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In-Depth Issues:
"Israel Will Not Allow Iran to Produce Tens of Thousands of Missiles to Attack Us" - 103FM ( Jerusalem Post)
Former MK Yuval Steinitz, chairman of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems which created the Iron Dome missile defense system, said Thursday:
"Israel will not allow Iran to implement its plan to produce tens of thousands of ballistic missiles to threaten Israeli civilians. If Iran is preparing to attack us, it is clear that a preemptive strike must be considered."
U.S. Military Preparing for Weeks-Long Iran Operations - Phil Stewart ( Reuters)
The U.S. military is preparing for the possibility of sustained, weeks-long operations against Iran if President Donald Trump orders an attack, two U.S. officials told Reuters.
U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will hold negotiations with Iran on Tuesday in Geneva.
U.S. officials said on Friday the Pentagon was sending an additional aircraft carrier to the Middle East, adding thousands more troops along with fighter aircraft, guided-missile destroyers and other firepower capable of waging attacks and defending against them.
In a sustained campaign, the U.S. military could hit Iranian state and security facilities, not just nuclear infrastructure, one of the officials said.
He added that the U.S. fully expected Iran to retaliate, leading to back-and-forth strikes and reprisals over time.
The U.S. maintains bases in Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE and Turkey.
The U.S. Is Sending Its Largest Warship to the Middle East - Shelby Holliday ( Wall Street Journal)
The Pentagon is sending the USS Gerald R. Ford, its largest and most advanced aircraft carrier, to the Middle East, where it will join the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and other warships, as President Trump ramps up pressure on Iran.
The Ford will bring dozens more jet fighters and surveillance aircraft to the region and enable commanders to carry out airstrikes at a higher rate.
The U.S. has also sent dozens of aircraft and several air-defense systems to bases across the Middle East.
85 Percent of Iran's Energy Resources Are Concentrated in a Very Small Area - Beni Sabti ( Israel Hayom)
Former Iranian Economic Minister Massoud Nili told Iranian television that the Islamic Republic's economy has become dangerously dependent on a very limited number of production facilities and oil and gas extraction zones in southern Iran.
He pointed to the country's growing reliance in recent years on crude oil production from the South Pars field in the Persian Gulf, Iran's primary energy hub, warning that 85% of Iran's energy resources are concentrated in a very small area.
A successful strike on those sites could entirely cripple the regime's income streams.
The same pattern of concentration exists in Iran's automobile and steel industries, similarly controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which are also concentrated in a handful of facilities.
Other commentators have pointed to Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf, which serves as Iran's primary oil export terminal.
Nili and others are effectively identifying potential military objectives for anyone contemplating action against the Islamic Republic.
U.S. Smuggled Thousands of Starlink Terminals into Iran - Alexander Ward ( Wall Street Journal)
The Trump administration covertly sent 6,000 satellite-internet Starlink terminals into Iran after the regime's brutal crackdown on demonstrations last month, U.S. officials said, in an effort to keep dissidents online.
Owning a Starlink terminal is illegal in Iran and risks a multiyear prison sentence, but tens of thousands of Iranians possess the satellite terminals, using them to maintain contact with like-minded citizens and share information outside the control of government firewalls and censors.
88 Percent of American Jews Support Israel - Jonathan S. Tobin ( JNS)
According to a "Survey of Jewish Life since Oct. 7" by the Jewish Federations of North America, conducted in March 2025, 88% of respondents supported Israel's right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state.
60% said Israel made them proud to be Jewish; and 71% said they were emotionally attached to Israel - a dramatic increase over 58% who felt that way in a 2020 survey.
The shock of the atrocities committed by Palestinian Arabs on Oct. 7, and the way they incited a wave of antisemitism around the globe, has influenced many Jews to come back to Jewish life.
Nearly half of all Jews are part of a swell of greater engagement in Jewish life since Oct. 7. This includes an increase in affiliation, synagogue and event attendance, and a greater connection with and interest in Israel.
The idea that anti-Zionists now represent the majority of American Jews is absolutely not true. The overwhelming majority of those who choose to remain part of the Jewish people still stand with Israel.
Fighting Israel's Wars with Artificial Intelligence - Amir Bohbot ( Jerusalem Post)
Col. (res.) Yaron Sherig, 44, head of the Israel Defense Ministry's AI and Autonomy Directorate, established in December 2024, told Maariv in an interview that the directorate has enlisted dozens of startup companies to ensure "that every sophisticated algorithm is quickly transformed into a tool in the hands of the fighter in the field."
