Latest Peace process Podcast Episodes
The Judiciary Debate and the Future of Israeli Democracy
Decision Points - February 09, 2023 10:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsHost David Makovsky is joined by Prof. Yedidia Stern, president of the Jewish People Policy Institute and former dean of the law faculty at Bar-Ilan University, and Justice Elyakim Rubinstein, Israel’s former attorney-general and the recently retired deputy president of its Supreme Court. After b...
Grappling with the Direction of the New Netanyahu Government
Decision Points - January 23, 2023 10:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsIn the season finale, David is joined by Ben Caspit, columnist and author of The Netanyahu Years, and David Horovitz, the founding editor of The Times of Israel, to discuss Israel's returning prime minister and his controversial right-wing government. David and the guests break down the keys to B...
Combating Anti-Semitism in the Middle East and Beyond
Decision Points - January 16, 2023 10:00 - 39 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsDavid is joined by acclaimed historian Deborah Lipstadt, appointed by President Biden as the State Department's Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism. The two discuss the state of contemporary anti-Semitism, reflect upon the role of the Holocaust in Israel, and draw takeaways f...
Rabbi Kook: Founding Religious Zionism and Those Who Seek to Subvert His Legacy Today
Decision Points - January 09, 2023 10:00 - 54 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsIn this episode, host David Makovsky welcomes Yehudah Mirsky, professor of Near Eastern and Judaic studies at Brandeis University, faculty member of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, and author of Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution. The two discuss the ideology of Rabbi Abraham Isa...
Too Much History and Too Little Geography: A Conversation Across the Israeli-Palestinian Societal Divide
Decision Points - December 19, 2022 10:00 - 48 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsYossi Klein Halevi, Shalom Hartman Institute fellow and author of Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor, joins the podcast to discuss Israeli-Palestinian coexistence with Yousef Bashir, Director of Research & Operations for the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace and author of The Words ...
An Insider's View of the Carter White House: Negotiations with Sadat, Begin, and Assad
Decision Points - December 12, 2022 10:00 - 56 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsDavid Makovsky hosts veteran diplomat Stuart Eizenstat, who served as Jimmy Carter’s chief domestic policy advisor and whose book President Carter: The White House Years provides an unparalleled view of the administration’s Middle East decisionmaking. In this episode, David and Stuart discuss the...
Kissinger’s Middle East: Limiting Moscow and Starting a Road to Peace
Decision Points - December 05, 2022 10:00 - 47 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsDavid Makovsky hosts Martin Indyk, Washington’s former peace envoy and ambassador to Israel, to discuss his recent book Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger and the Art of Middle East Diplomacy. The conversation will focus on Kissinger’s Middle East strategy from the 1973 war to the beginnings of ...
Jabotinsky and the Birth of the Israeli Right
Decision Points - November 28, 2022 10:00 - 49 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsHillel Halkin, author of Jabotinsky: A Life, joins host David Makovsky to discuss Russian Zionist thinker Zeev Jabotinsky and the origins of the Revisionist movement, which has shaped a great deal of Israel’s political thought over the decades. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more in...
David Ben-Gurion: Leader of the Young State Confronts Momentous Decisions
Decision Points - November 14, 2022 10:00 - 56 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsDavid Ben-Gurion's term as Israel's prime minister marked not only a new era for the Jewish people, but a starkly different chapter in his own life. Anita Shapira, the author of Ben-Gurion: Father of Modern Israel, joins the podcast to discuss the challenges and accomplishments of this time, from...
Herzl’s Chutzpah: Unpacking a Founder’s Vision
Decision Points - November 07, 2022 10:00 - 45 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsShlomo Avineri, the author of Herzl's Vision: Theodor Herzl and the Foundation of the Jewish State, discusses the father of modern Zionism and his legacy. Avineri is director of the Institute for European Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for ...
Genesis of American Support for Israel: The Gentile Push for a Jewish State
Decision Points - October 31, 2022 09:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsWalter Russell Mead, the author of The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People, discusses the centuries-long history of Zionism in America, the hurdles Truman overcame to recognize the state of Israel, and the evolution of Israel’s role in U.S. domestic pol...
Season 4 Trailer
Decision Points - October 25, 2022 17:13 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsThis season of Decision Points will mark the upcoming 75th anniversary of Israel’s founding by highlighting some of the finest and most cutting-edge books on Zionism, the U.S.-Israel relationship, and Arab-Israeli relations. Each episode will feature in-depth interviews with a group of authors th...
Can the Bennett-Lapid Government Last, and Who Comes After Abbas?
Decision Points - August 24, 2021 14:31 - 53 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsPrime Minister Naftali Bennett’s visit to the White House this week is a timely reminder of potentially new political dynamics in Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Israeli has just exited the whirlwind of four elections in two years, replacing long-serving Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu wit...
The Abraham Accords One Year Later: Can They Change the Middle East?
Decision Points - August 17, 2021 14:10 - 43 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsAugust 13 marked the first anniversary of the breakthrough normalization agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates—a deal followed shortly by accords with Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco. In addition to strong U.S. mediation, several broader forces brought these countries together, inclu...
One State or Two States? Trends in Israeli and Palestinian Public Opinion
Decision Points - August 10, 2021 14:50 - 56 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsIn recent years, public support for the two-state solution has continued to erode on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide. Each party suspects that the other has completely given up on the idea, further weakening the political will and public trust needed to preserve it. Can leaders lead...
