Daily Briefing June 29: With Knesset chaos, Israel may lose out on a US visa waiver

Welcome to The Times of Israel’s Daily Briefing, your 15-minute audio update on what’s happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, from Sunday through Thursday.

Diplomatic correspondent Lazar Berman and United States correspondent Jacob Magid join host Amanda Borschel-Dan on today’s episode.

Yesterday, US Ambassador Tom Nides implored Israeli lawmakers to support legislation that is critical for Israel to be able to join the US Visa Waiver Program. Before we talk about recent developments, Magid gives us a little background on why Israel is not in the program already.

The Negev Summit this spring brought a whole lot of headlines and some questions about whether the cooperation would continue to move forward. A meeting this week of the newly minted “Negev Forum” is indicating that it will. What is the forum working on? And how is the upcoming visit of US President Joe Biden playing a role?

On the heels of potentially neutralized threats of Iranian terror against Israelis in Turkey, yesterday the travel warning level was brought down significantly. We hear about the significance of the recent cooperation between the two countries as they broker a warmer diplomatic relationship.