Podcasts about haaretz weekly

As the number of Palestinian deaths in Gaza climbs to 20,000 while the number of Israeli soldiers killed in fighting grows daily, it is becoming harder every day for the two sides of the bloody conflict to see the humanity in the other side, says Sheren Falah Saab, who is covering the Gazan side of the conflict for Haaretz. Falah Saab tells Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer about the difficulty of covering a war when you can't be on the ground and the individual human stories among the thousands of Gazan victims of the war she has chosen to bring the world through her journalism. "In the end, they are human beings and Hamas didn't ask Gazans if they wanted to go to war or not," Falah Saab says, as she discusses the challenges of being an Arab citizen of Israel writing in Hebrew to Israeli readers at a time when speaking of death in Gaza "is taboo." She has personally lost friends on both sides of the conflict.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Houthis in Yemen, the Islamist rebel group that has shot missiles and drones at Israel and is now intensifying attacks on key shipping lanes in the Red Sea, have progressed from being "a nuisance and a headache to a major strategic threat to Israel," according to Dr. Yoel Guzansky, a former member of Israel's National Security Council and a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies. Their escalating attacks on international shipping over the course of the Israel-Hamas conflict have raised the stakes of Israel's conflict with its neighbors into a global concern. On Monday, the U.S. announced the formation of a coalition of ten nations to take action against the Houthi aggression against cargo ships which threatens global trade. On the Haaretz Weekly podcast, Guzansky, and Haaretz National Security editor Avi Scharf, sit down with host Allison Kaplan Sommer to discuss who the Houthis are and how Israel - and the world - should respond to them.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From the horrifying live videos broadcasted by Hamas militants on the morning of October 7 during their invasion of Israeli villages, to IDF soldiers entering Gaza, the bombarded buildings, and the long lines of refugees with few belongings – The Israel-Hamas war is probably the most continuously, visually, documented war in history. Pictures have great power. And that means those in power have a great interest in directing images towards their political narrative. On this episode of the Haaretz Weekly podcast, Israeli journalist and activist Anat Saragusti, who has lived and reported from both southern Israel and the Gaza Strip, and is recognized as Israel's first woman war photographer, talks to Esther Solomon about the striking visuals we have been exposed to since the October 7 massacre, and the one's that are missing in Israeli media. Saragusti is currently the curator of an exhibition called 'Local Testimony': a collection of the iconic photographs from the past year in Israel. In the conversation, Saragusti also addresses the fact that Israeli mainstream media barely shows images of what's happening in Gaza and isn't regularly reporting on the dire situation in the Strip. "The fact that Israeli audiences don't see images from Gaza means that journalists are not doing their jobs," she states matter-of-factly. "They have to show the images. Hebrew speaking Israelis watching television news are not exposed at all to what's going on in Gaza. We don't see the atrocities, the rubble, the destruction and the humanitarian crisis. The world sees something completely different."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week's episode of the Haaretz Weekly podcast, Haaretz English editor-in-chief Esther Solomon explores a topic that has angered the Israeli public since the start of the Israel-Hamas War: Why haven't representatives of the Red Cross been able to visit Israeli hostages who are being held in Gaza in unknown locations and conditions for almost two months? Are they not doing enough? In recent weeks, families of the hostages and many Israelis have harshly criticized the neutral humanitarian organization for not getting access to the hostages, some of them sick or elderly. As some captives were released by Hamas during a temporary cease-fire, Israelis – who were closely watching the daily releases on television - have started to see the Red Cross's representatives as taxi drivers, who can do nothing more than drive the hostages to the border. Haaretz correspondent Yael Friedson, Former chief liaison officer to the ICRC in the Israeli military, Jonathan Adiri, and International Committee of the Red Cross spokesperson in Jerusalem, Sarah Davis, weigh in.    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

