Grave fears this weekend of a lethal response against Israel from Iran following two assassinations,

one in Beirut and one in the Iranian capital. Plus, a clash of Israeli versus Israeli at a military

base that some are calling Israel's January the 6th. It's unholy.

I'm Jonathan Friedland of The Guardian in London.

And I'm Unite Levy of Channel 12 in Tel Avic.

Ah, the audacity. The audacity of someone covering the Middle East, thinking they could take a four-week break.

I mean, seriously, Mr. Friedland, what were you thinking? This is my Jewish way of saying,

welcome back. Thank you. Good to be to be back, although, you know,

mixed feelings about being back because we always said, didn't we, that if something, you know,

dark happened with the news, then I would come back and sure enough, that's what's happened.

So it was never likely to be sort of happy circumstances that pulled me back in.

Somebody, a long-time listener of our podcast, in fact.

In fact, I don't think he'll mind if we name David Remnick,

who filled in brilliantly along with Beyond a Gulladry,

get the last couple of weeks, huge shout-up to both of them for sitting in this chair and doing it brilliantly.

But David said it is basically

that line in Godfather 3 every time I try to get out. They pull me back in. And this time it is

the gods of news, and particularly of the Middle Eastern news, as you've rightly pointed out,

that, you know, what with the events of this week, it just seemed impossible to stay away.

Yeah, I mean, you mentioned Biana Golodriga and David Remnick.

We all, all three of us deserve a very big thank you at the acknowledgement section of your book when it's out,

because we held our part of the unholy podcast empire.

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