Prime Minister of Israel and Israeli general
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Hebrew University Prof. Elie Podeh. Podeh, the Bamberger and Fuld professor in the History of the Muslim Peoples, recently published a research article, "Israel’s 2005 Disengagement from Gaza: A Multilateral Move Under Unilateral Façade." In the article, we learn that while the Gaza Disengagement was a unilateral decision, it was carried out in partnership with the United States, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. Among other revelations in the paper, we hear about the committees formed among the partners and their work on arrangements for border control, economic transition, and security cooperation. All elements were negotiated behind the scenes, especially under the guidance of American envoys and Egyptian mediators. Podeh weighs in on prime minister Ariel Sharon's decision not to allow the PA to take credit for any part of the diplomatic cooperation and the question of whether delegitimizing the PA's authority in Gaza may have contributed to the Hamas takeover in 2007. We speak about -- today, as the IDF is poised to retake the Gaza Strip, what the reasons were for the Disengagement 20 years ago -- and, in Podeh's opinion, why the Strip shouldn't be resettled by Israel. And so this week, we ask Prof. Elie Podeh, what matters now. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and video edited by Thomas Girsch. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sometimes insubordination within the command chain actually works. Want an example? Take the infamous 1973 Yom Kippur War, when the divisional commander of a reserve formation (Ariel Sharon) circumvented not just his superiors but also the IDF chief in order to get approval for his plan. Gross insubordination….but it worked. History favours Sharon's own narrative but the command chain had a different perspective. Personalities matter in C2: sometimes the clash of commanders can be detrimental to the campaign. Sometimes insubordination is necessary, but you won't end up as Prime Minister every time. Nate Jennings explains the context of the fight, the decisions, and the background to the big decisions.
In 2005 Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, forcing out thousands of Jewish settlers. Peace did not follow in their wake. Rather than a resolution to Palestinian statelessness, Israelis and Arabs received 18 years of violence, defined by the pattern known as "mowing the grass" and leading to the Hamas terrorist attack on Oct 7, 2023. Why did Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan fail? Was it designed to freeze the peace process reignited three years earlier by President George W. Bush? In this episode, historian Ahron Bregman, an IDF veteran, delves into the origins of the current war. Further reading: Israel's Wars: A History Since 1947 by Ahron Bregman
We look back on the region's history and discuss what it can teach us about the future.Jonny Dymond brings together a carefully curated panel of experts, academics and journalists to talk about the conflict in the Middle East.What has happened in history to lead us to this point? And, what can history teach us about what might happen next?This week, Jonny is joined by Dr Ahron Bregman, from King's College London, and the BBC's International Editor, Jeremy Bowen.In the second of two special episodes, they focus in on the former Israeli leader, Ariel Sharon. Last week's episode covered another leader who bestrode the modern Middle East - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.This episode was made by Keiligh Baker and Eleanor Harrison-Dengate. The technical producers were John Scott and Michael Regaard. The assistant editor is Ben Mundy. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.This episode is part of a BBC Sounds series. The discussion was recorded at 15:00 on Friday 6 December 2024.
We look back on the region's history and discuss what it can teach us about the future.Jonny Dymond brings together a carefully assembled panel of experts, academics and journalists to talk about the conflict in the region.What has happened in history to lead us to this point? And, what can history teach us about what might happen next?This week, Jonny is joined by Dr Burcu Ozcelik, Senior Research Fellow for Middle East Security at RUSI, and BBC correspondent and Middle East expert Jane Corbin.In the first of two special episodes, they focus in on the former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Next week, attention will turn to another leader who bestrode the modern Middle East, Israel's military and political leader Ariel Sharon. This episode was made by Keiligh Baker. The technical producers were Dan Ehrlich and David Crackles. The assistant editor is Ben Mundy. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.This episode is part of a BBC Sounds series. It was recorded at 10:00 on Monday 2 December 2024.
10 - (BACKPAGE) When Ariel Sharon ordered Israeli terrorism in Lebanon to provoke a pretext to invade by Australian Citizens Party
« Rien, rien ne peut justifier ce qu'ils ont fait ». C'est cette phrase qui s'affiche en Une de l'Humanité aujourd'hui. Phrase de Roni, militante pour la paix, habitant tout près de la frontière avec Gaza. « Rien ne peut justifier ce qu'ils ont fait », dit-elle, « mais je sais ce qu'ils vivent. Ils ont été blessés, désillusionnés, désespérés. Et les gens désespérés sont dangereux car ils n'ont plus rien a perdre ». Elle ajoute : « nous n'avons pas d'autre choix que de vivre côte à côte ». Un point de vue que ne partage pas son fils, Yoel. Lui aussi se dit pour la paix, mais accable les Palestiniens. « On leur a donné Gaza. Regardez ce qu'ils en ont fait », « référence au démantèlement des colonies décidé par Ariel Sharon en 2005 ». « On ne peut pas partir de la Cisjordanie », ajoute-t-il, « il se passerait la même chose ». Certaines des familles rencontrées par l'Humanité, ont été dévastées par la perte d'un proche le 7 octobre. C'est le cas de Patrick Cohen, qui vient de revenir dans son kibboutz et dont le fils de 26 ans « a été tué alors qu'il se trouvait au festival Nova. Le Hamas n'a pas le droit de faire ça », dit-il. « Le soleil, un peu de vent, la tranquillité. C'est ce qu'on veut. Qu'on nous laisse vivre. Il y a de la terre pour tout le monde ». Procédures en coursLe Soir de son côté, s'interroge sur le rôle de la justice internationale un an après le 7 octobre. « Depuis les massacres du 7 octobre 2023, plusieurs actions et procédures judiciaires sont en cours devant la Cour internationale de justice et de la Cour pénale internationale », explique le quotidien belge. « Procédure engagée devant la Cour Internationale de Justice, compétente pour les crimes commis par les États, et la Cour Pénale Internationale, compétente pour les crimes commis par les individus ». « Du côté, de la Cour Internationale de Justice », explique Le Soir, « une enquête est en cours contre l'État d'Israël. Les actions sont donc engagées contre l'État d'Israël parce que son armée est intervenue sur le sol palestinien, mais pas contre le Hamas qui n'est pas un État ». C'est cette instance, le CIJ, qui en décembre 2023, a « rendu trois ordonnances prononçant des mesures conservatoires à charge d'Israël., estimant qu'il existait un "risque réel et imminent" touchant les droits des Palestiniens à ne pas être victimes d'un génocide ». « Mais », précise le Soir, « le jugement final pourrait ne pas être rendu avant de nombreuses années ». Du côté de la CPI, la Cour Pénale Internationale, plusieurs enquêtes sont en cours, pour crimes de guerre et crimes contre l'humanité. Des mandats d'arrêt ont été requis contre des responsables du Hamas et d'Israël. Mais là encore, la procédure s'annonce très longue. Une « chambre spéciale de la CPI devra étudier quelle suite elle donne à ces réquisitions ».Le fracas des bombesÀ la Une également, l'offensive israélienne sur le Liban, vue de Beyrouth. C'est Anthony Samrani, l'un des rédacteurs en chef de l'Orient le Jour, qui prend la parole dans les colonnes du journal francophone libanais. « Chers abonnés » dit-il, « il fait beau à Beyrouth. Le soleil des doux. La ville est silencieuse... Les combats à la frontière avec Israël font rage. Mais ils sont loin. Et puis vient la nuit. Ce moment où la terreur dévore tout le reste (...) Plus possible de penser, plus possible de rationaliser. La guerre devient réelle (...) le fracas des bombes transperce la nuit et réveille toute la ville. On envoie et reçoit des dizaines de messages. Combien de bombes ? C'était où ? (...) puis le silence reprend ses droits ». L'espoir n'est pas à l'ordre du jour. « Rien n'arrêtera Israël », assure Anthony Samrani. « Et le Hezbollah n'a aucune intention de rendre les armes. L'Iran joue de son côté plus de 40 ans d'héritage. Tout indique que la guerre sera longue. Et que nos nuits le seront encore plus ».
