Haaretz Podcast

The far-right religious Netanyahu government is doing its best to “push away” liberal non-Orthodox American Jews from Israel, said Rabbi Rick Jacobs , leader of the U.S. Reform movement, on the Haaretz Podcast. “We’re not going away. We’re actually leaning in,” he said. “You can’t trade in non‑Orthodox Jews for evangelical Christians. We’re stu...

Unless something dramatic changes, the upcoming Israeli election will either end in a deadlock or a bold move to “get rid of the foolish self‑imposed arbitrary constraint of not forming coalitions with Arab parties,” political strategist and Haaretz columnist Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin said on the Haaretz Podcast. With neither the pro-Netanyahu bloc nor the opposition parties coming close t...

Brad Lander said on the Haaretz Podcast that his resounding victory in the race for the Democratic nomination for Congress in a New York City district reflected a desire for a "reset in the U.S. relationship with Israel in the Democratic Party voting base – including in one of the most Jewish districts in the country." Lander won by more than 30 points in New York's 10th District, covering d...

In the inaugural episode of Haaretz’s new Election Podcast, host Allison Kaplan Sommer welcomes the first weekly panel of Haaretz analysts who will be examining and explaining developments in the intensifying countdown to the fateful elections this fall.  This week, senior analyst Esther Solomon and Palestinian affairs correspondent Nagham Zbeedat assess the state of a race in which nei...

For the Australian Jewish community, the date of December 14 carries as much gut-wrenching trauma as October 7 and September 11 does for Israelis and Americans, Daniel Hochberg , co-chair of the Union for Progressive Judaism's board, told the Haaretz Podcast. On the six-month anniversary of the terrorist shooting attack on 1,000 Jews celebrating Hanukkah on Bondi Beach that killed 15 members of th...

In a special investigation on a "revolution" that has taken place over the past three years, Haaretz reporters Yarden Michaeli , Matan Golan and Yaniv Kubovich detailed the push to restore and drastically expand Israeli presence in the northern West Bank that was part of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Gaza disengagement plan in 2005. On the Haaretz Podcast, Michaeli discusses how the settler...

As Israelis focused on the life-and-death issues around conflicts with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, the Netanyahu government has slowly but steadily progressed in its campaign to eliminate the gatekeepers of liberal democracy in order to consolidate the power of elected politicians, constitutional law expert Prof. Adam Shinar told the Haaretz Podcast.  The steps it has taken were “not exa...

Israel is in a strategically weakened position – and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will take a hard political hit if reports on the details of U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding are accurate, Haaretz columnist Joshua Leifer said on the Haaretz Podcast.  Netanyahu had been “riding high,” planning to face Israel’s upcoming elections in the fall having compensated...

When Mayor Zohran Mamdani refused to march in New York City’s Israel Day parade - the first mayor of the city to do so in over 60 years – “did not surprise” Rabbi Josh Weinberg , who participated in the parade. But the liberal Zionist Reform rabbi was surprised to discover that he was marching alongside far-right ministers like Bezalel Smotrich and members of the Kahanist O...

U.S. President Donald Trump has tired of the Israel-Iran conflict, but a solution remains elusive as missile fire renewed Sunday following an Israeli attack on Beirut that provoked the Iranian regime. “I think he's had enough of us,” said Haaretz senior defense analyst Amos Harel , speaking on the Haaretz Podcast. “He's fed up with this region. This is taking a lot longer than he...

For B'Tselem executive director Yuli Novak , the firestorm around the New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof decrying sexual violence by Israelis against Palestinians in the West Bank and in Israeli prisons has had the wrong focus.  Speaking on the Haaretz Podcast, Novak said the Israeli government’s "propaganda machine" and other critics focused on challenging the facts regarding th...

The Gulf countries are spending “enormous amounts of money to try to mask the economic consequences of the Iran war from their population,” Gregg Carlstrom , The Economist’s Middle East correspondent, said on the Haaretz Podcast. Carlstrom, speaking from Dubai, explained that with the Strait of Hormuz blocked by Iran, Gulf states are flying in consumer goods, food and medicine no...