While the world is watching the Israel-Hamas war unfold in Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank are suffering some of the worst violence and restrictions on their daily life in years. Since Hamas militants entered Israel on October 7 and killed an estimated 1,200 people, Israel's security forces have cracked down on Palestinian factions in West Bank cities, while also detaining a huge number of Palestinians and allowing settlers threaten and attack West Bank residents without consequences. In this week's episode of the Haaretz Weekly podcast, Haaretz West Bank correspondent Hagar Shezaf speaks to host Allison Kaplan Sommer about why ignoring settler violence and other deepening problems in the occupied West Bank is a very dangerous course of action for Israel. Since October 7, more than 200 Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces in the West Bank. "There have been mass arrests of Palestinians suspected of being part of Hamas and also other groups, and settler violence has increased – not that it wasn't very high before the war," says Shezaf. "This has resulted in some Palestinian villages evacuating themselves due to the settlers threats and violence." One of the main friction points has been the olive harvest. According to Shezaf, many Palestinians find themselves unable to harvest this year at all: "They [young settlers] have WhatsApp groups where they notify others about where there are Palestinians picking olives, and then they show up to scare them." Another critical issue in the conversation was the number of Palestinians detained in Israel since the start of the Gaza war. "One of the first things that Israel did on October 7 is cancel the work permits of thousands of Gazans," who were in Israel, working legally at the time. This has led to overpopulation and mistreatment of detainees. "A couple weeks into the war, I found out that two Palestinians had died in Israeli detention," in unrelated incidents, Shezaf shares. "Both of them were sick. One had diabetes and one was a cancer patient. When I spoke to the family of the detainee that had diabetes, they did not know that he died. It was a very unfortunate role that I played, confirming to his family that he died. He was a diabetic, but he basically died because no one gave him his medicine."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A disinformation war is raging online and Israel is losing, says Omer Benjakob, Haaretz cyber and technology correspondent at Haaretz. It isn't as if an effort isn't being made by Israel to professionally curate and manage information about its war with Hamas in a responsible and reliable “high value content,” he told to Allison Kaplan Sommer on the Haaretz Weekly podcast. “The problem is that when you juxtapose that to what Hamas is doing.” In today's digital space, Benjakob explains, “highly produced graphics looks like your country hired a PR company to do PR for you, which is literally what we do and what we've always done. The whole idea of Hasbara - that you need to do professional level kind of explanation - is actually shooting us in the foot right now. Hamas is just flooding the internet with raw materials that people can then supposedly check on their own.” When it's checked, much of it is unreliable and untrue but by then it's too late because they have controlled the discourse for days. Also on the podcast, 88-year-old Holocaust survivor Gidon Lev, who became a Tiktok sensation with nearly half a million followers, and his life partner Julie Gray. They explain why, with “grief and anger,” they deactivated their account this week as the platform was unwilling to confront the unprecedented wave of antisemitism that has overwhelmed Tiktok since the October 7 Hamas massacres. When asked about his initial reaction to October 7, Lev says: "I said to my son: ‘these people that did the massacre, they must have had Nazi instructors.' In some ways, they were even worse. I can't describe what they did.” Gray talked about the helplessness in the face of a wave of denialism and antisemitism that came with the Gaza War. "Our followers, who thanked us for learning [about the Holocaust], are the same people who are hating us now," she says. "They liked this little holocaust survivor with a sad sad tale. I'm used to getting hate from Nazis, the ones with the thunderbolts and swastikas, but the people that are sending us this hate now, their bios say ‘vegan' and ‘organic fiber creators' - they are our followers. So I feel like our three years of work have unraveled. That nothing was taught to them at all."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“I knew right away that sexual violence was part of the events of October 7, but obviously, I could not have known the extent of the cruelty that Hamas engaged in,” says Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, who served for 12 years on the UN Committee on Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women. Halperin-Kaddari now feels “completely betrayed” by the international women's rights organizations with whom she's worked for years, for their failure to condemn - or even recognize - the rape, kidnapping and other atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists against Israeli citizens on October 7. In conversation with Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Halperin-Kaddari, a member of the newly-formed Civil Commission on Hamas's Oct. 7th Crimes Against Women and director of the Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women at Bar-Ilan University, explains that “unlike any previous incidents of 'conflict related sexual violence,' as the UN calls it, the Hamas terrorists had body camera and they filmed their actions. They broadcasted it both to the families of the victims and on social media, so the horrific footage emerged right away.” Also on the podcast, domestic violence advocate Lili Ben Ami, founder of the Michal Sela Forum, expresses her deep concern over the dramatic expansion of the ability of Israelis to obtain personal weapons in a campaign initiated by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. Her organization, she says, “is now receiving calls every day from worried women and domestic violence survivors” that their abusers will now get access to a firearm. When her group looked into the matter, she tells Haaretz Weekly, they found that the distribution plan did not contain a screening mechanism that would prevent men with a criminal record related to domestic violence from obtaining a gun.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the first journalists to be embedded with forces in the Israeli army's ground operation in Gaza, Haaretz senior columnist Anshel Pfeffer shares his observations with Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer after returning from a challenging battlefield. Pfeffer, who accompanied a Givati infantry unit, tells how the maze of tunnels under Gaza forces the soldiers to continually sweep the territory from every angle so “gunners and the commanders can constantly look at every point where they think a tunnel could open up and to try and spot it before it's used to launch a missile against them.” He also addresses the “many convenient but very inaccurate comparisons” between the Russia-Ukraine war, which he also covered, and Israel's operation in Gaza, which is “totally different” both operationally and emotionally. While Russians ran away from serving in their war, he points to the highly motivated IDF soldiers who rushed to join in the fight after the atrocities of October 7. “Many of them know people who were killed, who were taken hostage, or wounded. Some of them are from families which have been forced to leave their homes because of the war. It's very personal for everybody. There's no question about it.” While the soldiers on the ground “are very focused on their mission,” Pfeffer says, “when you go up the IDF hierarchy to the top, there is a growing sense of frustration that there is no clear strategic idea of the next stage.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Prof. Dov Waxman has been on university campuses for several decades and experienced bursts of unrest following violence in the region and controversy over Israeli policies since the second intifada in the early 2000s. But what has happened since the brutal attack by Hamas on Israeli citizens on October 7 and Israel's retaliation in Gaza, he says, “has felt qualitatively different. The atmosphere is different from anything I've experienced in the past. The tensions are greater. The animosity is greater, the fear is greater,” Waxman, the director of UCLA's Israel Studies Center, tells Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer. In the past, Waxman says, he has felt that Jewish and Israeli advocacy groups tended to exaggerate the levels of antisemitism on campuses and that “it's grossly simplistic and reductionist to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism.” But in the last few weeks, there have been “manifestations and expressions of anti-Zionism that are antisemitic,” and “some campuses have actually become hostile environments for Jewish students.” Waxman believes that today, a vocal minority of students “have come to see Israel in such a negative way, to see it as essentially this kind of settler-colonial entity that has no right to exist.” He says “they have come to see all Israelis as effectively colonists and colonizers. That has led them to somehow think it's acceptable or tolerable or defensible to slaughter innocent Israeli civilians. And it's something that I and many of my colleagues have really been shocked by.” Also joining the podcast is Haaretz New York correspondent Judy Maltz, who has covered anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian protests in the U.S. since the start of the war. She believes the controversies and confrontations on campuses may change the way even the most status-conscious American Jewish parents view their children's options for higher education. “Many parents are asking themselves ‘What would be a safer school for my kids?' and whether they would rather send them to a place that's safe, but maybe not as prestigious – or a place that's prestigious but where they will have to walk around looking down as they move around campus and rush into their dorms so they don't have to confront anything that's very ugly.” Like Waxman, Maltz always felt the issue of antisemitism on campuses was overblown – until recently. “That has changed now,” she says. “I really think Jewish students don't feel safe on campuses, certainly those students that I have spoken to in the New York area. They don't feel safe walking around with a yarmulke on their head, while students are talking about the need to resist ‘Zionist genocide by any means necessary.' What I'm hearing from them is that they try to avoid campus. They don't hang out.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The “alternative universe” Rachel Goldberg has been living in since her son Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, was kidnapped by Hamas, has included non-stop interviews with the media. Rachel and her husband Jonathan have appeared on the cover of TIME Magazine and spoke to “any outlet that would talk” to them, to advocate for humanitarian treatment and expedited release of their son and over 220 hostages being held captive in Gaza. An appearance on CNN last week, she recounts to Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer, took an unexpected turn when anchor Anderson Cooper – who is making a documentary about the Supernova music festival massacre - put together her account of witnesses saying her son's arm had been severed, and something he had seen while in the field reporting on the deadly attack. “At the end of the interview, Anderson Cooper said: have you guys seen any video of Hersh? We said no - and we've had a friend who has been trying - searching through all the horrible videos that are out there. And then Anderson said, ‘I have a video of your son.'“ As to how the continuing efforts to release the hostages will play out, Goldberg hopes that even though "you have people in the street who have gone through complete and utter trauma and are thirsty for an aggressive response… the government is using every ounce of thoughtfulness and wisdom when making its plan." "There are hundreds of innocent hostages, and I'll also mention there are hundreds of thousands of innocent Gazans who are trapped there," she says. "We have to be very careful about not causing harm that we can't undo, and I think there is time to plan this out in a way that our soldiers are not embroiled in a situation that will bring us so much more pain, danger and loss of life."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How did Tel Aviv's Dizengoff square become a battleground for religion and gender segregation on Yom Kippur and how did the conflict become so charged and bitter? In conversation with Allison Kaplan Sommer on the Haaretz Weekly podcast, Orly Erez-Lizhovski, executive director of the Israel Religious Action Center and the country's leading attorney on gender segregation cases, explains the background to the disturbing pictures that dominated Israeli media over Judaism's most solemn holiday. The sight of Jews battling each other in the first Hebrew city were “heartbreaking” and “hard to watch” she said, and were caused by the “failed decisions” of the Israeli police and the Tel Aviv municipality, who refused to intervene when an illegal gender separation barrier was erected in the center of a public square. At the same time, she believes, this moment may represent a turning point, since it “marks a tremendous change in the attitude of this very liberal public toward both issues of religious pluralism and gender segregation. I think it's a very hard and difficult period, but it also signals change into what may be a better future.” This “awakening” she says is happening in the context of the battle against the Netanyahu government's judicial overhaul. “What people may have been willing to accept up until a few years ago, or up until basically the last few months, they are not willing to accept anymore.” The far right anti-liberal group that organized the prayer in Dizengoff square - Rosh Yehudi - "holds extremist views and has been trying to bring these views into the public sphere of Tel Aviv for years," adds Erez-Lizhovski, "But now they were confronted with a reality they have never met before."   Israelis like the ones who went out on Yom Kippur eve to confront the extremists who are trying to force a certain kind of Judaism on society, she says, now “understand that this is not only a fight for the democratic structure of Israel, it's a fight for our Jewish identity.”        See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this week's podcast, Haaretz New York correspondent Judy Maltz talks to Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's trip to the U.S. and the unprecedented demonstrations against him on American soil. Thousands of Israeli expats calling the Prime Minister of the Jewish state a “fascist” and a “dictator” on the streets of New York is not a site American Jews are used to, and as Maltz notes, many of them still haven't understood “the gravity, the severity, and the existential crisis” that the judicial overhaul represents for Israelis. “For American Jews, it is much more difficult to make sense of it all,” explains Maltz. “One woman I met at a meeting with Brothers and Sisters in Arms said: 'Israelis are always crying for help, there's terror attacks, or wars, missiles, or an election, there's always some crisis going on.' In a way, they are crying wolf… so Americans don't understand yet that this is something different, something we haven't seen before, an attack on the people from within. But it is starting to seep through." The expats, says Maltz, “understood from day one what this judicial overhaul means... Israelis in the diaspora want to know that there is a place to go back to. I think, that since the Yom Kippur war, there has not been an event that has shaken them up as much as the judicial overhaul."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this very special holiday Turducken of a podcast, we've stuffed into our own carcass an interview that Allison did for the Haaretz Weekly podcast with Noah and his comrade-in-politics Inbal Orpaz on why they are running for city council and what they stand for.  The tryptophan alone is reason enough to listen!