A Assembleia Geral das Nações Unidas pediu nesta quinta-feira, 19 de Setembro, o fim da ocupação israelita dos territórios palestinianos ocupados dentro de "12 meses". O texto da resolução, aprovado com 124 votos a favor, 14 votos contra e 43 abstenções, apela ainda aos Estados-membros para que proíbam as importações provenientes dos colonatos e o fornecimento de armas a Israel se houver motivos "razoáveis" para acreditar que estas armas possam ser utilizadas nos territórios palestinianos. O texto da resolução, aprovado com 124 votos a favor, 14 votos contra e 43 abstenções, segue o parecer do Tribunal Internacional de Justiça, em Julho, que a pedido da Assembleia Geral da ONU analisou a ocupação dos territórios palestinianos desde 1967 e chegou à conclusão que "a continuação da presença" israelita nos mesmos "é ilegal" e que Israel tem "obrigação de pôr fim [à ocupação] o mais rápido possível".A resolução da ONU apela ainda aos Estados-membros para que proíbam as importações provenientes dos colonatos e o fornecimento de armas a Israel se houver motivos "razoáveis" para acreditar que estas armas possam ser utilizadas nos territórios palestinianos.Maria João Tomás, especialista de assuntos do Médio Oriente e investigadora da Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa, considera que a iniciativa é importante, mas devido ao carácter não vinculativo não terá grande impacto na resolução deste conflito.RFI: Que importância tem esta resolução da Assembleia Geral das Nações Unidas para o conflito no Médio Oriente?Trata-se de uma resolução de condenação e é muito importante condenar aquilo que se está a passar e aquilo que este Governo israelita de extrema-direita está a fazer na Palestina. É claro que estão a responder ao ataque terrorista de 7 Outubro do Hamas, mas isso já ultrapassou todos os limites.Estas resoluções são importantes, mas depois, na prática, não vão ter consequências, umas vez que não são vinculativas.Envia-se um sinal forte à comunidade internacional?É importante que a comunidade internacional denuncie aquilo que se está a passar e que condene. Mas daí até ter alguma consequência prática vai uma distância muito grande.O texto também exige a retirada das forças israelitas dos territórios palestinianos, a cessação de novos colonatos, a restituição de terras e propriedades confiscadas e a possibilidade de regresso dos palestinianos deslocados. Apesar de esta resolução não ser vinculativa, considera que os países enviam uma mensagem da urgência para que as partes encontrem uma solução para este conflito?Sim. Todavia, nesses casos as acções são muito importantes. Por exemplo, em 2005, Ariel Sharon obrigou a retirada dos colonatos israelitas na Faixa de Gaza. Só com este tipo de acções se conseguirão avanços, mas têm que ser os próprios líderes a fazê-lo. Porém, não há vontade e, além disso, há outras intenções.Aquilo que está a acontecer neste momento na Cisjordânia -que para Israel é Judeia e Samaria, é exactamente com o propósito de fazer a mesma coisa que aconteceu em Gaza. A desculpa das autoridades israelitas é de ir atrás dos grupos terroristas-al -Aqsa, Jihad Islâmica e o Hamas - que estão no enclave. Mas a única maneira de se livrarem dos grupos terroristas é anular a existência deles. Só se anula a razão deles existirem com a construção de dois Estados. Aqui há outra agenda.E qual é a agenda?Há intenções muito explícitas, por parte dos dois ministros das Finanças e da Segurança Interna, Bezalel Smotrich e Itamar Ben-Gvir, que é expandir Israel da Jordânia até ao mar e parece que o caminho está a ser feito.A resolução teve os votos contra dos Estados Unidos. Não há aqui um contra-senso dos EUA que dizem estar a trabalhar para a paz no Médio Oriente? Os Estados Unidos têm sempre a mesma resposta. Ou seja, isto não pode ser feito através de uma resolução. Tem que ser feito um acordo entre as partes. Ora, se estivermos à espera do acordo entre as partes... vamos ter de esperar sentados.Após a votação, o porta-voz do Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros israelita, Oren Marmorstein, refere que Israel considera "tendenciosa" e cheia de "cinismo" a resolução aprovada pela Assembleia Geral da ONU. Esta postura de Israel era expectável?Claro. É sempre a mesma resposta e ainda vão dizer que estão todos do lado dos terroristas. Pelo menos é a postura que se espera deste Governo de extrema-direita.Portugal, país signatário desta resolução, manifestou-se preocupado com a crescente tensão na Cisjordânia, em que a violação dos colonos continua a subir de forma impune… Foi muito importante a posição do Governo português. Foi realmente uma agradável surpresa.Nos próximos dias, o primeiro-ministro israelita, Benjamin Netanyahu, vai discursar diante da Assembleia Geral das Nações Unidas. Considera que ele tem o direito de falar, ou devia haver uma sanção contra Israel?Não, já se fez isso com tantos outros. É importante que Netanyahu fale para se perceber o que vai dizer. Depois a reacção dos outros países é que já será outra coisa. Muitos dirigentes poderão deixar a sala em sinal de protesto [como fizeram no passado].O chefe do Hezbollah libanês, Hassan Nasrallah, afirmou nesta quinta-feira, 19 de Setembro, que a formação tinha recebido “um golpe duro e sem precedentes” e acusou Israel de “ter ultrapassado todas as linhas vermelhas ao fazer explodir os aparelhos"- pagers e os walkie talkies. O que pretende Israel com este ataque?Primeiro foi uma coisa inédita, nunca ninguém tinha feito um ataque destes. Segundo, este ataque mostra a capacidade que a Mossad tem. Já quando foi da morte de [Ismaël] Haniyeh [morto a 31 de Julho, em Teerão, num ataque aéreo atribuído às forças israelitas] nós percebemos a capacidade que eles tinham. Aqui também temos a questão de que facilmente vão conseguir identificar os membros do Hezbollah, porque os membros do Hezbollah que chegam aos hospitais têm ferimentos em sítios muito específicos.Hassan Nasrallah promete um terrível castigo a Israel. O que é que se pode esperar nas próximas horas?Estamos todos à espera do ataque do Irão. Já estamos à espera também do ataque do Hezbollah. Não interessa ao Hezbollah escalar a guerra. Vamos esperar para ver. Não há prognósticos.Mas estes ataques vêm, de alguma forma, expor uma fragilidade do Hezbollah? Sim, expõem uma fragilidade imensa. Eles estão muito assustados com aquilo que se passou (...) Israel está à beira de invadir o Líbano para garantir que o norte de Israel tenha segurança e, portanto, enfraquece e debilita bastante as capacidades do Hezbollah numa altura importante. Foi uma jogada de mestre, diga-se de passagem.Este episódio complica um acordo de paz entre as partes? Sim. O secretário de Estado norte-americano, Antony Blinken, foi agora ao Cairo e volta de lá com as mãos abanar. Enquanto a questão do corredor de Filadélfia [fronteira entre Gaza e o Egipto] não se resolver, não haverá acordo.
Mitchell Barak, quien fue redactor de discursos del presidente Shimon Peres y del primer ministro Ariel Sharon, se pronunció en La W sobre la llegada de Benjamín Netanyahu a Washington y su discurso ante el Congreso.
In questo podcast – secondo episodio della docuserie “Il Mossad. Successi e fallimenti del più grande e temuto servizio segreto al mondo” – l'analista strategico Gianluca Ansalone (Docente di Geopolitica al Campus Biomedico di Roma-Università di Roma Tor Vergata) racconta la Guerra del Kippur. La Guerra dello Yom Kippur, quarta guerra arabo-israeliana, iniziata da Egitto e Siria il 6 ottobre 1973, nel giorno sacro ebraico dello Yom Kippur e durante il Ramadan, durò fino al 26 ottobre 1973. Il conflitto finì per coinvolgere sia gli Stati Uniti che l'Unione Sovietica in un confronto indiretto in difesa dei rispettivi alleati. Fu lanciata con l'obiettivo diplomatico di convincere un castigato – anche se ancora imbattuto – Israele a negoziare condizioni più favorevoli ai Paesi arabi. La precedente guerra arabo-israeliana, la Guerra dei Sei Giorni (1967), in cui Israele aveva conquistato e occupato territori arabi tra cui la Penisola del Sinai e le Alture del Golan, era stata seguita da anni di scontri sporadici. Anwar Sadat, divenuto presidente dell'Egitto poco dopo la fine della Guerra di logoramento (1969-70), fece delle proposte per raggiungere un accordo pacifico se, in conformità con la Risoluzione 242 delle Nazioni Unite, Israele avesse restituito i territori conquistati. Israele rifiutò queste condizioni e gli scontri si trasformarono in una guerra su larga scala nel 1973. Nel pomeriggio del 6 ottobre Egitto e Siria attaccarono Israele contemporaneamente su due fronti. Con l'elemento sorpresa a loro vantaggio, le forze egiziane riuscirono ad attraversare il Canale di Suez con maggiore facilità del previsto, subendo solo una frazione delle perdite previste, mentre le forze siriane furono in grado di lanciare la loro offensiva contro le posizioni israeliane e di sfondare sulle alture del Golan. L'intensità degli assalti egiziani e siriani, così diversa dalla situazione del 1967, iniziò rapidamente a esaurire le scorte di munizioni di riserva di Israele. Il primo ministro israeliano Golda Meir si rivolse agli Stati Uniti per chiedere aiuto, mentre lo stato maggiore israeliano improvvisava frettolosamente una strategia di battaglia. La riluttanza degli Stati Uniti ad aiutare Israele cambiò rapidamente quando l'Unione Sovietica iniziò il proprio sforzo di rifornimento a Egitto e Siria. Il Presidente degli Stati Uniti Richard Nixon si oppose istituendo una linea di rifornimento d'emergenza per Israele, anche se i Paesi arabi imposero un costoso embargo petrolifero e diversi alleati degli Stati Uniti si rifiutarono di facilitare le spedizioni di armi. Con i rinforzi in arrivo, le Forze di Difesa Israeliane ribaltarono rapidamente la situazione. Israele riuscì a disattivare parte delle difese aeree egiziane, consentendo alle forze israeliane comandate dal generale Ariel Sharon di attraversare il Canale di Suez e circondare la Terza Armata egiziana. Sul fronte del Golan, le truppe israeliane, a caro prezzo, respinsero i siriani e avanzarono fino al limite dell'altopiano del Golan sulla strada per Damasco. Il 22 ottobre il Consiglio di Sicurezza delle Nazioni Unite adottò la risoluzione 338, che chiedeva la fine immediata dei combattimenti; nonostante ciò, le ostilità continuarono per diversi giorni, spingendo le Nazioni Unite a reiterare l'appello al cessate il fuoco con le risoluzioni 339 e 340. Con la crescente pressione internazionale, la guerra cessò finalmente il 26 ottobre. Israele firmò un accordo formale di cessate il fuoco con l'Egitto l'11 novembre e con la Siria il 31 maggio 1974. A cura di Francesco De Leo. Montaggio di Silvio Farina. https://storiainpodcast.focus.it - Canale Eventi e luoghi ------------ Storia in Podcast di Focus si può ascoltare anche su Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/293C5TZniMOgqHdBLSTaRc ed Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/it/podcast/la-voce-della-storia/id1511551427 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Share on Twitter/X: https://tinyurl.com/nvmznb7m Tzipi Livni has served as a minister of eight different cabinet ministries under three prime ministers: Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, and Benjamin Netanyahu. Her positions have included Justice Minister, Foreign Minister and Vice-Prime Minister. She has also been the official leader of the opposition. As foreign minister, Tzipi Livni led negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, she was a key government figure during Israel's disengagement from Gaza and during Hamas's subsequent takeover of Gaza. She was foreign minister during Israel's Second Lebanon War and during Israel's operation to take out Syria's nuclear reactor. She began her service as a member of the Likud Party, and then the Kadima Party, and later the Hatnua Party and Zionist Union. Earlier in her career, Tzipi served in the Mossad (including in the elite unit famous for being responsible for the assassinations following the Munich massacre). No major Israeli political figure has had more recent experience trying to negotiate a two-state solution than Tzipi Livni.
Tzipi Livni has served as a minister of eight different cabinet ministries under three prime ministers: Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, and Benjamin Netanyahu. Her positions have included Justice Minister, Foreign Minister and Vice-Prime Minister. She has also been the official leader of the opposition. As foreign minister, Tzipi Livni led negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, […]
Tzipi Livni has served as a minister of eight different cabinet ministries under three prime ministers: Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, and Benjamin Netanyahu. Her positions have included Justice Minister, Foreign Minister and Vice-Prime Minister. She has also been the official leader of the opposition. As foreign minister, Tzipi Livni led negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, she was a key government figure during Israel's disengagement from Gaza and during Hamas's subsequent takeover of Gaza. She was foreign minister during Israel's Second Lebanon War and during Israel's operation to take out Syria's nuclear reactor. She began her service as a member of the Likud Party, and then the Kadima Party, and later the Hatnua Party and Zionist Union. Earlier in her career, Tzipi served in the Mossad (including in the elite unit famous for being responsible for the assassinations following the Munich massacre). No major Israeli political figure has had more recent experience trying to negotiate a two-state solution than Tzipi Livni. Tzipi Livni on X: https://x.com/Tzipi_Livni
Tzipi Livni has served as a minister of eight different cabinet ministries under three prime ministers: Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, and Benjamin Netanyahu. Her positions have included Justice Minister, Foreign Minister and Vice-Prime Minister. She has also been the official leader of the opposition. As foreign minister, Tzipi Livni led negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, […]
Presenter Audrey Carville speaks to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the Palestinian Ambassador to Ireland Dr Jilan Wahba Abdalmajid. Positions seem entrenched, but are there any grounds for optimism? Ehud Olmertwas Prime Minister of Israel from 2006-2009. He was a member of the Likud political party with Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu, before forming Kadima with Mr Sharon. Dr Jilan Wahba Abdalmajid is Palestine's first official Ambassador to Ireland after the Irish Government formally recognised the State of Palestine this week.
Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world. It is day 195 of the war with Hamas. Editor David Horovitz joins host Amanda Borschel-Dan on today's episode in the Jerusalem office. The United States led a group of 48 countries at the United Nations in condemning Iran's missile and drone attack on Israel last weekend. Horovitz weighs in. Egyptian officials tell a Qatari outlet that the US has accepted Israel's plan for an operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, in return for not carrying out a large strike in Iran in response to Tehran's unprecedented missile and drone attack. Horovitz postulates that Israel may have missed its chance for true retaliation for the Iran strike. The New York Times is reporting that “multiple American officials” think that Israeli officials miscalculated the severity of Iran's response to the April 1 strike on a building in Damascus in which several Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders were killed. Based on previous targeted killings of key Iranian players, should Israel have anticipated Iran's large-scale potentially devastating strike? Horovitz conducted an interview with Giora Eiland, a former IDF planning and operations chief and the former head of the National Security Council under prime minister Ariel Sharon. We hear highlights of their discussion. For the latest updates, please see The Times of Israel's ongoing live blog. Discussed articles include: Live blog April 18, 2024 PM shelved pre-approved plans for immediate Iran reprisal after Biden call — report A top ex-general's radical strategy for tackling Iran, saving the hostages, calming the north THOSE WE HAVE LOST: Civilians and soldiers killed in Hamas's onslaught on Israel THOSE WE ARE MISSING: The hostages and victims whose fate is still unknown Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check out yesterday's Daily Briefing episode: https://omny.fm/shows/the-daily-briefing/day-194-tension-on-3-fronts-knesset-passes-1st-rea IMAGE: An Iranian military truck carries parts of a Sayad 4-B missile past a portrait of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a military parade as part of a ceremony marking the country's annual army day in Tehran on April 17, 2024. (Atta Kenare / AFP)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
En Israël, les colons les plus extrémistes rêvent de s'accaparer l'enclave palestinienne. Ils vivent déjà illégalement dans les territoires palestiniens de Cisjordanie occupée, et n'attendent que le feu vert de leurs autorités pour s'installer aussi à Gaza, et reconstruire le Gush Katif. En 2005, les quelque 8 000 Israéliens qui vivaient dans ce regroupement de colonies à Gaza en ont été évacués sur ordre du Premier ministre de l'époque, Ariel Sharon. Presque 20 ans plus tard, en pleine guerre, certains d'entre eux sont entrés dans la bande de Gaza et y ont érigé symboliquement une cabane pour marquer leur retour, avant d'être exfiltrés par l'armée israélienne. De notre correspondant à Jérusalem,Daniella Weiss, matriarche des colons, déploie sa carte de Gaza. « Ici. Vous voyez ça ? Ces points rouges ? Ce sont d'anciennes colonies israéliennes dans la bande de Gaza. Il y avait 21 colonies », indique-t-elle.Ses motivations sont « idéologiques et religieuses », explique Daniella Weiss. À 79 ans, elle est à la tête de Nahala, un mouvement d'extrême droite qui veut recoloniser Gaza. C'est depuis sa maison, dans une colonie qui surplombe la ville palestinienne de Naplouse, qu'elle prépare le retour dans l'enclave palestinienne. « C'est à cette table qu'on s'est assis et qu'on a décidé de former des groupes de personnes qui veulent s'installer à Gaza, immédiatement », raconte-t-elle. « J'ai même écrit au Premier ministre, Benyamin Netanyahu. Je lui ai dit que j'avais 500 familles qui étaient prêtes tout de suite. Et quand je dis tout de suite, ça signifie que si je les appelle là, d'ici ce soir, on aura établi sept colonies à Gaza » ajoute Daniella Weiss.À lire aussiEn Cisjordanie, le nombre de colonies sauvages explose depuis le début de la guerre« Moi, je n'ai pas à faire preuve de prudence »Et pourtant, le Premier ministre a été clair à ce sujet : « Il n'y aura pas de colonies israéliennes à Gaza », a déclaré Benyamin Netanyahu.« Vous pouvez le croire si ça vous fait plaisir… Mais si vous analysez les discours de Netanyahu au sujet de Gaza, vous verrez qu'il nous laisse une ouverture », pense Daniella Weiss. « Il nous permet de faire pression et de nous exprimer librement. Je comprends que Netanyahu doit être prudent. Il subit des pressions américaines (les États-Unis s'opposent à la colonisation, NDLR). Mais Dieu merci, moi, je n'ai pas à faire preuve de prudence. Et je peux le dire clairement : si Netanyahu souhaitait vraiment me faire taire, il aurait pu. Mais il ne le fait pas. »À lire aussiCisjordanie: les colons israéliens dénoncent une ingérence de la France après l'annonce de sanctions« Nous transformerons la bande de Gaza en Singapour ou en Côte d'Azur »D'un côté, l'idéologie et la religion, mais de l'autre, il y a le droit international, qui leur interdit non seulement de vivre ici en Cisjordanie, mais qui leur interdit aussi de retourner à Gaza. Pourtant, Daniella Weiss ne transige pas.« Je dirais que ce qui s'est passé le 7 octobre a changé le cours de l'histoire. Avant le 7 octobre, l'idée de retourner à Gaza ne m'avait même pas effleuré l'esprit. Même si j'avais été évacuée de Gaza, quelques années auparavant. J'avais fini par me dire : ''Réfléchis… Nous avons un grand projet qui repose sur des textes bibliques. Mais nous avons aussi un pays, un État. Il faut apprendre à se contenter de ce qu'on a déjà''. Mais maintenant, c'est différent : plus vite les Gazaouis partiront dans d'autres pays, mieux ils se porteront. Et nous transformerons la jolie bande de terre de Gaza en Singapour ou en Côte d'Azur, si vous préférez », avance-t-elle.Et pour parvenir à ses fins, Daniella Weiss plaide pour le siège total de Gaza : « Pas d'internet, pas de téléphone, pas de nourriture, et pas d'eau » afin de pousser les Gazaouis au départ.
L'ambasciatore israeliano Yossi Gal ha alle spalle una lunga carriera negli affari esteri, che ha avuto inizio nel 1975. Due volte diplomatico a Washington, dal ‘76 all' '81 come Direttore dell'ufficio dell'Ambasciatore, e dall' '85 all' '89 come portavoce dell'Ambasciata, partecipa alla conferenza di pace di Madrid nel '91, ed è membro dei negoziati di pace con la Giordania e con i Palestinesi. Ambasciatore di Israele nei paesi Bassi dal ‘95 al 2001, e successivamente in Francia e Monaco dal 2010 al 2015, conduce il processo di adesione di Israele all' Organizzazione per la Cooperazione e lo Sviluppo Economico e conduce i negoziati per il miglioramento delle relazioni con l'Unione Europea. Nel 2005 è portavoce del primo ministro Ariel Sharon, durante il ritiro di Israele da Gaza. Oggi Yossi Gal è vice-presidente per l'Avanzamento Universitario e le Relazioni Esterne dell'Università ebraica di Gerusalemme, fondata da Albert Einstein, che sta per compiere cento anni di vita. Lo abbiamo incontrato a Lugano, in occasione di una conferenza sul Medio Oriente, promossa dall'Associazione Svizzera-Israele Sezione Ticino e da Brain Circle Lugano.
Throughout the 1970s and 80s, the most prominent face of the Palestine Liberation Organization, or PLO, was its leader, Yasser Arafat. His was an image that many associated with terrorism and violence In the early 1990s, the PLO put forth a new spokesperson, A well dressed and articulate woman in her 40s named Hanan Ashrawi. She became well known to American television viewers as a sharp contrast to the Arafat image. In this1995 interview Ashrawi talks about her autobiography This Side of Peace. Get This Side of Peace by Hanan AshrawiAs an Amazon Associate, Now I've Heard Everything earns from qualifying purchases.You may also enjoy my interviews with Ariel Sharon and Leah Rabin For more vintage interviews with celebrities, leaders, and influencers, subscribe to Now I've Heard Everything on Spotify, Apple Podcasts. and now on YouTube Photo by Carsten Sohn #Palestine #Palestinians #PLO #MiddleEast
At the end of the show a question from Andy McNeil Our apologies for the sound issues we encountered on this episode. Recommendations Paddy Jon Stone There's been a reassessment of the Blair/Brown government on the Left in recent years: you hear more about its achievements than you used you. that's good, but it's also important not to forget that it regularly did things a Tory government would be criticised for https://twitter.com/joncstone/status/1231543272943898626?lang=en Putin Vs The West- Norma Percy A new three-part series from award-winning film-maker Norma Percy tells the inside story of how, through a decade of clashes, the West has struggled to deal with Vladimir Putin as he tries to exert his power on the world stage. https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/proginfo/2023/05/putin-vs-the-west The Fifty Years War- Norma Percy The main decision-makers from Israel, the Arab states, Russia and the US tell the inside story of the Arab-Israel conflict. Made in 1998. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0glc7yp/the-fifty-years-war-israel-and-the-arabs Elusive Peace- Norma Percy As today's headlines continue to be dominated by the latest news from Israel and Gaza, award-winning film-maker Norma Percy looks back on her 2005 series Elusive Peace, sharing memories of her encounters with key players like Bill Clinton, Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat as she explored the story behind the efforts to end the conflict made around the start of the new millennium. Norma also talks about her experiences securing rare interviews with those behind some of the suicide bombings that destroyed lives and also the chances of peace. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001swsb David The Jazz Loft Project- W Eugene Smith Smith's Jazz Loft Project has been legendary in the worlds of art, photography, and music for more than forty years, but until the publication of this book, no one had seen his extraordinary photographs or read any of the firsthand accounts of those who were there and lived to tell the tales. https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-jazz-loft-project/w-eugene-smith/sam-stephenson/9780226824840 W. Eugene Smith's Warning to the World The Magnum photographer made his last photo essay about industrial mercury poisoning in the Japanese city of Minamata, helping to bring justice and visibility to the victims https://www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/society-arts-culture/w-eugene-smith-minamata-warning-to-the-world/ Minimata- Film Revered photojournalist W. Eugene Smith (Johnny Depp) is coaxed out of retirement by a commission from Life magazine editor Robert Hayes (Bill Nighy). He is sent to Minamata, a Japanese city ravaged by mercury poisoning, the result of decades of gross corporate negligence. There, Smith documents the people living with Minamata Disease, the assignment quickly turning into a life-changing experience https://www.amazon.co.uk/Minamata-Johnny-Depp/dp/B099NBF5H3 Eamonn Slow Horses- Season 3 Spy drama following a dysfunctional team of M15 agent - and their obnoxious boss Jack Lamb - as they navigate the espionage world's smoke and mirrors to defend England from sinister forces. https://tv.apple.com/gb/show/slow-horses/umc.cmc.2szz3fdt71tl1ulnbp8utgq5o?ctx_brand=tvs.sbd.4000&mttn3pid=Google%20AdWords&mttnagencyid=a5e&mttncc=UK&mttnsiteid=143238&mttnsubad=OUK2019944_1-684757160536-c&mttnsubkw=136907710791__RTZ7DK1w_&mttnsubplmnt=_adext_
En el programa especial de Las Mañanas de RNE desde Jerusalén, recorremos parte del muro que divide Cisjordania desde 2002. Lo hacemos de la mano de dos palestinos, Shereen Dagani, compañera de Radio Exterior, e Ishac Zorob, que tiene un negocio de comida para llevar. Ya antes del 7 de octubre, el bloqueo israelí había llevado a la población civil de la Franja de Gaza a una situación desesperada. En Cisjordania, asisten a un repunte de la tensión y la Autoridad Nacional Palestina hace esfuerzo por tratar de frenar como puede el avance de Hamás en este territorio. Si hay un símbolo de las consecuencias de la ocupación israelí, es el muro que divide Cisjordania. El gobierno israelí de Ariel Sharon lo comenzó a construir en 2002, decía, por razones de seguridad, para blindarse de los atentados. Pero más allá, ha tenido consecuencias sociales, económicas y vitales sobre la población civil muy difíciles de cuantificar. Unas consecuencias que se unen a las de una nueva guerra en Gaza.Escuchar audio
In recent weeks, Israel has found itself in an unprecedented situation following the October 7th attack. The nation is now facing simultaneous conflicts on three fronts, with a major campaign in Gaza, a mini-war in the north, and another campaign in the West Bank. The strain on both the military and public patience has reached critical levels as Israel navigates through this multifront challenge. Zooming out to the bigger picture, the orchestration by Iran is becoming increasingly evident. The global stage is set for a potential war as Iran pulls the strings of various players like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Their actions threaten not only the stability of the region but also the global economy, pushing Israel and the West to confront difficult decisions. As tensions rise, the question becomes: What steps should Israel and the Western world take in response to this intricate web of geopolitical challenges? To unravel these complex questions, we turn to our most trusted expert, the man with the insights, Dr. Dan Schueftan. Dr. Dan is the head of the International Graduate Program of National Security at the University of Haifa, with a wealth of experience as a teacher at the IDF National Security College and Command and Staff College. His advisory roles for Israel's National Security Council and former Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon, coupled with his prolific writings on Israel's National Security, make him the go-to expert for understanding the intricacies of the current geopolitical landscape. Join us as we explore the analysis and recommendations of Dr. Dan on the unfolding events that have captivated the world's attention. (Main photo: Hagai Fried)
Intelligence failures, strategic surprise, heavy attrition, mass casualties, reversals, internal rivalries, personality conflicts, communications breakdowns, political posturing and big egos. Plus an enemy that out-gunned, out-numbered, out-fought (at least initially) and out-flanked the IDF in ways that had been discounted for years. The 1973 Yom Kippur War (the Fourth Arab-Israeli War) was an event that shaped the Middle East for decades afterwards but also changed the Western Way of War. Peter talks to Lt Col Nate Jennings, US Army, about wide wet crossings, multi-domain operations, reconstructing divisions under fire, hubris, and how land forces can create windows for other domains to get to the fight. If only someone had explained MDO like this before.....