China's Middle East Gambit
Decision Points - August 03, 2021 14:26 - 36 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsOver the past two decades, China has increasingly challenged America’s economic and political influence in the Middle East, including in Israel. At the same time, Washington remains Jerusalem’s strongest ally and patron, which raises questions about how the U.S. relationship affects Israel’s pol...
Israel’s Dramatic Energy Turnaround
Decision Points - July 20, 2021 14:45 - 33 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsAfter decades of energy dependence, Israel discovered offshore natural gas reserves that have fundamentally changed its energy dynamics and led it to deepen ties across the Mediterranean and the Middle East. The country is suddenly a net energy exporter to Jordan, Egypt, and the Palestinians, wh...
Hezbollah and Israel: Between Deterrence and Deterioration
Decision Points - July 13, 2021 13:54 - 40 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsSince the 2006 Lebanon war, Israel and Hezbollah have not engaged in major hostilities. Yet while mutual deterrence has averted all-out war, this uneasy truce is weakening. At home in Lebanon, Hezbollah is facing a dire economic and political crisis. Moreover, the group still seeks to convert so...
Putin, Israel, and the Calculated Limits of a Bilateral Relationship
Decision Points - July 06, 2021 14:02 - 29 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsFor decades, Israel and Russia stood on opposite ends of an ideological divide. During the Soviet era, Moscow not only supported Israel’s enemies economically and militarily, but also sought to stamp out any connection between Russian citizens and Israel, refusing millions the right to emigrate....
Israel's Gray Zone: Iran in Syria
Decision Points - June 29, 2021 14:31 - 40 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsSince 2015, Iranian forces have increasingly entrenched themselves in Syria as part of a broader effort to bolster the rule of Bashar al-Assad. As this effort began to unfold, Israel feared reenacting the cautionary tale of Hezbollah in Lebanon, where indecision over rooting out the Tehran-backe...
Israel's Powder Keg: Hamas in Gaza
Decision Points - June 22, 2021 12:57 - 41 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsIn May, after tensions escalated in Jerusalem, Hamas and Israel broke a two-year ceasefire and were drawn into war. The crisis reminded the world that the ideological differences between the sides are vast. Are Israel and Hamas doomed to face each other every few years? How much of a game-change...
The United States, Israel, and the Iranian Nuclear Program
Decision Points - June 15, 2021 13:45 - 43 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsWorld attention has focused on the prospects of the United States and Iran finding terms that enable them to return to their 2015 nuclear deal. Yet what does this mean for all the unanswered challenges that President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken say are essential to address in a “longer ...
Season 3 Trailer
Decision Points - June 08, 2021 19:24 - 1 minute ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsThis season of Decision Points features episodes on Israel's toughest contemporary policy dilemmas requiring courageous leadership and creative thinking. Topics range from the aftermath of the Gaza conflict to the Israeli-Russian relationship. Each episode will explore a thorny policy issue as we...
Inside the Normalization Agreements Between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain
Decision Points - November 10, 2020 12:11 - 35 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsFor the final episode of the season, the podcast focuses on a very significant step for Israel: the recent normalization agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Unlike with past peace partners Egypt and Jordan, Israel never fought either Gulf country on the battlefield. However, co...
Ariel Sharon’s Road from Settlement Building to Gaza Withdrawal
Decision Points - October 21, 2020 13:39 - 36 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsIsrael’s Ariel Sharon gained early renown for his battlefield courage and notoriety for his strident opposition to Palestinian statehood. But Sharon, who served as prime minister from 2001 to 2006, was not an ideologue. When he saw pragmatic opportunities to advance Israel’s long-term interests,...
Hafiz al-Assad and the Elusive Quest for Syrian-Israeli Peace
Decision Points - October 14, 2020 13:25 - 37 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsFor the past decade, Syria has been a killing field on which the regime of President Bashar al-Assad has been a ruthless perpetrator. As a result, international players now view the Syrian leader as a pariah. Under the rule of Bashar’s father, Hafiz al-Assad, Syria employed harsh tactics and emb...
A Behind the Scenes Account of King Hussein and Jordanian-Israeli Peace Ties
Decision Points - October 07, 2020 15:33 - 42 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsWhen King Hussein ascended to the throne at the age of sixteen, he dedicated his life to building a peaceful and prosperous Jordan. His reign was far from simple, however—he faced multiple wars abroad, a civil war at home, assassination attempts, and diplomatic crises. Throughout this tumultuous...
The Enduring Debate over Yasser Arafat’s Strategy and Journey
Decision Points - September 30, 2020 13:09 - 33 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsMore than anyone else, Yasser Arafat relished the role of embodying the Palestinian national struggle—even his keffiyeh was shaped to resemble historical Palestine. Some depicted him as a defiant freedom fighter, but he would become reviled by many, especially in the United States and Israel, as...
Yitzhak Rabin’s Journey from War Hero to Peacemaker
Decision Points - September 23, 2020 12:52 - 34 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsYitzhak Rabin was Israel’s first native-born prime minister, and he personified the national ethos throughout his life. At once pragmatic and patriotic, he fought for Israel’s security, survival, and prosperity in both the military and politics. All of his efforts culminated with the Oslo Accord...
Anwar Sadat’s Trip to Jerusalem
Decision Points - September 16, 2020 12:59 - 32 minutes ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsOn November 19th, 1977, Anwar Sadat, the President of Egypt and arguably the leader of the Arab world, stepped off a plane at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. This was the first time an Arab leader set foot in the Jewish state. He was going to go his own way for the restoration of Egyptian land a...
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