The Deep Dive

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The Deep Dive is The Jerusalem Post's flagship podcast series, hosted by Jacob Laznik.  Each week, we review the top stories, put an up-close lens on a major topic, and dissect the main story of the week. 

  1. 1 day ago

    The Iran story the mainstream media isn't telling you

    Everyone thinks the Iran file has stalled. Ex-IDF officer Or Horvitz argues the opposite: a quiet US strategy shift is already underway. In this Deep Dive episode, host Jacob Laznik sits down with JPPI Senior Fellow Or Horvitz, former head of the IDF's Hezbollah and Lebanon desk, to argue that Washington has quietly abandoned deal-making for a "maximum pressure 2.0" campaign aimed at the collapse of the Iranian regime, and that almost no one in mainstream coverage is naming it. Horvitz maps the two camps inside the Trump administration (Secretary Rubio betting pressure topples the regime, VP Vance betting it forces compromise), why he thinks negotiating with today's hawkish leadership is pointless, and how Iran's economic freefall sets a starting point far worse than the first sanctions era. "I genuinely now believe that there is no other way but to topple this regime," he says, while warning, "Iran is a bully, and you cannot appease a bully." Drawing on the Reagan-era pivot from containment to proactive pressure against the USSR, Horvitz explains why change has to come from inside Iran, what the West missed during the January uprising, his fear of a secret nuclear program in the desert, and the historic window opening in Lebanon as a cash-starved Iran can no longer fund Hezbollah. He closes on Syria's new leadership, the growing-but-lesser challenge of Turkey, and a plea to strip Israeli and American foreign policy of election-season politics. Sober analysis with, in his words, cautious optimism.

  2. 5 days ago

    The election isn't right vs left. It's liberal vs illiberal

    Host Jacob Laznik asks Prof. Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, a Talmud scholar and a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), whether Israel is doing itself long-term damage by deferring everything until October 27. Her answer, before the question is finished: yes. She argues campaign season structurally rewards extremism, and that she watches the bill come due in her day job, sitting across from European partners who quote Israeli ministers back at her. On Netanyahu's apparent silence, she pushes back hard: "He's not playing to win, he's playing to upset the other party." On the right accepting American control over Israeli security decisions, she's blunt, grateful Trump got the hostages out, but "it should have been our decision." Having spent October 7, 2023 as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, Siegel makes a case Israel still hasn't absorbed: every Jew abroad is now identified with Israel, whether they chose it or not.

  3. 6 Aug

    Harounoff: Iran's greatest strength is that it's not a democracy

    Iran's regime slaughtered its own people in January and the world moved on. British-Iranian journalist Jonathan Harounoff speaks on the people nobody is negotiating for. More than a month and a half after the US–Iran memorandum of understanding was signed, talks remain frozen in what Harounoff calls a Groundhog Day cycle of revived and denied negotiations. The Iranian people were never on the agenda in the first place. Speaking to Deep Dive host Jacob Laznik, he describes a "tale of two Irans" — a regime with a bottomless reserve for missiles and cutting-edge military technology, and a population facing blackouts, water shortages and inflation it cannot survive. His sharpest point cuts against Western assumptions entirely: the Islamic Republic's single greatest strategic asset is that it isn't a democracy. It doesn't answer to polls, petrol prices or public fury, so its strategy is not to defeat Washington and Jerusalem militarily but to out-suffer them in a war of attrition, with the Strait of Hormuz as its bargaining chip. Harounoff spent nearly two years as Israel's international spokesperson at the United Nations, and he is unsparing about what he saw there: a Secretary-General who took two to three weeks to issue a statement of concern after the January killings, when comparable events elsewhere in the region would have produced a response within hours. He argues the deeper problem isn't indifference but access, the longest internet blackout in recent history sealed off the voices that might have forced the story onto the agenda, the gap his book Unveiled: Inside Iran's #WomanLifeFreedom Revolt set out to fill. And he closes on the observation that most unsettles Western listeners: the people lobbying him hardest for continued operations against the Islamic Republic are Iranians themselves: At Nowruz parties in Brooklyn, from families with relatives still inside the country. The ones with actual skin in the game.

  4. 30 Jul

    Is Israel written out of the new Middle East order?

