Haaretz Podcast

After Israel assassinated three senior members of Islamic Jihad and killed at least ten civilians in airstrikes on the Gaza Strip in the wee hours of Tuesday morning in a military operation, the country tensely braced for expected retaliation. 

Haaretz national security analyst Amos Harel joined Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer on Tuesday to assess what has been dubbed Operation Shield and Arrow. On the podcast, they discuss Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political motives for greenlighting the assassinations.  

The operation, Harel says, “is mostly a result of Israeli domestic considerations. Last week, after the death of jailed Islamic Jihad terrorists in an Israeli jail after a long hunger strike, Islamic Jihad reacted by launching more than 100 rockets and mortar bombs towards Israeli towns and villages around the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu hesitated, receiving a lot of criticism from both the opposition and the protest movement, and from within his government. So I don't think he had much choice.”

Harel addresses the many questions Israelis were asking themselves Tuesday: should Israel batten down the hatches for a major extended military conflict with both Islamic Jihad and with Hamas in Gaza? What are the chances the conflict could extend to the West Bank and Israel’s northern border? How aggressively will the Biden White House move to lower the flames and could the tense relationship between Washington and Jerusalem affect the US reaction to this crisis?   

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Is it time for the international community to stop talking about a ‘two-state solution’ for Israel and the Palestinians, and begin instead to grapple with a ‘one-state reality’? That’s the argument four leading political scientists recently made in a thought-provoking, and provocative, article that was published in Foreign Affairs.

Two of the authors, Profs. Shibley Telhami and Marc Lynch, joined the Haaretz Weekly podcast to explain why they are calling on decision makers in Washington and elsewhere to ‘drop the façade’ and recognize an ‘uncomfortable reality’, and what could be the policy consequences of such a step. In their conversation with host Amir Tibon, they also discuss the prospect of violence and instability in the region, the impact of Netanyahu’s new government, and the political crisis in the Palestinian national movement.

Read more on the one-state reality and the two-state solution, on Haaretz.com:

Israeli-Palestinian poll shows support for two-state solution at all-time low

So You Don’t Like the Two-state Solution? Meet the One-state Model

CIA chief sees ‘unhappy resemblance’ between current tensions and leadup to second Intifada

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Prof. Karnit Flug was appointed as the first female governor of the Bank of Israel by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2013. Together they worked to stabilize and grow the country’s economy – particularly its flourishing high-tech sector. 

Now, she tells Haaretz Weekly, she no longer recognizes Netanyahu. He's not the same leader. The prime minister has ignored the alarm bells that she and other experts have been ringing regarding the harm his controversial judicial overhaul will cause Israel's economy. 

“The warnings by experts on the economic effects and the effects on our national security are not falling on ears that are listening,” she tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer. “It’s very hard to understand.” 

Countries that have passed laws weakening their judicial branches, like Hungary and Poland,  have paid economic consequences. However, Flug stresses that the price is likely to be far higher in Israel. Not only will an expected decline in international credit ratings lead to “really detrimental long-term effects,” but the harm to the country’s high-tech sector would be particularly devastating. Unlike Poland and Hungary, she notes, Israel’s tech companies account for 10 percent of employment, 50 percent of exports and 25 percent of tax revenues. 

Moreover, high-tech is “a very mobile sector” where companies can - and do - easily move to other countries.  “Our vulnerability is very, very strong,” says Flug, admitting that she is feeling “anxiety about what kind of country will be here for my children and for my grandchild.”

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Women’s rights in Israel are under danger, warns Prof. Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, a legal scholar and founding director of the Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women at Bar Ilan University. The risk is coming from their own government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu a host of far-right, ultra-religious parties.

The judicial overhaul led by Netanyahu, Halperin-Kaddari explains, poses great risks to Israeli women, since “the weakening of the power of the High Court of Justice will have a devastating impact on the ability of women to fight back against discriminatory laws.” 

In a conversation with host Allison Kaplan Sommer, she adds that “We have the clear examples of states in Europe who have been through this. It is exactly the way that Poland had gone, as well as Hungary and Turkey. And in each of these states, it was - and it still is - women who are paying the highest price.”1

She applauds the use of the image of the women in Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel-turned-TV series “The Handmaid’s Tale” as having been effective in focusing the Israeli public’s attention on these imminent threats. “The intentions of this government regarding women are very clear,” she says. “I truly fear that all these dystopian visions of the future are totally realistic.”

