Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with stand-up comedian Yochay Sponder.

After the 2012 Gaza War, the comedian began using his talent to make people laugh as a tool for pro-Israel advocacy in his heavily Hebrew-flavored English. This work has only ramped up since the October 7, 2023, murderous Hamas onslaught, where thousands of terrorists infiltrated southern Israel, killing 1,200 and taking another 251 hostage to Gaza.

Initially after the attack, Sponder, whose soldier cousin fell in battle on October 7, thought it may be inappropriate to take to the stage and make people laugh. Today, he considers it his reserve duty and Sponder uses his brand of truth-telling to remind the world who started this ongoing war and that Israelis still hope for peace.

With a personal genetic background that would put a Benetton poster to shame, Sponder uses a brusque uber-Israeli persona to counter politically correct norms and spotlight hypocrisy.

Sponder has toured his English-language show, "Self-Loving Jew," extensively this year. In our conversation, he discusses a performance in the United States in which a group of pro-Palestine activists showed up. The result was not what he expected.

So this week, we ask Israeli comedian Yochay Sponder, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

Check out the previous What Matters Now episode:

https://omny.fm/shows/times-will-tell/wmn-what-matters-now-to-andrew-fox-cynical-use-of

IMAGE: Stand-up comedian/Israel advocate Yochay Sponder. (Limor Azran Garfinkle)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Andrew Fox.

Fox, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, served in the British Army from 2005 to 2021, completing three tours in Afghanistan, including one attached to the US Army Special Forces. At the transatlantic think tank, he specializes in Defense, the Middle East, and disinformation. He holds degrees in Law and Politics, Modern War Studies and Psychology.

This week, Fox and a team of researchers published a report that made international headlines titled, "Questionable Counting: Analysing the Death Toll from the Hamas-Run Ministry of Health in Gaza."

According to the report, the Palestinian death toll for the Gaza war appears to include thousands of people who died of natural causes as well as incorrect figures — partly in an effort to inflate the toll of women and children.

Worse, international media outlets are too quick to accept the figures from terror group Hamas -- usually without the scrutiny and rigor that are applied when reporting numbers supplied by Israel. The Hamas-run Health Ministry's figures, the report claims, are being manipulated for propaganda needs.

The Gaza health ministry, under Hamas, “has systematically inflated the death toll by failing to distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths, over-reporting fatalities among women and children and even including individuals who died before the conflict began,” the report said.

We discuss the report and hear Fox's assessment of how the IDF's operations in Gaza have played out, as well as the one arena Israel has neglected -- the fight for world opinion.

So this week, we ask London-based defense analyst Andrew Fox, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

IMAGE: The IDF operates in the southern Gaza Strip's Rafah in this hand out image from December 16, 2024. (IDF)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Middle East expert Ksenia Svetlova.

As the rebel factions in Syria continue to fight to wrest control -- from the fallen Assad regime as well as from each other -- one of the ways to measure how the country will emerge is to look at the factions' treatment of women: On Tuesday, for example, the Biden administration said it will recognize and support a new Syrian government that renounces terrorism, destroys chemical weapons stocks and protects the rights of minorities and women.

In 2020, Svetlova published a Hebrew-language book, "On Heels in the Middle East," depicting her travels throughout the Middle East as a female (and sometimes overtly Jewish) journalist. Born in Moscow, Svetlova immigrated to Israel at the age of 14. She is a journalist and analyst and was a member of the 20th Knesset for the Zionist Union party. Today she is the executive director of ROPES, which works to connect "forward-thinking Israeli and Palestinian emerging leaders with like-minded peers from across the Middle East and North Africa."

In our conversation, she draws on her experiences reporting from inside the region's Islamic countries to evaluate and rank their women's rights and freedoms. We discuss which country most supports women's rights -- Tunisia -- and the many countries that vie for the least free.

Later, we hear Svetlova's thoughts on future Russian influence in Syria and the region.

So this week, as all eyes are on Syria and the rebels that hope to rule it, we ask Ksenia Svetlova, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

IMAGE: A woman holding a rifle borrowed from a Syrian opposition fighter poses for a picture, next to a government forces tank that was left on a street, at the Umayyad Square in Damascus, Syria, December 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

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