Many readers and podcast listeners have been dismayed by my enduring support for Israel and now urge me to debate someone—really, anyone—drawn from a growing cast of scholars, grifters, and moral lunatics who have made that beleaguered country their professional or psychiatric obsession. I’ve explained my position on Israel across several podcasts and in my public talks, but it might help to summarize it here.

First, my general attitude: I’m not interested in exploring all the ways that Israel has missed the mark—from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corrupt alliance with the far right, to the many crimes committed by settlers in the West Bank, to the deaths of innocent noncombatants in several wars—because none of these failings, however grave, will alter my sense that (1) the ethical difference between Israel and her enemies remains vast, and (2) the global preoccupation with the Jewish state, as though it were the worst villain among nations, is contemptible, being the product of perennial lies and delusions.

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National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir is a reputational arsonist. Yesterday’s fire set by him involved the minister visiting an Ashdod detention center holding the latest batch of Gaza flotilla activists.

In a video posted on social media by Ben-Gvir himself, he paraded around bound and bowed detainees, waved the Israeli flag, and blasted the national anthem—shouting “Welcome to Israel” in Hebrew. It immediately caught the attention of Israel’s enemies, as well as friends and even those at the top of the government. On social media at least, the response was almost entirely negative, with rebukes from the foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, and even Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who described the treatment of the activists as “not in line with Israel’s values and norms.”

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Now, after more than two years of meticulous investigation drawn from survivor testimony, witness accounts, forensic analysis, visual materials, and the preservation of evidence in a secure archive, the record is no longer fragmentary. It is painfully established.

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It’s a travesty because it embraces the erosion of democratic norms at an inflection point in our history. Since our founding, the American political experiment has entrusted everyday citizens with the revolutionary power to choose. We choose the men and women who represent us. We choose how to balance the intimate relationship between a free people and its government. We choose whether to send a member of our community to prison.

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It’s Monday, May 18, and both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are hinting, through statements and actions, that they are preparing for the renewal of American strikes in Iran. Tehran has just submitted its latest diplomatic proposal: a commitment of highly questionable value to refrain from producing nuclear weapons. Conspicuously absent from the document is any mention of halting uranium enrichment or opening of the Strait of Hormuz.

Diplomacy appears to be faltering, but before the next potentially Lion-themed operation, it is worth assessing the success of the last campaign.

Yesterday, Major General Tamir Hayman, executive director of the Institute for National Security Studies and a former head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, published an article with several previously unknown details about the course of the war. Along with the revelations, Hayman gives an assessment: “Despite tactical achievements, the campaign’s two main centers of gravity—the Iranian regime and the nuclear project—remain essentially unchanged.”

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But how does a piece like this end up in The New York Times in the first place? That’s the question Free Press columnist Matti Friedman explores in a recent interview with Dan Senor on the Call Me Back podcast. According to Friedman, the column reflects a broader shift in modern journalism: a media culture that, in his view, has traded its credibility to become “a weapon in the fight for justice.” It’s an essential critique—which is why we’re publishing a transcript of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. 
—The Editors

Dan Senor: I want to start by going through the main claims that Nicholas Kristof makes in his New York Times piece. What are these claims? Which ones are lies? Which are unfalsifiable? And which may have legs?

Matti Friedman: Kristof gives us a list of terrible abuses that he claims were directed at Palestinian detainees. He says he spoke to 14 people, most of whom are not named, and some of the material is sourced from anti-Israel NGOs. He does not seem to know the identities of some of the people he’s describing. He describes male detainees being raped with objects, a female detainee being raped over the space of two days in an Israeli prison, and sexual assault of another female detainee by Israeli guards. He describes one incident of sexual assault by a settler—not by a uniformed soldier, but an Israeli civilian in the West Bank. That one, as far as I know, is accurate, much to our shame. And the incident receiving the most of the attention is Kristof’s description of a sexual assault perpetrated against a Palestinian prisoner using a dog.

When you read the piece, you have to use your own compass to decide which charges could plausibly be true and which charges come from the world of conspiratorial, anti-Israel fantasy. I think there is a plausible reason for concern about sexual assaults of prisoners. I don’t think we can dismiss every account of sexual assaults against Palestinian detainees.

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The Israeli Prison Service has a reputation for incompetence. There have been cases of abuse, even famous cases of prisoners abusing female Israeli guards. We know, too, that all prison systems struggle with the problem: New York prisons face huge numbers of abuse claims. Prisons are not nice places, wherever they are in the world.

