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With older children, trying to coordinate schedules for a family vacation is nearly impossible. My wife and I decided to do shorter vacations with just some of the kids. 

We threw around ideas like a girls-only long weekend or maybe a jaunt to Europe with the boys to catch a sporting event. 

Whether anything will actually happen is another matter. What’s important is that we spoke about doing something.

Searching for trips has me trying to find a short, cheap flight somewhere with our two younger children.

I am quite comfortable using the word ‘cheap’ because I’m pretty confident that they won’t read my column! Trying to come up with a destination has been difficult, and we still have yet to book anything. 

While I throw out Cyprus or Greece, I am met with Austria, Italy, and Montenegro.

When we start researching and find that, as teenagers, they will be bored in some of these places, and that in Cyprus or Greece, at least, there is water, they are not impressed. 

I’ve started to think that we should just stay here; they can sit around and play on their phones, and maybe I’ll take them out for hummus.

I had to pick up our youngest earlier this week from a school trip. We were discussing vacation plans, and then all of a sudden, one of my favorite songs played on the radio. 

It was the classic Bananarama hit, “Cruel Summer.” Needless to say, she didn’t appreciate it when I started laughing at the lyrics:

“The city is crowded, my friends are away, and I’m on my own.

It’s too hot to handle, so I got to get up and go.

It’s a cruel, (cruel), cruel summer.

Leaving me here on my own…”

Entertaining kids raises summer expenses

As we know, keeping kids busy during summer can be costly. 

Whether it’s summer camp, swimming lessons, baking, drama camp, or family vacations, the costs can break any well-intentioned budget. The next three to four months will be sunny and hot, with no rain. 

These drought-like conditions are eerily similar to the family financial forecast over the next few months.

What’s a financial drought? It’s getting sucked dry of your money. 

It happens in summer, when paying for vacations; summer camps; books; and clothes shopping for the upcoming school year; and spending money for the kids to go to movies and meet up with friends all hit your wallet at once, depleting your bank account.

A couple of years ago, I wrote, “A few weeks ago, as I was driving some of my kids to school, I was listening to a morning talk show. The segment was about increasing government subsidies for summer day camps. 

“As if the topic of government subsidies doesn’t raise my blood pressure enough, they had a guest who was complaining about how expensive summer is for her. Aside from sending three kids to camp in July, she said that she has to pay for additional camps and a family vacation to Europe in August. 

“That’s when I lost it. I started talking out loud about her complaining about how much it costs to go to Europe for a family vacation.

Parents don’t need to abandon financial responsibility

Yes, summer is expensive, and I understand that parents get stuck and need to have a plan for their kids, and that costs money. What I don’t get is the need for parents to lose all sense of financial responsibility in order to finance their summer vacation. 

In fact, if the kids see that the parents aren’t disciplined financially, there is a great chance that they will grow up and lack that same discipline. Whatever happened to the golden rule of personal finance – If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it? 

If you can’t afford a trip to Europe, don’t go. 

Over the last two to three weeks, I have received all kinds of messages from my bank and credit card company offering me loans for the summer.

There is nothing wrong with kids, especially teens, working and making their own money so that they can spend it and not be constantly hitting up their parents for cash.  

Parents need to be smart. Start planning and saving well in advance for the summer vacation so that the sudden expenses don’t send you scrambling to try and find the money to pay for it. 

In addition, there are plenty of ways to keep children occupied that won’t break the bank.

Use the summer to be a good example for your children and spend only what you have budgeted for and can truly afford.

The information contained in this article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of Portfolio Resources Group, Inc. or its affiliates.

It may be that when Israelis look back on the war with Iran, they will remember it not because of the operations, assassinations, or brief euphoria, but as the moment one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s most important political assets finally collapsed: the belief that he was the man who knew how to preserve Israel’s standing in the United States.

That was always central to his image.

Even Israelis who disliked or distrusted Netanyahu often still believed one thing: that he understood America better than any other Israeli politician. 

That he knew how to speak to the American system, manage presidents, and keep Israel close to the center of global power – not only militarily, but as a respected sovereign ally. Which is why the spectacle of recent months has been so jarring.

The president of the United States now speaks publicly about Israel’s prime minister as though he were subordinate. President Donald Trump openly boasts that he decides what Israel can or cannot do. 

He speaks as if Israeli military operations require his approval, while reports suggest that he cursed Netanyahu privately, describing him as “difficult” and implying that the prime minister is dragging America into conflicts that do not serve US interests.

Israel has always depended strategically on the United States – for weapons, diplomatic cover, intelligence, and deterrence. But for decades, American presidents at least maintained the appearance of a relationship between sovereign allies. 

Even during fierce disputes – from Eisenhower through Bush Sr., Obama, and Biden – US presidents generally avoided publicly portraying Israel as a client state acting on their personal instructions.

Ironically, it was Trump – long presented by Netanyahu and the Israeli right as proof of Netanyahu’s diplomatic brilliance – who shattered that convention.

The irony is sharper because the Israeli right reacted with near hysteria to former US president Biden’s much milder conduct during the Israel-Hamas War. 

When Biden briefly delayed weapons shipments over Rafah and demanded a plan regarding civilians and hostages, this was portrayed in Israel as humiliation and proof that Democrats were “anti-Israel.” 

Yet the weapons arrived, Israel entered Rafah, and Biden never spoke about Israel as a vassal requiring his permission to act. Trump does exactly that – and Netanyahu’s camp swallows the humiliation in near silence.

The real problem with this war, of course, beyond the disgrace, is that it follows a war whose strategic results increasingly resemble failure.

The war against Iran was sold as a historic opportunity to reshape the Middle East: eliminate the nuclear threat, weaken Iran’s axis, and perhaps even destabilize the regime itself.

At first, it seemed dramatic progress was being made. Israeli and American forces struck deep inside Iran, killed senior figures, and damaged infrastructure. For a moment, it appeared the regime had entered real shock.

But the familiar gap between tactical and strategic success quickly reappeared. Iran understood it did not need to win militarily to shift reality. 

Threats to the Strait of Hormuz, disruptions to trade routes, cheap drones, and regional instability were enough to pressure the global economy. 

Energy prices rose, Gulf states panicked, and Western governments rushed to pressure Washington to stop escalation. At that point, a central weakness of the US-Israeli strategy became obvious: there was a plan for the opening military phase, but almost none for what came afterward. 

There was no real strategy for regime change, no serious preparation for prolonged economic warfare around Hormuz, and little Western willingness to absorb the cost of a long conflict. Once again, the West lost patience before Iran did.

Moreover, Trump entered the confrontation after already weakening America’s alliance system for years. 

He insulted NATO allies, started tariff wars with them, treated strategic partners as props for domestic politics, and even threatened, outrageously, to invade Greenland, the territory of NATO ally Denmark. 

What once would have seemed utterly absurd became normalized.
This severely weakened the West’s ability to coordinate pressure on Iran. Many European elites appeared to despise Trump more than the regime in Tehran. 

European governments did not want a nuclear Iran, but they were also reluctant to politically rescue a president who many blamed for the escalation itself – after years of unilateralism, bullying, and contempt for allies.

As a result, the final outcome looks very far from the original promises. The Iranian regime survived. The nuclear program was not really destroyed. The ballistic missile system remains intact, without even demands to limit it. Hezbollah was not dismantled.
 
The Houthis still threaten shipping lanes. Hamas still exists. Iran is expected to receive sanctions relief that could strengthen both the regime and its regional proxies – and face no demands to end this outrageous aggression against the Middle East.

Indeed, the regime faces no demands for democratic reforms or even for a promise not to massacre protesters again – even though that was the impetus for the war.

Israel, meanwhile, is left with less international legitimacy, deeper dependence on Washington, and the image of a country capable of striking hard militarily but unable to translate military achievements into a stable political outcome.

From tactical gains to strategic failure

What makes this especially painful is how different things might have been. In December 2023, Israel had a rare strategic opening. 

After October 7, much of the world genuinely sympathized with Israel. Hamas had already suffered severe losses, and many Arab states understood that it threatened regional stability as well.

Most importantly, Israel still possessed broad international legitimacy. 
It was still viewed primarily as a country responding to a horrific massacre – not as a country trapped in an endless war without a clear political objective, driven partly by revenge and collective punishment that killed tens of thousands of civilians.

At that stage, the Biden administration attempted to advance a sweeping regional deal, perhaps Israel’s greatest strategic opportunity in decades. 

The proposal included a hostage deal, a gradual end to the war, normalization with Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, and major international and Arab pressure to remove Hamas from power in Gaza and replace it with a reformed Palestinian Authority backed by international support.

It could have been a historic turning point. Israel might have emerged from October 7 with stronger regional alliances, normalization with Saudi Arabia, renewed standing in the West, and at least some hope for a more stable regional future.

But Netanyahu chose differently. He prolonged the war without a clear political strategy, partly because any such regional solution would have forced him to confront both the Palestinian issue and his far-right coalition partners.

As the war dragged on, Israel’s international legitimacy eroded sharply.

Democratic support in America weakened, younger Western audiences turned away, and Europe – Israel’s main trading partner – grew increasingly hostile. Instead of isolating Iran, Israel ended up exhausted, politically dependent on Trump, and facing an Iranian regime that remains standing and perhaps is even strengthened.

For years, Israelis told themselves that the world respects power above all else. There is truth in that. But the world also respects wisdom, responsibility, strategy, and the ability to offer hope. It does not respect brutality and stupidity.

This is what Netanyahu’s Israel increasingly looks like: a thug with polished English.

And it is becoming harder to imagine Netanyahu convincing enough Israelis that he is still the man who can deliver security, status, or dignity. The clock is ticking to the October elections. Since Netanyahu is not a man to walk into defeat, expect trickery.

Iran plans to lodge a complaint with football’s world governing body FIFA over travel restrictions its team is facing in the US at the World Cup.

Due to uncertainty over visas and the conflict with the U.S., the Iranian team are commuting from their tournament base in co-host Mexico for their three group games in the U.S.

US authorities require them to enter within 24 hours of a match and leave the same day, leading team coach Amir Ghalenoei to say Iran were the “most oppressed” team in the tournament.

“The Football Federation of Iran believes these restrictions are inconsistent with the principles of providing equal conditions for participating teams and may affect their technical preparation,” the federation said in a statement on Friday announcing its protest to FIFA.

Neither FIFA nor the US Department of Homeland Security immediately responded to Reuters requests for comment.

Iran’s remaining group stage games will also be played in the US

Ghalenoei said the disruption had prejudiced Iran in Monday’s 2‑2 draw with New Zealand.

“Under the coaching staff’s plan, the national team needed to travel to the host city two days before each match in order to achieve optimal technical and physical condition, and then return to their base the day after the match,” the federation said.

“However, for the opening match against New Zealand, this request was not approved.”

Iran face Belgium on June 21 in Los Angeles and will conclude their Group G fixtures against Egypt on June 27 in Seattle.

The setting could hardly be more proverbial.

A few steps from the Oval Office, in which American presidents once fought slavery, Nazism, and Communism, a pair of shirtless oafs were exchanging kicks and blows to a delirious multitude’s roar. 

And the gladiators weren’t squatting or trespassing. They were there because the leader of the free world invited them to duel on the White House lawn.

The free wrestling event that US President Donald Trump choreographed as a highlight of his country’s 250th birthday took place just when he – the successor of Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Reagan – was betraying everything for which they stood and fought.

At this writing, Trump’s deal with Iran has yet to be fully unveiled, but the general outline is clear, and it means he has thrown the Iranian people, the Jewish state, and his friend Bibi Netanyahu under the bus.

Diehard Trumpists will disagree, but, in this country, it is clear to everyone, from Yair Golan to Itamar Ben-Gvir, that the deal stinks.

First, it leaves the jihadist Iranian regime intact, emboldened and brazen, and grants it redoubled legitimacy. Second, it ignores the Iranian missile industry. Third, it allows Iran to continue nurturing its proxies. Fourth, it accepts, and prizes, Iran’s maritime bullying. Fifth, it funnels billions to the Revolutionary Guards’ pockets. And above all, through a vague promise signed on ice, the deal keeps Iran’s atomic plot alive.

The gullibility to which all this adds up is second only to Neville Chamberlain’s.

Trump’s boasting that Iran “agreed to never have a nuclear weapon” has been Tehran’s formal position all along. Sober people never believed them, especially after North Korea’s violation of its promise in 2012 to suspend its own nuclear program in return for Western aid.

One of the people who didn’t believe the Iranians all those years was Trump himself. That, he said, is why he canceled Barack Obama’s deal with the mullahs and why he went to war with Iran.

Now there is a new Trump, one who claims there is a new, trustworthy Iran. That’s as pitiful as his bewildering statement that Iran’s leaders are now “rational.” In fact, whether in their aims, motivations, or tactics, Iran’s leaders are mad. Then again, when it comes to their judgment of the interlocutor they face, they indeed are rational.

Iran’s negotiators understand all too well that the American president – whose head is full of prizefights, ballrooms, victory arches, and self-aggrandizement – will not stand his ground, because he does not believe in any value, least of all his own country’s ideals, including those that ostensibly made him attack their land.

OPERATION Epic Fury’s stated aim was moral. “Help is on the way,” Trump assured Iran’s courageous rebels as they braved the regime’s bullets and buried their dead.

Thousands died because they took this vow at face value. Little did they know that Trump would join their battle not for them, but for himself; that he would readily send an army to their shores, provided the effort would be brief, victory would be swift, and glory would be his; that if the going would get tough, he would flee the battlefield and abandon the rebels to their butchers’ devices.

Why would he care?

And why would he care? Why would the American who inspired a mob’s assault on the American democracy’s holy of holies care about other people’s liberty? Only this reactionary populist’s blind followers could expect him to fight for democracy, or indeed for any humanistic ideal.

Yes, the Trumpian bravados that animated Operation Epic Fury have made way for strategic surrender and moral collapse. And yet, from a Middle Israeli viewpoint, Trump is not the point. Trump is not our leader. Our leader is Bibi Netanyahu, and in terms of our interests and his pretensions, this fiasco is all his.

NETANYAHU’S MAIN political card was his worldliness in general, and his clout in America in particular. The American-Israeli attack on Iran was supposed to be, from his viewpoint, the climax of a great statesman’s career, the incontrovertible proof that he knew more, saw farther, and did better than everyone else. That is why he hastened to celebrate the attack as a massive success, mistaking its tactical achievements for a strategic breakthrough.

And then came reality – a strategic fiasco – that reared its ugly head.

Iran’s leaders were killed, but the regime survived. Iran’s army was decimated, but its missiles traveled on, night after night. The proxies had been crippled, but the Lebanese front returned to sizzle. Israel and Lebanon were talking, but the hopeful American-Israeli-Saudi alliance was replaced by a Saudi-Turkish-Pakistani-Qatari axis.

And on top of all this, Netanyahu’s harmony with Trump evaporated – so much so that Bibi was ignored while Trump waltzed away with Iran. The American-Iranian deal’s draft was not even shown to the humiliated Netanyahu, who had to learn its damning clauses from the press.

Does this mean that the war should not have been waged? It doesn’t. Does it mean it should have been waged differently? It doesn’t. It does, however, mean that Bibi is not the great statesman he and his followers thought he was. Not because of what happened in Iran, but because of what happened in Washington.

The man who prided himself on knowing Washington’s corridors of power better than any other Israeli has lost the White House’s appreciation, trust, and respect.

Signs of this diplomatic meltdown were evident already before February’s attack on Iran. As this column claimed a year ago, Netanyahu thought he could ride the Trumpian beast, only to see it turn on him like a tiger on its trainer. “The declining statesman,” it said, “thought Trump was his stooge” (“The nude statesman,” May 16, 2025). In fact, it was the other way around. Now, as the tiger enjoys his gladiatorial entertainment, we are left with the stooge.

www.MiddleIsrael.net

The writer, a Hartman Institute fellow, is the author of the bestseller, The Jewish March of Folly (Yedioth Books 2026), now available in English on Amazon.

For decades, Israel and the United States have proudly described their relationship as one built on shared values, shared interests, and shared threats. 

The relationship survived political disagreements, military conflicts, and changing administrations because it rests upon something deeper than temporary policy alignment: mutual respect between two sovereign democracies.

Yet recent developments surrounding American negotiations with Iran raise an uncomfortable question that many Israelis are increasingly asking:

Can a nation remain fully sovereign if another country, even its closest ally, expects it to comply with agreements it neither negotiated nor approved?

The issue is not whether the United States has the right to pursue diplomatic engagement with Iran. Every sovereign nation has that right. Nor is the issue whether Israel and America should occasionally disagree. Healthy alliances are built to withstand disagreements.

The issue is whether Israel’s security decisions are gradually being subordinated to American political calculations.

