Haaretz Podcast

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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.

  1. U.S.-Israel-Iran War update: Arash Azizi on 'scary times' in Tehran, Gregg Carlstrom on fury toward Iran in the Gulf

    5 HRS AGO

    U.S.-Israel-Iran War update: Arash Azizi on 'scary times' in Tehran, Gregg Carlstrom on fury toward Iran in the Gulf

    “It is a time of fear and worry, but also a time of hope” in Iran after the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the early days of the U.S.-Israel assault on the regime in Tehran, said Iranian-American scholar and journalist Arash Azizi. “The first thing [my family in Iran] told me was that they called me to say they were alive after Tehran was hit, and there are hundreds of civilian casualties,” said Azizi, speaking on a wartime edition of the Haaretz Podcast. Of Khamenei, he said “most Iranians are happy to see him gone.”  Azizi was sharply critical of U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s calls for Iranian civilians to rise up and overthrow their regime.  “It's absolutely bonkers,” he said. “If you had a population that had organized networks ready to take over, you could imagine perhaps something like that happening. But we don’t. So both Trump and Netanyahu keep saying this, and it makes me wonder, do they really believe it?” He also had harsh words for Iranian exiles like himself, who he said were unprepared for this moment. “We have not done the work, we have not built organizations, we did not get our act together in a way that would be ready to make a successful transition to democracy.”  Also on the podcast: Gregg Carlstrom, The Economist’s Dubai-based Middle East correspondent, reports on the growing anger in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates sparked by the intensity of the Iranian assault that could fuel support among everyday people to pick sides in this conflict.   “The question is, what does that mean? Is it allowing America to use bases and Gulf countries to carry out attacks against Iran, or is it going a step further and militarily getting involved with their own warplanes and troops? I think it's more likely that they're willing to do the former than the latter.” Read more: Trump: U.S. Ahead of Schedule in Iran but Can Extend Fighting Beyond Projected 4-5 Weeks Three Israeli Teenage Siblings Among Nine Killed in Iranian Missile Strike on Bomb Shelter Analysis by Amos Harel | As Israeli Defense Officials Push for a Long Offensive, Trump Still Has Doubts Analysis by Zvi Bar'el | Khamenei's Chosen Successor Could Offer Trump a 'Dream Deal' to End the Iran War 'Fire-Starter' or 'Historical Justice'? How Middle Eastern Media Frames the Iran War See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    37 min

  2. 3D AGO

    Breaking news podcast: Inside the high-stakes U.S.-Israel attack on Iran | Haaretz defense analyst Amos Harel

    In this special edition of the Haaretz Podcast, recorded during the first hours of the dramatic joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, and as Tehran began its retaliatory strikes on Israel and on U.S. targets across the Middle East, Haaretz senior analyst Amos Harel joins host Allison Kaplan Sommer for a real-time update and discussion. "The stakes are much higher than last time," Harel said, referring to the 12 day Israel-Iran war in June 2025. For Israelis, "there is a certain amount of danger," although it is impossible to say at this point how hard the country will be hit by Iran and its proxies. For Iranians, "this is going to get messy and bloody," not only because of the military strikes, but also because of growing clashes between government forces and those hoping to throw over the regime.  Read more on the escalating situation: How the First Day of the Israel and U.S. War with Iran Unfolded War for Regime Change in Iran: U.S. and Israel Have Ambitious Aims, but Will Trump Stay the Course? / Amos Harel 'Unnecessary, Idiotic, and Illegal' | After Strikes on Iran: U.S. Lawmakers Split on Party Lines As Congress Left in the Dark Larnaca or Sharm el-Sheikh: Can Israelis Stuck Abroad Amid Iran War Get Back Home? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    24 min
  3. 'The Jewish community still thinks there's a technical fix to the Epstein scandal'

    FEB 24

    'The Jewish community still thinks there's a technical fix to the Epstein scandal'

