(17) MK Ohad Tal: Why the Next Government Must Be Ready to Say No to America

Israel votes next week, and MK Ohad Tal of the Religious Zionist Party says this election will decide whether Israel can withstand what is coming. Trump won’t be in the White House forever. A future Democratic president could recognize a Palestinian state, Europe is already moving that way, and the UN veto Israel has relied on for decades may not last.

On this episode of the Universal Zionist, MK Tal explains why he doesn’t trust Eisenkot, Bennett, Lieberman or Yair Golan to hold the line, and why opposing construction in E1 tells you more about a politician than any statement against a Palestinian state. He lays out a plan rooted in the Bible: three options for Israel’s neighbors, the “Emirates plan” for dealing with local tribes instead of a Palestinian nation, and a foreign policy built on new alliances in Latin America, India, the Abraham Accords countries and a changing Europe.

He also goes after the money. MK Tal argues that Qatar, Iran and their networks fund the campus protests, the media campaigns and the provocations in Judea and Samaria, including staged confrontations timed for visiting European diplomats. He points to more than 100 new communities and nearly 200 farms established in Judea and Samaria over the past four years, and to Regavim’s data showing how UN “settler violence” figures are inflated.

Finally, he takes on the toughest criticism of his own party: the Haredi draft. MK Tal, who fought in Gaza himself, calls the current reality a moral disgrace, then makes a case you probably haven’t heard. Six thousand Haredim volunteered after October 7 and the army took 450. The Netzah Yehuda battalion has 18,000 reservists, and only a fraction get called up. According to MK Tal, the real obstacle isn’t the rabbis. It’s the IDF.