04/07 Links Pt2: Iron Dome and the ‘America First’ Left; David Schwimmer: Wireless ‘Disgraced Itself’ by Booking Kanye, Calls Rapper a ‘Hate-Mongering Bigot’

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Iron Dome and the ‘America First’ Left

The problem is that it isn’t true that Iron Dome is none of our concern. The America First left is thus living a lie—the very same lie that America First rightists tell themselves. The Horseshoe Theory strikes again.

There are two kinds of benefits that Iron Dome funding brings to America: direct and indirect. An example of an indirect benefit: It is an immensely cost-effective way to prevent escalation in the Middle East, since it allows Israel to absorb rocket attacks that would otherwise necessitate an overwhelming military response. And preventing escalation in the Middle East saves American lives.

One theory behind funding Iron Dome, then, is: It is good to save American lives.

But the indirectness of that particular benefit opens space for naysayers to claim otherwise (though it would be surprising if they actually believed such claims). So if that were where the argument ended, AOC and Khanna and others could claim some kind of “both sides” stalemate in which two legitimate but unprovable claims must coexist.

But it does not end there. In fact, it begins there.

As one Congressional Research Service report on Iron Dome explains succinctly: “In March 2014, the United States and Israeli governments signed a coproduction agreement to enable components of the Iron Dome system to be manufactured in the United States, while also providing the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) with full access to what had been proprietary Iron Dome technology.”

Let’s take the first part first, because it’s so simple even an anti-Zionist could understand it. For about a decade, Raytheon’s plant in Arizona was the critical core of Iron Dome parts production in America. In November 2025, a new plant in Arkansas came online, moving even more of the process from Israel to America. Now, the manufacture of missile components for Iron Dome interceptors is mostly an American process. In other words, just like much of what is called “aid” to Israel, the money is spent on the U.S. economy and in fortifying American manufacturing. Along with the new Arkansas facility, Reuters reports, Raytheon received a $1.25 billion contract to supply Israel.

American jobs, American money, American manufacturing—if these are unimportant to Iron Dome’s critics, they should say so. Ignoring them entirely is an act of profound bad faith.

Meanwhile, access to the missile-defense technology is its own return-on-investment, since the U.S. gets to see data from the tech’s deployment in wartime scenarios. So: Iran fires missiles at Israel, and the U.S. sees what works and what doesn’t without its own civilians being the live targets.

Which is why, in the end, opposition to Iron Dome in the U.S. generally takes an ideological, and not a mathematical or practical, primary basis. One cannot argue that there are no benefits to the U.S.; one can only argue that those benefits—investment in the U.S. economy, job creation, a steady boost to domestic manufacturing, and of course lives saved—aren’t meaningful.

From first intercept to 10,000 combat intercepts: Iron Dome turns 15-analysis

On April 7, 2011 at 6.20PM I was in the southern city of Sderot when the incoming siren blared. Hamas had fired a Grad missile towards the city of Ashkelon. Running to the safe room, I heard a sound that was different than a rocket slamming into the ground-it was the first interception by the now famous Iron Dome missile defense system.

Air defense soldiers gave the call sign “Alpha”- the signal for a successful first intercept of a rocket toward Israel. That interception, 15 years ago today, has changed the face of active defense around the world- especially here in Israel where it fundamentally redefined Israel’s defensive doctrine and its ability to counter rocket threats.

The system has logged more than 10,000 combat intercepts and sustained success rates exceeding 90%.

“Over the past 15 years, the system has changed the face of the battlefield and shielded Israel’s civilians from relentless threats coming from multiple adversaries. Iron Dome is a first-order strategic asset and a central pillar of Israel’s national defense doctrine,” said Prof. Yuval Steinitz, Chairman, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.

Hilla Haddad Chmelnik was on the Iron Dome’s development team during her service in the Israel Air Force and recalled her first encounter with the system.

“I met Iron Dome a year before it became operational. It was in advanced development of the first interceptor batteries. I was in the Air Force, at the test range, and Rafael and MAFAT came to the Air Force to make it operational with an acceptance test. We had to think: how do we check the system and make sure it works well?”

The primary contractor for the development of the Iron Dome is Rafael Advanced Defense System. The MMR radar is developed by ELTA, a subsidiary of the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), and the command and control system is developed by mPrest.

Its development was completed in roughly two and a half years, an exceptional engineering feat by any international standard.

“It immediately became a different kind of project, a sort of paperless project, because it was developed so fast. It was extraordinary because it required a whole new way of thinking about how an interception system works. It changed the way we test systems,” she told Defense & Tech by The Jerusalem Post.

The first test of the system took place in February 2011 and two months later the first interception took place.

“The interception happened an hour before my wedding in Herzliya,” Haddad Chmelnik recalled. “It was a double celebration. It was amazing.”

Strategies to stop antizionist abuse

The most effective and powerful analogies are always the simplest and easiest to picture.

And during an empowering 90-minute presentation at Sydney’s Dover Heights Synagogue late last month on how to identify, and fight back against, the dangerous tsunami of antizionism that’s enabling the spread of hatred against Jews, Josh Dabelstein – the Australian chapter coordinator of the Movement Against Antizionism (MAAZ) – delivered an absolute beauty.

At the event organised by the Zionist Council of NSW, Dabelstein, who has a unique and deep knowledge of antizionism because he was once an antizionist himself, relayed to the audience of more than 100 this most potent of paragraphs:

“If we think about the highway to Jew hate, one lane is antijudaism, the middle lane is antisemitism and the other lane is antizionism. We [society and the law] blocked those first two lanes. That doesn’t mean that there are still people swerving all over the road. Some people do just hate Jews, right? But the one lane that allows them through today and emboldens them, provides them a permission structure and allows society to really spread all of this stuff, is antizionism.”

To understand why Dabelstein considers antizionism the single greatest threat facing Jews in the Diaspora today, it helps to understand how MAAZ frames the history of Jew hatred as a whole. At his Dover Heights shule address, he explained how those “three lanes on a highway” are related, but also quite distinct, with each associated with different “permission structures”, meaning they utilise a system of language, beliefs and authorities that makes the harm that the protagonists cause feel justified and allows people to adopt positions they once would have vehemently rejected.

Antijudaism, the oldest form, targeted Jews through religion – which is now illegal. Antisemitism targets Jews through race and ethnicity – which is also now illegal.

But antizionism – the dominant form today – targets Jews through demonising the Jewish state – disguising the hate as political criticism, or for social justice. Josh Dabelstein speaking at the event, presented by the Zionist Council of NSW.

In each case, he argued, the hatred operates not by engaging honestly with its stated target – Judaism, Semitism or Zionism – but by inventing a phantom proxy and loading it with libels.

“They take all the things that they hate and they shove them in that word.”

In the antizionist era, today’s libels – genocide, apartheid, colonialism – are directed at the Jewish state, are repeated ad nauseam and, Dabelstein said, “are elevated to fact status through pseudo-academia and institutional adoption.”

The conspiracy theories have shifted accordingly: Israel’s President Isaac Herzog is likened to Hitler during his recent Australian visit; and stigmatising Jews is now “simply achieved through misusing the word Zionist”.

What makes all forms of Jew hatred dangerous, Dabelstein said, is precisely that each presents as fashionable in the context they arise, before eventually being revealed as violent systems that produce violent ends.

While antizionism presents itself as anti-colonial, anti-racist and humanitarian, the violence it invites is moralised the same way it was in medieval and Nazi Europe.

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04/07 Links Pt1: Trump: US To Enter Two-Week Ceasefire if Islamic Republic Allows opening of the Strait of Hormuz,’; 1 attacker killed in gun battle with police outside Israeli consulate in Istanbul

From Ian:

Three Things the Consensus Gets Wrong About the Iran War

First, the war has not, despite what many claim, trashed America’s alliances. NATO was battered by Donald Trump well before the war began, and not least by his egregious threats to wrest Greenland from Denmark. No doubt, some of our European allies have bristled at this war and in some cases refused to assist with it. Not all, though: German bases are important for the air bridge to the Middle East. In a moment of candor during Israel’s 12-day war with Iran last June, Chancellor Friedrich Merz allowed that the fight against Iran was “dirty work Israel is doing for all of us.” He understood, in other words, that Iran poses a challenge to European security that Europe chooses not to address on its own. “We are also victims of this regime,” he said.

More to the point: The United States is actually working very closely with a group of allies, just not the Europeans. Israel, of course, is actively engaged in the war, employing an air force twice as large and more than twice as capable of conducting this kind of campaign than the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force. The Gulf states are providing basing, and some Asian nations have been quietly supportive. Several hundred Ukrainian drone experts, who have behind them the most advanced military industry of its kind anywhere, are sharing what they’ve learned. If the Trump administration could only see Ukraine as a powerful partner rather than a charity case, even more could be done. A new partnership, joining Gulf finance with Ukrainian military technology, appears to be emerging from this war, to the advantage of the United States.