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now. This week on What Matters Now, we're again handing the mic to Mishy Harman, the co-founder of The Times of Israel's podcast partner, Israel Story, the premiere English-language podcast from Israel. Since the October 7 massacre by Hamas of some 1,200 individuals, mostly civilians, Harman and his team at Israel Story have pivoted from their long-form, carefully nurtured episodes to producing almost daily Wartime Diaries. We at The Times of Israel asked the Israel Story team to compile a few episodes and after much deliberation, they selected three: Wartime Diaries: Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin, the parents of 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was kidnapped from the Supernova Party, have in many ways emerged as the face of the hostage families. They've met with US President Joe Biden and the Pope, they were on the cover of Time Magazine, and Rachel has spoken at the UN and at the March for Israel Rally in Washington, DC. In all those places, as well as in countless other interviews, speeches and meetings, they've told the heartbreaking tale of the two text messages Hersh sent on the morning of October 7, one saying, “I love you,” and the other, “I'm sorry.” He wrote those messages from within a shelter where he was hiding with 28 other partygoers. Eighteen of them were killed, and Hersh was badly wounded when his left arm was blown off. Shortly thereafter, Hersh and three others from the shelter were loaded onto Hamas pickup trucks and taken into Gaza. At recording time, it was 55 days since their abduction. Wartime Diaries: Datya Itzhaki In the summer of 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza under the leadership of premier Ariel Sharon. The roughly 8,000 residents of the 21 Jewish settlements within the Gaza Strip were forced to leave their homes and their communities, which for decades they had actually been encouraged and incentivized to inhabit. The move brought the country to the brink of a civil war. This was especially palpable in the tense relations between the residents of Gush Katif (as the main block of Gaza settlements was known) and their neighbors from the other side of the fence — the largely left-leaning residents of the same kibbutzim that 18 years later suffered most in the October 7 Hamas atrocities. Now, many of the former residents of the Gaza settlements who never stopped dreaming of returning to the sand dunes of the Strip feel at least partially vindicated. Had their communities not been dismantled back in 2005, they claim, the army would have still been in Gaza, and none of this calamity would have occurred. One such voice is that of 63-year-old Datya Itzhaki, who used to live in the Gush Katif settlement of Kfar Yam. Wartime Diaries: Sahar Vardi During this terrible moment, many people can't make space for anyone else's pain -- and that's understandable. But for those who are open to it, Israel Story's motto is that everybody's story matters. Without pointing fingers or making equivalencies, we're trying to stay true to our mission of sharing stories from different perspectives to complicate, humanize, and insert shades of nuance into what can often feel like a black-and-white, us-versus-them reality. In our 21st diary, we hear from Sahar Vardi, a Jewish-Israeli peace activist who lost a dear friend, Khalil Abu Yahia, in Gaza. So this week, we ask Mishy Harman, what matters now? What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: What Matters Now hosts the Israel Story podcast, with three episodes featuring: Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin (upper right), Datya Itzhaki (lower left) and Sahar Vardi. (Courtesy)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
On this edition of Parallax Views, this episode is a double feature featuring two experts on U.S. foreign policy, the Middle East, and the Israel/Palestine conflict: Geoffrey Aronson and Paul R. Pillar, both of whom have recent articles in Responsible Statecraft that should be of interest to anyone following the Gaza War. Geoffrey Aronson, the former director for Foundation for Middle East Peace and the editor of the bimonthly Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories until June 2014 discusses his piece "The Ghost of Ariel Sharon Hovers Over the Gaza Strip" about how Gaza faces what he calls a "The Future is the Past, The Past is the Future" scenario when the current war ends. He takes us back to the policies of Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister of Israel in the early 2000's, and offers a grim picture of what Gaza will look like going forward, but also the failure of policies by both Israel and the United States. In the second segment of the show, Paul R. Pillar, an academic and 28-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency as well as a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Studies of Georgetown University and a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, joins the show to discuss his articles "Is Gaza on track for permanent war?" and "With world's focus on Gaza, West Bank conflict brews". We'll discuss those articles as well as U.S. foreign policy, the October 7th Hamas attack, U.S. foreign policy, and much, much more.
TONIGHT: The show begins in the Greenhouses of Gaza 2005, as PM Ariel Sharon directs the evacuation of the farmers. From Tehran to WeWork; from Red Dwarf Trappist1-b rocky planet 40 light years distant to the Galilee and the North of Israel under daily bombardment and threat of invasion by Hezbollah. From Jerusalem to Beirut; from Amman to Ankara; from Cairo to Gaza. The FBI warns of jihadist terror. AMLO gathers Iran's friends. With attention to New Zealand forming a new government that hesitates with AUKUS Phase I and II. 1931 Galilee
We are raiding the Guardian Long Read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors This week, from 2022: At a summer camp for kids from conflict zones, I met my brave, funny friend Aseel. He was Palestinian. I was Israeli. When he was killed by police, my hope for our future died with him. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod
Ariel Sharon And The Burden of Leadership Israel and Hamas are at war. It's the latest chapter in a long history of cconflict and struggle for the Jewish state One who participated in many of those struggles and conflicts was Ariel Sharon. He was there in 1948 at the formation of the Israeli army,and rose steadily in the ranks in the years that followed. He was Israel's prime minister from 2001 to 2006. In this 1989 interview Sharon talks about his autobiography, Warrior. Get Warrior by Ariel SharonAs an Amazon Associate, Now I've Heard Everything earns from qualifying purchases.You may also enjoy my interviews with Colin Powell and Leah Rabin For more vintage interviews with celebrities, leaders, and influencers, subscribe to Now I've Heard Everything on Spotify, Apple Podcasts. and now on YouTube Photo by # israel #palestine #gaza #westbank
Depuis le 7 octobre le Proche-Orient n'a jamais été aussi proche et les mots aussi impuissants. Seul Mahmoud Darwich, poète palestinien, poète troyen, poète des vaincus, peut dire par exemple Il n'existe pas chez moi de vision unique et définitive de l'autre. Celui qui m'a éduqué était juif, celui qui m'a persécuté aussi. La femme qui m'aimait était juive, celle qui me détesta aussi. Une langue pleine de nuances et d'humanité que parle Yara El-Ghadban dont le cœur a vibré douloureusement en écoutant l'actualité le week-end dernier. Pour Yara El-Ghadban, 47 ans, c'est l'histoire d'un déracinement qui n'en finit pas. Une naissance à Dubaï, des parents réfugiés palestiniens, de multiples déménagements et une nationalité canadienne qui lui permet d'aller et venir jusqu'en Palestine. Musicologue, anthropologue, enseignante à l'université d'Ottawa, écrivaine, c'est le cœur lourd que nous l'accueillons autour de trois de ses livres aux Editions Mémoire d'encrier : Les racistes n'ont jamais vu la mer (dialogue avec Rodney Saint-Eloi), Je suis Ariel Sharon et Le parfum de NourLes choix musicaux de Yara El-GhadbanSchubert StandchenSanaa Moussa La Tetlla'iPiaf Padam Padam
History never repeats itself, but all too often it rhymes and in the case of geopolitics, especially those pertaining to the ongoing disposition of the Middle East region —the particular sentiment of this adage roars from the theoretical world into the practical manifestation of mankind's darkest inclinations: yet another war. And this new war is part of a broader, decades-long territorial dispute between the State of Israel and Palestine, respectively. The conflict also so happens to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War and just like that fateful conflict in the 1970s, it is part of a broader historical context (i.e. the Cold War of the 20th century and the newfound, arguably "Second Cold War" of the 21st century) and will have a reverberating impact felt by not just those immediately engaged and currently participating in the street-to-street fighting, but also the broader international community and that especially pertains to the nations such as America, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, China, and other regional powers. It is in this particularly tense backdrop of affairs that Hamas (the Palestinian militant organization that exercises de-facto governance of the coastal Gaza Strip enclave) just today (October 7th, 2023) launched a stunning, surprise assault with its paramilitary groups against Israel proper which was able to pierce through the much vaunted defensive fortifications on the border and strike virtually unopposed as the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) were initially caught completely off guard in what will be in retrospect among the most humiliating national security debacles in Israel's recent history. In response to these developments, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formally declared war on Hamas via a publicly broadcasted statement regarding the crisis and vowed swift, decisive retaliation as reports continue to pour in claiming that hundreds of causalities have been suffered so far on both sides. This also includes a significant number of Israeli civilians and military personnel alike who have been reportedly kidnapped by Hamas and trafficked into Gaza with the intention of the latter to use the former as bargaining chips in a potential prisoner swap. Please keep in mind that this is still an ongoing conflict and will definitely be revisited in between the content backlog which has long been overdue but is finally in the process of being ready! -- Correction: It was Yitzhak Rabin, not Ariel Sharon who was the aforementioned PM of Israel who was assassinated in the 1990s. -- Recommended Resources: Read the article by AP that I originally cited in this segment: https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-gaza-hamas-rockets-airstrikes-tel-aviv-11fb98655c256d54ecb5329284fc37d2 Watch the video version of this segment on YT: https://youtu.be/-k9XSZMGuNE -- Previous segments covering similar interrelated issues: My first video on the Israel vs. Palestine political dispute: https://youtu.be/x5FaFv6Juk8 | 2020 Edition A follow up podcast segment in lieu of further relevant developments: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/getnuanced/episodes/Understanding-the-2021-IsraelPalestine-Crisis-and-its-Broader-Historic-Context-as-of-05-21-21-e1338lv | 2021 Edition My thoughts on the Israeli Judicial Review crisis: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/getnuanced/episodes/Israeli-Prime-Minister-Benjamin-Bibi-Netanyahu-Pulls-an-Erdogan-in-the-High-Court-of-Israel-and-IGNITES-a-MASSIVE-Judicial-Review-CRISIS--JULY-2023-e27e5ac | JULY 2023 Edition -- CONNECT: Official Website: http://www.GetNuanced.com/ Tech Channel | http://youtube.com/TJCMN Show Twitter | http://twitter.com/GetNuanced Main Twitter | http://twitter.com/TJCMN Show Instagram | http://instagram.com/GetNuanced Main Instagram | http://instagram.com/TJC -- —Tom --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/getnuanced/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/getnuanced/support