Some of the IDF's maneuvering platforms already have AI components embedded in them, upgrading force protection and attack capabilities in real time.
The systems, innovative applications, and robots being developed at MAFAT - the Directorate of Defense, Research & Development - are making IDF fighters and their weapons more precise, faster, and deadlier than ever before.
Computer screens or gadgets currently in the hands of maneuvering units, augmented reality glasses, smart controllers, and combat tablets are only the visible tip.
The real resource is the data accumulated over more than two years of fighting, from which AI distills lessons and insights at record speed, offering answers to the most complex battlefield questions.
One task is to locate threats where the human eye would struggle. While the fighter scans the horizon, AI has already marked the targets.
The system sharpens what is truly relevant for the end user, identifies suspects, and distinguishes them from routine events.
It focuses the fighter's attention precisely on the point where the threat is hiding, before the force enters an ambush.
Former CEO Says Oxfam Is "Toxic and Antisemitic" ( Telegraph-UK)
Dr. Halima Begum, former CEO of Oxfam Great Britain, an NGO working to end poverty, has accused the charity of being toxic and antisemitic during her tenure.
Having resigned in December, she accused the charity of having a disproportionate focus on Gaza compared with other world crises, and said it was too quick to describe Israel's actions in Gaza as a genocide.
Is Help Still on the Way for Iranian Protesters? - Bernard-Henri Levy ( Wall Street Journal)
Should there even be a deal with Iran? Is it reasonable to "deal" with men who killed 30,000 of their own compatriots in two days and who threaten, should demonstrations resume, to kill tens of thousands more?
Can one settle for sanctions, pressure, and concessions wrung out and immediately circumvented, when one knows that Russia has long since found ways to flood Tehran and its proxies with the resources they need to continue their enterprise of destruction?
Is any compromise possible with fanatics who proclaim that they prefer the apocalypse to defeat?
I hope the American administration understands this. I hope it has grasped that the era of containment is over, that deterrence doesn't work against a state that has made internal terror, regional destabilization, and the end of the world both a mode of governance and a program.
The time for regime change has come.
The writer is a philosopher and author of more than 45 books.
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
- Trump and Netanyahu Agree to Increase Pressure on Iranian Oil - Barak Ravid
President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed during their meeting at the White House on Wednesday that the U.S. will increase the economic pressure on Iran, two U.S. officials briefed on the issue confirmed. More than 80% of Iranian oil exports go to China. If China reduces its purchases of oil from Iran, the economic pressure on Iran would increase significantly. "We agreed that we will go full force with maximum pressure against Iran," a senior U.S. official said.
U.S. officials said Netanyahu and Trump agreed about the necessary end state - an Iran without the capability to obtain nuclear weapons. But they disagreed about the way to get there. Netanyahu told Trump it is impossible to make a good deal with Iran and claimed that even if a deal is signed, Iran will not abide by it, a U.S. official said. "We'll see if it's possible. Let's give it a shot," Trump told Netanyahu.
"We are sober and realistic about the Iranians. The ball is in their court. If it is not a real deal, we will not take it," a U.S. official said. A second U.S. official said he thinks there is "zero chance" that Iran agrees to anything the U.S. proposes or vice versa. (Axios)
See also Trump: "Iran Must Reach a Deal Very Quickly" - Daniel Adelson
President Donald Trump said during a press conference at the White House on Thursday that "Iran must reach a deal, otherwise it will be very traumatic for them....I don't want that to happen. There will probably be a deal within the next month, it shouldn't take a long time - it needs to happen quickly. They need to agree very quickly." (Ynet News)
- Thousands around the World Rally for Iran Regime Change - Sanam Mahoozi
Some 200,000 protesters demanding regime change in Iran demonstrated in Munich on Saturday. There were large demonstrations in other cities across the globe, including Melbourne, Athens, Tokyo and London.
(New York Times)
See also Sen. Lindsey Graham: Regime Change in Iran Means "the Mother Ship of Terrorism Goes Down"
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told CNN on Friday at the Munich Security Conference that the Iranian regime "are the weakest they've been since 1979. It is a regime with American blood on its hands. It is a great disruptor of the region. It's a religious theocracy that, if they could get a nuclear weapon, they would use it to advance their religious goals, which are three. Purify Islam, destroy the Jewish state, and come after us."