Second, the common claim that the war is a boon for Russia and China is exaggerated. Will it provide a short-term boost for Russian oil earnings? Probably, although it will be offset by the spectacular success the Ukrainians are having in hitting its petrochemical industry and its ability to export. Russia has profoundly deformed its backward economy, and now appears to be getting the worst of it on the battlefield. Meanwhile, the prospect that Ukrainian military innovation might be powered by Saudi and Emirati money cannot be a happy one for Moscow.

China, for its part, might indeed be licking its chops at the idea of the United States depleting its stocks of expensive interceptor missiles in this war. If governments choose to attack because they think they know exactly how many exotic munitions their opponents have in their warehouses, then China might well invade Taiwan. But, by and large, that is not how governments decide to launch global wars. Rather, they look at a host of considerations, including the nature of their opponents. In this case, the Chinese will see a president quite willing to wage an unpopular war and employ extreme violence. That president possesses a remarkably capable armed force, and is willing to spend the money ($1.5 trillion in the latest budget) to build an even larger and considerably more modernized one. Sober Chinese analysts, moreover, will have some appreciation of how the United States and its armed forces have a history of innovating and adapting when the pressure is on.

And finally, there are people who argue that Iran has been turned into a great power by this war. But being subjected to tens of thousands of precision air strikes; having your senior leadership assassinated, your air defenses almost entirely destroyed, your navy virtually annihilated; and losing crucial parts of your industrial infrastructure do not make you stronger. Can Iran keep the Strait of Hormuz closed? For now, yes. Perpetually? That is harder to believe. Ukraine has been able to keep its grain corridor in the Black Sea open despite Russian attacks; the U.S. Navy, ill-prepared as it was for the mine-clearing mission that it should have anticipated, is no doubt working full-time on solving what is essentially a tactical problem, albeit one with strategic implications.

Iran’s leaders and their sympathizers may declare that survival means that Iran wins this war, but that is, on the face of it, preposterous. The regime has profoundly alienated its neighbors by lashing out at them, brought the two most powerful air forces in the Middle East into intimate cooperation against it, and suffered new blows to its already impoverished economy. Is Iran’s new leadership—the members of whom have not fallen to Israeli bombs, that is—inclined to take an even harder line than its predecessors? Possibly. But the pictures published this week of the niece and grandniece of Qassem Soleimani—the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force killed in Trump’s first term—who have been living the good life in the United States, should trigger the thought that the elite leadership of Iran might be less pure and hard than one might think. And even committed ideologues have their breaking point; Heinrich Himmler was as hard-core as they come, yet attempted open negotiations with Allen Dulles of the Office of Strategic Services in 1945.

There is so much that we do not know—including which targets have been hit, what damage has been done, and to what effect. But when we see things like the extraordinary rescue of the aircrew of the F-15E shot down over Iran, we need to remember that the military organizations pounding Iran are extremely formidable. That does not guarantee success. But it should make us, at the very least, thoughtful about where this war may go.

Seth Mandel: Unfrozen

Iran’s ability to open and close the strait at will is similar to its attacks on regional energy infrastructure, its demonstration of missile-firing capabilities that threaten Europe, and its use of cluster munitions against Israeli civilians. All three made the West adjust its war aims to prevent Iran from being able to hold the region and near-abroad hostage in the future. To this list we can add a pre-existing goal—the destruction of Iran’s nuclear weapons program—and the recent fixation on the Strait of Hormuz, which seems to have overtaken the others (except for the nuclear threat) in Trump’s mind.

There are two ways of looking at this, and they are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The first is that Trump backed himself into this corner by showing his sensitivity to oil prices without having put into place a strategy to preempt Iran’s ability to flip that switch. The second is that Trump’s fixation on the strait is a post-hoc realization that Iran must be divested from its leverage over the shipping lanes.

A cease-fire without a mechanism for enforcing the opening of the strait would make it what Trump seems to really want to avoid: a frozen conflict.

Take Gaza. The cease-fire between Israel and the remnants of Hamas may turn into its own new status quo, which would be less than ideal. But it is far superior to the state of the frozen conflict that was in place on October 7, 2023. If the Israel-Hamas war ends here, then Gaza’s genocidal and barbaric government has paid a permanent price for its aggression.

Likewise, Trump has been surprisingly hawkish on Lebanon, at times more so than Israel, regarding Hezbollah. As it currently stands, either Lebanon will disarm Hezbollah or much of “Hezbollahland” in South Lebanon will remain open space. Israel has proposed the following deal: If Israelis can return to their homes in the north without fear of quickly being displaced again by rocket storms from Lebanon, then the residents of South Lebanon will be welcome to return to their own homes. Lebanon has thus far rejected these terms. Trump, at the moment, is backing Israel’s position—in part, surely, because Israel has proposed a permanent peace rather than a return to the frozen conflict.

Trump’s penchant for finality can be seen in his approach to Venezuela as well. The decision to greenlight the capture of Nicolas Maduro was a bold one, but it was not done in the name of Venezuelan democracy. It was an attempt to permanently alter the relationship between Washington and Caracas. If the remnants of the Maduro regime are willing to play ball with Trump, they’ll stick around. That’ll mean the end of what Trump saw as the Venezuelan tail wagging the American dog.

This template cannot be applied at will—there will be no “Venezuelan option” in Iran, and lord knows what Trump even thinks he is accomplishing in the Russia-Ukraine war. It isn’t a doctrine, or an -ism. But the president does seem to have a preference for avoiding the “pause” button if a status quo can be radically and permanently changed in America’s favor.

Jonathan Tobin: Unlike Israel, many of America’s NATO allies aren’t really allies

Other countries will cheer or jeer from the sidelines, but Israel not only has a powerful military but is willing to use it, along with its unmatched intelligence capabilities and operations, to fight a war alongside America. And it is doing so with the knowledge that Trump could end the war before the Jewish state has achieved the objectives that Netanyahu has set.

Contrary to the largely antisemitic myth that the world’s most powerful man in charge of a superpower was dragged into a war by the prime minister of a country the size of New Jersey with a mere 10 million people, this war was America’s idea. And it is being fought to protect America’s interests as well as Israel’s. Stopping nuclear and missile threats—and the world’s largest state sponsor of terror—isn’t a favor to Israel. It’s vital for the security of the Middle East, which affects the economies of all, as has been shown in Iran’s stranglehold of the Strait of Hormuz and international shipping.

A clear look at the events of the last two months doesn’t just show Israel’s value as an ally, even though there is no pact of alliance between Washington and Jerusalem as there is with America’s 31 NATO allies, which the United States is obligated to defend under that treaty’s Article V provision. It has also done invaluable damage to what remains of American support for the belief that the alliance is vital to the country’s defense.

Israel has friendly relations with other countries, including some in Europe. And it has strong security ties with key regional nations like Saudi Arabia, even though they remain under the table rather than out in the open. But it has only one genuine ally. There are no plausible alternatives, even when Washington is run by those who are lukewarm or worse about the relationship, as under the administrations led by former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

NATO may yet be revived at some point in the future. Even now, it still serves some use, if only to help ensure that Russia’s troublemaking can be contained. But the stark truth of 2026 is that it has largely become a vestige of the past that has outlived much of its usefulness.

At the same time, the idea that Washington’s affection for Israel is a hindrance to the pursuit of U.S. national interests or makes it difficult for it to make friends in the Middle East has been conclusively exploded by recent events.

It is the alliance with Israel that is the one irreplaceable asset for American foreign policy and security needs in the region. And one is hard-pressed to think of another such reliable ally elsewhere with both the military assets—and the willingness to use them in a difficult fight— and common values of democracy. It’s high time that American pundits and politicians, whether seduced by antisemitic tropes and arguments or wallowing in hatred for Trump, stop speaking of Israel as an American problem and start acknowledging this reality.

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04/06 Links Pt2: The Jewish Passion for Freedom and Human Rights Was Hijacked by the West; Why Israeli Youth Remain Positive during War

From Ian:

Gerald M. Steinberg: The Jewish Passion for Freedom and Human Rights Was Hijacked by the West

Freedom and human rights are universal values, and Jews have often been at the forefront of these struggles, playing central roles in the creation of the modern human rights movement, forged in the shadow of the Holocaust. They built strong institutions tasked with implementing these principles. But now these institutions and their leaders have betrayed the moral force behind their creation. They stand for and reinforce hate and demonization directed at Israel.

Rene Cassin, a Jewish jurist from France, was a principal drafter of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Raphael Lemkin (who coined the term "genocide") was a principal author of the Genocide Convention.

