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Jerusalem Center for Security
and Foreign Affairs
DAILY ALERT
Tuesday,
September 15, 2026
In-Depth Issues:

U.S., Saudi Arabia Prepare to Expand Hormuz Shipping Route - Danny Zaken (Israel Hayom)
    The U.S. and Saudi Arabia intend to expand the southern shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz to overcome the Houthis' closure of the Bab al-Mandeb strait.
    The U.S. Navy has managed to facilitate the passage of 10 tankers a day.
    The Saudis have stopped moving oil from wells and refineries on the eastern coast to the western port of Yanbu following attacks on the East-West oil pipeline.
    At President Trump's direction, the Americans are determined to prevent a more significant rise in oil prices and are expected to use military force against Iranian strike capabilities in the Strait of Hormuz if necessary.
    A senior Israeli security official said intelligence and visual material from all countries participating in the CENTCOM joint operations center, including Israel, is distributed to all the partners, including Saudi Arabia.


"Fauda" Depicts Oct. 7 Massacre - Raz Shechnik (Ynet News)
    The fifth season of the Israeli hit series "Fauda," released globally on Netflix, ranked fourth worldwide on Sep. 10.
    "Fauda" ranked No. 1 in Lebanon, No. 2 in Jordan, the UAE and Bahrain, No. 3 in Qatar, Oman and Kuwait, No. 4 in Egypt, No. 5 in Morocco, and No. 9 in Saudi Arabia.
    Episodes 7 and 8 deal directly with the events of the Oct. 7 massacre, triggering intensely emotional reactions from viewers around the world.
    One non-Israeli viewer wrote: "Honestly, I couldn't speak for the entire two episodes and for a while afterward. Everything felt far too real. No Hollywood production comes close to this."
    "Fauda" co-creator Avi Issacharoff said the goal was to bring an experience deeply familiar to Israelis to audiences abroad.
    "Our hope was to bring the entire world a story that burned inside us and inside every Israeli who experienced Oct. 7."

    See also "Fauda's" Important Message - Ayelet Razin Bet Or (Ynet News)
    The fifth season of "Fauda" was written in the wake of Oct. 7 and the trauma of that day runs through it.
    Since Oct. 7, we have been trying to explain to the world what it means to live in communities just minutes from a border, to have someone break into your home, to hear an air-raid siren, to have a child who knows where the safe room is.
    From the outside, Israel is perceived as powerful. But that image misses a deeper layer of the Israeli experience.
    Short borders. A home that can be breached. A small country where war can reach the living room, the highway, an outdoor music festival and a child's bedroom.
    For many Israelis, that day was a chilling reminder that beneath the military strength lies an existential fear that home will not be safe.
    They live with the sense that their country's existence cannot be taken for granted.
    This is where "Fauda" breaks through. It takes the viewer behind the image of power to a society trying to protect a small and vulnerable space in which to live.
    When Israelis talk about security, they are also talking about their homes, their children, and the question of whether we will still be here tomorrow.


IDF Rejects Allegations of Award-Winning Documentary at Venice Film Festival (X-IDF-Israel Hayom)
    The IDF on Monday issued a forceful rejection of allegations presented in the documentary film "NAZA," which secured a special award at the Venice Film Festival.
    It said the accusations of intentional harm to Palestinian civilians was entirely baseless and built on unsubstantiated testimonies.
    "The IDF has never planned, approved, or carried out a strike in Gaza in which 500 civilians or anything near that number were anticipated to be killed....The filmmakers couldn't possibly verify this claim, there is no real supporting evidence, and yet they published it anyway."

    See also IDF: Anti-Israel Film Is Based on "Deliberate Distortions" - Elisha Ben Kimon (Ynet News)
    IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir said Monday that the film "NAZA" "is based on blood libels, deliberate distortions of reality, and grave, false accusations against IDF soldiers and commanders."
    "This is an attack on the State of Israel, not only on the IDF. It adopts the narratives of those who hate Israel, it defames our soldiers and commanders, and seeks to portray the IDF as deliberately acting unlawfully."
    "This is a dangerous attempt to deny us the legitimacy to defend ourselves against the worst of our enemies - and, in doing so, to place IDF soldiers and commanders at genuine risk."
    Zamir said the military operates in accordance with international law, its ethical code and values, and is at the forefront of efforts to mitigate harm to uninvolved civilians.

