Episode 421, The Andrew Parker Show – Israel at the Crossroads: JNS CEO Alex Traiman on Terror, Politics and the Battle for Truth

In Episode 421 of The Andrew Parker Show, Andrew welcomes Alex Traiman, CEO and Jerusalem Bureau Chief of the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS). Together they tackle today’s most pressing issues surrounding Israel, terrorism, U.S.–Israel relations, Gaza, Syria, and the future of the Middle East.

From the assassination of Charlie Kirk to the dangerous rise of incitement and political rhetoric, Traiman offers a front-line perspective from Jerusalem. The conversation dives into the challenges of hostage negotiations, the war against Hamas, the fading peace movement, and Israel’s strategy for Gaza’s “day after.” They also cover Syria, Turkey, the Abraham Accords, shifting world alliances, Israeli politics, and the role of JNS in the information war—the “Eighth Front.”

This is a critical episode for anyone who wants clarity, truth, and a deeper understanding of the forces shaping Israel, the Middle East, and the West.

Transcript

Episode 421 - The Andrew Parker Show Transcript

Welcome to another episode of the Andrew Parker show. Thank you once again. As you know, we talk politics, Israel and the law on every episode. And this is episode 421. As we continue our discussion of what is happening in the state of Israel, how they are viewing things.

here in the United States, the US-Israel relationship. And today we are honored and privileged to have with us as our special guest, the Jerusalem Bureau Chief and CEO of the Jewish News Syndicate, Alex Tremen. Alex is returning to the show.

along with several who he works with who have been on the show before, Jonathan Tobin, Caroline Glick, Ruthie Bloom, all having joined us on the show. But this is going to be a very important episode, I think. Alex is a veteran Israeli journalist.

And of course, ⁓ that's a big deal when you're talking about the state of Israel, which has one of the most strident free presses anywhere in the world. And boy, do they go at it. No question about it. With all points of view coming to the public square and the marketplace of ideas, Alex, also a radio show host, a documentary filmmaker, PR specialist, but

at this point is leading what is a very important news service to the world, and that is the Jewish News ⁓Syndicate. Alex, thank you so much for joining us on the show.

Alex Traiman (02:09)

The answer, thank you so much for having me. Appreciate that warm.

Andrew Parker (02:12)

So.

You bet. Absolutely. You are live from Jerusalem, ⁓ which I'll be coming out in the next few months. And I very much look forward to it. My son lives in Israel. He was just here in the States. He is now back in what we he and I refer to as the land capital L, of course. And ⁓

My law partner, one time law partner, was just ⁓ in Israel as well. And I think I had the opportunity to meet with Ambassador Huckabee ⁓ with some others. ⁓ I wanted to start, Alex, to get your sense, your take on Israel, Israeli's ⁓ response to

the horrible assassination of Charlie Kirk.

Alex Traiman (03:18)

Well, you know, there was a vigil last night in Tel Aviv. I think there's already been two memorial events. ⁓People taking it hard to people take it seriously. ⁓ Israelis very aware of how Charlie had defended Israel ⁓ to the whole Mecca crowd and ⁓ defended Israel on the college campuses for many years. ⁓ And also, you know, I would say that we have.

a dangerous political rhetoric in Israel, similar to the kind that you have in the United States. And I think it's a warning sign to what can happen when you don't speak responsibly, when you don't allow the ideas to win in free society, but rather you try to silence ideas through violence. It's not the right way, but it is a real possible result. ⁓

of being irresponsible. And I think that there's a lot of people in the United States that have been very irresponsible with their rhetoric. The president made that clear in his statement after Charlie's death. And certainly in Israel, know, warning as well, because you have Israeli leaders that are against the government here that have been using a very similar dangerous style of rhetoric. And I just hate to see what could happen if responsible voices don't put a lid on this.

Andrew Parker (04:47)

You know, I was talking recently on a show about a connection that people often don't put together, and that is localized, homegrown cause some call it lone wolf sort of terrorism and international ⁓ terrorism and the failure, I believe, of the West, ⁓ of the United States, of other countries.

to come together to fight for Judeo-Christian values, to fight for Western ⁓ civilized values in the face of terror. And when we don't stamp it out clearly, vigorously, this is the kind of result.