Recent media reports suggest that Washington has negotiated understandings with Tehran without meaningful Israeli participation and has subsequently expected Israel to conform to arrangements whose details remain unclear.

If true, this represents more than a diplomatic disagreement. It raises fundamental questions about sovereignty itself.

The irony is difficult to ignore.

When the United States concluded that Iran’s nuclear ambitions represented a threat to global stability, it was prepared to project military power halfway around the world. American leaders justified such actions under the universally accepted principle that nations have the right, and indeed the obligation, to protect themselves and their citizens from emerging existential threats.

Israel shares that assessment regarding Iran.

Israel has lived under direct Iranian threats for decades. It has absorbed attacks from Iranian proxies. It has watched Hezbollah accumulate one of the world’s largest missile arsenals along its northern border. It has endured October 7 and understands perhaps better than any nation the catastrophic consequences of underestimating declared enemies.

Yet Israel increasingly finds itself being told that while America can act decisively to defend its interests, Israel must exercise restraint when defending its own.

This contradiction is becoming increasingly difficult to explain.

Hezbollah transformed southern Lebanon into military zone

For months, international attention has focused on Israeli military actions while often overlooking the strategic reality that created them. Hezbollah did not suddenly emerge as a threat after October 7. For years, it systematically transformed southern Lebanon into a heavily fortified military zone under Iranian direction.

The organization’s objective was never hidden.

Just as  Hamas prepared for years to launch its assault from Gaza, Hezbollah developed its own plans for a future northern invasion. The difference was primarily one of timing, not intent.

Yet much of the current international conversation treats Israeli operations as though they exist in a vacuum, disconnected from the years of missile deployments, terrorist infrastructure, and openly stated objectives that preceded them.

This inversion of cause and effect has become increasingly common.

The aggressor becomes the victim.

The defender becomes the cause of destabilization.

The nation responding to threats becomes the nation accused of creating them.

Perhaps most concerning is the emerging rhetoric suggesting that Israel itself has become an obstacle to regional stability.

Only months ago, Israel was widely praised for standing shoulder to shoulder with the United States against Iranian aggression. Today, some commentators portray Israel as an inconvenient partner whose insistence on security complicates broader diplomatic ambitions.

This is a dangerous narrative.

Not because it harms Israel politically, but because it misunderstands the nature of deterrence itself.

History repeatedly demonstrates that peace agreements unsupported by credible deterrence rarely produce lasting stability. They merely postpone future confrontations under less favorable conditions.

The challenge is not whether Iran signs agreements.

The challenge is whether Iran changes behavior.

A regime may agree not to pursue nuclear weapons while continuing to expand ballistic missile programs.

It may pledge restraint while continuing to finance proxy organizations across the Middle East.

It may participate in negotiations while simultaneously strengthening the very networks that destabilize the region.

A focus on a single threat while ignoring the broader ecosystem of threats can create a dangerous illusion of progress.

Consider a simple analogy.

Imagine concerned parents informing a school administration about a troubled student with a history of violence and access to dangerous weapons at home. The administration assures everyone that it will ensure the student never brings a firearm onto school grounds.

The following week, the student arrives with a large knife and attacks classmates.

Technically, the promise was fulfilled.

No firearm entered the school.

Yet the danger remained.

The threat was never solely the weapon. The threat was the individual and the environment that enabled the violence.

The same logic applies to Iran.

If policymakers focus exclusively on preventing a nuclear weapon while ignoring ballistic missile development, proxy warfare, regional destabilization, and global terror financing, they risk solving only part of the problem while leaving the larger threat architecture intact.

This is why Israel’s concerns cannot simply be dismissed as impatience, stubbornness, or opposition to diplomacy.

Israel’s concerns emerge from geography.

From experience.

And from the reality that Israeli citizens, not American policymakers, will live with the consequences if deterrence fails.

The broader question extends beyond Iran.

It concerns the future of alliances in the democratic world.

Strong alliances are not built when one partner dictates terms to another. They are built when both partners recognize each other’s sovereign right to make decisions regarding national survival.

The United States would never accept another country determining its military red lines.

Nor should Israel.

Friendship does not require obedience.

Partnership does not require submission.

Alliance does not require surrendering sovereignty.

The greatest strength of the US-Israel relationship has always been that it united two independent democracies pursuing common objectives while retaining the freedom to protect their own interests.

That principle should not change simply because one partner is larger than the other.

Israel does not seek confrontation with America.

Nor should America seek confrontation with Israel.

Both nations benefit enormously from strategic cooperation.

Both face common adversaries.

Both remain committed to a safer and more stable Middle East.

But genuine partnership requires honesty.

And the honest conversation that must now take place is whether current policies are strengthening Israel’s security or merely managing threats temporarily while transferring long-term risks to future generations.

For decades, American leaders have repeated a simple pledge: Iran will not obtain a nuclear weapon.

That remains an important objective.

But nuclear weapons are not the only instruments through which regimes threaten regional and global stability.

The ultimate question is not whether Iran acquires a bomb.

The ultimate question is whether the broader threat posed by Iran and its proxies is being reduced, or simply repackaged.

Sovereignty without conquest is possible.

Alliances without domination are possible.

But only when allies remember that protecting a friend should never require diminishing that friend’s right to defend itself.

The writer is a global strategist and a strategic adviser at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. He can be reached at globalstrategist2020@gmail.com.

The war with Iran is coming to an end, and the sense of disappointment in Jerusalem could hardly be greater.

The Iranian regime has for now survived. Its missile production infrastructure remains largely intact, and whatever agreement ultimately emerges from the current negotiations will almost certainly leave Tehran with the ability – whether in 15 or 20 years – to resume uranium enrichment on an industrial scale.

Yes, Iran was weakened. Its nuclear program has been set back, and its military capabilities suffered significant damage. But while the threat has been degraded, it has not been eliminated.

This does not mean that the war was a mistake. Israel had an opportunity to deepen its military partnership with the United States and strike at a regime that has spent nearly five decades funding terrorism, destabilizing the region, and openly working towards Israel’s destruction.

The campaign may not have achieved its most important objective – toppling the ayatollahs – but it demonstrated an unprecedented level of operational cooperation between Israel and the United States and inflicted meaningful damage on Iran’s military and nuclear infrastructure.

Yet – and this is the source of the disappointment – when Israel embarked on this war at the end of February, it did so with a vision of fundamentally changing the reality posed by Iran. The agreement now taking shape does not deliver that outcome. Part of this has led to reactions by prominent Israelis that can only be described as ridiculously immature.

Some are portraying President Donald Trump as a traitor, a flip-flopper, and a man who abandoned Israel. One news magazine put a headline on its front page with the title: “No longer a friend.” Journalists aligned with the Right who proudly posted photos of themselves interviewing Trump in the past are now putting Xs over those pictures.
Unfortunately, these people misunderstood how relations work with the United States. 

Trump went to war expecting a certain outcome, and when that outcome did not materialize, he made a decision to cut his losses and do what he believes serves America’s interests: to end the war now, under terms that many of us wish were stronger and more favorable.  We can disagree with the deal and think it’s deeply flawed – I definitely do – but Trump’s decision was never about Israel’s interests alone. It was about America’s interests.

What these Israelis are also failing to recognize is that now is not the time to grieve and just think about what we failed to achieve, but rather to use this moment to try and benefit from the strategic opportunities that emerge from this new reality. One way to do that is to stop focusing on the US-Iran MoU and to instead get working on a new US-Israel MoU.

To some extent, this is a similar situation to what happened after US president Barack Obama concluded his landmark nuclear agreement with Iran in 2015.

Netanyahu takes advantage of Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waged an unprecedented campaign against the deal, culminating in his controversial speech before Congress. He invested enormous political capital in trying to stop it, and even though he failed, once the agreement was signed, he quickly pivoted. 

Rather than stay stuck on the failure to stop the deal, Netanyahu understood that he had an opportunity to bolster Israel’s military capabilities and the alliance with the United States.

The result was the largest MoU in the history of the US-Israel relationship – a $38 billion military assistance package spread out over 10 years.

Netanyahu was able to tell Israelis that although he had failed to stop the nuclear deal, he had secured the largest military aid package in the country’s history. Obama was able to reassure Americans that despite disagreements with Israel over Iran, the United States remained fully committed to Israel’s security.

Both sides benefited, and the episode demonstrated that even when Washington and Jerusalem disagree on Iran, they can still find ways to strengthen the broader strategic relationship.

Today, as another Iran agreement takes shape – one that Israelis are deeply concerned about – there is an opportunity to replicate that model.

Technically, the Obama-era MoU expires next year, and if a new package is to be negotiated, discussions need to already be underway.

Nevertheless, simply negotiating a larger version of the existing arrangement – under which Washington provides funding that Israel uses to purchase American weapons – would be a missed opportunity.

The last two-and-a-half years have transformed the region and exposed new strategic realities, allowing for a more ambitious vision.

One possibility, for example, would be to explore the possibility of the Americans opening a base in Israel either instead of, or in addition to, the major military installations the US already has throughout the Middle East.

Israel has a good case to make. It is a stable democracy, shares similar values as the US, is a proven military power, and, as the recent war has shown, is America’s most capable partner. It is true that an American base would raise questions about Israeli operational freedom, but this might be outweighed by the level of deterrence a US presence in Israel would provide.

An adversary would know that an attack on Israel would be risking a direct confrontation with the United States. This is something no aid package, no matter how generous, would be able to provide.

If permanent basing proves unrealistic, there are other options such as America deploying F-22 Raptor fighter jets or the strategic B-2 bombers in Israel, or even a framework that would allow Israel access to such platforms under certain circumstances.

These are just some ideas being thrown around within the defense establishment. Whatever the government decides to ask for, it will do so with the recognition that the war with Iran, the regional upheaval that has followed October 7, and the prospect of a new nuclear agreement have together created a rare strategic moment.

Israel may not get everything it wanted from the war, and it may not get everything it wants from the negotiations that will now begin. But just as Netanyahu turned the disappointment of 2015 into a major strategic achievement, Israel has an opportunity to do so again.

The writer is a co-founder of the MEAD Forum, a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, and former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post. His latest book (with Amir Bohbot), While Israel Slept, is a bestseller in the United States.

Several defense firms unveiled new ‘wingmen’ aircraft designed to accompany fighter jets at the ILA Berlin airshow as European nations begin to rearm.

As conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East continue, the US and European countries have increased their focus on developing and procuring unmanned AI-powered drones to complement their fighter jets and carry extra sensors, jammers, and weapons.

At ILA Berlin, the world’s oldest airshow and one of the most important aerospace trade fairs, several defense firms unveiled their latest designs to Western militaries last week. 

Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), also known as wingman aircraft, range in size from small interceptors to planes. They fly in what is known as a “loyal wingman” system to accompany manned fighter jets such as the F-35.

Unlike traditional military drones that are remotely operated by human crews for isolated surveillance, Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCAs) are autonomous, jet-powered “wingmen” driven by artificial intelligence to fly in direct, high-speed combat formations alongside human fighter pilots.

Interest in the technology comes as European powers debate over building their own sovereign defense capabilities that are less reliant on the US.

“The AI agent, of course, the brain of these systems, needs to be controlled in a sovereign fashion,” Stephanie Lingmann, head of air domain at the German startup Helsing, told Reuters at the airshow.

The war in Ukraine has demonstrated how electronic warfare can be as impactful as kinetic weapons systems. 

Boeing Australia, Rheinmetall unveil new Collaborative Combat Aircraft

Boeing Australia and German defense contractor Rheinmetall collaborated to build their own CCA, the MQ-28 Ghost Bat, which they unveiled at the Berlin airshow.

“It can go out ahead of crewed platforms, provide situational awareness, analyze data, it can fuse that data and provide decision-making quality information back to a human,” the managing director for Boeing Australia, Amy List, told Reuters reporters at ILA Berlin. 

Wingman aircraft are a relatively new technology and have not yet been seen on the battlefield. Although General Atomics says its CCA, the YFQ-42A, is ready to go.

“We have certainly spoken to Germany many, many times about our CCA and what there is to offer,” General Atomics spokesperson C. Mark Brinkley told Breaking Defense. “It’s the most advanced CCA in the world. We don’t need to go to block whatever to add a weapons bay and all the rest, we’re ready today.” 

General Atomic’s CCA is in testing and has already been selected by the US Air Force to receive funding for prototype development. 

Paris-based Iranian opposition group NCRI said on Friday that the city’s police had banned a rally it was due to hold on Saturday and that it had appealed what it said was a “bogus” decision.

The sudden ruling came hours after a call between France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot and his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi, where they discussed the latest developments to end the Iran war. The French foreign ministry rejected an allegation by the Iranian group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, that the ban was linked to the call.

“This allegation is false. The (Iranian) minister did not mention this protest or request its cancellation,” the ministry said in a statement sent to Reuters.

The Paris police were not immediately available for comment on the NCRI statement, which did not say what reason had been given for the ban.

“After business hours on the evening of Thursday, June 18, the Paris Police Prefecture banned the planned demonstration of 100,000 people against the wave of political executions in Iran, scheduled for Saturday, June 20, citing bogus reasons,” it said.

Organizers had coordinated with police for two months and followed all the legal procedures, the statement said.

Group had faced ban in 2023

The Paris-based NCRI, political arm of the People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran, has held frequent rallies in the French capital over the years. They have been attended by thousands of people, including high-profile former US, European and Arab officials critical of the Islamic Republic.

It is unclear how much ​support it has in Iran, but along with its bitter rival, the monarchists backing Reza Pahlavi, exiled son of the toppled shah, it is one of the few ​opposition groups able to rally supporters.

Tehran, which has banned the NCRI in Iran, has long called for a crackdown on its activities in Paris, Washington and the Saudi capital Riyadh. The group, whose sources of funding and support are unclear, is regularly lambasted by Iranian state media.

NCRI said it was appealing the decision to ban its rally.

In 2023, a court reversed an initial decision by the French capital’s police to ban an NCRI rally. At the time the police had said the ban had been motivated by security concerns.

That ban came just days after the release of an Iranian diplomat convicted of masterminding a plot to bomb the group in 2018 during a gathering on the outskirts of Paris.

Barrot calls Iranian population biggest victims of war

Speaking earlier on French TV, Barrot said Iran’s population had been the biggest victims of the war and that the killing of Iranians during protests in January should not be forgotten.

He said France was setting up a platform to allow artists in exile to fully express themselves independent of any political considerations.

“Iran is, above all, a great people, and we distinguish between the Iranian regime and Iran itself,” he said.

Elder fraud cases jumped by 61% in Israel over 2025, the Welfare Ministry announced on Monday in a report for World Elder Abuse Awareness Day.

In the cases where an elder was defrauded, 92% of the perpetrators were family members of the victim, with 48% their children and 33% their spouse.

There was also a 26.5% increase in financial exploitation of elders by family members or other people close to them.

The report also detailed a 39% increase in sexual abuse towards elders, and a 35% increase in violations of their rights, including their autonomy.

The victims were mostly women (67%), and the report specified that the group at highest risk was people above the age of 75.

The report also described how the public is more aware of the potential for elders to be abused, and how treatment centers are protecting the victims through legal and judicial action.

Over the course of 2025, the public reported 22% more cases of elder abuse than the previous year, the report stated. There was also a marked increase in cases where a professional accompanied an elder to file a police report or court filing (50%), cases where elders requested judicial assistance (37%), and cases in which elders submitted requests for replacement housing and legal aid (24%).

Welfare Minister calls on public to work against elder abuse

“The Welfare Ministry is working with the best tools at its disposal to detect, prevent, and treat cases of exploitation and abuse of senior citizens, while recruiting additional government agencies,” said Haim Katz, Minister of Welfare and Social Affairs. “The data requires vigilance and involvement. When there is suspicion, there is no room for hesitation. I call on the public to report and contact the treatment agencies and authorities in any case of potential harm to a senior citizen. We will continue to act decisively against this despicable phenomenon.”

Director-General of the Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs, Yinon Aharoni, stated that “The report reflects the complex reality that senior citizens in Israel face, but also the ability of the social services system to identify vulnerabilities and intervene in a timely manner.

“The increase in inquiries from the community, in referrals for legal assistance, and in the use of tools to protect victims indicates that the ministry’s investment in training, in the development of professional tools, and in raising awareness is bearing fruit,” he said. “At the same time, the increase in fraud and economic exploitation requires expanding cooperation with all relevant bodies in order to provide a broader protective envelope for the senior population.”

Elder abuse is more than physical violence

Yariv Mann, head of the Senior Citizens Administration at the ministry, said that the report’s findings emphasized that harm to senior citizens is not always physical violence.

“More and more cases involve economic exploitation and fraud, violation of rights, abuse of trust, and loneliness that increases the risk,” he said. “The increase in reports from the community proves that the public now better understands the warning signs and knows how to seek help. We will continue to strengthen the detection, treatment, and prevention system, and work together with local authorities, the health system, the police, and civil society organizations to protect senior citizens in Israel.”

