‘It’s horrific. We begged our government to prevent this’: Australian Jews are angry after the Bondi terror attack

Australian Jews are “shocked but not surprised” by the “horrific” mass shooting on Bondi Beach, which turned a Hanukkah celebration into a tragic massacre, Australian Jewish leader Lynda Ben-Menashe said on the Haaretz Podcast.  In the two years since the October 7 attack in Israel, the Australian…

U.S. Jews and Israel 'are no longer exceptional': Dahlia Lithwick and Joshua Leifer on being 'Trump's chess pieces'

When it comes to liberal American Jews and President Donald Trump, the “cognitive dissonance is real,” said award-winning journalist Dahlia Lithwick on the Haaretz Podcast.  While Lithwick “doesn’t dispute for a minute" the fact that the U.S. president and his envoys “did yeoman’s work” negotiatin…

Freed hostage Elizabeth Tsurkov: 'I survived months of torture in Iraq – I won't be silenced in Israel'

After Russian-Israeli academic Elizabeth Tsurkov was freed from captivity in Iraq in September following two and a half years of imprisonment and torture, she returned to a very different Israel, she said in a wide-ranging interview on the Haaretz Podcast.  Israelis “have changed in very fundament…

'Neutrality is not a sexy choice to make': Israel Red Cross chief regrets 'unsuccessful' attempts to assist hostages

In his first interview since his release, former hostage Alon Ohel called the International Committee of the Red Cross a “disgraceful organization.” His anger reflects a general bitterness among Israelis who believe ICRC failed to ensure the Israeli hostages’ received humanitarian treatment in capt…

Trump ‘emboldened’ Netanyahu to seek a pardon: Dahlia Scheindlin on Israel’s latest political bombshell

There was a clear “threat” delivered in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s formal letter to the President Isaac Herzog requesting a pardon in his corruption case, senior Haaretz columnist Dahlia Scheindlin said on the Haaretz Podcast.  Netanyahu’s government continues to conduct a “campai…

From Gaza to Epstein: Why Israel is losing MAGA and the evangelicals

The feud between U.S. President Donald Trump and MAGA congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene may not be exclusively about Israel, “but Israel is one of the pillars of the narrative” that fueled Greene’s decision to resign earlier this week, Haaretz’s Washington correspondent Ben Samuels told the Haar…

‘It pays for Netanyahu to keep the Gaza and Lebanon fronts open’: Amos Harel on intensifying Israeli airstrikes during the cease-fires

Now that all of Israel’s living hostages are home and the vast majority of the bodies of deceased hostages have been returned, the “line of thinking” among many Israeli military and political leaders is “we have nothing to lose” and “we can continue our fight against Hamas,” says Haaretz senior sec…

‘Germany’s far right still hates Jews. They just hate Muslims more’

Haaretz held its first-ever conference in Berlin, “Fault Lines and Futures: Israel, Gaza and Germany in Wartime and After," to explore the dynamic between Israelis, Palestinians and Germans at this charged moment; this special edition of the Haaretz Podcast features highlights of those conversation…

Why another, even bloodier, Israel-Iran war may be ‘just around the corner’

Iran remains a major threat to Israel and the United States – with clear ambitions to expand its influence and terror activity into the Western hemisphere, said Danny Citrinowicz, a former IDF military intelligence officer and Iran expert at the Institute for National Security Studies, speaking on …

‘Settler violence is out of control': How a 'perfect storm' of IDF-backed attacks and Israel's extremist government is terrorizing the West Bank

Olive harvest season has become a flashpoint in the West Bank in recent years as extremist Israeli settlers regularly threaten and physically harm Palestinian harvesters, but this year, “the situation on the ground is out of control,” Anton Goodman of Rabbis for Human Rights said on the Haaretz Pod…