Alex Traiman (05:38)

Yeah, I think, you when you talk about lone wolf, a lone wolf is always the product of institutional incitement. So, you know, in the past, like in Israel, for example, we would have terrorists back in the 90s, early 2000s that were dispatched by terrorist organizations as suicide bombers, meaning that there was a factory.

bombs were made and then they would find the poor kid or whatever that was going to be the sacrificial lamb and they would strap it to them and they would dispatch them. Now you have a situation where, and I think that social media has a big, big role in this, in Israel you have leaders just inciting in their public speeches and on the television and on social media to the point where individuals are taught to hate.

And then they're taught that, you know, your kitchen knife is a deadly weapon. Your car is a deadly weapon. Certainly in the United States, you know, an assault rifle that many people can get their hands on is a deadly weapon. And when you incite over and over and over again, you don't have to dispatch the terrorist to do the dirty work. They will decide one morning to wake up and to be a terrorist or to be a martyr or to take responsibility into their own hands. ⁓

That's a lot harder to put back into the bag because you've already poisoned the minds of a lot of individuals. And I think that that's the situation that we have now in Israel with lot of the terrorism. And certainly whenever you have these lone wolf terrorists in the United States, like the one that assassinated Charlie Kirk, it's the product of a lot of bad rhetoric and incitement.

Andrew Parker (07:23)

You know, just a comment on that. I mentioned the West, Western Europe, the United States, all being complicit in failing to deal with ⁓ the international terrorism issue and failing to deal with what is online and what can be created and resulted. But I didn't ⁓ add Israel to that because I think quite frankly,

Israel and lot of factions, political factions in Israel have been asleep at the switch, have not done what it takes ⁓ until very recently, but it took ⁓ October 7th really in order for that to happen. And even now in Israel, ⁓ the screams, the yelling and the vitriol.

has certainly not waned in terms of ⁓ trying to get ⁓ peace by giving in to terror and it just does not work. I want to turn our attention, Alex, if you will, to ⁓ current state of affairs and what is current status of the hostages, hostage negotiations.

to the extent that they ⁓ exist and ⁓ the battle in Gaza on the ground.

Alex Traiman (08:53)

Well, certainly Israel still has what they are assessing to be 20 living hostages still missing, still being held in the Gaza Strip. As many as 28 bodies ⁓ of dead individuals that were either kidnapped, their bodies were either taken ⁓ after being killed on October 7th or died in captivity ⁓ by Hamas.

Israel's not really confident that negotiations is the pathway to getting them out. And I think that that was what we saw just a week ago when Israel decided to hit at Hamas leaders ⁓ that have been housed in Qatar for the last many years. And in fact, when Israel and the Air Force struck, ⁓ the...

leadership of Hamas was believed to be meeting together to discuss a hostage negotiation. ⁓ And so obviously, Israel's hitting at the Hamas leadership. It's because they don't believe that the Hamas leadership was prepared ⁓ after almost two years ⁓ to release these hostages. They felt there was a dead end. And Israel's been trying to do two things at the same time. One is to get back.

all of its hostages living and dead, and second, to have total victory in the war over Hamas. And as long as the leadership of Hamas continues to live pretty in fancy apartments and hotels in Doha, then Israel hasn't finished the job. So I think Israel sent a very firm message, ⁓ not just to Hamas, not just to Qatar, but really to the entire region, that anywhere where individuals are plotting to harm

the state of Israel, and especially if you succeed in harming the state of Israel, like Hamas did on October 7, that Israel is going to come find you at the time and place of its choosing, and that there's no safe haven for terrorists. In terms of the war, Israel is fighting in Gaza, and ⁓ now they've gone into Gaza City, which is the last remaining stronghold of Hamas. It's the largest city in Gaza. It's the most densely populated and packed in.

city of Gaza with the tallest buildings. Israel had hoped to avoid it, but as Israel had taken over control of the areas surrounding Gaza City, the terrorists moved into Gaza City. The hostages had been smuggled into Gaza City. So this is really the last stronghold of Hamas, and hopefully within a few weeks Israel will have taken over the entirety of Gaza City and can move towards the end of the conflict.

