Haaretz Podcast

Israel and Ireland are in the midst of a diplomatic crisis – with the Israeli embassy in Dublin closed in protest of Ireland’s decision to join South Africa’s genocide lawsuit at the International Court of Justice and its recognition of a Palestinian state.

But that didn’t stop the Irish embassy in Tel Aviv from inviting peace activist Bronagh Hinds to meet with Jewish and Palestinian civil society organizations and women’s groups to share the lessons learned in Northern Ireland and encourage them to take bold steps towards peace even as their leaders hesitate. 

Hines is best known for helping create a women's coalition that played a key role in the Good Friday agreement negotiations. On the Haaretz Podcast, Bronagh discussed her visit and the tense Israeli-Irish standoff. “In Ireland, people are sad about the shuttering and the breaking of the relationship,” she said, but “they also understand the Irish government's position.”

She noted that until the 1990’s, the ethnic and territorial conflicts in the world considered most intractable were Northern Ireland, South Africa and Israel and Palestine. “I'm not surprised that South Africa and Ireland did what they did, because in both of those conflicts, the issues of equality and the human rights and the humanitarian issues were extremely important … I truly believe that the Irish government is doing what it has done from an understanding about how one gets to a peace process.“ 

The process of reconciliation between peoples with a violent and traumatic history of conflict is deeply challenging, Hinds admitted, emphasizing that successful conflict resolution must be “as inclusive as possible.” In Northern Ireland, the Good Friday talks “included people who called their counterparts terrorists,” she said. “It’s all painful, but the prize is peace in the end.”

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With 59 hostages still in Gaza, both dead and alive, Jon Polin, the father of slain Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, doesn’t believe it’s appropriate for any Jew to have a festive Passover celebrating freedom this year. 

"The point," he says, "is let's lean into the pain this year, and not even try to sugarcoat it for our kids"

Polin and his wife Rachel became prominent international advocates for their son Hersh’s release until the tragic news of his murder by Hamas terrorists in an underground tunnel last August. The couple continue to advocate tirelessly for the release of the remaining hostages.

On the Haaretz Podcast, Polin spoke with host Allison Kaplan Sommer about how his family is facing their difficult first Passover Seder since Hersh’s death and how he believes others should treat the holiday.

“We've talked about symbolic things that people should do: Maybe put a lemon on your table. A lemon because it's yellow, the color of the hostage struggle, and because it's bitter - to reflect the bitterness that the hostages and their families and all the Jewish people are going through,” he said, also suggesting “instead of just dipping our greens in the salt water, let's drink some salt water, because we know from testimonies of recently released hostages that is what they are drinking." 

In recent weeks, Polin made headlines in Israel by calling for members of the coalition to refrain from wearing yellow ribbon pins symbolizing solidarity with hostage families and on the podcast, explained his rationale. 

“If you're in a position of authority and you are not willing to do the things necessary to bring home hostages, that's your political choice. But then, don't wear the pin.”

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Haaretz journalist Nir Hasson has been covering the war in Gaza for months. He has seen so many horrifying acts of war go unpunished and uninvestigated, that he was hardly surprised by the killing of 15 aid workers at the end of March that shocked the world.

The IDF first said the paramedics who were killed were suspicious, and claimed the vehicles they were in did not have their emergency lights on. Then a video of the incident was exposed to the world in the New York Times, showing clearly marked ambulances.  

“There is no accountability when it comes to commanders and soldiers killing innocents or even medical personnel,” Hasson said on the Haaretz Podcast. 

In his coverage of the army’s operations in Gaza and their effect on the Palestinian population, he regularly sends the IDF spokesperson questions about all kinds of incidents in Gaza. “I ask them: ‘You killed a family; You bombarded a school - what happened there?’ And I have received thousands of replies saying that it will be looked into in an internal investigation unit. But there are no results of any investigations. I don't know of any trial of any soldier who paid any price for killing innocents in Gaza.”

Alongside these disturbing military procedures regarding civilian killings, Hasson said, a “really terrifying humanitarian disaster” is brewing. 

“I sometimes find it hard to get to sleep because I'm thinking about the families and the kids in Gaza and the despair,” he told podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, in a conversation about his coverage of Gaza as well as the West Bank, where, he says, a new level of cooperation and coordination between the Israeli military and violent settlers is a “severe and frightening” development. 

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For Haaretz columnist Amir Tibon, the renewed fighting in Israel with hostages still in captivity, as scandal unfolds around Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, represents a “nightmare scenario.”

Speaking on the Haaretz Podcast, Tibon reviewed the turbulent events of the past week with host Allison Kaplan Sommer – from the arrest of two of Netanyahu’s top aides in the deepening Qatargate affair and the questioning of the prime minister himself, to the botched attempt to replace embattled Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar. 

Tibon pointed to the fact after the two-month reprieve of a cease-fire and hostage release in the first stage of the deal that Netanyahu subsequently abandoned, “we now find ourselves with 59 Israeli hostages held by Hamas in the tunnels of Gaza; Israeli troops on the ground; rockets are being fired at northern, southern and central Israel. And instead of dealing with the security needs of the country, we have a prime minister who is running from court to the police investigation. If I had written this three years ago in Haaretz as a scenario of what will happen under Netanyahu, everybody would have dismissed it as hateful anti-Bibi material – a nightmare scenario that will never come true. But this is what is happening right now."

Tibon added that Netanyahu’s lightning-quick reversal of his decision to appoint former naval commander Eli Sharvit as Shin Bet director was driven by “dissatisfaction” with his choice by the far-right wing of his own Likud party. The Prime Minister attributing the flip-flop to pressure from the Trump administration, he said, was “an absolute lie.” 

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Alongside the threats of the Gaza war and the troubling Qatargate scandal, Israelis should be paying attention to a renewed direct threat to their democracy, according to law professor Meital Pinto. 

Speaking on the Haaretz Podcast, Pinto explains the implications of the newly passed law politicizing the Judicial Appointments Committee, compromising judicial independence and removing the most powerful check on the ruling coalition.  

But her greatest worry regarding the new push to revive the Netanyahu government’s 2023 judicial coup is its intention to amend the Basic Law on the Knesset, banning any political party determined by the Central Elections Committee – which is controlled by the ruling coalition – to be supporting terrorism. 

“It will be very easy for politicians to say ‘this expression of an Arab Knesset member is supporting terrorism, and their political party will be out of the democratic game.” 

If this happens, she warns, there will be no way for the current opposition to win an election, “and that’s very dangerous. I am very afraid that there will not be a free election in 2026.” 

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Like the Watergate affair that brought down President Richard Nixon, the details of the latest scandal to rock the Prime Minister’s Office and the whole of the Netanyahu government have emerged gradually over the past six months. 

Mounting evidence shows that close aides to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have, unbeknownst to the Israeli public, been working directly or indirectly for Qatar, the country that funded Hamas as it was planning the murderous rampage of October 7.

Bar Peleg, the Haaretz journalist who broke the story that began Qatargate, reviews the fast-moving developments and details of the unfolding story with Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, and explains why it matters.

Netanyahu’s desire to disrupt law enforcement’s investigation into Qatargate has been frequently cited as a reason for his recent intensive efforts to fire both Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and Shin Bet Head Ronen Bar.  

Moreover, because of the Israeli government’s policy of “buying quiet” from Hamas with Qatari cash in the years leading up to October 7, and the decision to put Doha at the center of hostage negotiations, Peleg stresses that “we need to know if close Netanyahu advisors have had Qatari interests on their mind. They whisper in his ear, he listens to these people - and that affects our lives in Israel.”

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It was supposed to be a “coming out party” for the newly cozy relationship between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and Europe’s burgeoning far-right politicians. But the International Conference on Combating Antisemitism in Jerusalem, planned for Thursday, turned into a “fiasco” and an “embarrassment” due to its controversial guest list, Haaretz English Editor-in-Chief Esther Solomon said on the Haaretz Podcast.

The invitations to numerous illiberal populist European politicians with xenophobic, anti-immigrant ideologies led a long and growing list of mainstream Jewish leaders and other participants from Europe and North America to pull out. 

They were “shocked that Israel a state founded as a sanctuary for the Jewish people after the Holocaust, would be inviting representatives of far-right parties, many of whom have neo-Nazi roots and neo-Nazi activists to a conference that is supposed to be about protecting the Jews of the world,” Solomon noted in her conversation with podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer.

Also on the podcast, Haaretz correspondent Rachel Fink reports on the resurgence and intensification of the protest movement against the current government that has brought hundreds of thousands to the streets and the expectation that in the coming weeks, they may escalate to mass strikes and shutdowns. 

The ultimate effectiveness of the protests is still to be determined, Fink said, but their importance in projecting the voice of the majority of Israelis to the wider world has been crucial. “It's a very powerful reminder that we are not our government,” she said.

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Israel’s decision to return to full-scale war in Gaza was a devastating and tragic turn of events for the families of hostages still being held there, Ruby Chen, father of Itay Chen, an Israeli-American IDF soldier, said on the Haaretz Podcast. 

“It feels as if the hostages and their families are being viewed now as collateral damage,” said Chen, who has not taken a day off from the families’ struggle in over 530 days. “The current government has not done everything in its power to prioritize the release of all the hostages.”

That hostage families feel they must direct their appeals to President Donald Trump is a “testament against the current Israeli government. The newly released hostages didn’t get on a minibus and go to Jerusalem to meet the prime minister. They got on a plane and went to the White House.” 

Last year, the Chen family was told by the IDF that Itay was killed on October 7, and his body is held in Gaza, but Ruby Chen stresses that Hamas has not provided any evidence regarding his son’s condition, and the family won’t sit Shiva and mourn Itay until he is back in Israel. 

For the families of the 59 remaining hostages - dead and alive - the current situation is “a game of Russian roulette,” he said. “We don't know who is coming out and when. And we don't know who's going to hug and kiss their loved one, and who will need to prepare a funeral and a Shiva.”

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Haaretz Jewish World editor Judy Maltz joins this episode of the Haaretz Podcast to discuss the crackdown on pro-Palestinian activists in America. According to Maltz, the Trump administration’s targeting of Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil for deportation as punishment for leading disruptive anti-Israel protests is “pulling the American Jewish community apart.”

Khalil is “no Mother Teresa or Righteous Among the Nations” and is “probably pro-Hamas,” said Maltz, but there is “no evidence” Khalil has committed crimes that justify deportation. 

“It’s a very complicated place to be a liberal Jew today in America,” she noted. “Whose side are you on? Do you come out against attempts to combat antisemitism on campus? What are you supposed to do?”

Also on the podcast, Haaretz columnist and Israeli intelligence expert Yossi Melman explains why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to wait until this week to fire the head of the Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security service, and why it is so worrying.

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Ruth Patir had been, in her own words, an “artist without art” over the past year. Until this week. 

Patir’s inventive feminist video installation "(M)otherland" was set to debut in the Israel Pavilion at the Venice Biennale last April - under the shadow of protests against the Gaza War and efforts to oust her from the festival. 

Ultimately, she made a controversial decision to keep the exhibit intact but shuttered behind closed doors, with a note on the door saying: “The artist and curators of the Israeli pavilion will open the exhibition when a cease-fire and hostage release agreement is reached.” That never happened throughout the seven months of the Biennale, and, as a result, her work was never seen. 