Constitutional expert Prof. Yaniv Roznai, an associate professor and Vice-Dean at Reichman University's Harry Radzyner Law School - and one of the leading academic voices in the protest movement against the judicial coup - attended the historic hearing at Israel's supreme court this week. After watching the sides debating the petitions against the first judicial overhaul law that the Netanyahu government had passed, Roznai joined Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer for a discussion about the anti-reasonableness law, the "inappropriate political speech" by judicial overhaul architect MK Simcha Rothman, the attacks by the coalition's attorney on Israel's Declaration of Independence and what the different outcomes of the court session could mean for Israel. Speaking about how the court ruling will impact Israel's future, Roznai finds it hard to believe that the government won't abide by it, but said "It's difficult to predict if the judges will strike down the anti-reasonableness law. It seems there is a majority of judges that would accept the proposition that the court has the authority to strike down basic laws. And this is the most important issue. But then the second part is whether this is the case they will intervene in. And here it's quite difficult to predict". If the government really does decide to ignore a supreme court ruling, Rozani warns, "That would mean complete anarchy." Because, "If the government doesn't abide by the ruling, why would ordinary citizens abide by it? Just imagine what it would mean for our partners in the EU and the U.S. I can't see it happening. It would be a complete destruction of the rule of law".See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As Israel wrestled with the assault of COVID-19 on its health care system, politics and public life, Professor Haggai Levine, an epidemiologist and chairman of Israel's Association of Public Health Physicians, became a familiar face on Israeli television screens. Today, Levine has moved from battling the coronavirus to fighting the Netanyahu government's judicial overhaul. He is a founding member of the “White Coats” collective, a grass-roots organization of doctors fighting the judicial coup, and has, each week, spoken at the mass protests against the overhaul, delivering the message that “in order for Israel's citizens to be healthy, we need a healthy government and a healthy democracy.” Speaking to Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Levine said that in his view, the threat to democracy - and the related threat to public health - “feels worse than the pandemic in terms of how we feel and in terms of what the future looks like.” He attributes this to the fact that this time, the country is facing an “internal threat” instead of battling together against a hostile nation or a rampaging virus. Levine notes that he wasn't totally taken by surprise by the current crisis since “we know from history, that after pandemics, there are often aftershocks… I expected that we would have several very tough years in Israel, and that there would be an unstable government.” In addition to other reasons that the overhaul is bad for health in Israel, he discusses the alarming brain drain statistics regarding the number of young doctors planning to emigrate after their training if the overhaul moves forward, and his colleagues who are training abroad “and are now extending the fellowship because they feel it's not a good time to go back to Israel.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Israeli democracy is facing its biggest challenge since the founding of the state, after the Knesset passed the first law in its package of legislation designed to cripple the judicial branch. Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, joins Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer to discuss what comes next in the battle between Benjamin Netanyahu's government, which appears determined to move forward with its “radical and extreme” judicial overhaul, and the protest movement that has been battling the move for the past 30 weeks. Plesner looks ahead to the Knesset session in the fall and, before that, the upcoming petitions against the law in the Supreme Court (sitting as the High Court of Justice). He also reacts to Netanyahu's refusal to state – in response to a question he was asked on both CNN and Fox News – that he would abide by any potential Supreme Court ruling striking down the reasonableness law that was passed last week. “I think it's despicable and a new low,” he says of Netanyahu's remarks. “Israel is a democracy and the basic character of democracies is the rule of law, human rights, an independent judiciary, and everyone in the land – including the politicians – obeying court decisions. And Netanyahu was elusive. I think this is very bad.” The fact that the prime minister “is conveying such a message is extremely reckless and disappointing,” he adds. Plesner, a military reservist in the elite Sayeret Matkal unit, also discusses the “heartbreaking” choice by his fellow soldiers to suspend their service due to opposition of the overhaul, as well as his recent call to the United States and American Jews not to give up on Israel. To American Jews who insist that internal Israeli affairs are none of their business, he counters that “of course it's your business if Israel ceases to be a Jewish and democratic state, and it turns into a religious ethno-nationalistic state – this will end the relationship between Israel and the majority of Diaspora Jewry.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Despite months of mass protests, Israel's far-right government pushed through a law weakening the country's Supreme Court on Monday. Under it, the Court is no longer able to strike down some government decisions. Fears over the effect this and other planned changes could have on Israel's democracy have driven hundreds of thousands of demonstrators to the streets, and a growing number of military reservists are refusing to report for active duty. Allison Kaplan Sommer is a journalist at Haaretz and host of Haaretz Weekly podcast. Today, she discusses where Israel goes from here, whether the country has fundamentally changed, and what this all means for Palestinians. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

As former US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk experienced one of the most devastating moments of the country's history - the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, during the time of Israel's deep divisions over the Oslo Peace Accords.  And yet, Indyk tells Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer, the current split over the judicial overhaul, following the passage of its first piece of legislation on Monday, is a “more fundamental” crisis. One that he says has left him “heartsick.” “Israel was born as a Jewish and democratic state. And throughout its history, for 75 years, there has always been that tension between its Jewish nature and its democratic nature and they remained in balance for those 75 years. Now they are out of balance.” Indyk said he is “deeply worried” both for the future of the US-Israel relationship and for Israel's security after it has become clear that that the government's unilateral actions have “undermined Israel's deterrent capability” given the decision of crucial fighter pilots to suspend their military service in protest of the overhaul.  “I think it's a very dark day in Israel's history,” Indyk said. “And I know that the Iranians in particular and their proxies around Israel's borders, and Israel's other enemies, were just sitting back and watching this in amazement, as Israel tears itself apart.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he says, has been “taken hostage” by the far-right parties in his coalition. On the podcast, Indyk also discusses his statements in a recent New York Times column in which he endorses an end to the $3.8 billion in U.S. military aid that Israel receives annually.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Among the numerous mass protests against the Israeli government's controversial legislative moves to weaken Israel's judicial system, the most influential effort has come from reservists in the country's elite military units threatening to refuse to report for duty. One of the reservists, Yiftach Golov, tells Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer that he and his comrades in the group Brothers and Sisters in Arms – who are visibly on the front lines of the protest movement – are determined to do all they can to fight what he calls Benjamin Netanyahu's “government of destruction.” “We haven't even moved our queen yet in this chess game,” Golov warns. “The fact that we are threatening not to volunteer in Israel's elite special units is only the beginning. We have much more ammunition in our arsenal.” Golov rejects critics in the government camp who say the defense of the country shouldn't be put at risk for political goals. As a soldier, he says, he vowed to fight any force that was putting the survival of the country at risk – even when the threat isn't an external one. “It's a crazy situation, but right now, our enemy comes from within. ... I feel that I'm serving my country for exactly the same values” as on the battlefield. Also on the podcast, Haaretz defense analyst Amos Harel talks about the reservists' actions, and their impact on the government's behavior. Harel says Netanyahu is “extremely concerned” about the reservists' actions – particularly those of its elite fighter pilots, who are vital to the Israel Defense Forces' combat readiness in case of attack, and the coalition is struggling with its response to a phenomenon that he says is “getting bigger” by the day.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Despite the weakened position of Russian President Vladimir Putin following the weekend's aborted coup, chances that Israel's government will change its policy in the Russia-Ukraine conflict are extremely low, says Haaretz senior correspondent Anshel Pfeffer, who has covered the war from the ground. “Israel has - both on a moral level and on a strategic level - been making a mistake by staying on the sidelines and keeping its relationship intact with the Russians,” Pfeffer tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer on Haaretz Weekly podcast. In a wide-ranging conversation, Sommer and Pfeffer, author of the book “Bibi: The Life and Turbulent Times of Benjamin Netanyahu” discuss producer Arnon Milchan's testimony in the Prime Minister's corruption trial that kicked off in Brighton, England this week, his sinking numbers in the polls, and the renewed effort to reboot the controversial judicial revolution. He also addresses the violent attacks on Palestinian towns by West Bank settlers in the wake of a deadly terror attack, and the response by far-right ministers in the government “who openly support this kind of vigilantism.” While they pay lip service against settlers taking the law into their own hands, “We know what Minister of National Missions Orit Struck, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have said in the past. And you can see it now in their body language when they're not saying it: that they're perfectly okay with, with the settlers going on rampage. So the only difference between this government (and those in the past) is that it's out in the open.”    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In a special podcast in honor of Israel's annual Book Week celebration, Haaretz Weekly is spotlighting two female Israeli journalists turned authors: Dina Kraft, co-author of Hannah Pick-Goslar's memoir “My Friend Anne Frank”; and Ruth Marks Eglash, a journalist who reported from Israel for the Washington Post for eight years before writing her debut novel, “Parallel Lines.” The world knows Anne Frank as a spirited teenager through her diary recounting her years in hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam. But her childhood friend Hannah Pick-Goslar knew her entire story from its hopeful beginning to its tragic end. “My Friend Anne Frank” – currently a New York Times best-seller – was written by Pick-Goslar and Kraft. In an interview with Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Kraft recounts her experience interviewing the 93-year-old Holocaust survivor during the last six months of her life. Pick-Goslar died in 2022, before the book was completed. Kraft shares how Anne and Hannah met as young children in Amsterdam, after their Jewish families fled Hitler's Germany, and were inseparable friends as they grew into teenagers. Until one day, following the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands, when Hannah went to see her friend and was “completely shocked to see breakfast dishes still in the sink and beds left unmade, which was never the case in a very orderly Frank household.” Years later, as Kraft describes, the two friends had a heartbreaking reunion at the fence separating them in Bergen-Belsen. Pick-Goslar remembered finding her once-vivacious friend “freezing, starving, with just a filthy blanket to keep her warm.” *** Also on the podcast, Ruth Marks Eglash tells the story behind her novel “Parallel Lines,” which follows modern-day Jerusalem life and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through the eyes of three young women: one Jewish secular Israeli, one ultra-Orthodox Jew and one East Jerusalem Palestinian, who live side-by-side but in entirely different worlds. Her book – inspired by having to make sense of the roller-coaster of conflict and violence in Israel's capital to her own teenage daughter while working as deputy bureau chief for The Washington Post – focuses on “how this conflict that we write about as journalists and that we read about as adults is impacting young people.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Trump indictment rocking the United States contains numerous references to foreign countries and military battle plans that many believe relate directly to Iran and Israel – and may have even originated in Israeli intelligence sources.  Haaretz diplomatic correspondent Amir Tibon joins Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer to discuss the indictment as well as the similarities between Trump's latest legal headaches and those of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was elected to Israel's highest office while on trial for corruption. “If you're an American watching anxiously and wondering what it's like to have a clash between a former president running for [office] again and the legal authorities, I don't think there's a lot of good news we can bring you from Israel,” Tibon said. If the documents squirreled away in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom were indeed Israel-related, “it wouldn't be the first time that Trump revealed secret information related to Israeli activities,” he added, recalling the 2017 incident in which the-then president reportedly gave Mossad intelligence to the Russians.  If they were, he predicts that “it won't be good for Israel to be part of the legal and political circus that will happen around this indictment. Tibon also gives an update on the U.S.-Iran negotiations to revive a nuclear deal over Israeli objections – and the continuing signs that full diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia may come sooner than we think.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