Elder fraud cases jumped by 61% in Israel over 2025, the Welfare Ministry announced on Monday in a report for World Elder Abuse Awareness Day.

In the cases where an elder was defrauded, 92% of the perpetrators were family members of the victim, with 48% their children and 33% their spouse.

There was also a 26.5% increase in financial exploitation of elders by family members or other people close to them.

The report also detailed a 39% increase in sexual abuse towards elders, and a 35% increase in violations of their rights, including their autonomy.

The victims were mostly women (67%), and the report specified that the group at highest risk was people above the age of 75.

The report also described how the public is more aware of the potential for elders to be abused, and how treatment centers are protecting the victims through legal and judicial action.

Over the course of 2025, the public reported 22% more cases of elder abuse than the previous year, the report stated. There was also a marked increase in cases where a professional accompanied an elder to file a police report or court filing (50%), cases where elders requested judicial assistance (37%), and cases in which elders submitted requests for replacement housing and legal aid (24%).

Welfare Minister calls on public to work against elder abuse

“The Welfare Ministry is working with the best tools at its disposal to detect, prevent, and treat cases of exploitation and abuse of senior citizens, while recruiting additional government agencies,” said Haim Katz, Minister of Welfare and Social Affairs. “The data requires vigilance and involvement. When there is suspicion, there is no room for hesitation. I call on the public to report and contact the treatment agencies and authorities in any case of potential harm to a senior citizen. We will continue to act decisively against this despicable phenomenon.”

Director-General of the Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs, Yinon Aharoni, stated that “The report reflects the complex reality that senior citizens in Israel face, but also the ability of the social services system to identify vulnerabilities and intervene in a timely manner.

“The increase in inquiries from the community, in referrals for legal assistance, and in the use of tools to protect victims indicates that the ministry’s investment in training, in the development of professional tools, and in raising awareness is bearing fruit,” he said. “At the same time, the increase in fraud and economic exploitation requires expanding cooperation with all relevant bodies in order to provide a broader protective envelope for the senior population.”

Elder abuse is more than physical violence

Yariv Mann, head of the Senior Citizens Administration at the ministry, said that the report’s findings emphasized that harm to senior citizens is not always physical violence.

“More and more cases involve economic exploitation and fraud, violation of rights, abuse of trust, and loneliness that increases the risk,” he said. “The increase in reports from the community proves that the public now better understands the warning signs and knows how to seek help. We will continue to strengthen the detection, treatment, and prevention system, and work together with local authorities, the health system, the police, and civil society organizations to protect senior citizens in Israel.”

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has set up secretive new cells in Iraq to carry out attacks on Gulf countries that host American forces, bypassing established militia networks to avoid detection, eight Iraqi sources told Reuters.

Three or four cells, each comprising about 10 elite Iraqi Shi’ite Muslim fighters, launched at least seven drone attacks from desert locations near the southern cities of Basra and Samawa against sites in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates between April 20 and May 17, three of the sources said.

A number of their members were drawn from Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of hardline Shi’ite factions with thousands of fighters. But the new groups operate outside its command structure, reporting directly to the IRGC, according to the sources, who include two Iraqi military officials, another security official and five local militia commanders.

The establishment of the new Iraqi cells, which has not previously been reported, reflects a shift in IRGC tactics aimed at preserving Iran’s ability to project force across the region at a time when its armed proxy groups are greatly diminished and its own military and economic resources are depleted, the five militia commanders said.

Iraq, a Shi’ite-majority country, has a host of militias, many of which maintain close ties to Tehran. They form a key pillar of Iran’s regional “Axis of Resistance,” stretching from Gaza and Lebanon to Yemen and Iraq.

Groups acting under the banner of Islamic Resistance in Iraq have claimed responsibility for dozens of drone and rocket attacks against American assets in the country, drawing deadly retaliatory airstrikes, since the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. But there has been no mass mobilization of Iran’s proxies inside Iraq’s borders.

Several powerful Shi’ite factions there have been signaling since last year that they are ready to disarm and focus on domestic politics to avert an escalating conflict with the administration of US President Donald Trump. That development may have spurred the IRGC to set up groups under its direct control, according to Jasim al-Bahadli, a retired Iraqi army general, and two lawmakers from the Shi’ite governing alliance.

Two of these factions, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the Imam Ali Brigades, announced this month that they would begin surrendering their weapons to state authorities following repeated US warnings to Iraq’s government to disband armed groups operating on its soil.

“The newer groups established by the IRGC appear smaller, more ideologically hardened and more tightly controlled, reflecting Iran’s need to conserve resources amid economic strain,” said Bahadli, who is an expert on Shi’ite armed groups.

US-Iran deal does not address Tehran’s support for proxies

The US and Iranian presidents signed an interim agreement on Wednesday to end the war, with negotiations to follow on difficult issues like the future of Tehran’s nuclear program. But Iranian officials have said Tehran’s support for “resistance groups” is not up for discussion, and the agreement does not address the issue.

Iran’s foreign ministry and its missions to the United Nations in New York and Geneva did not immediately respond to detailed questions for this article.

The US State Department reiterated “expectations that the Iraqi government take immediate measures to dismantle all the tools of Iran’s destabilizing activities in Iraq to include the IRGC and Iran-aligned terrorist militias in Iraq.”

At a meeting on Monday, Iraq’s new prime minister, Ali al-Zaidi, and US envoy Tom Barrack discussed Iraqi plans to ensure “the complete disarmament and disbandment of all armed groups” operating outside Iraqi state control and to ensure “Iraqi territory cannot be used by any side to threaten regional peace,” according to a joint statement.

Zaidi’s military spokesman, Sabah al-Numan, declined to comment for this article.

Kuwait’s information ministry, the Saudi government communications office and the UAE foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

The war in Iran has battered the world’s most important energy-producing region, disrupting supplies and sending inflation surging. Tehran responded to US-Israeli bombing runs by effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s trade in oil and liquefied natural gas passes, and launching a sweeping campaign of drone and missile strikes on Gulf neighbors.

New groups that emerged in Iraq during the conflict, often operating under unfamiliar names and with minimal public profiles, carried out at least three drone attacks targeting Kuwait, two targeting Saudi Arabia and two aimed at the UAE, the three Iraqi security sources said, citing a combination of human intelligence, intercepted communications, and evidence gathered from launch sites.

Targets included Kuwait’s Ali Al Salem Air Base, where US forces are deployed, and a military terminal at the country’s international airport, the sources said without elaborating. The attacks aimed at Saudi Arabia and the UAE were intercepted, according to the sources who could not confirm the intended targets.

Reuters could not independently verify their accounts.

 Early test for Iraq’s new prime minister

Iraqi officials said the IRGC turned to the new cells to maintain plausible deniability, deflect blame from the country’s main Iran-backed groups and reduce US pressure on Baghdad to disarm them.

The Iraqi security forces have limited information about the groups but are working to uncover their chains of command to help prevent future attacks, the officials said. The groups include elite fighters with expertise in drone operations and communications, they added.

Tehran spent decades and billions of dollars building up its network of regional alliances, which has been severely weakened since the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

Israel has hammered Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, while the Houthi movement in Yemen has been targeted by US and British airstrikes. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December 2024, cutting off an important supply route for Iraqi militias and further isolating the Islamic Republic.

Rather than maintain a broad network of well-funded groups in Iraq, Iran now appears to be relying on a limited number of “more radicalized cadres willing to operate with leaner financial support, prioritizing loyalty, deniability and operational impact over mass recruitment,” said Bahadli, the militia expert.

The new groups pose an early test for Iraq’s Zaidi, who took office last month following US pressure on the dominant alliance of Shi’ite political blocs to prevent the return of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has close ties to Iran. Baghdad has long walked a tightrope between its two closest allies, Washington and Tehran, a balancing act that became more difficult during the war.

Attacks emanating from Iraq also risk unraveling Baghdad’s painstaking efforts to rebuild ties with wealthy Gulf neighbors, which have been strained since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 but had started to thaw in recent years.

Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE summoned Iraq’s envoys in April to protest the strikes.

Iraqi authorities are investigating whether they include a May 17 drone attack that caused a fire at the Barakah ​Nuclear Power Plant, security officials said. Saudi Arabia said it intercepted three drones that entered its airspace from Iraq the same day, an attack the Iraqi officials said was carried out by a new group.

Zaidi condemned the two attacks, describing them as criminal acts, and promised a joint inquiry with both Gulf countries to verify whether Iraqi territory was used to target them. Numan, Zaidi’s spokesman, did not answer questions about the status of the investigation.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has set up secretive new cells in Iraq to carry out attacks on Gulf countries that host American forces, bypassing established militia networks to avoid detection, eight Iraqi sources told Reuters.

Three or four cells, each comprising about 10 elite Iraqi Shi’ite Muslim fighters, launched at least seven drone attacks from desert locations near the southern cities of Basra and Samawa against sites in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates between April 20 and May 17, three of the sources said.

A number of their members were drawn from Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of hardline Shi’ite factions with thousands of fighters. But the new groups operate outside its command structure, reporting directly to the IRGC, according to the sources, who include two Iraqi military officials, another security official and five local militia commanders.

The establishment of the new Iraqi cells, which has not previously been reported, reflects a shift in IRGC tactics aimed at preserving Iran’s ability to project force across the region at a time when its armed proxy groups are greatly diminished and its own military and economic resources are depleted, the five militia commanders said.

Iraq, a Shi’ite-majority country, has a host of militias, many of which maintain close ties to Tehran. They form a key pillar of Iran’s regional “Axis of Resistance,” stretching from Gaza and Lebanon to Yemen and Iraq.

Groups acting under the banner of Islamic Resistance in Iraq have claimed responsibility for dozens of drone and rocket attacks against American assets in the country, drawing deadly retaliatory airstrikes, since the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. But there has been no mass mobilization of Iran’s proxies inside Iraq’s borders.

Several powerful Shi’ite factions there have been signaling since last year that they are ready to disarm and focus on domestic politics to avert an escalating conflict with the administration of US President Donald Trump. That development may have spurred the IRGC to set up groups under its direct control, according to Jasim al-Bahadli, a retired Iraqi army general, and two lawmakers from the Shi’ite governing alliance.

Two of these factions, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the Imam Ali Brigades, announced this month that they would begin surrendering their weapons to state authorities following repeated US warnings to Iraq’s government to disband armed groups operating on its soil.

“The newer groups established by the IRGC appear smaller, more ideologically hardened and more tightly controlled, reflecting Iran’s need to conserve resources amid economic strain,” said Bahadli, who is an expert on Shi’ite armed groups.

US-Iran deal does not address Tehran’s support for proxies

The US and Iranian presidents signed an interim agreement on Wednesday to end the war, with negotiations to follow on difficult issues like the future of Tehran’s nuclear program. But Iranian officials have said Tehran’s support for “resistance groups” is not up for discussion, and the agreement does not address the issue.

Iran’s foreign ministry and its missions to the United Nations in New York and Geneva did not immediately respond to detailed questions for this article.

The US State Department reiterated “expectations that the Iraqi government take immediate measures to dismantle all the tools of Iran’s destabilizing activities in Iraq to include the IRGC and Iran-aligned terrorist militias in Iraq.”

At a meeting on Monday, Iraq’s new prime minister, Ali al-Zaidi, and US envoy Tom Barrack discussed Iraqi plans to ensure “the complete disarmament and disbandment of all armed groups” operating outside Iraqi state control and to ensure “Iraqi territory cannot be used by any side to threaten regional peace,” according to a joint statement.

Zaidi’s military spokesman, Sabah al-Numan, declined to comment for this article.

Kuwait’s information ministry, the Saudi government communications office and the UAE foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

The war in Iran has battered the world’s most important energy-producing region, disrupting supplies and sending inflation surging. Tehran responded to US-Israeli bombing runs by effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s trade in oil and liquefied natural gas passes, and launching a sweeping campaign of drone and missile strikes on Gulf neighbors.

New groups that emerged in Iraq during the conflict, often operating under unfamiliar names and with minimal public profiles, carried out at least three drone attacks targeting Kuwait, two targeting Saudi Arabia and two aimed at the UAE, the three Iraqi security sources said, citing a combination of human intelligence, intercepted communications, and evidence gathered from launch sites.

Targets included Kuwait’s Ali Al Salem Air Base, where US forces are deployed, and a military terminal at the country’s international airport, the sources said without elaborating. The attacks aimed at Saudi Arabia and the UAE were intercepted, according to the sources who could not confirm the intended targets.

Reuters could not independently verify their accounts.

 Early test for Iraq’s new prime minister

Iraqi officials said the IRGC turned to the new cells to maintain plausible deniability, deflect blame from the country’s main Iran-backed groups and reduce US pressure on Baghdad to disarm them.

The Iraqi security forces have limited information about the groups but are working to uncover their chains of command to help prevent future attacks, the officials said. The groups include elite fighters with expertise in drone operations and communications, they added.

Tehran spent decades and billions of dollars building up its network of regional alliances, which has been severely weakened since the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

Israel has hammered Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, while the Houthi movement in Yemen has been targeted by US and British airstrikes. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December 2024, cutting off an important supply route for Iraqi militias and further isolating the Islamic Republic.

Rather than maintain a broad network of well-funded groups in Iraq, Iran now appears to be relying on a limited number of “more radicalized cadres willing to operate with leaner financial support, prioritizing loyalty, deniability and operational impact over mass recruitment,” said Bahadli, the militia expert.

The new groups pose an early test for Iraq’s Zaidi, who took office last month following US pressure on the dominant alliance of Shi’ite political blocs to prevent the return of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has close ties to Iran. Baghdad has long walked a tightrope between its two closest allies, Washington and Tehran, a balancing act that became more difficult during the war.

Attacks emanating from Iraq also risk unraveling Baghdad’s painstaking efforts to rebuild ties with wealthy Gulf neighbors, which have been strained since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 but had started to thaw in recent years.

Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE summoned Iraq’s envoys in April to protest the strikes.

Iraqi authorities are investigating whether they include a May 17 drone attack that caused a fire at the Barakah ​Nuclear Power Plant, security officials said. Saudi Arabia said it intercepted three drones that entered its airspace from Iraq the same day, an attack the Iraqi officials said was carried out by a new group.

Zaidi condemned the two attacks, describing them as criminal acts, and promised a joint inquiry with both Gulf countries to verify whether Iraqi territory was used to target them. Numan, Zaidi’s spokesman, did not answer questions about the status of the investigation.

It’s giving me a headache. That’s my answer to those asking, “What do you think of ‘The Deal’?” It’s a headache in the literal and figurative sense.

When the full Memorandum of Understanding between the US and the Islamic Republic of Iran was signed and published on Wednesday, I doubt I was the only one tempted to add question marks and exclamation points to the text.

There is meant to be a 60-day period after the signing of the MoU in which a final deal should be drawn up focusing on such issues as Iran’s nuclear enrichment and stockpiles of uranium. Even before these issues are resolved – if they are resolved – the strategic Strait of Hormuz will reopen to shipping and the US blockade of Iranian ports will be lifted, giving Iran money, oxygen, and a reward for simply returning to the negotiating table. The last factor is a mistake that the West has also made repeatedly with the Palestinians.

Most peace deals can be made to sound good. It’s all a matter of spin – and interpretation. The Farsi and English versions literally might not be on the same page. The devil lies in the details. When it comes to the Iranian regime, those details could be devilish indeed

I feel dizzy at the thought of Iranian centrifuges, oil wells, and armament programs picking up speed. The leaders who congratulated the deal are probably looking at the future business opportunities. But while money makes the world go round, it can also cause it to spin out of control. The influx of money to Iran boosts its available funds for its terrorist proxies while simultaneously diverting attention and funding from places like Sudan and Yemen, where Muslims murder Muslims with little international intervention.

President Macron raises issue of Iranian ballistic missiles at G7

Surprisingly, it was French President Emmanuel Macron – hosting the G7 Summit in Paris this week – who raised the matter of Iran’s ballistic missiles rather than concentrating on its nuclear program. Macron is aware that these missiles can threaten his own country and Europe, not just the Jewish state. With typical double standards, however, even though Israel met the French government’s demands to display only defensive weapons systems at this week’s Eurosatory arms exhibition in Paris, Israeli defense industry pavilions were boarded up at the last minute.

Any eventual deal will affect not only the Strait of Hormuz but, beyond that, in the Red Sea, where Iran’s Houthi proxies have long carried out acts of piracy and terror. In this context, it was interesting to note that by chance Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, the president of Somaliland, a Muslim republic across from Yemen’s shores, came to Jerusalem this week to open an embassy and meet Israeli leaders.

