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The conversations that matter, unfiltered. In a world where headlines tell only half the story, "JPost sits down with..." brings you face-to-face with the voices shaping our reality. From Israeli leaders navigating existential challenges to global figures wrestling with the Middle East's complexities, we go beyond the soundbites to explore the stories behind the headlines. Each episode features candid, no-holds-barred conversations with politicians, thought leaders, activists, and newsmakers who are driving change—or standing in its way.  If you're seeking to understand the nuances of one of the world's most scrutinized regions, these intimate discussions reveal the motivations, struggles, and hopes of those at the center of it all. This isn't about easy answers or comfortable narratives. It's about real talk with real people making real decisions that affect millions. Join us as we sit down with the figures who matter most, when their stories matter most. New episodes drop when news breaks and voices need to be heard. Get more from The Jerusalem Post at JPost.com

  1. 23h ago

    Netanyahu: 'No Palestinian state. Period.' His terms for a coalition

    Six days before Israel's October 27 election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sits down with The Jerusalem Post at 2:14 a.m. on his 77th birthday. Netanyahu says Israeli military intelligence and the Mossad have warned that Iran and its proxies are weighing ways to influence the vote. He describes Operations Rising Lion and Roaring Lion as having done "ninety percent of the job" against Tehran's nuclear and missile programs, and he warns that the regime is trying to rebuild them. The prime minister addresses President Trump's surprise endorsement, which he says he did not know was coming, and why Vice President JD Vance declined to offer one. On pressure from a potentially less friendly Washington, he is blunt: "If you bow your head, you're dead." Netanyahu also lays out the four principles he says any coalition partner must accept, starting with no Palestinian state. He calls settler vigilantism "wrong" and damaging to Israel abroad. He repeats his claim that his criminal trial has collapsed and calls for an investigation of the officials who led it. He traces Qatar's role in what he calls the vilification of Israel to a warning from his late father, historian Benzion Netanyahu, that Jews who are "prominent and weak" invite antisemitism when societies change. He also explains why he sees the race as an even tie, and why he says a right-wing party falling below the electoral threshold, as happened in 1992, could decide the outcome. His opponents, including main rival Gadi Eisenkot, reject his characterizations of them, and this interview presents the prime minister's case in his own words.

  2. 3d ago

    Should you cancel The New York Times? Gil Hoffman says no

    Israel recovered fast on the battlefield but kept losing the narrative war, says former HonestReporting executive director Gil Hoffman. In a wide-ranging conversation with Jerusalem Post senior international affairs correspondent Mathilda Heller, Hoffman discusses his new book, The Blood Libel Machine. He argues that Hamas planned October 7 to shape global public opinion, and that Israel entered the war with no plan for the media front. "Every day since October 7 has become easier on the military battlefield," he says. "Every day since October 7th has gotten progressively harder" in the narrative war. On Israel's own communications effort, his verdict is blunt: "They really just didn't even try." Hoffman spent nearly 24 years covering Israeli politics for The Jerusalem Post, and he insists this is not an anti-media book. He discusses the Gaza hospital blast reporting and the reliance on Gaza-based sources. He also covers the role of NGOs and UN bodies, and where bad journalism ends and bias begins. His practical advice includes arguing with ChatGPT, using community notes, and reading outlets like The New York Times more carefully rather than cancelling them. Ahead of Israel's election, he calls on the next government to treat public diplomacy as seriously as the Iranian nuclear threat. He also faults the current one for leaving key posts empty on October 7, including the English-language spokesperson and the consul general in New York.

  3. 4d ago

    Kisch: Netanyahu 'can be the first one to be checked' on October 7

    Israel's Education Minister Yoav Kisch says Likud wants an October 7 investigation, just not one appointed by Supreme Court President Yitzhak Amit. In this Jerusalem Post interview, recorded days before Israel's October 27 election, the senior Likud minister argues that half the country would reject a state commission of inquiry, and proposes instead a bipartisan national committee modeled on the US 9/11 Commission. "Prime Minister Netanyahu can be the first one to be checked," Kisch says, "but it has to be with a committee that is not biased by any side." He frames the election as a binary choice between a Netanyahu-led right-wing government and an opposition led by Gadi Eisenkot that, he argues, cannot reach 61 seats without the Arab parties, a claim Eisenkot has rejected. Kisch also defends his record running Israel's schools through the war, from reopening classes for evacuees within weeks to opening four new medical faculties. He responds to Israel's lowest-ever PISA results, explains how AI-based personal learning will change the teacher's role, and addresses the approval process behind the northern school trip on which a student was killed by unexploded Hezbollah ordnance. He outlines Likud's coalition red lines, its position on the Haredi draft and core curriculum funding, and why he believes first-time voters shaped by the war will back the right.

