Israel’s Gloomy Future? Occupation, Isolation, and Survival - Daniel Sobelman

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.

00:00 Intro: Daniel Sobelman returns

03:47 Israel after October 7: a new era for Jews and Israel

08:58 Sobelman: October 7 as a nuclear-level shock

11:48 Why Israel was blamed before it responded

15:50 Hamas’s strategy: provoke a war and isolate Israel

22:35 Occupation, moral corrosion, and the West Bank dilemma

32:23 Could Israeli initiative restore its global standing?

34:03 Settlers, politics, and the failed path of unilateral withdrawal

41:29 Israel as both Jewish safety net and source of Jewish vulnerability

52:02 Resistance vs normalization: the future of the Middle East

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" amazon.com/dp/B0D9L7QQNN?lv=shuf&channelId…