Well before October 7th 2023, we were already witnessing too many examples of the worst in higher education with a lack of diversity of ideas and debate. Numerous U.S. college campuses had become intellectual and ideological monocultures. Then, immediately following October 7th, we saw something much darker, but perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised. Many of us lament what is happening in higher education. But at CallMeBack, we have also observed some bright spots — universities with inspiring leaders and healthy intellectual climates —  and we want to try to understand what is happening at these universities that have bucked the trend. In this episode, we have a discussion about Vanderbilt University. Our guest is Daniel Diermeier, Vanderbilt University’s ninth chancellor. He previously served in leadership roles at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and at the University of Chicago, where he served as dean of the Harris School of Public Policy.  In addition to his role as chancellor, Diermeier is University Distinguished Professor in the Owen Graduate School of Management and Distinguished University Professor of Political Science in the College of Arts & Science. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Guggenheim Foundation. He has published five books and more than 100 research articles in academic journals.  In our conversation, which was recorded on campus, Chancellor Diermeier discusses how the university has developed its policies around free speech, institutional neutrality, and campus order. In the face of staggering levels of intolerance -- not to mention pro-Hamas protests effectively taking over some campuses -- has Vanderbilt become a model for how to get it right? The article referenced in this episode - Chancellor Diermeier’s piece in the Wall Street Journal, ‘Free speech Is Alive and Well at Vanderbilt University’ https://www.wsj.com/articles/free-speech-is-alive-and-well-at-vanderbilt-university-023884d1 Additional piece recommended, Chancellor Diermeier in the Wall Street Journal: ‘Scholarly Associations Aren’t Entitled to Their Opinions’ https://www.wsj.com/opinion/scholarly-associations-arent-entitled-to-their-opinions-it-chills-debate-harms-young-faculty-2584c09c?st=LK2G22&reflink=article_imessage_share

In recent weeks, with the IDF focusing most of its attention on the Northern front, the media has been paying less attention to what’s actually happening in Gaza. What would constitute the Gaza War being over? Is there any progress on a Day After Plan for Gaza? What is the status of hostage negotiations and other efforts to free the hostages? What would the future (medium-term/long-term) Israeli presence in Gaza look like? To help us connect these dots, Haviv Rettig Gur returns to the podcast.  Haviv Rettig Gur is the political analyst at The Times of Israel. He was a long time reporter for the Times of Israel. Haviv was also a combat medic in the IDF where he served in the reserves.

Watch the full conversation on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZTiuntsCs8 Regardless of who you voted for in the U.S. presidential election, many of us are continuing to attempt to unpack what happened in this extraordinary election. There has been a lot of analysis of the various demographic shifts.  But less attention has been paid to Jewish voters and the role they played - as well as the issues of the Israel-Hamas war and rising antisemitism in the U.S. How did these issues impact how Americans - both Jewish and non-Jewish - chose to vote?  To discuss, our guest today is Congressman Ritchie Torres. Rep. Torres lives in the Bronx and represents New York’s 15th congressional district. He is a member of the House Committee on Financial Services and the House’s Elect Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. He has been on the front lines of electoral politics this year, both in his congressional district in the Bronx, and nationally, as a champion on the issue of Israel and antisemitism.  Item discussed in this episode: Michael Powell’s interview with Ritchie Torres in the Atlantic - https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/11/democrats-lost-voters-ritchie-torres/680599/

Last night in Amsterdam, dozens of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans suffered a pogrom in the streets of Amsterdam, following the soccer team’s match against Ajax. According to most accounts, this ambush was planned and coordinated in advance. And according to Israeli authorities, 10 Israelis were injured throughout the night, as mobs of antisemitic rioters ambushed, chased, and attacked the Israeli soccer fans. Dozens have been arrested, and the Israeli government dispatched planes to Amsterdam to return the Israeli  fans safely to Israel. The Amsterdam police was observed to be largely ineffective in attempting to protect the Israeli fans from the assailants. To unpack these disturbing events, and discuss the climate of antisemitism that has erupted in the Netherlands and across Europe, we are joined by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Omer Bigger. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Somali-born Dutch-American activist, author, and a former Dutch member of Parliament. She is known for her outspoken criticism of Islam. Ayaan has just launched a media platform called Courage.Media, which aims to amplify the voices of those who are showing great courage by standing up to the anti-western, anti-liberal, anti-democratic movements that are taking root in our media, our politics, our schools, and our communities.  Omer Bigger is an Israeli tech worker living in Amsterdam. Ayaan’s piece on the pogrom in Amsterdam: https://courage.media/2024/11/08/the-pogrom-in-amsterdam/To buy Ayaan’s books: https://tinyurl.com/pd34a9s8Also discussed in this episode: “Pogrom 2024” John Podhoretz: https://www.commentary.org/john-podhoretz/pogrom-2024/

Last night in Israel, in what came as a shock to many Israelis, Prime Minister Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.  At the same time, there was a Red Wave that swept through U.S. politics. As Israelis and Americans simultaneously process these two 180 degree pivots in their respective political systems, we are joined by two CallMeBack regulars to discuss both stories: Nadav Eyal is a columnist for Yediiot. He is one of Israel’s leading journalists. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news. Amit Segal is the chief political correspondent and analyst for Channel 12 News, and for Yediot Ahronot, the country’s largest circulation newspaper.

With two days before the US presidential election, there is increasing (and surprising) speculation from within the Israeli security establishment about whether Iran will attack Israel in the days ahead. In today’s episode, we try to unpack what’s going on with Iran-Israel and also a possible ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah. We also discuss our recent visit to an Ivy League university and what we learned from Jewish students there.NADAV EYAL is a columnist for Yediiot. He is one of Israel’s leading journalists. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news.

WATCH THE CONVERSATION ON YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/-MGg6Oe5_7AMicah Goodman is on the speed-dial of a number of Israeli political leaders – from Right to Left, but especially on the Center-Left and the Center-Right. And Micah has been synthesizing how Israelis view the war with Iran and the U.S.-Israel relationship.Micah is a polymath, a podcaster and one of Israel’s most influential public intellectuals, having written books ranging from biblical lessons for the modern age to Israel’s geopolitics. Micah has a new book (in Hebrew), called ‘The Eighth Day’, in which Micah tries to understand the implications of the nation’s trauma and what it means for the other ‘day after’ (not the ‘day after’ in Gaza, but the ‘day after’ inside Israel).Micah Goodman’s books in English: Catch-67 — https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/catch-67-micah-goodman/1128089735?ean=9780300248418The Wondering Jew — https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-wondering-jew-micah-goodman/1136574622?ean=9780300252248

WATCH THE CONVERSATION ON YOUTUBE HERE: https://youtu.be/U0MWxuQG4fsAs we continue to assess the threat FROM Iran and the threat TO Iran, we sat down today with two analysts and former national security officials with different perspectives on what we’ve learned so far and next steps.Richard Fontaine is CEO of the Center for American Security. He was formerly the top foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain, deputy staff director on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and an official of the U.S. State Department and National Security Council. He currently serves as a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board.Rich Goldberg is a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. From 2019-2020, he served as a Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction for the White House National Security Council. He previously served as a national security staffer in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House. Rich is an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve with military experience on the Joint Staff and in Afghanistan.

WATCH THE CONVERSATION ON YOUTUBE: youtu.be/ERj4GQ82wcwLIVE EVENT ALERT – PITTSBURGH: On Monday October 28th at 6:00 PM, Dan will be speaking at a live event in conversation with Dave McCormick, combat veteran, former CEO of Bridgewater Associates, and candidate for U.S. Senate. A West Point graduate, Dave was deployed to the Middle East during the first Gulf War with the 82nd Airborne Division. He later served as the Under Secretary of Treasury and Deputy National Security Advisor. Dave has distinguished himself as an outspoken ally of the Jewish community and of the U.S.-Israel relationship. In Pittsburg, Dan and Dave will have a conversation before a live audience and take questions. To register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dan-senor-and-dave-mccormick-live-in-pittsburgh-tickets-1042361389977?aff=oddtdtcreator TODAY’S EPISODE: To help us better understand what happened with Israel’s military operation against Iran, Nadav Eyal and Jonathan Schanzer join us for an emergency episode of the podcast. NADAV EYAL is a columnist for Yediiot. He is one of Israel’s leading journalists. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news. Dr. JONATHAN SCHANZER is senior vice president for research at Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Jon previously worked as a terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he played an integral role in the designation of numerous terrorist financiers. Jonathan has studied Middle East history in four countries. He earned his PhD from King’s College London, where he wrote his dissertation on the U.S. Congress and its efforts to combat terrorism in the 20th century. He speaks Arabic and Hebrew.  CREDITS: ILAN BENATAR - Producer and EditorREBECCA STROM - Media ManagerMARTIN HUERGO - EditorIDAN COHEN - Military Intelligence Research

WATCH THE CONVERSATION ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUOKHUctWMs LIVE EVENT ALERT – PITTSBURGH: On Monday October 28th at 6:00 PM, Dan will be speaking at a live event in conversation with Dave McCormick, combat veteran, former CEO of Bridgewater Associates, and candidate for U.S. Senate. A West Point graduate, Dave was deployed to the Middle East during the first Gulf War with the 82nd Airborne Division. He later served as the Under Secretary of Treasury and Deputy National Security Advisor. Dave has distinguished himself as an outspoken ally of the Jewish community and of the U.S.-Israel relationship. In Pittsburg, Dan and Dave will have a conversation before a live audience and take questions. To register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dan-senor-and-dave-mccormick-live-in-pittsburgh-tickets-1042361389977?aff=oddtdtcreator SPECIAL SERIES: As we reflect upon one year since 10/07, we continue our dedicated series in which we take a longer horizon perspective, asking one guest each week to look back at this past year and the year ahead. If you are listening to this episode on a podcast app, please note that this episode was filmed in a studio and is also available in video form on our YouTube channel.  For the sixth and final episode in our series, we sat down with Scott Galloway, who is a Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern School of Business where he teaches Brand Strategy and Digital Marketing. He’s the host of the Prof G Podcast and the Pivot podcast, which he co-hosts with Kara Swisher. He is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous books, including “The Four”, “The Algebra of Happiness”, “Adrift: America in 100 Charts”, and most recently, “The Algebra of Wealth: A Simple Formula for Financial Security.”  Scott has served on the board of directors of Eddie Bauer, The New York Times Company and the Berkeley School of Business.  Scott’s books: https://tinyurl.com/5f9uhpmzFollow Scott at: ProfGMedia.com

LIVE EVENT ALERT – PITTSBURGH: On Monday October 28th at 6:00 PM, Dan will be speaking at a live event in conversation with Dave McCormick, combat veteran, former CEO of Bridgewater Associates, and candidate for U.S. Senate. A West Point graduate, Dave was deployed to the Middle East during the first Gulf War with the 82nd Airborne Division. He later served as the Under Secretary of Treasury and Deputy National Security Advisor. Dave has distinguished himself as an outspoken ally of the Jewish community and of the U.S.-Israel relationship. In Pittsburg, Dan and Dave will have a conversation before a live audience and take questions. To register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dan-senor-and-dave-mccormick-live-in-pittsburgh-tickets-1042361389977?aff=oddtdtcreator TODAY’S EPISODE: The extraordinary success of the elimination of Yahya Sinwar has raised a number of questions about what happens next in the war. And among those asking questions is the community of families of Israeli hostages. In today’s episode, we sat down with two of those family members – Maya Roman and Gil Dickmann.

LIVE EVENT ALERT – PITTSBURGH: On Monday October 28th at 6:00 PM, Dan will be speaking at a live event in conversation with Dave McCormick, combat veteran, former CEO of Bridgewater Associates, and candidate for U.S. Senate. A West Point graduate, Dave was deployed to the Middle East during the first Gulf War with the 82nd Airborne Division. He later served as the Under Secretary of Treasury and Deputy National Security Advisor. Dave has distinguished himself as an outspoken ally of the Jewish community and of the U.S.-Israel relationship. In Pittsburg, Dan and Dave will have a conversation before a live audience and take questions. To register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dan-senor-and-dave-mccormick-live-in-pittsburgh-tickets-1042361389977?aff=oddtdtcreator TODAY’S EPISODE: As Israelis continue to welcome the news of the elimination of Yahya Sinwar by IDF soldiers – and the implications – we are reminded that we have been spending a lot of time on this podcast over the past several months hearing about the impressive feats of Israel’s elite commandos, special forces and intelligence units. But the soldiers who successfully took down Sinwar, were none of those…they were, simply, regular armored forces. Boots on the ground and tanks, with no early intelligence.  Behind the events that shape some of the most dazzling headlines these past couple months, are the soldiers and reservists you rarely hear about. They are, in short, the people who make up…the People’s Army. We want to put a spotlight on these regular soldiers and reservists who - day in, day out - do extraordinary things.  Tonight we are releasing a conversation we taped in July with Dr. Tuvia Book. Tuvia was born in London, and raised in both the UK and South Africa. After making Aliyah at the age of 17, and studying in Yeshiva, he volunteered for the IDF where he served in a combat unit.   Tuvia has been working in the field of Jewish Education, both formal and informal, for many years. He is the author (and illustrator) of the internationally acclaimed Israel education curriculum; For the Sake of Zion; A Curriculum of Israel Studies (https://tinyurl.com/3anhrhw9) and Moral Dilemmas of the Modern Israeli Soldier (Rama, 2011) and Jewish Journeys (https://tinyurl.com/bmkj4wa2)

Yahya Sinwar is dead. To help us better understand what happened in Gaza over the past 24 hours, the reaction in Israeli society, and what is likely to happen next in Gaza and in Israel, Nadav Eyal and Haviv Rettig Gur join us for an emergency episode of the podcast. NADAV EYAL is a columnist for Yediiot. He is one of Israel’s leading journalists. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news. Haviv is the senior political analyst at The Times of Israel. He was a long time reporter for the Times of Israel. He’s also working on a book. Haviv was a combat medic in the IDF where he served in the reserves.

In recent days, the Biden-Harris administration has announced it would deploy the THAAD system to Israel — THAAD is an advanced missile defense system that can thwart short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, as well as the U.S. military personnel to operate it.  At the same time, the Biden-Harris administration has issued a blistering letter to Israel’s government threatening to withhold military resources at the time that Israel is planning its response to the October 1st Iranian attack (here’s a copy of the letter:  https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25212303-bqshvt-hmmshl-hamryqny-bhqshrym-hvmnytrym ). To help us understand what is going on with U.S. policy, Rich Goldberg returns to the podcast. Rich is a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. From 2019-2020, he served as a Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction for the White House National Security Council. He previously served as a national security staffer in the US Senate and US House. Rich is an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve with military experience on the Joint Staff and in Afghanistan. Recent pieces by Rich: “Israel’s Victory Will Be a Success for American Grand Strategy”: https://www.fdd.org/analysis/op_eds/2024/10/04/israels-victory-will-be-a-success-for-american-grand-strategy/ “Turn-Key Alternatives to Replace UNRWA Immediately”: https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/05/06/turn-key-alternatives-to-replace-unrwa-immediately/

WATCH THE CONVERSATION ON YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/2yK4Ag_Ca2g As we have just passed the grim one-year anniversary of 10/07, we continue our dedicated series in which we take a longer horizon perspective, asking one guest each week to look back at this past year and the year ahead. If you are listening to this episode on a podcast app, please note that this episode was filmed in a studio and is also available in video form on our YouTube channel.  For the fifth installment of this special series, we sat down with Dr. Tal Becker, who serves as Vice President and Senior Faculty of the Kogod Research Center at Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. Tal was the former Legal Adviser of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is a veteran member of successive Israeli peace negotiation teams and, most recently, represented Israel before the International Court of Justice and played an instrumental role in negotiating and drafting the historic peace and normalization agreements (the "Abraham Accords"). Tal earned his doctorate from Columbia University in New York City, and is the recipient of numerous scholarly awards, including the Rabin Peace Prize, and the Guggenheim Prize for best international law book for his book "Terrorism and the State". Finally, we have received a number of requests for recommendations of organizations in Israel to donate to around this one-year anniversary of 10/07. There are so many organizations doing important work to help Israelis rebuild from the events of the last year — and the ongoing war. This list is by no means comprehensive. It is simply  an opportunity to highlight four groups whose work has moved us and who deserve additional support (we will add additional recommendations in the days ahead):  -IDF Widows & Orphans Organization (IDFWO), an Israeli non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the spouses and children of Israel's fallen heroes. They provide emotional care, financial assistance, educational opportunities, and a community for those affected most by Israel’s wars. — https://www.idfwo.org/en/  -Since October 8, Hezbollah has fired thousands of rockets, anti-tank missiles, and explosive UAVs at Israeli civilian and military targets in the north. As worries mount, Rambam Medical Center has cared for the wounded and prepared for war. This 1,100-bed medical center in Haifa has transferred its critical medical care to an underground emergency hospital. Rambam’s underground hospital – capable of housing 8,000 people — will play a critical role going forward in treating wounded soldiers and civilians; protecting and caring for the needs of medical staff and their families; and protecting and caring for the residents of Israel’s Northern Region. — https://aforam.org/    -Leket Israel, Israel's largest food rescue operation, is committed to leading the safe, effective and efficient collection and distribution of surplus nutritious food in Israel to those who need it. To pick just one inspiring example: since October 7th, Leket has committed itself to providing healthy food to the 250,000 displaced Israelis, many of whom have been residing in hotels for the last year. Leket has installed produce stands in hotels across Israel, providing evacuees with a consistent supply of fresh fruit and vegetables, free of charge, which Leket purchases from struggling Israeli growers. — https://www.leket.org/en/   -Kav L'noar's therapy services have provided essential psychological support to communities in the South directly impacted by the war and the October 7th massacre. Their therapeutic interventions are tailored to address the unique emotional and psychological challenges faced by individuals affected by the war, empowering survivors to navigate the aftermath, rebuild resilience, and foster a sense of collective strength. — https://www.kavlnoar.org/israelatwar

This past Monday marked the grim one-year anniversary of October 7th. Around the world, Jewish communities gathered to memorialize a war still being fought. How did Israeli society experience this grief, and how did Diaspora communities memorialize? What are Israelis going through that we might not be able to see from a distance? And what are  Diaspora communities going through that Israelis may not see? To discuss, we are joined by Matti Friedman, who is one of the most thoughtful writers when it comes to all matters related to Israel, the broader Middle East, and also trends in the world of journalism. He is a columnist for The Free Press: https://www.thefp.com/ Matti’s most recent book is called “Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai.” Before that he published "Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel," and before that "Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story of a Forgotten War.” Matti’s army service included tours in Lebanon. His work as a reporter has taken him from Israel to Lebanon, and other hotspots across the Middle East and around the world. He is a former Associated Press correspondent and essayist for the New York Times opinion section. Matti’s book referenced in the episode: “Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story of a Forgotten War” — https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pumpkinflowers-matti-friedman/1122279367?ean=9781616206918

WATCH THE CONVERSATION ON YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/DfZZbwMuSe0  As we arrive at the grim one-year anniversary of 10/07, we are featuring a dedicated series in which we take a longer horizon perspective, asking one guest each week to look back at this past year and the year ahead. If you are listening to this episode on a podcast app, please note that this episode was filmed before a live audience and is also available in video form on our YouTube channel.  For the fourth installment of this special series, we sat down with Amir Tibon, who is an award-winning diplomatic correspondent for Haaretz and the author of the newly released book: “The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israel’s Borderlands.” You can order Amir’s new book here: https://tinyurl.com/4khzaxab Amir is also the author of“The Last Palestinian: The Rise and Reign of Mahmoud Abbas” (co-authored with Grant Rumley), the first-ever biography of the president of the Palestinian Authority.  From 2017-2020, Amir was based in Washington, DC as a foreign correspondent for Haaretz, and he also has served as a senior editor for the newspaper’s English edition. He, his wife, and their two young daughters are former residents of Kibbutz Nahal Oz but are currently living as internal refugees in northern Israel. His book tells the harrowing story of his family’s experience on October 7th as well as the history of Israel’s Gaza Envelope communities and of the Gaza Strip.  Finally, we have received a number of requests for recommendations of organizations in Israel to donate to on this one-year anniversary of 10/07. There are so many organizations doing important work to help Israelis rebuild from the events of the last year — and the ongoing war. This list is by no means comprehensive. It is simply  an opportunity to highlight four groups whose work has moved us and who deserve additional support (we will add additional recommendations in the days ahead): -IDF Widows & Orphans Organization (IDFWO), an Israeli non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the spouses and children of Israel's fallen heroes. They provide emotional care, financial assistance, educational opportunities, and a community for those affected most by Israel’s wars. — https://www.idfwo.org/en/ -Since October 8, Hezbollah has fired thousands of rockets, anti-tank missiles, and explosive UAVs at Israeli civilian and military targets in the north. As worries mount, Rambam Medical Center has cared for the wounded and prepared for war. This 1,100-bed medical center in Haifa has transferred its critical medical care to an underground emergency hospital. Rambam’s underground hospital – capable of housing 8,000 people — will play a critical role going forward in treating wounded soldiers and civilians; protecting and caring for the needs of medical staff and their families; and protecting and caring for the residents of Israel’s Northern Region. — https://aforam.org/   -Leket Israel, Israel's largest food rescue operation, is committed to leading the safe, effective and efficient collection and distribution of surplus nutritious food in Israel to those who need it. To pick just one inspiring example: since October 7th, Leket has committed itself to providing healthy food to the 250,000 displaced Israelis, many of whom have been residing in hotels for the last year. Leket has installed produce stands in hotels across Israel, providing evacuees with a consistent supply of fresh fruit and vegetables, free of charge, which Leket purchases from struggling Israeli growers. — https://www.leket.org/en/  -Kav L'noar's therapy services have provided essential psychological support to communities in the South directly impacted by the war and the October 7th massacre. Their therapeutic interventions are tailored to address the unique emotional and psychological challenges faced by individuals affected by the war, empowering survivors to navigate the aftermath, rebuild resilience, and foster a sense of collective strength. — https://www.kavlnoar.org/israelatwar

The past couple days have seen some of the most fast-moving and potentially region-altering events since the 10/07 War broke out. To help us better understand what has happened and where events are likely heading, we are joined by:NADAV EYAL — a columnist for Yediiot. He is one of Israel’s leading journalists. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news.MATTHEW LEVITT — the director of the Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Matt served as deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He later served as a counterterrorism advisor to the special envoy for Middle East regional security. Previously, Matt was a counterterrorism intelligence analyst at the FBI.

Watch the conversation on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRTYMukNiy4 To help us better understand the dramatic developments in Lebanon, Nadav Eyal joined us for an emergency episode of the podcast.  NADAV EYAL is a columnist for Yediiot. He is one of Israel’s leading journalists. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news.

UPCOMING LIVE EVENTS: September 24 — Join us for the first major live recording of Call Me Back, held at the Streicker Center, featuring Amir Tibon. To register, please go to: streicker.nyc/events/tibon-senor TODAY'S EPISODE: To help us better understand the escalating war between Israel and Hezbollah, Nadav Eyal joined us for an emergency episode of the podcast.  NADAV EYAL is a columnist for Yediiot. He is one of Israel’s leading journalists. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news.

WATCH THE CONVERSATION ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GKPqu3CUtg UPCOMING LIVE EVENTS: September 24 — Join us for the first major live recording of Call Me Back, held at the Streicker Center, featuring Amir Tibon. To register, please go to: https://streicker.nyc/events/tibon-senor   SPECIAL SERIES: As we approach the grim one-year anniversary of 10/07, we are featuring a dedicated series in which we take a longer horizon perspective, asking one guest each week to look back at this past year and the year ahead. If you are listening to this episode on a podcast app, please note that this series was filmed in a studio and is also available in video form on our YouTube channel.  For the third installment of this special series, we sat down with Yossi Klein Halevi, who is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. Yossi has written a number of books, including his latest, "Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor," which was a New York Times bestseller. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Times of Israel. He is co-host of "For Heaven's Sake" podcast. Yossi Klein Halevi's books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B001IXOA04 Timestamps:00:00 Introduction03:10 Reaction to October 7th11:57 Where did we anticipate we would be a year from October 7th?14:30 Where is the war heading?21:29 Israeli Politics29:00 Defending Israel from abroad32:12 Can those in the diaspora both defend and criticize Israel?37:00 The hostage dilemma44:00 Global opinion of the conflict49:42 Tension between power and victimhood52:49 The lasting legacy of this past year

Share episode on X: https://tinyurl.com/mwhxcdja UPCOMING LIVE EVENTS: September 24 — Join us for the first major live recording of Call Me Back, held at the Streicker Center, featuring Amir Tibon. To register, please go to: streicker.nyc/events/tibon-senorTo help us better understand events in Lebanon over the past 24 hours, Nadav Eyal joined us for an emergency episode of the podcast. NADAV EYAL is a columnist Yediiot. He is one of Israel’s leading journalists. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news.

WATCH THE FULL CONVERSATION ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNugi2XnhmI UPCOMING LIVE EVENTS: September 24 — Join us for the first major live recording of Call Me Back, held at the Streicker Center, featuring Amir Tibon. To register, please go to: https://streicker.nyc/events/tibon-senor  SPECIAL SERIES:As we approach the grim one-year anniversary of 10/07, we are featuring a dedicated series in which we take a longer horizon perspective, asking one guest each week to look back at this past year and the year ahead. If you are listening to this episode on a podcast app, please note that this series was filmed in a studio and is also available in video form on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNugi2XnhmIFor the second installment of this special series, we sat down with Sam Harris – philosopher, neuroscientist, bestselling author and podcaster.  Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 02:18 Sam’s experience of October 7th 05:44 Hamas’s use of civilians as human shields 09:07 Should Israel risk Israeli lives? 12:15 Response to sympathy towards Palestinians 19:43: Hamas knew exactly who they were targeting 22:00 Jihadist mentality 32:57 The hostage dilemma 38:29: American Anti-Israel protests 45:13 Antisemitism and anti zionism 01:01:28 Antisemitism on the left 01:04:47 Connection to Jewish identity post-October 7th Episodes of Sam Harris’s “Making Sense” podcast, as referenced in this conversation:“Why Don’t I Criticize Israel?”: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/2-why-dont-i-criticize-israel/id733163012?i=1000316926199"The Bright Line Between Good and Evil": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFBm8nQ2aBo To subscribe to Sam Harris’s podcast, Making Sense: https://www.samharris.org/podcastsTo register for Sam Harris’s substack: https://samharris.substack.com/

Share episode on X: https://tinyurl.com/5n8kcm5m Watch the full conversation on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7F7Pq-XI40&t=2914sVisit our website: https://arkmedia.org/ UPCOMING LIVE EVENTS:If you are interested in our upcoming Call Me Back live events, you can find further registration details here: PHILADELPHIA-AREA — September  9 — Join us this Monday night in Lower Merion, just outside of Philadelphia, for a discussion about Israel, the Middle East and the U.S.-Israel relationship with combat veteran and national security expert Dave McCormick, who is running for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania. To register, please go to: Dan-and-Dave.eventbrite.com NEW YORK CITY — September 24 — Join us for the first major live recording of Call Me Back, held at the Streicker Center, co-sponsored by UJA Federation of NY, and featuring Amir Tibon on the official launch date of his book The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israel's Borderlands. To register, please go to:  streicker.nyc/events/tibon-senor NEW EPISODE / NEW SERIESSince October 7th, on this podcast we have tried to present Israel’s dilemmas and challenges as Israel responded to a genocidal attack from Gaza and what is now a multi-front war. We have tried to do this by talking to Israelis – Israeli journalists, political figures, historians and other thought leaders, and different people from Israel’s civil society. We have tried to provide historical context and perspectives from various actors in the U.S.-Israel relationship from both sides of that relationship.We did not think we would still be recording these episodes – with this focus – for one year. And yet, here we are — approaching the one-year anniversary of October 7, which will be regarded as one of the darkest days in Jewish history (and one of the darkest days in the history of Western Civilization).Most of our episodes have been shaped by weekly and daily news developments. But as we approach the one-year anniversary, we wanted to take a step back, and spend extended time with a few of our previous guests and thought leaders who are not our go-to analysts.We asked each one of them to take a longer horizon perspective, to look back at this past year and the year ahead. In each conversation, we will try to understand the larger lessons these guests have learned as we approach this grim milestone. If you are listening to this episode on a podcast app, please note that this series was filmed in a studio and is also available in video form on our YouTube channel. You can find a link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7F7Pq-XI40&t=2914sWe begin this series with a conversation with Douglas Murray – war journalist, columnist, and bestselling author. We will be dropping one of these long-form conversations with a different guest each week between now and the first couple weeks after 10/07. On Sunday, September 8, Douglas Murray will kick off his first ever US Tour with Live Nation. Long before Oct 7, Douglas was a widely read journalist, bestselling author, and one of the most prescient intellectuals in the world. Since Oct 7, he has also become one of the strongest voices for Israel and the Jewish people. Douglas will be sharing experiences from his time in Israel post October 7, including never before seen footage from his time in Israel. Tickets can be purchased through Live Nation’s website: https://www.livenation.com/artist/K8vZ917blC7/douglas-murray-events

*** Share episode on X: https://tinyurl.com/yc2pck68 *** In recent days, there has been intensifying debate inside Israel over whether the security concerns raised by Prime Minister Netanyahu (regarding the Philadelphi Corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border) are legitimate or just sand being thrown in the gears of the hostage negotiations? Are there actual substantive objections to the concerns the Prime Minister is raising, or are the concerns really just with Netanyahu himself? Is the problem the message? Or the messenger? We are joined by Amit Segal. He is the chief political correspondent and analyst for Channel 12 News, and for Yediot Ahronot, the country’s largest circulation newspaper. NADAV EYAL who is a columnist Yediiot. Eyal is one of Israel’s leading journalists. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news. Amit and Nadav often debate in Hebrew on Israeli television…this is the first time they are debating like this in English, and they wound up debating a number of other – more raw – issues that cut to some of the divisions in Israeli society today over the war. I learned a lot from both of them. Register for the September 24th Call me Back Live at the Streicker Center in New York with special guest Amir Tibon: https://streicker.nyc/events/tibon-senor

*** Share episode on X: https://tinyurl.com/39yxftr6 *** Over the past 24 hours we learned the devastating news about Hamas’s slaughtering of 6 hostages. The families of two of these hostages – Hersh Goldberg-Polin and Carmel Gat had been guests on this podcast over the past few months. The news of these executions followed news in Israel last Thursday of a heated debate within the security cabinet over a clause that the prime minister had introduced – to be voted on – into the negotiations over any final deal. Some critics are arguing that the introduction of that clause was part of a pattern that doomed the negotiations. Last night, hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets to protest – among other things – these moves by Israel’s Government. Others inside Israel are arguing that the principles that the Prime Minister is establishing in these negotiations are necessary conditions for Israel to defeat Hamas and prevent another October 7th-like war being launched (at least from Gaza). This is the debate happening inside Israel right now. To better understand each of these positions we had a conversation on Sunday morning with Haviv Rettig Gur from the Time of Israel from Jersuaelm. But before we listen to the conversation with Haviv, we want to play for you a conversation I had late at night Israel time on Sunday night, with Wendy Singer, a Jersusalemite who is part of the Goldberg-Polins' community in Baka, their neighborhood in Jerusalem. In the days ahead, we’ll hear from others connected to those six hostages murdered. Wendy Singer is an advisor to several Israeli high-tech start-ups, including Re-Milk — https://www.remilk.com/ Wendy was the executive director of Start-Up Nation Central since its founding in 2013 — https://startupnationcentral.org/ Previously, she was the director of AIPAC’s Israel office for 16 years and served in AIPAC’s Washington office before immigrating to Israel in 1994. Earlier in her career, Wendy was a foreign policy advisor in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. Haviv Rettig Gur is the political analyst at The Times of Israel. He was a long time reporter for the Times of Israel. Haviv was also a combat medic in the IDF where he served in the reserves.

