
Advertise on podcast: I'm Jonathan Sacerdoti
Rating
4.6from
This podcast has
74 episodes
Language
EnglishPublisher
Jonathan SacerdotiExplicit
No
Date created
2025/02/17
Latest episode
2026/11/08
Average duration
67 min.
Release period
12 days
Description
Journalist, broadcaster, and commentator Jonathan Sacerdoti engages in in-depth conversations with thought leaders, experts, and influential voices from around the world. Covering politics, culture, history, and current affairs, each episode delivers sharp analysis, valuable insights, and engaging discussions on the most pressing topics of our time. Cutting through the noise, this series provides informed perspectives on the issues shaping the world today.
Unlock I'm Jonathan Sacerdoti podcast Email contact info,
Listeners & Audience details
Email contact information
Direct podcast contact details

Listeners
Audience numbers & engagement insights

Audience details
Podcast Insights

Podcast episodes
Check latest episodes from I'm Jonathan Sacerdoti podcast
There was no ‘golden age’: the truth about Islam and Jews. Professor Paul B. Fenton's warning for Europe
2026/11/08
For a thousand years Jews lived under Islamic rule. Professor Paul B. Fenton has spent his career reading what the documents from those centuries actually say.Was there ever a golden age in which Jews and Muslims lived as equals? Professor Fenton argues that the flowering of Jewish philosophy, poetry and science under Islam was real — but that it was a Jewish achievement rather than a shared society, and that it happened in spite of the conditions Jews lived under, not because of them.Fenton, a scholar of Hebrew and Arabic who spent much of his career at the Sorbonne and wrote 'Exile in the Maghreb: A Thousand Years of Jewish Experience Under Islam', joins Jonathan Sacerdoti in Tel Aviv to discuss the status of the dhimmi, the jizya and the lead seal a Jew had to wear at his neck as a receipt, the forced conversions of Mashhad, and why he believes the Islamic cruelty the world saw on October 7 has roots far older than Zionism. He also explains the debt he believes Judaism owes to Islamic civilisation — and why he thinks Europe has already missed its chance.
👁🗨 Watch if you want to understand what a thousand years of documents say about Jewish life under Islam — and why a scholar of both traditions believes no reconciliation is possible until that history is acknowledged.
If you value my work, please donate.
We discuss:
📜 Why Muhammad courted the Jews of Medina — and what happened when they refused him🕌 The verse of the sword – what does the Quran really say about Jews and Christians?🛡️ Dhimmi: why “protected people” is a mistranslation, and protected from whom📋 The conditions of Umar — Jews deprived of weapons, horses, even blowing the shofar in public💰 The jizya, the lead seal worn at the neck as a receipt, and what befell those who could not pay🏘️ Life in the mellah: separate quarters, distinctive dress, danger beyond the walls✨ Al-Andalus reconsidered — a Jewish golden age inside a society that was not golden📚 Why Maimonides outwardly converted to Islam and fled Spain☪️ Sunni and Shia attitudes to Jews, and the doctrine of ritual uncleanness🇮🇷 Why Jerusalem had almost no standing in traditional Shia Islam before Khomeini🔥 How an anti-colonial movement in Qom became the theology of the Iranian regime🎥 What Jews still living in Iran can and cannot say on camera⚔️ Razzia and Gaza: how Europe's riots are linked to Palestinians and Islam🙏 Why Islam can have no Vatican II, and what blocks the Abraham Accords🎼 The debt Judaism owes Islamic civilisation — Saadia Gaon, Baghdad and Jewish music🇪🇺 “There could have been a European Islam” — what, how and i it too late?
🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Britain, Israel, antisemitism, politics, terrorism and the defence of Western democratic values.
Follow Jonathan:
On XOn Instagram
The Soviet Union died. Its lies about Jews didn’t. How Soviet disinformation is destroying the West
2026/10/11
She grew up in the Soviet Union. Now she hears its propaganda repeated in the West — by people who think they are fighting for justice.Why does so much of today’s anti-Israel rhetoric sound familiar to someone raised behind the Iron Curtain? Izabella Tabarovsky argues that Soviet antizionism outlived the regime that promoted it — and that its language is shaping how a new generation thinks about Israel, Jews and the West.Tabarovsky, a writer and researcher of Soviet antizionism and contemporary antisemitism, joins Jonathan Sacerdoti to discuss life under communism, the export of Soviet propaganda and the dangers of romanticising a system millions wanted to escape. Drawing on her own experience and her book, Be a Refusenik: A Jewish Student Survival Guide, she explains how demonising Zionism affected ordinary Jews — and why she recognises disturbing echoes today.
👁🗨 Watch if you want to understand the Soviet roots of modern anti-Zionism — and why someone who lived under communism believes a free society can teach its citizens to silence themselves.
