On Israel with Ben Caspit, an Al-Monitor podcast

Ben Caspit hosts this week Col. (res.) Ofer Haruvi. After 20 years as a pilot in Israel’s air force, Haruvi co-founded FlightOps, a startup which develops operation systems for drones. Haruvi argues that Unmanned Aerial Vehicles are changing modern battlefields. "Each conflict, we see more and more UAVs. Their performance is getting better, they are more integrated into military operations, and therefore their impact on the battlefield is more significant and visible. No military operations today are conducted without UAVs. What we also see now, is that less-sophisticated armies also using them, and even irregular organizations and paramilitary groups." Haruvi notes that drones are now used for most missions. In the past, armies used them mostly for intelligence-collection. Now, however, drones are becoming weapon systems on their own. 

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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Dr. Alon Liel, former Director General of Israel’s Foreign Ministry and former Israeli ambassador to Ankara. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy just finished addressing the Israeli parliament via Zoom, calling on the Jewish state to help his country. Liel says he was surprised to see that Zelenskyy’s speech indicated that Ukraine and Israel have very different impressions over the role Jerusalem has been playing so far in this conflict. "Zelensky attacked the Israeli neutrality, Israeli attempts to mediate [vis-à-vis Russia], he attacked Israel for not helping Ukraine militarily, and he attacked Israel for not joining the economic sanctions…During these past three weeks, [Israel] had the impression that Ukraine wants us to mediate. That they had asked us to do so. Also, we did not hear until now a direct request for us to supply them with weapons."

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Ben Caspit hosts this week former Knesset member Ksenia Svetlova, who grew up in Russia and later made Israel her home. Noting that she still feels shock at the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Svetlova said she keeps herself busy by helping people to evacuate and by writing about what is happening. "I think this policy of Israel of sitting on both chairs, not taking sides, is not justified. It was not justified in 2014 [with the Russian annexation of Crimea], and it is not justified now, when there are many thousands of Jews, millions of Ukrainians, who are being murdered in their homes, while sitting in shelters, or while trying to evacuate," she says. 

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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Israel's most prominent high-tech entrepreneur, former Knesset member Erel Margalit. Reacting on the current Ukraine crisis, Margalit warns that the dictatorial camp is also carrying out cyber attacks, which is why Israel must be a resolute partner to other free democracies fighting in this field, "especially as Israel is the second-strongest country in the world in cyber security warfare." While Margalit understands the Israeli need for coordinating with Russia in the Middle East, he is convinced that "every young Israeli who lives in a democracy, who cherishes the democracy, who wants to see people protected, needs to speak up, and the government needs to stop playing game and speak up clearly again the aggression of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin."

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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Yaki Dayan, Israel’s former Consul General in Los Angeles and an expert on Israel-US relations. Dayan comments on reports about Prime Minister Naftali Bennett talking Sunday with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone, offering for Israel to mediate the conflict. "Bennett truly believes he can negotiate, because he got the phone call from [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky. Zelensky wants to see the negotiations taking place outside of the zones of influence of Russia. Having said that, I do not think Putin would accept Bennett’s offer, because he does not want negotiations. He wants to see the white flag waved."

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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Lt. Col. (res.) Jonathan D. Halevi, who currently serves as senior Middle East researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Commenting on the unprecedented decision by the head of the Islamic Ra’am party Mansour Abbas last May to join the ruling coalition, Halevi says that from Abbas’ perspective, this decision legitimizes Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. "Analyzing Abbas’ statements over the last decade, one can see he is guided by two principles, pragmatism and Islamism," says Halevi. Abbas had said very clearly, even after joining the coalition, that he bases his political agenda on Islam. Inspired by Prophet Muhammed, Abbas, he argues, also strived to create an alliance with the Jews.