As (M)otherland finally meets the public at the Tel Aviv Museum this week, Patir joined Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer to talk about the firestorm in Venice, the challenges for Israeli artists creating during war, and innovative use of motion capture technology and Judean fertility figurines to tell a deeply personal story.

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What if former U.S. President Joe Biden’s envoys had negotiated directly with Hamas behind Israel’s back? Haaretz military analyst Amos Harel says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would surely have cried betrayal and called it de facto recognition of a terrorist group.

But it was President Donald Trump’s White House that made such a move, and therefore no criticism or condemnation was uttered from Jerusalem after it was revealed that the direct talks were taking place. 

The fact that the U.S. president took that step, Harel noted, points to the fact that “Trump is quite frustrated” with the “never-ending” talks to move the hostage release and cease-fire deal into its second stage, which is why “the Trump administration took matters into its own hands and decided to push forward through a back channel with Hamas.” 

As both Israel and Hamas prepare for a possible return to war, Harel told podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, it appears that Trump’s “instinct is to reach for a deal and not another war.” 

On the podcast, Harel also discussed the resignation last week of IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari, probably the most popular high-ranking officer among Israelis, but not so much among Netanyahu’s government ministers; the findings of the official IDF probe into the failures of October 7, and the growing fury of hostage families.

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Peter Beinart’s new book, “Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning” confronts his “horror” - even as a long-time harsh critic of Israeli policies - at the devastation that has taken place over the past 15 months. 

“In 2023, I wrote about my concerns about the possibility of ethnic cleansing on a large scale, as opposed to the small scale ethnic cleansing that has been going on for years,” Beinart said, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast. “But I really could not imagine what we've seen in Gaza - which is basically the destruction of an entire society, most of the buildings destroyed, most of the hospitals, schools, universities, agriculture, the necessities of life.” 

But even worse, he explained, was the “widespread embrace of mass expulsion, not just by people on the Israeli and American right, but by people who were considered moderate, centrist, reasonable, and thoughtful. That's the catastrophe, the horror - and I would even say the evil - that I could not imagine.”

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On this episode of the Haaretz Podcast, host Allison Kaplan Sommer speaks to two journalists who covered last week’s German election, which concluded with a historically strong showing by Germany’s far-right AfD party. 

German journalist Vera Weidenbach said the popularity of the AfD, which is “a direct successor of the Nazis, and, especially in the East, deeply rooted in neo-Nazi culture,” is a troubling and dangerous development, even though it did not get as many votes as its leaders had hoped. 

Haaretz’s David Issacharoff discussed the view from Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was applauding the win for the mainstream conservative Christian Democratic Union Party led by Friedrich Merz, “the most pro-Israel politician in Germany.” 

Although, he noted, “some progressive Jews are trying to warn of this blind support to Israel, or the possible blank check that Merz could give Netanyahu to allow him to continue the war in Gaza.”

Background reading:

The Real Winners of Germany's Elections? The Far Right – and Israel's Netanyahu Government 

Only One Political Leader Can Save Germany From the Far Right 

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The death and devastation on October 7 was "the end result of antisemitism unchecked," Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, said on the Haaretz Podcast. “Dehumanizing Israelis or Zionists or Jews - leads to inhuman acts.”

Greenblatt said that the traumatic events also reinforced for him the “reality that anti-Zionism is‌ a form of antisemitism.”

“The crisis is real,” he said. “The danger is here and now. And yet the challenge for all of us is not to lose our humanity in this moment,” adding that “the inhumanity of Hamas doesn't diminish the humanity of Palestinians.” 

In his conversation with podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer about countering antisemitism during the Gaza War and pitched partisan tension in Washington D.C., Greenblatt also addressed the controversy surrounding his forgiving reaction on social media to Elon Musk’s apparent “Sieg Heil” gesture on President Donald Trump’s inauguration day. 

Greenblatt expressed regret that he had not “framed” his tweet differently, given “the impact that it had.” 

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Daniel Shapiro, former U.S. ambassador to Israel and a key architect of the cease-fire-for-hostages deal underway between Israel and Hamas, said on the Haaretz Podcast that the "ultimate condition" of any post-war settlement for Gaza must be the removal of Hamas from power.

Shapiro, speaking to host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the week Israel received the bodies of the murdered Bibas family, said the "terrible and heartbreaking" event revived memories of the days following October 7, when "there were many, many people in the U.S. administration who, in addition to doing the focused, hard work of trying to figure out what the right policies were and prepare for the military and the diplomatic decisions, also had to stop in the middle of the day sometimes and just weep a bit because the brutality was so profound."

Discussing President Donald Trump's plan to empty the Gaza Strip of its Palestinian residents, Shapiro advised those welcoming the plan not to get their hopes up. "I can understand the appeal of it to some Israelis who might say, 'well, yeah, it might make our problem of 2 million Palestinians disappear and make the United States own this problem so we don't have to worry about it,' he said, "but that doesn't make it any more serious. It's not going to happen."

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At a time when most Israelis, across the political spectrum, have expressed appreciation and gratitude towards the Trump White House for pushing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to implement the Gaza cease-fire and hostage release agreement, Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), says the "vast majority" of U.S. Jews strongly oppose President Donald Trump's policies.

Spitalnick, who spoke to Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer while on a visit to Israel for the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem this weekend, said "American Jews are still overwhelmingly a liberal community who believe in democracy, inclusivity and pluralism," and as such they are alarmed by Trump's policies and radical transformation of the government.

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The enthusiastic reception among the Israeli public for Donald Trump's Gaza takeover plan - that includes emptying the Strip of almost 2 million Palestinians - has offered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a political boost that he is likely to take full advantage of.

Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn said on the Haaretz Podcast that "very sadly, the transfer idea is extremely popular within Israeli Jewish society," though the fear of international condemnation was always there. Now, the fact that the American president himself put the idea of moving Palestinians out of Gaza on the table gives Netanyahu - and other Israelis - the ability to embrace the concept of ethnic cleansing openly.

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Moshe Lavi, the brother-in-law of Israeli hostage Omri Miran, was one of the activists for the release of the hostages who traveled to Washington D.C. last week during the visit by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In conversation with Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, he says he was disappointed by Netanyahu's refusal to meet with the families in the U.S. capital.

Netanyahu extended his stay in Washington, enjoying his time alongside Donald Trump as the U.S. president announced a plan to take over Gaza. But back home, the country was shocked by the emaciated physical state of returning hostages Or Levy, Ohad Ben-Ami and Eli Sharabi, and their stories of severe abuse at the hands of their Hamas captors.

Miran, who is married to Lavi's sister Lishay and is father to his toddler nieces Ronni and Alma, is slated to be released only in stage two of the current framework and at the moment, Lavi says, "we are not certain that it is going to take place, or will take place soon enough, because the hostages don't have time - they need to be rescued and released as soon as possible."

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's supporters on the Israeli right may be celebrating after President Donald Trump unveiled his "Mar-a-Gaza" vision following the two leaders White House meeting. But Haaretz columnist Alon Pinkas, analyzing the meeting behind the optics, believes Netanyahu has little to celebrate.

Speaking on the Haaretz Podcast following the meeting, Pinkas told host Allison Kaplan Sommer that the firestorm over Trump's desire to "own" and "take control" of Gaza and relocate its 2 million residents, overshadowed the fact that Netanyahu clearly failed in his attempt to convince the U.S. president to back out of the cease-fire and hostage release deal with Hamas.

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The lives of Palestinians in West Bank refugee camps and surrounding villages have become a "nightmare" as a result of the intensified military campaigns by the IDF against militant groups operating there, says Haaretz West Bank correspondent Hagar Shezaf on the Haaretz Podcast. 

Two days after the Gaza cease-fire went into effect, Israel began operation "Iron Wall" - an aggressive campaign targeting Palestinian militant groups. It is focused on the Jenin refugee camp, and includes air strikes and raids, the demolishing of infrastructure like water, roads, and electricity, and repeatedly forcing civilians out of their homes.

“You can't argue there are militants in these places, but at the same time, there are regular people who just live there, and their life has become a nightmare over the past two years,” particularly since October 7, says Shezaf, discussing how the war - and the cease-fire - has affected the West Bank, which she has covered for the past five years.

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After months in Hamas captivity, the release of some Israeli hostages has brought moments of relief - but also difficult questions. While the public sees smiling faces and embraces, the reality behind the scenes is far more complex.

In this episode, Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer speaks with Professor Hagai Levine, head of the health team for the Hostages Family Forum and chairman of the Israeli Association of Public Health Physician.

What happens to a person’s body and mind after being held hostage for over a year? Why is the Israeli government failing to provide proper long-term care for the freed hostages? And what needs to be done - urgently - to rescue those who are still trapped in Gaza?

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At the moment, Israelis may think they have U.S. President Donald Trump's unconditional support when it comes to the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon - but that is not the case, according to Haaretz Washington correspondent Ben Samuels.

Reviewing Trump’s first weeks in office and their impact on the Middle East, amid reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be visiting the White House in coming days, Samuels noted on the Haaretz Podcast that Trump took dramatic steps with executive orders erasing what he could of President Joe Biden’s legacy. This includes  rescinding sanctions on violent extremist settlers in the West Bank, and lifting the only hold that Biden put on heavy payload weapons to Israel. 

Also on this week's podcast, Haaretz correspondent Linda Dayan described the powerful scene at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv over the weekend, where the release of four young women, IDF spotters who were taken hostage by Hamas on October 7, 2023, brought tears and relief to a country on edge. 

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This week, phase one of the long-awaited cease-fire between Israel and Hamas went into effect. As part of the deal, three Israeli hostages - Romi Gonen, Emily Damari, and Doron Steinbrecher – were freed from Hamas captivity after 471 days. Israelis were glued to their televisions, and thousands of people gathered in Tel Aviv's Hostage Square, to watch as the women finally came home.

But there are 94 more hostages in Hamas' hands, to be released in phases as part of the deal. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already said that he seeks to continue the war, and Hamas started the cease-fire by delaying their first task – relaying a list of hostages to be released to Israel.

For the podcast, Haaretz reporter Linda Dayan spoke to senior writer and columnist Amir Tibon about what the first day of the cease-fire looked like from the Gaza border, and what violating the deal would mean for the hostages and the communities in the region, including his own Nahal Oz.

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For the first time in over a year, a deal to free the Israeli hostages held in Gaza and end the devastating war there seems imminent. The first stage of the deal will reportedly see 33 people held captive by Hamas return to Israel and a temporary cease-fire.

But much of it is still up in the air – even after it becomes final. Many factors can sabotage the deal in its planning stages or during its implementation. Haaretz correspondent Linda Dayan spoke to Haaretz's senior security analyst Amos Harel about the hurdles that remain, the future of Gaza, the fate of the hostages and the dashed hopes of Israel's radical right wing.

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Israelis have long prided themselves on their ability to face war and conflict with strength and resilience. But the tragedy of October 7, and the ongoing war in Gaza and attacks by Iranian proxies have challenged this ethos, says Karen Zivan, a psychologist who works in schools alongside her private practice, and the mother of five sons who have served in reserve duty during the current war.

