The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table
The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table
Comedy Cellar Network
Israel’s Gloomy Future? Occupation, Isolation, and Survival - Daniel Sobelman
1 hour 10 minutes Posted Jul 3, 2026 at 2:45 pm.
Intro: Daniel Sobelman returns
Israel after October 7: a new era for Jews and Israel
Sobelman: October 7 as a nuclear-level shock
Why Israel was blamed before it responded
Hamas’s strategy: provoke a war and isolate Israel
Occupation, moral corrosion, and the West Bank dilemma
Could Israeli initiative restore its global standing?
Settlers, politics, and the failed path of unilateral withdrawal
Israel as both Jewish safety net and source of Jewish vulnerability
Resistance vs normalization: the future of the Middle East
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Show notes
A conversation about the future of Israel and world Jewry. Can Israel protect itself without becoming a global pariah? Did Hamas gamble that even losing the war could pull Israel into isolation? Noam and Sobelman discuss occupation, unilateral withdrawal, the settler movement, Jewish vulnerability abroad, and the difficult tradeoffs now shaping Israel’s future.
Daniel Sobelman is a professor of international relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Middle East Initiative. Read his book, "Axis of Resistance" https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D9L7QQNN?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback