Tuesday, June 16, 2026

06/15 Links Pt1: Trump’s ‘peace deal’ leaves all the big questions unanswered; Netanyahu: Iran will not have nukes ‘with or without an agreement’

From Ian:

Trump’s ‘peace deal’ leaves all the big questions unanswered
There is as yet no clear answer to any of the key questions that prompted the original military action. No solution to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear plans, its backing of proxy armies, its brutal oppression of the Iranian people, or even its control of the Strait of Hormuz. Indeed, no answer to the problem of the Islamic Republic itself, the Islamist source of so much instability in the Middle East and increasingly beyond.

Replete with potential for seeming concessions and fudges, this ceasefire does not appear to be a victory for the US. It looks and feels like a testament to the Trump administration’s desperate desire to end the war – which the vast majority of Americans now oppose – regardless of the cost to itself and to its chief regional ally, Israel.

Indeed, one of the main casualties of this conflict has been the White House’s relationship with Israel. Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu entered into this war in seeming lockstep in their opposition to the Iranian regime. But the two allies’ geopolitical interests have since diverged. Finding himself under increasing domestic pressure due in part to rising energy costs, Trump has zeroed in on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and therefore making peace with Iran. The Israeli state, meanwhile, has rather more existential concerns and has continued to focus on destroying Iran’s proxy armies, especially Hezbollah in Lebanon. It is understandably rather less interested in making peace with a regime that remains constitutionally hellbent on its destruction.

With Israel’s ongoing war with Iran’s proxies frequently intruding on negotiations between the US and Iran, Trump has even started publicly criticising Netanyahu – a tension that Iran, Hezbollah and the rest have frequently played on. That’s why Hezbollah continues to fire rockets into northern Israel when US-Iran peace negotiations appear to be reaching sensitive points. As Jake Wallis Simons has observed, it’s designed to elicit a response from Israel and further drive a wedge between the two allies. Just last week, Trump called Netanyahu a ‘difficult guy’ who has ‘no fucking judgment’.

So we now have a situation in which negotiations to end the joint US-Israeli war with Iran seem to have sidelined Israel almost entirely. And no wonder. There is little about the mooted deal that Israel would deem worth supporting. Not least the demand that Israel cease operations against Iranian proxies – something that, according to Haaretz, the Israel Defence Forces will not do. The Times of Israel put the matter succinctly a couple of weeks ago:
‘The Iranian regime still exists. It still possesses much of its ballistic missile arsenal and its stockpile of enriched uranium. And it also controls the Strait of Hormuz.’

From Israel’s perspective, the Islamic Republic, armed with the Strait of Hormuz, looks more threatening now than it did a few months ago.

None of this is to suggest that the Islamic Republic, already an economic horror show, is emerging from this conflict unscathed. The military assault of the past few months has devastated Iranian sea and air power, and has wiped out a whole stratum of leadership, including the Ayatollah Khamenei himself. Nevertheless, it has survived in the face of the Great Satan, and that is more than enough for it to feel emboldened.

In the next couple of months, the US and Iran may well reach an agreement that both the White House and Tehran can dress up as a victory. But for as long as the Islamic Republic and its proxies menace what they deride as ‘the Zionist entity’, peace in the Middle East will remain as elusive as ever.
JPost Editorial: Israel cannot applaud an Iran deal that leaves key threats intact
A ceasefire is valuable if it locks in Iranian defeat. It is dangerous if it locks in Iranian survival.

The reported 60-day negotiation period is the most troubling part. Sixty days sounds orderly in Washington. In the Middle East, it is enough time for Iran to move assets, rebuild confidence, reframe the war at home, and test how badly the US wants quiet. Tehran knows how to use delay. Hezbollah knows how to use delay. Israel has paid for those delays before.

Lebanon may be the immediate danger. Any arrangement that restrains Israel while leaving Hezbollah in place is unacceptable. Northern Israel cannot be secured by language in a US-Iran memorandum. Kiryat Shmona, Metula, and the Galilee need Hezbollah to be moved, disarmed, and deterred.

Trump deserves credit for understanding Iran’s danger better than many Western leaders. He left the Obama deal. He imposed pressure. He backed Israel at critical moments.

That record makes this moment more serious. Trump should not attach his name to a weaker version of the mistake he once condemned.

If this agreement removes Iran’s nuclear threat, cuts off its proxies, protects Israel’s freedom of action, and gives the regime no path back to strength, the administration should publish the details and defend them.

