If they ever imagined that they were dwelling in an ivory tower, the fierce and sometimes violent confrontations on their campuses have knocked academics who teach about Israel and the Middle East into a harsh new reality, Professor Dov Waxman, director of UCLA's Nazarian Center for Israel Studies told the Haaretz Podcast on the eve of a charged graduation week for his campus. Waxman described the clash last month between pro-Palestinian protestors and Israel advocacy groups who came to confront them – and how he and other professors found themselves keeping the two sides apart with campus security nowhere to be found. "I had felt like it was necessary to be there to observe and to try to be a witness and to provide an account, if that was needed. I didn't imagine that I'd be kind of brought into these protests or that I'd be required at all to keep protesters apart," Waxman said in a conversation with podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer. "Ultimately," he said "being there on the campus, particularly in the hours before the big protest encampment was dismantled by the police and "see[ing] hundreds of heavily armed riot police lining up on what is normally the quad in the center of our campus where students hang out" and "the world's media converging on our campus" was a "disturbing' and "very, very surreal experience." Also on the podcast, Haaretz correspondent Linda Dayan recounts her reporting from campus protests at several California universities. She said that it was impossible to paint a simple picture of the typical campus protester or generalize about their messaging. Some programming criticizing Israel was no more extreme than what one might find in an Israeli newspaper, she said. Other sessions contained inflammatory and even antisemitic content. "I've gone to magnificently different events on the same campus at the same encampment with wildly different messaging," Dayan said.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There is "an abyss" between how the U.S. and Israeli governments treat the families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, says Prof. Jonathan Dekel-Chen, whose son Sagui, 35, was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 while trying to protect his family and other residents of Kibbutz Nir Oz. Sagui Dekel-Chen's wife, Avital, gave birth to the couple's third daughter in January. Speaking with Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, the dual Israeli-U.S. citizen – who hasn't received new information about his son in eight months – compared the "inexplicably infuriating" behavior of members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government with their American counterparts. Dekel-Chen said he has felt "privileged" to receive the attention and sympathy offered by U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration – along with the other dual citizens caught in the hostage nightmare. He also noted that he felt similar "wall to wall" support from members of Congress, "regardless of what their views are on the conduct of Israel's war." In Israel, by contrast, "we've had no direct communication from senior ministers, nothing – it's unthinkable in a small intimate country like ours." He suggested that perhaps more sympathy and support would be forthcoming if those whose communities and lives were "destroyed" by the events of October 7 had come from the right-wing religious constituencies that make up Netanyahu's governing coalition. While Biden has put another cease-fire and hostage deal on the table, urging Netanyahu and Hamas to agree to its terms, "Israel's government has a distorted view of what victory is," according to Dekel-Chen. "This war is more like a crusade ... its goals are dictated by the fringe, radical, far right." On the podcast, Dekel-Chen also explains why, as a Hebrew University history professor, he feels that comparisons between October 7 and the Holocaust are inaccurate and dangerous. "Other than the death on that day, there are no real similarities," he says, "and it simply serves as a much too-easy-explanation for a horrific day and lets people off the hook who should be held accountable. It invokes some greater force that's so far beyond our control that it was almost inevitable. That's absolute nonsense."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rabbi Delphine Horveilleur, considered one of the most powerful and prominent voices of French Jewry, spoke with Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer during her first visit to Israel since the October 7 attacks and the beginning of Israel's war in Gaza, and discussed the way in which for Diaspora Jews, the attacks meant "that our refuge isn't safe anymore." Horveilleur describes 'a feeling of vulnerability and exile that came back to us. And even in Israel, there's a feeling that we're all in a way in a kind of 'galut" - exile - and there is an awareness of brokenness in us." At the same time, she says, the current situation presents an opportunity for a "renewed conversation" between Israel and the Diaspora. She feels Israelis, who are usually "focused on strength," are currently more able to relate to feelings of "fragility and the vulnerability," that Diaspora Jews deal with more openly. Contemplating the rise of antisemitism around the world, Horveilleur says confronting people about their antisemitism is "totally useless." "It never even makes them aware of the problem," she expands. "Many people say 'I am not an antisemite' but they speak in an antisemitic language, it's almost an ancient antisemitic tongue that people use without knowing." Also on the podcast, Hebrew University professor Tamar Megiddo, an expert in public international law, lays out the challenges that face Israel in the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court. Megiddo discusses the likely consequences of the request for arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of violating international humanitarian law.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn understands the incredulity abroad regarding the political survival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his grip on power despite the failures of October 7, terrible poll numbers, thousands of Israelis in the streets protesting weekly and his policies creating unprecedented tensions with the United States. In the second in a series of special podcast episodes in which subscribers from around the world were given the opportunity to ask questions, Benn emphasized in his responses Netanyahu isn't going away anytime soon. "Netanyahu did lose a lot of his popularity after October 7 - and rightly so. But he has been able to hold on to his coalition. And there is no sign of any imminent collapse of this coalition, or any cracks within it that might bring him down." Benn noted while answering a range of questions on security and political issues. "We have to bear in mind that while his government is unpopular, it's leading a very popular policy. There is very strong support in the Israeli Jewish society to continue the war until the defeat of Hamas and hopefully also of Hezbollah, the return of Israelis to live along the borders in the south and the north, and a more quiet future." Worryingly, Benn points out that the only clear-cut vision for post-war Gaza without Hamas rule is a long-term occupation of Gaza, coming from the the government's far right flank, with tacit cooperation from Netanyahu.