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In-Depth Issues:
Sources: U.S., Iran Making Progress in Talks - Amichai Stein ( Jerusalem Post)
Progress has been made in recent efforts to formulate a memorandum of understanding and principles between the U.S. and Iran, though significant gaps remain, three regional sources told the Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.
The talks have focused on outlining a framework that could enable continued negotiations while temporarily reducing tensions.
However, Israeli officials assess that even if understandings are reached at the diplomatic level, Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is expected to reject any compromise perceived as limiting Iran's strategic nuclear capabilities or regional influence.
Israeli officials stressed that despite diplomatic contacts, the military option "remains on the table" for Trump.
Israeli Officials: As Long as Iran Regime Survives, Repeated Conflict Is Likely - Yossi Yehoshua ( Ynet News)
A senior Israeli defense official told Ynet: "The war against Iran will be prolonged. As long as this regime does not fall, we are likely to face recurring rounds of fighting...in order to ensure that the nuclear and ballistic missile threat does not endanger the existence of the State of Israel."
"From Israel's perspective, this will not be the last round as long as this regime remains standing. It will be possible to hit Iran very hard, damage economic and military targets and symbols of government, and it will look like a clear victory in Western eyes."
"But from the Iranian perspective, as long as the regime survives, they will rebuild their military capabilities. Therefore, Israel will have to maintain intelligence and operational readiness for another return to fighting."
U.S. Intelligence Identifies at least 10 Mines in Strait of Hormuz - James LaPorta ( CBS News)
A recent American intelligence assessment showed that U.S. forces have identified at least 10 mines in the Strait of Hormuz.
The U.S. warned that transiting the normal route could be "extremely hazardous" because of mines laid by Iran.
Earlier this month, the U.S. military began directing commercial ships toward a route farther from Iran that the Navy has spent weeks clearing of mines.
Poll: Most Lebanese Support a Peace Agreement with Israel, except for Shi'ites - Danielle Greyman-Kennard ( Jerusalem Post)
The majority of Lebanese want to see a peace agreement with Israel, according to a new poll by the International Information Company in Lebanon, first published by Lebanon's Al-Jadeed on Monday.
The poll, conducted on April 28-May 5, found that 84% of Druze supported a peace agreement with Israel, followed by 77% of Maronites and 72% of Orthodox Christians.
Lebanon's Muslim population was less supportive. 52% of Sunnis wanted a deal, while 92% of Shi'ites opposed such a move.
94% of Shi'ites and 74% of Sunnis opposed normalizing ties with Jerusalem, while 58% of Maronites, 49% of Orthodox Christians, and 79% of Druze said they would support normalization.
58% of Lebanese supported taking away Hizbullah's military capabilities, while 34% were opposed.
IDF Reconnaissance Unit Hunts Hizbullah - Elisha Ben Kimon ( Ynet News)
The television in the living room of the house on the outskirts of Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon was still on. On a table lay three loaded Kalashnikov rifles.
"When you find a regular weapons cache, the weapons are usually unloaded and packed away," said Maj. D., 24, commander of the Golan reconnaissance company. "When you find a weapon with a round in the chamber, you understand terrorists were here just moments earlier."
"Inside the closets, we found Iranian-made explosive devices still wrapped in their original plastic packaging, ready for use, along with anti-tank missiles."
"In another incident, we found a huge anti-aircraft machine gun meant for firing at helicopters. I had never seen a weapon like that in my life."
One of the main threats was explosive drones. "We assigned several fighters whose only job was to look at the sky and detect drones, and in one case we also managed to bring them down."
"Beyond that, correct positioning behind cover and movement through concealed terrain with large spacing make it very difficult for the enemy to identify us."
Cpl. Gur Aryeh described the operational atmosphere in Lebanon. "You enter with a certain fear, but alongside it there is a sense of power from the size of the mission."
"A lot of people told us they had not seen fighters with this kind of fire in them. We would say, 'Let's capture another house and another house.'"
"We are a foot unit that walks dozens of km. with bags and equipment on our backs. That was the peak for every fighter. That is what we trained for, and we didn't think about the cost."
Gur Aryeh was wounded in the Bint Jbeil area and evacuated to a hospital. "You see that everyone from the unit who was wounded only wants to return and go back inside," he said.
The Inversion of "Terror": The Ideological Architecture behind the EU's Settler Sanctions - Tirza Shorr ( Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs)
Why does the European Union believe that four Israeli civic organizations belong on the same sanctions list as Hamas?
The EU's 27 foreign ministers, who adopted the May 11, 2026, sanctions package unanimously, are operating inside a dogmatic intellectual framework divorced from evidence that continuously produces charges against Israel.
A continent that cannot distinguish a Jewish farmer in Area C from a Hamas operative in Gaza will not be able to distinguish, when the moment requires it, between a citizen and a jihadist in its own cities.