💬 We Discuss:☭ Growing up in the USSR: shortages, censorship and stifled ambition🛒 Socialism’s renewed appeal and the promises of Zohran Mamdani✡️ How Soviet anti-Zionism put ordinary Jews under suspicion🇮🇱 Why Israel’s victory in 1967 triggered a new propaganda offensive🌍 How the USSR spread its message through political movements, diplomacy and the UN🎓 Soviet influence and the changing language of the Western left📚 Why young people learn about Nazism but know so little about communism💔 “The left has left and it’s not coming back”🤝 Do Jews have more allies than they realise📱 Social media, foreign influence and the exploitation of division💰 Antisemitism as a route to attention, followers and money🤐 How social and professional pressure can silence dissent👏 The fear of being the first person to stop applauding🗣️ Compelled speech, online mobs and the demand to prove your virtue✊ What Soviet Jewish refuseniks can teach a new generation📖 How to preserve your independence of mind when the crowd demands conformity
📲 Follow JonathanOn XOn InstagramSubscribe on YouTubeIf you value my work, please donate
Israel can’t afford the West’s illusions – Caroline Glick on why Israel must stop asking permission
2026/09/27
One of Netanyahu's closest advisors speaks frankly about Israel – past, present and future – and what it means to be a Jew in the 21st Century.
Why is Israel increasingly condemned abroad even as it transforms the Middle East and demonstrates its military and technological strength? Caroline Glick calls it a “diplomatic October 7” — and argues that Israel cannot make its survival dependent on international approval.
Glick, Benjamin Netanyahu’s international affairs adviser and a longtime journalist and author, joins Jonathan Sacerdoti to discuss Israel’s war, its growing diplomatic isolation and the resurgence of antisemitism across the political spectrum. She explains why she believes October 7 exposed both the dangers of Jewish vulnerability and the failure of assumptions that had shaped Israeli policy for decades.
Subscribe on YouTube for more interviews
If you value my work, please donate – it really helps.
👁🗨 Watch if you want to understand how one of Netanyahu’s closest advisers sees Israel’s future — and hear her challenged on leadership, accountability and the lessons of October 7.💬
We Discuss:
🇮🇱 Israel’s resilience, economic performance and changing regional position
🌍 The “diplomatic October 7”
✡️ Why antisemitism surged after the massacre of Jews
🇬🇧 British sanctions and Europe’s relationship with Israel
🏠 Why all Israelis are 'settlers'
🛡️ The strategic case for Israeli control of the territory
🇵🇸 Rejecting the two-state solution
🗺️ Her proposal for Palestinian autonomy under Israeli sovereignty
👤 What the world misunderstands about Netanyahu
⚔️ Iran, Israeli military capabilities and Netanyahu’s willingness to act
❓ Netanyahu’s responsibility for the failures before October 7
⚖️ The dispute over a national commission of inquiry
🤝 How alliances between progressives and Islamists work
📚 Holocaust education and antisemitism beyond Nazism
🇺🇸 The history of discrimination against American Jews
🎭 Jewish humour and the power of political satire
🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Britain, Israel, antisemitism, politics, terrorism and the defence of Western democratic values.
📲 Follow Jonathan
On X
On Instagram
On Substack
Why the BBC stopped listening to ordinary people: ho told them what he thinks on Israel and Gaza. They fired him.
2026/09/17
What happens when a BBC journalist challenges his own organisation’s coverage of Hamas, Israel and October 7? After 22 years at BBC Radio Lancashire, Sean McGinty lost his job. He tells Jonathan Sacerdoti why he spoke out, what he believes his dismissal reveals about the broadcaster, and why he still hopes the institution he loved can be saved.
McGinty describes the private email he sent to presenter Nihal Arthanayake after a social media post recommending “context” for the October 7 attacks. He explains why it appalled him, how his criticism of BBC journalism extended to transgender coverage and cuts to local radio, and what happened as his relationship with management deteriorated.
Having recently lost his employment tribunal case, McGinty gives his account of the disciplinary process, his struggles with mental health and the isolation he says he experienced among former colleagues. He questions whether the BBC applies its standards equally to local journalists and its biggest stars, discussing Gary Lineker, Huw Edwards and the limits of speaking freely inside the organisation.
If you value my work, please donate: https://jonathansacerdoti.com/support/
DONATE: [ £5 ] [£10] [£20] [£50]
👁🗨 Watch if you want to understand why a journalist who devoted 22 years to the BBC believes it has lost its way — and what he says happens to those who challenge it from within.
📧 The private email challenging Nihal Arthanayake’s response to October 7📰 Why the BBC’s language about Hamas matters🇮🇱 How McGinty reacted to the attacks on Israel⚖️ His dismissal, employment tribunal and allegations of unequal treatment🧠 Mental health, workplace isolation and the human cost of his dispute🤐 Self-censorship and the consequences of questioning editorial decisions📺 Gary Lineker, Huw Edwards and the treatment of the BBC’s biggest names✡️ Allegations of antisemitism and failures in the BBC’s Israel coverage🏥 Reporting of the Gaza hospital explosion and accountability for mistakes🎥 The controversy over the BBC’s Gaza documentary🏳️⚧️ Transgender coverage, safeguarding and the WPATH files🗳️ Brexit, Blackpool and the voices McGinty says went unheard📻 Cuts to local radio and the communities left behind📱 How chasing social media numbers changes journalism🇬🇧 Whether the BBC can regain public trust
🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Britain, Israel, antisemitism, politics, journalism and the defence of Western democratic values.
