Tag: Hamas

In this episode, the guest is Amar Dank, a researcher of war termination, for a conversation about how leaders make decisions on continuing or ending a military conflict. The discussion focuses on the concept of the "gambler's dilemma," taken from Kahneman and Tversky's prospect theory, and examines how loss aversion can lead leaders to continue and escalate wars in the hope of erasing prior losses, even at the cost of taking greater risks. The model is applied to the Russia-Ukraine war, the "Swords of Iron" war, and the conflict with Iran.

This episode's guest is Lt. Col. (res.) Avi Shalev, author of the book "Yoman al-Qasmi" and a researcher of Arab culture. Shalev analyzes the October 7 events through the prism of a Palestinian television series titled "Qabdat al-Ahrar," which aired about a year and a half before the attack. According to him, the series not only offered a chilling prediction of the attack's details, but also exposes the depth of the Israeli intelligence failure, which stemmed from a profound cultural misunderstanding of Palestinian society and Hamas.

The episode features Noa Shusterman Dvir, head of the Palestinians and the Region Program at MIND Israel, a center for policy, national security, and strategy consulting. Shusterman Dvir analyzes the reasons Hamas still controls Gaza even after the release of the hostages, the dynamics that led to the cessation of fighting, and the challenges facing the reconstruction of the Strip and the day after the war. She discusses the humanitarian situation, the negotiations on the demilitarization of the Strip, and the involvement of international and regional actors, including Egypt and Turkey.

Boris Gorelik speaks with Samer Sinijlawi, a Palestinian political activist from Jerusalem and a member of Fatah. Sinijlawi argues that peace is a supreme Palestinian interest, and that the path to it involves building trust with the Israeli public, deep reform in the Palestinian leadership, and mutual recognition of the historical rights of both peoples. He presents a vision of a two-state solution based on common interests, reconciliation, and imagination.

This episode is a conversation with Lieutenant Colonel (res.) Yuval Leikin, who was responsible for creating the October 7 atrocities exhibit. Leikin describes the process of collecting the materials, the moral and practical challenges, and the insights that arose from dealing with the atrocities and the motives of their perpetrators.

In this episode, Dr. Yaron Friedman joins the show to discuss the Israeli airstrike in Doha, the capital of Qatar, which targeted senior Hamas officials. The conversation, recorded shortly after the strike, deals with the reactions in the Arab world, the diplomatic implications of the operation, and Qatar's role as a host and financier of the terrorist organization.

This episode features Dr. Yaron Friedman. According to Friedman, the collapse of the Iranian Axis of Resistance in recent months can be explained by a chain of betrayals and broken agreements. He reviews these betrayals, which began during the Syrian civil war and culminated in the current war.

In this episode, Dr. Yaron Friedman joins the podcast to tell the story of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, the man for whom Hamas's military wing is named. The conversation follows the life of al-Qassam, a cleric born in Syria who became a Palestinian national symbol, and examines the reasons that led Hamas to adopt his figure in particular.