Episodes

  • Netanyahu and Hamas A symbiotic relationship that costs Israel dearly

    Netanyahu and Hamas A symbiotic relationship that costs Israel dearly
    Nov 22 2024
    Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, elevated to new heights the symbiotic relationship between hardliners on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide. Their actions helped one another sabotage compromise resolutions of their perennial dispute.
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    15 mins
  • Israel’s wars repeat the 1980s on steroids

    Israel’s wars repeat the 1980s on steroids
    Nov 20 2024
    Appalled by Israel’s carpet bombing of Beirut during the 1982 Lebanon war, US President Ronald Reagan didn’t mince his words with then-Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin. “I was angry. I told him it had to stop, or our entire future relationship was endangered. I used the word holocaust deliberately & said the symbol of his war was becoming a picture of a 7-month-old baby with its arms blown off,” Mr. Reagan noted in his diary. The August 1982 phone call between Messrs. Reagan and Begin provides a template for the United States’ ability to twist Israel’s arm and the limits of America’s influence.
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    9 mins
  • Trump set to inherit a Gaza war he doesn’t want but can’t end

    Trump set to inherit a Gaza war he doesn’t want but can’t end
    Nov 17 2024
    Gaza is gearing up to be a war on President-elect Donald J. Trump’s watch that he doesn’t want but may be unable to end.
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    11 mins
  • How much of Godsend for Netanyahu is Trump’s return to the White House

    How much of Godsend for Netanyahu is Trump’s return to the White House
    Nov 14 2024
    Predicting President Donald J. Trump’s Middle East policy and his attitude toward Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu amounts to reading tea leaves. The leaves are the cast of characters included in Mr. Trump’s administration when he takes office and who he excluded. Yet even that could prove to be misleading.
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    19 mins
  • Netanyahu bets on Lebanon to justify his forever wars

    Netanyahu bets on Lebanon to justify his forever wars
    Nov 12 2024
    Israel may soon return tens of thousands of evacuees to their homes along the border with Lebanon, with or without a ceasefire with Hezbollah. The return of the evacuees would allow Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to tout a significant success in his 13-month-long war in Gaza and Lebanon, even if it may be short-lived without a ceasefire, if not in an equitable negotiated resolution of Israel’s disputes with Lebanon and the Palestinians.
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    10 mins
  • The Middle East isn’t high on Trump’s agenda but Trump preoccupies the Middle East

    The Middle East isn’t high on Trump’s agenda but Trump preoccupies the Middle East
    Nov 9 2024
    The Middle East may not preoccupy Donald J. Trump. Still, the president-elect preoccupies the Middle East as it attempts to figure out how he will handle the wars ravaging Gaza and Lebanon and threatening to spark an all-out conflagration between Israel and Iran.
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    12 mins
  • Trump victory may have a long-shot silver lining

    Trump victory may have a long-shot silver lining
    Nov 8 2024
    Donald J. Trump’s electoral victory promises to give Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu a free hand, at least temporarily, to deal with Iran and its non-state allies, Hamas and Hezbollah.
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    11 mins
  • Trump victory may have a long-shot silver lining

    Trump victory may have a long-shot silver lining
    Nov 8 2024
    Donald J. Trump’s electoral victory promises to give Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu a free hand, at least temporarily, to deal with Iran and its non-state allies, Hamas and Hezbollah.
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    11 mins