So mistreatment of prisoners by Israeli guards isn’t merely possible, it’s almost certain, as in any prison system anywhere in the world. And conditions were especially problematic in recent years. October 7 and the ensuing war sent thousands of Palestinian detainees into the prisons, together with undertrained reservist guards in the early months—guards who had seen Hamas’s videos gleefully documenting massacres that the new prisoners had committed.

I expected, therefore, to find in Kristof’s column a hard-hitting story of real abuse, something Israeli leaders must respond to and that even Israel’s friends would recognize as a problem in need of a solution.

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If you Google “the most dangerous job in the world,” prevailing opinion believes it to be logging. With a fatality rate of over 100 per 100,000 workers, it’s a tough gig, sure, but if we’re talking pure survival rates, an enemy of Israel would be better off picking up an axe. If Google factored in Israel’s efforts against Hezbollah in the last few years, the now-former commander of the terror group’s Radwan Force might have thought twice before taking a job that got his colleagues explosively vacated in 2024.

Regardless, Israel delivered a kinetic reality check last night with a precision strike in the majority-Shi’ite Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh. While the Radwan commander was the primary target, his deputy and other senior officials were also in the crosshairs; reports suggest the deputy survived, but the message was sent regardless. This marks a serious escalation, as it is Israel’s first strike on the Lebanese capital since the mid-April ceasefire began.

The agreement, forged with the intent of affording the U.S. room to maneuver in negotiations with Iran, is still technically in place. While it granted Washington the quiet it was craving, it has proven less satisfying for Jerusalem. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were hoping for a return to the “pre-Operation Roaring Lion” status quo with Hezbollah—which one might call an air strike equivalent of “I get to punch you, and you don’t get to punch me back.” But the circumstances have changed. The shadow of Donald Trump looming over Israel has emboldened the terror group; knowing the U.S. president is holding Israel back, Hezbollah has been poking at the north and throwing jabs at Israel’s security zone in southern Lebanon.

The IDF appears to have accepted this possibility, assuming Hezbollah didn’t have the capacity to inflict significant damage. That was until they introduced their deadly new weapon: fiber-optic, first-person-view drones.

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With each development, the same questions arise: How do such primitive, hateful ideas gain traction? And why does one of the most productive and prosperous civilizations in human history seem to be destroying itself from the inside?

These are the questions political strategist Warren Kinsella takes up in his new book, “The Hidden Hand: The Information War and the Rise of Antisemitic Propaganda,” which examines the spread of these corrosive ideologies in the aftermath of October 7. It’s no accident, Kinsella argues in an excerpt adapted from the book, that Hamas-inspired viewpoints have captured a generation. Rather, it reflects a highly coordinated effort by the terrorist group itself, whose operatives rank among the most sophisticated users of social media in the world. —The Editors

There is a thread.

In the past, white supremacists and Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazis lost more battles than they won. They would run for political office and usually come last, or close to it. They would try to promote hate in a classroom and get fired. They would stand on street corners shouting about conspiracies and get laughed at, ignored, and sometimes arrested. In public opinion surveys, they, and their views, would register in fractions of puny percentage points.

In the mid-1990s, as the internet became available to everyone, everything changed. It’s surprising to many, but it is the truth: The neo-Nazis and al-Qaeda were on the internet long before Twitter or Facebook. They had websites, in the early days, that were more visually appealing than those of national governments. They had a message, a strategy. Notwithstanding their comparatively small ranks, notwithstanding the limits of their bank accounts, notwithstanding the unpopularity of their message, they could—for the first time—be heard and seen by potentially billions of people.

They had finally been handed a formidable weapon with which to attack their shared enemy: the Jew. And in the years since, they’ve continued to use it. Since October 7, 2023, in particular, Hamas and their allies have done so to remarkable effect, capturing the sympathies of millions.

That is the thread that connects Hamas with all the bigots and antisemites who went before them: They’d discovered a new way to defeat the enemy. They had discovered the power of the online campaign.

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It’s Wednesday, May 6, and reportedly, within 48 hours, the U.S. expects Iran’s response to a framework that brings both sides closer to a deal than at any point during the war. The proposed pact trades an Iranian uranium-enrichment freeze for U.S. sanctions relief, unfrozen assets, and a mutually reopened Strait of Hormuz. This framework is strictly an interim measure; if the final negotiations collapse, a return to all-out war is entirely possible.

Still, it is unfortunate timing. Last night, a very senior Israeli intelligence source estimated to me that if the status quo blockade remains, the Islamic Republic “will not survive 2026.” Predicting the complete collapse of a half-century-old theocracy within the next eight months sounds like a bold gamble—until you look at the math.