Andrew Parker (11:35)

And ⁓ what about the body politic in Israel? Is there agreement over the latest strategy of Bibi Netanyahu? I've got to imagine that there isn't. There's never agreement in Israel on political issues. ⁓ But how does it feel to you? How does it look in terms of support for ⁓ the government's action?

Alex Traiman (12:00)

Well, there's really two primary camps. There's the very Volkal camp, is ⁓ part of this hostage forum protest movement. They protest everything the government does, saying that the government's leaving the hostages to die. They've been putting out this narrative, which has been shared by a lot of the left-wing media in Israel. know, that Hamas is almost begging Netanyahu to accept the deal to end the war, which would bring all the hostages home. And it's just not reality. ⁓

And you do have a large majority in this country, which I don't know if they support everything that the government does, certainly hold this government responsible for the fact that October 7th happened on their watch. ⁓ But, you know, are the part of the country that has sent their sons and daughters and brothers and sisters and husbands and fathers to fight against the terrorists inside Gaza Strip to look evil in the face, to put their lives on the line.

to root out the terrorists there and they don't want to see Hamas wave the flag of victory, even if Gaza has been nearly completely destroyed, even if Hamas has been completely obliterated, even if Hamas has no ability to harm the Israeli home front, ⁓ still if they wave that flag of victory, ⁓ that sends a ⁓ signal that they haven't been thoroughly defeated and Israel wants to make sure that they are completely

defeated, annihilated, that they no longer pose a threat, that they're no longer running the Gaza Strip. And so you do have these two camps, one that just says end the war because it's going to bring the hostages home, one saying, you know, we cannot put the future of Israel and our own children at risk of future attack on account of 20 remaining hostages.

Andrew Parker (13:48)

Yeah, and you know, it really is the ongoing debate of those in the quote unquote peace movement. ⁓ And it's to me, the traditional peace movement is a fraud, is a fake, because it's not about, ⁓ it may be about short term peace, but not real peace. ⁓ And.

How is it that you obtain real peace? Well, in World War II, we learned unconditional surrender and then the denazification of Europe. It can happen and it must because without it is just death by a thousand cuts and it's not peace even though you can go weeks without a bomb being launched, it's not peace. ⁓

So how do you see the, one of the strongest peace movements in the world is in Israel? Is it growing ⁓ or is it fading?

Alex Traiman (14:54)

No, it's definitely fading. mean, peace is a word that requires two sides. So you either have to have two sides that agree that it's better for them to live in peace with one another, and then they do. Or you have to enforce peace, right? So peace has to come when one side has defeated the other side so severely that the other side recognizes that they can't win anymore and it's not worth it to attack.

that that's the ways that you come at peace. You know, in Israel, the peace camp, they always talked about the creation of a Palestinian state and the formula was called land for peace, right? Meaning that if the Palestinians would would agree to peaceful conditions, which they otherwise might not do, that Israel would give up land for the creation of a Palestinian state as a result. But Israel has delivered land. Where did we see that? In Gaza. Israel removed 8500

Jewish civilians living very peaceably in the Gaza Strip in 21 thriving Jewish communities and they evacuated the communities. They demolished the communities. They were living there for many years and then in 2005 Israel decided in pursuit of so-called peace that if they would pull out from the Gaza Strip that then there would be quiet, the Gazans would live.

Andrew Parker (16:02)

For decades, for decades they were living there.

Alex Traiman (16:20)

in peace, nobody be bothering them. And sure enough, what did we see when Israel wasn't there, when the military wasn't there, that the entirety of the Gaza Strip was built up, actually built down underground ⁓ into tunnels with billions of dollars that could have been used to build an economy, to build universities and hospitals were used to build terror tunnels, ⁓ larger than the underground subway system in New York City that

the entirety of Gaza was booby-trapped to set the stage for what actually took place on October 7th when Hamas crossed the border, murdered as many people as they could, and took as many bodies dead and alive as they could back into Gaza in order to bait the IDF into the strip so that they could then kill IDF soldiers when they would go inside Gaza into the highly booby-trapped homeland of the Palestinians.