  4. Oct 15

    Ophir Falk on hostage talks: 'There was never a deal on the table'

    Netanyahu's foreign policy adviser Ophir Falk says no viable hostage deal was ever on the table, and he disputes Brett McGurk's account of the talks. In this wide-ranging Jerusalem Post interview, Falk, who served on Israel's hostage negotiating team, rejects the claim that Israel could have secured an earlier release. "There was never a deal on the table," he tells JPost editor-in-chief Zvika Klein and the diplomatic reporter Amichai Stein. "Anybody who says there was is gravely mistaken." He points instead to an April proposal that, he says, then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken called extraordinarily generous, and that Hamas rejected. Falk also says the Biden administration imposed a "de facto embargo" on some weapons Israel needed. He credits military pressure, political pressure and full US backing for the deals that eventually brought the hostages home. Falk also gives a first-hand account of the morning of October 7 inside the Kirya. He describes Netanyahu telling him on the way to the first security briefing that "it's going to be a long war." He recounts the prime minister's first call with French President Emmanuel Macron. He flatly denies reports of a pre-October 7 call between Netanyahu and UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed. On Iran, he says regime change is up to the Iranian people, and he argues that Israel and the US are creating the conditions for it. On Gaza, he insists there will be no reconstruction or IDF redeployment before Hamas is fully disarmed: "If Hamas wanted to disarm, they could do that in an afternoon." Falk also acknowledges where Israel is struggling. "We've been fighting a seven-front war, and on the eighth front, the information warfare, we have not been as successful as we have been on the battlefield," he says. Our interviewers press him on declining support for Israel among Democrats and some Republicans, the Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, the Israeli plane denied landing in Saudi Arabia, and when normalization with more Arab states might actually happen.

  5. Oct 13

    Oli London on Queers for Palestine: 'They're following the trend'

    Author and influencer Oli London once embraced the very ideas he now speaks out against. Three years after October 7, he explains why he stands with Israel. On his eighth trip to Israel in three years, the author of Gender Madness tells The Jerusalem Post studio manager Lara Sukster Mosheyof how watching the October 7 videos in real time, and the protests that followed within hours, pushed him to speak out despite lost relationships and dropped brand deals. "If you are silent and if you turn a blind eye, you are complicit," he says. He argues that much of the online hostility toward Israel is driven by trends rather than knowledge, and that "the internet is not the real world." London's perspective is unusual: he says that before finding Christian faith four years ago, he followed the same online trends he now criticizes, including changing his gender identity after heavy TikTok use during COVID. He discusses why he believes LGBTQ activists have embraced the pro-Palestinian cause, how clicks shape media coverage of the Israel-Gaza war, why he thinks influencers stay quiet, and his answer to critics who point to his past.

  6. Oct 13

    'Their strategy is to ignore us': Haredi Public's women candidates

    Nechumi Yaffe and Ziva Glanz are the first women on a haredi party's Knesset slate, and they say the community needs change that comes from within. Yaffe is a Tel Aviv University researcher and former National Security Council adviser. Glanz is a businesswoman who helped run a civilian war room after October 7. Both are running with the new Haredi Public party ahead of the October 27 election. They explain why they left established careers for politics. They describe the reaction from inside the haredi world, and they say Shas and UTJ have chosen to simply ignore them. They also lay out a platform centered on issues they say male haredi MKs have overlooked: higher breast cancer mortality among haredi women, exploitation of working mothers who support large families, and the lack of a state safety net for divorced women and single parents. "Women are 50% of the population," Yaffe says. "No decisions should be made about them. They should be made with them." The two candidates speak frankly on the issues dividing Israeli society. On education, Yaffe notes that only 21% of haredi men receive core curriculum studies, compared with nearly all haredi women. On the draft, Glanz backs national responsibility but rejects cutting state funding as a blanket sanction, calling it a "bullying" approach that would harm the whole country. She also draws on her son's service and her wartime work supplying soldiers to argue that the IDF needs deep reform before it can successfully integrate haredi recruits. Polls currently put the Haredi Public party below the electoral threshold, but its candidates offer a rare look at a growing constituency of working, educated haredi women who say no existing party represents them.