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Ben Caspit hosts this week Anat Ben David, a specialist in communication and professor at the Open University of Israel. Talking about the internal-Israel Pegasus scandal, Ben David says that "cyber-attack tools like NSO’s Pegasus software are in fact unconventional weapons. Their use deeply undermines a large number of human rights, and no state authority should be allowed to use them against its citizens in democratic regimes, or in any regimes for that matter." For her, what is most worrisome in this affair is the prevailing sentiment within Israeli society that the use of Pegasus by police should be condemned only if carried out without a prior court order. She believes that police should not be allowed to use these tools, which endanger democracies and violate human rights.  

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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Brig. Gen. (res.) Assaf Orion. The senior research fellow at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) explains that the US is not responding strongly to attacks against the Emirates by Iran and its proxies. It does not make them pay. "And so, Iran and its proxies feel empowered and notch up their aggression. This situation brings the other countries in the region to seek other ways to mitigate the threat. The first way would be diplomacy and decreasing the conflict, but also building up military forces and enhancing military cooperation with others. Israel’s capabilities are very relevant in these fields. It is perceived as an important asset in the game of regional security."

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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Gen. (ret.) Ephraim Sneh, a geopolitical expert and former minister. While the current government did change some of its approach to the Palestinians, it is not really presenting any new policies on the issue, argues Sneh. Only one third of the coalition is against the two-state solution. The rest are in favor of it. Still, the government had not prevented provocative settlement attempts in the West Bank. These include enlarging settlements around Jerusalem in order to separate the city from the area that is supposed to be a Palestinian state. "Meeting senior Palestinian Authority official Hussein al-Sheikh and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas [the way Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz did] is not enough in order to rectify the policies of the former government," he says, noting this by itself will not prevent the situation from deteriorating into an ethnic conflict. 

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Ben Caspit speaks this week with veteran attorney Amit Becher about the possibility of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signing a plea bargain in order to escape prison time. The chairman of the Tel Aviv District of the Israeli Bar Association argues that even though Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit leaves office at the end of the month, Netanyahu still has enough time to reach such a deal. "If Netanyahu agrees to the conditions proposed, the technical/legal part could be wrapped up quickly. It is not a complex agreement," he says. Having said that, he notes that in the broader sense, this could prove to be much more complicated. "You must take into account the personality of the defendant Netanyahu, as well the necessity to agree on very specific wordings in which the former premier pleads guilty to some of the charges," says Becher. 

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Ben Caspit speaks this week with former Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, who was one of the main architects of the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians. Beilin is pessimistic about the government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett launching any sort of talks with the Palestinians. “Since 2014, when the Secretary of State John Kerry-initiated talks stopped, we don’t have any peace process. I am sure that eventually we will have such process — I hope so. But I don’t know when talks will be renewed, since on the Israeli side there is no partner.” Beilin adds that “the non-partner is saying very clearly for the first time in many years that he does not even intend to meet with the other side.”

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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Eytan Schwartz, who heads the Tel Aviv Municipality Media and Communications Department. Schwartz and his colleagues at the municipality dissociate themselves from the term “The State of Tel Aviv,” which implies that Tel Aviv residents allegedly do not carry the burden of Israeli society and are removed from the difficulties and challenges other Israelis cope with. Schwartz says that such a judgmental approach is unjustified. “In Tel Aviv, we feel part of Israeli society and part of the Israeli mosaic.”

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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Brig. Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, currently the director of the Project on Regional Middle East Developments at the Jerusalem Center. Kuperwasser, who previously headed the strategic affairs ministry and also the IDF research division, is considered a top expert on Iran’s nuclear program. Kuperwasser says that, from Israel’s point of view, none of the current options regarding the Iranian nuclear program are good. “The option that should have been up for discussion – a better, longer, stronger agreement, that guarantees that Tehran will not be able to produce nuclear weapons in the future – this option is currently not on the table,” he laments. Given this reality, Kuperwasser argues that the only option Israel can hope for is the collapse of talks. A return to the original nuclear deal will offer Iran, in ten-years-time, the possibility to construct a whole arsenal of nuclear weapons. In contrast, without an agreement, Iran will strive to become a nuclear threshold country, aiming for one nuclear bomb, he explains. 