June 1 marks the beginning of Pride Month around the world, and in Israel, it is being launched with the annual Jerusalem March of Pride and Tolerance, the most tense of the month's events. Alona Nir Keren, a lesbian Reform rabbi who offers its opening blessing this year, has been part of the parade since it began in 2002. In this episode of Haaretz Weekly, she shares her memories of the early years, when the men who are today the country's national security and finance ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, waited for the revelers with donkeys on the parade route – “to send the message that homosexuality was the equivalent of sex with animals.” “These people are mean and they are vicious,” she says in conversation with host Allison Kaplan Sommer. “They're using fascist metaphors and ideas, and spreading hate. And this person [Ben-Gvir] is supposed to be in charge of my safety while I'm marching in this parade?” Despite the challenges, Nir Keren says she is determined to raise children who can “celebrate their Judaism but also the fact that they have two moms and not be ashamed of it.” Haaretz correspondent Linda Dayan also joins the podcast to describe the protests surrounding an event honoring U.S. author Abigail Shrier, who has written a book warning that a predatory transgender movement “is coming for” young girls. Dayan then shares her experiences at similar events where North American social conservatives Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson addressed Israeli audiences, and her observation that “suddenly very American, very British and very Western ideas about gender identity are making their way here” – sparking “a kind of discussion different from those I had ever heard before” in Israel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the protest movement against the Netanyahu government's judicial overhaul moved into its 20th week, there has been a clear shift in its focus. From battles over the billions of shekels in government budget expenditures on ultra-Orthodox schools that don't offer basic education, to turf wars over a yeshiva in downtown Tel Aviv and an indoor playground open on Shabbat, to a firestorm around a television talk show host calling ultra-Orthodox Israelis “bloodsuckers.” These days, the public discourse is all about the secular-Orthodox divide. Uri Keidar, CEO of Israel Hofsheet ("Be Free Israel") and Haaretz correspondent Judy Maltz join host Allison Kaplan Sommer on Haaretz Weekly to discuss the growing rift, how it relates to the wider struggle against the judicial coup, and the increasing frustration in the secular public. "I think we are starting to see the majority wake up," says Keidar, who believes that this majority is "over and done with" an ultra-Orthodox political agenda which "are not up to speed with the fact that we live in the 21st century." "A lot of angry, secular people are saying: enough is enough. We're sick and tired of sending our kids to the army, while ultra-Orthodox kids don't have to go, we're sick and tired of paying more and more taxes for things that we not only don't believe in, but that we are vehemently opposed to. And this is it. We're not going to put up with it anymore," observes Maltz. "A year ago, if somebody secular in Israel spoke out against the ultra-Orthodox sector, they would have been called anti-Semitic or a self-hating Jew - and that would have shut them up. Today, it's not shutting them up."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When journalist Barak Ravid's book "Trump's Peace: the Abraham Accords and the Reshaping of the Middle East" was published in Hebrew in 2021, two words in his text made international headlines. Bitter about the Israeli Prime Minister's eagerness to congratulate President Joe Biden on his win, Trump said of Benjamin Netanyahu in their 90-minute interview for the book: "Fuck him," making a point of declaring "I haven't spoken to him since." In a conversation with Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Ravid reports that two full years later, Trump and Netanyahu still haven't exchanged a word. On the occasion of the publication of his book in English - with new chapters updating the state of the Abraham Accords under the Biden administration, Ravid offers a look behind the scenes of his two lengthy interviews with Trump and how eager he was to express his unhappiness with Netanyahu's behavior. When Trump used the F-word, "It was at the end of a 20-minute monologue about all the bad things he thought about Netanyahu," Ravid shared, saying the interview revealed to him that the Trump-Netanyahu bromance "was like watching a show for four years. And then you realize that everything you saw was just BS, because the reality between those two was completely different." Also on this week's podcast, Haaretz English Editor in Chief Esther Solomon and correspondent Simon Waldman in Istanbul assess the political situation in Turkey after the election results leading to a second-round face-off for the presidency between incumbent Tayyip Erdogan and opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu. According to Waldman, the first round outcome is “the worst-case scenario” for the opposition.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After Israel assassinated three senior members of Islamic Jihad and killed at least ten civilians in airstrikes on the Gaza Strip in the wee hours of Tuesday morning in a military operation, the country tensely braced for expected retaliation.  Haaretz national security analyst Amos Harel joined Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer on Tuesday to assess what has been dubbed Operation Shield and Arrow. On the podcast, they discuss Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's political motives for greenlighting the assassinations.   The operation, Harel says, “is mostly a result of Israeli domestic considerations. Last week, after the death of jailed Islamic Jihad terrorists in an Israeli jail after a long hunger strike, Islamic Jihad reacted by launching more than 100 rockets and mortar bombs towards Israeli towns and villages around the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu hesitated, receiving a lot of criticism from both the opposition and the protest movement, and from within his government. So I don't think he had much choice.” Harel addresses the many questions Israelis were asking themselves Tuesday: should Israel batten down the hatches for a major extended military conflict with both Islamic Jihad and with Hamas in Gaza? What are the chances the conflict could extend to the West Bank and Israel's northern border? How aggressively will the Biden White House move to lower the flames and could the tense relationship between Washington and Jerusalem affect the US reaction to this crisis?   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is it time for the international community to stop talking about a ‘two-state solution' for Israel and the Palestinians, and begin instead to grapple with a ‘one-state reality'? That's the argument four leading political scientists recently made in a thought-provoking, and provocative, article that was published in Foreign Affairs. Two of the authors, Profs. Shibley Telhami and Marc Lynch, joined the Haaretz Weekly podcast to explain why they are calling on decision makers in Washington and elsewhere to ‘drop the façade' and recognize an ‘uncomfortable reality', and what could be the policy consequences of such a step. In their conversation with host Amir Tibon, they also discuss the prospect of violence and instability in the region, the impact of Netanyahu's new government, and the political crisis in the Palestinian national movement. Read more on the one-state reality and the two-state solution, on Haaretz.com: Israeli-Palestinian poll shows support for two-state solution at all-time low So You Don't Like the Two-state Solution? Meet the One-state Model CIA chief sees ‘unhappy resemblance' between current tensions and leadup to second IntifadaSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Prof. Karnit Flug was appointed as the first female governor of the Bank of Israel by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2013. Together they worked to stabilize and grow the country's economy – particularly its flourishing high-tech sector.  Now, she tells Haaretz Weekly, she no longer recognizes Netanyahu. He's not the same leader. The prime minister has ignored the alarm bells that she and other experts have been ringing regarding the harm his controversial judicial overhaul will cause Israel's economy.  “The warnings by experts on the economic effects and the effects on our national security are not falling on ears that are listening,” she tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer. “It's very hard to understand.”  Countries that have passed laws weakening their judicial branches, like Hungary and Poland,  have paid economic consequences. However, Flug stresses that the price is likely to be far higher in Israel. Not only will an expected decline in international credit ratings lead to “really detrimental long-term effects,” but the harm to the country's high-tech sector would be particularly devastating. Unlike Poland and Hungary, she notes, Israel's tech companies account for 10 percent of employment, 50 percent of exports and 25 percent of tax revenues.  Moreover, high-tech is “a very mobile sector” where companies can - and do - easily move to other countries.  “Our vulnerability is very, very strong,” says Flug, admitting that she is feeling “anxiety about what kind of country will be here for my children and for my grandchild.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Martin Indyk, who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel twice, made an unusual stop during a recent trip to Israel: He joined the massive Tel Aviv demonstration against Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to weaken the Israeli judicial system.  “I am dismayed and very concerned about this judicial revolution and the impact it will have on Israel's democracy – and therefore the impact it will have on U.S.-Israel relations,” Indyk told hosts Amir Tibon and Allison Kaplan Sommer on the latest episode of Haaretz Weekly.  “Undermining the basic tenets of the Israeli Declaration of Independence and the idea of being Jewish and democratic goes against everything American Jews believe in and support, and that's deeply troubling to the vast majority of them,” he added.  While the United States has in recent years been acting like an “indulgent uncle that is not willing to hold Israel to account when it acts against U.S. interests,” Indyk warned that this may not last forever. “The United States is a dinosaur that you can poke and poke, but it doesn't respond until one day it wakes up. And then it lifts its tail and comes down with a mighty thump.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of Haaretz Weekly, Israel's top analysts and experts discuss one year to the war in Ukraine from an Israeli perspective. The conversation was recorded as part of the 2023 Haaretz-UCLA conference on Israel and the New World (Dis)Order, and is now presented in audio version for our listeners to enjoy. Efraim Halevy, former chief of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, recalls his first-ever meeting with Vladimir Putin, and explains why it is a humiliation for the Russian autocrat to beg Iran for help in his disastrous war on Ukraine. Ksenia Svetlova, a former Israeli lawmaker, discusses the similiarities between Putin and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Our national security analyst Amos Harel shares what Israel's intelligence got wrong in the war's early stages, and Israeli journalist Yair Navot, a former Moscow correspondent, describes the dilemmas of Russia's remaining Jews.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It hasn't taken long for the protests against the Netanyahu government's judicial overhaul in Israel, to find their way to the United States. On this episode of Haaretz Weekly, attorney Oz Benamram – an Israeli living in New York – talks about how the protest wave has spread to multiple U.S. cities, drawing both Israeli expats and worried American Jews. “Normally, demonstrations in the United States are either pro-Israel or against Israel. This one is unique – because it's for Israel and also against the government, because this government works against the interests of Israel. So we're seeing people who have never demonstrated before,” Benamram tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer.  Also on the podcast, Haaretz's Washington correspondent Ben Samuels rounds up the reaction in the White House and Congress to the judicial plan, and explains U.S. President Joe Biden's “dilemma”: attempting to quell the violence in the West Bank, without directly addressing the extremist ministers who wield the power in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government. Join us on Sunday, March 5th, for the Haaretz-UCLA virtual conference on 'Israel and the New World (Dis)Order', broadcast live on the Haaretz website. Watch top experts and officials from Israel and the world discuss the most pressing issues of our time, from the rise of far-right nationalism to the global battle for democracy. Registration is FREE at this link.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of Haaretz Weekly, host Allison Kaplan Sommer talks to investigative journalists Omer Benjakob and Gur Megiddo about their months-long investigation, in collaboration with Radio France, The Guardian and other leading international media outlets, that revealed the dirty, secret methods of Israel's 'agents of chaos'. This investigation revealed how, from a small office building in a quiet suburb of Tel Aviv, a group of Israelis is disrupting democracy in various countries around the world, spreading dangerous misinformation and undermining the results of democratic elections. Their unbelievable and extremely disturbing story takes us from Israel to Kenya, Mexico, France and Burkina Faso, as influence ops, hacking, avatars and  false information come together to paint a freightening picture. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is running the country as his corruption trial continues no longer shocks Israelis. But maybe it should?  Yael Freidson, Haaretz's legal correspondent, has covered the Netanyahu trial every day since it began in 2020. On this episode of Haaretz Weekly she tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer there is no way to avoid the clear conflict of interest when a leader facing serious charges heads a government that wants to radically transform the legal system. "There are several ways in which Netanyahu could influence the course of his trial,” she explains. Freidson also reflects on the atmosphere of the court proceedings in Jerusalem – at which Netanyahu is completely absent. Also on the podcast, Haaretz correspondent Judy Maltz shares the experience of covering the historic mass demonstration last Monday, in which more than 100,000 Israelis flooded into Jerusalem to protest the judicial overhaul.  Read more about Israel's democratic crisis on Haaretz.com, and sign up for our daily newsletter, Haaretz Today, to get the most important stories from Israel straight into your inbox.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Trouble is brewing in Israel and the Palestinian territories, and an eruption of violence may be coming, warns veteran journalist Avi Issacharoff on the latest episode of Haaretz Weekly.  Issacharoff should know: he is not only a leading journalist covering Arab and Palestinian affairs, but also the co-creator of the international smash hit 'Fauda', which goes inside the lives of Israeli commandos, Palestinian terrorists and the ordinary people around them trying to to live their lives.  “You see the number of terrorist attacks. You see the number of casualties on the Palestinian side and casualties on the Israeli side. If it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck - at the end of the day - this is a duck and we are in a military confrontation.” In his conversation with host Allison Kaplan Sommer, he shares his reaction to the fact that Fauda, now in its fourth season, is currently the top Netflix show in Lebanon and enjoys popularity across the Arab world. Issacharoff also explains why he “couldn't invent a character” like far-right leader Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is trying to sell a “childish and infantile fantasy” to Israelis. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Legal scholar Alan Dershowitz has been a friend and adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin for decades. But when it comes to Netanyahu's plan to significantly weaken the Israeli Supreme Court, Dershowitz has a sharp warning for the prime minister. The move would be a “terrible mistake” and Netanyahu is “wrong” to push it through, Dershowitz tells hosts Amir Tibon and Allison Kaplan Sommer on Haaretz Weekly. Dershowitz warns that an ‘override clause' giving the government the power to cancel Supreme Court decisions that protect human rights would be extremely harmful to Israel, and that giving politicians ultimate control over judicial appointments is just as bad, even if some Israelis point to the United States (“why copy from us something that's been a disaster over here?”). Later on the podcast, starting at time code 18:25, we hear from Dr. Shikma Bressler – a physicist and one of the leaders of the protest movement against Netanyahu's judicial overhaul. Bressler, who was also involved in the demonstrations that brought down Netanyahu's previous government, explains why this time, just protesting in the streets won't be enough. “We have to be a lot more creative, and much more aggressive,” she says.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Israeli Supreme Court has a “huge amount of power while the foundation of that power is paper thin,” says Benjamin Wittes, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and editor-in-chief of the Lawfare Blog, in an interview with Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer.  This problematic combination, Wittes says, is why the Supreme Court is now “particularly vulnerable. It's as if you've built this giant and extremely powerful weapon, but built it on a pillar of sand.”  In a deep dive, Wittes explains and analyzes each of the controversial reforms planned by the Netanyahu government, their implications for the U.S.-Israel relationship and the likelihood that, if they pass, Israel's arguments for resisting international tribunals will be weakened.  Some elements of the judicial reform, Wittes warns, are “corrupt” and “very dangerous.” And speaking personally as a legal scholar and expert who has “engaged deeply” with Israel in the past, he says that if the reforms are implemented, it would “fundamentally change my regard for the integrity of the Israeli legal system.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“We live in a terrifying time, facing realities that we couldn't have dreamt about in our worst nightmares,” says the executive director of Israel's largest human rights organization, Noa Sattath, speaking with host Allison Kaplan Sommer on Haaretz Weekly.  The incoming government is threatening human and civil rights on so many different fronts, the head of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel says. She warns of assaults on the rights of Palestinians, refugees and asylum seekers, the LGBT community, and a general crackdown on freedom of speech and protest.  Yet despite the daunting situation, Sattath is confident in the ability of civil society to rally and blunt the worst of what she sees as the potential harm to Israeli democracy on the horizon. “On the one hand, I am overwhelmed by the damage that I worry this government will cause for generations. But on the other, I know we have a lot of power and the ability to block and mitigate everything that we can – and that will also have an impact over generations.” Listen to the full conversation, and read more about Israel's far-right government on Haaretz.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Benjamin Netanyahu's new government, based on the support of Israel's far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties, presents a real threat to the rights of Israeli women, warns Dr. Yofi Tirosh on this episode of Haaretz Weekly.  Increasing the powers of religious courts that discriminate against women, increasing gender segregation in the public sphere, and resisting initiatives combating violence against women in the name of preserving male authority in the home - these are only some of the hallmarks of the incoming coalition's agenda.  “We have major forces in the coalition who not only feel that women's issues and gender equality issues aren't high on their to-do list, but feel that the Israeli culture should be redesigned such that women step back from leadership positions in politics, science, economics and the media, and should resort to their true nature - their domestic roles,” says Tirosh, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University and a human rights activist. In her conversation with host Allison Kaplan Sommer, which took place hours before Netanyahu formally announced he has succeeded in forming a government, Tirosh reviews the various areas in which she believes the new male-dominated government will likely lead to “a dire regression” when it comes to the status of women.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Israel's incoming government led by Benjamin Netanyahu is gearing up to mortally wound Israeli democracy, warns Prof. Yaniv Roznai, a leading Israeli legal expert who is sounding the alarm over the 'override clause' - a piece of legislation that would dramatically alter the balance of power between Israel's politicians and the country's Supreme Court.  Roznai, an Associate Professor and Vice-Dean at Reichman University's Harry Radzyner Law School, joins host Allison Kaplan Sommer on Haaretz Weekly to explain exactly what the override clause is and why he believes it is so dangerous for Israel.  The measure, he says, would weaken the power of Israeli courts to protect the basic rights of the country's citizens and hand the ruling coalition excessive power, in a country that already lacks sufficient checks and balances.  What is happening now, he says, “kind of reminds me of Brexit. A day after Brexit was passed, people in the UK were Googling 'What is the EU?' I don't want to reach that point. It is too risky.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What exactly happened in the Israeli election? Where is the country heading as Benjamin Netanyahu returns to power with the most right-wing government in Israeli history? And do long-term voting trends offer any hope for the center-left? At the recent J Street annual conference in Washington, Haaretz Weekly podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer moderated a panel titled “A Deep Dive Into Israeli Politics.” The panelists analyzed and explored these questions, pointing to the profound challenges – and possible opportunities – the new political landscape holds. The panel was recorded to share with Haaretz podcast listeners.  On the panel: Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin, a public opinion expert and strategic consultant, fellow at the Century Foundation, columnist for Haaretz and co-host of the Elections Overdose podcast who has been a consultant for nine national campaigns in Israel.  Gadi Baltiansky, director general of the Geneva Initiative, an NGO that promotes the need to reach a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians through educational, diplomatic and political tools. He served as press secretary for former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and was a member of the Israeli official negotiation teams with Syria and the Palestinians. Sally Abed, a member of the national leadership at Standing Together, a grassroots social movement comprising Jews and Palestinians that promotes social, economic and climate justice. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Journalist and historian Eric Alterman joins Haaretz Weekly to discuss his new book "We Are Not One: A History of America's Fight Over Israel." From Eisenhower's confrontation with Ben Gurion to Netanyahu's clashes with Obama, Alterman walks us through some of the most important moments in the history of the U.S.-Israel relationship, and explains how the pro-Israeli lobby in America grew and transformed over the years.  Alterman also spoke about the trends within the Democratic party regarding Israel, and the divide between young, progressive American Jews and the community's establishment organizations when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians. How will Israel's new right-wing government impact these changes, and will Joe Biden be the last pro-Israeli president from his party? Listen to the full conversation with host Amir Tibon. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this week's edition of Haaretz Weekly, host Amir Tibon welcomes Washington Post political columnist E.J. Dionne and Haaretz journalist Allison Kaplan Sommer for an in-depth discussion of the results of the 2022 midterms and their impact on the U.S.-Israel relationship.  The results represented a defeat not just for Donald Trump but for his entire wing of the Republican Party, says Dionne, who is also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and professor at Georgetown University.  Coming right after a right-wing victory in Israel's election two weeks ago, the results in the U.S. were a disappointment for incoming prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will have to work for the next two years with an emboldened President Biden and a stronger Democratic party.  Taken together the two sets of election results present “a real challenge" for Israel, says Dionne.  “The swing vote in American opinion on Israel are liberal and democratic voters who have long supported the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, but also oppose settlements, are critical of Netanyahu and want a two state solution.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If one major story dominated Israel's 2022 Knesset election, it was the surging popularity of the Religious Zionism Party. The party's leaders Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, claim to have moderated their extremism, but their party platform reflects their racist, supremacist, homophobic, and theocratic views.  On this episode of Haaretz Weekly, which was recorded hours before Israelis went to the polls on Tuesday, Professor Jonathan Rynhold joins host Allison Kaplan Sommer to explain the reasons behind the rise of the party and why he holds Benjamin Netanyahu responsible for mainstreaming it.  In a wider context, Rynhold does not see believe that the surge in popularity of the far-right in Israel means that the country is following behind the trend of strengthening right-wing populist and xenophobic parties in Europe or Christian nationalism and Trumpism in the United States.  Instead, he says, “I think the rest of the world has become more like Israel.” Follow live coverage of Israel's political drama today on Haaretz.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ukraine has been begging Israel for defensive weapons systems since the start of the Russian invasion, but Israel has refused, fearing the wrath of Russian president Vladimir Putin.  Security expert and Haaretz journalist Yossi Melman tells Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer that Russian's recent use of Iranian suicide drones and expected deployment of Iranian-made ballistic missiles in Ukraine should drastically changes the equation for Israeli leaders. “Israel has always said that Iran is its number one enemy and they will fight Iran wherever they are - in Yemin, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. So what's the difference now with Ukraine? Iran is acquiring experience on the battlefield there which will turn against Israel in the near future: they are learning, they are improving their systems, and as a result, they will be able to upgrade their drones and their missiles, and send them all over the Middle East, including against Israel.” Also on the podcast, Haaretz journalist Sam Sokol shares stories from his recent journey across a “very very surreal” wartime Ukraine, and discusses the efforts to sustain Jewish life there and the “bitterness” he encountered regarding Israel's refusal to offer military assistance. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former U.S. president Donald Trump divided the Jewish community and American Jews from Israel  “just like he divided his political party, he divided his White House staff and he divided even his own family,” says Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for the New York Times on the latest episode of Haaretz Weekly.  Sowing discord was no “unfortunate consequence” of Trump's behavior: it was consistently his strategy, Baker told host Allison Kaplan Sommer in a wide-ranging interview on his new book  “The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021” co-authored with his wife Susan Glasser, a staff writer at the New Yorker (and previous Haaretz Weekly guest).  Baker offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at Trump's Israel policies, his falling out with former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the ‘deal of the century' and how those tensions inadvertently led to his greatest foreign policy achievement: the Abraham Accords. He also makes a prediction that if Trump were to win another term as president in 2024, his policy on Israel  would look “very different” than what he did previously. In the interview, Baker also shares juicy anecdotes about the time King Abdullah of Jordan “nearly had a heart attack” when Trump told him on the phone that he was “gonna give him the West Bank” and when President Vladimir Putin got so tired of Trump's bragging about places being named for him that Putin said, “maybe they should just name all of Israel after you, Donald.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the Jewish year 5782 comes to a close, we devote the first half of this week's Haaretz Weekly to discussing the biggest stories of the outgoing year – from Israel's short-lived “government of change” to the Jewish aspects of the war in Ukraine. Haaretz Deputy Editor Noa Landau joins host Amir Tibon in the studio, and they also discuss the happy dictators of the Middle East and whether next year will bring with it another Israeli election.  Later on the show, author Nir Baram, whose novel “World Shadow” was recently published in English, joins the podcast to discuss the fate of the Israeli left, the one-state reality on the ground in Israel-Palestine, and the thought-provoking idea of a billion-man strike, which is at the heart of his book. Listen to the full conversation with Nir starting at time code 17:45. Next week, due to Rosh Hashanah, we'll be taking a short holiday break. Shanah Tova to our listeners, we'll meet again in early October. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein began work on the documentary series “The US and the Holocaust” together with acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns, they, like other Americans, shared the common belief that America only rescued a small fraction of Europe's Jews because it was unaware of the systematic Nazi extermination in real time.  But, as they tell Allison Kaplan Sommer on Haaretz Weekly, an abundance of research shows that this myth has little basis. Among those “desperately” trying to seek refuge in the United States - and failing - was the family of Anne Frank, one of the Holocaust's most famous victims.  “We could have done so much more,” said Novick. “And that idea is very much in conflict with Americans' sense that we hold ourselves to a higher standard.”  Earlier on the show, Haaretz English editor-in-chief Esther Solomon reviews the life and legacy of Elizabeth II, and explains why so many British Jews revered the monarchy: “There is a strong connection between the welfare of a minority community like the Jewish community, and a stable political entity, of which the queen was the ultimate symbol.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What lies behind the charm offensive launched by Turkish president  Recep Tayyip Erdogan toward Israel that has resulted in the restoration of full diplomatic ties between the two countries last week, and how long will the honeymoon last?  Dr. Gallia Lindenstrauss, a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, and an expert in Turkish foreign policy joins Haaretz Weekly and says that when Erdogan reaches out to Israel, it's usually a sign of weakness. “He's at his worst point in terms of public support since he took power,” she tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer, noting that both Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid are facing elections in the coming year, and this fact also contributed to their reconciliation.  Also on this episode, Avi Scharf and Omer Benjakob unveil the new Haaretz Security, Cyber & Aviation desk and talk about some of its most interesting stories, from cyber-interference in the Israeli elections to arms trades between Russia and Iran, and also how they uncovered a fake news operation imitating a blog written by the editor-in-chief of Haaretz.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

