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Saturday, May 30, 2026

05/29 Links Pt1: How Benjamin Netanyahu transformed Israeli politics in 30 years; Every US ally is under attack from the UN; The ICC’s illegitimate pursuit of Israeli leaders is political warfare

From Ian:

How Benjamin Netanyahu transformed Israeli politics in 30 years
Shimon Peres, the world-renowned statesman who had served in multiple governments for an aggregate 24 years, was dethroned by a political novice nearly three decades his junior, the woefully inexperienced Benjamin Netanyahu, who had not been a minister for one day.

The electoral upset was explained by circumstances – a wave of terror attacks that followed, and mocked Peres’s peace promises. No one understood that a new era in the history of the Jewish state had just begun: the Bibi era, an epoch that has his name written all over it, and our future teetering under its weight.

What was this era about, what were its benefits, what were its costs, and what should follow its steadily approaching end?

Netanyahu’s finest hour came not during his aggregate 18 years as prime minister, but in between them, as Ariel Sharon’s finance minister.

With his first premiership having ended in a ringing defeat, Netanyahu set out to prove he could not only talk, but also do. What he thus did – massive cuts in social spending, sharp tax cuts, a set of privatizations, and a package of financial reforms – helped lead the Israeli economy to international stardom. It also showed that Netanyahu, unlike most politicians, had convictions.

Then again, that achievement was not the Bibi era’s main feature. His economic reforms accelerated, but did not launch, Israel’s journey from socialism to capitalism. That transition had been triggered by the 1985 Stabilization Plan. In fact, reforms mostly starred in Netanyahu’s rhetoric, but not in his deeds.

As prime minister, he delivered some infrastructure development – most notably the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv fast train – but when it came to complex structural problems, he avoided ambitious action. Yes, his open-skies policy cut flight prices, but more urgent issues, like the quality of the school system, the shortage of hospitals and doctors, the political system’s deformities, and the crime crisis in the Arab sector, were accepted fatalistically as fixtures of Israeli life.

As this column claimed already 15 years ago, by the time he returned to the premiership, Netanyahu had “lost his own reformist drive” (“Bibi the third’s failed premiership,” July 1, 2011).
Johnathan Tobin: Who should speak for Israel? The case for Caroline Glick
As far as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leftist critics are concerned, the last thing Israel needs is someone representing the country abroad who enthusiastically supports his policies, and is ready to do intellectual and verbal combat with the government’s opponents. If that doesn’t make sense, then welcome to Israeli politics.

That basic conundrum explains the firestorm that has greeted the floating of the idea that Netanyahu might name veteran journalist and current adviser Caroline Glick to the post of consul general in New York City. Glick was a senior contributing editor at JNS and hosted “The Caroline Glick” show on JNS TV before being named as Netanyahu’s international affairs adviser in February 2025.

In many ways, she is an ideal candidate for such a post. She was born, raised and educated (at Columbia and Harvard universities) in the United States. As a result, she speaks unaccented idiomatic American English, unlike most of Israel’s diplomats.

After making aliyah, she served in the Israel Defense Forces, where she worked as coordinator of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority during the period of the Oslo Accords. After becoming a journalist, she was embedded with the U.S. Army during the invasion of Iraq and worked as a frontline war correspondent. Since then—and outside of a brief stint running for the Knesset in 2019—she’s been covering and commenting on the issues that are at the forefront of Israeli public policy and diplomacy.

Moreover, as someone who worked with Netanyahu for a while in the 1990s and then again in the last year, she understands the prime minister’s views as well as anyone.
October 7 exposed the West’s dangerous illusion about Iran - opinion
October 7 was not merely a security breach; it was a fundamental turning point that shattered a global delusion. To understand why Israel was so catastrophically blindsided, we must examine the fact that for decades, the West and Israel operated under the comfortable delusion that money, prosperity, and the responsibilities of governance could “tame” an ideological movement.

This catastrophic error in Gaza, the belief that Hamas could be “bought,” was not just an Israeli failure. It is the exact same flaw currently poisoning the international approach to the Islamic Republic of Iran, particularly regarding its nuclear program.

The illusion of prosperity
Prior to October 7, Israel and the United States – operating under the assumption that economic prosperity could tame radicalism – approved the flow of vast amounts of capital into the Gaza Strip.

High-paying work permits were issued for Gazans to work in Israel, and the Strip saw the rise of modern shopping centres and palm-fringed boulevards.

The assumption was simple: If we give them a middle-class life, they won’t want to lose it. We believed that Hamas, burdened by the duties of statecraft and the management of a growing economy, would choose the survival of its “mini-state” over the bloody pursuit of its charter. We assumed they knew that a major attack would mean their total destruction, and that they feared that destruction.

The reality of the death cult
We were wrong. October 7 proved that jihadist forces do not view the world through the lens of material profit and loss. For them, this world is an “abode of passage,” a temporary and hollow stage. Prosperity is not a goal; it is a tactical lull used for “Taqiyya” (strategic deception) while they prepare for the only world that matters: the afterlife – as they see it.

In this ideology, life is not something to be protected; it is a currency to be spent.

When a movement views its own children as future martyrs, uses its civilians as human shields to gain divine and political merit, and values a glorious death over a comfortable life, traditional economic leverage is useless. You cannot deter those who perceive their own annihilation as a shortcut to paradise.


Eugene Kontorovich: The ICC’s illegitimate pursuit of Israeli leaders is political warfare
The ICC was under great pressure to bring cases outside of Africa, but it can only hear cases involving member states. Africa was where membership and crime overlapped. Thus, the Court invented a “State of Palestine”, which it admitted might not be a state for any purposes other than giving the Court jurisdiction over Israel. Israel is the only non-member state being prosecuted at the behest of a member that is not a state.