FOLLOW JONATHAN:
On X
On Instagram
On YouTube
To donate to Meir Panim: https://meirpanim.org/rise-for-israel
UK Sanctions and the battle over Israel’s territory — how West Bank communities defy Britain's story, with Israeli British victim of terror Rabbi Leo Dee
2026/09/11
To donate to Meir Panim: http://meirpanim.org/rise-for-israelAs Britain introduces sanctions on Israel, Rabbi Leo Dee asks if British taxpayers should be funding the families of terrorists who murdered British citizens? And when Britain threatens sanctions against Jews living in the West Bank, who will actually suffer – Israeli settlers, Palestinian workers, or Britain itself?Rabbi Leo Dee’s wife Lucy and daughters Maia and Rina were murdered by Hamas terrorists in 2023. He speaks to Jonathan Sacerdoti about how that tragedy thrust him into public life, his confrontation with the British Foreign Office and the extraordinary paradox he discovered: while his own family was ineligible for British compensation, UK money was helping to support the families of Palestinian terrorists.Dee, a British-born rabbi and former private-equity investor who lives in Efrat, challenges the conventional account of Israeli settlements, Palestinian violence and the two-state solution. He describes his relationships with Palestinian neighbours and workers, explains why he calls himself a “resettler” in Judea and Samaria, and proposes an alternative peace plan based on autonomous Palestinian city-states protected by Israel.This wide-ranging discussion also examines Edward Miliband’s proposed sanctions, accusations of settler violence, Britain’s increasingly hostile climate for Jews and Israel’s growing economic and technological strength. Dee argues that Israel can no longer be treated as a dependent nation: its cyber security, defence systems, water technology and rapidly expanding start-up economy have made it increasingly difficult for other countries to boycott.Subscribe for more interviews: https://www.youtube.com/@MrJonsac?sub...If you value my work, please donate: https://jonathansacerdoti.com/support/👁🗨 Watch if you want to understand why Rabbi Leo Dee believes Britain’s policy towards Israel punishes Jews, harms Palestinians and keeps alive a peace process that has already failed.💬 We Discuss:🇬🇧 How the British Foreign Office responded to the murder of three British-Israeli women💷 Why British money may support the families of Palestinian terrorists⚖️ The compensation denied to British victims of terrorism abroad🏠 What it means to live as a Jewish “settler” in Judea and Samaria📖 Why Rabbi Dee describes himself as a “resettler”🤝 Everyday coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians in Efrat🇵🇸 Why the Palestinians repeatedly rejected one-state and two-state proposals🏙️ Rabbi Dee’s alternative plan for autonomous Palestinian city-states🗺️ The controversy surrounding Israel’s E1 development plans🪨 How Israeli settlements are built around existing Palestinian towns and farmland📰 Claims of “settler terrorism” and the international media’s focus on Israel🛡️ Whether Israel is doing enough to prosecute violence by Jewish extremists✡️ Antisemitism in Britain and the possible decline of British Jewish life🚀 Why Israel’s start-up economy may emerge stronger from war🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Britain, Israel, antisemitism, politics, terrorism and the defence of Western democratic values.📲 Follow JonathanOn X: https://x.com/jonsacOn Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonathansac...On Substack: https://jonsac.substack.com👇 Comment below — are Britain’s proposed sanctions a principled response to settler violence, or collective punishment driven by political calculation?
What is a multi-faith prayer room? Revealing how Islam quietly reshaped Britain’s public buildings
2026/08/29
Across Britain, thousands of supposedly “multi-faith” prayer rooms have appeared in airports, hospitals, schools, offices, museums and shopping centres. But have you ever been in one?They are presented as neutral spaces open to everyone – so who actually uses them? Are they genuinely shared places of worship, or has Britain quietly created a vast network of unofficial mosques while avoiding an honest conversation about religion, Islam and the decline of Christianity?
Dr Andrew Crompton, former Head of the Liverpool School of Architecture, speaks to Jonathan Sacerdoti about the strange architecture and hidden meaning of Britain’s multi-faith spaces. Crompton argues that attempts to remove every recognisable religious symbol do not create true neutrality. Instead, the arrangement of furniture, prayer mats, washing facilities and segregated areas often reveals which faith the room primarily serves.
This wide-ranging discussion looks at why Britain has become embarrassed by public prayer, how Islam has been generously, but often unconsciously, accommodated, and what these anonymous rooms reveal about the country’s changing religious identity. We also examine the tensions between religious practice, secular institutions, sex equality and personal freedom, and ask whether Britain’s reluctance to speak frankly has produced a solution that satisfies nobody.
If you value my work, please donate: https://jonathansacerdoti.com/support/
👁🗨 Watch if you want to understand how multi-faith prayer rooms spread across Britain, and why their true purpose is rarely discussed openly.
We discuss:
🕌 Why many multi-faith rooms function primarily as Islamic prayer spaces🇬🇧 What these rooms reveal about Britain’s changing religious identity✝️ Why Christian symbols have largely disappeared from shared prayer spaces🛫 How Heathrow came to have 39 'mosques'🏥 Why prayer spaces have spread through hospitals, schools, offices and airports🚿 How prayer mats and ritual-washing facilities can transform a neutral room into a mosque⚖️ Is there a legal obligation to make a prayer room?🙏 Is Britain embarrassed by prayer and religion?🚪 Putting religion “in the closet”👩🦰 Sex-segregated worship and equality in the workplace🏫 Prayer rooms in schools and religious pressures🔮 What today’s prayer rooms tell us about Britain’s religious future
Follow Jonathan:
On X
On Instagram
On YouTube
🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Britain, society, religion, politics and the defence of Western democratic values.
