The Deep Dive

Democrats swept the US midterms, and VP JD Vance cited the Israel relationship as a factor in the GOP loss. Is unconditional US support for Israel ending?On this week’s Deep Dive, host Jacob Laznik and The Jerusalem Post’s Shir Perets unpack what the blue wave means for Israel. They look at the newly elected anti-Israel voices, President Trump’s announcement that US aid will end at the close of 2026, and the shift inside the Republican Party. Perets pushes back on the panic: “It’s not that Texas is blue and now Israel gets no weapons forever.” Laznik argues the bigger warning comes from inside the GOP: “The sitting vice president saying, if we want to win elections, we need to change our relationship with Israel. That is very concerning to me.”The conversation goes beyond aid figures. It covers the rhetoric worrying American Jewish voters, what being “pro-Israel” now costs a Democratic candidate, and whether Israel’s government bet too heavily on Trump. With the new Knesset sworn in on November 10 and coalition talks underway, the hosts also ask whether a new round of fighting with Iran is coming soon, and how Netanyahu and Trump might each look for an off-ramp.

Likud leads, Arab parties hit a record 19 seats, and no one has 61. Jerusalem Post's Knesset correspondent Keshet Neev unpacks Israel’s post-election deadlock.With about 97% of votes counted, the results upended months of polling. Netanyahu’s Likud is the largest party, and his bloc leads 53 to 48. Even so, no coalition adds up. Record Arab turnout raised the effective threshold and pushed every new small party out of the Knesset. Meanwhile, the Arab parties are signaling a willingness to use their leverage to unseat Netanyahu without their traditional preconditions. Keshet Neev and host Jacob Laznik walk through each scenario: a unity government with Gadi Eisenkot and Naftali Bennett, a minority government, or a third outcome neither bloc wants. “Anyone who says they know what’s going to happen is lying,” Laznik says.The week grew more complicated when it emerged that the Shin Bet is examining suspected foreign funding, reportedly linked to Qatar and possibly Turkey, aimed at boosting Arab turnout. Qatar has denied the allegations, and the Central Elections Committee says the integrity of the vote is intact. The episode also covers Avigdor Liberman’s wildcard role and how a Democratic win in the US midterms could shape Netanyahu’s Iran plans. It closes with what these first post–October 7 elections reveal: Netanyahu’s bloc still leads, but “doesn’t have nearly as much support as it did” before the attack, Neev notes.

With less than a week until Israelis vote, a leading election pollster argues Netanyahu isn't trying to win, he's trying not to lose.Fresh off a Trump endorsement and a late blitz of Israeli TV interviews, Netanyahu is making his final push. But JPPI senior fellow and Channel 13 pollster Shmuel Rosner tells Deep Dive's host, Jacob Laznik, that most voters made up their minds long ago, shaped by the judicial overhaul, October 7 and years of war."Netanyahu doesn't expect a win. He expects not to lose," he says, describing a defensive strategy designed to deny the opposition a workable coalition and force yet another election.The conversation covers the race to 61 seats and the odds of a minority or unity government, including the scenario in which President Herzog brokers a plea deal that lets Netanyahu step aside.He also addresses whether a new round with Iran could reshape the vote, why Trump endorses allies like Netanyahu and Orbán at no cost to himself, and why Israel's election system remains one of the few institutions Israelis still trust. "There are many good things in America that Israel can imitate," he warns. "That's one of the things we should not imitate."

