Haaretz Podcast

Olive harvest season has become a flashpoint in the West Bank in recent years as extremist Israeli settlers regularly threaten and physically harm Palestinian harvesters, but this year, “the situation on the ground is out of control,” Anton Goodman of Rabbis for Human Rights said on the Haaretz Podcast. 

“We have never seen anything like this,” Goodman emphasized, noting that in the past, “We've seen settler attacks, and we've seen unnecessary army aggression and restrictions, but we've never seen such a peak moment of violence affecting so many communities.”

Goodman described the situation as a “perfect storm” with “extremists at the heart of the Israeli government, who have sent clear policy recommendations to the police” to refrain from arresting violent settlers so that “the rule of law is totally diminished.”

He also outlined the ways in which mainstream Religious Zionist institutions and their leaders are complicit – such as when the prominent rabbi Yaakov Medan encouraged his yeshiva students to spend the High Holidays at outposts that are illegal even under Israeli law.

Also on the podcast, Leila Stillman-Utterback recounts her experience as an 18-year-old Jewish American volunteer who was recently arrested at an olive harvest and then deported and banned from Israel for 10 years. While Israel has deported non-Jewish solidarity volunteers for years, Stillman-Utterback’s case is believed to be the first time Israel has deported a Diaspora Jew from the West Bank. 

Speaking from the United States, Stillman-Utterback said a court challenge to banning her entry to Israel is underway. 

Maintaining her connection to Israel, she said, is “incredibly important to me, even though I am extremely frustrated with the actions of the Israeli government, both in terms of the impunity for settler violence and their actions in Gaza.”

Read more:

Erased: Israeli Settlers' Brutal War on Palestinian Communities in the West Bank

IDF Reports Surge in West Bank Settler Attacks Against Palestinians, Says Police and Shin Bet Looking Away Amid Political Pressure

'We May Have Reached the Point Where Settlers Try to Kill Jews'

Analysis | There Will Be No Middle East Peace if Trump Turns a Blind Eye to Wild Settler Violence in the West Bank

Op-ed by Anton Goodman: How Israel's Violent West Bank Settlers Place Minors in the Line of Fire

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After October 7, actor, singer and writer Jonah Platt pivoted away from his entertainment career and poured all of his energy into what until then had been his “side hustle” – advocating for more “joyful” portrayals of Jews in Hollywood, and broadening his focus to include pro-Israel advocacy and fighting antisemitism. 

Platt joins the Haaretz Podcast where he discusses his own top-ranked Jewish podcast aimed at what he calls the “middle majority” of American Jews – engaging in pro-Israel advocacy while not hiding his misgivings and ambivalence about both U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

This, he tells podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, has drawn both admiration and attacks from across the political spectrum in the Jewish community and beyond.  

Platt notes that the criticism he gets from the Jewish left “mimics the hate that I get from non-Jews on the left, which is that I'm a nepo baby genocidal baby killer” while the attacks from the MAGA Jewish right “feels more like getting it from my own team.”

On the podcast, Platt also shares his views on conflicts within Jewish families over the Gaza war – including his own – and why he believes so many young New York Jews voted for Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.

Read more:

Paramount Studios Reportedly Keeps Internal Blacklist of Antisemitic Industry Figures

Pledge to Boycott Israeli Film Institutions Grows to Over 4,000 Signatories Since Monday

Israeli Artists React to Filmmakers' Boycott: 'We Aren't Doing Enough'

Uncanceled Nation: The Artists Who Perform in Israel, Despite Everything

Debra Messing, Liev Schreiber Among 1,200 Hollywood Figures Opposing Israeli Film Boycott

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The scandal rocking Israel’s military justice system has “serious ramifications” that could undermine the country both internally and in its ability to address accusations of war crimes overseas, Dr. Eran Shamir-Borer said on the Haaretz Podcast. 

Shamir-Borer, who served for over 20 years in the IDF Military Advocate General's Corps, and currently heads the Israel Democracy Institute’s Center for National Security and Democracy, said he was “personally and professionally shocked” by the admission of now-former Military Advocate General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi.

She was arrested and is now in detention after she admitted to leaking video documentation from July 2024 of IDF soldiers physically and sexually abusing a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman detention camp. Tomer-Yerushalmi is likely facing charges of participating in a cover-up of the leak, which involved misleading both the State Prosecutor’s office and the Supreme Court. 

