Excited to share that @StMartinsPress will publish my next book, ״The Fortress and the Home: Israel's Next 80 Years״, timed for Israel's 80th anniversary. After four books and years writing about Israel's wars, intelligence, and security, this book asks a different question: What kind of country will Israel become over the next few decades? It looks at the ideas Israel's founders had for the state, how those visions evolved, the challenges we face today, and the people working to shape a stronger future.

There was a time when Israeli politicians spoke openly and proudly about their yearning for peace. It was not a sign of weakness but a source of pride. The word even appeared in @netanyahu’s campaign slogans and was regularly a central theme in his UN speeches. In 2023, just weeks before October 7, Netanyahu used the word “peace” 42 times at the UN. A year later, that number dropped to 21, then to 13 in 2025. Last month, he mentioned it just once. And he is hardly alone. @gadi_eisenkot, @naftalibennett and even @YairGolan1 rarely speak about peace anymore. How did Israel, a country founded on the hope that one day its children would no longer have to fight, reach a point where even speaking about peace seems to have become taboo? What happened to our belief that peace was something worth striving for, even when it seems impossible? When did we stop daring to dream of a different future? My latest @Jerusalem_Post column with my good friend @LTCPeterLerner. jpost.com/opinion/article-91…

This is Israel. Young men and women at a music festival singing Shir LaShalom (A Song for Peace), the iconic Israeli song sung at the 1995 peace rally after which Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. A song about peace and the hope of seeing it in our lifetime. The day we see a video like this coming out of Gaza or Ramallah will be the day we can begin to believe that peace might actually be possible.

For me, the central question of this election is simple: Failing to form a government and heading straight into another election would be catastrophic for Israel. We might be militarily stronger today because our enemies are weaker, but military superiority does not eliminate the dangers of political paralysis. With so many challenges still unresolved, returning to the cycle of election after election would put Israel back on the same destructive path that preceded October 7. Are there alternatives? Yes. Are they easy? Not at all. My latest in the @Jerusalem_Post. jpost.com/opinion/article-91…

Israel cannot afford to alienate Diaspora Jews, especially at a time when the relationship is already under strain. With elections two weeks away, the next government has an opportunity to rebuild trust through 3 relatively simple decisions on religion and state. My latest in @JewishChron. thejc.com/opinion/three-simp…

A few weeks ago, someone pretending to be me reached out to one of Israel’s leading defense companies, claiming to be working on a sequel to my book “The Weapon Wizards”. The impersonator requested an interview with the company’s CEO, supposedly for the new book. Fortunately, the company’s spokesperson, whom I know personally, became suspicious. The phone number was unfamiliar, the email address was different, and something didn’t seem right. She reached out directly, and that’s how the impersonation was exposed. Then yesterday came another discovery. Since July, a YouTube channel called “Katz the Analyst” (good name, I have to admit) has been publishing videos featuring what appears to be me speaking from my home office. Except the videos are deepfakes, using real footage of me in my home office but replacing the voice and inserting entirely different content. The reach is negligible, but the messaging is intentional: Iran is portrayed as the smart, patient player in the Middle East; Israel is presented as a liability to the United States; Russia and China are depicted as the beneficiaries of the regional standoff. There are also conspiracy theories woven throughout. All of this has been reported to the relevant authorities in Israel, as well as to YouTube. But here is the bigger issue, and why this should concern everyone, especially with the Israeli elections just around the corner. We are already seeing AI-generated videos being used in election campaigns. Some are clearly labeled as AI-generated, while others are designed to deceive. The technology has reached a point where almost anyone can be made to say almost anything, with a level of realism that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. Think about what this means in the final days before an election. A fabricated video of a candidate making an outrageous statement, a military official supposedly revealing classified information, or a journalist appearing to report a story that never happened could spread to hundreds of thousands of people before anyone has a chance to verify its authenticity. And even if the video is eventually exposed as fake, the damage might already have been done. There is also a second danger. As deepfakes become more common, genuine videos and authentic statements can increasingly be dismissed as fabrications. In other words, the technology doesn’t just make it easier to spread lies. It also makes it harder to establish the truth. I have no idea who is behind these impersonations or whether the incidents are connected. The limited reach of the YouTube channel suggests that, for now, the impact is minimal. But the implications are much bigger and should worry us all.

Great conversation with Shmuel Rosner, pollster for Channel 13, ahead of the elections in just two weeks.

The UK's decision to impose sanctions on Israeli settlements was wrong and immoral. It showed that Britain is neither the honest partner nor the friend of Israel it claims to be. But I have two questions: Does anyone, including @gidonsaar, really believe that closing the British consulate in East Jerusalem will hurt the British or improve Israel's standing in the UK or anywhere else in the world? Does it make Israel look stronger or simply more isolated? Israel today increasingly acts from the gut, driven by the desire to retaliate, without considering the long-term consequences or the impact on international public opinion. It's as if we have given up on being part of the international community, satisfied with standing alone as long as we can convince ourselves that we are right. But being right is not enough. Long ago, @amirbohbot taught me the famous Israeli saying of the need to be smart, not just right. And right now, we seem to have forgotten the difference.

How did Hamas manage to penetrate Israel’s border on October 7 and create such chaos that the IDF was delayed in deploying forces to stop the massacre? My interview with @thetimes radio on how the attack unfolded - and why Israel was so slow to respond.

Is Israel better off militarily? 100%. Every major enemy Israel faced three years ago is weaker today - Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and Syria. Their degradation has created extraordinary strategic opportunities. But is Israel safer? That depends. Israel now has opportunities on almost every front to turn military achievements into lasting strategic gains. But doing that requires political vision and courage. And if that is not done, the enemies will simply rebuild bringing us potentially back to this point sooner than we would like to believe.

I don’t see @AvigdorLiberman’s plan as particularly realistic. But he deserves credit for doing something almost no other Israeli party leader is willing to do: acknowledge that the Palestinian issue is not disappearing and put forward an actual vision for what he wants to come next. His partners in the opposition haven’t done it. Neither has anyone in the current government. Avoiding the issue might seem politically easier but it is far from being a strategy. jpost.com/israel-news/politi…