Spate of Shootings in Toronto Were Likely Paid For by Iran - Jonathon Gatehouse (CBC News)
    A CBC News investigation has pinpointed a dozen politically-motivated gun-for-hire shootings in Toronto that appear to have been financed by the Iranian government.
    The attacks targeted synagogues, a school, and businesses in the Greater Toronto Area, as well as the U.S. Consulate. Many of the shootings came in the hours and days after the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran on Feb. 28.
    No one was injured in the shootings, which bore the hallmarks of gun-for-hire incidents: early morning attacks where suspects arrived via stolen cars and emptied handguns into building entranceways, while they or their accomplices filmed the acts on a phone.
    In recent years, the Iranian government and its intelligence service have been linked to plots and attacks in Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, Australia and the U.S.

U.S. Wants Control of Israeli Technology in Exchange for Aid - Dean Shmuel Elmas (Globes)
    The stumbling block in talks over a new U.S.-Israel defense aid package is not financial support but control of technology.
    The current Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on U.S. military aid to Israel expires in 2028 and Prime Minister Netanyahu has said Israel can no longer rely on U.S. defense assistance in its current form.
    U.S. officials are demanding not merely the sharing of knowledge, but the transfer of Israeli expertise to the U.S., to be managed by the U.S., including patents and joint development programs.
    This is a scenario that Israel cannot accept. It means the erosion of the fundamental technological advantage held by its defense industries in the international market.
    Even after a MOU has been signed, Congress must still approve aid to Israel annually. If the majority shifts to the Democrats in the midterm elections, this may pose a challenge, even with an MOU in place.

Europe's New Financial Transparency Rules Expose Iran's IRGC Networks - Ella Rosenberg (Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs)
    New regulations announced on Oct. 16, 2026, represent a major operational turning point in the EU's counter-proliferation and anti-financial crime architecture.
    Their practical effect is the eradication of the structural ambiguity that sanctioned actors, like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), have historically exploited to penetrate Europe.
    The regulation dismantles the viability of front companies, nominee arrangements, and multi-layered cross-border trusts used to establish European corporate footprints and secure access to banking, payment, and capital market infrastructures.
    The writer is an Iran and financial terrorism expert and a senior research fellow at the Jerusalem Center.

Intel Buys Israeli Quantum Computing Company Classiq for $2.2 Billion - Assaf Gilead (Globes)
    Intel has announced the acquisition of Israeli quantum computing software company Classiq for $2.2 billion. Classiq will become Intel's global development center for quantum computing.
    Since its founding six years ago, Classiq has established itself as the primary standard for quantum operating systems.

How Anti-Zionism Harms Palestinians - Jeremy Havardi (JNS)
    Moderate Palestinians know that you cannot build a Palestinian state by destroying its Jewish neighbor.
    The only viable path to long-term self-determination is a political process that recognizes the legitimacy and permanence of a Jewish state.
    The refusal of anti-Zionist Palestinian leaders to accept offers of statehood from 1937 onwards has condemned the Palestinian people to decades of war, insecurity, poverty and statelessness.
    The BDS movement has also been disastrous for Palestinians. By calling for Israel's destruction, its advocates signal to the Palestinians that they should abandon all attempts at coexistence with their Israeli neighbors because their state will soon disappear.
    This fuels impossible dreams. Naturally, Israel's refusal to bend in the face of such rejectionism only further embitters Palestinians committed to BDS strategy.
    Before Oct. 7, 163,000 Palestinians were employed in Israel and in Judea and Samaria. Their income accounted for 20% of Palestinian GDP, injecting $4 billion into the economy.
    The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics noted that 22.5% of employed Palestinians in Judea and Samaria worked in Israel or in Israeli communities in 2022.
    After Oct. 7, Israel suspended all work permits. While some have been reinstated, more than 100,000 jobs for Palestinians have been lost.
    The writer is director of the B'nai B'rith UK Bureau of International Affairs.

Giving Up the Word "Zionism" - David Hazony (Jewish News of Northern California)
    Should Jews retire the word "Zionism" since it has become a lightning rod of hate?
    Our enemies will persecute us given the chance. They don't play by the rules. They don't use evidence and reason. They are committed to their conspiracy theories, their resentments, their violence and their insatiable need for destruction.
    The demands they place on us right now involve changing who we are - the names we choose for ourselves, our commitment to Israel. That alone should be reason enough to say "no."
    There will be no relief if we give up the word "Zionist." The enemy will not pocket the win and go home. When it comes to antisemitism, every conciliation brings only further demands.
    Zionism was the most important movement of Jewish liberation in thousands of years. It gave us back our homeland, our confidence, our spine.
    To be a Zionist is to assert that Jews not only have rights, but also a home and a future.
    To give up on that, of all words, is to concede the argument - to implicitly endorse the libel that Zionism is a genocidal, colonialist, supremacist belief.
    But the first reason to say we are still Zionists is that it should be a necessary, reflexive response to anyone who wants us to submit to external pressure, as a precursor to pressing us on other things: our identity, our communities.
    That's reason enough to say that, yes, we are Zionists. Look into our eyes. We won't give up the word.
    The writer is director and Steinhardt senior fellow at the Z3 Institute for Jewish Priorities in Palo Alto.

Israel Has What It Takes to Solve the Challenges It Faces - Judah Taub (Jewish News-UK)
    If we define Israel by its problems alone, the picture is gloomy. If we define it by the things it has to work with to solve those problems, the picture changes.
    Start with basic demographics. Israel's fertility rate is double the OECD average. Almost every developed country is planning for a shrinking, aging workforce. Israel is planning for growth.
    On Oct. 7, I was called up to the reserves, where I have led technology teams working on urgent battlefield problems.
    What struck me was how fast people moved. Within days, volunteer networks were outpacing ministries.
    Israelis who had spent the previous year arguing bitterly with one another were standing side by side, building, fixing, and improvising.
    No government can legislate that kind of initiative. Israel has it in abundance.