Giving through JGive is now more than four times its pre-October 7 level. Founder and CEO Ori Ben-Shlomo on whether Israel-diaspora solidarity can last.Three years after October 7, the surge in giving to Israel hasn't faded; it has kept climbing.Ben-Shlomo says JGive expects more than a quarter of a million Israeli and diaspora donors this year, giving a combined half a billion shekels. The bigger shift, he argues, is cultural: "Before October 7, the third sector was nice to have. Now it's a must-have."With elections approaching and many diaspora Jews unable to vote, he makes a provocative case: "Politics divides people, and giving connects them." In his view, philanthropy can shape Israeli society more than politics does.Ben-Shlomo founded JGive after reserve duty in Operation Protective Edge in 2014. In this conversation, he explains how donors moved from the old "Uncle Sam" model of writing a check to an institution toward direct, transparent giving, often alongside Israelis rather than for them.He also takes on a hard question: how diaspora communities are balancing support for Israel against the rising cost of protecting themselves from antisemitism at home. He shares the story of a wounded reservist who used his own rehab to fundraise for his hospital roommate, and he lays out his vision for Israel's "fourth power": a strong civil society, built alongside defense, the economy, and technology.

Uri Pintov was flying home from Thailand with his wife and three children when flydubai flight FZ1073 suddenly plunged toward the desert. Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief, Zvika Klein, filling in this week for host Jacob Laznik, investigates further.Sitting in row 9, just behind business class, Pintov describes being pinned to the cabin floor during the dive, then helping restrain the attacker with airline headphones and carrying oxygen to the badly wounded captain. "We all realized we were going to die," he says. For 90 minutes after that, the Israeli passengers didn't know where the plane was going or whom to trust, so they posted a guard on every crew member until the aircraft landed in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. He also explains why so many families hesitated to board flydubai's replacement plane, and what he wants from Israeli officials now.In the second half, Jerusalem Post senior Middle East analyst Seth J. Frantzman takes on the bigger questions. He looks at why reserve pilots were on board, how emergency codes work, and how a pilot reportedly dismissed by Oman Air could end up in a flydubai cockpit. He also warns against learning "the wrong lesson" from the attack. Frantzman calls flydubai "one of the crown jewels of the Abraham Accords," explains why Saudi Arabia would not let Israeli aircraft collect the passengers, and gives a frank assessment of what stands in the way of Saudi-Israeli normalization.

Israel's Central Elections Committee voted to bar every Arab party from the October 27 election. Jerusalem Post legal affairs correspondent Sarah Ben-Nun explains what happens next.The committee voted to disqualify Ra'am, the Joint List, Hadash MK Ofer Cassif and Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh. It rejected petitions against Otzma Yehudit and the Religious Zionist party Zehut. None of these decisions is final until the Supreme Court rules. Ben-Nun walks through the three grounds for disqualification under Section 7A of Basic Law: The Knesset. She explains why Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara opposed barring the parties but backed disqualifying Abu Shehadeh over an article he published on October 8, 2023. She also explains why committee chairman Justice Noam Sohlberg's rare decision to cast a vote matters."The committee is a political committee," Ben-Nun tells the host Jacob Laznik, "but it is also a really necessary mechanism." She notes that the Supreme Court has traditionally read Section 7A very narrowly and has barred candidates only a handful of times.The conversation also covers the stakes beyond the courtroom. Arab Israeli leaders have voiced fears of voter intimidation, and the Joint List could be thrown into chaos if a faction head is removed after the list deadline.Ben-Nun also explains why a ruling against Abu Shehadeh could set a lasting precedent for political speech during wartime. Throughout, she draws a line between a petition being filed, a committee vote, and a final court ruling, which voters often blur.

Israel is heading into what Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Zvika Klein calls one of its most consequential elections ever, and he explains why the right bloc is in "shambles."In this wide-ranging conversation with Jacob Laznik, Klein argues that Likud's last-minute candidate list, the delayed primary, the fight over "reserved" seats, a former hostage and a top defense figure placed in slots that "make no sense," has quietly hobbled Netanyahu's party even as it leads the polls.He contrasts that scramble with Gadi Eizenkot's disciplined, low-noise campaign, unpacks why the much-hyped "third bloc" collapsed, and walks through the coalition math around Ra'am and the Joint List.On the issues voters actually feel, he doesn't hold back: "It's insane that we don't have a probe. It's insulting." And he lays out what any next government must confront first, the haredi draft, a real commission of inquiry, and an overhaul of Israel's diplomacy and advocacy on the scale of "an Ariel Sharon magnitude" shake-up.It's a candid, insider read on Israeli politics, one that will frustrate partisans on both sides, from the newsroom leader who tracks the coalitions, the polling, and the personalities day to day. Whether you back the current government or want it gone, this is the context behind the headlines.