Israelis saw that. The Israelis said, you know, we were protesting against that in 2005. We said this would be the result. Half of the country said this is going to lead to war, not to peace. And I think that there are people that came around to recognize what happened here and that there's no way for peace, that there's not going to be peace with the Palestinians. And so you have many less people here that are...

would be part of the peace movement today. There's not anybody that would want to give up land like in Judea and Samaria that the rest of the world calls the West Bank in order to facilitate the creation of a Palestinian state because we know what a Palestinian state would look like. The pilot project for that was Gaza.

Andrew Parker (17:59)

Yeah, and it's amazing that the Palestinians continue to be viewed ⁓ despite the support of billions and billions of dollars as the victim in ⁓ all of this. There's no question there are civilian victims on both sides, but quite a bit different as to how they became victims. And we've talked about that on the show a number of times.

We're talking to Alex Treyman, CEO and Jerusalem Bureau Chief of the Jewish News Syndicate. Very interesting discussion. Alex, what are you understanding is the post-war strategy of the United States slash Netanyahu administration ⁓ in Israel for Gaza and the Gaza envelope?

Alex Traiman (18:56)

I know that everybody wants to have a day after strategy for this war, ⁓ but you have to assess what the situation will be on the day the war is over, right? You you can have your best case scenario and you can have a worst case scenario, you can have something in between. ⁓ And I think it's very hard to determine what the situation is going to look like. ⁓ If Israel could get a deal today to get all its hostages back, I think they would agree for a ceasefire. That's how far they'd be willing to go.

in order to get their hostages back. I have a feeling that they're going to have to keep fighting because Khamas doesn't really have any incentive at this point to release any of the hostages.

Andrew Parker (19:33)

Now they're

given covered by Western Europe amongst others. They're going to get a Palestinian state at least recognized.

Alex Traiman (19:40)

Exactly.

Every day that the war goes on, they see that the Western world is turning on Israel, that Israel is being further demonized, further delegitimized. So it's in their incentive to continue the war, stretching out as long as possible using guerrilla war tactics, teasing with videos of hostages, to tear at the heartstrings of the Israeli public. ⁓

I think that what we know about what will happen on the day after Gaza, as far as ⁓ Prime Minister Netanyahu is concerned, and I think that President Trump is on board with this, that Hamas is not going to be the governing body on the day after the Gaza Strip. Similarly, the Palestinian Authority, which controls the Palestinian areas in the West Bank, Judea, and Samaria, they are also not going to be given control of Gaza because they continue to incite their own public.

to terror. In fact, they have terror payments to those that have ⁓ committed acts of first degree murder or are sitting in Israeli jails for terrorism. They get stipends from the Palestinian Authority on the books. They're not even hiding it. And also those that are killed by IDF troops in the act of committing first degree murder ⁓against Israelis, their families are receiving stipends.

from the Palestinian authorities. So there's no way that Israel's gonna let this group, not to mention that the Palestinian authority lost control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 to Hamas. ⁓ So Israel's not letting, is not gonna let Hamas run Gaza. Israel's not gonna let the Palestinian authority run Gaza. What Prime Minister Netanyahu has talked about is maybe some sort of international alliance that would come in and administer Gaza. But ⁓the important component here is that

the entirety of the Gaza Strip is going to be under Israeli military control. And I think ultimately what you might see is that there's really nobody willing to come to the aid of the Gaza people. The whole Western world, all the Arabs, they just want the Gazans to be perpetual victims. Not one of them is opening up their borders to say, you guys are refugees, you don't have homes, it's not peaceful for you there, why don't you come over here, it'll be better.

we'll set you up with a house, let you form a new life. Nobody's doing that. They just want them to stay and squalor because the worse the situation is for them, the more demonization of Israel there is. So that's what they want. And I think ultimately Israel's gonna find that there's no other choice but for Israel to be the one that is administering life from the strip. The same way that Israel's the only force that's feeding the Gazans. Nobody else is doing it.

It's only Israel that actually cares about the situation because they're the ones that are receiving the blame for the situation that was brought upon the Gaza people by Hamas.