"Hitler wrote a book. He wanted to kill all the Jews. Nobody believed him. I believe the Ayatollah and his regime - not the Iranian people - are religious fanatics, religious Nazis. Hitler wanted a master race. They want a master religion."
Q: Are you backing regime change?
Graham: "Yeah, I am. Totally. If you're not, you're crazy....If we back out now, it'll be the biggest mistake we've made. Here's the "day after" I worry the most about. The day after we blinked. The day after we made promises that we didn't keep. We made assurances that fell short. That day after is generational damage. Hamas, Hizbullah, the Houthis - they don't go away. They come back stronger....The day after, if we get it right, the mother ship of terrorism goes down. Hamas, the Houthis, Hizbullah - they've lost their biggest benefactor." (CNN)
- Two Men Jailed in UK over Plot to Attack Manchester's Jewish Community - Chris Osuh
Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, who had sworn allegiance to Islamic State, planned a marauding firearms attack targeting Greater Manchester's Jewish community. On Friday, Tunisian-born Saadaoui was sentenced at Preston crown court to serve a minimum of 37 years, while Hussein, a Kuwaiti national, was ordered to serve at least 26 years, after being found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism. Saadaoui's younger brother, Bilel Saadaoui, 37, was sentenced to six years in prison for failing to disclose information about the plan.
Walid arranged for the purchase and delivery of semi-automatic rifles, conducted reconnaissance and identified targets, but the man supplying them with the weapons was an undercover operative. Saadaoui and Hussein planned to disguise themselves as Jews and attack an antisemitism march in Manchester before heading to its northern suburbs that are home to one of Europe's largest Jewish communities, where Saadaoui had carried out reconnaissance on Jewish nurseries, schools, synagogues and shops.
After the sentencing, the chief constable of Greater Manchester police, Sir Stephen Watson, said Jewish communities in the UK "put up with a way of life that nobody else has to put up with." He said Jews "have more justification to be fearful than anybody else....If our Jewish communities are under threat, we are all under threat." (Guardian-UK)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
- IDF Strikes Gunmen Who Emerged from Tunnel in North Gaza - Emanuel Fabian
Video shows five armed Palestinian operatives on Saturday who emerged from a tunnel and approached IDF troops in the Beit Hanoun area of northern Gaza on the Israeli side of the ceasefire line. After they entered a damaged building, an Israeli Air Force drone struck the building, killing at least two of the gunmen.
During a visit to Gaza on Friday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir said the military would not give up on the war objective of demilitarizing Gaza and disarming Hamas, while confirming that the army has such plans ready. "We will continue to remain focused and cut down threats, with determination and in an offensive manner," Zamir added.
(Times of Israel)
- IDF Foils Two Attempts to Smuggle Weapons by Drone from Egypt - Emanuel Fabian
IDF troops located a downed drone on Saturday ferrying 10 handguns and 30 magazines into Israel from Egypt. Earlier, the IDF announced it downed a drone ferrying three assault rifles over the Egyptian border.
(Times of Israel)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
Iran
- A "Good Deal" with Iran? Requirements for Preventing a Future Nuclear Breakout - Zohar Palti
The Iranian regime's direct ballistic missile attacks against Israeli civilian populations demonstrate that its missile program is not a theoretical adjunct to its nuclear ambitions, but an operational instrument of military and political coercion. Therefore, any new agreement cannot simply slow down Iran's nuclear progress. It must structurally and irreversibly prevent the possibility of a rapid nuclear breakout, in part by constraining efforts to integrate nuclear activities with missile development work.
The result of previous agreements like the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was that Iran was able to preserve vital nuclear know-how, develop advanced centrifuges for faster uranium enrichment, and maintain its future breakout options. A future framework must therefore be based on structural prevention rather than optional political enforcement or assumptions that the Islamic Republic will moderate. Any agreement that falls short on structural constraints may delay a breakout but would not prevent it, thereby replicating the JCPOA's core deficiencies.
A "good deal" with Iran should be defined by whether it permanently removes the regime's ability to transition rapidly from civilian nuclear activities to a military nuclear capability. This necessarily includes constraints on any Iranian missile activities that might facilitate nuclear coercion. An agreement that fails to meet these definitions would risk giving Tehran the time, legitimacy, and technological progression it needs to attain a military nuclear capability down the road.
