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- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
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B
You are listening to an art media podcast.
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A
All right, Dale, what's your number?
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B
Well, Yonatan, my number this week is 1.5 billion shekels. That's 1.5 billion shekels every single day. And that's the estimated direct military cost of this war with Iran right now for Israel, before you even start counting the civilian side of the ledger. And when you zoom out, these numbers are going to escalate pretty fast because. Cause the defense budget that was just a few months ago, as you might remember, was 112 billion shekels. It's already now jumped 144 billion shekels. And now they're asking for 177 billion shekels if the campaign continues. And it looks like it's continuing. And the northern front expands. And guess what? It looks like the northern front is expanding. So the really important point is that 1.5 billion a day is just the visible cost, right? Munitions, aircraft, hours, mobilizing, a hundred thousand reservists. But. But the indirect costs are pretty hard to measure, and they're probably not that visible just yet. So when we talk about strategy, as we talk about it this week and next and in coming weeks, keep this in the backdrop. 1.5 billion shekels a day.
- [01:13]
A
All right, mine is 5. That's 5 million barrels of oil that Saudi Arabia was able to kind of circumvent the Hormuz through activating its east west pipeline from the Gulf all the way to Yanbu in the Red Sea, which is very important because that's far away, beyond the axis of Iranian missiles. This is very helpful. These are 5 million barrels. It was originally designed for 1 million. They managed to expand it. And so this is one of the reasons why oil, as of a few hours ago, is back below $100. Very significant for the continuation of the war.
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B
And a workaround, of course, for Hormuz. All right, well, whose number wins?
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A
Mine is optimistic. So.
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B
Okay, mine's reality.
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A
Yeah, Honestly, I think the, you know, we're looking at a GD debt to GDP went back to 68% percent of Israeli GDP is now about $6 billion. 1.5 billion shekels is order of magnitude $400 million. I think we can sustain a month or even six weeks like that without significant macro implications. So I don't see that threatening the continuation of the war on the Israeli macro environment. But I do agree it's just the tip of the iceberg because the cost is far bigger than that. I sort of stick to my number as it's optimistic. And that's the main kind of weapon that Iran still has.
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B
Let's do it. I'll, I'll give it to you. 5 million barrels per day. That is pretty an impressive number. You win.
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A
All right, it is 4:30pm here in Israel.
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B
Yes. And we have less rockets falling relatively to the first few days of the war, but still getting woken up in the middle of the night. So everyone bear with us. We're going to take stock of how the economic warfare is playing out and double click on a couple of scenarios that may play out as significant for broader inflation pressures worldwide. And you and I are going to continue kind of our conversation from last week on the economic implications of what has been playing out. And really, I mean, every hour in this region brings kind of a new headline and a new development. But first, as usual, Yonatan, we're going to take a quick look at some of the week's pressing news, AKA our big shorts. And of course, the latest update on the Windex, the what's yous Number index that tracks the performance of publicly traded Israeli based or founded companies.
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A
Yeah, before we do that, I think the, the edge of where war is right now is it's a learning competition. Right. It's going on for now almost 14 days with massive American leadership. We saw the Iranians learning very, very fast adapting. Last week we discussed their five steps of the economic process of how to wage their war. And we're going to take stock of what of that had succeeded, what had failed, and where are they going from here. Because as you said, an Iranian success in kind of pulling that lever has a lot to do with global macroeconomics. We saw ripple effects in Korea, we saw them in Indonesia. So this is going to be centered on the war and learning competition, but we're going to take stock of the ripple effect on the global economy or the potential thereof.
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B
Let's kick things off with this week's Windex. Jonathan, how's it looking?
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A
So we'll start hyperlocal. Windex is down almost by 2%, 1.99 to be exact. Like its peers, all three are in the red this week, but the Windex is underperforming. Both about 1% below the S&P 501.64 compared to the Nasdaq. To be honest, a pretty dull week on the green. High single digits. Palo Alto Networks, Sentinel 1, Veronis. We saw the cyber domain kind of starting to climb back, but I would say overall slight neg or neutral is dominant on The Windex this week when it comes to the green, no big mover.
