Israel and Jews, Beware: The Worst Is Yet To Come From Trump

 

There is a familiar American pattern, and it is ugly in its predictability. Trump courts applause with swagger, toys with danger, cuts corners in the name of “strength,” and when the wreckage arrives, someone else is left holding the bag. In Donald Trump’s case, the bag is almost certainly going to be handed to Israel, to the Zionists, and, if history is any guide, to the Jews themselves. The deal may be sold as a triumph. The fallout will be sold as somebody else’s fault.

This is the central fraud of Trump’s Middle East posture: the theatrics are his, the slogans are his, the grandiose promises are his — but the blame is always transferable. He wants the credit for toughness without the discipline of statecraft, the glory of “peace” without the burden of outcomes.WHEN the Iran track collapses, if the Middle East erupts, if America is embarrassed, if allies are betrayed, he will not stand there and say, “I misread everything.” No. He will look for a scapegoat. And the oldest, easiest scapegoat in Western civilization is still available on the shelf.

That is what makes this moment so dangerous for Israel and for Jews everywhere. Not merely the possibility of a bad agreement with Iran, but the political architecture around failure. Trump does not operate like a statesman who accepts responsibility; he operates like a showman who survives by blame-shifting. The minute the “deal” starts unraveling — and these deals so often unravel — the story will not be “Trump was naïve.” The story will be “Israel meddled,” “the Zionists pushed too hard,” “the Jews wanted war,” “the lobby demanded too much,” “the allies ruined it.” The accusation does not need to be coherent. It only needs to be useful.

And that is the point. Trump does not need to hate Jews to be dangerous to Jews. He only needs to be reckless, vain, and desperate to preserve his own myth. History is full of leaders who, when cornered, discovered that blaming the Jews was the cheapest form of political insurance. Trump is not a thinker; he is an accumulator of resentments. He has spent years training a coalition to believe that every failure is somebody else’s sabotage. That is the raw material of antisemitic politics: not always explicit hatred, but the constant preparation of a scapegoat.

Israel should understand this better than anyone. There is no such thing as a bad deal that stays isolated. A weak agreement with Iran is not merely a diplomatic mistake; it is an invitation to future chaos. Tehran will pocket every concession it can, buy time, reposition itself, and wait for the next American president, or the next crisis, or the next moment of Western fatigue. And when that happens, the blame will not be assigned to the man who signed the paper with too much bravado and too little seriousness. It will be assigned to the people who were never invited to write the paper in the first place.

This is how the trap is set. First comes the overpromise. Then comes the compromise dressed up as victory. Then comes the predictable Iranian cheating, the regional escalation, the diplomatic humiliation. And finally comes the great American ritual of deflection: someone must have “undermined” the plan. Someone must have “pushed him too far.” Someone must have “made it impossible.” In Washington, that someone is often Israel. In the fever swamps, it is the Jews.

The tragedy is that Trump’s style invites exactly the sort of moral laziness that antisemitism feeds on. He reduces everything to transaction and vanity. He thinks alliances are loyalty tests, not strategic necessities. He treats adversaries as if they were reality-show contestants. He thinks the world is impressed by noise. But the Middle East does not care about noise. Iran does not fear bluster; it exploits it. And when the inevitable consequences arrive, the man who sold himself as the master negotiator will need a villain more than he needs the truth.

So yes, Israel and Jews should beware. Not because every criticism of Israel is antisemitic — it is not — but because in the Trump era, criticism can be weaponized, and bad outcomes can be converted into ethnic accusation with astonishing speed. A failed deal becomes an accusation. An Iranian provocation becomes a talking point. An Israeli objection becomes “sabotage.” And suddenly the ancient poison is back in circulation, wrapped in modern populist packaging.

The worst may not be the deal itself. The worst may be the aftermath: the blame, the resentment, the conspiracy, the ugly old story told in a new American accent. That is the danger Trump brings to the table. Not only bad policy, but a political culture in which Jews are made to pay for other people’s fantasies.

 

REPUBLISHED

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/israel-and-jews-beware-the-worst-is-yet-to-come-from-trump/

 

 *****

 Bloomberg and CNN say they have obtained the 14-point memorandum of understanding (MOU). 

White House communications director Steven Cheung said Wednesday morning the reported text “does not reflect the language of the actual MOU.”

Here are the key provisions in the reported agreement:

Lebanon included in ceasefire

The agreement would end fighting on “all fronts,” including Lebanon, where Israel has been seeking to destroy Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy group that controls much of the country’s south. 

That’s sure to further inflame tensions between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been shut out of talks between the U.S. and Iran. 

Israel has said it will not withdraw forces from border regions of Lebanon and maintains the right to defend itself against Hezbollah. 

60 days for final deal 

Many of the key details are punted to a final deal to be hammered out within 60 days, “extendable by mutual consent.”

Trump said Wednesday the MOU was not “final,” warning he would resume bombing if Iran doesn’t “behave.”

Reopens Strait of Hormuz

Under the memorandum, both sides would agree to restore shipping through the Strait of Hormuz to its prewar levels within 30 days of the MOU being signed. 

The U.S. would lift its naval blockade immediately, while Iran would commit to removing “technical obstacles” and neutralizing mines in the waterway. 

There have been public disagreements over whether Iran could impose tolls on ships after the 60-day window expires. 