If it does less than that, Israel should not applaud.

Neither should Congress.
Andrew Fox: Anatomy of a debacle
This piece has been weeks in the writing, awaiting a conclusion. Now we have it, this long article is an autopsy of the calamity we have watched unfold for the last few months. As with all my writing on the Iran War, I will keep this free. All I ask is that you share and subscribe if you do not already.

Yesterday, Trump announced the deal he had spent weeks insisting he did not need.

The White House has called it a peace deal. At this stage, it is a memorandum of understanding, scheduled for formal signature in Switzerland on Friday. The text remains opaque: we do not yet know the final terms. However, the outline is clear enough to grasp the political meaning. Washington appears to have bought time. Hormuz is to reopen. The naval blockade is to be lifted. Iran receives some combination of oil waivers, asset releases, sanctions relief, or economic breathing space. The nuclear file moves into a 60-day negotiating window. Trump gets a ceasefire and lower oil prices. Tehran gets survival, liquidity, and time.

That is the endpoint of the debacle, at least for now. A war launched with maximalist assumptions has reached an interim understanding that leaves the regime in place, Hezbollah in the field, Iran’s missile architecture as the central fact of regional security, and the nuclear question in the long grass. What forced Washington’s hand was the oil clock. Emergency reserves, rerouting schemes, naval workarounds, tanker insurance, Asian demand destruction, and political patience were all running down at once. Trump rushed to a deal because the alternative was a global oil shock that would hit American gas stations just in time for the domestic political season.

The war was supposed to show that American and Israeli power could reorder the region. Instead, it showed how quickly tactical dominance can become strategic dependence. Washington could destroy targets inside Iran, but it could not force Tehran to surrender its political position. It could not open the Strait of Hormuz by military means at an acceptable cost. It could not push Saudi Arabia into war. It could not impose normalisation with Israel on the Gulf states. It could not get Europe to join the campaign. It could not convince China to pull away from Iran. It could not stop Gulf states from privately seeking understandings with Tehran to keep themselves off Iran’s target list. It could not protect allies from cheaper Iranian missiles without burning through expensive Western interceptors at a rate that made every other theatre nervous.

The global image of American power has been significantly diminished. The United States remains capable of extraordinary destruction. The war has made something else equally clear: destruction is not the same thing as control. The limits of American hard power have been brutally exposed.


Jonathan Tobin: Trump’s chaos and incoherence have led to failure on Iran
The interests of the two nations aren’t identical, though they do mostly overlap. And Israel isn’t giving up and will continue to do what it must to defend itself. However, an opportunity to transform the region by defeating Tehran has been lost. And that will make future conflicts—that Trump’s deal, like Obama’s, will help foment—even more bloody and dangerous for the Jewish state, as well as moderate Arab states that must continue to fear what Iran will do in the years to come.

Domestically, Trump’s decision also strengthens the wing of his party that was soft on Iran and uninterested in defending Western interests in the Middle East. And those in the Democratic Party who no longer support Israel and opposed efforts to forestall the Iranian threat that Obama had encouraged have also been handed a victory. They can say that Trump wasted American lives and vast amounts of scarce military assets only to accept the same humiliation that Obama achieved without firing a single shot.

Vance, whose 2028 presidential prospects seemed on the wane in recent months, is a major beneficiary of this decision. His claim on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that every conflict, including World War II, ended in negotiation illustrated his lack of understanding of both the war and history. Yet that absurd statement puts him on Trump’s side in the current foreign-policy debate, which strengthens his chances of being the president’s successor and next leader of the GOP.

Trump may remain a better guardian of American security, as well as a more reliable friend of Israel and the Jewish people than his Democratic predecessors. But sadly, his war on Iran will now be spoken of with the same derision that he had used to describe the failed conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, even though that needn’t have happened had Trump been a man of stronger convictions and headed a less chaotic administration.

The fact that stopping Iran’s nuclear ambitions and terrorism was as much in America’s interests as that of any other country will be forgotten and even downplayed by many of the president’s supporters. And the growing antisemitic movement on both the left and the right will pick up, and endlessly repeat the false narrative that it was Israel that led the United States to pursue a conflict that couldn’t be won.