The writer, an International Fellow with the Washington Institute, previously served as head of the Mossad Intelligence Directorate. (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
- Iran: Hanging on at Any Cost - Amir Taheri
Iran's "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei returned center stage last Wednesday to reaffirm his resolve to make absolutely no concessions to domestic opponents or foreign foes, as the regime organized marches to mark the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. This year's marches lacked the density, let alone the passion, of previous years and in some cases, the official media used photos and clips from previous years to heighten the narrative.
Khamenei's renewed defiance is inspired by four conclusions he has drawn.
The first is that neither the U.S. nor Israel would risk a new military confrontation with Iran if only because the element of surprise they benefited from last June is no longer there. The second is that almost all regional powers oppose regime change in Iran. The third is that regime opponents have no strategy for achieving power.
The fourth is that the most imminent threat to the system may come from a disparate group of malcontents collectively labeled the "pro-reform" faction. To forestall such a scheme, a campaign against "pro-reform" figures was launched with the arrest of several activists.
Khamenei seems determined to work with a more compact group of no-questions-asked loyalists on a platform of revolutionary defiance, moderated by cosmetic gestures he calls "heroic flexibility." A key example of that flexibility is his readiness to authorize the resumption of indirect talks with the U.S.
Meanwhile, government employees and members of military and security apparatuses are to receive the largest New Year bonus ever granted, while minimum wages are to be increased by 20-30%. A new wave of retirements in the IRGC gives Khamenei an opportunity to promote a new generation of officers who have risen from the ranks entirely under his leadership.
The writer was executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. (Gatestone Institute)
- Iran's Strategy - Dr. Majid Rafizadeh
Iranian leaders delight at the prospect of continuing negotiations. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi's tone has been deliberately reassuring, projecting confidence and a sense that diplomacy is moving in the perfect direction. From the Iranian regime's perspective, any talks are preferable to sanctions, sustained military pressure, and the threat of escalation.
Iranian leaders know that the Trump administration is willing to use force, impose maximum pressure, and act unilaterally if it believes diplomacy is being abused or exhausted. Faced with this reality, Tehran has every incentive to appear cooperative, compliant, and eager to continue discussions, even if it has no intention of making the slightest concession.
Iran's strategy is clear. The regime sees negotiations as a tool for delay. Every additional round of talks, every agreement to meet again, every statement about "progress" or "positive momentum" buys the regime more breathing space. If Iran can drag negotiations across months and years, it no doubt hopes to reach a moment when U.S. pressure weakens, priorities shift, or its leadership changes.
Iran is the same Islamic Republic that has been negotiating with foreign powers for more than four decades. Iran's regime has mastered the art of procedural diplomacy: how to slow talks without collapsing them, how to offer symbolic concessions while protecting core interests, and how to appear reasonable while remaining fundamentally intransigent. (Gatestone Institute)
- Iran's Threat to America - Zvika Klein
"America First" puts American lives, deterrence, economic security, and credibility at the center of decision-making.
Iran is a foreign regime that funds, trains, and arms groups that shoot at Americans. Will Washington respond in a way that reduces future attacks?
The Iranian regime's forward arm, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was designated by the U.S. as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2019. The U.S. Treasury describes the IRGC's networks as the financial backbone behind proxy groups and militia operations that threaten Americans.
In January 2024, a drone attack hit Tower 22 in Jordan, killing three U.S. service members and wounding 47 others. From October 2023 to June 2025, Iran-backed militias have launched over 216 attacks against U.S. forces, primarily targeting bases in Syria and Iraq using hundreds of drones and missiles. Since then there have been many more of these attacks that have resulted in dozens of injuries. When the Houthis disrupt maritime traffic, Americans feel it at the pump, in prices, and in the cost of keeping sea lanes open.
Defense has its place, but it also turns the U.S. into a permanent goalie. Iran gets to take shot after shot. Iran's proxy system has killed Americans. Iran's leaders talk openly about striking U.S. bases. Iran's networks fund and arm groups that force the U.S. to patrol the world. Iran's influence operations aim to widen cracks inside American society.
America First calls for a policy that protects Americans with discipline and force where it counts. That can mean a direct campaign against the IRGC. That can mean a step-by-step strategy that fractures the Iranian regime's instruments of control and terror. Either way, the doctrine has to meet the reality in front of it. (Jerusalem Post)
Gaza
- Congresswoman Tells Munich Security Conference Israel "Enabled a Genocide in Gaza," Sparks Outrage - Benjamin Weinthal
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) alleged at the Munich Security Conference on Friday that U.S. aid
"enabled a genocide in Gaza" by Israel. In Dec. 2024, Germany joined the U.S. in rejecting allegations that Israel committed genocide in Gaza.