*** Share episode on X: https://tinyurl.com/yc4a9uvh *** Our interests in the Indo-Pacific, Russia-Ukraine, and the Middle East are all interconnected. A regional war in one, could easily trip into a regional war in another — and in some cases actors in one region are already being supported by regional actors from another. Just follow the moves of Beijing, Moscow and Tehran. Rahm Emanuel has been an energetic diplomat in one of those regions — the Indo-Pacific. He is the U.S. ambassador to Japan. In addition to being a diplomatic and policy practitioner, he has also been an often astute — and sometimes provocative — analyst of the Chinese Government and its moves. Rahm also has deep roots in American Jewish life and with Israel. He has a lot to say about the lessons he took away from serving in the Clinton administration, where he was involved in President Clinton’s efforts at a two-state solution during the Oslo and Camp David processes. Rahm also served 4 terms in Congress, where he was a member of the House Democratic Leadership. He was President Obama’s chief of staff for the first two years of the Obama administration, before returning to Chicago to run for mayor, where he served for two terms. To read Rahm’s piece mentioned in the episode: https://japan-forward.com/lessons-from-israel-timely-for-japan/ Follow Rahm on X: https://x.com/USAmbJapan Register for Call me Back Live at the Streicker Center: https://streicker.nyc/events/tibon-senor

*** Share episode on X: https://tinyurl.com/bdd5bvp8 *** Early this morning, after detecting preparations by Hezbollah to launch a large-scale attack, Israel launched a powerful preemptive strike on southern Lebanon. Hours after these events took place, I was joined by Nadav Eyal and Ronen Bergman to make sense of what has taken place, and to discuss possible scenarios moving forward. Ronen Bergman is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and Senior Correspondent for Military and Intelligence Affairs for Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli daily. Ronen recently won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on this war and the pre-war intelligence failures. Nadav Eyal is a columnist for Yediot. He has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news.

*** Share episode on X: https://tinyurl.com/p5dfbxxw *** As Israelis continue to brace for a kinetic strike from Iran, or Hezbollah, or both, this long-anticipated attack may have been put on hold by Tehran while Israel and Hamas were negotiating the last details of a hostage and temporary ceasefire deal. Now, as we learn today from our guest Nadav Eyal, that deal appears to be slipping away. Nadav Eyal is a columnist for Yediot. He has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news. Register for Call me Back Live at the Streicker Center in New York: https://streicker.nyc/events/tibon-senor

*** Share episode on X: https://tinyurl.com/bdze4khv *** Mark Dubowitz reports from Tel Aviv after over a month in Israel discussing Israel’s emerging (and bolder) approach to Iran. Mark is the CEO of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD). In his role, he has advised the Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden administrations and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, and he has testified more than twenty times before the U.S. Congress and foreign legislatures. A former venture capitalist and technology executive, Mark holds a master’s degree in international public policy from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. To read Mark’s recent piece in the Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/israels-approach-to-iran-may-be-getting-bolder-f4c2c5f2?st=26ve823zvaeilzf&reflink=article_copyURL_share FDD’s Iranian Protest Tracker Map: https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/01/27/mapping-the-protests-in-iran-2/ Register for Call me Back Live at the Streicker Center in New York: https://streicker.nyc/events/tibon-senor

*** Share episode on X: https://tinyurl.com/4wzexubr *** Israelis are stuck in a tense holding pattern, each day waiting for a response from Iran, or Hezbollah, or both - an attack that was expected to occur last week, then later forecasted to occur over Tisha B’Av. And yet, each day… nothing. What is going on — in Tehran? In Jerusalem? And in Washington D.C.? At the same time, there is a similar pattern in the hostage negotiations. Today, senior officials from Israel, the U.S., Qatar and Egypt met in Doha to resume negotiations for a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal - talks, as we are learning, that will continue into tomorrow. Israel seems to be on the brink of major developments - and yet, Israelis are left questioning: when will they occur? And against that backdrop: is Israel on offense, or is Israel on defense? To help us assess all of this from a broader strategic perspective, our guest is Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, who is senior vice president for research at Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Jon previously worked as a terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he played an integral role in the designation of numerous terrorist financiers. Jon's latest book is "Gaza Conflict 2021: Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War". His other books include: "State of Failure: Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, and the Unmaking of the Palestinian State", and "Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine". Jonathan has studied Middle East history in four countries. He earned his PhD from King’s College London, where he wrote his dissertation on the U.S. Congress and its efforts to combat terrorism in the 20th century. He speaks Arabic and Hebrew. To watch the FDD Morning Brief, hosted by Jon: https://www.fdd.org/fddmorningbrief/ Register for Call me Back Live at the Streicker Center in New York: https://streicker.nyc/events/tibon-senor

*** Share episode on X: https://tinyurl.com/2awmrwwr *** Against the backdrop of a possible Iran/Hezbollah attack, as well as international criticism of an IDF operation in Gaza City, there have been new developments in the hostage negotiations. This past Thursday, a multi-party statement was issued by the U.S., Egypt and Qatar, declaring that the framework of a hostage deal was nearly complete, and urging Israel and Hamas to finalize the deal without further delay. Soon after, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office issued a statement that Israel would send its team to the now scheduled August 15th negotiations. Hamas had indicated its intention to participate as well. Now, suddenly, Hamas is reversing its decision. Although, at least according to some sources, this reversal may be last minute posturing by Hamas. Either way, the sudden acceleration of the process does make this dynamic seem different from previous rounds. To discuss all of these issues, we are joined by Call me Back regulars: -Nadav Eyal is a columnist for Yediot. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news. -Haviv Rettig Gur has been a regular presence on this podcast since October 8. He is a senior political analyst for the Times of Israel, and has been an important interpreter for Western audiences of how to understand this conflict in broader historical terms. To register for Call me Back Live featuring Amir Tibon at the Streicker Center: https://streicker.nyc/events/tibon-senor To visit our website: https://arkmedia.org/

*** Share episode on X: https://tinyurl.com/56nzhy97 *** HOUSEKEEPING NOTE: I’m pleased to announce a major live recording of Call Me Back in New York City on September 24th. The event will be held at the Streicker Center, co-sponsored by UJA Federation of NY, and my guest will be Amir Tibon on the official launch date of his book The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israel's Borderlands. In his new book, Amir tells the gripping story of the Tibon family’s ordeal at Kibbutz Nahal Oz on October 7 and the heroic rescue by Amir’s father, retired General Noam Tibon. Woven throughout the book is Amir’s own expertise as a longtime journalist in Israel and in Washington, the history of Kibbutz Nahal Oz, and the conflict between Israel and Gaza. The story has previously been featured on 60 Minutes and it is also being developed in a feature film by Avi Issacharoff and Lior Raz. We are excited to bring this program – with our partners at The Streicker Center and UJA Federation of NY – to the Call Me Back audience. To register, please go to streicker.nyc/events/tibon-senor TODAY’S EPISODE: Tensions have been high in Israel over the past week, as Israelis brace for a response from Iran and Hezbollah, following last week’s assassinations of Ismail Haniyeh in Iran and Fuad Shukr in Lebanon. This attack was anticipated to have already taken place, and may happen at any moment. To help us understand the extent to which Israel and the U.S. have prepared for this new phase, we are joined by Nadav Eyal and Matt Levitt. Nadav Eyal is a columnist for Yediot. He has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news. Dr. Matthew Levitt is the director of the Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He served as deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. During his tenure at Treasury, he played a central role in efforts to protect the U.S. financial system from abuse and to deny terrorists, weapons proliferators, and other rogue actors the ability to finance threats to U.S. national security. He later served as a counterterrorism advisor to the special envoy for Middle East regional security. Previously, Matt was a counterterrorism intelligence analyst at the FBI, where he provided tactical and strategic analytical support for counterterrorism operations, focusing on fundraising and logistical support networks for Middle Eastern terrorist groups. He is the author of several books and monographs, including Hamas: Politics, Charity and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad (Yale University Press, 2006), and Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon's Party of God (Georgetown University Press, 2013). He is the host of the podcast series, Breaking Hezbollah's Golden Rule. Matt Levitt’s Books: Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hezbollah-matthew-levitt/1114960198?ean=9781626162013 Negotiating Under Fire: Preserving Peace Talks in the Face of Terror Attacks - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/negotiating-under-fire-matthew-levitt/1100301395?ean=9780742551626

*** Share episode on X: https://tinyurl.com/2twexkc9 *** Is the region ready for an Israel-Iran war? Is the U.S. ready? What is the state of readiness of the IDF for such a war? Is Israeli society ready for such a war? Could such a war be avoided? What would de-escalation look like? Most Israelis we have spoken to over the past few days have struck a balance between (tensely) trying to anticipate Iran’s next move and expressing confidence in Israel’s capacity for this new phase. One of those Israelis joins us for this episode. Haviv Rettig Gur of the the Times of Israel returns to the podcast.

*** Share episode on X: https://tinyurl.com/3x9wjkv9 *** Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the political wing of Hamas, is dead. He was killed in Tehran yesterday, during a visit for the inauguration of Iran’s new president. To help us understand this major development, I am joined by Ronen Bergman and Nadav Eyal for a special emergency episode. Ronen Bergman is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and Senior Correspondent for Military and Intelligence Affairs for Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli daily. Ronen recently won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on this war and the pre-war intelligence failures. Nadav Eyal is a columnist for Yediot. He has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news.

*** Share episode on X: https://tinyurl.com/43epx79k *** This past weekend we saw a major and brazen escalation against Israel by Hezbollah. This war front is not new, but it will now come into much sharper focus. And with the slaughter of Druze children, we have received a number of questions about Israel’s Druze community in Israel’s North, as well as questions about the options for Israeli decision-makers now. To help us unpack all of this, we are joined by Matti Friedman, who is one of the most thoughtful writers when it comes to all matters related to Israel, the broader Middle East, and also trends in the world of journalism. He is a columnist for The Free Press: https://www.thefp.com/ Matti’s most recent book is called “Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai.” Before that he published "Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel," and before that "Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story of a Forgotten War.” Matti’s army service included tours in Lebanon. His work as a reporter has taken him from Israel to Lebanon, and other hotspots across the Middle East and around the world. He is a former Associated Press correspondent and essayist for the New York Times opinion section. Matti Friedman's published works that are relevant to this episode: -“The Wisdom of Hamas” — The Free Press — https://www.thefp.com/p/matti-friedman-the-wisdom-of-hamas -“What if the Real War in Israel Hasn’t Even Started?” — The Free Press — https://www.thefp.com/p/matti-friedman-israel-hezbollah-war -"There Is No 'Israeli-Palestinian Conflict'" -- The New York Times -- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/16/opinion/israeli-palestinian-conflict-matti-friedman.htm -"An Insider’s Guide to the Most Important Story on Earth" -- Tablet Magazine -- https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/israel-insider-guide -"What The Media Gets Wrong About Israel" -- The Atlantic -- https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/how-the-media-makes-the-israel-story/383262/ -“Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story of a Forgotten War” — https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pumpkinflowers-matti-friedman/1122279367?ean=9781616206918

*** Share episode on X: https://tinyurl.com/4xb5bu7r *** Fresh off viewing Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address before a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress, Nadav Eyal sits down for an analysis as we debate the impact of Netanyahu’s speech in Israel, in the U.S., on the hostage negotiations, and on Israel’s geopolitics. Nadav Eyal is a columnist for Yediot. He has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news.

*** Share episode on X: https://tinyurl.com/3rwv5yzu *** A lot has happened over this past weekend, again. President Biden has dropped out of the presidential race, endorsing Vice-President Kamala Harris, who has been systematically locking up endorsements from most of her possible opponents. The ascendancy of V.P. Harris occurs at the exact time that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives in Washington in advance of his address before Congress on Wednesday. We will discuss all of these issues in our next episode later this week. Also this weekend, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to bring Israel back to the negotiating table this week for a hostages-for-ceasefire deal in Gaza, ahead of his departure to the U.S. This comes despite a letter from eight Likud MKs objecting to the possible deal. Finally, and the topic of our conversation today - on Saturday at 3:30 AM Israel time, a drone packed with explosives flew into a building in Tel Aviv, a few blocks away from the American consulate, and caused a large explosion that claimed the life of an Israeli citizen. This drone flew more than 2000 km (about 1200 miles) all the way from Yemen, and was one of four drones sent by the Houthis. The other three were shot down by U.S. forces in the Red Sea. Later on Saturday, Israel retaliated by attacking the Houthi-controlled port of Hodeidah, in Yemen. The targets of the attack were oil installations and refineries, the Ras Katib power plant, the HQ of the Yemen Economic Corporation, as well as the national security and military police buildings in the north of Hodeidah. The attack caused a complete power outage in all the neighborhoods in Hodeida district and disruptions in the communication network. This port was the main import access point for weapons into Yemen for the Houthis. While this low intensity war with the Houthis has been ongoing since October 7th, we have not focused much of our attention to this third Iranian tentacle. Who are the Houthis? How did Iran turn this rebel group into its proxy? And what could we expect from this third front? To make sense of all of this, we have Ronen Bergman of Yediot Ahranot and the New York Times Magazine. Ronen is a pulitzer-prize winning journalist. Also, one housekeeping note: Since October 7th, we are frequently asked for ways to ask questions, send comments and episode ideas. Listeners are also often asking for transcripts of our podcasts episodes. And many of you also want to know if there’s a way to subscribe for podcast updates. We are in the process of building a website, Ark Media. To visit the website, go to ArkMedia.Org, By visiting the website, you can: - Get in touch with the Call me Back team and share your thoughts, questions, or suggestions. - Access full transcripts to each episode, including links to external resources that will expand your understanding of the topics covered in each conversation. - And sign up for our regular updates on new episodes and live events.

*** Share on X: https://tinyurl.com/mr2sejpr *** Prime Minister Netanyahu prepares to arrive in Washington, DC next week for an address to a joint session of Congress (his 4th), a meeting with President Biden (covid-permitting), all against the backdrop of the negotiations over hostages and a temporary (or phased) ceasefire. To help us understand what is going on the eve of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit, to preview what the Prime Minister hopes to get out of the visit, and the stakes for the visit (and also the future of the political Right in Israel), we are joined by Amit Segal. He is the chief political correspondent and analyst for Channel 12 News, and for Yediot Achronot, the country’s largest circulation newspaper. In his military service, he worked as a media and parliamentary correspondent for IDF (military) Radio.

*** Share on X: https://tinyurl.com/5dw43272 *** Who is Mohammed Deif? Why does he matter (or why did he matter?) Is he dead? We have often said on this podcast that Hamas long ago transformed from a ragtag militia to the equivalent of a light infantry army of a sovereign state. The architect of that transformation was Mohammed Deif. If Hamas was a terror army, its commanding general or army chief of staff was Mohammed Deif. The second intifada? Deif was central to its planning and execution. Its tunnel system and rocket arsenal? All that, too, was Deif. And October 7th? Mohammed Deif. Israel had been on the hunt for Deif long before October 7th. In fact, he had escaped at least seven assasination attempts going back to 2001. Today he is most likely dead, based on an extraordinary intelligence and military operation that took place on Saturday morning. To help us understand what Hamas is, today, without Mohammed Deif, and what it means for Israel’s war against Hamas – and for the hostage and ceasefire negotiations – we are joined by Ronen Bergman, who is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and Senior Correspondent for Military and Intelligence Affairs for Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli daily. Ronen recently won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on this war and the pre-war intelligence failures. He has published numerous books —including “Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations,” and also “The Secret War with Iran." Ronen is also a member of the Israeli bar (he clerked in the Attorney General’s Office), and has a master’s degree in international relations and a Ph.D. in history from Cambridge University.

*** Share on X: https://tinyurl.com/24rsb4wv *** Today we sit down with one of the most interesting figures in Israeli public life, former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who served as Israel’s 13th Prime Minister (2021-22), and previously, in a Netanyahu-led government as Defense Minister (2019-20), and earlier on as Economy Minister. When he himself was prime minister, Naftali Bennett's government was comprised of 8 political parties from across the ideological spectrum - from his own Yamina Party and the New Hope party on the Right, through Yair Lapid’s party in the center, to the Labor and Meretz parties on the Left. And then – for the first time in an Israeli Government – there was the Arab Muslim party, Ra’am. In his business career, Prime Minister Bennett was a successful start-up entrepreneur. And he served in Israel’s elite Sayeret Matkal special forces. In this long-form interview, we try to better understand Naftali Bennett's worldview on a range of issues in Israel’s post-10/07 reality – its strategic situation as it faces multiple war fronts or possible war fronts, and we wanted to better understand his vision for addressing the growing internal Israeli tensions – within the Israeli public..

*** Share on X: https://tinyurl.com/2h98vux8 *** On October 7th, Hamas slaughtered, brutalized, wounded, and kidnapped numerous U.S. citizens. We think of 10/07 as a singular Israeli experience. But it was not. Americans were attacked too. There are even 8 U.S. citizens still being held hostage today by Hamas. It’s not clear what the U.S. Government is doing for these American victims and their families. What recourse do our fellow citizens have? Well, here’s one: the Anti-Defamation League has filed a lawsuit on behalf of more than 125 US citizens and their families who were killed or wounded in the kibbutzim in southern Israel and at the Nova music festival. The lawsuit accuses Iran, Syria and North Korea of providing material support to Hamas. The lawsuit lays out publicly available evidence of training, weapons and financial support from Iran; training and financing from Syria; and weapons and tunnel-digging assistance from North Korea. But where can this lawsuit actually go - what could it achieve? This is the focus of my conversation with Jonathan Greenblatt, who has been the CEO of the ADL since 2015. Prior to joining the ADL, he was a senior official in the Obama White House, and has had a long career in business and the non-profit sector before he joined the Obama administration. To learn more about the Anti-Defamation League, visit: https://www.adl.org/ Find Jonathan on X here: https://x.com/JGreenblattADL And on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/jgreenblattadl/ ADL on X: https://x.com/ADL ADL on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adl_national/?hl=en

*** Share episode on X: https://tinyurl.com/vehsrjpx *** Before today’s conversation, one housekeeping note. We are announcing our second "Call Me Back Live" Event. I will be talking to creators of Fauda -- Avi Issacharoff and Lior Raz. They are scripting OCTOBER 7th, a feature film on the heroic true story of Noam Tibon, who rescued his son Amir Tibon, a Haaretz journalist, and his young family, from Hamas terrorists who had invaded their home at Kibbutz Nahal Oz. Issacharoff is also is a war correspondent who has been embedded with the IDF in Gaza. The event is July 22 at 6pm in NYC at the Comedy Cellar. Part of the proceeds will be donated to Leket, Israel’s leading food rescue organization, which has played a critical role working with farmers and kibbutizm in the Gaza envelope since 10/07. To RSVP, please go to comedycellar.com, click the "lineups" button on the top left and select "July 22". Now onto today’s conversation. How close is Israel to reaching a hostage deal with Hamas and – with that – a temporary ceasefire that could possibly become a permanent ceasefire? And why does this negotiations process have direct implications for Israel’s Northern border, between Hezbollah and Israel? Could a Gaza ceasefire result in a de-escalation on Israel’s Northern border? To help us understand what’s going on here, we have two guests today: -Nadav Eyal is a columnist for Yediot. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news. -Haviv Rettig-Gur has been a regular presence on this podcast since October 8. He is a senior political analyst for the Times of Israel, and has been an important interpreter for Western audiences of how to understand this conflict in broader historical terms. Speech by Nadav Eyal discussed on this episode: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9IUmVwtRZV/?igsh=MW95bXpyZ2hhdm4xNA==

*** Share on X: https://tinyurl.com/2fpvh4mv *** In recent days, while we have all been consumed with the U.S. presidential debate, less international attention has been on Israel. But during this time, Israel’s security apparatus has proposed and advocated for a formal end to the war in Gaza. This is in part because the IDF is closer to achieving its military objectives in Gaza by having dismantled Hamas’s capabilities – and in part because they believe it’s the only way to get some calm on Israel’s northern border, at least for now. The security establishment argues that there is a connection between the two fronts. Whether or not the Government will accept and implement this proposal, is not yet clear. To help us understand what’s going on here, our guest today is NADAV EYAL, who returns to the podcast. He is a columnist for Yediot. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news.

*** Share on X: https://tinyurl.com/25du5vv4 *** In today’s episode we unpack what has actually happened in American politics (up and down the ballot) since the presidential debate, we explore Biden’s options (which are not binary), what it tells us about public service in America, and how allies and adversaries abroad might be watching these events unfold. Mike Murphy has worked on 26 GOP gubernatorial and US Senate races across the country, including 12 wins in Blue States. He was a top strategist for John McCain, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s a political analyst for NBC and MSNBC. He’s co-host of the critically acclaimed "Hacks on Tap" podcast. Mike is also co-director of the University of Southern California’s Center for the Political Future. He’s also the CEO of the EV Politics Project (evpolitics.org). Find Mike’s podcast, Hacks on Tap, here: https://www.hacksontap.com/ Published pieces we discuss in this episode: “This Isn’t All Joe Biden’s Fault” by Ezra Klein, THE NEW YORK TIMES: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/30/opinion/biden-debate-convention.html “Biden Goes Global” by Seth Mandel, COMMENTARY MAGAZINE: https://www.commentary.org/seth-mandel/biden-panic-goes-global/ “Biden's Presidential Debate Fiasco May Tempt U.S. Foes in the Mideast to Test His Resolve” by Amos Harel, HAARETZ: https://tinyurl.com/3f5kyu5f

*** Share on X: https://tinyurl.com/ydvnv2ry *** Since October 7th, many of us have had uncomfortable conversations we could never have imagined having. October 7th sparked debates and discussions that got very awkward very quickly. But what’s unique about our guests today is that they were having these conversations prior to October 7th. Not only were they having these conversations, they were working on a book that chronicled these difficult conversations. Their book is called “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Jew”. It’s by Noa Tishby and Emmanuel Acho. Emmanuel is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and the host and producer of an online series called "Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man". Emmanuel was nominated for an emmy award for this series. He’s also a 2021 Sports Emmy winner, a Fox Sports Analyst. And, perhaps most importantly, Emmanuel is a former NFL linebacker. Noa Tishby is the New York Times bestselling author of Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth. A native of Tel Aviv, she served in the Israeli army before moving to Los Angeles and launching a career in the entertainment industry. An award-winning producer, Tishby made history with the sale of In Treatment to HBO, the first Israeli television show to become an American series. She has had an extraordinary career in Israeli television and film. To order their book: Amazon - https://tinyurl.com/4k3uv8av B&N - https://tinyurl.com/mv2xfxsp

*** Share on X: https://tinyurl.com/yvesakat *** One of the questions we repeatedly get from you, our listeners, is - "Where was the IDF on October 7th?" It's a topic that we have strenuously avoided. After the war, there will be a formal commission of inquiry that attempts to understand all that went wrong and why. There will be a time and a place for that. And yet, as the war in Gaza winds down, and as Israel prepares for another possible war, this question re-emerges. What lessons can be learned? More and more journalists in Israel are exploring the topic. So, we are going to dedicate an episode from time to time in the weeks ahead to try to understand what these journalists are learning. Our only caveat is that this is a difficult topic to explore - for all the obvious reasons. The information is uneven... there is still an element of fog of war. When I was in Israel last week, I visited Ronen Bergman in his home in Ramat HaSharon, to have a long conversation about what he has pieced together. Ronen is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and Senior Correspondent for Military and Intelligence Affairs for Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli daily. Ronen recently won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on this war and the pre-war intelligence failures. He has published numerous books, including: “Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations” - https://tinyurl.com/mwbmchaj And also, “The Secret War with Iran" - https://tinyurl.com/2p8sh9u Ronen is also a member of the Israeli bar (he clerked in the Attorney General’s Office), and has a master’s degree in international relations, as well as a Ph.D. in history from Cambridge University. Read Ronen's piece in The New York Times here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html

Share on X: https://tinyurl.com/yc8jb3m6 Is now the time for Israeli decision-makers to begin serious internal deliberations and planning for the “day after” in Gaza? According to Nadav Eyal in his column last Friday in Yediot, over 95% of Hamas rockets are gone, Hamas’s smuggling routes have been closed, and its munitions production capacity is zero. Is progress in defeating Hamas appears much better than one would think from reading popular press accounts? It’s against that backdrop that we’ve learned of a 28-page document -- this is not publica -- and is circulating among Israeli military leaders and war strategy decision-makers within the government. Some we spoke to suggested that this document is being treated as the basis for ‘day after’ planning in the government. It’s called: "From a murderous regime to a moderate society: the transformation and rehabilitation of Gaza after Hamas". The researchers are Prof. Netta Barak-Corren, a law professor who works on conflict resolution; Prof. Danny Orbach, a military historian; Dr. Nati Flamer who specializes in Hamas and Hezbollah; and Dr. Harel Chorev, an expert on Palestinian society. To help us understand these recommendations, we are joined today by one of its authors, Prof. Netta Barak-Corren, who is a legal scholar with degrees from the Hebrew University (where she is a professor). She clerked for the Chief Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court, and then pursued doctoral studies at Harvard, graduating in 2016. She currently is on leave from Hebrew University, while she’s visiting faculty at Princeton. She’s previously taught at University of Pennsylvania and University of Chicago.

Share on X: https://rb.gy/un15s6 Today in this special episode, we are releasing the first episode of the Call me Back podcast recorded before a very enthusiastic live audience at the Comedy Cellar in Manhattan. Our guest was actor, director and comedian Michael Rapaport. The focus of our conversation is about how Michael became such an energetic, provocative, and hilarious voice on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people since 10/07, as well as his observations on why more Jews from the creative arts and entertainment industry have not been as outspoken as him (or, even worse, why so many have remained silent). We also discuss his reaction to those who criticize Israel “as a Jew”, and his experience dealing with the professional cost of proudly advocating for Israel and the Jewish people. You can follow Michael on X here: https://x.com/MichaelRapaport And on IG here: https://www.instagram.com/michaelrapaport/ Find Michael's podcast, I AM RAPAPORT here: https://www.iamrapaport.com/

Share on X: https://tinyurl.com/3wt7crw4 First, a housekeeping note: many of you filled out the survey we published in our previous episode, and we are very grateful for that. If you haven't filled out this 2-minute survey we would greatly appreciate it if you took 2 minutes to fill it out. It is extremely helpful to us in thinking through ways to improve the podcast and understand our audience. Please follow this link to the survey: https://forms.gle/nZh8ZRA5YjJxmdEW6 As for today's episode - I've been in Israel for the past couple of days, for my 4th visit here since 10/07. Something that has struck me in my conversations with Israelis is the degree to which a war with Hezbollah is not discussed in terms of IF, but rather in terms of WHEN. And as for the WHEN, some are suggesting quite soon. In fact, Defense Minister Gallant said that the goal should be that for those Israelis evacuated from the North, they should be back in their evacuated communities and homes in time for the next school year.  This would put to the test the IDF’s capacity to fight a multi front war. In other words - while the IDF is getting closer to the point of defeating Hamas in Gaza - it might also be at the early stages of a war with Hezbollah. To help us understand what’s going on here, our guest today is NADAV EYAL, who returns to the podcast. I sat down with him today in Tel Aviv. He is a columnist for Yediot. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news.  Nadav's latest column, which we discussed in this episode: https://tinyurl.com/msk43n53

First, a housekeeping note: Over the past eight months the audience for this podcast has grown in ways we could never have imagined, but there is no real way for us to know who is listening - age group, ideological leanings, the country you are living in, etc. These are all very helpful data points for us to improve the podcast and understand our audience. So, please fill out this 2 minute survey: https://forms.gle/nZh8ZRA5YjJxmdEW6 And one other item we wanted to bring to your attention. We are repeatedly reminded how the NYPD has continued to bravely protect our community— most recently 10 days ago at the Nova Music Festival exhibition where a mob of antisemitic rioters attempted to intimidate Jewish New Yorkers, and just before that when the NYPD helped ensure a smooth Israel Day Parade here in New York in which over 100,000 people participated. To express our thanks for helping to keep our Jewish community and all New Yorkers safe, The Paul E. Singer Foundation is matching donations up to $200,000 made to the New York City Police Foundation. Donations must be made Monday, June 24, 2024. Join us to meet and exceed this goal. If interested in donating, you can do it here: https://secure.anedot.com/nycpolicefoundation/thepesfoundation As for today's episode, as we discussed at length in our last episode -- "Haviv Unplugged!" -- the issue of a military service exemption for Haredi Jews (ultra-Orthodox Jews) is coming to a head right now, as Israel is at war. Or maybe it's coming to a head with such ferocity precisely because Israel is at war, and it's raising all sorts of questions about whether Israel has the manpower to fight a continued war in Gaza and possibly other fronts that could open up. It does seem like Israel is in an entirely new military environment, across multiple fronts. Also, are some parts of the Israeli population paying a disproportionately high price? These are questions that are being considered right now by Israel's government. These are questions that are weighing especially heavy on society after 12 soldiers over the past few days. Dr. Micah Goodman is our guest today, to help us unpack all of this. Micah is on the speed-dial of a number of Israeli political leaders – from right to left, but especially on the center-left and the center-right. He is a polymath, a podcaster and one of Israel’s most influential public intellectuals, having written books ranging from biblical lessons for the modern age to Israel’s geopolitics. One book in particular, had an outsized impact in terms of its framing of the conundrum that Israel has been in with the Palestinians since 1967. That book is called "Catch-67: The Left, the Right, and the Legacy of the Six-Day War", Not only have all of his books been bestsellers in Israel, he essentially created a new genre; books that bring core texts of Jewish thought to a general, secular audience. In his new book – called "The Eighth Day", which Micah wrote in a four-month sprint after October 7th – Micah tries to understand the implications of the nation’s trauma and what it means for the other ‘day after’ (not the ‘day after’ in Gaza, but the ‘day after’ inside Israel). What does this moment mean for Israelis? How will 10/07 re-shape Israeli society…and its politics? Micah Goodman’s books: Catch-67 — https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/catch-67-micah-goodman/1128089735?ean=9780300248418 The Wondering Jew — https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-wondering-jew-micah-goodman/1136574622?ean=9780300252248

Share on X: https://tinyurl.com/2s4x4j2h In recent days, there have been a lot of war-related developments that have taken place in Israel and outside of Israel. So it was good that we had the opportunity to catch up with Haviv Rettig Gur as Shavuot came to a close in Israel.In this episode, we wound up having a spirited conversation about: I.The mood in Israel days after after Operation Arnon, and also why the day after the successful resuce operation we saw Benny Gantz's long anticipated exit from the unity government; II. The ultra orthodox or 'Haredi' IDF exemption bill that passed in the Knesset; and III. Hamas's rejection (yet again) of Israel's ceasefire proposal.