Creates $300B reconstruction fund

The MOU says the United States, “together with its regional partners,” will ensure the financing of at least $300 billion for a reconstruction fund for Iran. It says the “implementation mechanism of this plan” will be determined as part of the final agreement.

Trump said Wednesday the U.S. won’t contribute to the fund, but said he couldn’t stop other countries from investing in Iran. 

US commits to ending sanctions

As part of the final agreement, the U.S. commits to ending “all types of sanctions” on Iran. That includes sanctions approved by the United Nations and International Atomic Energy Agency, as well as unilateral sanctions. 

Iran commits to no nuclear weapons

Iran reiterates that it won’t produce nuclear weapons under the deal.

Iran made a similar commitment under the nuclear deal signed during the Obama administration, and was reportedly willing to make it again during negotiations before Trump and Netanyahu launched the war on February 28. 

The agreement leaves the fate of Iran’s stockpile of weapons-grade uranium and “all other mutually agreed nuclear-related issues” to the final agreement. 

Trump has said this provision achieves “99.9 percent” of his goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. 

Maintains ‘status quo’ for Iran’s nuclear program

The deal does not explicitly bar Iran from enriching uranium, instead maintaining the “status quo” of its nuclear program. 

Vice President Vance said this week that Iran’s ability to access funds would depend on its willingness to make key concessions. 

The two sides have reportedly agreed in principle to an enrichment moratorium, but haggled over how long it would last. 

US waives sanctions on Iran’s oil exports

While most U.S. sanctions would only be lifted as part of a final agreement, it would immediately take steps allowing Iran to resume oil exports onto the global market.

The reported text says the Treasury Department “will issue waivers for exports of Iranian crude oil, petrochemical products and their derivatives, and all related services, including banking, insurance, transportation, and the like.”

Critics of the deal say this gives Iran a crucial economic lifeline that will allow it to begin rebuilding its military without making any concessions on its nuclear program. 

Unfreezes Iranian funds 

Another provision would unfreeze Iranian funds and assets held abroad, “in light of the progress of negotiations towards a final agreement.”

That would appear to give the U.S. discretion to unfreeze the funds during negotiations, rather than waiting for a final deal. There are no restrictions in the MOU on how the funds could be used. 

Final deal subject to UN Security Council approval 

The MOU says any final agreement will be approved through a binding resolution of the United Nations Security Council. 

Trump also said on Tuesday that he’d send any deal with Iran to Congress for approval. 

The Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was also approved by the UN Security Council and reviewed by Congress under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act.

 *

Though the details of the deal remain murky — a telling indicator of its likely shoddiness, since the administration would surely trumpet the terms of a strong agreement — it’s already clear that Trump has betrayed his promise to the Iranian people, after they were massacred in January to quell antigovernment protests, that “help is on its way.” As in Venezuela, to say nothing of China and Russia, this administration’s message to oppressed people everywhere is that their rights come last.

Trump is also on his way to betraying Israel, our principal ally in this fight, by pushing Jerusalem to stand down in its effort to stop Hezbollah’s attacks on its north, in that way handing Tehran the victory of creating a diplomatic linkage between Lebanon and Hormuz. If Iran is now allowed to extract some kind of service fee for permitting ships to transit the Strait, Trump will have also betrayed our allies in the Persian Gulf by giving Iran financial and strategic leverage to which it has no right, and which it didn’t previously have.

  

Former Ambassador Michael Oren Explains Israel's Reaction To The MOU between the US and Iran (Trump Did Not Inform Israel What's In It)

 

My Kingdom For A Deal (6/15/26)

 

The Iran ceasefire fallacy | feat. Haviv Rettig Gur

 

How the Ultra-Orthodox Rabbis Destroyed Reason and Common Sense: Everyone Is A Victim

 

There was a time when Judaism produced giants who saw no contradiction between Torah and reason. The greatest example remains Maimonides, the Rambam, who was simultaneously a rabbi, physician, philosopher, scientist, and legal scholar. He believed that the human mind was one of God's greatest gifts and that ignorance was not a virtue. To know God required study, observation, and intellectual honesty. Judaism, in his view, demanded rigorous thinking.

Yet somewhere along the way, large segments of the ultra-Orthodox world abandoned that tradition. Reason slowly became suspect. Critical thinking became dangerous. Questions became acts of rebellion. Intellectual curiosity became something to suppress rather than cultivate. Entire communities increasingly defined piety not by wisdom but by obedience.

The tragedy is not merely educational. It is civilizational. When children are taught that secular knowledge is worthless, when science is treated as a threat, when history is rewritten to fit ideological needs, and when independent thought is discouraged, a culture inevitably begins to shrink. The result is not greater holiness but greater dependency. A society that fears questions eventually loses the ability to answer them.

The irony is that the rabbis who often proclaim themselves defenders of tradition are, in many ways, rejecting one of Judaism's oldest traditions—the tradition of argument, inquiry, and debate. The Talmud is not a book of slogans. It is a book of disagreements. Page after page records fierce arguments among scholars who challenged one another relentlessly. The sages understood that truth emerges through struggle and examination, not through the silencing of dissent.