Andrew Parker (22:34)

And it's one of the biggest, if not the biggest weapon that the Palestinians and the malevolent leadership of the Palestinians have is this political weapon of their people in squalor while they are in the multi-million dollar hotel and

Town homes, etc that they have in Doha and elsewhere. Let's turn to Let's pull back a minute and I Want to shift gears now, let me first ask you about Syria, you know not many not many people are talking about it all Jolani and His treatment of it by the West. It's just gonna be another yes or a fat mistake. It appears to me

What are your thoughts about Syria, the future of Syria and Syrian-Israeli relations?

Alex Traiman (23:40)

You know, Bashar Assad was no saint, quite the opposite. You know, and, you know, when, when Israel really weakened Hezbollah, that very much weakened Assad because he was being protected by Hezbollah. And he felt the Russians obviously were busy. The Russians had a, had a strong presence in Syria. So Iran had a presence in Syria. Russia had a presence in Syria and Israel also was operating in Syrian airspace and around Syria.

because it was a failed country. But once Iran and its terror proxies, especially Hezbollah, was weakened, once Russia was distracted in its war with the Ukraine, so there was nobody to keep Assad in power. And he fell. And ⁓ the Turks actually put a lot of energy and resources behind ⁓ al-Sharah, who's become the president of, ⁓ so-called president of ⁓ Syria.

His name was Al-Jawani, like the Golan Heights. He's going to go retake the Golan Heights back into Syria. He's changed it. He's trying to, like Mahmoud Abbas, these terrorists in ties. You have the guy who was affiliated with al-Qaeda who's now saying that he's reformed and he's going to be peaceful. ⁓ They have his troops and his factions that he controls. ⁓

Bedouin factions that are loyal to him. They have attacked all the ethnic minorities in Syria, Christians, Alawites, of which ⁓ Bashar Assad was an Alawite, ⁓ and the Druze. ⁓ There's Druze communities ⁓ in southern Syria, and Israel has Druze communities inside Israel. The Druze are very loyal to whoever is the sovereign. So the Israeli Druze are very sovereign to Israel, and they actually have asked Israel to come in and to help.

help protect those communities in Syria. there's so there's no, there's no, I think dreams or illusions about who Al-Sharah is ⁓ and what his, ⁓ you he wants to, he's a member of the Muslim Brotherhood essentially, and he wants to see Turkey increase its influence in Syria and in the Middle East. But at the same time, he's desperate because his country is a failed state.

without the support of the United States or anybody else pumping in money. ⁓ He's not going to be long in the job either as the president. So when the president came in and he took his trip to Saudi Arabia, he met with Al-Sharah. He basically promised to remove sanctions against Syria. That's allowing some money to flow in. And that's what Al-Sharah needs to prove to his people that he can deliver the goods. And so I don't think he has any ⁓

I don't think he has any intentions in the short run to attack Israel because everybody sees what Israel's done across the region. People see what Israel's done in Gaza. People see what Israel's done to Hezbollah. Israel took out the entirety, the entirety of the Syrian military the moment after Assad fell to make sure that none of that military equipment got in the hands of whoever ⁓ emerged as the victor after Assad's falling.

And so, know, Assad, al-Sharr rather, he, you know, he's just the new strong man in Syria and Israel's going to keep watch. And Israel's been certain that anytime any of al-Sharr's troops or forces move anywhere near the southern sections of Syria, that they're striking. So, you know, Israel's protecting its interests in southern Syria. And ultimately, I think it will be quiet there for a while, but Turkey definitely sees Syria.

as a forefront against Israel. They're the next emerging threat, I believe, in the Middle East.

Andrew Parker (27:33)

No doubt, keep an eye on Turkey, the Muslim Brotherhood Turkey. Very, very dangerous. And with that ⁓ front movement in Syria, ⁓ Trump should not be naive. I wanted to ask you about ⁓ two other questions. One, I want to ask you about the Abraham Accords.

and where that's at and after that I want to talk a little Israeli politics.

Alex Traiman (28:05)

Well, you're talking, we're talking about the Abraham Accords on the fifth anniversary of the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accords that took place today. And, you know, that was the model for, you know, ending conflict in the Middle East. It took the veto away from the Palestinians. It demonstrated that ⁓ peace can come through mutual interests. And so Israel signed these historic agreements with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain.