The MoU and deal had one interesting side-effect – it united the opposition and coalition against the reported terms, although each camp had a different take on who is to blame. Although US President Donald Trump received cross-party praise for acts like moving the US embassy to Jerusalem and drawing up the Abraham Accords in his first term in office, and for supporting Israel’s strikes on Iran in this term, this week’s announcement was seen as destroying many of those achievements.

President Barack Obama’s disastrous 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action continues to haunt us. One meme doing the rounds on social media shows Trump peeking at Obama’s paper in an exam-room setting with the words “How to deal with Iran” written on the blackboard.

As with the “ceasefire” Trump imposed on Israel and Iran after last year’s war, my first question was: Does this agreement include Iran’s proxies, particularly Hezbollah and the Houthis? If Iran continues to attack Israel (and the Gulf states) via its partners in crime, then its victory will be almost complete – its goals delayed rather than destroyed. Like most Israelis, I would welcome an end to rocket and drone attacks, but this agreement doesn’t make me feel safe.

Although Israel, together with the US, made some impressive progress in reducing the number of Iranian ballistic missiles and damaging its nuclear facilities, these can be restored over time.

The deterrence factor has been struck a serious blow by the MoU. And spare a thought for those poor Iranians brave enough to stand up to the murderous regime, encouraged by Trump’s promise of help on the way. They have been thrown under the proverbial bus with Trump driving erratically at the wheel. Similarly, those opposed to Hezbollah’s grip over Lebanon have been seriously undermined.

Clearly, the relationship between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump has sustained a hit, although it has known its ups and downs in the past. Each must act as they see best for their own country (and, like all politicians, they keep their personal interests in mind).

Interests don’t always align, even among allies. But it’s not only allies who are watching. Beyond the eyes of the Abraham Accords partners and possible future partners, there is a different axis taking a keen interest in these events. Russia, China, and North Korea will also be looking for flaws and weaknesses to exploit. The fact that Pakistan served an absurdly elevated role as a mediator will no doubt be a cause of concern to India.

As chance would have it, after news of the MoU broke this week, I attended Asia Day at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, my alma mater, where I earned a degree in international relations and Chinese studies many wars and peace accords ago.

One of the attractions was the screening of a clip of the Taiwanese documentary A Chip Odyssey and the panel discussion afterward. Patty Lin, director of the Taiwan Trade and Innovation Center in Tel Aviv, noted the relevance of the movie about Taiwan’s semiconductor industry to Israel as the “Start-up Nation.” Chen-Wei Ku, first secretary of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Israel, said that Taiwan had been actively involved in helping Israeli communities hit during the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led mega-atrocity and subsequent war “because friends help each other.” She said that Taiwan could also learn a lot about social resilience from Israel.

The movie shows the development of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry – essential to the world in the AI era and “a matter of national security” for Taiwan. The dedication and passion of the early developers were hard to miss. The industry was a gamble made necessary when US aid to Taiwan (the Republic of China) ended in 1975. The need was reinforced when the island was ousted from the United Nations and replaced by the People’s Republic of China, which doesn’t recognize Taiwan’s independence.

One refrain in the movie particularly resonated. Minister of economic affairs Sun Yun-suan told the group of young engineers who were sent to the US to learn about the technology that would transform Taiwan into a powerhouse: “We must succeed. Failure is not an option.”

Nothing in the Iranian regime’s behavior or rhetoric indicates that it has come to terms with Israel’s existence or changed its jihadist ideology.

Any final deal depends not only on the wording of the clauses but on compliance and enforcement. Trusting your partner not to cheat is not enough, especially given past experience with Iran. Israel cannot afford to return to the situation it was in pre-October 7, 2023, when it didn’t take the threats along its borders seriously enough.

Preventing the terrorist regime in Tehran from realizing its nuclear ambitions and attaining huge quantities of ballistic missiles is of global importance. US Vice President JD Vance declared the agreement would “fundamentally transform the Middle East for the next 50 years.” He seems to think this would be in the positive sense. The deal might be “historic,” but what history will make of it remains to be seen.

It’s giving me a headache. That’s my answer to those asking, “What do you think of ‘The Deal’?” It’s a headache in the literal and figurative sense.

When the full Memorandum of Understanding between the US and the Islamic Republic of Iran was signed and published on Wednesday, I doubt I was the only one tempted to add question marks and exclamation points to the text.

There is meant to be a 60-day period after the signing of the MoU in which a final deal should be drawn up focusing on such issues as Iran’s nuclear enrichment and stockpiles of uranium. Even before these issues are resolved – if they are resolved – the strategic Strait of Hormuz will reopen to shipping and the US blockade of Iranian ports will be lifted, giving Iran money, oxygen, and a reward for simply returning to the negotiating table. The last factor is a mistake that the West has also made repeatedly with the Palestinians.

Most peace deals can be made to sound good. It’s all a matter of spin – and interpretation. The Farsi and English versions literally might not be on the same page. The devil lies in the details. When it comes to the Iranian regime, those details could be devilish indeed

I feel dizzy at the thought of Iranian centrifuges, oil wells, and armament programs picking up speed. The leaders who congratulated the deal are probably looking at the future business opportunities. But while money makes the world go round, it can also cause it to spin out of control. The influx of money to Iran boosts its available funds for its terrorist proxies while simultaneously diverting attention and funding from places like Sudan and Yemen, where Muslims murder Muslims with little international intervention.

President Macron raises issue of Iranian ballistic missiles at G7

Surprisingly, it was French President Emmanuel Macron – hosting the G7 Summit in Paris this week – who raised the matter of Iran’s ballistic missiles rather than concentrating on its nuclear program. Macron is aware that these missiles can threaten his own country and Europe, not just the Jewish state. With typical double standards, however, even though Israel met the French government’s demands to display only defensive weapons systems at this week’s Eurosatory arms exhibition in Paris, Israeli defense industry pavilions were boarded up at the last minute.

Any eventual deal will affect not only the Strait of Hormuz but, beyond that, in the Red Sea, where Iran’s Houthi proxies have long carried out acts of piracy and terror. In this context, it was interesting to note that by chance Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, the president of Somaliland, a Muslim republic across from Yemen’s shores, came to Jerusalem this week to open an embassy and meet Israeli leaders.

The MoU and deal had one interesting side-effect – it united the opposition and coalition against the reported terms, although each camp had a different take on who is to blame. Although US President Donald Trump received cross-party praise for acts like moving the US embassy to Jerusalem and drawing up the Abraham Accords in his first term in office, and for supporting Israel’s strikes on Iran in this term, this week’s announcement was seen as destroying many of those achievements.

President Barack Obama’s disastrous 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action continues to haunt us. One meme doing the rounds on social media shows Trump peeking at Obama’s paper in an exam-room setting with the words “How to deal with Iran” written on the blackboard.

As with the “ceasefire” Trump imposed on Israel and Iran after last year’s war, my first question was: Does this agreement include Iran’s proxies, particularly Hezbollah and the Houthis? If Iran continues to attack Israel (and the Gulf states) via its partners in crime, then its victory will be almost complete – its goals delayed rather than destroyed. Like most Israelis, I would welcome an end to rocket and drone attacks, but this agreement doesn’t make me feel safe.

Although Israel, together with the US, made some impressive progress in reducing the number of Iranian ballistic missiles and damaging its nuclear facilities, these can be restored over time.

The deterrence factor has been struck a serious blow by the MoU. And spare a thought for those poor Iranians brave enough to stand up to the murderous regime, encouraged by Trump’s promise of help on the way. They have been thrown under the proverbial bus with Trump driving erratically at the wheel. Similarly, those opposed to Hezbollah’s grip over Lebanon have been seriously undermined.

Clearly, the relationship between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump has sustained a hit, although it has known its ups and downs in the past. Each must act as they see best for their own country (and, like all politicians, they keep their personal interests in mind).

Interests don’t always align, even among allies. But it’s not only allies who are watching. Beyond the eyes of the Abraham Accords partners and possible future partners, there is a different axis taking a keen interest in these events. Russia, China, and North Korea will also be looking for flaws and weaknesses to exploit. The fact that Pakistan served an absurdly elevated role as a mediator will no doubt be a cause of concern to India.

As chance would have it, after news of the MoU broke this week, I attended Asia Day at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, my alma mater, where I earned a degree in international relations and Chinese studies many wars and peace accords ago.

One of the attractions was the screening of a clip of the Taiwanese documentary A Chip Odyssey and the panel discussion afterward. Patty Lin, director of the Taiwan Trade and Innovation Center in Tel Aviv, noted the relevance of the movie about Taiwan’s semiconductor industry to Israel as the “Start-up Nation.” Chen-Wei Ku, first secretary of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Israel, said that Taiwan had been actively involved in helping Israeli communities hit during the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led mega-atrocity and subsequent war “because friends help each other.” She said that Taiwan could also learn a lot about social resilience from Israel.

The movie shows the development of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry – essential to the world in the AI era and “a matter of national security” for Taiwan. The dedication and passion of the early developers were hard to miss. The industry was a gamble made necessary when US aid to Taiwan (the Republic of China) ended in 1975. The need was reinforced when the island was ousted from the United Nations and replaced by the People’s Republic of China, which doesn’t recognize Taiwan’s independence.

One refrain in the movie particularly resonated. Minister of economic affairs Sun Yun-suan told the group of young engineers who were sent to the US to learn about the technology that would transform Taiwan into a powerhouse: “We must succeed. Failure is not an option.”

Nothing in the Iranian regime’s behavior or rhetoric indicates that it has come to terms with Israel’s existence or changed its jihadist ideology.

Any final deal depends not only on the wording of the clauses but on compliance and enforcement. Trusting your partner not to cheat is not enough, especially given past experience with Iran. Israel cannot afford to return to the situation it was in pre-October 7, 2023, when it didn’t take the threats along its borders seriously enough.

Preventing the terrorist regime in Tehran from realizing its nuclear ambitions and attaining huge quantities of ballistic missiles is of global importance. US Vice President JD Vance declared the agreement would “fundamentally transform the Middle East for the next 50 years.” He seems to think this would be in the positive sense. The deal might be “historic,” but what history will make of it remains to be seen.

The setting could hardly be more proverbial.

A few steps from the Oval Office, in which American presidents once fought slavery, Nazism, and Communism, a pair of shirtless oafs were exchanging kicks and blows to a delirious multitude’s roar. 

And the gladiators weren’t squatting or trespassing. They were there because the leader of the free world invited them to duel on the White House lawn.

The free wrestling event that US President Donald Trump choreographed as a highlight of his country’s 250th birthday took place just when he – the successor of Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Reagan – was betraying everything for which they stood and fought.

At this writing, Trump’s deal with Iran has yet to be fully unveiled, but the general outline is clear, and it means he has thrown the Iranian people, the Jewish state, and his friend Bibi Netanyahu under the bus.

Diehard Trumpists will disagree, but, in this country, it is clear to everyone, from Yair Golan to Itamar Ben-Gvir, that the deal stinks.

First, it leaves the jihadist Iranian regime intact, emboldened and brazen, and grants it redoubled legitimacy. Second, it ignores the Iranian missile industry. Third, it allows Iran to continue nurturing its proxies. Fourth, it accepts, and prizes, Iran’s maritime bullying. Fifth, it funnels billions to the Revolutionary Guards’ pockets. And above all, through a vague promise signed on ice, the deal keeps Iran’s atomic plot alive.

The gullibility to which all this adds up is second only to Neville Chamberlain’s.

Trump’s boasting that Iran “agreed to never have a nuclear weapon” has been Tehran’s formal position all along. Sober people never believed them, especially after North Korea’s violation of its promise in 2012 to suspend its own nuclear program in return for Western aid.

One of the people who didn’t believe the Iranians all those years was Trump himself. That, he said, is why he canceled Barack Obama’s deal with the mullahs and why he went to war with Iran.

Now there is a new Trump, one who claims there is a new, trustworthy Iran. That’s as pitiful as his bewildering statement that Iran’s leaders are now “rational.” In fact, whether in their aims, motivations, or tactics, Iran’s leaders are mad. Then again, when it comes to their judgment of the interlocutor they face, they indeed are rational.

Iran’s negotiators understand all too well that the American president – whose head is full of prizefights, ballrooms, victory arches, and self-aggrandizement – will not stand his ground, because he does not believe in any value, least of all his own country’s ideals, including those that ostensibly made him attack their land.

OPERATION Epic Fury’s stated aim was moral. “Help is on the way,” Trump assured Iran’s courageous rebels as they braved the regime’s bullets and buried their dead.

Thousands died because they took this vow at face value. Little did they know that Trump would join their battle not for them, but for himself; that he would readily send an army to their shores, provided the effort would be brief, victory would be swift, and glory would be his; that if the going would get tough, he would flee the battlefield and abandon the rebels to their butchers’ devices.

Why would he care?

And why would he care? Why would the American who inspired a mob’s assault on the American democracy’s holy of holies care about other people’s liberty? Only this reactionary populist’s blind followers could expect him to fight for democracy, or indeed for any humanistic ideal.

Yes, the Trumpian bravados that animated Operation Epic Fury have made way for strategic surrender and moral collapse. And yet, from a Middle Israeli viewpoint, Trump is not the point. Trump is not our leader. Our leader is Bibi Netanyahu, and in terms of our interests and his pretensions, this fiasco is all his.

NETANYAHU’S MAIN political card was his worldliness in general, and his clout in America in particular. The American-Israeli attack on Iran was supposed to be, from his viewpoint, the climax of a great statesman’s career, the incontrovertible proof that he knew more, saw farther, and did better than everyone else. That is why he hastened to celebrate the attack as a massive success, mistaking its tactical achievements for a strategic breakthrough.

And then came reality – a strategic fiasco – that reared its ugly head.

Iran’s leaders were killed, but the regime survived. Iran’s army was decimated, but its missiles traveled on, night after night. The proxies had been crippled, but the Lebanese front returned to sizzle. Israel and Lebanon were talking, but the hopeful American-Israeli-Saudi alliance was replaced by a Saudi-Turkish-Pakistani-Qatari axis.

And on top of all this, Netanyahu’s harmony with Trump evaporated – so much so that Bibi was ignored while Trump waltzed away with Iran. The American-Iranian deal’s draft was not even shown to the humiliated Netanyahu, who had to learn its damning clauses from the press.

Does this mean that the war should not have been waged? It doesn’t. Does it mean it should have been waged differently? It doesn’t. It does, however, mean that Bibi is not the great statesman he and his followers thought he was. Not because of what happened in Iran, but because of what happened in Washington.

The man who prided himself on knowing Washington’s corridors of power better than any other Israeli has lost the White House’s appreciation, trust, and respect.

Signs of this diplomatic meltdown were evident already before February’s attack on Iran. As this column claimed a year ago, Netanyahu thought he could ride the Trumpian beast, only to see it turn on him like a tiger on its trainer. “The declining statesman,” it said, “thought Trump was his stooge” (“The nude statesman,” May 16, 2025). In fact, it was the other way around. Now, as the tiger enjoys his gladiatorial entertainment, we are left with the stooge.

www.MiddleIsrael.net

The writer, a Hartman Institute fellow, is the author of the bestseller, The Jewish March of Folly (Yedioth Books 2026), now available in English on Amazon.

Britain‘s Bar Standards Board said on Friday it had imposed an interim suspension of Karim Khan, who had been the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor before he was suspended by the court on June 8 over sexual misconduct accusations.

“Under the BSB’s Enforcement Regulations, the interim suspension must now be considered by an Interim Suspension Panel at a hearing within the next four weeks,” the board said, adding that the suspension was effective immediately.

Khan, 56, denies the allegations made against him.

ICC rules Khan committed serious sexual misconduct

A diplomatic source briefed on the ICC‘s decision to suspend Khan told Reuters the court’s governing body’s executive bureau has ruled that he had committed serious misconduct following an 18-month-long probe into accusations that the prosecutor had non-consensual sexual interactions with a lawyer in his office.

The source added that the bureau has recommended that the prosecutor be removed from office.

The ICC‘s governing body will send its conclusion on to all 125 ICC member states, which will vote on Khan’s fate in a special session convened at a later date.

IDF Military Advocate General Maj.-Gen. Itay Offir will issue multiple major decisions regarding Gaza war crimes allegations in the coming weeks, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

Among these decisions, which will be the first that Offir will be publicizing relating to Gaza since he took office in November 2025, will be the April 2024 World Central Kitchen incident, the March 2025 Palestinian Red Crescent incident, and a few other high-profile incidents.

In some ways, these will be Offir’s opening move on his legal playing field with the world, having made some monumental decisions with mostly Israeli implications in recent months.

One could call the IDF legal division’s standing on the world stage a part of the third of his three circles in which he focuses his efforts, the Post understands.

The first circle is within the IDF legal division itself.

Offir has a tall order of rebuilding the confidence regarding the IDF legal division on multiple planes, but the first one is internal.