On the podcast, Zivan talks to host Allison Kaplan Sommer about the different ways the war has taken its toll on the Israeli psyche, and how mental health professionals are coping with the enormous well of need.

Haaretz correspondent Nagham Zbeedat also joins the podcast to discuss her coverage of the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and specifically her recent article on the inability of parents of newborn babies to meet basic needs.

"When the war broke out, it was declared that Israel was going to war against Hamas and those who praise Hamas," Zbeedat said, explaining her decision to focus on the issue. "But babies had no control. Children and women are most affected by the war and they have absolutely no control... War isn't just about bombs and airstrikes, but also the psychological struggle that parents go through knowing that they can't provide a secure and safe environment for their children."

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This week, Israel was rocked by the story of a young man who served in Gaza that went on a trip to Brazil – and found himself wanted for questioning for war crimes. He managed to flee the country before he was arrested, but questions remained: What does this mean for soldiers and reservists who fought in the war and want to travel abroad? Is this the new normal?

Haaretz correspondent Linda Dayan spoke to Amir Tibon, a senior writer and columnist for the Haaretz English edition, about efforts by pro-Palestinian groups to track Israelis who saw combat in Gaza and push for their prosecution, unwittingly aided by the soldiers themselves, who posted pictures and videos from the front, against the IDF’s orders.

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A year has come and gone, and Israel has worn down Hamas and Gaza and decimated the leadership and manpower of Hezbollah, achieving many of its stated objectives since the war began.

But one of the most – if not the most – pressing issue has yet to be solved. One hundred people kidnapped by Hamas and other militants in Gaza remain in captivity, over 450 days later. Each week, their families and supporters protest for their release, pleading for a deal that will see their loved ones come home and the fighting cease. But why hasn't this happened yet, and why do the negotiations keep falling apart?

Haaretz reporter Linda Dayan spoke to Daniel Shek, a former Israeli ambassador and the head of diplomacy for the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, about the negotiations, why the Israeli government won't end the war, the international community's failures and what the future might hold.

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The turbulent events of 2024 in Israel had a significant impact around the world. 

The ongoing war in Gaza and other fronts had a particularly deep and emotional effect on the lives of Diaspora Jews, who coped with angry protests against Israel on campuses and in city centers, and with soaring rates of antisemitic violence. 

The new and disturbing environment ignited “a feeling of vulnerability and exile that came back to us,” said Paris Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur, one of the important voices from the Diaspora who joined the Haaretz Podcast over the course of the year.

Excerpts from the conversation between podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer and Horvilleur, along with insights from interviews with other leading thinkers from the Jewish world like writers Franklin Foer, Ayelet Waldman, and Masha Gessen and award-winning playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner are featured on this special year-end edition of the podcast.

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In this special year-end episode, we take an in-depth look at the seismic events that shaped Israel in 2024 through the conversations on the Haaretz Podcast. 

It was a year in which the shadow of October 7, 2023 and its aftermath - the death and destruction in Gaza, the hostages still held by Hamas, unprecedented fighting between Israel and Hezbollah - loomed large with the nation grappling with its most devastating multi-front war in decades.

Featuring excerpts from interviews with newsmakers and the analysis and insights of expert Haaretz journalists, we explore Israel’s journey through 2024 and its series of dramatic events and ask what has been learned - or not learned - from this ongoing crisis? 

The episode includes conversations with Ambassador Dennis Ross, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Jonathan Dekel-Chen - the father of an American-Israeli hostage in Gaza, and Haaretz journalists Aluf Benn, Amos Harel, Sheren Falah Saab, Amir Tibon, Ben Samuels and Dahlia Scheindlin.

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On this episode of the Haaretz Podcast, Deputy Editor-in-Chief Noa Landau talks to host Allison Kaplan Sommer about how Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has managed to stay in power since the colossal failure of October 7, 2023. 

Landau explains how Netanyahu’s aggressive shaping of the narrative of October 7 and the war in Gaza and Lebanon has helped him retain his grip, with the help of the “poison machine” smearing his enemies, an issue that has been in the spotlight this week following a television exposé on the ways his wife and son directed these campaigns. 

The conversation explores the judicial overhaul’s return and what it means for democracy in Israel; Israel’s rightward shift; how Netanyahu’s alliance with the incoming Trump administration factors into his plans; Israel’s growing international isolation; and recent Haaretz interviews with Netanyahu supporters who describe their devotion to him as unconditional (the article will be published in English this weekend).

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Haaretz senior columnist and former diplomat Alon Pinkas says that for years, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tacitly supported the continuation of the brutal dictatorship of Bashar Assad in Syria, and it is absurd for him to claim credit for helping to topple Assad’s rule by weakening the mainstays of Iranian power in the region.

“He might as well claim credit for the invasion of Normandy or the fall of the Berlin Wall or the surrender of Japan,” said Pinkas on the Haaretz Podcast. “He had nothing to do with those things. That he decimated Hamas and decapitated or degraded Hezbollah? Absolutely, but the Israeli military did that. That’s the same military he maligned and that he foul-mouthed in the days and weeks following the October 7, 2023 calamity.” 

According to Pinkas, Netanyahu is suffering from “delusions of grandeur” in his attempts to convince Israelis and the wider world that he is somehow remaking the Middle East by “cherry-picking successes, ignoring failures and presenting a false narrative.”

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Israel, the United States, and European leaders are all missing a unique opportunity in their policy stance and behavior toward the new post-Assad regime in Syria, veteran Middle East correspondent Gregg Carlstrom said on the Haaretz Podcast.

Carlstrom, a journalist for The Economist currently based in Dubai, said that the leader of the Islamist faction that led the toppling of Bashar Assad’s regime has made it clear that he has no hostile intentions towards Israel. And yet, Israel has attacked hundreds of targets in the country, targeting weapons depots and air defense systems. Israel's decision to deploy troops on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights and seize control of a buffer zone between the two countries is, according to Carlstrom, worrying and alienating the Syrian population. "For Syrians, that looks like exploitation, not security," he explained. 

Also on the podcast, German journalist Vera Weidenbach discussed how the collapse of Assad’s regime has reignited debates about Syrian refugees in Europe. With asylum applications frozen in Germany, and with other countries considering similar steps, she said refugees face mounting uncertainty as “deeply polarizing” rhetoric intensifies. "You see the far-right dominating the discourse in Germany, celebrating Assad’s fall as a reason for refugees to ‘finally go home,’ creating a toxic atmosphere."

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In this episode of the Haaretz Podcast, host Allison Kaplan Sommer and Haaretz columnist Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin delve into the trial of Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing corruption charges while continuing to lead the country at wartime. From the demonstrations outside the courtroom where Netanyahu took the stand this week, to the calculated strategies inside, they unpack the layers of drama, history, and legal maneuvering on display. 

This trial isn’t just about one man - it’s about the integrity of Israel’s judiciary and the resilience of its democracy. With tensions running high and public opinion deeply divided, what’s at stake for Israel’s future?

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The rapid collapse of the Assad regime in Syria has left Israel concerned about the future of what has been its quietest border in an era of continual instability and war, as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebel group that drove Assad out and has roots in Al-Qaeda and ISIS, takes charge.

"I suspect they will probably send signals to Israel directly or indirectly, that they're not interested in igniting anything there," Haaretz Podcast guest Hassan Hassan, editor-in-chief of New Lines Magazine, said.

Hassan, a Syrian-born journalist and author who has studied Islamist groups, believes that their posture towards Israel would be "cut from the same cloth" as Assad's, who "never really waged war against Israel since 1973."

Haaretz senior military analyst Amos Harel, also on the podcast, said that Israeli officials are wary of the group and its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani. According to Harel, the Syrian rebel leader currently "at least pretends to to have become more of a moderate. He doesn't talk like an extreme jihadist anymore. But don't think I'm buying into this, and neither are the Israeli intelligence community and the Israeli leadership."

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The evidence is mounting that Israel is entrenching itself militarily in Gaza for the long term. At the same time, Israel’s settler movements and far-right government are making no secret of their concrete plans to revive the Jewish settlements in the Strip.

On the Haaretz Podcast. Avi Scharf, national security and open source intelligence editor at Haaretz reviews the findings of his investigation into the establishment of military installations and uprooting of Gaza civilians based on satellite imagery.

Haaretz staff writer Rachel Fink, also speaking on the podcast, talks about determined settler activists, led by veteran Daniella Weiss, who have partnered with their allies in the Netanyahu government to maximize the pressure on prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to enable them to realize their dream: resurrecting the settlements that were forcibly evacuated when Israel disengaged from Gaza in 2005. 

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In both Israel and the United States, women's rights and their autonomy are under attack from the surging power of far-right religious political forces in the current Netanyahu government and future Trump White House. 

In Israel, the “creeping theocracy” is out in the open and the debate is in the public square, while in the U.S. there is less of an understanding that “disassembling American constitutional democracy is part of a theological effort,” said Dahlia Lithwick, a journalist at Slate and host of the award-winning Amicus podcast. 

Lithwick and Tel Aviv University law professor and civil rights activist Dr. Yofi Tirosh joined Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer to unpack, compare and contrast the erosion of women’s rights and its impact on democracy in the two countries. They discussed how gender equality is the linchpin of civil society, why authoritarian regimes target women first, how political fatigue is undermining activism, and compared America’s conflict over abortion to Israel’s fights surrounding gender segregation. 

From the ramifications of Israel’s judicial overhaul to America’s Dobbs decision that stripped women of reproductive rights, the two women connected the dots on how both countries are grappling with creeping theocracy and the normalization of extremism.

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Benjamin Netanyahu’s government’s multi-front assault on the media - spearheaded by an economic boycott of Haaretz - is a blatant attempt to intimidate Israeli journalists into self-censorship and weaken press outlets that continue to dare to report critically on the behavior and policies of the nation’s leaders, media critic and journalist Oren Persico said on the Haaretz Podcast.

The sanctions imposed on Haaretz, and the new bill introduced this week aimed at defunding Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster, are designed to “bully the free press” and act as a “sword that is supposed to hang over their heads and and try to intimidate them,” said Persico, a staff writer for The Seventh Eye, an independent Israeli  magazine that covers the media.

Anat Saragusti, press freedom director at the Union of Journalists in Israel, explained how these aggressive moves by the government are accompanied by an orchestrated smear campaign against journalists and whole outlets. The smear campaign, led by Netanyahu and his loyalists, she said, has already led to physical violence against reporters in the field and threats against journalists.

“Even if some of these laws will not pass in the Knesset, and even if the sanctions will not be imposed on Haaretz, it has already had a very, very powerful effect,” she said. 

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In this episode, Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer explores the fallout from the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants issued for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant. Joined by Haaretz diplomatic correspondent Amir Tibon and international law expert Aeyal Gross, the discussion covers how these developments impact Israel’s global standing, the legal and moral debates around the Gaza war, and the the explosive BibiLeaks scandal.

