| DAILY ALERT |
Tuesday, November 10, 2026 |
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday regarding the war in Iran: "The President of the United States identified a very real threat to this country that's existed for a very long period of time, and he addressed it. And he addressed it even though, oftentimes, the right thing to do for the country...isn't necessarily popular but necessary." "At the end of the day I think we can all agree...there used to be bipartisan acknowledgment that a nuclear Iran would be completely unacceptable and dangerous for the United States - not just Israel, not just the Middle East - the whole world and the United States." "So I think the President took on something that other presidents have failed to do. And sometimes when you do the right thing - I don't know if it's popular or not, but it's the right thing to do. And presidents are elected to do the hard things - sometimes difficult things, but necessary things." (U.S. State Department) See also U.S. Offers $20 Million Reward for Information on Iran Nuclear Program The State Department's Rewards for Justice program "is offering a reward of up to $20 million and possible relocation for information about Iran's nuclear program, including its facilities, equipment, and associated personnel, such as those in the scientific community, or the movement of any of the above." (CENTCOM-X) French officials say Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was behind the cyberattack on supermarket refrigerators and freezers that spoiled food across Europe last month. French prosecutors will seek international arrest warrants for leaders of the IRGC cyberwarfare unit that carried out the attack. U.S. officials confirmed that the attack, which caused millions of dollars in damage to food and equipment, conforms to Iranian cyber methods. Blood banks were also attacked. Lt.-Gen. Charlie Moore, former deputy at U.S. Cyber Command, said, "Iran's malign cyber activity...was one of the few capabilities of the regime that hadn't been diminished." (Wall Street Journal) Last week I met with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee in Jerusalem. He appears to have little patience for the Palestinian cause. Referring to the "Free Palestine" supporters, he wonders, "who would support Hamas? The raping of women and the beheading of babies? That's an evil sickness. Somebody that goes out and acts like that's okay, I would have to say that's a real sick person." I asked Huckabee about Canada's recognition of a Palestinian state. "Recognizing Palestine unilaterally is a violation of the Oslo Accords," he says. "The Palestinians have postponed elections yet again. You would think there would be pressure from the EU and from Canada, but instead they send them money. They don't put pressure on them to end the 'pay for slay' program - money they send to terrorists." Huckabee says he regularly meets with the Palestinian Authority. "We're very frank with them. We want to help, but we cannot do it if they keep the textbooks that promote incitement and tell six- and seven-year-olds that their highest ambition in life is to kill a Jew. You must stop paying terrorists and building monuments to them when they murder a Jew....There is almost 80% support in the Palestinian Authority for what happened on Oct. 7." (National Post-Canada) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
A week after President Trump said he and Prime Minister Netanyahu had agreed to end U.S. military aid to Israel by the end of this year, Ynet and Yediot Ahronot have learned that in the emerging security memorandum of understanding with the U.S., American military assistance to Israel will not end immediately. Instead, the direct military aid will continue for five years after 2028, after which it will end entirely. At the same time, U.S. funding for joint air and missile defense development is expected to rise from the current $500 million annually due to the increasing threat from drones and missiles. The goal is to finalize a new agreement by the end of this year, before the new Congress takes office in January. However, Congress will still have to appropriate the aid funding each year. Negotiations are being conducted by teams from both countries. The money is used to purchase weapons produced by U.S. defense companies. Some members of Congress oppose reducing assistance to Israel since much of the money is ultimately spent in their own states and supports American defense manufacturers. (Ynet News) The Israeli government has authorized the U.S. to deploy an initial multinational force of 250 troops in Gaza, security officials confirmed to Walla on Monday. Meanwhile, the U.S. military continues to transfer vehicles and equipment to a former IDF base near the Gaza border that was handed over to the U.S. Armed U.S. troops now secure the base. Engineering work is underway at the site of the planned "terror-free Emirati city" on the ruins of part of Rafah, a project approved by the Israeli government. The initial multinational force is expected to secure the area surrounding the new city. (Jerusalem Post) See also Report: Trump Pressing Netanyahu to Advance Gaza Peace Plan - Nava Freiberg President Trump urged Prime Minister Netanyahu during a phone call on Thursday to advance Washington's Gaza peace plan now that Israel's election is over, Israel's Channel 12 reported Sunday. A senior U.S. official said Gaza's reconstruction will be contingent on progress toward Hamas's disarmament. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and senior U.S. envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff also participated in the call. (Times of Israel) See also 91,000 New Tents Delivered to Gaza as Permanent Construction Awaits Hamas Disarmament - Amir Bohbot As part of preparations for winter weather, the IDF Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Gaza Board of Peace, and the UN have brought into Gaza 91,000 new tents, waterproof tarps, and 9,000 truckloads of clothing and blankets. Meanwhile, security officials asserted that as long as Hamas refuses to disarm, equipment for the reconstruction of buildings and mobile homes will not be allowed in. (Jerusalem Post) "Hamas terrorists and criminals are taking advantage of the winter," a Gaza resident told Israel Hayom. "They sell tents at high prices and prevent anyone else from trading in tents or winter aid supplies, keeping the entire business to themselves....Hamas is using the suffering caused by winter to raise donations through media campaigns." Palestinian social media activist Hamza al-Masri wrote, "How much longer will the distribution of aid, tents, money and sponsorships for orphans remain without accountability or transparency?...Why do some displacement camps receive preferential treatment over others? Why are residents reporting that 'senior officials' arrive in SUVs at local government offices, collect three tents and leave, while families in need are knocking on doors and cannot find even a single tent?" (Israel Hayom) Shay Mizrahi, Deputy Director General and Head of the Local Government Audit Division at the State Comptroller's Office, was appointed on Friday as a member of the UN Independent Audit Advisory Committee (IAAC) for a three-year term. He is the first Israeli appointed to the committee, which oversees the UN's auditing mechanisms, risk management, and financial controls. (Jerusalem Post) After Italy's Eni energy company withdrew from the project following domestic political pressure, Israel's Ratio Energies and U.S. energy giant Murphy Offshore Oil received six gas exploration licenses in the Mediterranean Sea off Israel's coast, Israel's Energy Ministry announced Monday. (Ynet News) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
Iran When wars cause major political shifts, they usually involve ground combat leading to thousands of American casualties, not a temporary $1.50-a-gallon increase in the price of gasoline, which costs a typical household about $20 a week. If that's enough to bring about a political sea change, then the electorate has lost all rationality, and presidents will be constrained to wait for an attack on U.S. soil before taking military action to defend America. The Harvard CAPS/Harris polls asked if the Iranians were negotiating in good faith. 65% of respondents said no. Should the Iranians be allowed to control the Strait of Hormuz? 67% said no, including a majority of both parties. Should Iran be permitted to obtain a nuclear weapon? 85% said no. Was the U.S. justified in using force if the Iranians refuse to yield on these key issues? 63% said yes. The war has dragged on when voters wanted it to be won - and they still do. Mr. Trump and his administration need to explain to Americans the reason we took on the Iranian regime, which is the world's biggest state sponsor of terrorism and is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans over the past 47 years. Mr. Penn was a pollster and adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton, 1995-2008. He is chairman of the Harris Poll. Mr. Stein served as New York City Council president, 1986-93. (Wall Street Journal) The international community should not confuse the eagerness of Iranian officials to host diplomatic meetings with any meaningful change in the regime's dangerous regional policies. There can be no lasting regional security of any kind while the current Iranian regime, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, retains the ability to threaten its neighbors through armed proxies, maintain its program to acquire nuclear weapons, and brutalize its own people. President Trump's party did not lose the midterm elections because of the Iran war; they lost it because he actually chose not to win it. He evidently allowed himself to be persuaded that diplomacy with terrorists can be a viable plan. Trump and other international leaders in Europe and the Middle East need to stop treating the Iranian regime as a potential partner in "regional stability" and start treating it as the principal source of instability that they must finish confronting. (Gatestone Institute) Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) last week proposed "prohibiting the financing of any combat activities of the U.S. military in Iran." The U.S. now has one political party and a faction of another openly telling America's enemies that we don't have the will to sustain so much as a naval blockade. But voters can recognize defeat, and that's what driving the U.S. from the Strait of Hormuz at the current moment would be. (Wall Street Journal) Yemen is the front that Iran chose after Israel shut down the others. Why Yemen, and why now? Because Israel has severely diminished what were long the two most terrible arms of the Iranian octopus. For two decades, Hamas and Hizbullah held a check on America's freedom to act in the Middle East. Then Hamas murdered 1,200 people during its Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, including 49 Americans, and dragged 250 hostages into Gaza, 12 of them Americans. The invaders raped and mutilated women and girls, as the UN has documented. In response, Israel has now gutted Hamas. And in September 2024, it blew up Hizbullah's pagers in its operatives' pockets and, ten days later, killed their leader, Hassan Nasrallah. The Houthi banner says: "God is great. Death to America. Death to Israel. A curse upon the Jews. Victory to Islam." As a Muslim, I say there is no victory for Islam in a curse. Iran has choked the Strait of Hormuz on one side of the Arabian Peninsula. Its proxy now sits at the Bab al-Mandab on the other side. How did it come to this? Saudi Arabia and the U.S. each waited for the other to stop the Houthis, and neither did. The writer is a Palestinian peace advocate, political analyst, and human rights pioneer who founded the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group in 1996. (The Hill) U.S.-Israel Relations Former U.S. secretaries of state Antony Blinken and Mike Pompeo called for protecting the U.S.