On the podcast, Shamir-Borer, with host Allison Kaplan Sommer, lays out the dramatic events behind what’s being called the Sde Teiman Affair – and how the affair that “shocked him on so many levels” unfolded in his former military unit.

The affair, he fears, will both boost the power of those in the Netanyahu government working “trying to undermine the independence and professionalism of the justice system,” as well as “undermine the credibility of the IDF justice system overseas with serious repercussions for Israel and for those in its military service.”

Read more: 

Haaretz Explains | Two Leaks, Two Tales: Why the Prisoner Abuse Video Leak and the Bild Hamas Document Are Different

How the IDF Legal Chief Drama Overshadows the Abuse of Palestinian Prisoners

IDF Probe Into Sde Teiman Video Leak May Disrupt Abuse Investigation, Legal Sources Say

Ex-IDF Top Lawyer Sticks to Story in Initial Police Interrogation on Leaked Abuse Video

Israel Released Palestinian Detainee Allegedly Seen in Leaked Abuse Video Back to Gaza

We Served on Israel's Sde Teiman Base. Here's What We Did to Gazans Detained There

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The prospect of a New York City mayor who “won’t march in the Israel Day Parade, will not travel to Israel, who will divest from Israel” with a history of pro-Palestinian advocacy has brought many Jews to a place of “caution and worry” as they choose the city’s next leader, New York political reporter Jacob Kornbluh said on the Haaretz Podcast. 

At the same time, he stressed, despite the “fear campaign” that Jewish leaders and rabbis pursued against the 34-year-old Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, a large number of Jewish New Yorkers were casting their ballots for the man poised to make history as the city’s first Muslim mayor. 

Leading up to Election Day, Kornbluh noted “a changing mood among Jewish voters who say they disagree with Mamdani” and were “worried” about his positions on Israel – but “since they hate [Independent candidate] Andrew Cuomo, since they are Democrats, and since they want to participate in this election, they will hold their nose and vote for Mamdani.”

University administrator Dov Scheindlin, who is voting for Mamdani, also spoke with host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the podcast and explained the reasons for his choice despite disagreeing with the candidate on issues related to Israel. 

“On a personal level, I feel Mamdani’s demonstrated a tremendous commitment to the Jews of New York City,” Scheindlin said, attributing the candidate’s stated position as a reflection of his “sympathy with the Palestinians and a sense that the cause of Palestinian self-determination has been inhibited by the unfettered support for Israel the United States has offered.”

Join Haaretz and meet our journalists at the Other Israel Film Festival, running from November 6-13 in New York City. Use the code haaretz25 at checkout for 20 percent off admission. View the event schedule and buy tickets here.

Read more:

Rabbi Angela Buchdahl Slams Zohran Mamdani's Past Remarks as Antisemitic, 'Demonizing' Israelis

NYC Candidates Court Final Endorsements as Hasidic Leaders Criticize 'Scare Campaign' Against Mamdani

Cuomo Faces Backlash in New York Mayoral Race After 'Racist' Attack on Rival Mamdani

Opinion | I Oppose Mamdani's Stance on Israel. This Is Why I Am Voting for Him

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Throughout the Gaza war, the tremendous difference between international coverage and Israeli media coverage was obvious to anyone exposed to both. 

In a new report, media scholar Dr. Ayala Panievsky’s research quantifies precisely how pronounced that difference was. On the Haaretz Podcast, she said the silencing of dissent in Israel’s mainstream media was unprecedented. 

“The professional journalists, people who Israelis spend their entire lives trusting to tell them the truth, rallied around the military in many ways – any criticism of what our soldiers were doing was just out of bounds. It wasn't part of the conversation.”

In past coverage of war and conflict, she stressed, “there was no such silencing of any criticism and alternative voices,” attributing the difference to the tremendous amount of pressure by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on media outlets in recent years.

"The Netanyahu camp declared war on the media a decade ago. And when the war in Gaza broke, the mainstream media was already very much undermined, intimidated and exhausted.” 

In her conversation with host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Panievsky, author of “The New Censorship: How the War on the Media is Taking Us Down,” also discussed how the phenomenon of self-censorship is plaguing journalism worldwide.

In many countries, she said, authoritarian leaders “claim to speak on behalf of democracy” while “doing everything to undermine journalism and its role in society. … This is something very, very confusing, and difficult to tackle.

