy Rolnik – founding editor-in-chief of TheMarker and Clinical Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business – to discuss the fallout from Donald Trump’s expulsion from social media platforms and its possible ramifications for the companies involved, for democracies and for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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In episode 5 of Haaretz’s Election Overdose podcast, Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin, together with this week’s guest Pnina Pfeuffer, discuss the Haredi vote and whether the Coronavirus clashes have a wider effect on this election.
Also, can newly elected Labor leader Merav Michaeli make something better out of the worst job in Israeli politics? How badly disjointed is the Joint List? We also indulge in some last-minute predictions on splits and mergers before the candidates in the election submit their final slate - with the deadline coming up next week.
As Israel embarks on its fourth election in two years, Anshel and Dahlia, along with guests, will guide you every week through Israel’s electoral thickets, the issues, the personalities, the polls and a history of elections in campaign jingles. Have questions for Anshel and Dahlia? Follow them on twitter and leave your comments there @AnshelPfeffer @dahliasc. Read more from Anshel and Dahlia on Haaretz.com.
Related reading:
The ultra-Orthodox street has been ablaze for 5 days, and rabbis can't stop the flames
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-the-ultra-orthodox-street-has-been-ablaze-for-5-days-with-the-flames-reaching-bibi-1.9483139
Three reasons Yair Lapid will lead Israel's center-left
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-three-reasons-yair-lapid-will-lead-israel-s-center-left-1.9488209
Welcome to the worst job in Israeli politics, Merav Michaeli
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/.premium-welcome-to-the-worst-job-in-israeli-politics-merav-michaeli-1.9480611
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Amos Harel and Noa Landau to discuss Israel’s ongoing battle against the Coronavirus, which is being hampered by – among other things – ultra-Orthodox reluctance to abide by the lockdown regulations and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to confront the same Haredi leaders who could keep him out of prison. Also on the agenda: Why won’t the government declassify protocols of the meetings at which the pandemic was discussed? Is Israel heading for an early showdown with the Biden administration over Iran? And who decides who’s antisemitic?
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In the fourth episode of Haaretz’s Election Overdose podcast, Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin try to work out what’s happening in the constituency of the Palestinian citizens of Israel, together with this week’s guest, Mohammed Darawshe, leader of the new Ma’an Party.
Also, can the never-Trumpers do for Gideon Sa’ar what they did for Joe Biden? Could Israel eventually see two Israeli parties led by women, and will either of them cross the electoral threshold?
As Israel embarks on its fourth election in two years, Anshel and Dahlia, along with guests, will guide you every week through Israel’s electoral thickets, the issues, the personalities, the polls and a history of elections in campaign jingles. Have questions for Anshel and Dahlia? Follow them on twitter and leave your comments there @AnshelPfeffer @dahliasc. Read more from Anshel and Dahlia on Haaretz.com.
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Former Knesset speaker and Jewish Agency chairman Avraham ‘Avrum’ Burg joins host Simon Spungin to explain his request to be have ‘Jewish’ deleted from his Israeli identity card and why the Nation-State Law was a “quantum leap” in Israel’s march toward an illiberal democracy. PLUS: Amir Tibon on President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration and “Very Fine People,” a Haaretz.com project presenting an oral history of Jewish America during the Trump presidency.
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New hopeless parties are appearing like mushrooms, old centrist parties are collapsing, and the chances are that the fourth election in a row won’t solve anything. On the third episode of Haaretz’s Election Overdose podcast, Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin ask whether the system is broken or will everything go back to normal once Netanyahu is gone. Special guest Tzipi Livni thinks the problem is that Israeli politicians are simply too afraid to talk about matters of substance anymore.
Want to get an email every time a new episode is available? Click "Follow" on top of this article, or "Subscribe" on the podcast embed - and you'll never miss out.
Also on the show, we ask also what legacy did Sheldon Adelson leave Israeli politics and who was the last Israeli politician whose campaign promise was to bring us peace? The answer will surprise you.
As Israel embarks on its fourth election in two years, Anshel and Dahlia, along with guests, will guide you every week through Israel’s electoral thickets, the issues, the personalities, the polls and a history of elections in campaign jingles. Have questions for Anshel and Dahlia? Follow them on twitter and leave your comments there @AnshelPfeffer @dahliasc. Read more from Anshel and Dahlia on Haaretz.com.
