Lahav’s Newsletter

2 months ago | lahav.substack.com | Lahav Harkov

Operation Shield and Arrow looked deceptively similar to the rounds of fighting between Israel and Gaza that happen every couple of years. There are always some variances in the details, but broadly speaking: Palestinian terrorists shoot a bunch of rockets at Israel, and Israel responds with airstrikes. There are more rockets and more airstrikes. Egypt jumps in to negotiate a ceasefire. There’s a final rocket salvo right before it goes into effect, and the mini-war is over until next year.

2 months ago | lahav.substack.com | Lahav Harkov

After a lot of deliberation, I went to the Aviv Geffen concert in Tel Aviv last night, with tickets I bought long before I knew there would be a war. Aside from Geffen’s planned pyrotechnics, there was a show in the sky, courtesy of Iron Dome. Here’s a little something I wrote on the train ride home at the end of the night. After that, a summary of the last couple of days of Operation Shield and Arrow.

2 months ago | lahav.substack.com | Lahav Harkov

I interviewed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, together with Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Avi Mayer. The interview is available as a video, or to read here. If you prefer audio, you can hear the full interview on the JPost Podcast. Avi and I give some behind-the-scenes details, as well:There was a lot of action that happened in Judea and Samaria last week, including an IDF raid in Jenin, a terrorist attack in Bet El, and violent vigilantism by some Israelis.

2 months ago | lahav.substack.com | Lahav Harkov

Here’s what I’ve been up to the past few weeks:One of the big stories that came out of The Jerusalem Post Annual Conference in New York this month was Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan saying in an interview with me what Israeli officials had been saying anonymously for a couple of weeks at that point - that the US is heading towards a deal with Iran. Since then, little bits of information about the deal have been coming out almost daily.

2 months ago | lahav.substack.com | Lahav Harkov

I’m back at work today. I’m not sure what that means for my newsletter in terms of longer-form content, though I will try to continue to do some of this extracurricular writing. I definitely plan to use Substack Notes to share my work for The Jerusalem Post and more. Without getting into the whole tiresome Elon Musk discourse, Twitter is not what it once was. I’m not quitting twitter, but I hope to use Substack Notes similarly to twitter, in a place where people are not as mean.