Many contemporary ultra-Orthodox leaders have instead built systems in which authority itself becomes the highest value. The rabbi is not merely a teacher but an oracle. Decisions about education, employment, politics, military service, medicine, and even personal family matters are often surrendered to a small clerical elite. The consequence is predictable: common sense becomes subordinate to institutional interests. Reality itself becomes negotiable.

One sees the effects in communities where young men can spend decades isolated from the practical demands of modern life while depending upon others for economic support. One sees it when educational systems graduate students unable to function effectively in broader society because they were denied essential skills. One sees it when ideological loyalty becomes more important than truth.

The damage extends beyond the ultra-Orthodox world. When religious leadership presents ignorance as virtue, critics often conclude that Judaism itself is hostile to knowledge. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Jewish tradition that produced the Rambam, the commentators, the scientists, the physicians, and the great legal minds was built upon intellectual rigor. It celebrated the disciplined use of reason.

The challenge facing the Orthodox world today is not whether it can preserve Torah. Torah has survived empires, persecutions, and exiles. The challenge is whether it can rediscover the confidence that truth has nothing to fear from knowledge. A Judaism afraid of reason is a Judaism that has forgotten its own history.

The greatest threat to faith is not science. It is not modernity. It is not secular education. The greatest threat is leadership that mistakes conformity for conviction and obedience for wisdom. When common sense becomes an enemy, both religion and society suffer.

A community that teaches its children how to think will endure. A community that teaches them only what to think eventually finds itself unable to confront reality. The rabbis who abandoned reason may have won control over their institutions, but they did so at the cost of one of Judaism's most precious inheritances: the belief that God expects human beings to use the minds He gave them.

 

REPUBLISHED

 

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/how-the-ultra-orthodox-rabbis-destroyed-reason-and-common-sense-victims-galore/

The decisive opportunity of this moment in our history lies in our community’s moving away from the all-too-pervasive materialism and competitive consumption.

 

American Orthodoxy Flourishing but Fragile

Read the series introduction, “The Jew in America at 250”

 

As we approach our nation’s 250th anniversary, the trajectory of American Orthodox Jewish life demonstrates significant successes—“good news”—but we also face significant challenges—“bad news.” A recent study stated that most people prefer sharing good news first, but that about 80% of recipients want to first hear the bad news. So here goes….

Nishma Research’s April 2026 survey of almost 500 Orthodox Jews asked what they see as major challenges facing Orthodoxy. The top five are:

1. Affordability, Economics: Tuition, housing near a shul, kashrut, shuls, camps, weddings, costs in general.
2. Antisemitism, Safety, America’s Future: Rising antisemitism from both the left and right, fear of physical danger, campus hostility, and uncertainty about long‑term safety in America.
3. Materialism, Status Pressure, Gashmiyut: Conspicuous consumption, competitiveness, and external markers of success eclipsing inner avoda.
4. Internal Division, Polarization: Splits within Orthodoxy, political polarization, and the difficulty of maintaining unity. This survey also found that a plurality of Modern Orthodox (44%) see the Orthodox community as becoming more divided, although a majority of Haredim (53%) see levels of unity/disunity not changing much.
5. Technology, Internet, Media: Smartphones, social media, the internet, and now A.I. as spiritual and social threats, especially for youth.

Now some good news.…

On several measures of community strength, the news is positive. Very strong majorities agree that the community is growing, its institutions (shuls, schools, organizations) are strong, we are successfully transmitting Jewish values to the next generation, and members of the community are becoming more religiously observant and are thriving spiritually.

However, it is the very success of Orthodox life, across economic and moral domains—its growth, affluence, and institutional strength—that has produced new social pressures that risk displacing its spiritual core.

As some commented: “Certain communities are too focused on gashmiut and keeping up with others. Fancy cars, fancy watches, etc.”; “This is replacing Torah values and a Torah life with something else that is just weird and spiritually harmful.”

The decisive opportunity of this moment in our history lies in our community’s moving away from the all-too-pervasive materialism and competitive consumption.

Across Nishma Research surveys of family finances, middot (interpersonal behaviors, where humility and being satisfied with what one has are rated poorly), and other studies, materialistic and competitive behaviors are too pervasive and harmful. I suggest that we have a decisive societal opportunity to address the challenge of materialism by shifting from an emphasis on gashmiut to identifying and exalting the spirituality and connection to Hashem to which we aspire.

Communal honor systems shape communal values; therefore, the question is not only what we discourage, but what we choose to celebrate. Why not equally honor not only our major donors but also those who exemplify what we most value? Why not have a shul kiddush, sponsored with $18 donations by many, honoring the woman who looks after and drives her 93-year-old widow neighbor to all of her doctor appointments or those who staff the Hevra Kadisha? There are so many opportunities to recognize those who exemplify the spirituality we aspire to. Let’s really focus on that. These may be small steps, but we need to start creating a shift in what people see as important.

The future of Orthodox flourishing will depend not only on what we build, but on what we choose to value.

 

https://traditiononline.org/american-orthodoxy-flourishing-but-fragile/?

Why haven’t the leaders of the “ PASUL-Olam HaTorah” – the ultra-Orthodox, Torah-observant world – condemned this behavior? Instead: They rally to shut down the country in the name of Torah. Why is no one concerned that now “Torah” communities are above the rule of law and fomenting hatred of Jew against Jew

 

If only just a few Haredim were calling police ‘Nazis’ and women ‘shiksas’ 

 

Ultra-Orthodox rioters are no longer fringe extremists: I watched local teens block cars and my Haredi neighbors cheer them on – as the police did nothing 

 

 

Haredi protesters attempt to block traffic on a road in Beit Shemesh during a demonstration on June 9, 2026. (Israel Police)

I live on the seam in a neighborhood divided between Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox.