The writer is a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center.
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
- Israel's Campaign to Kill or Capture Every Oct. 7 Attacker - Dov Lieber
On Oct. 7, 2023, a video surfaced of an Israeli woman screaming, "Don't kill me," as she was hauled away on a motorcycle between two kidnappers. Noa Argamani spent 245 days captive in Gaza. After her release, two men seen in the video holding back Argamani's boyfriend were tracked down by Israeli intelligence officials and killed in separate airstrikes. The men were crossed off a list of thousands of names kept by an Israeli task force created to kill or capture all who planned or joined in the Oct. 7 attack, Israeli officials said.
Hundreds have been struck from the list, in one of the most personal and highly technical targeting campaigns in the history of warfare. Security forces mark men for death if they find at least two pieces of evidence showing they took part in crimes during the Oct. 7 attacks, according to Israeli security officials. Hundreds of Gazans charged with participating in the Oct. 7 attacks are in Israeli custody awaiting trial. The parliament recently passed a bill to establish a special military tribunal.
The task force killed Hamas fighters who paraglided into Israel on Oct. 7, others who raided border communities, and those who participated in the killing of hundreds of revelers at the Nova music festival, where Argamani and her boyfriend were kidnapped. On Feb. 4, Hamas operative Muhammed Issam Hassan al-Habil was killed by a drone that fired at his car in Gaza. The Israeli military and security services said they learned through interrogations that Habil was responsible for the death of Noa Marciano, a female soldier taken hostage and killed in captivity.
Michael Milstein, a former senior Israeli military intelligence officer on Palestinian affairs, said, "In the Middle East, revenge is an important part of the discourse. It is about how serious anyone in your environment sees you. Unfortunately, this is the language of this neighborhood." (Wall Street Journal)
- U.S. Targets Flotilla Organizers and Muslim Brotherhood Networks Supporting Hamas
On May 19, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took action against four individuals associated with the pro-Hamas flotilla organized by the U.S.-designated Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad (PCPA) that is attempting to access Gaza in support of Hamas. OFAC is also taking action against key actors operating within Hamas-aligned Muslim Brotherhood networks.
Samidoun - a front organization for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) - and the PCPA are clandestinely controlled by, or act on behalf of, sanctioned Palestinian terrorist organizations.
PCPA was established with funding from Hamas's International Relations Bureau and Hamas directs its activity through the placement of Hamas officials throughout the organization.
(U.S. Treasury Department)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
- IDF Reservist Killed in Southern Lebanon - Emanuel Fabian
Maj. (res.) Itamar Sapir, 27, was killed in combat with Hizbullah in southern Lebanon on Tuesday. He was killed during an exchange of fire when a Hizbullah operative began firing from inside a church at Israeli forces operating in the village of Qouza. (Times of Israel)
- IDF Completes Takeover of Gaza-Bound Flotilla - Stav Levaton
Israel's Foreign Ministry announced Tuesday that the latest Gaza flotilla has "come to an end."
Israeli commandos intercepted all of the more than 50 boats in the flotilla. "Another PR flotilla has come to an end," the Ministry wrote on X. "All 430 activists have been transferred to Israeli vessels and are making their way to Israel....This flotilla has once again proved to be nothing more than a PR stunt at the service of Hamas."
(Times of Israel)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
Iran
- Shifting from Diplomatic Urgency to Strategic Patience on Iran - Zohar Palti
The Islamic Republic appears convinced that time and escalation management are in its favor, while the Trump administration continues searching for mechanisms that could ease the global crisis without drawing the U.S. back into large-scale military operations.
Reflecting accumulated lessons drawn from previous interactions with multiple U.S. administrations,
Iranian policymakers are convinced that prolonged diplomacy and strategic patience - if not outright entrenchment in their positions - could gradually increase American flexibility over time. Tehran concluded that America can exert severe pressure, but the regime can survive it.
Within Iran's longstanding doctrine of "controlled endurance," negotiations are not primarily pathways to compromise, but mechanisms for managing pressure, extending timelines, and testing the political patience of adversaries. Today, amid the growing influence of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Tehran appears even more confident that uncompromising positions can generate long-term strategic gains. As long as the regime believes American urgency will ultimately produce American concessions, there is little incentive for meaningful Iranian flexibility.
The most appropriate response to this decades-long Iranian strategy is strategic patience. No superpower should cast itself as seeking an agreement at any cost. A better, more realistic option may be to deemphasize the push for rapid resolution and instead pursue a strategy of long-term, controlled pressure on several fronts simultaneously.
