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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Israel’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology Orit Farkash-Hacohen. Israel and the United States started this week a strategic dialogue focused on technological cooperation. The minister explains that "climate change, the covid pandemic, the desertification phenomenon and so many other international and regional issues, are all in essence technological challenges. Even security has become a technological challenge." Farksha-Hacohen says that the Israeli-American technological strategic cooperation plan launched this week builds on that understanding, that national security challenges faced by our two nations and by the world must involve a significant technological pillar if we are to cope with them efficiently.
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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Knesset member for the Likud party Nir Barkat. The legislator just came back from a tour in the United States, where he campaigned against the Iranian nuclear program. Barkat argues that the Iranians do not hide their desire to annihilate Israel, and thus the international community should not try to conclude any deal with them. "You don’t make a deal with someone who wants to take you out of business. They want to destroy Israel, so what kind of a deal can you make with them? Instead of negotiating a deal, we must focus of creating a force that would threaten and deter Iran," says Barkat. He also argues that Tehran cannot be trusted with any kind of agreement, arguing, "they will surely breach the agreement from day one."
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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Attila Somfalvi, chief anchor at the Israeli Ynet news site and tv channel. Israel is preparing now for its fifth round of elections in less than four years. Somfalvi, a senior political analyst, says Israeli politics and society have deeply changed in the last few years. In the past, the political battle centered on the Palestinian issue, with the Peace Now camp on one side and those advocating against any territorial concessions on the other. This political duel is now gone, replaced by a struggle over the very nature of the state of Israel. The two camps — liberals and right-wingers — are now battling over how Israel’s democracy will look like in the coming years. "Opposition leader [Benjamin] Netanyahu and his Likud party no longer hide their ambition to change Israel, starting with its judicial system and judges," explains Somfalvi.
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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Amir Tibon, who serves as deputy editor for Haaretz’ English edition. Tibon, an expert on Israel-US relations, believes that a nuclear deal with Iran is bound to be eventually reached, as it is in the interest of all the world powers involved in the negotiations. Tibon recalls that former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried in 2015 to stop the agreement but failed. "Prime Minister [Yair] Lapid, alternate Prime Minister [Naftali] Bennett and Defense Minister [Benny] Gantz have adopted a more realistic policy, of trying to influence the agreement. They are not trying to kill it, but rather shape it so it would be more comfortable for Israel on certain aspects," he explains.
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Ben Caspit speaks this week with veteran geologist Yossi Langostsky, considered the founding father of natural gas discoveries off the Israeli coast. Langotsky recounts that the first discovery took place in 1999, when he himself asked for an exploration-drilling permit for gas and oil, deep into Israel’s economic waters. Ten years later, actual drilling started, in an area Langotsky labeled the Tamar field, after his eldest granddaughter. The renowned geologist explains that the Tamar field could supply Israel with all the natural gas it needs for a period of 25 years. He also believes there is potential for discovering oil in the same region. Still, such exploration, he says, would require much deeper drillings and much more costly procedures.
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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Maj. Keren Hajioff, the international spokesperson of Prime Minister Yair Lapid. Haijaoff has been managing relations with foreign media during the recent IDF operation in Gaza. Alongside the exchange of fire on the ground, Israel and Islamic Jihad also fought each other in the media arena. Hajioff explains that winning media battles requires more than the truth. "The difficult part is to make people listen, to make sure that the story goes viral. You have to find a way to get attention for your narrative, in order to amplify the message you want to share," she notes.
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Ben Caspit speaks this week to Arkady Mil-man, the head of the Russia program at the Israel National Institute for Security Studies and previously Israel's ambassador to Russia and Azerbaijan. Over the past three weeks, tensions have increased between Moscow and Jerusalem. The reason for the diplomatic crisis is the decision by Russian authorities to stop the activities of the Jewish Agency, tasked with assisting Jews who want to emigrate to Israel. "The crisis over the Jewish Agency today is mostly the result of internal processes in Russia. For the last decade, the atmosphere in Russia became more and more hostile to foreigners, including locals who received support from outside Russia. Adding to this a rise in antisemitism and the war in Ukraine as strong catalyst to hostility towards the West, and we get the crisis we are now witnessing," argues Mil-Man.
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Ben Caspit hosts this week Maj. Gen. (res.) Tamir Hayman, the managing director of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). Hayman previously held a number of senior positions within the IDF, including chief of Military Intelligence. Referring to President Joe Biden’s recent visit to Israel, Hayman notes that the American leader clearly demonstrated his warm feelings and deep commitment to Israel, based on common values. "In our neighborhood, in the Middle East, it is very important to have powerful friends that are emotionally connected to you," he noted. Still, Hayman argues that the real achievement lies in the combination of the bilateral agreement between Israel and the US for technological and scientific cooperation, critical for Israeli research, and the Jerusalem Declaration, critical for Israel’s campaign against Iran.
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Ben Caspit hosts this week Nadav Tamir, the executive director of J Street Israel. Commenting on US President Joe Biden's visit to the region last week, Tamir welcomed Washington's renewed interest in the Middle East. "I believe the current engagement of Biden with the Saudis is good for Israel. It is good not only from the perspective of those focused on normalization or a united front against Iran, but also on the Palestinian issue." The seasoned diplomat notes that the original idea of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump with the Abraham Accords was to bypass the Palestinians and show that Israel could normalize relations with Arab states without solving the conflict with the Palestinians. Still, Tamir believes that in the end it will actually be normalization that will help solve the Palestinian issue as well.
