Haaretz Podcast

This week, President Isaac Herzog declared that the record-high homicide rate in Israel’s Arab sector constitutes a “national emergency.” But according to Knesset member Aida Touma-Sliman, the organized crime groups behind the violence in Israel thrive because “this is a policy conducted by the government.”
“Crime groups are their subcontractor for the destruction of our society, making us terrorized individuals looking only to live their lives quietly. When you are struggling for the basic right to live, you forget all about struggling for other political, economic and social rights,” Touma-Sliman said.
She noted that only 10 percent of the murders of Arabs are solved – down from 40 percent under past governments – and in stark contrast with the Jewish sector, in which a vast majority of cases are closed. “A very bad message is being sent by the police to the murderers and criminals: that you can do whatever you want and nobody will touch you as long as it remains among the Arabs,” she said.
Touma-Sliman said she was convinced that if National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir believed that the stashes of deadly weapons in the hands of Arab crime organizations were to be used against Jews, “he would know exactly how to smash them down. But he is not willing to do it, as long as they are only committing crimes among the Arabs. He is enjoying the scene.”
Touma-Sliman also discussed the reunion of the Joint List, the reasons behind her decision not to run in the coming election, and her deep disappointment with Israel’s opposition parties and “so-called left.”
Opposition leaders “are not supposed to personally replace Netanyahu,” she said. “If you want to be an alternative, be courageous enough to create a different vision for how the citizens of Israel should be living and how Israel should be as a state.”
Read more:
Netanyahu Moves to Pass Off Arab Crime Task Force From PM's Office to Ben-Gvir
MK Aida Touma-Sliman: 'The Knesset Symbolizes Everything I've Fought Against. I Don't Want to Be There. I Want to Fight It'
Analysis: Israeli Arab Leaders at a Crossroads: Will Escalating Protests Fuel Right-wing Incitement?
Explained: What Part Israel's Arab Parties Can Play in Toppling Netanyahu in the 2026 Vote
Poll: Coalition Remains Stable at 51 Seats as Reunited Joint Arab List Surges to 12
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With U.S. warships in place positioned around Iran, Israelis are bracing for the regime-toppling attack that U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened against Tehran and the government that cracked down so brutally on protesters last month. In response, Iranian leaders warned they would “hit the heart of Tel Aviv” in retaliation to any American offensive.
However, noted Haaretz senior defense analyst Amos Harel, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast, it seems that Trump “has lost a little bit of his appetite for destruction” in recent days, angling to push a weakened Iran to the negotiating table.
Not only is Trump encouraging a diplomatic solution, Harel said, but “when we talk about negotiations, then there's a difference between what was on the table about a month ago, which was an American demand for more or less destroying the regime, or for the regime to step down and for the democracy to be installed in Iran. Now we're talking about something completely different” – a deal limiting Iran’s nuclear capabilities instead.
“What the president is trying to do is to force the Iranians to agree to major concessions regarding their nuclear project. But it doesn't solve the number one issue for most Iranians: getting rid of the regime.” Harel said.
Will the Iranian leadership take the deal? Judging from their statements, Harel said, “they are in panic.”
On the podcast, Harel also assesses the situation in Gaza as the U.S.-brokered Israel-Hamas cease-fire deal enters its second phase, which took a step forward this week with the opening of the Rafah crossing. The real test of the deal, however, depends on whether the international coalition Trump has built is enough to pressure Hamas to lay down its arms.
If Hamas’s military capabilities “aren’t dismantled,” Harel said, “it will be hard to proceed.”
Read more:
Report: U.S.-Iran Talks Could Begin Soon; Witkoff to Meet With Netanyahu
Iran's Supreme Leader Warns of Regional Conflict if U.S. Attacks After IDF Chief Visits Washington
Trump 'Hopeful' for Iran Deal, but Warns of 'Very Big, Powerful Ships Heading That Way'
Iran-U.S. Negotiations Are 'Fruitful', Iranian Foreign Minister Tells CNN
Analysis by Amos Harel | Trump Is Determined to Launch Phase Two of His Gaza Plan. The Israeli Government's Last Hope Is That He Fails
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For the right-wing populist political leaders who gathered in Jerusalem for the Netanyahu government’s second International Conference on Combating Antisemitism this week, the formula for fighting Jew hatred is simple, according to Haaretz correspondent Linda Dayan, who attended and reported on the two-day event.
Organized by the Diaspora Affairs Ministry led by far-right Likud MK Amichai Chikli, Dayan tells the Haaretz Podcast that the message of the majority of prominent speakers at the conference is that Jews “have one enemy” – radical Islam – “and that enemy is propped up by the woke left” with a shared agenda of destroying the West.
Later on the podcast, Dayan – who has covered the protest movement in Israel for the return of the hostages led by their families since October 7 – reflected on the end of the struggle following the return of the final hostage’s remains earlier this week and the end of the vigil in Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square.