-Israel relationship at the annual conference of the Jewish Federations of North America. Blinken, who served under President Joe Biden, said that Israel did not seek to harm Palestinian civilians in Gaza following the October 7 Hamas attack and that its critics were ignorant of history. "The Israelis did, for the most part, the bare minimum of what they felt they needed to do for people who were stuck in the middle of this crossfire," he said. "But that is vastly different, vastly different, from an intent to do them harm - the target was Hamas." Pompeo, who was secretary of state during the first Trump administration, said Israel is "so fundamentally in the right and evil is so one-sided. Never equivocate about this moral distinction." (Ha'aretz) America's midterm election results have revived an extraordinary proposition: that the world's most powerful country is somehow at the mercy of a small, dependent Middle Eastern ally which dragged America into a war and exercises disproportionate influence over Washington. This argument is profoundly contradictory. The U.S. possesses the world's most formidable military and intelligence apparatus, coupled with immense economic leverage and an unrivalled capacity to project power. Yet we are supposed to believe that a country of roughly 10 million people, heavily dependent on American military and diplomatic support, can somehow dictate Washington's strategic decisions. Netanyahu can indeed pitch his case to Trump, much like a start-up founder pitches a venture capitalist. But a responsible investor conducts his own due diligence and ultimately decides whether to invest. If the investment subsequently collapses, imagine the absurdity of the venture capitalist explaining to his partners that the founder "dragged" him into investing. American support for Israel is not necessarily evidence of Israeli influence. It may simply reflect American preferences and convergence of interests. When two countries pursue overlapping goals, their cooperation does not establish that one has manipulated the other. America is perfectly entitled to reconsider its relationship with Israel. But a superpower cannot simultaneously claim unparalleled power and plead helplessness whenever the consequences of exercising that power become unpopular. The writer is a venture capitalist and startup founder based in Israel. (Jerusalem Post) Following the U.S. midterm elections, in the next Senate, Abdul El-Sayed will be the sole anti-Zionist member, out of 100, who rejects Israel's existence as a Jewish state. In the House of Representatives, four Democrats are professed anti-Zionists - less than 1% of the 435 total members. Using broader definitions to identify those in Congress who could be construed as "lost" to Israel still yields very small minorities in the new Congress. Current and former affiliates of the Democratic Socialists of America, which espouses clear anti-Zionism, will number 12 in the incoming House, less than 5% of all Democrats in the chamber. An AI-assisted review of webpages and campaign releases identified 40 in the House and 6-7 in the Senate who have publicly accused Israel of genocide in Gaza or insinuated it has committed one - well under 10% of the two chambers overall. The writer is Associate Professor and Chair of Political Science at the University of Southern California. (Times of Israel) Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter said Sunday the New York Times published a "blood libel" about IDF actions in Gaza when it published a front-page photo of an emaciated baby boy, initially described as malnourished, while neglecting to mention his genetic diseases. "Hitler didn't just happen - it was decades of preparation of demonizing and delegitimizing Jews. And now, through the State of Israel, through the Jewish state, there is an attempt to delegitimize and disenfranchise Jews," he said. "We fight it by knowing who we are, we fight it by knowing who our friends are, and we fight it by knowing who the enemy is, and by identifying them as the enemy, and calling them out as the enemy." (Times of Israel) Israel's Knesset Elections 2026 Opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot, a former army chief of staff, faces a formidable challenge in assembling a governing majority after the Israeli Knesset elections. He will need to reach an agreement with Israel's two main Arab parties. The reluctance of mainstream Israeli political parties to enter coalitions with the Arab parties is not evidence of an inherently discriminatory political system. It stems from serious policy differences, not ethnicity. The Arab parties are conservative, Islamist or nationalist, and do not share many of the values of mainstream Israeli parties. Some have refused to describe Hamas as a terrorist organization, despite the Oct. 7 massacre, in which Israeli Arabs were also killed and kidnapped. Almost all of Israel's mainstream parties have had Arab or Druze members of the Knesset. Labor MK Raleb Majadele became Israel's first Muslim Arab cabinet minister in 2007. Ahmad Tibi, a hardline Palestinian nationalist, served as deputy speaker of the Knesset. But for Israel's mainstream parties, what matters most when contemplating a coalition with the Arab parties is agreement about the very foundations of a Jewish state and its security. (Telegraph-UK) Palestinian Arabs The purchase of several properties near Jericho by an Israeli Jewish organization has prompted the Palestinian Authority (PA) to suspend land-registration transactions involving Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship or residency. The apparent assumption is that the properties acquired by Jews had previously been owned by Israeli Arabs. The properties are located in Area C of Judea and Samaria, which is under full Israeli civil and security control. The decree also reflects a longstanding PA policy that treats the sale of land to Jews as a serious criminal offense. Under PA law, selling land to Jews is punishable by "life imprisonment with hard labor." Palestinians accused of selling land to Jews have also been targeted for murder. Jericho has long been a popular winter retreat and vacation destination for wealthy Palestinians. Its warm climate and proximity to Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley have made it an attractive location for second homes and residential investment. Israeli Arabs have recognized Jericho's real estate potential and for years have purchased properties in the area. The writer, former director of the Military Prosecution in Judea and Samaria, is director of the Palestinian Authority Accountability Initiative at the Jerusalem Center. (Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs) See also Palestinian Authority Arrests Those Involved in Sale of Jericho Homes to Israelis - Nurit Yohanan The Palestinian Authority has arrested several Palestinians in connection with the sale of 8 homes in a suburb of Jericho to Israelis. The homes are located on Israeli state land, and the Palestinians who built them did so illegally. (Times of Israel) Observations: Will Trump Change the U.S.-Israel Relationship? - Michael Doran (Free Press)
The writer is director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at the Hudson Institute. |
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