LISTEN: As Israel turns 72 amid coronavirus, Germany outlaws Hezbollah

As Israel commemorated its 72nd year of independence this week with muted celebrations amid the coronavirus pandemic, Germany voted to ban all activities — political and otherwise — of the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror organization on its soil. The decision represented a major victory for the Jewish state.

This week on People of the Pod, a joint production between the American Jewish Committee and The Times of Israel, co-host Manya Brachear Pashman conducts a special Yom Haatzmaut (Independence Day) interview with Natan Sharansky, the former refusenik who spent nine years in Soviet prison before emigrating to Israel and becoming a parliamentarian and then head of the Jewish Agency. He currently serves as chairman of the Institute of the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Sharansky addresses the Trump peace plan and Palestinian economic independence, talks about Iranian anti-Semitism in the time of coronavirus, and draws on his experience in solitary confinement to give advice to listeners in social isolation.

“Make your own [short-term] plans,” he says. “Freedom is not something external. People are free when they laugh when they want to laugh… real freedom is inner freedom. Nobody can make you a slave.”

Next, co-host Seffi Kogen speaks with AJC CEO David Harris about the significance of Germany’s April 30 decision to go a step further within its own borders and expand the EU-wide ban on activities supporting Hezbollah’s armed wing to include its political branch, as well.

Citing terror activity in Argentina, the American Embassy in Beirut, as well as in EU member states Bulgaria and Cyprus, Harris says that it was very much within Germany’s interest to cut off Hezbollah’s global “tentacles.”

Referring to the EU’s differentiation between the political and military wings of Hezbollah, Harris calls it “a false distinction created by the European Union for political convenience.”

“It’s not a distinction that Hezbollah itself makes,” he says. “On the contrary, Hezbollah leaders pooh-poohed the EU decision [to ban the military wing] and said, ‘We’re one organization, we’re not two.'”

Finally, Kogen speaks with Hannah Rose, former president of the UK’s Union of Jewish Students, about new Labour Party leader Keir Starmer.

Starmer is taking over for former leader Jeremy Corbyn, under whom the Labour Party suffered continuous accusations of systemic anti-Semitism, followed by its worst electoral performance in decades.

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Also this week, another The Times of Israel podcast:

This week on The Times of Israel Podcast, Jewish World and Archaeology editor Amanda Borschel-Dan talks to Lori Palatnik, the founding director of Momentum, aka “Birthright for Moms.”

Palatnik speaks about the incredible trickle-down effect families experience after parents reconnect to Israel and Jewish people in eight crazy days, and what it’s like to be chosen to represent the Diaspora in lighting one of the 12 torches at the official Independence Day ceremony at Mount Herzl.

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