    See also IDF Targeting Decisions Made by Highly-Trained Human Operatives, Not AI - Yonah Jeremy Bob (Jerusalem Post)
    There are highly- trained air force operations and legal military officials involved in IDF targeting decisions, despite claims by the "NAZA" film that the military has given over its discretion to artificial intelligence (AI).
    The IDF says the film ignores Hamas and all of the massive efforts the IDF took during the war to evacuate civilians and to call off legally valid attacks because the IDF wanted to avoid harming civilians.
    In some cases, the air force even redirected missiles away from hitting Hamas terrorists after firing them, when civilians unexpectedly appeared close to the strike zone.


Poll: 3/4 of Israeli Jews Oppose a Palestinian State (Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs)
    75% of Israeli Jews oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state along the 1967 lines, according to a poll conducted Sep. 2-4, 2026, for the Jerusalem Center by Lazar Research.
    86% of Israeli Jews were concerned about an attack similar to Oct. 7 originating from the West Bank.
    80% of Israeli Jews support Israel maintaining a military buffer zone inside Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria.
    While the world debates the establishment of a Palestinian state, the Israeli public is focused on the opposite question: whether the West Bank will become the next front.
    A diplomatic plan that does not address this question will not win public support.


Former Hostage Omer Shem Tov Describes 505 Days in Hamas Captivity - Sherry Makover Balikov (Jerusalem Post)
    Former hostage Omer Shem Tov described the prolonged loneliness, intense hunger, and physical abuse he endured during 505 days in Hamas captivity, in a recent interview with Maariv.
    Shem Tov was abducted from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023, and released in Feb. 2025. His book, Meeting Myself in Hell, was published in August.
    He recounted spending 50 days isolated and in complete darkness in a cell so small that he could not stand upright.
    Today, the sounds of fighter jets, fireworks, and loud explosions can trigger intense emotional memories of Gaza.
    "It bothers me when people tell me I'm a hero," Shem Tov said. "I don't think I'm a hero. This was a reality that was forced on me. The soldiers are heroes, the reservists, everyone who fought for me."


In Iran, the Gallows Keep Working - Sogand Fakheri (Iran International)
    Iran Human Rights recorded 532 executions in the first eight months of 2026, including 82 in August, after 1,639 executions in 2025.
    The Revolutionary Court in Isfahan recently sentenced ten people arrested following the January protests to death, the latest names added to a much larger campaign.
    The charges include "waging war against God," as well as destruction of public property, assembly and collusion, and propaganda against the state.
    Political defendants are being placed inside a system of capital punishment already operating at extraordinary speed.
    The writer is an Iran analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.


New York Times' Blatant Bias Against Israel Exposed - Dean Brandstetter (Israel Hayom)
    A new academic study has concluded that the New York Times' reporting on the war in Gaza since the Oct. 7 massacre has displayed a severe and persistent bias against Israel, obscuring Hamas's responsibility for the continuing conflict and largely overlooking Israeli casualties.
    The study, conducted by Yale School of Management Prof. Edieal Pinker and published in the academic journal Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, closely examined 1,559 articles published between Oct. 7, 2023, and June 7, 2024.
    Personal accounts of Palestinian suffering appeared on average two out of every three days. Comparable accounts of the suffering of Israeli civilians and soldiers were rarely given similar prominence.
    The Times' coverage produced a distorted narrative in which Israel appeared to be the "sole aggressor," while Palestinians were portrayed as "passive victims," with insufficient attention paid to continuing terrorist attacks or rocket fire.