Why Israel rejects Western guilt: Dan Scheuftan explains how survival and principle trump fashion
2026/08/23
Israel and the Jewish people are facing a dramatic collapse in their standing across much of the world. Israel is increasingly portrayed not merely as a country whose policies should be criticised, but as the embodiment of absolute evil: accused of genocide, colonialism and apartheid, while the legitimacy of Jewish collective existence itself is challenged. Is this simply the latest eruption of an ancient antisemitism? Or has something deeper changed in Western society that has made hostility towards Israel increasingly respectable?
Dan Schueftan speaks to Jonathan Sacerdoti, arguing that the central conflict is between the worldview increasingly dominant in Western institutions and the reality in which Israel has to survive. While much of the West has grown suspicious of nationalism, military force and even the idea that nations must defend themselves, Israelis have drawn almost the opposite conclusions from Yom Kippur, the Second Intifada and October 7. Israel cannot afford, he argues, to adopt fashionable Western assumptions about war, national identity and security when its enemies still pose an existential threat. The result is a country increasingly at odds with the political and cultural zeitgeist of the societies whose approval it once sought.
Dan Shchueftan joins Jonathan Sacerdoti for a wide-ranging discussion about why Israel has become such a fixation of Western politics, whether Jewish life in Europe and America has a future, and why the moderate right may now offer Jews an alliance once associated with the liberal left.
If you value my work, please donate: https://jonathansacerdoti.com/support/
👁🗨 Watch if you want to understand why hostility towards Israel has exploded across the West – and why antisemitism alone cannot explain it.
💬 We Discuss:
🇮🇱 Why Israel has become increasingly isolated from the Western political and cultural mainstream
🌍 The clash between Israel's survival instincts and the modern Western zeitgeist
🕊️ Why Western attitudes towards war and military force changed so dramatically
⚔️ What October 7 taught Israelis about deterrence, prevention and the use of force
🎓 How progressivism transformed universities, human rights activism and attitudes towards Israel
🇵🇸 Why Israelis largely reject Western guilt over the Palestinians
✡️ Is today's explosion of anti-Israel sentiment fundamentally about antisemitism?
🩸 How the ancient blood libel has been repackaged for the modern age
📰 Why Schueftan believes Western media helps legitimise some of the oldest accusations against Jews
🔄 How antisemitism can simultaneously serve radically different political movements
🤝 Why parts of the Western left and the developing world have found common cause against Israel
🌐 What international institutions reveal about the changing global order
🇪🇺 Why Schueftan believes Jewish life in Europe faces a profound crisis
🇺🇸 Could American Jewish life be heading in the same direction?
🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Britain, Israel, Judaism, antisemitism, Islam, geopolitics and the defence of Western democratic values.
📲 Follow Jonathan
On X: https://x.com/jonsac
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonathansacerdoti/
On Substack: https://jonsac.substack.com
👇 Comment below — is today's hostility towards Israel primarily a new form of antisemitism, or the result of a much deeper ideological shift in the West?
How Britain’s fight over Islam became a threat to Jewish life — Shimon Cohen explains how ancient Jewish traditions could soon become illegal in Britain
2026/08/10
Two ancient Jewish practices are increasingly being challenged in modern Britain and Europe: kosher slaughter and the circumcision of baby boys. Both can appear troubling to outsiders. Both raise legitimate questions about animal welfare, bodily autonomy and religious freedom. And both have a long history of becoming political battlegrounds over whether Jews can continue to live according to their traditions in European society.
The debate over kosher slaughter has become entangled with a much larger argument about halal meat, Islam and immigration. Yet kosher production represents a tiny proportion of British slaughter, while vast amounts of halal meat enters the general food supply every day. When politicians demand bans on religious slaughter, are they really arguing about animal welfare, or about the religious communities themselves?
Circumcision presents an equally difficult collision between ancient faith and modern values. Brit Milah remains fundamental to Jewish identity even among many Jews who are otherwise not particularly observant. But should parents have the right permanently to alter the body of an eight-day-old child for religious reasons? Shimon Cohen, director of Shechita UK and an advocate for religious freedom at the Conference of European Rabbis, joins me for a frank discussion about two practices at the heart of Jewish life – and why defending them requires answering the difficult questions rather than avoiding them.
If you value my work, please donate: https://jonathansacerdoti.com/support/
👁🗨 Watch if you want to understand why kosher slaughter and circumcision have become political battlegrounds – and what banning them would mean for Jewish life in Britain and Europe.
💬 We Discuss:
🔪 What actually happens during kosher slaughter – and whether stunning really is more humane
🐄 Why mechanical stunning was never about animal welfare
🧪 The scientific argument over how quickly an animal loses consciousness during shechita
🇨🇭 The disturbing history of European bans on kosher slaughter
☪️ Why the explosion of halal meat has dragged Jewish practices into a much wider political fight
🥩 The difference between kosher, stunned halal and non-stunned halal meat
🏫 Are you unknowingly eating halal meat in restaurants, schools and other institutions?
