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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. 4h ago

    Rahm Emanuel: Israel is a pariah, US alliance can't survive

    Obama's former chief of staff and a lifelong defender of Israel, Rahm Emanuel came to Tel Aviv with a blunt message: this alliance can't survive as it is. In this Jerusalem Post interview, recorded after his Tel Aviv University address, Emanuel argues Israel now sits at its lowest standing in the U.S. since 1948, and that the collapse is a series of choices, not fate. "You've gone from being known as a startup nation to Sparta," he tells us, warning that among Americans under 30, support has cratered. He pushes back hard on the idea that this is a Democratic Party problem: "You have an America problem." He lays out his "23-state solution," calls for conditioning U.S. aid and sanctioning settlers, officials, and banks tied to illegal settlements, and recounts what he told incoming New York mayor Mamdani to his face about "river to the sea."

    26 min

  2. 3d ago

    Held 804 days in Iran, she refused to spy

    Jailed for 804 days in Iran on false spying charges, academic Dr. Kylie Moore-Gilbert refused the Revolutionary Guard's offer of freedom, if she'd spy for them. In this Jerusalem Post interview, Moore-Gilbert describes surviving IRGC detention and Iran's public prison system, being stripped of her identity down to a number, and holding on to who she was as an act of defiance: "I just didn't break." She explains how the Guards blackmail and recruit prisoners, why she insists ordinary Iranians are nothing like the regime that rules them, and where she believes the country goes from here. A Middle East scholar and author of the memoir The Uncaged Sky, Moore-Gilbert is now one of the most prominent voices against "hostage diplomacy." Her read on the current moment is bleak, "the regime thinks that it won", and she warns the West against easing the economic pressure she sees as the regime's greatest vulnerability. Her message to Iranian women right now is sombre: lay low and wait.

    25 min

  3. 4d ago

    The IDF soldier who landed first at Entebbe speaks on Gaza hostages and aliyah

    Doron Almog was the first Israeli soldier to land at Entebbe in 1976. Now, 50 years later, he chairs the Jewish Agency and sees history repeating. In this rare interview, Almog draws direct lines between three defining experiences: leading the 1976 Entebbe rescue with only 12 hours of preparation; raising a severely disabled son whom he calls "my greatest teacher" and for whom he built a village of 3,000 residents in southern Israel; and now stewanding the Jewish Agency's global response to the post-October 7 wave of antisemitism. He describes his son's village as "a social Entebbe," a rescue from the captivity of stigma, and argues that the same ethic of mutual responsibility that sustained Jewish people for 2,000 years is the only guarantee of Israel's survival today. "One for all, all for one," he says, "this is the secret of the existence of Jewish people." As chairman of the Jewish Agency, Almog oversees 3,000 emissaries in 66 countries, a new security fund for diaspora communities, and an ambitious plan to settle new olim in the emptied communities of Israel's north and south. He calls October 7 "the biggest crisis of the State of Israel since its establishment," and he believes the response must be a new wave of Aliyah to rebuild the periphery, just as a million Soviet Jews rebuilt Israel in the 1990s. Almog's perspective is shaped not by ideology alone, but by a lifetime of loss, a brother killed in the Yom Kippur War, a son who never spoke a word, friends lost at Entebbe, and an unbroken conviction that an inclusive, loving society is Israel's "absolute victory."

    48 min

  4. Jun 30

    Did the US-Iran deal betray Israel? American insider gives both sides

    American businessman and longtime US diplomatic insider Harley Lippman returns to Israel for the first time in two years to give a blunt geopolitical assessment: the US-Iran MOU shocked the system, American public opinion has flipped against Israel, and three converging forces: media optics, far-left ideology, and Qatari money, are driving a crisis that didn't exist five years ago. Lippman, who has met with world leaders including Erdogan, offers a rare two-sided analysis of the Trump administration's ceasefire deal with Iran: the pessimistic case that Israel was sold out, and the optimistic case that Trump is managing midterm politics before pivoting. He argues Iran "outmaneuvered everybody" by closing the Strait of Hormuz and warns that Turkey may actually be a greater regional danger than Iran, a point that surprises even his interviewer, Jerusalem Post's editor-in-chief Zvika Klein. On the Palestinian question, he floats a controversial but conditional solution that he believes could finally end the broader Arab-Israeli conflict. Lippman has served in advisory roles across multiple US administrations from both parties and built two companies from scratch. His warning about the Democratic Party's drift toward antisemitism, the Qatari university infiltration strategy, and what he calls Israel's failure to fight the PR war as effectively as it fights conventional wars makes this a wide-ranging and candid conversation.