The Iranian rial is in free fall, crashing to 1.8 million to the U.S. dollar. That is a 25 percent plunge from the exchange rate that triggered mass protests just this past January—and it’s only getting worse. To prevent mass starvation, the government is propping up a heavily subsidized exchange rate of 285,000 rials per dollar just to import basic food supplies. The wider economy is faring no better. Even before the blockade, non-oil trade had plummeted by 50 percent. The much-touted economic “pivot to China” has failed entirely, trade is down 80 percent, and regional hubs for evading sanctions, like the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have slammed their doors shut. Two million Iranians have lost their jobs already, and that number is expected to skyrocket.

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It’s Tuesday, May 5, and yesterday, shortly after news broke that the United Arab Emirates was attacked by Iran, Jerusalem shook with a massive sonic boom as a squadron of Israeli Air Force fighter jets tore overhead. Naturally, the exact same thought popped into every Israeli head at once: Looks like the war is back on. After 20 minutes of mentally inventorying the supplies needed for a return to the bomb shelters, the IAF finally issued a clarification. This wasn’t a combat sortie heading east; it was just a rehearsal for the farewell flyover honoring outgoing IAF chief Major General Tomer Bar. Apparently, the IAF takes going out with a bang quite literally.

But the Jerusalemites’ fear of regional escalation is well-founded, especially after yesterday’s events. As part of Project Freedom, U.S. destroyers successfully guided commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz—sinking six Iranian fast-attack craft that attempted to interfere in the process.

This left the regime in an incredibly awkward position: The threats of a blockade had just been exposed as empty. Unable to pierce the defenses of the U.S. convoy, Iran immediately pivoted to softer targets. They struck the UAE’s oil infrastructure in Fujairah, a South Korean cargo vessel, and impacted Oman.

So, is the war back on? Not exactly.

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It’s Wednesday, April 29, and the United Arab Emirates has announced its departure from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). As the group’s third-largest producer, the move is monumental. By way of comparison, it is akin to a permanent member of the Security Council leaving the United Nations—except, of course, the world actually cares about what OPEC has to say.

To understand why this has huge implications, here’s some context.

OPEC was formed in 1960 by Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, ostensibly to ensure the global stability of the oil supply, but fundamentally to act as a cartel to fix the price of oil at a level that benefited the members. As their charter states:

“The principal aim of the Organization shall be the coordination and unification of the petroleum policies of Member Countries and the determination of the best means for safeguarding their interests, individually and collectively.”

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It’s Tuesday, April 28, and Iran is beginning to crack. Vindicating Donald Trump’s weekend claim that Iranian officials could “come to us, or they can call us,” Iran has reportedly presented a new proposal, offering to “reopen” the Strait of Hormuz and end the current hostilities, provided that U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations are postponed to a later date.

Trump responded that while this offer is “much better” than previous proposals—which demanded Iranian sovereignty over the strait—it remains “not enough.” It goes without saying why surrendering Washington’s primary point of leverage over the regime before securing ironclad guarantees on the nuclear issue is a nonstarter.

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It’s Monday, April 27, and it’s happening again. In 2013, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid joined forces to demand an end to Haredi draft exemptions, forcing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to exclude the ultra-Orthodox from his coalition. In 2021, they teamed up a second time to build a short-lived government that successfully forced Netanyahu into the opposition. Now, this final alliance is intended to finish the job and expel him from politics for good.

Last night, the two leaders officially merged their factions into a new joint party called Beyachad (“Together”). With Lapid’s backing, Bennett is now the undisputed prime ministerial candidate set to challenge Netanyahu at the ballot box this October.

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At 9:32 a.m. on February 28, Mojtaba Khamenei stepped outside of the family compound to “do something,” according to an Iranian official. Seconds later, the compound was struck, and Khamenei vanished.

Confirmed dead from that strike was his father, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, abruptly leaving Iran’s top job open for the regime’s favorite nepo baby. Still missing, Khamenei ran a highly successful campaign—bolstered, naturally, by his campaign advisers, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Despite Israeli kinetic arguments to the contrary, on March 8, the Assembly of Experts—with many members voting safely online—declared him the new Supreme Leader unanimously.

In lieu of an inauguration speech, four days after his appointment, a written message attributed to Khamenei was read on state TV. No audio. No video. The next day, the son of President Masoud Pezeshkian assured the public that despite the glaring lack of proof of life, the leader was “safe and sound.” Meanwhile, Iranian officials spun a tale of minor facial and leg injuries, insisting he remained entirely lucid.