🏷️ Does food labelling may make more sense than banning religious slaughter?
👶 What actually happens during brit milah and why circumcision remains so important to Jewish identity
⚖️ Where parental rights, bodily autonomy and freedom of religion collide
🩺 Why a mohel does not necessarily need to be a doctor – and how the practice is regulated
🚫 Why male circumcision and FGM are fundamentally different practices
🇬🇧 Whether ancient religious traditions can survive increasingly secular Western attitudes
✡️ What restrictions on kosher slaughter and circumcision would ultimately mean for Jewish life in Europe
🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Britain, Israel, Judaism, Islam, religious freedom and the defence of Western democratic values.
📲 Follow Jonathan
On X: https://x.com/jonsac
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonathansacerdoti/
On Substack: https://jonsac.substack.com
Pulling the strings: the hidden players behind the hate marches on Britain’s streets
2026/08/02
The vast demonstrations that filled Britain’s streets after 7 October 2023 have shaped politics, policing, Jewish life and public debate for nearly three years. Their scale gave them authority. Their repetition gave their slogans extraordinary reach. Their organisational structure deserves the same scrutiny routinely applied to every other force seeking to influence British public life.
Behind the crowds sits an infrastructure of campaign groups, funding networks, organisers, political activists and international connections. Questions about who pays for that infrastructure, who coordinates it and what regulation applies to it go directly to the integrity of democratic politics.
Anne Herzberg of NGO Monitor joins me to discuss the organisation’s investigation into the movement behind Britain’s major anti Israel demonstrations.
Please donate to support these important conversations: https://jonathansacerdoti.com/support
👁🗨 Watch if you want to understand how protest movements acquire power, money and influence
💬 We Discuss:
💷 How organisations hide the source of money behind Britain’s mass demonstrations
🪧 Why supposedly spontaneous mobilisation looks identical all around the world
🏛️ Charity money, tax payer money, and highly political campaigning
🌍 American foundations and international activist platforms funding British protests
🧩 How leadership overlaps across multiple organisations
🧒 Targeting young people through activist training, universities and social media
☪️ The Muslim Brotherhood and other extremist actors challenging democratic life
🇮🇷 How demonstrations centred on Gaza can absorb wider ideological causes
⚖️ Gaps in the Charity Commission, Companies House rules and Foreign Influence Registration Scheme
🇬🇧 Does Britain need stronger institutions capable of examining ideological extremism?
🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Britain, Israel, extremism, institutional power and the defence of Western democratic values.
📲 Follow Jonathan
On X
On Instagram
On Substack
How Britain and Europe rely on Israeli defence tech, whatever their leaders say — Yuval Steinitz on the catastrophic consequences of boycotting Israel and on Jewish survival
2026/07/23
Israel has become one of the most formidable developers of advanced defence systems in the world, despite its tiny size and population. Now, as calls to boycott its arms industry grow louder across Europe, Yuval Steinitz — Chairman of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and former Israeli Minister of Finance, Energy and Intelligence — tells Jonathan Sacerdoti how Iron Dome, David's Sling and the revolutionary Iron Beam laser have defended the country against more than 40,000 missiles and rockets in three years, and why he believes those pushing to disarm Israel are handing its enemies exactly what they want.
As Britain reluctantly accepts its new Prime Minister, Steinitz responds to Andy Burnham's proposed arms restrictions on Israel, argues that singling out the Jewish state for boycott while ignoring China, Russia or Saudi Arabia is indefensible, and points out that British fighter jets and air defense systems already depend on Israeli technology developed by Rafael.
In this wide-ranging conversation, Jonathan Sacerdoti speaks with Yuval Steinitz about the hypocrisy behind BDS, the $2 laser rewriting the rules of warfare, Israel's rise past Britain, France and Germany in GDP per capita, the legacy of David Ben-Gurion, and what a defenceless Israel would mean for 8 million Jews.
Donate to support these conversations, at https://jonathansacerdoti.com/donate
🛡️ Watch if you want to understand why disarming Israel would not bring peace, but risk a new Holocaust in the Middle East.
🎯 We Discuss:
🚀 How Israel intercepted over 40,000 missiles and rockets in three years
🇬🇧 Why Britain's new Prime Minister made Israel his first target
⚖️ The hypocrisy Steinitz sees in boycotting Israel but not China, Russia or Saudi Arabia
💡 The $2 laser beam that could end the era of missile warfare
🇫🇷 How France's arms embargo backfired and forced Israel to build its own defence industry
📈 How Israel's GDP per capita overtook Britain, France and Germany
🏭 The secret history of Ben-Gurion founding Rafael in 1948
🛰️ Why Britain's own fighter jets already rely on Israeli-developed technology
💀 Steinitz's warning: what a defenceless Israel would mean for 8 million Jews
🕊️ Why he still believes peace with the Palestinians remains possible
🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Israel, defence, Western politics and the forces shaping the Middle East.
👤 Follow Jonathan
On X
On Instagram
On Substack
💬 Comment below — can the West keep criticising Israel's right to defend itself while relying on the very technology that defends it?