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Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer welcomes Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, to discuss the challenges of leading progressive American Jews during Israel's Gaza war and ahead of a second Trump presidency. Rabbi Jacobs opens up about generational divides, love for Israel despite government policies, and the urgency of Jewish unity in the face of rising antisemitism. From engaging young members of the community to addressing political polarization, this candid conversation explores how Jewish values endure in complex times.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to include Russia in the process of negotiating a ceasefire with Hezbollah struck Middle East expert and former MK Ksenia Svetlova as "strange" given the strong Iran-Russia alliance and the countries' shared interests.

As the Ukraine conflict has worn on, she explained on the Haaretz Podcast, the Russians have become dependent on Iran's support and weapons supplies - and maintain a "close association" with Iran's proxy, Hezbollah, to help prop up the Assad regime in Syria, a key strategic partner for Russia. In this context, looking to Russia to keep a check on Hezbollah's activities on the Israeli border and monitor its rearming by Iran seems highly unrealistic.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Svetlova, currently the executive director of the Regional Organization for Peace, Economics & Security (ROPES) discussed the shifting alliances in the Middle East and Europe in the aftermath of the U.S. election and how it will affect the conflict between Israel and Iran and its proxies.

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On this episode of the Haaretz Podcast, Dutch journalist David de Jong and host Allison Kaplan Sommer discuss the violence against Israeli soccer fans on the streets of Amsterdam last weekend, and the media coverage of the events in Israel and the Netherlands, characterized by conflicting narratives and a flurry of viral videos that were often misleading. 

De Jong, a financial journalist who has covered the Gaza War over the past year, said the streets of Amsterdam were the last place he expected to watch the Middle East conflict play out. He also explained why the violence that erupted following the Maccabi Tel Aviv - Ajax match is a "boon" for the anti-immigration far-right parties in the Netherlands and across Europe. 

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What do Donald Trump’s team choices signal about future policies on Iran, Gaza and Israel? How is the isolationist wing in Trump’s circle already influencing his decisions? And why is the U.S. Jewish community caught in a battle of narratives over the number of Jews who voted for Trump for president?

In this episode of the Haaretz Podcast, host Allison Kaplan Sommer and Haaretz Washington correspondent Ben Samuels delve into Trump’s upcoming return to the White House and its potential impact on the Middle East and American Jews.

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**The sound of a siren warning of rocket fire is heard in this episode of the Haaretz Podcast**

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "gamble" on extending the war in Gaza in anticipation of Donald Trump winning the U.S. election seems to have paid off, according to Haaretz senior military analyst Amos Harel.

In conversation with Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Harel said that Netanyahu "kept promising total victory, what he actually had was sort of a Forever War. It was not forever, but he was waiting for November, and for January 20 and for his friend Trump to be back in the White House."

What is the Israeli premier hoping to get out of his bet? Harel believes that in renewing the Bibi-Trump bromance, Netanyahu believes he can win U.S. support for measures that will stop his criminal trial - Trump after all, will certainly sympathize - and move ahead with the judicial coup that will damage Israeli democracy.

Also on the podcast, Harel discusses and explains what stood behind Netanyahu's  decision to fire Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on the day of the U.S. election, and his not-so-veiled threat that the IDF Chief of Staff and head of Shin Bet security service may be next if they don't fall in line.

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Normally, foreign policy doesn't play a major role in presidential politics, but the 2024 race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump has been an exception. Israel's wars in Gaza and Lebanon have become hotly debated issues.

Susan Glasser, a staff writer at The New Yorker and co-author of “The Divider,” which chronicled the first Trump term, spoke to Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the eve of one of the closest elections is U.S. history.

Glasser discussed the potential impact of the election on the Middle East and global politics, how a second Trump term would differ radically from a Harris presidency as far as U.S.-Israel relations are concerned, the influence of big Trump donors like Miriam Adelson and Elon Musk on the race, and her experience covering Trump's massive Madison Square Garden rally, the climactic pre-election event for Trump and the MAGA movement.

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In a special edition of the Haaretz Podcast ahead of Tuesday’s 2024 U.S. presidential election, Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America and Peter Deutsch, a former Florida congressman, faced off in a heated exchange of views, debating whether a victory by Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump in the race for the White House would best serve the interests of Israel and the American Jewish community.

The debate was moderated by Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer and Haaretz Washington correspondent, Ben Samuels. 

Deutsch argued that for American Jewish voters “effectively, there are two candidates in the race, one that's giving money to people that are literally killing your family, and another who, for four years, protected your family and kept peace in the world.”

Soifer staunchly defended Harris, saying the current administration provided Israel with “more military assistance than any White House in a year in history.” She had her own harsh words for the Republican nominee, calling him an "indecent and immoral man" and a “bigot” and “felon” who “aligns with and dines with Holocaust deniers and right wing extremists.”

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No one in Israel will ever forget where they were at 6:29 A.M. on Saturday October 7, when Hamas attacked Israel. For Haaretz journalists, it was a day that the personal and professional collided, whether they were trying to survive the assault on their own home, reporting from the south under a hail of bullets, editing news about massacres at their parents' kibbutz, filing amid ceaseless rocket fire or contacting friends in Gaza, knowing the coming war would destroy the fabric of their lives.

Journalists are often resistant to 'pull back the curtain' to talk about how, rather than what, they report. In this podcast, three Haaretz journalists - Bar Peleg, Sheren Falah Saab and Linda Dayan - interviewed by Haaretz English editor-in-chief Esther Solomon, give a unique look into their work on October 7 and since, and what motivates them after more than a year of savage and expanding conflict.

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In retrospect, Israel should not have endured a year of Hezbollah missile attacks that decimated its northern region before fighting back, Orna Mizrahi, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies said on the Haaretz Podcast, but waiting appeared to be the best strategy following the Hamas attacks of October 7.

After that trauma, "the decision of the Israeli cabinet was to focus on the war against Hamas in Gaza. And I thought that this was the right decision, because we had no other choice but to go after Hamas and try to save our hostages," and the north, from where Hezbollah began firing on October 8, "would be a secondary front," said Mizrahi, a veteran of Israel's security establishment who served in the Israel Defense Forces for 26 years and spent 12 years in the National Security Council (NSC) in the Prime Minister's Office.

"So for 11 months, the IDF adapted the strategy they called an 'aggressive response' to the attacks of Hezbollah, and refrained from deviating from the rules of the game that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was shaping."

Nasrallah "realized that this kind of war of attrition is the best way... to weaken Israel and help Hamas in the war," she said. "It would have been desirable to act more forcefully earlier, but I think it's unfair to judge it in retrospect," adding, "it was impossible to estimate that we are going to have such a series of successful operations as we have had" over the past month.

Recent deadly missile and drone attacks, however, point to the fact that Hezbollah is far from being defeated.

They are clearly able to continue attacking Israel, "and I think they are going to do that until the last day and the last missile that they have," said Mizrahi.

The U.S. has been pushing since early in the war to pursue a cease-fire agreement that would resolve all of Israel's conflicts with Iranian proxies –both Hamas and Hezbollah. The Netanyahu government has consistently resisted this pressure, and the current campaign in the north is designed to sever the linkage between the conflicts in the north and the south.

"There are differing opinions in Israel on this matter," Mizrahi said. "I don't believe that the link between the arenas will advance the hostage deal. And in my opinion, we should look to separate the arenas. I say: If the late Nasrallah and [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar want this linkage between the fronts so much, it must not be so good for Israel."

She believes that linking the two war fronts "serves Sinwar because he wants a regional war," and believes it could help guarantee "the survival of Hamas."

In her view, each front should be dealt with separately, and the relative success against Hezbollah in the north, should lead, if possible, to a resolution before the more complicated matter of Gaza.

While Israel's ability to influence events in Lebanon after Hezbollah's weakening is limited, Mizrahi says the opportunity to try to free Israel's northern neighbor from Iran's grip shouldn't be squandered.

"Following the war, there will be a competition for the future of Lebanon, mainly between two main parties. One is the U.S. and the West," and the other is "Iran and the Shi'ite axis.

"We cannot leave Lebanon for the Iranians, and this is why I think that it's required that the West," along with moderate Arab countries, "use all their means to prevent the complete fall of Lebanon into the hands of Iran."

The ongoing war in Lebanon presents an "opportunity," Mizrahi said, which the Western world must grab in order to "shape a new political system in Lebanon in which Hezbollah and Iran are not so influential."

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The U.S. has strongly cautioned Israel against targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities and oil fields in a possible retaliatory strike for the 181 ballistic missiles Tehran launched last week. On the Haaretz Podcast, strategic and intelligence expert and Haaretz columnist Yossi Melman argues that such targets should be “off limits and out of bounds,” and not only because of the American objections. 

Israel should limit its response to military installations such as the “depots of long range missiles threatening Israel, the headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and communication command centers and air defense systems,” says Melman.

He adds that hitting Iran’s oil fields and potentially paralyzing the world oil market - if Iran strikes back at Saudi oil fields - “is a very dangerous game.”

Also on the podcast, Melman discusses the deep contrast between the “colossal failure” of Israel’s vaunted intelligence services before October 7 and the way they have “salvaged their image and reputation” in recent months in their penetration of both Hezbollah and Iran.  

“Even within the Israeli intelligence community, they cannot explain this huge, huge gap between their performance on October 7 and their performance during the war,” he says. 

At the same time, he warns, “we need to put it into perspective. Israeli intelligence is excellent, but at the end of the day - it is just a tool” meant to support war goals and diplomatic efforts. 

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Hannah Wacholder Katsman knew that facing the anniversary of her son's death on October 7 would be difficult, but grieving in wartime Israel has been a challenge over the whole year, ever since her son was killed by Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Holit, she said on the Haaretz Podcast.

Hayim Katsman, an American-Israeli who would have turned 33 on October 3, was a political scientist specializing in right-wing religious Zionism and a devoted peace activist, with eclectic interests and hobbies which he pursued alongside his teaching and research: gardening, music and auto mechanics. His dissertation was dedicated to "all life forms that exist between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea."

He was shot to death at his kibbutz home while protecting his next-door neighbor Avital Alajem.

His mother said that her year of mourning has included the experience of being "screamed at" while attending rallies and demonstrations in support of the families of those being held hostage in Gaza by Hamas and advocating for a deal for a cease-fire that would bring them home.

"There's just been a lot of hostility toward hostage families and toward peace activists like my son," she said, pointing to "offensive" comments from right-wing Israelis regarding victims of October 7 who were politically left-wing, "blaming the victims" for their fate.

She noted that in the months following her son's death, she received "a lot more support from the United States government" than from Israel's. No government representatives made in-person or phone contact with her or her family, or attended the funeral, visited her while mourning or attended memorial events.

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Amir Tibon will never forget what it felt like to be hunkered down in his safe room with his wife and two young daughters for hours on end, listening to the sound of Hamas terrorists on a murderous rampage in his neighborhood, Kibbutz Nahal Oz on the Gaza border, on October 7.

"You're on automatic pilot. You're hearing gunfire inside your house," he recalled. "You're locked inside with two very young girls, and you're just operating in the situation, trying to keep the girls calm and quiet and reserved, trying to keep yourself calm and quiet and reserved, because if we were to exhibit any signs of distress, the girls would immediately see it."

