Haviv

Over the past few months I've been reading and listening to Israeli Haviv Rettig Gur.  He's active on twitter, YouTube, and with a podcast Ask Haviv Anything which alternates between longer in depth episodes and quick 10-15 minute explainers on a specific issue.  I find him thoughtful and able to provide some clarity to complex matters.  

I'm not sure how to categorize him politically as he's not clearly on the right or left.  This, from two days ago, gives you a flavor for his views.

Y’all know I have my disagreements with Bibi [Netanyahu]. Budget priorities, haredi welfare spending, import reforms, judicial reform, information war, avoidance of accountability, Gaza war - okay, a lot of disagreements, including on big, critical things that affect our lives and the lives of our neighbors. But the man has been planning the ayatollahs’ fall for two decades. He believes it’s why God (inasmuch as he believes in God) put him on this Earth. And damned if he isn’t seeing through this thing he has always believed was his destiny. I’ll keep criticizing the bad stuff. I’m a citizen. He works for me. That’s how the system is supposed to work. And I’ll keep praising and being grateful for this one great big huge thing. I don’t know if he’ll succeed. I can’t think of anyone else who would have been so grimly single-minded and so specifically competent in the specific skillset required to bring us to this point.  

I'll also add he's been very critical of corruption involving Netanyahu and his associates.

Some episodes I'd recommend.

Episode 69 - Israel's Great Divide - an insider's look at the judicial reform, with Moshe Koppel.  This was the first of Haviv's podcasts I listened to. Prior to 10/7/23 the issue dominating Israeli politics was Netanyahu's proposed reform of the judiciary.  From an American perspective, the power grabbed by Israel's Supreme Court over the past four decades would never be tolerated.  The lack of a written constitution has enabled the court's actions.  However, the proposed reform amounts to a reverse power grab by the executive and the lack of trust between right and left makes compromise impossible (sounds familiar, doesn't it?).  Moshe Koppel is an academic, not a politician, who was one of the authors of the reform and sounds like a man with intellectual integrity but comes across as naive about the political process.  An excellent overview of both the legal and political aspects of the dispute.

Episode 99 - Are We Winning?  Released yesterday about the Iran War.  Brings an interesting perspective not often heard in the U.S.

Episode 92 - Why does Israel hate UNRWA?  A short episode about the Palestinian relief agency.  The best quick answer to this question, which I've touched on before.

Episode 78 - Do You Still Want to Globalize the Intifada?  Short episode on the significant difference between the First and Second Intifadas and what the Globalize the Intifada means to Israelis. 

Episode 76 - How Elites drive Jew-hatred with Hussein Aboubakr Mansour.  A discussion of the situation in Western academia and in the Muslim world and why it has developed in similar ways.  Mansour is an Egyptian and Muslim, now living in the U.S.  

Episode 65 - The unseen editors rigging the information war with Ashley Rindsberg.  Rindsberg has been doing deep dive detective work on how the manipulation of information is occuring in social media, with a particular focus on Wikipedia, in which the current head of NPR played a significant role in its deterioration as a credible source of information.

I first listened to Haviv via the Unpacking Israeli History podcast of Noam Weissman, which I also recommend.  There were two particular podcasts featuring Haviv that caught my attention; the first a look back on thirty years after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the other on settler violence in Judea and Samaria, which I think a disgrace with not enough done to prevent and punish the perpetrators.