Haaretz Podcast

With a Knesset vote paving the way to Israel’s fourth election in a row, Kahol Lavon leader Benny Gantz finally appears to be ready to sign the death warrant of Israel’s ailing coalition government. Host Allison Kaplan Sommer is joined by Chaim Levinson and Noa Landau to explain the fallout following the preliminary vote - and discuss why Israel’s current politics are so dysfunctional.  We ask: Will the vote actually lead to a fourth election as early as March, or will Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu figure out a way to delay the inevitable? Why is the Israeli left and center so visible and vocal on the streets demonstrating against Netanyahu’s government, but so weak and fragmented in the polls? And why, after Gantz has so visibly crashed and burned, are politicians and pundits looking so longingly at yet another general with no political experience - former chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot - to save the “anyone but Netanyahu” camp? 

Related reading: 

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-gantz-says-his-party-will-vote-with-the-opposition-to-dissolve-parliament-1.9340933 

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-with-another-election-looming-israel-s-center-left-is-looking-for-a-new-savior-1.9347711  

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-israeli-leftists-enough-with-the-generals-1.9338661

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Host Allison Kaplan Sommer is joined by Esther Solomon and Amir Tibon to discuss the aftermath of the dramatic assassination of the 'father of Iran’s military nuclear program,' its effect on the Trump-Biden transition, and the potential consequences of Iranian retaliation. PLUS: Has the liberal media been gaslighted by Trump and his supporters following his election defeat?

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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Amos Harel and Amir Tibon to discuss the flurry of activity – diplomatic and otherwise – surrounding the United States, Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Will defeated U.S. President Donald Trump use his last few weeks in office to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities – or is he too preoccupied with his quixotic battle against the election results? What plans do the newly installed Pentagon officials have for the last two months of the Trump Administration? And will Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seek or be given a green light to attack Iran?

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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Judy Maltz and Chemi Shalev on the day after Joe Biden was confirmed as the 46th president of the United States. The team discusses how Biden’s victory and Trump’s defeat will affect Israeli politics in general and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in particular. We also ask: Why will all eyes be on Iran during the transition period and the first weeks of the Biden Administration? What will become of the “Deal of the Century” and the Abraham Accords? Who will replace settlement-loving David Friedman as U.S. ambassador? And will Biden make good on his promise to put the fight against antisemitism high on his agenda?

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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Noa Landau, Aluf Benn and Anshel Pfeffer for a morning-after discussion on the interim results of the U.S. presidential election. Why could a second-term President Trump be a bigger headache for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than a Biden presidency? How should American Jews feel about tens of millions of their compatriots voting for a candidate who courts neo-Nazis? And can center-left candidates ever defeat their populist-nationalist rivals?

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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Chemi Shalev and Amir Tibon to discuss the Israeli and Jewish angles ahead of the U.S. presidential election. Are Israelis right to see Donald Trump as the best friend they’ve ever had in the White House – even if the president’s motives are unclear? Could an ousted Trump use the transition period to push through a series of far-reaching policy decisions vis-à-vis the Middle East? And was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to play along with Trump’s denigration of Democratic candidate Joe Biden the result of the Israeli leader’s displeasure at being forced to sign off on the U.S. sale of F-35 stealth bombers to the United Arab Emirates?

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Host Simon Spungin is joined by Judy Maltz, who explains the background to last week’s drama at the World Zionist Congress, where a coalition of rightists and ultra-Orthodox delegates tried to seize control of the organization’s main institutions. Plus: We’re joined by Adrian Hennigan, Haaretz’s reviewer-in-chief, to discuss Sacha Baron Cohen’s new Borat movie.

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Haaretz’s veteran intelligence and strategic affairs analyst Yossi Melman joins host Simon Spungin to discuss Israel’s continued sale of weapons and ammunition to Azerbaijan, which is engaged in a bloody conflict with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region in of the South Caucasus. Amid shifting and cynical regional alliances, how has Israel found itself on the same side of this conflict as Turkey? We also discuss the coronavirus crisis, protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the increasingly dangerous schism in Israeli society.

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Host Simon Spungin, Haaretz diplomatic correspondent Noa Landau and senior correspondent Anshel Pfeffer discuss the latest exit plan for Israel’s ongoing coronavirus lockdown, the false equivalency between the ban on protests and the closure of synagogues and yeshivas, the chances that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will call an election any time soon and how the outcome of the November 3 election in the United States could shake up Israeli politics.

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Host Simon Spungin is joined in the studio by Alex Griffing and remotely by Amos Harel and Chemi Shalev. In Part 1, the team discusses Israel’s ongoing national lockdown, which critics have described as political and intended to stifle protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In Part 2, we take on President Donald Trump’s positive COVID-19 test result and ask what this could mean for the election and potentially for Israel.

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