    Netanyahu got his eighth Trump meeting, but no South Portico welcome, no cameras, no one-on-one. Former Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Yaakov Katz asks what that silence means. Three months before Israelis vote on October 27, Yaakov Katz argues the more urgent question isn't who won the room, it's whether Israel is still in it. Turkey may get F-35s, Saudi Arabia is moving on a nuclear agreement, and the presidents of Lebanon and Iraq received the White House embrace and Oval Office cameras Netanyahu did not. "Is it possible that there's a new regional order that's being written here, that Israel just might not be one of the coauthors for?" Katz asks. On the anti-Iran coalition forming without Israel: "Israel is not being invited to sit at the table." Host Jacob presses Katz on two reports that landed this week: unreleased documentary footage of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, in which Graham questions whether Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are suited to Middle East negotiations given their financial ties in the Gulf; and a New Yorker piece in which former Biden administration officials say they were misled about Israel's plans in Gaza. Katz, who knows many of those officials personally, makes an argument that cuts against both camps: Biden and Trump were both deeply supportive of Israel, and neither will be on the ballot in 2028. Israel, he says, needs to get serious about the America that comes next.

  5. 23 Jul

    Israel heads to elections, and no one trusts the process

    Israeli elections have barely been called and already the Shin Bet is warning of threats to their integrity, AI-generated attack ads are flooding the campaign, and Bibi's own coalition is turning on itself in public. The Jerusalem Post political correspondent Keshet Neev joins host Jacob Laznik on The Deep Dive to unpack the most volatile opening to an Israeli election season in years. They break down President Herzog's warning about election interference, the Likud AI ad depicting Eisenkot embracing Mansour Abbas, and why Eisenkot overtaking Netanyahu in the polls could shift the entire opposition bloc's momentum. As Keshet puts it, "the second that Likud isn't the biggest party anymore… it kind of shifts the sense" of the whole race.

  6. 16 Jul

    Likud's pre-election legistlation sparks public Israeli uproar

    Israel's most turbulent political stretch in four years just collided with an election date. As Netanyahu's Likud rams through two of the most contentious laws in the country's history, host Jacob Laznik breaks down what it means. With the vote set for October 27, the coalition has unleashed a legislative blitz, succeeding where it matters most, on the haredi draft exemptions, over the public warnings of senior officials and the IDF chief of staff himself. Laznik and the Post's breaking-news desk manager, Shir Perets, unpack why these laws challenge Israel's constitutional order, and why they land at Netanyahu's most vulnerable moment The fallout is already visible: Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel has resigned, and Minister Ofir Sofer says he won't run again.

  7. 8 Jul

    Will Turkey box Israel out of Hamas's future role in Gaza?

    As Trump meets Erdogan and F-35 sales dominate the headlines, former Israeli intelligence colonel Or Horvitz makes a contrarian case: Turkey is a real and growing threat to Israel, but it is not, and will not become, the next Iran. In this conversation with The Jerusalem Post's Jacob Laznik, Horvitz breaks with the alarmist consensus taking hold among Israeli decision-makers. He argues that Ankara "is not Abu Dhabi, but not Tehran either", a pragmatic actor Washington and Jerusalem still have real leverage over, from NATO corridors to the quiet air-force deconfliction seen over Syria. On the F-35 fight, he notes that Israeli officials themselves frame the sale as "very bad, but not a disaster," and warns against turning a manageable disagreement into a public rupture with Israel's indispensable ally. On Gaza, he's blunt: Hamas's move to disband its emergency committee is "only a charade," and the group will never surrender its weapons without military force.

  8. 2 Jul

    Trump’s Iran gamble: Victory, stalemate or a dangerous mistake?

    Presidential historian Gil Troy returns to examine the aftermath of the Israel-Iran conflict, Donald Trump’s decision to end the fighting, Iran’s leverage over the Strait of Hormuz and the uncertain future of the US-Israel relationship. In this hopeful conversation with host Jacob Laznik, Gil explains why declaring victory or defeat may be premature. He discusses Israel and America’s military achievements, the lack of a clearly defined endgame, concerns surrounding negotiations with Iran and the political pressures that could shape Trump’s next move. The conversation also explores growing anti-Israel sentiment in American politics, misconceptions surrounding US support for Israel and why Gil describes Israel as America’s “DIY and ROI ally.”

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About

The Deep Dive is The Jerusalem Post's flagship podcast series, hosted by Jacob Laznik.  Each week, we review the top stories, put an up-close lens on a major topic, and dissect the main story of the week. 

Information

  • Creator
    Jerusalem Post Podcasts
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    40
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright Jerusalem Post Podcasts
  • Show Website
    The Deep Dive

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