NIF Australia Podcast

Less than two weeks after President Joe Biden took office NIF Australia hosted seasoned American Middle East negotiator, and NIF board member, Aaron David Miller and former Knesset member Ksenia Svetlova for a discussion about how America's Middle East policy will shift under the new administration. This podcast is a recording of the event held on Tuesday 2 February 2021. You can watch the event i...

Join us for an inspiring evening filled with beautiful music and conversation. Be uplifted by the wonderful music from Jewish Israeli singer Achinoam Nini (Noa) and Palestinian Israeli singer Mira Awad, and their ongoing efforts to create a more equal and tolerant society for all Israelis and Palestinians. Their collaboration is best known from Eurovision 2009 in Moscow where they sang together in...

Democracy and pluralism are under attack around the world. Join New York Times columnist Roger Cohen and academic and former deputy Knesset speaker Naomi Chazan to delve further into this troubling trend in the United States, Israel and all around the world. Joining us a week after the US elections, they'll discuss the result and its long lasting impact on a divided American society, as well as th...

Even at a time when they have greater than ever representation in the halls of power, the challenges facing women in politics remain high. Two veteran political leaders, Tanya Plibersek, Australia's shadow minister for education and training, and Zehava Galon, president of Zulat and former chairwoman of Israel's Meretz party, joined award winning journalist Deb Whitmont for a wide-ranging discussi...

Is America looking at four more years of President Donald Trump or will Democratic candidate Joe Biden win the upcoming elections? Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author Thomas Friedman joined us to discuss the Trump presidency and what's at stake at next month's US elections. You can watch the video of this event on YouTube.

As a former prime minister and foreign minister, there are few people with a better understanding of Australia's role in the world and our history with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than Kevin Rudd. Our event with Kevin Rudd, streamed live on 9 September, covered everything from Israel's plans for West Bank annexation, the recent UAE deal, Australia's support for the two-state solution, the ris...

Haaretz Diplomatic Correspondent Noa Landau joined NIF Australia for a discussion on the historic normalisation accord reached between Israel and the UAE. This event was recorded on Thursday 27 August 2020. You can also watch it on our YouTube page.

Leading British commentator and Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland joined award-winning Australian journalist Debbie Whitmont for a wide ranging conversation covering Europe, Israel and the US. As one of the first and loudest voices to raise the question of antisemitism within the UK Labour party, and as a trenchant critic of Jeremy Corbyn, Freedland is uniquely placed to offer insights into wh...

With Prime Minister Netanyahu actively advancing plans to annex parts of the West Bank and President Trump pushing his own plan for the Middle East, this event featured former US ambassador to Israel and former US special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations – not to mention NIF Australia's co-patron! – Martin Indyk, for his insights on annexation, US-Israel relations and the future of the t...

One of Israel's best known authors, AB Yehoshua, joined Dr Mark Baker for an NIF Australia webinar to discuss the Netanyahu-Gantz government's plans for annexation of the West Bank and efforts to reach a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is a recording of our event on Thursday 18 June. You can watch the webinar on YouTube.

A recording of our event with executive director of Physicians for Human Rights in Israel (PHRI), Ran Goldstein, in which we discuss the impact of Covid-19 in Israel and how this pandemic is impacting the refugees, people seeking asylum and undocumented workers, as well as Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza. You can watch this event on YouTube. Remember to join the NIF Australia for...

NIF Australia advisory council member Mark Baker joins US professor, author and political commentator Peter Beinart to discuss Donald Trump, the ongoing COVID crisis, the state of democracy in the US, the candidacies of Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, and annexation and democracy in Israel. Join more NIF Australia events at www.nif.org.au/events

Labor Knesset Merav Michaeli joined an NIF Australia webinar in the middle of one of the more interesting moments in recent Israeli political history as the leading opposition member seemed poised to join a right-wing government. In addition, Labor leader Amir Peretz, despite promising for more than a year to not join a coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu, was posed to do exactly that. Michaeli wa...

Political analyst, pollster and commentator Dr Dahlia Scheindlin joined NIF Australia executive director Liam Getreu to discuss the results of Monday's Israeli election. This is an audio recording of a Facebook live stream.

This episode is a recording of an event which took place in Sydney on Tuesday 26 November 2019. A former academic, Zandberg was a leader of 2011's social justice protests in Israel and a member of Tel Aviv's city council before entering the Knesset for the Meretz party in 2013. She was the party's leader from 2018-19, including the April 2019 election. She was reelected in September's election on...

In this timely episode of the NIF Australia podcast we're sharing a conversation with Carmi Gillon, former head of Israel's internal security service, the Shin Bet. You may remember Carmi for his appearance, with five other former heads of the Shin Bet, in the 2012 Oscar-nominated film, The Gatekeepers . We recorded this just a couple of days after Israel's military carried out a targeted assassin...

For this episode we're bringing you the recording of a small event we held in Sydney last week with Israeli journalist Elhanan Miller.  Elhanan started his talk with a summary of the election results before pivoting to a wider analysis about Israeli political leadership and whether the conflict with the Palestinians will feature in Israel's political landscape in years to come. Elhanan is a rabbi...

After Israel's second election in just a few months we're joined by former president of the New Israel Fund and former Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Naomi Chazan to process and analyse all the election results. Will Benjamin Netanyahu stay on as prime minister? Does Benny Gantz have a path to the coalition of 61 seats he needs to take the top job? The Joint Arab List will be the third largest part...

Only 44 days to go until Israelis go to the polls for the second time in just a few months. Here are all the details on who's in the box seat to form government after the 17 September election, including an update on party mergers and results from the latest opinion polls. Want to see the cool graphs that go with this episode? Watch the episode as a video on Facebook or YouTube . Remember to stay...

Former deputy speaker of the Knesset Naomi Chazan joined us live just 12 hours after polls closed for a review of the 2019 Israeli election and helped us look forward and understand the impact on Israeli society. This is a recording of our event with executive director Liam Getreu hosting the event in Sydney and Naomi Chazan joining live from NIF's offices in Jerusalem.

Our latest podcast episode is a recording of our Tribute to Amos Oz event, recorded on 10 March 2019 at Bondi Pavilion. Michaela Kalowski hosted an evening combining powerful video footage, readings and tributes to explore both the literary and political legacy of Israel's beloved and eloquent writer. You can watch this event in full on YouTube. The event featured messages from his daughter Fania...

What are the biggest issues this Israeli election? Bibi, corruption, housing and poverty, and security. Learn more in the fifth episode of our Israeli election preview with Michal Sella from Shatil's Center for Policy Change. (This is a podcast version of the video we published on YouTube, which includes charts of the polls and some other great footage.) Note: this episode was first released on vi...

This episode looks at some of the developments in Israel over the last week and also shines a spotlight on representation of women in the Knesset. In the next few days parties have to submit their candidate lists, which means we'll finally get to see which parties will merge and who'll be serving in the next parliament – so stay tuned to our Facebook and Twitter pages to keep up to date. (This is...

With less than two months until Israel's elections we bring you another update. In this edition we cover the release of Benjamin Netanyahu's ads featuring President Donald Trump, as well as Benny Gantz's campaign launch speech and ad. We also share an update on the polls (spoiler: Benny Gantz rises, Labor falls, Likud stays the same). (This is a podcast version of the video we published on YouTube...

In the second episode of our Israeli election preview, we have an update on some of the discussions happening between party leaders, as well as polling on who Israelis prefer as their prime minister. We also give a quick overview of Israel's electoral system and the parties representing Israel's 20% Palestinian minority. (This is a podcast version of the video we published on YouTube , which inclu...