The clashes in Sweida in southern Syria this week focused world attention on the plight of the Druze and questions about the nature of the new Syrian government. Videos and claims of atrocities drove hundreds of Golan Druze to rush into Syria to the rescue of their brethren. Israeli strikes in Damascus against Syrian forces raised the stakes and led to questions, including in Israel itself, about how Israel can protect the Druze while not sacrificing an expansion of the Abraham Accords.

Rania Fadel Dean comes from a prominent Israeli Druze family. Her organization, Covenant, seeks to teach Americans about the Druze community. She joins us to share an Israeli Druze perspective, including what she's hearing from friends and family members in Sweida.

This episode was sponsored by Bennett and Robin Greenspan of Houston, Texas, strong supporters of Israel who recognize Israel's centrality and vitality to the Jewish world. They asked to dedicate this episode to lone soldiers serving in the IDF.

Please join me on Patreon to support this project: ⁠www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything⁠.

If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at haviv@askhavivanything.com⁠.

Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

As hostage talks seem stalled and the war grinds on into its 22nd month, doubts about Netanyahu’s strategy and intentions have become ubiquitous.

Netanyahu has given many reasons to distrust him, including his simple refusal to explain the strategy for removing Hamas and Israel’s vision for a post-Hamas Gaza.

But it isn’t enough to criticize Netanyahu’s strategy or even to argue he doesn’t have one. To offer an effective critique, critics need to suggest a better strategy for removing Hamas and securing a better future for Gaza.

So far, criticism of Netanyahu has either avoided this step or suggested that Hamas cannot, in fact, be disentangled from Gaza, that Gaza’s future is inevitably a Hamas future.

In this episode, we dive into these questions. We ask what it would mean for both Israelis and Palestinians if Hamas is, as the critics claim, unremovable.

This episode was sponsored by Bennett and Robin Greenspan of Houston, Texas, strong supporters of Israel who recognize Israel’s centrality and vitality to the Jewish world. They asked us to say that they are proud to sponsor this episode of “Ask Haviv Anything” because this podcast makes understanding the Middle East a bit easier. They have dedicated this episode to the courageous and incredibly imaginative women and men of the Mossad, who make television look boring and simplistic in comparison to their daring exploits behind enemy lines.

Please join me on Patreon to support this project: ⁠www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything⁠.

If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at haviv@askhavivanything.com⁠.

Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

There are many ways to process and manage painful and difficult times. After the massacre of October 7 and the multi-front war that ensued, many Israelis turned to music, and often to the powerful ballads and melodies of singer-songwriter duo (and married couple) Aya Korem and Adam Ben Amitai.

Aya and Adam join us in a special song-laden episode to take a look back at 21 months of pain, resilience, solidarity and, in the end, also hope.

This episode was sponsored by Bennett and Robin Greenspan of Houston, Texas, who believe in Israel's centrality and importance for the Jewish world.

They chose to dedicate this episode to Edut710en.org, a grassroots, volunteer-driven initiative established in the wake of October 7 to listen to, document, preserve, share and amplify the voices of survivors, first responders, and entire communities who experienced Hamas’s brutal attack firsthand. Over 1,600 testimonies have already been recorded to this date—many of them accessible at www.edut710.org.

We hope you like our new musical intro, written just for us by the incomparable Adam Ben Amitai.

Please join me on Patreon to support this project: ⁠ www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything⁠.

If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at ⁠haviv@askhavivanything.com⁠.

A podcast by Haviv Rettig Gur

The Iranian regime has long claimed to be the bearers of Shia Islam's vision of messianic redemption. The Supreme Leader, who ruled under regime founder Ruhollah Khomeini's ideology of "wilayat al-faqih," or Guardianship of the Jurist, created a new model of a revolutionary conquering Shiism that was previously unknown in Shia Islam, at least in its Arab version.

We are joined in this episode by Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a Shia Muslim writer and analyst in Washington DC and research fellow at FDD. Hussain grew up in Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War and in Lebanon toward the end of the country's devastating civil war.

Arab Shiism, Hussain argues, is not what the Iranian regime has tried to make of it, and once freed of the financial, political and often violent influence of Khomeinist "revolutionary" ideology, will revert to its traditionally peaceful ways.

This episode was sponsored by Bennett and Robin Greenspan of Houston, Texas, strong supporters of Israel who recognize Israels' centrality and vitality to the Jewish world. They chose to dedicate this episode to the memory of Igal and Amit Wachs, 53 & 48, American-Israeli brothers who died on October 7, 2023, defending their home of Netiv Ha'asara in the Gaza envelope.