When his predecessor, Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi, suddenly resigned in October 2025, along with some of her top staff, after admitting to illegally publicly leaking a video of evidence in the Sde Teiman saga case, morale in the IDF legal division was at an all-time low.

Within the legal community and in the government more broadly, officials from the IDF legal division had always generally been viewed as highly talented and professional, and they end up rising to senior positions in large firms or to top posts in various government agencies.

One of Offir’s first jobs has been to rebuild that confidence.

In order to do that, the Post has learned that soon after he took office, he set about meeting, over a series of weeks, with every single sub-unit of the sprawling IDF legal division, which has several hundred lawyers and even more other support staff on every border and in every sub-arm, such as the air force and navy.

It was important to Offir to hear directly from the IDF’s lawyers, in small enough groups that even junior lawyers would speak freely, what they needed in order to regain their swagger.

His second circle is between the IDF legal division and the rest of the IDF.

Here, Offir has a huge advantage.

He already worked closely for two years with IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, when the two worked at the Defense Ministry.

Put differently, he has already served as the top lawyer of an agency run by Zamir before.

Just as Offir became one of Zamir’s key close advisers, and not just a lawyer, at the Defense Ministry, during Operation Roaring Lion, the IDF MAG was by Zamir’s side for most of the war.

For 40 days, the Post understands that Offir relocated from his standard MAG office space to the underground “Pit” where Zamir managed the war day-to-day with himself and only a few other generals from the high command.

Between those 40 days and Offir’s numerous visits to the front in Gaza and Lebanon, IDF officers have remarked that the new MAG is much more comfortable in the field with commanders on the front than Tomer Yerushalmi was, and more than some other predecessors, though they too visited the fronts at times. In fact, Offir is unusual in that he served as a combat fighter in the Givati Brigade, something uncommon for most IDF MAGs.

All of this also gave Offir more respect and influence in some of the recent Iran war decisions, such as clear directives to evacuate certain Iranian sites, which Israel had a legal right to attack, but which could lead to unpredictably high-profile collateral harm.

The final circle is with the whole country and the world.

Regarding this circle, one thing that is different about Offir from some prior MAGs is that if some of them would emphasize the slogan of Israel and the legal division needs to “win on all fronts,” he would agree with that, but add that first, the IDF must win its kinetic wars.

In other words, Offir is cognizant of the importance of IDF and Israeli legitimacy in the world, but he views his first job as facilitating the IDF to win battles – of course, always within the confines of Israeli law and the spirit of the IDF.

This approach will probably find favor with some in Israel who, rightly or wrongly, have felt that the IDF legal division has sometimes held the military back too much from acting to win.

Yet, none of this means that Offir will go soft on real legal issues.

In fact, Offir may return some stricter order in various areas than the IDF atmosphere that took hold under Tomer Yerushalmi following the October 7 invasion.

In Offir’s view, following the IDF’s senior officers’ failure to prevent the Hamas invasion, many commanders felt they had lost the standing to rebuke their soldiers for smaller disciplinary screwups.

It is public record that soldiers were swimming on Gaza’s beach unauthorized in the early stages of the war and that a sizable number of lower-level officers ordered various Gaza buildings to be demolished without proper higher-up authorization.

Offir has been acting and will continue to act to restore top-down discipline, both to ensure the law is followed and to help the IDF to return to being a more focused war-fighting machine where orders are followed and discipline is sacred.

 WCK, Palestinian Red Crescent high-profile alleged war crimes incidents

Regarding the WCK incident in which Israel mistakenly killed seven international aid workers, a fascinating twist is that Offir himself is not making the decision.

In prior capacities as the Defense Ministry legal adviser, Offir apparently worked very closely with IDF Col. Nochi Mendel, a lead officer-suspect, on a number of projects.

Although this does not necessarily technically disqualify him from rendering a decision under “conflict of interest” definitions the way it would if the two were family members, Offir did not feel like he could objectively judge Mendel, or at least wanted to remove even any perception of favoritism.

For that reason, IDF Chief Prosecutor Col. Eli Levertov will be issuing the decision regarding WCK.

Levertov became IDF chief prosecutor in August 2025, only around two months before Tomer-Yerushalmi’s resignation.

However, regarding the Palestinian Red Crescent case, in which the IDF mistakenly killed international aid workers, and a couple of other case decisions that will be issued, Offir’s broader approach is clear.

He will not look into these cases in a vacuum or from the perspective of a law school professor in an ivory tower.

Rather, he will look at the cases from the perspective of the IDF having been engaged in a war to topple Hamas in Gaza as a response to a massive and monstrous invasion.

He will also take note of all of Hamas’s techniques of systematically using human shields and civilian locations throughout the Strip to fight the IDF, including using women and children with white flags to try to entrap and kill IDF soldiers.

In other words, there will be a heavy burden of proof to meet before concluding that an IDF soldier who killed innocent Palestinians did so with deliberate intent, as opposed to by mistake in difficult circumstances and the gray fog of war.

There may be indictments and punishments for harming or killing Palestinians, such as an incident in February where IDF soldiers were recorded beating an innocent Palestinian without any obvious cause, or an incident earlier this month in which IDF soldiers killed a Palestinian baby in a car.

The Post understands that there are more than five additional incidents where IDF soldiers beat Palestinians in the West Bank and are being probed or prosecuted since Offir took office.

One difference between Offir and other MAGs could be that he may make less of a public show in such cases, though Israel may decide, at the diplomatic level, to privately report them to international bodies like the International Court of Justice, so such bodies cannot claim that Israel does not prosecute its own.

Why Offir dropped the Sde Teiman indictments

One mystery has been how Offir decided to withdraw the indictments against five IDF Force 100 prison guard soldiers in the large Sde Teiman case.

The IDF MAG wrote a detailed decision explaining the two sides of the debate on the issue and why it ultimately decided to withdraw the indictments, while still not clearing the five soldiers of non-criminal wrongdoing.

But there were key matters that he did not address in his public decision.

For example, one reason he cited for withdrawing the indictment was that the Palestinian detainee whom the five soldiers were accused of beating had been sent back to Gaza.

Without his testimony, the prosecution’s case would be missing major gaps.

But this detail in and of itself raises a much larger question: how on earth did the IDF prosecution allow a central witness to be sent back to Gaza before the trial against his alleged attackers? Or at least, why did they not take his testimony under a pre-trial procedure, which is specifically provided for doing so, where there is concern that a witness, especially a foreign one, might not be reachable for testimony later?

Offir was not yet in office when the Palestinian detainee/alleged victim/key witness was sent back to Gaza in October. This was approved, or not blocked, by Tomer Yerushalmi.

Given that ultimately she resigned for having leaked the Sde Teiman video against the five soldiers and delayed their trial for around a year, it is quite possible that she, paradoxically, also let the witness go with the hope that a plea deal might be cut to end the case without a trial and avoid her role in leaking the video being discovered.

Pressed whether Offir would have decided the case differently had the detainee’s testimony been taken before he was released to Gaza, as provided for by Israeli criminal procedure, he would likely demur. He would say that the controversy surrounding the case about how badly the five soldiers had been harmed by the pre-trial leak of the video and the multiple ways that Tomer Yerushalmi and some of her prosecutors broke the law would still have made the case impossible to win in court, and led to withdrawing it.

Interestingly enough, while Offir is clearly concerned about the International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICJ), like many other top Israeli officials, he did not seem to weigh the specific impact of his Sde Teiman decision on how those bodies will move against Israel.

In other words, some might have said it would be important to bring the five soldiers to trial, even if the prosecution lost, to show Israel’s commitment to bringing its own soldiers to trial when they allegedly beat Palestinian detainees.

By withdrawing one of the few and large cases against Israeli soldiers for their treatment of Palestinians, Offir and the IDF may have undermined Israel’s credibility before the ICC and the ICJ.

Offir would likely respond that if he cannot win a case in court, he cannot proceed, regardless of the impact of the ICC and the ICJ. He might also add that these bodies have already shown heavy bias in going after top Israeli officials.

A new twist is that the Post has learned that it has now become unclear how many more Sde Teiman-related indictments there may be for a large number of questionable Palestinian detainee deaths.

In February, the Post reported, based on sources, that there could be quite a few on the way.

At the time, the Post also reported that even with the expected new indictments, many of the deaths were likely actually cases of Palestinian fighters who were mortally wounded on the battlefield and brought back to Sde Teiman to see if they could be saved and interrogated, but did not ultimately make it.

Still, it also appears that something unclear may have changed regarding some other potential Sde Teiman cases, the Post understands.

It is worth noting that in February 2025, an IDF soldier was already convicted in the “small” Sde Teiman Palestinian detainee abuse case, with the defendant-soldier sentenced to potential additional prison time, on top of time he spent under arrest relating to the trial, if he would re-violate certain laws, and demoted to the rank of private.

No doubt Offir has done tremendous homework to catch up on all the cases handled by Tomer Yerushalmi, but there could also be gaps in these and other areas, given that he only came into the picture in November 2025 – in some instances, two years after the cases began.

Another twist in the Sde Teiman cases is that a couple of the five soldiers who were released from being indicted managed to go back to their units for one day without permission from top IDF officials.

Once their return was made public, the Post has learned that they were re-suspended and their direct commanders will eventually make a decision about whether they can return to service or whether the questions raised about their conduct disqualify them from this, even though they were not convicted of a crime.

Prosecuting vandalizing Christian icons

On May 11, an IDF Brig.-Gen. and Division 162 commander Sagiv Dahan sentenced a soldier to 21 days in military prison as part of a court martial for desecrating a religious Christian symbol in southern Lebanon. An additional soldier was sentenced to 14 days in military prison for filming the incident.

Although Offir and the IDF legal division were not mentioned in IDF press releases and technically issued no ruling, the Post has learned that he was deeply involved in all aspects of handling the incident.

Offir was actually among the first to learn of the incident among senior IDF officials and brought it to the attention of Zamir.

Further, Offir spoke to Dahan and explained to him that there needed to be serious consequences for the incident, but that there were two paths for doing so.

In one path, Offir and the legal division would take the lead, which would mean a long and painful trial, and in the end, the soldier would probably receive around the same punishment as a few weeks in military prison. It would be difficult to give a more serious punishment, given that no living person was harmed. In the public’s eyes, this might also pit the legal division against the IDF’s combat fighters.

Under a different path, Dahan himself could hold a court-martial and give the soldiers a harsh sentence, without needing criminal legal intervention. Offir expressed that this would be faster, send a quicker message to the world of zero tolerance, could lead to the same punishment, and would show a united IDF, with field commanders taking the lead in restoring discipline to their soldiers.

Dahan chose the second path, and Offir clearly believes that this sent a stronger and more unifying message for the IDF and Israel as a whole. The IDF legal chief’s capacity to maneuver with senior IDF commanders came in as an asset that not all IDF MAG’s have had.

Looting in Lebanon

A related issue has been that senior IDF officials have admitted that sometime in April, there was a trend of some IDF soldiers looting Lebanese homes of personal possessions as part of the invasion.

On one hand, the IDF handled this in a strong way with Zamir issuing orders on April 28 to individual battalion, brigade, and division commanders involved in the Lebanon invasion to file reports within one week regarding whether incidents of theft of Lebanese personal property had occurred in their specific units.

The five divisions involved in the Lebanon invasion have been: 91, 36, 98, 162, and 146.

Publicly condemning the theft, Zamir said, “The incidents against our values which we have seen are the result of a long and complex period, but this does not justify them. We cannot compromise on our values.”

“The phenomenon of theft, if it exists, is a disgrace and could stamp a blemish on all of the IDF,” said Zamir.

“He added, “if there were incidents like this, we will probe them. We won’t stand for this.”

Despite these strong statements, the Post understands that there are no expected indictments from Offir on the way – meaning that while the IDF may have stopped the trend once it became public, it does not seem it has dug hard to punish those involved.

This is somewhat striking as the IDF has prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced soldiers for looting from foreigners in past wars.

Sources indicated that it has been difficult to go over specific individuals when it seems that those soldiers who witnessed incidents of theft relayed their general impressions to media sources, but declined to file specific complaints to the military police.

2023 Jabalya mass casualties and Lebanon Reuters incidents

The Post has made repeated inquiries over the years and more recently with the IDF regarding large-scale or controversial mistaken killing incidents in October 2023, one in Jabalya in northern Gaza and one in Lebanon.

In Jabalya, up to 69 to 125 Palestinian civilians were killed in multiple air strikes. Some of the Jabalya incidents are among those which the IDF’s operational preliminary probes first started to look into early on in the war.

IDF sources had told the Post in 2023 that the purpose of one operation was to kill a senior Hamas official, and it appears that the IDF had factored in a small number of civilian casualties

However, the house that was struck led to the collapse of the tunnel below it, which in turn collapsed a range of nearby structures.

Despite this information, which the Post received off the record, Tomer Yerushalmi never gave a public and final official accounting regarding the incident, and there are no signs that Offir is planning to either.

The Lebanon incident involved IDF long-range strikes mistakenly killing Reuters reporters who had a car and gear clearly marked PRESS.

In 2023, IDF sources explained that essentially, the reporters were in a sort of kill zone area where they should not have been, so the IDF soldiers who killed them assumed they were Hezbollah. Further, the IDF sources suggested that based on the long distance and angle of what the IDF soldiers could see, they could not see the PRESS signs.

However, once again, Tomer Yerushalmi never issued an official public accounting, and it is unclear that Offir, coming in two years later, will do so, despite the event continuing to receive heavy and repeated coverage in the international media.

In the broader evaluation of Offir’s plans, the Post understands that it may take another five years to sort through and issue reports on whatever key incidents the IDF will decide to make public.

Critics will slam the IDF for being slow, given that some incidents are nearly three years old. Offir would likely respond that, with a war that, up until June, has not ever really completely stopped on all fronts, the clock for counting how long it takes to issue reports should start from the present. Also, he would say critics should take into account that the over 3,000 incidents being probed cannot all be investigated at once, if for no other reason, due to insufficient staffing.

Incidentally, five years would be around the expected end of his term , so Offir may intend to issue some controversial reports as he is leaving office.

GHF-IDF mid-late 2025 incidents

There continues to be a lack of information in the IDF legal division on the status of probes into the May – October 2025 incidents with Palestinians relating either to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) or to IDF soldiers supervising the nearby perimeter to the GHF food aid sites.

The Post has learned that the IDF’s view is that most of the incidents the IDF or GHF are accused of regarding Palestinian civilian deaths are manufactured by Hamas or exaggerated. However, the Post has also learned that there were a series of incidents, likely in the single digits, in which IDF soldiers probably did mistakenly kill single-digit numbers of Palestinian civilians.

Collectively, this would not leave the IDF responsible for the immense number claimed by UN agencies, some claiming over 800 and some far more, but possibly in the low dozens.

These probes, the Post understands,  are still at the operational stage and have not even reached the IDF legal division yet. 

ICC/ICJ

Offir and the IDF MAG will always be a critical piece in addressing and combating claims against Israel at the ICC and the ICJ.

But one gets the impression that Offir will not look to be the lead player in combating the issue, as former MAG Avichai Mandelblit was against the infamous “Goldstone Report” after the 2008-2009 Gaza conflict.

Rather, Offir has high respect for the IDF International Law Division and will seek to empower them and other arms of the government in the Foreign Ministry, Justice Ministry, and National Security Council to fight these battles, which in any case, crossover beyond just the legal sphere.

Regarding South Africa’s recent decision to postpone its next move against Israel in its genocide case before the ICJ for another 18 months, which could push Israel’s next response into 2029, while some are optimistic that this gave Israel breathing room, Offir is concerned that Pretoria may simply be seeking to wait out US President Donald Trump before pouncing again. 

Caught between attorney-general and government

To date, Offir has not yet had problems shuttling between top government officials like Defense Minister Israel Katz and Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara. This has been true despite the attorney-general and the government being at intense loggerheads now for over a year.

However, Offir knew both parties before this role.

In fact, he knew Baharav-Miara before either of them was in their current roles, and he worked closely with Katz as Defense Ministry legal advisor.

These prior relationships and his strong ability to stay focused have so far helped him work with both sides without getting caught up in the political conflict.

He disagreed with Baharav-Miara regarding some right-to-protest incidents during the most recent war, but even these disagreements are professional and respectful.

It seems that Offir has already, to a large extent, lifted the IDF legal division out of an initial funk it fell into after the Tomer-Yerushalmi saga.

Whether Offir can continue to stay out of the eye of the domestic political and international war crimes storms, while both helping the IDF win kinetic wars, and maintaining its global legitimacy, is a tall order that he will need to answer in the years to come.