Share on X: https://tinyurl.com/3pey4z3y We have just witnessed one of the most extraordinary 48-hour periods in Israel since October 7th, as we learned news of an extremely complex military, intelligence and hostage rescue operation. We are seeing — and many of us are experiencing — the impact that this development is having on Israeli society, and on the Jewish people worldwide. This operation has been renamed OPERATION ARNON, after Colonel Arnon Zamora, who was the chief inspector of the Israeli Police’s special commando Counterterrorism Unit. He was the only Israeli to have fallen in this operation. May Arnon's memory be a blessing. To learn more about Arnon's life, you can read here: https://www.timesofisrael.com/hero-of-israel-thousands-pay-last-respects-to-officer-killed-in-hostage-rescue-op/ In this episode, NADAV EYAL provides a comprehensive picture and analysis of what actually happened in this operation. Nadav is a columnist for Yediot. He has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news. To read Nadav's piece in Yediot: https://www.ynetnews.com/article/syo00lyxs0

Share on X: https://tinyurl.com/ytm9656f Over the past 8 months, we've focused most of our attention on Israel's perspective and the American perspective since October 7th. But what we wanted to do today is gradually zoom out from Israel and Gaza, to the perspective of other regional players in the Middle East, and finally examine this war from the perspective of the global powers, especially China and Russia. Has the Israel-Hamas war advanced their interests or reversed them? Our guest today is Walter Russell Mead. He is at the Hudson Institute, he is the Global View Columnist at The Wall Street Journal. He was previously the Henry Kissinger fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He also has a terrific podcast at Tablet Magazine, called What Really Matters: https://www.tabletmag.com/podcasts/what-really-matters He is also a prolific author. His most recent book is -- The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People, which you order here -- shorturl.at/bdhpz

Share on Twitter/X: https://tinyurl.com/nvmznb7m Tzipi Livni has served as a minister of eight different cabinet ministries under three prime ministers: Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, and Benjamin Netanyahu. Her positions have included Justice Minister, Foreign Minister and Vice-Prime Minister. She has also been the official leader of the opposition. As foreign minister, Tzipi Livni led negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, she was a key government figure during Israel’s disengagement from Gaza and during Hamas’s subsequent takeover of Gaza. She was foreign minister during Israel’s Second Lebanon War and during Israel’s operation to take out Syria’s nuclear reactor. She began her service as a member of the Likud Party, and then the Kadima Party, and later the Hatnua Party and Zionist Union. Earlier in her career, Tzipi served in the Mossad (including in the elite unit famous for being responsible for the assassinations following the Munich massacre). No major Israeli political figure has had more recent experience trying to negotiate a two-state solution than Tzipi Livni.

Share on Twitter/X: https://tinyurl.com/3jzjamfh Tzipi Livni has served as a minister of eight different cabinet ministries under three prime ministers: Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, and Benjamin Netanyahu. Her positions have included Justice Minister, Foreign Minister and Vice-Prime Minister. She has also been the official leader of the opposition. As foreign minister, Tzipi Livni led negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, she was a key government figure during Israel’s disengagement from Gaza and during Hamas’s subsequent takeover of Gaza. She was foreign minister during Israel’s Second Lebanon War and during Israel’s operation to take out Syria’s nuclear reactor. She began her service as a member of the Likud Party, and then the Kadima Party, and later the Hatnua Party and Zionist Union. Earlier in her career, Tzipi served in the Mossad (including in the elite unit famous for being responsible for the assassinations following the Munich massacre). No major Israeli political figure has had more recent experience trying to negotiate a two-state solution than Tzipi Livni. Tzipi Livni on X: https://x.com/Tzipi_Livni

Share on Twitter/X: https://tinyurl.com/3h7ryskc Today during one of our regular check-ins with Haviv Rettig Gur, we had some big questions: I) How is the war actually going? What do we know? II) Following President Biden’s announcement last Friday, was the proposal he revealed the official proposal that Israel is offering Hamas? And if it is, why did the war cabinet approve it? III) As for Egypt, do we now have a clearer picture of why Egypt was so hysterically opposed to an IDF operation in Rafah? IV) And, finally, Prime Minister Netanyahu has been invited to address the U.S. Congress? What’s likely to happen when he comes to the nation’s capital?

Share on Twitter/X: https://tinyurl.com/3rnj5dz7 Since October 7, there has been a debate inside Israel about what cost Israelis should pay as a society to get their fellow citizens home, or, what the cost would be to Israeli society if their fellow citizens do not return home. One perspective we have not heard is that of a professional who led the debriefing of every single living hostage upon return, including children, women and the elderly; those who were held in underground tunnels and those who were held in apartments above ground by Gazan families; those who were held captive alone and those who were held captive with other Israelis; those who were medically treated, and those who were tortured. Glenn Cohen is that person. He made aliyah to Israel from the United States as a young man and joined the IDF. He had an impressive and improbable career in the military (which we chronicle in Chapter 12 of THE GENIUS OF ISRAEL - https://tinyurl.com/4hpxsx2x). Glenn was an air force pilot, a Mossad officer, a hostage negotiator, and a special forces psychologist. He served in the Mossad for 25 years, retiring as the Chief of Psychology with the equivalent rank of Colonel. During the current Israel-Hamas war, Glenn served for over 100 days in reserve duty as the head psychologist of a team that debriefed the hostages upon their return. To reach Glenn Cohen or learn more about his work, visit: https://www.glenn-cohen.com/ Rachel Goldberg Polin's speech that was featured in the episode, can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZX79M3k-L4 To learn more about Hersh Goldberg-Polin: https://m.facebook.com/BringHershHome OR IG: Bring.Hersh.Home

Share on X: https://tinyurl.com/7nwh3c8e Earlier this morning, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to immediately halt its military operations in Rafah. This comes less than a week after the ICC announced that it is considering arrest warrants against Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant, and days after three European countries announced that they will formally recognize a Palestinian State (that doesn’t yet exist!) In this special episode, recorded just minutes after the ICJ announcement, we were joined by Nadav Eyal (journalist with Yediot in Israel) and by Matt Waxman (Columbia Law School professor and former national security legal official in the George W. Bush administration) to unpack each of these developments.

Share on X: https://tinyurl.com/2prj3ea7 In recent days, we have had three persistent questions: One, how is it that – in just a matter of approximately 10 days – the IDF managed to move anywhere between 850,000 to a million Gazan Palestinians from Rafah to other areas of Gaza so Israel could conduct its operation against remaining Hamas battalions in Rafah? Weren’t we repeatedly told by the Biden administration that it was impossible? So, our first question is, how did this happen? And what does it tell us about other gaps between the Biden administration forecasts and that of Israel’s when it comes to war-fighting in Gaza? Our second question is about Egypt. Given what we have learned in recent days, why has Egypt escaped any real scrutiny or pressure over the past 7 months? Our third question is whether all the heat on the Israeli Government for a lack of a “day after” plan really about the pursuit of a “day after” plan, or is it about deflecting scrutiny from other failures? To help us answer these questions and others, we are joined by Amos Harel, who has been the military correspondent and defense analyst for Israel's Haaretz newspaper for 25 years. He is among the most well-sourced and thoughtful journalists and analysts covering Israeli security affairs inside Israel. Prior to his current position, Amos spent four years as night editor for the Haaretz Hebrew print edition, and from 1999-2005 he was the anchor on a weekly Army Radio program about defense issues. Along with frequent "Call Me Back" guest and Fauda co-creator Avi Issacharoff, Amos co-wrote a book about the Second Intifada, called "The Seventh War: How we won and why we lost the war with the Palestinians", which was published in 2004 and translated into several languages, including Arabic. Amos and Avi also co-wrote "34 Days: Israel, Hezbollah and the War in Lebanon", about the war of 2006, which was published in 2008.

Share Episode on Twitter: https://tinyurl.com/327et39r Haviv Rettig Gur returns for a regular check-in, in which we analyze the emerging political scenarios that might emerge from the moves being made by Yoav Gallant, Benny Gantz and Naftali Bennett. We also discuss the implications of the crash of the helicopter transporting Iran's president -- what does it mean for Israel and other stakeholders OUTSIDE Iran and what does it mean INSIDE Iran?

Jared Cohen is Co-Head of the Office of Applied Innovation and President of Global Affairs at Goldman Sachs. He also serves on the Management Committee of the firm. Jared is also the most senior Goldman executive to visit Israel since October 7. But Jared did not just visit Israel – and meet with a range of senior Israeli political leaders and security officials – he also was in Ramallah, in the West Bank to meet Palestinian Authority officials and Jordan – just before Jordan participated in the extraordinary multi-national defense of Israel, despite tense relations between the Israeli and Jordanian governments. And since then, Jared has traveled extensively throughout the Persian Gulf States, where he has a long history of deep relationships. It was interesting to get a fresh take from Jared on this region in transition. Prior to joining Goldman, Jared was an executive at Alphabet, before which he was Google’s first Director of Ideas and Chief Advisor to Google’s then CEO and Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. From 2006 to 2010, he served as a member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff and as a close advisor to both Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. Jared is a New York Times bestselling author of six books, including "One Hundred Days of Silence: America and the Rwanda Genocide," "Children of Jihad," "The New Digital Age: Transforming Nations, Business, and our Lives," which he co-authored with Eric Schmidt, and, most recently, "Life After Power: Seven Presidents and their Search for Purpose Beyond the White House," which you can order here: https://tinyurl.com/5xm8v7ft OR https://tinyurl.com/2ua6mzjd Paper discussed in this episode: "The rise of geopolitical swing states" -- https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/the-rise-of-geopolitical-swing-states.html

Last night, Israel time, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant took the exceptional step of publicly declaring his view that the current war trajectory is leading to one of two scenarios in Gaza: Hamas rules Gaza OR the IDF rules Gaza - both, Gallant says, are catastrophic outcomes. Gallant set an ultimatum for Prime Minister Netanyahu by saying that he would oppose Israeli military rule in Gaza, signaling that this is his red line and he blamed Netanyahu for what Gallant believes is a lack of a post-war plan. In this special episode, we asked Nadav Eyal to: A. Analyze Gallant's dramatic speech. B. Discuss what this means for the war, and C. Where this could lead politically. NADAV EYAL is a columnist at Yediiot. Eyal is one of Israel’s leading journalists, and a winner of the Sokolov Prize, Israel’s most prestigious journalism award. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news. He received a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a law degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

HOUSEKEEPING NOTE: The first "Call Me Back" Live Event will take place on Monday June 3 at 6:00 pm at the Comedy Cellar in New York City. At the event -- which will ultimately be posted as an episode -- we will be talking to Michael Rapaport about the crisis of antisemitism in America and what it means for Israel and for American Jews. Partial proceeds for the event will go to Lev Echad ("One Heart"), an Israeli non-profit organization that has been doing indispensable work, especially since 10/07. To RSVP, please go to comedycellar.com, click the lineups button on the top left and select June 3. (There will also be an opportunity for audience questions and discussion following the formal conversation, and an extended smaller private event afterwards for those interested.) TODAY'S EPISODE: As Independence Day was winding down in Israel, I sat down for a conversation with Tal Becker in Jerusalem to discuss the deep uncertainty in Israeli society: we don’t know when or if the hostages will return home, we don’t when or if Hamas will be defeated, or even when or if the 100,000 displaced Israelis will return to their homes in the South and in the North. We don't know if a war with Hezbollah is next, and we certainly don’t know if and what could be a long term solution for the Palestinian conflict with Israel or Iran’s conflict with Israel. Dr. Tal Becker serves as a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and was the former Legal Adviser of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is a veteran member of successive Israeli peace negotiation teams and, most recently, represented Israel before the International Court of Justice and played an instrumental role in negotiating and drafting the historic peace and normalization agreements (the "Abraham Accords"). Dr. Becker earned his doctorate from Columbia University in New York City, and is the recipient of numerous scholarly awards, including the Rabin Peace Prize, and the Guggenheim Prize for best international law book for his book "Terrorism and the State".

At 8:00 pm tonight in Israel, the siren will sound across Israel to mark the commencement of Israel’s Memorial Day, Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day for the Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism). This is the day that Israelis, as a nation, honor the fallen from Israel’s military and those casualties from its wars and victims of terror attacks. Since last Memorial Day, 1594 Israelis have been killed. Out of those, 834 are civilians murdered in terror attacks, 822 of them since 10/07 (this is out of a total 4,070 who have been killed from terrorism since the Jewish State was founded). We will have more to say about Israel’s Memorial Day and its Independence Day in the days ahead. As it relates to the war Israel is fighting today, this morning I spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about a number of issues, including the coming operation in Rafah, the necessity for continued IDF operations in other parts of Gaza that the IDF had previously cleared, what makes this war so different, whether the Prime Minister is thinking seriously about the ‘day after‘ in Gaza and the contours of a Day After Plan for Gaza, how the Prime Minister is approaching the hostage negotiations, and whether exile for Hamas’s leaders (including Sinwar) could be part of a final deal to get the hostages home. In this episode, passage read from “The Genius of Israel”: https://tinyurl.com/ytp43fx3 https://tinyurl.com/3sjkuczz

Sheryl Sandberg is one of the most accomplished executives in the tech industry. After attending Harvard University for undergrad and for an MBA, Sheryl’s early career included stints at the World Bank and the U.S. Treasury Department in the Clinton Administration, where she served with then-Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. She then joined Google as VP of online sales and operations in 2001, before joining META as COO, where she worked from 2008 to 2022. Today both companies are among the top 10 market cap companies. Sheryl is also an accomplished author: she co-authored "Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead (2013)"; and "Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy" (with Adam Grant, 2017). But since 10/07, Sheryl has been focused on one cause – Israel and the Jewish people. Sheryl has been confronting: Rape Denialism. She has done this primarily through a documentary film she created called "Screams Before Silence", which you can watch on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAr9oGSXgak&t=1456s You can also learn more about the film here: https://www.screamsbeforesilence.com Sheryl has also raised awareness about this issue all over the world, from the UN to capitals throughout Europe. In this conversation, Sheryl and I discuss how Judaism and Israel had shaped or fit into her life before 10/07, how 10/07 changed her, and how she came to create this film and commit to this cause.

What exactly unfolded in Israel over the past 72 hours? Details are still emerging, but at one point it appeared that all sides may have been close to reaching a hostage/temporary ceasefire deal. Except that we now know that Israel had made major concessions in one deal, while Hamas was agreeing to an entirely different -- and new -- deal, so there wasn't actually any kind of agreement to speak of. All against the backdrop of the IDF commencing its operation in Rafah. And, what is Israel doing at the Rafah border with Egypt and what are the implications for Israel-Egypt relations? Our guest is NADAV EYAL, who is a columnist at Yediiot. Eyal is one of Israel’s leading journalists, and a winner of the Sokolov Prize, Israel’s most prestigious journalism award. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news. He received a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a law degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Frank Bruni is a long time journalist, including more than 25 years with the New York Times. He is the author of four New York Times bestsellers. He is now also a full professor at Duke University, teaching at the school of public policy, while he continues to write his popular weekly newsletter and additional essays for the Times. Two of Frank’s recent books are relevant to what we are watching play out right now on America’s college campuses. Eight years ago, he published “Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania” -- https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/where-you-go-is-not-who-youll-be-frank-bruni/1119921235?ean=9781455532681&aug=1 And Frank’s most recent book, which was just published last week, is called “The Age of Grievance” -- https://tinyurl.com/3yj4c92s In our conversation and in his new book, Frank addresses the fact that Jews are being blamed for objecting to the 10/07 massacre of Jews. How did this happen? It didn’t come out of nowhere? How is it the college campuses have become the focus of this debate over here? "The Age of Grievance" addresses the shocking upside down debate that erupted over here following 10/07, which we discuss in our conversation. We also try to understand how some universities are getting it right and others are getting it so wrong. Frank is uniquely positioned to have insights – from his perspective at the Times, on the front lines as a professor at a top American university, and as a bestselling author of a new book about grievance.

There are two major decisions Israel is contending with right now: I) proceed with the military operation in Rafah; or II) pause the fighting, perhaps for an extended period of time, in service of a hostage deal. Of course a hostage deal would also most likely include the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons. These decisions are coming to a head right now for Israel and for Hamas. All while Secretary of State Blinken is in the Middle East. All while Riyadh is working on some kind of defense pact with the U.S. and the possibility of normalization with Israel. And all against the backdrop of Hamas and Hezbollah issuing statements of solidarity with American college kids. Fortunately, we’ve got Haviv Rettig Gur back, as we resume our regular check-ins.

Share on Twitter: https://tinyurl.com/4ku8n3r3 After over 200 days, Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin saw proof of life of their son Hersh Goldberg-Polin for the first time, who was severely wounded in the October 7th massacre and taken hostage by Hamas. Just last Wednesday, a video surfaced — which was produced by Hamas — of Hersh speaking to camera. In short, in the video, Hersh describes the he was taken hostage, he criticizes the Israeli Government, and he expresses love for his parents, Jon and Rachel and his two sisters. He addresses his severe wound from October 7th, in which his left hand — his dominant hand — was blown off. When I was in Israel,I visited with Rachel and Jon and we recorded a conversation for this podcast about the video, as well as what else they had learned from it, especially about Hersh’s severe wound — he continues to be medically fragile. Jon and Rachel discussed why they decided to approve media release and coverage of the video. Rachel and Jon also reacted to the shocking protests on US campuses — they are both from the US, as is Hersh, and they reflected on what they regarded as some encouraging news about a statement on the hostages, which was signed by 18 countries. They also addressed the possibility of Israeli elections in the midst of this ongoing hostage crisis and war. Follow “Bring Hersh Home” on Instagram: bring.hersh.home Hersh Goldberg Polin video: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/hostage-hersh-goldberg-polins-family-approves-publication-of-hamas-propaganda-video/ Column by William McGurn of the WSJ: “Hamas’s American Hostages” — https://tinyurl.com/ymraw2yv

Michael Powell has been covering New York City life and politics for decades, as a long-time reporter for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and now the Atlantic. He recently was on Columbia’s campus to try to better understand the encampment movement that has taken over the campus. He joins us to report what he saw and learned. Article discussed in this episode: The Unreality of Columbia’s ‘Liberated Zone’ — https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/columbia-university-protests-palestine/678159/

Share on Twitter: tinyurl.com/5n6bswst Since 10/07, no faculty member at Columbia University (or any university for that matter) has been more outspoken about the shocking and staggering rise in antisemitism than Shai Davidai. He brings his first-hand accounts to our conversation today. Shai is Assistant Professor in the Management Division of Columbia Business School. He received his PhD from Cornell University in 2015. Prior to joining Columbia Business School, Shai spent a year as a post-doctoral fellow at Princeton University and 3 years as an Assistant Professor of Psychology at The New School for Social Research. Since Columbia students established the most recent pro-Hamas encampment on the Columbia campus days ago, Israeli-born and raised Shai Davidai has been barred from campus. Having just now arrived in Israel, Shai joins us in Tel Aviv today to describe what exactly has been happening since 10/07, the early signs of antisemitism he identified at Columbia well before 10/07, and the common misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the rhetoric and incitement being used by a number of Columbia student organizations and faculty. You can follow Shai on X here: @ShaiDavidai

Share on Twitter: https://tinyurl.com/3wv3d77z As we try to make sense of the past two weeks, consider this: 1. IDF withdraws from most of the Gaza Strip while it now also appears increasingly likely that the IDF will conduct an operation in Rafah. 2. An historic Iranian attack of 300 ballistic missiles, UAVs and cruise missiles, and an historic coalition force that includes Israel, the US, UK, France, Saudi Arabia and Jordan that shot down almost all of the projectiles. 3. A week later, Israel attacks Iran. 4. A widely backed U.N. security council resolution recognizing a Palestinian state, which the US vetoed. So a lot is happening, but is Israel closer to achieving the war's objectives? To help us understand what’s going on, our guest today is NADAV EYAL, who returns to the podcast. He is a columnist for Yediot. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news.

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There has been growing tension within Israeli society over where to prioritize a hostage deal – at what cost (in terms of how many and which Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons should be part of the deal and the length of any temporary ceasefire). At the same time, the sense of urgency behind Israel's hostage cause in capitals around the world is…drifting. Not disappearing, but drifting. A turning point seemed to be when the UN Security Council passed a resolution – 14-0 (made possible by a US decision not to veto) – that, for the first time, did not call for a ceasefire that was conditioned on the return of the hostages. It’s a sense we get from families of hostages, who are in regular contact with media, NGOs and governments around the world. It’s against that backdrop, that we sat down in person with Maya Roman, who was in New York and Washington, DC. Maya Roman is an Israeli journalist from Tel Aviv. On October 7th, Maya’s cousin, Yarden Roman-Gat, was visiting her husband’s parents in Kibbutz Beeri along with other family members. Yarden and her sister in law, Carmel, were taken hostage. Yarden’s mother-in-law (and Carmel’s mother), Kinneret, was murdered. Yarden was released as part of the hostage deal last November. Carmel is still being held. Since 10/07, Maya has not stopped organizing or advocating for the release of her family. When we hear of the hostage families movement, Maya is the kind of person who has been in the middle of it. In our conversation, Maya talks about what they have learned from Yarden since her return from captivity, and where the hostage movement may go from here, at this crucial and very raw phase. "Bring Carmel Back" on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bringcarmelback?igsh=MTBkaGlsd3JtbXI4eQ==

30,000. You hear that number and you already know exactly what we are referring to. It’s 30,000 casualties. That’s the number of Palestinians that have been killed in Gaza as a result of the IDF response to the October 7th invasion of Israel, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Of course, we don’t know how the Gaza Health Ministry arrived at that number. How does it collect this data, analyze it, and how does it account for civilian casualties versus Hamas terrorists? It’s a big round number that everyone - from news reporters, to aid organizations to governments - mindlessly repeat. Well, a data scientist at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania has taken the time to try to understand how these numbers are computed. He published his study in a piece in Tablet Magazine — it’s called “How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers”. You can find it here: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers Abraham Wyner is Professor of Statistics and Data Science at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Faculty Co-Director of the Wharton Sports Analytics and Business Initiative. Professor Wyner received his Bachelor's degrees in Mathematics from Yale University, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude with distinction in his major. He was the recipient of the Stanley Prize for excellence in Mathematics. His PhD in Statistics is from Stanford University.

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Over the past several weeks, especially the Biden administration’s statements Thursday, Israel has been subjected to a fresh round of harsh criticisms. We’ll be turning to the elevating U.S.-Israel tensions in our Monday episode with Nadav Eyal. But today we have a conversation about the criticisms we have been hearing in intra-Jewish community debates here in the U.S. and other Diaspora communities. While there is a growing number of American Jewish leaders calling on Israel to change course and pursue a permanent ceasefire -- or at least wage a more “humane” war -- these voices are still a small minority (albeit a very loud minority). These voices get outsized attention, but they should not be ignored. They are people that many of us know. Some have large platforms. Many non-Jews hear them on those platforms and cite these Jewish figures as sources. What does all this tell us about trends in American Jewish life long before October 7? What is the impact now on Israel? These are some of the questions we try to unpack with: -Yossi Klein Halevi, who is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. Yossi has written a number of books, including his latest, "Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor," which was a New York Times bestseller. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Times of Israel. He is co-host of "For Heaven's Sake" podcast. -Rabbi David A. Ingber is the new Senior Director for Jewish Life and Senior Director of the Bronfman Center at 92NY. He serves as the founding rabbi of Romemu, the largest Renewal synagogue in the United States. Items discussed in this episode: -Rabbi David Ingber's Shabbat sermon on Israel (03/22/24): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px5i9mIxd5E&t=3942s -Rabbi Angela Buchdahl's letter to her congregants on her position on the war in response to the "Times of Israel" article: https://centralsynagogue.cmail20.com/t/j-e-sulquk-dhkutlbli-r/ -Yossi Klein Halevi's books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B001IXOA04

On Wednesday, Benny Gantz announced he was calling for new elections to take place in September. What is the significance of this announcement? Is it a sharp turn for Israel’s Government? What are the implications for the war and the War Cabinet? What does it mean for the protest movement? Anshel Pfeffer — who has covered Israeli politics, Israeli national security, and global affairs for over two decades — joins our conversation very late at night in Jerusalem. He is a senior correspondent and columnist for Haaretz and Israel correspondent for The Economist. Anshel is the author of the book: “ Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu.”

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Since October 7, the United States has vetoed three resolutions put before the UN Security Council calling for a ceasefire. But suddenly, this past Monday, in a jarring change of course, the U.S. abstained, which -- for all practical purposes -- means the Biden administration chose to allow the 15-member Security Council to pass a similar resolution by a 14-0 vote.

The new edition of The Economist Magazine features a photo of an Israeli flag, blowing in the wind…all alone. The cover title of this issue’s editorial is just that — “Israel Alone”. The editorial reads: “Today Israel has destroyed perhaps half of Hamas’s forces. But in important ways its mission has failed. “As estrangement from the West deepens, so deterrence may weaken. Firms could be blacklisted. Bosses could move high-tech businesses abroad or, if they are reservists, be arrested there.” But is Israel actually alone? This is what we unpack today during our regular check-in with Haviv Rettig Gur. And in the first part of the conversation, we wound up discussing why the criticism of Israel today looks almost identical to criticism of Israel in previous wars, regardless of which politicians are leading Israel.

In the days ahead, Minister Dermer will be flying to Washington with a small delegation to meet with the Biden administration about the IDF’s options for Rafah, which we discuss. We also discuss where the overall military operation in Gaza stands now, the hostage negotiations, whether the Israeli Government should be expected to have a day-after plan rolled out now, what role the Arab world can or should play in that day-after planning, and the Government of Canada’s decision to ban future arms sales to Israel.

On October 6th of last year there was a long-standing ceasefire in place between Israel and Hamas. On October 7th, Hamas launched a massive war against Israel. Israel responded to this war that Hamas launched. Wars are violent. In all wars, civilians tragically get killed in the crossfire. What is unique about this war is how Hamas has used violence against civilians – Israeli civilians and Palestinian civilians -- as core to its war-fighting strategy. What is unique to this war is how Hamas has built a 300-plus mile tunnel system underground to protect Hamas leadership and fighters while it set up its own civilian population to suffer. What is also unique about this war is the lengths the IDF has gone to telegraph so many of its operations so Palestinian civilians can re-locate in advance of those operations. This is the reality of this war. And, yet, the Biden administration has supported Israel in this war from Day 1. Israel articulated its objectives in this war. The Biden administration made clear it supported Israel in pursuit of those objectives. But suddenly, the Biden administration and some of its allies on Capitol Hill are excoriating Israel's government. In fact, they are calling for the toppling of Israel’s leaders in the middle of this war. Well, as Minister Benny Gantz said on Friday, “ Israel is a strong democracy, and only its citizens will determine its leadership and future. Any external intervention is unacceptable.” How does this shifting US-Israel relationship impact actual events on the ground? The actual things that matter in this war -- the hostage negotiations, the debate about a day-after plan for Gaza, and the coming operation in Rafah, to name a few. To help us understand what’s going on here,guest today is NADAV EYAL, who returns to the podcast. He is a columnist for Yediot. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news.

Since October 7, we have heard from more and more friends in Israel who came of age -- politically -- in the 1990s. Some of these friends were key political figures on the Israeli Left and were committed to working on a two-state solution as the final resolution to achieve regional peace. Dr. Einat Wilf joins us to discuss the sobering of many of these figures and what it means for Israel's future. Einat also discusses an essay she penned for Sapir journal about the tendency of activists in other countries to project their political debates on Israel -- something happening today -- however disconnected from Israel those debates may be. Her essay is called "How Not to Think About the Conflict" and it can be found here: https://sapirjournal.org/social-justice/2021/04/how-not-to-think-about-the-conflict/ Einat was born and raised in Israel. She was an Intelligence Officer in the IDF. She has worked for McKinsey. She was Foreign Policy Advisor to Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres and an advisor to Yossi Beilin, who was Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. Dr. Wilf was a member of the Israeli Parliament (the Knesset) in the early 2010s, where she served as Chair of the Education Committee and Member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. She has a BA from Harvard, an MBA from INSEAD in France, and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Cambridge. She was a Visiting Professor at Georgetown University and is a lecturer at Reichman University in Israel. Einat is the author of seven books that explore key issues in Israeli society. “We Should All Be Zionists“, published in 2022, brings together her essays from the past four years on Israel, Zionism and the path to peace; and she co-authored “The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace”, which was published in 2020. "THE WAR OF RETURN" -- https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-war-of-return-adi-schwartz/1131959248?ean=9781250364845

As Ramadan begins, many analysts are speculating on what this means for Israel’s coming military operation in Rafah. There is a threat from Hamas to deter a Rafah operation. There is a threat from the Biden administration seemingly designed to encourage Israeli’s War Cabinet to re-think the operation. Are these real threats? How does Israel evaluate these threats? This is what we unpack in our weekly check-in with Haviv Rettig Gur. Then we discuss whether President Biden is beginning a turn against Israel. Is it real or is it performative? Is there a difference? What are the implications?

Micah Goodman is on the speed-dial of a number of Israeli political leaders – from right to left, but especially on the center-left and the center-right. He is a polymath, a podcaster and one of Israel’s most influential public intellectuals, having written books ranging from biblical lessons for the modern age to Israel’s geopolitics. One book in particular, had an outsized impact in terms of its framing of the conundrum that Israel has been in with the Palestinians since 1967. That book is called Catch-67: The Left, the Right, and the Legacy of the Six-Day War, Not only have all of his books been bestsellers in Israel, he essentially created a new genre; books that bring core texts of Jewish thought to a general, secular audience. But Micah has a new book, which he wrote in a four-month sprint following October 7. His new book is called ‘The Eighth Day’, in which Micah tries to understand the implications of the nation’s trauma and what it means for the other ‘day after’ (not the ‘day after’ in Gaza, but the ‘day after’ inside Israel). What does this moment mean for Israelis? How will 10/07 re-shape Israeli society…and its politics?This is the first interview Micah has done about his new book, which will be published (in Hebrew) at the end of March. Micah Goodman’s books: Catch-67 — https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/catch-67-micah-goodman/1128089735?ean=9780300248418 The Wondering Jew — https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-wondering-jew-micah-goodman/1136574622?ean=9780300252248

Will there be a negotiated pause in fighting in advance of Ramadan, or will the IDF move against the remaining Hamas battalions in Rafah? At the same time, what to make of the new external and internal pressures on Israel? Externally, there is mounting pressure on Israel regarding delivery of humanitarian aid, and increasing internal pressure — specifically on Prime Minister Netanyahu — relating to how he’ll hold his Government together in the midst of a new debate about exemptions of Haredim from military service. To help us unpack what’s going in with these intensifying external and internal political pressure points, we are joined by Haviv Rettig Gur, for our regular check in.

