| DAILY ALERT |
Thursday, July 17, 2025 |
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
Britain, France and Germany have agreed to restore punishing UN sanctions on Iran by the end of August if there is no concrete progress on a deal to limit its nuclear activities, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Tuesday in Brussels. The Europeans are hoping that the prospect of restored multilateral sanctions will persuade Iran to restore its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and renew serious negotiations on restricting or eliminating its ability to enrich uranium. These multilateral sanctions would obligate Iranian allies like Russia and China to at least make a show of respecting them. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said recently that talks with Washington could resume if Tehran had "a firm guarantee" that it would not be attacked again, something that the U.S. or Israel are unlikely to promise. (New York Times) Over 12 days, Iran pierced Israel's defenses with increasing success, showing that even the world's most advanced systems can be penetrated. While most of Iran's missiles and drones were knocked down, Tehran changed tactics and found gaps in Israel's armor through trial and error. Tehran began to launch more advanced and longer-range missiles from a wider range of locations deep inside Iran, according to missile-defense experts. The regime also altered the timing and pattern of attacks and increased the geographic spread of targets. In the first half of the conflict, 8% of Iran's missiles slipped through Israel's defenses. By the second half, 16% got past Israel's interceptors, according to data from the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA). On June 22, two days before the end of the war, 10 out of 27 missiles hit Israel, according to JINSA. During the conflict, the Israeli military said it was intercepting 90-95% of Iran's missiles. After the ceasefire on June 24, the military said it had intercepted 86% overall. "We are both on a learning curve," said Yehoshua Kalisky, a missile-defense expert at Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies. "They're trying to improve their attacks, and we, our defense." (Wall Street Journal) Israel has named 11 nuclear scientists that were eliminated during the 12-day war with Iran. Media reporting has identified several others who died, bringing the total to 19 scientists. The elimination of these nuclear scientists deprived Iran's nuclear weapons program of its most capable and experienced personnel. Recovery may be far more difficult for Iran and take far longer. In an apparent effort to pre-empt recovery and recruitment, Israel threatened a far larger group of scientists during the war via social media, warning them explicitly that death awaits them, and potentially their families, if they work on nuclear weapons. Israel also offered rewards and safety to informants who provide information about secret nuclear activities. Many cite the phrase "knowledge cannot be destroyed." But in Iran's highly secretive nuclear weapons program, fearful of the risk of leaks, it is likely that full knowledge of the most sensitive and most current developments in the program and how individual parts were intended to work together existed only in the heads of a few. (Institute for Science and International Security) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
As of Wednesday afternoon, the IDF had undertaken 160 aerial attacks on Syrian regime forces in and around Sweida in southern Syria, where regime forces are slaughtering Syrian Druze. In addition, the IDF has attacked portions of Syria's Defense Ministry and Presidential Palace in Damascus. IDF sources said Israel is trying to convince Syrian regime forces to withdraw from Sweida and leave the Syrian Druze their autonomy. The IDF said the regime has 200 militia men committing atrocities against the Druze in Sweida, while another 1,000 Syrian army forces have the city surrounded and cut off. The IDF said it will continue to bomb Syrian regime forces to show them the cost of their military actions in Sweida. (Jerusalem Post) See also Over 350 Dead in Fighting in Syrian Druze Region - Lior Ben Ari The fighting has so far claimed more than 350 lives, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. That includes 69 Druze fighters and 40 Druze civilians, 27 of whom were reportedly executed, 165 regime soldiers and 18 Bedouin militia members. (Ynet News) Government forces and allied militias began withdrawing from the mostly Druze city of Sweida in southern Syria on Thursday. Photos of pickup trucks carrying machine guns and troops purportedly leaving were published. However, the Suwayda 24 network said that some pro-government troops remained in southern districts of Sweida, carrying out looting. The main hospital in the city remains captured by the army, with bodies, mostly of members of the Druze community, scattered in the hallways after the morgue became full. Among the deceased were 10 men from the Radwan family, executed by security forces. Sources in Jordan say government forces and allied militias have killed more than 200 Druze, including civilians, since