The movement, she said, transcended politics; it was a deeper fight to preserve the national ethos of never leaving anyone behind. Dayan explained: “From the very beginning, you would hear in the speeches in the square that this isn't just a battle to return our daughters and sons and parents and grandparents. This is a battle for the values of the country – a battle for the version of the country we want our children to grow up in and we want the next generation to inherit.”
Read more:
Global Far Right Flocks to Jerusalem to Bash Muslims and Migration at Israel's Antisemitism Confab
Netanyahu Claims There Is a Progressive/Muslim Plot to 'Destroy the West' at Israeli Government's Antisemitism Conference
Why Charlie Kirk, Fan of Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories, Is Loved by Israel's Government
Tel Aviv Clock Counting Hostages' Captivity Stopped Following Retrieval of Ran Gvili's Body
Ran Gvili, Last Hostage to Be Returned From Gaza, Laid to Rest in Israel
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The brutal crackdown on protesters killing tens of thousands has been a "sledgehammer" to Iranians everywhere, said Dr. Meir Javedanfar, an Israeli-Iranian expert on the government led by Ayatollah Ali Khameini.
"The people of Iran have just gone through their own Babi Yar massacre," Javedanfar said on the Haaretz Podcast, referring to the largest single mass-killing during the Holocaust. "The Nazis killed 30,000 people in the space of two days. The Iranian regime – if we accept the 30,000 number – has done the same in less than a month. … The level of cruelty is unlike anything Iranians have seen before. The people of Iran are being massacred in unprecedented and historic numbers."
The killings in the decade-long Syrian civil war was a laboratory for Iranian techniques of repression, he said, noting that Iranian leaders were often "disappointed when Bashar al-Assad was not violent enough against the people of Syria when they rose up." In Syria, he said, the Iranians "honed their skills" of deadly repression and are now using them "against their own people on the streets of Iran."
On the question of whether a U.S. attack on Iran could be averted by a change of heart by the regime, bringing them to the negotiating table, Javedanfar said he sees no chance of concessions unless Khamenei believes that "the Americans could kill him and his family."
If the U.S. attacks and Iran retaliates against Israel, he noted, the Israeli military will quickly join in the attack.
"If the Iranian regime makes a mistake of attacking us, we have very genuine targets in Iran to attack, especially Iran's missile program," Javedanfar said, adding "I also hope Israel targets regime officials who are taking part in the oppression and suppression of the people of Iran in such a violent manner, I think that would hold Israel in very good stead in future history books of Iran."
Read more:
Some 30,000 Iranian Protesters May Have Been Killed in Two Days, Officials Reportedly Say
U.S. Central Command Head to Coordinate With Israeli Defense Chiefs Ahead of Possible Iran Strike
Trump Says 'Armada' Heading Toward Iran: 'Maybe We Won't Have to Use It'; Officials Confirm Warships en Route to Mideast
UN Probe Condemns Iran Protest Deaths as Regime Provides Conflicting Casualty Reports
Iran Will Treat Any Attack as 'All-out War Against Us,' Says Senior Iran Official
Why the pro-Israel Right Is Suddenly Committed to Human Rights – for Iranians, Not Palestinians
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Palestinians in Gaza view a future of rule by U.S. President Donald Trump’s newly inaugurated Board of Peace as representing “another form of occupation” said Haaretz correspondent Nagham Zbeedat, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast.
Zbeedat, who covers Palestinian affairs and the Arab world, said that Trump’s vision of an American-led international stabilization force – intended to replace Hamas after it disarms – is likely to be problematic.
American “complicity and cooperation with the Israeli army” during the war means that for Palestinians, “the U.S. is the same as Israel. So any government or group that comes from the U.S. will not be welcomed with open arms.”
In the short-term, Zbeedat said, the desperate humanitarian situation means that Gazans will “accept the circumstances that they are put in, as long as there are no more airstrikes, as long as food is on the shelves, and as long as there is water, shelter, clothes coming in, and medical care.”
But overall, Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere are “not excited” about the Trump plan because of the lack of “any Palestinian presence or voice” at the decision-making level.
Also on the podcast: Haaretz diplomatic correspondent Liza Rozovsky discusses the challenges ahead for the new Board of Peace – most prominently, the disinterest of major Western European countries in signing on.
“When you are being squeezed and threatened by the U.S. over Greenland, it is pretty bad timing to be joining a Board of Peace chaired by Trump,” Rozovsky noted. For these countries, “giving up your veto power in the United Nations Security Council and just bowing to Trump is not a very attractive offer.”
Read more:
Trump's Board of Peace Finds Few Enthusiasts Among Palestinians in Gaza
Israel's Netanyahu to Join Trump's Board of Peace Alongside Saudis, Qatar and Turkey
Trump's Board of Peace Has European States Worried, but Most Refrain From Direct Criticism
Trump's Gaza Board of Peace Aims to Rival UN, Charter Shows
'It Never Ended': As the World Moves On, For Gazans It's War as Usual
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