As a wave of euphoria and relief sweeps Israel, following the attempted - and foiled - hijacking of Flight FZ1073, Yonit and Jonathan delve deep into the story and its implications. They discuss the courage and ingenuity of the passengers who took on a co-pilot apparently bent on causing the mass death of a plane full of Israelis, what the episode says about the character of the country - and what its impact might be on this month’s all-important elections. Plus: they assess a failed effort to unite the opposition as they seek to eject Benjamin Netanyahu from office, ongoing violence in the West Bank and a world that increasingly refuses to shake Israel by the hand. Get a free year of SAPIR: http://sapirjournal.org/unholy Get the bonus episodes: Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Unholy-media/join on Patreon: https://bit.ly/UnholyPatreon Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unholy-two-jews-on-the-news/id1548441108 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2m2UnLfiAyOehtF1bsv98W 🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unholy-two-jews-on-the-news/id1548441108 🌐 https://www.unholy-podcast.com 📸 Instagram: @unholypodcast 🗳 Unholy Elections 2026, every election episode: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLtdPcFD_Urw #Unholy #IsraelElection2026 #Netanyahu

 Watch this interview in Hebrew and English subtitles: https://youtu.be/zh-KenD4s5wRa'am has done something no Arab party in Israel has tried before—put a Jewish, Zionist former police major general on its slate. With the election weeks away, Likud wants the party disqualified, much of the opposition insists it won't sit with it, and some in his own community call its leader a traitor. Yonit and Jonathan sit down with Mansour Abbas, the man who first took an Arab party into an Israeli governing coalition. What did bringing Yoav Segalovitz on board cost him at home? Does he say the same thing in Hebrew as he does in Arabic? What does "Islamist" actually mean to him? And if Netanyahu calls after October 27th—will he answer? 00:00 Intro00:15 Yoav Segalovitz joins Ra'am03:39 An Arab seat for a Jewish politician?06:31 Will the opposition really refuse to sit with Ra'am?11:15 Why Arab turnout lags13:45 The threats on his life16:16 Netanyahu or Eisenkot: does it matter to Arab voters?20:34 Breaking away from the Islamic Movement26:01 What does "Islamist" mean?32:53 Hebrew vs Arabic: does he mean what he says?40:02 Is the two-state solution too tired?47:22 Who's the next prime minister, and would he sit with Netanyahu? 🌐 Our website: https://unholy-podcast.com💛 Become a friend of the pod:Patreon: https://bit.ly/UnholyPatreon 📺 FOLLOW UNHOLYYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGlvtS7As7WHh7YtmU5SMUQInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/unholypodcast/X: https://x.com/unholypodBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/unholypod.bsky.social 🎧 LISTEN TO UNHOLYApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/il/podcast/unholy-two-jews-on-the-news/id1548441108Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2m2UnLfiAyOehtF1bsv98W 🎙️ THE HOSTSYonit LeviInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/yonitleviofficial/X: https://x.com/LeviYonitLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yonit-levi/Jonathan FreedlandInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonathanfreedland/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jonathanfreedland.bsky.social 📩 Contact: [email protected]🔗 All links: https://linktr.ee/unholypod Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Decision day approaches for the judges who will determine who is - and who is not - allowed to stand in the Israeli elections on 27 October. The supreme court is likely to overturn a move by the government to ban the main Arab parties, but more unpredictable is the fate of one individual politician from the Arab nationalist party, Balad - a man who seemingly wrote in praise of the 7 October attacks. Yonit and Jonathan debate the legal and political aspects of the case - and the wider effort by Benjamin Netanyahu to cast his lead opponent, Gadi Eisenkot, as dependent on Arab support. Plus: have elections in Germany made the country newly unsafe for Jews? And who is the soccer legend who could soon be known as Roo the Jew?

With Israel deep in an election campaign and the country still grappling with the strains of a multi-front war, the fiercely contested exemption of ultra-Orthodox men from the IDF draft remains the issue threatening to tear Israeli society apart. In this week's candid, combative, and illuminating conversation, Yonit and Jonathan sit down with MK Yitzhak Pindrus of the United Torah Judaism party to interrogate the theological, cultural, and political worldview driving the Haredi establishment. Pindrus doesn't mince words. He denounces extremist anti-draft banners comparing the IDF to Nazi camps as "disgusting," explicitly labels violent settler attacks on Palestinians as a Chillul Hashem (desecration of God’s name), and dismisses economic projections about Haredi dependency as “lies." But on the core question facing Israel, his stance is uncompromising: as far as the community is concerned, their model has worked—and they have no intention of breaking it.