And in my neighbor’s words: It’s a dumpster fire. And we’re watching it spread across the country as everyone’s hands are tied, with a mumbled wish: “This too shall pass.” 

I’d like to ask all of those who don’t live on the edge of this dumpster fire to please hold off on your kumbaya suggestions until you’ve lived with it consistently on your back porch. Not two streets away, but on your doorstep – where you witness hate-filled riots every single week, year in and year out, and see it spread. 

You’re not seeing the scale, intensity, and insidiousness of this brand of Haredi extremism that realizes how easily and willingly its growing masses can shut down the country. But I hope the next election brings change or that someone higher up will wake up and unbind the hands of law enforcement.

Oh, the Difference a Front Row Seat Makes

I live on the street that borders both the dati leumi (religious Zionist) and the Haredi neighborhoods in Beit Shemesh, a city approximately halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. We have a front row seat to Haredi extremism that political, religious, and community leaders talk about in the abstract. A view that even our neighbors one street away in our same neighborhood do not have. Visitors and even new neighbors see a riot on our street and say, “That’s awful! But it’ll get taken care of. Just a handful of hundreds of extremists throwing a tantrum. Just add more ahavat Yisrael (love for the Jewish people)…” 

Funny, I think. We/the world has made this mistake before. But I understand that it’s hard to predict the future. Even the CIA declared that “Iran was not in a revolutionary situation” in 1978 (the shah was overthrown by the ayatollah in 1979).

The line of thinking for most people goes something like this: It’s a small minority of kitzonim (extremists), not the vast majority of Haredim, who incite and shut down traffic. Only a few call the police “Nazis” or our women “shiksas.” The rest aren’t like that!

I’ve also been at those types of riots, where the participants were from other neighborhoods or paid or seemed a little off. They were just “the kitzonim.”

But on Tuesday, I saw with my own eyes that I have been wrong for the past eight years of living on this street. I would always call the rioters “kitzonim”; I live a bit further up the street – not as close to the riots as I could be. My neighbors’ apartment window faces the riots directly. They always called the same people “Haredim.” After the other night, I too will say “Haredim.”

Tuesday night, at 9:30 p.m., against my better judgement and best sense of self-preservation, I stepped out to see if the riot was over (it had started at 6 p.m.).

Humiliating Capitulation

It wasn’t over. For 3.5 hours, the police had rerouted traffic, preventing access to the roundabout at the end of my street, which is a major thoroughfare in Beit Shemesh, inconveniencing countless people and the 47 bus lines that have stops along that intersection. 

Video Player

Hundreds of young Haredi men were milling about in the roundabout screaming “Nazi” at the police, who were monitoring from the sidewalk; yelling “shiksa” in my neighbor’s face; and shouting and blocking any unlucky non-Haredi driver who happened to have made it through the police blockades into the intersection.

To our utter amazement, as the cars got stuck, the police stood back and waited. As fires were set at the roundabout, the firefighters waited down the block to let them burn out on their own.

Cars stuck? No reaction from the police. Then a boy in a crowd across the street threw a rock at the police. They stormed after the crowd with their batons. I muttered, “Finally.” Then a kid standing next to me responded: “No! They hit everyone. Those guys didn’t throw the rock!” I just stood there dumbfounded. 

For hours, the police had not moved these rioters from the roundabout. They’d removed the law abiding drivers instead. Because “the rioters don’t listen.” 

According to my neighbors, it’s due to national-level policy. Law enforcement’s role in our country has been reversed to: tell the law-abiders to move back so these law-breakers won’t have someone to attack. Just stand back and let them destroy your neighborhood in peace. For as long as they like.

Boys learning in night seder (evening studies) in the neighborhood yeshivot came running to the roundabout. Local boys. Not “kitzonim” –– regular black-hatted, white-shirted, Haredi yeshivah boys. Who then joined the others in blocking cars, shouting “Nazi,” and throwing rocks. And the discussions on the sidewalks and the cheers by the Haredi bystanders were not silence at all; they were support. 

Finally a water cannon truck showed up at around 10 p.m., four hours after traffic had been stopped there – and the Haredim all ran from the street. Some of the boys took the firehose at the shopping center on the corner, turned it on, and started spraying back. I’m assuming there was a good reason why the truck was not sent earlier to clear the roundabout for drivers at 6 p.m.. My neighbors’ granddaughter was working at the bakery on the corner, and her grandfather went in to get her and she came out visibly shaken with rage. They would have to drive her home, as there were no buses.

On every Friday night and Shabbat for the past eight weeks, this is what has been happening, under the guise of “Shabbos”: People blocking streets, mobbing cars, shouting at drivers and their frightened children, lying down in front of cars in the street. With the police waiting a short distance away. It’s not about keeping Shabbos holy. They’re literally stopping and damaging cars. It’s simple bullying.

No Consequences

And with no consequences. Not a ticket. Not an arrest. Not only does it intensify, it encourages. Teenage boys are able to fight “anti-Torah” oppressors (the State of Israel); meanwhile, the oppressive law enforcement protects them while they break the law and attack others. Who’s in charge?