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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
  • Iran Is Producing Ballistic Missiles Again - Anat Peled
    Tehran is assembling stockpiled components into missiles in underground facilities, U.S. and Middle East officials said. Intelligence points to activity at several underground sites, including the Khojir missile facility in southeastern Iran.
        Iran is mainly assembling the new missiles from existing components in more limited quantities than before the war. Tehran was believed to have the ability to assemble at least a couple of hundred missiles from components it had on hand, a U.S. official said.
        The U.S. and Israel damaged a number of industrial facilities needed to produce missile components and missiles themselves, and the naval blockade has complicated imports of parts and ingredients for solid fuel. Yet Tal Inbar, a senior analyst at the U.S.-based Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, assessed that Iran still has thousands of ballistic missiles in its arsenal. (Wall Street Journal)
  • Iranian Official Dismisses Talks with U.S. unless It Accepts All of Tehran's Demands
    Ebrahim Azizi, chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said Friday, "As long as the American side does not accept all of Iran's conditions, dialogue and negotiation are of no use....No negotiations. Until Iran's terms are met, talks are futile."  (Turkey Today)
  • Hizbullah Fired Banned Cluster Munitions at Israeli Civilians
    Hizbullah unlawfully fired widely banned cluster munitions into Metula in northern Israel on March 4 and 15, 2026, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.
        "Cluster munitions should not be used under any circumstances, and their use may amount to a war crime," said Patrick Thompson, an arms researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Not only are they inherently indiscriminate, but unexploded submunitions can kill and injure civilians long after hostilities conclude."
        Hizbullah also fired unguided rockets into populated areas in Israel, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The use of these weapons, which cannot distinguish between military objectives and civilians and civilian objects, is unlawfully indiscriminate and is in violation of the laws of war. (Human Rights Watch)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
  • IDF Destroys Hizbullah Tunnels on Ali Taher Ridge
    The IDF on Thursday destroyed Hizbullah's underground infrastructure on the Ali Taher Ridge in southern Lebanon, destroying 5.4 km. of underground routes after establishing operational control over the ridge both above and below ground.
        The operation followed extensive preparations and was carried out to "definitively neutralize Hizbullah's ability to use this infrastructure to plan and carry out terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers." Dozens of Iranian-made rockets, missiles and UAVs were found inside, along with machine guns, dozens of anti-tank missiles, and hundreds of mines and explosive devices. (Ynet News)
        See also How Israel Took Apart Hizbullah's Underground Fortress - Elisha Ben Kimon
    The IDF says it has reduced Hizbullah's heavily fortified strategic command center on the Ali Taher ridge to a "sandbox," with blasts that registered as a magnitude 4.1 seismic event. (Ynet News)
  • IDF: "Lebanese Army Is Afraid to Move Against Hizbullah" - Amir Bohbot
    The IDF believes Lebanon has not taken sufficient action against Hizbullah's military infrastructure. "They are going around in circles," a senior Israeli official said Sunday. "The Lebanese army is very afraid to move against Hizbullah, collect weapons, destroy infrastructure, which is what is actually expected of it. They are dealing with cosmetics when it comes to Hizbullah. They are not addressing its roots in southern Lebanon and are leaving the work to the IDF or to time, hoping that the fall of the regime in Tehran will lead to a domino effect."
        Concern about returning to civil war has deterred Lebanese authorities from taking broader action against Hizbullah. At the same time, Israeli defense officials argue that "This is not the same Hizbullah from the era of Nasrallah. It is not the same organization that controlled every sphere in Lebanon, and therefore the situation must be taken advantage of."
        Walla reported that mayors and local council heads in southern Lebanon have recently begun approaching Hizbullah, demanding that the organization remove weapons stored within their jurisdictions. They have also blocked Hizbullah activity due to concerns that the IDF could strike the buildings. (Jerusalem Post)
  • IDF Kills Five Hamas Terrorists in Gaza - Avi Ashkenazi
    The IDF continued its counterterrorism operations across Gaza on Monday with five targeted strikes on Hamas terrorists. At least five terrorists serving in command and force-building positions were killed throughout the day.
        The IDF and Israel Security Agency have intensified counterterrorism operations against Hamas in Gaza in recent weeks, targeting officials involved in rebuilding the group and restoring its military capabilities.
        The ISA's Nili unit is working on tracking and killing Hamas members who participated in the Oct. 7 massacre. The Air Force has struck 20 weapons production and storage facilities in the past two weeks. (Jerusalem Post)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:

    Iran

  • Israel Can Rescue Saudi Arabia from the Iranian Trap - Oded Ailam
    Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, requested a direct American strike against the Houthis after Houthi missiles and drones struck southern Saudi Arabia, setting oil facilities and infrastructure ablaze. At the same time, the Houthis made their most significant territorial gain in years as they advanced toward positions that control access to the Bab al-Mandab chokepoint between Yemen and Africa.
        Iran supplied weapons, advice, and guidance that helped facilitate the operation. The U.S. said it would increase defensive assistance but would not join the offensive campaign Riyadh had requested.
        In August, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan signed the "Mecca Mutual Defense Agreement," stipulating that an attack on any one of the three countries will be considered an attack on all of them. But in Riyadh's hour of need, Pakistan and Turkey offered little more than diplomatic statements.
        Israel can offer Saudi Arabia early warning, air defense, real-time intelligence, electronic warfare, launcher detection, protection of oil facilities and ports, security for shipping routes, and, if necessary, active participation in containing the Houthi threat. An alliance between the two countries would be based on an understanding that the same enemy threatens them with the same missiles from the same shores.
        The current crisis may be that rare moment when Israeli interests, Saudi anxiety, and the Iranian threat converge at a single point. Israel should now offer bin Salman what none of his allies can provide in full: intelligence built under fire, battle-tested defense systems, and the ability to reach the Yemeni coast. In return, it should demand an open, signed, and immediate Israeli-Saudi peace agreement.
        The writer, former head of the Counterterrorism Division in the Mossad, is a researcher at the Jerusalem Center.  (Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs)
        See also Israel Provided Saudi Arabia with Intelligence Assistance after Houthi Attacks - Amir Bohbot
    Israel and Saudi Arabia held talks mediated by U.S. Central Command aimed at helping Riyadh defend itself against the Houthi military through intelligence assistance, Walla reported on Tuesday. (Jerusalem Post)
  • Has Israel Blocked Iran from Getting Nukes? - Yonah Jeremy Bob
    IDF Military Intelligence provided the intelligence for well over 90% of Israeli strikes on Iran. The Jerusalem Post has learned that Iran currently has no centrifuges enriching uranium, all or most of its more enriched uranium is not yet easily accessible, and most of its nuclear facilities were destroyed or forced out of operation by the 2025-2026 strikes.
        There has been no period of time where enrichment was brought down to zero. For decades, its facilities expanded. While operations attributed to the Mossad managed to take one or more facilities offline for temporary periods, at no point was the whole active program broken or shuttered.
        However, a not insignificant number of centrifuges survived deep underground. Multiple sources have expressed concern that even if only a few hundred advanced IR-6 centrifuges (for enriching uranium) can be salvaged and hooked up again, that could be enough to secretly weaponize enough uranium for a bomb.
        Also, multiple sources are worried that the Iranians could clandestinely dig to extract their more-enriched uranium from under rubble and underground in a way that sidesteps U.S. and other surveillance.
        One of the highest priorities of the Israeli attacks on Iran's nuclear sites was hitting the facilities for converting enriched uranium into uranium metal and into hemispheres for use on a nuclear warhead. Without these and other items, even large quantities of weaponized uranium will do Iran no good, because it will not be able to deliver the uranium 1,000 km. away in Israeli territory. So far, the regime has not made any serious progress on rebuilding such weapons facilities. (Jerusalem Post)
  • Why President Trump Is Right on the Iran War - Steven Calabresi
    Iran has been a mortal enemy of the U.S. in the 47 years since its Islamic Revolution of 1979. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini began his theocratic dictatorship by imprisoning 52 Americans including the U.S. Ambassador to Iran from Nov. 4, 1979, until Jan. 20, 1981. Ayatollah Khomeini repeatedly led crowds in chants of "Death to America," which he called the "Great Satan" - chants that have been made repeatedly down to the present day by Khomeini's successors.
        There is an appreciable and unacceptable possibility that if Iran had a nuclear bomb, it would first use it on Israel and then on the U.S. Six U.S. Presidents since 1979 have done nothing meaningful to curtail Iran's ambition to destroy the U.S. None have treated Iran as the mortal and dangerous enemy that it is. Iran wants to destroy the U.S. and all that it stands for. It is a revolutionary theocracy that wants to pave the way to an entirely Shiite Islamic world.
        Some Americans naively think that Iran can be bought off if we would just abandon our alliance with Israel. But President Trump knows that Iran is committed to regime change in the U.S. and he bravely chose to go to war in an intelligent way in which American casualties would be very limited.
        At the moment, opponents of the war have persuaded 60% of Americans to oppose U.S. involvement in the Iran War even though (1) Iran is an even more mortal enemy of the U.S. than are China and Russia, (2) it is only a matter of time before Iran's resistance collapses, (3) our armed forces are at very little risk and have suffered very few casualties, and (4) 80% of the Iranian people hate their own government.
        The writer is Professor of Law at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.  (Reason)