The UK targeted imports from Israeli settlements, and a dozen countries followed. Symbolic gesture or real economic threat? The Jerusalem Post's editor-in-chief, Zvika Klein, weighs in. In this episode of The Deep Dive, host Jacob Laznik sits down with Klein to unpack the UK's escalated measures on West Bank trade and the coordinated statement from roughly a dozen other governments, with Germany's notable absence.The two don't agree: Laznik argues the economic hit is minimal and the move is mostly "messaging," while the editor pushes back that Israel is misreading its own strength. "We don't see ourselves as strong as we are," he argues, warning that Israel's post-October-7 instinct to answer everything as if it were a military threat is widening the gap between how Israel reacts and how the world sees it.The conversation ranges from the BDS "slippery slope" and the SodaStream boycott that ended up hurting Palestinian workers, to Israel's expulsion of British coordination personnel from Kiryat Gat and what that means for the plan to replace Hamas in Gaza.With Israel deep in an election campaign, both hosts land on a striking irony: sanctions meant to pressure the prime minister may boomerang and strengthen him at the ballot box. It's a candid, occasionally combative look at the difference between a headline and its actual consequences.

Days before Israel's parties lock in their final Knesset lists, most polls show Gadi Eisenkot's bloc ahead of Netanyahu's Likud, and the right is scrambling to hold its votes.Jerusalem Post Knesset and political correspondent Keshet Neev joins host Jacob Laznik on The Deep Dive to break down the mergers, defections and coalition math shaping the race.They dig into the "third bloc" of new right-wing parties pressuring Netanyahu, Ofer Winter's headline-grabbing launch with activist Yosef Hadad at No. 2, and the Gilad Erdan–Yuli Edelstein list that pitched itself as the Likud alternative but never caught fire.Neev also shares the surprise from her own recent sit-down with Naftali Bennett, whose tone on a possible Netanyahu pardon has notably softened since the spring, even as he holds firm against sitting in a Netanyahu government.As she puts it, "the closer we get to the elections, the more nasty it's going to get." The conversation closes on what may be the most overlooked story of the cycle: Mansour Abbas keeping Ra'am out of the reduced Arab joint list while reportedly slotting a Jewish former police chief at No. 2, a first in the party's history that could reshape the coalition arithmetic.With lists due within days and elections set for no later than October 2026, this is the map you'll want before the campaign turns personal.

Everyone thinks the Iran file has stalled. Ex-IDF officer Or Horvitz argues the opposite: a quiet US strategy shift is already underway. In this Deep Dive episode, host Jacob Laznik sits down with JPPI Senior Fellow Or Horvitz, former head of the IDF's Hezbollah and Lebanon desk, to argue that Washington has quietly abandoned deal-making for a "maximum pressure 2.0" campaign aimed at the collapse of the Iranian regime, and that almost no one in mainstream coverage is naming it.Horvitz maps the two camps inside the Trump administration (Secretary Rubio betting pressure topples the regime, VP Vance betting it forces compromise), why he thinks negotiating with today's hawkish leadership is pointless, and how Iran's economic freefall sets a starting point far worse than the first sanctions era."I genuinely now believe that there is no other way but to topple this regime," he says, while warning, "Iran is a bully, and you cannot appease a bully."Drawing on the Reagan-era pivot from containment to proactive pressure against the USSR, Horvitz explains why change has to come from inside Iran, what the West missed during the January uprising, his fear of a secret nuclear program in the desert, and the historic window opening in Lebanon as a cash-starved Iran can no longer fund Hezbollah.He closes on Syria's new leadership, the growing-but-lesser challenge of Turkey, and a plea to strip Israeli and American foreign policy of election-season politics. Sober analysis with, in his words, cautious optimism.