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Raihaana Adira, a Shia Ismaili Muslim and McGill graduate, explains why she calls herself a Zionist, and what defending Israel on campus cost her. Six weeks after an exchange semester at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Adira returned to McGill University as October 7 unfolded and watched classmates call Hamas heroic. In this interview, she describes being accused of antisemitism for studying Islam, then being shunned by fellow Muslims for supporting Israel. She also recounts finding an effigy of Benjamin Netanyahu in striped pajamas hanging from McGill's gates during the encampment. "Antisemitism and Islamophobia go hand in hand. They're two sides of the same coin," she says. On the glorification of October 7: "Hamas is not resistance. Hamas is not freedom fighters. They're terrorists." Adira lost her father to murder when she was 16, and she says that loss shapes how she reacts when killings are celebrated online. She discusses attitudes toward Jews in Canada's Muslim communities, the education gap she believes drives them, and why she describes herself as "a Canadian Muslim, not a Muslim Canadian." Her view is rarely heard in debates about campus antisemitism: a non-Jewish, Muslim voice arguing that standing with Israel is a matter of principle, not identity.

Former UN torture rapporteur Dr. Alice Jill Edwards says two UN colleagues deliberately failed to document October 7, three years on. In this interview with Jerusalem Post diplomatic correspondent Amichai Stein, Edwards explains why she went public after leaving her UN post. Few UN experts examined the Hamas-led attack beyond the first months after it, she says, and two fellow special rapporteurs never seriously engaged with it. “I think that was deliberate, and I still think it is deliberate,” she says. She points to the numbers behind her charge that the UN is fixated on Israel. Special rapporteurs have sent around 50 communications concerning Israel since October 7, she says, compared with about 10 on Sudan, a far longer conflict. She also describes efforts to water down her letter on the October 7 allegations and to discourage colleagues from signing it. “There was, and there is still, I think, an atmosphere of bullying and intimidation,” she says. Edwards is not a one-sided critic. She visited Ramallah and met with some who were held in Israeli detention, and she says Israel should be held to account for its violations. She urges Israel to bring international judges into its own judicial proceedings. She also describes visiting the kibbutzim 14 months after the massacre, and she explains why she classifies hostage-taking as psychological torture of the hostages’ families. Looking ahead, she warns that the UN has been sidelined as a Middle East mediator, and she calls on Secretary-General António Guterres’s successor to put peacemaking back at the center of the institution.

Six days before Israel's October 27 election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sits down with The Jerusalem Post at 2:14 a.m. on his 77th birthday. Netanyahu says Israeli military intelligence and the Mossad have warned that Iran and its proxies are weighing ways to influence the vote. He describes Operations Rising Lion and Roaring Lion as having done "ninety percent of the job" against Tehran's nuclear and missile programs, and he warns that the regime is trying to rebuild them. The prime minister addresses President Trump's surprise endorsement, which he says he did not know was coming, and why Vice President JD Vance declined to offer one. On pressure from a potentially less friendly Washington, he is blunt: "If you bow your head, you're dead." Netanyahu also lays out the four principles he says any coalition partner must accept, starting with no Palestinian state. He calls settler vigilantism "wrong" and damaging to Israel abroad. He repeats his claim that his criminal trial has collapsed and calls for an investigation of the officials who led it. He traces Qatar's role in what he calls the vilification of Israel to a warning from his late father, historian Benzion Netanyahu, that Jews who are "prominent and weak" invite antisemitism when societies change. He also explains why he sees the race as an even tie, and why he says a right-wing party falling below the electoral threshold, as happened in 1992, could decide the outcome. His opponents, including main rival Gadi Eisenkot, reject his characterizations of them, and this interview presents the prime minister's case in his own words.

Israel recovered fast on the battlefield but kept losing the narrative war, says former HonestReporting executive director Gil Hoffman. In a wide-ranging conversation with Jerusalem Post senior international affairs correspondent Mathilda Heller, Hoffman discusses his new book, The Blood Libel Machine. He argues that Hamas planned October 7 to shape global public opinion, and that Israel entered the war with no plan for the media front. "Every day since October 7 has become easier on the military battlefield," he says. "Every day since October 7th has gotten progressively harder" in the narrative war. On Israel's own communications effort, his verdict is blunt: "They really just didn't even try." Hoffman spent nearly 24 years covering Israeli politics for The Jerusalem Post, and he insists this is not an anti-media book. He discusses the Gaza hospital blast reporting and the reliance on Gaza-based sources. He also covers the role of NGOs and UN bodies, and where bad journalism ends and bias begins. His practical advice includes arguing with ChatGPT, using community notes, and reading outlets like The New York Times more carefully rather than cancelling them. Ahead of Israel's election, he calls on the next government to treat public diplomacy as seriously as the Iranian nuclear threat. He also faults the current one for leaving key posts empty on October 7, including the English-language spokesperson and the consul general in New York.