    • Israeli Security

  • How the IDF's Defense Concept Changed after Oct. 7 - Elisha Ben Kimon
    The painful lessons of the Oct. 7 attacks have led to a comprehensive shift in thinking across the IDF. Under the current operational doctrine, air, naval and ground forces are viewed as full partners in the mission of defending Israel's borders. In an intensive series of exercises conducted recently, IDF forces practiced extreme scenarios involving multiple simultaneous fronts.
        These scenarios included large-scale ground raids, maritime infiltrations using jet skis and unmanned vessels, heavy indirect fire, and threats from UAVs. The principal scenario guiding division commanders is based on full readiness to provide an immediate response in the event of a large-scale surprise, with particular attention paid to close protection of civilian areas.
        At the heart of the Air Force's new doctrine is actively employing critical air power from the first hour of an unfolding event. A framework has been established to allow the Air Force to act immediately to halt an invasion and "freeze the situation." The use of heavy fire to disrupt an attack, the rapid arrival of a critical mass of aircraft and a dramatic shortening of response times are now central elements of this response.
        The modern defense doctrine also calls for pushing threats farther away from population centers and creating a forward security zone inside enemy territory. The IDF says it can no longer accept a reality in which enemy forces or thousands of terrorists are entrenched within a short drive of Israeli civilians and communities. (Ynet News)


    • Israel and the West

  • It Is an Outrageous Inversion of Reality to Blame Israel for Gaza's Humanitarian Catastrophe rather than Hamas - Melanie Phillips
    UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has defined the values of the Labour Party as the promotion of lies, defamation and Jew-hate. It is an outrageous inversion of reality to blame Israel for Gaza's humanitarian catastrophe rather than Hamas, which used civilians as cannon fodder while Israel went to unprecedented lengths to supply them with aid that Hamas then stole.
        The half million Jews living in Judea and Samaria are under constant attack by local Arabs. Rocks are thrown at Israelis in their cars; Jewish farmers are having their fields torched and their flocks stolen. Over the years, dozens of Israelis in these areas have been murdered. None of this is reported in Britain.
        The charge that the Jews are perpetrating ethnic cleansing of the Arabs is grotesque. In fact, it's the Burnham government that's demanding the ethnic cleansing of every Jew from their own land to create a fantasy state of Palestine that wouldn't have a single Jew in it.
        By cementing the image of Israel as uniquely evil, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband will further galvanize the Islamists, already delirious that their campaign to reframe Israel in the Western mind as the worst country in the world has succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Miliband defamed Israel and laid out how it would be punished for the crime of refusing to commit suicide.
        It would never occur to Miliband to sanction Palestinian leaders for tyrannizing Palestinian Arab dissidents, supporting and rewarding terrorists, and teaching their community's children that their highest calling is to murder Jews and steal their land.
        The writer is a columnist for The Times-UK. (JNS)
  • The Bottomless Demand for Stories of Israel's Malevolence - Becket Adams
    Demand for stories about Jewish malevolence far outstrips any impulse toward nuance. Just last week, Al Jazeera accused Israel not only of destroying the shade in Gaza but of "decreasing the amount of oxygen" in the region during a news report on Palestinian Arabs' complaints about the summer weather. For context, the August daily highs in Gaza were in the same range as those in Miami.
        Recall last year's rash of viral videos that purported to show starving Gazans withering in blizzard conditions: Arab women crawling through snowbanks and begging for food, children with frostbitten faces, snow-covered tents. Never mind that Gaza lies on the Mediterranean, where blizzards are virtually unknown. The videos, which racked up hundreds of thousands of views, were obvious fabrications.
        UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese claimed that the Gaza death toll included 380,000 "infants under five." The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics estimated that Gaza's total under-five population was 341,790. In November 2023, UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths called the situation in Gaza worse than the Khmer Rouge's killing fields. For context, the Khmer Rouge murdered 1.7-2 million Cambodians.
        CNN's Christiane Amanpour claimed that the Israeli hostages were "probably treated better than the average Gazan." UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher warned in May 2025 that 14,000 babies in Gaza would die in the ensuing 48 hours. Don't forget the accusations of organ harvesting, air-dropped poison candy, and the deliberate infection of Palestinian children with HIV. (National Review)