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As Israel prepares to celebrate Memorial Day, or Yom Hazikaron, on Monday and Independence Day, or Yom Haatzmaut, the following day, the abrupt transition from commemoration to celebration will look different in the shadow of October 7 and the war in Gaza. Abbey Onn lost two members of her family in Hamas' murderous attack, while three were taken hostage (two of them, 12-year-old Erez and 16-year-old Sahar, were released in November). She tells Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer that she's helping to organize an alternative memorial ceremony powered by a group of families of hostages as a way "to say that we're building a new reality together, that we need to strengthen one another." While Onn doesn't discount the efforts of the army which is "fighting on our behalf," rather "than commemorating or talking about heroism, which we absolutely believe has happened," the event is an "effort to try to heal and rebuild." "We can't move forward until these people come back," she says. "[My family] needs to know that there is a strong movement of civilians who are willing to acknowledge that things are not as they were." Also on the podcast, Carly Rosenthal, from the pro-peace, anti-occupation NGO Combatants for Peace, talks about the organization's 19-year-old tradition of offering an alternative memorial ceremony to the government-sponsored event, which allows "Israelis and Palestinians to mourn together, to grieve for their loved ones that they've lost throughout the conflict." This year, she says, the theme centers on children during war. "Too many children, too many people, have been killed and are suffering. And the ceremony is an opportunity to honor them and to remember them, and to also say that we don't want this for them. We want a better future for them."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Journalist and public intellectual Masha Gessen is dismayed that the Biden White House has been condemning, not supporting, the numerous tent protests against Israel's war in Gaza on American campuses and worried that this decision will hand the 2024 presidential election to Donald Trump. Speaking with host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the Haaretz Podcast, Gessen said that the fact that "Biden and his administration are willing to sacrifice the election, effectively, to its ongoing engagement with Israel is shocking, heartbreaking and very dangerous for this country." Gessen is a staff writer for The New Yorker and a senior lecturer in journalism at the City University of New York. In a wide-ranging conversation, Gessen recounted experiences on their recent reporting trip to Israel – including a visit to relatives living in a West Bank settlement – discussed the recent controversy over their comparison between the Gaza and Nazi-era Jewish ghettos and their views on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who they described as "very much in the mold of all contemporary autocrats." While they expressed "empathy" for the "fear, pain and terror" elicited by their Holocaust analogy, they said "I'm very critical of the way that [the Holocaust] is being used politically," especially by "creating a sort of blindness to everything but that experience of fear and victimhood."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In her first visit to Israel since October 7, Berkeley-based author and screenwriter Ayelet Waldman made the news carrying a sack of rice on her shoulder, she was arrested with a group of rabbis participating in a symbolic march to the Gaza border to deliver humanitarian aid. Neither she nor members of the group, Waldman tells Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, were under the illusion that they would actually get through the Erez checkpoint to feed Palestinians - but she felt it was important to her, while in Israel, to take an action in line with her values "and this struck me as an action that would feel personally meaningful, because the news of the famine has been particularly horrific." Waldman, the parent of two children in U.S. universities, also weighs in on the "obsession" of the American Jewish community - and Israelis - with antisemitism on campuses in the midst of the pro-Palestinian protests taking place in Columbia University and colleges all over the States. "I really do believe that [the antisemitism] is overstated," she says. Also on the podcast, Haaretz senior defense and security analyst Amos Harel gives a pessimistic view of the chances of progress when it comes to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government reaching a deal for the release of hostages and a cease-fire, that would stave off an IDF operation in Rafah.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If support for Israel becomes a truly partisan issue and political football in the United States, it will be "a disaster" that the people and the leaders of the Jewish state don't fully comprehend, says Professor Noah Feldman in a conversation with host of the Haaretz Podcast Allison Kaplan Sommer. Feldman is a Harvard Law School professor and public intellectual who has written ten books on law, politics, religion and Middle East geopolitics. In his new book, "To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People," he applies rigorous thinking to the foundational question of what it means to be Jewish, with a special emphasis on how the founding of the state of Israel fundamentally transformed the religion. Feldman says much of what has unfolded since October 7 reinforced the thesis of his book as to the key role Israel plays in Jewish religious identity. "I know a lot of American Jews who went from being once in a while, vacation on the beach Zionists to very intensely committed active Zionist because of October 7 – that's one form of engagement." "And then on the other side, you have people who were kind of trying to put their heads in the sand and never think about Israel, lest they be forced to criticize it, who basically felt after October 7: 'I have to say that what is happening in Gaza is not in my name.'" For Jews around