Andrew Parker (28:12)

did.

Alex Traiman (28:33)

Morocco, Sudan, Kosovo. ⁓ And part of the reason that Hamas said and Iran said that Israel was attacked on October 7th was because there was more and more discussion about possible normalization between Saudi Arabia and the state of Israel. Now Saudi Arabia, this is the seat of Sunni Islam. If the seat of Sunni Islam says, you know, we can normalize relations with the Jewish state in the Middle East,

I that could be the effective end of the greater Arab-Israeli conflict. So, you this was something that Hamas, that Iran wanted to fight, and perhaps they've done it. ⁓ Now, you have a situation in which ⁓ Israel did the dirty work for the entire region of weakening Iran, making sure that Iran would not cross the threshold of becoming a nuclear power, weakened Hezbollah, weakening Hamas, weakening the Houthis. ⁓

Which is what all these nations were saying behind closed doors that they wanted Israel to do. But as the war in Gaza has dragged on and on and on, and how they see these nations see ⁓ the West turning against Israel, they're just reading the tea leaves and they're saying, hey, know, if the West is turning on Israel, why are we going to save Israel? You know, we're not going to.

If they saw that the West was standing behind Israel, okay, ⁓ in their war against the Iranian terror and terror factions, then you would have a situation where these countries would continue to normalize relations, where the Saudis would come running towards Israel if they saw that it was in their best diplomatic interest to do that. But meanwhile, know, the France, UK, Canada, Australia, other countries, and the Democrats in the United States really undermining Israel's position.

And ultimately, I think they're pushing these ⁓ countries in the Middle East away from Israel. And it's sending the wrong message, and it's making the chances for more war and more terror all the more likely when you had a unique opportunity to build off of this visionary leadership that enabled these Abrahamic courts to be signed five years ago.

Andrew Parker (30:52)

Don't you think that we'll get back on track once ⁓ there's a little distance between the end of the war and Gaza, back on track with the Saudis?

Alex Traiman (31:04)

I think that that's possible. I certainly do think it's possible. I really what Israel needs is to no longer be the crisis on everybody's minds. So if you do get to an end of war, then I think you might get to, I don't know how long it will take, six months, a year, things will calm down. But meanwhile, the situation for the Gazans remains dire. Every day that goes on, even if Israel will stop.

It's offensive inside the Gaza Strip, even if Hamas would return all the hostage and surrender. mean, the Gazans, many of them are homeless right now ⁓ and nobody's taking them in. ⁓ And so as long as they consider to continue to ⁓ sit in tents, basically homeless, I don't know what the situation for Israel is going to be. Now you do have a situation in Europe. mean, there's a culture war being fought in Israel. There's a culture war being fought in

There's a culture war being fought in Europe. Now we're seeing that the the Western left, the liberal West, is turning hard on Israel. But conservatives tend to stand with Israel as we see in the United States under President Trump, as we see in places like Hungary and Poland. And and so governments are. Yeah, Argentina now, but you see how governments shift because before me, the Argentinian government was not.

Andrew Parker (32:19)

Argentina as well.

Alex Traiman (32:28)

⁓ strong with Israel. saw in, we just saw Brazil flip from being a very important ally of Israel to being an adversary of Israel. So you're seeing countries flip, you know, from left to right and from anti-Israel to pro-Israel. So we have to watch closely what happens in France in the elections. I believe it's the end of 26 or beginning of 27. That's a country that could flip and become more conservative. Italy's become more conservative. ⁓

Elders has made a lot of progress in the Netherlands. So if countries in Western Europe ⁓ turn over towards the right and become a little bit more pro-Israel in their outlook, if ⁓ President Trump gives way to a future Republican ⁓ in the White House, ⁓ and that Republican remains pro-Israel similar to the way Donald Trump had, which is not a guarantee, by the way. ⁓

But if that's the case, then I do think you could see these countries in their own best self-interest come closer towards Israel.