U.S. President Joe Biden is set to arrive in Israel next week, and his top diplomat in the country says that the long-expected visit won't be affected by Israel's recently-announced election. “The show will go on,” Ambassador Thomas Nides told the Haaretz Weekly podcast in a special July 4th interview. “Joe Biden is coming here for the Israeli people. He's not coming for one political party or another,” Nides told hosts Allison Kaplan Sommer and Amir Tibon, describing the U.S. president as a “Zionist” who “knows more about the Middle East and Israel than probably any politician in the history of the United States.” In a wide-ranging interview held on the eve of the Knesset's vote to dissolve itself and Yair Lapid's instatement as caretaker prime minister, Nides lays out the goals of Biden's Mideast tour, with stops in Israel, the West Bank and Saudi Arabia. He also answers our questions on related policy issues from Ukraine and China to Iran. Also on this week's episode, a special announcement: Haaretz's Election Overdose podcast is back! As we begin the journey toward Israel's fifth election in three years, Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin will be in our studio each week to talk about the biggest political stories of the hour, and how they could impact the results in November. Listen to them discussing the Knesset's dissolution and Lapid's appointment, starting at time code 27:50. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, ending the federal right to abortion, it was “devastating,” says Sheila Katz, CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women, in an interview with Haaretz Weekly. “We had been mapping out every possible path this decision could go down. And the one the court chose was absolutely the worst,” Katz tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer. Katz has been spearheading the fight for abortion rights in the Jewish community under the banner of religious freedom. “Judaism not only permits abortion: our tradition commands it when it comes to protecting the life of the mother,” she says. Also on this week's episode: political consultant Dahlia Scheindlin analyzes the dissolution of the Knesset and what lies ahead as Israel faces its fifth election in three and a half years, and weighs the odds of a comeback for former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Trump adviser Steve Bannon has refused to testify to the congressional January 6 committee about his role in the Capitol insurrection. But he agreed to speak to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jennifer Senior – though when confronted he didn't tell her the truth. “He was definitely working the phones all day. And he was lying to me about it,” Senior tells Haaretz Weekly podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, discussing her recent profile of Bannon in The Atlantic. Senior also talks about how the U.S. alt-right movement has fanned the flames of antisemitism, and how Bannon dealt with being profiled by a Jewish woman. “He knew early on that I was Jewish and was therefore extremely awkward, almost clumsy, and trying to bring up how much he loved the Jews,” she says. “It was almost like that movie scene where Austin Powers sees a person with a mole and keeps accidentally saying the word ‘mole' out loud. Like he was staring at me and thinking, ‘Jew, Jew.'“   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“If I thought that I was going to win the Pulitzer for a book called ‘The Netanyahus' I would have to be crazy to want to be in Israel when that happened,” novelist Joshua Cohen tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer on Haaretz Weekly, shortly after arriving in Israel for the Jerusalem International Book Forum and Writers Festival.  In the interview, recorded in Tel Aviv days after he got the news, Cohen says he is still in shock that he had won the biggest literary prize in the United States for a novel “that has characters in it that most Americans can't pronounce their names.” Cohen's part-historical, part-fictional satire is subtitled “An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family.” Its main character is the brilliant but embittered Prof. Benzion Netanyahu, best-known today as the father of Israel's longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.  As he was writing, Cohen says, he “kept on thinking of the line in ‘The Big Lebowski' where the Dude says to Walter: ‘You're not wrong, you're just an asshole.' And that was Benzion Netanyahu." See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

