Ben Caspit speaks this week with Yaki Dayan, Israel’s former Consul General in Los Angeles and an expert on Israel-US relations. Dayan comments on reports about Prime Minister Naftali Bennett talking Sunday with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone, offering for Israel to mediate the conflict. "Bennett truly believes he can negotiate, because he got the phone call from [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky. Zelensky wants to see the negotiations taking place outside of the zones of...

Ben Caspit speaks this week with Lt. Col. (res.) Jonathan D. Halevi, who currently serves as senior Middle East researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Commenting on the unprecedented decision by the head of the Islamic Ra’am party Mansour Abbas last May to join the ruling coalition, Halevi says that from Abbas’ perspective, this decision legitimizes Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. "Analyzing Abbas’ statements over the last decade, one can see he is guided by two...

Ben Caspit hosts this week Anat Ben David, a specialist in communication and professor at the Open University of Israel. Talking about the internal-Israel Pegasus scandal, Ben David says that "cyber-attack tools like NSO’s Pegasus software are in fact unconventional weapons. Their use deeply undermines a large number of human rights, and no state authority should be allowed to use them against its citizens in democratic regimes, or in any regimes for that matter." For her, what is most...

Ben Caspit speaks this week with Brig. Gen. (res.) Assaf Orion. The senior research fellow at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) explains that the US is not responding strongly to attacks against the Emirates by Iran and its proxies. It does not make them pay. "And so, Iran and its proxies feel empowered and notch up their aggression. This situation brings the other countries in the region to seek other ways to mitigate the threat. The first way would be diplomacy and...

Ben Caspit speaks this week with Gen. (ret.) Ephraim Sneh, a geopolitical expert and former minister. While the current government did change some of its approach to the Palestinians, it is not really presenting any new policies on the issue, argues Sneh. Only one third of the coalition is against the two-state solution. The rest are in favor of it. Still, the government had not prevented provocative settlement attempts in the West Bank. These include enlarging settlements around Jerusalem in...

Ben Caspit speaks this week with veteran attorney Amit Becher about the possibility of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signing a plea bargain in order to escape prison time. The chairman of the Tel Aviv District of the Israeli Bar Association argues that even though Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit leaves office at the end of the month, Netanyahu still has enough time to reach such a deal. "If Netanyahu agrees to the conditions proposed, the technical/legal part could be wrapped...

Ben Caspit speaks this week with former Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, who was one of the main architects of the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians. Beilin is pessimistic about the government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett launching any sort of talks with the Palestinians. “Since 2014, when the Secretary of State John Kerry-initiated talks stopped, we don’t have any peace process. I am sure that eventually we will have such process — I hope so. But I don’t know when talks will be renewed,...

Ben Caspit speaks this week with Eytan Schwartz, who heads the Tel Aviv Municipality Media and Communications Department. Schwartz and his colleagues at the municipality dissociate themselves from the term “The State of Tel Aviv,” which implies that Tel Aviv residents allegedly do not carry the burden of Israeli society and are removed from the difficulties and challenges other Israelis cope with. Schwartz says that such a judgmental approach is unjustified. “In Tel Aviv, we feel part of...

Ben Caspit speaks this week with Brig. Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, currently the director of the Project on Regional Middle East Developments at the Jerusalem Center. Kuperwasser, who previously headed the strategic affairs ministry and also the IDF research division, is considered a top expert on Iran’s nuclear program. Kuperwasser says that, from Israel’s point of view, none of the current options regarding the Iranian nuclear program are good. “The option that should have been up for...

Ben Caspit hosts this week on his podcast Israeli diplomatic correspondent Barak Ravid of Channel 13 News and Axios. Ravid just published his first book, which is about the Trump and Netanyahu era and the Abraham Accords. "For me, the Abraham Accords were really the biggest break-through in Middle East peace in 25 years, and I wanted to be the person to first write as detailed-as-possible account of how these accords came about," he says. Ravid thinks former President Donald Trump, former...

