From Haaretz – Israel's oldest daily newspaper – a weekly podcast in English on Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World, hosted by Allison Kaplan Sommer.
Israel’s nightmare scenario: 'Netanyahu is up to his neck in criminal investigations as war rages'
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.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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27:20
'In Israel, we now have crumbs of democracy, not real democracy'
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.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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28:09
‘Qatargate’: Explaining the scandal that has Netanyahu panicked
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.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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31:52
'A fiasco and an embarrassment': How Israel's antisemitism conference went sideways
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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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35:25
'If I need to talk to the devil to get the hostages out, I will'
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.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
From Haaretz – Israel's oldest daily newspaper – a weekly podcast in English on Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World, hosted by Allison Kaplan Sommer.
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