Sunday. (The National-UAE) See also Syria's Sharaa Vows to Protect Druze Rights as Ceasefire Holds (Reuters) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel is operating "against regime gangs" in Syria in light of clashes in southern Syria's Sweida region. "We are working to save our Druze brothers," he said. The fighting began Friday, after armed Bedouins attacked and robbed a young Druze man en route to Damascus. The assault was part of a broader wave of recent kidnappings targeting Druze residents by Bedouin militias. In retaliation, Druze gunmen abducted several members of Bedouin tribes, and the violence escalated. (Ha'aretz) Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar said Wednesday in the wake of attacks on the Druze in southern Syria: "We are seeing a recurring phenomenon of persecution of minorities, to the point of massacres and pogroms. Sometimes it's carried out by regime forces, sometimes by jihadist militias that are part of the regime's base - and usually it's both." "But now, in southern Syria, we are seeing extremely disturbing images - the murder and humiliation of civilians. And I ask: What else has to happen for the international community to speak out? What more are they waiting for?" After Israel carried out airstrikes to defend the Druze, Sa'ar detailed Israel's "known, limited, and clear" interests in Syria: "First, to maintain the status quo in southern Syria - near our border - and to prevent the development of threats to Israel in that region. Second, to prevent harm to the Druze community, with whom we have a strong and close bond through the Druze citizens of Israel." (Times of Israel) Hostilities have sharply escalated between the al-Sharaa regime, radical Sunni militias, and the Druze community in southern Syria over the past several days. Druze leaders in both Israel and Syria argue this is not a local flare-up but a calculated move by the new Syrian regime. Evidence suggests the Syrian Army was acting in coordination with Sunni militias to intimidate the Druze minority. On Tuesday there were reports that nearly 100 Druze had been shot and stabbed to death by Sunni militias. Graphic videos posted online showed the mutilated bodies of victims, beatings, and humiliation of Druze prisoners. (Ha'aretz) More than 20 Palestinian civilians were killed on Wednesday at a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) site in Khan Yunis. "19 of the victims were trampled and one was stabbed amid a chaotic and dangerous surge, driven by agitators in the crowd," GHF said. "We have credible reason to believe that elements within the crowd - armed and affiliated with Hamas - deliberately fomented the unrest." "For the first time since operations began, GHF personnel identified multiple firearms in the crowd, one of which was confiscated. An American worker was also threatened with a firearm by a member of the crowd during the incident. This horrific event follows a deeply troubling pattern in recent days. False messages about aid site openings...have circulated widely on Telegram and other platforms, fueling confusion, driving crowds to closed sites, and inciting disorder." (Jerusalem Post) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
Iran The 2025 conflict between Israel and Iran reaffirmed the centrality of alliances, psychological operations, and precision targeting, while also highlighting the evolving role of strategic deterrence and information warfare in shaping outcomes. The successful targeting of Iran's nuclear facilities proved that well-executed, pre-emptive action can yield measurable delays in adversarial weapons development. These strikes were not only militarily effective but psychologically disorienting, undermining confidence within Iran's defense establishment and signaling Israel's reach, capability, and intent. Strategic communication, public diplomacy, and psychological operations neutralized panic at home, destabilized enemy cohesion, and helped shape global narratives. Equally critical was the role of strategic partnerships. Without U.S. intelligence, missile defense assets, and military coordination, Israel would have struggled to execute a campaign of such scale and precision. Success depends on interoperability, trust, and shared strategic objectives among allies. The conflict was a glimpse into the future of warfare. It showcased the fusion of conventional and unconventional tools, the necessity of operational resilience, and the unpredictability of asymmetric threats. The real measure of success lies in whether enduring security, stability, and deterrence have been achieved or whether this was merely the opening salvo in a new era of protracted confrontation. Bilal Y. Saab is a former senior advisor for security cooperation in the U.S. Department of Defense. Darren D. White is a retired UK servicemember and a former military intelligence operator. (War on the Rocks) What lessons may be drawn from the 12 days of conflict that brought the region to the brink of a scenario long dreaded by many in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)? It was notable that the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities were carried out by bombers that flew