    • Palestinian Arabs

  • Palestinians Deserve the Dignity of Accountability - Aviva Klompas
    There is a curious double standard at the heart of Canada's policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel is treated as a country whose leaders make choices and must live with their consequences. Palestinians are treated as a people to whom history happens.
        The diplomatic dogma remains overwhelmingly focused on what everyone else should do for Palestinians. Israel should change its policies and tactics. Washington should exert more pressure on Israel. Western governments should recognize Palestine. What, precisely, are Palestinian leaders expected to do? Expecting nothing is paternalism.
        If Palestinians are entitled to sovereignty, as the Canadian government believes, then Palestinian leaders should be responsible for building the institutions that make sovereignty viable. They should be responsible for whether their people vote, whether public money rewards violence, whether schools prepare children for co-existence and whether their political culture treats negotiation and compromise as diplomacy or betrayal.
        Foreign governments cannot manufacture a viable Palestinian state by removing the expectations placed on the people who would govern it. Ottawa granted one of the Palestinians' most important diplomatic objectives before the reforms it deemed essential to statehood had been adopted. The message was that Palestinian leaders could receive the benefits of statehood before demonstrating their willingness or ability to assume its responsibilities.
        The international community speaks about Palestinian dignity and self-determination. But treating Palestinians with dignity means recognizing they are not victims of forces beyond their control, but a people whose leaders make choices about war and peace, democracy and authoritarianism, education and incitement.
        Nor should Hamas's continued armed presence in Gaza be treated as an unfortunate fact that everyone else must accommodate. Its leaders made choices, its members committed atrocities, and its continued brutality carries consequences for the society in which it operates.
        The writer, speechwriter for former Israeli UN Ambassador Ron Prosor (2013-15), is CEO and cofounder of Boundless, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting antisemitism.  (National Post-Canada)
  • The Truth about Palestinians' Eternal Victimhood - Nicole Lampert
    UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham lauded himself for standing up for "the underdog" Palestinians with his sanctions against Israel. The only reason Palestinians have always been the ultimate victims is that their enemies are the Jews. As such they are granted special status never seen before in world history.
        It is demanded that we ignore that Palestinians frequently start wars and then cry when they are attacked in response. When they lose wars, unlike any others who have been defeated in history, they still demand the land they once had and the world nods its head. When our Government demands that Israel must be punished for imperiling the two-state solution, the many refusals of the Palestinian leadership to agree to successive iterations of this plan are ignored.
        The fact that the Palestinians were given a pseudo-state in Gaza - which could have become a peaceful haven to show the world they no longer intended to destroy the Jewish nation - and used it only to launch their latest war, is deemed, somehow, not relevant. In this screwed-up narrative, the Palestinians can't ever be regarded as the aggressor, even when they are murdering, raping and beheading innocent civilians. (Telegraph-UK)


    • United Nations

  • The UN Has Drifted beyond Its Charter. It's Time to Rethink It - Amb. Alan Baker
    The United Nations, established in 1945 on the heels of the Second World War, has, over the years, evolved into an institution in which geographical and political blocs frequently outweigh the universal objectives of the Charter. Instead of serving as a universal forum dedicated to international peace and security, many of its deliberative bodies have become arenas for ideological competition, regional alliances, and partisan political bargaining.
        General Assembly resolutions often seek to establish political and legal narratives extending beyond the Charter's purposes. This raises questions about the organization's credibility as a moral authority. The volume and frequency of such resolutions have fueled perceptions that political majorities, rather than consistent legal and moral standards, increasingly drive UN decision-making and functioning.
        The challenge confronting the UN is one of legitimacy. Universal membership, intended to enhance its authority, ironically has increasingly become a source of paralysis and politicization. Democratic constitutional states frequently find themselves numerically outweighed by governments that neither practice democratic accountability nor consistently uphold the principles proclaimed in the Charter.
        After more than eighty years, it is appropriate to ask whether the UN has gradually become something its founders never intended: an overly politicized institution whose political authority increasingly exceeds its constitutional foundation, and where narrow political interests dictate its actions and undermine its effectiveness.
        The writer, former legal officer in the UN's Office of Legal Affairs and legal adviser to the Israel Foreign Ministry, heads the international law program at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.  (Jerusalem Report)


