Haaretz Podcast

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on traveling to the White House three months before the Israeli election signals his desperation to boost his sinking fortunes at the polls, Haaretz senior columnist Esther Solomon told the Haaretz Election Podcast.
Despite his unpopularity with major portions of both American political parties and his turbulent relationship with President Donald Trump regarding the ongoing conflict with Iran, the Israeli leader “does still think that a photo op with Trump is going to play well for him, even though it's not entirely clear if Trump is going to provide exactly the kind of celebratory hugs” he wishes for, Solomon said.
But in his current political situation, the Israeli leader “has to pull out every single stop, and he is doing that across the board. Whether it's in terms of military operations, every kind of political manipulation or strategy that he has, in order to pull every last possible vote for the bloc of parties that would support him to be prime minister.”
Fellow Haaretz columnist Joshua Leifer added that over the past year, “when Netanyahu flies to the United States, it has been to convince President Trump to jump back into the war, and I think that that's probably what he wants to do under the pretense of going to mourn the late Senator Lindsey Graham."
On the podcast, Solomon and Leifer joined host Allison Kaplan Sommer to discuss the rising fortunes of Netanyahu’s opposition and the growing signs of concern in the ruling coalition camp, illustrated by an AI-generated video of rival Gadi Eisenkot featuring an image of his slain son, that was widely condemned as offensive.
The panelists also discussed how escalating settler violence in the West Bank is making the months until the election more volatile and dangerous.
Leifer said that Israelis must “take seriously” statements by Netanyahu’s extremist right-wing partners that “this is the last chance that the settler right is going to have for a long time to stake its claim in the ground and end the possibility of a two-state solution. We should not be naïve about the lengths to which they are willing to go to prevent that possibility from happening."
Read more:
In D.C., Netanyahu Will Bid Farewell Both to Lindsey Graham and Unconditional U.S. Support
Analysis by Joshua Leifer | Will Israel's Opposition Be Able to Undo Netanyahu's Damage?
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Both Israeli leaders and the Israeli public – lulled by both President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden’s backing of Israel – are utterly unprepared for the generational tsunami taking place when it comes to American support for the Jewish state, Haaretz’s opinions editor Amir Tibon told the Haaretz Podcast
"Approximately 60 percent of Americans have a negative view of Israel, and the younger you go, the worse it gets – we're close to 80 percent," said Tibon, who previously served as Haaretz’s Washington and diplomatic correspondent. "Israelis are looking at the top line, which is what does Trump have to say about us? And they're ignoring the iceberg, which is hidden underneath the daily Trump noise, of negative views of the country."
"We’re going to have a lot of problems once this older generation leaves the American political scene, and most Israelis don't understand it yet," he said.
In his conversation with podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Tibon also addressed the topic engaging most Israelis: whether or not Israel will be pulled into the continuing military confrontation between Iran and the United States, either at the request of the U.S. president or in response to a potential strike by the Iranians.
He also addressed Gaza, both as a journalist and as a Gaza border resident. If Trump’s plan for rebuilding Gaza remains stagnant, he said, the situation is a “ticking-time bomb” with the “continuation of war” being inevitable. Tibon, who survived the October 7 attack on Kibbutz Nahal Oz, as detailed in his book, said that the ghosts of that day are ever present in daily life.
"The memory is still there, and the fear is still there, and the trauma. And I think what is most lacking is a sense of optimism that we will have a better reality a year from today."
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be even more unpopular than the current polling demonstrates, Haaretz columnist Joshua Leifer said on this week’s edition of the Haaretz Election Podcast.
“I have begun to think the polling is not telling the whole story,” he said, in a discussion on how voters who believe Netanyahu is causing irreversible damage to Israeli democracy and want him removed are currently ping-ponging between “optimism and apocalyptic thinking.”
The “apocalyptic thinking,” Leifer said, involves speculation as to whether Netanyahu, anticipating defeat, somehow uses the precarious security situation to prevent free and fair elections on the scheduled date.
"After everything we've experienced over the last four years, can we rule out that apocalyptic scenario? We can't rule it out, sadly," he said.
Haaretz correspondent Judy Maltz, who joined Leifer and host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the weekly podcast panel, said she observed much of this disquiet with the country’s leader as she travels the country to speak with voters ahead of the October 27 election, from Arab cities to upscale suburbs to West Bank settlements where the most extreme elements of the government draw their support.
In the settlement of Alon Shvut, she met people “conflicted” over whether to support Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
“On the one hand, they're very angry at Bezalel Smotrich and his party for supporting [Netanyahu’s] draft exemption bill for the ultra-Orthodox,” she said. “It really, really bothers them and angers them that the party that is supposed to represent this community voted in favor of this bill.”
At the same time, “they tell you there has been nobody in history who has done more for us in preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state than Smotrich. He’s given them more than any other minister. So they don't know whether they should or shouldn’t vote for him.”