Join Haaretz and meet our journalists at the Other Israel Film Festival, running from November 6-13 in New York City. Use the code haaretz25 at checkout for 20 percent off admission. View the event schedule and buy tickets here.

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The turmoil around the Gaza war has transformed French Jews into “different people” than they were two years ago, pioneering rabbi Delphine Horvilleur said on the Haaretz Podcast.

“I don't know any of any Jewish family in France who hasn’t had a conversation around the Shabbat table,” Horvilleur said, contemplating possible emigration and wondering what will remain of Jews in France a decade from now. 

In her discussion with podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Horvilleur talks about inspiring the hit HBO show "Reformed" and the books she's penned herself: "Living with Our Dead" and "How Isn't It Going? Conversations After October 7." 

The rabbi also addressed the hate mail and death threats she received after writing a column in a French Jewish magazine last spring that was critical of far-right members of the Israeli government who justified denying humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza as legitimate acts of war. She noted the “really harsh” threats she received were smaller in number than the amount of support. 

“Even today, I walk in the streets of Paris, and Jews stop me and say, ‘thank you for speaking out, because we believe exactly what you said, but we cannot say it anymore.’ Somehow the crisis and the war and the pain and the trauma created an inability to talk.

"And for me, the real threat today lies in not being able to say what we think, to talk and re-engage in the Jewish conversation” in which, Horvilleur said, it is possible to be “both supportive of and critical of” Israel. 

Join Haaretz and meet our journalists at the Other Israel Film Festival, running from November 6-13 in New York City. Use the code haaretz25 at checkout for 20 percent off admission. View the event schedule and buy tickets here.

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The flow of high-level Trump administration officials to Israel in the wake of the Gaza cease-fire agreement has sent a clear signal to Israel’s prime minister and his government, columnist Joshua Leifer said on the Haaretz Podcast.

In a single week, envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived for an extended stay, followed by the first state visit of Vice President JD Vance. Secretary of State Marco Rubio followed on Thursday evening. 

For Leifer, “the bottom-line message to the world that the Trump administration is sending with these visits is ‘We don't trust Netanyahu to follow through on what he's agreed to,’ and they have a good reason to think that. At every opportunity, Netanyahu has made it clear that he is unhappy with the Gaza deal.”

Trump’s close supervision of Israel during the war – and afterwards, Leifer added, has been so unrelenting and it feels as if “in some sense, Israel has been put under a U.S. mandate.”

In his conversation with podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Leifer also discussed the way in which Trump “has completely scrambled American Jewish politics.” On one hand, he said, “American Jewish liberals loathe him and experience him and his followers as racist, sexist, homophobic and antisemitic” while “on the other hand, it's true that he managed to do what Joe Biden couldn’t: end the war and bring the hostages home.” 

Read more:

Hamas Disarmament and Turkey's Role: Vance's Israel Visit Aims to Address Key Postwar Gaza Questions

Vance Spotlights Hamas Violence on Israel Visit, but Netanyahu Is on a Short Leash

From Bear-hug to Bibi-sitting: Marco Rubio Flies Into a Tense Moment in U.S.-Israel Relations

Analysis | With One Eye on Reconstruction, U.S. Won't Let Fragile Gaza Cease-fire Go Up in Smoke

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From the international success of “Fauda” to Academy Award nominations and prestigious festival awards, the Israeli film and television industry was at a high point before the October 7 attacks.

Throughout the two-year Gaza war, the industry has struggled as international funding and festival invitations dried up, and Hollywood A-listers circulated petitions to boycott any association with the Israeli industry. Domestically, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has been hostile, especially when infuriated by films they view as too sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

Assaf Amir, chairman of the Israeli Academy of Film and Television, joins host Allison Kaplan Sommer to talk about the threat by Culture Minister Miki Zohar’s extreme reaction to the fact that the film winning this year’s Academy for Israel’s Best Picture was “The Sea” – about a Palestinian boy’s journey from the West Bank to Tel Aviv – which is now poised for submission in the Best Foreign Language film category at the Oscars. 

As a result, Zohar said he will defund the Academy prize and set up an alternative government award ceremony to choose a different Best Picture. Amir said on the podcast that he was unimpressed by the threat. 