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Ben Caspit hosts this week on his podcast Israeli diplomatic correspondent Barak Ravid of Channel 13 News and Axios. Ravid just published his first book, which is about the Trump and Netanyahu era and the Abraham Accords. "For me, the Abraham Accords were really the biggest break-through in Middle East peace in 25 years, and I wanted to be the person to first write as detailed-as-possible account of how these accords came about," he says. Ravid thinks former President Donald Trump, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed are the people who deserve the most credit for them.

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On his podcast this week, Ben Caspit hosts Brig. Gen. (res) Prof. Jacob Nagel, the former Israeli acting National Security Advisor. The ups and downs in the talks conducted these days in Vienna, says Nagel, are not real drama. These are well-orchestrated stories that the Iranians are running, with all the climax points fixed well in advance. Nagel explains that the way things stand now, there is no returning to the 2015 nuclear agreement, adding, “Even the Biden administration’s special envoy on Iran, Robert Malley, understands that.” The reason, he says, is that the mistakes made at the time enabled the Iranians to advance their nuclear ambitions over the years.

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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Dr. Raz Zimmt, an expert on Iran at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). Zimmt says that the strategy espoused at the time by then-President Donald Trump and then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against Iran was obviously flawed, as it did not reach its objectives. While it’s true that Iran’s economy was severely harmed, that was the means, not the goal. Iran’s nuclear policy did not change and the regime was not replaced. Or to be more exact, the policy changed in the wrong direction, as far as the US and Israel are concerned.  

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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Yonatan Adiri, a leading Israeli digital healthcare entrepreneur. Adiri, a former adviser of late President Shimon Peres, explains that most of Israel’s startup leadership is avantgarde, pushing forward visions for the next internet wave. "Companies like Wix or Fiverr or Mymed, and so many other across biotech, across bioinformatics, across infrastructure, all these companies are building the tools for the future," he notes. Adiri adds that those who control the tools for the future, like cyber and software service companies, are the ones likely to win, and this is precisely what current Israeli tech is doing. 

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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Environmental Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg. The minister explains that while Israel is a small country in terms of population and its contribution to global pollution, it is also very fragile in terms of the effects of climate change such as bush fires and floods. The latter are expected to increase heavily in the upcoming years, which is why Israel must react rapidly. Zandberg says that Israel must now invest most of its resources not in looking for more natural gas marine fields, but in developing renewable energy resources, with emphasis on solar energy. "We have to do this very quickly, because we are way, way behind," she notes. 

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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Lt. Col. (res.) Peter Lerner, the former director of international media at the IDF's spokesperson’s office. Commenting on Israel’s repeated failures in the field of public diplomacy, Lerner says that “In Israel, we are very good at improvising, we are fantastic with innovation, but public accountability, responsibility and transparency are limited. We do have a hard case to make, but we can also do better on public diplomacy.” Lerner cites as a negative example the case of Israel’s ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely, recently attacked by BDS activists when coming out of a university lecture. For Lerner, immediately after the incident, Hotovely failed to enter into a “media-crisis-mode,” and she also focused her reactions on Israeli media, instead of addressing primarily the British press.

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Ben Caspit hosts this week on his podcast David Makovsky, the Ziegler distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Commenting on recent signs of tensions between Washington and Jerusalem on the Palestinian issue and other topics, Makovsky says that “We have a situation where both President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett have an understanding, to try to maintain a public sense of harmony and avoid airing dirty laundry in public. An understanding on both sides to keep disagreements private.” Makovsky further notes that while rooting for the Bennett-led government and hailing its success in passing Israel’s state budget, the US administration is now concerned it could take moves it could not have taken otherwise. 

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