Boundless Insights - with Aviva Klompas

• Winning the Peace – with John Spencer

  Send questions and comments to [email protected] or message Aviva on X at @AvivaKlompas.After two years of war, Israel now faces a new kind of battle — the challenge of winning the peace. President Trump’s Gaza plan calls for the demilitarization and deradicalization of Gaza: dismantling Hamas’s weapons and tunnels, building a new Palestinian police force, and bringing in an international coalition to oversee security and reconstruction.But can Gaza truly be transformed into a terror-free zone? What will it take to keep Hamas and other armed groups from rebuilding? And how does Israel secure long-term stability while navigating complex regional politics?John Spencer — one of the world’s foremost experts on urban warfare and modern conflict — joins Aviva to explore what success might look like, the risks that remain, and whether peace can finally take root.Guest Bio:John Spencer is an award-winning scholar, internationally recognized expert and advisor on urban warfare, military strategy, tactics, and other related topics. Considered one of the world’s leading experts on urban warfare, he served as an advisor to the top four-star general and other senior leaders in the U.S. Army as part of strategic research groups from the Pentagon to the United States Military Academy. John currently serves as the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Madison Policy Forum, Co-Director of the Urban Warfare Project, and host of the Urban Warfare Project podcast.

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• The Media’s War on Israel - with Matti Friedman

  We want to hear from you. Send questions and comments to [email protected] or message Aviva on X at @avivaklompas.Matti Friedman has spent more than a decade dissecting how Israel is covered in the press and what those stories reveal about the storytellers themselves. His 2014 Atlantic essay, What the Media Gets Wrong About Israel, remains one of the sharpest examinations of why global attention is fixated on Israel and why the coverage so often skews against it. In this conversation, Matti reflects on whether the problems he identified then still hold true today in an age of social media storms. He explains why Israel remains outsized in the Western imagination, how Hamas has weaponized Palestinian suffering, and why the media so often amplifies their playbook.We also explore whether Israel’s failures in the narrative war are the result of its own missteps, entrenched hostility, or something deeper, and what both the Israeli government and Jewish communities abroad can and should do differently. More from Matti:The Free Press - Is Gaza Starving? Searching for the Truth in an Information WarThe Atlantic - What the Media Gets Wrong About IsraelTablet - An Insider’s Guide to the Most Important Story on EarthGuest Bio:Matti Friedman is an award-winning journalist and the author of four non-fiction books. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Tablet, Smithsonian, and elsewhere, and he’s currently a columnist for the Free Press. Matti’s most recent book, Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai, was published in 2022 in the US, Canada, Israel, and Italy. His previous book, Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel, won the 2019 Natan Prize and the Canadian Jewish Book Award. Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story of a Forgotten War was chosen in 2016 as a New York Times Notable Book and one of Amazon’s 10 best books of the year. His first book, The Aleppo Codex, won the 2014 Sami Rohr Prize and the ALA’s Sophie Brody Medal. His books have been translated into more than a dozen languages.Matti was born in Toronto and lives in Jerusalem.

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• Phase Two: The Plan to Demilitarize Gaza – with Jonathan Conricus

  We want to hear from you. Send questions and comments to [email protected] or message Aviva on X at @AvivaKlompas.Phase Two of President Trump’s Gaza plan envisions a demilitarized, “terror-free zone.” The Strip would be cleared of weapons and tunnels, militants who renounce violence could receive amnesty or exile, and an international stabilization force — composed of U.S., Arab, and European personnel — would oversee security and help train a new Palestinian police force.But how realistic is demilitarization? And can Gaza truly be de-radicalized? Jonathan Conricus joins host Aviva Klompas to unpack the security, regional, and political implications of Phase Two — and to ask whether this moment marks the start of peace or simply the next chapter in a long war.Guest BioJonathan Conricus is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies focused on the Middle East. He served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for 24 years as a combat commander in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. He also served as a military diplomat, foreign relations expert, and international spokesperson. He recently retired as lieutenant colonel. Jonathan was the first Israeli officer to be seconded to the United Nations (UN), during which he provided military and strategic analysis for UN peacekeeping forces. He has directed social media and public diplomacy efforts and has extensive on- and off-camera experience from his years as a spokesperson. 

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• From War to Peace (?) – with Dr. Einat Wilf

  We want to hear from you. Send questions and comments to [email protected] or message Aviva on X at @AvivaKlompas.After 738 days of war, Israel’s hostages are home and the country is beginning to exhale. But relief comes with hard questions about what happens next.In this episode, Aviva speaks with Dr. Einat Wilf about what the end of the war reveals about Israel’s strength, its divisions, and the road ahead. They explore what it will take to keep Hamas disarmed, rebuild Gaza without empowering extremists, and whether peace and normalization with the Arab world are truly within reach.Guest Bio         Dr. Einat Wilf is a leading thinker on Israel, Zionism, foreign policy and education. She was a member of the Israeli Parliament from 2010 to 2013, where she served as Chair of the Education Committee and Member of the influential Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.Born and raised in Israel, Dr. Wilf served as an Intelligence Officer in the Israel Defense Forces, Foreign Policy Advisor to Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres and a strategic consultant with McKinsey & Company.Dr. Wilf has a BA from Harvard, an MBA from INSEAD in France, and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Cambridge. She was the Goldman Visiting Professor at Georgetown University.Dr. Wilf is the author of seven books that explore key issues in Israeli society. “We Should All Be Zionists“, published in 2022, brings together her essays from the past four years on Israel, Zionism and the path to peace; the co-authored “The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace”, was published in 2020

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• From Captivity to Closure: The End of Israel's Longest War – with Dr. Michael Oren

  We want to hear from you. Send questions and comments to [email protected] or message Aviva on X at @avivaklompas.After two years, the last hostages are finally returning home. This moment — long prayed for and nearly impossible to imagine — is one of relief, heartbreak, and reckoning.Dr. Michael Oren joins host Aviva Klompas to reflect on what this moment means for Israel, the Jewish people, and the wider Middle East. Together they explore how a conflict that began in terror has brought about profound military, political, and moral challenges.Mentioned in this episode:Win-Win? By Dr. Michael Oren

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