Israel's Education Minister Yoav Kisch says Likud wants an October 7 investigation, just not one appointed by Supreme Court President Yitzhak Amit. In this Jerusalem Post interview, recorded days before Israel's October 27 election, the senior Likud minister argues that half the country would reject a state commission of inquiry, and proposes instead a bipartisan national committee modeled on the US 9/11 Commission. "Prime Minister Netanyahu can be the first one to be checked," Kisch says, "but it has to be with a committee that is not biased by any side." He frames the election as a binary choice between a Netanyahu-led right-wing government and an opposition led by Gadi Eisenkot that, he argues, cannot reach 61 seats without the Arab parties, a claim Eisenkot has rejected. Kisch also defends his record running Israel's schools through the war, from reopening classes for evacuees within weeks to opening four new medical faculties. He responds to Israel's lowest-ever PISA results, explains how AI-based personal learning will change the teacher's role, and addresses the approval process behind the northern school trip on which a student was killed by unexploded Hezbollah ordnance. He outlines Likud's coalition red lines, its position on the Haredi draft and core curriculum funding, and why he believes first-time voters shaped by the war will back the right.

Netanyahu's foreign policy adviser Ophir Falk says no viable hostage deal was ever on the table, and he disputes Brett McGurk's account of the talks. In this wide-ranging Jerusalem Post interview, Falk, who served on Israel's hostage negotiating team, rejects the claim that Israel could have secured an earlier release. "There was never a deal on the table," he tells JPost editor-in-chief Zvika Klein and the diplomatic reporter Amichai Stein. "Anybody who says there was is gravely mistaken." He points instead to an April proposal that, he says, then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken called extraordinarily generous, and that Hamas rejected. Falk also says the Biden administration imposed a "de facto embargo" on some weapons Israel needed. He credits military pressure, political pressure and full US backing for the deals that eventually brought the hostages home. Falk also gives a first-hand account of the morning of October 7 inside the Kirya. He describes Netanyahu telling him on the way to the first security briefing that "it's going to be a long war." He recounts the prime minister's first call with French President Emmanuel Macron. He flatly denies reports of a pre-October 7 call between Netanyahu and UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed. On Iran, he says regime change is up to the Iranian people, and he argues that Israel and the US are creating the conditions for it. On Gaza, he insists there will be no reconstruction or IDF redeployment before Hamas is fully disarmed: "If Hamas wanted to disarm, they could do that in an afternoon." Falk also acknowledges where Israel is struggling. "We've been fighting a seven-front war, and on the eighth front, the information warfare, we have not been as successful as we have been on the battlefield," he says. Our interviewers press him on declining support for Israel among Democrats and some Republicans, the Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, the Israeli plane denied landing in Saudi Arabia, and when normalization with more Arab states might actually happen.

Author and influencer Oli London once embraced the very ideas he now speaks out against. Three years after October 7, he explains why he stands with Israel. On his eighth trip to Israel in three years, the author of Gender Madness tells The Jerusalem Post studio manager Lara Sukster Mosheyof how watching the October 7 videos in real time, and the protests that followed within hours, pushed him to speak out despite lost relationships and dropped brand deals. "If you are silent and if you turn a blind eye, you are complicit," he says. He argues that much of the online hostility toward Israel is driven by trends rather than knowledge, and that "the internet is not the real world." London's perspective is unusual: he says that before finding Christian faith four years ago, he followed the same online trends he now criticizes, including changing his gender identity after heavy TikTok use during COVID. He discusses why he believes LGBTQ activists have embraced the pro-Palestinian cause, how clicks shape media coverage of the Israel-Gaza war, why he thinks influencers stay quiet, and his answer to critics who point to his past.

