Daily Briefing Sept. 6: Netanyahu has burned bridges. How will that play out at the polls?
News editor Ben Sales discusses the US ambassador's reaction to violent settlers, pitfalls for the PM in Israel's upcoming election, and antisemitic similarities on the US political spectrum
Welcome to The Times of Israel’s Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what’s happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.
News editor Ben Sales joins host Jessica Steinberg for today’s episode.
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After US Ambassador Mike Huckabee met with Palestinians on Saturday and called for severe consequences for violent Jewish settlers, Sales notes that the American diplomat is trying to express two things: his continued longtime support of the settlement enterprise in the West Bank alongside the need to deal with Jewish terrorists.
Sales then turns to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the October 27 election. He wonders whether the longtime leader could be brought down by his opponents among some of the new centrist parties, which say they don’t want to sit with him in any government and are insisting on universal national service for the ultra-Orthodox and Arab Israelis.
Finally, Sales looks at the commonalities between Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed and his friendship with anti-Israel podcaster Hasan Piker, and US Vice President JD Vance and his friendship with right-wing podcaster Tucker Carlson, which, taken together, point to similar antisemitic positions on opposite sides of the political spectrum.
Check out The Times of Israel’s ongoing liveblog for more updates.
For further reading:
Huckabee, in West Bank, urges severe consequences for settler violence: ‘Terror is terror’
One-hit wonders keep saving Netanyahu. This time, he might be played out
El-Sayed and Vance call each other ‘evil,’ while both handling antisemitism the same way
Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.