Haaretz Podcast

U.S. President Donald Trump endorsed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, in a move that was both unprecedented and unexpected at this point in the campaign.
With only a week left before the Israeli election, Haaretz English editor Yishai Halper said on the Haaretz Podcast that he doesn’t believe Trump's "October surprise" is enough for people on the right or the left "to make a significant change in their vote.”
"It is almost taken for granted that Trump is behind Netanyahu, and he may even amp up his endorsements in the coming days," he said, "It's an October surprise in the sense that he finally did this. The impact, I think, will be anything but a surprise.”
Also on the podcast, Haaretz correspondents Judy Maltz and Nagham Zbeedat assess the state of the race, polling and the mood of the Israeli voting public.
Zbeedat, who covers Palestinian affairs, said that the Arab majority parties are seeing the effect of many Arab citizens who previously boycotted national elections, or stayed home out of indifference or hopelessness, who are voting this year. This is mainly "because of the gun violence in the Arab community, and also because of the recent attempts to disqualify Arab parties.”
Maltz, who recently visited Gadi Eisenkot's hometown of Eilat, discussed the racist attacks on him from Netanyahu supporters. She also described the jittery mood among anti-Netanyahu voters across the country, as Election Day approaches. “People are not sleeping at night. People are talking about, ‘What are we going to do if Netanyahu pulls it off again? Where are we going to go? Can we stay here?’ It is that bad.”
Read more:
Trump Just Handed Netanyahu His October Surprise. Will It Pay Off?
Pro-Netanyahu Pundit Calls Eisenkot 'Moroccan Monkey' Controlled by Ashkenazi Elite
In Eilat, Gadi Eisenkot Has the Hometown Advantage. Is It Enough to Shake Netanyahu?
Explained: How Can Israelis Still Vote for Netanyahu?
Abu Shehadeh's Withdrawal Leaves Palestinians With a Political Dilemma
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The Iran war, like so many that came before it, centers on energy’s crucial role in geopolitics, according to Hebrew University historian Dr. Guy Laron, though international leaders often downplay or ignore it.
“Time and again, leaders speak in the language of values, security, justice, freedom, while chasing oil behind the scenes,” Laron said, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast in a discussion of the increasingly complicated geopolitics of the ongoing regional conflict in the wake of February’s U.S.-Israel attack on Iran and its effect on energy markets.
Historically, he added, even wars that don’t begin with energy at the center of the conflict often evolve into ‘oil wars’ once countries fighting for domination and influence are impacted by the necessity of access to tremendous levels of fuel to power both land and naval military forces.
Speaking on the podcast, Laron, the author of the new book "Oil Wars: The Struggle for Control that has Shaped the Modern World," (Yale University Press) noted how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used “energy calculus” to sell President Donald Trump on the attack and discussed the missteps that have left the White House mired in the region after Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz - something that the U.S. president “was told that this is exactly what would happen, and he still took the risk,” Laron said.
“Trump was dumb enough to think that what he did in Venezuela - in America’s backyard - he can do in the Middle East in the same way.”
Read more:
Houthis Claim Another Attack on Riyadh Airport, Threaten Saudi Oil Sites
As the Election Clock Ticks Down, Netanyahu Is Running Out of Wars to Win
Will Trump Defend Saudi Arabia From Houthi Attacks – and How Far Will He Go?
Trump's Iran War: Without Strategy, There Is No Path to Victory
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Leaders of far-right parties running in the Israeli elections are openly campaigning on platforms that advocate expelling Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank.
On the Haaretz Podcast, senior analyst Esther Solomon and correspondent Linda Dayan discussed the platforms of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and ex-general Ofer Winter, both of whom are wooing voters by attacking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government from the right.
Ben-Gvir in particular is proudly “promoting a platform for ‘voluntarily‘ expelling Palestinians from every single part from Gaza and the West Bank,” Solomon said.
Winter included his longtime support for “voluntary emigration” from Gaza in the platform of his new Amcha Israel party, in an effort Solomon described as being designed to appeal to far-right voters dissatisfied with Netanyahu, but “who are a little bit disgusted by some of the crude ways that Ben-Gvir operates. They like their candidates to look a bit nicer.”