Please join me on Patreon to support this project: ⁠ www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything⁠.

If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at ⁠haviv@askhavivanything.com⁠.

A podcast by Haviv Rettig Gur

A bombshell Haaretz report last Friday concluded that IDF soldiers were responsible for a great many of the deaths of Gazan civilians outside aid distribution centers in Gaza.

What should we make of the report? How reliable is it? And what does it tell us about the army's handling of Gaza and the progress of the war?

This episode was sponsored by an anonymous donor in memory of the seven IDF soldiers who were killed on June 24, 2025, during fighting in the southern Gaza Strip. Their names were: Lt. Matan Shai Yashinovski, Staff Sgt. Ronel Ben-Moshe, Sgt. Ronen Shapiro, Sgt. Maayan Baruch Pearlstein, Staff Sgt. Niv Radia, Sgt. Shahar Manoav, and Staff Sgt. Alon Davidov. May their memory be a blessing.

Please join me on Patreon to support this project: ⁠ www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything⁠

If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at ⁠haviv@askhavivanything.com⁠.

A podcast by Haviv Rettig Gur

(Update: audio issues corrected)

Turkey was the first Muslim country to recognize Israel. I was an ally and vital trading partner for decades -- until the rise of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, head of the Islamist AKP party, who began pursuing a "neo-Ottomanist" foreign policy of Turkish influence and expansionism in the region, and specifically identified Israel as a long-term ideological enemy.

Turkey is now forging alliances on all Israel's borders and looking to found an Islamic defense alliance a la NATO. Earlier this year, Turkish lawmakers formally declared Israel the country's top national security threat.

As Iran's influence retreats in the wake of the war, Erdogan has already energetically stepped into the breach, calling for Israel to be dismantled and trying to position himself as leader of the Muslim political world. Unlike Iran, he may well have the military and geopolitical clout in the region to get it done.

Are the two countries on a trajectory for a clash in, say, 20 years' time? Or can these two Middle Eastern powers find a modus vivendi that prevents more conflict in the region?

We posed this question to Dr. Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak, a scholar at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University who grew up in Turkey's Jewish community and is today one of Israel's top Turkey analysts.

This episode was sponsored by an anonymous sponsor and dedicated to Aviv Atzili, 49, from Kibbutz Nir Oz, who was murdered by Hamas terrorists on October 7 was while fighting alongside the kibbutz’s emergency response team. His wife, Liat, was kidnapped that day, but was released as part of the first truce in November 2023.

Aviv's body was located and returned to Israel for burial in a joint IDF-Shin Bet operation in Gaza two days before the start of the Israel-Iran war together with the body of Yaakov Yagil, also from Nir Oz. We remember them.

Please join me on Patreon to support this project: ⁠ www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything⁠

If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at ⁠haviv@askhavivanything.com⁠.

A podcast by Haviv Rettig Gur

There's now a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Who won the war? And what happens now?

We offer some preliminary conclusions as the dust settles.

This episode is sponsored by the Peters family, Tom, Shevi, Daniel, Ethan, Arielle, Yoni and David, in honor of BeLev Echad, an organization devoted to helping wounded Israeli veterans recover physically, medically and emotionally. To learn about how you too can help Israeli veterans recover, visit Belevechad.nyc.

If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at haviv@askhavivanything.com.

A podcast by Haviv Rettig Gur

The United States has struck the Iranian nuclear program, marking a watershed moment for the region.

It will take days to determine the scale of the damage and many years to understand the implications of President Trump’s decision. But a few things are already clear. A new relationship was established between the US and its ally Israel that defined a new security architecture for the American-led alliance worldwide. Israel did the heavy lifting, suffered the blowback, and only because it was willing to fight successfully itself was then able to call on America’s unique capabilities. Taiwan, take note. Russia’s European neighbors, ditto. Be ready and able to fight, and America will help. But America will no longer fight for you as in the past.

This episode is dedicated to the memory of Willy Field by his family. Willy Field was born Willy Hirschfeld in Bonn, Germany and is perhaps the only survivor of a Nazi death camp who managed to survive, escape and return to German soil in a British tank. His story of disaster, recovery and frontline heroism against Nazi Germany is a testament to over a million brave Jewish soldiers who fought the Nazis in the Allied armies.

Please join me on Patreon to support this project: ⁠ www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything⁠.

If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at ⁠haviv@askhavivanything.com⁠.

A podcast by Haviv Rettig Gur