State of Tel Aviv, Israel Podcast

Tuesday, July 26 I embedded with the IDF to see the newly built humanitarian aid distribution center being built on the outskirts of Rafah, abutting the border with Egypt. As the Netanyahu government prepares for a major IDF operation on Gaza City in the coming weeks it also anticipates that humanitarian distress will soar. Civilians will be displaced from the Gaza City area to the humanitarian zo...

Six Al Jazeera journalists have been killed in targeted strikes by Israel recently and much of the world is up in arms. On Thursday, television host Piers Morgan invited two journalists to discuss the issues and their very different takes. Jotam Confino is based in Israel and writes extensively for international media, primarily in Europe and the U.K. His commentary on this issue on social media a...

Andrew and I recorded the second part this morning and I was keen to get it out ASAP. We speak at length about his experience on the ground in Rafah last week at the food distribution site operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. His professional eye and observations make clear that there is much to be commended and improved. Show your support for STLV at buymeacoffee.com/stateoftelaviv Andre...

In the first of this two-part podcast focuses on the many twists and turns that have landed Israel in its current very difficult spot in the Gaza Strip. A veteran of multiple deployments with the U.K. military in wars and humanitarian crisis zones throughout the world, Fox brings depth, experience, knowledge and compassion to his analysis of the challenges faced by Israel in the Gaza Strip. He has...

On Saturday evening a five minute video of Hamas hostage Evyatar David, a 24-year-old music lover kidnapped from the Nova Music Festival, was released for publication by his family. A second video of hostage Rom Braslavski was released soon after. These young men have been starved for 22 months. Held in dark, filthy, airless tunnels. Tortured. Humiliated. We know much from hostages who had been he...

This is the third podcast this week focusing on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. We will be dropping a fourth tomorrow - and interview with the amazing Andrew Fox. And then might catch our breath for a day or two. But as a senior Israeli foreign affairs official commented tonight during a television interview, Israel is dealing with a “diplomatic tsunami.” He has never seen anyth...

Johnnie Moore has been running the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation for two months now and the current he’s swimming against seems to just keep on getting stronger. Speaking with State of Tel Aviv and Beyond on the afternoon of Friday, July 25, Moore was forthright about how the entrenched humanitarian ecosystem that has been the overseer of the Gaza Strip for almost 20 years — the UN — has been less...

FDD’s Jonathan Conricus delivers a blistering analysis of the humanitarian crisis This is the first of what will be four or more episodes of State of Tel Aviv and Beyond focused on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. We are moving at top speed to interview key experts representing diverse perspectives and professional focuses. Military. Diplomatic. Communications. Humanitarian relief. Political. We b...

One week ago at the closing session of the Turning Point USA Conference in Tampa, Charlie Kirk moderated a debate between two conservative Americans with starkly different perspectives on the value of Israel as an ally of the U.S.A. Writer and commentator, Josh Hammer, spoke for the proposition that America and Israel are countries aligned in values and ideology. Dave Smith - a recently famous com...

Just last week, PM Benjamin Netanyahu spent three very full days in Washington DC conferring with President Trump and overseeing his most senior advisers get down to brass tacks with their US counterparts. The expectation – fed by repeated statements made by the President – was that a deal to end the war with Hamas and free the remaining hostages was close. So close. The families of those in capti...

In this final episode in our three part series focusing on Piers Morgan and his YouTube show, Piers MorganUncensored , we speak with two tough people about how to handle this new wild west of independent media. First up is Emily Schrader , journalist and activist with particular expertise on Iran. She also has a huge social media following, and for good reason. A regular guest on Uncensored , Schr...

Today we bring you the second of our three part series taking a close look at celebrity media host Piers Morgan and his show Uncensored . Viewed by millions daily, Uncensored has focused intensely on the Israel-Hamas war, Israel-Iran war, and really pretty much all things related to Israel. Somewhat unceasingly. In this interview with Lee Kern, we get into his thoughts on why Uncensored is not jus...

In this special three-part series, we explore the increasingly contentious place of media superstar Piers Morgan and his YouTube show, Uncensored . Morgan has always inclined to the sensational, but in recent months he has perhaps gone too far – in terms of platforming some of the most hateful, uninformed antisemites and anti-Zionist voices in the world. Repeatedly. As he reminds us often, million...