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B
Yeah. So not a lot of excitement, not a lot of panic. I think we'll all take that for this week. But it does look like you, you know, looking at the companies you mentioned, it almost looks like the cyber feels like a defensive sector of Israeli tech right now. Right. The broader SaaS universe is volatile and you'll get to that in a second. These companies are pretty trading in a pretty tight, I would say, band. So it looks like cyber is really more closer to infrastructure than anything else right now.
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A
That's what they always said about cyber and I think it's proving itself to be that. Exactly that when it comes to this period in time. The interesting space in the Windex this week is actually in the red. Three notable equities to follow. LBIT shedding almost 7% on the week. This hasn't happened in a very long time, but it is what seems to be a correction. Look, the stock is over 50% rally year to date. So from January until Today, less than three months, less than one quarter after completing a 12 month rally, historic market cap in December. So this has been quite a long rally of about 14, 15 months and today we're looking at a week where it was negative to the tune of 7%. Fiverr 7.68% down. There seems to be a consensus in Wall street that the bounce back we saw last week from WIX and others where the market sort of favored the aggressive response of leadership dealing with the SaaS apocalypse. It seems like Fiverr is not getting that love from Wall Street. We saw Lemonade, J. Frog and WIX kind of climbing back, but Fiverr doesn't seem to get the positive treatment from Wall street. Similarly, transportation AI company Via, the most recent addition to the Windex from Q4 last year shed about 12% a bit more on the week. It is now about 60% below its IPO market cap and that's not a good sign overall. Seems like the market sentiment is, you know, with Elon Musk centering the next few years at Tesla on autonomous cars and the software to enable them, Via's competitive advantage seems to sort of be pushed out. A good timing for their IPO in Q4, but let's see how they weather the storm throughout 2026.
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B
We can separate the two different kind of categories as we do. Elbit going down almost 7% after. As you said, a 50% rally this year is basically the market's taking a breath after an extraordinary kind of run defense Tech run in that category and you're the fiber and via transportation story is totally different. It really does seem like that the market is still trying to figure out who's who in this AI shift and which ones are going to get squeezed by it. Big shorts, big shorts.
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A
Again, we're at war. There's not a big short per se to talk about. To me, the main one, as we discussed last week, what seems to be the passing of the 2026 budget. This may be the government to end its term, the second or third in Israeli history, all the way through October, November, unless Prime Minister Netanyahu chooses to go for a quick election in between that window. But he has, it seems, gained that window at the expense of what seems to be a widening. This has to do with your number from the beginning, the widening of the deficit. So you know, the rating agencies, the bank of Israel, everybody was happy in the last couple of months that the Deficit is below 4.5, 4.4 now with the expenditure on the war. The Ministry of Finance updated it up to about 5, 5.1%. Seems like the market isn't buying. If we look at the cds, we look at the cost of borrowing, it seems like the market is estimating around 5.8 or about 6. That's not a good sign when the Ministry of Finance of Israel puts out a number and it doesn't win instant credibility in the global markets or among the bank of Israel. That being said, the Israeli stock exchange continues to be robust and the Shekel dollar continues to be robust. So overall, good macro environment. But this deficit issue is something to follow.
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B
Yeah, as you said it right, it's mostly a battle of narratives just as much as it is of numbers. And there are two plausible scenarios. There's the optimist view and the pessimist views, and they are both very plausible. And it's going to be tricky for investors or any kind of bystander to kind of understand like what market story to believe. Right. Because both the short term market moves reflect the uncertainty and then the long term, as you said before, you know, there's a lot of optimists that say the economy is going to bounce back and opportunities will actually expand. I would say that the question isn't just what the deficit is, it's really kind of what the story of the market is going to believe.
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A
One piece of the story is Israel, UAE renewed kind of Gulf dynamics since Iran has shown its true face in what many people believe would kind of pave the way for greater collaboration in the Middle East. That's sort of one story. The other story is if Iran under the Revolutionary Guard somehow remains and the lessons learned around the region is to turn their back to America and to Israel, then you're going to see an injured Israeli economy. I actually being an optimistic, but also I think the narrative of Iran being at the very least crippled, the opening of broadening collaboration between even Qatar, uae, Saudi, Israel, IMEC and beyond is sort of where I think this is going, at least as the trend looks like right now.
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B
We're going to go straight into our long play in a second. I have a short, big short, if you will.