Sustained maritime pressure including continued blockade measures against Iranian ports and vessels would directly undermine Tehran's ability to generate revenue, particularly from oil exports. Since Iran has spent years constructing alternative commercial corridors and sanctions-evasion mechanisms, broader economic pressure should include tighter enforcement against trade and financial networks connected to Iran's neighbors.
The objective is to raise the cost for the wide spectrum of banks, shipping companies, energy intermediaries, logistical firms, and insurance companies that help Iran evade sanctions.
Washington's primary advantage in this confrontation is not just military superiority - it also lies in America's structural economic power, global financial influence, alliance architecture, and capacity to sustain pressure over time without exhausting itself. Employing them in tandem presents a credible path to strategic success without requiring immediate military escalation.
The writer, a fellow with The Washington Institute, previously served as head of the Mossad Intelligence Directorate and head of the Policy and Political-Military Bureau at Israel's Ministry of Defense.
(Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
- Iran Is Not Ready to Abandon Its Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons - Editorial
If Iran keeps stringing U.S. diplomats along in negotiations, what is President Trump prepared to do to win the war?
While the U.S. has done enormous damage to Iran's military, and set back its nuclear program, the regime refuses his offers for a settlement and has shut down most commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
The President has so far rejected a bad deal on Iran's terms that might open the Strait at the price of easing pressure on the regime without real nuclear concessions. While a U.S. blockade on shipping to and from Iranian ports has meant Iran suffers most, the regime's new leaders have been safe while they hold global energy supply hostage.
If the goal was to see whether Iran's regime is ready to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons, by now Mr. Trump has his answer: It isn't. Signing a mooted "letter of intent" to continue negotiating for another 30 days
would merely let Iran string Mr. Trump along even closer to the election. (Wall Street Journal)
Gaza
- Documents Show that Hamas Leaders Saw Themselves as an Integral Part of Iran's Regional Alliance - Khaled Abu Toameh
Documents captured by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza show that on the morning of the Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, Hamas leaders sent a message to Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah requesting support for the attack that had begun. They demanded active participation from all parties in the Iran-led "axis of resistance," noting that "the cost of any hesitation will be high and unbearable, both in terms of our plan and concerning you and the Islamic Republic [of Iran].
The newly uncovered message reveals that the Oct. 7 invasion was never intended to be a limited terrorist attack. It was conceived as the opening phase of a much broader regional war aimed at destroying Israel.
It shows that Hamas leaders believed they were launching a grand strategic campaign involving Hizbullah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria, and other jihadist organizations aligned with Tehran to overwhelm Israel's defenses from all sides.
A new secret letter sent by Hamas leaders to Iran's current Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei called for coordinated military escalation on "all fronts" simultaneously against Israel. For years, many Western diplomats and analysts insisted that Hamas was primarily a local Palestinian movement focused on Gaza. The documents show that Hamas leaders viewed themselves as an integral part of Iran's regional military alliance.
The documents demonstrate that ceasefires and negotiations with Hamas do not alter the group's core objective of Israel's destruction. So long as Hamas, Hizbullah, and the Iranian regime continue to exist in their current form, the chances of another Oct. 7-style massacre remain dangerously high.
(Gatestone Institute)
Israel and the West
- Why We Can't Move On from a Blood Libel - Jonathan S. Tobin
On May 11, the New York Times published Nicholas Kristof's astonishing compendium of charges that the State of Israel is deliberately raping Palestinian Arab prisoners by training dogs to sexually assault them. In the week since then, the question hanging over both the newspaper and its critics is: what, if any, consequences would there be for publishing a 21st-century blood libel. Yet this piece of journalistic malpractice generated applause from its core readership.
The article sparked outrage from those who pointed out the lack of credible evidence to back up this astonishing charge. It also prompted cheers from Israel-bashers and antisemites everywhere, who view it as something they could place alongside the false accusations about the Jewish state committing "genocide" and creating mass starvation in Gaza, as well as practicing "apartheid" at home. The paper's management stood by Kristof.
Israel's government is likely to follow up on its threat to sue the newspaper, even if most legal experts think that such an effort would be a waste of time. There is a genuine danger of embarrassing and damaging revelations for the newspaper in any legal proceeding, regardless of whether it would be successful.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley points out that while the Jewish state is unlikely to be able to sue the Times and Kristof for libel, soldiers who were implicated in the story may be able to do so.
Mark Goldfeder, CEO of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, thinks Israelis can sue the Times in an Israeli court, though not for libel. By holding them accountable under a civil-law charge of "injurious falsehood" and "negligent publication," they can create a viable case. Doing so will mean an opening that will allow Israelis to go to the federal district court in New York City, and then "compel evidence production from a U.S. entity for use in foreign litigation."
He notes, "A properly framed application does not ask the court to adjudicate the case; it simply asks the court to order the Times to produce the factual basis for one published allegation." The result would mean that the Times and Kristof would have to produce the evidence it claims to hold, how it obtained that evidence, and other information and communications that might undermine its credibility.