Ya’akov Katz and I get into the dramatic overnight developments in the Middle East and brace for the possible scenarios that may unfold. We discuss the US military action, Iranian retaliation so far, and how this global conflict may escalate, or resolve. State of Tel Aviv is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber Yaakov...

OK. Tonight I really. Must sleep. I spoke last night with Beni Sabti, an Iranian-born expert on security, culture and politics of his native country. BenI has been going night and day since Friday morning, being one of the most highly regarded Iran experts in the world. So I was thrilled to finally have some time to speak with him Wednesday night. We both signed off, exhausted, around midnight. Fi...

It has been a five-day blitz of attacks by the Israeli Air Force over Iran. The IDF has taken out many key Iranian military and other strategic sites and capabilities. Civilians are very deliberately not targeted. In recent days Tehran has been evacuated—responding to IDF warnings. Based on photos we have seen, it is a ghost town. And now we are waiting to see what happens next. The nuclear centri...

For four days, Israel and Iran have engaged in direct, intense conflict. For Israel, destroying Iran’s nuclear weapons and capability is a matter of survival. For the ruling Islamist regime in Iran, resisting Israeli power is also a matter of survival. The deeply unpopular theo-fascist rulers are clinging to power by fear and oppression. Israeli attacks are pulverizing the nation’s ability to figh...

In recent days Hamas has shifted all of its attention to controlling the food supply for civilians in the Gaza Strip. They continue to hoard aid meant for the needy and then resell it at extortionate prices. The last two weeks have been especially chaotic as the food supply diminishes, and people are living meal to meal. Concerns regarding famine are real and the involvement of the Gaza Humanitari...

So many times since October 7, the UN and many governments have raised alarms regarding imminent and mass starvation in the Gaza Strip. It never materialized. But recently a serious crisis with respect to food availability has developed there. The causes of this food scarcity are not as simple as the media and many national leaders would have us believe. There have been rash and constant allegatio...

On October 7, 2023, 19-year-old Itay Chen was serving in the IDF on the border with Gaza. His father, Ruby, recalls the agonizing wait until the IDF concluded that he had been taken hostage by Hamas. Not until March 2024 did they return to tell the Chen family that, based on intelligence they had gathered, the military declared that Itay had been killed. To this day the family has no concrete evid...

In this second episode of my recent interview with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, we begin by discussing his reaction to the horror of October 7. Within minutes of hearing and reading reports of the Hamas atrocities, he said he knew that this would result in total disaster for Hamas as well as the people of the Gaza Strip. He decided to pivot in his very comfortable life and job to immerse himself in expla...

Like so many of us, Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib’s life took a hairpin turn on October 7, 2023. Until age 15, he lived in the Gaza Strip. He then attended high school in the U.S. on an exchange program and has never left. Ahmed has returned to Gaza often over the decades and still has many family members living there. After October 7, he left his old life in California and relocated in Washington D.C. Sin...

I’m delighted to be back in action with my regular guest on the podcast, Ya’akov Katz. He is a State of Tel Aviv favorite because he brings such deep knowledge and passion to his analysis. There is no sugar coating or equivocating with Ya’akov – but he is always grounded and well-reasoned. And today that is a tall order. We discuss Israel’s threats to renew the war on Gaza with a major ground offe...

Immediately following the horrors of October 7, John Ondrasik, the singer-songwriter who fronts the band “Five for Fighting”, stepped up for Hamas hostages and, as he says, for moral clarity. His band is best known for his post-9/11 super-hit “Superman”, a beautiful tribute to those who perished on that terrible day in America. When Ondrasik heard that the mother of 24-year-old musician Alon Ohel...

WARNING: Graphic and violent visual content. Israel is in a state of collective shock regarding many things in this post-October 7 apocalyptic reality. But perhaps the most incomprehensible is that 19 months after that attack, 59 hostages—alive and dead—remain captive in the most barbaric conditions. Then 22 years old, Alon Ohel had recently returned from his post-army trip to the Far East when he...