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After the unprecedented violence in Washington that took five lives darkens the US president’s legacy, Netanyahu’s close alliance with Trump turns from asset to liability. Listen to Dan Shapiro and Ben Samuels
Former US ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro and Haaretz US correspondent Ben Samuels join Allison Kaplan Sommer to assess the damage following the violence uprising by Trump supporters in Washington, DC and what it means for the US-Israel relationship, and to discuss the policies of the future Biden White House when it comes to Iran and the Palestinians.
We ask: Will Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s continuing loyalty to Trump harm Israel’s ability to build relationships with the Biden administration? How badly have the scenes of violence in the Capitol damaged American credibility overseas? Are the US and Israel headed for an unavoidable showdown over the restoration of the Iran nuclear deal? Should Israel really be worrying so much about the “Obama people” in Biden’s foreign policy team?
We also discuss the reawakening of anxiety in the American Jewish community regarding their security after the events of last Wednesday - and why the victory of Jon Ossoff in his Senate race in Georgia marked a milestone in American Jewish history.
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-horrified-u-s-jewish-lawmakers-groups-slam-trump-for-d-c-violence-1.9429986
https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium-the-far-right-will-be-one-of-biden-s-biggest-problems-here-s-how-he-can-fight-back-1.9431992
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-ossoff-s-expected-georgia-win-will-make-jewish-history-1.9428335
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On this week’s episode of Haaretz’s Election Overdose Podcast, hosts Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin discuss with Dr Gayil Talshir of the Hebrew University the changing ideological currents in Israeli politics and whether being anti-Netanyahu is a strategy or a vision.
Have questions for Anshel and Dahlia? Follow them on twitter and leave your comments there @AnshelPfeffer @dahliasc. Read more from Anshel and Dahlia on Haaretz.com.
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Haaretz’s Election Overdose Podcast Episode 1
It turns out you can never have too much of a good thing as Israel embarks on its fourth election in two years. This time you won’t have to face it alone, as Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin, along with guests, guide you through Israel’s electoral thickets, the issues, the personalities, the polls and a history of elections in campaign jingles. This week, along with The New York Times’ David Halbfinger, they try to work out how Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz were dragged in to an early election neither of them wanted, what were the true aspirations of the weed legalization party, and what if anything will be different this time
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Haaretz.com Editor-in-Chief Avi Scharf and Senior Columnist Anshel Pfeffer join Allison Kaplan Sommer to say goodbye and good riddance to 2020 - and ring in 2021 a year that will be bringing Israel into an unprecedented fourth round of elections.
We discuss: How Netanyahu will have to face elections in which, for the first time, his challenge comes from the right, in a new party led by Likud refugees. We ask whether by the time Israelis go to the polls on March 23, Netanyahu will be blamed for government failure to manage the coronavirus pandemic or if he’ll be seen as the conquering hero who got Israelis vaccinated quickly and efficiently.
We also talk about how tracking planes has led to Haaretz scoops, and look back on the most memorable moments - and stories of 2020, the year that no one is sorry to leave behind.
Recommended related reading:
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-the-israeli-left-should-take-a-time-out-in-the-upcoming-election-1.9399894
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-gantz-s-political-party-was-last-year-s-largest-now-it-s-the-walking-dead-1.9390642
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium-israel-businessman-uae-spy-planes-iran-saudi-arabia-1.769671
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-azeri-defense-ministry-plane-landed-twice-in-israel-this-month-1.5436544
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/haaretz-and-the-coronavirus-how-we-are-reporting-the-news-and-staying-safe-1.8698987
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Allison Kaplan Sommer is joined by Meirav Arlosoroff and Omer Benjakob on the first day Israelis receive their COVID vaccinations to discuss pandemic policy and the dangerous cyberattacks threatening the security of Israel and the United States.
We ask whether Netanyahu’s prime time vaccination Saturday night was a PR stunt or whether he should be applauded as the first world leader to publicly get the coronavirus shot, as we assess his successes and failures when it comes to leading Israel through the pandemic.
We also discuss the assault by Iranian and Arab hackers against Israeli companies and national security infrastructure in light of the devastating Russian cyber aggression in the United States.
Recommended related reading:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-can-israel-actually-meet-netanyahu-s-ambitious-covid-19-vaccine-target-1.9360597
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-why-local-lockdowns-failed-to-curb-covid-19-in-israel-1.9370034
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/iran-israel-response-pay2key-who-behind-cyberattack-israeli-firms-1.9381287
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/tech-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-it-s-not-about-money-destructive-cyberattack-proves-israel-lacks-one-key-thing-1.9357223
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Host Allison Kaplan Sommer is joined by Amira Hass and Dahlia Scheindlin to talk about the Trump-brokered normalization agreement between Israel and Morocco, the spread of COVID-19 in the West Bank and Gaza, and the latest bombshell in Israeli politics.We ask: How do the Palestinians - and their leaders - feel about Israel’s ongoing series of agreements with Morocco and other Arab states? Has the coronavirus improved or worsened the Israeli military’s treatment of Palestinians?We talk about whether the fact that Benjamin Netanyahu’s new challenge on the political right is removing the Palestinian issue from Israeli political discourse completely. Also discussed: whether the Palestinian Authority will ever hold elections, and if the incoming Biden administration can even contemplate engaging with Israeli-Palestinian peace with both sides in political disarray.