So, others shrug off when I get on a bus and hear hisses around me to sit in the back. When young kids laugh and call me shiksa in a parking lot, and I ask to speak to their rebbe (teacher), and he just shrugs. When young Haredi schoolgirls start yelling “I’m glad they died” out their classroom window at family members at a cemetery on Yom HaZikaron (Israel’s Memorial Day) during the siren. When they are emboldened enough to travel to Alon Shvut to storm a justice’s private home. And my well-meaning neighbors point to their Haredi coworkers who say they are embarrassed and that these kitzonim are just the outliers. I too know many Haredim who are ashamed of this behavior, but they are the ones who are the outliers. It looks like the Haredi mainstream is now justifying extremism.

If not, why haven’t the leaders of the “Olam HaTorah” – the ultra-Orthodox, Torah-observant world – condemned this behavior? Instead: They rally to shut down the country in the name of Torah. Why is no one concerned that now “Torah” communities are above the rule of law and fomenting hatred of Jew against Jew? 

The temperature is rising. Rapidly. And we’re shrugging it off.

I hope that instead of sidelining this issue when thinking about the upcoming elections, voters and leaders wake up and consider whether they vote for a government that will continue to embolden a growing minority with the power to shut down the country, without a care how much it costs any individual or society. I hope someone in leadership realizes that continuing to do nothing empowers a community that encourages its youth to regard every other Jew in the country as a “Nazi.” 

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/if-only-just-a-few-haredim-were-calling-police-nazis-and-women-shiksas/

-----שלום עליכםChina’s Xi Jinping lands in North Korea to meet Kim Jong Un in rare visit ---- While Trump Is Yutzing Around With Iran, China is Solidifying Their Grip & Stranglehold On The Asian Continent!

US President Donald Trump treats negotiations with Iran “like a bazaar,” former head of the Mossad’s counterterrorism division Oded Ailam said during an interview

 

Former Mossad official says Trump naive about Iran, misunderstands Middle East diplomacy

 

The former counterterror head of the Mossad said that Trump "does not understand the terminology of the Middle East, not the dialectic, and the Iranians are teaching him a lesson in that regard.”

US President Donald Trump treats negotiations with Iran “like a bazaar,” former head of the Mossad’s counterterrorism division Oded Ailam said during an interview with 103FM on Monday morning.

“It’s hard to summarize, we are only in a pause. We have not finished anything, just as we have not finished anything in any arena, and we need to admit the truth. There are extraordinary military achievements in all arenas that are not really being translated into diplomatic achievements,” he said.

“One of the main reasons is a capricious president named Trump, who is negotiating in the Iranian bazaar. More or less, he comes in the morning to his stall, puts up a sign that says, ‘By the end of the day, I need to sell all the merchandise,’ and expects prices to go down.

"He does not understand the terminology of the Middle East, not the dialectic, and the Iranians are teaching him a lesson in that regard.”

Ailam also called on Israel to look at events taking place elsewhere in the world, noting his talk of a wall funded by Mexico, his plans to conquer Greenland, and the deadlines he has given for those issues.

 

Bahrain's Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump and UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed participate in the signing of the Abraham Accords in Washington, September 15, 2020. 

 

“We owe this man an enormous debt, no matter what. He brought the Abraham Accords; he was the most dominant factor in the hostage deal. This man did what seven presidents before him did not do, and he attacked Iran, which absorbed heavy blows. However, we are talking here with a president who sometimes acts against his own interests and could write a glorious chapter in Barbara Tuchman’s book The March of Folly.”

Former Mossad counterterror head says Trump limited Israel's Iran strikes 

Ailam then described Israel as a limited player on the regional stage and argued that its standing is deteriorating in the face of its enemies.

“Let’s take an analogy from the World Cup: they bring up the striker Ousmane Dembélé, and the coach tells him, ‘You only shoot with your right foot and only pass backward.’ We need to get the maximum out of this. We have no say.

"Israel must sever the equation in which the Iranian lawyer tells the Lebanese client, ‘I represent you, and I don’t care what you say.’ The importance of this move was that Israel did not accept it. Israel is sending a very clear message that the key in Beirut will hang on the wall in Tehran. In that sense, the message was very sharp and clear.”

He added more about the developments taking place in Lebanon, stating that Israel’s territorial control is what has harmed Iran and Hezbollah the most.

“What worries the Iranians most is that they are seeing a process of internal disintegration begin inside Lebanon, including within the Shiite community, where people are starting to ask questions. I speak with Lebanese and follow what is happening there. We have never seen such serious doubts from all parts of the spectrum,” he said.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-898969?

 

 

Mexico Bombs the United States, Bibi Calls Trump Not To F****N' Retaliate

 

The premise is absurd, which is precisely why it is so useful. In our era, the absurd is no longer a warning sign; it is a governing principle. Mexico “bombs” the United States, Bibi phones Trump, and the great question of our age becomes not whether this sounds like a fever dream, but whether there is still a shred of adult judgment left anywhere in the Western world. The answer, alas, is increasingly no. We are governed by improvisation, vanity, and the conviction that every crisis can be managed with a camera, a slogan, and a donation link.