Peter Benenson, a journalist from a prominent Jewish and Zionist family in Britain, founded Amnesty International, turning it into a political superpower. Robert L. Bernstein, the head of Random House publishers, built Helsinki Watch to report on Soviet compliance with the human rights components of the U.S.-Soviet detente known as the Helsinki Accords. The organization expanded into Human Rights Watch. Bernard Kouchner, a French Jew, helped found Doctors Without Borders.

When the founders of all three institutions retired, their legacy and moral principles were abandoned. The new leaders were anti-Western, anti-American, and anti-Israel ideologues for whom the rhetoric of human rights was a convenient political weapon. They went from false claims against Israel of "war crimes" to the poisonous accusation of "genocide" - a heinous form of Holocaust inversion. In 2009, Bernstein began to denounce the organization he created - Human Rights Watch - for turning Israel into a pariah state.

The hostile takeover of the principles of freedom and human rights, and the institutions that claim to embody them, has done tremendous damage, not only to the Jewish people but also to the moral values themselves.

A Jew Among Jews By Abe Greenwald

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During Passover, the Free Press published a beautiful piece by Olivia Reingold titled “I Am an October 8 Jew.” In it, she describes how, after October 7, she began to reclaim the Jewish heritage she had all but abandoned as a child. Eventually, Reingold would find herself moved to tears during a recent Shabbat service, “a day that used to mean nothing to me, except more time to scroll online or work.”

I can’t say that I’m an October 8 Jew, as I was devoted to the cause well before then. But something about my Judaism has also changed since October 7.

I’ve long been a passionate Zionist, and I’ve felt that I owe everything to God. While I am a devoted believer, however, I’m a very negligent observer. Having come fully to embrace my Judaism only in adulthood, I’ve done slightly more than the bare minimum to maintain a personal sense of Jewish tradition.

Beginning a few decades ago, I went about kosher eating in my own way (and I’ve got my biblical justifications for it). I wrap tefillin in phases, the way others might go to the gym, slack off, and then resume. I pore over the Hebrew Bible regularly but in no regimented fashion. I tread lightly and humbly into the Talmud.

All of which is to say, I have cobbled together my own version of observance and continue to fine-tune it. Many Jews do the same.

Judaism, as I came to it, was about my relationship with my God, my place in history, and my inheritance. A lot of “my” was involved in this, but somehow “my people” barely came up.

October 7 changed me in this important respect. Before that day, I had never felt much of an ongoing obligation to my fellow Jews around the world. Of course, whenever I heard news of threatened or assaulted Jews, the bonds of history and faith would take hold. But they would once again recede. I didn’t think a great deal about how my actions or words affected the Jews of Australia, Asia, Europe, and elsewhere.

Betrayal of the Kurds shows why Jews depend on Israel

This is why Jews need the state of Israel. It is a lesson delivered by the Holocaust and by every atrocity and injustice meted out to the powerless ever since. Israel must hold. And its situation is precarious. It is tiny and vastly outnumbered by its enemies. Around 15km wide at its narrowest point, the country has no strategic depth, nowhere for it to retreat to in the event of a military defeat.

So Israel must fight to survive. It can never rest or become complacent. It must be powerful.

But it must also be smart. Tactical brilliance must be accompanied by the kind of strategic and political foresight that has been unforgivably absent for far too long.

And central to this is finding an accommodation, not just with Iran – when the pathologically murderous Islamic Republic is finally gone – but with another of the world’s stateless people: the Palestinians. Right now, there is no leadership – on either side – to make this possible. But Israel cannot abandon peace, not just because it is a moral imperative, but because it is a strategic one.

It is here that my mind returns to a line from, of all things, the TV series The Wire. Gang leader Avon Barksdale is standing by the hospital bed of a comatose friend, talking to his nephew D’Angelo Barksdale about the inescapable logic of “the game” – the brutal ​​system in which they all live. “The thing is, you only gotta fuck up once. Be a little slow, be a little late, just once,” he says. “And how you ain’t gon’ never be slow? Never be late?”

From Rojava to Baltimore to Gaza and Tehran the point is the same: to survive in “the game” – be it drug dealing or the far more brutal world of geopolitics – being strong is unignorably necessary. But it is not sufficient. Avon knows that his only future is jail or death.

Thankfully, Israel’s options are broader. But it must internalise Avon’s words – because no one wins every war forever. At some point, you will be slow, you will be late. You must defeat your enemies. But you must also make peace with them – or you will never find peace yourself.

US Court of Appeals affirms $655.5 million judgement against PLO, Palestinian Authority

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has reinstated a $655.5 million judgement against the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian Authority for supporting terrorist attacks and making payments to the perpetrators.

In a March 30 decision, the three-judge panel reversed its previous decision to throw out the case following a 2025 Supreme Court decision in a similar suit and the passage of a 2019 federal law designed to enable the victims of terrorism to pursue civil court cases against the perpetrators.

The plaintiffs in the case, Waldman v. Palestine Liberation Org, are a group of U.S. citizens injured during terrorist attacks in Israel or the estates and survivors of victims killed in those attacks.

In 2004, they filed suit against the PLO and PA under the Anti-Terrorism Act. After a seven-week trial, a jury returned a verdict in their favor, and the district court judge entered a judgement against the Palestinian organizations for nearly $656 million.

In the succeeding two decades, the plaintiffs have largely been stymied on appeal, with the PA and PLO successfully arguing that the courts lacked jurisdiction.

In 2025, the Supreme Court decided in Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization to reverse and remand the 2nd Circuit’s most recent decision to toss out the Waldman case and clarified the jurisdictional question.

The 2nd Circuit’s new decision granted the plaintiffs’ motion to affirm the district court’s original judgement in light of the Supreme Court decision.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry welcomed the ruling on Monday.

“A major step in holding the Palestinian authority accountable for its long-lasting terror support—financially and legally,” it stated.

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04/06 Links Pt1: Myths of the Iran War; 5 Men Now Running Iran; Iran rejects Pakistan-mediated truce deal; Russia provided Iran with list of Israeli energy targets

From Ian:

Myths of the Iran War

One myth related to the war is that if enriched uranium remains in Iran, the war has failed. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran possesses 441 kg. of uranium enriched up to 60%. Israel and the U.S. never intended to deploy thousands of troops deep inside Iran to seize nuclear facilities. Absent a comprehensive agreement to remove the uranium as part of a deal, the approach is to monitor suspected sites and, if necessary, act against them from the air.

In any case, Iran's enrichment facilities have been completely disabled, and it is doubtful they can be restored to operation anytime soon. Moreover, Iran has yet to achieve a breakthrough that would allow it to build an actual weapon system. Over the past year, many of the senior scientists involved in these efforts have been killed. Without the ability to develop a weapon, the uranium Iran possesses has no practical significance.

The claim that Trump was misled by Israel reflects a misunderstanding of U.S. decision-making culture. American presidents formulate policy based solely on their country's interests. The decisive consideration guiding the White House is what serves the American people. The notion that a U.S. president makes critical national security decisions based on assessments presented by Israeli leaders or Mossad officials runs counter to longstanding American practice.

Another myth is that it is possible to decisively defeat Hamas, Iran, Hizbullah or the Houthis once and for all. There is no way to guarantee that even a clear military defeat will end an adversary's motivation to pursue its objectives, recognizing that capabilities can be rebuilt. Phrases such as "once and for all" amount to speculation.

Even after Israel's decisive victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, when its military defeated the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, within a few years, Egypt launched the War of Attrition and in 1973, together with Syria, carried out a large-scale surprise attack against Israel. So victories may have an expiration date. As we repeated at the Passover Seder, in every generation there are those who rise up to destroy us.

Winners and Losers in the Iran War

Iran, Israel, and the U.S. have not achieved the goals they set for themselves in their current war. On the Iranian side, the late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had hoped that by adopting the "Samson option," he would provoke a brief regional war with limited damage to his Islamic Republic because he would step in and offer another of his "heroic flexibility" tricks before things got out of hand. His "heroic flexibility" was designed to come after the first wave of attacks by Israeli and American bombers targeting part of Iran's military infrastructure.

However, as he wasn't there to do his part, Israel and the U.S. had to go for a second wave of bombings and then a third - this time targeting Iran's industrial infrastructure on a scale not known since World War II. Its weapons industry has been decimated, and its vast nuclear project put back by years if not decades.

Worse still, Iran's unprovoked ballistic missile and drone attacks on neighboring countries in no way involved in this war may have done lasting damage to the largely tolerant, not to say benevolent, attitude that many of them had of Iran even under the mullahs.

The outside world has been divided between those who, because they hate Trump or Netanyahu or even America and Israel as a whole, designate the mullahs as victors, and those who, translating their hatred of the Iranian regime into a wish for Iran's destruction as a nation-state, declare Trump and Netanyahu as winners.