Proceedings against Israeli leaders are thus a godsend for the Court. It is a Western country without the political power of the United States or the United Kingdom; it is, of course, deeply unpopular among the European legal elites whose culture the Court embodies; and most importantly, as a non-member, it cannot quit in protest as other countries have done.

If Khan’s tainted pursuit of Netanyahu had occurred in a domestic criminal prosecution in a Western democracy, the case would have been thrown out for prosecutorial misconduct. For the ICC, though, dropping the case would only magnify its record of failure. For much of its constituency, if the only thing it does is put top Israeli officials in jail, its existence would be justified. Devoid of successes and with no laurels to rest on, the ICC is doubling down on Israel. For this, the Court is prepared to indict Israel for crimes for which no one has ever been convicted or even charged.

The new cases against Smotrich and others are unprecedented in international law. They are being ostensibly targeted due to their involvement in allowing homes to be built in the settlements. In the history of international criminal law, no one has ever been prosecuted for such conduct. Yet it may have been the mission of the ICC from the start. When the Court’s founding document, the Rome Statute, was being written three decades ago, it adopted verbatim the Geneva Conventions’ definitions of war crimes. A glaring exception was the definition for the crime of the transfer of population by an occupying power.

That’s because the Geneva Conventions prohibit government-organised population transfers akin to the Nazi colonisation programmes of eastern Europe. It was never meant to cover individuals freely choosing to move from Kfar Saba to Elkana. Israel, even assuming the laws of occupation apply, has not “deported or transferred anyone” into the settlements. The Jewish presence there has emerged through voluntary migration and return to prior Jewish-inhabited areas.

The Rome Statute drafters, specifically at the behest of Arab states, added the words “directly or indirectly” to the prohibition, with the clear understanding that this was targeting Jewish communities. Indeed, that is why Israel did not join the treaty.

The settlement activities the ICC is seeking warrants for are a “made for Israel” crime. Turkey continues to illegally occupy northern Cyprus, a real ICC member state, and to carry out a massive demographic campaign to settle ethnic Turks in the territory. Properties seized from Greek Cypriots in Northern Cyprus are heavily marketed to British civilians. Over a decade ago, Cypriot refugees filed a complaint against Turkey at the ICC over its occupation and settlement policy. Since then, nothing has happened. In 2021, former Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced that she would decide on the issue before the end of her term. Similarly, Russia’s population transfer to occupied Ukraine is notably absent from the charges filed against Putin and other Russian officials.

Whatever one thinks of his politics, the warrants against Smotrich and other Israeli leaders are fundamentally illegitimate and reveal the Court to be unworthy of the high hopes originally placed in it. Rather than fulfilling its founding mission to end impunity for the world's worst atrocities, the Court has chosen to double down on political warfare to appease its constituency.
International Court of Justice extends timeline in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel
South Africa, which has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, has agreed to an effective 36-month extension in proceedings before the International Court of Justice after requesting additional time to respond to Israel’s initial defense response.

The court, which is based in The Hague, is the principal judicial arm of the United Nations.

In an order dated May 21 and published on Friday, the ICJ gave South Africa until Nov. 22, 2027, to file its reply. Israel will then have until May 22, 2029, to submit a rejoinder.

According to the court, South Africa told judges last month that a second round of written pleadings was necessary because of “the complexity of the case,” the volume of Israel’s counter-memorial and Israel’s objections to the court’s jurisdiction and the admissibility of South Africa’s application.

Israel argued that another round of pleadings was unnecessary, the court said, but maintained that if South Africa were granted 18 months to respond, Israel should receive the same amount of time for its rejoinder.

The extension marks the latest delay in the case. In 2025, the ICJ granted Israel a six-month extension to file its counter-memorial after Jerusalem cited evidentiary and procedural issues and the growing number of third-party interventions in the case.

At the time, South Africa opposed the delay, arguing there was no legitimate basis for an extension given what it described as a humanitarian emergency in Gaza. The court nevertheless sided with Israel.

In previous cases, the ICJ has required “fully conclusive” evidence that an accused state had intended to commit genocide with no other feasible, competing motives, such as counterterrorism.


Joseph Epstein: Every US ally is under attack — from the very institutions American taxpayers fund
American taxpayers fund the United Nations. American diplomats built it. This week, the Geneva-based group UN Watch released the most thorough accounting yet of who actually pays the salaries and shapes the verdicts of the U.N.’s human rights enforcers. The short answer: not the United States.

The 104-page dossier, “From Watchdogs to Ideologues,” surveys 13 of the UN’s 59 Special Rapporteurs — the formally autonomous specialists whose findings carry near-judicial weight at the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, Western foreign ministries, and across the global press. It documents not occasional ideological tilt but the wholesale capture of a Western-built institution by the regimes it was meant to constrain.

Three cases illustrate the machinery. Take Alena Douhan, whose U.N. brief — “unilateral coercive measures” — means U.S. and allied sanctions: she has banked $1.3 million from Beijing, Moscow, and Doha, taken every U.N. trip to a dictatorship, and reliably blamed Western sanctions rather than the regimes for whatever shortages her hosts displayed.

Irene Khan, the UN’s free-press monitor, is on the books of Wellspring Philanthropic Fund — a U.S. left-aligned donor outfit long criticized for opaque grant-making — for $775,000; her office has gone silent on Venezuela’s incarcerated journalists, Iran’s and Turkey’s internet blackouts, and Myanmar’s military censorship, while her flagship General Assembly submission zeroed in on the alleged suppression of pro-Palestinian activism on American and European campuses. And Ben Saul, the UN’s counterterrorism rapporteur, has cashed $150,000 from China; his record contains nothing on the camps holding more than a million Uyghur Muslims — though he has found time to call the United States, on the record, a “dystopia.”

