On Israel with Ben Caspit, an Al-Monitor podcast

Ben Caspit speaks this week with Geneva Initiative-Israel Director General Gadi Baltiansky. Commenting on the recent decision by Israeli authorities to advance construction of homes in West Bank settlements, Baltiansky says that "the Americans don’t want a confrontation with the Israeli government, and vice-versa. The US administration still senses relief over [former Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu being out of the game, and they know that the Bennet-Lapid government is the only alternative." For Baltiansky, as long as there are no dramatic steps on the ground, the Americans won’t engage seriously and deeply with this issue. 

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Ben Caspit hosts this week Alon Ben David, the senior military analyst for Channel 13 news. Ben David says that "in 2012 Israel abandoned practicing and preparing for a viable military option [to attack Iran]. Netanyahu was responding to requests made by the American administration at the time. Now the Israeli army is back to doing what it should have done long ago, namely preparing an option to be presented for the Israeli decision-makers." Still, he emphasizes that Israel’s military options vis-à-vis the Iranian nuclear program are very, very limited. "The ability to launch a strike that would stop the Iranian nuke program, like the strike in Iraq in 1981 or the strike in Syria in 2007, is almost non-existent."

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Ben Caspit talks this week to Dr. Eyal Zisser of Tel Aviv University. Zisser, an expert on Syria and Lebanon, reacts to recent incidents in Beirut, noting that while Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah is strong, he also has his own constraints and sources of weakness — particularly since not all the Shiites in Lebanon are following him. Zisser addresses the possibility of a civil war breaking out again in Lebanon, estimating that like in Syria, this could present a tactical threat to Israel, but not a strategic one.  

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Ben Caspit hosts this week on his podcast Professor Eviatar Matania of Tel-Aviv University, who has played a key role in turning Israel into a world cyber power. The book he coauthored recently with Amir Rapaport, titled Cybermania, has created a stir in Israel and elsewhere. Matania explains that in this domain, Israel is a real player, not just per capita, but in absolute numbers. “Forty percent of global private investments in cyber reach Israel, and one third of the unicorn companies belong to Israelis. These are real numbers of a global power,” he notes. 

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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Shmuel Rosner, the political editor of the Jewish Journal and a long-time contributor to the New York Times. Rosner says that the recent meeting in New York of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett with leaders of the American Jewish community was successful, first and foremost because they were happy to meet an Israeli prime minister who isn’t Benjamin Netanyahu. Referring to the strained relations that prevailed between Netanyahu and parts of the American Jewish community, Rosner says that “the leaders of the American Jewry are hoping that a fresh start [with Bennett] means getting rid of the illness that disrupted Israel-diaspora relations in the last decade.” Rosner adds that “Bennett’s message of reconciliation, his message concerning state and religious affairs in Israel, his message concerning a more pluralistic type of government, a more pluralistic type of Israeli society, all these are messages that are fairly easy to communicate to an American crowd, and the Jewish leaders indeed welcomed these messages.”

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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Channel 12’s diplomatic correspondent Dana Weiss. The senior analyst comments about Prime Minister Naftali Bennett appearing on Time Magazine's list of the 100 most influential people of 2021. What is amazing, she notes, is not that Bennett was included in the list, but rather that Arab politician Mansour Abbas would be the one to endorse him. "This is practically science fiction, to think that this could have happened. That this leader of an extreme right party and of the settlers, would be endorsed by someone that until the last elections was considered almost as an outcast in Israeli politics," she notes.

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Ben Caspit hosts this week Israel’s former ambassador to the United States Michael Oren. Ambassador Oren explains that while former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approach made the Iranian threat an Israeli issue, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is trying to internationalize it again. Still, Oren says that Israel must also remind the international community that it has the right and the historic duty to defend itself, and that it will take action should Iran try to break out towards a nuclear weapon. "We should be repeating that over and over again, as loudly as possible and at every possible forum," he notes. Ambassador Oren argues that the US does not necessarily need to choose between diplomacy and war against Iran, and that a military operation by heavy bombers against Iran would not necessarily mean war. 

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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Professor Yossi Shain, an international expert on political science who recently left the academic world to join Israeli politics. The new member of the Knesset from Yisrael Beitenu says that after the United States' painful withdrawal from Afghanistan, it must now reevaluate and determine American interests in the region. It also must reposition itself as a superpower vis-à-vis China. "Now, the administration has the opportunity to sit with the Israelis, their major allies who are also well equipped on intelligence, and really understand the risks, the advantages and the disadvantages the Middle East presents," he says.

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Ben Caspit talks this week with Moty Cristal, CEO and founder of NEST Consulting. Lt. Col. (res) Cristal, who served in the past as a negotiator and adviser in the prime minister’s office, comments on the Aug. 27 meeting between US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. According to Cristal, "The chemistry between the two leaders was good because Bennett really came prepared and humble." He further explains that Bennett approached the meeting with a lot of respect to the gap in age and experience vis-à-vis Biden, almost as a son to his father.  

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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Maya Jacobs, who heads Israeli NGO Zalul Environmental Association. For Jacobs, even though the new cabinet calls itself the government of change, no real change has been seen on environmental issues and no real commitment was made to addressing the dangers of climate change. "Despite having new governments in the US and in Israel, our government here keeps proving that climate change does not really interest it," she says. She feels that the new government is actually reducing the responsibilities of the ministry for environmental protection, instead of increasing its domain of authority.  

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