Tom Gross, an expert on international affairs, told Fox News that "AOC has flown all the way to Munich - infamous as the city in which Hitler staged his Nazi Beer Hall Putsch that marked the beginning of the road to the Holocaust - in order to smear the Jewish people further with a phony genocide allegation. Such preposterous allegations of 'genocide' form the bedrock of modern antisemitic incitement against Jews in the U.S. and globally."
Danny Orbach, a military historian from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said the accusation "is incorrect both factually and legally. Under the Genocide Convention, genocide requires proof of a special intent to destroy a protected group, in whole or in part, and as a baseline condition, an active effort to maximize civilian destruction. The evidence shows the opposite....Israel undertook unprecedented measures to mitigate civilian harm, including establishing humanitarian safe zones that independently verified data show were approximately six times safer than other areas of Gaza."
"Israel also issued detailed advance warnings before strikes and facilitated the entry of over two million tons of humanitarian aid, often at significant cost to its own military advantage, including the loss of surprise and the sustainment of an enemy during wartime."
"These measures were taken despite Hamas's Oct. 7 massacre, its systematic use of human shields and hospitals for military purposes, and a tunnel network exceeding 1,000 km. - an operational challenge without historical precedent. Finally, no credible evidence demonstrates the kind of unambiguous, exclusive genocidal intent toward Palestinians that international law requires and that cannot be reasonably interpreted otherwise." (Fox News)
Palestinian Arabs
- The Palestinians' Big Lie about the Al-Aqsa Mosque - Khaled Abu Toameh
Hamas has repeatedly justified its Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of Israel by arguing that it was seeking to defend the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest shrine in Islam. Hamas even named the attack "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood." Yet two years later, the Al-Aqsa Mosque remains intact, as tens of thousands of Muslims continue to visit it and pray there without being harassed. This shows that Hamas's claim that the Jews are desecrating the mosque is another big lie produced by the terror group and its supporters.
It is worth noting that Jews do have a right to visit the Temple Mount, primarily because it is also the holiest site in Judaism, where the First and Second Temples once stood. Non-Muslims, including Jews and Christians, regularly tour outdoors on the grounds of the Temple Mount. But in recent years, Hamas and other Palestinians have been waging a campaign to protest visits by Jews to the Temple Mount.
In 2000, the Palestinians baselessly accused Israel of planning to desecrate the mosque and seize control of it. These false allegations led to the eruption of the Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada (2000-2005). Thousands of Israelis and Palestinians were killed during the violence, which included a massive wave of suicide bombings in major Israeli cities.
In 2015, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said: "The Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher are ours. They are all ours, and they [Jews] have no right to defile them with their filthy feet."
Jews touring the Temple Mount compound, like other non-Muslim tourists, do not set foot inside the mosque. This has not stopped Palestinian officials and media from regurgitating the lie that the Jews are "violently storming and defiling" the mosque. (Gatestone Institute)
See also The "Al-Aksa Is in Danger" Libel: The History of a Lie - Nadav Shragai (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
Israel and the West
- U.S. National Book Award Winner Encapsulates Everything that Is Wrong with Western Political Culture - Irina Velitskaya
Omar El Akkad's new nonfiction book about the Gaza conflict, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, recently won the 2025 U.S. National Book Award. The book encapsulates everything that is wrong with the state of political discourse, intellectual culture, and Western elites who favor feeling good about themselves over civilizational survival. To this day it is the #1 best-selling book on Amazon in the Middle Eastern Politics category.
It argues that if you are not part of the pro-Palestinian movement now, you inevitably will be some day. And if you continue to hold out stubbornly for the right of one tiny Jewish state to exist in a world of 56 Muslim-majority states, then you are on "the wrong side of history."
"This" in the title is not the Oct. 7 massacre, the 18 years of rocket fire from Gaza into Israeli communities that preceded it, nor the stabbings and car rammings and bus bombings of the First and Second Intifadas, nor the massacres of Persians, Christians, Hindus, Druze, Yazidi, Alawites, Jews, African animists, and other minorities by radical Islamist groups currently taking place worldwide. No, it is solely Israel's war against Hamas and other Iranian-backed terror groups.
El Akkad has chosen precisely the wrong target for the performative denunciations that he wants people to engage in today: the only fully free and democratic state in the entire Middle East; the only one with full civil liberties and comprehensive human rights laws and institutions; the one state where the Christian population is growing; the one state where Jews are safe and well-protected; and the one state with more religious freedom for all sects of Islam than any other country in the region.
