Episode 96: The first war Israel fought in English, with Yaakov Katz

Ask Haviv Anything

Haviv Rettig Gur

History

4.9 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 March 2026

⏱️ 57 minutes

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Summary

Military analyst Yaakov Katz joins the show to break down the "first Israeli war fought in English" -- a total merger of Israeli and American military might against Iran. From the high-stakes testing of futuristic US weapon systems designed to intimidate China to the "criminal negligence" of Israel's failed PR strategy, Katz exposes how this conflict is a global chess match where the target isn't just Tehran, but the entire world order.

This episode is sponsored by an anonymous donor who wishes to recognize the staff and scientists of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. In June of last year, the Weizmann Institute was hit directly by two ballistic missiles from Iran. Over 60 laboratories were destroyed. In true Israeli fashion, scientists in the unaffected part of the campus opened their labs to their colleagues and doubled up and tripled up so that work could continue relatively uninterrupted. The Weizmann Institute exemplifies collaboration at its best which is, after all, the secret sauce of the State of Israel.

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Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, everybody. Welcome to a new episode of Ask Haviv Anything. We're on day nine of the Israel-Iran-America War in the Middle East. And today we're going to take a deep dive into some of the real heart and guts of the war. We're going to look at what's actually happening, what is happening on the ground tactically, what some of this means of the real heart and guts of the war. We're going to look at what's actually happening,
0:21.7	what is happening on the ground tactically, what some of this means on the broader stage.
0:26.3	Yaakov Katz is with me. Yaakov Katz is a best-selling author, senior fellow at the Jewish
0:31.1	People Policy Institute in Jerusalem, co-founder of Mead, M-EAD, a premier Middle East America
0:37.3	Policy Forum. Between 2016 and
0:40.7	23, Yaakov was editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post, where he continues to serve as a
0:45.3	columnist. I've actually known Yaakov for, I think, over 20 years, and he was also a phenomenal
0:52.9	military reporter and correspondent who understands these issues very, very deeply.
0:58.0	You're going to see that in this conversation.
1:00.6	He's a man who spent a lot of time studying the Middle East, its politics, and especially high-tech and defense tech.
1:07.9	Some of his first books co-authored with Amir Bukhbut are entitled, Weapon
1:12.5	Wizards, How Israel Became a High Tech Military Superpower, The Secrets to That Whole Industry,
1:17.3	Where It Comes From, and Israel versus Iran, The Shadow War. So you get the theme. We're
1:23.2	going today to get into the purpose of the current Iran war, what each of the sides are trying
1:29.0	to accomplish, how it is progressing, what victory looks like or defeat would look like,
1:33.9	and how this is going to shape regional and global events and the future.
1:39.2	Before we get into it, I want to tell you, this episode is sponsored by an anonymous donor
1:43.6	who asked to recognize the
1:45.6	staff and scientists of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rechovot in Israel. In June of last year,
1:51.8	the Weizmann Institute was hit directly by two ballistic missiles from Iran. 60 laboratories were
1:57.9	destroyed. In true Israeli fashion, flexible that we are, scientists in the
2:03.2	unaffected part of the campus opened their labs to their colleagues and doubled up and
	...

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