    For Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, the financial support and professional opportunities afforded by her fellowship at the Wexner Foundation, which plugged her into a network of the “the most powerful Jewish professionals in the country,” were substantial.  But as a feminist rabbi whose most recent book is titled “On Repentance and Repair,” she felt she could not ignore the disturbing reality of the close personal and financial ties between Leslie Wexner, the benefactor of the foundation, and the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, she tells the Haaretz Podcast. In a personal act of accountability and repentance, in 2019, Ruttenberg – “shocked, disturbed and unsettled” by the early revelations regarding Epstein and Wexner – donated the funds she took from the foundation to an organization confronting sexual violence and challenged others to take similar steps.  There was little reaction to her call at the time. Now, with new details revealed in the Department of Justice release of the Epstein files, she says “my only regret is not speaking out earlier and more forcefully, no matter the cost.”  She warned that “when we try to pretend that none of this is happening, we feed every conspiracy theory. And when we say that who matters are raped children, and when we center the people who are harmed, and when we live the values of our Torah and of every other teaching that we claim is holy, then we dispel those theories, because we become the people who we are supposed to be … the people who are living our values.” Read more:  Island Visit, NYC Flat and 'Belarusian Girls': Ex-Israel PM Ehud Barak Addresses Jeffrey Epstein Ties The Ferrari, the Meetings and 'The Redhead': Latest Jeffrey Epstein Files Reveal Ties With Popular Israeli-American Researcher Dan Ariely Memorializing Jeffrey Epstein? Pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 Confuses Convicted Sex Offender With Beloved Israeli Singer Life After Harvard: What's in Store for Wexner Foundation's Israeli Leaders Program? From 2020: Wexner Foundation Named After Billionaire Philanthropist Distancing Itself From Founder See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    25 min
  4. 'It’s a disgrace. Israelis have had enough': Amid ultra-Orthodox riots, fury over IDF draft-dodging peaks

    FEB 20

    'It’s a disgrace. Israelis have had enough': Amid ultra-Orthodox riots, fury over IDF draft-dodging peaks

    When an ultra-Orthodox mob attacked two women soldiers in the city of Bnei Brak earlier this week, Israelis were shocked and horrified.  But for Uri Keidar, CEO of Free Israel, this violent expression of ultra-Orthodox opposition to being drafted into the military did not come as a surprise.  “It’s not the first violent occurrence we have seen, and unfortunately, it probably also won't be the last incident. But it's definitely a sad moment for us as a country,” Keidar said, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast.  As the Netanyahu government continues to seek a way to pass legislation exempting tens of thousands of able-bodied ultra-Orthodox men from mandatory military service in order to preserve their political coalition, Keidar sees the country at a “historic” crossroads in which Israelis will stand up and refuse to let it happen.  “It's a very basic idea, I think, that the law applies to everyone,” he said on the podcast. In a post-October 7 reality alongside the IDF in a manpower crisis, he said, “the Israeli public just will not accept the fact” that “there are tens of thousands of young haredi men who are totally healthy, who can join the IDF at any given moment, and are refusing to do so.” That refusal, he said, represents the country’s “biggest civil disobedience movement since its history” and Israelis “from the right, left and center” are uniting to oppose it. Read more: Explained: The Military Conscription Bill Driving Riots in Haredi Cities Overturned Cars, Motorcycles on Fire: Police Arrest 26 in Haredi Riot Sparked When Two IDF Soldiers Visit Bnei Brak Bnei Brak Riots Break From Ideology and Become an Outlet for Aimless Rage Israel Police Tells IDF They Will Not Assist in Arrest of ultra-Orthodox Draft Dodgers See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    28 min
  5. Between Tel Aviv and Ramallah: Sari Bashi on her 'upside down' marriage and raising Jewish Palestinian kids

    FEB 17

    Between Tel Aviv and Ramallah: Sari Bashi on her 'upside down' marriage and raising Jewish Palestinian kids

