The start of a new civil year is a good time to ask why almost no one uses the term “the Twenties” to describe the wild decade we have just crossed the midpoint of. Perhaps the phrase still conjures images, for older generations, of trench coats, silent films and the Weimar Republic. In any case, […] The post The Three Men of Israeli Politics appeared first on Amit Segal.

There was one moment in the Knesset speech on the day the war ended that particularly troubled Likud. It happened when the president spontaneously praised Yair Lapid. “He’s a nice guy,” he said to Netanyahu — and then jabbed the prime minister: “You don’t need to be so tough now that the war is over.” […] The post The White House’s Non-Partisan Affection appeared first on Amit Segal.

The decision to recruit Eli Feldstein to the Prime Minister’s Office was made by Yonatan Urich. In the second week of October 2023, Benjamin Netanyahu had slightly more urgent matters on his mind than hiring an assistant spokesman. But the general direction was clear: someone who would speak with the military correspondents through a semi-official […] The post QatarGate: Who Knew? appeared first on Amit Segal.

If Hezbollah was at level 100 on October 6, 2023, it reached the ceasefire on November 27, 2024 at roughly level 20. And its condition at the end of 2025? A slight improvement — somewhere around 25. In the first two months after the war ended, Hezbollah was unable to staff platoon- and company-level command […] The post Degraded but Not Defeated: Hezbollah One Year After the Ceasefire appeared first on Amit Segal.

In psychology, it’s called “projection”: When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accuses Israel of attempting to establish the ancient “Greater Israel” on the territory of its neighbors, he is expressing his own collective desire, and that of his supporters, to revive the Ottoman Empire that once ruled those very same regions. When he claims, without […] The post Don’t Give Erdogan F-35s appeared first on Amit Segal.

It seems the opposition doesn’t believe it will win a majority. So what’s next? Gadi Eisenkot offered his solution last Saturday night when I interviewed him on Channel 12, hinting that if such were the election results, he would work to form a minority government with the abstention of the Arab parties. Everyone was furious. […] The post No Majority? No Problem appeared first on Amit Segal.

Let’s assume that Israel had decided to destroy Coca-Cola as an organization. Five army divisions would land in Atlanta, aiming to destroy the infrastructure and leadership. What are the chances that after two years of intense fighting, with ninety percent of the company’s top leadership eliminated and headquarters bombed, the recipe of the world’s most […] The post Is Hamas Unkillable? appeared first on Amit Segal.

“God gave me this role at this moment,” President Isaac Herzog told Politico this week. But his dilemma regarding a pardon for Netanyahu is one even the devil himself couldn’t have devised. One camp believes the president’s historic role is to rescue Israel from a trial that should never have happened and that has turned our […] The post To Pardon or Not to Pardon—A Third Way appeared first on Amit Segal.

Rain dripped through the burnt roof beams of Amit Soussana’s house in Kibbutz Kfar Aza. Already in November 2023, a month after the massacre and Amit’s kidnapping, it was clear that not much would survive in the ruined homes without a comprehensive preservation plan. More than two years have passed, and almost nothing has […] The post Who Owns the Memory of October 7? appeared first on Amit Segal.

I tried for two days not to comment on National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and his Otzma Yehudit party’s golden noose pin. I’ve finally cracked. Everyone knows why a bride walks under her wedding canopy, and yet no one says so out loud. Everyone knows that to carry out an execution you need gallows, […] The post Israel Deserves Better Than Ben Gvir’s Disgraceful Hangman’s Pin appeared first on Amit Segal.

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