Read more:
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Read Judy Maltz's election dispatches from across Israel and the West Bank:
'The Jews Turned Against Us, Even the Leftists': The Bedouin City Poised to Play Kingmaker in Israel's Election
In Haifa, the 'Putin Aliyah' and Despairing Arab Citizens Warn of A Dire Future
Many of the Voters Who Could Swing Israel's Next Election Are Naftali Bennett's Neighbors
'My Party Has Been Stolen': The West Bank Settlers Drifting Away From Israel's Far Right
Why Umm al-Fahm Is Drawing Attention From Both Ends of Israel's Political Spectrum
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In his first interview with an Israeli media outlet since his confrontation with armed settlers and Israeli soldiers in the southern West Bank last week, Representative Ro Khanna spoke with Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer in a wide-ranging conversation about the now-famous incident, the “cruelty” he witnessed in his visit to the West Bank, and how Israel’s “disproportionate and inhumane” behavior in the Gaza war has changed his policy positions and the way that both he – and Americans at large – view the Jewish state.
"Israel has lost Americans under 50 – not just Democrats but Republicans," he said. “It is one of the most foolish strategies to have antagonized an entire American generation, and that's what Bibi Netanyahu has accomplished."
In the interview, Khanna recounted how Israeli settlers mocked and antagonized his delegation, and parked their vehicle in front of his to block the road to Khirbet Zanuta, a Bedouin village in the South Hebron Hills that has been forcibly displaced by settler violence twice since 2023, despite a High Court ruling that requires Israeli authorities to safeguard the Palestinians’ return.
"We were quickly told to get into our van, and they blocked our van from exiting,” he said, saying that the settlers and the IDF forces who “took their side” should be investigated and prosecuted. “You can't do that. I've called it detainment. You could call it false imprisonment."
In reaction to subsequent statements on the incident issued by the Israeli military and top officials, he said that he was “more disturbed” by their “lies” than by “the incident itself.”
Khanna, a California Democrat who has made it clear that he is interested in a presidential run in 2028 and that he plans to make Palestinian rights a central issue on his platform, added, “the next American president will demand the arrest of violent settlers.”
Reiterating his belief that “Gaza was a genocide,” Khanna also said that anyone who “wants to see the cruelty of humanity” should “spend a day in the occupied West Bank."
He said he had visited Israel three times in the past – including trips with Jewish groups – and today, he is “saddened” and “pained” that Israel’s “contribution to human civilization is being corrupted because of an ugly occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, because of extreme elements that want to see the aspirations for a greater Israel, and because of an unwillingness to recognize the humanity and dignity of the Palestinian people.”
Read more:
Op-ed by Breaking the Silence's Nadav Weiman: I Joined Rep. Ro Khanna on His West Bank Visit. Here's What I Saw
Israel's Response to Settlers Detaining Ro Khanna? Call J Street's Judaism Into Question
West Bank Palestinians Flee Homes in Zanuta Amid Settler Violence, Failed IDF Protection
Erased: Israeli Settlers' Brutal War on Palestinian Communities in the West Bank
Israel to Fund Settler Group Sanctioned by U.K., France and Canada, Claiming Grant Will 'Reduce Youth Violence'
Israel Pushes Regulations to Legalize West Bank Farm Outposts
An Israeli Shooter Goes Free – and Returns to Terrorize a Grieving Palestinian Village
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With Israeli elections set for October 27, Iran is increasingly pairing its military actions with aggressive online campaigns designed to sow chaos and conflict – alongside ongoing efforts to recruit Israelis as spies, Haaretz cyber and disinformation correspondent Omer Benjakob warned on the Haaretz Election Podcast, in a roundtable with podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer and correspondent Linda Dayan.
“We’ve let the digital arena fester,” Benjakob said, in a stinging critique of the way in which Israel’s vaunted security services have dropped the ball in online foreign influence that has now been “supercharged” by AI.
One of the reasons the phenomenon has been difficult to combat is because “nine times out of 10, you can’t differentiate between a pro‑Iranian campaign and a pro‑Netanyahu campaign,” he added, noting that Israel’s prime minister and his far-right ruling coalition and the country’s enemies, he noted, have a stake in maximizing extremism and division in the months leading up to Election Day.
In their review of the week’s political headlines, the Election Podcast panel also discussed U.S. Democratic presidential hopefuls Rahm Emanuel, who addressed Israelis in Tel Aviv last week, and Ro Khanna, who was detained by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the southern West Bank – and the rise of former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot in the polls and the nature of the threat he poses to Netanyahu.
Eisenkot appeals to voters who identify as right-wing and voted Likud in the past, but are seeking a “sane right” this time around, Dayan observed. “He offers a security‑heavy, ‘big Z’ Zionist party” that, unlike Likud, “isn’t embarrassing itself by unleashing very loud but not very content‑rich people onto the public.”
Read more:
Iran's Other Weapon: How Israel Woke Up Late to the Threat of Election Interference
Gadi Eisenkot Is Quietly Gaining Ground Inside Likud Territory. Will It Be Enough to Defeat Netanyahu?
Latest Poll Shows ex-IDF Chief Eisenkot's Party Maintaining Lead Over Netanyahu's Likud
'The IDF Is Lying': Rep. Ro Khanna Calls for Arrest of IDF Soldiers He Says Were Involved in His West Bank Detention
Op-ed by Nadav Weiman: I Joined Rep. Ro Khanna on His West Bank Visit. Here's What I Saw
Rahm Emanuel's Tough Love Wins Warm Welcome in Tel Aviv
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