What makes the whole scene so grotesque is not merely the violence, but the reflex to misunderstand it. A direct attack on American soil would demand clarity, seriousness, and retaliation proportionate to the assault. Instead, the modern political imagination rushes immediately toward confusion, spin, and strategic sentimentality. Trump, who loves the theater of strength more than the substance of it, would be tempted to treat the moment as a personal insult before he treated it as a national emergency. And Bibi, with the instincts of a veteran survivalist in a region where weakness is always fatal, would presumably see the danger first: once a superpower starts improvising its own humiliation, everyone nearby begins paying the bill.

That is the joke and the tragedy at once. The United States, a country built on the assumption that borders matter and consequences are real, has spent years teaching the world that its leaders may be loud but are not necessarily decisive. Adversaries notice these things. They study hesitation the way predators study limps. If Mexico were ever to cross such an unimaginable line, the real scandal would not be the attack itself, but the American habit of converting existential events into partisan spectacle. One side would demand fury, the other restraint, and both would be less interested in the republic than in the performance of their tribe.

Bibi’s warning not to retaliate, in this cartoon of geopolitics, would not come from tenderness. It would come from experience. The old truth of diplomacy is that enemies rarely fear your morality; they fear your memory and your resolve. Israel has spent generations learning the difference between anger and deterrence, between a speech and a shield. The American political class, by contrast, often behaves as though virtue and security are interchangeable, as though being good is the same thing as being defended. It is not. It never was.

And so the spectacle ends where it always ends: with the United States discovering, yet again, that it cannot live on self-regard alone. A nation can survive incompetence, vanity, even the occasional clownish president. What it cannot survive for long is the belief that serious dangers can be managed by unserious people. That is the real missile in this fantasy—fired not by Mexico, but by a civilization that has forgotten how to distinguish power from theater, and strategy from mood.

 

REPUBLISHED

 

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/mexico-bombs-the-united-states-bibi-calls-trump-not-to-fn-retaliate/

Let’s Stop Assuming Donald Trump Knows What He’s Doing in the Middle East

 

Trump: I’m calling Netanyahu ‘right now… to tell him not to retaliate’ for Iran’s missile attacks

For nearly a decade, Americans have been told that Donald Trump possesses a mysterious genius when it comes to foreign policy. Every contradiction is explained away as strategy. Every reversal is called flexibility. Every blunder is repackaged as three-dimensional chess. And nowhere is this mythology more dangerous than in the Middle East.

It is time to stop assuming Donald Trump knows what he is doing.

The assumption itself has become a substitute for evidence. When negotiations fail, supporters claim that failure was the plan. When allies are confused, they call it unpredictability. When adversaries gain leverage, they insist Trump is merely setting a trap. The pattern has become almost theological. The leader is presumed infallible, and therefore every outcome, no matter how embarrassing, is interpreted as proof of wisdom.

The Middle East, unfortunately, is not a reality television set. It is not a Manhattan real-estate negotiation. It is a region where weakness is detected instantly, where political theater has consequences, and where enemies study actions rather than campaign slogans. In such an environment, confidence without competence can be extraordinarily expensive.

The problem is not that Trump lacks confidence. The problem is that confidence has become a replacement for knowledge. The Middle East is a graveyard filled with the reputations of leaders who believed they could improvise their way through ancient rivalries, religious passions, tribal loyalties, and geopolitical calculations. History is littered with statesmen who assumed they could bend the region to their will only to discover that the region had different plans.

Consider the endless fascination with negotiations. Trump approaches diplomacy as though every problem has a deal waiting to be signed. Yet not every adversary is seeking the same outcome. Revolutionary regimes often value ideology more than prosperity. Fanatics frequently prefer confrontation over compromise. Nations pursuing long-term strategic objectives are not necessarily interested in helping an American president create a favorable headline.

This is particularly relevant when dealing with Iran. The assumption that Tehran views negotiations through the same lens as a New York businessman misunderstands the nature of the regime. Iran's leadership has spent decades demonstrating patience, ideological commitment, and a willingness to absorb pain in pursuit of strategic goals. To imagine that a clever sales pitch or a dramatic summit automatically changes that reality is not sophistication. It is wishful thinking.

What is most striking is how often Trump's defenders confuse motion with progress. Announcements become achievements. Meetings become victories. Negotiations become breakthroughs before any breakthrough has actually occurred. The public is encouraged to judge intentions rather than results.

But foreign policy is ultimately measured by outcomes. Are America's allies stronger or weaker? Are America's enemies more constrained or more confident? Is deterrence increasing or declining? These are not partisan questions. They are practical ones.

The cult of political personality has infected much of American discourse. Many critics assume Trump is a fool. Many supporters assume he is a genius. Both positions abandon the discipline of sober analysis. The wiser approach is to examine events as they unfold and judge them by their consequences rather than by emotional attachment to the man himself.

For those of us who grew up studying Jewish history, this lesson should sound familiar. Survival was rarely achieved through wishful thinking. It required clear eyes, skepticism, realism, and the ability to distinguish rhetoric from reality. Communities that confused hope with strategy often paid a terrible price.

Donald Trump may succeed in some areas of Middle East policy. He may fail in others. But serious observers should reject the childish assumption that every move is evidence of hidden brilliance. Statesmanship is not magic. Leadership is not measured by confidence alone.

