Sneak Peek: Tal on what happens behind closed doors in negotiations

**Dan Senor** (0:00)
Hi, it's Dan. Over the past couple of years, Call Me Back has grown into something much bigger than we ever expected, a place for clarity, context and honest conversations, at a time when those things can seem hard to find.
That's what Ark Media is all about, building a truly independent voice, which means no one shaping what we say or how we say it.
To help support our rapidly expanding operations, we created Inside Call Me Back, our members-only feed.
If Call Me Back has been meaningful to you, and you want to be part of what we're building, I hope you'll join us. Your contribution goes a long way in helping us show up when it matters most. You can subscribe at arkmedia.org or through the link in the show notes. And to our insiders, thank you.

**Tal Becker** (0:53)
You are listening to an Ark Media podcast.

**Dan Senor** (1:04)
Welcome to the inside edition of the Call Me Back podcast, where we pull back the curtain and have the conversations we typically have after the cameras stop rolling. Thank you for subscribing to the show and supporting the Call Me Back podcast and everything we do here at Ark Media.
Today in the hot seat, joining us from Jerusalem to address your questions and your personal dilemmas is Ark Media contributor Tal Becker. Tal, welcome back to the inside.

**Tal Becker** (1:29)
Hey Dan, how you doing?

**Dan Senor** (1:30)
I'm good, I think the last time we spoke we were in Sydney and you come back to in Israel, perhaps a mood shifting in Israel, as my sons would say, what is the vibe?

**Tal Becker** (1:41)
Yeah, you know, at the moment I'm trying to look at my kids more than my phone or anybody else, so that just to kind of avoid the vibe. But I think there is this feeling that of a little bit of an attrition in every location, not a clear path forward, not in Iran, not in Lebanon, not in Gaza either. It's maybe making breathing for some people a little bit harder. I think there were times when the kind of the path or the arc of this story to a happier ending was a bit clearer.
And now that it's murky, I think people are feeling the weight of that.

**Dan Senor** (2:14)
Okay, well, I'm sure some of that sentiment will come through in our conversation with our questions from our insiders. One editorial note, on last week's episode of Inside Call Me Back where Ilan was interviewing me, Ilan asked me a question about the origin of my name. Was it originally Senor? Was it Sephardic? I get these questions all the time. And I told a story that it was originally Senor and it became Senor and then Senor over the years. There was a key piece that Ilan, who I'm dutifully throwing under the bus here, but he cut out something I said. I said, on the one hand, the family lore is that the name was changed at Ellis Island. But in reality, what is more common, what we know now from a whole range of sources, I first started focusing on it in a book by Darrell Horne, that many Jews actually changed their names on their own because they wanted to assimilate to some degree.
But they were ashamed that they made that decision to change their very Jewish sounding European names. And so they told this Ellis Island story, like it was forced upon them. And that key second part, Ilan, he cut out for reasons purely of efficiency, just for tightening up the episode. And then we got swarmed with comments, both, you know, I'm looking at one right now. Shimi from Australia sent us a note, a whole bunch of people commented on X. Others got a hold of me through other channels. So thank you all of you for staying on top of us and holding us to the Inside Call Me Back community's accountability system, the crowdsourced accountability system. Facts are important to us, and we just appreciate you getting in touch, and it's back in that last episode. Okay.

**Tal Becker** (3:39)
Dan, I get two things from this story. First of all, Ilan's willingness to be thrown under a bus, which suggests he's really willing to sacrifice for the cause. And that Call Me Back listeners are not just avid listeners, they're careful listeners.

**Dan Senor** (3:52)
It's unbelievable. I mean, Ilan found one comment in the Inside questions. I got so many comments on Twitter, I'll pull them up. I've got between six and ten other comments through different channels.

**Tal Becker** (4:03)
I am appropriately intimidated. I will do my best to be very precise.