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A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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B
That has nothing to do with the war, believe it or not, but it did kind of consume a lot of the economic coverage in Israel and the tech coverage. It's where the economics and tech kind of converge and it takes you through somewhere you wouldn't normally expect Israeli tech to show up. The founders of Israeli tech, and that's in tv, the old medium of tv. Nothing super high tech there, but actually a group of Israel's most prominent tech entrepreneurs, led by Assaf Rapaport, one of the co founders of Wiz, is attempting to buy Reshet 13. It's one of Israel's major commercial TV channels that has been through quite a tumultuous time. The group of these tech entrepreneurs also includes other founders and executives from companies like Wix, Monday.com riskified and more and more. And they're proposing to invest roughly $100 million over three years to stabilize the channel and bring it to profitability. And the reason why this is interesting beyond kind of the meeting between tech and kind of old school media, is that the deal became possible after the previous Breyer, French telecom billionaire Patrick Drahi, who also has i24, ran into regulatory problems because of his existing media holdings. And I think the context here is super interesting because Israel's commercial TV market is obviously very small. There are kind of accusations, it is politically charged. You know, if you look at different channels and different newspapers similar to other markets, and it's struggling financially. So the question is really why would these tech founders, who usually build global software companies, suddenly want to own a domestic TV network? And you know, we're not alone in this. We have the Bezos and Washington Post kind of partnership, but in Israel this is kind of a new direction. What do you think?
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A
Yeah, look, I think it's important. I think three quick points on that. One is the Americanization of the Israeli media without the scale.
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B
Right.
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A
We now have our own msnbc. We already have our Fox, we already have kind of our centrist media. It seems like Israelis are going to have a similar type of, I would say, landscape to what our listeners in the US are familiar with. I mean, it already is there to an extent, but if this goes through, I think this would be an important kind of step forward in that, you know, one can say it's good or bad. That's just the nature of things. The second piece, and that's where I totally think your point about Bezos is relevant. You know, Washington Post is losing money for a very long period of time. It begs the question, is this buyer, the group of buyers, are they also aware of the fact that most likely they're going to bleed money here and then the political motivation, as good or bad as we may think, is the thing that leads the way? I think that remains to be seen. Owner and founder of Palo Alto Networks, the biggest Windex component, tried to buy receipt 13. He was bidding for that two years ago.
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B
Right.
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A
And he built his own channel, which was completely new media called Relevant tv,
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B
which did not succeed.
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A
Succeed, yeah. So the battle for the Israeli MSNBC is on. Seems like it has been decided. And the third piece, which I think is interesting, and here I am actually very negative about this development. One of the owners in that group, which is a philanthropist group, I don't like the idea that philanthropist groups own a TV channel. I think if it is a commercial TV, let it be a commercial TV is the kibbutzim movement. They own 3% of this buying team. So, like, I don't, you know, Beryl Katzenelson and the founders of the, you know, socialist movement of Zionism are, you know, I don't know what they're thinking in their grave right now when the movement is back in the media business. I don't want to see the socialist movement or any other political movement per se owning, you know, sort of outright a political channel. But I think, you know, Americans know this. So we're going to have our MSNBC that's going to be channel 13, tech driven. Oh, you know what, maybe one last thing. I'm super happy as this is a statement that the tech groups that are left leaning one way or another are sticking to Israel. I think it sort of buries the narrative that the tech entrepreneurs after the next election are all going to leave Israel and whatnot. I love the fact that they're into this msnbc. And so for me, it's a positive step overall with all the negativity that comes with it and the one thing I'd love to get out of there is the Kibbutzi movement. I think that doesn't have, shouldn't have any root in the Israeli media landscape.
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B
It's one of those anomalies that we say it's only in Israel that these things can coexist at the same time. All right, let's go to the long play.
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A
All right.
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B
All right. So Yonatan, last week we spoke about what you call the five pillars of Iran's economic warfare. So if we zoom out now, a week later, lots has happened since. What does this scoreboard now actually look like in your, in your mind? Has Iran succeeded in moving the markets or deterring the US And Israel economically?