The Middle East is one of the most unforgiving regions on earth. It has humbled empires, shattered illusions, and exposed the arrogance of leaders far more experienced than Donald Trump. Before assuming that he alone possesses a master plan invisible to everyone else, Americans should demand something far simpler:

Proof.

 

REPUBLISHED

 

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/lets-stop-assuming-donald-trump-knows-what-hes-doing-in-the-middle-east/

The problem in the Middle East is not, and has never been, the existence of the state of Israel. The problem is jihadism, Islamism, Islamic extremism, Islamofascism militant Islam—or whatever words you want to use to describe the belligerence and triumphal lunacy of those who take the most pernicious doctrines of Islam too seriously.

 

Why I Won’t Debate Critics of Israel

A note to the Making Sense Community

Sam Harris Jun 5

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Many readers and podcast listeners have been dismayed by my enduring support for Israel and now urge me to debate someone—really anyone—drawn from a growing cast of scholars, grifters, and moral lunatics who have made that beleaguered country their professional or psychiatric obsession. The Making Sense Community seems to have inherited this infatuation, leading to some heated exchanges in recent days. I’ve explained my position on Israel across several podcasts and in my public talks, but it might help to summarize it here.

First, my general attitude: I’m not interested in exploring all the ways that Israel has missed the mark—from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s corrupt alliance with the far right, to the many crimes committed by settlers in the West Bank, to the deaths of innocent noncombatants in several wars—because none of these failings, however grave, will alter my sense that (1) the ethical difference between Israel and her enemies remains vast, and (2) the global preoccupation with the Jewish state, as though it were the worst villain among nations, is contemptible, being the product of perennial lies and delusions.

Next, a simple heuristic: As I suggested in at least one Community thread already, if my intransigence on these matters mystifies you, it might help to understand that, for whatever reason, I think militant Islam is ten times worse than you think it is. When I talk about “jihadists” and their various groups—Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, the IRGC, etc.—I’m talking about people who I consider to be worse than Nazis (jihadists being, essentially, Nazis who are certain of Paradise). My views about the conflict in the Middle East will not fundamentally change unless my critics produce evidence that Israel has become as evil as her enemies.

However, you can rest assured that if the IDF morphs into a death cult that uses its own civilian population as human shields (and yet somehow remains widely popular), if ordinary Israelis begin to celebrate martyrdom above every earthly priority, producing generations of bright-eyed, suicidal fanatics, if the residents of Tel Aviv condone the taking of Palestinian infants, old women, and other noncombatants as hostages and then gather in crowds of thousands, baying for their blood—if, in other words, the Israelis begin to resemble the Palestinians, then I won’t care who wins this war. Short of this, there remains a world of difference between the two sides, and I believe that we should focus on how brutalizing it is for any free society to confront enemies that can sincerely claim to “love death” more than everyone else loves life—for this has been Israel’s predicament for the better part of a century.

The problem in the Middle East is not, and has never been, the existence of the state of Israel. The problem is jihadism, Islamism, Islamic extremism, Islamofascism militant Islam—or whatever words you want to use to describe the belligerence and triumphal lunacy of those who take the most pernicious doctrines of Islam too seriously.

I won’t debate the history of the Middle East because it is irrelevant to resolving the conflict there. Of course, many people insist that we must disentangle and reconsider every strand of this history, going back at least a century. The reason I’m convinced that this is a fool’s errand is simple: Palestinians and Israelis have discrepant accounts of the past, and no amount of study or debate will reconcile them.

What’s far more important to understand—and I think it really is the only thing worth considering—is what the current inhabitants of Israel, the Palestinian territories, and the surrounding Arab states want out of life now. (Not what they pretend to want or what a handful of royal families want, while their populations want something quite different.) What do the Jews and Muslims in the region really yearn to accomplish? What are they willing to sacrifice for? What are they willing to die for? And what are they willing to let their children die for?

When we focus on the present this way, if we’re being honest, we must concede that there are two very different realities on either side of this conflict: culturally, psychologically, ethically, spiritually—in every way that matters. Yes, Israel has its religious fanatics too. But they aren’t the same sort of fanatics we find in Hamas or Hezbollah, and they’re far less representative of the surrounding culture. Notwithstanding everything that can be said against Prime Minister Netanyahu, the Israeli far right, and the settlers in the West Bank—and there is much to condemn—I believe the following remains true:

If the Palestinians laid down their arms, there would be peace. There could be a two-state solution; there could even be a one-state solution; it wouldn’t matter. If the Palestinians simply stopped killing Jews and stopped building a culture that celebrates pointless murder and martyrdom as its highest values, there could be a diverse, tolerant, and prosperous society between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. There could have been one eighty years ago. But if the Israelis laid down their weapons, there would be a genocide. This was obviously true on October 7th, 2023. And for anyone who has been paying attention, it has been true on every other day since the founding of the state of Israel.

The truth is, I have never known how Israel should have responded to the events of October 7th. I only know that they, along with every other free society, must ultimately defeat militant Islam. How we should do this is genuinely debatable. But that’s not the point of contention among Israel’s critics, especially on the left. To them, worrying about militant Islam—even in Israel, even in the aftermath of the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust—is just more “Islamophobia.” It’s just more “colonialism” and “racism” (as though that last charge made any sense in the Middle East).

