Ben Caspit speaks this week with Israel’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology Orit Farkash-Hacohen. Israel and the United States started this week a strategic dialogue focused on technological cooperation. The minister explains that "climate change, the covid pandemic, the desertification phenomenon and so many other international and regional issues, are all in essence technological challenges. Even security has become a technological challenge." Farksha-Hacohen says that the Israeli-American technological strategic cooperation plan launched this week builds on that understanding, that national security challenges faced by our two nations and by the world must involve a significant technological pillar if we are to cope with them efficiently.

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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Knesset member for the Likud party Nir Barkat. The legislator just came back from a tour in the United States, where he campaigned against the Iranian nuclear program. Barkat argues that the Iranians do not hide their desire to annihilate Israel, and thus the international community should not try to conclude any deal with them. "You don’t make a deal with someone who wants to take you out of business. They want to destroy Israel, so what kind of a deal can you make with them? Instead of negotiating a deal, we must focus of creating a force that would threaten and deter Iran," says Barkat. He also argues that Tehran cannot be trusted with any kind of agreement, arguing, "they will surely breach the agreement from day one."

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Ben Caspit speaks this week with Attila Somfalvi, chief anchor at the Israeli Ynet news site and tv channel. Israel is preparing now for its fifth round of elections in less than four years. Somfalvi, a senior political analyst, says Israeli politics and society have deeply changed in the last few years. In the past, the political battle centered on the Palestinian issue, with the Peace Now camp on one side and those advocating against any territorial concessions on the other. This political duel is now gone, replaced by a struggle over the very nature of the state of Israel. The two camps — liberals and right-wingers — are now battling over how Israel’s democracy will look like in the coming years. "Opposition leader [Benjamin] Netanyahu and his Likud party no longer hide their ambition to change Israel, starting with its judicial system and judges," explains Somfalvi.

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