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A
So I think the learning competition is ongoing. It is faster moving than we thought. You know, if we spoke on Thursday, I would say maybe they found a crack with Hormuz and with some impact on oil, as it looks like right now. Over the weekend, the American activity on Haarg island, which is that island where most of the production of Iranian oil happens, so the production happens on shore, but then it sort of goes into Harg island, which is the infrastructure for export, the beating heart of the oil industry of Iran, if you will, and sort of creating this tit for tat dynamic. I would say Iran right now is failing on all four and a half barring Hormuz. So let's take a quick stock and then we can deep dive. Oil is below 100. That's a number. That's where we are right now. If I look, you know, sort of on my Bloomberg terminal or here on Google Finance, which is a clear indicator that for now Iran is losing that element of their economic warfare. I think that's mainly related to two things. The release of the IEA of 400 barrels of oil from the international reserve and the Saudi activation of the east west pipeline. Those of you listening, go on one of those maritime real time maps online. You will see a lot of tankers coming to Yanbu which is near Jeddah. This is a very slow moving traffic jam forming out there. A great target for the Houthis who have until now been very, very quiet. So are we going to witness this week the activation of the Houthis into the war as part of this learning experience? Because we saw Iran close, the response came from Saudi. What's the next play from Iran? Does it involve the Houthis? Great vulnerability there around Yanbu. Let's see how that unfolds. But for now on the oil, it works really really?
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B
Well, it wouldn't be a surprise if the Houthis get involved. It's almost expected. Yeah.
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A
Look, there are speculations, though. You know, in the last 14 days there was a speculation, when will that happen? And there is a kind of a growing consensus among the folks I talked to in the Defense administration here as well as sort of when you read the reports coming out on the open source Internet that there is a fear in Sana', a, in Yemen that the Americans mean business. And with all this overwhelming force around right now, why would they do that? I mean, look, Hezbollah opted to intervene and the Houthis haven't yet. So we don't know. But yeah, that's definitely a scenario to look for that would make an impact on oil.
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B
Let's double click maybe on the Harj Island. You know, we know that the US has struck Harj island and that obviously is critical. As we just said, you said it would be dramatic and potentially dangerous. Were you specifically surprised by the attack?
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A
No, because I think it was very surgical. And again, I have to say I see incredible logic in the steps that America and Israel are taking in managing this economic element of the war. Pay close attention. They haven't hit any of the infrastructure producing oil or connecting to ships in Haarg Island. They hit all the military defenses, basically telling the Iranians, look, guys, now this island is naked. Do you still want to fight with us on Hormuz or are we going to reach some kind of an agreement here? Because the next phase would be either to take it over with Marines and then start exporting and collecting a la Venezuela, right, or completely demolishing it. Which means for the day after, for the people of Iran, if they manage to topple the regime, that's going to be quite a handicap when they try to rebuild the economy. So I think again, we're seeing a very calculated, I don't even want to call it chess, very calculated military campaign on both sides. As of now, when it comes to the economic piece again for oil, looks like Iran is losing this one.
- [18:27]
B
So we spoke extensively earlier in the show about Hormuz and kind of the workarounds that Saudi Arabia has found for now toward the Red Sea. Let's move a bit beyond the Gulf to an area that I don't think many are speaking about. One major sector, and we spoke a little bit about this last week, is Taiwan. Semiconductors and data centers which depend heavily on natural gas. Connect those dots for me.
- [18:50]
A
So gas so far, America, Israel are winning. Iran is losing. Natural gas. Is, I think, where the pressure point still exists. Qatar is responsible for 22% of the entire world's natural gas. America is bigger than Qatar, which is every time I say that, you know, to those of us who grew up in the 90s or in the early 2000s, America was not a player in energy. It is now the biggest oil producer and the biggest natural gas producer. And so there is a lot to play with here. But overall, 20% lacking two things to remember. Qatar seized operations of its far as production site. Even when they go back to production, it's going to take about a month. And here's the sensitivity. Look. American GDP growth last year was dependent on investment in data centers. The number to beat in 2026 is $660 billion. What's called the equity wall that the big five companies, that's the Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Google and so on, are investing in AI infrastructure this year. That's going to drive American growth as the economy. If they have no chips to buy, they're not going to be able to produce those data centers. And that's going to have an effect on the American growth story if it does indeed continue. Let's talk just for a minute about why do we need natural gas? Taiwan a couple of months ago closed its last functioning nuclear energy manufacturing facility, which means that as of now, there is no production site on the island. So Taiwan is fully dependent on importing its energy. Some of it has to do with natural gas. The other piece actually has to do with Korea. Because the chips that we all love, that power AI, need a memory chip called nand. That memory chip needs helium for cooling when it's made. That is done predominantly on Korean soil. That's Samsung and others. That is really sort of like a big source coming out of Qatar. And the discussion right now is that they need to scramble to bring in natural gas and reroute and to pay more for natural gas, which comes by way of ships into Korea. We're going to see that play out in the next three to four weeks. Again, if the war doesn't end in the next three to four weeks. I think that's where you need to look for as a choke point for now. Still sort of manageable, but it is an area to look for.