Ziv Koren Is a peerless photojournalist in Israel and a global brand and name. Over the past 30-plus years he has cultivated unparalleled access into the private lives of prime ministers and been allowed to photograph some of Israel's most highly trained and secretive counter-terrorism units in training. He covers global events – most recently the early Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians in that brutal and ongoing war. Koren has a brilliant eye as well as a detective's instinct – sensing where that special angle may be – metaphorically and literally. In this episode we discuss some of his more memorable photos and moments in the field: with Bibi and Benzion Netanyahu at home playing chess, at an art gallery with Ariel Sharon, and an early and particularly brutal suicide bombing of a civilian bus in 1994 in central Tel Aviv, which shook him to his core and still does today. His photos from the scene also catapulted him from a talented young photojournalist to a global star, overnight. Koren is a master storyteller in words and images and we are fortunate to have a two-part podcast series exploring his oeuvre and the thoughts and stories behind the work. Each podcast will be followed by a photo essay of the images discussed in the episode. In Part I we focus on how he fell into his career by chance, covering terrorism, the West Bank and Gaza, Israeli leaders – up close and personal – and key world events. And then there are just the beautiful snaps. Cuz. Enjoy the audio and visual…..coming soon.Ziv Koren has been a professional photojournalist for over 30 years.His photojournalism and documentary projects focus mainly on humanitarian issues in Israel and around the world. Koren has covered some of the most dramatic events in the world and is considered to be one of the leading documentary photographers in our time. His award-winning photographs have been included in many solo and group exhibitions worldwide and have been featured in Time Magazine, Newsweek, the New York Times Magazine, The Sunday Times Magazine, Stern, Der Spiegel, Paris Match, Le Figaro, Corriere Della Sera Magazine and others. In 1995, Koren's 1994 photograph of an exploded Israeli bus was selected as one of 200 most important images in the last 45 years by World Press Photo. He is also the frequent recipient of prestigious prizes such as the "Photo District News Award" (4 times), "Yann Geffroy Award", "International Colour Award" (twice) and "Picture of the Year" – POYi (twice). Koren was the subject of the documentary film "More Than 1000 Words" which was widely screened at film festivals around the world, garnering a dozen awards. He regularly lectures at workshops and universi- ties worldwide. He has published 22 photography books to date. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.stateoftelaviv.com/subscribe
Ariel Sharon served as prime minister of Israel between 2001 and 2006. As a politician and military leader, Sharon always courted controversy. He frequently ignored the orders of his superiors in an attempt to push further into Arab territory and as a politician infamously visited Al-Aqsa Mosque on Temple Mount, sparking riots and terror attacks. Most notoriously of all, he was found responsible for the 1982 Massacre at Sabra and Shatila, where thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese Muslims were slaughtered by Lebanese Christians in territory controlled by Israeli forces.This might lead one to conclude that Sharon the politician is the recipient of unconditional praise by the Israeli hard right. But in the highly polarised environment of 2023, this isn't the case; as prime minister, a post Sharon held between 2001 and 2006, he presided over Israel's disengagement from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, something which angered the so called “Settlers”- Jews who live in lands occupied after the Six Day War of 1967.My guest today is Einat Wilf. Einat is an Israeli politician and author who served as a member of the Knesset- Israel's Parliament- from 2010 until 2013. She also served as a foreign policy advisor to another Israeli prime minister and President, Shimon Peres, and in this capacity encountered Sharon in the final years of his political career.
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. It's thirty years since the Oslo Accords were signed. This agreement in 1993 aimed to bring about peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. So this week, we're bringing you stories from Israeli and Palestinian history. We hear about attempts at peace - the secret talks behind the Oslo Accords, and President Bill Clinton's failed attempt to end the conflict at Camp David. Plus, one of the most dramatic sieges of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that took place in a church. We also hear from a Palestinian and an Israeli who were there when rioting broke out in 2000, after the Israeli opposition leader, Ariel Sharon, made a visit to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound. And finally a hope of peace with the orchestra, made up of young people from both sides of the conflict, which performed a concert in the Palestinian city of Ramallah. Contributors: Mona Juul – Norwegian diplomat who was part of the team that planned and orchestrated the meetings which resulted in the signing of the Oslo Accords. Yolande Knell - Middle East Correspondent for BBC News. Gamal Helal - American diplomatic interpreter and policy adviser. Khaled Zeghari - Palestinian cameraman. Zalman Shoval - former Israeli ambassador to Washington. Carolyn Cole - photojournalist. Father Amjad Sabbara - Franciscan friar. Tyme Khelefi - former violinist with the West-Eastern Divan orchestra. Daniel Cohen - former violinist with the West-Eastern Divan orchestra. (Photo: Israeli soldiers run towards the Church of the Nativity. Credit: Musa Al-Shaer/AFP via Getty Images)
Rioting broke out in 2000 after the Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon made a controversial visit to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's old city. In 2012, Mike Lanchin spoke to an Israeli and a Palestinian who were there that day. (Photo: Ariel Sharon is flanked by security guards as he leaves the al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Credit: AWAD AWAD/AFP via Getty Images)
Last month, we sat down with journalist and author Matti Friedman in a Jerusalem studio to talk about Leonard Cohen, the Israel-Diaspora relationship, and the turning point that was the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Selected by Vanity Fair as one of the best books of 2022, Friedman's “Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai,” explores the late poet and singer's concert tour on the front lines of the Yom Kippur War – a historic moment of introspection for the Jewish State that continues to reverberate through events we witness today. *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. __ Episode Lineup: (0:40) Matti Friedman __ Show Notes: Listen: From the Black-Jewish Caucus to Shabbat and Sunday Dinners: Connecting Through Food and Allyship How to Tell Fact from Fiction About the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Live from Jerusalem: Exploring Israel and the Media with Matti Friedman Watch: Should Diaspora Jews Have a Say in Israeli Affairs? Learn: Four Common Tough Questions on Israel 75 Years of Israel: How much do you know about the Jewish state? Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've enjoyed this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, tag us on social media with #PeopleofthePod, and hop onto Apple Podcasts to rate us and write a review, to help more listeners find us. __ Transcript of Interview with Matti Friedman: Manya Brachear Pashman: Matti Friedman has joined us on this podcast multiple times. Last year, he gave us an essential lesson on how to tell fact from fiction about Israel, and when AJC held its global forum in Jerusalem in 2018, he joined us for our first live recording, so I could not pass through Jerusalem without looking him up, Especially after learning that the writer behind Shtisel is adapting Matti's latest book, “Who By Fire” about the late great Leonard Cohen's time on the front lines of the Yom Kippur War. He joins us now in a studio in the Talpiot neighborhood of Jerusalem. Matti, welcome to People of the Pod. Matti Friedman: Thank you for having me. Manya Brachear Pashman: So I take it you're a fan of Leonard Cohen, or just as a journalist you find him fascinating? Matti Friedman: No, of course, I'm a fan of Leonard Cohen. First of all, I'm Canadian. So if you are Canadian, you really have no choice. You have to be a Leonard Cohen fan, and certainly if you're a Canadian Jew. We grew up listening to Leonard Cohen. So absolutely, I'm a big admirer of the man and his music. Manya Brachear Pashman: What are your favorite songs? Matti Friedman: Probably my favorite Leonard Cohen song is called “If it Be Your Will." Just a prayer that came out on a Cohen album in the 80s. But I love all the Cohen you know top 10- Suzanne and So Long Marianne, Famous Blue Raincoat and Chelsea Hotel. It's a very long list. Manya Brachear Pashman: So I should clarify that your book is not a biography of Leonard Cohen. It's about just a few weeks of his life when he came in 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, and these few weeks were a real turning point in his life, also for Israel, but we can talk about that later. But I want to know, why is it important? Why do you think it's important for Leonard Cohen fans, for Jews, particularly Israelis, to know this story about him? Matti Friedman: I think that those few weeks in the fall of 1973, when Cohen finds himself at the front of the Yom Kippur War, those weeks are really an incredible meeting of Israel and the diaspora, maybe one of the ultimate diaspora figures, Leonard Cohen, this kind of universal poet and creature of the village, and this product of a very specific moment in North American Jewish life, when Jews are really kind of bursting out of the ghetto and entering the mainstream. And we can think of names like Paul Simon and Bob Dylan, even Phil Ochs, and people like that. And Cohen is very much part of that. And he comes to Israel and meets, I guess the other main trend in Jewish history, in the second half of the 20th century, which is the State of Israel, and Israelis, who are not bursting into, you know, a universal culture in the United States, they're trying to create a very specific Jewish culture–in Hebrew, in this very kind of tortured scrap of the Middle East. And the meeting of those two sides, who have a very powerful connection to each other, but don't really understand each other. It's a very interesting meeting. And the fact that it happens at this moment of acute crisis, one of the darkest moments in Israel's history, which is the Yom Kippur War, that makes it even more powerful. So I think if we take that snapshot, from October 1973, we get something very interesting about Israel, and about the Jewish world and about this artist. And in some ways, I think those weeks really encapsulate much of Leonard Cohen's story. So it's not a biography, it doesn't trace his life from birth to death. But it gives us something very deep about the guy by looking at him at this very intense and kind of traumatic moment. Manya Brachear Pashman: Do you also think it sheds some light on the relationship between diaspora Jews and Israel? And how has that relationship changed and evolved since the 1970s? Matti Friedman: When Cohen embarks on this strange journey to the war, which, I mean, it's a long story, and I tell it in the book, but it starts on a Greek island or he's kind of holed up. He's in a crisis, and he's unhappy with his domestic life and he's unhappy with his creative life and he kind of needs to escape. So he gets on a ferry from the island and gets on an airplane from Athens and inserts himself into this war, by mistake, not really intending to do it. And he says in this manuscript that he writes about that time, which is unpublished until, until my own book, I published segments of it. He says, I'm going to my myth home. That's how he describes Israel. He uses this very interesting phrase myth home. And it's hard to understand exactly what he means. But I think many Jewish listeners will understand kind of almost automatically what that means. Israel is not necessarily your home. And it's possible that you've never even been there. But you have this sense that it is your mythical home or some alternate universe where you belong. And of course, that makes the relationship very fraught. It's a lot of baggage on a relationship with a country that is, after all, a foreign country. And Cohen lands in Israel and has a very powerful, but also very confusing time and leaves quite conflicted about it. And I think that is reflective, more generally of the experience of many Jews from the diaspora who come here with ideas about the country and then are forced to admit that those ideas have very little connection to reality. And it's one reason I think that I often meet Jews here from, you know, from North America, and they're not even fascinated by the country, but they're kind of thrown off by it, because it doesn't really function in the way they expect. It's a country in the Middle East. It's very different from Jewish life in North America. And as time goes on, those two things are increasingly disconnected from each other. Manya Brachear Pashman: Yeah. Which is something that I think you say, Israelis say repeatedly, that lots of people have opinions about Israel and decisions that are made and how it's run. But they have no idea what life is like here, right? That's part of the disconnect. And the reason why there's so much tumult. Matti Friedman: Yes, and runs in the other direction, too, of course. Israelis just have less and less idea of what animates Jews in the United States. So the idea that we're one people, and we should kind of automatically understand each other. That just doesn't work anymore. I think in the years after the Second World War, it might have worked better because people were more closely connected by family ties. So you'd have two brothers from Warsaw or whatever, and one would go to Rehovot, and one would go to Brooklyn, but they were brothers. And then in the next generation, you know, their children were cousins, and they kind of knew something about each other, but a few generations have gone by, and it's much more infrequent to find people who have Israeli cousins, or American cousins, you know, it might be second cousins or third cousins, but the familial connections have kind of frayed and because the communities are being formed by completely different sets of circumstances, it's much harder for Americans to understand Israelis and for Israelis to understand Americans. And we're really seeing that play out more and more in the communication or miscommunication between the two big Jewish communities here in the United States. Manya Brachear Pashman: So this is my first trip to Israel. And many people told me that I would never be the same after this trip. Was that true for Leonard Cohen? Matti Friedman: I think it was, I think it was a turning point in his life. Of course, I wrote a book about it. I would have to say that, even if it weren't true, but I happen to think that it is true. He comes here at a moment of a real kind of desperation, he had announced that he was retiring from music that year. So he had this string of hits, and he was a major star of the 60s and early 70s. And those really famous Cohen songs that I mentioned, most of them had already come out and he'd been playing at the biggest music festivals at the Isle of White, which was a bigger festival than Woodstock. And he was a big deal. And, and he just given up, he felt that he had hit a wall and he no longer had anything to say. And he was 39 years old. That's pretty old for a rock star. And he was in those days, of course, people are dying at 27. So he kind of thought he was washed up. And he came to Israel. And he writes in this manuscript, this very strange manuscript that he wrote, and then shelved, that he thinks that Israel is a place where he might be able to be born again, or just saying, again, he writes both of those thoughts. And in a very weird way, it happens. So he's too sophisticated a character to tell us exactly how that happened, or to ever say that he went to Israel and was saved or changed in some way. Leonard Cohen would never give us that moment that of course, as a journalist I'm looking for but they won't give us all we can do is look at the fact that he had announced his retirement before the war, came home from this war very rattled, not at all waving the Israeli flag and singing the national anthem or anything like that, but he came back invigorated in some way. And a few months after that war, he releases one of his best albums, which is called “New Skin for the Old Ceremony.” Which is a reference, of course, to circumcision, which is itself a kind of wink toward rebirth. And that album includes Chelsea Hotel and Lover Lover Lover and Who by Fire and he's back on the horse and he goes on to have this absolutely incredible career that lasts until he's 80 years old and beyond. Manya Brachear Pashman: So let's talk about Lover Lover Lover, and the line of that song. You had interviewed a former soldier on the frontlines in the Yom Kippur War. He had heard Leonard Cohen sing, was very moved by that song, which was composed on an Israeli Air Force Base, I believe originally. And then the album comes out and he hears it again. And something is different. The soldier is not happy about that. Can you talk a little bit about how you confirmed that? Matti Friedman: Right, so I spent a lot of time trying to track down the soldiers who had seen Leonard Cohen during this very weird concert tour that he ends up giving on the Sinai front of the Yom Kippur War. And it's this series of concerts, these very small concerts, mostly for just small units of soldiers who are in the sand and suddenly Leonard Cohen shows up in a jeep and plays music for them. And it's kind of a hallucinatory scene. And one of the soldiers told me that he will never forget the song that Cohen sang, and it was on the far side of the Suez Canal. So the Israeli army having kind of fallen back in the first week and a half of the war has crossed the Suez Canal, in the great counter attack that changes the course of the war, and now they're fighting on Egyptian territory. And one night, on that, on the far side of the canal, he meets Leonard Cohen, it's just kind of sitting on a helmet in the sand playing guitar, and he sang a song that would later become famous, but no one knew it at the time, because it had just been written. As you said, it was written for an audience of Israeli pilots at an Air Force base a few weeks before, or a few days before. And the song's lyrics address the Israeli soldiers as brothers. That's what the soldier remembered. And he said, I'll never forget it. He called us his brothers. And that was a big deal for the Israelis, to hear an international star like Leonard Cohen, say, I'm a member of this family, and you're my brothers. And that was a great memory. But there's no verse like that in the song Lover, Lover, Lover. And there's no reference at all that's explicit to Israeli soldiers. And the word brothers does not appear in the song. Manya Brachear Pashman: At least the one on the album, the song on the album. Matti Friedman: On the album, right. So that is the only one that was known at the time that I was writing the book. And then I kind of set it aside, I just figured that it was a strange memory that was, you know, mistaken or manufactured. And I didn't think much more about it. But I was going through Cohen's old notebooks and the Cohen archive in Los Angeles, which is where many of his documents are kept. And he had a notebook in his pocket throughout the war, and was writing down notes and writing down lyrics and writing on people's phone numbers. And in in the notebook, I found the first draft of Lover, Lover, Lover, and this verse, which had somehow disappeared from the song and the verse is a really powerful expression of identification, not uncomplicated identification, but definitely sympathy for the Israelis who was traveling with, he was traveling with a group of Israeli musicians, he was wearing something that looked a lot like an Israeli uniform, he was asking people to call him by his Hebrew name, which was Eliezer Cohen. So he was definitely, he had kind of gone native. And the verse, the verse goes, ‘I went down to the desert to help my brothers fight. I knew that they weren't wrong. I knew that they weren't right. But bones must stand up straight and walk and blood must move around. And men go making ugly lines across the holy ground.' It's quite a potent verse. And it definitely places Cohen on one side of the Yom Kippur War. And when he records the song, a few months later, that verse is gone. So he obviously made a different decision about how to locate himself in the experience. And ultimately, the experience of the war kind of disappears from the Cohen story. He doesn't talk about it. Later on, he very rarely makes any explicit reference to it. The Cohen biographies mention it in passing, but don't make a big deal of it. And I think that's in part because he always played it down. And when that soldier Shlomi Groner, who I call the soldier, but he's going into his seventies, but you know, for me, he's a soldier. He heard that song when it came out on the radio, and he was waiting for that verse where Cohen called Israeli soldiers, his brothers and the verse was gone. And he never forgave Leonard Cohen for it, for erasing that expression of tribal solidarity. And in fact, the years after the war, 1976, Cohen is playing the song in Paris, you can actually find this on YouTube. And he introduces the song to a French audience by saying, he admits that he wrote the song in the war in Sinai, and he says, he wrote the song for the Egyptians, and the Israelis, in that order. So he was very careful about, you know, where he placed himself, and he was a universal poet. He couldn't be on one side of a war, you couldn't be limited to any particular war, he was trying to address the human soul. And he was aware of that contradiction, which I think is a very Jewish contradiction. Is our Judaism best expressed by tribal solidarity, or is it best expressed in some kind of universal message about the shared humanity of anyone who might be reading a Leonard Cohen poem? So that tension is very much present for him and it's present for many of us. Manya Brachear Pashman: So he replaces the line though with watching the children, he goes down to watch the children fight. Matti Friedman: So before he erases the whole verse, he starts fiddling with it. And we can actually see this in the notebook because we can see him crossing out words and adding words. So he has this very strong sentence that says, I went down to the desert to help my brothers fight, which suggests active participation in this war and, and then we see that he's erase that line held my brothers fight, and he's replaced it with, I went on to the desert to watch the children fight. So now he's not helping, and it's not his brothers, he's kind of a parent at the sandbox watching some other people play in the sand. So he's taken a step back, he's taken himself out of the picture. And ultimately, that whole verse goes into the memory hold, and it only surfaces. When I found it, and I had the amazing experience of sending it to the soldier who'd heard it and didn't quite remember the words, he just remembered the word brothers. And over the years, I think he thought maybe he was mistaken, he wasn't 100% sure that he was remembering correctly and I had the opportunity to say, I found the verse, you're not crazy, here's the verse. It was quite a moment for him. Manya Brachear Pashman: Yeah, confirmation, validation. Certainly not an expression of solidarity anymore, but I read it as an expression of critique of war, right. Your government's sending sons and daughter's off to fight you know, that kind of critique, but it changes it when you know that he erased one sentiment and replaced it with another. Matti Friedman: Right, even finding the Yom Kippur War in the song now is very complicated, although when you know where it was written, then the song makes a lot more sense. When you think a song called Lover Lover Lover would be a love song, but it's not really if you listen to the lyrics. He says, “The Spirit of the song may rise up true and free. May be a shield for you, a shield against the enemy”. It's a weird lyric for a love song. But if you understand that he's writing for an audience of Israeli pilots are being absolutely shredded in the first week of the Yom Kippur War, it makes sense. The words start to make sense the kind of militaristic tone of the words and even the kind of rhythmic marching quality of the melody, it starts to make more sense, if we know where it was written, I think Cohen would probably deny. Cohen never wanted to be pinned down by journalism, you know, he wasn't writing a song about the Yom Kippur War. And I don't think he'd like what I'm doing, which is trying to pin him down and tie him to specific historical circumstances. But, that's what I'm doing. And I think it's very interesting to try to locate his art in a specific set of circumstances, which are, the Yom Kippur war, this absolute dark moment for Israel, a Jewish artist who's very preoccupied with his own Judaism, and who grows up in this really kind of rich and deep Jewish tradition in Montreal, and then kind of escapes it, but can never quite escape it and doesn't really want to escape it, or does he want to escape it and, and then here he is, in this incredible Jewish moment with the Israeli Army in 1973. And we even have a picture of him standing next to general Ariel Sharon, who is maybe the other symbolic Jew of the 20th century, right? You have Leonard Cohen, who is this universal artists, this kind of, you know, man of culture and a kind of a dissolute poet and and you have this uniform general, this kind of Jewish warrior, this kind of reborn new Jew of the Zionist imagination, and we have a photograph of them standing next to each other in the desert. I mean, it's quite an amazing moment. Manya Brachear Pashman: Yeah. I love that you use the word hallucinatory earlier to describe the soldier coming upon Leonard Cohen in the desert, because it reminded me that it was not Leonard Cohen's first tour of sorts in Israel. He had been in Israel the year before, 1972, gave a concert in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, very different shows. Can you speak to that? Matti Friedman: So Cohen was here a year before the war. And what's amazing is that you can actually see the concerts because there was a documentary filmmaker with him named Tony Palmer. And there's a documentary that ultimately comes out very briefly, that is shelved because Cohen hates it, and then resurfaces a couple of decades later, it's called Bird on a Wire. And it's worth seeing. And you can see the concert in Tel Aviv. And then the concert in Jerusalem the next day, which are the end of this problematic European tour, which kind of goes awry, as far as Cohen is concerned. In Tel Aviv, they have to stop a concert in the middle because there's a riot in the audience and for kind of strange technical reason, which was that the arena in Tel Aviv had decided to keep the audience really far away from the stage and people tried to get close to Leonard Cohen and Cohen wanted them to come closer to the stage because they were absurdly far from the musicians and they tried to move closer but the security guards wouldn't let them and they start, you know, people start fighting, and Cohen's begging them to calm down. And you can see this in the, in the documentary and then ultimately he leaves the stage, he says, you know, it's just not I can't perform like this, and he and the whole band just walk off the stage, and you get the impression that this country is on the brink of total chaos, like it's a place that's out of control. And then the next day, he's in Jerusalem for the last concert of this tour. And