Recommended related reading:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-morocco-normalize-relations-trump-western-sahara-king-mohammed-vi-1.9363779
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-if-freed-palestinian-teen-at-risk-for-covid-19-will-be-detained-without-trial-1.9353555
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-netanyahu-can-t-count-on-the-gulf-peace-deals-for-political-salvation-1.9159484
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/.premium-palestinian-authority-set-to-receive-four-million-doses-of-russian-covid-19-vaccine-1.9367648
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With a Knesset vote paving the way to Israel’s fourth election in a row, Kahol Lavon leader Benny Gantz finally appears to be ready to sign the death warrant of Israel’s ailing coalition government. Host Allison Kaplan Sommer is joined by Chaim Levinson and Noa Landau to explain the fallout following the preliminary vote - and discuss why Israel’s current politics are so dysfunctional. We ask: Will the vote actually lead to a fourth election as early as March, or will Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu figure out a way to delay the inevitable? Why is the Israeli left and center so visible and vocal on the streets demonstrating against Netanyahu’s government, but so weak and fragmented in the polls? And why, after Gantz has so visibly crashed and burned, are politicians and pundits looking so longingly at yet another general with no political experience - former chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot - to save the “anyone but Netanyahu” camp?
Related reading:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-gantz-says-his-party-will-vote-with-the-opposition-to-dissolve-parliament-1.9340933
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-with-another-election-looming-israel-s-center-left-is-looking-for-a-new-savior-1.9347711
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-israeli-leftists-enough-with-the-generals-1.9338661
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Host Allison Kaplan Sommer is joined by Esther Solomon and Amir Tibon to discuss the aftermath of the dramatic assassination of the 'father of Iran’s military nuclear program,' its effect on the Trump-Biden transition, and the potential consequences of Iranian retaliation. PLUS: Has the liberal media been gaslighted by Trump and his supporters following his election defeat?
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Amos Harel and Amir Tibon to discuss the flurry of activity – diplomatic and otherwise – surrounding the United States, Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Will defeated U.S. President Donald Trump use his last few weeks in office to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities – or is he too preoccupied with his quixotic battle against the election results? What plans do the newly installed Pentagon officials have for the last two months of the Trump Administration? And will Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seek or be given a green light to attack Iran?
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Judy Maltz and Chemi Shalev on the day after Joe Biden was confirmed as the 46th president of the United States. The team discusses how Biden’s victory and Trump’s defeat will affect Israeli politics in general and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in particular. We also ask: Why will all eyes be on Iran during the transition period and the first weeks of the Biden Administration? What will become of the “Deal of the Century” and the Abraham Accords? Who will replace settlement-loving David Friedman as U.S. ambassador? And will Biden make good on his promise to put the fight against antisemitism high on his agenda?
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Noa Landau, Aluf Benn and Anshel Pfeffer for a morning-after discussion on the interim results of the U.S. presidential election. Why could a second-term President Trump be a bigger headache for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than a Biden presidency? How should American Jews feel about tens of millions of their compatriots voting for a candidate who courts neo-Nazis? And can center-left candidates ever defeat their populist-nationalist rivals?
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Chemi Shalev and Amir Tibon to discuss the Israeli and Jewish angles ahead of the U.S. presidential election. Are Israelis right to see Donald Trump as the best friend they’ve ever had in the White House – even if the president’s motives are unclear? Could an ousted Trump use the transition period to push through a series of far-reaching policy decisions vis-à-vis the Middle East? And was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to play along with Trump’s denigration of Democratic candidate Joe Biden the result of the Israeli leader’s displeasure at being forced to sign off on the U.S. sale of F-35 stealth bombers to the United Arab Emirates?
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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Judy Maltz, who explains the background to last week’s drama at the World Zionist Congress, where a coalition of rightists and ultra-Orthodox delegates tried to seize control of the organization’s main institutions. Plus: We’re joined by Adrian Hennigan, Haaretz’s reviewer-in-chief, to discuss Sacha Baron Cohen’s new Borat movie.
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