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B
And that's why it's no surprise then that the South Korean leadership has been opining on this war. As you said, it's manageable for now, but they see what could come.
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A
Yeah, look, a broader story on Hormuz is that President Trump asked Japan Taiwan, Korea, even China to join in this sort of counter blockade flotilla that he's trying to create to sort of alleviate the situation in Hormuzz. We saw the western countries just a couple of hours ago, Keir Starmer and the Defense Minister of Germany saying, we're not going to join.
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B
It's not our war. We didn't start this.
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A
I saw Macron landing with a helicopter on one of his military, on the navy vessels or the French navy vessels. Still not clear where they're going. Are they headed for Hormuz or are they headed eastwards? When it comes to Hormuz, another piece to remember is that the Iranians are going all out on Fujairah and Salalah as well. These are the eastern flank ports south of Oman and uae. Both have been struck heavily by Iran. So Iran knows that Hormuz is sort of the last thing that it has, but so far seems like the hag island. The Saudi play the dynamics in and around, sort of bringing the fleet inwards again, at least when it comes to the Wall street angle keeps everybody relatively relaxed. I think there's enough oxygen there for weeks on weeks at $100 per barrel. By the way, do remember, for the Saudis and for some others, this is a great price. Right. They are making a lot of money. They're closing their deficit above 60, if I remember, $61 a barrel. They close the budgetary deficit of Saudi Arabia. So I'm sure they're doing some forward looking deals at 100 at this point.
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B
Let's move on to another realm, which we spoke about briefly last week and is interesting. It's kind of almost an untold story and that's fertilizers. Except explain a little bit about the supply chain around the global. Fertilizers.
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A
Yeah. Again, natural gas. Right. So when you produce gas, the easiest way to produce ammonium, which is what we all need for fertilizer. By the way, a Jewish story on ammonium nitrate. Yes, actually a very sad story. Fritz Haber won the Nobel Prize for ammonium and he's the one who basically rid the world of what was then conceived as the Malthusian trap. Because population was starting to grow exponentially and food was growing linearly. And because of ammonia, because of Fritz Haber's invention, Right. Humanity could produce a lot more per acre than prior to that invention, the introduction of fertilizer. He sold the patent to IG Farbein and he was famous also for helping Germany win the first war. It is this gas that he invented that Killed his family in Auschwitz. That's a very sad story of how, you know, a Jewish genius help the world rid itself of poverty and introduce food security. You know, it's a very tragic story. That is still the case. Humanity is still dependent on ammonia, which is produced in Qatar. The season is starting. It's starting in West Europe in a couple of weeks. It is starting already. If I understand correctly from the reports this morning in India. Scarcity is there, but again, are we going to see the food shortage that sort of two or three months out? I think we're not going to see so much shortage as we're going to see less crops coming out of certain fields. But that is, again, an area to watch when we're looking at natural gas. This is opening up as far beyond the five we discussed last week.
- [24:24]
B
So do you think we're already seeing downstream effects now or would you say that we still have kind of a stable situation?
- [24:32]
A
Yeah, it's by the hour. If we recorded last week on Thursday, I would say we're starting to see some of the inflation curve rearing its head. But as we speak right now, with sort of like a manageable situation from an operational perspective and oil at 100 or sub 100, and I don't know what you think about that. Maybe I'll throw that one back to you. I think the fourth dimension here, which is the financial center that is Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Dubai. I'm not sure how long we have on that angle.
- [25:00]
B
Why would you say on that factor we are more shaky?
- [25:04]
A
Because I admire Mohammed bin Zayed. I really, I truly. We had this conversation, mpz, mbs, a few weeks ago.
- [25:10]
B
Right. Just in time, as they say.