from the U.S. and by cruise missiles fired from a submarine, rather than by any of the military assets positioned in the Gulf states. Similarly, the U.S. and UK launched their 2024-25 strikes against Yemen's Houthis from aircraft carriers and submarines as well as from bases in Cyprus rather than from facilities in the Gulf. While the U.S. decision not to use Gulf-based military assets was mindful of regional dynamics, it has led some in the U.S. to ask why the forces are stationed in the Gulf if they cannot be used in such missions and are sitting ducks for retaliation. Iran did respond to the June 21 U.S. attack with its carefully managed June 23 launch of missiles against the al-Udeid base, the largest and most important American base in the Middle East. Excitable commentary about the potential for Iran to "close" the Strait of Hormuz to shipping was hollow. Iran does possess the capability to harass shipping passing through the strait, but a full-scale disruption was never in the cards, not least because closure would have hit Iran's main oil export terminal at Kharg, inside the Gulf, as much as it would have affected the Gulf states, including Kuwait and Qatar, whose oil and gas cargoes are almost wholly reliant on passage through Hormuz. Shipments of Iranian oil to China, its largest consumer, would also have been affected by action in the strait. Israel's campaign largely bypassed Iran's oil and gas infrastructure along the coastline of the Gulf, apart from a June 14 Israeli strike on a natural gas processing facility linked to operations at the South Pars gas field, which could have led to Iran's targeting the Gulf states' own energy infrastructure. There is thus a sense that the conflict between Iran and Israel could have been worse, at least from the Gulf states' perspective. GCC states will now engage with an Iran weakened by its inability to prevent Israel and the U.S. from penetrating its air defenses and by the steady dismantling of key elements of the "Axis of Resistance." The writer is a non-resident Senior Fellow at Arab Center Washington DC (ACW), and a Baker Institute Fellow for the Middle East at Rice University. (Arab Center-Washington) Most Muslim countries did not stand with Iran when it was being pounded by Israeli bombs. This says a lot about how much the theocratic regime in Tehran has been distanced from the rest of the Muslim world. The apathy of the Muslim world towards the regime shattered the myth that its brand of Islam and its pan-jihadism is accepted and supported by a majority of Muslim nations. In truth, this has never been the case. Many countries in the region believe the Iranian mullahs pervert Islam to further their own political ends and are angry over last year's strikes against Pakistan and the more recent targeting of a U.S. military base in Qatar. The Iranian regime is hated both at home and abroad due to its internal oppression (especially of women) and external aggression. This shatters the myth that Muslims across the board are jihad-loving, regressive populations. Raheel Raza is the president of Muslims Facing Tomorrow and Mohammad Rizwan is a journalist currently in Dubai. (National Post-Canada) Gaza A new public opinion survey of Jewish and Arab Israelis by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs reveals that a majority (52%) support an Israeli takeover of Gaza and the imposition of a temporary military administration after the war, on the condition that all hostages have been released. Only 4% believe Hamas should remain in power, while 12% support a Palestinian technocratic government to govern Gaza as Hamas continues to operate behind the scenes. Among the Jewish respondents, 64% prefer temporary military rule, while among Arab respondents, 41% are undecided and 20% favor a technocratic model. 64% of Israelis are opposed to establishing a Palestinian state along the 1967 lines. Only 8% support a Palestinian state without conditions, and 17% would support it under conditions such as recognizing Israel as a Jewish state and being demilitarized. 77% of Jews oppose a Palestinian state, while 34% of Arabs support a Palestinian state without conditions and an additional 26% support it under certain conditions. 58% of Israelis oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state even in exchange for normalization with Saudi Arabia. 76% of Israelis support taking further action against Iran if it tries to rebuild its nuclear or ballistic capabilities, while 13% oppose any future action. 77% of Jewish respondents fear a repeat of an October 7-style massacre - from West Bank Arabs. Dr. Dan Diker, President of the Jerusalem Center, said, "The strong support for temporary military rule and overwhelming opposition to a Palestinian state - even in exchange for possible normalization - reflect a deeply rooted understanding since the terrible massacre of October 7: Israeli security takes precedence over any diplomatic process." (Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs) U.S.