Both of Israel’s wars in Iran have been “strategic failures” and critically damaged the country’s deterrence, Danny Citrinowicz , a former top Iran expert in Israeli military intelligence, told the Haaretz Podcast.  He cited a long list of missteps and misguided assumptions that led to the failure of the solo military operation in 2025 and the joint U.S. attack in Febr...

The first major primary battle in the 2026 U.S. midterm elections resulted in a significant victory for AIPAC and other pro-Israel megadonors, but Haaretz's Washington correspondent Ben Samuels warned that their celebrations could be premature. The defeat of Representative Thomas Massie – a rare Republican antagonist of U.S. President Donald Trump and harsh critic of Israel whom AIPAC "has w...

As Israel is fighting enemies on multiple fronts, it can't afford to lose any of its vital strategic assets. And according to Dr. Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis , a researcher at Tel Aviv's Institute for National Security Studies, it is in danger of losing one of those assets: the support of American Jews. "The loss of the special relationship between Israel and the US will force Israel to reconsider i...

U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed his desire not to "get stuck" in Middle East conflict and clearly wants to avoid a renewal of full-on war with Iran – but he may not have a choice, Haaretz senior analyst Amos Harel told the Haaretz Podcast. "The Iranians are not playing ball. They're not willing to make the concessions he's demanding," Harel said. "Under these circumstances, he may...

On a special edition of the Haaretz Podcast celebrating its 500th episode, host Allison Kaplan Sommer speaks to iconic Israeli musician David Broza – the composer of "Things Will Be Better," one of Israel’s best-known peace anthems – on performing in a time of war, chaos and despair in his country. “There’s no rationale to being Israeli,” Broza, 70, said on the...

Jews in the United Kingdom watched voters in their country gravitate to parties on the extreme right and left in the country’s local elections – following a campaign where antisemitism was used as a political football, and controversies over the government’s relationship with Israel, pro-Palestinian protests and free speech factored into voting.  On the Haaretz Podcast, Lond...

October 7 and the Gaza war radically changed the way many people around the world, including Diaspora Jews, viewed Israel.  For Toronto-based journalist Jesse Brown , the turning point came not with Hamas' massacre itself, but with the domestic backlash that followed. “Canadians got angry with Jews after October 7, and the entire national discourse seemed to just turn against Jews in a...

War-weary Israelis have clearly tired of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership, but it is still uncertain as to whether opposition forces will be able to put aside their wide ideological differences to defeat him in the October election, Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin told the Haaretz Podcast.  Scheindlin, a veteran political analyst and strategist, said the recent announcement that Net...

A diplomatic crisis over Israeli import of stolen grain from occupied Ukraine exploded this week following the publication of a Haaretz investigation that documents Ukrainian allegations that Russian ships were bringing the wheat and barley to Israeli ports.  National Security and Cyber editor Avi Scharf and diplomatic correspondent Liza Rozovsky explain on the Haaretz Podcast how the in...

The average American watched the Gaza war from afar as a "dramatic and gruesome humanitarian crisis that Israel was responsible for" – but the U.S.-Israel war in Iran is having a far greater impact on U.S. voters and politicians, Haaretz columnist Joshua Leifer said, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast.  "The perception is that this was a war that no one in America wanted," and "that Americ...

Fighting antisemitism online was meant to be the focus of the Israeli government’s multimillion-dollar digital PR campaign run by President Donald Trump’s former digital guru, Brad Parscale. But instead, Haaretz disinformation and cyber correspondent Omer Benjakob said on the Haaretz Podcast, Parscale’s firm has built a network of pro-Israel websites targeting the U.S. evang...

The final moments of Vivian Silver’s life were a “pivotal turning point” for her son Yonatan Zeigen , who now dedicates his life to Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation, following in the footsteps of his peace activist mother, who was slain in her home in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7. Speaking on the eve of Israel’s Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers and terror victims,...

The dramatic landslide election in Hungary toppling authoritarian populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, resonated deeply for Israel in diverse ways, explained Haaretz’s David Issacharoff , who covered the election from Budapest, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast.  For Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his supporters, it meant the loss of his “closest ally” in Europe...