“We'll see who submits their films to his prize and who he chooses to decide which of the films should win,” Amir said. 

As for the Hollywood boycotts, Amir said he would point to Israel’s Best Picture this year and ask the professionals signing the petitions where they stand on it. 

“Will they watch this Arabic-language film that was made by an Israeli and a Palestinian about a Palestinian boy from the West Bank trying to go to Tel Aviv – or would they boycott it? I think that's the question they should ask themselves, and I'm wondering what the answer is – because I would definitely urge them to watch this film.”

Read more:

Israel's Best Film Award Goes to 'The Sea,' Chosen to Represent Country at the Oscars

Government Says It Will Cut Israel Film Academy Funding After Film 'Depicting Israel Negatively' Wins

'If We Stop Deteriorating': Head of Israel's Film Academy Still Sees a Bright Future, Despite Political Pressures

1,300 International Actors and Filmmakers Pledge to Avoid Israeli Film Institutions 'Implicated in Gaza Genocide'

Debra Messing, Liev Schreiber Among 1,200 Hollywood Figures Opposing Israeli Film Boycott

Opinion | As an Israeli Filmmaker, Thank You to Everyone Who Is Boycotting My Works

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The miraculous release of Israel’s remaining 20 living hostages in Gaza may have been “the best news we’ve had for the last two years,” Haaretz senior security analyst Amos Harel said on the Haaretz Podcast. Yet a great deal remains to be resolved before anything resembling security is in place for Palestinians in Gaza or for Israelis.

Inside Gaza, Harel noted, “Hamas is already making its intentions clear – to remain by any means necessary. They're not going anywhere. They do not intend to dismantle their weapons.” He points to their recent violent execution of suspected Israeli collaborators and aggressive attacks on clans and factions who challenge their authority. 

With host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Harel breaks down the various complications regarding a postwar Gaza: Hamas’  failure to return a significant number of the bodies of the deceased hostages, the possible involvement of international forces to reign in Hamas after the IDF withdraws, the flow of humanitarian aid and how the Strip will be governed.

He also reflected on Donald Trump’s boldly frank speech in the Knesset in which the U.S. leader openly called on Israel’s president to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his corruption trial. 

“Netanyahu’s crowd has been complaining and whining for the last two days that he's not getting enough respect and not enough ‘thank you’s’ for bringing the hostages back,” Harel said. “Well, there's a simple reason for that. ...It was not thanks to Netanyahu. It was because Trump finally pulled weight and forced Netanyahu’s hand. This is what happened.” 

Read more:

Analysis by Amos Harel | End of Gaza War Could Open Door to Major Diplomatic Shifts in the Middle East

Trump: I Spoke to Hamas; They Said They Will Disarm. If They Don't, We Will, 'Perhaps Violently'

This Isn't Over': Families of Deceased Israeli Hostages Warn of Government Neglect, Public Fatigue

Trump Urges Pardon for Netanyahu in Knesset Address: 'Give Him a Pardon, Come On'

'The Color Is Returning to His Face': Parents of Freed Hostages Share Details From Gaza Captivity

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The Gaza war may be finally coming to an end, but it has made a long-term impact on Israel and the way the world views the Jewish state – including Diaspora Jews – especially those who spent the war on turbulent university campuses. 

Judy Maltz, Haaretz's Jewish World Editor, surveyed the effect of the two-year conflict on a group of young Jews from around the world, seeking to understand how their evolving views on Israel, antisemitism and Jewish identity changed since October 7. 

She found that a “vast majority of them” were “very, very troubled and distressed” after the October 7 attacks and were initially fully supportive of the Israeli incursion into Gaza. But two years into the war, “I did not find even one who could say wholeheartedly that they supported its continuation.”

For some of the students, their changing sentiments propelled them into activism supporting protests to end the war. Others were motivated to step up their involvement in fighting campus antisemitism, which many experienced for the first time in their lives. 

Sometimes, students in the same country had completely contradictory experiences, Maltz reported. In Australia, she found one student who said they had encountered no hostility whatsoever, even as she was out demonstrating for the hostages with an Israeli flag.  Yet another “had such a horrific experience that he's moving to Israel at the end of the year. He says Australia is no longer his home.”

Read more:

'I Was Defending Something I No Longer Believed In': How Two Years of the Gaza War Changed Jewish Students Around the World

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