The aggregate output is exactly what the financing implies. Across the 30 months from October 2023 to this past March, the Rapporteurs collectively issued 148 hostile statements against Israel. Russia, in the middle of an active war on Ukraine, drew 64. Myanmar’s junta, currently shelling its own civilians, drew 62. Sudan, suffering one of this century’s worst humanitarian catastrophes, drew a quarter as much.

The rot has spread. The International Criminal Court — whose chief prosecutor produced arrest warrants last year for the elected leader of a U.S. treaty partner — faces its own crisis. Last month, the Wall Street Journal disclosed an FBI witness statement alleging that Qatar promised ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan it would “look after” him in exchange for warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. On audio reviewed by the Journal, a Qatari intelligence officer makes the offer; Khan responds, “I want to issue the warrant, but I’m terrified to do it.” The Qatari: “If you do it, then we’ll look after you.” Khan, who issued the warrants weeks later, denies any quid pro quo.
Hen Mazzig: Not My Mandate
In January 2024, Pramila Patten went to Israel at the government’s invitation. She is the United Nations’ Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, and she spent more than two weeks on the ground. She walked the Nova festival site. She visited Kibbutz Be’eri. She reviewed forensic material and sat with people who survived October 7 and with the families of those who did not.

She found what the evidence showed. There were reasonable grounds to believe Hamas committed rape and gang rape at several locations that day. In most of the cases her team examined, the women were raped and then killed. In at least two, the bodies were violated after death. On the hostages dragged into Gaza, she reported “clear and convincing information” of rape and sexualized torture.

Then she wrote the sentence that has governed everything since. Her visit, she said, was “neither intended nor mandated to be investigative in nature.” The real work, she explained, belonged to other UN bodies.

She had the survivors. She had the evidence. She had seventeen days. And she closed her report by saying the investigation was someone else’s job. Why her office exists

To understand why that sentence matters, you have to know why her office exists at all.

In 1993, responding to the rape of Bosnian women as a weapon of war, the UN Security Council created the first international war crimes tribunal since Nuremberg. For the first time, testimony about sexual violence entered the evidentiary record of an international war crimes tribunal. Sixteen years later, in 2009, the Council went further and established a standing office devoted to the problem. Its first Special Representative took up the post in 2010.

The premise was plain. The world had spent too long treating the rape of women in war as background noise, and that habit of looking away was itself a failure an institution could be built to correct. Patten leads that institution. When she handed off the case to which she had been given direct access, she was not bowing to a technicality. She was declining to do the thing the office was created to do. The variable was the victims’ identities. Who got the case

Patten said the investigation belonged to other UN bodies. It is worth asking who they were.

The case went to the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, a standing panel of three. Israel refused to cooperate with it, and that refusal has been treated ever since as proof of Israeli obstruction. Israel’s refusal becomes easier to understand once you meet the commissioners.

Miloon Kothari told an interviewer in 2022 that the commission was disheartened by social media “controlled largely by” the “Jewish lobby” or specific NGOs, and asked why Israel was permitted to be a UN member at all. Chris Sidoti, affiliated with a group that campaigns to boycott Israel, complained that some Jews threw accusations of antisemitism around “like rice at a wedding.” The chair, Navi Pillay, who had publicly urged sanctions on Israel before her appointment, dismissed concerns about antisemitism on her own commission as a “diversion” and called them “lies.”

Eighteen governments, the European Union, and Guterres’ own spokesman condemned Kothari’s remarks. Nobody on the commission left. In 2025 the same three concluded that Israel was committing genocide, and only then resigned, together.

These are the investigators to whom the rape and murder of Israeli women was entrusted. Israel’s refusal to open its doors to them is reported as the scandal. The people doing the investigating are reported as background. That approach is backwards.
Information Manipulation by UN actors on the War in Gaza (2023-2025)
Since the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas, the United Nations (UN) has been the primary source of information shaping perceptions in the international arena on the conduct of the war and the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.

Thousands of reports, bulletins, briefings, and online posts by UN agencies and officials have generated a continuous stream of statistics, statements and viral headlines which resonated globally.

This body of information was used to promote unprecedented political and legal steps against Israel and Israelis and is likely to continue being used for that purpose in the future.

An analytical review of that material shows that key UN agencies and officials exhibited a systemic breakdown of core professional standards and of the principles of neutrality and impartiality in their public statements and reporting on the war in Gaza, resulting in significant factual distortions and consistent bias against Israel and in favor of Hamas.

This phenomenon has taken several recurring and mutually reinforcing forms:

Data-laundering: the wholesale dissemination of unverified information from Hamas-controlled authorities as authoritative UN data;
Publishing misleading statistics: knowingly presenting partial information as if it were complete thereby creating a highly distorted picture of humanitarian realities; Complete disregard of Hamas' role: presenting humanitarian outcomes without the relevant operational and military context necessary to understand their causes;
Baseless sensationalism: making hyperbolic claims unsupported by evidence.

By repeating these practices numerous times, the UN's reports and statements transformed the genuinely complex and tragic realities of the war into a defamatory, one-sided narrative depicting an alleged Israeli atrocity.

Their distortions and omissions turned reality on its head: Hamas, which launched a genocidal attack on October 7 and since then deliberately tried to maximize harm to civilians on both sides, was exempted from any scrutiny, while Israel, which abides by the laws of war and took unprecedented steps to minimize harm to civilians, was portrayed as a cruel aggressor.

Hamas' barbaric attack and its tactic of using civilians as human shields indeed brought suffering, displacement, and hardship upon Gaza's population, despite Israel's unprecedented efforts to reduce harm to civilians.