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Martin Indyk, who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel twice, made an unusual stop during a recent trip to Israel: He joined the massive Tel Aviv demonstration against Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to weaken the Israeli judicial system. 

“I am dismayed and very concerned about this judicial revolution and the impact it will have on Israel’s democracy – and therefore the impact it will have on U.S.-Israel relations,” Indyk told hosts Amir Tibon and Allison Kaplan Sommer on the latest episode of Haaretz Weekly. 

“Undermining the basic tenets of the Israeli Declaration of Independence and the idea of being Jewish and democratic goes against everything American Jews believe in and support, and that’s deeply troubling to the vast majority of them,” he added. 

While the United States has in recent years been acting like an “indulgent uncle that is not willing to hold Israel to account when it acts against U.S. interests,” Indyk warned that this may not last forever. “The United States is a dinosaur that you can poke and poke, but it doesn’t respond until one day it wakes up. And then it lifts its tail and comes down with a mighty thump.”

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On this episode of Haaretz Weekly, Israel's top analysts and experts discuss one year to the war in Ukraine from an Israeli perspective. The conversation was recorded as part of the 2023 Haaretz-UCLA conference on Israel and the New World (Dis)Order, and is now presented in audio version for our listeners to enjoy.

Efraim 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.

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It hasn’t taken long for the protests against the Netanyahu government’s judicial overhaul in Israel, to find their way to the United States. On this episode of Haaretz Weekly, attorney Oz Benamram – an Israeli living in New York – talks about how the protest wave has spread to multiple U.S. cities, drawing both Israeli expats and worried American Jews.

“Normally, demonstrations in the United States are either pro-Israel or against Israel. This one is unique – because it's for Israel and also against the government, because this government works against the interests of Israel. So we’re seeing people who have never demonstrated before,” Benamram tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer. 

Also on the podcast, Haaretz’s Washington correspondent Ben Samuels rounds up the reaction in the White House and Congress to the judicial plan, and explains U.S. President Joe Biden’s “dilemma”: attempting to quell the violence in the West Bank, without directly addressing the extremist ministers who wield the power in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

Join us on Sunday, March 5th, at the Haaretz-UCLA virtual conference on 'Israel and the New World (Dis)Order', which will be broadcast live on Haaretz.com. Watch top experts and officials from Israel and the world discuss the most pressing issues of our time, from the rise of far-right nationalism to the global battle for democracy. Registration is FREE at this link.

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

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The fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is running the country as his corruption trial continues no longer shocks Israelis. But maybe it should? 

Yael Freidson, Haaretz’s legal correspondent, has covered the Netanyahu trial every day since it began in 2020. On this episode of Haaretz Weekly she tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer there is no way to avoid the clear conflict of interest when a leader facing serious charges heads a government that wants to radically transform the legal system.

"There are several ways in which Netanyahu could influence the course of his trial,” she explains. Freidson also reflects on the atmosphere of the court proceedings in Jerusalem – at which Netanyahu is completely absent.

Also on the podcast, Haaretz correspondent Judy Maltz shares the experience of covering the historic mass demonstration last Monday, in which more than 100,000 Israelis flooded into Jerusalem to protest the judicial overhaul. 

Read more about Israel's democratic crisis on Haaretz.com, and sign up for our daily newsletter, Haaretz Today, to get the most important stories from Israel straight into your inbox.

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Trouble is brewing in Israel and the Palestinian territories, and an eruption of violence may be coming, warns veteran journalist Avi Issacharoff on the latest episode of Haaretz Weekly. 

Issacharoff should know: he is not only a leading journalist covering Arab and Palestinian affairs, but also the co-creator of the international smash hit 'Fauda', which goes inside the lives of Israeli commandos, Palestinian terrorists and the ordinary people around them trying to to live their lives. 

“You see the number of terrorist attacks. You see the number of casualties on the Palestinian side and casualties on the Israeli side. If it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck - at the end of the day - this is a duck and we are in a military confrontation.”

In his conversation with host Allison Kaplan Sommer, he shares his reaction to the fact that Fauda, now in its fourth season, is currently the top Netflix show in Lebanon and enjoys popularity across the Arab world. Issacharoff also explains why he “couldn’t invent a character” like far-right leader Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is trying to sell a “childish and infantile fantasy” to Israelis. 

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