The Fathom Podcast

Veteran negotiator Ambassador Dennis Ross speaks to Fathom about his experiences of multiple thwarted Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. A scholar and diplomat with more than two decades of experience in Soviet and Middle East policy, Ambassador Dennis Ross played a leading role in shaping U.S. involvement in the Middle East peace process, dealing directly with the parties as the U.S. point man on the peace process in both the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations. 

Azar Gat, Ezer Weizman Chair for National Security at Tel Aviv University, speaks to Calev Ben-Dor about the war in Gaza. Gat argues that failing to fully defeat Hamas would constitute an existential threat to Israel: not in the sense that Hamas alone can destroy Israel, but in the impact that Israel’s inability to defeat those responsible for 7 October would have on the psychological security of Israelis. He asserts that while it is not possible to remove Hamas as an idea, or even as a guerrilla movement, it can – and has largely already been – successfully defeated as a governing entity.

Counter-terror expert Matthew Levitt speaks to Fathom about Hamas’s vision and strategy. What is Hamas’s strategy for the destruction of Israel? Is it strategically divided? What are the chances of a rapprochement with Fatah? What does Levitt mean by Hamas following the ‘Hezbollah model’?

Fathom speaks to Toby Greene about two articles co-authored with Professor Jonathan Rynhold and dealing with the political future of a post-Hamas Gaza: ‘Beyond Humanitarian Aid: A Plan for Gazan Civilians Is a Strategic Necessity for Israel’ and ‘URGENT: An Israeli Strategy for a Post-Hamas Gaza’. Despite Prime Minister Netanyahu’s repeated denial that Israel will support the involvement of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Greene says that ‘if you don’t want continued Hamas rule and permanent Israeli occupation you have to work with what tools are available (which is a potentially reformed PA).’ Greene advocates the kind of technocratic approach once seen under former Prime Minister Fayyad, saying ‘a key component of getting from where we are now to Palestinian statehood is credible bottom up state-building institutions albeit within a credible diplomatic path that can work in concert with it.’ Toby is a Visiting Fellow in the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics and a Lecturer in the Department for Political Studies at Bar Ilan University. He is the author of Blair, Labour & Palestine: Conflicting Views on Middle East Peace After 9/11. He is also a former deputy editor of Fathom.  

Journalist and Middle East analyst Jonathan Spyer talks to Fathom about the Iranian threat and the Western response to it. Spyer is director of research at the Middle East Forum and the author of The Transforming Fire: The Rise of the Israel-Islamist Conflict. He is a veteran of the Israel-Hezbollah war of 2006 and has been a regular contributor to Fathom for a decade.

Jack Omer-Jackaman and Calev Ben-Dor interview Fania Oz-Salzberger, an Israeli writer, history professor and public intellectual. They discussed her thoughts about 7 October, the ensuing war, the Israeli government and her disappointment with parts of the international left. Oz-Salzberger is Professor Emerita at the University of Haifa Law School and previously taught at Princeton, Monash University, Munich University etc. Her field is the history of political thought and her books include Jews and Words, coauthored with Amos Oz. She is a peace and democracy activist.

Jack Omer-Jackaman and Calev Ben-Dor interviewed Einat Wilf. They discussed Wilf’s essay ‘Zionism as Therapy’, which seeks to correct anti-Zionism’s success in divorcing Zionism from its intellectual and historical origins. Wilf is a leading thinker on Israel, Zionism, foreign policy and education. She was a member of the Israeli Parliament from 2010 to 2013, where she served as Chair of the Education Committee and as a Member of the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee. She is the author of seven books, including We Should All Be Zionists.

Calev Ben-Dor and Jack Omer-Jackaman interviewed Michael Milshtein, a leading expert on the Palestinian arena. They discussed the failures which led to 7 October – which Milshtein characterises as a failure of understanding as much as intelligence – and the current state of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Jack Omer-Jackaman speaks to Mohammad Darawshe and Michal Sela of Givat Haviva, an Israeli civil society organisation working for social change.

Jack Omer-Jackaman speaks with Tareq Abu Hamed and Eliza Mayo of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, an academic research centre dedicated to providing the Middle East with a new generation of sophisticated professionals to address the region’s environmental challenges with richer and more innovative peace-building solutions.