For Hamas, those outcomes were part of a strategy which aims to invoke international outrage against Israel.

Key UN and other humanitarian actors failed to call out this cynical tactic and, knowingly or not, encouraged its continuation.


New Congressional Memo Details Biden-Harris Funded Radical Anti-Israel Networks
A new congressional memorandum has dramatically expanded the scope of what may become one of the largest scandals involving U.S. taxpayer funding, foreign political interference, and terror-linked NGO networks in recent history.

What began in 2025 as an investigation into whether Biden administration funds were used to support anti-Netanyahu judicial reform protests in Israel has now exploded into something much larger: a sprawling web of U.S.-funded nonprofits, donor-advised funds, protest organizations, anti-Israel activist groups, and entities accused of maintaining ties to designated terrorist organizations.

On May 29, 2026, the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committees released Part II of their investigation into “The Biden-Harris Administration’s Funding of Anti-Netanyahu Non-Governmental Organizations.” The new memorandum reveals over 1,256 documents reviewed across nine NGOs and paints a picture not merely of foreign aid abuse, but of an ideological ecosystem funded in part by American taxpayers.

According to the report, millions of dollars flowed through organizations like Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA), Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF), the Tides Network, Jewish Communal Fund (JCF), and PEF Israel Endowment Funds into anti-Israel activism in both Israel and the United States, including groups involved in radical campus protests, anti-government demonstrations, BDS campaigns, and organizations alleged to have ties to Hamas, the PFLP, and other terror entities. Rockefeller Brothers Fund Emerges as Central Financial Hub

One of the report’s biggest revelations is the role of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF), which the committees say provided nearly $4 million to anti-Israel and extremist-linked groups since 2019.

According to the memorandum, RBF funded:
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)
Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ)
Breaking the Silence
Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP)
Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network
New Israel Fund projects tied to anti-government protests in Israel

The report alleges that while RBF itself did not directly receive federal grants, its affiliate Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors received over $50 million from USAID and the State Department between 2021 and 2024. Congressional investigators argue that the fungibility of money means taxpayer-funded grants may have indirectly subsidized political activism and extremist-aligned causes.


Lee Smith: Trump’s JCPOA
The reason that Trump’s Iran policy is coming to look just like Obama’s is simple: once you stop military actions, there’s no room left on the board except Obama’s position, which is to concede everything to the Iranians while painting it as a victory.

It’s not clear why Trump has pulled up short, at least so far. He said two weeks ago that he wasn’t concerned about the temporary economic hardships troubling Americans because of rising oil prices. All that mattered was stopping Iran from getting the bomb. So, what happened? Maybe Xi Jinping pleaded with the president during his trip to China to reopen the strait, through which nearly a fifth of Beijing’s discounted oil flows from Iran. Maybe the Saudis begged him to stop for fear the Iranians would target their oil and/or water desalination facilities. But whichever way you cut it, at this stage it seems that the president just wasn’t prepared to go all the way to stop Iran. As one Trump aide told a reporter: “You could always get more through military conduct, the question is whether you could get something that is worth the cost.”

But if the president doesn’t employ the full range of America’s resources, economic and military, to dismantle once and for all the regime’s nuclear facilities and secure the enriched uranium, the effects will be far-reaching.

For now, it seems as if Vice President JD Vance’s isolationist wing of the GOP has won the argument by default: war with Iran is a bad idea. That means the Republicans’ ascendant faction is in broad agreement with the Democrats—with war off the table, the only available option is to negotiate with Iran, no matter how many concessions the U.S. side has to make to get Iran to enter talks that will never end, unless they pave Iran’s path to the bomb.

There’s a better than 50% chance that in a little over two years a Democrat will step back into the White House. That means the imminent full implementation of Obama’s Iran policy. So whatever Trump doesn’t destroy utterly, the next Democratic team will restore. Whatever mechanisms Trump creates through negotiations—sanctions relief, deterring Israel, allowing Hezbollah to regroup by forcing Jerusalem into nonsensical peace talks with the Lebanese government—the Democrats will further augment. And Iran will get the bomb. But they won’t get it on Trump’s watch, just as they didn’t get it on Obama’s, thanks to the JCPOA, which was designed to stick a future president with the Iranian bomb. And maybe, as Trump says, the Iranians will use it.

Also concerning is what this means for U.S. national security more generally. If Donald Trump, a hard-charging maverick who campaigned on predecessors having betrayed this country by repeatedly losing wars, lacks the will to secure our peace and prosperity through war, who in the future will? It doesn’t matter if the defense secretary rebuilds morale and eliminates distractions from the armed forces’ primary mission of fighting and winning wars if the commander in chief opts out of winning the wars he’s chosen. What argument is there against a sunsetting power, fearful of using force to keep our peace, shrinking the Pentagon dramatically, withdrawing from our commitments abroad, and learning how to manage “multipolarity”—i.e., sharing the world with hostile powers that mean us harm even in our own hemisphere?

The truth is that the ultimate consequences of the deal Trump is now considering make it worse than Obama’s. For decades, the two big concerns over an Iranian bomb were, one, that the Iranians would use it against another country (Israel, Saudi Arabia, Europe, the U.S., etc.); and, two, that they’d threaten to use it, which would give them more than enough leverage to shut down one of the world’s most vital waterways. And with the war we’ve seen the proof of concept—Iran has indeed closed off the Strait of Hormuz, without yet crossing the nuclear threshold.