We should not lose faith in Israel’s ultimate victory over the evil ideology that governs Iran and animates its terrorist allies. It is a more formidable nation than it was before Oct. 7, and will—no matter who leads it in the coming years—do what it must to defend itself. Yet, like the failure to eliminate Hamas in Gaza after Oct. 7, Trump’s decision to breathe new life into the Tehran regime will mean that more wars will have to be fought in the coming years to achieve that necessary goal. That’s a tragedy that could have been averted had Trump proved to be wiser and more steadfast than he turned out to be.
Jake Wallis Simons: Trump is turning victory in Iran into an American humiliation
What was the point? On the upside, Iran has sustained the mother of all military and economic batterings. On the downside, it appears to be rapidly rebuilding its strength. And under the terms of a new “peace” deal, will it soon be aided by many billions of dollars of sanctions relief from the very president who condemned Barack Obama for doing just that?

Before the war, America’s deterrent was fearsome; Donald Trump was able to press Hamas into a hostage deal in Gaza with apocalyptic rhetoric alone. Who will take him seriously now? We were told “a whole civilisation would die”, but with Trump at the helm, it is Western civilisation that finds itself in decline.

On February 28, the mightiest military power in history was mobilised against the evillest regime on Earth. Four months later, we have no answer to the nuclear question; no containment of Iran’s proxies; no curbs on its ballistic missiles; no guarantees on Hormuz; no regime change in Tehran.

This is not just a humiliation for Washington but, with China and Russia taking notes, an extremely dangerous one. The buck stops with Trump. There was a plan, we now know, to unleash Kurdish fighters from Iraq, which – despite concerns about their allegiances, numbers and effectiveness, not to mention the effect on Arab neighbours – may have made the difference.

Yet, reportedly after lobbying from Turkey’s dangerous Islamist leader, the president cancelled it, leaving his weapon to go off half-cocked. He also ignored Israeli advice to continue strikes during the talks, needlessly handing the enemy breathing space.
Britain's False Equivalence on Israel, Iran and Hizbullah
After Hizbullah bombed northern Israel, the IDF struck the group's headquarters in Beirut. Iran responded by launching missiles at the Jewish state, and the Israeli military then struck targets in Iran. UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper responded, "Both sides must show restraint and de-escalate immediately."

This call for de-escalation may appear balanced, but it obscures a fundamental reality: it was Iran that chose to escalate by launching missiles at Israeli population centers. Israel responded by targeting military and strategic sites.

There has been remarkably little emphasis on the fact that Hizbullah initiated the conflict. Nor has sufficient attention been paid to the displaced Israeli civilians, the homes damaged or destroyed by Hizbullah attacks, and the prolonged disruption and insecurity imposed on northern Israel.

For decades, Hizbullah has acted as Iran's most powerful regional proxy, exercising enormous influence over Lebanon's political and security institutions. By significantly weakening the Shia terror group, Israel has helped restore a degree of Lebanese sovereignty, enabling the government to enter into negotiations with Israel despite the opposition of Hizbullah and the Iranian regime.

The persistent blurring of responsibility in official British statements is puzzling given that Iran's leadership is committed to Israel's destruction and has spent years building what it proudly describes as a regional "axis of resistance." This habit of false equivalence risks encouraging precisely the actors threatening the "peace and stability" the foreign secretary invokes.

Britain's Gulf allies know who attacked their countries. They know that the principal threat to regional stability is not Israeli self-defense but Iranian expansionism. It is firmly in Britain's interests that Iran's ability to destabilize the region is diminished, that its nuclear ambitions are thwarted, and that Hizbullah's grip on Lebanon is broken or at least weakened. Britain should be clear-eyed and outspoken about who is driving this conflict and whose defeat would make both the Middle East and Britain safer.
Trump announces deal with Iran is ‘now complete’
President Donald Trump announced Sunday that a deal to end the war with Iran and reopen the Strait of Hormuz is “now complete.”

“Congratulations to all! I hereby fully authorise the toll-free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorise the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!”

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who has played a key mediating role in talks between the U.S. and Iran, also announced that a deal had been reached minutes before Trump made his post, adding that an official signing ceremony would take place on Friday in Switzerland.

“Both sides have declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” Sharif wrote in a post on X.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council also published a statement on state-affiliated media outlets Press TV and Tasnim News Agency confirming its acceptance of the Memorandum of Understanding reached between Tehran and Washington on Sunday.

While the deal’s details have not yet been publicly announced, it is expected to extend a ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. for 60 days, during which the countries will negotiate a broader agreement addressing Iran’s nuclear program.