the concert also goes awry. But this time, it's Cohen's fault. And he is onstage, and you can see that he can't focus, like he just can't put it together. And in the documentary, you can see that he took acid before the show. So it might have had something to do with that. But also, it's just the fact that he's in Jerusalem. And for him, that's a big deal. And he just can't treat it like a normal place. It's not a normal concert. So there's, there's so much riding on it, that it's too much for him, and he just stops playing in the middle of a concert. And he starts talking to the audience about the Kabbalah. And it's an amazing speech, it's totally off the cuff. It's not something that he prepared, but he starts to explain that, in the Kabbalistic tradition, in order for God to be seated on his throne, Adam and Eve need to face each other, or the man and the woman need to face each other in order for the divine presence to be enthroned. And he says, my male and female sides aren't facing each other, so I can't get off the ground. And it's a terrible thing to have happen in Jerusalem. That's what he says. And then he leaves, he says, I'm gonna give you your money back, and he leaves. And instead of rioting, which is what you'd expect them to do, or getting really angry, or leaving, the audience starts to sing, “Haveinu Shalom Alechem,” that song from summer camp that everyone knows, I think they just assume that he would know it. And in the documentary, you see him in the dressing room trying to kind of get himself together. And hears the audience singing, a couple thousand young Israelis singing the song out in the auditorium, and he goes back out on stage and kind of just beams at that. He just kind of can't believe it, and just smiling out at them. They're entertaining him, but he's on the stage. And they're singing to him, and then the band comes back on. And they give this incredible show that ends with everyone crying. You see Cohen's crying and the band's crying and he says later that the only time that something like that had ever happened to him before was in Montreal when he was playing a show for an audience that included his family. So there was a lot going on for Cohen in Israel, it wasn't a normal place. It wasn't just a regular gig. And that's all present in his brain when he comes back the following year for the war. Manya Brachear Pashman: Makes that weird decision to get on the ferry, and come to Israel make a little more sense. I had tickets to see Leonard Cohen in 2013. He was in Chicago, and Pope Benedict the 16th decided to resign. And as the religion reporter, I had to give up those tickets and go to Rome on assignment. And I really regret that because he died in 2016. I never got the chance to see him live. Did you ever get the chance to see him live? Matti Friedman: I wonder if we should add that to the long list of, you know, Jewish claims against Catholicism, but I guess we can let it slide. I never got to see him. And I regret it to this day, of course, when he came to Israel in 2009 for this great concert that ended up being his last concert here. I had twins who were barely a year old. And I was kind of dysfunctional and hadn't slept in a long time. And I just couldn't get my act together to go. And that's when I got the idea for this book for the first time. And I said, well, you know, just catch him the next time he comes. You know, the guy was in his late 70s. There wasn't gonna be a next time. So it was a real lapse of judgment, which I regret of course. Manya Brachear Pashman: I do wonder if I should have gone to Rome for that unprecedented moment in history to cover that, kind wish I had been at the show. So you do think that the Jerusalem show played a role in him returning to Israel when it was under attack? Matti Friedman: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, he had this very again, complicated, powerful, not entirely positive experience in Israel. And he'd also met a woman here. And that also became clear when I was researching the book that there was, there was a relationship that began when he was here in 1972, and continued. He had a few contacts here, and it wasn't a completely foreign place. And he had some memory of it and some memory of it being a very powerful experience. But when he came in ‘73, he wasn't coming to play. So he didn't come with his guitar. He didn't bring any instruments. He didn't come with anyone. He came by himself. So there is no band. There's no crew, there's no PR people. He understands that there's some kind of crisis facing the Jewish people and he needs to be here. Manya Brachear Pashman: I interviewed Mishy Harman yesterday about the Declaration of Independence, the series that [the I`srael Story podcast] are doing, and he calls it one of Israel's last moments of consensus. We are at a very historic moment right now. How much did this kind of centrifugal force of the Yom Kippur War, where everybody was kind of scattered to different directions, very different ways of soul searching, very Cohen-esque. How much of that has to do with where Israel is now, 50 years later? Matti Friedman: That's a great question. The Yom Kippur war is this moment of crisis that changes the country and the country is a different place after the Yom Kippur War. So until 73, it's that old Israel where the leadership is very clear. It's the labor Zionist leadership. It's the founders of the country, Ben Gurion and Golda Meir, and the people who kind of willed this country into existence against long odds and won this incredible victory in the 1967 War. And then it's all shattered by this catastrophe in 1973. And even though Israel wins the war and the end, it's a victory that feels a lot like a defeat, and 2600 soldiers are killed in three weeks in a country of barely 3 million people and many more wounded and the whole country is kind of shocked. And it takes a few years for things to play out. But basically, the old Israeli consensus is shattered. And within a few years within the war, the Likud wins an election victory for the first time. And it's a direct result of, of a loss of faith and leadership after the Yom Kippur War. That's 1977. And then you have all kinds of different voices that emerge in Israel. So you have, you know, you have Likud. You have the voice of Israelis, who came from the Arab world who didn't share the background of, you know, Eastern Europe and Yiddish and who had a different kind of Judaism and a different kind of Zionism and they begin to express themselves in a more forceful way and you have Israelis who are demanding peace now. You know, on the left, and you have a settlement movement, the religious settlement movement really kind of becomes empowered and emboldened after the Yom Kippur War after the labor Zionist leadership loses its confidence and that's when you really start seeing movements like Gush Emunim pop up in the West Bank with this messianic script and so, so the the fracturing of that that consensus really happens in wake of Yom Kippur war and you can kind of see it in in the music, which is an interesting way of looking at it because the music until 73 had really been this folk music that still maybe the only place that still sees it as Israeli music might be American Jewish summer camp, where it kind of retains its, its, its hold and yeah, that those great old songs that were sung around the campfire and the songs of early Israel and that was very much the music that dominated the airwaves. After the Yom Kippur War, it's different, the singers start expressing themselves a lot less in the collective we and much more in using the word I and talking about their own soul and you hear a lot more about God after 73 than you did before. And the country really becomes a much more heterogeneous place and a much more difficult place, I think, to run and with that consensus, you're talking about the Declaration of Independence. And that series, by the way, Israel Story, which I highly recommend, it's a wonderful series about an incredible document, which we still should be proud of, and which we should pay much more attention to than we do. But when do we have consensus, when we're under incredible pressure from the outside. The Declaration of Independence is signed, you know, as we face the threat of invasion by fighter armies. So that's basically what it takes to get the Jews to sit down and agree with each other. And, you know, there are these years of crisis and poverty after the 48 war into the 60s. And that kind of keeps the consensus more or less in place, and then it fractures. And we're in a country where it's much easier to be many different things, you know, you can be ultra-Orthodox, and you can be Mizrachi, and you can be gay, and you can be all kinds of things that you couldn't really be here in the 60s. But at the same time, the consensus is so fractured, that we can barely, you know, form a coherent political system that works to solve the problems of the public. And we're really saying that in a very dramatic and disturbing way in the dysfunction, in the Knesset and in our political system, which is, you know, has become so extreme. The political system is simply incapable of a constructive role in the society and has moved from solving the problems of the society to creating problems for a society that probably doesn't have that many problems. And it's all a reflection of this kind of fracturing of the consensus and this disagreement on what it means to be Israeli what the meaning of the state is, once you don't have those labor Zionists saying, you know, we are a part of a global proletarian revolution, and the kibbutz is at the center of our national ethos. Okay, we don't have that. But then what is this place? And if you grab 10 Israelis on the street outside the studio, they'll give you 10 different answers. And increasingly, the answers are, are at odds with each other, and Israelis are at odds with each other. And the government instead of trying to ease those divisions, is exacerbating them for political gain. So you're right, this is a very important and I think, very dark moment for the society. Manya Brachear Pashman: And do you trace it back to that kind of individualistic approach that Cohen brought with him, and that the war, not that he introduced it to Israel, and it's all his fault, that the war, and its very dark outcome, dark victory, if you will, produced? Matti Friedman: I don't want to be too deterministic about it. But definitely, that is the moment of fracture. The old labor Zionist leadership would have faded anyway. And just looking at the world, that kind of ethos, and that ideology is kind of gone everywhere, not just in Israel. But definitely the moment that does it here is that war, and we're very much in post-1973 Israel. Which in some ways is good, again, a more pluralistic society is good. And I'm happy that many identities that were kind of in the basement before ‘73 are out of the basement. But we have not managed to find a replacement for that old unifying ideology. And we're really feeling it right now. Manya Brachear Pashman: Thank you so much, Matti, for joining us. Matti Friedman: Thank you very, very much. That was great.
Taking appropriate risks is necessary to succeed • Living in accordance with God's commands is the ultimate imperative; leave results and consequences to Him • By following the Lubavitcher Rebbe's advice, Ariel Sharon was spared from boarding a plane that was hijacked
This episode of the podcast features a conversation with Chiko Tamir, recorded in front of students at The Fletcher School for Law & Diplomacy at Tufts. Brigadier General Chiko Tamir is something of a battlefield legend in the Israeli Defense Forces. He is the former commander of the IDF's vaunted Golani Brigade and served as commander of the IDF's Gaza division, participating in seminal battles inside the Gaza Strip.As a young officer, he was tasked with establishing the EGOZ unit of the IDF, one of the most elite combat units anywhere in the world, with the specific goal of transforming Israel's posture from reactive to proactive against Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon.During the Second Itifada, Chiko personally coordinated with Ariel Sharon in order to beat back the terrorism and suicide bombing emanating from the West Bank.Today, he retains responsibility for readying IDF reservists for future conflicts inside Gaza.He joined The MirYam Institute on the east coast for a lecture series under our auspices that included presentations on Israel's national security at the United States Military Academy at West Point and the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts, as well as several presentations to community leaders in Massachusetts and New York.Follow the work of the MirYam Institute via any and all of the links below.Subscribe to The MirYam Institute Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...Follow Benjamin Anthony Twitter: https://bit.ly/3hZeOe9Like Benjamin Anthony Facebook: https://bit.ly/333Ct93Like The MirYam Institute Facebook: https://bit.ly/2SarHI3Follow The MirYam Institute Twitter: https://bit.ly/3jkeUyxThe MirYam Institute. Israel's Future in Israel's Hands.Support the show
Uzi Dayan was National Security Advisor to both Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon, helping them navigate the stormy waters of the Camp David Summit, the Oslo War and Operation Defensive Shield. Through it all, he labored to build his vision of a separation wall on a solid political foundation.
