Haaretz Podcast

In a special investigation on a "revolution" that has taken place over the past three years, Haaretz reporters Yarden Michaeli, Matan Golan and Yaniv Kubovich detailed the push to restore and drastically expand Israeli presence in the northern West Bank that was part of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Gaza disengagement plan in 2005. On the Haaretz Podcast, Michaeli discusses how the settler movement and far-right politicians have spent the 20 years since the disengagement took place planning how to execute their "return" to four West Bank settlements located in the largest contiguous area of Palestinian population in the area. With the ascent of the most far-right government in history in 2022, members of the movement have used their power and influence in what is essentially "the settlers' government" to "return big time," Michaeli said. In the newly published Haaretz investigation, "Undoing History," Michaeli and his team reveal how 18 new settlements and eight new army bases are cutting through the largest contiguous Palestinian population in the West Bank. The comprehensive effort includes military deployments, new bases and checkpoints, road construction, land expropriations, the displacement of more than 32,000 residents from three refugee camps and the terrorizing of daily Palestinian life in what senior military officials warn could destabilize an already volatile region. Every aspect of the plan, Michaeli warned, is "bad news" and "harmful" to the Palestinians living there, and that the infrastructure in place "will be very hard to remove" – undermining the Oslo Accords and the possibility of a two-state solution. Read more:  Undoing History: As the World Watched Gaza, Settlers Charged Ahead in the West Bank. A Clash Is Imminent Foreign Ministry Rejects Smotrich's Claim He Axed 1997 Hebron Accord With PA, as Israel Takes Municipal Powers From Palestinians How Israel Is Using Archaeology to Advance West Bank Annexation Former PM Ehud Olmert: Israel Is Conducting a Systematic Campaign of Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes Against Humanity in the West Bank 'Nobody's Born a Soldier': The Israeli Teens Refusing the Military Draft Say They Can Take the BacklashSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Israel is in a strategically weakened position – and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will take a hard political hit if reports on the details of U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding are accurate, Haaretz columnist Joshua Leifer said on the Haaretz Podcast.  Netanyahu had been “riding high,” planning to face Israel’s upcoming elections in the fall having compensated for his failures that led to October 7 by boldly “reconfiguring the map of the Middle East, and disassembling Iran's proxy network of Hezbollah and Hamas, and taking on the Iranian regime itself,” Leifer said.  The Israeli leader thought “his legacy [would] be rehabilitated by those wars. Fast forward to where we are now, and that's not the case, and he’s having to confront that,” Leifer added. “Strategically, Israel's in a terrible place, where the Iranian regime is stronger than it was, and it is now able to enforce a new kind of equation where Israeli freedom of movement is limited by the potential threat of ballistic missiles from Iran – which wasn't the case prior to October 7.” Netanyahu, Leifer said, has been “backed into a corner” on all of Israel’s fronts – Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and now Iran. He must follow Trump’s dictates and has turned Israel into “a total vassal state of the U.S.” and “Trump’s lapdog.” If he were to defy Trump, he runs the risk of losing American support, which could endanger the country even more. Read more:  What You Need to Know About the U.S.-Iran Deal – and What It Means for Israel Report: Billions in Frozen Iranian Assets May Be Released Under U.S.–Iran Deal Israeli Withdrawal From Lebanon Not Part of U.S.-Iran Deal, White House Official Says 'Don't Bullshit Us, Trump': Netanyahu Loyalists Rage at 'Treacherous' United States Over Iran Deal Netanyahu Says Israel to Remain in Security Buffer Zones in Lebanon, Gaza and Syria After U.S.-Iran Deal Signed Amos Harel: The Iran Fiasco Is Netanyahu's Biggest Failure Since October 7 Read more analysis from Haaretz's Joshua LeiferSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.