Haaretz Weekly Haaretz.com

Prof. Karnit Flug was appointed as the first female governor of the Bank of Israel by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2013. Together they worked to stabilize and grow the country’s economy – particularly its flourishing high-tech sector. 

Now, she tells Haaretz Weekly, she no longer recognizes Netanyahu. He's not the same leader. The prime minister has ignored the alarm bells that she and other experts have been ringing regarding the harm his controversial judicial overhaul will cause Israel's economy. 

“The warnings by experts on the economic effects and the effects on our national security are not falling on ears that are listening,” she tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer. “It’s very hard to understand.” 

Countries that have passed laws weakening their judicial branches, like Hungary and Poland,  have paid economic consequences. However, Flug stresses that the price is likely to be far higher in Israel. Not only will an expected decline in international credit ratings lead to “really detrimental long-term effects,” but the harm to the country’s high-tech sector would be particularly devastating. Unlike Poland and Hungary, she notes, Israel’s tech companies account for 10 percent of employment, 50 percent of exports and 25 percent of tax revenues. 

Moreover, high-tech is “a very mobile sector” where companies can - and do - easily move to other countries.  “Our vulnerability is very, very strong,” says Flug, admitting that she is feeling “anxiety about what kind of country will be here for my children and for my grandchild.”
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Women’s rights in Israel are under danger, warns Prof. Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, a legal scholar and founding director of the Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women at Bar Ilan University. The risk is coming from their own government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu a host of far-right, ultra-religious parties.

The judicial overhaul led by Netanyahu, Halperin-Kaddari explains, poses great risks to Israeli women, since “the weakening of the power of the High Court of Justice will have a devastating impact on the ability of women to fight back against discriminatory laws.” 

In a conversation with host Allison Kaplan Sommer, she adds that “We have the clear examples of states in Europe who have been through this. It is exactly the way that Poland had gone, as well as Hungary and Turkey. And in each of these states, it was - and it still is - women who are paying the highest price.”1

She applauds the use of the image of the women in Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel-turned-TV series “The Handmaid’s Tale” as having been effective in focusing the Israeli public’s attention on these imminent threats. “The intentions of this government regarding women are very clear,” she says. “I truly fear that all these dystopian visions of the future are totally realistic.”
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Martin Indyk, who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel twice, made an unusual stop during a recent trip to Israel: He joined the massive Tel Aviv demonstration against Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to weaken the Israeli judicial system. 

“I am dismayed and very concerned about this judicial revolution and the impact it will have on Israel’s democracy – and therefore the impact it will have on U.S.-Israel relations,” Indyk told hosts Amir Tibon and Allison Kaplan Sommer on the latest episode of Haaretz Weekly. 

“Undermining the basic tenets of the Israeli Declaration of Independence and the idea of being Jewish and democratic goes against everything American Jews believe in and support, and that’s deeply troubling to the vast majority of them,” he added. 

While the United States has in recent years been acting like an “indulgent uncle that is not willing to hold Israel to account when it acts against U.S. interests,” Indyk warned that this may not last forever. “The United States is a dinosaur that you can poke and poke, but it doesn’t respond until one day it wakes up. And then it lifts its tail and comes down with a mighty thump.”
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of Haaretz Weekly, Israel's top analysts and experts discuss one year to the war in Ukraine from an Israeli perspective. The conversation was recorded as part of the 2023 Haaretz-UCLA conference on Israel and the New World (Dis)Order, and is now presented in audio version for our listeners to enjoy.

Efraim Halevy, former chief of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, recalls his first-ever meeting with Vladimir Putin, and explains why it is a humiliation for the Russian autocrat to beg Iran for help in his disastrous war on Ukraine.

Ksenia Svetlova, a former Israeli lawmaker, discusses the similiarities between Putin and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Our national security analyst Amos Harel shares what Israel's intelligence got wrong in the war's early stages, and Israeli journalist Yair Navot, a former Moscow correspondent, describes the dilemmas of Russia's remaining Jews.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It hasn’t taken long for the protests against the Netanyahu government’s judicial overhaul in Israel, to find their way to the United States. On this episode of Haaretz Weekly, attorney Oz Benamram – an Israeli living in New York – talks about how the protest wave has spread to multiple U.S. cities, drawing both Israeli expats and worried American Jews.

“Normally, demonstrations in the United States are either pro-Israel or against Israel. This one is unique – because it's for Israel and also against the government, because this government works against the interests of Israel. So we’re seeing people who have never demonstrated before,” Benamram tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer. 

Also on the podcast, Haaretz’s Washington correspondent Ben Samuels rounds up the reaction in the White House and Congress to the judicial plan, and explains U.S. President Joe Biden’s “dilemma”: attempting to quell the violence in the West Bank, without directly addressing the extremist ministers who wield the power in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

Join us on Sunday, March 5th, at the Haaretz-UCLA virtual conference on 'Israel and the New World (Dis)Order', which will be broadcast live on Haaretz.com. Watch top experts and officials from Israel and the world discuss the most pressing issues of our time, from the rise of far-right nationalism to the global battle for democracy. Registration is FREE at this link.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of Haaretz Weekly, host Allison Kaplan Sommer talks to investigative journalists Omer Benjakob and Gur Megiddo about their months-long investigation, in collaboration with Radio France, The Guardian and other leading international media outlets, that revealed the dirty, secret methods of Israel's 'agents of chaos'. This investigation revealed how, from a small office building in a quiet suburb of Tel Aviv, a group of Israelis is disrupting democracy in various countries around the world, spreading dangerous misinformation and undermining the results of democratic elections. Their unbelievable and extremely disturbing story takes us from Israel to Kenya, Mexico, France and Burkina Faso, as influence ops, hacking, avatars and  false information come together to paint a freightening picture. 
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.