What can Israelis and Palestinians learn from post-conflict Ireland?
Israel and Ireland are in the midst of a diplomatic crisis – with the Israeli embassy in Dublin closed in protest of Ireland’s decision to join South Africa’s genocide lawsuit at the International Court of Justice and its recognition of a Palestinian state. But that didn’t stop the Irish embassy in Tel Aviv from inviting peace activist Bronagh Hinds to meet with Jewish and Palestinian civil society organizations and women’s groups to share the lessons learned in Northern Ireland and encourage them to take bold steps towards peace even as their leaders hesitate. Hines is best known for helping create a women's coalition that played a key role in the Good Friday agreement negotiations. On the Haaretz Podcast, Bronagh discussed her visit and the tense Israeli-Irish standoff. “In Ireland, people are sad about the shuttering and the breaking of the relationship,” she said, but “they also understand the Irish government's position.” She noted that until the 1990’s, the ethnic and territorial conflicts in the world considered most intractable were Northern Ireland, South Africa and Israel and Palestine. “I'm not surprised that South Africa and Ireland did what they did, because in both of those conflicts, the issues of equality and the human rights and the humanitarian issues were extremely important … I truly believe that the Irish government is doing what it has done from an understanding about how one gets to a peace process.“ The process of reconciliation between peoples with a violent and traumatic history of conflict is deeply challenging, Hinds admitted, emphasizing that successful conflict resolution must be “as inclusive as possible.” In Northern Ireland, the Good Friday talks “included people who called their counterparts terrorists,” she said. “It’s all painful, but the prize is peace in the end.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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28:27
Jon Polin, father of slain hostage Hersh: Jews should 'lean in to the pain' this Passover
With 59 hostages still in Gaza, both dead and alive, Jon Polin, the father of slain Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, doesn’t believe it’s appropriate for any Jew to have a festive Passover celebrating freedom this year. "The point," he says, "is let's lean into the pain this year, and not even try to sugarcoat it for our kids" Polin and his wife Rachel became prominent international advocates for their son Hersh’s release until the tragic news of his murder by Hamas terrorists in an underground tunnel last August. The couple continue to advocate tirelessly for the release of the remaining hostages. On the Haaretz Podcast, Polin spoke with host Allison Kaplan Sommer about how his family is facing their difficult first Passover Seder since Hersh’s death and how he believes others should treat the holiday. “We've talked about symbolic things that people should do: Maybe put a lemon on your table. A lemon because it's yellow, the color of the hostage struggle, and because it's bitter - to reflect the bitterness that the hostages and their families and all the Jewish people are going through,” he said, also suggesting “instead of just dipping our greens in the salt water, let's drink some salt water, because we know from testimonies of recently released hostages that is what they are drinking." In recent weeks, Polin made headlines in Israel by calling for members of the coalition to refrain from wearing yellow ribbon pins symbolizing solidarity with hostage families and on the podcast, explained his rationale. “If you're in a position of authority and you are not willing to do the things necessary to bring home hostages, that's your political choice. But then, don't wear the pin.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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37:48
'I don't know of any IDF soldier who paid a price for killing innocents in Gaza'
Haaretz journalist Nir Hasson has been covering the war in Gaza for months. He has seen so many horrifying acts of war go unpunished and uninvestigated, that he was hardly surprised by the killing of 15 aid workers at the end of March that shocked the world. The IDF first said the paramedics who were killed were suspicious, and claimed the vehicles they were in did not have their emergency lights on. Then a video of the incident was exposed to the world in the New York Times, showing clearly marked ambulances. “There is no accountability when it comes to commanders and soldiers killing innocents or even medical personnel,” Hasson said on the Haaretz Podcast. In his coverage of the army’s operations in Gaza and their effect on the Palestinian population, he regularly sends the IDF spokesperson questions about all kinds of incidents in Gaza. “I ask them: ‘You killed a family; You bombarded a school - what happened there?’ And I have received thousands of replies saying that it will be looked into in an internal investigation unit. But there are no results of any investigations. I don't know of any trial of any soldier who paid any price for killing innocents in Gaza.” Alongside these disturbing military procedures regarding civilian killings, Hasson said, a “really terrifying humanitarian disaster” is brewing. “I sometimes find it hard to get to sleep because I'm thinking about the families and the kids in Gaza and the despair,” he told podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, in a conversation about his coverage of Gaza as well as the West Bank, where, he says, a new level of cooperation and coordination between the Israeli military and violent settlers is a “severe and frightening” development. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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28:05
Israel’s nightmare scenario: 'Netanyahu is up to his neck in criminal investigations as war rages'
For Haaretz columnist Amir Tibon, the renewed fighting in Israel with hostages still in captivity, as scandal unfolds around Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, represents a “nightmare scenario.” Speaking on the Haaretz Podcast, Tibon reviewed the turbulent events of the past week with host Allison Kaplan Sommer – from the arrest of two of Netanyahu’s top aides in the deepening Qatargate affair and the questioning of the prime minister himself, to the botched attempt to replace embattled Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar. Tibon pointed to the fact after the two-month reprieve of a cease-fire and hostage release in the first stage of the deal that Netanyahu subsequently abandoned, “we now find ourselves with 59 Israeli hostages held by Hamas in the tunnels of Gaza; Israeli troops on the ground; rockets are being fired at northern, southern and central Israel. And instead of dealing with the security needs of the country, we have a prime minister who is running from court to the police investigation. If I had written this three years ago in Haaretz as a scenario of what will happen under Netanyahu, everybody would have dismissed it as hateful anti-Bibi material – a nightmare scenario that will never come true. But this is what is happening right now." Tibon added that Netanyahu’s lightning-quick reversal of his decision to appoint former naval commander Eli Sharvit as Shin Bet director was driven by “dissatisfaction” with his choice by the far-right wing of his own Likud party. The Prime Minister attributing the flip-flop to pressure from the Trump administration, he said, was “an absolute lie.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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27:20
'In Israel, we now have crumbs of democracy, not real democracy'
Alongside the threats of the Gaza war and the troubling Qatargate scandal, Israelis should be paying attention to a renewed direct threat to their democracy, according to law professor Meital Pinto. Speaking on the Haaretz Podcast, Pinto explains the implications of the newly passed law politicizing the Judicial Appointments Committee, compromising judicial independence and removing the most powerful check on the ruling coalition. But her greatest worry regarding the new push to revive the Netanyahu government’s 2023 judicial coup is its intention to amend the Basic Law on the Knesset, banning any political party determined by the Central Elections Committee – which is controlled by the ruling coalition – to be supporting terrorism. “It will be very easy for politicians to say ‘this expression of an Arab Knesset member is supporting terrorism, and their political party will be out of the democratic game.” If this happens, she warns, there will be no way for the current opposition to win an election, “and that’s very dangerous. I am very afraid that there will not be a free election in 2026.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
From Haaretz – Israel's oldest daily newspaper – a weekly podcast in English on Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World, hosted by Allison Kaplan Sommer.
Ireland