BICOM's Podcast

Episode 205 | Operation Shield and Arrow

In this podcast, Richard Pater, Director of BICOM speaks to Brigadier general (Res.) Assaf Orion, Senior Researcher at the INSS and Director of The Diane & Guilford Glazer Israel-China Policy Center. They discuss the recent conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), assess Operation Shield and Arrow’s success in degrading PIJ’s terror capabilities, explore Hamas’s role, and look at the performance of Iron Dome in intercepting PIJ rockets. After two decades in command positions in military intelligence, in his final posting as a Brigadier General, Orion served as the head of the Strategic Division of the IDF General Staff’s Planning Directorate, responsible for strategy and policy planning.

Episode 204 | Post Ramadan Regional Update

In this episode, Richard Pater speaks to Professor Efraim Inbar, President of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security. They discuss what the Ramadan period showed us about Israel’s current security challenges, the state of its deterrence, and the level of Iranian influence in the region. They also consider Israeli relations with Saudi Arabia, the US, and, in the light of Foreign Minister Eli Cohen’s recent visits, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. Professor Inbar is an expert on Israeli strategic doctrine, US Middle East policy, and Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. He was the founding director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University.

Episode 203 | Ehud Yaari

In this live podcast, Richard Pater, Director of BICOM speaks to Ehud Yaari, the Middle East commentator for Israel's Channel 12 television and former associate editor of the Jerusalem Report. He has been a Middle East commentator for Israeli television since 1975. Among his numerous awards for journalism are the Israeli Press Editors-in-Chief prize for coverage of the peace process with Egypt, the Sokolov Prize for coverage of the Lebanon War, and the Israel Broadcasting Award for coverage of the Gulf War.

They discussed the current state of the West Bank, Israeli perspectives on regional developments, and domestic politics. 

Episode 202 | The Iran-Saudi deal and the Middle East

In this episode, Jack Omer-Jackaman speak to Sir John Jenkins. Sir John was British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia from June 2012 to January 2015. He previously served as the ambassador to Libya, Iraq, and Syria, and as the British Consul General in Jerusalem. They discuss the recent China-brokered normalisation deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia, its implications for Israel and for Chinese and US regional influence respectively, as well as what we might expect to see next from Iran’s nuclear programme and its support for its regional proxies.

Episode 201 | Understanding Hezbollah

In this episode, Richard Pater speaks to Sarit Zehavi, a major in the IDF reserves who specialises in intelligence and holds an MA in Middle East Studies from Ben-Gurion University. She is the founder and CEO of ALMA, an organisation specialising in research and analysis of Israel’s security challenges on the northern border. In this episode, they discuss the state of Hezbollah and the recent attack it may be linked to inside Israel, politics in Lebanon and the current threat the organisation poses.

Episode 200 | Violence in the West Bank

In this episode, BICOM Director Richard Pater talks to Dr Michael Milshtein, an expert on the Palestinian Arena and the Head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel-Aviv University. 

In this 200th episode of the BICOM podcast, they discuss the growing terror attacks on Israel, what the run-up to Ramadan may look like, the future of the West Bank and how to prevent future friction between Settlers and Palestinians, as seen in Hawara this week.

Episode 199 | The State of Iran

In this episode, Richard Pater speaks to Benham Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) where he focuses on Iranian security and political issues. They discuss the current state of Iran's nuclear programme, Iran's links with Russia, and where the US and the EU stand on Iran.

Leveraging his subject-matter expertise and native Farsi skills, Behnam has closely tracked a wide range of Iran-related topics including nuclear non-proliferation, ballistic missiles, sanctions, the IRGC and internal Iranian politics. Benham recently produced a monograph on Iran’s ballistic missile programme.

Episode 198 | Unpacking Proposed Reforms to Israel’s Judicial System

In this episode, Jack Omer-Jackman, Research Associate at BICOM speaks to Professor Amichai Cohen. Professor Cohen is a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute and a faculty member of the Faculty of Law, Ono Academic College. He graduated from the Faculty of Law of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and holds a master's degree and a doctorate from the Yale Law School. His research deals with constitutional and international law, and he's the author of the book The Wars of the High Court. Professor Cohen joins Jack for a discussion of the dominant domestic Israeli political issue of the day: judicial reform - what does it look like, how does it compare internationally and what is next for Israel's judicial system?

Episode 197 | What does Israel’s political future look like?

In this episode, Jack Omer-Jackaman, BICOM Research Associate is speaks to Professor Jonathan Rynhold, head of the department of Political Studies at Bar Ilan University. Rynhold's research focuses on US-Israeli relations, Israeli foreign policy and the role of political culture in foreign policy. They discuss the internal dynamics of the coalition government, the state of proposed judicial reforms, and look at the current strength of the relationship between Israel and the US.

Episode 196 | Now the new government’s here, what’s next for Israel?

In this live episode, Richard Pater speaks to Tal Shalev, political correspondent at Walla News about the new coalition government and what may be the future challenges facing Israel. At Walla News, Tal covers Israel’s prime minister, the government, and parliament as well as the country’s foreign and diplomatic affairs. She studied Political Science and Philosophy at Tel Aviv University. This briefing was recorded live with questions by the audience, facilitated by Kira Lewis.