Who is Barak Ravid? The Israeli reporter behind major Israel-Iran-Trump scoops
If you spend any amount of time following Israel, Iran, the White House or Donald Trump, you’ve probably run across the name Barak Ravid. Actually, if you’ve spent any amount of time reading Middle East reports over the last several years, you’ve almost certainly run across Barak Ravid. He’s everywhere.
Axios. CNN. Israeli television. Social media. White House leaks. Secret negotiations. Trump phone calls. Netanyahu drama. Iran talks. You name it. He has it.
It feels like he churns out exclusive stories virtually every day. At times, it feels like Barak Ravid is literally inside some of these top-level meetings.
So, who exactly is Barak Ravid and why should we care?
Ravid is an Israeli journalist who served in Israel’s elite military intelligence Unit 8200 before entering journalism.
He eventually worked at Haaretz, Channel 13 in Israel, Axios, and CNN while building a reputation as one of the most connected reporters covering U.S.-Israel relations and Middle East diplomacy.
He’s also the author of “Trump’s Peace,” a book chronicling the Abraham Accords and the diplomatic efforts that helped reshape the region.
If you ask supporters and critics about Ravid, you’ll get very different answers. His admirers say he’s one of the best-sourced journalists in the world. His critics will say he isn’t fond of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and it shows in some of his coverage. More on that in a moment.
Ruthie Blum, a former adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a senior contributing editor at Jewish News Syndicate, believes Ravid’s access has become part of the story itself. “This is a guy who, during the previous administrations, left-wing U.S. administrations had a lot of access. And of course, messages were passed through him,” Blum told ALL ISRAEL NEWS.
“Now it turns out that he’s getting a different kind of access. And there is kind of a suspicion that the Trump administration or parts of the Trump administration are using him as a useful idiot.”
That’s a pretty provocative charge. But Blum didn’t stop there. “Sometimes he’s being used by Trump and the MAGA faction and given some disinformation, and then he comes out with it and then it’s proven false,” she said.
“And sometimes I suspect he’s being given information from the isolationist wing of the party and the envoys with Iran, such as Steve Witkoff, so there’s a lot of mixed messages going around and the star of all of this keeps going back to Barack Ravid,” she continued.
We’ll never know who and where Ravid specifically gets his information but to Blum’s point, it wouldn’t come as a shock if some of the leaks are coming from those in the Trump administration who are either against the decision to go to war with Iran in the first place, espouse anti-Israel and/or anti-Netanyahu views or possibly a combination of both.
As for whether Ravid’s politics or worldview influence his coverage, that’s much harder to pin down. He’s often described in Israeli media circles as being closer to the country’s center-left establishment than to Netanyahu’s conservative camp.
He’s also been identified by multiple publications as a longtime critic of Netanyahu. Of course, being critical of Netanyahu is not the same thing as being anti-Israel. In fact, there is little evidence to suggest that Ravid is anti-Israel at all. Quite the opposite.
He spent years covering Israel’s diplomatic achievements, wrote an entire book celebrating the Abraham Accords and remains deeply connected to Israel’s political, diplomatic and national security establishment.
The better way to understand him may be this: he appears far more skeptical of Netanyahu than he is of Israel itself. One of the clearest public clues about Ravid’s own political views emerged during Israel’s explosive 2023 battle over Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul.
The proposal would have significantly reduced the power of Israel’s Supreme Court and altered the balance between the judiciary and elected officials. Supporters argued the reforms were necessary to rein in what they viewed as an overly activist court.
Opponents warned that the changes threatened Israel’s democratic checks and balances. According to a 2025 profile in Vanity Fair, Ravid suspended his reserve service during the 2023 judicial-overhaul protests after publicly opposing the government’s actions.
It goes without saying that his participation in the anti-overhaul movement does not automatically make him left-wing. But still, it placed Ravid squarely on the opposite side of one of Netanyahu’s most consequential domestic political battles.
So, where does it all leave Barak Ravid?
Right in the middle, which is exactly where a journalist wants to be.
Some on the Israeli right accuse him of undermining Netanyahu. Some anti-Israel activists accuse him of being too close to Israeli officials. And some MAGA figures accuse him of amplifying establishment narratives. Others claim Trump officials are using him to send messages.
Yet despite all those complaints, senior officials from virtually every camp continue to give him information. And it leaves us all clicking on his stories for more of that exclusive information.
David Brody is a senior contributor for ALL ISRAEL NEWS. He is a 38-year Emmy Award veteran of the television industry and continues to serve as Chief Political Analyst for CBN News/The 700 Club, a role he has held for 23 years. David is the author of two books including, “The Faith of Donald Trump” and has been cited as one of the top 100 influential evangelicals in America by Newsweek Magazine. He’s also been listed as one of the country’s top 15 political power players in the media by Adweek Magazine.
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