Israel
499 episodes
#6204: Two Humans, One Table Each: Calling Israel's Election
No models this time — just two seat-by-seat tables, fifty vs. fifty-nine, and a defector hunt two seats short of a majority.
#6202: Israel Votes, Part 6: Asking the Decision Models
Two decision models, identical evidence, one table of betting prices — and both flip their pick for Israel's next leader.
#6200: What Israeli Election Polls Hide Behind Seat Counts
A new open source tool simulates 100,000 election allocations from a single poll — and shows why "4 seats" is less certain than it sounds.
#6149: 4 Hard Fails in 84 Answers: Testing AI Bias on Israel-Palestine
A 19-prompt, 6-model eval tested whether AI models push back evenly on false claims about Israel and Palestine. One model failed four times.
#6100: Voting From an Embassy: Israel's 4,860-Voter Election
101 polling stations in 99 missions, 4,860 eligible voters, 30 hours of polls rolling west with the sun.
#6091: ישראל בוחרת, חלק ב׳: על מה המפלגות עומדות
רוב המפלגות בישראל לא פרסמו מצע כבר שנים. הנה מה שהן אומרות בפועל שיעשו, והנושאים שבהם הן שותקות.
#6084: ישראל בוחרת, חלק א׳: מי באמת רץ
שלושים ושמונה רשימות, שני גושים ואחוז חסימה אחד: המפה המלאה של הבחירות לכנסת ב־27 באוקטובר 2026.
#6078: Reading Polymarket's Israel Election Prices
25 live markets, $47M on one question — what the money says about Israel's next prime minister.
#6075: Israel's Pollsters: Who Calls the Race Before You Vote
Nine days out, a tour of Israel's polling culture — the pollsters who matter, the famous misses, and the numbers to watch on election night.
#6073: Israel Votes, Part 4: The Forecast
Three forecasting methods, seven synthetic voters and one prediction for Israel's 27 October election: Yashar 21, Likud 20, and nobody reaches 61.
#6067: Israel's Freedom of Information Law, Explained
Israel's FOI law promises documents in 30 days. So why do ministries lose 88% of the transparency cases brought against them?
#6066: Israel Votes, Part 2: What the Parties Stand For
Most Israeli parties haven't published a platform in years. Here's what they actually say they'll do — and where they stay silent.
Also available in:עברית
#6065: Israel Votes, Part 3: A Renter's Voting Recommendation
A Jerusalem renter wants to know which party actually helps him. We scored Israel's parties against his views on rent, prices, and daily life.
#6064: Israel Votes, Part 1: Who Is Actually Running
Thirty-eight lists, a first on-time election since 1988, and a ballot full of parties that didn't exist eighteen months ago. Here's the map.
Also available in:עברית
#6019: Who Should Decide What Gets Built?
A listener asks what developers' role in a city should really be — and two very different cities show what happens when you get the answer right or...
#6018: The Plan Nobody Has Ever Read
Jerusalem's Taba is a legal document no single person has ever read cover to cover — and it governs where millions of people can build.
#5952: Inside Malmab: Israel's Most Secretive Security Body
Israel's classified defense security body and what its extreme information practices teach about protecting secrets.
#5926: Inside Alibaba's Machine: AliExpress, Guanxi, and the China Daniel Has Never Visited
What's actually on the other end of an AliExpress order? A look at Alibaba's B2B machine, Israel's import economy, and guanxi.
#5902: Four Tribes, One Ballot: Israel's Coalition Maze
Thirty-eight parties, a 3.25% threshold, and four groups that don't agree on what the country is even for.
#5901: Haredi: How a Word Became a Tribe
The Hebrew means "trembling in awe." The English translation means "beyond the pale." How did one word become a whole society?
#5872: When Citizen Engagement Becomes Paperwork Theater
Four names for the same thing: when cities consult residents to produce receipts, not change. A look at participation-washing.
#5809: What If Israel Had Never Fallen? A 2,000-Year Thought Experiment
Hannah's question: what would Israel look like if it had stayed under Jewish rule for 2,000 years — and was antisemitism structural or circumstantial?
#5788: What Is a Consulate That Isn't a Consulate?
Israel says the consulate closed. Britain says the mission lives. Same building, same seven staff, one screwdriver.
#5727: Do We Still Need This Memorial?
Three years after October 7, a quiet question — "do we still need this?" — collides with shame, stigma, and a coming election.