#IronDome #IronBeam #Israel #IDF #IsraelDefense #BDS #JonathanSacerdoti #MiddleEast #IsraelNews #WesternCivilisation
Why liberalism cannot defend Britain: Melanie Phillips on the West’s “suicide note”
2026/07/14
Can a Jew still be fully British when support for Israel is treated as evidence of disloyalty? Melanie Phillips tells Jonathan Sacerdoti why she shifted her centre of gravity from London to Jerusalem, how Britain’s cultural institutions turned against her, and why she believes the crisis facing Jews is inseparable from the wider collapse of Western confidence.
Britain still inspires her deep affection. But beneath that attachment are harder questions. Has liberal tolerance become a refusal to defend civilisation? Can the West recover its Christian and biblical foundations without reviving its historic hostility towards Jews? Has anti-Zionism become a new loyalty test? Is Donald Trump’s faith in dealmaking blinding him to the nature of Iran and Hamas — and can anyone still break through a culture in which feelings have replaced objective truth?
In this wide-ranging conversation, Jonathan Sacerdoti speaks with Orwell Prize-winning journalist and author Melanie Phillips about abandoning the Guardian worldview, finding a fuller Jewish identity in Israel, her criticism of the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Trump’s handling of Iran and Gaza, and her practical advice for Jews confronted with accusations about Israel.
Donate to support these conversations, at https://jonathansacerdoti.com/donate
👁️🗨️ Watch if you want to understand why Melanie Phillips believes the struggle over Israel, Jewish identity and antisemitism is part of a much larger battle for Britain and Western civilisation.
🎙️ We Discuss:
🇬🇧 Why Jewish acceptance in Britain became conditional
🇮🇱 How Israel made her a 'more complete Jew'
💔 Melanie's increasingly unrequited love for Britain
🌍 Why she believes Israel and the West are ultimately defending the same civilisation
⚖️ Liberalism’s “suicide note”
✝️ The Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Israel, Islamism and Christian history
🇺🇸 Why Donald Trump’s belief in deals may prevent him from understanding Iran, Hamas and ideological enemies
⚠️ How an American retreat could embolden Russia, China, North Korea and the Islamist world
📰 The Guardian article Melanie wrote despite knowing its underlying story was untrue
🧠 How the left transformed political disagreement into a struggle between moral goodness and evil
🗣️ Why conventional arguments defending Israel often fail
✡️ Why she remains optimistic, and why Jews must continue speaking even when they feel isolated or exhausted
🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Israel, British politics, antisemitism, Western civilisation, religion and the forces reshaping Jewish life.
📲 Follow Jonathan
On X
On Instagram
On Substack
💬 Comment below — can Britain recover its culture and confidence without making Jewish life even less secure, or has the old relationship already broken down?
How the West's own laws are being used to destroy it: Natasha Hausdorff exposes the ICC and UN
2026/07/05
Natasha Hausdorff tells Jonathan Sacerdoti that international law — the very system the West built to protect itself — has been turned into a weapon against Western civilisation, and that what is being done to Israel today will be done to Britain and America tomorrow.
Behind the headlines about war crimes, genocide and starvation lies a harder story. What happens when the courts meant to deliver justice become political tools? When UN reports launder terrorist propaganda as established fact? When the photographs that moved the world turn out not to show what we were told they showed? And if "what starts with the Jews doesn't end with the Jews," what does the weaponisation of international law mean for every law-abiding nation that still fights by the rules?
In this conversation, Jonathan Sacerdoti speaks with Natasha Hausdorff — barrister, international law expert and founder of the Centre for International Rule of Law — about how the laws of war are being inverted, why the ICC and ICJ have lost their credibility, how NGOs like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch built cases on Hamas sources they never verified, why the "State of Palestine" fails the basic legal test for statehood, and why the West's silence in the face of this abuse may be the most dangerous signal of all.
Donate to support these conversations, at https://jonathansacerdoti.com/donate
👁️🗨️ Watch if you want to understand how international law — from the ICC to the UN Human Rights Council — is being turned against Israel and the West, and why the outcome affects every nation that still plays by the rules.
🎙️ We Discuss:
⚖️ Why Natasha Hausdorff founded the Centre for International Rule of Law — and what "the weaponisation of international law" actually means
🏛️ How rule-of-law nations treat law as a limit on power, while despots treat it as a tool to wield power
🔴 Why the ICC and ICJ increasingly look like political bodies rather than independent courts
📄 How the latest UN Commission of Inquiry "launders" terrorist propaganda into an official report on the targeting of children
🗂️ Why Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch relied on Gaza "local authorities" — while admitting they had no one on the ground
🔍 "Projection": how Israel's accusers are guilty of exactly what they accuse Israel of
🧾 Why the "State of Palestine" fails the Montevideo test for statehood — and how the ICC invented its own jurisdiction
🍽️ The starvation narrative: why over 3,000 calories per person per day were entering Gaza — and why up to 90% of aid was diverted by Hamas
🚸 The truth behind the "starving children" photographs — and the well-fed relatives cropped out of frame
🎓 How the international legal academy silences anyone who won't "drink the Kool-Aid" on Israel
🚧 Why Egypt sealed the border at Rafah — and how the international community became complicit in Palestinian suffering
🎖️ How a senior British general was attacked by his own colleagues for reporting honestly what he saw in Gaza
🌍 Why "what starts with the Jews doesn't end with the Jews" — and how lawfare will one day be turned on Britain and the US
🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about international law, Israel, the Middle East, antisemitism, and the forces reshaping the West.
