Israel
518 episodes
#6442: What Happened When Texas Really Flipped
Early voting surged sixty-three percent in the Rio Grande Valley as Texas elected its first Democratic governor in over thirty years.
#6412: Why the Trump-Netanyahu Clash on Iran Is About Timing
Leaked accounts of a high-stakes call reveal a fight over the clock: strikes immediately after midterms or waiting on Qatari diplomacy.
#6406: Arab Parties and Coalition Math in the Knesset
With Arab parties securing 19 seats in the Knesset, neither bloc can hit the 61-seat majority without deciding whether to answer their call.
#6357: Why Viral Campaign Videos Fail to Build Coalitions
Despite dominating social media with spoof videos, Netanyahu's bloc secured only 53 seats, falling well short of a 61-seat Knesset majority.
#6335: Why Israeli Election Turnout Means Opposing Things
Arab-majority parties won a record nineteen seats, yet major opposition leaders continue to rule out forming a governing coalition with them.
#6325: Can Diplomacy Repair Economic Isolation?
The Jewish People Policy Institute has documented 139 separate restrictive measures against Israel since 2023.
#6324: Why Israeli Youth Moved Right
Up to three-quarters of first-time Israeli voters now identify with the right, upending the Western norm that youth skew liberal.
#6323: Why Early Israeli Election Tallies Skew Right
With over 51% of Israeli ballots counted, the tally represents finished polling stations, not half of every ballot box.
#6318: Why Election Fraud Requires Your Opponent to Cooperate
During Israeli elections, at least two committee members from rival parties maintain independent, handwritten tally sheets during the count.
#6313: What Global Voter Turnout Trends Really Reveal
Global turnout fell from roughly 65 percent in 2008 to 55.5 percent of the voting-age population by 2023.
#6301: Building an AI Rubric to Rank Israeli Parties
A customized AI rubric ranked Israeli political parties by prioritizing tenant rights over the headline national issues dominating the campaign.
#6291: Surplus Vote Math in the Knesset
Under the Bader-Ofer method, party surplus agreements distribute marginal Knesset seats without transferring votes across rival candidate pools.
#6290: Polymarket's Final Odds for Israel's 2026 Vote
Prediction markets put Eisenkot at 55.9 percent for prime minister while giving an outright majority only a 16.5 percent chance.
#6277: Why Militaries Fly Long Sorties Just to Turn Around
A reported Israeli sortie flew over 800 miles toward Iran before turning back, highlighting the thin line between deterrence and empty signaling.
#6276: Sorting Signal from Noise in the Iran War Fog
Applying speaker and clock filters untangles conflicting reports on Iran strikes ahead of key elections in Israel and the United States.
#6226: Sarah Tuttle-Singer: The Writer Who Lives Inside the Story
A Venice Beach kid who moved inside Jerusalem's Old City walls — and writes herself into every story she tells.
#6225: Reading the Iran Signal: Jets, Leaks, and the Midterm Deadline
Israel flew dozens of jets toward Iran and turned back. A secret Hegseth visit, a Trump pledge, and a lot of unnamed sources. What's actually being...
#6224: Marcus James: Jerusalem's Spiritual Mayor
He hitchhiked with Kerouac, followed the Grateful Dead, and now cleans windows near the Old City. Meet Jerusalem's spiritual mayor.
#6208: Israel's 120-Seat Forecasting Ministry
A windowless office, a serious budget, and one job: forecast Israel's 120-seat Knesset as well as it can be done.
#6204: Two Humans, One Table Each: Calling Israel's Election
No models this time — just two seat-by-seat tables, fifty vs. fifty-nine, and a defector hunt two seats short of a majority.
#6202: Israel Votes, Part 6: Asking the Decision Models
Two decision models, identical evidence, one table of betting prices — and both flip their pick for Israel's next leader.
#6200: What Israeli Election Polls Hide Behind Seat Counts
A new open source tool simulates 100,000 election allocations from a single poll — and shows why "4 seats" is less certain than it sounds.
#6149: 4 Hard Fails in 84 Answers: Testing AI Bias on Israel-Palestine
A 19-prompt, 6-model eval tested whether AI models push back evenly on false claims about Israel and Palestine. One model failed four times.
#6100: Voting From an Embassy: Israel's 4,860-Voter Election
101 polling stations in 99 missions, 4,860 eligible voters, 30 hours of polls rolling west with the sun.