If you want to understand my view of this conflict, simply ask the one question that clarifies everything in the present:

What would each side do if it had the power to do whatever it wanted?

Though many pretend otherwise, everyone knows the answer to this question to a moral certainty.

If Hamas had the power, it would perpetrate a real genocide in Israel. The group has affirmed its commitment to this project on countless occasions, both before and after October 7th. And while it is true that Jew-hatred throughout the Muslim world has been made immensely worse by a century-long fascination with Nazi propaganda and conspiracy theories, this animus isn’t merely a modern phenomenon. For instance, there is a famous hadith which predicts that the End Times will not come until the very stones and trees cry out “Oh Muslim, there is a Jew behind me, come kill him.” Unsurprisingly, Hamas cited this hadith in its founding charter.

Most Palestinians know this, and yet Hamas remains popular. For over a decade, Hamas diverted foreign aid that was meant to improve life in Gaza and used it to build the largest bomb shelter our species has ever constructed—hundreds of miles of tunnels—and yet no Palestinian civilians were allowed to shelter there during the war. Why not? Because Hamas was using these men, women, and children as human shields. And when Israel made phone calls and sent millions of text messages urging civilians to evacuate, the loudspeakers in the nearest mosques warned them to stay in place. And Hamas snipers murdered many who tried to move to safety. The Palestinians know all this, and yet Hamas remains popular. Even after all the devastation that Hamas has brought down on its own people, it remains the most popular Palestinian faction, well ahead of its rival, Fatah. This is why there is no peace in the Middle East.

The suffering in Gaza is terrible, and I’ve never pretended otherwise. But the suffering elsewhere—suffering you aren’t thinking about—is just as real. You should ask yourself why you don’t care more about it. This difference, emotionally and politically, is what it looks like to lose an information war.

We haven’t seen all the dead children in Yemen, Syria, or Sudan, where the numbers are far worse than in Gaza, but everyone has witnessed the pornography of misery and death that has been steadily manufactured by supporters of Hamas. You might think that your special concern over Israel is due to the fact that we (Americans) supply many of the weapons the IDF uses to kill Palestinians. But we supplied arms to Saudi Arabia and the UAE for a war in Yemen that has killed an estimated 377,000 people. Where were those protests? Where was the celebrity sanctimony over Yemeni dead? Why didn’t Zohran Mamdani trumpet his opposition to this evil while campaigning to become Mayor of New York? Yemen was the world’s worst humanitarian crisis for years, with American weaponry and logistical support fully implicated, and yet it never became the organizing moral obsession of universities, media institutions, activist networks, or leftwing politics the way Gaza has.

To point this out isn’t to commit the rhetorical sin of “whataboutism.” Rather, it exposes a glaring moral disparity: The world simply does not care when Muslims kill other Muslims—amazingly, it doesn’t much care when they kill Christians either—but it does care, enormously, when Jews do it. The General Assembly of the UN and its Human Rights Council have passed more resolutions against Israel than against all other nations combined, including North Korea, Iran, Russia, China, Syria, Sudan, and Yemen. A few of these countries have committed actual genocides. None of this makes sense. But this is the world we are living in.

Of the world’s 193 nations, two-thirds were created by map makers who merely imagined their frontiers into being, without much regard for the tribal interests of the people living within them. In fact, more than half were created since 1948, the year that Israel was founded. And yet there is only one whose legitimacy is still debated everywhere. There is only one nation on Earth that must continually argue for its right to exist, even when the very survival of its people is threatened by avowedly genocidal enemies.

This obsession with Israel, and the double standards to which its people are held, now forms the center of mass of that shapeshifting moral affliction widely known as “antisemitism.”

I’ve lived most of my life believing that dangerous antisemitism was behind us, at least in the West. Unfortunately, the response to October 7th has put that assumption very much in doubt. The atrocities committed by Hamas revealed a level of Jew hatred, globally, that shocked even those of us who have been students of antisemitism for much of our lives. Crucially, this hatred showed itself before Israel invaded Gaza. When the corpses of the young people mutilated and murdered at the Nova Music Festival were still being identified, we had students at Harvard and professors at Columbia—and demonstrators in New York, London, Sydney, and Toronto—celebrating their killers.

Why does antisemitism matter? Well, for the Jews, it’s obvious why it matters, but why should it matter to everyone else? It matters because when you look at what antisemites also hate, you find they hate everything that makes culturally rich, diverse, open societies possible. Real antisemites bring with them more than just their hatred of Jews: they bring censorship, political repression, conspiracy thinking, and the politics of dehumanization and scapegoating. So decrying antisemitism is not an act of special pleading. It is a defense of the moral and institutional architecture that makes free societies possible.

Let me close with another general point to members of the Making Sense Community: Many of you have written to tell me that you’ve lost respect for me over this issue (or that you still value my work and are giving me “a pass” on Israel). I reject this framing, and you should too. No one should be a part of Community just because they agree with me. I’m not running a political party, and there is no line for me, or for anyone else, to toe. If I’ve fallen off a pedestal because I said something you don’t agree with, the pedestal was the problem, not the disagreement. Of course, if you think I am lying to you, or that I otherwise lack integrity, you should leave and never look back. But if you just think I happen to be wrong, even about something important—especially about something important—I encourage you to keep showing up with better evidence and arguments. This, after all, is what a real intellectual and moral community is for.