IDF Military Advocate General Maj.-Gen. Itay Offir will issue multiple major decisions regarding Gaza war crimes allegations in the coming weeks, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

Among these decisions, which will be the first that Offir will be publicizing relating to Gaza since he took office in November 2025, will be the April 2024 World Central Kitchen incident, the March 2025 Palestinian Red Crescent incident, and a few other high-profile incidents.

In some ways, these will be Offir’s opening move on his legal playing field with the world, having made some monumental decisions with mostly Israeli implications in recent months.

One could call the IDF legal division’s standing on the world stage a part of the third of his three circles in which he focuses his efforts, the Post understands.

The first circle is within the IDF legal division itself.

Offir has a tall order of rebuilding the confidence regarding the IDF legal division on multiple planes, but the first one is internal.

When his predecessor, Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi, suddenly resigned in October 2025, along with some of her top staff, after admitting to illegally publicly leaking a video of evidence in the Sde Teiman saga case, morale in the IDF legal division was at an all-time low.

Within the legal community and in the government more broadly, officials from the IDF legal division had always generally been viewed as highly talented and professional, and they end up rising to senior positions in large firms or to top posts in various government agencies.

One of Offir’s first jobs has been to rebuild that confidence.

In order to do that, the Post has learned that soon after he took office, he set about meeting, over a series of weeks, with every single sub-unit of the sprawling IDF legal division, which has several hundred lawyers and even more other support staff on every border and in every sub-arm, such as the air force and navy.

It was important to Offir to hear directly from the IDF’s lawyers, in small enough groups that even junior lawyers would speak freely, what they needed in order to regain their swagger.

His second circle is between the IDF legal division and the rest of the IDF.

Here, Offir has a huge advantage.

He already worked closely for two years with IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, when the two worked at the Defense Ministry.

Put differently, he has already served as the top lawyer of an agency run by Zamir before.

Just as Offir became one of Zamir’s key close advisers, and not just a lawyer, at the Defense Ministry, during Operation Roaring Lion, the IDF MAG was by Zamir’s side for most of the war.

For 40 days, the Post understands that Offir relocated from his standard MAG office space to the underground “Pit” where Zamir managed the war day-to-day with himself and only a few other generals from the high command.

Between those 40 days and Offir’s numerous visits to the front in Gaza and Lebanon, IDF officers have remarked that the new MAG is much more comfortable in the field with commanders on the front than Tomer Yerushalmi was, and more than some other predecessors, though they too visited the fronts at times. In fact, Offir is unusual in that he served as a combat fighter in the Givati Brigade, something uncommon for most IDF MAGs.

All of this also gave Offir more respect and influence in some of the recent Iran war decisions, such as clear directives to evacuate certain Iranian sites, which Israel had a legal right to attack, but which could lead to unpredictably high-profile collateral harm.

The final circle is with the whole country and the world.

Regarding this circle, one thing that is different about Offir from some prior MAGs is that if some of them would emphasize the slogan of Israel and the legal division needs to “win on all fronts,” he would agree with that, but add that first, the IDF must win its kinetic wars.

In other words, Offir is cognizant of the importance of IDF and Israeli legitimacy in the world, but he views his first job as facilitating the IDF to win battles – of course, always within the confines of Israeli law and the spirit of the IDF.

This approach will probably find favor with some in Israel who, rightly or wrongly, have felt that the IDF legal division has sometimes held the military back too much from acting to win.

Yet, none of this means that Offir will go soft on real legal issues.

In fact, Offir may return some stricter order in various areas than the IDF atmosphere that took hold under Tomer Yerushalmi following the October 7 invasion.

In Offir’s view, following the IDF’s senior officers’ failure to prevent the Hamas invasion, many commanders felt they had lost the standing to rebuke their soldiers for smaller disciplinary screwups.

It is public record that soldiers were swimming on Gaza’s beach unauthorized in the early stages of the war and that a sizable number of lower-level officers ordered various Gaza buildings to be demolished without proper higher-up authorization.

Offir has been acting and will continue to act to restore top-down discipline, both to ensure the law is followed and to help the IDF to return to being a more focused war-fighting machine where orders are followed and discipline is sacred.

 WCK, Palestinian Red Crescent high-profile alleged war crimes incidents

Regarding the WCK incident in which Israel mistakenly killed seven international aid workers, a fascinating twist is that Offir himself is not making the decision.

In prior capacities as the Defense Ministry legal adviser, Offir apparently worked very closely with IDF Col. Nochi Mendel, a lead officer-suspect, on a number of projects.

Although this does not necessarily technically disqualify him from rendering a decision under “conflict of interest” definitions the way it would if the two were family members, Offir did not feel like he could objectively judge Mendel, or at least wanted to remove even any perception of favoritism.

For that reason, IDF Chief Prosecutor Col. Eli Levertov will be issuing the decision regarding WCK.

Levertov became IDF chief prosecutor in August 2025, only around two months before Tomer-Yerushalmi’s resignation.

However, regarding the Palestinian Red Crescent case, in which the IDF mistakenly killed international aid workers, and a couple of other case decisions that will be issued, Offir’s broader approach is clear.

He will not look into these cases in a vacuum or from the perspective of a law school professor in an ivory tower.

Rather, he will look at the cases from the perspective of the IDF having been engaged in a war to topple Hamas in Gaza as a response to a massive and monstrous invasion.

He will also take note of all of Hamas’s techniques of systematically using human shields and civilian locations throughout the Strip to fight the IDF, including using women and children with white flags to try to entrap and kill IDF soldiers.

In other words, there will be a heavy burden of proof to meet before concluding that an IDF soldier who killed innocent Palestinians did so with deliberate intent, as opposed to by mistake in difficult circumstances and the gray fog of war.

There may be indictments and punishments for harming or killing Palestinians, such as an incident in February where IDF soldiers were recorded beating an innocent Palestinian without any obvious cause, or an incident earlier this month in which IDF soldiers killed a Palestinian baby in a car.

The Post understands that there are more than five additional incidents where IDF soldiers beat Palestinians in the West Bank and are being probed or prosecuted since Offir took office.

One difference between Offir and other MAGs could be that he may make less of a public show in such cases, though Israel may decide, at the diplomatic level, to privately report them to international bodies like the International Court of Justice, so such bodies cannot claim that Israel does not prosecute its own.

Why Offir dropped the Sde Teiman indictments

One mystery has been how Offir decided to withdraw the indictments against five IDF Force 100 prison guard soldiers in the large Sde Teiman case.

The IDF MAG wrote a detailed decision explaining the two sides of the debate on the issue and why it ultimately decided to withdraw the indictments, while still not clearing the five soldiers of non-criminal wrongdoing.

But there were key matters that he did not address in his public decision.

For example, one reason he cited for withdrawing the indictment was that the Palestinian detainee whom the five soldiers were accused of beating had been sent back to Gaza.

Without his testimony, the prosecution’s case would be missing major gaps.

But this detail in and of itself raises a much larger question: how on earth did the IDF prosecution allow a central witness to be sent back to Gaza before the trial against his alleged attackers? Or at least, why did they not take his testimony under a pre-trial procedure, which is specifically provided for doing so, where there is concern that a witness, especially a foreign one, might not be reachable for testimony later?

Offir was not yet in office when the Palestinian detainee/alleged victim/key witness was sent back to Gaza in October. This was approved, or not blocked, by Tomer Yerushalmi.

Given that ultimately she resigned for having leaked the Sde Teiman video against the five soldiers and delayed their trial for around a year, it is quite possible that she, paradoxically, also let the witness go with the hope that a plea deal might be cut to end the case without a trial and avoid her role in leaking the video being discovered.

Pressed whether Offir would have decided the case differently had the detainee’s testimony been taken before he was released to Gaza, as provided for by Israeli criminal procedure, he would likely demur. He would say that the controversy surrounding the case about how badly the five soldiers had been harmed by the pre-trial leak of the video and the multiple ways that Tomer Yerushalmi and some of her prosecutors broke the law would still have made the case impossible to win in court, and led to withdrawing it.

Interestingly enough, while Offir is clearly concerned about the International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICJ), like many other top Israeli officials, he did not seem to weigh the specific impact of his Sde Teiman decision on how those bodies will move against Israel.

In other words, some might have said it would be important to bring the five soldiers to trial, even if the prosecution lost, to show Israel’s commitment to bringing its own soldiers to trial when they allegedly beat Palestinian detainees.

By withdrawing one of the few and large cases against Israeli soldiers for their treatment of Palestinians, Offir and the IDF may have undermined Israel’s credibility before the ICC and the ICJ.

Offir would likely respond that if he cannot win a case in court, he cannot proceed, regardless of the impact of the ICC and the ICJ. He might also add that these bodies have already shown heavy bias in going after top Israeli officials.

A new twist is that the Post has learned that it has now become unclear how many more Sde Teiman-related indictments there may be for a large number of questionable Palestinian detainee deaths.

In February, the Post reported, based on sources, that there could be quite a few on the way.

At the time, the Post also reported that even with the expected new indictments, many of the deaths were likely actually cases of Palestinian fighters who were mortally wounded on the battlefield and brought back to Sde Teiman to see if they could be saved and interrogated, but did not ultimately make it.

Still, it also appears that something unclear may have changed regarding some other potential Sde Teiman cases, the Post understands.

It is worth noting that in February 2025, an IDF soldier was already convicted in the “small” Sde Teiman Palestinian detainee abuse case, with the defendant-soldier sentenced to potential additional prison time, on top of time he spent under arrest relating to the trial, if he would re-violate certain laws, and demoted to the rank of private.

No doubt Offir has done tremendous homework to catch up on all the cases handled by Tomer Yerushalmi, but there could also be gaps in these and other areas, given that he only came into the picture in November 2025 – in some instances, two years after the cases began.

Another twist in the Sde Teiman cases is that a couple of the five soldiers who were released from being indicted managed to go back to their units for one day without permission from top IDF officials.

Once their return was made public, the Post has learned that they were re-suspended and their direct commanders will eventually make a decision about whether they can return to service or whether the questions raised about their conduct disqualify them from this, even though they were not convicted of a crime.

Prosecuting vandalizing Christian icons

On May 11, an IDF Brig.-Gen. and Division 162 commander Sagiv Dahan sentenced a soldier to 21 days in military prison as part of a court martial for desecrating a religious Christian symbol in southern Lebanon. An additional soldier was sentenced to 14 days in military prison for filming the incident.

Although Offir and the IDF legal division were not mentioned in IDF press releases and technically issued no ruling, the Post has learned that he was deeply involved in all aspects of handling the incident.

Offir was actually among the first to learn of the incident among senior IDF officials and brought it to the attention of Zamir.

Further, Offir spoke to Dahan and explained to him that there needed to be serious consequences for the incident, but that there were two paths for doing so.

In one path, Offir and the legal division would take the lead, which would mean a long and painful trial, and in the end, the soldier would probably receive around the same punishment as a few weeks in military prison. It would be difficult to give a more serious punishment, given that no living person was harmed. In the public’s eyes, this might also pit the legal division against the IDF’s combat fighters.

Under a different path, Dahan himself could hold a court-martial and give the soldiers a harsh sentence, without needing criminal legal intervention. Offir expressed that this would be faster, send a quicker message to the world of zero tolerance, could lead to the same punishment, and would show a united IDF, with field commanders taking the lead in restoring discipline to their soldiers.

Dahan chose the second path, and Offir clearly believes that this sent a stronger and more unifying message for the IDF and Israel as a whole. The IDF legal chief’s capacity to maneuver with senior IDF commanders came in as an asset that not all IDF MAG’s have had.

Looting in Lebanon

A related issue has been that senior IDF officials have admitted that sometime in April, there was a trend of some IDF soldiers looting Lebanese homes of personal possessions as part of the invasion.

On one hand, the IDF handled this in a strong way with Zamir issuing orders on April 28 to individual battalion, brigade, and division commanders involved in the Lebanon invasion to file reports within one week regarding whether incidents of theft of Lebanese personal property had occurred in their specific units.

The five divisions involved in the Lebanon invasion have been: 91, 36, 98, 162, and 146.

Publicly condemning the theft, Zamir said, “The incidents against our values which we have seen are the result of a long and complex period, but this does not justify them. We cannot compromise on our values.”

“The phenomenon of theft, if it exists, is a disgrace and could stamp a blemish on all of the IDF,” said Zamir.

“He added, “if there were incidents like this, we will probe them. We won’t stand for this.”

Despite these strong statements, the Post understands that there are no expected indictments from Offir on the way – meaning that while the IDF may have stopped the trend once it became public, it does not seem it has dug hard to punish those involved.

This is somewhat striking as the IDF has prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced soldiers for looting from foreigners in past wars.

Sources indicated that it has been difficult to go over specific individuals when it seems that those soldiers who witnessed incidents of theft relayed their general impressions to media sources, but declined to file specific complaints to the military police.

2023 Jabalya mass casualties and Lebanon Reuters incidents

The Post has made repeated inquiries over the years and more recently with the IDF regarding large-scale or controversial mistaken killing incidents in October 2023, one in Jabalya in northern Gaza and one in Lebanon.

In Jabalya, up to 69 to 125 Palestinian civilians were killed in multiple air strikes. Some of the Jabalya incidents are among those which the IDF’s operational preliminary probes first started to look into early on in the war.

IDF sources had told the Post in 2023 that the purpose of one operation was to kill a senior Hamas official, and it appears that the IDF had factored in a small number of civilian casualties

However, the house that was struck led to the collapse of the tunnel below it, which in turn collapsed a range of nearby structures.

Despite this information, which the Post received off the record, Tomer Yerushalmi never gave a public and final official accounting regarding the incident, and there are no signs that Offir is planning to either.

The Lebanon incident involved IDF long-range strikes mistakenly killing Reuters reporters who had a car and gear clearly marked PRESS.

In 2023, IDF sources explained that essentially, the reporters were in a sort of kill zone area where they should not have been, so the IDF soldiers who killed them assumed they were Hezbollah. Further, the IDF sources suggested that based on the long distance and angle of what the IDF soldiers could see, they could not see the PRESS signs.

However, once again, Tomer Yerushalmi never issued an official public accounting, and it is unclear that Offir, coming in two years later, will do so, despite the event continuing to receive heavy and repeated coverage in the international media.

In the broader evaluation of Offir’s plans, the Post understands that it may take another five years to sort through and issue reports on whatever key incidents the IDF will decide to make public.

Critics will slam the IDF for being slow, given that some incidents are nearly three years old. Offir would likely respond that, with a war that, up until June, has not ever really completely stopped on all fronts, the clock for counting how long it takes to issue reports should start from the present. Also, he would say critics should take into account that the over 3,000 incidents being probed cannot all be investigated at once, if for no other reason, due to insufficient staffing.

Incidentally, five years would be around the expected end of his term , so Offir may intend to issue some controversial reports as he is leaving office.

GHF-IDF mid-late 2025 incidents

There continues to be a lack of information in the IDF legal division on the status of probes into the May – October 2025 incidents with Palestinians relating either to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) or to IDF soldiers supervising the nearby perimeter to the GHF food aid sites.

The Post has learned that the IDF’s view is that most of the incidents the IDF or GHF are accused of regarding Palestinian civilian deaths are manufactured by Hamas or exaggerated. However, the Post has also learned that there were a series of incidents, likely in the single digits, in which IDF soldiers probably did mistakenly kill single-digit numbers of Palestinian civilians.

Collectively, this would not leave the IDF responsible for the immense number claimed by UN agencies, some claiming over 800 and some far more, but possibly in the low dozens.

These probes, the Post understands,  are still at the operational stage and have not even reached the IDF legal division yet. 

ICC/ICJ

Offir and the IDF MAG will always be a critical piece in addressing and combating claims against Israel at the ICC and the ICJ.

But one gets the impression that Offir will not look to be the lead player in combating the issue, as former MAG Avichai Mandelblit was against the infamous “Goldstone Report” after the 2008-2009 Gaza conflict.

Rather, Offir has high respect for the IDF International Law Division and will seek to empower them and other arms of the government in the Foreign Ministry, Justice Ministry, and National Security Council to fight these battles, which in any case, crossover beyond just the legal sphere.

Regarding South Africa’s recent decision to postpone its next move against Israel in its genocide case before the ICJ for another 18 months, which could push Israel’s next response into 2029, while some are optimistic that this gave Israel breathing room, Offir is concerned that Pretoria may simply be seeking to wait out US President Donald Trump before pouncing again. 

Caught between attorney-general and government

To date, Offir has not yet had problems shuttling between top government officials like Defense Minister Israel Katz and Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara. This has been true despite the attorney-general and the government being at intense loggerheads now for over a year.

However, Offir knew both parties before this role.

In fact, he knew Baharav-Miara before either of them was in their current roles, and he worked closely with Katz as Defense Ministry legal advisor.

These prior relationships and his strong ability to stay focused have so far helped him work with both sides without getting caught up in the political conflict.