With Yonit feeling a little under the weather, Jonathan is joined by friend of the podcast, Haaretz military affairs analyst Amos Harel. They discuss a new poll showing Benjamin Netanyahu gaining ground in his contest against former general Gady Eisenkot - with nearly six weeks to go till Israelis vote, is this a blip or did Eisenkot peak too early? Plus: the Israeli right declares war on a film almost no one has seen, what exactly is happening on the ground in the West Bank - and rapper Macklemore wins a chutzpah award for a past episode many seem all too keen to forget.

As Israel heads into what may be the most consequential election of its history, the country is still arguing less about where it's going than about how it got here. This week, Yonit and Jonathan sit down with a titan of Israeli broadcasting — Ilana Dayan, anchor of the investigative program Uvda for three decades — who returns to Unholy to make sense of it all. She traces how Netnayahu survived a moment that should have ended his political career, makes the case for what actually sets challenger Gadi Eisenkot apart, and confronts head-on whether Israelis see the last three years as a win or a wound still open. Plus: her read on the West Bank sanctions rattling even Netanyahu's own coalition — and why, despite everything, she still finds a reason for optimism.

September 8th was the deadline for Israeli parties to file their lists — and Netanyahu reached it less organised than he'd have liked, with a rival on the right running alone, a reserved slot for his own Channel 14 broadcaster, and barely a handful of women anywhere near the top. Then Britain, joined by France, Canada and nine others, sanctioned settlement goods, called the occupation itself unlawful, and used the words "ethnic cleansing" about settler violence in the West Bank. The UK's chief rabbi called it a dark day for British Jews. Other rabbis disagreed, loudly. Yonit and Jonathan work through what sanctions actually hit when the target is a bank that gave someone a mortgage — and whether, six weeks before an election, this lands as pressure or as a gift.

The Jewish new year arrives with the word ‘Zionist’ deemed an insult and a technology that never forgets anything that anyone has ever said or done. Following Unholy tradition, Yonit and Jonathan usher in the season of awe and the High Holydays with Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, who leads New York’s Central Synagogue and whose congregation was rushed by an intruder during a packed Friday night service weeks before this conversation. She walks through what repentance actually demands — a real apology, a change of action as well as heart, and three attempts — and why she thinks Abraham, the first Jew, failed the test we remember on Rosh Hashanah. Plus: the sermon she is dreading, why she calls the coming Israeli election existential for Jews everywhere, and, as ever, the music.

Seven weeks out from an election that in many ways is a referendum on culpability for October 7th, Benjamin Netanyahu tells Channel 14 that if only they had woken him earlier that fateful day, everything would have been different — and his wife goes considerably further about Yair Golan, a man who drove towards the gunfire that morning and saved lives. Yonit and Jonathan take Mrs Netanyahu’s accusation apart, then turn to the week's most improbable story: Yoav Segalovich, a Jewish former police commander, joining Mansour Abbas's Islamist party - because the crime wave destroying Israel’s Arab communities needs someone with a proven ability to fix it. Plus a Channel 13 poll that should worry the anti-Netanyahu bloc; Britain's expected ban on trade in goods linked to the West Bank - and why Greece and Finland moved in the other direction. Our Chutzpah award goes to a perennial winner with a new map, and the Mensch of the Week award is split three ways between brothers.

The former UK Prime Minister and Chancellor joins Yonit and Jonathan for the latest of our Unholy Conversations — on the void populist nationalists have moved into, on the difference between hope and optimism, on the father whose projector slides taught him the kings of Israel before the kings of England, and on the Middle East peace deal he watched come apart in 2009. The former Prime Minister and Chancellor joins Yonit and Jonathan for the latest of our Unholy Conversations — on the void populist nationalists have moved into, on the difference between hope and optimism, on the father whose projector slides taught him the kings of Israel before the kings of England, and on the peace deal he watched come apart in 2009.