On the Haaretz Podcast, Tibon discussed the dramatic rescue of his family carried out by his father, retired IDF general Noam Tibon, a story he shares in his new book, "The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival and Hope on Israel's Borderlands."

The book fuses his personal story with that of Israel and Gaza, sharing the 70-year history of his home of Nahal Oz – the closest Israeli community to Gaza – and the steps that led to the war that is still grinding on today, a year after it began.

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If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu enjoys a popularity comeback as a result of Israel's military operation against Hezbollah and the assassination of the group's chief Hassan Nasrallah, he is likely to be tempted to call early elections, Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn said on the Haaretz Podcast.

"It's a tried and true Netanyahu trick when he sees that his adversaries are weak," Benn noted, pointing to the reasons why doing so may be in the Israeli leader's interest, including "getting rid of" his far-right coalition partners Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich and his dependence on them.

Benn, a veteran commentator on military and security affairs, said that the decapitation of Hezbollah leadership and its current paralysis represents a significant military victory for Israel. Nasrallah, he said, was a victim of hubris and his downfall came as a shock to allies and enemies alike.

"Nasrallah was the symbol of Arab resistance to Israel and the United States," Benn said. "Over the years, he acquired a mythological image, even in Israel, as the man who understands Israel better than the Israelis themselves. But at the end of the day, even he was taken by surprise."

The planning and execution of the ongoing offensive against Hezbollah stands in sharp contrast to the failures and missteps of October 7 and difficulties in Gaza when fighting Hamas, said Benn.

"The IDF prepared for this attack for 18 years after the humiliation of the Second Lebanon War in 2006, when the IDF was caught unprepared for the kind of war that was waged. So for many years, the focus of Israeli intelligence, of Israeli drills, of operational planning, was Hezbollah."

While applauding the operation against Hezbollah, Benn warned that Israel still faces a substantial threat from the "ring of fire" Iran has built around the country.

"The Houthis in Yemen are still able to fire missiles at Israel... and the port of Eilat is still closed under the Houthi blockade. Pro-Iranian militias in Syria and Iraq are still there and Iran is still there. And most of the Hezbollah fighting force is alive and can be regrouped, even if not tomorrow or the next day."

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Despite the recent dramatic escalation in its conflict with Israel, Hezbollah appears to be - for now - refraining from launching a large-scale missile attack into the Tel Aviv area, says Amos Harel, Haaretz senior military and defense analyst on the Haaretz Podcast.

Harel outlined the dramatic week-long chain of events that began with the stunning detonation of pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members, followed by a targeted attack in Beirut Friday killing top commanders in the organization, and assault on its missile infrastructure triggering a fast-moving escalation of hostilities, including daily rocket attacks on large parts of Israel.

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The presidential campaigns of both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are focusing substantial energy on Jewish voters who are closely watching Israel and Gaza, as well as rising antisemitism in the United States.

Haaretz Washington correspondent Ben Samuels joined Haaretz Podcast for a special episode devoted to answering questions from Haaretz subscribers. Samuels describes how campaigns have been targeting the American Jewish community – both because they reflect an outsized proportion of significant donations to campaigns on both sides, but also because they can tip the balance in key states.

In the third installment of this series, in which Haaretz journalists address the issues on the minds of their readers, Samuels said that "In swing states, Jewish voters really turn out in a way that isn't necessarily consistent with the size of the population, So you've seen both Jewish political organizations on both sides of the aisle and the Harris and Trump campaigns really try to focus on the Jewish vote as the election comes closer."

What happens in the war between now and November 5th could be a game-changer "if it has an effect on the U.S. economy, or if U.S. troops get embroiled in the fighting," he said.

While the polls so far have demonstrated that Jewish voters are consistently committed to voting Democrat in their traditional overwhelming majority, Jewish Republican leaders reject these findings and are promoting a different narrative.

"They're saying that Jewish Americans have really been alienated and disillusioned by the Democratic Party, both in terms of the White House's approach to the aftermath of October 7, the failure to combat rising antisemitism and supposed enablement of antisemitic protests on college campuses," said Samuels. "Jewish Republicans are really trying to set the tone" and prepare the ground for an unprecedented shift away from Democrats.

But despite this wishful thinking, Samuels said, it remains true that more than 70 percent of Jewish Americans "not only do not like Donald Trump, but" also find that "everything he says traffics in dual loyalty tropes and either flirts with antisemitism or is allegedly openly antisemitic."

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In the relentless swirl of war and politics over the past year, the inhabitants of Gaza have often been treated more as pawns than as human beings by political and military leaders, activists, media and even those who claim to be their advocates and allies.

"People outside of Gaza sometimes forget that their lives are actual lives," Haaretz correspondent Nagham Zbeedat said on the Haaretz Podcast. The result – as with the circulation of conspiracy theories regarding the campaign to administer polio vaccines that is currently underway – can be dangerous.

Zbeedat closely follows and reports on developments in Gaza, including a video casting doubt on the World Health Organization's vaccination effort posted by Gazan social media activist Bisan Owda. In it, Owda questions whether Gazans should allow their children to be injected with material permitted by Israeli authorities and questions the motive behind Israel's seemingly humanitarian gesture.

"Palestinians in Gaza actually asked her to remove the video, to delete it, and even to publicly apologize for it," Zbeedat said, while outside Gaza Owda "was being praised, supported and even more [speculation and] theories were introduced in the comment section" under her video.

In view of this phenomenon, Zbeedat believes that her own reporting on all aspects of life inside Gaza – from creative cooking using ingredients found in aid packages to water storage to the struggle of Gazan women to obtain menstrual products – emphasizes that "these people had normal lives and should have a normal life, but they are not given that opportunity."

Zbeedat also discussed life in Israel at the moment for Israeli Palestinians, from being "hunted" by Israeli authorities when their social media posts are too explicitly supportive of their Gazan friends and relatives, to discomfort around allying with Jewish Israelis.

"Just yesterday, I saw a post about an image from one of the demonstrations: "Bring them back and then return," referring to bringing back the Israeli hostages and then re-settling Gaza. "How can we expect Palestinians in Israel to join people who are asking for the hostages back, but also for the destruction of Gaza?"

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If Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "ever had a moral compass, he lost it long ago," said Jonathan Dekel-Chen, father of Israeli hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen on the Haaretz Podcast. The six hostages brutally murdered by Hamas after surviving eleven months of captivity "should not have been allowed to die" by their country's leadership, he added.

"My heart breaks for their families," said Dekel-Chen, describing the news as "part of the living nightmare we've been in since October 7."

The government's "abominable handling" of the hostage crisis, he continued, "has taken Israeli society to a place that it's never been, and the only hope for recovery is if the prime minister is able to grow a moral backbone strong enough to bear the weight of his own coalition partners."

The fact that U.S. President Joe Biden offered his condolences to the families before Netanyahu "should demonstrate not just to all Israelis, but sadly to Jews in the diaspora as well, that our government and our prime minister are in a state of utter moral corruption."

Also on the podcast, Haaretz senior defense analyst Amos Harel discussed how the killings of the hostages has made it clear to the Israeli public that Netanyahu's "cliche about military pressure being the only way to move and to allow hostages to be freed is wrong. It may have been the case in the beginning that there was some leeway that we could push through military pressure. But now Hamas knows exactly what's happening, and has decided to kill hostages rather than to allow them to be freed by Israeli soldiers.

"The outcome is clear to everybody: If in these operations, especially tunnels, we lose the element of surprise, there's a good chance more hostages will die under similar circumstances."

Netanyahu's response to the massive public outcry Sunday has brought Harel to the conclusion that the leader, who usually appears to feel in control, is now in a "tight spot."

While Harel remains pessimistic that Netanyahu has been shaken enough to change his policies, "I think that for the first time in months, he's really fearing the outcome of the public outcry."

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Democrats or Republicans who believe that a Kamala Harris presidency will shift her party's Israel policy to a place favorable to its pro-Palestinian progressive wing found little evidence to back their theory at last week's Democratic National Convention, Haaretz Washington correspondent Ben Samuels told the Haaretz Podcast this week.

From the warm reception given to the parents of an Israeli hostage who were featured speakers to the sympathetic but firm negotiations with the demands of members of the party's progressive wing who unsuccessfully pushed for a Palestinian-American pro-Palestinian speaker at the DNC, there was no daylight between her stance and Biden's backing of Israel. 

While Harris was basking in the spotlight of the convention, Samuels noted, Biden's Secretary of State Antony Blinken was busy in the Middle East working intensely towards a Gaza cease-fire deal that would return Israeli hostages and contain the hostilities between Israel, Hezbollah and Iran.

He succeeded in the latter and not in the former – much to the disappointment of the American-Israeli hostage families who were present at the DNC. "They are pissed. I just cannot overstate enough just how angry and disappointed they are in the reaction that has been coming from the Israeli government and right-wing cabinet ministers who don't prioritize the release of their loved ones," added Samuels.

After attending both party conventions, Samuels believes that, short of triggering a large-scale regional war that would involve the United States, "it's very unlikely that Israel will move the needle in terms of who will be the next president."

That doesn't mean Netanyahu won't use elections season to his advantage. "The presidential election creates just one other sort of channel where he can feed his chaos through," Samuels concludes, "where he can play the candidates off each other, and use this to manipulate the Israeli public into fearing what stands on the other side of his Premiership."

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been enjoying a "dramatic but quite consistent recovery" in the polls in past months, after the failures of October 7 sent his popularity plummeting to unprecedented lows, according to public opinion expert and Haaretz columnist Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin.

On this week's Haaretz Podcast, Scheindlin analyzes what may be Netanyahu's slow but steady political comeback despite the fact that the war has continued while a deal to return the country's remaining hostages still has not actualized. She says recent escalations with Iran, particularly the daring assassination of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, which Israel has not claimed responsibility for, have restored some of the public's faith in his leadership.

Also on the podcast, Haaretz cyber and disinformation reporter Omer Benjakob reviews the "dangerous" breaches of cybersecurity within the Israeli military and how the same Iranian military units devoted to hacking in order to harm Israel are now setting their sights on the U.S. presidential elections.

With an "endless stream" of Iranian hacks of sensitive information from its top-secret bases and tracking of soldiers through their smartwatches, the country's most dangerous enemy is collecting and publishing dossiers he describes as a "very dangerous cyber nightmare" that should be feared and fought against as vigorously as missiles, rockets and drones.

It is already clear that during the U.S. election campaign, Benjakob says, Iran is doing its best to "foment tensions" around what has already proved to be a dividing issue and the Israel-Hamas conflict "is being amplified at a level that is unprecedented."

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Renewed US efforts to reach a hostage deal represent "a last ditch attempt" by the Biden White House for a diplomatic win that could stave off a major Middle East conflagration ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Amos Harel, Haaretz senior military and security analyst said on the Haaretz Podcast, ahead of American-led negotiations set to take place at a summit in Doha, Qatar.

The efforts are taking place as Israel faces a "dangerous" and "desperate" situation as it remains prepared for a serious attack, Harel assessed and "the efforts made by the Americans right now show us how seriously they've been taking this threat of regional escalation."

Speaking to Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Harel pointed to mixed signals from the Israeli side as to whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is, on any level, interested in making a deal that would return the remaining living hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza.

