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...

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...

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...

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...

**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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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." ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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)...

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...