He disagreed with Baharav-Miara regarding some right-to-protest incidents during the most recent war, but even these disagreements are professional and respectful.

It seems that Offir has already, to a large extent, lifted the IDF legal division out of an initial funk it fell into after the Tomer-Yerushalmi saga.

Whether Offir can continue to stay out of the eye of the domestic political and international war crimes storms, while both helping the IDF win kinetic wars, and maintaining its global legitimacy, is a tall order that he will need to answer in the years to come.

US Republican Senator Tom Cotton on Thursday warned that parts of the Iran deal, such as US President Donald Trump removing sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, would earn the regime around 200 million dollars a day.

“That’s a lot of money,” Cotton explained to Fox News, “and we know that this terrorist regime isn’t going to spend that money on daycares or hospitals, they’re going to use it to rebuild their drone stockpiles, their missile, to fund Hamas, and to fund Hezbollah.”

The senator said that  “aspects of this deal [with Iran] are a step in the wrong direction,” in an interview with Fox News.

He explained that Iran is “a revolutionary terrorist regime,” and has been for 47 years, explaining that although “President Trump deserves credit for making Iran weaker than it’s been in decades,” he still has concerns that parts of the deal will be detrimental to the goal of weakening the Iranian regime.

He also expressed concerns about vaguer parts of the memorandum of understanding, such as Iran’s ability to access up to 100 billion dollars in frozen funds, and whether they will be able to impose tolls on the Strait of Hormuz.

“We will need more explanation there. I hope President Trump won’t allow those things to happen because again, he deserves enormous credit for making Iran weaker,” Cotton told Fox News.

Israeli criticisms of the deal

Israeli ministers and MKs had strong criticisms of the deal, considering it a failure for Israel and the world.

Religious Zionist Party leader and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the deal was “bad for Israel and for the entire free world,” while National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said Israel “is not a banana republic,” while Naftali Bennett called it “a historic failure.”

Former prime minister Ehud Barak said the war left Iran “stronger” and Israel “weaker,” and a poll by the Israel Democracy Institute found 57.5% of Israelis expected the deal to leave Israel less safe.

The “memorandum of understanding” that Trump signed with Iran is not a final agreement but a one-and-a-half-page, 14-point framework negotiated on and off over several weeks.

Parashat Hukat opens with one of the most distinctive subjects in the Torah – the laws of ritual impurity and purity.

Death symbolizes the absence of life, and this state is referred to in the Torah as tum’ah (ritual impurity). A living person, whose purpose is to act, create, and fulfill God’s will, is affected by an encounter with the reality of life’s absence. The path back to a state of tahara (ritual purity) is through connection to that which symbolizes life – immersing one’s entire body in a mikveh containing “living waters,” namely, rainwater that has been naturally collected without human intervention.

As the Torah states: “This is the law: when a man dies in a tent, everyone who enters the tent and everything that is in the tent shall be unclean for seven days” (Numbers 19:14).

The Sages also understood this verse on a deeper level:

“Reish Lakish said: From where do we know that the words of Torah endure only in one who ‘kills himself’ over them? As it is stated: ‘This is the Torah: when a man dies in a tent’” (Berachot 63b).

The Torah teaches that genuine values require commitment and effort. A person who remains connected to their values only when it is convenient will struggle to maintain them over time. As the saying goes, “What comes easily goes easily.” True commitment is tested by one’s willingness to sacrifice, persevere, and continue even when the path is difficult.

This is how Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, the Rambam, expressed the idea:

“The words of Torah do not endure in those who study amid luxury and eating and drinking, but only in one who devotes himself to them, who constantly disciplines his body, who gives neither sleep to his eyes nor slumber to his eyelids. The Sages said that Torah endures only in one who ‘kills himself’ in the tents of the scholars” (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Talmud Torah 3:12).

From this emerges one of Judaism’s central ideals – mesirut nefesh, self-sacrifice. This does not refer only to the lofty Jewish ideal of giving one’s life for the sanctification of God’s Name, important though that is in its own right. Rather, it means the willingness to give up comfort, time, money, and personal interests for the sake of a greater value. Throughout history, Jews have even surrendered their lives rather than abandon their faith, believing that a life lived in contradiction to their deepest values is not a complete life.

The core of the matter is that every human being seeks meaning. When life is driven solely by comfort and pleasure, a sense of emptiness develops, and the search for fulfillment continues without satisfaction.

‘He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how’

THIS QUESTION has occupied humanity throughout history. One of its most famous modern expressions is the book Man’s Search for Meaning by the Jewish psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl. From the horrors of the concentration camps, Frankl concluded that the search for meaning is a fundamental human need. He quotes the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

Everything in the world derives its meaning from something beyond itself. A chair exists to serve the person sitting on it, a table serves the meal, and food serves to sustain human life. One can continue asking this question about every object: What is its purpose? What gives it meaning? Ultimately, however, the greatest question arises: What is the purpose of the human being, and for what are our lives meant?

For life to possess genuine meaning, there must be a higher value or ideal that a person considers worthy of devotion, something for which they are willing to invest, strive, and even sacrifice. Not because they seek to die for it, but because they seek to live by its light.

This is the ideal form of mesirut nefesh described by the Torah. It is not necessarily the giving of one’s life, but the willingness to forgo temporary comfort, worldly luxuries, and the pull of passing trends in order to remain faithful to the truth one believes in.

This is the deeper meaning of the Sages’ teaching about one who “kills himself in the tent of Torah” – that in order to live according to one’s values, one is prepared even to dwell in a simple tent, choosing a life of substance and meaning over one that merely appears glamorous or enticing. This daily choice is the fullest and deepest expression of self-sacrifice.

Haman the Wicked had already recognized this truth. The Sages recount that after decreeing the destruction of the Jews, he sought to see how they would respond. To his surprise, he found them sitting in the study hall immersed in the laws governing the Temple service of the priests. This seemed astonishing: they faced an existential threat, and the Temple itself no longer stood. Yet it was precisely then that Haman understood the secret of their strength. A people capable of remaining engaged with its ideals and faith even in such dire circumstances does not live only in the present moment or according to immediate circumstances. It is connected to a reality greater than itself, and therefore possesses the power to withstand any external threat.

This remains one of the greatest challenges of our own generation. The more society offers people opportunities, comfort, and pleasure, the more pressing becomes the question of what all these things are ultimately for. Human beings seek a higher purpose that justifies their efforts, guides their choices, and gives meaning to their existence.

The real question is not merely what we enjoy, but for what we are willing to sacrifice, strive, and dedicate our lives. To a great extent, the answer to that question will shape the character of human society in the years to come.■

The writer is rabbi of the Western Wall and holy sites.

Most Israelis believe that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah rarely emerged above ground before he was killed, but Col. (res.) S., head of the IDF’s “Nahalat Binyamin,” revealed that this was a misconception in a rare interview with Maariv.

From the end of the Second Lebanon War in August 2006 until Operation New Order, during which Nasrallah was killed on Friday, September 27, 2024, most Israelis believed that the Hezbollah leader was hiding in a bunker deep underground. Israelis were told for years that Nasrallah rarely emerged, and that even his public speeches were pre-recorded and broadcast to supporters.

Col. S. said that was not actually the case and revealed new details about the dramatic assassination.

Col. S. commands “Nahalat Binyamin,” the codename for the Israeli Air Force unit that plans and builds all of the Air Force’s strike operations across the Middle East and, when necessary, anywhere around the globe. It is effectively the famous “target bank” that the IDF prepares for every conflict arena.

“In the Nasrallah operation, we dropped 83 bombs. By the way, we dropped the same number on his successor, Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, two weeks later,” Col. S. said.

“We tracked Nasrallah for a very long time. We knew his apartments, his wife’s home, his emergency locations, and the places where he hid. But the truth is that most of the time, he was not hiding in a bunker. There were periods when Nasrallah lived in a penthouse on the eighth floor of a residential building in Dahiyeh. When he needed to hide, he used a special elevator installed for him.

“He may have lived in a bunker ideologically, but in practice, he was not underground all the time. Operationally, it didn’t really matter to us. Any bunker he entered, we could have killed him. We had relevant strike plans for every structure and every bunker.”

Nasrallah preferred specific bunker on day he was killed

Regarding the operation that killed Nasrallah, the officer said that “the Hezbollah leader had better protected locations he could have gone to that day, but he preferred to go to the specific bunker where we eliminated him.”

He described the site as a shelter deep underground beneath a multi-story residential building.

“The strike itself lasted a few seconds. The aircraft launched missiles intended to trap the occupants inside the bunker with no ability to escape.”

Before the attack, he said, he consulted the commander of the Home Front Command’s rescue unit.

“I asked how long it would take his people to reach a disaster site like Nasrallah’s bunker. He told me they could rescue trapped people within six hours. I realized that in Lebanon, they were less organized, and that I needed to prevent anyone from approaching the site for 12 hours and attempting to rescue survivors. We wanted to make sure Nasrallah died, if not from the direct strike then from blood loss or suffocation due to lack of oxygen.”

According to Col. S., not only was the bunker struck that night, but the entire residential building above it was also destroyed.

“After the strike, we saw a motorcycle arrive, and people tried to enter through a nearby shaft,” he said. “Immediately afterward, they brought a bulldozer to rescue people from the rubble. We struck the bulldozer. Later, a second bulldozer arrived, and we struck and destroyed it as well. The third bulldozer never came.”

Other Hezbollah figures assassinated by IAF

Nasrallah was not the first senior Hezbollah figure on the assassination list. Before him came Hezbollah chief of staff Fuad Shukr, known as “Sayyed Mohsen,” who was killed at his mistress’s apartment in Beirut in July 2024.

“Based on the images we received, his mistress didn’t look bad,” Lt.-Col. S. said. “He had a long-term affair with her. We knew when he visited and how long he stayed. The affair lasted several years, and we always knew about it. He was a central figure in Hezbollah, and we knew his elimination would be a dramatic blow to the organization. We decided to strike the apartment when he arrived there. The attack was precise and powerful, and they were killed by the impact.”

According to the officer, a more difficult operation was the killing of Ibrahim Aqil, Hezbollah’s operations chief and commander of the Radwan Force, on September 20, 2024. Although the target was killed, the collateral damage was extensive, and a building collapsed due to the force of the strike.

“When we were asked a day later to eliminate Ali Karaki, Hezbollah’s southern front commander, we were instructed to reduce the size of the munitions to prevent collateral damage,” Col. S. revealed.

“We struck the apartment where he was hiding in Dahiyeh. Unfortunately, he was only wounded, and Hezbollah immediately evacuated him to Nasrallah’s bunker. He remained there for another week until he was killed alongside Nasrallah in the same hideout.”

The killing of Nasrallah’s successor, Hashem Safieddine, was also dramatic. It occurred only days after he assumed the role, and he, too, was killed in a bunker strike.

“In that case as well, we fired 83 missiles, but the operation itself was much more challenging,” Col. S. said.

“We examined how to hit the tunnel and prevent him from escaping by any route once we attacked. We spent hours planning it, but we still weren’t completely certain. At one point, one of the officers took the bunker map we had, flipped it upside down, and suddenly we saw a completely different picture that was much clearer to us.”

Labour mayor Andy Burnham cleared a path to ousting Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday after winning a parliamentary seat in northern England, a victory that could usher in a new bout of political instability in Britain.

Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor nicknamed the “King of the North,” won the contest in Makerfield in northwest England with 54.8% of the vote, while the candidate for Nigel Farage’s populist Reform UK party came second with 34.5%.

His victory in what could be most consequential local election in more than six decades means he will now be able to trigger or take part in a contest to replace Starmer, struggling with some of the worst popularity ratings of any British leader. But the key question is when and how Burnham will do it.

 Burnham hails victory as a ‘turning point’

In his victory speech, Burnham said the result could be a “turning point” for British politics and told his party that this was a final chance to change direction.

“We must hear it, we must act upon it, and we must get it right,” he said. “There will be no second chance.”

Starmer, who has said he will fight on, was quick to congratulate Burnham, saying on X: “Voters chose Labour’s campaign of hope and optimism over division and hate.”

Congratulations, @AndyBurnhamGM, Labour’s new MP for Makerfield.

Voters chose Labour’s campaign of hope and optimism over division and hate.

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) June 19, 2026

Burnham, a career politician who has ⁠expressed support for ​the nationalization of key public services and criticized what he called four decades of failed neo-liberal economics, has said he would seek to replace Starmer and change politics.

Polls show Burnham, 56, is Labour’s most popular politician who would win a leadership contest decided by party members, while some Labour lawmakers hope Starmer could be persuaded to hand over power to avoid a damaging contest.

That would mean Britain installing its seventh prime minister in about a decade, the highest turnover in nearly two centuries, as voters punish leaders who failed to improve living standards, public services and tackle illegal immigration.

 Labour divisions deepen as pressure grows on Starmer

Two years after winning a landslide national election, Starmer, 63, is one of the least popular British prime ministers since polling records began. Scandals, policy U-turns, and accusations of indecision have derailed the delivery of the change he once promised.

About a quarter of Starmer’s lawmakers have called for him to quit since his party suffered heavy losses in local elections last month, while senior colleagues, including the defense and health minister, resigned over his leadership.

A defiant Starmer said this week he would stand in any leadership contest and issued a warning to his party about the potential “chaos” of a potentially divisive leadership election.

But one Labour member of parliament, who stayed up to watch the election result in the early hours of Friday, said the scale of Burnham’s victory means Starmer’s departure was inevitable.

“It is over,” the lawmaker said.

Culture minister Lisa Nandy, one of Burnham’s most prominent allies, told reporters she expected Burnham and Starmer to speak soon. Nandy ruled out resigning from the cabinet, but said she could not speak for other ministers.

Another of Starmer’s main rivals, former health minister Wes Streeting, said this week he would force a contest soon unless the prime minister announced when he would stand down.

Burnham has said he will stand in any leadership contest.

Under Labour rules, it would take 20% ‌of the parliamentary party, or 81 lawmakers, to announce they were backing a single candidate to ⁠trigger a leadership challenge.

 Burnham heads for celebratory beer

During a month-long campaign, Burnham has acted like a prime minister-in-waiting often explaining policies for a potential future government but he has been forced to reassure nervous investors by insisting he would stick to strict fiscal rules.

This was after he said last year Britain was “in hock” to the bond markets, comments interpreted as meaning he would increase government borrowing. He has since said those comments were misrepresented.

Political historians say the election for Makerfield could be the most important one-off vote for a parliamentary seat in Britain since 1963 when the then Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home – who had a hereditary seat in parliament – stood for election to the House of Commons to cement his position.

In his acceptance speech, Burnham indicated he wanted to counter the rise of polarizing, populist politics.

Burnham said his victory was a chance for Britain to turn “away from the path that takes us to a divided, dark politics of the kind we see in the United States.”

Hethen told journalists his first act as a newly-elected member of parliament would be to go for a pint of beer.

The Yashar party, led by Gadi Eisenkot, has overtaken Naftali Bennett’s Together and tied with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud for seats for the first time, according to a Maariv poll published on Friday.

Since the start of Operation Roaring Lion, Likud has been on a steady decline, currently polling at only 21 seats.

It found that the opposition bloc, excluding the Arab parties, would hold a majority of 61 seats, whilst the current Government coalition would have only 49 seats.

Although Smotrich’s party, Religious Zionism, is now polling at a level that would pass the electoral threshold, the poll revealed that the coalition still appears to lack enough support to form a majority.

Since the outbreak of war with Iran, Likud has lost 7 seats, but it’s not just the current coalition losing seats; since the merger between former prime minister Naftali Bennett and opposition leader Yair Lapid at the end of April, their combined party, Together, has lost 11 seats, while Yesh Atid has gained 9.

Where have the losses come from?

Maariv’s poll found that if Yashar and Together united under Eisenkot’s leadership, they would win 37 seats, 4 fewer seats than they are currently predicted to win running separately.

They also found that Yashar and Together uniting under Eisenkot are expected to receive 4 more seats than if they unified under Bennett.

The poll found that 49% of Israelis are concerned about the current rift between Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump, compared with 43% who aren’t.

The poll suggests growing voter dissatisfaction with both Likud and Bennett’s alliance, with Eisenkot’s Yashar emerging as a major beneficiary and the opposition regaining a potential majority.

The poll, conducted June 10–11 by Lazar Research under Dr. Menachem Lazar, in cooperation with Panel4ALL, included 501 respondents, representing a representative sample of Israel’s adult population, Jewish and Arab, aged 18 and over. The maximum sampling error is 4.4%.

Luigi Mangione, the man accused of gunning down a health insurance executive on a Manhattan sidewalk, is for now withdrawing plans to introduce evidence at trial that he was undergoing an extreme mental health crisis at the time of the alleged killing, according to a Friday court filing.