Nechumi Yaffe and Ziva Glanz are the first women on a haredi party's Knesset slate, and they say the community needs change that comes from within. Yaffe is a Tel Aviv University researcher and former National Security Council adviser. Glanz is a businesswoman who helped run a civilian war room after October 7. Both are running with the new Haredi Public party ahead of the October 27 election. They explain why they left established careers for politics. They describe the reaction from inside the haredi world, and they say Shas and UTJ have chosen to simply ignore them. They also lay out a platform centered on issues they say male haredi MKs have overlooked: higher breast cancer mortality among haredi women, exploitation of working mothers who support large families, and the lack of a state safety net for divorced women and single parents. "Women are 50% of the population," Yaffe says. "No decisions should be made about them. They should be made with them." The two candidates speak frankly on the issues dividing Israeli society. On education, Yaffe notes that only 21% of haredi men receive core curriculum studies, compared with nearly all haredi women. On the draft, Glanz backs national responsibility but rejects cutting state funding as a blanket sanction, calling it a "bullying" approach that would harm the whole country. She also draws on her son's service and her wartime work supplying soldiers to argue that the IDF needs deep reform before it can successfully integrate haredi recruits. Polls currently put the Haredi Public party below the electoral threshold, but its candidates offer a rare look at a growing constituency of working, educated haredi women who say no existing party represents them.

Michal Negri's son, Maj. (res.) Roee Negri, rushed to Kibbutz Be'eri on October 7 without being called up and fell fighting there. Now she is running for Knesset with Naftali Bennett. Three years after October 7, the former director-general of the Ra'anana Municipality describes how her son, a team commander in the IDF's LOTAR counterterrorism unit, gathered his team on his own and fought house by house in Be'eri. He was married just six weeks before. She explains why his choice pushed her into politics: "He didn't ask. It wasn't comfortable. He was in the middle of his flourishing life, and he knew that he has to save the country." Negri, No. 7 on Bennett's list, calls for a state commission of inquiry into October 7. She describes the moment her husband told a senior officer who came to brief the family on the Be'eri investigation that he didn't need to hear about Be'eri. He wanted to know what happened at 6:30 that morning. She says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should have stepped down the day after the attack. She also argues that drafting the ultra-Orthodox would help unite Israeli society rather than divide it. Drawing on decades in education and local government, Negri describes municipalities stepping in when national ministries collapsed after October 7. She outlines her party's education plan, which includes moving more authority to cities and principals, requiring core curriculum and Zionist values as a condition of state funding, and a starting salary of NIS 12,000 for new teachers.

Former Likud MK Dan Illouz once defended Netanyahu's record. Now running with Yisrael Beytenu, he says Netanyahu cannot lead Israel after October 7. In this Jerusalem Post interview, the Montreal-born former lawmaker explains why he left the party he joined before he even signed a lease in Israel. He points to three reasons: the haredi draft exemption bill, Netanyahu's refusal to establish a state commission of inquiry, and the gap between Likud's stated values and its actions. "If there isn't a political price to being prime minister when such disaster happens, then this is something which is dangerous for us as a country," he says. He also explains why he still credits the IDF's achievements in Lebanon and Iran but argues Israel never reached the "total victory" Likud promised, since Hamas still remains in Gaza. Illouz describes himself as "very, very right wing" and religious, yet he supports allowing municipalities to run public transportation on Shabbat. "As a religious Jew, I think it only hurts religion," he says of religious coercion. He sets out his coalition red lines on Netanyahu and on Arab parties, and defends Avigdor Liberman's proposal on Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. He also lays out a sanctions-based plan to enforce haredi enlistment. With elections approaching, the interview offers a rare inside view of the right-wing case against Netanyahu from someone who sat in his faction.

Moshe Feiglin, No. 2 on Smotrich's joint slate, will back Netanyahu, whom he had previously said should have quit on October 8. Ahead of Israel's October 27 election, and seeking the role of Defense Minister, the Zehut leader lays out a platform built on two ideas: a war against what he calls the "Oslo concept," and libertarian individual freedom. Asked about past remarks on Gaza, Feiglin says: "I don't want to see dead babies in Gaza. I want to see Gaza empty." He argues Israel should have annexed the Strip after October 7, rebuilt Gush Katif and opened the borders for Gazans to leave. He also says both left and right share the blame for October 7: "Both sides share the responsibility over here." He explains why he will still recommend Netanyahu, and why he considers Gadi Eisenkot a continuation of the Rabin-Peres era. Feiglin's alliance with Smotrich is a technical bloc, and his platform often breaks from his partner's. He backs cannabis legalization for adults over 21, privatized public transport, and a government of no more than 11 ministers. He tells the story of a self-described leftist voter who supports him because Zehut "has room" for her. The interview also covers his vision for rebuilding the IDF and his response to rising settler violence.