📲 Follow Jonathan
On X: https://x.com/jonsac
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonathansacerdoti/
On Substack: https://jonsac.substack.com
💬 Comment below — has international law become a shield for the world's worst actors and a weapon against the nations that actually respect it? And if Israel is the test case, who's next?
#NatashaHausdorff #JonathanSacerdoti #InternationalLaw #Israel #Lawfare #ICC #ICJ #Gaza #Hamas #Genocide #UN #AmnestyInternational #HumanRightsWatch #MiddleEast #RuleOfLaw #WesternCivilisation
The Muslim Brotherhood "invasion" the UK refuses to see – a warning from two Emiratis on the threat Britain is trying to ignore
2026/06/29
Britain has been infiltrated, the Muslim Brotherhood's quiet takeover is already underway, and the West is listening to the wrong Muslims.
Rauda Altenaiji and Ahmed Sharif Al Ameri are part of a new wave of Emirati voices speaking out, proudly and publicly, in defence of the Abraham Accords and the world's only Jewish state. They feel safer walking through Dubai at 4am than London at 8pm, and their leadership has stopped sending students to British universities for fear they'll be radicalised.
But beneath the warning are harder questions. The UAE enforces its famous tolerance through some of the world's harshest laws — including execution. Is that a model the West could ever, or should ever, follow? Is their picture of coexistence too perfect to be true? And when two polished young influencers appear defending Israel and the Accords, who exactly is behind them — and why?
In this conversation, recorded live at the ARC 2026 conference, Jonathan Sacerdoti speaks with Rauda Altenaiji and Ahmed Sharif Al Ameri — Emirati commentators and social-media political voices — about the Abraham Accords, Islamist extremism in Britain, the Muslim Brotherhood, antisemitism, migrant workers' rights, the death penalty, and why they believe London is losing its identity while the Gulf thrives.
Filmed at ARC 2026
ARC’s new book: The Age of Reconstruction - by Johnny Patterson, ARC Chief Ideas Officer
Donate to support these conversations, at: https://jonathansacerdoti.com/donate
👁️🗨️ Watch if you want to understand how two Emiratis see Britain's extremism problem — and why they believe the West is listening to the wrong Muslims.
🎙️ We Discuss:
🔴 Why two Emiratis publicly defend Israel and the Abraham Accords — and what it cost them
🕌 The Muslim Brotherhood "invasion" of the West, and why they say it now works through PR, not conquest
🇬🇧 Why the UAE will no longer send its students to study in the UK
⚖️ How the UAE treats antisemitism as terrorism — and the one case that ended in execution
🏙️ Why they'd walk through Dubai at 4am but not London after 8pm
👷 The truth about the UAE: the uncomfortable questions on migrant workers, labour laws and 87.9% of the population
💀 Tolerance enforced by the death penalty — model or warning?
📖 The idea of a "civilisational jihad"
🎓 How a Muslim woman was branded Islamophobic by a white British university professor
🤔 "Is this engineered?" — answering the suspicion that these influencers came from nowhere
🌍 How to spread coexistence to the rest of the Arab world
🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about the Middle East, Israel, the Gulf, Islamism, and the forces reshaping the West.
📲 Follow Jonathan
On X
On Instagram
On Substack
ARC Conference:
On X
On YouTube
On Instagram
💬 Comment below — is the UAE's model of enforced tolerance something the West should learn from, or the very thing it should fear?
How the world's self-proclaimed winner got played: Dan Schueftan on Trump’s Iran mistake
2026/06/15
Is Trump's deal with Iran worse than Obama's JCPOA? Dan Schueftan tells Jonathan Sacerdoti how it emboldens every Iranian proxy from Hezbollah to the Houthis, and leaves Israel in one of the most precarious positions in its history.
Both sides are claiming victory. But beneath those claims are harder questions. Has Iran been given a free pass to rearm? Has Israel lost the cover it needed to act? What does this mean for the Gulf states, for Lebanon, for the Iranian people desperate to be rid of their regime — and for the West's credibility as a civilisation willing to defend itself?
In this conversation, Jonathan Sacerdoti speaks with Dr. Dan Schueftan — strategic analyst and former director of the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa — about what the Trump-Iran deal actually contains, why a president who built his identity on winning may have handed Iran a historic victory, what Israel can still do alone, and why the West's retreat from confrontation is the most dangerous signal it can send.
Donate to support these conversations, at https://jonathansacerdoti.com/donate
👁️🗨️ Watch if you want to understand what the Trump-Iran nuclear deal really means for Israel, for the Middle East, and for any country that still believes in the willingness to fight for its interests.