Anti-U.S. and anti-Israel circles exaggerate the effect of Tehran's tactic of inflicting economic pain on the world by playing fast and loose with oil exports via the Strait of Hormuz and disrupting overall trade in a chunk of the region. That in turn intensifies the effects of the mullahs' mischief-making.

The U.S. and Israel may lose the Iranian people as one of the few nations known for their positive view of both countries. The theme of "you came and destroyed our industrial, economic and scientific infrastructure, but left our torturers in place" is gaining currency among Iranians both at home and abroad.

There is little doubt that although the Khomeinist regime is badly mauled, the biggest loser in this war will be the Iranian people. The war has destroyed thousands of jobs in Iran. A people facing mass unemployment and shortages of food, water and medicine would not be immediately ready for another attempt at regime change.

Telegraph Editorial: Iran Is Not a War of Choice

The U.S. and its enemies have learned from the last two decades that nuclear deterrence works. The ability of the West to intervene in the defense of Ukraine has been hampered by the existence of Russia's nuclear arsenal.

North Korea watched Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi disassemble his nuclear and chemical weapons programs in 2003, subsequently allowing NATO aircraft to topple his regime as the people he had tormented rose up against him. North Korean state media stated that "powerful nuclear deterrence serves as the strongest treasured sword for frustrating outsiders' aggression."

This same logic has underlaid Israel's approach to regional proliferation for decades. The Begin doctrine laid out after Israel's 1981 airstrike on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor set out precisely why Israel would strike the al-Kibar site in Syria in 2007; it also explained why it struck Iranian nuclear facilities in 2025.

By achieving the full suite of capabilities necessary for a functioning nuclear deterrent - capabilities that it seemed well on the road to attaining - the Iranian regime hoped to build a nuclear shield. A regime built on a fundamentalist belief system devoted to the destruction of the West was not pursuing these weapons as a pathway to moderation.

Instead, a nation sponsoring terrorist militias, launching drone and missile strikes at its neighbors, attempting to hold the global economy to ransom by shutting the flow of trade through the Strait of Hormuz, was seeking to become effectively untouchable militarily.

While the 2025 airstrikes set back Tehran's nuclear program, it was clear early this year that efforts to rebuild its capabilities were well underway. The history of Iran's nuclear ambitions is of diplomacy, time and again, falling short. Faced with the necessity of putting a permanent end to them, it is hard to argue that Israel or America had any other choice.

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04/05 Links: A War of Psychological Attrition; Iran Has Miscalculated Disastrously; The North Korea Lesson for Iran; Why Islamists and progressives have so much in common

From Ian:

A War of Psychological Attrition

In physical terms, the damage Iran is inflicting on the Americans, the Gulf states or Israel is minimal.

By contrast, Iran is sustaining extremely heavy blows. Its economy was already shattered before the campaign began. Its military capabilities are being stripped away hour by hour.

That means the pace at which it is harming Israel and other countries in the region is negligible compared with what it had planned.

Unlike Iran, those countries are, by and large, continuing to function, while the disruption to daily life caused by missiles and drones remains relatively limited.

Iran is trying to create the impression that the cost of the war is unbearable.

But what is worse: gasoline at $4 a gallon, or Iran with an arsenal of intercontinental nuclear missiles?

What poses a greater threat to the world: a short-term recession, or a deranged regime operating an ocean of drones in the Strait of Hormuz, terrorist cells across the planet, and seeking to impose Shiite belief on humanity by force?

Iran knows the West's weak points, its short-sightedness, short patience, and short-time horizon.

In Tehran they know that in the West, people will talk about one American aircraft being shot down a thousand times more than they will about dozens of Iranian aircraft destroyed, hundreds of missiles intercepted and thousands of drones thwarted.

That is the asymmetric psychological war they are hoping to win.

Col. (ret.) Richard Kemp: Iran Has Miscalculated Disastrously

The ayatollahs never expected to find themselves in a sustained, direct, high-intensity war with the U.S. and Israel. Their thinking had been based on gaining ascendancy in the Middle East by proxy groups and ultimately by nuclear weapons.

The rulers of Iran spent billions of dollars building a series of terrorist networks that would do their dirty work for them. Yet Hizbullah, Hamas, and the Houthis have been very severely handled by Israel (and in the case of the Houthis, the U.S.) since Oct. 7, 2023, and their combined contribution to the defense of Iran over the last few weeks has consequently been strategically negligible.

In the minds of the ayatollahs, attacking their Arab neighbors would lead the Gulf states to pressure Trump to call off the war. It had the opposite effect. Behind the scenes, both Saudi Arabia and the UAE have reportedly urged the president to keep attacking until the job is done. Iran's strategy has instead consolidated opposition to Tehran.

Another strategic miscalculation has been the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. As a global economic attack, it reinforces the narrative that Iran is a worldwide threat. Both China and India have been significantly impacted, despite Tehran's selective permission for some ships and cargoes to pass through the strait.

Additionally, the regime is probably inflicting greater harm on its own economy. It depends on the strait for the import of food and other essentials, and for its own oil exports.

WSJ Editorial: The North Korea Lesson for Iran

President Trump decided to use military force to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon after diplomacy failed. This was a risky choice. But the U.S. experience with North Korea suggests the alternatives were even riskier. That history shows the limits of nuclear diplomacy with a determined foe, as well as what happens when the U.S. puts conflict-avoidance above all else.

During the Clinton Administration, North Korea denied International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors access to camouflaged nuclear sites and announced it would withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Clinton threatened sanctions. The U.S. military drew up plans for strikes on nuclear installations, and Defense Secretary Bill Perry presented a plan for a large military buildup in the region. Clinton deployed Patriot missile-defense systems to South Korea.

Former President Jimmy Carter informed the Clinton Administration that he intended to visit North Korea and try to defuse the situation. Clinton decided to let Carter proceed as a private citizen. Carter feared conflict above all and even opposed sanctions. He went beyond what he had been authorized by Clinton to discuss and announced a tentative agreement on CNN. The press and foreign-policy establishment hailed nuclear peace in our time.

Military options came off the table and Clinton embraced the deal, which became the 1994 Agreed Framework. For a time the deal seemed to work. Yet weaponization research continued on the sly. The regime's intent to build a bomb never changed. In 2002, North Korea reneged on the Agreed Framework and expelled inspectors. The George W. Bush Administration employed threats, sanctions and diplomacy but ultimately ruled out the use of force. In 2006, North Korea conducted its first nuclear test.

After that, U.S. military options became riskier. North Korea is now believed to possess 50 warheads, and it tests ICBMs that will one day be able to reach the continental U.S. The lesson is that U.S. presidents waited too long to stop North Korea. The risks of war were always said to be too high, it was never a good time, and there was always another diplomatic option to exhaust. North Korea is now a nuclear power.

Iran's radical regime will not have a nuclear program when the current Iran conflict ends. This has made the world a safer place.

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04/04 Links: Trump: Tehran has 48 hours to open the Strait of Hormuz; USAF rescue missing F-15E crew member; Francesca Albanese and the Perversion of Academia; ICC votes to discipline Karim Khan

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: World leaders should be grateful the US is doing what’s necessary in Iran

This is their war even more than it is the United States’ war. Iranian missiles threaten British interests even more than they threaten the US. And Iran’s terrorist proxies are even more active in Europe and the UK than they have been in America.

It’s just that the UK, Europeans and others don’t have the military power or the political will to do anything against that threat. They hoped that one day the US would take this problem off their hands. Because otherwise they’d have sat on those same hands as the ayatollah got ever-closer to the bomb.

Critics of President Trump at home point to the rising price of gas. And that is certainly a concern. But the price will come down as America’s objectives are achieved. And while a month of high gas prices is a concern it is much less of a concern than the price of gas if the Revolutionary Islamic Government in Iran started throwing nuclear weapons around.

Consider how they lashed out at every single one of their Arab neighbors after America’s first strikes on Tehran. This is how they behaved with missiles and drones. Imagine how they would react if they were nuclear.

Meantime some critics of American policy have pointed out how North Korea was allowed to develop nuclear weapons. But that program is a signal lesson to the civilized world as much as it is to dictators. North Korea was able to develop its nuclear program because they were constantly threatening South Korea with an attack by conventional weapons if their unconventional capability was attacked. So they got away with it.

The Iranians hoped they could pull off the same trick. But after the destruction of their armies in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria there was a window — this past month — to stop similar blackmail from Iran.

Of course the Iranian regime has lashed out — aiming missiles at Qatari energy facilities and Saudi airports. They have also — interestingly for an “Islamic” regime — sent missiles that have nearly hit the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. It would be quite an epitaph for the radical Mullahs if they struck that.

Yet the region has managed to suffer through this. All in the knowledge that American and Israeli pilots are stopping a much greater threat ever emanating from Iran.

And that will be the end of the war.

This war does not need to end up with anyone being bogged down. It doesn’t need the dreaded “boots on the ground” that Western powers seem to have become so fearful of.

Another couple of weeks and the Iranian regime will not be able to threaten anyone again for the foreseeable future. Perhaps a little further along the road the regime itself will fall. That will be in the hands of the Iranian people.

But for the time being the pilots of the US Air Force are doing noble work on behalf of the whole world. And not just for this generation but for the generations to come. We should be proud of them.

John Spencer: What Would Sun Tzu Say About War with Iran?

Throughout the war, Sun Tzu would have returned to a simple measure of success, not only what was destroyed, but what was achieved. If the enemy’s decisions change, the strategy has worked. If they do not, then tactical success may prove insufficient.

That is why The Art of War endures. It is not a guide to battle. It is a framework for thinking about war as a contest of wills, shaped by political purpose, constrained by cost, and decided not by destruction, but by decisions.

Sun Tzu would also have recognized the political constraints that shape the use of force and the importance of perception beyond the battlefield. He warned that “there is no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare” and that the use of the military must remain tied to the interests of the state, not drift into objectives that expand beyond what was originally intended. He placed extraordinary importance on information, writing that foreknowledge must be obtained and used to shape outcomes, a principle that today extends to the information domain and the perceptions of both enemy leadership and the population.

Sun Tzu also understood the role of threat, not as a matter of rhetoric, but as a function of perception and pressure. “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting,” and that requires shaping the enemy’s understanding of what continued fighting will bring. But he also warned against excess. “When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.” The purpose of pressure is not to eliminate all options, but to shape them, and to shape how they are understood. In this context, that means applying enough force to influence decision-making while preserving a path toward a political outcome aligned with stated objectives.

That matters in this context. If the regime were to collapse as a result of the war, the outcomes associated with regime change could occur, but that would be distinct from making regime change the stated political objective. If the objective shifts, or is perceived to shift, from forcing a change in behavior to regime change requiring large-scale ground forces, it risks repeating patterns seen in past wars, where limited objectives expanded into nation building and protracted counterinsurgency campaigns against enemies able to adapt, disperse, and find sanctuary. Those conditions favor the defender, extend time, and erode political cohesion.

Sun Tzu’s warning is clear. Strategy must remain aligned to political purpose, and that purpose must remain disciplined, or the advantages gained early in a campaign can be lost over time.

IDF commando KIA in Southern Lebanon, another critically wounded

An Israel Defense Forces soldier was killed overnight Friday in southeastern Lebanon, the Israeli military said.

He was named as Sgt. Maj. Guy Ludar, 21, a member of the Maglan reconnaissance unit of the IDF Commando Brigade, from Yuvalim in the Lower Galilee.

Another commando from the Maglan unit was critically wounded, the IDF said.

Their families were notified.

According to Ynet, Ludar was killed by “friendly” fire during a nighttime operation to arrest a Hezbollah helper in the village of Shebaa, north of Mount Hermon.

An IDF soldier from another force believed he detected two terrorists and opened fire.

The report noted that the building where the suspect was believed to be was not detonated in advance because Shebaa is predominantly a Sunni village, whose residents are not typically affiliated with the Iranian-backed Shi’ite terrorist group.

The IDF opened a probe into the incident.

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04/01 Links Pt2: Do not look away from the rising fires of Jew hatred; Three arrested inc. Pakistani teenager over Golders Green firebomb attack; Herzog: ‘Spirit of our people’ has always prevailed

From Ian:

Do not look away from the rising fires of Jew hatred

Can we all agree this is madness? How can it be that, as a child here, it almost never crossed my mind not to be openly and fearlessly Jewish, and yet I now wait in trepidation for the day one of my young children returns home from school or an outing, asking me to explain Jew hatred?

In just the past few weeks, a branch of Gail’s bakery in Archway was vandalised because it was founded by an Israeli Jew (who is no longer involved in the business), and then the incident was belittled in the Guardian. A report into campus anti-Semitism revealed that one in five students would refuse to live with a Jewish peer. An inquiry had to be launched into anti-Semitism in schools. Meanwhile, down in Margate, an art exhibition titled ‘Drawings Against Genocide’ depicts Israelis and Israel Defence Forces soldiers as demons, murderers and baby-eaters. Artist Matthew Collings claims the work is not anti-Semitic, merely ‘anti-Zionist’. Thank goodness he cleared that up!

This is what we’re up against. Anti-Semitism has had a rebrand and, honestly, activists have done a fantastic PR job. Say whatever you like about the Jews and carry out as many petty acts of anti-Semitism as you please – as long as you take care to use today’s euphemisms of ‘anti-Zionism’ or ‘Israel criticism’, you’ll get away with it.

Despite all of this, I still believe that the vast majority of Britons are not anti-Semites, and that growing numbers are sickened by what they see. Unfortunately, too many of our non-Jewish neighbours are looking away when they should be staring into the flames, as we are forced to do.

The Jewish community does not have the privilege of looking away. While I can shield myself from terrifying video footage of anti-Semitic murder and destruction, I cannot avoid reckoning with the daily reality of life for Jews in Britain today.

This week, Jews celebrate the festival of Passover, when we recall how Moses led us to freedom from slavery in Egypt. It is one of our most important festivals. It celebrates the privilege of not just freedom itself, but also the ability to live freely as Jews. It is a message that has always resonated strongly with me. But this year I find myself asking: when does living with unease become living in fear? In the past, I always believed myself to be truly free, as a person, as a Jew. Today, I’m not so sure.

Seth Mandel: How the Jewish Community Can Fight Tokenism Without Self-Destructing

Since October 7, anti-Zionist politicians and political institutions have relied more than ever on a specific tactic to deflect accusations of anti-Semitism: putting liberal and leftist Jews front and center and using them, essentially, as human shields.

This puts the global Jewish community in a bind. How do we call out this rank tokenism without allowing the debate to descend into an intra-Jewish fight that leaves the politicians unscathed but the Jews further fragmented?

The answer is to focus most of our ire on those responsible for pitting the Jews against each other. Obviously, Jews who allow themselves to be used in this manner are not without agency and therefore their actions can and should be criticized—just without losing sight of the way political systems historically take advantage of Jewish infighting.

Sometimes, the institutions that deserve to come under withering rhetorical fire aren’t political in the classic sense. Take the media. A couple of months ago, I noticed something reading the stories about Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s trip to Australia after the Bondi Beach Hanukkah massacre.

The Guardian headlined its story: “Isaac Herzog’s four days in Australia left him ‘energised’. For the Jewish community, some saw solidarity while others felt ‘serious angst’.”

The article claimed the trip brought “significant disquiet within Australia’s Jewish community.”

Commenting in favor of Herzog’s visit were the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies. The ECAJ is the umbrella organization of Australian Jewry that represents over 200 Jewish organizations. The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, which is listed as a territorial body of the ECAJ, oversees 55 such Jewish organizations.

The quotes from officers of these two organizations, therefore, can be reasonably said to represent Australian Jewry.

On the other side, being quoted against Herzog’s visit was… something called Jewish Voices of Inner Sydney. The leftist organization does not have much of a footprint and appears to have launched in 2024. Judging by its occasional forays into the public discourse, I can say with some confidence that it has a membership of at least 25 people. As of this writing, it has a whopping 126 followers on Facebook. It is a complete nonentity.

To say that it was unethical of the Guardian to frame its story this way based on some As-a-Jew garage band is to understate the point. The one person from this group the Guardian quotes hardly seems worth spending much time and energy on. The Guardian, on the other hand, is an influential tool of anti-Zionist agitation and ought to be subjected to heaps of scrutiny before anything it writes about Jews and Judaism are to be treated with a grain of seriousness or credibility.

The Guardian uses liberal Jews as human shields, and until it can prove that this has changed, it should be branded as such. Make the paper the primary target.

NYPost Editorial: This is a Democratic Party push to expel Jews from public life

The Democratic Party’s growing antisemitic wing is out to blacklist support for Israel, or at least the nation’s main pro-Israel lobbying and political action group, AIPAC.

Never mind that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee spends far less than other interest groups: Climate-obsessed California billionaire Tom Steyer, a prime AIPAC-denouncer, has spent much more on campaign donations all by himself these last few years.

But such is the power of Democrats’ hard left that delegates to the Democratic National Committee’s April meeting will debate a resolution that first condemns “the growing influence of dark money and corporate-backed independent expenditures in Democratic elections” but then singles out only AIPAC as “undermining public trust in democratic institutions.”