In El Akkad's telling, Palestinians are being punished "merely for their electoral choices" (the election of Hamas) and not because of decades of rocket fire and suicide bombings and massacres, which are themselves a form of "collective punishment" directed against the Jews and Arabs of Israel.
I do concur with his statement in the book's final paragraph that "none of this evil was ever necessary," but believe firmly that the "unnecessary evil" was that of the Palestinians who could have had a free and independent state at multiple points after the end of the Ottoman Empire if that had been what they really wanted, rather than the mass murder and ethnic cleansing of the Jews from their ancestral homeland. (Times of Israel)
Antisemitism
- More Education Will Not Fix Politically-Based Antisemitism - David Bernstein
The antisemitic hostility we're seeing today in K-12 schools has very little to do with education and everything to do with power. Antisemitism in schools is rising because many of our school systems have been captured by radical actors who promote ideological frameworks that cast Jews, Israel, and the West as villains within an oppressor/oppressed morality play. You can't teach it away.
Over the last decade, activist ideologies rooted in power and identity have permeated colleges of education, teacher unions, state bureaucracies, curriculum providers, and school boards. The result is a self-reinforcing ecosystem that replaces academic instruction with political activism. Once installed, this worldview distorts American history, suppresses dissent, and normalizes hostility toward Jews.
Within this ideological frame, Jews are often portrayed as "privileged" or "colonizers" or stand-ins for oppressive systems. Israel becomes a "settler-colonial" regime. Zionism becomes racism. And Jewish students find themselves recast in roles they never auditioned for.
Schools of education teach future teachers that their primary job is to raise political consciousness.
Teacher unions adopt social-justice programs that encourage educators to see themselves first as activists and second as instructors. School boards adopt curricula shaped by these ideas or are taken over by factions explicitly seeking to embed them.
Adding more education about antisemitism will not fix the problem. In fact, it can actually increase hostility toward Jews, because the information is filtered back through the very ideological lens that produced the prejudice to begin with.
The Jewish community's traditional playbook, such as Holocaust lessons, anti-bias workshops, and cultural programs, treat antisemitism as a misunderstanding, but today's antisemitism is a feature, not a glitch, of an ideological system that sees the West as malevolent and Jews as its beneficiaries. You cannot appease an ideology that insists your existence is oppressive. We must abandon the fantasy that we can educate our way out of a problem birthed by political extremists.
The writer is the Founder and CEO of the North American Values Institute.
(Los Angeles Jewish Journal)
Observations:
- No one knows what is in President Donald Trump's head, and that is by design. Revealing his strategy would forfeit leverage, eliminate surprise, and weaken negotiations before they even begin. Strategic ambiguity is not confusion. It is strength.
- Many predicted he would strike Iran quickly. I did not. Weeks ago, I wrote that he would first test whether diplomacy could work - real diplomacy, aimed at real results. Not another paper promise that looks good in headlines and collapses in practice. The last deal [in 2015] merely kicked the nuclear threat down the road and gave the Iranian regime space to cheat.
- Trump wants an agreement that eliminates the nuclear threat - one that is verifiable, enforceable and immediate. One that addresses Iran's growing missile capabilities and regional aggression.
- Trump understands that the first victims of the Iranian regime are the Iranian people themselves.
They live under crushing sanctions imposed because of their leaders' warmongering, repression and extremism. They suffer for ambitions they did not choose. At the same time, the threat to Israel and to America's Arab allies remains real and, if left unchecked, will only grow far more dangerous.
- Trump seeks peace and prosperity. That is what drives him. He is, at heart, a dealmaker. Leaders across the region share a clear-eyed understanding of Iran's threat. Trump has rebuilt American strength and is unafraid to use it. He negotiates from power, not apology. Over 23 years, I watched him close deals so-called experts dismissed as fantasy. He does not accept conventional limits.
- No one should fault him for exhausting every peaceful option before choosing the hard path. Trying to prevent war does not make him weak or naive or indecisive. It means he is doing his job. If there is a responsible way to avoid war, a president must pursue it. That does not mean Trump is being played. He recognizes deception. He senses bad faith. If negotiations become a charade, he will know. Quickly.
- If he ultimately concludes that force is necessary - or that supporting Israel in war is unavoidable - he will do so knowing he explored every alternative.
The writer served for three years as the White House Middle East envoy in the first Trump administration.
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