    49 min

  5. Jun 29

    Montana Tucker discusses debuting new song at Maccabiah Games

    Montana Tucker, dancer, content creator, and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, is hosting the 2026 Maccabiah Games delegation parade and debuting an original song live in Jerusalem. Tucker, who has visited Israel nine times since October 7, 2023, sat down with the Jerusalem Post ahead of the opening ceremony to discuss what this moment means for the global Jewish community. "We truly do need this now more than ever," she said, explaining why she sees the Maccabiah as a direct counter-narrative to what she calls media distortion of Israel's image. She'll be performing her new single "We're Not Strangers," a unity anthem whose lyrics reflect the divisions she's witnessed both in Israel and across the world. Tucker's connection to Israel runs deep: her grandparents' experience as Holocaust survivors shaped her belief in Israel's significance, and it was that personal history that drove her to begin posting about the conflict on social media after October 7, eventually leading to her Maccabiah involvement. Former hostage Daniela Gilboa will also perform at the ceremony, making the opening an emotionally charged event that balances celebration with commemoration.

    11 min

  6. Jun 14

    Can MDMA treat combat PTSD? Inside Israel's clinical trial

    Six years ago, Dr. Anna Harwood-Gross and her team began designing one of the world's most ambitious psychedelic therapy trials, an Israeli study testing whether MDMA-assisted therapy could help soldiers with combat PTSD that hadn't responded to standard treatment. They received ethics approval in the summer of 2023. Their first drug delivery was scheduled for October. Then October 7 happened. In this conversation with Sam Halpern, Jpost's senior field reporter, Dr. Harwood-Gross, senior faculty at Ariel University and lead researcher at Herzog Medical Center, walks through the trial's protocol, the bomb-shelter logistics now built into every session, and the comparison arm her team has developed without psychedelics at all (SEAIT — Somatic, Experiential, Acceptance-based, Intensive Trauma therapy). She's candid about the early stage of the work, the academic boycotts complicating international collaboration, and what the FDA's recent refusal to approve MDMA-assisted therapy means for where the field goes next. A careful, hopeful, deliberately unhyped conversation with one of the researchers Israel will be hearing more from.

    36 min

  7. Jun 9

    What does Jewish peoplehood mean in 2026?

    74% of young Jews worldwide say they can positively shape their community, nearly twice the optimism rate of Jews over 60. After October 7, hostile campuses, and the Iran war, that wasn't the finding anyone expected. In this conversation, Dr. Shelley Kedar, Chief Impact Officer of The Jewish Agency for Israel, walks through the One People Report, the agency's first global survey of nearly 1,500 Jews across Israel and 18 countries, and what its data says about a generation rising into the moment. She discusses the toll on Israel's "serving generation" of reservists, the Jewish Agency's expanding camp and emissary programs (including 300 children of long-serving reservists heading to European camps this summer), and the widening Israel-Diaspora conversation. Kedar closes on the line that has become the report's unofficial thesis: "We shouldn't confuse unity with uniformity."

    15 min

  8. Jun 9

    Can Iran fans wave the old flag at the 2026 World Cup?

    The White House's point man for the 2026 World Cup, Andrew Giuliani, on how the US is bringing Iran's national team into Los Angeles, and why he insists Iran policy hasn't bent for the tournament. Speaking to Idan Kweller in an interview recorded days before kickoff, Giuliani details the security architecture behind the first 48-team World Cup: more than 400 law enforcement agencies coordinating, counter-drone (counter-UAS) coverage across 150-plus day-of events, and visa wait times cut from as high as 700 days in Brazil to under two weeks. Asked whether President Trump wanted calm with Iran to keep the tournament quiet, Giuliani says it "has not influenced any decisions from a national security perspective," while framing the event around America's 250th birthday. The conversation turns pointed on Iran. Giuliani lays out the choreography of moving all 31 Iranian players from Tijuana into Los Angeles, home to the largest Iranian population outside Tehran, and addresses whether fans can wave the pre-revolution flag, drawing a line between FIFA's in-stadium rules and First Amendment expression outside. He also delivers a direct message to Israeli fans traveling to the US and closes on Trump's "America first… but it doesn't mean America only" framing.

    19 min
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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
    63
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright Jerusalem Post Podcasts
  • Show Website
    JPost sits down with...

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