Also on the podcast, Haaretz sportswriter Ido Rakovsky discusses the more heartening and cheerful development of the past weeks - the unprecedented successes of Israel's Olympic athletes in the Paris summer games and the "roller coaster of emotions" as they competed in wartime under tight security.

"It's a historic moment," declared Rakovsky, noting that Israel has only won 13 Olympic medals in the first 78 years of its existence "and suddenly, in Paris, we finish with seven medals," after even optimistic assessments predicted winning four or five.

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Over the course of two days last week, two major assassinations shook the Middle East. The first was of senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, for which the Israeli military took credit, in Beirut. The second was a much more daring operation – the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, right under the nose of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iran and other sources have blamed Israel for the strike, and are vowing retaliation – and Israel is gearing up for an attack. For the Haaretz Podcast, correspondent Linda Dayan spoke to Dr. Raz Zimmt, a senior researcher and expert on Iran from the Institute of National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University about this threat.

After April's Iranian attack on Israel, Zimmt explained, "Iran has come up with this so-called 'new equation,' according to which every Israeli attack on Iranian interests – personalities or facilities, either inside Iran or outside Iran – would be considered a major blow, which deserves a direct attack by Iran."

Compared to previous incidents, "Iran and Hezbollah are more willing today to take the risk of escalation," Zimmt said, "even if it means dragging themselves into a full-scale confrontation."

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It was a scene of "complete chaos" in the town of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights following the devastating Hezbollah strike that killed 12 Druze children playing soccer on Saturday, Haaretz correspondent Sheren Falah Saab, who was at the scene just an hour after the attack, recounted emotionally on Haaretz Podcast.

"There were ambulances everywhere and hundreds of people surrounding the wounded children and the bodies of the children," said Falah Saab, who is a member of the Druze community, and has spent the days since the tragedy in the hospital at the bedside of her own relatives wounded in most deadly attack on civilians in Israeli territory since October 7.

Falah Saab recalled that "one of most painful sights was the blood-stained bicycles of the children" who were playing on the soccer field and who had no time to run for safety when the siren sounded.

The disaster struck a community already hit hard by the Gaza war, she noted. Ten Druze soldiers have been killed in fighting since the start of the war in Gaza. There has also been damage to agriculture and property. But the greatest economic blow is the near-cessation of tourism by both Israelis and foreign visitors in northern Israel, on which much of the Druze population relies to make a living.

In the midst of calls for massive retaliation by Israeli leaders, including some Druze, Falah Saab maintained that a majority of Druze "say they don't want war, and they don't want this tragedy to cause more tragedy and more killing of children."

Also on the podcast, Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America discusses the excitement among Jewish Democrats about the candidacy of Kamala Harris for president, following President Joe Biden's decision to bow out of the race.

Soifer said that there will "continue to be no daylight" between the policies of Harris and Biden regarding Israel and the Gaza war.

"She came into this White House with a deep commitment to Israel and in this White House she has been in lockstep with the president on every key issue related to Israel in the lead up to – and now in the aftermath of – the horrific attacks of October 7," Soifer said, dismissing the "vitriol, hate and lies" of GOP nominee Donald Trump who recently charged Democrats with "hating Israel."

Given that three-quarters of US Jews vote for the Democrats, she said, Trump is essentially saying that nearly all of them "are uninformed and disloyal, that we hate Israel, that we hate our religion." His charge that "Kamala Harris doesn't stand with Israel is patently false and yet another iteration of his toxic vitriol, and it's targeting Jewish voters. We should call it out for what it is. It is hate, and we reject it."

According to Soifer, the Jewish vote will be unusually significant in this election, given the presence of Jewish population in key battleground states, in which Harris and GOP nominee Donald Trump are deadlocked.

"This election is going to be close, just like the last one was, and it will be decided by probably about 6 percent of voters in six states: Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. We're not talking about a lot of voters who are going to decide the outcome of this election, which is why the Jewish vote is so important."

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It's a time of goodbyes: As Joe Biden says goodbye to the U.S. presidency, Netanyahu said goodbye to Israel while the Gaza war is raging, while hostages are both suffering and dying, so that he could speak to the U.S. Congress and hold a few high-level meetings. It may not have been ideal timing, but Netanyahu got what he wanted: too many standing ovations to count.

Did Israelis get anything out of the speech? Did Netanyahu lay out a vision for the future or a path to get there? One (or two) might even ask: What was Netanyahu even thinking?

In a final revival-farewell, Election Overdose podcast hosts Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin do their utmost to answer it in a special episode of the Haaretz Podcast. Come for the banter, stay for the breakdown. And there's one more farewell at the end of it all.

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President Joe Biden's stunning decision to step aside and forgo a second term, throwing his support behind the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris is unlikely to dramatically change U.S. policy towards Israel's conflict with Hamas in Gaza, according to former diplomat and senior Haaretz columnist Alon Pinkas, who reacted to the bombshell news from Washington on the Haaretz Podcast this week.

Biden is planning to remain president until his successor takes office in January 2025, so presumably till then, says Pinkas, all policy regarding Israel and the war - in Gaza and beyond - will be coordinated "vis a vis Joe Biden, not Kamala Harris. In fact, Harris is probably not going to deal with foreign policy because she will be preoccupied and very hectically busy running for president in Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia and other places. And so she's not going to want to deal with foreign policy, certainly not thorny issues like the Middle East."

To U.S. supporters of Israel - and Israelis - whose concerns about Harris might lead them to consider backing Republican nominee Donald Trump, Pinkas warns against what he views as "plain idiocy."

Pinkas assesses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's trip to Washington this week as "a Seinfeld visit about nothing that wasn't meant to be about anything except a vanity tour that Mr. Netanyahu thought he would sell to his electoral base." With war raging in Israel and hostages in Gaza, Pinkas calls the decision to travel to Washington "recklessness of the highest order."

Also on the podcast, family members of hostages, who traveled to Washington, explain why they felt the need to make their voices heard during Netanyahu's visit, and pressure U.S. leaders to push Netanyahu in the direction of a deal that would end the war and free their loved ones from Hamas captivity.

"We're here send a message that (Netanyahu) cannot just go to America and get a standing ovation in Congress as if he won this war and freed the hostages," says Zahiro Shachar Mor, the nephew of 79-year-old hostage Avraham Mundar. "We are here to show the world that… the voice of Netanyahu is not the voice of Israel."

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If indeed Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif was killed when IDF forces targeted him on Saturday, "it would be a very important achievement for Israel but it's not the end of the world for Hamas or the end of the war" according to Haaretz senior security analyst Amos Harel, speaking to host Allison Kaplan Sommer on this week's Haaretz Podcast about the events that rocked the past weekend - the targeting of Deif and the attempt on the life of former President Donald Trump.

Although many Israeli security officials believe Deif was eliminated in the air assault in Gaza's Khan Yunis, Harel was cautious in his assessment, given that the head of Hamas's military wing has escaped multiple attempts on his life in the past.

As one of the "two major planners involved every inch of the way" when it came to the horrific massacres of October 7, Harel said it was "very important from an Israeli perspective to settle the score."

Also on the podcast, Haaretz Washington correspondent Ben Samuels discusses the effects of the Trump assassination attempt on the Republican National Convention, which is set to showcase campus antisemitism as one of it's "top tier issues."

Samuels, speaking from Milwaukee where he is covering the convention says the reason, is "because it hits at so many issues that Republicans in America these days really care about - it touches on immigration, foreign policy, and national security. So it makes sense that Republicans will really try to seize upon this as a key theme over the next few days" and point to it as a negative development that happened on Joe Biden's watch.

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While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledges to keep up the fighting in Gaza, thousands of Israelis joined together at a conference on Monday to deliver a message to his government and the world: It's time to reach a deal, to stop the war, to make peace.

One of the many groups behind the peace conference was Women Wage Peace, whose co-founder Yael Admi told Haaretz reporter and special host of Haaretz Podcast Linda Dayan that within the peace camp, "We have to unite our voices, and that's what we did."

Discussing how the event came about, how to keep the momentum and the role of women in ending the conflict, Admi said, "We have one common target: To bring back the hostages, to make this terrible war end and to begin a process of diplomatic agreements to give a horizon of solutions for these awful days."

Dayan also interviewed activists Ibrahim Abu Ahmad and Josh Drill, bereaved mother Elana Kaminka and Standing Together co-director Alon-Lee Green, who said "After nine months of war... It's not enough to point out what we hate," adding, "we must put forward a vision of which kind of reality we are demanding."

As Israelis dream of a better future, in Europe, France is gearing up for a far-right government after the National Rally party emerged victorious in the first round of voting on Sunday. Haaretz correspondent and France 24 journalist Shirli Sitbon joined the podcast to explain where France and its Jewish citizens, who have become a political football, go from here.

The Jewish community "is very divided" on the results, she said. "At the same time, they feel that [it's] a strong party that will be tough on anyone who attacks Jews – that's what the National Rally promises, to defend Jews – but at the same time, a lot of Jews know very well what this party is made of, its history, its program, and they see it as extremely dangerous."

Still, some French Jews are willing to live with antisemitism in parliament "if it means, they believe, more security on a daily basis," she said.

Until now, she added, French Jews have never had official contact with the far right beyond condemning them. But suddenly, with a high likelihood of a far-right total majority, "some Jewish officials are already officially starting to talk to the National Rally, because they want to know what's going to happen, to see what's next."

But, "with Jews in a situation we've never known before," she said, "we don't really know what's going to happen tomorrow when they're in power."

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The key to avoiding full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah is ending the conflict in southern Israel with Hamas, asserts Yoram Schweitzer, an expert on the Palestinian and Lebanese terror groups, on the Haaretz Podcast.

Schweitzer tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer that it is in Israel's power to "extricate itself" from what is already an ongoing two-front war. He blames the "illusion of a total victory" promoted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza for dragging on the war for months, what he calls a "misguided policy" that has also led to the war of attrition between Lebanon and Israel.

"I think it's in our hands to determine the future in the north" when it comes to preventing a slide into a larger war, Schweitzer says. "I think Israel has a great and significant role to play in calming down the situation."

A former strategist in negotiating for Israeli soldiers missing in action, Schweitzer believes that a deal must be made with Hamas exchanging hostages for Palestinian prisoners and ending the war. Afterward, Israel should work to "redesign our preparedness and our military readiness both in the south and in the north and prepare for a potential future war with Hezbollah, if needed" – unless a comprehensive regional political settlement can be reached.

Schweitzer says he believes internal political pressure in Lebanon and the potential devastation of a full-scale conflict means that Hezbollah is "under pressure" to accept a cease-fire that would avoid a conflagration in which Iran would be sure to join, thus sparking regional war.

While he believes Hezbollah and Iran are not interested in the all-out war that has panicked Israelis into buying generators and stocking up on bottled water, "it's in their interest to stick to their policy and to the war of attrition. I think that we need to understand that Israel is the one who determines the scale and the height of the flames of the war."

Acknowledging that Hezbollah's Iran-backed forces initiated the current conflict and is "not an innocent bystander," he notes that "Hezbollah is mostly reactive to Israeli maneuvers and attacks" and so Israel determines "where the trend in Lebanon is going."