Andrew Parker (33:35)

You know, if, I could be a simplistic for a moment, uh, I think it does come down to in terms of world, uh, alliances to the war on terror and who is going to stand up and be a part of the war on terror instead of actually, uh, allowing the war, uh, the, the terrorists to

continue to succeed. And some of the actions taken by France and Great Britain and Australia and Canada are counterproductive, no doubt, no question, in assisting, supporting, giving cover to the terrorists themselves. And if the war on terror comes together and is understood as a coalition,

We know who is at the point of the spear in the war on terror, and that is the state of Israel. And their importance in that regard will be seen if countries come together to defeat unconditionally the sort of ⁓backwards thinking of radical Islam, for example. Let's turn now to ⁓

Really my last topic for you, Alex, we're talking to Alex Treman, CEO, Jerusalem Bureau Chief of the Jewish News Syndicate. ⁓ What is happening with Israeli politics is, you know, what we hear in the United States is that Bibi Netanyahu wants to allow and continue hostilities.

in the region in order that he can stay in power because as soon as the war is over, he will be cast aside and voted out of office.

Alex Traiman (35:39)

Well, I mean, there's an election scheduled for October of 2026. Okay, so the election is scheduled for a year from now. Despite, you know, the normal problems that you have in coalition politics, Netanyahu's coalition is strong. If he ends the war, that's not necessarily going to advance an election. If he keeps the war going, that's not going to advance the election.

There's a chance that we'll go to election earlier. It's a parliamentary system and there's a lot of complexities. I'm not going to get into that so much right now. But what I would say is I think that the general trend here is that the country is shifting to the right. This is a trend that was taking place before October 7th, but October 7th is not going to pull anybody back over to the left. mean, you have people that were like...

we were talking about earlier that were in the so-called peace camp beforehand, which they've given up on that. So that doesn't mean that they're in the pro-Netanyahu camp. That doesn't mean that they're necessarily fans of Netanyahu's coalition partners, who are the more religious and politically conservative of the bunch, probably Netanyahu's the furthest left wing in his own coalition. ⁓ But the country continues to shift to the right.

Andrew Parker (36:55)

Hmm.

Alex Traiman (37:00)

And so there's a strong chance that no matter who is running as the leader of the, you know, of the conservative block that Netanyahu has controlled for the last number of years, that you're going to have a plurality of Israelis voting for the right as opposed to the left. The left just keeps getting smaller and smaller. Whether Netanyahu can hold on and be the leader of that block remains to be seen. But because Israel is a very complicated parliamentary system with nine parties in the current Knesset,

⁓ You know, the Prime Minister of Israel only needs to win a little bit more than 25 % of the vote to be able to form a majority coalition government. So, you know, at this point I would say that even if there was an election today, Netanyahu is still in pole position. There hasn't emerged another candidate yet that the opposition has galvanized behind. You know, maybe something will happen between now and the election or between now and when an election is called. ⁓

I think that Danielle believes that there's a strong chance that he could win another election.

Andrew Parker (38:06)

So Alex, ⁓ who should we keep an eye on? ⁓ Who might be a dark horse? ⁓ Who are some of the new leaders in Israel that we should keep an eye on?

Alex Traiman (38:17)

Well, I do think that there's going to be a major political earthquake in Israel at some point. ⁓ And you have a whole generation of lions that just went into Gaza over the last two years, and they understand what the problems are with the security establishment. They understand what the problems are. ⁓

with the political establishment because they needed their backing. In some cases they got it, in some cases they didn't. They understand what the flaws are and they've looked evil in the face. They've taken on the most difficult challenges imaginable. And at some point you're going to see some kind of political reorganization here in Israel and there's going to be ⁓ all kinds of new candidates. ⁓

come to the forefront. question is whether any of these groups can successfully organize and create a ground game to before the upcoming election. And that remains to be seen. Right now, anytime you look at the polls, all you see are the existing candidates, the members of the existing parties in government, plus Naftali Bennett, was ⁓ prime minister for a few minutes here in Israel, barely a year.

before he was forced to resign because he lost his coalition. ⁓ He certainly wants to get back into the chair. And I think that the members of the left may be interested in putting their support behind somebody who actually comes from the right because they believe that the only way you can actually push Netanyahu out is if you take away votes from the right. Unfortunately, I don't think for minute that many people on the right trust him anymore. ⁓ So

It remains to be seen. It's a mess. It's like a whole sports league over here with teams and players and roles. It's complicated. We'll have to see where the chips fall.

