Yossi Klein Halevi in an interview about the goals and motives of the far right in Israel’s government – and why the decision whether to exempt the ultra-Orthodox from military service could lead to the fall of the coalition.

Gershon Baskin is one of the leading voices on the Middle East peace process and one of the few Israelis with direct contact to Hamas. For almost two decades, he was in contact with Ghazi Hamad, one of organisation’s senior political leaders. In this interview, Baskin provides insights into Hamas’ ideology, its often presumed willingness to sign ceasefire agree­ments and into ways to combat the organization’s cult of death.

Arkady Mil-Man was Israeli ambas­sador to Russia and now heads the Russia program at think tank Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv. In an interview with Till Schmidt, Mil-Man explains the role Russia played in Hamas’s attack on Israel and the relationship between the Russian and Iranian regimes.