- [25:11]
A
Yeah, yeah. His speech last week where he implicated Iran and said, this is like a Churchillian thing. Right. He was like running in hospitals and showing his face like in the blitz. Yeah. And he was saying in Arabic, this is a very famous Bedouin saying. We spoke about that last week. Our skin is tough and our flesh is bitter. Don't mess with us. A very stubborn, persistent grit coming out of him. Whereas you don't see that from the Saudis taking care of their own with the, with the pipeline. And according to the New York Times this morning, asking President Trump to pound even harder on Iran while telling Iran, oh, we're working towards a peaceful resolution. Right. So I think, you know, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, the financial center there, there might be a breaking point there. I don't see it yet there. I think MBZ is just proving to be the most remarkable Arab Leader of our century, bar none. And I just hope that he manages to persevere.
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B
So let's go a little bit west from there into Europe. We spoke a little bit about Germany and the uk. How vulnerable are these countries to the developments?
- [26:16]
A
So look, I think what they're busy with is the ripple effect with Russia because from a natural gas perspective, prices went up tens of percent. It doesn't really move the needle on the inflation side yet in Europe. Remember, they saw a 350% increase when Russia invaded Ukraine. They've been able to be resilient enough for the American supplies to come into Greece. And so I think more or less Europe is in a good space given that it's already end of March soon. It's not kind of dead winter where they need the heating systems. From an inflationary point, Europe is managing pretty well. The question is, what happens with Russia? Because remember, some of the capacity from the American administration took, well, the oil prices was to alleviate sanctions from Russia for the next 30 days. Germany doesn't like it, France doesn't like it. Zelenskyy doesn't like it. Obviously the UK doesn't like it. This emboldens Russia. It gives it, you know, much needed oxygen. This is really where you see Europe concerned, not so much from the macroeconomic dynamic as of now. Let's see again how that unfolds. And they are keeping their militaries at bay. No air forces, no navies in a significant capacity. And that should tell you everything you need to know. Kind of the last point again, there is a quarrel between Italy, France and Germany. They're not growing economically. They don't have that bandwidth to sustain economic shortages. So they're trying to distance themselves as much as they can, literally. Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of England, said just an hour ago, we are very concerned with the cost of living in the UK and if we get involved, there will be repercussions. So, like, what kind of abhorrent moral position is that? Right. We're not going to do what's right for humanity because it's going to make prices of our supermarkets higher for a couple of months. I mean, I have sympathy for him. He has 406 seats, majority in the Parliament. He's in a super majority. It's not like, you know, Chancellor Mertz, who has a 12 seat tiny majority. Right. But, you know, with 19% popular support,
- [28:18]
B
public opinion would say otherwise.
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A
Yeah.
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B
So you threw at a timeline of three to four weeks. I heard it, I wrote it down. You know, I'm making Sure, because we have a lot of things to get done in the next three or four weeks. So if you sum it all up. Is that the Runway? Do you think that Israel and the US have to pursue the war before everything becomes a little bit too turbulent, economically speaking?
- [28:39]
A
Look, I think we mapped out what could go wrong, right? So natural gas, squeeze the chip dynamics. If they end up in the wrong way, and if Hormuz doesn't get resolved, that could shorten the Runway. President Trump a few hours ago said, not sort of vocally, but the White House issued a statement that the Xi Jinping Trump session may be delayed. To me, that was the ceiling for the operation. 29 March, the meeting between President Trump and Xi Jinping, which may be delayed. If that's delayed, I think everything is out there and open. Is it delayed because America is concerned about China's lack thereof? Joining the Hormuz piece, is it related to some successes that President Trump wants to have in his pocket before he departs for Beijing? I don't know, but I think that's sort of where that ends. From an economic perspective, I think the war plan is working well. And so three, four weeks, I think there is that Runway. From an operational perspective. Yeah. It doesn't mean that both parties are going to choose to use all that time, but I don't see that window closing that fast.
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B
All right, so we'll celebrate Passover kind of in suspense. That's what you're basically saying.
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A
No, I think as much as we had Hamentaschen's, you know, in Purim related to the beginning of this campaign, I hope and believe that by Exodus, we'll have a lot of contextual relevance to how the war ends.
- [29:59]
B
Amend to that. All right, we're gonna go to the words of the week. And because we're in a war, we both get to do words of the week, so we'll each bring our own. It's kind of the benefits living under war. And so my words of the week come from Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, who was responding to rumors. I don't know if that you reached. You heard the rumors.