    Even by the most extreme “Romeo and Juliet” standards, Sari Bashi’s romance and marriage to her partner, Osama, has overcome impossible odds.  When the two met in 2006, she related on the Haaretz Podcast, “It was very confusing for both of us, both because of the overwhelming social taboos, and the fact that it was also literally illegal for us to meet up together.” The two met after he had been “trapped” for six years in the city of Ramallah, where he was pursuing a career in academia. Registered as a resident of Gaza, where he was born, travelling elsewhere in the West Bank – or abroad – meant that the authorities would send him back to Gaza. Bashi had recently founded the human rights organization Gisha, and was assisting him gain permission from the Israeli authorities to study for his doctorate abroad.  Bashi’s new book “Upside-Down Love” – written diary-style from both Bashi’s and Osama’s perspective – chronicles the story of the logistics of their courtship, like a date in which they took a hike in a West Bank countryside and “as we encountered more and more settlers with guns, it became apparent that I had an identity and a language that was common with the people who terrified him.” But despite the ongoing identity and security challenges, their love persevered. Bashi, who is also the newly appointed executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, talks about their life as a family in the West Bank – and the evolving complicated identities of their two Palestinian Jewish children, as she watches them “engage more in a process of trying to assert who they are. I think it'll change probably a million times before they become adults.” Read more: A Jewish Mom and a Palestinian Dad Raise a Family Full of Endless Contradictions Browse the Umm Forat column (2019-2022) in Haaretz Israeli Human Rights Groups Tell UN That Israel Increased Use of Torture During Gaza War See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    24 min
  6. ‘Trump needs Netanyahu to not mess things up for him in Iran and Gaza’

    FEB 13

    ‘Trump needs Netanyahu to not mess things up for him in Iran and Gaza’

    Following the hastily arranged three-hour meeting between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, it still remains unclear whether a military attack on Iran is in the cards, but the two leaders appear “more aligned than not” on their positions, Haaretz’s Washington D.C. correspondent Ben Samuels said on the Haaretz Podcast. “Whether or not that turns into a world war remains to be seen,” he added, in view of the “Armada in the Middle East and more military assets on their way” that the United States has positioned around Iran to keep the option of a military move on the table.  Netanyahu rushed to Washington to lobby Trump to hold firm in his negotiations with Iran to include demands beyond a halt to their nuclear program. The Israeli position is that in order to forestall an attack, Iran must be forced to limit their ballistic missile capabilities and support for regional proxy organizations – in addition to a commitment from Tehran to improve its treatment of protesters, who have been killed in the tens of thousands by the regime in since late December. “What you're seeing from Israel is a very articulated view that any sort of negotiation at any deal has to be all inclusive,” Samuels said. The Trump administration’s position, by contrast, he said, is far from clear.  “Part of this is intentional misdirection on Trump's part, but part of it is also very unintentional. Trump is doing diplomacy by the seat of his pants and by whatever whims are taking over him at that very moment.” Read more: Analysis by Ben Samuels | Trump and Netanyahu Prioritize a United Front Over Rocking the Boat on Iran Trump Says He 'Insisted' That Negotiations With Iran Continue in Meeting With Netanyahu Netanyahu Joins Trump's Board of Peace Set to Discuss Gaza Reconstruction, Hamas Disarmament Sidelined Why This Iranian Revolution Scholar Won't Encourage Iranians to Topple the Regime See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    28 min
  7. Entire communities fled: 'The West Bank's Area C is almost completely ethnically cleansed'

    FEB 11

    Entire communities fled: 'The West Bank's Area C is almost completely ethnically cleansed'

