Tel Aviv on Edge: Waiting for Iran, Hezbollah Strikes in Lebanon, and Trump’s Tariff Shock — Plus My AI Coding Revelation

Recorded in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, February 21, I try to capture the mood that’s settled over the city—an anxious, pervasive uncertainty as Israelis brace for the possibility of another confrontation with Iran. A month after President Trump publicly encouraged Iranians to take to the streets, Tel Aviv feels tense in a way that’s different even from the Gaza war: people remember last June’s 12-day exchange, the shelters, the missiles that slipped through, and the sense that the next round could again put the center of the country in the crosshairs. You can see it in the streets, in the early-closing cafés, and in the questions everyone is asking—about flights, business, travel, and whether daily life can suddenly freeze for days at a time.I also look at Israel’s pre-emptive actions in Lebanon, including reported strikes in the Bekaa Valley targeting Hezbollah’s long-range missile infrastructure, amid concerns Hezbollah could join any escalation with Iran. From there I revisit the Trump “Council of Peace,” the unresolved endgame in Gaza, and the way Israeli politics is sliding into an election campaign where “left” has become a catch-all accusation—despite the fact that much of the opposition is led by figures with deep security credentials and broadly similar positions on the long-term need for a two-state outcome, just “not now.”Finally, I pivot to Washington: the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Trump’s tariff powers, the president’s escalating announcements anyway, and what that kind of whiplash does to business planning and global trade. I close with a personal reflection on AI—how tools like Claude Code are reshaping what a single developer can do in hours instead of months, and why I think Wall Street may be misreading what that means for big SaaS platforms. As always, thanks for listening—please subscribe, and if you can, consider becoming a paid subscriber to support Tel Aviv Diary. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit marcschulman.substack.com/subscribe