The election of Masoud Pezeshkian as Iran’s new president in July was met with little enthusiasm in Israel. Meir Javedanfar writes that, in a post-7 October world, the Iranian president’s policy on Israel could impact his desire for improved relations with the West and, in turn, undermine his domestic priorities and a potential nuclear deal.
The Women Leaders podcast, hosted by ELN Senior Associate Fellow Ilana Bet-EL, is back after the summer break! In “Events unabated” Ilana is joined by Jodi Rudoren, Editor in Chief of the Forward and former New York Times Bureau Chief in Jerusalem. They discuss the rapidly changing realities of US politics and the changing gender roles within them, the prospects of both presidential candidates’ policies on the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the appalling lack of women in the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians — and elsewhere too.
The ELN’s Policy and Impact Director, Jane Kinninmont, analyses why the deaths of Iran’s President and Foreign Minister, Ebrahim Raisi and Hossein Amirabdollahian, doesn’t necessarily represent a shift in global politics. She explains that the probable candidates to replace Raisi are likely to endorse a continuation of current Iranian foreign policy, and any changes will be hard to notice for external observers.
Following Iran’s direct attack on Israel on 13th April, Hemidreaza Azizi examines both the official and unofficial discourse in Iran in recent days. He writes that most political experts and analysts in Iran seem to agree that Iran’s goal has been to restore deterrence and not to enter into war. However, concerns about the outbreak of an unintended war and its destructive consequences appear to be more pronounced among experts than among official figures.
Ilana Bet-El, Senior Associate Fellow at the ELN, speaks with Jodi Rudoren, Editor-in-Chief of the Forward and former New York Times Bureau Chief in Israel, and Dr Roxane Farmanfarmaian of Cambridge University, Senior Associate Fellow at the ELN, and an expert on Iran and the Middle East. They discuss their own experiences of 7 October, their reactions to the war in Gaza, the implications for the media, geopolitics and the region, and the escalatory nature of the war following Iran’s increased role in the conflict over the past week.
Ilana Bet-El, Senior Associate Fellow at the ELN, speaks with Zeynep Atikkan, a renowned Turkish journalist, on the ramifications of the opposition CHP party’s victory against President Erdogan’s AKP in Turkey’s recent local elections. Together, they dissect the state of Turkish politics, covering the economy, the Kurdish issue, the role of women in Turkish society, evolving political dynamics, and more.