PART 1 of 2 For more than 30 years of ‘on again-off again’ peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, many Israelis, and certainly most interested observers in the West, looked to the 1967 Six-Day War as the root cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If only we could reverse the results of that defensive war in which Israel conquered the West Bank and Gaza, the problem would be solved, so the narrative goes. And this served as the basis for all peace talks and agreements that have taken place since. But, to anyone willing to listen, the story that Palestinian leaders were telling had nothing to do with 1967, and everything to do with 1948. And the story they tell goes something like this: ‘In the 1940s Jews escaped the Nazis, fled Europe, colonized Palestine, and unprovoked - ethnically cleansed the Arabs. A textbook case of settler colonialism.’ They have managed to propagate this false narrative throughout much of Western society, where millions are mindlessly chanting those six words - ‘from the river to the sea.’ So while we never thought we’d need to re-litigate this topic, we invited to the podcast (for a special two-part discussion) one of the quintessential historians of 1948 - Benny Morris. Professor Morris has dedicated his entire career to studying and writing about the war of 1948, the circumstances that led to it and its aftermath - i.e The Palestinian Refugee Problem. Morris's first book was “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949”. His other books include: “1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War”, and “Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001”. He completed his undergraduate studies in history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and received a doctorate in modern European history from the University of Cambridge. Links to all of Benny Morris’s books can be found here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Benny%20morris His recent published essays can be found here: https://quillette.com/author/benny-morris/?gad_source=1

PART 2 of 2 For more than 30 years of ‘on again-off again’ peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, many Israelis, and certainly most interested observers in the West, looked to the 1967 Six-Day War as the root cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If only we could reverse the results of that defensive war in which Israel conquered the West Bank and Gaza, the problem would be solved, so the narrative goes. And this served as the basis for all peace talks and agreements that have taken place since. But, to anyone willing to listen, the story that Palestinian leaders were telling had nothing to do with 1967, and everything to do with 1948. And the story they tell goes something like this: ‘In the 1940s Jews escaped the Nazis, fled Europe, colonized Palestine, and unprovoked - ethnically cleansed the Arabs. A textbook case of settler colonialism.’ They have managed to propagate this false narrative throughout much of Western society, where millions are mindlessly chanting those six words - ‘from the river to the sea.’ So while we never thought we’d need to re-litigate this topic, we invited to the podcast (for a special two-part discussion) one of the quintessential historians of 1948 - Benny Morris. Professor Morris has dedicated his entire career to studying and writing about the war of 1948, the circumstances that led to it and its aftermath - i.e The Palestinian Refugee Problem. Morris's first book was “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949”. His other books include: “1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War”, and “Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001”. He completed his undergraduate studies in history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and received a doctorate in modern European history from the University of Cambridge. Links to all of Benny Morris’s books can be found here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Benny%20morris His recent published essays can be found here: https://quillette.com/author/benny-morris/?gad_source=1

Last week, Prime Minister Netanyahu released to his cabinet what could be interpreted as a first sketch, an early blueprint, or a statement of principles for post-war Gaza planning. At the same time, and much more newsworthy, it appears that there is some progress on the negotiations to return more Israeli hostages. To help us understand what’s going with both tracks, our guest today is NADAV EYAL, who returns to the podcast. He is a columnist for Yediot. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news. One of Israel’s leading journalists, Eyal was a winner of the Sokolov Prize, Israel’s most prestigious journalism award. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news. He received a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a law degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Every day we see news accounts “reported” by reputable journalists. There is typically one frame in the post-10/07 War: ‘Gazan Palestinians are the victims of Israel.’ How does this happen? How do journalists actually operate in Gaza and around the world? And is this a window into what had Hamas figured out long before 10/07 — that the forces of barbarism could manipulate the intentional press reaction to their massacre of 10/07? That is why we wanted to sit down with Matti Friedman, who is one of the most thoughtful writers when it comes to all matters related to Israel, the broader Middle East, and also trends in the world of journalism. He writes regularly for The Free Press is a regular contributor to The Atlantic. His newest book is called “Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai.” Before that he published "Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel," and before that "Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story of a Forgotten War.” Matti’s army service included tours in Lebanon. His work as a reporter has taken him from Israel to Lebanon, Morocco, Moscow, the Caucasus, and Washington, DC. He is a former Associated Press correspondent and essayist for the New York Times opinion section. But it was his time covering Hama’s takeover of Gaza that led him to study with great detail how Hamas manipulates the media, NGOs and the international community, and how they are working from the same playbook right now, perhaps quite masterfully. Matti Friedman's published works that we discuss in this episode: “The Wisdom of Hamas” — The Free Press — https://www.thefp.com/p/matti-friedman-the-wisdom-of-hamas “What if the Real War in Israel Hasn’t Even Started?” — The Free Press — https://www.thefp.com/p/matti-friedman-israel-hezbollah-war "There Is No 'Israeli-Palestinian Conflict'" -- The New York Times -- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/16/opinion/israeli-palestinian-conflict-matti-friedman.htm "An Insider’s Guide to the Most Important Story on Earth" -- Tablet Magazine -- https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/israel-insider-guide "What The Media Gets Wrong About Israel" -- The Atlantic -- https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/how-the-media-makes-the-israel-story/383262/ That is why we wanted to sit down with Matti Friedman, who is one of the most thoughtful writers when it comes to all matters related to Israel, the broader Middle East, and also trends in the world of journalism. He is a monthly writer for Tablet Magazine and a regular contributor to The Atlantic. His newest book is called “Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai.” Before that he published "Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel," and before that "Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story of a Forgotten War.” Matti’s army service included tours in Lebanon. His work as a reporter has taken him from Israel to Lebanon, Morocco, Moscow, the Caucasus, and Washington, DC. He is a former Associated Press correspondent and essayist for the New York Times opinion section. But it was his time covering Hama’s takeover of Gaza that led him to study with great detail how Hamas manipulates the media, NGOs and the international community, and how they are working from the same playbook right now, perhaps quite masterfully. Matti Friedman's published works that we discuss in this episode: "There Is No 'Israeli-Palestinian Conflict'" -- The New York Times -- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/16/opinion/israeli-palestinian-conflict-matti-friedman.htm "An Insider’s Guide to the Most Important Story on Earth" -- Tablet Magazine -- https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/israel-insider-guide "What The Media Gets Wrong About Israel" -- The Atlantic -- https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/how-the-media-makes-the-israel-story/383262/

On Sunday, Israel’s cabinet unanimously issued a statement rejecting efforts by the international community to force immediate recognition of a Palestinian State, especially so soon after 10/07. This was following an extensive article in the Washington Post last week that revealed plans — according to background sources — for Washington, the EU, and Arab capitals to accelerate the path to recognition of a Palestinian state. Quoting from the Washington Post article: “The elephant in the planning room is Israel, and whether its government will acquiesce to much of what is being discussed: the withdrawal of many, if not all, settler communities on the West Bank; a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem; the reconstruction of Gaza; and security and governance arrangements for a combined West Bank and Gaza.” You can read the full Washington Post article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/14/gaza-peace-israel-palestinian-state/ According to the Israeli cabinet statement in response: “Israel utterly rejects international diktats regarding a permanent settlement with the Palestinians. A settlement, if it is to be reached, will come about solely through direct negotiations between the parties, without preconditions. Israel will continue to oppose unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. Such recognition in the wake of the October 7th massacre would be a massive and unprecedented reward to terrorism and would foil any future peace settlement.” What was even more noteworthy was Benny Gantz said “the pathway to regional stability and peace is not through one-sided actions like recognition of a Palestinian state.” The real question, embedded in these Israelis responses and others, is whether a peaceful Palestinian State is even possible? That’s what we discuss today with Haviv Rettig Gur of the Times of Israel, during our weekly check-in.

While there has been a lot of resentment inside Israel towards its political and security leadership, Israeli society has stepped up in ways sometimes impossible for me to describe. So, when I was in Israel, I asked Wendy Singer to join me for a conversation about what most Israelis are seeing and experiencing at the grassroots level, day-to-day, that we may not see. Wendy Singer is an advisor to several Israeli high-tech start-ups, including Re-Milk — https://www.remilk.com/ Wendy was the executive director of Start-Up Nation Central since its founding in 2013 — https://startupnationcentral.org/ Previously, she was the director of AIPAC’s Israel office for 16 years and served in AIPAC’s Washington office before immigrating to Israel in 1994. Earlier in her career, Wendy was a foreign policy advisor in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives.

Are we witnessing a dramatic change in the Biden administration’s approach to Israel’s defensive war against Hamas? Are these changes just rhetorical to mollify either US domestic political constituencies or Middle East regional actors (or both)? Or do they represent meaningful policy changes? Should Israeli leaders be concerned that the US-Israel relationship is entering a new phase? To help us understand what’s going on, our guest today is NADAV EYAL, who returns to the podcast. He is a columnist for Yediiot. Eyal is one of Israel’s leading journalists, and a winner of the Sokolov Prize, Israel’s most prestigious journalism award. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news. He received a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a law degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. We also have an update from Nadav on the heroic hostage rescue in Rafah.

Today we look back at the history of Palestinian violence against the Jews in Israel (and in the pre-state Yishuv) -- from the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1917 through the myriad efforts to establish a Palestinian Arab State alongside a Jewish State in the 1930s and the 40s. In our discussion today, we follow this pattern all the way through the Second Intifada in the early 2000s, and now today. Each time a war or wave of terror is launched, and Israel perseveres, the Palestinian leadership tries to dictate the terms of what comes next, as though they were the victors in this defensive war, rather than the aggressors and the defeated. Why? And are we seeing that same mindset play out right now? Did Hamas actually think it would defeat Israel with this attack, and Israel would fold to its demands, or possibly even just disappear? To help us understand this important history, Dr. Einat Wilf joins us. Einat was born and raised in Israel. She was an Intelligence Officer in the IDF. She has worked for McKinsey. She was Foreign Policy Advisor to Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres and an advisor to Yossi Beilin, who was Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. Dr. Wilf was a member of the Israeli Parliament (the Knesset) in the early 2010s, where she served as Chair of the Education Committee and Member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. She has a BA from Harvard, an MBA from INSEAD in France, and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Cambridge. She was a Visiting Professor at Georgetown University and is a lecturer at Reichman University in Israel. Einat is the author of seven books that explore key issues in Israeli society. “We Should All Be Zionists“, published in 2022, brings together her essays from the past four years on Israel, Zionism and the path to peace; and she co-authored “The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace”, which was published in 2020. "THE WAR OF RETURN" -- https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-war-of-return-adi-schwartz/1131959248?ean=9781250364845

Haviv Rettig Gur of the TIMES OF ISRAEL returns for his weekly check-in from Israel. There has been a recent flurry of statements coming out of London, Washington, Brussels and the UN about the need to move on the recognition (or establishment) of a Palestinian state. Some have even argued for bypassing discussions about conceptualization, timelines, and milestones, and instead proceed straight to implementation. The EU’s Foreign Minister, Josep Borrell, has said, “I don’t think we should talk about the Middle East peace process anymore. We should start talking specifically about the two-state-solution implementation process.” What are these voices actually advocating for? What previous obstacles to a Palestinian state have been removed by the October 7 massacre? What would it actually take to build a Palestinian state that is grounded in the post-10/07 brutal reality of Israelis? Essay discussed in this episode: "The Two-State Delusion" in TABLET, by Elliott Abrams. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/two-state-delusion

The UN has one central agency responsible for handling all refugees globally, but Palestinian refugees have their own UN agency, UNRWA. Why? The number of Palestinian refugees has increased from 360,000 in 1948 to to 5.9 million today. And those Palestinian refugees or descendants of refugees that have citizenship in other countries maintain their refugee status, according to the UN. What’s going on here? The U.S. Government and a number of other governments just suspended funding for UNRWA based on learning that a number of its Gaza-based employees had been helping Hamas, including in the 10/07 massacre. On our weekly check-in with Haviv Rettig Gur, we discuss the history of UNRWA and the role it plays in the Gaza operating system. Items discussed in this episode: UNRWA — https://www.unrwa.org/ UN Watch report -- “UNRWA Hate Starts Here: How UNRWA Teachers Indoctrinate Palestinian Children and Promote Terrorism and Antisemitism” — https://unwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Hate-Starts-Here-2023-Report-UNRWA.pdf

Al Jazeera is constantly blasting a steady stream of stories and images to the Arab world about 'tens of thousands of Palestinians dead,' according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. Condemnations against Israel are issued all over the place, with charges of Israeli genocide leveled on U.S. college campuses to the International Court of Justice. And, yet, those Sunni Arab countries that have already integrated with Israel have not reversed course, and those countries not yet integrated (i.e. Saudi Arabia), seem to be pushing ahead. The Sunni Gulf seems to have ambitions that necessitate continued and deeper cooperation with Israel. The question, though, is what do we make of the Saudi requirement for some kind of Palestinian state, however defined? What would it take for Israel to meet that requirement (or check the box) for the Saudis? And how far will the Sunni Gulf go in working with Israel to pacify Gaza? Our guest today is NADAV EYAL, who returns to the podcast. He is a columnist for Yediiot. Eyal is one of Israel’s leading journalists, and a winner of the Sokolov Prize, Israel’s most prestigious journalism award. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news. He received a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a law degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Essay discussed in this episode: “Israel is still winning the political war. From the West to Saudi Arabia, its days of isolation are over," by Dr. Edward Luttwak in UnHerd. https://unherd.com/2024/01/israel-is-still-winning-the-political-war/

In today’s weekly check-in with Haviv Rettig Gur from the Times of Israel, we discuss intensifying debates within Israel over the leadership of the government, how to reconcile seemingly irreconcilable war aims as Israel transitions to a new phase in the war, is there an actual disagreement on concrete policy objectives between different members of the War Council, and what to make of the growing protest movement. If you are in London on Monday, January 22, Haviv and Dan will be in conversation at 7:30 pm at JW3. Details here: https://www.jw3.org.uk/genius-israel#

Will we look back at the past few decades in America as the Jewish ‘golden age’? And is this ‘golden age’ now over? Did October 7th mark the end? Or should the signs have been obvious years ago? John Podhoretz recently wrote a long essay for Commentary Magazine describing how we got here. He writes: “Several seemingly unconnected arguments and controversies in the United States that had been carefully cultivated over the past couple of decades sprang into full flower on October 8 and thereafter. The weapons were ideas that had flowed for a quarter century from university graduate programs to activist groups to K–12 education and then began to reach millions through online mailing lists, listservs, and social-media entertainment services.” I wanted to have a conversation with John about how we got here, whether we are truly alone, and are they – actually – coming after us? John Podhoretz is a return guest to this podcast. He is a writer and public intellectual. He is editor-in-chief of Commentary Magazine and host of Commentary’s critically acclaimed daily podcast, he’s a columnist for the New York Post, and author of several books (including one of my favorites, “Hell of a Ride”, about his time in the first Bush Administration). Here is the essay we discuss in the episode: “There’s Coming After Us” — https://www.commentary.org/articles/john-podhoretz/antisemites-coming-after-jews/

Having recently passed the 100 day-mark of Hamas’s massacre against Israel, two events in recent weeks occurred that should have occurred some time ago. The New York Times published a major investigative piece on the details and the scale of Hamas’s use of sexual assault in its warfare against Israeli women. And, in recent days, Pramila Patte -- the U.N. special representative on sexual violence in conflict -- has finally agreed to come to Israel to lead an investigation of what Hamas did on October 7. In this episode, we are joined by Shari Mendes (who was quoted in the New York Times investigation and also spoke at the U.N. on Hamas and sexual violence). Shari is an immigrant to Israel who has raised four children in Israel. She is an architect, the founder of an innovative non-profit in Israel to help cancer patients, and an IDF army reservist who serves in the unit responsible for preparing the bodies of female IDF soldiers through all the steps in advance of burial. Shari has seen firsthand what the world seems to want to ignore. In our conversation, she shares some of her observations, as well as her broader take on Israeli society as we pass the 100-day mark.

This past weekend, Israelis marked 100 days since the Hamas massacre -- and 100 days that 136 hostages, of all ages, still remain captive in unimaginable conditions. We resume our weekly conversation with Haviv Rettig Gur of THE TIMES OF ISRAEL to discuss where the war goes from here. Does it end? Can it end? How? And what has Israel learned about how to proceed? This conversation is divided into two parts. PART I focuses on what we are learning about Israel’s vulnerability now and going forward. PART II focuses on what we are learning about the divide inside the Arab world in its reaction to these past 100 days, but also the reality that Israel may be in a 'forever war.'

This past weekend, Israelis marked 100 days since the Hamas massacre -- and 100 days that 136 hostages, of all ages, still remain captive in unimaginable conditions. We resume our weekly conversation with Haviv Rettig Gur of THE TIMES OF ISRAEL to discuss where the war goes from here. Does it end? Can it end? How? And what has Israel learned about how to proceed? This conversation is divided into two parts. PART I focuses on what we are learning about Israel’s vulnerability now and going forward. PART II focuses on what we are learning about the divide inside the Arab world in its reaction to these past 100 days, but also the reality that Israel may be in a 'forever war.'

In recent days, two big stories have gotten a lot bigger. The U.S. and U.K. have launched air and missile strikes against Houthi targets in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen on Thursday and today, marking a significant response after the U.S. Government warned that this Iran-backed (and Iran armed, trained, and financed) militant/terrorist group would be held responsible for its attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. But how did the Houthis -- rather than Hezbollah -- find themselves as the primary Iran-backed proxy responding to the Hamas-Israel war? And what does U.S. and U.K. action against them tell us about this war? Is it widening? At the same time, Israel finds itself at the International Court of Justice, having to defend itself againt the charge of committing genocide against the Palestinians, because of Israel's response to Hamas's attempted genocide. Our guest is NADAV EYAL, who joins us from Europe, having just been at the Hague, where he was covering the court proceedings. He is a columnist at Yediiot. Eyal is one of Israel’s leading journalists, and a winner of the Sokolov Prize, Israel’s most prestigious journalism award. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news. He received a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a law degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

What do Israelis know about the political tensions within Hamas’s leadership? About their decision-makers, their motives, their processes, and Hamas’s internal disagreements and rivalries? Matt Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and Ehud Yaari of Israel’s Channel 12 news set out to try to answer these questions. Are tensions heating up between Hamas’s internal and and external leaders? Dr. Matthew Levitt. Matt is the director of the Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He served as deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. During his tenure at Treasury, he played a central role in efforts to protect the U.S. financial system from abuse and to deny terrorists, weapons proliferators, and other rogue actors the ability to finance threats to U.S. national security. He later served as a counterterrorism advisor to the special envoy for Middle East regional security. Previously, Matt was a counterterrorism intelligence analyst at the FBI, where he provided tactical and strategic analytical support for counterterrorism operations, focusing on fundraising and logistical support networks for Middle Eastern terrorist groups. He is the author of several books and monographs, including Hamas: Politics, Charity and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad (Yale University Press, 2006), and Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon's Party of God (Georgetown University Press, 2013). He is the host of the podcast series, Breaking Hezbollah's Golden Rule. Washington Institute for Near East Policy paper discussed in this episode: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/growing-internal-tensions-between-hamas-leaders

Gaza runs like no sovereign entity. On the one hand, Hamas rules Gaza like any government does — it has a health system, an education system, a security, force, and a finance system. Hamas works with international agencies based in Gaza (like the U.N.). But Hamas does not see itself as responsible for the people it governs. How does this all work at a practical level? What is Gaza's unique operating system? That is the focus of today’s conversation, along with the latest analysis of the death of Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri. Our guest is NADAV EYAL who is a columnist Yediiot. Eyal is one of Israel’s leading journalists, and a winner of the Sokolov Prize, Israel’s most prestigious journalism award. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news. He received a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a law degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

In recent days, we have been shocked to read the details in the New York Times investigative piece titled: “Hamas weaponized sexual violence on October 7.”For those of us following events on and after October 7 who have bothered to read the reporting coming out of Israel, or talk to Israelis involved (victims, victims’ families, first responders, Israeli journalists), we were not shocked. We will return to this topic in a future episode. But today I wanted to focus on something else: should we actually be shocked? I’ve been struck since October 7 that the barbarism has been covered as though it’s a rapid and steep descent of Hamas (and other segments of Palestinian society that were complicit) into a radically dark place. As though things have suddenly and dramatically turned in an unimaginable direction. Was October 7 an unimaginable turn, or just another turn of the dial of radicalization? This is what I wanted to better understand during my weekly check-in with Haviv Rettig Gur of the Times Israel. Pieces discussed in this episode: NYT - “‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7” — https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/world/middleeast/oct-7-attacks-hamas-israel-sexual-violence.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare WSJ - Netanyahu: “Our Three Prerequisites for Peace” — https://www.wsj.com/articles/benjamin-netanyahu-our-three-prerequisites-for-peace-gaza-israel-bff895bd PLO Charter: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-original-palestine-national-charter-1964 Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-troops-find-kid-sized-explosive-belts-in-gaza-building-used-to-shelter-civilians/amp/

Bret Stephens, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for The New York Times, returns for a conversation analyzing how the October 7 War is expanding beyond just the Hamas-Israel. Bret came to The New York Times after a long career with The Wall Street Journal, where he was most recently deputy editorial page editor and, for 11 years, a foreign affairs columnist. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post. And prior to working in Israel, he was based in Brussels for The Wall Street Journal. Today, Bret is also the editor-in-chief of Sapir Journal. You can find the Sapir Journal here: https://sapirjournal.org/

The Hamas-Israel War, nearing its three month mark, is now the longest war in Israel’s history since Israel’s War of Independence (1948/49). The first phase of this war, which took place over the three weeks following October 7, was largely conducted from the air. The second phase, the ground invasion, began almost two months ago (on October 27), in which the IDF took over most of Northern Gaza and a few pockets in southern Gaza. During the past week it has been reported that the IDF is preparing for a third phase in the war, expected to last many months, if not longer. What will this new phase look like? What are the many considerations shaping this new phase? How are Israeli society and Israeli politics reacting to this emerging shift? These are some of the issues we discuss in our weekly check-in with Haviv Rettig Gur of the Times of Israel.

Understanding where and how antisemitism has come to exist at an institution like Harvard is the focus of today’s conversation. We will hear the perspective of Rabbi David Wolpe — visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School — who tried to advise Harvard’s leadership on how to address it; after October 7, he joined Harvard’s Antisemitism Advisory Group. Rabbi Wolpe is also the inaugural rabbinic fellow at the Anti-Defamation League, and he was the long-time rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. He is the author of eight books, including the national bestseller “Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times”. His book “David: The Divided Heart” was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Awards.

We are increasingly hearing from policymakers in the U.S. and around the world about re-starting the path to a two-state solution after the war. That is our focus today in our weekly check-in with Haviv Rettig Gur. Is there a path to a two-state solution in the near or medium term? If so, what has changed where the two-state solution has failed in the past. We also discuss a more optimistic take on the differences between the Israeli Government and the Biden administration.

On previous episodes of this podcast we’ve discussed the origins and history of antisemitism. But what does this antisemitic moment tell us about society more generally? If you look back throughout history, the persecution of Jews has often coincided with an even bigger crack-up in society. Is this antisemitic moment the first sign of something bigger going on – is it a vessel for broader and deepers trends? This is what we will discuss with Yuvan Levin. Yuval currently wears three hats: At the American Enterprise Institute think tank, he’s the Director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies. He’s the editor-in-chief of National Affairs, a quarterly journal of essays about domestic policy, political economy, and political thought. He’s also authored numerous books. “The Fractured Republic” is especially relevant to today’s conversation. Yuval served as a member of the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush. He earned his masters and PhD from the University of Chicago. To subscribe to National Affairs: https://www.nationalaffairs.com/

In today’s weekly check-in with Haviv Rettig Gur of The Times of Israel, we discuss Israel's current thinking about what a post-Hamas Gaza might look like - from a governance perspective and a security perspective. It's a topic we'll return to from time to time as the planning is fluid, but we are beginning to learn about early thinking from Israeli officials.

Today we get an update on the IDF operation in South Gaza, what Israel is learning about the Gaza tunnel system, what Israelis are learning through further de-briefing of the returned Israeli hostages, and what to make of reports of Palestinian civilians' growing frustrations with Hamas. We also wanted to discuss the tragic loss of Gal Eisenkodt and what it says about Israeli society. Amos Harel has been the military correspondent and defense analyst for Israel's Haaretz newspaper for 25 years. He is among the most well-sourced and thoughtful journalists and analysts covering Israeli security affairs inside Israel. Prior to his current position, Amos spent four years as night editor for the Haaretz Hebrew print edition, and from 1999-2005 he was the anchor on a weekly Army Radio program about defense issues. Along with frequent "Call Me Back" guest and Fauda co-creator Avi Issacharoff, Amos co-wrote a book about the Second Intifada, called "The Seventh War: How we won and why we lost the war with the Palestinians", which was published in 2004 and translated into several languages, including Arabic. Amos and Avi also co-wrote "34 Days: Israel, Hezbollah and the War in Lebanon", about the war of 2006, which was published in 2008. How to find Amos's book:"34 Days: Israel, Hezbollah, and the War in Lebanon" -- https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/34-days-amos-harel/1101905140?ean=9780230611542

In today’s weekly check-in with Haviv Rettig Gur of The Times of Israel, we discuss the volatility in Israel, as Israelis pivoted from fighting the war to collectively embracing returning hostages during the pause in fighting. And, now, the IDF and Israeli society at large have pivoted back to fighting the war.

There are two storylines we have been following closely that are not necessarily shaped by the minute-to-minute developments in Israel, but their outcomes could have an outsized impact on U.S. policy on Israel, Gaza, and the broader Middle East. The first is the Republican contest for president. The next debate is this coming week – December 6. In the last GOP presidential debate, the issue that attracted the most airtime was the October 7 war and America’s response. The second story is the growing problem President Biden is experiencing in his political base registering high disapproval of his support for Israel. In the next episode, we'll resume with our weekly check-in with Haviv Rettig Gur from Israel, but today we check in with Mike Murphy on U.S. presidential politics. Mike has worked on 26 gubernatorial and US Senate races across the country, including 12 wins in Blue States. He was a top strategist for John McCain, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and Arnold Scwarzenegger. He’s a political analyst for NBC and MSNBC. He’s co-host of the "Hacks on Tap" podcast and he has a newsletter on substack. Mike is also co-director of the University of Southern California’s Center for the Political Future. To subscribe to Hacks on Tap: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacks-on-tap/id1467297559 To subscribe to Murphy's substack newsletter: https://substack.com/@mikemurphy1

Douglas Murray, a British writer and commentator, has been on the ground in Israel for about a month, covering the war as a reporter and analyst. He writes for the New York Post, the Sun, and Spectator. He is an international bestselling author of numerous books, including "The War on the West", which can be found here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-war-on-the-west-douglas-murray/1140022863 He is the host of the Uncancelled History podcast -- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/uncancelled-history/id1654052602

Today is our weekly check-in with Haviv Rettig Gur of The Times of Israel. We discuss early lessons that Haviv is identifying for Israeli leaders and security officials – and for Israeli society – based on: the implementation of the agreement by Hamas to release hostages, the overall negotiations, the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons, and the pause in fighting. What are the implications for this next phase of the war? Or will that next phase be delayed? Israel Democracy Institute surveys discussed in this episode: https://en.idi.org.il/articles/51147 https://en.idi.org.il/articles/51616

Amos Harel has been the military correspondent and defense analyst for Israel's Haaretz newspaper for 25 years. He is among the most well-sourced and thoughtful journalists and analysts covering Israeli security affairs inside Israel. Prior to his current position, Amos spent four years as night editor for the Haaretz Hebrew print edition, and from 1999-2005 he was the anchor on a weekly Army Radio program about defense issues. Along with frequent "Call Me Back" guest and Fauda co-creator Avi Issacharoff, Amos co-wrote a book about the Second Intifada, called "The Seventh War: How we won and why we lost the war with the Palestinians", which was published in 2004 and translated into several languages, including Arabic. Amos and Avi also co-wrote "34 Days: Israel, Hezbollah and the War in Lebanon", about the war of 2006, which was published in 2008. How to find Amos's book:"34 Days: Israel, Hezbollah, and the War in Lebanon" -- https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/34-days-amos-harel/1101905140?ean=9780230611542

Haviv Rettig Gur returns for our weekly conversation from Jerusalem to provide real-time reporting and analysis on the war, and invaluable historical context. More than 240 people, including a number of U.S. citizens, were taken hostage during the Oct. 7 massacre. More than half of the hostages have foreign nationalities (either as dual citizens or solely as foreign nationals). Four hostages, including two U.S. citizens, have since been released, one has been rescued and two others were found dead. In this episode we discuss how Israeli decision-makers are working through options to return the hostages. How is the IDF trying to prosecute this war knowing there are hostages? Do the twin objectives of eradicating Hamas and returning the hostages reinforce one another or conflict with one another? Where is the Israeli public on these horrific decisions and trade-offs? The families of the hostages have become a critically important voice in these deliberations -- what has been the effect?

In this episode -- which we recorded just after the historic rally in Washington, DC and as we approached the sixth Shabbat since October 7th -- I have a wide-ranging conversation with Yoni Levi in Tel Aviv and Jonathan Freedland in London. Yonit and Jonathan are co-hosts of the popular podcast, UnHoly, which you can find here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unholy-two-jews-on-the-news/id1548441108 This episode is a sharecast, in which we are dropping the conversation in each of our respective podcast feeds ("Call Me Back" & "UnHoly"). The episode begins with Yonit and Jonathan interviewing me, and then I interview them at the end. It's a spirited discussion. Yonit Levi has been anchoring television news broadcasts in Israel for over 20 years. She is the lead anchor of Israel’s top primetime news programme on Channel 2, Israel’s highest rated TV channel. Throughout her career, Yonit has interviewed numerous world leaders, including Presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. Jonathan Freedland is a columnist for the Guardian newspaper and the host of the Guardian's Politics Weekly America podcast. He also presents BBC Radio 4's The Long View and is the author of the award-winning "The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World," along with several thrillers under the pseudonym Sam Bourne.

It’s 5:45 am on Thursday, November 16 in New York City. It’s 12:45 pm in Israel. Early this morning, I spoke with Anshel Pfeffer, who is just back from his second trip into Gaza embedded with the IDF. Anshel has covered Israeli politics, Israel National & national security, and global affairs for over two decades. He is a senior correspondent and columnist for Haaretz and Israel correspondent for The Economist. Anshel is the author of the book: “ Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu.” He lives in Jerusalem.