Netanyahu's seemingly concerted efforts to alienate the Biden White House weakens Israel's position vis-a-vis both Hamas and Hezbollah, Schweitzer says, calling it a "very dangerous" and "stupid, foolish and irresponsible" policy.

"It is definitely a strategic mistake by our prime minister to attack what may be one of the most friendly administrations that Israel has enjoyed throughout the years. I don't want to use foul language, but it's definitely an unrealistic and irresponsible policy to attack Israel's most significant ally."

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Israelis should expect Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "poison machine" to be working overtime with the coalition government attacking its own military leaders on a daily basis, says Haaretz senior defense analyst Amos Harel on the Haaretz Podcast.

After a brief "honeymoon" period last week, following the IDF's daring rescue of four Israeli hostages held in Gaza, he said, "The hunt is on again. We'll see Netanyahu attacking them almost on a daily basis on the one hand, and also, what we call the poison machine run by his son and his supporters. We'll see more and more accusations pointed towards Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and Ronen Bar, the head of the [Shin Bet security service]."

The goal of these attacks, Harel says, is to distract the Israeli public from Netanyahu's "dirty political trickery" and "the terrible, terrible price of the ongoing war."

"Netanyahu's interests are no longer in line with Israel's strategic interest," Harel asserts. What about the "Decisive victory" the prime minister keeps talking about? "It's absolute nonsense," He said, "and Netanyahu knows that better than anyone else."

Also on the podcast, French journalist Shirli Sitbon, a long time Haaretz contributor, reports on how French Jews, along with the rest of the country, were "shocked" by the snap elections declared by President Emmanuel Macron.

She said they are themselves caught between political blocs on the left and the right, and with the center weakened, now embrace extremist parties.

On the far left, she said, the bloc includes MPs "saying Israel is solely responsible" for the war in Gaza, who view Hamas as a legitimate resistance movement, support a full boycott and sanctioning of the country as well as arresting Israeli soldiers traveling in Europe and protesters carrying signs portraying French Jewish politicians as pigs. The alternative is a right-wing coalition led by Marine Le Pen's extreme xenophobic National Rally.

The polarization, she said, leaves many Jews frightened and confused, with indications that more than half might consider leaving the country if the far left or the far right win a decisive victory and the country "changes on a fundamental level."

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If they ever imagined that they were dwelling in an ivory tower, the fierce and sometimes violent confrontations on their campuses have knocked academics who teach about Israel and the Middle East into a harsh new reality, Professor Dov Waxman, director of UCLA's Nazarian Center for Israel Studies told the Haaretz Podcast on the eve of a charged graduation week for his campus.

Waxman described the clash last month between pro-Palestinian protestors and Israel advocacy groups who came to confront them – and how he and other professors found themselves keeping the two sides apart with campus security nowhere to be found.

"I had felt like it was necessary to be there to observe and to try to be a witness and to provide an account, if that was needed. I didn't imagine that I'd be kind of brought into these protests or that I'd be required at all to keep protesters apart," Waxman said in a conversation with podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer.

"Ultimately," he said "being there on the campus, particularly in the hours before the big protest encampment was dismantled by the police and "see[ing] hundreds of heavily armed riot police lining up on what is normally the quad in the center of our campus where students hang out" and "the world's media converging on our campus" was a "disturbing' and "very, very surreal experience."

Also on the podcast, Haaretz correspondent Linda Dayan recounts her reporting from campus protests at several California universities.

She said that it was impossible to paint a simple picture of the typical campus protester or generalize about their messaging. Some programming criticizing Israel was no more extreme than what one might find in an Israeli newspaper, she said. Other sessions contained inflammatory and even antisemitic content.

"I've gone to magnificently different events on the same campus at the same encampment with wildly different messaging," Dayan said.

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There is "an abyss" between how the U.S. and Israeli governments treat the families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, says Prof. Jonathan Dekel-Chen, whose son Sagui, 35, was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 while trying to protect his family and other residents of Kibbutz Nir Oz. Sagui Dekel-Chen's wife, Avital, gave birth to the couple's third daughter in January.

Speaking with Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, the dual Israeli-U.S. citizen – who hasn't received new information about his son in eight months – compared the "inexplicably infuriating" behavior of members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government with their American counterparts.

Dekel-Chen said he has felt "privileged" to receive the attention and sympathy offered by U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration – along with the other dual citizens caught in the hostage nightmare. He also noted that he felt similar "wall to wall" support from members of Congress, "regardless of what their views are on the conduct of Israel's war."

In Israel, by contrast, "we've had no direct communication from senior ministers, nothing – it's unthinkable in a small intimate country like ours." He suggested that perhaps more sympathy and support would be forthcoming if those whose communities and lives were "destroyed" by the events of October 7 had come from the right-wing religious constituencies that make up Netanyahu's governing coalition.

While Biden has put another cease-fire and hostage deal on the table, urging Netanyahu and Hamas to agree to its terms, "Israel's government has a distorted view of what victory is," according to Dekel-Chen. "This war is more like a crusade ... its goals are dictated by the fringe, radical, far right."

On the podcast, Dekel-Chen also explains why, as a Hebrew University history professor, he feels that comparisons between October 7 and the Holocaust are inaccurate and dangerous. "Other than the death on that day, there are no real similarities," he says, "and it simply serves as a much too-easy-explanation for a horrific day and lets people off the hook who should be held accountable. It invokes some greater force that's so far beyond our control that it was almost inevitable. That's absolute nonsense."

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Rabbi Delphine Horveilleur, considered one of the most powerful and prominent voices of French Jewry, spoke with Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer during her first visit to Israel since the October 7 attacks and the beginning of Israel's war in Gaza, and discussed the way in which for Diaspora Jews, the attacks meant "that our refuge isn't safe anymore."

Horveilleur describes 'a feeling of vulnerability and exile that came back to us. And even in Israel, there's a feeling that we're all in a way in a kind of 'galut" - exile - and there is an awareness of brokenness in us."

At the same time, she says, the current situation presents an opportunity for a "renewed conversation" between Israel and the Diaspora. She feels Israelis, who are usually "focused on strength," are currently more able to relate to feelings of "fragility and the vulnerability," that Diaspora Jews deal with more openly.

Contemplating the rise of antisemitism around the world, Horveilleur says confronting people about their antisemitism is "totally useless."

"It never even makes them aware of the problem," she expands. "Many people say 'I am not an antisemite' but they speak in an antisemitic language, it's almost an ancient antisemitic tongue that people use without knowing."

Also on the podcast, Hebrew University professor Tamar Megiddo, an expert in public international law, lays out the challenges that face Israel in the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court. Megiddo discusses the likely consequences of the request for arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of violating international humanitarian law.

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Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn understands the incredulity abroad regarding the political survival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his grip on power despite the failures of October 7, terrible poll numbers, thousands of Israelis in the streets protesting weekly and his policies creating unprecedented tensions with the United States.

In the second in a series of special podcast episodes in which subscribers from around the world were given the opportunity to ask questions, Benn emphasized in his responses Netanyahu isn't going away anytime soon.

"Netanyahu did lose a lot of his popularity after October 7 - and rightly so. But he has been able to hold on to his coalition. And there is no sign of any imminent collapse of this coalition, or any cracks within it that might bring him down." Benn noted while answering a range of questions on security and political issues.

"We have to bear in mind that while his government is unpopular, it's leading a very popular policy. There is very strong support in the Israeli Jewish society to continue the war until the defeat of Hamas and hopefully also of Hezbollah, the return of Israelis to live along the borders in the south and the north, and a more quiet future."

Worryingly, Benn points out that the only clear-cut vision for post-war Gaza without Hamas rule is a long-term occupation of Gaza, coming from the the government's far right flank, with tacit cooperation from Netanyahu.

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As Israel prepares to celebrate Memorial Day, or Yom Hazikaron, on Monday and Independence Day, or Yom Haatzmaut, the following day, the abrupt transition from commemoration to celebration will look different in the shadow of October 7 and the war in Gaza.

Abbey Onn lost two members of her family in Hamas' murderous attack, while three were taken hostage (two of them, 12-year-old Erez and 16-year-old Sahar, were released in November). She tells Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer that she's helping to organize an alternative memorial ceremony powered by a group of families of hostages as a way "to say that we're building a new reality together, that we need to strengthen one another."

While Onn doesn't discount the efforts of the army which is "fighting on our behalf," rather "than commemorating or talking about heroism, which we absolutely believe has happened," the event is an "effort to try to heal and rebuild."

"We can't move forward until these people come back," she says. "[My family] needs to know that there is a strong movement of civilians who are willing to acknowledge that things are not as they were."

Also on the podcast, Carly Rosenthal, from the pro-peace, anti-occupation NGO Combatants for Peace, talks about the organization's 19-year-old tradition of offering an alternative memorial ceremony to the government-sponsored event, which allows "Israelis and Palestinians to mourn together, to grieve for their loved ones that they've lost throughout the conflict."

This year, she says, the theme centers on children during war. "Too many children, too many people, have been killed and are suffering. And the ceremony is an opportunity to honor them and to remember them, and to also say that we don't want this for them. We want a better future for them."

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Journalist and public intellectual Masha Gessen is dismayed that the Biden White House has been condemning, not supporting, the numerous tent protests against Israel's war in Gaza on American campuses and worried that this decision will hand the 2024 presidential election to Donald Trump.

Speaking with host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the Haaretz Podcast, Gessen said that the fact that "Biden and his administration are willing to sacrifice the election, effectively, to its ongoing engagement with Israel is shocking, heartbreaking and very dangerous for this country."

Gessen is a staff writer for The New Yorker and a senior lecturer in journalism at the City University of New York. In a wide-ranging conversation, Gessen recounted experiences on their recent reporting trip to Israel – including a visit to relatives living in a West Bank settlement – discussed the recent controversy over their comparison between the Gaza and Nazi-era Jewish ghettos and their views on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who they described as "very much in the mold of all contemporary autocrats."

While they expressed "empathy" for the "fear, pain and terror" elicited by their Holocaust analogy, they said "I'm very critical of the way that [the Holocaust] is being used politically," especially by "creating a sort of blindness to everything but that experience of fear and victimhood."

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In her first visit to Israel since October 7, Berkeley-based author and screenwriter Ayelet Waldman made the news carrying a sack of rice on her shoulder, she was arrested with a group of rabbis participating in a symbolic march to the Gaza border to deliver humanitarian aid.

Neither she nor members of the group, Waldman tells Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, were under the illusion that they would actually get through the Erez checkpoint to feed Palestinians - but she felt it was important to her, while in Israel, to take an action in line with her values "and this struck me as an action that would feel personally meaningful, because the news of the famine has been particularly horrific."

Waldman, the parent of two children in U.S. universities, also weighs in on the "obsession" of the American Jewish community - and Israelis - with antisemitism on campuses in the midst of the pro-Palestinian protests taking place in Columbia University and colleges all over the States. "I really do believe that [the antisemitism] is overstated," she says.

Also on the podcast, Haaretz senior defense and security analyst Amos Harel gives a pessimistic view of the chances of progress when it comes to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government reaching a deal for the release of hostages and a cease-fire, that would stave off an IDF operation in Rafah.