the world, he says, "Israel has become a central part of their Jewishness that they must react to, whether positively or negatively." In the wide-ranging interview, Feldman, who is also an expert on constitutional and international law, addresses the hot button issue of accusing Israel of genocide, which has gripped college campuses like Harvard. "There is no evidence that would satisfy an international court engaged in an ordinary criminal evaluation of genocide to support the charge that Israel has engaged in a genocide in Gaza," he asserts. "To emphasize that charge, over time and aggressively, in the absence of such evidence, has the possibility of crossing into a type of antisemitism that imagines Jews as always and everywhere the oppressors, and never as victims." At the same time, he stresses, "one can hold the view that I just described, of rejecting the genocide charge, and still believe that Israel's conduct in Gaza is excessive, even under international law potentially. But the genocide charge is so richly embedded in a discourse of definitional evil. And it's so associated with the Holocaust, that it's worrisome to me when, for example, the South African government goes to The Hague and says Israel are actually the genocidal actors because I think there's a conscious desire to flip a narrative here."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Iran's firing of hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel on Saturday night marked a new escalation in a simmering war usually fought by proxies miles from Tehran. Iran's strike, which was largely intercepted by Israel and its allies, leaves lingering questions of global significance. On a special edition of the podcast, Haaretz reporter Linda Dayan speaks to Haaretz Editor-in-Chief Aluf Benn, who explains how this unprecedented attack came to be – and what might follow. Although this particular barrage failed to inflict mass casualties, in its aftermath, "Israeli decision-makers" must now think "not twice, but ten times, about the consequences" of striking Iranian targets or their proxies in the future. "After October 7, I think we all need to be very skeptical of premediated military outcomes, both for Israel and for Hamas as well." If you want to fight Iran, Benn says, "you need the early warning capabilities, if not the defensive capabilities, of your allies in the region and first and foremost the United States." But the same alliances that helped Israel are absent for Hamas. Iran's actions "shows Hamas that, at this stage at least, they're still friendless. Nobody is going to come help them," Benn says. "They did not say once that if Israel would be willing to stop the fire in Gaza… they would not retaliate." As Israelis are worrying about a new front to this war, so, it seems, are Iranians. Arash Azizi contributing writer at The Atlantic and author of "What Iranians Want: Women, Life, Freedom," explains how average Iranians are responding to the threat. "Average Iranians have a lot of problems – economic, the repression they face from the government," he says. "The last thing they can afford is to enter a war with Israel, a country for which there is very little hostility amongst the Iranian public." "Iranians don't have that hostility to Israel that I think you do have in other Arab countries – it's just not the same thing for us." The warmongers and champions of the regime's aggression toward the Jewish State are a small minority, he says. The very day of Iran's launches at Israel, the regime ramped up its persecution of women who do not cover their hair, Azizi notes. "The regime will use whatever this conflict is going to be to repress critique," he says, but at the same time, "it's a new vista for the Iranian opposition to oppose the war – and also to oppose this regime that has brought nothing good for Iranians, and has threatened our country with a war that none of us want."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Six months into Israel's conflict with Hamas, the solid support U.S. President Joe Biden's White House gave to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has taken a serious hit. Following the deaths of seven World Central Kitchen humanitarian aid workers, a clash over a possible military operation in Rafah, and Israel's failure to provide a vision for the "day after" the war in Gaza, there has been a "precipitous drop" in the standing of the Israeli prime minister both in the White House and Congress, Haaretz Washington correspondent Ben Samuels tells Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer. "World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres is a close friend of Joe Biden. And when seven of his employees are killed, that made it personal for the president in a way that unfortunately 30,000 Palestinian casualties has not been," he said, sparking an unprecedented tough phone call from the president to Netanyahu in which Biden "really put his foot down." Behind the scenes at the White House, Samuels said, officials are "incredibly frustrated, and I think they feel a little personally betrayed by Netanyahu as well. "I think they really believe that they have been going out on a limb providing coverage and support when it is becoming extremely unpopular both within the United States and in the international community. So I think there is a very real sense of resentment," Samuels said. Also on the podcast, Hadar Susskind, President and CEO of Americans for Peace Now discusses his organization's support for Congress conditioning aid to Israel, a stance that has traditionally been controversial within the world of American Jewish advocacy groups but is gaining traction on Capitol Hill. As Susskind sees it, "aid to Israel is endangered" because Israel's behavior in Gaza and the West Bank "often does not align with American policy and American values. When that happens, you will see far greater pushback, as we are seeing right now [with] people saying aid should be cut." As a result, "if you want there to be a path for U.S. aid to Israel to continue, that aid, like all the other aid we give every other country, "needs to be conditioned." Susskind, a longtime progressive activist in Washington, also discussed the perception that there is an epidemic of antisemitism on the U.S. left. "I still think it is overwhelmingly actually on the far right," he contends. "That's not to say it doesn't exist on the left. It does, and I've seen it, but... so much of what is reported breathlessly as horrible antisemitism on college campuses is college students chanting 'Free Palestine.' You may dislike that – it might make you or your kid on campus uncomfortable – but I personally don't believe that saying 'Free Palestine' is itself an antisemitic act."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.