Trump told The New York Times on Sunday that he would renew military strikes on Iran if a nuclear agreement is not finalised.

Sunday’s agreement is expected to end both the Iran war, which began with Israeli and U.S. military strikes on 28 February, as well as the Israel-Lebanon war that started days later when Hezbollah attacked Israel.

A shaky ceasefire has been in place on the Iranian front since 8 April, while the Lebanon war has continued. Israeli and Lebanese officials are working out the details of an agreement to end hostilities.


Netanyahu: Iran will not have nukes ‘with or without an agreement’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Monday night to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon “with or without an agreement.”

“Iran will not have nuclear weapons. As long as I am prime minister of Israel, this will not happen,” the premier told reporters in his first press conference since U.S. President Donald Trump concluded his peace deal with the Islamic regime on Sunday.

Asked about reported disagreements with the Trump administration, Netanyahu said, “he is the U.S. president, I’m the Israeli prime minister—we often see eye to eye, and there are also instances where we see less eye to eye.”

Netanyahu said the “historic” joint U.S.-Israeli operation against Tehran “saved the State of Israel from the threat of nuclear annihilation.”

“All of us were exposed to that danger, and we pushed that threat back for years,” the Israeli leader said in his remarks. “Had we not acted, Iran would already have nuclear bombs.”

The weeks-long aerial campaign, which he described as the largest strike sortie in Israeli history, “crushed” Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage, Netanyahu said, adding that “some estimate it at close to a trillion dollars.”

However, “the struggle is not over,” he added, noting ongoing threats in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip.

In Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces destroyed the overwhelming majority of missiles held by Hezbollah and took key positions from which the Iranian-backed terrorist army “threatened northern communities for years,” he went on to say.

“We broke the Iranian axis, the Iranian terror axis, and Hezbollah is a shadow of what it used to be,” Netanyahu declared.


U.S.-Iran deal largely met with skepticism by Jewish groups
As details begin to emerge about the Trump administration’s agreement with Iran to end the war and lift the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, some mainstream Jewish organizations are treating the deal as a preliminary step — focusing on the 60-day negotiating period ahead, while others are expressing skepticism about the contours of the agreement.

AIPAC, in a statement that came late Monday afternoon after many other organizations had already spoken out, framed the current MOU as a preliminary step, focusing more on the upcoming negotiations, while emphasizing the need for more details about how the current deal affects Israel.

“The announced MOU kicks off a new 60-day window for talks. We look forward to learning the full details of the framework for these negotiations, including whether the deal preserves the sovereign right of our democratic ally Israel to respond to the security threats it confronts,” AIPAC said in a statement.

The group also emphasized that “Congress will play a critical role in working with the administration throughout these negotiations and in reviewing the ultimate agreement.”

It said any deal should require the removal of all enriched uranium from Iran, the dismantling of its enrichment capacity and should address Iran’s missile and drone programs and end its support for terrorist proxies.

The American Jewish Committee also did not take a definitive position on the current agreement, saying on X that the organization “await[s] developments about the reported 60-day ceasefire agreement” but emphasized the need to continue to focus on Iran’s long-running threats.

The AJC said that any ultimate deal with Iran at the conclusion of the upcoming 60-day negotiating period should ensure Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon, rebuild its ballistic missile program, continue to support terror proxies, threaten U.S. allies and partners or hold the Strait of Hormuz hostage.

“AJC also strongly supports the legitimate aspirations of the Iranian people for greater freedom, opportunity and dignity, and hopes that those aspirations are eventually realized,” the statement continued. “As the contours of this and future agreements become more clear, we will continue to engage with our partners in the U.S., the Middle East, and around the world to make this vision a reality.”

Other groups offered a more directly negative reaction to the emerging details of the MOU.

The Zionist Organization of America, which has been strongly supportive of Trump administration policies and President Donald Trump himself, praised the president for carrying out military operations against Iran but said that “the pending deal with Iran is concerning.”

“The deal appears to be an ‘agreement to negotiate’ — which enables the Iranian regime to obtain massive oil revenue and time to build up its military and terror arsenals, while leaving the genocidal Iranian regime and its nuclear and missile stockpiles in place, and positioning the Iranian regime to continue and strengthen its 47-year war to destroy the U.S., Israel, and the West,” ZOA National President Mort Klein said. “[T]he little that we know is deeply problematic.”