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If support for Israel becomes a truly partisan issue and political football in the United States, it will be "a disaster" that the people and the leaders of the Jewish state don't fully comprehend, says Professor Noah Feldman in a conversation with host of the Haaretz Podcast Allison Kaplan Sommer.

Feldman is a Harvard Law School professor and public intellectual who has written ten books on law, politics, religion and Middle East geopolitics. In his new book, "To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People," he applies rigorous thinking to the foundational question of what it means to be Jewish, with a special emphasis on how the founding of the state of Israel fundamentally transformed the religion.

Feldman says much of what has unfolded since October 7 reinforced the thesis of his book as to the key role Israel plays in Jewish religious identity. "I know a lot of American Jews who went from being once in a while, vacation on the beach Zionists to very intensely committed active Zionist because of October 7 – that's one form of engagement."

"And then on the other side, you have people who were kind of trying to put their heads in the sand and never think about Israel, lest they be forced to criticize it, who basically felt after October 7: 'I have to say that what is happening in Gaza is not in my name.'" For Jews around the world, he says, "Israel has become a central part of their Jewishness that they must react to, whether positively or negatively."

In the wide-ranging interview, Feldman, who is also an expert on constitutional and international law, addresses the hot button issue of accusing Israel of genocide, which has gripped college campuses like Harvard.

"There is no evidence that would satisfy an international court engaged in an ordinary criminal evaluation of genocide to support the charge that Israel has engaged in a genocide in Gaza," he asserts. "To emphasize that charge, over time and aggressively, in the absence of such evidence, has the possibility of crossing into a type of antisemitism that imagines Jews as always and everywhere the oppressors, and never as victims."

At the same time, he stresses, "one can hold the view that I just described, of rejecting the genocide charge, and still believe that Israel's conduct in Gaza is excessive, even under international law potentially. But the genocide charge is so richly embedded in a discourse of definitional evil. And it's so associated with the Holocaust, that it's worrisome to me when, for example, the South African government goes to The Hague and says Israel are actually the genocidal actors because I think there's a conscious desire to flip a narrative here."

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Iran's firing of hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel on Saturday night marked a new escalation in a simmering war usually fought by proxies miles from Tehran. Iran's strike, which was largely intercepted by Israel and its allies, leaves lingering questions of global significance.

On a special edition of the podcast, Haaretz reporter Linda Dayan speaks to Haaretz Editor-in-Chief Aluf Benn, who explains how this unprecedented attack came to be – and what might follow. Although this particular barrage failed to inflict mass casualties, in its aftermath, "Israeli decision-makers" must now think "not twice, but ten times, about the consequences" of striking Iranian targets or their proxies in the future. "After October 7, I think we all need to be very skeptical of premediated military outcomes, both for Israel and for Hamas as well."

If you want to fight Iran, Benn says, "you need the early warning capabilities, if not the defensive capabilities, of your allies in the region and first and foremost the United States." But the same alliances that helped Israel are absent for Hamas. Iran's actions "shows Hamas that, at this stage at least, they're still friendless. Nobody is going to come help them," Benn says. "They did not say once that if Israel would be willing to stop the fire in Gaza… they would not retaliate."

As Israelis are worrying about a new front to this war, so, it seems, are Iranians. Arash Azizi contributing writer at The Atlantic and author of "What Iranians Want: Women, Life, Freedom," explains how average Iranians are responding to the threat. "Average Iranians have a lot of problems – economic, the repression they face from the government," he says. "The last thing they can afford is to enter a war with Israel, a country for which there is very little hostility amongst the Iranian public."

"Iranians don't have that hostility to Israel that I think you do have in other Arab countries – it's just not the same thing for us." The warmongers and champions of the regime's aggression toward the Jewish State are a small minority, he says.

The very day of Iran's launches at Israel, the regime ramped up its persecution of women who do not cover their hair, Azizi notes. "The regime will use whatever this conflict is going to be to repress critique," he says, but at the same time, "it's a new vista for the Iranian opposition to oppose the war – and also to oppose this regime that has brought nothing good for Iranians, and has threatened our country with a war that none of us want."

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Six months into Israel's conflict with Hamas, the solid support U.S. President Joe Biden's White House gave to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has taken a serious hit.

Following the deaths of seven World Central Kitchen humanitarian aid workers, a clash over a possible military operation in Rafah, and Israel's failure to provide a vision for the "day after" the war in Gaza, there has been a "precipitous drop" in the standing of the Israeli prime minister both in the White House and Congress, Haaretz Washington correspondent Ben Samuels tells Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer.

"World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres is a close friend of Joe Biden. And when seven of his employees are killed, that made it personal for the president in a way that unfortunately 30,000 Palestinian casualties has not been," he said, sparking an unprecedented tough phone call from the president to Netanyahu in which Biden "really put his foot down."

Behind the scenes at the White House, Samuels said, officials are "incredibly frustrated, and I think they feel a little personally betrayed by Netanyahu as well.

"I think they really believe that they have been going out on a limb providing coverage and support when it is becoming extremely unpopular both within the United States and in the international community. So I think there is a very real sense of resentment," Samuels said.

Also on the podcast, Hadar Susskind, President and CEO of Americans for Peace Now discusses his organization's support for Congress conditioning aid to Israel, a stance that has traditionally been controversial within the world of American Jewish advocacy groups but is gaining traction on Capitol Hill.

As Susskind sees it, "aid to Israel is endangered" because Israel's behavior in Gaza and the West Bank "often does not align with American policy and American values. When that happens, you will see far greater pushback, as we are seeing right now [with] people saying aid should be cut."

As a result, "if you want there to be a path for U.S. aid to Israel to continue, that aid, like all the other aid we give every other country, "needs to be conditioned."

Susskind, a longtime progressive activist in Washington, also discussed the perception that there is an epidemic of antisemitism on the U.S. left.

"I still think it is overwhelmingly actually on the far right," he contends. "That's not to say it doesn't exist on the left. It does, and I've seen it, but... so much of what is reported breathlessly as horrible antisemitism on college campuses is college students chanting 'Free Palestine.' You may dislike that – it might make you or your kid on campus uncomfortable – but I personally don't believe that saying 'Free Palestine' is itself an antisemitic act."

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The controversy in Israel over the exemption of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students from military service "has reached a boiling point," former Haaretz journalist and author Yair Ettinger tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the Haaretz Podcast.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has continually delayed confronting the issue in his years in power, Ettinger notes. But this week, the High Court's deadline for either enshrining exemptions in legislation or enlisting yeshiva students expired. And it did so during a war in which Israelis serving in the army have made tremendous sacrifices, and amid severe discontent with Netanyahu's coalition, which depends on ultra-Orthodox support.

And so, Ettinger says, Israelis who disliked but tolerated the ability of the ultra-Orthodox to avoid army service in the past have now "run out of patience."

"There is a big dissonance in Israel right now regarding the Haredim. Why? Because they are at the peak of their political power, and yet they don't share the duties [of defending the country]." On one hand, "they are the government. They have been the senior partners of Netanyahu for many, many years. And now, when we have an existential moment, and we are fighting a really difficult war, they don't pay any price."

Ettinger, author of the book, "Frayed, the Disputes Unraveling Religious Zionists," also looks at how the judicial overhaul battle is inextricably intertwined with the military exemption controversy, and discusses the growing rift in Orthodox society over religion and society, the role of women and tolerance of LGBTQ individuals.

That rift, he says, is exemplified at the Pride Parade each year, where "you can see many religious Zionists marching and many others [among] them protesting against the parade."

He also notes that while the Gaza war has underlined the cracks between secular Israelis and their Diaspora counterparts, "the opposite is true" among the Orthodox. "Today, they are closer than ever," Ettinger says.

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Haaretz journalist Sheren Falah Saab has been covering the unfolding disastrous humanitarian situation in Gaza for months. Even now, aside from reporting on the lives of Gazans as the war rages, she manages, from time to time, to deep dive into Arab culture, and write the kind of articles that she used to send in all the time before October 7.

But, she confesses in this week's conversation with Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, the things she hears from Gazans often break her heart.

In the first of three special episodes in which Haaretz subscribers from around the world were given the opportunity to ask Haaretz journalists their questions, Falah Saab responded to a wide range of queries from readers and talked openly about her life as a Druze citizen working as a journalist in Israel, before and after October 7.

She talks about the complex identity issues embedded in the question whether minorities prefer to be called "Israeli Arabs" or "Palestinian citizens of Israel," and the challenging process of sourcing and verifying information inside Gaza, almost six months into the war.

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This special episode of the Haaretz Podcast features two of the standout sessions from the recent Haaretz-UCLA conference: Israel After October 7 

First, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman sits down with Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn to discuss the “perils” and “opportunities” that lie ahead for Israel in the aftermath of the war in Gaza. 

Friedman predicts that "Israel is either going to come out of this with a new relationship with the Palestinians in 2024” or will “go back to 1947-48 with new weapons,” if it fails to develop a coherent vision for the future of Gaza and a wider strategic plan for the region.

The latter option, he fears, becomes increasingly likely the longer that the extreme right-wing coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - a group of “incompetent” ministers he would not want “as waiters at my grandson’s bar mitzvah” remains in power.

Then, Haaretz diplomatic correspondent Amir Tibon and his father retired Major General Noam Tibon join deputy editor-in-chief of Haaretz English, Maya Lecker, to recount the dramatic episode on October 7 when armed Hamas militants infiltrated Kibbutz Nahal Oz, where Amir lives. He, his wife, and their two little girls spent tense hours locked in their safe room without food or electricity, before Amir's father undertook what he called "the mission of his life" and drove south in a daring campaign to rescue them on his own.

"On the morning of October 8, I said that everyone responsible for this failure, the biggest failure in the history of the state of Israel, needs to go," Noam Tibon said, echoing Thomas Friedman's message - that Israel needs a change in leadership. "The leadership of the IDF, the Shin Bet – they took responsibility and I know they will go. All of the government too. But the first one who needs to take responsibility is Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister. I believe that Netanyahu is personally in charge of this failure, he basically developed Hamas as an asset. He needs to go as soon as possible."

The entire conference is available for viewing on YouTube here.

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Award-winning playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner, one of the first high-profile American Jewish artists to sharply and publicly criticize Israel's treatment of Palestinians, speaks to Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer about Jonathan Glazer's Oscar speech, the Gaza War, antisemitism in the U.S., and the current production of "Angels in America" in Tel Aviv.

He calls the events of October 7 "gutting" and as the months have passed since, has been horrified by the "unimaginable proportions" of the civilian death toll in Gaza and the result of actions by Israel which, he says "really looks a lot like ethnic cleansing to me" and explains the level of "passion and rage" in denunciations of the war around the world.

"If you had asked me, even on October 7, would Israel allow, 30,000 people, many of them civilians, to be killed by the IDF I would have said no. Or what the UN is warning of now and imminent famine, I would have said no."

He confesses on the podcast that over the five months since October 7, he has "moved closer to the idea that maybe boycott [of Israel] is is necessary." At the same time, he says: "I can't do it. I don't want to do it. I can't separate myself from Israel in that way. It just doesn't feel right."

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