The newspaper crossed a line with its absurd story about dogs being trained to rape human beings.
The dog-rape charge is so ridiculous and utterly without substantiation - animal trainer after animal trainer have attested to the improbability and impossibility of it happening - that only someone already drenched in both Jew-hatred and ideas about journalists not having to prove their allegations could believe it.
(JNS)
- Hatred of Israel and the Degradation of the West - Bret Stephens
Good-faith criticism of Israeli leaders and policy has for years been giving way to something darker. It's a conviction that Israel, alone among the nations, was a mistake to begin with and has no right to exist now. The fashionable frenzy that is today's loathing of Israel is a sign of the degradation of the West.
Societies that value critical thinking and reasoned moral judgment do not make a fetish of demonizing one small country and its people while imagining that peace, justice and freedom would somehow be achieved if only the country and its people were made to disappear.
Israel has been living under the endless drizzle of orchestrated propaganda and media hostility over the course of its 78 years, while still managing to transform itself into a military, technological and economic powerhouse - as well as one of the happiest countries in the world.
Moral judgments should be made about Israel according to the same standards by which we judge other countries faced with similar circumstances. It's when Israel is demanded to be a saint - and then, as it invariably falls short, is damned as the worst sinner - that we lose our sense of perspective and proportion. (New York Times)
- The Israeli Ambassador's Criticism of a U.S. "Pro-Israel" Organization - Editorial
"How can you be pro-Israel and advocate for an arms embargo on a state that's fighting a seven-front war against Iranian proxies?" Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter asked of J Street, referring to the lobbying organization's call to end military aid to Israel, including support for defensive weapons systems such as Iron Dome.
"When you come and say in such a two-faced manner, 'We're pro-Israel, we're pro-democracy,' there's a democratically elected government in Israel. You don't like Netanyahu? Make aliyah, vote in the next election, and express yourself. Don't say you're 'pro-democracy' and decry and defy the position of the democratic government of Israel."
We agree with the thrust of Leiter's criticism. Israel is now in the 956th day of a war forced upon it on Oct. 7. The very least it could expect from an organization calling itself pro-Israel is not to lobby against the sale of arms needed to defend itself or accuse it of genocide. (Jerusalem Post)
Observations:
- The limits of traditional economic warfare are laid bare by the highly resilient, deeply entrenched shadow banking networks of the Islamic Republic of Iran. For decades, Western capitals have operated under the assumption that isolating a rogue regime from the formal global financial system will eventually force a behavioral shift or structural collapse. Yet, as the contemporary crisis illustrates, this has merely accelerated the perfection of a parallel, dark financial universe.
- The latest wave of Western counter-measures, orchestrated primarily by an aggressive U.S. Treasury, represents a desperate attempt to map and dismantle these hidden circuits. However, this campaign is fundamentally undermined by the institutional complacency and regulatory negligence of European partners, most notably the United Kingdom.
- London's permissive corporate ecosystem have inadvertently turned the British capital into a premium operational playground for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), demonstrating that the ultimate failure of sanctions lies in their fractured, asymmetrical Western enforcement.
- The IRGC's sophisticated shadow banking architecture relies on a complex hierarchy of front companies, proxy-owned trade houses, and compromised Digital Asset Service Providers scattered across East Asia, the Middle East, and parts of Europe. Under this model, the physical movement of Iranian oil and dual-use goods is decoupled from the financial transactions that fund them. Revenues from the illicit shadow fleet are processed through third-country bank accounts held in the names of seemingly legitimate, locally registered commercial entities.
- The IRGC and its financial proxies have taken advantage of the UK's notoriously relaxed company registration system operated by Companies House, the UK's registrar of companies. IRGC networks have systematically exploited this administrative loophole to incorporate hundreds of shell companies on British soil.
- These UK-registered entities carry an aura of Western corporate legitimacy, allowing them to open bank accounts across Europe, secure digital payment gateways, and enter into contracts with international suppliers who perform only superficial due diligence. By the time Western intelligence agencies map these corporate fronts, the entities have already moved tens of millions of dollars through the UK banking system, dissolved themselves, and reconstituted under new names within the exact same registrar.
- There is an equally problematic lack of robust enforcement within the European Union. An Iranian front company blocked from operating in Frankfurt or Paris can simply shift its registration and banking operations to member states with more permissive regulatory environments in Southern or Eastern Europe. This transatlantic enforcement asymmetry transforms the Western sanctions regime into a sieve. The battle against Iranian shadow banking cannot be won by the U.S. Treasury acting in isolation.
The writer is an Iran and financial terrorism expert and a senior research fellow at the Jerusalem Center.
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