    The Netanyahu government may not have officially annexed the West Bank, but the ongoing settler violence expelling Palestinian communities from their land – plus the changes in regulation imposing Israeli authority and areas meant for Palestinian self-rule – is driving momentum in that direction, Haaretz West Bank correspondent Matan Golan said on the Haaretz Podcast. Golan described the ongoing ordeal in the Bedouin community of Mukhmas on the podcast, a case study which illustrates the settlers' use of daily harassment and ongoing attacks on both residents and their property to force Palestinians to relocate into an increasingly small portion of the territory. The settler outpost of Kol Mevaser terrorizing Mukhmas "has been depopulated and destroyed at least nine times," by Israeli authorities since its establishment in late October, when the young settlers living there engaged in their first spree of beatings, assaults and arson. "Each time, the settlers just escape to the hills below – and despite the fact that it's a closed military zone," she said, they return – and later brag of their destructive acts against Palestinians on social media. The IDF has consistently failed to provide enough protection for Palestinian residents to remain in their homes, she said. The Israeli and international activists try to provide a protective presence, which helps prolong the Palestinians' struggles to remain, but it has proven unsuccessful: Nearly 50 communities have been forcibly displaced since summer 2023, according to B'Tselem. On the podcast, Golan also discusses the recent announcement by Netanyahu government officials declaring that it is taking authority in areas meant to be controlled by the Palestinian Authority, in violation of the Oslo Accords. The fact that such measures are being taken to weaken the Palestinian Authority and prevent a two-state solution, she said, "are no secret." Read more: Out-of-control Hooded Settlers: Jewish Outpost Was Evacuated 9 Times – and Rebuilt Immediately How Israeli Settlers Destroyed Mukhmas In Four Minutes Israeli Settler Violence Against Palestinians in West Bank Rose 25 Percent in 2025, IDF Finds 'How Can a Father Tell Their Child That Settlers Burned Down Their House?' Israel to Expand Law Enforcement in Palestinian-controlled West Bank Areas, Defying Oslo Accords Israel Claims It Can't Protect Palestinians From Settler Attacks Due to IDF Personnel Shortage Investigation: Netanyahu's Government Not Only Permits Jewish Terror in the West Bank, but Also Finances It See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    27 min
  8. ‘Organized crime groups are subcontractors for the Netanyahu government’s destruction of Israel’s Arab society’

    FEB 6

    ‘Organized crime groups are subcontractors for the Netanyahu government’s destruction of Israel’s Arab society’

    This week, President Isaac Herzog declared that the record-high homicide rate in Israel’s Arab sector constitutes a “national emergency.” But according to Knesset member Aida Touma-Sliman, the organized crime groups behind the violence in Israel thrive because “this is a policy conducted by the government.”  “Crime groups are their subcontractor for the destruction of our society, making us terrorized individuals looking only to live their lives quietly. When you are struggling for the basic right to live, you forget all about struggling for other political, economic and social rights,” Touma-Sliman said. She noted that only 10 percent of the murders of Arabs are solved – down from 40 percent under past governments – and in stark contrast with the Jewish sector, in which a vast majority of cases are closed. “A very bad message is being sent by the police to the murderers and criminals: that you can do whatever you want and nobody will touch you as long as it remains among the Arabs,” she said. Touma-Sliman said she was convinced that if National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir believed that the stashes of deadly weapons in the hands of Arab crime organizations were to be used against Jews, “he would know exactly how to smash them down. But he is not willing to do it, as long as they are only committing crimes among the Arabs. He is enjoying the scene.” Touma-Sliman also discussed the reunion of the Joint List, the reasons behind her decision not to run in the coming election, and her deep disappointment with Israel’s opposition parties and “so-called left.”  Opposition leaders “are not supposed to personally replace Netanyahu,” she said. “If you want to be an alternative, be courageous enough to create a different vision for how the citizens of Israel should be living and how Israel should be as a state.” Read more: Netanyahu Moves to Pass Off Arab Crime Task Force From PM's Office to Ben-Gvir MK Aida Touma-Sliman: 'The Knesset Symbolizes Everything I've Fought Against. I Don't Want to Be There. I Want to Fight It' Analysis: Israeli Arab Leaders at a Crossroads: Will Escalating Protests Fuel Right-wing Incitement? Explained: What Part Israel's Arab Parties Can Play in Toppling Netanyahu in the 2026 Vote Poll: Coalition Remains Stable at 51 Seats as Reunited Joint Arab List Surges to 12 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    31 min
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4.4
out of 5
48 Ratings

About

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.

Information

  • Channel
    Haaretz.com
  • Creator
    Haaretz
  • Years Active
    2018 - 2026
  • Episodes
    101
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Haaretz
  • Show Website
    Haaretz Podcast

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