All across the Middle East, Christian communities are in decline. In Gaza, once an early Christian city, there are only 800 Christians left. In Iraq, Christians whose lands were taken over by the Islamic State were forced to convert – or die. Author Janine di Giovanni joins Haaretz Weekly to discuss her book “The Vanishing: Faith, Loss, and the Twilight of Christianity in the Land of the Prophets," which documents this process. We ask her: Why are Christians leaving the region, what impact did Pope Francis' visit to Iraq have on the local community there, and what is Christianity's future in the land where it first appeared. The conversation starts at time code 13:30. Earlier on this week's episode, senior Haaretz journalist Noa Landau joins host Amir Tibon to discuss Israel's controversial decision to spy on its own citizens in response to the omicron variant's arrival. Why did left-wing politicians who previously opposed this policy now decide to allow it, and what eventually made the government change course?  Listen to the full conversation, and make sure to also read Noa's recent op-ed on the subject. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Foreign Policy recommends: Haaretz Weekly This week, Foreign Policy Playlist features the Haaretz Weekly podcast, in an episode about the NSO Group and its surveillance software Pegasus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Host Simon Spungin is joined by Prof. Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University and a former UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Occupied Palestine, who talks to Haaretz Weekly about the International Criminal Court, Zionism and his new political memoir, “Public Intellectual.” PLUS: A world exclusive of Daniel Guri de Lima’s first TikTok news rap in English. Links: Public Intellectual: The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim Haaretz's rap news with de Lima   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Days before the release of Seth Rogen’s latest movie – which he says is his most Jewish to date – the comedic actor sat down for a set-the-record straight Zoom conversation with Haaretz’s Allison Kaplan Sommer, after his controversial comments on Israel. You’ve read the article and you’ve seen the video – now listen to whole interview, exclusively on Haaretz Weekly. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two days after Israel’s three-peat election, and with 99.8 percent of the votes counted, Israel appears no closer to a functioning government than it was when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dissolved the Knesset in December 2018. Joining host Simon Spungin for a confusion-busting episode of Haaretz Weekly are Noa Landau, Anshel Pfeffer, Judy Maltz and Allison Kaplan Sommer.