But AIPAC isn’t “corporate-backed” or “dark money”: its SuperPAC donors, all successful American individuals, are completely open about who they are and what they support.

The same cannot be said about the real dark money spent on American politics, most of which — about $1.2 billion — supported Democrat candidates and issues in the last election cycle.

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04/01 Links Pt1: Trump claims Iran 'no longer a threat' in update on Operation Epic Fury; Iran's Danger Must Be Judged by "Unacceptable Risk," Not "Imminent Threat";

From Ian:

Bret Stephens: Yes, This Is Your War, Too

But whatever the administration decides to do, what isn’t viable is for Americans and our allies to pretend that they can be indifferent to the outcome of the war. When someone like Boris Pistorius, the German defense minister, says, “This is not our war,” the appropriate response is: Are you serious?

In June, Pistorius’s boss, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, acknowledged that Israel’s attack that month on Iran’s military and nuclear sites was “dirty work that Israel is doing for all of us.” Has something changed in his government’s strategic calculus about the threat Iran poses, other than its overriding opposition to the Trump administration?

In January, the United Arab Emirates announced in no uncertain terms that it would not allow its airspace, territory or ports to be used for an attack on Iran. The declaration was a transparent effort to insulate the Emirates from Iranian reprisals. For its pains, Iran has since hit Abu Dhabi, Dubai and other Emirati targets, military and civilian, with at least 433 ballistic missiles, 19 cruise missiles and 1,977 drones.

Now the governments of Spain and Italy are replicating the Emirates’ strategy, barring the U.S. from using bases (and, in Madrid’s case, its airspace) for attacks on Iran. Do those governments think they’ll be spared Tehran’s furies should they one day come into range of Tehran’s missiles? For that matter — given Trump’s ambivalence about the war in Ukraine — do Europeans think the administration is more likely to support NATO in the event of a Russian attack when NATO has been so hostile to American efforts to defang Iran?

For Americans, especially those who often oppose the administration, the question is whether our distaste for this president should get the better of our strategic judgments about the threats Iran poses. In The Wall Street Journal recently, the lawyer David Boies, a prominent Democrat, noted that if Trump had failed to act, “his successor would have been left with an even more dangerous choice than his predecessors left him. Three or four years from now, the Iranian missiles now hitting Iran’s neighbors could be hitting Berlin or London, perhaps even New York or Washington.”

If Democrats can’t bring themselves to support Trump, they can at least support policies that will make the strategic choices for the next Democratic president easier rather than harder.

“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you” is a line widely attributed to Leon Trotsky. If that’s the case — and history tells us it is — shouldn’t you be interested in winning it, too?

Iran's Danger Must Be Judged by "Unacceptable Risk," Not "Imminent Threat"

Did Iran pose an imminent threat to the U.S.? "Imminence" is not a precise or objective term that presidents should employ only if intelligence experts endorse it. In national security affairs, it is almost always debatable. Besides, "imminence" is not the right concept for deciding whether and how to respond to a grave threat from abroad.

To grasp why it is not right, ask yourself: When did the Sep. 11 attack become imminent? When did the attack on Pearl Harbor? When did Russia's invasion of Ukraine? When did the Holocaust? When did the threat of British tyranny that justified the American Revolution? The concept of "imminence" offers no useful guidance for confronting complex threats of this kind.

Is a threat imminent when the enemy becomes hostile? Only after they perfect the means to attack us, or only after the enemy puts them in motion as part of an attack? Does it matter if the enemy appears unstable or ideologically fanatical? Does it matter if the enemy's means of attack are apocalyptic - nuclear weapons on long-range missiles, for example?

The relevant concept is unacceptable risk, not imminent threat. Presidents have the duty to decide whether a foreign threat poses risks that require a U.S. response. They have the responsibility to decide whether a threat is grave enough - and no means short of war can reduce the risk to an acceptable level - to make war necessary.

As a rule, only an imminent threat justifies police officers' use of deadly force. But is it sensible to import that concept into national security affairs today, when a country like Iran calls over decades for "Death to America," commits numerous murderous aggressions, and devotes enormous resources to developing terrorist proxy networks, nuclear weapons, and long-range missiles?

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03/31 Links Pt2: Israel’s sniveling classes are in the minority; The Sham of 'Disarming' Hamas; UN Sends Billions to Islamic Terrorists Who Kidnap its Staff

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: Israel’s sniveling classes are in the minority

In other words, outside the curated echo chamber of the likes of Seroussi, Israelis are doing what we always do: debate, grumble and persevere—raising families at the highest rate in the Western world, and managing, against all odds, to sustain an upbeat mood under the constant strain of having to defend against enemies bent on wiping us off the map.

Seroussi’s woe-is-me theatrics aside, Israel ranks eighth on the latest World Happiness Report. Evidently, the citizens polled neglected to align their answers about their overall well-being with the gloom and doom emanating from left-wing Hebrew-language TV studios.

Not only that. Surveys indicate that an overwhelming majority of Israelis back the war against Iran and its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon—despite having spent the past month running to bomb shelters throughout the day and wee hours of the night.

Seroussi and her fellow moaners are free to view things differently. They’re also at liberty to depart for what they imagine to be greener pastures abroad.

Such prerogatives are among the many options taken for granted by the sniveling classes. You know, the people who tend to omit a certain inconvenient phenomenon for Jews, regardless of their political persuasion: the explosion of antisemitism in New York, London, Paris and just about everywhere else.

It’s open Jew-hatred that would have seemed unfathomable not long ago, though probably not to Seroussi’s grandparents.

Jonathan Tobin: Gavin Newsom and the Democrats’ Israel problem

Simply put, there is a broad consensus within Israel that stretches from left to right on these issues. That consensus views a Palestinian state, such as the one that existed in Gaza prior to Oct. 7 in all but name, as an invitation to future slaughter and perpetual war. It also understands that the only option available to them with respect to Iran, as long as it is governed by fanatical Islamist theocrats, is a fight to the finish.

Seen from that perspective, it makes even those Democrats who claim to be supporters of Israel, though bitterly opposed to its government, like Newsom or even Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, as not merely out of touch with the realities of Israeli politics but also with their own voters. Such candidates may try to finesse the issue, as Newsom and Shapiro are trying to do, by declaring their support for Israel while avowing perpetual opposition to Netanyahu and Trump. But even if you take Netanyahu out of the equation, there is no conceivable government that could emerge from the next Israeli election that would have policies on two states or Iran that any almost any Democrat outside of an outlier like Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa) could support. And as far as the left-wing base of the Democratic Party is concerned, all Israelis and their American supporters—be they Jewish or Christian evangelicals—are backers of the mythical “genocide” and “apartheid.”

And that is why Israel is a land mine that Democratic presidential contenders understand can blow up their ability to reach their party’s activists who are the key to winning primaries and the nomination.

The two parties move in different directions
It’s true that there is also a vocal anti-Israel and increasingly antisemitic faction on the right that is unhappy with Trump’s pro-Israel policies. But it is clearly a minority with most Republicans, including the MAGA base. Most are enthusiastic supporters of Israel and of Trump’s stands, including the current war on Iran. And that has also placed Vice President JD Vance, the putative champion of the Tucker Carlson anti-Israel wing of the party, in a very uncomfortable position. He and his staff are reduced to leaking their unhappiness with Netanyahu, as well as their hopes about brokering a deal with Iran, to left-wing publications like Axios.

The anti-Israel right may think that it can reverse the GOP’s pro-Israel stance if Vance wins the presidency in 2028. But their problem is that unlike the situation on the other side of the aisle, the Veep’s coolness to Israel and the conflict with Iran is making that prospect far less of an inevitable occurrence than it seemed just a few months ago.

But for Democrats, the trend is moving in the opposite direction.

The best that supporters of Israel can hope for from a Democratic presidential candidate going forward is exactly the sort of dodge Newsom has just demonstrated—by talking out of both sides of his mouth. He signaled acquiescence to the “apartheid” and “genocide” blood libels while saying he supports a mythical Israel that has, like the few remaining liberal Zionists, learned nothing from Oslo, the events of Oct. 7, or Iran’s role in fomenting terror and war. Some “moderate” Democrats may think that trying to thread the needle in this way will allow them to be acceptable to both left-wingers and Jewish donors. That’s a sham that increasingly fewer opponents or supporters of Israel will accept.

Yisrael Medad: ‘The Three Cs’ and company

The person on the other side of that conversation was Robert Emmet Patrick Barron, a theologian who serves as bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester. In a follow-up post on X, he was more explicit in his opinion about Boller.

He wrote on March 20: “Boller … has called out myself and other Catholic members of the commission for not defending her. This is absurd. Mrs. Prejean Boller was not dismissed for her religious convictions but rather for her behavior at a gathering of the commission last month: browbeating witnesses, aggressively asserting her point of view, hijacking the meeting for her own political purposes.”