Klein said it “makes no sense” for the U.S. to let up on its blockade of Iran unless Iran fully gives up its nuclear program and missile stockpile. He also expressed concerns that the deal will allow Hezbollah to regroup and rearm, and that Trump demanded that Israel stand down against Hezbollah.


Hamas documents show Oct. 7 attack aimed at thwarting Israel-Saudi normalization
The Hamas terror group carried out its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel partly in order to thwart the Jewish state’s rapprochement with Saudi Arabia, according to seized documents.

The internal Hamas materials were published by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, a government-controlled think tank, and then aired by the Kan public broadcaster on Sunday.

In the years and months leading up to the attack, it was widely reported that the oil-rich kingdom was considering normalization with Israel, along the lines of the US-brokered Abraham Accords with other Arab states.

A Times of Israel report last year confirmed that, on the eve of the October 7 attack, Washington and Riyadh had already reached understandings regarding concessions Israel would have to make vis-à-vis the Palestinians for Riyadh to normalize relations with Jerusalem.

In a meeting held by Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip in February 2022, the Iran-backed terror group, which had long functioned as the enclave’s de facto government, decided to establish a new office, tasked with overseeing efforts to thwart normalization between Israel and its erstwhile enemies.

Hamas decided to heat up the conflict in Gaza as well as the West Bank and East Jerusalem, “in order to thwart the Saudi kingdom’s process of normalization,” according to the minutes of the meeting.

The terror group noted, as precedent for its campaign, that the Second Intifada – a deadly, years-long campaign of suicide bombings and other terror attacks in the early 2000s – was “one of the chief factors leading to the blow-up of the normalization process presented through the Arab Peace Initiative.”

In 2023, the group decided that its renewed attempt to stir disorder in the region was not bearing enough fruit. In late September, the group’s leadership held another meeting, chaired by Gaza chief – and October 7 mastermind – Yahya Sinwar.

At the meeting, Sinwar presented a memo titled “Dealing with the normalization process between Saudi Arabia and Israel.”

“Hamas is not a negligible party; our resistance can thwart the plans, just as we played a role in the failure of Oslo,” he said, referring to the US-brokered peace process decades ago in which Israel sought to withdraw from the West Bank and allow for the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state.

“We’ll play a role in causing the Zionist enemy pain and sending a message to those participating in normalization… that the Israeli occupation is not an oasis of security and stability,” Sinwar resolved.


Senior US officials: Israel maintains ‘right to defend itself against’ Hezbollah attacks under US-Iran deal
The United States and Iran have signed a memorandum of understanding establishing a framework for broader negotiations aimed at permanently preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and normalizing economic relations, two senior U.S. officials said on Monday.

The memorandum was signed electronically by U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. Vice President JD Vance on behalf of Washington, and by Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf on behalf of Tehran. A formal signing ceremony is scheduled for Friday in Geneva, the officials said.

Questions remain about the agreement’s contents. A U.S. official told reporters the text would be released within 24 to 48 hours, while Trump later indicated it would likely be made public after Friday’s signing ceremony.

“One of our principles here is, we want to have full transparency on this, and there’ll be no side deals, so everything we do will be transparent,“ the official said.

Addressing concerns about Israel, an official said Israel will still have the ability to defend itself against Hezbollah, Iran’s terror proxy in southern Lebanon. Iran insisted a complete regional ceasefire be part of the deal, and Trump harshly criticized an Israeli strike on terror targets in the Beirut suburbs as the memorandum was nearing the finish line.

“The deal is a ceasefire, and it will not be a one-way ceasefire,” the official said. “If Iran is not able to control Hezbollah and if they attack Israeli positions or Israeli towns, Israel will have the right to defend itself and respond.”

The official added that Washington hopes future negotiations could contribute to broader regional stabilization and “hopefully this will help us get the Israel-Lebanon normalization and peace done properly.”

The framework as it’s been presented so far has drawn criticism from Israeli officials and Iran hawks in Washington, many of whom argue it grants Tehran significant concessions while postponing resolution of key issues, including Iran’s nuclear program and peace talks centered around Hezbollah’s neutralization.
Amid US-Iran deal, IDF says Hezbollah continues attacking troops in south Lebanon
Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon eased but did not halt entirely on Monday after the US signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran, as Israeli leaders vowed that the agreement did not prevent it from continuing to operate in south Lebanon.

The IDF said Monday evening that Hezbollah had fired several rockets at Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, one of several attacks carried out by the terror group throughout the day.

