About this episode
Allison Kaplan Sommer, Noah Efron and Wunderkind writer, critic & activist Ohad Zeltzer-Zubida discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. --Going, Going, Gantz!-- Blue-and-White head Benny Gantz failed to form the "secular, Liberal, national-unity government" he sought. Did we dodge a bullet? --Politics by Other Means-- We hate to even ask, but: Is it possible that Israel's recent skirmish with the rocket-firing Islamic Jihad in Gaza was timed for PM Netanyahu's political purposes? --Fear and Firer-- Controversy ignites over a benefit concert for an ultra-Orthodox-run NGO that helps people navigate Israel's health care system. What should we make of it? --Are Settlements More a Moral Problem Rather Than a Legal One?-- For our most unreasonably generous Patreon supporters, in our extra-special, special extra segment, we will discuss an essay in the Forward by Peter Beinart headlined, " Settlements Is Not That They Are Illegal. It's That They Are Immoral. " This apropos the sound-and-fury-and-signifying-nothing statement by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that, following Ronald Reagan, the Trump administration does not hold that civilian settlements in the occupied territories contravene international law. --Music-- Jasmin Moallem Leftovers Yoter Mi-Dai Call Me Noetzet Mabat, with Ari Brinker