🎙️ We Discuss:
🔴 Why Dan Schueftan calls this deal a capitulation worse than Obama's — and what Iran actually received
🇮🇷 How Iran keeps uranium enrichment, faces no limits on ballistic missiles, and its proxies remain intact
🇮🇱 What Israel can do now — alone, without the American cover it depended on
🔫 Why Hamas and Hezbollah will never disarm — and why that was never a realistic goal with or without the US
🌍 How the Gulf states, Lebanon's non-Hezbollah population, and Iran's own people were also abandoned by this deal
📉 Why Trump — a man who defines himself entirely by winning and losing — may not yet grasp what he gave away
⚔️ The 1930s parallel: how Western unwillingness to fight emboldened Hitler, and what today's retreat signals to today's barbarians
🏛️ Why Western democracy can no longer produce leaders like Churchill or FDR — and what that means for civilisation
🇮🇱 Why Israel's combination of open society and willingness to fight makes it unique in the Western world — and uniquely resented
💡 Dan's "smart optimism": why things will get worse, but Israel will grow stronger faster than things deteriorate
🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about the Middle East, Israel, Iran, US foreign policy, and the forces reshaping the West.
📲 Follow Jonathan
On X: https://x.com/jonsac
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonathansacerdoti/
On Substack: https://jonsac.substack.com
💬 Comment below — is there something going on in this deal that Trump knows and we don't, or has the self-proclaimed master dealmaker just made the worst deal of his career?
Suspended, investigated, nearly expelled: what universities do to dissidents, and how Connie Shaw broke free
2026/06/02
Connie Shaw went on LBC at 8am to defend free speech on Islam — and was publicly called a racist before the interview ended. She had already been suspended from her university radio committee and faced potential expulsion for writing about trans ideology on campus. She used to be woke herself.
👉🏻 If you like this interview please share it with a friend, and give it five stars 👈🏻
Across universities, newsrooms, and public platforms in Britain, a pattern keeps repeating: point to Islamic extremism, question trans ideology, or defend Western identity — and the response is not debate but accusation. The labels shift from episode to episode — racist, transphobic, far right — but the mechanism is identical. Name the person, not the argument. Make the cost of speaking visible to everyone watching. This is how honest conversations are removed from public life.
In this conversation, Jonathan Sacerdoti speaks with Connie Shaw — external affairs officer at the Free Speech Union and commentator — about Islamism, trans ideology in academia, the grooming gangs cover-up, the state of British universities, Israel, and what free speech actually means in a society where some speech is already a coded call to violence. At stake is the ability of any citizen to say plainly what they can see.
Donate to support these conversations, at https://jonathansacerdoti.com/donate
🧑💻 Watch if you want to understand how ideological pressure shapes young people at school and university — and why those who break from it face organised attempts to silence them.
🗣 We Discuss:
🎙 Why Connie was accused of racism on LBC for defending free speech on Islamic public prayer in Trafalgar Square
🏫 How trans ideology embedded itself inside academia — and what happened when Connie wrote about it
📖 Why some students believe that even reading the opposing argument is an act of moral transgression
🕌 Why criticism of Islamism keeps being reframed as racism — and who benefits from that confusion
👮 How a self-described former school snitch and feminist society chair woke up to what she had been part of
🇮🇱 What Connie found when she visited Israel, and why many people who hold strong opinions still don't know what happened on October 7th
✝️ Why an atheist can still believe Christianity is essential to Western civilisation
🗺 Whether free speech can survive in a society where some communities use language as a coded call to violence
⚖️ What role figures like Tommy Robinson actually play in British political life — and whether that role is ultimately helpful or harmful
👶 Why declining birth rates and the breakdown of relationships between young men and women may be the most underreported civilisational crisis of our time
📺 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about free speech, Islam, trans ideology, Israel, antisemitism, and the culture wars reshaping the West.
🔔 Follow Jonathan
On X: https://x.com/jonsac
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonathansacerdoti/
On Substack: https://jonsac.substack.com
💬 Comment below — is there a point at which protecting free speech becomes a form of civilisational self-harm, and if so, who gets to draw that line?
Podcast reviews
Read I'm Jonathan Sacerdoti podcast reviews
RokitanskyAschoff 2026/01/10
More people should know about this podcast.
More people should know about this podcast. Keep it going.
Jonesy8888 2025/08/04
Exceeded expectations!
Amazing - I knew he was good, but these interviews are mind blowing.
kvell55 2025/07/20
Excellent podcast
Always interesting and informative.
Podcast sponsorship advertising
Start advertising on I'm Jonathan Sacerdoti relevant audience podcasts
You may also like to advertise on these Podcasts

4.838332000
Entrepreneurs on Fire
John Lee Dumas of EOFire

4.858231931
Sara Gonzales Unfiltered
Blaze Podcast Network

4.922981195
Dropping Bombs
Brad Lea: CEO, Entrepreneur, and Host of The Bottom Line

4.8224881804
The Andrew Klavan Show
The Daily Wire

4.9248081459
Unashamed with the Robertson Family
Tread Lively

4.7106642000
FantasyPros - Fantasy Football Podcast
iHeartPodcasts

4.736031319
The Bonfire with Big Jay Oakerson and Robert Kelly
SiriusXM

4.732741988
The President's Daily Brief
The First TV

4.824771895
Deck The Hallmark
Bramble Jam Podcast Network

4.7368451296
Louder with Crowder
Louder with Crowder