The IDF also confirmed striking Hezbollah operatives who “posed a threat” to forces in southern Lebanon on Monday.

According to the military, the rockets fired at Israeli forces were intercepted by air defenses. No sirens sounded in any towns in Israel.

Additionally, Hezbollah fired an anti-tank missile and several mortars at troops in southern Lebanon, in several separate attacks Monday, with no injuries caused, the IDF said.

Also, in four separate incidents throughout Monday, the IDF said, troops spotted “several terrorists traveling in vehicles and approaching IDF soldiers, in a manner that posed an immediate threat to them.”

The Israeli Air Force then struck “all of the threats in a precise manner,” the military added.


Hezbollah praises Iran deal, urges Beirut to help confront ‘Israeli enemy’
Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization on Monday praised the Islamic Republic for completing the peace agreement with the United States.

In a statement carried by Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar daily, which is affiliated with Hezbollah, the terror group celebrated the deal as a “great achievement,” calling it “the fruit of the legendary steadfastness, exceptional resilience and immense sacrifices offered by the Iranian people and their wise leadership.”

Hezbollah, in the statement, offered a “salute and appreciation” to the Iranian leadership for what it described as Tehran’s “steadfast support for Lebanon, its people and its resistance, and for their insistence that Lebanon be included in any understanding that leads to an end to the war and safeguards its rights.”

“They endured the burdens of the siege and aggression, once again proving that the Islamic Republic is indeed a true supporter and a strong, loyal ally,” it continued.

The Hezbollah statement also hailed “all the countries that participated, contributed, assisted and supported efforts to remove obstacles in order to bring about this agreement.”

Turning to the Lebanese government, the terror group called on Beirut’s official government “to return to a unified national position in order to achieve the goals on which the Lebanese agree” and confront “the ambitions of the Israeli enemy.”

“It is wise to review all the calculations and paths pursued by the authorities,” Hezbollah warned, “and to acknowledge that a unified Lebanese position and reliance on true friends are the best means of safeguarding national interests.”

The Jewish state “must understand that there can be no return to the situation that existed before March 2, and that the resistance—which has always been and remains the vigilant guardian protecting the homeland and its people—will not accept any aggression that violates its nation’s sovereignty and the blood of its people,” it stated.


FDD: The Iran ceasefire fallacy | feat. Haviv Rettig Gur
FDD Executive Director Jon Schanzer delivers timely situational updates and analysis, followed by a conversation with Haviv Rettig Gur, host of the ‪@AskHavivAnything‬ podcast and Middle East Analyst at The Free Press.




Commentary Podcast: My Kingdom For A Deal
FDD's Jonathan Schanzer is back to discuss President Trump's terrible Iran deal and the ongoing uncertainty about its details, as well as America's position in the world in the aftermath of such a deal. Plus, the Bidens attempt a comeback, and Jay Clayton's nomination for DNI.


Ben Shapiro: The Iran Deal: What We Know, What We Don’t, and Who Is Lying
President Trump and the Pakistani Prime Minister announce an Iran memo of understanding… and we break down everything we know, and what we don’t.


Jonathan Sacerdoti: Worse than Obama: Dan Schueftan reveals what Trump gave Iran — and what Israel lost
Is Trump's deal with Iran worse than Obama's JCPOA? Dan Schueftan tells Jonathan Sacerdoti how it emboldens every Iranian proxy from Hezbollah to the Houthis, and leaves Israel in one of the most precarious positions in its history.

Both sides are claiming victory. But beneath those claims are harder questions. Has Iran been given a free pass to rearm? Has Israel lost the cover it needed to act? What does this mean for the Gulf states, for Lebanon, for the Iranian people desperate to be rid of their regime — and for the West's credibility as a civilisation willing to defend itself?

In this conversation, Jonathan Sacerdoti speaks with Dr. Dan Schueftan — strategic analyst and former director of the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa — about what the Trump-Iran deal actually contains, why a president who built his identity on winning may have handed Iran a historic victory, what Israel can still do alone, and why the West's retreat from confrontation is the most dangerous signal it can send.

👁️‍🗨️ Watch if you want to understand what the Trump-Iran nuclear deal really means for Israel, for the Middle East, and for any country that still believes in the willingness to fight for its interests.

