On Israel with Ben Caspit, an Al-Monitor podcast

Ben Caspit speaks this week with Orit Farkash Hacohen, Israel’s minister of tourism and strategic affairs. The Blue and White minister says an organized campaign on Arabic social media is now targeting the UAE, Bahrain and all other countries who have chosen the route of normalization with Israel. “In the ministry, we exposed this campaign for what it really is — a campaign financed by Hezbollah, other terror organizations and Iran, with the goal of de-legitimizing moderate countries,” Hacohen noted. She also says the current Israeli government made a mistake by placing all its eggs in the Republican basket, neglecting building stronger bridges with US democrats.

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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Brig. Gen. (ret) Michael Herzog, former chief of staff to Israel's defense minister, who discusses what Israel might expect from a Biden Administration, noting that "President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris have special feelings towards Israel’" which will keep the relationship with Israel strong, despite pressure from the progressive wing of the Democratic party to condition security aid to Israel on Jerusalem’s policies.

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Ben Caspit spoke with Israeli-American businessman and philanthropist Haim Saban, who is hailing Joe Biden’s victory. Saban thinks that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is still afraid of the unpredictable nature of President Donald Trump, who "shoots from the hip," and could turn against Netanyahu in a heartbeat. On the Democrats, Saban says that both Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are committed to US-Israel special relationship. Still he notes that a small minority within the Democratic party ("the squad”), which has a different approach on Israel, has grown stronger and louder after the last elections.  

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One day after former Vice President Joe Biden was declared winner of the US presidential election, Ben Caspit talks with Yaakov Katz, editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post. Katz says that Netanyahu now faces an uphill battle vis-à-vis the Democrats, who have not forgotten his animosity towards the Barack Obama administration. Katz notes he was shocked to see that French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and even Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev congratulated Biden immediately on his victory — while Netanyahu took his time, waiting until Sunday morning to tweet his own message of congratulations.  

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Four days before the presidential elections, Ben Caspit spoke with Dan Gillerman, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations. Gillerman thinks that whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden is elected, the US administration will strive for a deal with Iran. He also said that the trend of Arab countries normalizing ties with Israel will continue and increase after the Nov. 3 elections.  

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On the backdrop of Israel’s tenth annual cyber-tech conference, Ben Caspit speaks with Professor General (ret.) Itzhak Ben- Israel. Ben-Israel – a pioneer figure in the cyber technology sphere – tells how the country took it first steps in transforming technological know-how into civil and security uses. Still, Ben-Israel warns, ‘’Unlike most of our enemies in the Middle East, we are very much controlled by computers. Power production, water supply, transportation. You name it. Almost every system in Israel is controlled by computers.’’ For him, highly-developed countries are also more vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

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Ben Caspit talks this week with veteran Israeli diplomat, Foreign Ministry General Director Alon Ushpiz. Speaking about peace with the Gulf states, Ushpiz says, “The beauty of what we’ve been doing in the last two to three months, is that it continued what we’ve been doing for the last 20 years.’’ Relations with United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and other potential Gulf countries will be based on mutual recognition of the talents and achievements reached by all partners in space, healthcare, research and much more, says Ushpiz. 

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Ben Caspit talks this week with Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Gershon, who was one of the only IDF generals to express support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s settlement-annexation plan. The latter was subsequently abandoned for the sake of the normalization agreement with the United Arab Emirates. The decorated general insists that while peace with Gulf states has huge potential for geo-strategic change, implementing Israeli sovereignty over West Bank settlements could secure the country’s future for a hundred years and more and guarantee that future generations of Israelis won’t need to deal with a hostile entity to the east. 

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Ben Caspit talks with popular diplomatic analyst Barak Ravid on demonstrations in Israel, developments in Azerbaijan and the peace agreements signed with the Emirates and Bahrain. Ravid argues that contrary to affirmations by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that the peace agreements broke the old 'peace-for-land' paradigm, normalization with Arab world is directly connected to the Palestinian issue, and totally connected to the two-state solution. Ravid says that what really happened with these deals was the United Arab Emirates spearheading efforts to stop Netanyahu from moving forward with his annexation plan. 

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On this week’s episode, foreign news editor of Israel’s Channel 13 Nadav Eyal explains to Ben Caspit how the government failed in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic and why it pushed Israel to become the first western state to impose a second nationwide lockdown. Israel opened up its economy much too early after the first lockdown, with large weddings and mass gathering, Eyal says. “Even in Sweden they do not allow wedding of more than 50 people.”

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