He also clarified the Catholic position on matters of “Zionism.” For Barron, the State of Israel has a right to exist, though the modern nation of Israel does not represent the fulfillment of biblical prophecies and hence does not stand beyond criticism. He ended, writing: “To paint herself as a victim of anti-Catholic prejudice or to claim that her religious liberty has been denied is simply preposterous.”

These people, righteously raging their Christianity, may be suffering from a form of persecutory delusion. That mental and psychological framework has led them willingly to be accused of irrationality as an element of modern-day martyrdom. They feel, for some strange reason (unless it’s all about the greenbacks), that being in a minority—one that is ridiculed—is actually “proof” of the truth of their convictions. They are pig-pen delighted to exist in their unique in-group status as champions of an outlier view of Jews.

Owens, and specifically, Boller, display the obvious new convert fervor that forces them to be so overtly extroverted in their disgust of fellow Christians and hate for Israel and Judaism.

Social psychology researchers have found that people can form self-preferencing in-groups, even if they are in a significant minority position. In doing so, while experiencing feelings of exclusion, they nevertheless achieve a higher awareness of their identity. In the case of “The Three Cs,” this perception excites them and provides a form of self-justification. They resist the obvious evidence of their irrationality and reject sensible, contrary logical arguments that disprove their beliefs.

And why do we not hear what Carlson, Boller and Owens have to say about the actions of Arab terror groups and Islamist countries against Israelis and Jews? Or about the persecution of Christians in Muslim lands? Why the dichotomy? Why sound the one note?

The danger is that their lack of any real success—beyond temporary media fame and, possibly, fortune—is that their anger only increases. While all they are doing is talking, the true evil is emboldening all those others who hate, channeled through computers and online instruments.

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03/31 Links Pt1: Hegseth: Iranian Missile Strikes Fall to Lowest Level, ‘Widespread Desertions’ Squeeze Regime’s Fighting Force; Israel ends all defense deals with France

From Ian:

Lessons from the Iran War

The centers of gravity on both sides of the Iran war are holding up under military pressure: Iran's command and control, its domination of a still-cowed population, ability to block shipments out of the Gulf, and its missile and drone stocks; the U.S., Israel, and Arab states' internal cohesion, weapons stocks, and despite considerable oil and gas price increases.

Neither side is displaying a decisive collapse of will, with Gulf Arab states so far demonstrating both resilience and defiance of Iran. There will not be a collapse of will by the Israeli government and population. For Israel, this conflict, correctly, is existential and the costs so far are easily bearable. Under such conditions, the conflict likely will shift to negotiations with or without a ceasefire.

Iran is a cause more than a state, although it presents as both. Its attacks on civilian targets in neighboring states seeking to remain neutral, and targeting of international oil supplies, have revealed the regime's nature. The region will never be really at peace unless either the very nature of the regime changes into that of a normal state, or it is stripped of all capability, in perpetuity, to project power through nuclear weapons, drones and missiles, terrorists and proxies.

Iran is able to prioritize its ideological mission of regional domination and religious orthodoxy over its own population, economy, and even military losses in a way most normal modern states cannot. It's hard to break the iron will of ideological states at almost any pain level.

Israel's extraordinary military success both offensive and defensive, the Israeli people's resilience, and its intelligence capabilities in this conflict give it dramatic dominance in the region, building on its previous success with the help of others decimating the Iranian proxy network. But it does not have the strategically mobile ground forces to decisively defeat Iran or other distant foes.

Iran's current strategy is simply to keep shooting with whatever is left of its not inexhaustible but very large weapons stocks until the pain on Gulf states and the American public, diminishing American and regional partners' own weapons stocks, and events elsewhere force the U.S. and Israel to end operations, with or without a face-saving formal understanding with Iran.

John Spencer: What Are Iran’s Centers of Gravity and How Are They Being Attacked?

The United States and Israel are not simply working through a list of targets in an effort to destroy Iran’s military piece by piece. They are applying pressure across multiple parts of the same system at once. Production, command, naval capability, sensing networks, infrastructure, and support networks are all being hit in ways that reinforce each other.

That is what a center of gravity approach looks like in practice. Not a single decisive strike, but a series of actions that collectively make it harder for the system to function, adapt, and recover.

Clausewitz’s warning about dispersion still applies. Effort should be concentrated. But concentration does not always mean a single point. It can mean sustained pressure against the elements that give the enemy its strength.

There is also a dimension of modern war that Clausewitz could not have fully imagined. The ability to strike not just the system, but the individuals who animate it, at scale and with precision. Today, the United States and Israel are not only degrading infrastructure and capabilities. They are systematically targeting the leadership that commands them. Political leaders, military commanders, and those responsible for missile forces, naval operations, nuclear development, and proxy networks. This is not incidental. It follows the same logic. If the center of gravity is the regime’s integrated ability to generate and sustain coercive power, then removing the leadership that directs and coordinates that system directly attacks its function and its will. It introduces paralysis, disrupts continuity, and signals that no part of the system is protected.

And even then, the outcome is not automatic. War is a contest of will. Striking a center of gravity is not about destruction alone. It is about compelling the enemy to do your will through the use, or threat of use, of force, including military action, sanctions, and the removal of critical capabilities the regime sees as vital to its survival.

If the campaign is successful, Iran’s critical capabilities are degraded or destroyed, and there is a real possibility the effects of the war will be visible in decisions, not just damage. That could include Iran handing over its nuclear material, accepting intrusive inspections, ending the program in a way that cannot be easily reversed, halting missile development at scale, reducing or ending support to proxy forces, and abandoning the use of the Strait of Hormuz as a tool of coercion.

Those outcomes are the measure. Anything short of that may represent significant damage. It may even look decisive in the short term. But Clausewitz would caution against confusing damage with success.

IRGC Opposes Negotiations with U.S.

Contacts between Iran and the U.S. are intensifying, Israel Hayom has learned.

In Washington, officials believe that Iran's economic and military distress will push Tehran to accept the 15-point American proposal within a matter of weeks.

Negotiations are currently being conducted by a handful of senior Iranian leaders still in place, alongside President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

The main obstacle remains the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The U.S. has demanded guarantees that the entire leadership, including the Guards, accept the terms.

At this stage, the Iranians have been unable to provide such guarantees because of the fierce opposition of Mohammad Vahidi, the Guards' current commander, to the very existence of negotiations. In the United Arab Emirates, Iranian financial assets have been frozen, with the intention of using them as compensation for the damage caused by Iranian attacks.

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03/30 Links Pt2: No one can deny it now: anti-Zionism is an ideology of hatred; Feminism’s Jewish Problem; The disturbed mind of the anti-Israel activist

From Ian:

Brendan O'Neil: No one can deny it now: anti-Zionism is an ideology of hatred

Actually, it was even worse than that. Over the weekend, Polanski aimed his ire not at those Green activists spouting Jew hate on WhatsApp but at a Jewish journalist who had the temerity to interview members of his family about the Green Party’s possible adoption of a ‘Zionism is racism’ policy. Polanski himself is Jewish and the fine journalist Nicole Lampert found that some of his relatives think he is taking the Greens in a very dark direction. They said it would be devastating for Britain’s Jews if the Greens decreed that ‘Zionism is racism’ – a policy they didn’t get around to discussing in the end at their party conference this weekend. Polanski accused Lampert of ‘parasitic behaviour’ – oof – and she swiftly found herself on the receiving end of a shitshow of hate from all those ‘good guys’.

So, a recap. Green activists referred to Jews as an ‘abomination to this planet’. The Green Party is considering adopting a policy singling out Jewish nationalism as racist. Polanski called a Jewish journalist ‘parasitic’. And, going back further, the Greens’ deputy leader, Mothin Ali, made excuses for the anti-Semitic barbarism of 7 October 2023, as did other Greens. Can we say it now – that the Green Party has a very serious problem with that most ancient of bigotries?

The Israelophobic left loves to say: ‘But Polanski is a Jew! How can you say the Greens have a problem with Jews?’ Here I will merely cite the words of Ms Lampert, who has been fighting the Jews’ corner in British journalism for many years. Polanski uses his Jewish heritage, she wrote in the Telegraph, to ‘kosherise the rampant Jew hatred in the Greens’. It’s a devastating line, and one it is increasingly hard to disagree with: that Polanski’s historic role is to provide the middle-class adherents to the new Socialism of Fools with a get-out-of-jail card. They point to his Jewishness as proof of their righteousness even as they engage in truly hateful behaviour against that ‘abominable’ people.

‘We’re not anti-Semitic, we’re anti-Zionist’, they’ll say. The irritation of Greens for Palestine at having to say Zionist rather than Jew surely explodes that crap once and for all. But more to the point, what do people mean when they say they’re anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic? All I hear is: ‘I don’t hate Jews, I just want to deprive them of a right enjoyed by every other people and bring about the destruction of their homeland so that they will once again be scattered across the Earth.’