🎙️ We Discuss:
🔴 Why Dan Schueftan calls this deal a capitulation worse than Obama's — and what Iran actually received
🇮🇷 How Iran keeps uranium enrichment, faces no limits on ballistic missiles, and its proxies remain intact
🇮🇱 What Israel can do now — alone, without the American cover it depended on
🔫 Why Hamas and Hezbollah will never disarm — and why that was never a realistic goal with or without the US
🌍 How the Gulf states, Lebanon's non-Hezbollah population, and Iran's own people were also abandoned by this deal
📉 Why Trump — a man who defines himself entirely by winning and losing — may not yet grasp what he gave away
⚔️ The 1930s parallel: how Western unwillingness to fight emboldened Hitler, and what today's retreat signals to today's barbarians
🏛️ Why Western democracy can no longer produce leaders like Churchill or FDR — and what that means for civilisation
🇮🇱 Why Israel's combination of open society and willingness to fight makes it unique in the Western world — and uniquely resented
💡 Dan's "smart optimism": why things will get worse, but Israel will grow stronger faster than things deteriorate




Israeli embassy: France ‘cannot act as a mediator’ with Palestinians
France “cannot act as a mediator between Israel and the Palestinians,” Israel’s embassy in Paris told Reuters on Friday, responding to the latest French push for a two-state solution.

“Regarding the two-state solution, the ambassador recalls that the Palestinians have rejected proposals to establish a Palestinian state on five occasions,” the diplomatic mission said in a statement to the news wire.

The embassy was responding to a conference hosted by French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot on Friday, which brought together some 250 two-state activists to mark one year since Paris’s call to establish “Palestine.”

Israeli Ambassador to France Joshua Zarka “was invited but will not attend the conference, as it has nothing to do with promoting peace,” the embassy said.

Friday’s meeting brought together foreign ministers and senior officials from dozens of countries, alongside civil society groups. It came one year after the “Paris Call for the Two-State Solution,” which set out a roadmap toward Palestinian statehood and prompted about a dozen countries, including France, Britain and Canada, to recognize a Palestinian state.

The gathering ended with a call for action urging a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip alongside reconstruction, a halt to Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria, Palestinian Authority governance reforms and stronger international backing for Palestinian civil society. The proposal will be shared with G7 leaders who are set to meet at Évian-les-Bains in the French Alps starting on Monday.

“We could find every reason in the world to give up—but you are here. Your testimonies alone are grounds for hope and action,” Barrot told attendees. “France refuses to let the side of war prevail over the side of peace.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told French President Emmanuel Macron last year that the establishment of a Palestinian state would be “a major reward for terrorism” and a strategic threat to the Jewish state.

Netanyahu told Macron on April 15, 2025, that a Palestinian state established minutes from Israeli population centers would become “an Iranian terror stronghold,” and “an overwhelming majority of the Israeli public is firmly opposed to such a move,” according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office.

He also noted that “no Palestinian entity—including the Palestinian Authority—has condemned the Oct. 7, [2023,] massacre,” adding that the P.A. “educates its children to seek Israel’s destruction and financially rewards murderers of Jews.”
France walls off Israeli booths at Paris defense show
Management at the June 15-19 Eurosatory land and air-land defense exhibition in Paris boarded up Israeli pavilions even though they adhered to organizers’ discriminatory restrictions, Israel’s Defense Ministry said on Monday.

“This is a cynical, discriminatory, and unsurprising move aimed at shutting Israeli technology out of an international exhibition, technology whose quality is proven daily across the Middle East,” the ministry’s spokesperson said.

Two of the pavilions belonged to Controp, a producer of electro-optical, precision motion control systems for surveillance, defense, para-military and homeland security missions, and to Smart Shooter, which developed state-of-the-art fire control systems for small arms that significantly increase weapon accuracy, especially against attack drones.

The Controp team wrote on the walled off pavilion that their products were effective against Iranian ballistic missiles but “lost against French short sight[ed]ness.”

The pavilions carried only defensive equipment in obedience to “the French government’s outrageous demands,” the Israeli Defense Ministry spokesperson said, but were boarded off anyway.

Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister for Diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism, wrote on X in French: “You may cravenly put up all the boards in the world to hide the pavilions of the world’s most innovative companies, but it will not weaken them. It will strengthen them. This cowardice is the hallmark of [President] Emmanuel Macron and [Foreign Minister] Jean-Noel Barrot, who rank among the weakest leaders France has ever had.”





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2019 Nobel Peace Prize nominee

Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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