Haviv Rettig Gur returns for our weekly conversation from Jerusalem to provide real-time reporting and analysis on the war, and invaluable historical context. Today, we talk to Haviv about the hostage crisis in the context of Israel's war fighting. And we also discuss Haviv's contrarian view of how Israel is reacting to the growing international pressure it is encountering – what it means for Israel and what it means for Jews around the world. Finally, last week we released our new book: "The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World", which you can order now at: www.amazon.com/Genius-Israel-Small-Nation-Teach/dp/1982115769/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3LKV3ZLWLBOL1&keywords=dan+senor&qid=1694402205&sprefix=dan+senor%2Caps%2C87&sr=8-1 OR www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-genius-of-israel-dan-senor/1143499668

This is a crossover episode with Liel Leibovitz in which we jointly release a conversation on the Call Me Back podcast feed and the Tablet Magazine's Unorthodox podcast feed. Liel Leibovitz, who was born and raised in Israel, is editor-at-large for Tablet Magazine and a host of its weekly culture podcast Unorthodox. He also hosts the daily Talmud podcast Take One. He is the editor of "Zionism: The Tablet Guide" and he's uthor of the new book, "How the Talmud Can Change Your Life: Surprisingly Modern Advice from a Very Old Book." Tablet Magazine -- Tabletmag.org Unorthodox Podcast -- https://www.tabletmag.com/podcasts/unorthodox "How Talmud Can Change Your Life" -- https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/how-the-talmud-can-change-your-life-liel-leibovitz/1142948866?ean=9781324020820

Today we release the new book by Saul Singer and me: "The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World", which you can order now at: www.amazon.com/Genius-Israel-Small-Nation-Teach/dp/1982115769/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3LKV3ZLWLBOL1&keywords=dan+senor&qid=1694402205&sprefix=dan+senor%2Caps%2C87&sr=8-1 OR www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-genius-of-israel-dan-senor/1143499668 Today's guest is Ruby Namdar, who was born and raised in Jerusalem to a family of Iranian-Jewish heritage. His first book, "Haviv" (2000), won the Israeli Ministry of Culture's Award for Best First Publication. His novel "The Ruined House", has won the Sapir Prize, Israel’s most prestigious literary award. He currently lives in New York City with his wife, he has two daughters, and teaches Jewish literature, focusing on Biblical and Talmudic narrative. Items discussed in this episode: Our piece in The Free Press, “Israel’s Blueprint for a Revival of the West”: https://www.thefp.com/p/israel-blueprint-for-a-revival-of-the-west Ruby Namdar's piece in The Atlantic, "For Israel, Another New Layer of Trauma": https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2023/10/israel-hamas-yom-kippur-war/675587/ Ruby Namdar's book, The Ruined House: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-ruined-house-ruby-namdar/1125687349?ean=9780062467485 Bret Stephens's column in The New York Times, "For America's Jews, Every Day Must Be Oct 8: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/07/opinion/us-jewish-israel-sept-11.html

This week we release the new book by Saul Singer and me: "The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World", which you can order now at: www.amazon.com/Genius-Israel-Small-Nation-Teach/dp/1982115769/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3LKV3ZLWLBOL1&keywords=dan+senor&qid=1694402205&sprefix=dan+senor%2Caps%2C87&sr=8-1 OR www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-genius-of-israel-dan-senor/1143499668 Haviv Rettig Gur returns for our weekly conversation from Israel to provide real-time reporting and analysis on the war, and invaluable historical context. We focus on three pressure points facing Israel, and we also touch on some good news about Jewish-Arab relations inside Israel.

We just had a conversation with Dr. Matthew Levitt, an expert on Hassan Nasrallah and Hezbollah, getting his immediate reaction and analysis on Nasrallah’s first public address since the October 7 War. Matt is the director of the Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He served as deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. During his tenure at Treasury, he played a central role in efforts to protect the U.S. financial system from abuse and to deny terrorists, weapons proliferators, and other rogue actors the ability to finance threats to U.S. national security. He later served as a counterterrorism advisor to the special envoy for Middle East regional security. Previously, Matt was a counterterrorism intelligence analyst at the FBI, where he provided tactical and strategic analytical support for counterterrorism operations, focusing on fundraising and logistical support networks for Middle Eastern terrorist groups. He is the author of several books and monographs, including Hamas: Politics, Charity and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad (Yale University Press, 2006), Negotiating Under Fire: Preserving Peace Talks in the Face of Terror Attacks (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), and Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon's Party of God (Georgetown University Press, 2013). He is the host of the podcast series, Breaking Hezbollah's Golden Rule.

Next week we will release the new book by Saul Singer and me: "The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World", which you can order now at: www.amazon.com/Genius-Israel-Small-Nation-Teach/dp/1982115769/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3LKV3ZLWLBOL1&keywords=dan+senor&qid=1694402205&sprefix=dan+senor%2Caps%2C87&sr=8-1 OR www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-genius-of-israel-dan-senor/1143499668 The speech that I reference in today's episode -- in which I discuss the resilience of Israelis in this moment -- can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WygtNbwf-tk By the time you listen to this episode, we may be witnessing escalation on Israel’s Northern border. Certainly there’s a highly anticipated address by Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah. This will be his first major address since the October 7 War began. If there is major escalation, we will be dropping an emergency episode with Dr. Matthew Levitt, an expert on Hezbollah who was on this podcast last week. Today’s guest is Dr. Fred Kagan, an expert in understanding war theaters – as he tries to help us understand the various battlefields in which Israel is currently fighting or might be fighting in the future. Fred is a former professor of military history at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He spent meaningful time in the Middle East informally advising US military commanders. You can find more of Fred’s work at: The Critical Threats Project – https://www.criticalthreats.org/ Institute for the Study of War – https://understandingwar.org/

Next week we will release the new book by Saul Singer and me: "The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World", which you can order now at: www.amazon.com/Genius-Israel-Small-Nation-Teach/dp/1982115769/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3LKV3ZLWLBOL1&keywords=dan+senor&qid=1694402205&sprefix=dan+senor%2Caps%2C87&sr=8-1 OR www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-genius-of-israel-dan-senor/1143499668 The speech that I reference in today's episode -- in which I discuss the resilience of Israelis in this moment -- can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WygtNbwf-tk As for today's episode, according to the ADL, from Oct 7-23, anti-semetic incidents in the U.S. were up 388% over the same period last year. Why is it that after an attempted genocide of Jews in the Jewish State, the response by many is too target other Jews in the U.S. and around the world? To target them with violent rhetoric, vandalism, intimidation, and actual physical violence? Is this new? What are its origins? What is the difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism? And what’s with the tearing down of posters of hostage children? Our guest today is Yossi Klein Halevi who - in addition to being an important voice in our new book - is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. Together with Imam Abdullah Antepli of Duke University, he co-directs the Harmant Institute's Muslim Leadership Initiative. Yossi has written a number of books, including "Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation," and his latest, "Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor," which was a New York Times bestseller. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Times of Israel.

Haviv Rettig Gur returns for our weekly conversation from Israel to provide real-time reporting and analysis on the war, and invaluable historical context. We wanted to check in with Haviv, who is the political analyst at The Times of Israel, where was also a long time reporter. He’s also working on a book. Haviv was also a combat medic in the IDF where he served in the reserves. Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/call-me-back-with-dan-senor/id1539292794?i=1000632264331

Avi Issacharoff returns for an urgent update on overnight developments and their implications. Avi has been an analyst and journalist for The Times of Israel, Walla, and Haaretz. In these roles, he reported extensively on the inner workings and leaders of Hamas and other Palestinian factions in Gaza and the West Bank — Avi has extensive networks in the Israeli security services and the Palestinian Territories. He is also the co-creator and writer of the Netflix original series “Fauda”, and other television series for Netflix and Showtime. A fluent Arabic speaker, Avi was also the Middle East Affairs correspondent for Israeli Public Radio, covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war in Iraq, and the Arab world between the years 2003-2006. In 2004, together with Haaretz’s Amos Harel, he authored the book "The Seventh War - How we won and why we lost the war with the Palestinians." In 2008, they co-wrote "34 Days - The Story of the Second Lebanon War”. Born in Jerusalem, he graduated cum laude from Ben Gurion University with a B.A. in Middle Eastern studies. He then earned his M.A. from Tel Aviv University on the same subject, also cum laude.

Much like our earlier episode on the history of Hamas, today we look at the history of Hezbollah, an even greater threat to Israel than Hamas. Our guest is Dr. Matthew Levitt. Matt is the director of the Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He served as deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. During his tenure at Treasury, he played a central role in efforts to protect the U.S. financial system from abuse and to deny terrorists, weapons proliferators, and other rogue actors the ability to finance threats to U.S. national security. He later served as a counterterrorism advisor to the special envoy for Middle East regional security. Previously, Matt was a counterterrorism intelligence analyst at the FBI, where he provided tactical and strategic analytical support for counterterrorism operations, focusing on fundraising and logistical support networks for Middle Eastern terrorist groups. He is the author of several books and monographs, including Hamas: Politics, Charity and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad (Yale University Press, 2006), Negotiating Under Fire: Preserving Peace Talks in the Face of Terror Attacks (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), and Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon's Party of God (Georgetown University Press, 2013). He is the host of the podcast series, Breaking Hezbollah's Golden Rule. The quotes we discussed in the introduction can be found here: - The entire statement by Rachel Goldberg-Polin at the U.N. -- https://www.ynetnews.com/article/rkn7vvif6 -The audio recording released by the IDF -- https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-publishes-audio-of-hamas-terrorist-calling-family-to-brag-of-killing-jews/

Among the questions we've been getting since October 7 are those about antisemitism. Does this time feel different? Why? Or, another question, when is it appropriate to be critical of Israeli Government policy, and when does it cross the line into antisemitism? What is the difference between antisemisitm and anti-zionism? Or is there a distinction at all? Is the latter simply a modern-day version of the former? These are some of the issues we discuss in this episode with our guests: Congressman Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and Michal Cotler Wunsh, who is the Israeli Government’s Special Envoy for Combating Global Antisemitism (she is also a former Member of Israel's Knesset). Before we move to these two interviews, we speak with Ethan Missner about the life of Israeli soldier Omer Balva, who fell last week.

Haviv Rettig Gur returns for our weekly conversation from Israel to provide real-time reporting and analysis on the war, and invaluable historical context. We wanted to check in with Haviv on increasing questions we are hearing from within Israel and the U.S. about -- as it relates to the call-up of reserves and the deployment along Israel's southern border - why 'hurry up and wait'? In this conversation we explore the 'known knowns' of equities that Israeli decision-makers must be balancing. Haviv, who is the political analyst at The Times of Israel. He was a long time reporter for the Times of Israel. He’s also working on a book. Haviv was also a combat medic in the IDF where he served in the reserves.

This episode will be the first of a few conversations in which we touch on the range of directions this October 7th war could go (especially when considering comparisons to Israel's previous wars, including those with Hamas and also the 1973 Yom Kippur War). Michael Oren is the author of numerous books, including: “Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East” and “Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present”. Micahel also served in the paratroopers in the IDF after moving to Israel. Later on, he served as Israel ambassador to the United States, and as a Member of Knesset and Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office. He is a graduate of Princeton and Columbia, and was a visiting professor at Harvard, Yale, and Georgetown.

In President Biden’s address from the Oval Office, we continue to hear calls for Israel to respect the laws of war. In recent days, we have also heard others call for “proportionality” in Israel’s response. What does that actually mean? According to what definition of proportionality? And according to whose rules? Is Israel subjected to different rules of war than other countries? Is Hamas a different kind of enemy? These are some of the issues we get into with Matt Waxman, who is Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, where he chairs the National Security Law Program. He is also Adjunct Senior Fellow for Law & Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, and he is affiliated with the Lieber Institute for Law & Warfare at West Point. Among his many areas of expertise, Matt is a scholar of the laws of war, including their history and their application to new technologies of warfare. During the Bush administration, Matt served in senior positions at the U.S. State Department, Defense Department, and National Security Council. Earlier in his career, he was a defense analyst at RAND, where among other things he worked on the law and strategy of urban warfare.

Haviv Rettig Gur returns to our podcast to provide real-time reporting and analysis on the war, and invaluable historical context. He will be a weekly guest on our podcast through the duration of the war. Today he is focused on Israeli public sentiment as the country mobilizes, and also looks at how the October 7 is perhaps changing perceptions in and of the Israeli Arab community. Haviv is the political analyst at The Times of Israel. He was a long time reporter for the Times of Israel. He’s also working on a book. Haviv was also a combat medic in the IDF where he served in the reserves. We discuss Haviv's latest piece: "Hamas does not yet understand the depth of Israeli resolve": www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-does-not-yet-understand-the-depth-of-israeli-resolve/

Today, we consider to what to expect when the IDF enters Gaza. Avi Issacharoff has been an analyst and journalist for The Times of Israel, Walla, and Haaretz. In these roles, he reported extensively on the inner workings and leaders of Hamas and other Palestinian factions in Gaza and the West Bank — Avi has extensive networks in the Israeli security services and the Palestinian Territories. He is also the co-creator and writer of the Netflix original series “Fauda”, and other television series for Netflix and Showtime. A fluent Arabic speaker, Avi was also the Middle East Affairs correspondent for Israeli Public Radio, covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war in Iraq, and the Arab world between the years 2003-2006. In 2004, together with Haaretz’s Amos Harel, he authored the book "The Seventh War - How we won and why we lost the war with the Palestinians." In 2008, they co-wrote "34 Days - The Story of the Second Lebanon War”. Born in Jerusalem, he graduated cum laude from Ben Gurion University with a B.A. in Middle Eastern studies. He then earned his M.A. from Tel Aviv University on the same subject, also cum laude.

In this episode with Elliott Abrams, we provide additional detail on the history of Israel-Gaza/Hamas — this time from a White House insider on U.S.-Middle East policy during a critical period in Hamas’s takeover of Gaza — what were leaders in Washington and Jerusalem thinking at the time? Elliott takes us into the Situation Room: What did they get right and what did they get wrong? This part of the discussion is a good complement to our conversation last week with Jonathan Schanzer on this history of Hamas. Elliott also considers all that has changed for Israel, the region (especially the Sunni Gulf and Iran), and the Diaspora-Israel relationship as a result of this war. Elliott is senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as deputy national security advisor in the administration of President George W. Bush, where he supervised U.S. policy in the Middle East for the White House, and as Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela in the administration of Donald Trump. Elliott was educated at Harvard College, the London School of Economics, and Harvard Law School. After serving on the staffs of Senators Henry M. Jackson and Daniel P. Moynihan, he was an assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration and received the secretary of state's Distinguished Service Award from Secretary George Shultz. Elliott is the author of five books, including “Tested by Zion: The Bush Administration and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”, which is most relevant to today’s discussion.

For analysis of the Israeli Government's formation of a (Netanyahu/Gantz) unity government and war cabinet, preparations for the invasion of Gaza, and anticipating the Hezbollah threat from the northern border, we are joined by Yaakov Katz. Yaakov is a columnist for the Jerusalem Post and senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute. Previously, Yaakov served as editor-in-chief at the Jerusalem Post, before which he was the paper's military reporter and defense analyst. He is the author of "Shadow Strike: Inside Israel's Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power" and co-author of two books: "Weapon Wizards - How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower" and "Israel vs. Iran - The Shadow War". He is currently working on a new book. Yaakov's most recent piece: "How Israel Got Ambushed" -- https://www.thefp.com/p/how-israel-got-ambushed

We have been getting a lot of questions about the history of Hamas, its ideological roots and objectives, its allies and rivalries, how it wound up in charge of Gaza, the origins of this war, and whether there could actually be a post-Hamas Gaza. For this tutorial, our guest is Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, who is senior vice president for research at Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Jon previously worked as a terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he played an integral role in the designation of numerous terrorist financiers. Jon's latest book is "Gaza Conflict 2021: Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War". His other books include: "State of Failure: Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, and the Unmaking of the Palestinian State", and "Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine", which is still the only book on the market that analyzes the ongoing Palestinian civil war. Jonathan has studied Middle East history in four countries. He earned his PhD from King’s College London, where he wrote his dissertation on the U.S. Congress and its efforts to combat terrorism in the 20th century. He speaks Arabic and Hebrew.

Bret Stephens, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for The New York Times, returns for a conversation immediately on Day III of this war. Bret came to The New York Times after a long career with The Wall Street Journal, where he was most recently deputy editorial page editor and, for 11 years, a foreign affairs columnist. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post. And prior to working in Israel, he was based in Brussels for The Wall Street Journal. Today, Bret is also the editor-in-chief of Sapir Journal. You can find the Sapir Journal here: https://sapirjournal.org/ You can find Bret's most recent column here: "Hamas' Control of Gaza Must End Now" -- https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/07/opinion/gaza-israel-hamas.html

Haviv Rettig Gur returns to our podcast to provide real-time reporting and analysis on the war, and invaluable historical context. His insights on how Israel might prosecute this war -- and the possible end of Israel's security paradigm with Gaza and its approach to Israeli hostages -- are especially important. Haviv is the political analyst at The Times of Israel. He was a long time reporter for the Times of Israel. He’s also working on a book. Haviv was also a combat medic in the IDF where he served in the reserves. We discuss his most recent piece from the Times of Israel: "A wounded, weakened Israel is a fiercer one" -- https://www.timesofisrael.com/a-wounded-weakened-israel-is-a-fiercer-one/

One day we’re talking about the 2024 presidential election being a re-match of the 2020 election. The next day we’re watching the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives being defenestrated through a historic vote OUT of the Speakership. What is going on here? Is it a new level of crazy, or not that new at all? Karl Rove puts this period of political dysfunction in historical context. Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush and White House Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. He was architect of both of President Bush’s 2000 and 2004 campaigns, and the 2002 midterm election strategy for the Republicans. He is the author "The Triumph of William McKinley '' and also "Courage and Consequence". He writes a weekly column for The Wall Street Journal. Karl Rove's books: "The Triumph of William McKinley: Why the Election of 1896 Still Matters" -- https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-triumph-of-william-mckinley-karl-rove/1122221784 "Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight" Article discussed in this episode: "America Is Often a Nation Divided" -- https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-is-often-a-nation-divided-politics-election-gop-voters-debate-unrest-9100042a --https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/courage-and-consequence-karl-rove/1103176826

Many Democratic activists, strategists, donors, officeholders, and party leaders are privately discussing the weaknesses of President Biden's candidacy, heading into what now appears to be a very competitive 2024 election. But is anyone telling President Biden? Is anyone credible and viable willing to challenge President Biden for the Democratic nomination? We are constantly told that American democracy hangs in the balance. Wouldn't this be the time? These are some of the topics we discuss with A.B. Stoddard, long-time Washington, DC journalist (currently with the Bulwark, formerly with The Hill and Real Clear Politics). Read A.B.'s piece that we discuss in this episode: "To Beat Trump, Democrats Need a Whitmer-Warnock Ticket" https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/to-beat-trump-democrats-need-whitmer-warnock

What to make of the most recent presidential debates? What to make of what we're learning from these debates? What to make of the media's coverage of and role in these debates? And where do things go from here? Eliana Johnson is the editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon. She is a former White House correspondent at POLITICO. She previously served as Washington editor of National Review, where she led the organization’s election coverage of the 2016 presidential election. She has worked as a producer at Fox News and as a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations. Eliana is also the co-host of the critically acclaimed podcast "Ink Stained Wretches". Items discussed in this episode: - "Ink Stained Wretches": podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ink-stained-wretches/id1573974244 -Tevi Troy's piece on debates in The Wall Street Journal: www.wsj.com/politics/moderators-have-ruined-presidential-debates-lets-get-rid-of-them-3ec877ca -The Washington Free Beacon: freebeacon.com

Why is U.S. assistance for Ukraine being held up in Congress? What is at stake for the U.S.? Aaron MacLean is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Previously, he was Senior Foreign Policy Advisor and Legislative Director to U.S. Senator Tom Cotton. Aaron served on active duty as a U.S. Marine for seven years, deploying to Afghanistan as an infantry officer. Following his time in the operating forces, he was assigned to the faculty of the U.S. Naval Academy. He received an M.Phil. (Dist.) in medieval Arabic thought from the University of Oxford. Aaron is the host of the "School of War" podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/school-of-war/id1589160645 The piece by Aaron and Secretary Mike Pompeo is discussed in this episode: "Why it's important to continue our support for Ukraine" - www.foxnews.com/opinion/why-important-continue-our-support-ukraine

Are you pessimistic about Israel’s future? My new book – which I wrote with my "Start-Up Nation" co-author Saul Singer – should give you reason for optimism. I care deeply about Israel. I’m endlessly fascinated by Israel. I travel to Israel regularly. Some may say this is a fraught period for anyone who cares about Israel. But in our new book, "The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World,” we write about the health and resilience of Israeli society, a topic that could not be more relevant to this period. You can order the book here: https://tinyurl.com/5f8s6sb7 We have a special pre-order campaign for my podcast listeners. If you order the book between now and this Friday at sundown, simply forward any order confirmation to book@dansenor.com, and I’ll send you a special chapter sampler that deals with issues debated in Israel – and about Israel – these days. One of the most illuminating characters in our book is Micah Goodman, who has been on our podcast before. Micah is on the speed-dial of a number of Israeli political leaders. He is a polymath, having written books ranging from biblical lessons for the modern age to Israel’s geopolitics. His books include: "Catch-67: The Left, the Right, and the Legacy of the Six-Day War" and, more recently, "The Wondering Jew: Israel and the Search for Jewish Identity." Not only have all of his books been bestsellers in Israel, but he essentially created a new genre; books that bring core texts of Jewish thought to a general, secular audience. Micah also hosts the most downloaded podcast in Israel. In this episode, Micah and I focus on what effects a Saudi-Israel normalization deal could be on Israel's domestic political crisis. Might MBS help restore some normalcy to Israeli politics? And we have a special pre-order campaign for my podcast listeners. If you order the book between now and this Friday at sundown, simply forward any order confirmation to book@dansenor.com, and I’ll send you a special chapter sampler that deals with issues being debated in Israel – and about Israel – these days. One of the most illuminating characters in our book is Micah Goodman, who has been on our podcast before. Micah is on the speed-dial of a number of Israeli political leaders. He is a polymath, having written books ranging from biblical lessons for the modern age to Israel’s geopolitics. His books include: "Catch-67: The Left, the Right, and the Legacy of the Six-Day War" and, more recently, "The Wondering Jew: Israel and the Search for Jewish Identity." Not only have all of his books been bestsellers in Israel, he essentially created a new genre; books that bring core texts of Jewish thought to a general, secular audience. Micah also hosts the most downloaded podcast in Israel. In this episode, Micah and I focus on what effects a Saudi-Israel normalization deal could have on Israel's domestic political crisis. Might MBS help restore some normalcy to Israeli politics?

Items discussed in this episode:“The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent“ Worldwww.amazon.com/Genius-Israel-Small-Nation-Teach/dp/1982115769/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2Y6VUH68GZXYL&keywords=The+genius+of+Israel&qid=1695034956&sprefix=the+genius+of+israel%2Caps%2C84&sr=8-1“Providence and Power: Ten Portraits in Jewish Statesmanship“www.barnesandnoble.com/w/providence-and-power-meir-y-soloveichik/1142113462 “Not Everything is Tisha B’Av” www.commentary.org/articles/meir-soloveichik/israel-judicial-reforms-are-not-tisha-bav/

Today is a special episode in which I preview some of the questions we try to answer in our new book, The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World.  Saul Singer and I collaborated on Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle. Our new book will be released this Fall, but you can pre-order it now at:www.amazon.com/Genius-Israel-Small-Nation-Teach/dp/1982115769/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3LKV3ZLWLBOL1&keywords=dan+senor&qid=1694402205&sprefix=dan+senor%2Caps%2C87&sr=8-1ORwww.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-genius-of-israel-dan-senor/1143499668Our guest today is Yossi Klein Halevi who - in addition to being an important voice in our new book - is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. Together with Imam Abdullah Antepli of Duke University, he co-directs the Harmant Institute's Muslim Leadership Initiative.Yossi has written a number of books, including Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation, and his latest, Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor, which was a New York Times bestseller. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Times of Israel.

Dr. Mohamed El-Erian returns to the podcast to discuss the implications of the recent announcement of the expansion of BRICS, China's economy and possible spillover effects in the West, past forecasting of recession/stagflation, and the Fed's inflation target. We also discuss Mohamed's new book: "Permacrisis: A Plan to Fix a Fractured World" We begin the podcast with a conversation about the upcoming NFL season. To go straight to the discussion about the BRICS, the macro economy and global markets, begin listening at 17:00. Mohamed El-Erian is President of Queens' College at Cambridge University. He serves as part-time Chief Economic Advisor at Allianz and Chair of Gramercy Fund Management. He’s a Professor at The Wharton School, he is a Financial Times contributing editor, Bloomberg Opinion columnist, and the author of two New York Times best sellers. He serves on the board of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and of Barclays and Under Armour. From 2007-2014, Mohammed was CEO/co-CIO of PIMCO and was chair of President Obama's Global Development Council. He also served two years as president and CEO of Harvard Management Company, the entity that manages Harvard’s endowment. He has been chair of the Microsoft Investment Advisory Board since 2007. Book discussed in this episode: Permacrisis: A Plan to Fix a Fractured World -- https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1143921882?ean=9781398525610

Back in July, we dedicated an episode to the question of whether the U.S. was on the cusp of reaching a new deal with Iran. Or was an unofficial deal already hatched that nobody was talking about? According to Rich Goldberg, the answers to these questions are now becoming more clear. Rich has also been focused on another development that didn’t get sufficient press attention this summer: the release of US hostages by Iran. Rich wrote an important piece for The Dispatch analyzing that deal, and in our conversation today we examine it in the context of the broader arrangement Rich believes we have with Iran right now. We also discuss what exactly is going on behind all the chatter about a U.S.-brokered normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Rich Goldberg is a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. From 2019-2020, he served as a Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction for the White House National Security Council. He previously served as a national security staffer in the US Senate and US House. Rich is an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve with military experience on the Joint Staff and in Afghanistan. Item discussed in this episode: "The Disastrous Implications of the $6 Billion Iran Hostage Deal": thedispatch.com/article/the-disastrous-implications-of-the-6-billion-iran-hostage-deal/

Kristen Soltis Anderson is a GOP pollster, messaging strategist, and Founding Partner of Echelon Insights, an opinion research and analytics firm that serves brands, trade associations, nonprofits, and political clients. Through her work at Echelon, she regularly advises corporate and government leaders. Kristen also leads focus groups for The New York Times’ opinion section “America in Focus” series. Items discussed in this episode: “Republican Voters Aren’t Looking to Be Rescued From Trump” https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/28/opinion/donald-trump-presidential-campaign.html [nytimes.com] “These 11 Republican Voters Can’t Say Who Will Win in 2024, but They Know Who Will Lose” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/22/opinion/republican-debate-focus-group.html [nytimes.com] Codebook by Kristen Soltis Anderson: https://kristensoltisanderson.substack.com/p/i-was-wrong-high-school-debate-might

Special episode with Dr. Fred Kagan on the Russia-Ukraine war (and Putin's hold on power). Fred is the Director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. He is also working closely with the Russia team at the Institute for the Study of War. Fred is a former professor of military history at the US Military Academy at West Point. He completed his PhD in Soviet and Russian military history at Yale University. The Critical Threats Project – https://www.criticalthreats.org/ Institute for the Study of War – https://understandingwar.org/

There is a lot these days to discuss with a US official who is an expert on China and has major influence over US-China policy. But today we take a longer view of the Cold War (II) we are in with China by looking at a historical comparison in Cold War I. Congressman Gallagher just wrapped up teaching a history class on one such historical comp – the Korean War. Rep. Gallagher served for seven years on active duty in the United States Marine Corps, including two deployments to Iraq. He was a national security aide on Capitol HIll. He’s also a warrior scholar, having earned a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University, a master’s degree in Security Studies from Georgetown University, a second in Strategic Intelligence from National Intelligence University, and a PhD in International Relations from Georgetown. He has served on the House Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee, and he is chairman of the newly created House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, At the end of this episode, we take a detour to discuss what Congress is doing on the topic of UFOs, an issue on which Rep. Gallagher has been active. Items discussed in this episode: "Why America Forgets -- and China Remembers -- the Korean War" https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/why-america-forgets-and-china-remembers-korean-war The Hertog Foundation https://hertogfoundation.org/

Throughout modern history, there were major wars that were triggered by fits of inattention or inadvertence. In retrospect, these moments can seem obvious – sometimes even linear. Walter Russuell Mead is observing some of these fits of inattention right now. Walter believes there is some kind of collective denial about these trends. He calls it “geopolitical climate denialism.” That’s what we discuss with him in this episode. He’s also just back from another trip to India, where he’s been spending a lot of time. His insights on the growing importance of India to America and the changing relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia are also topics we discuss. Walter is at the Hudson Institute, he is the Global View Columnist at The Wall Street Journal and a professor at Bard College. He was previously the Henry Kissinger fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of “The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People”: shorturl.at/bdhpz WSJ column we discuss in this episode: “Geopolitical Climate Denialism” https://www.wsj.com/articles/geopolitical-climate-denialism-russia-ukraine-china-military-iran-225a9b2f

Each national political party should be thinking about their Plan B for the 2024 presidential election. Mike Murphy returns to the podcast to discuss each party's predicament and where they can go from here. Murphy has worked on a number of presidential campaigns and run 26 gubernatorial and US Senate races across the country. He was a top strategist for John McCain, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s a political analyst for NBC and MSNBC. He’s co-host of the critically acclaimed "Hacks on Tap" podcast. Mike is also co-director of the University of Southern California’s Center for the Political Future. Subscribe to Mike's substack newsletter: https://substack.com/@mikemurphy1

One week ago, Israel’s parliament passed the first pillar of its judicial reform package. This, despite 30 weeks of massive protests against the reforms. Calling these mass protests understates it. Hundreds of thousands of people turning out each week, culminating last week in a historic protest march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. We have received a lot of questions and comments from listeners to this podcast about the current situation in Israel. Haviv Rettig Gur joins us for the first time, to help us make sense of events. Haviv is the political analyst at The Times of Israel. He was a long time reporter for the Times of Israel. He’s also working on a book. Haviv was also a combat medic in the IDF where he served in the reserves until he was 40 years old. Haviv Rettig Gur on Twitter: twitter.com/havivrettiggur?s=20

Dr. Christine Rosen is skeptical of all the techno-optimism around the coming era of artificial intelligence. In this episode, she responds to our recent guest, Tyler Cowen (episode # 120). Christine Rosen is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where she focuses on American history, culture, technology and feminism. Concurrently she is a columnist for Commentary magazine and one of the cohosts of The Commentary Magazine Podcast. She is also a fellow at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and a senior editor in an advisory position at the New Atlantis. Previously, she was a distinguished visiting scholar at the Library of Congress. Christine is the author or coauthor of many books. Her next book is called The Extinction of Experience. She's also a prolific opinion writer – not only on the pages of Commentary, but also the Los Angeles Times, National Affairs, the New Atlantis, the New York Times, MIT Technology Review, Politico, Slate, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New England Journal of Medicine.

Is the US on the cusp of reaching a new deal with Iran? Or has a deal already been hatched that nobody is talking about? To help us understand what is going on, Rich Goldberg returns to the podcast. Rich is a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. From 2019-2020, he served as a Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction for the White House National Security Council. He previously served as a national security staffer in the US Senate and US House. He was a founding staff director of the House U.S.-China Working Group and was among the first Americans ever to visit China’s human space launch center. A leader in efforts to expand U.S. missile defense cooperation with Israel, Rich played a key role in U.S. funding for the Iron Dome. Rich is an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve with military experience on the Joint Staff and in Afghanistan.

Does Putin’s hold on power now look stronger or weaker? What can we learn about where the Russia-Ukraine war is heading? And what is actually happening with the Ukraine counter-offensive? Fred Kagan is the Director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. He is also working closely with the Russia team at the Institute for the Study of War. Fred is a former professor of military history at the US Military Academy at West Point. He completed his PhD in Soviet and Russian military history at Yale University. The Critical Threats Project – https://www.criticalthreats.org/ Institute for the Study of War – https://understandingwar.org/

Last weekend, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, launched a rebellion, coup or putsch against Moscow. It's still hard to discern what it was. As of now, It seems Prigozhin has halted the Wagner operation. The situation is fluid, and we aren’t going to leap to conclusions on this podcast. But our guest today, Richard Fontaine, told me he is skeptical that these events so far reflect real cracks in President Putin’s rule. So I asked Richard to hop on our podcast to unpack where he think events are headed. Richard is the CEO of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), bi-partisan foreign policy think tank in Washington, DC. Prior to CNAS, he was foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain and worked at the State Department, the National Security Council, and on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He serves on the Biden administration’s Defense Policy Board – which advises the Pentagon.