I’m sick of pussyfooting around this: if you dream of the Jewish nation’s destruction, and chant for the death of Jewish soldiers, and demonise Jewish nationalism as uniquely barbarous, then you have a problem with Jews. It might take 10 years, maybe 30, perhaps longer, but I am confident we will one day look back at the people who said, ‘I’m an anti-Zionist’, in the same way we look at those who said, ‘Round up the Jews’.

Is it time to retire the term antisemitism?

Synagogues are not embassies. Chanukah celebrations are not military installations. Museums are not government offices. These are Jews, living their lives, thousands of miles from Israel. Jews murdered in the name of anti-Zionism.

If this is anti-Zionism, then anti-Zionism does not stay in Israel. It does not confine itself to policy debates or territorial disputes. It follows Jews wherever they are. It attaches itself to Jewish identity itself.

At that point, the distinction collapses. Anti-Zionist, in practice, means anti-Jewish. And there is a deeper reason for that, one that goes beyond contemporary politics.

“Zion” is not merely the name of a modern state. The prophet Isaiah records God’s words: “And I say to Zion: You are My people.” Zion is not just a place. Zion is a people. And so, anti-Zionist, according to the Bible, means anti-Jewish. Tragically, it is almost unsurprising when Jews are attacked across the globe in the name of anti-Zionism.

So let us stop pretending. Let us stop arguing over whether anti-Zionism is or is not antisemitism. Let us simply call it what they call it: anti-Zionism.

Let it include every Jew who has been targeted, harassed, attacked or murdered under the banner of opposition to Zion.

Because if anti-Zionism consistently manifests as hostility toward Jews, if it repeatedly finds its targets not in government offices but in Jewish communities, if it aligns itself with violence against Jews across continents, then it has already answered the question.

We were looking for a word that means anti-Jewish. They have given us one.

If changing the label from antisemitism to anti-Zionism helps expose the scope and nature of what is happening, then perhaps it is a worthwhile exercise. Not because it resolves the debate, but because it sharpens it.

In the end, the question is not what we call the hatred. The question is whether we are willing to see it clearly. Words matter, but reality matters more.

Call it antisemitism. Call it anti-Zionism. The victims know no difference. And neither, it seems, do those who target them.

The disturbed mind of the anti-Israel activist

Collings’s turn from Britpop-loving centrist dad to an uncloseted Israelophobe took him into Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, and then straight out again. He was adopted as the parliamentary candidate for South West Norfolk in 2019. Within a day of his selection, he was suspended from the party for having dismissed allegations of anti-Semitism in Labour as a ‘witch-hunt’, and for calling the late chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, a ‘hate-filled racist’. He also shared conspiratorial diagrams on social media, purporting to reveal the ‘influence’ of Jewish businessmen on British politics. That’s right – Collings took things too far, even for the Corbynistas.

The Margate exhibition is laughably titled Drawings Against Genocide. The artworks look childish and this is deliberate. Collings is trying to strip away all artifice to let the unalloyed feelings shine out. The trouble is that, in letting us see directly into his soul, what we see there is repulsive.

Collings would no doubt argue that his ‘art’ is in the tradition of the anti-Vietnam War art of the 1960s radicals, like Michael Sandle’s Mickey Mouse at the Machine Gun (1972) or Leon Golub’s paintings of torture and killing, even though his Margate show is entirely misanthropic and hate-filled.

Some have called for the exhibition to be banned, but that would be a mistake. On the contrary, Matthew Collings has done us a great service by showing us the disturbed mind of the anti-Israel activist. It is good that we all see the depravity that lies at the heart of this movement.

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03/30 Links Pt1: Confronting Jihad's Forever War; The Big Ugandan Bear Hug; Trump considering operation to extract Iran's enriched uranium; Michigan synagogue attack was inspired by Hezbollah

From Ian:

Confronting Jihad's Forever War

The U.S. has confronted seemingly implacable ideological enemies before - and won. The lessons of Hiroshima, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Reagan's Cold War strategy point to a common principle: overwhelming force, credible will, and the imposition of unsustainable costs ultimately prevail.

Iran has not surrendered. Its proxies continue to launch missiles and drones. Its parliament invokes jihad. This is the behavior of a regime that does not process war through the same conceptual framework as does the West. The question policymakers must answer is not why Iran keeps fighting - but what kind of pressure will finally make continued fighting more costly than stopping.

One of the most consequential failures of Western strategic analysis has been treating the Islamic Republic's rhetoric as theater. It is not. Its leadership has articulated - with remarkable consistency across four decades - a vision of global, divinely ordained, open-ended struggle against Western civilization. Since 1979, Iran's Islamic Republic has called for "Death to America" and "Death to Israel."

The Karbala Paradigm functions as the Islamic Republic's operational code for conflict. In 680 CE, Imam Hussein ibn Ali - grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and the third Shiite Imam - rode with 72 followers into the plains of Karbala. He was surrounded by a vastly superior Umayyad army. He was offered a choice: submit to the Caliph Yazid, or die. He chose death. His followers were massacred. For Shiite Islam, this was the foundational moral event of the faith - proof that righteous resistance is sacred even when it leads to annihilation.

Any signal that Washington will negotiate the terms of Iran's nuclear program or proxy network - rather than their elimination - will be read as confirmation that the forever war is working. Yet, America does not want a forever war. Neither do Israel, the Gulf states, or the broader community of nations. The theology of jihad is formidable. The martyrdom culture of Karbala is real. But it is not more formidable than American resolve has proven to be.

The Islamic Republic has built its resistance strategy on the assumption that the West lacks the strategic patience and political will to sustain pressure long enough to defeat the regime. Now there is a narrow window to prosecute a historic change. We need to make clear - through action, not rhetoric - that the forever war will end Iran's revolution before it ends ours. The Islamic Republic's leadership has told us explicitly what they intend. The only remaining question is whether the U.S., Israel, and the West have the moral and strategic will to confront this messianic jihadi phenomenon and to defeat it.

Amb. Michael Oren: The Outcome of the Iran War: A Victory or a Pause before the Next War?

On Tuesday night, as U.S. President Donald Trump declared victory over Iran during a press conference, my family and I took shelter in our safe room. Despite the close partnership between Washington and Jerusalem, and the historic cooperation between the U.S. military and the Israel Defense Forces, America and Israel are living in entirely different realities.

From an American perspective, the near destruction of Iran's military capabilities, damage to its nuclear infrastructure, and the elimination of senior leadership can be framed as a victory. For Israel, the standard is far stricter. Any outcome that allows Iran to rebuild its nuclear and ballistic programs, retain enough enriched uranium for multiple nuclear weapons, and continue supporting terrorist proxies is not a victory. It is a pause before Israel is forced to fight the same war again, possibly alone.

During negotiations, Iran may accept principles in theory, then stall, dilute and avoid implementation in practice. We have seen this pattern before. The 20-point Gaza plan stalled when Hamas refused to disarm. The risk now is that Iran follows the same path, agreeing in principle while preserving its core capabilities. Israel cannot afford that outcome.

Israel must press for clear, enforceable guarantees before any agreement takes shape. Not vague assurances, not frameworks, but concrete commitments that address the core threat. At the same time, Israel must act with urgency, both in Iran and in Lebanon, to shape the strategic environment before diplomacy locks in outcomes it cannot reverse.

In Allied Campaign, Mission to Kill Top Iranians Fell to Israel

As U.S. and Israeli military commanders met to map out war with Iran, they deliberated over how to divide responsibility for an array of targets.

It was clear from the outset that one grim mission would belong to Israel: hunting and killing Iran's leaders.

Israel has pursued this assignment with ruthless efficiency, killing Iran's supreme leader in the opening salvo of the war and more than 250 other "senior Iranian officials" since, according to the Israeli military.

The campaign relies on an apparatus that Israel spent decades building but transformed over the past several years to achieve new levels of lethal proficiency.

Senior Israeli military and intelligence officials cited a proliferation of sources and surveillance capabilities inside Iran - regime insiders recruited to spy for Israel as well as cyber-penetrations of thousands of targets including street cameras and payment platforms.

These and other streams of data are being scoured by a new, classified artificial intelligence platform programmed to extract clues to leaders' lives and movements.

Israel's targeted killing tactics - bombs planted months before being detonated, drones capable of slipping into apartment windows, and supersonic missiles fired from stealth fighter jets - have been honed by years of conflict in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

Asked why the mission of targeting Iran's leaders was assigned to Israel, a senior Israeli security official cited its experience and expertise, saying: "There was a need to target them. And we could do it."

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