  7. Oct 7

    Her son ran toward Be'eri. Now she's running for Knesset | Michal Negri

    Michal Negri's son, Maj. (res.) Roee Negri, rushed to Kibbutz Be'eri on October 7 without being called up and fell fighting there. Now she is running for Knesset with Naftali Bennett. Three years after October 7, the former director-general of the Ra'anana Municipality describes how her son, a team commander in the IDF's LOTAR counterterrorism unit, gathered his team on his own and fought house by house in Be'eri. He was married just six weeks before. She explains why his choice pushed her into politics: "He didn't ask. It wasn't comfortable. He was in the middle of his flourishing life, and he knew that he has to save the country." Negri, No. 7 on Bennett's list, calls for a state commission of inquiry into October 7. She describes the moment her husband told a senior officer who came to brief the family on the Be'eri investigation that he didn't need to hear about Be'eri. He wanted to know what happened at 6:30 that morning. She says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should have stepped down the day after the attack. She also argues that drafting the ultra-Orthodox would help unite Israeli society rather than divide it. Drawing on decades in education and local government, Negri describes municipalities stepping in when national ministries collapsed after October 7. She outlines her party's education plan, which includes moving more authority to cities and principals, requiring core curriculum and Zionist values as a condition of state funding, and a starting salary of NIS 12,000 for new teachers.

  8. Oct 6

    Dan Illouz: Likud no longer represents its own values

    Former Likud MK Dan Illouz once defended Netanyahu's record. Now running with Yisrael Beytenu, he says Netanyahu cannot lead Israel after October 7. In this Jerusalem Post interview, the Montreal-born former lawmaker explains why he left the party he joined before he even signed a lease in Israel. He points to three reasons: the haredi draft exemption bill, Netanyahu's refusal to establish a state commission of inquiry, and the gap between Likud's stated values and its actions. "If there isn't a political price to being prime minister when such disaster happens, then this is something which is dangerous for us as a country," he says. He also explains why he still credits the IDF's achievements in Lebanon and Iran but argues Israel never reached the "total victory" Likud promised, since Hamas still remains in Gaza. Illouz describes himself as "very, very right wing" and religious, yet he supports allowing municipalities to run public transportation on Shabbat. "As a religious Jew, I think it only hurts religion," he says of religious coercion. He sets out his coalition red lines on Netanyahu and on Arab parties, and defends Avigdor Liberman's proposal on Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. He also lays out a sanctions-based plan to enforce haredi enlistment. With elections approaching, the interview offers a rare inside view of the right-wing case against Netanyahu from someone who sat in his faction.

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About

The conversations that matter, unfiltered. In a world where headlines tell only half the story, "JPost sits down with..." brings you face-to-face with the voices shaping our reality. From Israeli leaders navigating existential challenges to global figures wrestling with the Middle East's complexities, we go beyond the soundbites to explore the stories behind the headlines. Each episode features candid, no-holds-barred conversations with politicians, thought leaders, activists, and newsmakers who are driving change—or standing in its way.  If you're seeking to understand the nuances of one of the world's most scrutinized regions, these intimate discussions reveal the motivations, struggles, and hopes of those at the center of it all. This isn't about easy answers or comfortable narratives. It's about real talk with real people making real decisions that affect millions. Join us as we sit down with the figures who matter most, when their stories matter most. New episodes drop when news breaks and voices need to be heard. Get more from The Jerusalem Post at JPost.com

Information

  • Creator
    Jerusalem Post Podcasts
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    95
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright Jerusalem Post Podcasts
  • Show Website
    JPost sits down with...

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