In this special re-published episode, we revisit a captivating conversation that resonated deeply with our audience, offering new listeners an opportunity to delve into the insights shared by Niall Ferguson. In this decade we may finally experience a true crack-up in higher education. There have been comparable periods on American college campuses in the past (in the 1960s and 1980s, for example). But our guest today, historian Niall Ferguson, believes what’s happening now is on a whole other level. Niall is doing something about it -- he’s started a new university. Niall argues that parents -- who had enriching and intellectually diverse experiences when they went to college --  don’t fully appreciate that their own children will experience something completely different when they go off to university.  Niall Ferguson has taught at Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford and New York University. He’s authored 17 books. He’s currently at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University where he is the MIllbank Family Senior Fellow, and Managing Director of Greenmantle, a macroeconomic and geopolitical advisory firm. Order Niall’s most recent book, “Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe” here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/doom-niall-ferguson/1137713414 Learn more about the University of Austin here: https://www.uaustin.org/ Learn more about Greenmantle here: https://www.gmantle.com/

These days there are lots of conversations about the re-shaping of the workforce as a result of the pandemic. Bruce Feiler is just out with a new book – THE SEARCH: Finding Meaningful Work in a Post-Career World – based on years of research on this topic. He is the author of seven New York Times bestsellers. His book WALKING THE BIBLE describes his 10,000-mile journey retracing the Five Books of Moses through the desert. The book spent a year and a half on the New York Times bestseller list. His book WHERE GOD WAS BORN describes his trek visiting biblical sites throughout Israel, Iran and Iraq. His book AMERICA’S PROPHET is the story of the influence of Moses on American history A longtime columnist at the New York Times, Bruce now writes the popular newsletter THE NONLINEAR LIFE. Items discussed in this podcast: The Nonlinear Life newsletter -- https://brucefeiler.substack.com/ The Search -- https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-search-bruce-feiler/1142169519

Bret Stephens, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for The New York Times, returns for a conversation immediately following his address at the University of Chicago’s Class Day, where there was an organized — and ultimately unsuccessful — effort against his speech. We discuss his address, the effort against him and lessons learned. Bret also recently returned from a mission to rescue 111 Ethiopian Jews, part of a multi-decade effort to bring thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel to become Israeli citizens, the history of which he unpacks at the end of our conversation. Bret came to The New York Times after a long career with The Wall Street Journal, where he was most recently deputy editorial page editor and, for 11 years, a foreign affairs columnist. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post. And prior to working in Israel, he was based in Brussels for The Wall Street Journal. Today, Bret is also the editor-in-chief of Sapir Journal. Bret was raised in Mexico City, earned his BA at the University of Chicago and his Masters at the London School of Economics. Items discussed in this episode: Sapir Journal — https://sapirjournal.org/ “The Herd of Independent Minds: Has the Avant-Garde Its Own Mass Culture” — https://www.commentary.org/articles/harold-rosenberg-2/the-herd-of-independent-mindshas-the-avant-garde-its-own-mass-culture/ Bret Stephens — “Go Forth and Argue” — https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/02/opinion/free-speech-campus.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare Bret Stephens — “Israel’s Unfinished Exodus Story” — https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/26/opinion/ethiopian-jews-israel.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare “Sideways” — https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375063/ “The Lives of Others” — https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/

Today’s guest is surprisingly upbeat about the world. A big factor in his optimism is the revolution in artificial intelligence that we’re about to live through. Tyler Cowen is an economics professor at George Mason University and he’s the faculty director of the Mercatus Center. He is the coauthor – with Alex Tabarock – of the economics blog Marginal Revolution (the #1 economics blog in the world) and the co-founder of Marginal Revolution University. He is the host of the top-rated podcast “Conversations with Tyler”. Cowen’s latest book is Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World. Before that he penned The Great Stagnation, and also The Complacent Class. About a decade ago he wrote Average is Over, which was somewhat prescient about this period we are heading into with AI. He also published a book called Big Business: A love letter to an American anti-hero. Tyler writes a column for Bloomberg View; he has contributed to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. His academic research has been published in the American Economic Review and the Journal of Political Economy. Items discussed in this episode: Marginal Revolution University -- mru.org Marginal Revolution blog -- marginalrevolution.com Tyler Cowen's books -- https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/talent-tyler-cowen/1138462103

Upon graduation from the US Military Academy in 1984, HR McMaster served as a commissioned officer in the US Army for thirty-four years. He retired as a lieutenant general in June 2018. From 2014 to 2017, General McMaster designed the future army as the director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center and the deputy commanding general, futures, of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). As commanding general of the Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, he oversaw all training and education for the army’s infantry, armor, and cavalry force.He commanded the Combined Joint Inter-Agency Task Force in Afghanistan from 2010 to 2012; he commanded the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment in Iraq from 2005 to 2006; he was also deployed in Operation Desert Storm from 1990 to 1991. General McMaster holds a PhD in military history. He was an assistant professor of history at the US Military Academy. He is author of the bestselling books Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World and Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Lies that Led to Vietnam. General McMaster is the host of two podcasts: Battlegrounds: International Perspectives on Crucial Challenges and Opportunities and is a regular on GoodFellows, both produced by the Hoover Institution. He is a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and he also teaches at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. And he chairs an advisory board at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Discussed in this episode: Dereliction of Duty by HR McMaster: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dereliction-of-duty-h-r-mcmaster/1126012409 Books on China by Frank Dikotter: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/frank%20dikotter Battlegrounds podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/battlegrounds-w-h-r-mcmaster-international-perspectives/id1551042106 GoodFellows podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/goodfellows-conversations-from-the-hoover-institution/id1505855709

In this episode, we go deep on the current phase (the invisible primary) of the 2024 presidential primaries with Mike Murphy, who has worked on a number of presidential campaigns, as well as run 26 gubernatorial and US Senate races across the country. Murphy was a top strategist for John McCain, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s a political analyst for NBC and MSNBC. He’s co-host of the critically acclaimed "Hacks on Tap" podcast. Mike is also co-director of the University of Southern California’s Center for the Political Future. Articles we discuss in this episode: Mike Murphy -- "Iowa Is a Big Problem for Trump" -- https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/iowa-is-a-big-problem-for-trump Matthew Yglesias -- "Ron DeSantis is struggling without the Covid issue" -- https://www.slowboring.com/p/ron-desantis-is-struggling-without

Items discussed in this episode"Impossible Takes Longer":https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/impossible-takes-longer-daniel-gordis/1141759170 "Netanyahu: The Figures Who Formed Him, and the Duties of Jewish Leadership":https://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/israel-zionism/2021/12/netanyahu-the-figures-who-formed-him-and-the-duties-of-jewish-leadership/ "Israel From The Inside":https://danielgordis.substack.com/

Over the past 16 weeks, Israel has experienced one of the biggest protest movements since its founding. On the surface, these protests were about proposed judicial reforms. But was something deeper going on -- for both sides of this debate? On a recent trip to Israel, Dan sat down with Dr. Micah Goodman to better understand the forces shaping this debate. Micah, who has been on our podcast before, is on the speed-dial of a number of Israeli political leaders. He hosts the most downloaded podcast series in Israel and his books include bestsellers like Catch-67: The Left, the Right, and the Legacy of the Six-Day War and, most recently, The Wondering Jew: Israel and the Search for Jewish Identity.

Today we sit down in Israel with Mark Dubowitz, who is the CEO of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), at a time that Saudi Arabia is reopening its embassy in Tehran, and Iran's relations appear to be flourishing with Beijing, Moscow and much of the Sunni Arab Middle East. Six months ago, Iran was under enormous pressure. What happened? In his role as CEO of FDD, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, DC, Mark has advised the Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden administrations and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, and he has testified more than twenty times before the U.S. Congress and foreign legislatures. A former venture capitalist and technology executive, Mark has a master’s degree in international public policy from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. According to The New York Times, “Mark Dubowitz’s campaign to draw attention to what he saw as the flaws in the Iran nuclear deal has taken its place among the most consequential ever undertaken by a Washington think tank leader.” According to The Atlantic, “Dubowitz has been helping design and push forward sanctions on Iran…establishing the FDD as D.C.’s ground zero for research and policy recommendations aimed at highlighting and fixing what Dubowitz saw as the flaws in the nuclear agreement.”

"Brokenism", by Alana Newhouse - https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/brokenism-alana-newhouse“The Vanishing”, by Jacob Savage - https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-vanishing

Yaakov Katz – Editor-in-Chief of The Jerusalem Post and a former advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett – returns to our podcast. Earlier, Yaakov Katz served as The Jerusalem Post’s military reporter and defense analyst. He is the author of "Shadow Strike: Inside Israel's Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power" and co-author of two books: "Weapon Wizards - How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower" and "Israel vs. Iran - The Shadow War" "Shadow Strike: Inside Israel's Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power" – shorturl.at/adioS "Weapon Wizards - How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower" - shorturl.at/fhIJ3

In this special episode we play a conversation that Dan recently had on the Commentary Magazine podcast on the current crisis, how Israel got here and where it goes from here. Be sure to subscribe to Commentary Magazine and its podcast: https://www.commentary.org/

Is the US Government trying to re-engage and bring down the temperature with China? Why right now? And what about the resurgent findings on the possible lab leaked accident (on the origin of the pandemic)? Where does this fit into the de-escalation dynamic? Josh Rogin is a long-time foreign affairs journalist, currently a columnist for The Washington Post. He’s also a Political Analyst for CNN. He’s the author of the bestselling book: “Chaos Under Heaven: Trump, Xi, and the Battle for the Twenty-First Century” Josh's columns discussed in this episode: "The State Department is wrong to play down China’s bad actions"- https://tinyurl.com/3dxtm9a3 "The investigation into covid’s origins must continue" - https://tinyurl.com/3j3ubz4v Ukrainians are begging for cluster munitions to stop the Russians - https://tinyurl.com/yr9vhe7k

Twenty years ago this past week, on March 19, 2003, the United States invaded Iraq, marking the second time the U.S. fought a war in Iraq in just over a decade. What is the legacy for U.S. foreign policy, for the Middle East, and for domestic public opinion on America's role in the world? Journalist Eli Lake traveled to Iraq six times since the invasion 20 years ago. He is contributing editor to Commentary Magazine and a columnist for The New York Sun. He was formerly a columnist for Bloomberg. He is also the host of "The Re-education with Eli Lake" podcast. Items discussed in this episode: "The Iraq War, 20 Years Later" -- https://tinyurl.com/yzx7juzc "Saddam Hussein's Demise" -- https://tinyurl.com/bdhdu2et

China just announced that it had brokered a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore diplomatic relations, for the first time since they were officially severed in 2016. But this news begs more questions than it answers. To help us understand what it means for Washington, Jerusalem, Beijing, Tehran, and Riyadh, Rich Goldberg joins the podcast. Rich is a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. From 2019-2020, he served as a Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction for the White House National Security Council. He previously served as a national security staffer in the US Senate and US House. He was a founding staff director of the House U.S.-China Working Group and was among the first Americans ever to visit China’s human space launch center. A leader in efforts to expand U.S. missile defense cooperation with Israel, Rich played a key role in U.S. funding for the Iron Dome. Rich is an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve with military experience on the Joint Staff and in Afghanistan.

Eric Cohen is the CEO of Tikvah. He was the founder and remains editor-at-large of the New Atlantis, and he serves as the publisher of Mosaic. Eric has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Commentary, He is the author of In the Shadow of Progress: Being Human in the Age of Technology. He previously worked for the U.S. President’s Council on Bioethics. Eric's work can be found at: TikvahFund.org The Mosaic essay we discuss in this episode: "The Spirit of Jewish Classical Education", by Eric and Cohen & Mitchell Rocklin https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/history-ideas/2023/02/the-spirit-of-jewish-classical-education/ Column by Tyler Cowen: "Wokeism Has Peaked" https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-02-18/wokeism-has-peaked-in-america-but-is-still-globally-influential#xj4y7vzkg The New Atlantis https://www.thenewatlantis.com/

On the topic of geopolitics, international flashpoints and the state of the war, a surprisingly optimistic Richard Fontaine returns to our podcast. Richard is the CEO of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a bi-partisan foriegn policy think tank in Washington, DC. Prior to CNAS, he was foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain and worked at the State Department, the National Security Council, and on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He serves on the Biden administration’s Defense Policy Board – which advises the Pentagon. Richard’s oped discussed in this episode: https://warontherocks.com/2023/02/of-strategy-and-schnitzel-munich-security-conference-2023/

Historian Niall Ferguson returns to the podcast to look at how the current Cold War could turn hot. Niall has taught at Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford and New York University. He’s authored 17 books. He’s currently at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University where he is the MIllbank Family Senior Fellow, and Managing Director of Greenmantle, a macroeconomic and geopolitical advisory firm. Order Niall’s most recent book, “Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe” here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/doom-niall-ferguson/1137713414 Learn more about the University of Austin here: https://www.uaustin.org/ Learn more about Greenmantle here: https://www.gmantle.com/ Email me questions, comments and ideas at Dan@unlocked.fm.

The Abraham Accords were signed in September 2020. This agreement between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, marked the first full normalization agreement between Israel and an Arab country since the 1994 Jordan-Israel agreement. Soon after the September 2020 signing, Morocco and Sudan joined the Accords as well. Since these historic breakthroughs, Israel has been through wild political swings, from a left-right coalition government that included Naftali Bennett from the Right, Yair Lapid from the center-Left, and Mansour Abbas from a Muslim-Arab party. Fast forward to today, there is a government of the Right led by Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been on this podcast. And through it all, the Abraham Accords have endured. One of the architects of the accords was Aryeh Lightstone, who served as Senior Advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman from 2017 to 2021. On a recent trip to Israel, I sat down with Aryeh to hear the latest and also discuss his book, "Let My People Know: The Incredible Story of Middle East Peace―and What Lies Ahead." Aryeh played a critical role in the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem and he was a U.S. Government point person in the Middle East for the actualization of the Abraham Accords. Aryeh Lightsone's book: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/let-my-people-know-aryeh-lightstone/1140125201

In this episode, we go deep on 2024 presidential primaries with Mike Murphy, who has worked on 26 gubernatorial and US Senate races across the country. Murphy was a top strategist for John McCain, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s a political analyst for NBC and MSNBC. He’s co-host of the critically acclaimed "Hacks on Tap" podcast. Mike is also co-director of the University of Southern California’s Center for the Political Future. Articles we discuss in this episode: “Biden is as good as it gets for the Democrats”, by Michael Brendan Dougherty: https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/01/bidens-as-good-as-it-gets-for-democrats/ “Biden's State of the Union Was a Feisty Return to '90s Politics. Republicans Should Be Afraid,” by Josh Barro: https://www.joshbarro.com/p/bidens-state-of-the-union-was-a-feisty

Mike Tannenbaum has more than 2 decades of experience in NFL team front offices. He was an executive vice president of football operations for the Miami Dolphins (2015-18), and executive vice president and general manager for the New York Jets (2006-12). Under Mike’s leadership, the Jets advanced to the playoffs in three seasons, won four playoff games and made two AFC Championship game appearances. Mike’s tenure as general manager of the Jets marked the most successful seven-year period in franchise history.He’s also worked with legendary NFL coaches, from Bill Parcells to Bill Belichick. Today Mike is an ESPN analyst – ESPN’s NFL Front Office Insider. In addition to his ESPN role, Tannenbaum is the founder of football think tank and news and commentary platform, The 33rd Team, and he teaches Football Business Management: The Inner Workings of the NFL at Columbia University. Mike began his NFL career as an intern for the New Orleans Saints in 1994. Discussed on the show: The33rdteam.com

Are we actually headed for a replay of Trump vs Biden in 2024? How strong is Trump heading into the GOP primaries? Is Biden certain to be the Democratic nominee? Do Biden and Trump need each other? And what role will Trump play in 2024 if he’s NOT the Republican nominee? Maggie Haberman, senior political correspondent for The New York Times, returns to the podcast. For the entirety of the Trump administration, Maggie Haberman was a White House correspondent for The New York Times. She joined The Times in 2015. Maggie is part of a team at The Times that won a Pulitzer, and she is the author of the book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. Before joining The New York Times, Maggie was a reporter at Politico, The New York Post and The New York Daily News. Maggie Haberman's book, Confidence Man: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/confidence-man-maggie-haberman/1140985472 Articles discussed in this episode: "Some Democrats are worried about Harris’s political prospects" - https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/30/harris-democrats-worry/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email "Few Americans are excited about a Biden-Trump rematch, Post-ABC poll finds" https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/05/poll-biden-trump-2024/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Congressman Mike Gallagher returns to our podcast, this time to look ahead at American foreign policy in 2023. Congressman Gallagher -- of Wisconsin's 8th CD -- has a unique perspective, since he’s just been tapped to lead the newly created House Select Committee on China. Congressman Gallagher served for seven years on active duty in the Marine Corps, including two deployments to Iraq. He served as a top staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Congressman Gallagher has a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University, a master’s degree in Security Studies from Georgetown University, a second master's in Strategic Intelligence from National Intelligence University, and a PhD in International Relations from Georgetown. Rep. Gallagher has served on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. In addition to foreign policy, in this episode, we also wound up talking about the new Congress and the reforms made during the Speaker's election. In this episode, we discussed Yuval Levin's "Some Good Can Come Out of the Kevin McCarthy Fiasco" -- https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/10/opinion/kevin-mccarthy-speaker-house.html

In this episode, we break down changes in our media diets that have been changed as a result of the pandemic and the tech market boom, and what will revert back to VERY pre-pandemic habits. John Podhoretz returns to our conversation. He’s been a prolific TV and film critic for over four decades. John is editor in chief of Commentary Magazine and host of Commentary’s award-winning daily podcast, he’s a columnist for the New York Post, a book author, and was film critic for the Weekly Standard and television critic for the New York Post.

Is there any precedent for combating inflation that doesn’t end in recession or depression? This is one of many questions we have for Dr. Mohamed El-Erian as we look ahead to 2023. What should we expect this year in the markets and the economy? Mohamed El-Erian is President of Queens' College at Cambridge University. He serves as part-time Chief Economic Advisor at Allianz and Chair of Gramercy Fund Management. He’s a Professor at The Wharton School, he is a Financial Times contributing editor, Bloomberg Opinion columnist, and the author of two New York Times best sellers. He serves on the board of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and of Barclays and Under Armour. From 2007-2014, Mohammed was CEO/co-CIO of PIMCO and was chair of President Obama's Global Development Council. He also served two years as president and CEO of Harvard Management Company, the entity that manages Harvard’s endowment. He has been chair of the Microsoft Investment Advisory Board since 2007. Essay discussed in this episode: "Not Just Another Recession: Why the Global Economy May Never Be the Same" https://www.foreignaffairs.com/world/not-just-another-recession-global-economy

“Democrats fall in love. Republicans fall in line." So said former President Bill Clinton. But it didn't seem that way last week, as House Republicans struggled to select a new Speaker. A band of rebels wasn’t getting in line for anyone - not for the most recent leaders of the House Republican Conference, not for the leaders of their own House Freedom Caucus, and not even for former President Trump. What happened? What does it tell us about the current state of Republican politics heading into 2024, and about Republican governance in Congress, as Washington has to take up issues like the Debt Ceiling.Matt Continetti is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, founding editor of The Washington Free Beacon, and a columnist for Commentary Magazine. He’s also the author of several books. His most recent book is called “The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism”.Also read Matt's most recent Washington Post piece "House Republicans, There you go again".And, for our next two episodes, send a question for Congressman Mike Gallagher or Mohamed El-Erian by emailing a voice memo to dan@unlocked.fm (please keep the question to under 30 seconds).

WIth Prime Minister Netanyahu's new government now sworn in, and also developments for Israel at the UN, Yaakov Katz – Editor-in-Chief of The Jerusalem Post – returns to our podcast. Earlier, Yaakov was an advisor to former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. He served as The Jerusalem Post’s military reporter and defense analyst. He is the author of "Shadow Strike: Inside Israel's Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power" and co-author of two books: "Weapon Wizards - How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower" and "Israel vs. Iran - The Shadow War" "Shadow Strike: Inside Israel's Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power" – shorturl.at/adioS "Weapon Wizards - How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower" - shorturl.at/fhIJ3

One of our regular guests – Bret Stephens, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for The New York Times – returns for a conversation on cancel culture, anti-semitism and a new issue of a journal he edits, called Sapir. Bret joined The New York Times after a long career with The Wall Street Journal, where he was most recently deputy editorial page editor and, for 11 years, a foreign affairs columnist. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post. And prior to Israel, he was based in Brussels for The Wall Street Journal. In this episode we speak extensively about Sapir: https://sapirjournal.org/

U.S. Senator Tom Cotton recently announced that he would not run for president in 2024. And yet at the same time, he continues to be one of the most important voices in Washington on all matters involving American foreign policy and national security. Senator Cotton also recently penned a new book, called Only The Strong. He returns to the podcast to discuss issues ranging from Iran and Russia/Ukraine to China and a proposed ban of TikTok. Senator Cotton represents Arkansas in the Senate. He currently serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee -- where he is the Ranking Member for the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice and Counterterrorism; he sits on the Intelligence Committee, and the Armed Services Committee. He is a graduate of Harvard, and Harvard Law School. He served nearly five years on active duty in the United States Army as an Infantry Officer. -- in Iraq with the 101st Airborne and in Afghanistan with a Provincial Reconstruction Team. Between combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Senator Cotton also served as a platoon leader in the Old Guard in Arlington Cemetery. To order copies of Senator Cotton's books: Only the Strong -- https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/only-the-strong-tom-cotton/1141450141 Sacred Duty -- https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sacred-duty-tom-cotton/1129745532

Yuval Levin returns to the podcast. He's especially focused on whether we will have a replay of Trump vs Biden in 2024 or a new generation of leaders from both parties. Yuval discusses the promise of a number of these newer candidates and challenges they face. Yuval is the Director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He’s the editor-in-chief of National Affairs, a quarterly journal of essays about domestic policy, political economy, and political thought. And he's authored numerous books, including “A Time To Build”, “The Fractured Republic”, and “The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left”. Yuval served as a member of the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush. He earned his masters and PhD from the University of Chicago. Towards the end of our conversation, Yuval remembers Michael Gerson, former chief speechwriter to President George W. Bush and Washington Post columnist. To read Michael Gerson's Washington Post columns: https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/michael-gerson/ To order his books - Heroic Conservatism: Why Republicans Need to Embrace America's Ideals (And Why They Deserve to Fail If They Don't): https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/heroic-conservatism-michael-j-gerson/1008425020?ean=9780061349515 City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era (with Peter Wehner): https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/city-of-man-michael-gerson/1100395408?ean=9781575679280 To read Yuval Levin's tribute to Michael Gerson: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/remembering-my-friend-mike-gerson/

President Biden recently warned that the U.S. faces a 'decisive decade' in its rivalry with China. Are we sleepwalking through this decisive decade? That's what Bret Stephens of The New York Times argues in the Times. (Not only with regard to China but also a range of geopolitical challenges across the globe.) In this conversation, Bret looks at China, Russia/Ukraine, and U.S. defense readiness. He also raises important questions about where the revolution in Iran is going. Bret is a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for The Times. He came to The Times after a long career with The Wall Street Journal, where he was most recently deputy editorial page editor and, for 11 years, a foreign affairs columnist. Before that, he was editor in chief of The Jerusalem Post, where he was based in Israel. Bret was raised in Mexico City, earned his BA at the University of Chicago and his Masters at the London School of Economics. Bret is also the editor in chief of the journal, Sapir - sapirjournal.org

From civil disobedience we have not seen in China since Tiananmen Square, to loosening zero covid policy, and leadership tightening its political grip in unprecedented ways, this has been quite a few weeks in China. What is US policy on a range of issues – the protests, semiconductors, Taiwan and also TikTok? Matt Pottinger returns to the podcast. Matt covered China and lived in China as a journalist for Reuters and then The Wall Street Journal. Then, in his early 30s, he made quite a career change. Matt joined the US Marine Corps, and had multiple combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Later on Matt played an instrumental role in reshaping the West’s relationship with China, when he served as the deputy National Security Advisor in the Trump administration, and was the architect of the administration’s strategy towards China. Today, he is regularly called upon by policymakers on both sides of the aisle, to consult on US policy towards China. He recently co-authored an essay for Foreign Affairs titled “Xi Jinping in His Own Words” -- https://tinyurl.com/2t59vm7z Matt is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Chair of the China program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Most of the post-midterm commentary has been focused on how the Democrats pulled off a surprise win in holding the majority in the U.S. Senate, and only lost the U.S. House of Representatives by a slim margin. But former Clinton and Schumer strategist -- and current Bloomberg senior advisor - Howard Wolfson is asking something entirely different: why DID the Democrats lose the House? Suggesting that they could have bucked history altogether and won the House too. Howard answers this question in a provocative piece he penned for The New York Times (https://tinyurl.com/2zeh87a2). While a red wave may not have materialized nationally, there was a red wave in New York State, the bluest of blue states. Howard thinks it has major implications for Democrats nationally. Howard was the New York City Deputy Mayor for Government Affairs and Communications, under Mayor Bloomberg. Previously, he served as the communications director for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Earlier, he was Chief of Staff to Congresswoman Nita Lowey, Executive Director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and worked on campaigns at every level of government, advising Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, and former Governor Andrew Cuomo. Today he continues to work for Mayor Bloomberg, advising him on a number of political projects and overseeing education programs through Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Looking back with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his new book, “BiBi: My Story”. Also looking forward to his next government’s approach to Saudi Arabia (could we see an expansion of the Abraham Accords?); Israel’s position in the Russia-Ukraine war (will Israel’s posture change under his leadership?); and what he sees as the implications of events on the streets of Iran. We spoke at an event hosted by The Streicker Cultural Center at Temple Emanu-El: https://streicker.nyc/

In this episode, we go deep on deconstructing the mid-term results. We try to understand the implications for both parties heading into 2024. (And Murphy even tries to draw a connection between Richard Nixon and Mahatma Gandhi). Mike Murphy has worked on 26 gubernatorial and US Senate races across the country, including 12 wins in Blue States. He was a top strategist for John McCain, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s a political analyst for NBC and MSNBC. He’s co-host of the critically acclaimed "Hacks on Tap" podcast. Mike is also co-director of the University of Southern California’s Center for the Political Future.

Yaakov Katz – Editor-in-Chief of The Jerusalem Post and a former advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett – returns to our podcast. Earlier, Yaakov Katz served as The Jerusalem Post’s military reporter and defense analyst. He is the author of "Shadow Strike: Inside Israel's Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power" and co-author of two books: "Weapon Wizards - How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower" and "Israel vs. Iran - The Shadow War" "Shadow Strike: Inside Israel's Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power" – shorturl.at/adioS "Weapon Wizards - How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower" - shorturl.at/fhIJ3

We join the team at Commentary Magazine for a discussion on scenarios for Israel's next government coming out of this election (the 5th in 44 months!). Subscribe to commentary magazine by going to: commentary.org

Record inflation, another wake-up call out of Beijing, a new prime minister in the UK, overhang of supply chain shocks and massive fiscal and monetary stimulus from the pandemic, all against the backdrop of the Russia-Ukraine war, which shows no signs of abating. What are the economic implications of all this? What should Central Banks be doing? Dr. Mohamed El-Erian returns to the podcast. He is President of Queens' College at Cambridge University. Mohamed serves as part-time Chief Economic Advisor at Allianz and Chair of Gramercy Fund Management. He’s a Professor at The Wharton School, he is a Financial Times contributing editor, Bloomberg Opinion columnist, and the author of two New York Times best sellers. He serves on several non-profit boards, including the NBER, and those of Barclays and Under Armour. From 2007-2014, Mohamed served as CEO/co-CIO of PIMCO. He worked at PIMCO for a total of fourteen years, and was chair of President Obama's Global Development Council. Mohamed also served two years as president and CEO of Harvard Management Company, the entity that manages Harvard’s endowment. He has been chair of the Microsoft Investment Advisory Board since 2007.

With less than 3 weeks to the mid-term elections, Karl Rove joins the conversation. Karl served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush and White House Deputy Chief of Staff. He was the architect of both of President Bush’s 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns. He is the author "The Triumph of William McKinley" and also "Courage and Consequence". He writes a weekly column for The Wall Street Journal.

With increasing talk about nuclear threats, we have three questions in this episode: What do we know from Putin’s past behavior that could inform how high up the ladder of escalation he is prepared to go? What are the next rungs up the ladder of escalation before the nuclear threat is real? As Putin moves up this escalatory ladder, what are the calculations of Zelensky, Europe’s leaders, and President Biden? Military analyst and Russia historian Fred Kagan returns to the podcast. Fred is the director of the American Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute and a former professor of military history at West Point, where he taught for ten years. Fred regularly advises senior US military commanders. He earned his PhD in Russian and Soviet military history at Yale University. Fred has a contrarian take on possible off-ramps for Putin (spoiler-alert: he doesn’t think there are any). And Fred also has a contrarian take on President Biden’s recent comments about a “nuclear armageddon”. To follow Fred Kagan’s work, the easiest way to do that is to go to AEI.org and understandingwar.org.

We have all seen the images of women in cities across Iran burning their headscarves and cutting their hair in public to chants of "Death to the dictator.". The protests began after the September 13th death of 22-year-old Masha Amini. According to reports, Iranian morality police had accused Amini of violating laws mandating women cover their hair. These events appear to have sparked a major public backlash against the Iranian regime. But how serious is the threat to the Iranian regime? Reuel Marc Gerecht is a senior fellow at the Washington-based think tank, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He was previously a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Earlier, he served as a Middle Eastern specialist at the CIA’s Directorate of Operations. In that role, he was focused on Iran targets. Among his many books, Reuel is the author of Know Thine Enemy: A Spy’s Journey into Revolutionary Iran and The Islamic Paradox: Shiite Clerics, Sunni Fundamentalists, and the Coming of Arab Democracy. He has been a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, as well as a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Dispatch.

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, begins in a few days. Kol Nidrei, is one of the most misunderstood parts of the Jewish high holidays -- and of the entirety of Jewish liturgy -- according to Rabbi Meir Soloveichik. He laid this out in a recent thought-provoking piece in The Wall Street Journal, which you can access here: https://tinyurl.com/44e4z7z8 Rabbi Soloveichik is the senior rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel in Manhattan, the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States. He is also director of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University. He has a must-listen daily podcast called Bible 365, which you can access through the Tikvah Fund. He is prolific – he writes a monthly column in Commentary magazine, and his writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Mosaic, the Jewish Review of Books, and many other outlets. You can keep up with all of his work at meirsoloveichik.com

Vladamir Putin has announced what he called a “partial mobilization” of up to 300,000 reservists. According to reports, these reservists are basically former conscripts that will need training. Meanwhile, commercial flights out of Russia are apparently selling out, fast. The Russian Duma, on the other hand, is passing a law to clamp down on anyone evading their military service. And then there was Putin’s seeming dangling of the nuclear threat again. All against the backdrop of the Kremlin organizing referenda on whether four occupied regions in Ukraine should fall under Russian sovereignty. And how do we assess US military support for Ukraine? Richard Fontaine is the CEO of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), bi-partisan foriegn policy think tank in Washington, DC. Prior to CNAS, he was foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain and worked at the State Department, the National Security Council, and on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He serves on the Biden administration’s Defense Policy Board – which advises the Pentagon. Richard is also just back from a trip to the Middle East – so we also talk at the end about the two-year anniversary of the Abraham Accords (a topic we’ll be returning to from time to time on this podcast) and also the status of the Iran deal negotiations.