    • International Court of Justice

  • The ICJ's Pernicious Plan to Redefine Genocide - Orde F. Kittrie and Andres B. Munoz-Mosquera
    The Trump administration is working to dismantle the International Criminal Court. But a different tribunal, the International Court of Justice, could become a greater threat to the security of the U.S. and its allies. The ICJ is deciding a case, Gambia vs. Myanmar, that could drastically lower the legal threshold for genocide. This would pave the way for a genocide finding in South Africa's pending case against Israel. The lower threshold would also unleash genocide claims against the U.S.
        The Genocide Convention requires proof of "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such." The ICJ is being urged to replace that clear, high standard with a vague, politically malleable one: a range of "facts and circumstances" assessed "comprehensively and holistically." Adopting a standard inconsistent with the Genocide Convention would transform the ICJ into a legislative body rewriting the treaty.
        Lowering the threshold is unnecessary to find Myanmar committed genocide. Myanmar's forces reportedly perpetrated repeated mass executions of Rohingya civilians, including dozens of children, lining them up and shooting or hacking them to death. In this case, genocidal intent is the only reasonable inference.
        This differs factually and legally from civilian deaths incidentally caused by Israeli strikes targeting Hamas fighters, particularly given Israel's precautions and Hamas's documented use of human shields.
        Mr. Kittrie, a law professor at Arizona State University, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Munoz-Mosquera served as chief legal adviser to the NATO supreme allied commander, 2014-25.  (Wall Street Journal)
        See also If the International Court of Justice Lowers the Threshold for Genocide to Smear Israel, It Will Backfire - Editorial
    While the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutes individuals, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) adjudicates disputes between states. For each court, the temptation has been to expand its authority to pile on Israel. The ICJ is looking to use the case of Myanmar's attacks on the Rohingya minority to redefine genocide in preparation for South Africa v. Israel.
        In Gaza, where Hamas built 400 miles of tunnels beneath cities, taxed and stole aid, and did everything to endanger its own civilians, genocide is far from the only reasonable inference from the war's casualties. The more reasonable inference is that Israel fought a defensive war against Hamas in the most difficult urban conditions ever seen, a war it stopped when Hamas released the hostages.
        "Lowering the genocide threshold would transform genocide from a narrowly defined legal crime into an expansive vehicle for litigating the conduct of states at war," said Andres Munoz-Mosquera, chief legal adviser to the NATO Supreme Allied Commander, 2014-25. "A new and malleable standard could become a precedent through which virtually any military campaign involving substantial civilian casualties is recast as a genocide claim." He sees it being used by dictatorships and rogue states to handcuff Western democracies. (Wall Street Journal)
Observations:

You Cannot Occupy Your Own History - Sabine Sterk (Times of Israel)
  • There is something profoundly strange about watching the world debate whether Jews belong in Hebron and Jerusalem. Centuries before Islam existed, Jerusalem and Hebron were embedded in Jewish history, religion, memory and national identity. Jewish attachment to Hebron did not suddenly appear in 1967. The Hebrew Bible identifies Hebron with Abraham and the purchase of the Cave of Machpelah as a family burial place. It later describes Hebron as the place where David ruled before establishing Jerusalem as his capital.
  • Jewish communities existed in Hebron under Muslim and Ottoman rule. In the 19th and early 20th centuries there was an established Jewish community with synagogues, religious institutions and property. Then came 1929 - 19 years before Israel's independence. During the Hebron massacre that year, 67 Jews were murdered and the ancient Jewish community was shattered. Survivors were evacuated by the British. Yet their eventual return is frequently presented as though foreigners had suddenly discovered an unrelated Arab city.
  • Jerusalem stands at the center of Jewish civilization. It was the location of the First and Second Temples. Over 2,000 years of dispersion, Jews continued to pray toward Jerusalem and incorporated the city into prayers, mourning rituals, festivals and the Passover declaration of hope for a return to Jerusalem. Zionism inherited Jerusalem from Jewish civilization.
  • Muslims also possess genuine religious connections to Jerusalem, and Arabs have lived in Jerusalem and Hebron for generations. Recognizing those facts costs me nothing. But acknowledging an Arab or Islamic connection does not require denying the Jewish one. It does not magically delete what came before.
  • Why must recognition of Arab history so often be accompanied by demands that Jewish sovereignty or even Jewish residence be treated as illegitimate? Why can a city be sacred to several peoples until Jewish political rights enter the discussion?
  • No modern "Palestinian" national claim can legitimately require the historical deletion of the Jewish people. That is history with the first chapters deliberately removed. You have to apply the same historical standards to Jews that you would apply to everyone else. Too much of the international conversation begins by demanding that Jews prove they belong there at all.

    The writer is CEO of Netherlands-based NGO Time to Stand Up for Israel.
Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs
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