On his podcast this week, Ben Caspit hosts Brig. Gen. (res) Prof. Jacob Nagel, the former Israeli acting National Security Advisor. The ups and downs in the talks conducted these days in Vienna, says Nagel, are not real drama. These are well-orchestrated stories that the Iranians are running, with all the climax points fixed well in advance. Nagel explains that the way things stand now, there is no returning to the 2015 nuclear agreement, adding, “Even the Biden administration’s special envoy...

Ben Caspit speaks this week with Dr. Raz Zimmt, an expert on Iran at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). Zimmt says that the strategy espoused at the time by then-President Donald Trump and then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against Iran was obviously flawed, as it did not reach its objectives. While it’s true that Iran’s economy was severely harmed, that was the means, not the goal. Iran’s nuclear policy did not change and the regime was not replaced. Or to be more exact,...

Ben Caspit speaks this week with Yonatan Adiri, a leading Israeli digital healthcare entrepreneur. Adiri, a former adviser of late President Shimon Peres, explains that most of Israel’s startup leadership is avantgarde, pushing forward visions for the next internet wave. "Companies like Wix or Fiverr or Mymed, and so many other across biotech, across bioinformatics, across infrastructure, all these companies are building the tools for the future," he notes. Adiri adds that those who control...

Ben Caspit speaks this week with Environmental Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg. The minister explains that while Israel is a small country in terms of population and its contribution to global pollution, it is also very fragile in terms of the effects of climate change such as bush fires and floods. The latter are expected to increase heavily in the upcoming years, which is why Israel must react rapidly. Zandberg says that Israel must now invest most of its resources not in looking for...

Ben Caspit speaks this week with Lt. Col. (res.) Peter Lerner, the former director of international media at the IDF's spokesperson’s office. Commenting on Israel’s repeated failures in the field of public diplomacy, Lerner says that “In Israel, we are very good at improvising, we are fantastic with innovation, but public accountability, responsibility and transparency are limited. We do have a hard case to make, but we can also do better on public diplomacy.” Lerner cites as a negative...

Ben Caspit hosts this week on his podcast David Makovsky, the Ziegler distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Commenting on recent signs of tensions between Washington and Jerusalem on the Palestinian issue and other topics, Makovsky says that “We have a situation where both President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett have an understanding, to try to maintain a public sense of harmony and avoid airing dirty laundry in public. An understanding on both...

Ben Caspit speaks this week with Geneva Initiative-Israel Director General Gadi Baltiansky. Commenting on the recent decision by Israeli authorities to advance construction of homes in West Bank settlements, Baltiansky says that "the Americans don’t want a confrontation with the Israeli government, and vice-versa. The US administration still senses relief over [former Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu being out of the game, and they know that the Bennet-Lapid government is the only...

Ben Caspit hosts this week Alon Ben David, the senior military analyst for Channel 13 news. Ben David says that "in 2012 Israel abandoned practicing and preparing for a viable military option [to attack Iran]. Netanyahu was responding to requests made by the American administration at the time. Now the Israeli army is back to doing what it should have done long ago, namely preparing an option to be presented for the Israeli decision-makers." Still, he emphasizes that Israel’s military options...

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

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

Ben Caspit speaks this week with Shmuel Rosner, the political editor of the Jewish Journal and a long-time contributor to the New York Times. Rosner says that the recent meeting in New York of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett with leaders of the American Jewish community was successful, first and foremost because they were happy to meet an Israeli prime minister who isn’t Benjamin Netanyahu. Referring to the strained relations that prevailed between Netanyahu and parts of the American Jewish...

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

Ben Caspit hosts this week Israel’s former ambassador to the United States Michael Oren. Ambassador Oren explains that while former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approach made the Iranian threat an Israeli issue, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is trying to internationalize it again. Still, Oren says that Israel must also remind the international community that it has the right and the historic duty to defend itself, and that it will take action should Iran try to break out towards a...

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

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