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A
I did.
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B
That they were circling on Iranian state media, and by the way, they were circulating on X, not among Iranian accounts that went far beyond Iranian state media. I just want to make sure everyone knows. And the rumors were that he had been killed. It was kind of like this equation. Khamenei has been killed, and so has Netanyahu. So the prime minister, with his crew of social media advisors, went and filmed themselves sitting in a cafe outside of Jerusalem. And he said in Hebrew, I'm translating, I'm crazy about coffee. And you know what? I'm crazy about my people. And in Hebrew, it's actually a play on words of.
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A
To die for.
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B
Yeah, to die for. Exactly. But enslave also means being crazy about something. And beyond the humor, the moment obviously is very interesting. That's my. My baby son here.
- [31:10]
A
Let's have him come. I think it's the first cameo on the show.
- [31:14]
B
Well, I don't know. Maybe he heard the Words of the Week and he decided to come and see what it's all about. The reason I'm bringing the Words of the Week is not to just give Netanyahu another platform. I don't think he needs that. Not for me, at least. But the moment is interesting politically because it shows how far psychological warfare has gone. It's more present with social media, obviously. But look, the prime minister stopped everything he was doing to go take this video and how much effort is being put to combat it. It shows really kind of sign of times of how war is being waged. Psychological warfare has been around forever, but now this time, the way it's combated and kind of dealt with was super interesting to me.
- [31:50]
A
No, I agree. And there was a piece there because part of the propaganda was that in his videos, because it was AI he had six fingers, so he held the coffee cup, kind of showing that he has five fingers, which was also an interesting bit. But I think you're making an important point. Even David Sacks from the Administrator, one of the smartest people literally on earth right now. The smart investors on the all in podcast last week speculated that there is censorship in Israel. The Tel Aviv is that we don't get straight information. Tel Aviv is half devastated. A very serious guy kind of operating in this cloud of disinformation. And so I think there's merit to the decision of Topaz look and the sort of that team working with Netanyahu on social media to take that 30 minutes and do that, because as you mentioned, it didn't remain in like a small corner of the Internet. It spread really, really fast. So I think, you know, to contrast with Netanyahu, a very simple, a man of very few words, President Trump, earlier today, he was asked on the plane, what about the political impact of all of this. And his answer was so simple. And I think sort of for me, also shows that there is a towering moral high ground involved with what we're seeing right now. Here's what he had to say, I have to do what's right. Political impact, sure, everybody has concern, but I have to do what's right. I can't say, gee, I don't want impacts on oil prices for three to four weeks or two months and let Iran have nuclear weapon and let them blow up the Middle east and beyond. Sources that I've been speaking to around his team in the last month have mentioned this North Korea piece time and time again. And I think that the president sort of says on my watch, I can try to negotiate like Bill Clinton did and George W. Bush did with the Koreans and ended up with a nuclear weapon, a hermit kingdom that is negatively affecting that region. Or I can act and it is actually out of the fact that he's not up for reelection. It is a second term. I mean, obviously there is the midterm and he would not want to see a confrontational Congress. He says it very simply and I think I tend to believe that's the motivation for sure.
- [33:59]
B
And he says it very clearly, too. So whatever you think politically, I think it's kind of like the right thing to be said.
- [34:05]
A
And he also said, if you notice, three to four weeks and then said maybe two months. So I'm not sure what the time frame there is.
- [34:12]
B
You said three to four. I follow your time frame.
- [34:14]
A
All right, that's it for today's show. Thanks for tuning into Ark Media's what's yous Number? We hope you found it interesting. If you did, be sure to, like, subscribe, rate, review. You know the drill, but most importantly, share it with others who you think will find it interesting. If you want to make suggestions or share your feedback, reach out to us at what's your number@arcmedia.org.
- [34:41]
B
What's your numbers in ARC Media Podcast? Arc Media's executive producer is Adam James Levin Aretti. Our production manager is Brittany Cohen. ARC Community Manager is Ava Weiner. Sound and video editing is by Liquid Audio. Our theme music is by Midnight Generation. I am Yael Wilsoner Levy.
- [34:59]
A
I'm Yonatanadir. You see her next week. This podcast offers general business and economic information and is not a comprehensive summary for investment decisions. It does not recommend or solicit any investment strategy or security.