Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.

There are still lots of questions and not a lot of answers after a bold Israeli airstrike targeted a meeting of Hamas’s top leaders in Qatar’s capital, Doha, on Tuesday. According to some reports, the leadership had gathered to discuss a new US-sponsored hostage-ceasefire proposal aimed at ending the war in Gaza. At publication, reports still differ as to whether the attack was successful.

And just before recording on Wednesday, the IDF confirmed it had carried out strikes against the Houthis in Yemen, saying it struck military camps where operatives were gathered, the headquarters of the terror group’s propaganda division, and a fuel depot, in both Sanaa and in the al-Jawf area north of the capital.

Borschel-Dan asks Rettig Gur: Is Israel acting like an unpredictable "Middle Easterner" to restore deterrence on all fronts?

In a quick-take conversation, we hear why Rettig Gur doesn't put much weight into diplomatic theatrics as Israel fights its existential war against the Hamas terror group that launched the war on October 7, 2023.

We ask: What does it mean to fail in a daring op? Has Israel burned all of its allies' goodwill?

And so this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now?

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

Illustrative image: The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in Astana, Kazakhstan, October 13, 2022. (Vyacheslav Prokofyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.