For Americans, whether the Iranians toll shipping is nearly irrelevant; if the U.S. has to pay Iran or arrange to have the regime compensated in any form to reopen the strait, it signals that America has failed to defend one of the pillars of its 80-year-long postwar strategy by maintaining the free flow of oil through the Persian Gulf. And thus, it may be sooner rather than later that all the world, allies as well as adversaries, come to see that Islamic Republic founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini wasn’t simply rubbing America’s nose in the dirt after the 1979 takeover of the U.S., but was rather prophesying the future when he said, “The United States can’t do a damn thing.”
Trump Tries to Cut Bait in Iran
Moreover, as the Journal notes, “if the blockade ends and Iran can sell its oil, all that’s left to coerce it into nuclear concessions is the threat of renewed war.” Despite the statements from Trump and other officials to the contrary, it is hard to take this threat very seriously. The administration would not respond to Iranian cease-fire violations or use force to achieve its own stated objectives (reopening the Strait, obtaining Iran’s “nuclear dust,” etc.). Yet we are supposed to believe that months from now, amid the World Cup, America 250 celebrations, and the hajj, it will resume an unpopular war shortly before the midterms?

We doubt that. And apparently, so does everybody else, including the Iranians and the Gulf states. Indeed, the latter have clearly lost faith in Trump’s willingness to achieve much of anything by military means, which is why they have pivoted from lobbying for escalation to pushing Trump to cut a deal. While the Gulf’s new accommodationist posture is rational enough on its own terms—Trump has proved that he will not respond to Iranian attacks on them and cannot or will not save their economies by forcing open the Strait—it makes a mockery of Trump’s idea, floated on Monday, to link the Iran deal to a further expansion of the Abraham Accords, which must now be viewed as a net negative for Israel.

On the bright side, the deal does at least settle a question we’ve been toying with for the past few weeks. Since the start of Operation Epic Fury, and especially since the initial cease-fire in April, serious interpreters of the war have largely split into two camps. One camp, the “plan trusters,” has seen the war as an almost unmitigated success, attributing apparent setbacks to anti-Trump propaganda or failure to understand Trump’s master plan (see, e.g., this argument that Trump could easily open the Strait but was choosing not to as part of some five-dimensional Hegelian chess move). The second camp has argued that the war was a bit of a cock-up. Trump expected the initial wave of strikes to either collapse the Iranian regime or force it to capitulate to U.S. demands. When this didn’t happen, he didn’t know what to do. He vacillated between blaming U.S. allies for not fixing the problem, attempting and then abandoning a naval escort mission, and finally by settling into a counter-blockade—which, if we’re being honest, should have been implemented as soon as Iran closed the Strait. Now he appears to be trying to declare victory and walk away.

Though we were partisans of the first camp early in the war, it now seems that the second camp was right. The United States has undoubtedly set back Iran’s nuclear program (and we’ll see what happens with the “nuclear dust”), but beyond that, it has failed to achieve its core strategic objectives. Trump set out to effectively wipe Iran off the geopolitical map. Now, he’s haggling over bribes with a regime he’s claimed on dozens of occasions to have already annihilated.

Even for Trump, who is above all a salesman, it’s hard to sell that as a victory.
Turkey’s Limited Role in the Iran War
Ankara’s Security Concerns
The war has also added to Turkey’s security fears regarding two other actors:

The PKK. Ankara is currently in talks to end a multi-decade war with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is designated as a terrorist group by both Turkey and the United States. The “terror-free Turkey” process, as the talks have been dubbed, aims to disarm the PKK and its Middle East affiliates in return for amnesty for the group’s fighters and increased political representation for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party. The faction has 7–10 percent support among the Turkish electorate, and its share of support to Erdogan, whose governing alliance is polling at around 40 percent, could help him win the next election.

Reports early in the war suggesting that Israel sought to arm the PKK’s Iranian offshoot—the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK)—risked derailing Ankara’s strategy at home. Arming the PJAK would have allowed PKK hardliners seeking to maintain armed conflict against Turkey to migrate to the Iran-based affiliate, giving the PKK new life and thwarting Turkey’s plans to disarm the group. For the time being, Trump appears to have backed off reported plans to support the Kurdish insurgency, evidently owing to objections from Ankara and Erdogan personally. If active conflict resumes, however, and Washington revisits arming the PJAK, Ankara will almost certainly move from agnostic to pro-Iran in the U.S.-Iran conflict.

Israel. Reporting that Israel may have reached out to the PJAK has further frayed Ankara’s already weak ties with Jerusalem. Strategic competition between the two countries in Gaza, where Turkey backs Hamas, and Syria, where Israel backs Druze groups among others, could now spill into Iran. The United States should monitor Israel’s ties with Iranian Kurdish groups to prevent deeper deterioration between its two regional allies.

A “Third Pillar” in the Middle East
Turkey’s Iran war policy can be best described as nonbinary, rooted in equal worry about the Islamic Republic and Israel. Specifically, Ankara has pursued new strategic thinking in response to Iranian missile attacks against Turkey and its Persian Gulf allies—Qatar and Saudi Arabia—paired with rising competition against Israel across the Middle East. The new strategic model rests on deepening security cooperation with three like-minded states, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan. While unlikely to replace Turkey’s existing commitment to NATO, this quartet signals a third pole in Middle East politics (and also in South Asian politics considering strong Israeli and Turkish ties, respectively, with India and Pakistan), oriented to varying degrees against Iran and Israel.

Conclusion
Given Turkey’s desire to prevent Iran from going nuclear or being overtaken by chaos, Ankara would seem well positioned to serve as a go-between to end the war. Such a formulation also takes account of Erdogan’s strong chemistry with President Trump. But a competitive bilateral history will make Tehran unwilling to let Ankara earn credit for ending the war. This is why Turkey has followed Pakistan’s thus far unsuccessful lead toward a political settlement. It is also why the current scenario does not mirror the Syrian war, when Turkey occupied center stage on matters relevant to U.S. policy.
No decision made after Trump's White House meeting on Iran negotiations
US President Donald Trump's meeting at the White House Situation Room ended, with a Friday report by The New York Times stating that there was no final decision on Iran.