The narrative has essentially frozen there. For the last month and a half, the regime has subsisted entirely on ventriloquism—statements attributed to the new Supreme Leader without a single visual confirmation—while foreign reports have described his condition as ranging between severely mutilated and dead.

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It’s Thursday, April 23, and the war with Iran is no longer about oil or gas; it is a battle over a single resource: time. The questions that will determine the fate of the Middle East are who controls the clock, who can afford to wait, and who is simply out of time?

Currently, the ayatollahs boast that their dictatorial regime will allow them to hold out indefinitely, while the closure of the Strait of Hormuz imposes an expiration date on U.S. aggression. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump claims to be in an equally comfortable position: Iranian ports are blockaded, some commercial ships are still navigating the strait despite the closure, and fresh U.S. military assets are on their way.

The question is, who’s bluffing?

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What are these days all about? Why were they grouped together? What are Israelis actually marking in this period? The answer is a journey into Israel’s founding experience and culture, and how different it is from the cultures of commemoration in the West.

The people remembered in these holidays, the victims of the Holocaust, wars, and terrorism, can seem like abstractions from the other side of the world, or from four generations later. But the nine-day arc of these national holidays is all about reifying these lost souls. In gatherings throughout the country, names are read out. Stories are told of specific loved ones remembered and lost. Historical abstractions and distant cultural touchstones that a nation’s fallen inevitably become over time are pulled back into our consciousness as real remembered human beings. It is commemoration through specificity and intimacy.

That’s how the date of Yom HaShoah was chosen. Israeli leaders rejected the obvious choices: The Ninth of Av—Tisha B’Av—a traditional Jewish fast day that marks the destruction of the two Temples in Jerusalem, the expulsion from Spain, and other disasters of Jewish history. The legislators of the early Knesset were loath to lump the Holocaust, unique in scope and result, with the rest of that history. They considered the eve of Passover, when the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was launched in 1943. They wanted to center the commemoration on that act of desperate defiance and doomed courage, rather than on vulnerability and helplessness. But that date, too, was rejected. It would interfere with the celebration of Passover.

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It’s Monday, April 20, and according to Donald Trump, talks with Iran are scheduled to resume tomorrow, although the Islamic Republic has stated it will not send a delegation. Despite the posturing, a senior official confirmed to me that a six-point outline is currently under discussion between the United States and Iran.

The proposed framework includes:

1. A 15-year suspension of enrichment. The United States originally demanded a 20-year freeze, while Tehran pushed for significantly less; the two sides eventually settled on 15.

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Fair enough. That’s a serious claim. It deserves a serious engagement. So I listened.

I expected a hard conversation. I was hoping for a challenge. Israelis need to have a serious conversation about the millions of people living under our military rule. Yes, this issue defined our politics for a generation—but that was years ago. And the problem, with all its moral and political consequences, has only deepened. There are plenty of explanations for how we got here, many of them valid and important. Some of my own essays and videos on the subject have been widely consumed over the years. But none of them make the daily reality of occupation vanish.

So I expected to sympathize with a call not to look away, with an honest grappling with the fact that millions of Palestinians have lived under Israeli military rule for decades. With a call to reshoulder the task of finally ending this wrong.

I even expected to sympathize with an outsider telling us: Enough with the history—look at what is.

Instead, I found a man hiding from the very realities he claims to expose. Klein markets himself as the king of difficult conversations—and this particular difficult conversation has been the backdrop of my entire life, so let’s have it.

But it was not to be.

What I heard from Klein wasn’t a man talking about real people, but about an imagined moral journey he wants Americans to take, a performance of American moral awakening that manages to avoid discussing the hardest realities facing Israelis, Palestinians, and Lebanese—and that even included a familiar sleight of hand: insisting that an issue dominating American discourse has somehow been ignored until his intervention.

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The shekel-U.S. dollar exchange rate has fallen below 3 NIS/USD for the first time in 30 years. It’s been so long that around the last time the shekel was this strong, Benjamin Netanyahu was prime minister, Aryeh Deri was the head of Shas, and the Israel Defense Forces were in southern Lebanon.

The strength of the shekel has its pros and cons. Let’s start with the downsides.

For Israeli exporters, a strong shekel acts as a direct tax on competitiveness. Because companies earning foreign currency must convert it to pay local shekel expenses, a massive chunk of their profit margin simply evaporates in the exchange rate. This is also true on the macro scale: Israel’s sovereign wealth fund generated an impressive 18.4 percent profit in U.S. dollars in 2025. However, because the dollar weakened against the shekel, that return shrank to just 3.8 percent in shekel terms, wiping out NIS 1.1 billion. Returns on other foreign investments face similar contractions.

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