The world was a different place when we last met with the beloved Dr. Dan Schueftan on March 2022. Putin had just invaded Ukraine, in a move that Dan called ‘a self defeat of Russia'. The US and Iran were on the verge of cutting a new deal that would have allowed Iran access to enormous funds and normalized this barbaric regime among the nations. And the PM of Israel was Naftali Bennet. Indeed, many things can change in 10 months. Putin is still sunk in the muddy grounds of east Ukraine, and there is no end in sight for this war. Europe is struggling with devastating inflation and an energy crisis that threatens the very fabric of the union. And Iran became a strong ally of Putin, with its UAVs killing innocent Ukrainians - thus leading for the west to back off a deal, for the foreseeable future. Iran is also currently dealing with what looks like the biggest civil uprising in its history. To talk about all those fascinating geopolitical developments - and much much more - we're thrilled to be joined yet again by the one and only Dr. Schueftan. Dan is the head of the National Securities Studies Center at the University of Haifa. He has taught at the IDF National Security College and Command and Staff College. He was an advisor to Israel's National Security Council and former Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon. He's also the author of several books and articles on issues pertaining to Israel's National Security. He joins us today for the third time to talk about the Iranian Threat. (Main photo: Hagai Fried)
Meet Clément Soffer, an Egyptian born Jew living in the USA, who was present in private meetings with former Israeli Prime Ministers. Do not miss Clément's heartfelt plea to the Muslim world at the end.
The Jewish Story Season 6 Episode 9 – Boundary Issues Part V Uzi Dayan was national security advisor to both Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon, helping them navigate the stormy waters of the Camp David summit, the Oslo war and … Read the rest The post The Jewish Story Season 6: Boundary Issues Part V first appeared on Elmad Online Learning. Continue reading The Jewish Story Season 6: Boundary Issues Part V at Elmad Online Learning.
Uzi Dayan was national security advisor to both Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon, helping them navigate the stormy waters of the Camp David summit, the Oslo war and Operation Defensive Shield. Through it all, he labored to build his vision of a separation wall on a solid political foundation.
My guest this week is the distinguished historian Sir Lawrence Freedman. He is the author of a new book, Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine, and so we discuss the relationships and characters involved in conflicts post 1945. We talk Douglas MacArthur & Korea, the French in Indochina and Algeria, Kennedy and his generals, Ariel Sharon and his tyrannical tendencies, and the British approach.Lawrence takes a high level view, and so this is not a military tactics discussion, more how important personalities are, as opposed to political persuasion.Don't forget, you can claim your 50% discount on an annual subscription to the Aspects of History e-Magazine using the code HISTORY50% at checkout -remember to add the product first.Lawrence Freedman LinksCommandLawrence on TwitterAspects of History LinksOllie on TwitterSubscriptions @ Aspects of History
Starting on September 16, 1982 and extending over three days, right wing Christian militia forces went into the Sabra and Shatilla camps near Beirut and massacred 800 (or was it 3,000? Who knows for sure?) unarmed Palestinian refugees. The protests within Israel and world-wide were so strong that the right wing government of Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon was forced to set up a commission to determine what happened. This is a discussion of those incidents, and of the report. Warning: Not easy listening.
Every Friday in August we will publish some of our favourite audio long reads of 2022, in case you missed them, with an introduction from the editorial team to explain why we've chosen it. This week, from February: At a summer camp for kids from conflict zones, I met my brave, funny friend Aseel. He was Palestinian. I was Israeli. When he was killed by police, my hope for our future died with him. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod
Ett av Mellanösterns mest omtalade krigsbrott äger rum 1982 i Libanon. Jakten på sanningen ska pågå flera decennier. I skymningen den 16 september 1982 tågar en grupp tungt beväpnade män in i de palestinska flyktinglägren Sabra och Shatila i västra Beirut, Libanon. De tillhör det kristna partiet Falangisternas väpnade milis, och de vill utkräva blodshämnd. Trots internationella löften står civilbefolkningen skyddslös och 36 timmar senare ligger liken staplade i högar längs med de smala gränderna.Mitt i mardrömmen finns en svensk sjuksköterska. Två nordiska journalister blir bland de första att med egna ögon bevittna vad som hänt.Men vem bär egentligen blod på sina händer? Två decennier senare inleds en unik rättsprocess. Och i centrum står Israels premiärminister Ariel Sharon.Medverkandelista:Imad Qassem, överlevde massakern.Omar Daoud, överlevde massakern.Louise Norman, narkossköterska.Agneta Ramberg, dåvarande Mellanösternkorrespondent för Sveriges radio. Odd Karsten Tveit, dåvarande Mellanösternkorrespondent för NRK radio. Chibli Mallat, libanesisk människorättsjurist. En dokumentär av: Fanny Hedenmo. Producent: Lasse Truedson.Exekutiv producent: Jon Jordås/SR.Dokumentären är gjord av produktionsbolaget Tredje Statsmakten.Publicerad: 2022.
Ett av Mellanösterns mest omtalade krigsbrott äger rum 1982 i Libanon. Jakten på sanningen ska pågå flera decennier. I skymningen den 16 september 1982 tågar en grupp tungt beväpnade män in i de palestinska flyktinglägren Sabra och Shatila i västra Beirut, Libanon. De tillhör det kristna partiet Falangisternas väpnade milis, och de vill utkräva blodshämnd. Trots internationella löften står civilbefolkningen skyddslös och 36 timmar senare ligger liken staplade i högar längs med de smala gränderna.Mitt i mardrömmen finns en svensk sjuksköterska. Två nordiska journalister blir bland de första att med egna ögon bevittna vad som hänt.Men vem bär egentligen blod på sina händer? Två decennier senare inleds en unik rättsprocess. Och i centrum står Israels premiärminister Ariel Sharon.Medverkandelista:Imad Qassem, överlevde massakern.Omar Daoud, överlevde massakern.Louise Norman, narkossköterska.Agneta Ramberg, dåvarande Mellanösternkorrespondent för Sveriges radio. Odd Karsten Tveit, dåvarande Mellanösternkorrespondent för NRK radio. Chibli Mallat, libanesisk människorättsjurist. En dokumentär av: Fanny Hedenmo. Producent: Lasse Truedson.Exekutiv producent: Jon Jordås/SR.Dokumentären är gjord av produktionsbolaget Tredje Statsmakten.Publicerad: 2022.
Ett av Mellanösterns mest omtalade krigsbrott äger rum 1982 i Libanon. Jakten på sanningen ska pågå flera decennier. I skymningen den 16 september 1982 tågar en grupp tungt beväpnade män in i de palestinska flyktinglägren Sabra och Shatila i västra Beirut, Libanon. De tillhör det kristna partiet Falangisternas väpnade milis, och de vill utkräva blodshämnd. Trots internationella löften står civilbefolkningen skyddslös och 36 timmar senare ligger liken staplade i högar längs med de smala gränderna.Mitt i mardrömmen finns en svensk sjuksköterska. Två nordiska journalister blir bland de första att med egna ögon bevittna vad som hänt.Men vem bär egentligen blod på sina händer? Två decennier senare inleds en unik rättsprocess. Och i centrum står Israels premiärminister Ariel Sharon.Medverkandelista:Imad Qassem, överlevde massakern.Omar Daoud, överlevde massakern.Louise Norman, narkossköterska.Agneta Ramberg, dåvarande Mellanösternkorrespondent för Sveriges radio. Odd Karsten Tveit, dåvarande Mellanösternkorrespondent för NRK radio. Chibli Mallat, libanesisk människorättsjurist. En dokumentär av: Fanny Hedenmo. Producent: Lasse Truedson.Exekutiv producent: Jon Jordås/SR.Dokumentären är gjord av produktionsbolaget Tredje Statsmakten.Publicerad: 2022.
Ett av Mellanösterns mest omtalade krigsbrott äger rum 1982 i Libanon. Jakten på sanningen ska pågå flera decennier. I skymningen den 16 september 1982 tågar en grupp tungt beväpnade män in i de palestinska flyktinglägren Sabra och Shatila i västra Beirut, Libanon. De tillhör det kristna partiet Falangisternas väpnade milis, och de vill utkräva blodshämnd. Trots internationella löften står civilbefolkningen skyddslös och 36 timmar senare ligger liken staplade i högar längs med de smala gränderna.Mitt i mardrömmen finns en svensk sjuksköterska. Två nordiska journalister blir bland de första att med egna ögon bevittna vad som hänt.Men vem bär egentligen blod på sina händer? Två decennier senare inleds en unik rättsprocess. Och i centrum står Israels premiärminister Ariel Sharon.Medverkandelista:Imad Qassem, överlevde massakern.Omar Daoud, överlevde massakern.Louise Norman, narkossköterska.Agneta Ramberg, dåvarande Mellanösternkorrespondent för Sveriges radio. Odd Karsten Tveit, dåvarande Mellanösternkorrespondent för NRK radio. Chibli Mallat, libanesisk människorättsjurist. En dokumentär av: Fanny Hedenmo. Producent: Lasse Truedson.Exekutiv producent: Jon Jordås/SR.Dokumentären är gjord av produktionsbolaget Tredje Statsmakten.Publicerad: 2022.
Qibya is one of the saddest and most difficult events in Israeli history. A military unit enters a village, and when the raid is over, 43 homes had been demolished, and 69 civilians – mostly women and children – had been killed. This week, Noam asks, what happened here, and how does it impact the story we tell ourselves about Israel? ~~~~ This season of Unpacking Israeli History is generously sponsored by Marci & Andrew Spitzer and Barbara Sommer & Alan Fisher, and this episode is generously sponsored by the Center For Advancement of Jewish Education, and The Jewish Federation of Northern NJ. ~~~~ Learn more about Unpacked: https://jewishunpacked.com/about/ Visit Unpacked on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/unpacked Unpacking Israeli History about Black Saturday: https://jewishunpacked.com/black-saturday-how-far-would-you-go-for-a-homeland/ Unpacking Israeli History about the Mossad: https://jewishunpacked.com/the-mossad-three-tales-of-assassination/ ~~~~ Bibliography: Daniel Gordis, “Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn.” Howard Sachar, “A History of Israel, From the Birth of Zionism to Our Time.” Sapir Journal on power, vol 2, 2021. Rise and Kill First, Ronen Bergman On the Kanias family https://www.haaretz.co.il/misc/1.853441 https://www.sharett.org.il/downloads/doc-pics/doc03486.pdf On Israel's GDP: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?end=2020&locations=ZQ&most_recent_value_desc=true&start=2020&view=map On tzenna (austerity): https://gould.usc.edu/why/students/orgs/ilj/assets/docs/18-1%20Seidman.pdf On Israeli borders: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-54116567#:~:text=The%20fighting%20ended%20in%201949,Bank%20(occupied%20by%20Jordan) https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/arm01.asp On Moshe Dayan: Mordechai Bar-On, “Moshe Dayan: Israel's Controversial Hero.” https://jiss.org.il/en/henkin-high-price-blood-israels-security-doctrines/#:~:text=The%20Dayan%20doctrine%20was%20designed,war%20of%20attrition%20against%20Israel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzVrRStVo9k&ab_channel=ThamesTv On Ariel Sharon: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ariel-Sharon, “Warrior: The autobiography of Ariel Sharon,” p. 1989 Battle for Latrun: https://www.jpost.com/israel-guide/tel-aviv-and-center-tours/latrun-the-battle-for-latrun Participant account of Qibye (note he wasn't actually in the village, he was outside of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nQpBsvdzZ4&ab_channel=ToldotYisrael) Letter to UN Security Council from Jordanian envoy: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-185828/ On the aftermath: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2538005,