With Israelis set to vote for a third time in less than a year, Haaretz Weekly discusses the rise in support for a predominantly Arab party among left-wing Jewish voters, who are disillusioned with the traditional “Zionist” parties. Host Simon Spungin is joined by Judy Maltz and Bradley Burston.

On today's two-part episode of Haaretz Weekly, host Simon Spungin is joined by senior Haaretz columnist Ravit Hecht to discuss the groundswell in anti-Arab racism that is dominating Israel’s third election campaign in a year. In part two, Haaretz’s resident film buff and TV critic Adrian Hennigan discusses the Oscar success of “Parasite,” the joy of “Jojo Rabbit” and the failure of Netflix to pick up any major awards.

In Part 1 of today’s Haaretz Weekly, host Simon Spungin talks to Anshel Pfeffer about last week’s Judaism, Israel and Diaspora conference in Jerusalem. We also hear from some of the participants in the conference, including Isaac Herzog, Natan Sharansky and Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur, on the main issues on the agenda, from anti-Semitism to Aliyah. In Part 2, David Makovsky – the Ziegler Distinguished Fellow in The Washington Institute's Program on the U.S.-Israel Strategic Relationship and director of the Project on Arab-Israel Relations – tells us about “Decision Points,” a new podcast which aims to provide fresh insights into critical moments in the U.S.-Israel relationship from prominent historians and policymakers.

Host Simon Spungin is joined by Anshel Pfeffer for a hastily arranged episode of Haaretz Weekly, in which we try to shed some light on Israel's masterclass in dysfunctional democracy. Will Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu manage – or even try – to form a new coalition; will President Reuven Rivlin tap Kahol Lavan leader Benny Gantz to have a crack; and will Avigdor Lieberman surprise everyone by backtracking on his demand for a secular coalition?