Between now and November, we will be taking a close look at the midterm election season, which -- for most voters -- is just kicking off now. If history is a guide, the first mid-term election cycle of a new president should result in the opposing party (the party not in the White House) scoring a wave of victories in Congress. How big will the wave be? New polls suggest that there may not be much of a wave for Republicans. But are these new polls missing something? To offer a masterclass in how to de-code the polls -- and a number of other dynamics in these midterms -- Mike Murphy returns to the podcast. Mike’s worked on 26 gubernatorial and US Senate races across the country, including 12 wins in Blue States – something that’s getting harder and harder to do for Republicans. He was a top strategist for John McCain, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s a political analyst for NBC and MSNBC. He’s co-host of the Hacks on Tap podcast and newsletter. And Mike’s also co director of the University of Southern California’s Center for the Political Future. Pieces discussed in this episode: Mark Mellman: : https://tinyurl.com/3v74z3hp Nate Cohn: https://tinyurl.com/dzjrbc2m Hacks on Tap podcast: https://tinyurl.com/55j5pe5k Hacks on Tap newsletter: https://tinyurl.com/yckkzrpx

Are we getting closer to or farther away from an Iran deal? Walter Russell Mead of The Wall Street Journal has been following developments closely. I wanted to check in with him. But I also wanted to talk to Walter about his big new and groundbreaking book, called “The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People.” Walter has been immersed in writing this book for over a decade – it covers the history of the U.S.-Israel relationship, but it’s much more than that. It’s also a book about the history of US foreign policy. What has been America’s calculation behind U.S. support for Israel? Is it based on shared values – a fellow democracy in a dangerous region, defending a country born out of the ashes of the Holocaust? Or has U.S. policy been based on realpolitik – because Israel advances U.S. geopolitical interests? Or is it a blend of all of the above? What role does U.S. domestic politics play in all of this, if at all? Walter’s book frames our discussion not only about the history of the U.S.-Israel relationship, but the future of the relationship, and the future of U.S. foreign policy. Walter is at the Hudson Institute, he is the Global View Columnist at The Wall Street Journal and a professor at Bard College. He was previously the Henry Kissinger fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People: shorturl.at/bdhpz

While the unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 3.7% in August from a low of 3.5% in July, job growth still remained well above the pre-covid trend. There are over 11 million job openings – that’s more than twice the number of unemployed people. But according to a growing body of economics and social science research, the headline jobs numbers that we all track conceals a much bigger problem – the hidden crisis of able-bodied workers in their prime working age (25-54 years old), actually choosing to completely withdraw from the labor force. This has been a growing trend since the 1960s, but the pandemic accelerated it. One of these experts is Nicholas Eberstadt, who wrote a book in 2016 called “Men Without Work: America’s Invisible Crisis”. He’s re-releasing the book this week, updated as the Post-Pandemic Edition. Eberstadt is at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he researches and writes extensively on demographics and economic development generally. He has written numerous books. He earned his PhD and masters degree in political economy from Harvard, and a Master of Science from the London School of Economics.

Matti Friedman is one of the most thoughtful writers when it comes to all matters related to Israel, on the broader Middle East, and also on trends in the world of journalism. He is a monthly writer for Tablet Magazine and a regular contributor to The Atlantic. His newest book is called “Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai.” Before that he published "Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel," and before that "Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story of a Forgotten War," which was chosen as a New York Times’ Notable Book and as one of Amazon’s 10 best books of the year, and was selected as one of the year’s best by Foreign Affairs Magazine. Matti’s army service included tours in Lebanon. His work as a reporter has taken him from Israel to Lebanon, Morocco, Moscow, the Caucasus, and Washington, DC. He is a former Associated Press correspondent and essayist for the New York Times opinion section. We cover a lot of topics in this podcast, including how to make sense of the recent Israel-Gaza flare-up, how to view it in the frame of the broader Middle East, the state of journalism and how it covers geopolitical events and wars, and we also dive into his newest book, “Who By Fire." Matti Friedman's published works that we discuss in this episode: "There Is No 'Israeli-Palestinian Conflict'" -- The New York Times -- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/16/opinion/israeli-palestinian-conflict-matti-friedman.htm" "An Insider’s Guide to the Most Important Story on Earth" -- Tablet Magazine -- https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/israel-insider-guide "What The Media Gets Wrong About Israel" -- The Atlantic -- https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/how-the-media-makes-the-israel-story/383262/ "The New Kibbutz" -- Tablet Magazine -- https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/kibbutz-matti-friedman "Who By Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai" -- https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/who-by-fire-matti-friedman/1140395710?ean=9781954118072

What is happening right now in Vienna with the negotiations over the future of Iran’s nuclear program? What was the significance of Putin’s recent trip to Iran? What is the nature of China’s relationship with Iran, and what can it tell us about Beijing’s grand strategy? And if Iran continues to build its nuclear program, what is Israel’s Plan B? These are some of the questions we explore with Mark Dubowitz, who is the CEO of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, DC. We sat down with while we’re in Israel. Mark has advised the Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden administrations and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and testified more than twenty times before the U.S. Congress and foreign legislatures. A former venture capitalist and technology executive, Mark has a master’s degree in international public policy from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. According to The New York Times, “Mark Dubowitz’s campaign to draw attention to what he saw as the flaws in the Iran nuclear deal has taken its place among the most consequential ever undertaken by a Washington think tank leader.” According to The Atlantic, “Dubowitz has been helping design and push forward sanctions on Iran…establishing the FDD as D.C.’s ground zero for research and policy recommendations aimed at highlighting and fixing what Dubowitz saw as the flaws in the nuclear agreement.”

Why did Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei get such outsized attention? She’s not the first US Speaker to travel to Taiwan. Why did the killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri get so little attention? After all, he was one of the three most important figures in al-Qaeda's leadership for decades. And why the dwindling focus on the Russia-Ukraine war? Where does the war stand right now? Richard Fontaine returns to the conversation. He is the CEO of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a bi-partisan foreign policy think tank in Washington, DC. Prior to CNAS, he was foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain and worked at the State Department, the National Security Council, and on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He currently serves on the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board.

Air travel this summer seems broken. On some days, major airlines have been canceling 10 percent of their flights. In normal times, it’s something like one in a hundred that are canceled. How did this happen? Is there an explanation beyond just the obvious – which is the turbocharged rebound from the past two years of pandemic-induced turmoil in the airline industry? Today’s guest thinks there’s something else going on that the post-covid travel summer has simply revealed. It’s a structural problem that predated the pandemic, and he also sees similar forces at work in other industries, including the baby formula crisis. It’s the structural roots of crises of scarcity that we get at today, with Scott Lincicome. Scott is at the CATO Institute, a Washington think tank, where’s he’s the director of General Economics & Trade Policy Studies. He’s also a visiting lecturer at Duke University Law School, and spent two decades as a trade law negotiator, advising some of the largest multinationals. He also writes a Substack called “Capitolism”. And he’s with The Dispatch news & analysis site.

This next week will be among the most consequential in contemporary British politics. Ballots are sent out to Tory party members on August 1st, and they can begin voting right away. Whoever wins becomes Prime Minister in September, without first going through a General Election. So this next week is crucial for the two leading candidates to form final impressions before voting begins. To help us understand the process, the candidates, and what this all means for the UK at home, the UK’s economy, and the UK in the world, we are joined by James Forsyth, the political editor of The Spectator magazine. He is also a weekly columnist for The Times of London. He previously was a journalist for UK publications The Sun and The Mail.

Inflation hit a staggering 9.1% over the last 12 months, rising 1.3% for the month of June. The increases were “broad-based,” as the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) put it, touching just about every aspect of our lives…especially food prices and energy prices. In anticipation of these new numbers, we invited Dr Mohamed El-Erian back to the podcast. He is President of Queens' College at Cambridge University. Mohamed serves as part-time Chief Economic Advisor at Allianz and Chair of Gramercy Fund Management. He’s a Professor at The Wharton School, he is a Financial Times contributing editor, Bloomberg Opinion columnist, and the author of two New York Times best sellers. He serves on several non-profit boards, including the NBER, and those of Barclays and Under Armour. From 2007-2014, Mohammed served as CEO/co-CIO of PIMCO, which has over two trillion under management. He worked at PIMCO for a total of fourteen years, and was chair of President Obama's Global Development Council. He also served two years as president and CEO of Harvard Management Company, the entity that manages Harvard’s endowment. He has been chair of the Microsoft Investment Advisory Board since 2007 Mohammed is expert in many domains when it comes to the financial markets and the macro economy, but especially - inflation.

Are there comparable periods in our history that can guide us through the current ‘“woke” debates? Is there precedent for this kind of thing burning out? Will it? How did we get to this point? And how long will it take? That’s what we discuss today with Noah Rothman, whose new book, just released this week, is called “The Rise of the New Puritans: Fighting Back Against Progressives War on Fun.” Noah is an incisive writer and analyst. He writes about policy and politics and foreign affairs. He is an associate editor of Commentary Magazine, his previous book was called “Unjust: Social Justice and the Unmaking of America.” He’s also an MSNBC/NBC News contributor. You can order Noah's book here: https://tinyurl.com/2p88cc2k

Dan recently joined the Commentary Magazine podcast to share analysis on the current state of Israeli politics. We are posting that conversation here.

What have we learned so far about this election cycle, and what does it tell us about what’s likely to happen in the midterm elections of 2022, and the Democratic and GOP primaries for president in 2024? Historically, California has often served as a movie trailer on our national political future -- 'coming to a theater near you.' Richard Nixon started there, turning the Cold War threat into an election theme in his early political campaigns; Ronald Reagan transformed what we now think of as movement conservatism during his two terms as governor; and Proposition 187 was a California state ballot issue in 1994, before immigration became a national political issue (it helped get then-Governor Pete Wilson re-elected on the issue of immigration). Celebrity candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger got elected governor there a year before the first season of The Apprentice. The state’s size and diversity make it a political country within a country: a population of 40 million people, the fifth largest economy in the world, and a whopping 22 million registered voters. Long-time GOP campaign strategist Mike Murphy has been on the front lines – and often the mastermind – of some of these California campaigns, as well as plenty of national campaigns too. He's been thinking about what, if anything, President Biden and the Democrats can do to turn around their near-term electoral headwinds. Mike’s view on the political crack-up is sparked by the breakdown in quality of life for his fellow Californians, and Americans almost everywhere. He also has some analytical insights on everything from the impact of inflation to the future of 'Roe vs Wade'. Mike has worked on 26 gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races across the country, including 12 GOP wins in Blue States – something that’s getting harder and harder to do. He was a top strategist for John McCain, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Murphy is a political analyst for NBC and MSNBC. He’s co-host of the Hacks on Tap Podcast, and he also pens a political newsletter (The Hacks On Tap Newsletter). Murphy is co-director of the University of Southern California’s Center for the Political Future.

The Biden administration has announced that the President will take his first trip to the Middle East as president. His first stop will be in Israel to meet with Israeli leaders and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, before heading to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he will meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The U.S.-Saudi relationship began nearly eight decades ago between FDR and King Ibn Saud. With varying degrees of tumult, the relationship has survived – and sometimes thrived – through 14 U.S. presidencies. Has all that now changed? Has there been a sense in Riyadh – and across the Middle East – that the U.S. (through recent Democratic and Republican administrations) is downgrading its focus in the Middle East. Is there a risk that China gradually replaces the U.S. as the most important geopolitical partner of Saudi Arabia? And will Saudi Arabia join the Abraham Accords? And, could President Biden engineer it and win the Nobel Peace Prize? Former Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer served as Israel’s chief envoy to the U.S. from 2013 to 2021 – working with three U.S. administrations. He was one of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s closest advisers and played a key role in what led to the U.S. relocation of our embassy to Jerusalem, U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, implementation of the maximum pressure campaign against Iran, and the historic breakthrough that led to the Abraham Accords. He’s a graduate of the Wharton School and completed a degree at Oxford. Ambassador Dermer and I had this conversation a few days ago at the Jewish Leadership Conference (https://www.jewishleadershipconference.org/), which is sponsored by The Tikvah Fund (https://tikvahfund.org/).

After the 100-day mark of the 2022 Russian war against Ukraine. we assess some grim facts of this war, and try to understand how they should inform what to expect in the next hundred days. Richard Fontaine, CEO of the Centar for a New American Security (CNAS), returns to the conversation. Richard is a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board. CNAS is a bi-partisan foreign policy think tank in Washington, DC. Prior to CNAS, he was foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain and worked at the State Department, the National Security Council, and on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

When it comes to the future of sports and entertainment, Jon Patricof is always trying to innovate and disrupt. He’s had the added challenge of launching a business from scratch on the eve of the pandemic. Jon is the CEO and Co-Founder of Athletes Unlimited, a network of professional sports leagues. Launched in March 2020, Athletes Unlimited now operates leagues in pro women's softball, volleyball, lacrosse, and basketball. By the end of this year, if current estimates hold, Athletes Unlimited will have conducted over 120 games that will be broadcast in over 150 countries. Before launching Athletes Unlimited, Jon was president of Major League Soccer’s New York City Football Club, where he currently serves on the board of directors. And before that, he spent over a decade as a member of the board, President and COO of Tribeca Enterprises, the owner and operator of the Tribeca Film Festival and other media platforms. He created the Tribeca/ESPN Sports Film Festival. Prior to Tribeca, he worked in media private equity, and in Corporate Strategic Planning at Disney.

What are his objectives at this point in his war against Ukraine? And what are Ukraine’s objectives? What are US objectives? After all, the goals of different leaders in wartime often evolve based on battlefield developments. Are objectives shifting right now before our eyes…for Putin, Zelensky, and the US and NATO? And has the likelihood that Putin would use a limited nuclear strike changed as his objectives have evolved? To help us think all this through, military analyst and historian Fred Kagan returns to the podcast. Fred is the director of the American Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute and a former professor of military history at West Point, where he taught for ten years. His books include Lessons for a Long War and End of the Old Order: Napoleon and Europe, 1801-1805. He also regularly briefs and advises senior US military commanders. Fred earned his PhD in Russian and Soviet military history at Yale University. He is fluent in Russian. To follow Fred Kagan’s work, the easiest way to do that is to go to AEI.org And the report we discuss on this episode – “Russian General Officer Guide” can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/3e8bzrex

In Israel we sit down with an entrepreneur and former Naval officer, who has built a company that has had to navigate the twin crises of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the maritime implications of cracks in global supply chains. Ami Daniel comes to these crises as the co-founder and CEO of Windward, a maritime data, analytics and artificial intelligence company bringing transparency to what is among the largest but most opaque part of the global economy. Ami also brings his perspective as a former Naval officer serving in the Middle East. He talks to us about what he’s learning and seeing through his unique lens into these twin crises: Russia-Ukraine and broken supply chains from Covid.

Should we be surprised that there seems to be a renewed by bi-partisan consensus in response to Putin’s war? Are we back in a Cold War posture, both in policy terms and in our politics? Speaking of today’s politics, what can the past few decades of Republican politics and conservative ideas tell us about 2022 and 2024? According to Matthew Continetti, quite a lot. Matt Continentti is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, founding editor of The Washington Free Beacon, and a columnist for Commentary Magazine. He’s also the author of several books. He has a new book just out called “The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism”. Order the book here: https://tinyurl.com/4wp6kdfw

Is Putin crossing almost every line the West did not anticipate he would cross? What does this tell us about where he might might ultimately escalate to? Richard Fontaine returns to the podcast to answer these questions and others. Richard is CEO of the Center for New American Security. He was recently appointed to the Defense Policy Board by the Biden Administration’s Pentagon leadership. Prior to working at CNAS, Richard was foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain and worked on the Senate Armed Services Committee, at the State Department, at the National Security Council, and on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He has also been an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. One of the pieces we discuss in this episode: “Why Russia’s Cyber Warriors Haven’t Crippled Ukraine” - https://tinyurl.com/yx86yv46

The 1970s were a tragedy – inflation, rising crime and crumbling cities, American humiliation abroad from the Iranian hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, to Moscow’s geopolitical advances right in our backyard in Latin America. But here we are again, in the 2020s – with inflation surging to a four-decade high, a new crime wave and new decay in our cities, American humiliation in Afghanistan, ongoing Iran deal negotiations, and a new war launched by Russia. Are we living through another version of the 1970s right now? What can we learn from that era? John Podhoretz returns guest to the podcast. John is a writer, public intellectual and culture critic, He is editor in chief of Commentary Magazine and host of Commentary’s critically acclaimed daily podcast, he’s a columnist for the New York Post, and author of several books. He is also a film critic – formerly for The Weekly Standard and now for The Washington Free Beacon.

The security situation continues to deteriorate in Israel -- tragic developments, including right in the heart of Tel Aviv. We continue to monitor developments and stay in close touch with Israeli family and friends. While Israel is a major focus of today’s conversation, the security crisis is not. We focus on the political impasse in Israel, which may be connected to the security crisis. Today we sit down with Ambassador Ron Dermer, who served as Israel’s chief envoy to the United States from 2013 to 2021 – working closely with the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations. During that time, he was widely regarded as one of the most consequential ambassadors from any country. Ambassador Dermer was one of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s closest advisers and played a key role in what led to the US relocation of our embassy to Jerusalem, U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, implementation of the maximum pressure campaign against Iran, and the historic breakthrough that led to the Abraham Accords. He is a graduate of the Wharton School and completed a degree at Oxford. In this episode, we focus on three topics: What to make of the current Israeli political crisis? (Will the Government fall? Will Netanyahu return to power?) What are the real prospects for a new Iran nuclear deal? And what to make of America's role in the Russia-Ukraine crisis?

Regardless of how or when the Russia-Ukraine war ends, is it possible to see the very early signs of a new geopolitical order taking shape? There are certainly some surprises, especially as it relates to Germany’s response to the crisis and – more broadly – the unity of Europe, and the overall scale of the economic response. Are there other new trends or global power centers we should be keeping an eye on? It’s a question we will be asking a number of our guests going forward. This week we sit down with Thomas Friedman, the Pulitzer Prize winning foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times, and a bestselling author of many books, including “From Beirut to Jerusalem”, “The World is Flat”, and “Thank You For Being Late”. One piece to flag, on our exchange about what seems to me to be a schizophrenic approach to energy policy in the midst of Russia’s war, we highly recommend an editorial from The Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-bidens-u-s-oil-embargo-russia-energy-natural-gas-vladimir-putin-ukraine-11646780609

While we are all following the minute to minute developments in Russia-Ukraine, a new international deal with Iran on its nuclear program may be on the cusp of finalization. While there are still key details to be worked out, the broad contours are out there, and the implications are massive. So we wanted to have a conversation with an expert and policy practitioner that could walk us through the history of how we got here, and where it’s going. Ambassador Eric Edelman is Counselor at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He’s also on board of the Vandenberg Coalition. He has served in senior positions at the Departments of State and Defense as well as the White House. As undersecretary of defense for policy he oversaw the Pentagon’s bilateral defense relations, war plans, special operations forces, homeland defense, missile defense, nuclear weapons and arms control policies, counterproliferation, counterterrorism, arms sales, and defense trade controls. He served as U.S. ambassador to Finland in the Clinton administration and Turkey in the Bush administration and was Vice President Cheney's national security advisor. As a diplomat, he has been stationed in Prague and Moscow.

How could Russia-Ukraine escalate? How could it deescalate? Does Zelensky survive? Does Putin survive? Does China try to bail out Russia? On this episode, we explore five scenarios with Richard Fontaine, who returns to the podcast. Richard Richard Fontaine is the CEO of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a bi-partisan foriegn policy think tank in Washington, DC. Prior to joining CNAS, Richard was foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain and worked at the State Department, the National Security Council, and on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Richard Fontaine's essay in The Wall Street Journal: "The World That Putin Made" https://tinyurl.com/5n8fyaze

As Russia has become isolated globally, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official was asked if Moscow has anyone left in its corner, anywhere in the world. Her response: “Of course, we have them. Look at the reaction of world giants. Those who do not pretend to be giants, but are real giants. For example, it is China. You can see this reaction, can’t you?” So what exactly is going on between Xi Xingping and Vladamir Putin as tensions escalate between Russia and the West over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? How does this inform our thinking about whether we are, indeed, in a new Cold War -- and how we need to re-think our entire national security strategy, defense posture, and approach to global affairs? Russia’s experience in Ukraine – and the West’s response – is a laboratory for the Chinese Communist Party leadership to study as Beijing contemplates its next moves in this Cold War. To help us understand how China is interpreting events, Matt Pottinger returns to the podcast. Matt lived in and covered China as a journalist for Reuters and then The Wall Street Journal. Then, in his early 30s, he joined the US Marine Corps, and had multiple combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Later on Matt played an instrumental role in the geopolitical story of our time: reshaping the West’s relationship with China, when he served as the deputy National Security Advisor in the Trump administration, and was the architect of the administration’s strategy towards China. Today, he is regularly called upon by policymakers on both sides of the aisle, to consult on US policy towards China. Matt has been closely watching the evolving Moscow-Beijing relationship. He’s also just returned from Israel, where he gained fresh insights on what role the final negotiations over a new Iran nuclear deal factor into all of this. We discuss a lot in this episode – from Moscow and Beijing, to Tehran and Jerusalem, and even Caracas and Pyongyang, and how they are all tied together in Cold War II.

Is Putin winning or losing? It looks like his war effort is not going according to plan, and that he underestimated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the resistance of the Ukrainian military, and the unity of the international response. But could Putin quickly turn things around? What would that look like? Congressman Mike Gallagher brings his perspective. Gallagher served for seven years on active duty in the United States Marine Corps, including two deployments to Iraq. He was a national security aide on Capitol HIll – having served as a top staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Back in Wisconsin, he worked for an energy and supply chain company. He’s also a warrior scholar, having earned a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University, a master’s degree in Security Studies from Georgetown University, a second in Strategic Intelligence from National Intelligence University, and a PhD in International Relations from Georgetown. Congressman Gallagher, who is from Green Bay and represents Wiconsin's 8th Congressional District -- which covers northeastern Wisconsin -- currently serves on the House Armed Services Committee, where he is the Ranking Member on the Subcommittee on Military Personnel. He also serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. From his perch as a senior Member of the Military Personnel Subcommittee, Congressman Gallagher has been sounding the alarm about the woke agenda he believes is infecting the US military, and why it’s dangerous to our security.

Vladimir Putin may be unpredictable, but his direction seems to be clear. That’s the view of our guest today, Fred Kagan, who is a return guest. As of what we know now, February 25th, there are at least 1,100 Russian casualties in Ukraine, and Russian forces are entering Kiev. President Biden has announced new sanctions, but oil and natural gas are still exempt from sanctions, and Russia is still part of the SWIFT BANKING SYSTEM. So it’s not clear how tight the economic noose is tightening around Moscow. Fred is the Director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. He is also working closely with the Russia team at the Institute for the Study of War. Fred is a former professor of military history at the US Military Academy at West Point. He completed his PhD in Soviet and Russian military history at Yale University. We want to talk to Fred less about minute to minute developments and more about where this is going with a longer sweep of history as our backdrop. The Critical Threats Project – https://www.criticalthreats.org/ Institute for the Study of War – https://understandingwar.org/ Fred’s recent oped ,“Putin has changed the world — and the US must adapt or lose” – https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/595304-putin-has-changed-the-world-and-the-us-must-adapt-or-lose?rl=1

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You can order Micah's books here: Catch-67: The Left, the Right, and the Legacy of the Six-Day War:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/catch-67-micah-goodman/1128089735 The Wondering Jew: Israel and the Search for Jewish Identity: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-wondering-jew-micah-goodman/1136574622

On this podcast, we spend a lot of time discussing the rising threat from China and Cold War 2. We’ve hosted Matt Pottinger (episode #28), Josh Rogin (episode #17), and Admiral Stravidis (episode #44). We’ve also done an episode on the future of the movie industry, with John Podhoretz (episode #16). But what do China – and specifically Cold War II – and Hollywood have to do with one another? You may not have realized it, but when you watch movies like Skyfall, Mission Impossible III and World War Z, to name a few, you are watching a strange relationship at work between the Chinese Communist Party and one of America’s most influential exporters. It’s the fascinating and richly reported story told by Erich Schwartzel in his new book, Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy. Erich has reported on the film industry for the past decade for The Wall Street Journal. He’s based in the Journal’s LA bureau. Previously, he reported for The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette where he wrote extensively on the environment and the burgeoning energy industry there. To order Erich’s book: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/red-carpet-erich-schwartzel/1139401471

Is it too late to deter Russia from invading Ukraine? It certainly seems that way. And while it should be obvious that it does matter, at least as far as US interests are concerned, we are struck by how many pundits and political actors are questioning the stakes. We have received these questions in response to our recent episodes on the Russia-Ukraine crisis – the conversations with Walter Russell Mead and Richard Fontaine. On this episode, we attempt to answer them by calling on two experts, who come at global affairs from somewhat different perspectives. Dr. Evelyn Farkas had a direct role in the US response to the Russia-Ukraine crisis of 2014. She was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia, Balkans, Caucasus and conventional arms control. Prior to that, she was Senior Advisor to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Special Advisor to the Secretary of Defense for the NATO Summit. Earlier, Dr. Farkas was Executive Director of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. She was also a professor of international relations at the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College and is now president of Farkas Global Strategies. After Dr. Farkas, we’ll be joined by Bret Stephens of The New York Times. This is part II of our conversation with Stephens. In this episode, we talk to Stephens about the Biden administration’s handling of the Russia-Ukraine crisis, pivoting off President Biden’s troubling press conference.

Anti-semitism was tragically back in the news in recent days with the hostage-taking at the Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas. But was this event covered the way it should have been? Barely. And this tells us a lot about anti-Semitism during these times. Is this period different? Have we entered a ‘new normal’ for anti-Semitism? Is it just the extremes or are there now more enablers? Bret Stephens, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for The New York Times, joins us. Bret came to The Times after a long career with The Wall Street Journal, where he was most recently deputy editorial page editor and, for 11 years, a foreign affairs columnist. Before that, he was editor in chief of The Jerusalem Post. Bret has reported from around the world and interviewed scores of world leaders. He is also the author of "America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder.” Bret was raised in Mexico City, earned his BA at the University of Chicago and his Masters at the London School of Economics.

In these conversations, we’ve talked a lot about tensions on the Russia-Ukraine border. But what we haven’t talked about is whether Putin is actually trying to re-assemble the former Soviet Union, whether the US and NATO are prepared to arrest his march, and whether Putin has successfully driven a wedge between the US and Europe. What are the stakes for us? Walter Russell Mead joins us. He is the Global View columnist for The Wall Street Journal. His column appears weekly. Walter is also at the Hudson Institute, Bard College, and at the Council of Foreign Relationship he was the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy. He has authored numerous books, including “Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World”, which you can purchase here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/special-providence-walter-russell-mead/1126488390

On this podcast series, and in many other discussions and debates in think tanks and in the media, we often speculate about the likelihood of a kinetic conflict with China – is it inevitable? Or is it highly unlikely? But today we want to consider how a war would actually start, however grim this topic may be. It’s often hard to visualize what the trip wires would be. Admiral James Stavridis co-authored an entire book with Elliot Ackerman on the subject. It’s called “2034: A Novel of the Next World War”. Admiral James Stavridis is a retired four-star U.S. naval officer. He is currently Vice Chair, Global Affairs and Managing Director of The Carlyle Group, a global investment firm. He is also 12th Chair of Rockefeller Foundation board. Previously he served for five years as the 12th Dean of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He led the NATO Alliance in global operations from 2009 to 2013 as 16th Supreme Allied Commander with responsibility for Afghanistan, Libya, the Balkans, Syria, counter piracy, and cyber security. He also served as Commander of U.S. Southern Command, with responsibility for all military operations in Latin America from 2006-2009. He earned more than 50 medals, including 28 from foreign nations in his 37-year military career. Earlier in his military career he commanded the top ship in the Atlantic Fleet, winning the Battenberg Cup, as well as a squadron of destroyers and a carrier strike group – all in combat. Admiral Stavridis earned a PhD in international relations and has published eleven books and thousands of articles in leading journals around the world. His 2012 TED talk on global security has over one million views. Admiral Stavridis is a contributing editor for TIME Magazine and Chief International Security Analyst for NBC News. You can order his most recent book here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/2034-elliot-ackerman/1137207434

China is poised to pass one of the great demographic inflection points” – that’s according to the Financial Times. The inflection point the FT is referring to is that of diapers for the elderly growing into a larger market than diapers for infants. China won’t be the first. As far back as a decade ago in Japan, adult diapers started outselling infant diapers. What does that tell us about demographics, not just in China, but about the developing world as a whole? We are in the midst of a larger global trend that has not received enough attention: crashing fertility rates and shrinking populations. According to forecasts by an international team of scientists published last year in The Lancet, the world population will peak at 9.2 billion around 2065, and then drop to 8.8 billion by the end of the century. That’s a stunning difference -- if you take into account that in the 20th century world population grew 600%, from one billion to six billion. The Lancet study also found what the lead scientist for the project called a “jaw dropping” result: the population of twenty-three countries -- including Japan, Italy, Spain, and Thailand -- would drop by at least half by the end of the century. The U.S. and the rest of Europe are also headed for a worrisome situation. This is a trend that will have far-reaching implications for the 2020s. It will impact economics, geopolitics, culture…it could radically change the very nature of how our societies are organized. To get a crash course on the issue, we invited someone who has been screaming from the hilltops about this trend for a long time. Nicholas Eberstadt holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he researches and writes extensively on demographics and economic development generally. His many books and monographs include “Poverty in China”, “The Tyranny of Numbers”, “The End of North Korea”, “The Poverty of the Poverty Rate” and “Russia’s Peacetime Demographic Crisis”. His latest book is “Men Without Work: America’s Invisible Crisis”. Nick earned his PhD and masters degree in political economy from Harvard, and a Master of Science from the London School of Economics.

The Covid-19 recession technically ended in April 2020. At two months, it was one of the shortest economic recessions in history. Since then, we have experienced record inflation. Last summer, we sat down with Mohamed El-Erian, who was an early voice warning about the coming inflation, how to understand it, and what its implications could be. But were the inflationary trends already in place prior to the pandemic? Did the covid response policies of governments here and abroad accelerate those trends? And how do we unwind an inflationary cycle? Today we are reposting that conversation with. Dr Mohamed El-Erian is President of Queens' College, Cambridge University. He serves as part-time Chief Economic Advisor at Allianz and Chair of Gramercy Fund Management. He’s a Professor at The Wharton School, he is a Financial Times contributing editor, Bloomberg Opinion columnist, and the author of two New York Times best sellers. He serves on several non-profit boards, including the NBER, and those of Barclays and Under Armour. From 2007-2014, Mohammed served as CEO/co-CIO of PIMCO, which has over two trillion dollars under management. He worked at PIMCO for a total of fourteen years, and was chair of President Obama's Global Development Council. He also served two years as president and CEO of Harvard Management Company, the entity that manages Harvard’s endowment. He has been chair of the Microsoft Investment Advisory Board since 2007. He holds a master's degree and doctorate (economics) from Oxford and received his bachelor and master degrees from Cambridge University. Mohammed is expert in a lot of things when it comes to the financial markets and the macro economy, especially inflation. So he’s going to help us make sense of the madness. Is this inflation transitory or is it here to stay for a while, and if so, what should we do about it?