"I will be meeting now, in the Situation Room, to make a final determination," Trump announced earlier on Friday, in a Truth Social post.

Trump added that he will lift the US naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, adding that the strait "must be immediately open, no tolls, for unrestricted shipping traffic, in both directions."

"Ships caught in the Strait due to our amazing and unprecedented Naval Blockade, which will now be lifted, may start the process of 'heading home!'" said Trump.

He stated that all naval mines remaining in the strait must be "terminated" by Iran, noting that US Navy minesweepers have already removed "numerous such mines."

President Trump also addressed the issue of Iran's "buried" enriched uranium, which he referred to as "nuclear dust," saying it would be "unearthed by the United States" and "destroyed" in coordination with Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Trump stressed that no money will be exchanged with the Islamic Republic until further notice, noting that items "of far less importance" have already been agreed upon.

Iran rejects Trump's claims
Iran views Trump's comments as "a mixture of truth and falsehood," Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency reported on Friday, citing informed sources.

The Islamic regime further described Trump's comments as an "attempt to portray a fabricated victory," according to Fars.

According to the report, Iran claims there is no clause in the memorandum of understanding (MoU) requiring it to open the Strait of Hormuz without charging tolls, despite Trump's claim to the contrary.

The report added that Iranian responsibilities under the proposed agreement could include ship monitoring and inspection, service provision, and security measures.

The news agency further reported that, according to sources, no clause existed in the MoU regarding the destruction of Iran's enriched uranium, calling the claim "baseless."

An Iranian source told Reuters later on Friday that the MoU contains no clauses related to any nuclear issues, further disputing Trump's claims.
Trump says US lifting naval blockade, Situation Room meeting for ‘final determination’ on Iran deal
U.S. President Donald Trump stated on Friday that he is lifting the U.S. naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz and that he is meeting in the White House Situation Room to “make a final determination” on a deal with Iran.

“No money will be exchanged, until further notice,” the president said. “Other items, of far less importance, have been agreed to.”

The president and his administration have said repeatedly in recent weeks that progress was to come on a deal, which was nearing the finish line. Trump has posted often, at times more than daily, about the deal on social media.

“Iran must agree that they will never have a nuclear weapon or Bomb,” the president stated on Friday. “The Hormuz Strait must be immediately open, no tolls, for unrestricted shipping traffic, in both directions.”

The Islamic Republic must remove all of the mines in the strait beyond the “numerous” ones that the United States hasn’t already removed “with our great underwater mine sweepers,” Trump said.

“Iran will complete the immediate removal and/or detonation of any mines that are left, which will not be many,” the president stated. “Ships caught in the strait due to our amazing and unprecedented naval blockade, which will now be lifted, may start the process of heading home.”

“Say ‘hello’ to your wives, husbands, parents and families from me, your favorite president,” Trump stated.

He added that the “enriched material, sometimes referred to as ‘nuclear dust,’ which is buried deep underground with virtually collapsed mountains, caused by our powerful B2 bomber attack 11 months ago, sitting on top of it, will be unearthed by the United States,” which, he said, “it is agreed, is the only country, along with China, with the mechanical capability of doing so, in close coordination and conjunction with the Islamic Republic of Iran, plus the International Atomic Energy Agency, and destroyed.”

“The president’s Truth Social post today is another attempt to put the ball in Tehran’s court,” said Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran.


UAE conducted dozens of airstrikes on Iran using US, Israeli intel during war
The United Arab Emirates conducted dozens of airstrikes against Iran over the course of the war, ending the day after the US -Iran cease-fire was announced in early April, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

The UAE coordinated with the US and Israel, utilizing intelligence from both, and targeted Iranian energy sites in response to Iranian strikes on UAE oil and gas infrastructure, the WSJ cited several sources as saying.

While Gulf states initially said they wouldn’t let their bases or airspaces be used to attack, some changed their policies after Iranian attacks against various Gulf countries.

Iran targeted the UAE with more than 2,800 missiles and drones, more than were fired at any other country, including Israel.

In return, the UAE cooperated with the US and Israel to strike back at targets, including on Qeshm and Abu Musa islands in the Strait of Hormuz, Bandar Abbas, and the oil refinery on Lavan island in the Persian Gulf, according to the WSJ.

Israeli-UAE cooperation
Another strike was on the Asaluyeh petrochemical complex, and was carried out with Israel, the WSJ wrote, and led to international condemnation, including US President Donald Trump asking Israel to stop striking energy facilities.

When asked about the attack on the Asaluyeh compound and Trump’s response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told journalists that “Israel acted alone against the Asaluyeh gas compound.”

The UAE has increased its alliance with Israel over the war, with Israel sending Iron Dome batteries and IDF soldiers to the UAE, the WSJ wrote.
Rubio speaks with Lebanese president as Pentagon hosts talks between Israel, Lebanon
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke on Friday with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun about negotiations with Israel, as the Pentagon hosted U.S.-mediated military talks between Israel and Lebanon.

“The secretary commended President Aoun’s courage and vision in pursuing direct negotiations with Israel, even as Hezbollah continues its attempts to derail those talks at the expense of the Lebanese people,” Tommy Pigott, spokesman for the U.S. State Department, stated.

Rubio “reiterated that Hezbollah is entirely responsible for the ongoing fighting and emphasized the need for Hezbollah to immediately cease its attacks and provocations to enable de-escalation,” according to Pigott.