-Israel Relations Zohran Mamdani's 2025 campaign for New York City mayor, framed as a progressive crusade for economic justice, bears conspicuous similarities to Hamas's 2006 electoral campaign. Both campaigns leveraged populist economic grievances to mask radical ideological agendas, blending reformist rhetoric with revolutionary objectives. Hamas's victory in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, built on promises of economic reform and anti-corruption, offers a playbook that Mamdani appears to follow, consciously or not, in his bid to remake New York, reflecting the Red-Green Alliance - a coalition of socialism and radical Islamism that threatens pluralistic societies. Hamas's 2006 campaign under the "Change and Reform" banner promised economic independence, poverty reduction, and infrastructure development. These pledges resonated with Palestinians disillusioned by Fatah's corruption, securing Hamas's electoral success. Hamas's 2006 platform combined economic populism with uncompromising rejection of Israel. Mamdani's campaign similarly blends economic reform with ideological extremism. Mamdani's long-standing support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, evident since his 2014 advocacy at Bowdoin College and his 2021 push for local candidates to back BDS, situates New York's local battles within a global anti-American, anti-imperialist, and anti-Zionist framework. The writer is president of the Jerusalem Center. (Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs) Oct. 7, 2023, shattered the sense of security American Jews have enjoyed in the U.S. since World War II. For most of my life, antisemitism was not an immediate concern. Then came Oct. 7. It is hard to overstate the tidal wave of shifting consciousness that moment occasioned in the Jewish community. Suddenly Jews not only find themselves under fire at institutions they had helped build - charities, universities, foundations - but people with whom they shared a worldview ostracized them. The progressive attack on Israel and Jews is the unraveling of a grand bargain that so many Jews had made with America: If they were sufficiently universalist in their views - if they supported other groups and ideologies - then they would be an inextricable weave in the social fabric. Oct. 7 and its aftermath proved that this was an illusion. As a visiting scholar for a year at Harvard Divinity School, what I saw - student groups blaming Israel for the attack, protesters' disruption on campus replete with antisemitic images - was not only a failure of the university system and an ideological betrayal. It was an assault on the values of the West represented by Judaism and by Israel. The endless "colonialist oppression" rhetoric, apart from being ill-suited to a people who had always dwelt in and returned to their land, is a broadside against the West. The writer is a scholar in residence at the Maimonides Fund and emeritus rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. (The Dispatch) Hizbullah The issue of disarming Hizbullah in Lebanon has reached a deadlock. The Lebanese government, including President Joseph Aoun, has concluded that it is unable to compel the Shiite militia to surrender its arsenal to the state, as stipulated in the ceasefire agreement based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701. Enforcing such a demand would likely risk plunging Lebanon into another civil war. The idea of integrating Hizbullah units into the Lebanese army has been rejected by both the U.S. and President Aoun due to fears that it could lead to a Hizbullah takeover of the army. Moreover, there is no intention of allowing Hizbullah fighters - funded by Iran - to receive an additional salary stream. The writer, a special analyst for the Middle East at the Jerusalem Center, was formerly Deputy Head for Assessment of Israeli Military Intelligence. (Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs) Palestinian Arabs Mosab Hassan Yousef, 47, the son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, defected to Israel in 1997 and moved to the U.S. in 2007, with his story revealed in his 2010 memoir, Son of Hamas. During a visit to Israel in June, he said: "Hamas has spent 37 years building momentum, and people seem to forget they [the Palestinians] voted for them. They forget they funded Hamas from their own pockets - not just Iran....It's part of their religious obligation. Businessmen too - all under the table. How do I know? Because I was in Hamas leadership. I saw where the finances came from. Average people would walk into the mosque with tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars or dinars and slip it into my father's pocket or the back seat of his car." "Of course, there are people who suffered under Hamas's iron grip in Gaza. I'm not saying there aren't. But are they any better? They all still see Israel as the common enemy. They may not agree with what Hamas did on October 7...[but] they're saying, 'It wasn't worth it.'" "In Islamic culture...there is no such concept as defeat...It's victory or death. When they lose a war, they don't see it the way the West does. We were conditioned from an early age...all of it built on a refusal to accept what really happened - that our forefathers initiated the war against Israel's independence, and they lost. But in this culture, defeat is too shameful to admit. Everything is based on honor and shame, not on right and wrong, as in Western culture....Better to die than lose face." "Palestine is a colonial construct. It's not even part of our traditional vocabulary - it's not in the Arab dictionary. 