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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Ambassador Mark Regev. Having served under several governments, Regev says that US President Joe Biden's upcoming visit to Israel will politically serve both the American and the Israeli leaders. "Lapid obviously wants to be seen as a world statesman. Meeting French President Macron last week, and President Biden this week, could fix things visually for [Lapid], making him seen for the first time as an international statesman.” Biden’s 2010 visit to Israel as vice president didn’t go well, because of Israel’s announcement on new housing units to be built in the West Bank. Regev does not expect anything like that this time around. "I think both sides have an interest in making this work. I think we can expect a good visit," he says.
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Ben Caspit speaks this week with the former head of the Israel Mossad's Intelligence division, Haim Tomer. Contrary to the IDF, the Mossad holds the view that Israel should not commit to stopping its activities against Iran. Tomer explains that according to the Mossad’s estimate, clandestine warfare against Iran could actually accelerate Tehran’s receptiveness to an agreement. "The pressure inflicted on Iran makes Iranian leadership more flexible for a possible agreement with the US and the world powers ... Israel must preserve maneuverability [vis-à-vis Iran]," he claims.
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Ben Caspit talks this week with Gil Messing, the Chief of Staff and Head of Global Corporate Communications at the Israeli software technologies company Check Point. Messing recounts how his company recently stopped a sophisticated fishing campaign by Iranian hackers, which targeted senior Israeli political and security figures. “We constantly need to be under the assumption that such campaigns, such hacking operations, are taking place as we speak by the Iranians and by others,” he says.
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Ben Caspit talks this week with Dr. Shivi Greenfield, Deputy Director General at The Jewish Agency and author of the recently-published Hebrew-language book “Judaism and Liberalism.” Addressing the cleavage in Israel between secular and religious, Orthodox and Liberals, extremists and moderate, Greenfield argues that “the Orthodox assume as granted that the Judaism as they understand it today is the authentic one, from ever. On the other hand, Liberal Jews have very little knowledge on what Judaism says aside of what Orthodox tells them it says.” He says that the great challenge is to make people understand that there is more than one version to Judaism.
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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Hagit Ofran, co-director of the Settlement Watch Project at the anti-occupation NGO Peace Now. Police recently detained three Peace Now activists who allegedly intended to reach the West Bank outpost of Homesh with a bulldozer in order to demolish the illegal yeshiva operating there. Police also prevented dozens of the Peace Now activists and Meretz Knesset members from demonstrating there. Without the bulldozer campaign, the media and public opinion would have ignored the activists, explains Ofran. "We want to change a bit the language, because the settlers are completely violating the law. They are practically holding the Israeli public and government hostage. They decide where to go and they decide what Israel’s security considerations should be," says Ofran.
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Ben Caspit hosts this week on his podcast Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Idan Roll. The coalition Roll is part of is fragile, with only 60 parliamentarians supporting it at the Knesset, compared with 60 parliamentarians for the opposition. Still, the deputy minister strongly believes in the precedent set by the Bennett-Lapid government — that of true partnership with an Arab party. For him, the success of this alliance is of historical proportions. "We are determined to make it work. Not just for this coalition to hold on, but also for this country of us to have a better future," he notes.
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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Yarden Vatikay, the former director of the national information directorate in the prime minister’s office. The senior strategic adviser speaks about the killing of Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh and the ensuing media storm Israel found itself in the midst of, noting that "being in the middle of a storm over international public opinion is not new for Israel. It is somewhat of a routine for the country, to move from a crisis to a crisis, though each crisis is different." Vatikay argues that Israel responded quickly and accurately when it proposed to the Palestinians to hold a joint investigation over Abu Akleh’s death.
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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Dani Dayan, the chairman of Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov caused a diplomatic incident with Israel, Ukraine and the Jewish world last week when he claimed that Hitler had Jewish roots. For Dayan, the conspiracy theory advanced by Lavrov was antisemitic by any account. The Yad Vashem head expresses his satisfaction over the reported apology made by Russian President Vladimir Putin for Lavrov’s words. Still, he regrets that the apology was not included in the readout published by the Kremlin after Putin’s talks with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. "What Lavrov said is what we call an inversion of the Holocaust. The victims suddenly become part, and even the head, of the perpetrators. And this is classic antisemitism."
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Ben Caspit speaks this week to Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz. He notes that his mother survived the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, while Gantz's father fought in Israel’s 1948 Independence War. Gantz, who himself has lost many friends and comrades in the battlefield, says, "We have the privilege, the duty and the honor to continue their legacy, to guarantee Israel’s security." Speaking about the biggest threat to Israel’s security and existence — the Iranian nuclear program — Gantz notes that Israel is doing it utmost vis-à-vis its partners and allies to improve a possible agreement with Iran, should there ever be one.
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Ben Caspit hosts this week Brig. Gen. (res) Nadav Zafrir, the former commander of the elite IDF 8200 intelligence unit and currently the founder and managing partner of the cyber company Team8. Israel has suffered three terror attacks within the span of only three weeks. Zafrir notes that while these attacks were obviously terrible and tragic, numerous other attacks have been foiled recently via very sophisticated intelligence that IDF unit 8200 members and others in Israel’s defense establishment have collected. "It is true that young men unaffiliated directly with terror organizations who suddenly decide to perpetrate terror attacks are creating an almost unprecedented challenge. However, the world has become hyper connected, and the digital footprint of all of us is constantly rising. And so, the best response to these kinds of attacks would probably be based on very sophisticated, relevant and very big data."
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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Boaz Ganor, the executive director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism and the Ronald S. Lauder Chair for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya. Israel has suffered in the past ten days three terror attacks of different types and by different kinds of perpetrators, explains Ganor. He notes that the method to thwart any more attacks should be the same in principle — gathering as much intelligence as possible. He also says that when we are dealing with a lone attacker, as was the case of the first attacks in Beersheba, the intelligence-gathering challenge is obviously much more complex.
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