Andrew Parker (40:11)

Yeah, but nothing new, nothing new for Israeli politics. Yeah, it is a ⁓ mess. All right, I was ⁓ a bit too quick in saying that was the last question. Actually, I wanna ask you how things are going at the Jewish News Syndicate and ⁓ what can we expect coming out of your operation?

Alex Traiman (40:14)

Not the new one to the sun.

Well, you know, we've been the special forces unit on what Prime Minister Netanyahu calls the Eighth Front, which is the information warfare. We are up against the tidal wave of bad information. cannot stress how badly beaten and abused are the readers of information when it comes to what's going on in the Middle East. I every article that comes out against Israel is just another punch in the face. ⁓

Andrew Parker (40:43)

Yeah, it's amazing. It's terrible.

Alex Traiman (41:00)

And this is the front that the enemies of the Jewish people have been investing in heavily. know the Qataris are pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars every year into Al Jazeera. We know that AP Reuters, they have headquarters and journalists, so-called journalists inside Gaza. Back in 2021, the last time the IDF had to operate in Gaza, the Air Force bombed the building, which was a Hamas headquarters, the entire

international community went ballistic because it was also the headquarters of the AP. You don't have to be very good at math to figure out why the headquarters of the AP is in the same building as the headquarters of Hamas. Okay, so you and you have the New York Times, the BBC, CNN, all the others taking their cues from Al Jazeera, taking their cues from the AP and Reuters. So you have a multi-billion dollar industry. ⁓

of which the overwhelming majority of their Middle East coverage is meant to demonize and delegitimize the state of Israel. ⁓ And we've been trying to counterbalance that ⁓ on a much, much, much smaller budget, ⁓just a few million dollars a year going up against the multi-billion dollar industry. And we recognize it's a David and Goliath fight. ⁓ And we think that there's a couple of reasons why we can actually win.

First is because we have truth on our side. And I think there's a lot of people in the world that do believe that ⁓even if lies are pervading today, that ultimately the truth is going to win out. And also ultimately we believe in the future of the state of Israel. And if Israel, if God wanted Israel to be destroyed, ⁓ he certainly had a great opportunity to destroy us over these last two years, but we've seen so much ⁓ protection and successes.

on the military front that we know this country is going to succeed. We've got young people here that care about the country, willing to fight for the country. So we've just been trying to tell Israel's story, the story that you're not getting in the mainstream media. ⁓ But because we've been doing that, our stats have grown exponentially over the last couple of years. Our YouTube channel, JNS TV, has gone from just a few thousand subscribers before the war to...

a quarter million subscribers ⁓ today, ⁓ with millions of views every month and millions of people coming to the website and new ⁓ syndication partners, including the New York Post and Newsmax, National Post in Canada, taking and republishing JNS articles on a regular basis. ⁓ We've had diplomatic summit. We had our first one here in April in Jerusalem. ⁓ We're our next summit in April in Jerusalem next year. So there's a lot of good things coming out.

And if people want to their news from a reliable source, a high quality source, they should go to jns.org or to our YouTube channel, JNSTV, and check it out.

Andrew Parker (44:02)

Thank God, Baruch Hashem and beautiful work. I'm so happy to hear that JNS is not only healthy, but growing. JNS.org, everyone go to JNS.org. Alex Treman, thank you so much for joining us for episode 421 on the Andrew Parker Show and an important episode. It was, thank you for the updates very much.

We wish you all the best going forward in keeping truth at the forefront and battling in ⁓ the war of information, the Eighth Front. Thank you so much, Alex, for joining us on the show.

Alex Traiman (44:45)

Andrew, thanks so much for having me.

Andrew Parker (44:48)

So everyone go to theandruparkershow.com, theandruparkershow.com, all one word, no spaces, theandruparkershow.com. Subscribe, like, ⁓ follow us, ⁓ text us, 952-522-2818 if you agree, if you disagree, if you are unable to determine what is fake news, what is false, what is lies, and what is truth.

Send us a text, we'll let you know, or go to jns.org as well, theandrewparkershow.com. Until next time, be kind to your neighbor.