'Palestine' was a name for a region at best, not a country. As for so-called Palestinians, we don't actually have anything concrete to support our existence as a nation or an ethnicity - nothing except for this ugly flag and the keffiyeh, a scarf actually coming from Iraq....Am I really supposed to die for this falsehood? For the madness of people who thrive on corruption and violence and expect everyone else to join them?" (Ynet News) Egypt The Sinai Peninsula has long been Egypt's Achilles' heel. It is a constant strategic concern for both Egypt and Israel. The Egyptian government's concerns are based on the consequences of the war with Hamas: an increase in refugee influx from Gaza, radicalization of Hamas sympathizers among the population, disturbances to Sinai's fragile security structure, and threats to the flow of world trade through the Suez Canal, one of Egypt's main sources of foreign currency income. Decades of pan-Arab nationalist rhetoric, layered with religious affinity, have ingrained in the Egyptian mindset a cultural and political connection to the Palestinian people and the "Palestinian cause." Yet, this empathy is sharply contrasted by visceral resistance to opening Sinai borders for the Gazans to take refuge from the war, even temporarily. The Egyptian people and government fear the influx of the Gaza refugees into Sinai more than they fear an armed conflict with Israel. The Palestinians, indoctrinated with poisonous ideas that honor violent resistance and suicidal victimhood, are often perceived as agents of trouble. Sinai's Bedouin tribes would not tolerate their presence. The writer, an Egyptian scholar, is a Senior Fellow at the Jerusalem Center. (Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs) Weekend Features Americans didn't make peace with the Nazis. We made peace with those we permitted to hold power in Germany after we decisively defeated the Nazis. Today, there is no conceivable way that Israel can make peace with Hamas, a Tehran-backed terrorist organization committed to jihad, the annihilation of Israel, and the genocide of Israelis. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, like his friends in Hamas, has no interest in making peace with those he regards, for theological reasons, as his enemies. It is unrealistic to believe that the rulers of Iran will make peace with America. What is realistic is for Americans to limit the ability of these unsavory enemies to successfully wage war against us and other free nations. The writer is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. (Washington Times) Exodigo, a fast-growing Israeli startup, is positioning its AI-powered underground intelligence platform as a potential game-changer for defense technology. Traditional ground-penetrating radar and seismic sensors often struggle with resolution, particularly in dense terrain or urban areas. By fusing multi-sensing technology with cloud-based AI, Exodigo produces high-fidelity 3D underground maps without physical intrusion. "Since launching, we've worked closely with industry leaders to transition from the status quo of missing up to 50% of underground utilities to 99% accuracy without any digging," said Jeremy Suard, co-founder and CEO of Exodigo. (Jerusalem Post) In 1938, Indian businessman Kundan Lal Gupta, 46, traveled to an Austrian hospital to see a medical specialist, where he met a young Jewish couple, Lucy and Alfred Wachsler. Describing to him how difficult life was becoming for Jews under Nazi rule, Gupta decided to help them get out before it was too late. At that stage, Jewish people were allowed to leave the country with their families providing they had a work visa for a job in another country. Gupta set up companies in India with the specific purpose of providing work to 14 Austrian Jews from five families. He offered jobs that did not exist in businesses that were made up, carefully filling out all the paperwork for officials. The story was unknown until his grandson, Vinay Gupta, published a book in 2024 on his grandfather's efforts called A Rescue in Vienna. (Jewish Chronicle-UK) See also The Untold Story of an Indian Businessman Who Outwitted the Nazis It all began when Vinay Gupta's mother said: "Let me tell you a secret. Your grandfather helped Jewish families escape the Nazis." That revelation set Gupta, a U.S.-based professional, on a journey into his grandfather's legacy through family letters, survivor interviews, and historical documents. Gupta writes, "The notion of a 'passive bystander' was anathema to Kundan Lal. If he saw something, or someone, that required attention, he attended to it, never intimidated by the enormity of the problem." (Mathrubhumi-India) Observations: Jordan Is a Strategic Asset for Israel - Oded Ailam (Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs)
The writer, former head of the Counterterrorism Division in the Mossad, is a researcher at the Jerusalem Center. |
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