Dayan, who recently attended a Winter campaign event aimed at English-speaking voters, said that Winter’s party’s positions articulated by the candidates on his list and their supporters are “a profoundly bizarre rejection of reality.”
Together with host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Solomon and Dayan assessed the state of the race, which is increasingly shaping up into a likely deadlock, with neither the pro-Netanyahu nor the (Jewish, Zionist) anti-Netanyahu bloc coming close to achieving a 61-seat majority, according to the polls.
Read more:
Israel Election Poll: Eisenkot Bloc Continues Slump as Netanyahu's Coalition Gains Ground
Countdown to Election Day: A Road Trip Through a Country Deciding Its Future
America's Right Is Tired of Israel and Jews. NatCon Jerusalem Confirms It
This Leader of a Small, Far-Right Party Wants Netanyahu Fans to Take a Chance on Him
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The decision by Israel’s top generals and intelligence chiefs not to put the IDF on high alert in the hours before October 7 was “the worst gamble in Israeli military history,” according to senior defense analyst Amos Harel, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast on the third anniversary of the attack by Hamas on southern Israel.
“They terribly, tragically underestimated both Hamas’ capabilities and its actual intentions that night,” Harel said.
Harel is the author of “6:29: Anatomy of a Failure,” the first and most complete account of the chain of mistakes by the country’s top military and political echelons leading up to the devastating events of that day.
On the podcast, Harel recounts the military and political mistakes that were made, pinning them on “arrogance” and a “condescending” misreading of Hamas’ capabilities and determination – and how their failures have shaken Israeli citizen’s belief that they are “in safe hands.”
“We have the best air force in the region, one of the best in the world. We have the technology. We have the operational understanding, and so on, and yet we were taken by complete surprise,” he noted.
Harel also discusses the legacy of October 7, including how it is shaping Israel’s upcoming election, and the narrative crafted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that has allowed him to maintain political viability as he runs a campaign that exploits fears of a repeat of the disaster, all while blocking the formation of an October 7 commission of inquiry or any other comprehensive investigation, and fanning the flames of conspiracy theories.
Netanyahu, he said, is “fighting for his life by any means necessary. Everything is worth it in order to maintain power and stay out of jail.”
Read more:
Analysis by Amos Harel | Three Years After Hamas Attacked on October 7, Israel Has Yet to Start Reckoning With Its Failures
October 7: How Hamas Attacked Israel, Minute by Minute
Protests Across Israel Mark Third Anniversary of October 7
Israel's October 7 Leaders Mourned the Dead – and Celebrated Their Own Survival
Op-ed | My Mother Was a Peace Activist Killed on October 7. Don't Use Her Name to Justify Mass Killing
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu handling of the crisis after the Flydubai attack demonstrated his “facility at dominating the news cycle and setting the agenda of the debate” in the crucial weeks ahead of the October 27 Israeli election, said Haaretz columnist Joshua Leifer, speaking on the Haaretz Election Podcast.

Netanyahu skillfully and quickly took the spotlight, basking in the reflected glory of the heroic pilot and passengers who saved the plane, while evading responsibility for the security failures as he did post-October 7. By doing so, he put his election rivals in a lose-lose position, Leifer noted.

If his rivals for power publicly acknowledged that “we're living in a dangerous neighborhood and we have to step things up, then you know they end up backing him,” Leifer said. “But if the opposition comes out and starts blaming Netanyahu” for the oversights and negligence that led to the near-disaster, “they come out looking like they’re spoiling the party and they’re not loyal.”

Leifer’s fellow Election Podcast panelist Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin agreed and said given the situation, it is “smarter” for the opposition to “sit back and let the facts come out” in the media rather than go on the offensive.

On the podcast, Leifer and Scheindlin joined host Allison Kaplan Sommer to discuss flydubai, along with the impact of the commemoration of three years since October 7 on the campaign, dueling interpretations of the current polls, and the Netanyahu opposition’s “horrifically mismanaged” campaign.
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