An Israeli passenger seated by the cockpit of flydubai flight FZ1073 recounts the hijack attempt and how passengers took charge. Tal, who asked that only his first name be used, lives abroad and was flying from Dubai to Israel to help care for his mother when the aircraft suddenly lurched on Wednesday, September 30. Within moments, passengers in the front of the cabin were subduing one of the pilots while others worked to keep the wounded Indian pilot alive. Tal recognized that two off-duty pilots were sitting beside him and urged them into the empty cockpit. They flew the plane to Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. Once he had a signal, he texted his wife: "There is a terror attack. We're going through a kidnap attempt. Please report it." Tal texted with The Jerusalem Post from the morning of the incident until he landed in Israel that evening, and his frustration with the early coverage is a thread throughout this interview. He says much of the international media first reported a dispute between two pilots, and he disputes Israeli reports that the attacker shouted "Allahu Akbar." He argues that first headlines stick, and that the coverage reflects a double standard when Israelis and Jews are the targets. He also describes the children on board, whom he calls "the true heroes of this flight," and how he helped calm frightened passengers in Saudi Arabia before the replacement flight home.

Yoram Hazony, founder of National Conservatism and a key intellectual influence on JD Vance, explains why he says Tucker Carlson has become the right's biggest antisemitism problem. In this wide-ranging Jerusalem Post interview, the philosopher and Edmund Burke Foundation chairman maps the three warring camps inside today's Republican Party: the nationalist mainstream he says Trump built, the shrinking "liberal wing" of figures like Nikki Haley and Ted Cruz, and a small but agenda-setting "alt right" he argues turned from fringe to force when Tucker Carlson left Fox in 2023. Hazony doesn't soften his language: he calls Carlson's show a platform pushing the idea of Jews as "a demonic force in history," and reveals that Carlson personally asked to speak at NatCon in Jerusalem, a request Hazony refused. He also offers a counterintuitive defense of JD Vance. When Vance calls Israel "one of our top allies, like Britain and France," Hazony argues, Jews should embrace it rather than mourn the loss of the old "love-bombing" style of Bush, Clinton and Biden. It's a generational shift, he says, and a warning about what happens if Jewish outreach to the new right never gets done.

In the second part of her interview with The Jerusalem Post, Former Knesset member and Oz Party founder Einat Wilf makes a startling claim: Israel's most important front isn't Gaza or Iran, it's the world's Jews. Speaking with The Jerusalem Post weeks before Israel's October 27 election, Wilf describes a "rising global psychosis" that casts the Jew as "the obstacle to a better world," and argues that October 7 opened a worldwide assault on Jewish life. She rejects the old answer of "just make aliyah," insisting the state has abandoned a responsibility it can no longer ignore: "This is a time to take care of our own." Pressed on whether the diaspora can stay a priority amid Gaza, Iran and a looming commission of inquiry, she is blunt: "Governments never get to sequence things the way they want." One of the Jewish world's most prominent voices on Zionism, Wilf has spent 25 years studying the ideology of Israel's enemies, and she frames the bond between Israel and world Jewry not as a sentimental afterthought but as a strategic front in a global war of words. It's a perspective that will resonate with olim and diaspora Jews who feel unrepresented, and challenge Israelis who, in her words, still live inside a "bubble." For anyone trying to understand how October 7 reshaped Jewish identity worldwide, this is a rare, unvarnished map.

Former MK Einat Wilf, now third on the Reservists–New Economic Party list, argues Gaza shouldn't be rebuilt until its people choose to end the war. Ahead of Israel's October 2026 election, Wilf lays out a plan she says no other party will touch: divide Gaza into three. A small area adjacent to Israel as a permanent price for October 7; a Hamas-run "Gaza of war," reconnected to Egypt and cut off from Israeli supply; and an IDF-secured "Gaza of peace," open to any Gazan willing to renounce UNRWA refugee status and the claim of return. "It sounds small, but it's not," she says. "This is how you begin to create a new consciousness." On the Board of Peace's reconstruction program, she is blunt: "Give them the respect of choice, and if they choose war, don't throw $2.5 billion at them." Wilf also explains why she joined Yoaz Hendel and Yaron Zelekha outside the traditional blocs, what a "broad Zionist government" should mean for Haredi and Arab parties, and why she calls the Western refusal to take Palestinians at their word "the bigotry of low expectations."  Drawing on her Oxford Union debate, she describes how anti-Zionist messaging works and why "when your enemy gets lazy, there's always an opportunity in that." Whether you share her conclusions or challenge them, this is one of the most detailed day-after proposals put forward by any candidate this campaign. This is part one of The Jerusalem Post's interview with Wilf. Stay tuned for part two.