Unholy: Two Jews on the News

Yonit and Jonathan discuss a week brimming with unresolved questions. Did Benjamin Netanyahu really travel to the UAE during the war with Iran? Why would he leak it now, and what led the UAE to issue such a quick denial? After a trip to China, where is Donald Trump heading on Iran?

And inside Israel, as the political drama intensified with United Torah Judaism threatening to break ranks with the coalition over the draft bill's failure, could elections be held in September? And what role could be played by a possible plea bargain for Netanyahu?

Finally, there’s a crowded field for our mensch award this week – who will come out in front: a 100 year old international treasure or a newborn baby?

Watch us on YouTube: 

⏱ CHAPTERS:

[00:00] Intro — Netanyahu, Trump, and the week in news

[00:43] Yonit's book in Hebrew — "Don't Feed the Lion" lands in Israel

[05:13] Jonathan's Jewish tour of Porto — and the cross that means Jewish house

[09:29] Netanyahu's secret UAE visit — what really happened

[13:10] The UAE denial — implausible deniability explained

[15:10] Iran ceasefire suspended animation — everyone preparing for the next round

[16:01] Trump in China — could Beijing unlock the Iran deal?

[17:20] Lebanon vs. Iran at the UN — the embryo of a new Middle East

[20:13] Israeli elections — United Torah Judaism breaks with Netanyahu

[22:36] Will Netanyahu even run? The plea deal question

[24:10] Western Wall bill — criminalizing non-orthodox practice

[27:15] Gaza: Hamas not disarming, humanitarian aid down 37%

[33:38] Nick Kristof's NYT piece — the controversy explained

[40:40] Chutzpah: Miki Zohar blames October 7th on Bennett-Lapid

[43:02] Mensch: Tom Holland on antisemitism

[44:20] Mensch: David Attenborough turns 100

[46:48] Mensch: Abe Foxman, the last Jewish pope

[47:30] Baby Aviv — Unholy's first baby 🎉

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Yonit Levi
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Maoz Inon lost his parents on October 7th. They were in their safe room, 200 meters from the Gaza border wall, when Hamas came. Aziz Abu Sarah lost his brother — the person who raised him — after he was tortured in an Israeli prison during the First Intifada. Two days after October 7th, Aziz wrote Maoz a letter. Maoz wrote back. That exchange became a friendship, a journey across the Holy Land, and now a New York Times bestselling book: "The Future Is Peace."

This is not a polemic. It is not a policy paper. It is an invitation — to sit with grief that belongs to both sides, to doubt the narratives handed to you, and to imagine that the conflict will end. Because, as Maoz says, it will. The only question is when and how many more lives are lost before it does.

Yonit and Jonathan talk with them about Hamas, religious extremism, on what peace would actually look like, on whether Israelis have any reason to trust again. 

 

Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/0nJ3q4kvVPs

⏱ CHAPTERS:

[00:00] Intro — who are Aziz and Maoz?

[00:47] Maoz: the last phone call with his parents on October 7th

[02:57] Aziz: losing a brother who was his parent

[04:34] The kind of people Maoz's parents were

[08:12] Aziz reaches out — what the letter said

[09:47] Why Aziz wanted to learn Hebrew

[14:23] Are they the minority? How do you make peace mainstream?

[16:36] What would peace actually look like?

[20:18] Yonit pushes: what about Hamas, what about religion?

[24:44] The travelogue — hospitals, holy sites, and shared grief

[26:38] Do Israelis and Palestinians have to give up their narratives?

[33:27] What do Aziz and Maoz still disagree on?

[38:48] Closing — the book, the journey, the invitation

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Yonit Levi
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The Iran war may be over — or it may not. In the space of a few hours this week, Washington ordered warships into the Strait of Hormuz, paused the operation, threatened to resume bombing at higher intensity, and then declared peace was near. 

Yonit and Jonathan cut through the chaos — and ask the question the ceasefire deal still hasn't answered: what happened to Iran's nuclear stockpile? 

Also this week: Bezalel Smotrich calls October 7th "a tactical failure" and says including Arab parties in government would be a thousand times worse. Gadi Eisenkot and former Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen join forces. Netanyahu's plea deal murmurs get louder. The UK goes to the polls with antisemitism front and center. And the Chutzpah and Mensch awards both go to the same unlikely figure: Nick Cave, who told a hostile fan to go F himself — and blamed his wife's absence.

Watch us on Youtube: https://youtu.be/R-2p4tL6e7E

[00:00] Intro — Jewish American Heritage Month

[06:54] Iran ceasefire chaos — what is Washington actually doing? 

[10:14] The nuclear question the deal still hasn't answered 

[15:21] Israeli politics: Bennett-Lapid merger recap 

[17:43] Eisenkot + Yoram Cohen join forces 

[21:10] Smotrich calls October 7th a "tactical failure" 

[26:46] Netanyahu: plea deal or Saudi peace card? 

[31:05] UK local elections — Jews as political football [37:05] Chutzpah & Mensch: Nick Cave vs. Lee from Bournemouth [41:10] Ted Turner — a different kind of media owner

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Yonit Levi
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Forty days of war with Iran. Four weeks of an uneasy ceasefire. And one verdict that nobody in Washington wants to say out loud: the Islamic Republic came out of this stronger.

Dr. Suzanne Maloney, Vice President of the Brookings Institution's foreign policy program and one of America's most trusted voices on Iran, joins Yonit and Jonathan as US warships attempt to escort vessels through a Strait of Hormuz that Iran still effectively controls. They get into whether the ceasefire can hold, why the nuclear threat was never really addressed, who is actually making decisions inside Tehran now that the supreme leader is gone, and what a realistic deal — if one exists — might look like.

Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/D_P_lca1OzQ

Unholy Conversations drops every Tuesday.

Listen to the regular episode on Friday to get the full Two Jews on the News Experience

 

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Yonit Levi
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As stabbing against Jews in Golders Green rises up, again, the question of security of Jewish communities around the world,  Israel starts the countdown: 6 months to the elections. Yonit and Jonathan discuss the Golders Green knife attack and the wave of antisemitism hitting Britain since October 7th; the Bennett–Lapid merger and what it means for Israel's October elections; whether the Iran–Israel war is on pause or simply reloading; Jake Sullivan's bombshell statement on arms sales to Israel; and — in the awards — Israeli police cutting a Palestinian flag from a Jewish man's kippah, and King Charles delivering a Magna Carta reminder to Congress that Democrats jumped to their feet for. 

Watch us on youtube: https://youtu.be/tCqzaU-DlPM

This week on Unholy Conversations - Howard Jacobson: https://youtu.be/aB-eNbxb41w

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Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/il/podcast/unholy-two-jews-on-the-news/id1548441108
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🎙️ THE HOSTS
Yonit Levi
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X: https://x.com/LeviYonit
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Jonathan Freedland
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📩 Contact: [email protected]
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