“The secretary reaffirmed that the United States fully supports the government of Lebanon as it works to seize a historic opportunity to deliver peace, reconstruction and a better future for its people.”

According to the Lebanese presidency, Aoun told Rubio that implementing a ceasefire with Israel was “the essential entry point for transitioning to any other issues.”

The diplomatic push came as Israeli forces expanded operations in Southern Lebanon on Friday, issuing evacuation warnings for several villages and advancing deeper into Hezbollah-held areas north of the Litani River.
NY case sheds light on alleged Iran-linked terror campaign targeting Diaspora Jews
Soon after the outbreak of the Iran war in late February, a string of attacks targeted Jewish sites in Europe.

An explosion hit a synagogue in Belgium, arsonists ignited a synagogue in the Netherlands, a bomb rocked a Jewish school in Amsterdam, four Hatzola ambulances were torched in London and a car was burned in a Jewish neighborhood in Antwerp, all during March.

A new group called Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya (HAYI) claimed credit. The group, whose name roughly translates to the Islamic Movement of the People of the Right Hand, was unknown until then. Analysts and investigators suspected Iranian involvement, but law enforcement investigations had not publicly exposed any connection to Iran.

That changed this month, when US prosecutors in the federal Southern District of New York court connected Iran to the attacks in Europe and revealed plots targeting Jewish sites in the US. The investigation also shed light on the alleged motives and tactics of the attackers.

The complaint and an indictment on Thursday accused Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, an alleged member of the Kataeb Hezbollah, an Iraq-based, US-designated terrorist group aligned with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), with plotting at least 18 attacks in Europe and two in Canada. Al-Saadi helped initiate the HAYI campaign, plotted its attacks and distributed its propaganda, prosecutors said.


Man charged in UK with assisting foreign intelligence service linked to Iran
A Greek national has been charged with assisting a foreign intelligence service, believed to be Iran's, over the targeting of a journalist working for the London-based television ​station Iran International, British police said on Friday.

Counter-terrorism police said Ioannis Aidinidis, 46, who resides in Munich, Germany, was arrested on Saturday and had been charged under Britain's National Security Act.

Aidinidis is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Friday.

Police said allegations were believed to relate to Iran and to the targeting of a British-based journalist at Iran International, which is critical of Tehran's government.

Officers said they did not believe there to be any wider threat to the public.

"We know this may cause concern for many people here in the UK, and particularly those working in Persian-language media," said Helen Flanagan, head of counter-terrorism policing in London.

"We continue to work closely with a number of organizations and individuals to provide them with advice and support around their safety and security, and this includes the specific individual and organization linked to this investigation."
Germany arrests eighth member of Hamas network seeking to attack Israeli, Jewish sites in Europe
An alleged Danish Hamas member was arrested on Wednesday in connection with arms procurement for a Hamas plot to attack Jewish and Israeli sites in Europe, the German Federal Prosecutor's Office announced on Thursday, making him the eighth person arrested in connection with the Hamas network.

Yousif C was arrested near Copenhagen by Danish police after German prosecutors issued a warrant, after the alleged Hamas member supposedly provided five pistols and ammunition to Abdel Al G. in July.

Abdel Al G, who was arrested on October 1, had allegedly given the firearms to Mohammed A, a British citizen who had been arrested in London in November. Mohammed A. had reportedly met with Abdel Al G. during the summer and was given weapons to transport and store in Austria.

The German newspaper Die Welt has claimed the British man to be the son of Hamas official Bassem Naim.

Hamas's network in Europe unveiled
The Austrian Directorate of State Protection and Intelligence Service (DSN) announced in November that it had uncovered a weapons cache of five handguns and 10 magazines in a rented Vienna storage unit, stored in a suitcase as part of an alleged Hamas plot to target Israeli or Jewish institutions.

In March, Lebanese national Kamel M. was arrested by border officials at the Larnaca airport after German law enforcement conducted a search of his apartment. The suspected Hamas member had allegedly sent 300 ammunition cartridges to Abdel Al G through Mohammad S., who had been arrested at the Berlin Brandenburg Airport upon arriving from Beirut in January. The munitions were then ostensibly given to Mohammad A. by Abdel Al G.

In November, Lebanese-born Borhan El-K. was arrested when entering Germany from Czechia, during his return trip to Denmark, where he resided.
Israel receives first of six US-made aerial refueling tankers
Israel received the first of six U.S.-made KC-46A aerial refueling tankers, expanding the Jewish state’s long-range operational capabilities.

The Jewish Institute for National Security of America, which has been pressing the United States to sell the advanced tankers to Israel since 2018, stated that “the KC-16 will act as a force-multiplier for Israel’s ability to counter shared threats from Iran and its proxies.”

“It also will reduce the burdens and risks facing Americans forces in the region, after the U.S. Air Force helped fill gaps in Israel’s aerial refueling capacity during the recent war with Iran,” JINSA stated.

The Boeing-made aircraft, known in Israel as the “Gideon,” is the first of six planes purchased from the United States as part of an upgrade to the Israeli Air Force’s tanker fleet, according to the institute.

JINSA also stated that Israel using the U.S.-made refueling tankers “will deepen the interoperability of U.S. and Israeli forces that proved so effective in Operations Epic Fury and Roaring Lion.”
IDF: One-third of Hezbollah force eliminated, ‘we will not relent’
IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin expounded on Israel’s goals for the northern front on Thursday following a targeted strike carried out by the Israel Defense Forces in Beirut, the first such strike in more than three weeks.