This week we are re-posting some of our episodes from 2021 that are most relevant right now. We’ll start with Matt Pottinger on recent developments in China. China’s borders have been sealed for almost two years. And those borders will be closed for the foreseeable future. That, obviously, is a result of the pandemic; but, is there a larger grand strategy at play? For decades now, China’s coupling with western economies has been the dominant theme of the global economic landscape - beginning with China’s 2001 accession to the World Trade Organization. But that’s been changing. Fast forward to a speech by President Xi Jinping to mark the hundred year anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party. He spoke before a massive crowd in Tiananmen Square: "The Chinese people", Xi said “will never allow any foreign force to bully, oppress, or enslave us. Anyone who tries to do so shall be battered and bloodied colliding with a great wall of steel forged by more than 1.4 billion Chinese people using flesh and blood.” Last summer, Chinese regulators announced an investigation into DiDi Global, a ride-hailing company, right after its IPO. DiDi had raised $4.4 billion in the biggest Chinese IPO in the U.S. since Alibaba’s in 2014. There have been similar moves against other Chinese companies listed in the US. Where will this go? Consider this: There are approximately 244 U.S. listed Chinese firms with a total market capitalization of around $1.8 trillion. Are we witnessing the decoupling of the US and China economies? Is this the one issue on which there seems to be a bipartisan consensus in the US? Is the Biden administration cementing the Trump policies towards China or reversing them? How is China dealing with the pandemic and how will it factor into the Chinese Communist Party’s next moves? There’s no better guest to help us understand what’s going on than Matt Pottinger. Matt covered China and lived in China as a journalist for Reuters and then The Wall Street Journal. He covered the first outbreak of SARS in China. He then, in his early 30s, made quite a career change. He enlisted in the US Marine Corps, and served in multiple combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Later on, Matt played an instrumental role in the geopolitical story of our time: reshaping the West’s relationship with China, when he served as the deputy National Security Advisor in the Trump administration, and he was the architect of the administration’s strategy towards China. Today, he is regularly called upon from policymakers on both sides of the aisle, to consult on US policy towards China. As we enter a new phase of pandemic, what is going on with the US-China relationship and how will it play out?

What about Omicron has most surprised the scientific community? What does it tell us about vaccines and where we’re heading? These are among the big questions we have for Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former Commissioner of the FDA and author of The New York Times Bestseller: “Uncontrolled Spread: Why COVID-19 Crushed Us and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic”. Scott currently serves on the boards of Pfizer, Illumina, Aetion, and Tempus. He is a special partner with the venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates, and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. You can order Scott Gottlieb’s book here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/uncontrolled-spread-scott-gottlieb/1139568341 And you can follow him on twitter here: @ScottGottliebMD

Russia poses a threat to Ukraine, again. But what about Russian President Putin’s threat to the unity of Europe, and what do recent developments tell us about global perceptions of America's geopolitical strength? Is Russia a declining power or is Russia on the march? Could it be both? Our guest, Richard Fontaine, is CEO of the Center for American Security. He was formerly the top foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain, deputy staff director on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and an official of the US State Department and National Security Council.

In this decade we may finally experience a true crack-up in higher education. There have been comparable periods on American college campuses in the past (in the 1960s and 1980s, for example). But our guest today, historian Niall Ferguson, believes what’s happening now is on a whole other level. Niall is doing something about it -- he’s starting a new university. Niall argues that parents -- who had enriching and intellectually diverse experiences when they went to college -- don’t fully appreciate that their own children will experience something completely different when they go off to university. Niall Ferguson has taught at Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford and New York University. He’s authored 17 books. He’s currently at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University where he is the MIllbank Family Senior Fellow, and Managing Director of Greenmantle, a macroeconomic and geopolitical advisory firm. Order Niall’s most recent book, “Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe” here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/doom-niall-ferguson/1137713414 Learn more about the University of Austin here: https://www.uaustin.org/ Learn more about Greenmantle here: https://www.gmantle.com/ Email me with questions, comments and ideas at Dan@unlocked.fm.

The first of our two-part conversation with Naill Ferguson is on applied history’s lessons of the 1920s and the 1970s...for the 2020s. Niall is a historian and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and he previously taught at Harvard, NYU and Oxford. He’s the managing director of Greenmantle, a macroeconomic and geopolitical advisory firm. Niall is also the author of 17 books including “The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook” and “Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe”.

Welcome to our new podcast, “Call Me Back”, where we try to zoom out from minute-to-minute news and look back to how we got here, what we can learn from earlier decades and where we might be going in these roaring and raging 2020s. In each episode, I’ll call a friend who is deeply immersed in some of the most transformative issues of our time. Broadly speaking, I want to focus this podcast on this decade we're in, the 2020s, because it strikes me that we’ll look back at the 2020s as one of the most consequential decades in modern history - from inflation and unprecedented fiscal and monetary policies, the technological transformation driven by AI, blockchain, and life sciences, to the rise of China and Cold War II, to declining American engagement in the Middle East and parts of Central Asia - all against the backdrop of culture wars, public safety breakdowns, and, of course, a public health crack-up as we come out of the pandemic. This podcast is a natural transition from our Post-Corona podcast, where we tried to understand larger trends being shaped and accelerated by the pandemic. No doubt, we’ll continue to delve into those topics on this new podcast, as we haven’t fully processed how profound and long-lasting some of these changes will be. We’ll also try to feature guests that can help us provide some historical context, to call us back to a previous period, where we can learn a thing or two from the past about what we’re dealing with now. Our first episode will be this week, with historian, author and daring public intellectual Niall Ferguson. Look out for it. And feel free to drop me a line with ideas for the new podcast at Dan@unlocked.fm

The recent electoral outcomes in Virginia, New Jersey, New York City, Buffalo, Minneapolis and other areas across the country were as much to do with the pandemic -- and the economic and cultural shocks from the pandemic -- as anything. Was it a political blip or some kind of realignment? Where does the Democratic Party go from here? And what about the Republican Party? What does it mean for Joe Biden and Donald Trump? Is the Glenn Youngkin campaign a model for our future politics? Matthew Continetti is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, founding editor of The Washington Free Beacon, and a columnist for Commentary Magazine. He’s also the author of several books. He has a new book being released in April 2022, called “The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism”.

Have we revolutionized vaccine development? What does this mean for our lives and our health well beyond the vaccine for Covid-19? Could this kind of life sciences revolution only happen in America? And what about Operation Warp Speed? Is it a model for future public-private partnerships to solve big problems? Greg Zuckerman of The Wall Street Journal joins the podcast to discuss his new and fascinating book, “A Shot to Save the World: The Inside Story of the Life-or-Death Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine.”   Greg’s previous books include: “The Man Who Solved The Market:  How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution”, and then there was “The Greatest Trade Ever”, “The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters”, and “Rising Above: How 11 Athletes Overcame Challenges in Their Youth to Become Stars”. Greg is s a Special Writer and investigative reporter  at The Wall Street Journal, ​a 20-year veteran of the paper and a three-time winner of the Gerald Loeb award — the highest honor in business journalism.

In the middle of the pandemic, Dr. Nicholas Christakis released a sweeping book, called “Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live”. In it, he drew on scientific, medical, and sociological research, and assessed the transmission of the virus, responses worldwide, and prognosis for the pandemic’s end, including some bold predictions. The paperback edition is just out with some new material.

During the pandemic, standardized tests were suspended in an entire range of educational institutions. Will these changes be temporary or permanent? More than 600 of these institutions switched from a mandatory to optional test for the 2020-21 application season, and many just flat out refused to accept a test at all in their application process. According to the editor in chief of the Princeton Review, “That is a tectonic change for many schools.” According to Smithsonian Magazine, “The pandemic sped up changes that were already afoot; even before Covid, more than 1,000 colleges had made the tests optional. Many had been turned off by the way the tests perpetuated socioeconomic disparities, limiting their ability to recruit a diverse freshman class.” Concerns about disparities in outcomes, at the core of this massive shift, have been behind Mayor Bill DeBlasio’s agenda in New York City, including his past efforts to eliminate the entrance exam for the City’s seven specialized high schools. While that effort has experienced a setback in the State Legislature, the fight will likely carry on by other political leaders. And more recently, the Mayor announced a plan to make sweeping changes to the gifted program in the City’s elementary schools. There are similar efforts in other cities across the country. Joining today’s conversation is Adrian Wooldridge, a longtime journalist at The Economist, where he is political editor and writes a column on British life and politics, and before that he penned the Schumpeter column on business, finance and management. He was previously the Washington bureau chief for The Economist, where he also wrote the Lexington column. Prior to his role in Washington, he was The Economist‘s West Coast correspondent, management correspondent and Britain correspondent. Adrian has written a number of books. His most recent books include “Capitalism in America: A History”, which he co-authored with Alan Greenspan, “The Wake-Up Call: Why the Pandemic Has Exposed the Weakness of the West, and How to Fix It”, which he co-wrote with John Micklethwait of Bloomberg News, and just out this year: “The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World”. Adrian’s most recent book has been shortlisted for The Financial Times and McKinsey Book of the Year Award. Feel free to drop us a line with questions, feedback and ideas for the new podcast at Dan@unlocked.fm

JASON RILEY’S BOOK: “Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell”https://m.barnesandnoble.com/w/maverick-jason-riley/1137602681?ean=9781541619685 THOMAS SOWELL’S BOOKS:https://m.barnesandnoble.com/s/Thomas%20sowell To write-in about the new podcast, please email: dan@unlocked.fm

Books and essays discussed in this episode: Shall We Wake the President: Two Centuries of Disaster Management from the Oval Office by Tevi Troyhttps://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/shall-we-wake-the-president-tevi-troy/1132107909 “Presidents and Public-Health Crises” in National Affairs by Tevi Troyhttps://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/presidents-and-public-health-crises “Operation Warp Speed: A Story Yet to be Told”by  Alex Tabarrok in Marginal Revolutionhttps://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/09/operation-warp-speed-a-story-yet-to-be-told.html

On this podcast, we’ve talked to a lot of policy-makers, pundits, professionals and practitioners about big picture trends they are observing and experiencing as a result of the pandemic. Today, however, we are going more micro. We'll talk to a venture capitalist about his portfolio of start-ups, and how those companies have been impacted by changes in the way we work and live, and what they tell us. Michael Eisenberg is a General Partner at the Tel Aviv-based Aleph, which is an early stage venture capital fund with over $500M under management. Since its founding in 2013, Aleph has invested in more than 40 companies including Melio, Lemonade (NYSE: LMND), Bringg, JoyTunes, Healthy.io, Windward, Empathy and Nexar. Prior to Aleph, Michael was a General Partner at Benchmark Capital for 8 years, the legendary Silicon Valley-based VC firm, and he continues to work with Benchmark on their Israeli portfolio. Since around 1995, Michael has invested in and served on the boards of some of Israel’s leading companies and startups, such as Wix (Nasdaq: WIX), Gigya (acquired SAP), Shopping.com (Nasdaq: SHOP, acquired: EBAY), and Lemonade (NYSE: LMND). Michael is also the author of a fun and smart blog, called “Six Kids and a Full Time Job”, which covers topics ranging from politics to technology, Judaism and macroeconomics. The title of his blog is misleading because now Michael actually has 8 kids and 2 grandchildren - and he’s only at the tender age of 50! He is a frequent contributor to The Marker and Calcalist, Israel's Hebrew-language daily business newspapers. Michael has also published numerous books in Hebrew, including “The Vanishing Jew”, “Everyone can be Moses” and “Roaring Tribe”. Among other projects during the pandemic, Michael worked on translating his most recent book into English: "The Tree of Life and Prosperity: 21st Century Business Principles from the Book of Genesis”. Given his experience as a successful investor and business builder, and his deep literacy in Judaism, he’s the ideal person to tackle this subject and we’ll talk about his book in this conversation.

To find the published pieces discussed in this episode: “What the Coronavirus Crisis Reveals About American Medicine”, by Sid Mukherjee, The New Yorker (April 27, 2020) : https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/04/what-the-coronavirus-crisis-reveals-about-american-medicine For all of Sid’s pieces published in The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/siddhartha-mukherjee “What We Have Gotten Right in the COVID FIGHT”, by Yuval Levin, Commentary Magazine (September 2021): https://www.commentary.org/articles/yuval-levin/americas-record-during-covid/

The Pandemic has either caused a crack-up in our politics or accelerated the crack-up that was well under way. And just when it looked like things were stabilizing, the politics of Covid have evolved along with the Delta variant. Ground zero for how this is playing out right now is California. California is home to approximately 40 million people and the 5th largest economy in the world. It’s about to have an election on whether to re-call its incumbent governor, Gavin Newsom. How California voters have experienced government regulations — from lockdowns, mask mandates, school closings, and not to mention double-standards — shapes the political environment there. Is this a harbinger of what’s to come to our national politics? To help us understand what’s going on in California is the strategist who masterminded the last successful recall election. Mike Murphy was the chief strategist for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s election in 2003, which was a re-call of then-Governor Gray Davis. Mike’s campaign resumé goes well beyond California. His past clients include the successful gubernatorial campaigns of Mitt Romney in MA, Jeb Bush in FL, John Engler in Michigan and Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin. And that doesn’t include all the Senate races he’s worked on. Mike has also worked on campaigns in Europe and Canada. And he was the chief strategist on John McCain’s maverick presidential primary campaign in 2000 and remained a close advisor to the late-Senator McCain for years. Today, you can catch Mike on the top-rated podcast, “Hacks on Tap” with David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs. He’s a political analyst on MSNBC and NBC, and he co-authors a weekly newsletter with his latest political analysis: hacksontap.bulletin.com. At the University of Southern California, he is the Co-Director of the USC Center for the Political Future. This episode covers a lot of pandemic-related political trend analysis. But first, given the tragic news out of Afghanistan this past week, the episode begins with Mike’s thoughts on President Biden and this crisis. Regardless of what one thinks of President Biden’s policy in Afghanistan, a lot will depend on how our president performs in reassuring the American public and our allies abroad. This episode begins with a discussion on President Biden and Afghanistan and then the second half looks at political trends during the Delta phase of covid.

A few websites referenced in this episode:AEI's Critical Threats Project: https://www.aei.org/profile/frederick-w-kagan/Institute for the Study of War: https://www.understandingwar.org/Long War Journal: www.longwarjournal.orgA recent oped that Fred Kagan published in The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/opinion/biden-afghanistan-taliban.htmlAnd a recent column by Charles Lane in The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/17/bidens-presidency-us-foreign-policy-now-hinge-pulling-off-one-greatest-airlifts-history/

China’s borders have been sealed for well over a year now. And those borders will be closed for the foreseeable future. That, obviously, is a result of the pandemic; but, is there a larger grand strategy at play? For decades now, China’s coupling with western economies has been the dominant theme of the global economic landscape - beginning with China’s 2001 accession to the World Trade Organization. But that’s been changing. Fast forward to a speech by President Xi Jinping to mark the hundred year anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party. He spoke before a massive crowd in Tiananmen Square: "The Chinese people", Xi said “will never allow any foreign force to bully, oppress, or enslave us. Anyone who tries to do so shall be battered and bloodied colliding with a great wall of steel forged by more than 1.4 billion Chinese people using flesh and blood.” On July 2, Chinese regulators announced an investigation into DiDi Global, a ride-hailing company, right after its IPO. DiDi had raised $4.4 billion in the biggest Chinese IPO in the U.S. since Alibaba’s in 2014. There have been similar moves against other Chinese companies listed in the US. Where will this go? Consider this: There are currently 244 U.S. listed Chinese firms with a total market capitalization of around $1.8 trillion, equivalent to some 4% of the U.S. stock market’s capitalization. Are we witnessing the decoupling of the US and China economies? Is this the one issue on which there seems to be a bipartisan consensus in the US? Is the Biden administration cementing the Trump policies towards China or reversing them? How is China dealing with the Delta variant and how will it factor into the Chinese Communist Party’s next moves? There’s no better guest to help us understand what’s going on than Matt Pottinger. Matt covered China and lived in China as a journalist for Reuters and then The Wall Street Journal. He covered the first outbreak of SARS in China. He then, in his early 30s, made quite a career change. He enlisted in the US Marine Corps, and served in multiple combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Later on, Matt played an instrumental role in the geopolitical story of our time: reshaping the West’s relationship with China, when he served as the deputy National Security Advisor in the Trump administration, and he was the architect of the administration’s strategy towards China. Today, he is regularly called upon from policymakers on both sides of the aisle, to consult on US policy towards China. As we enter a new phase of pandemic, what is going on with the US-China relationship and how will it play out?

https://www.ft.com/content/77ed35a0-cf91-4c7e-b779-a57ecc6b1045

This was supposed to be the summer that we returned to normal, here in New York City and in every major city around the world. Right? But now there’s increasing speculation that it might not happen, because of the Delta variant, and other variants that may hit us from the mutating virus. How should our government and public health leaders respond? How should we respond? We wanted to sit down with frequent Post-Corona guest John Podhoretz for a midsummer check-in on where we are with the City’s return. Specifically, we wanted to return to a topic John joined us to discuss last year - Broadway - when would Broadway really re-open, as that’s a proxy for New York’s return to its vibrant and striving pre-Corona past. John Podhoretz is the editor-in-chief of Commentary Magazine, a columnist for the New York Post, and a long-time writer about live theater, films and popular culture. He’s also a fellow New Yorker, with whom I banter with on an ongoing basis about the state of our City. Keep in mind, pre-Corona, Broadway attracted some 15 million theater-goers and close to $2 billion in revenues in a typical year. And that doesn’t even include all the other derivative jobs that are generated from millions of theater-goers attending shows each year. According to New York City’s tourism agency, in a typical year, there are 66 million visitors to NYC, generating $72B in economic activity and $7B in tax revenues. According to the organization Broadway League, close to $15 billion of that economic activity and 100,000 jobs here come from people going to shows, and visiting restaurants, hotels, transportation, and all the other local services tied to the theater experience. Lots of excitement around Springsteen having re-opened his show on Broadway, but who else? Is this pop culture economy of New York coming back? If not, is that because of structural obstacles with New York’s overall return? Or is the Delta variant the new game-changer? And what about Eric Adams - the favorite to be New York’s next mayor - what do we think of his plans to bring this City back to life? We’ll get into all these topics against the backdrop of Delta and New York.

Who do presidents, prime ministers and business leaders listen to in the midst of managing a crisis? It’s a question that’s always interested me, from my time in government and business and also as a moon-lighting student of history. I thought about that a lot during the covid pandemic. On this podcast series, we’ve talked about how the formal channels in our governments performed these past 18 months. But how about those unofficial channels from outside the government that wind up shaping our leaders' thinking and approach to world-changing events. Think about the number of informed practitioners that government leaders had access to during Covid, outside the regular bureaucracy of government. Practitioners in everything from the markets, to experience with supply chains, to the front lines of medicines. How many of these people had relationships with our leaders from a previous time in their lives, that could or should have made their mark during this moment? We are talking about a different category of presidential advisor. It’s what Gary Ginsberg calls “First Friends”, the title of his new book - the subtitle is “The Powerful, Unsung (And Unelected) People Who Shaped Our Presidents” Gary has a fascinating background, having advised Governor Bill Clinton in his selection of Al Gore as vice-president, and served in the Clinton White House and Justice Department. He also worked for Rupert Murdoch, Jeff Bewkes at Time Warner, Masa Son at Softbank and Mike Bloomberg. He informally advised Israel’s former prime minister during a tumultuous time in US-Israel relations. He’s worked with a lot of leaders up close and observed how they make decisions. Gary’s book is a compelling history of the way US presidents have relied on outside counsel in the midst of chaos. He gives us plenty to think about how our current and future leaders will navigate the next crisis, and who they should rely on.

Yuval currently wears three hats:At the American Enterprise Institute think tank, he’s the Director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies.He’s the editor-in-chief of National Affairs, a quarterly journal of essays about domestic policy, political economy, and political thought. He’s also authored numerous books. In addition to “A Time To Build”, I also highly recommend “The Fractured Republic”, and also “The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left”.Yuval served as a member of the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush. He was also executive director of the President’s Council on Bioethics. He earned his masters and PhD from the University of Chicago.

Many have been surprised that areas of the real estate market are booming, Post Corona. So what do we know about the pandemic’s impact on an exodus from some cities, and the growth of other cities? One of the ways that I have learned on this limited series podcast is from our top flight guests, but also from our listeners. A business practitioner - an operator or investor - will hear one of our experts on the pod and get a hold of me with an alternative analysis; it’s like I get to crowdsource ideas from our listeners. Well today, we’re bringing one of those subscribers on the show. Jonathan Pollack is a Senior Managing Director at the Blackstone Group and Blackshone’s Global Head of the Real Estate Debt Strategies group. Blackstone is one of the largest owners of real estate in the world. Jon, who is based in New York, manages a large team, overseeing Blackstone’s real estate debt investment strategy. He’s also a member of the firm’s real estate investment committee, and serves on the board of Blackstone Mortgage Trust. Prior to joining Blackstone, he was a Managing Director and Global Head of Commercial Real Estate, as well as Head of Risk for Structured Finance, at Deutsche Bank. To call Jonathan Pollack a “New York Bull” may be overstating it, but let’s just say he’s a skeptic of some of the skeptics we have featured on Post Corona. So is real estate in New York and other big cities coming back? And what does it tell us about the future of cities? Or - did the Pandemic set them back in ways that will take too long to recover from?

We thank the 92nd Street Y for hosting us then, and for this podcast episode now. You can subscribe to the 92Y podcast here:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/92y-talks/id905112228

One piece that we reference throughout both discussions is by former New York Times science reporter Nicholas Wade that he published on Medium. Here is the link to Wade’s piece: https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-the-clues-6f03564c038

Danny is also a columnist for Bloomberg View and he's the author of more than ten books. Here are three that I highly recommend: his history of the State of Israel, entitled Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn, his biography of Menachem Begin: The Battle for Israel’s Soul, and more recently We Stand Divided: The Rift Between American Jews and Israel.You can find his newsletter here: https://danielgordis.substack.com

News just out of the CDC has created fresh opportunities for normal, communal time together, indoors — just like we did pre-Corona. One of the rituals I have missed over the past year has been attending synagogue. But long before the Covid-19 pandemic, participation in organized religion - across all walks of religious life - was on the decline. Americans had become less engaged in religious institutions, whether it was regular attendance or membership and donations to their local congregation. Did the pandemic arrest these trends? Did virtual platforms provide new opportunities for religious and communal engagement? Joel Kotkin is a professor and bestselling author. He has been described by The New York Times as “America’s uber-geographer.” He has authored numerous books, including The Coming of Neo-Feudalism, and also The Human City: Urbanism for the Rest of Us. He is also a regular contributor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal. Joel recently authored an essay for Quillette that got me thinking more about all of this. It’s titled “God and the Pandemic” and it’s what I wanted to unpack with him today. Will coronavirus have further isolated Americans from organized religion, or drawn them closer to religion in a durable way?

Social links:Amit Aronsohn on InstagramYonatan Sagiv on TwitterYaara Keydar on InstagramDanna Stern on Twitter

Josh Rogin is a long-time foreign affairs journalist, currently a columnist for the Global Opinions Section of the Washington Post. He’s also a Political Analyst for CNN.

That phrase - going to the movies - that shared experience in a movie theater full of strangers already makes me nostalgic, like listening to vinyl records. Before the pandemic, the movie theater business was an 11-billion dollar industry in the US alone. In 2020, there were approximately 40,000 screens in 5,798 theaters that employed over 115,000 people. Then, of course, in March of 2020, like all communal entertainment experiences, they were all shut down. Netflix, Amazon and Disney, which were already increasing their market share of the movie experience, replaced movie theaters overnight. But as we crawl out of the pandemic to a post-corona world, will the tension build to return to the movies? Right now, we are seeing early signs of a market for the sanctity of the movie theater experience. To help us understand the history of the film business and where it goes from here, post-corona, John Podhoretz returns to our conversation. He’s been a prolific film critic for over four decades. John is editor in chief of Commentary Magazine and host of Commentary’s award-winning daily podcast, he’s a columnist for the New York Post, a book author, and was film critic for the Weekly Standard and television critic for the New York Post. Are movies as we’ve watched them for the past century — over? Were movie theaters already in decline and the pandemic simply accelerated the race to the inevitable? Or are we itching to get back out… to go to movies?

The price of college has been skyrocketing over the past few decades, escalating far higher and faster than the rate of inflation. According to one study, the cost of tuition at many schools is up by well over 1000% in less than a half century. For what? What about the product offering has actually changed? That’s a question that came into sharp focus as millions of students last March flocked to Zoom University...overnight.As recently as three years ago, one of my favorite business school professors, the late Clay Christensen, predicted half of all colleges in the US would close some time this decade...that their business models would be unsustainable and would be disrupted. And, then, of course, there was the pandemic. So, was Clay Christensen right?

Before joining The Times, Maggie was a reporter at Politico, The New York Post and The New York Daily News. She’s a lifelong New Yorker. According to a profile piece about Maggie, she’s written or co-written more than a story a day, and stories with her byline have accounted for hundreds of millions of page views last year alone. That’s more than anyone else at The Times.

To learn more about 'Vaccination Nation' visit startupnationcentral.org

Jim is the former editor of Popular Mechanics, where he helped reposition that century-old brand to become a major voice on contemporary tech issues. He currently co-hosts the How Do We Fix It? podcast and is working on a book about man-made disasters. Previously, Jim was executive editor at National Geographic Adventure.  He’s the monthly tech columnist for Commentary Magazine and is with the Manhattan Institute, the most important urban policy think tank in the U.S.

In addition to 60 Minutes, John  recently published his third book, the New York Times Best-Seller The Hardest Job in the World: The American Presidency. John’s a long-time and award-winning television and print journalist. He was previously co-anchor of CBS This Morning. Before that, he was the anchor of “Face The Nation”. John is also a contributing writer to The Atlantic and co-host of Slate’s “Political Gabfest” podcast and host of the Whistlestop podcast. John has also moderated presidential debates. And was a long-time correspondent for Time Magazine, where he covered the White House.

Bret is a Pulitzer Prize winner and an op ed columnist for the Times, where his column appears Thursdays and Saturdays.Bret is the author of "America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder". He was raised in Mexico City, he has studied at the University of Chicago and  the London School of Economics. In recent years he and his family were splitting their  time living between New York City and Hamburg.

As we post this podcast, the US has vaccinated about 7.6  percent of our population, The UK is at 11.7%. Canada and Germany are hovering around  2.5 percent, France is at 1.7 percent, and Israel is at Over 50%.Scott and I have been talking, and he has laid out a pretty interesting take on how we’ll quickly hit a tipping point on vaccinations, when we won’t have a vaccine supply problem, but a consumer demand problem, meaning not enough people lining up for the vaccine. Scott also has insights into the new variants, what a gradual post-corona return to normalcy could look like, and perhaps most concerning - what we have learned about future national security risks from viruses as bio-weapons?

We’ve had a public health shock, followed by an economic shock, followed by a civic and societal shock. An emerging crisis in public security looms over the Coronavirus era… here in New York City, and in cities across the country.Is the connection between the breakdown in public health and the breakdown in public safety causation or correlation? Was this crime wave inevitable and Covid simply accelerated it? What do we need to do to bring basic safety back to our cities?

As we post this podcast, the US has vaccinated about 2 percent of its population, Canada is at 0.5 percent, France is at 0.001 percent, and Israel? 20 percent. By the end of this week, Israel will have vaccinated two-thirds of its population over 60 years old and most of the country’s medical staff, at which point they will all be called back for their second vaccination.According to international studies, Israel’s healthcare system has been ranked among the most efficient in the world. And due to big data and AI, the Israeli health system is certainly one of the most digitally advanced.What will we learn from Israel about a key stage of Post-Corona once it gets there?

To call 2021 a historic year is an understatement. But what’s less obvious is how to put the pandemic of 2020 in a historical context. What lessons can be learned about our response to past public health crises? Can these lessons be applied to the one we’re living through now, and what may lie ahead, post-Corona?As we transition from this most unusual year, Dan checks in with Niall Ferguson. Niall is a historian and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and he’s the managing director of Greenmantle, a macroeconomic and geopolitical advisory firm. Niall is also the author of 15 books including The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook. From the earliest days of the pandemic, Niall assembled a slide deck to chronicle everything he was learning about the crisis as it unfolded and provided historical context for his analysis. Almost weekly, he’d update the deck and share it with friends and colleagues, which came to be known as the “Monster Deck” -- now close to a thousand slides. It came to inform a lot of Dan's thinking about Covid 19 and much of it can be found in a book he’s been working on during the pandemic, called Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe.In today’s conversation, we’ll look back at 2020, as we look ahead to 2021.

Is New York over? It’s a question that’s hotly debated these days. We will return to this question from time to time over a number of episodes in the months ahead. Last week we hosted two experts from the Manhattan Institute to look at the future of subways. On this episode, we take a look at Broadway. The industry of live theater and arguably the beating heart of midtown Manhattan, Broadway has become big business -- and a big employer; it’s central to New York City’s economy. But on March 12, the lights on Broadway went dark. The ecosystem of employees and employers that populate this live theater ecosystem scattered.To help us understand the short history of Broadway’s economic boom and where it goes from here, post-Corona, is a writer, public intellectual, and culture critic, John Podhoretz. John is editor in chief of Commentary Magazine and host of Commentary’s award-winning daily podcast, he’s a columnist for the New York Post, a book author, and was a film critic for the Weekly Standard. When will Broadway return? What would it take to bring it back? And what will Broadway look like when we get out of this mess?

Is New York over? It’s a question that’s widely debated these days. We will return to this question from time to time in a number of episodes. On this episode, we look at subways. During the pandemic, subway ridership has been down as much as 90%.While we’re focused on NYC, this topic matters to everyone living or working in megacities around the world. NYC is a Microcosm.What’s the state of our subways? Will they come back? What do we need to do to save and transform public transportation?On this episode Dan welcomes:-Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow for the infrastructure economy at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor at City Journal, and a columnist for the NY Post. @nicolegelinas-Reihan Salam, the president of the Manhattan Institute, bestselling author, and contributing editor at The Atlantic and National Affairs. @Reihan

Dan sits down with Billy Beane, who became famous outside the world of sports when Brad Pitt portrayed him in the film adaptation of Michael Lewis’s bestselling book, Moneyball. Since March, Billy has been thinking a lot about how the Coronavirus will change sports. Why does this matter? Well, global sports is estimated to be a half-a-trillion dollar industry and growing.  That’s until Covid 19 made its debut, earlier this year. What has the sports industry learned from this unprecedented time? How will sports be transformed?

After a macro conversation on the societal effects of shifts in the workforce, Dan sits down with Adam Grant to understand the implications of remote work on individuals.  As a professor of organizational psychology at Wharton, Adam dives into the potential long-lasting effects of a new work from home culture. What are some of the benefits of remote work that we’d want to continue after the pandemic is over? How will the fusion of personal and professional life affect our habits, identity, and culture?In this episode, Dan and Adam discuss  the potential boom of entrepreneurship and creativity in a Post Corona world.

When the global economy came to a halt this spring, tens of millions of American workers found themselves working from home - and millions more found themselves unemployed. Derek explains the potential long term implications of an economy with a large “telepresence.”How might this shift out of offices and even out of cities affect America’s cultural and economic future? Dan and Derek sit down to discuss what a Post Corona world might look like.

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