Washington is more hectic than ever, with seemingly historic events happening weekly, if not daily. How does an Israeli look at all of this? Or the current state of the U.S. relationship amid rising challenges on both the Left and Right? Trump's effect on the situation in general? Jumping over to Israel, what is day-to-day life like in the West Bank? Or Gaza? For this episode, I talk to Amir Tibon, who is currently the Haaretz Washington correspondent and co-author of the book, "The Last Palestinian: The Rise and Reign of Mahmoud Abbas." He is originally from the kibbutz of Nahal Oz, one of the closest Israeli villages to Gaza. Favorite Podcast: "The Axe Files," and the "Haaretz Weekly" Most Insightful Person to Follow on Social Media: Noam Tibon (Amir's dad) A book that has most shaped your thinking: The Bible (Torah)

On today's episode of Haaretz Weekly, senior commentator Chemi Shalev and host Simon Spungin discuss the upcoming Israeli election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's gaffe-prone visit to Warsaw and what American Jews and Israelis should learn from Ilhan Omar's controversial tweet. Follow Haaretz Weekly on iTunes, Spotify and Google Podcasts.

On this week's episode of Haaretz Weekly, host Simon Spungin talks to Washington correspondent Amir Tibon about the anti-BDS law which was passed last week by the U.S. Congress and to diplomatic correspondent Noa Landau about the upcoming Israeli election, fake news, Netanyahu's overseas trips, and even the Eurovision Song Contest. Follow Haaretz Weekly on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

In the first section of this two-part episode of Haaretz Weekly, host Simon Spungin talks to Yonatan Gher, director of Amnesty International Israel, about his organization's new campaign targeting online booking companies for "driving settlement expansion and profiting from war crimes." Has the campaign against Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia and TripAdvisor managed simultaneously to play into the hands of the BDS Movement and the Israeli right? In Part II, Simon is joined by Anshel Pfeffer for an obligatory but illuminating glance at the latest developments in the Israeli election campaign, which is now less than 10 weeks away. This week will see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party select its list of candidates for the election, which could give us some indication of who is in line to replace Netanyahu when his tenure is brought to an end – either by voters or by the attorney general. Listen to Amnesty International and The Guilty Feminist's "Secret Policeman's Podcast Live" here and here. Follow Haaretz Weekly on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

On this two-part episode of Haaretz Weekly, host Simon Spungin talks to Danielle Ziri – Haaretz's New York correspondent – about the Women's March: amid allegations of anti-Semitic sympathies and the newly approved policy of opposing anti-BDS legislation, we ask what place Jewish women can and should have in this sisterly movement. In Part 2, Bradley Burston describes his visit to the West Bank, as part of an upcoming series of articles on Haaretz.com about the future of the two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians. After carefully avoiding the quicksand – literal and figurative – we ask: What can Israelis who oppose occupation do to hasten its end, who could they possibly vote for in the upcoming election and is the warning sounded by historian Benny Morris too little, too late? Follow Haaretz Weekly on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of Haaretz Weekly, Haaretz's Anshel Pfeffer joins host Simon Spungin to discuss a wide range of subjects, from Israel's recently confirmed military activity in Syria to the spate of Jewish terror attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank. Why are outgoing IDF chief Gadi Eizenkot and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suddenly speaking so openly about airstrikes on Iranian targets in Syria? What will the U.S. military withdrawal mean for Israel's freedom of operation in the region? Why are centrist and right-of-center politicians so taciturn when it comes to condemning acts of violence committed by Jewish extremists?  What could Russia possibly hope to achieve by interfering in the Israeli election? And could a former defense minister who once called Peace Now a virus be the knight in shining armor for the anti-Bibi crowd? Follow Haaretz Weekly on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts or wherever you get your audio delights.

In this week's episode of the Haaretz Weekly podcast, host Simon Spungin is joined by Debra Nussbaum Cohen and Allison Kaplan Sommer for a wide-ranging discussion with a theme: disunity. Whether it's Jewish anti-occupation groups in the United States, opposition parties on both sides of the political divide in Israel or the Women's March, unity is hard to come by. How is Israel's election being played out in America? Are Jewish groups in the U.S. being energized by the influx of fresh faces on Capitol Hill? Have we gone beyond the point of maximum intersectionality? And who will be the Israeli Rashida Tlaib after the April 9th Knesset election?

In this week's episode of Haaretz Weekly, host Simon Spungin talks to Haaretz's Chemi Shalev and Judy Maltz about the biggest issues of the week: the formation of a new right-wing party, which seeks to provide an alternative to the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of the April election and the visit by the prime minister (and his wife and son) to Brazil, where they have been feted by the country's controversial president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro. We also ask: Could Netanyahu's reliance on the support of Donald Trump – political, moral and military – backfire, if the notoriously capricious president springs another unwelcome surprise on the Israeli prime minister? We also discuss Judy's recent investigative report into Evangelical funding of projects in Jewish communities in the West Bank. According to the report, more than $65 million has been poured into these projects over the past decade. Link: Inside the Evangelical Money Flowing Into the West Bank

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called a snap general election for early April – despite apparently having staved off previous threats to the stability of his coalition. In this breaking news edition of Haaretz Weekly, editor-in-chief Aluf Benn speculates on the logic behind the prime minister's timing and says that, by holding an election seven months earlier than expected, Netanyahu has potentially deflected two of the main threats to him winning a fifth term as prime minister: possible criminal charges for corruption, bribery and breach of trust – and an American peace plan which could be impossible for his supporters to swallow.

For the past 13 years, Israel has been waging all-our war against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement: diplomatic reservists have been drafted in, friends around the world have been rallied and there's even a government minister dedicated to tackling the 'strategic' problem. As part of this war, Israeli leaders brand any non-Israeli who supports BDS as anti-Semitic and Israeli supporters of the movement are called kapos, traitors and worse. But with BDS moving more into the American mainstream – two incoming members of Congress have expressed support for the movement and even the Anti-Defamation League has, in a leaked internal memo, questioned the wisdom of the anti-BDS campaign – we ask: Is this a war Israel can win? On this week's episode of Haaretz Weekly, host Simon Spungin talks to Israel's most controversial journalist, Gideon Levy, about boycotts, anti-Semitism and making Israelis' blood boil. Opinion // I feel no sympathy for the settlers - Gideon Levy

Last week, thousands of Israeli women held a nationwide day of protest against the inaction of the Israeli government and of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the face of rising violence against women. Since the start of this year, 24 girls and women have been murdered in Israel. Over half of these murders were committed by a male relative of the victim or a current or ex-partner. On this week's episode of Haaretz Weekly, host Simon Spungin is joined by Haaretz's Allison Kaplan Sommer and two of the organizers of last week's women's protest – Dror Sadot and Anat Nir – to discuss the struggle by women not only for government protection against violence, but also for a greater voice in running what is still a highly militaristic and male-dominated society. We also discuss the Women's March in the United States and ask whether, given that many people view the organization as tainted by some of its leaders' ties to virulent anti-Semites, Jewish women have a place alongside people like Tamika Mallory, Linda Sarsour and Carmen Perez.

In this week's episode of Haaretz Weekly, host Simon Spungin talks to Haaretz columnists Bradley Burston and Dina Kraft about Israel's diplomatic offensive to cozy up with some of the most repressive regimes in the world. Can Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fight anti-Semitism while embracing regimes and leaders who use the oldest hatred as a political tool? Does Israel even care about anti-Semitism and why is the Jewish state so willing to overlook Jew-hatred when it's expedient to do so? We also touch on the breaking news of the day – police recommendations to indict Netanyahu and his wife for bribery in Case 4000. In Part II, we usher in Hanukkah with a look at a Jewish-Muslim-Christian arts festival in Haifa and we taste some of the exotic sufganiyot – Hanukkah donuts – on sale in Tel Aviv.

In this week's episode of Haaretz Weekly, Simon Spungin hosts Haaretz senior columnist and U.S. Editor Chemi Shalev and Haaretz.com's opinions editor Esther Solomon to discuss U.S. President Donald Trump's so-called "deal of the century," Airbnb's decision to stop listing rental properties in the Israeli West Bank settlements and anti-Semitism – real and imagined. In Part 2 of the show, Sani Meo – publisher of "This Week in Palestine" – talks about publishing a cultural magazine under the yoke of occupation and has some tips for tourists planning on visiting the region over the holiday period. Follow Haaretz Weekly on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

On this week's edition of Haaretz Weekly, host Simon Spungin talks to Dina Kraft about the Midterm elections in the United States, billed by many as a referendum on President Donald Trump. We discuss the massive mobilization effort by Jewish organizations – especially targeting college students, who are traditionally unlikely to vote in Midterms. We also look back on a week of mourning in Pittsburgh, following the shooting attack that killed 11 Jewish worshipers.   In Part 2, we chat to Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn about the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the 23rd anniversary of which was marked on Saturday with a mass rally in Tel Aviv. Aluf explains why Rabin may have been the last Israeli leader to truly believe in democracy and why the rallies in his memory will always divide, rather than unify, the people of Israel. Sign up on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Send your comments to english@haaretz.co.il