“As we speak, IDF soldiers—conscripts, career personnel and reservists—are targeting Hezbollah across all its operating systems. Our troops are acting courageously and achieving many successes. The Air Force is operating nonstop, striking Hezbollah in Lebanon. In the past 24 hours alone, we struck in Tyre, Beirut and Southern Lebanon in significant support of operating ground forces,” Defrin said.

“Our goal is clear—to defend the communities of the north, to push the terrorist threat away, and to severely weaken Hezbollah,” he said.

Israel is eliminating dozens of members of the Iranian-proxy each week. Since the beginning of the ceasefire on April 16, Israel has killed more than 800 terrorists in Lebanon. That is in addition to more than 2,500 terrorists killed there since the start of “Operation Roaring Lion” on Feb. 28.

According to the terms of the ceasefire, “Israel retains the right to act in self-defense against imminent or ongoing threats, while refraining from offensive military operations in Lebanon.”

Israel has eliminated one-third of the roughly 30,000 terrorists in Hezbollah’s ranks, Defrin said. In recent days, Israel significantly damaged Hezbollah’s command and control capabilities, hitting top commanders, he added.

Strikes have intensified on the orders of IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir. As soldiers systematically dismantle the terrorist group, Hezbollah has become “desperate,” Defrin said.

The IDF spokesman also referred to the death of IDF Staff Sgt. Rotem Yanai, 20, from Giv’at Ada. She served as a service conditions noncommissioned officer in the 435th Battalion of the Givati Infantry Brigade.

“A welfare NCO in the Givati Brigade, Rotem worked on behalf of the soldiers out of deep love for our country and belief in the justice of her service. I share in the family’s grief. We stand together with them in this difficult time,” Defrin said.
Hezbollah rockets strike church in southern Lebanon
Rockets fired by the Hezbollah terrorist organization hit a southern Lebanese Church on the night between Thursday and Friday, the IDF announced on Friday evening.

Footage provided by the military shows the Saint George's Orthodox Church, located in the Christian village of Marjaayoun, being hit by at least one projectile, while other projectiles hit nearby areas.

The IDF emphasized that none of its soldiers were operating in the area when the attack occured.

"This incident further proves how Hezbollah continues to endanger and harm Lebanese civilians," the military said.

Poll: Most Lebanese civilians want Hezbollah disarmed
The attack comes after a poll first published by the Lebanese news outlet Al-Jadeed on May 18 found that a majority of Lebanese civilians support disarming Hezbollah, following Beirut’s decision to legislate an arms ban for non-state actors.

According to the data, a slight majority of 58% supported taking away Hezbollah’s military capabilities, while 34% were opposed.

89% of Orthodox Christians, 87% of Maronites, and 77% of Druze said they supported Hezbollah's disarmament.

Lebanon's Muslim population largely disagreed, with 88% of Shi'ites opposing disarmament, as well as 70% of Sunni respondents.


Arab Israeli teen arrested on terror suspicions in killing of married couple
The Israel Police and the Shin Bet arrested a 17-year-old Arab Israeli on suspicion of killing a married couple last week in central Israel, in what law enforcement now believes was a terror attack.

Ruslan and Olga Prihodko, from Rishon Lezion, were found shot dead in their car last Friday evening near Mishmar Ayalon in the Judean foothills.

The couple, both in their 40s, had left their house that morning to go on a trip and disappeared, relatives recounted to Channel 13, stressing that neither husband nor wife had any history of suicidal ideation or mental illness.

The couple is survived by a teenage son.

Police began probing the incident as a potential murder-suicide, but later changed course and started investigating possible foul play, enlisting the Shin Bet’s help.

The development came about after police realized that Ruslan’s licensed handgun was not at the scene of the crime, and he had not fired any weapon, Ynet reported, adding that his handgun was later found in its safe in the couple’s home.

The Border Police Yamam counter-terrorism force arrested the suspect on Wednesday night. His detention was extended by eight days in the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court.

Hebrew outlets reported that the teenager is the younger brother of a terrorist who carried out a deadly ramming attack in 2024 at a bus stop in Ramat Hasharon.
Mourned Amsterdam ‘asylum seeker’ exposed as likely a Hezbollah gunman
A Dutch television station admitted this week that an Amsterdam ex-resident whose death in Lebanon it had covered sympathetically last month was “probably” a Hezbollah gunman who had returned to fight against Israel.

The May 25 admission by AT5, the main television station covering the Amsterdam area, about the death of Ali Dia (spelled elsewhere also Ali Diya and Ali Diyab) last month in Lebanon followed an exposé by De Telegraaf daily about his alleged ties to Hezbollah.

The affair encapsulates competing media narratives in the Netherlands around Israel and asylum seekers, Freek Vergeer of the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI), a watchdog on antisemitism and Israel-hatred in the Netherlands.

Dia died in Lebanon in April shortly after leaving Amsterdam, where he has been living as an asylum seekers since 2021 along with some of his relatives, AT5 reported in an article titled “Grief over the death of Ali (23) after his return. ‘This should never have happened.’”

The article implied that he left the Netherlands because authorities would not renew his asylum visa. The article didn’t say why he had been declined further asylum. Dia was given 28 days to leave with government assistance, including funding for flight tickets, or face a deportation order and possible arrest if he stayed past that period.

The article by AT5, a left-leaning publication, which has often been accused of ignoring or downplaying the Netherlands’ immigration crisis, implied that Dia’s death was the result of the Netherlands’ immigration policy and Israel’s actions.


Commentary Podcast: The Ceasefire Two-Step It's Friday, and we are back to discuss reports that Iran has used the ongoing ceasefire to extract missiles and launchers from destroyed sites and how losing countries can exploit breaks in fighting to their advantage, as well as Trump's anti-weaponization fund and his other corrupt practices. Plus, John recommends Faulkner's Light in August.




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