Mangione, 28, is accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a hotel in Midtown in December 2024. The brazen killing was widely condemned by public officials but became emblematic of Americans’ frustration with rising healthcare costs and health insurance industry practices.

Mangione pleaded not guilty in December 2024 to state murder, weapons, and forgery charges brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. His trial is set for September before Justice Gregory Carro in Manhattan.

In a letter to Carro Friday, Mangione’s lawyers said they were “at this time” withdrawing plans to introduce evidence at trial that Mangione had undergone an extreme mental health crisis.

Mangione’s legal team and Bragg’s office declined to comment Friday.

Under New York law, murder defendants can seek to convince a jury that their actions can be explained by an “extreme emotional disturbance” that reduces their criminal culpability.

Legal strategy allows juries to show leniency, reduce murder charges

The legal strategy allows juries to show leniency by reducing murder charges to the lesser crime of manslaughter, which does not carry a possible life sentence.

Legal experts said it could be difficult for Mangione to prevail with the defense due to evidence that he carefully planned the killing and evaded capture afterward.

Carro would ultimately decide at trial whether there was enough evidence for the murder charge to be reduced.

Thompson led UnitedHealth Group’s insurance unit before he was shot dead in the early morning outside a hotel where the company was holding an investor conference.

Graphic footage of the killing and a five-day manhunt for a suspect made the case a media fixture and social media sensation. Mangione was eventually arrested in Pennsylvania.

Mangione separately pleaded not guilty in April 2025 to murder, weapons, and stalking charges brought by Manhattan federal prosecutors.

A judge threw out the murder and weapons charges over legal technicalities in a surprise ruling in January. That decision eliminated the possibility that Mangione would face the death penalty, though he still faces a possible sentence of life without parole if convicted of stalking.

Jury selection in that case is set to begin in September, and opening statements in the trial are scheduled for November.

A growing number of Jewish groups are pushing back against the new memorandum of understanding brokered between US President Donald Trump and Iran.

At least for now, however, their responses are more muted than when the same groups publicly opposed former president Barack Obama’s own Iran deal in 2015. And at least one major Jewish group that opposed Obama’s deal is backing Trump’s framework.

“Trust President Trump,” the Republican Jewish Coalition told its followers Thursday, becoming the most notable Jewish group to support Trump’s memorandum of understanding.

“President Trump has earned the trust of the Jewish community as he and his team work towards a final agreement,” RJC CEO Matt Brooks and chair Norm Coleman said in a statement. They praised the MoU, saying it “envisions a horizon of economic stability for the United States, the region, and the world,” and that it “provides an opportunity for potential new pathways to greater peace.”

The RJC cautioned that “a final deal must avoid the flaws that doomed Obama’s,” specifying that there should be “no sunset clauses” on Iran’s nuclear program and other proposals. In the days before its own statement, the group had been reposting praise of the MoU from other Trump allies, including Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Meanwhile, the American Jewish Committee and the pro-Israel lobbying giant AIPAC took a different tack. They became the largest Jewish organizations to voice concern with the new Iran deal on Thursday, issuing public objections following requests for comment from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The MoU “raises significant questions,” AIPAC said in a lengthy statement that urged Congress to intervene ahead of “a final nuclear agreement,” claiming that the terms of the MoU don’t match “President Trump’s stated objectives for the war.”

The AJC outlined what it said were seven “concerns” it had with the MoU. Like most of the other Jewish groups that responded to JTA for this story, the AJC also expressed hope that the terms of the deal could be changed to be stricter on Iran and more favorable to Israel before it is finalized. (In 2015, in response to Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the AJC said it “overwhelmingly” would “oppose this deal.”)

Trump’s MoU is not a final agreement, unlike Obama’s JCPOA. Rather, it marks the start of a 60-day negotiating period that aims to end the Iran war about to enter its fourth month. It does not yet outline any clear commitments regarding Iran’s nuclear program, which had been at the heart of the JCPOA and which is of particular concern to Jewish groups, who are roundly opposed to Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon in large part because of the risk to Israel. Many had objected to Obama’s deal in part because of its “sunset clauses” that would have phased out nuclear restrictions starting at the 10-year mark.

Regardless, many analysts across the political spectrum are concluding that Trump’s framework is a worse deal than Obama’s, in part because it provides a pathway for Iran to stage an economic recovery.

The Israeli government, which sent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to personally lobby Congress in 2015 to oppose Obama’s deal, is also strongly opposed to Trump’s – in part because it would require Israel to withdraw from fighting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. A new poll by Israel’s Channel 12 found that 71% of Israelis don’t trust Trump to look out for their country’s interests in negotiations with Iran.

Trump’s deal weaker than Obama’s, Jewish think tank says

Hawkish pro-Israel think tanks, including the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, issued papers knocking Trump’s deal.

“In some ways, the MoU is even weaker than President Barack Obama’s,” JINSA said. “This new deal authorizes the transfer of far more money and lifts many more sanctions on Iran than the JCPOA ever did.”

Trump and his top surrogates, including Vice President JD Vance, are increasingly signaling a lack of patience with Israel and a willingness to prioritize ending the war over stopping Iran’s nuclear program.

Some groups are waiting before weighing in. Nathan Diament, head of the Orthodox Union, declared Obama’s deal “not kosher” in 2015. On Thursday, he told JTA that the question of how to respond to Trump’s deal “will be a central topic of discussion” at the group’s leadership advocacy mission in Washington, DC, taking place early next week. OU representatives are scheduled to meet with members of the Trump administration, as well as members of Congress.

JTA reached out Thursday to a wide range of Jewish groups that publicly opposed Obama’s Iran deal in 2015 to ask them their views on Trump’s. Many others, including the Anti-Defamation League and the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, did not respond by press time.

Of those who did, only Morton Klein, head of the right-wing Zionist Organization of America, castigated the MoU outright. Klein told JTA he was “extremely upset with this deal” – and with Trump.

“I find this deal just astonishing,” Klein said. “Helping out a country that Trump himself said, if they’d gotten nukes, they’d have used them on Israel and killed millions of Jews? So that mentality, now you’re helping them rebuild?”

He added, “Trump has done many wonderful things for Israel, so we’ve praised Trump for that. But now he’s doing something very bad for Israel and America.”

Jewish groups holding back on opposition to deal when compared to Obama’s

Such level of forceful public opposition to the deal, though, is rare in Jewish circles at present – especially in contrast with the extent of Jewish mobilization against Obama’s deal in 2015.

Back then, in addition to the usual Jewish advocacy groups, dozens of local Jewish federations across the country pushed their communities and representatives to fight it, in a sweeping and sustained show of opposition.

“This Iran deal threatens the mission of our Federation as we exist to assure the continuity of the Jewish people, support a secure State of Israel, care for Jews in need here and abroad and mobilize on issues of concern,” one typical statement, from the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, read at the time.

Three years later, during Trump’s first term, he tore up the JCPOA, calling it “a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made.”

The lack of similar opposition today for Trump’s deal, Klein said, was glaring: “Nobody is taking issue with this agreement in the Jewish world.”

Among local Jewish groups, the initial reaction to Trump’s MoU has struck a measured tone. The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, one of dozens of local Jewish communal groups that publicly opposed the 2015 JCPOA, told JTA it was “concerned” that Trump’s deal “has granted Iran a new leverage point to use in the future to inflict pain on the world’s economy.”

Ron Halber, the JCRC’s head, blasted the MoU for being crafted without Israel’s input, and for requiring Israel to withdraw from its offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Similar to AIPAC, Halber said his organization would continue to push for “a final US-Iran agreement” that is more favorable to Israel and takes harsher measures against Iran.

In its statement, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, which also opposed the JCPOA, did not directly weigh in on the new MoU. Instead, the federation said, “Any agreement involving the Iranian regime should be judged by its ability to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran,” among other factors.

JTA reached out to six other major Jewish federations that opposed the 2015 JCPOA, including Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston, which was the first federation to oppose that deal and whose leader wrote, in 2021, “We were right.”

CJP of Boston did not respond to a request for comment. The Jewish United Fund of Chicago declined to comment, while several other federations that opposed the JCPOA – including Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix and Detroit – did not respond by press time.

In its own statement opposing the MoU, AIPAC did not outline an advocacy plan to combat it, in contrast to its full-court press against the JCPOA. An AIPAC spokesperson did not return a JTA request for comment on whether, or how, it planned to advocate against Trump’s MoU.

Islamic Society of Milwaukee President Salah Sarsour, ​a Palestinian-American detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in March, was released from detention on Thursday after an order by a federal judge.

“Mr. Sarsour has raised a ‘substantial’ First Amendment (free speech) retaliation claim, which could render his detention unlawful,” US District Court Judge James Patrick Hanlon said in the ruling on Thursday. The judge was appointed by US President Donald Trump during his first term.

ISM, Wisconsin’s largest mosque, says Sarsour, 53, is a legal permanent resident who has lived in the US for over three decades. He grew up in the West Bank.

The mosque had said Sarsour was “being targeted on the basis ‌of his ⁠Palestinian and Muslim background, and his advocacy for Palestinian rights.”

“I will never stop speaking for Palestine and humanity, wherever I am,” Sarsour said after his release. “I am so relieved to be with my family.”

Sarsour, who has type 2 diabetes, lost more than 30 pounds in detention, his legal team said.

He has no criminal record in the US and was convicted as a teenager in an Israeli military court before he came to the US

Israeli rights group B’Tselem says military ​courts in the West Bank, where Palestinians are tried for alleged crimes, have a 96% conviction rate ​and a history of extracting confessions through torture.

Sarsou convicted of attacking homes of Israeli armed forces

Noting his past conviction, the Department of Homeland Security, of which ICE is a part, said Sarsour was convicted of throwing Molotov cocktails at the homes of Israeli armed forces. Sarsour denies committing such crimes.

“There is no First Amendment right to fund terror organizations and lie on immigration forms,” DHS said on Thursday. Sarsour has denied supporting extremists.

The judge said Sarsour should remain in Wisconsin as the case against him continues. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which was among advocates calling for Sarsour’s release, welcomed the ruling.

The Magistrates Court in Haifa issued an immediate restraining order, forbidding the auctioning of artifacts from the Holocaust, Walla reported on Wednesday.

Among the artifacts are original yellow stars and liberation certificates from the era of the Holocaust.

The Yad Ezer La-Haver association, which operates the Holocaust Museum in Haifa and manages a shelter that provides lodging and food for tens of Holocaust survivors, filed the petition against an Israeli auction house, Pa’amonim, that wanted to sell. 

Previously, Yad Ezer La-Haver CEO Shimon Sabbag had succeeded in preventing the sale of Holocaust items put up for auction in Germany.

Judge Chava Klemperer-Martzki fully accepted the association’s arguments, presented by Sabbag, and determined that there was reason to believe that, if the items were sold to private buyers, they would likely disappear from public view, causing irreparable damage to Holocaust research and commemoration.

“I want to thank the judge for her true and purposeful judgment. It’s appropriate that these items be in the Holocaust museum in order for future generations to learn from them,” said Sabbag. 

“It’s unbecoming to sell Holocaust artifacts; it’s simply outrageous and unbelievable.” 

Auction house owner sees sale as a way to further the memory of the Holocaust

“I don’t understand what the problem is,” said Pa’amonim owner Daniel to Walla. 

“We turned to Yad Ezer because we thought they would be interested in bidding, but they insisted on buying the items outside of auction, and the seller insisted on selling the items in an auction, so that wasn’t possible.”

“There are people who want to guard the Holocaust and to guard the artifacts that belonged to survivors. It’s important historically and, therefore, in my opinion, objects that should be sold. It’s a shame that things like these are being thrown away. 

“[The items in question] belonged to a young couple that died without heirs, and the items were salvaged when their apartment was emptied out,” Daniel continued.

“A person who went through it took it and put it up for auction. Multiple Holocaust museums were interested, as were private individuals who also wanted to preserve the legacy. For example, somebody whose grandfather was a survivor and they didn’t have the yellow badge, and they want one in order to show their grandchildren, and anybody who wants to know.”

Cuban lawmakers unanimously approved sweeping reforms backed by the Communist Party and former leader Raúl Castro that would privatize a vast swath of the country’s socialist economy in a bid to survive punishing US sanctions.

The measures, if implemented as passed, would represent the single largest change to Cuba’s socialist model since former leader Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution and a major shift towards a market economy.

The reforms open the door to private real estate development on the Caribbean island, propose transforming state-owned businesses into private commercial ventures with equity stakes, and would allow private banks to enter Cuba’s once state-dominated financial sector.

They would also allow the “sale of state-owned properties to national and foreign legal entities and individuals, including Cubans residing abroad,” according to a televised presentation to lawmakers – a major change in a country where the state has long held control over land and industry.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, in a speech just prior to Thursday’s vote, told lawmakers to keep the faith in Cuba’s socialist past.

“What is being debated here is the dilemma of how to continue the process of socialist construction, which has suffered the longest blockade in history from the world’s greatest power,” Diaz-Canel said in reference to US sanctions.

“We are not renouncing socialism.”

Prime Minister Manuel Marrero told legislators the measures recognize the market as “an instrument for the efficient allocation of resources,” in a highly unusual concession from a Communist Party official in Cuba.

But he, too, cast the changes as true to Cuba’s socialist roots.

“The updating of the economic and social model has the essential purpose of improving the quality of life of our compatriots.”

The list of upwards of 175 measures, presented in a nearly two-hour-long speech to lawmakers by the prime minister, received a unanimous rubber-stamp vote late on Thursday afternoon in the National Assembly.

It was not immediately clear how quickly – nor via what mechanisms – the vast array of new measures would be implemented, leaving many unanswered questions following the legislative vote.

US pressure pushes Cuba

Many of the measures to liberalize the Cuban economy have surfaced for years, both inside and outside Cuba, but extreme pressure from the United States has once again brought them to the fore.

Cuba’s state-run economy, bureaucratic and inefficient, has struggled to provide for its people since the collapse of the Soviet Union, which long helped underwrite Cuba’s brand of socialism.

But severe Trump administration sanctions – including a months-long oil blockade – have now left Cuba with little room to maneuver, devastating its already ailing economy, forcing an exodus of foreign businesses and decimating the all-important tourism industry.

Diaz-Canel told lawmakers that the decision to open Cuba’s economy was “not related to negotiations” between the two countries, which began earlier this year but appear to have stalled.

The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Long-time Communist Party leader Raúl Castro – indicted in May in the United States on murder charges – threw his weight behind the measures, which would roll back many of the socialist reforms implemented following the Castro brothers’ 1959 revolution.

In a written letter presented first to the Politburo on Wednesday, and later to lawmakers on Thursday, he called them “beneficial” and urged their speedy implementation.

Open for business

The transformational package would greatly scale back the prominence of state-run business in Cuba while unleashing private enterprise long limited by a bureaucratic state weary of private capital.

Businesses in Cuba would for the first time be permitted to hire more than 100 employees. Entrepreneurs, meanwhile, would also be allowed to hold multiple private businesses – another first.

Marrero said movements of private capital would be facilitated by a more nimble, private banking system, overseen by the state, as well as a real-time digital foreign exchange market with authorized agents.

Cuba has long offered its citizens steeply subsidized public services, including free or low-cost education, medical care, and transportation. Many of those services have collapsed in recent years amid government inefficiency and a failing economy.

The new measures would establish a new taxation system and make public- and private-sector businesses, both foreign and domestic, partly responsible for underwriting public services.

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett presented his vision for Israel’s future on Thursday ahead of the upcoming elections, calling for the establishment of a constitution “in the spirit of the [US] Declaration of Independence” and outlining plans for his government if elected.

Speaking at a Jewish International Connection Israel (JIC) event in Jerusalem, Bennett addressed an audience of English speakers and took questions about his plans for the country. 

“We’re going to address some of the biggest problems we’re facing: cost of living, education, crime, crazy housing costs, our international standing, and security above all,” Bennett said.

Bennett, who leads the Together Party, is one of the leading figures in the opposition bloc seeking to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in elections scheduled to take place no later than October 27. 

Bennett said one of his first priorities would be establishing a state commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding the October 7 Hamas massacre.

“After such a colossal failure, the bereaved families and all of the State of Israel deserve answers to ensure this will never happen again,” he said.

He also explained that he planned to create a constitution for the country that would be established “in the spirit of the [US] Declaration of Independence.”

Bennett to reverse draft evasion-enabling legislation

Bennett pledged to reverse legislation advanced by the current government that he said enables haredi draft evasion.

“We’ll cut benefits to draft evaders and direct them to those who serve. Incentives work. We’ll start seeing our haredi brothers with us in the IDF,” he said.

He said a government led by him would make the rehabilitation of northern Israel a national priority amid the ongoing threat and attacks from Hezbollah.

Bennett spoke on his plans to lower the cost of living. 

“Prices are high for one main reason: we don’t have real competition. We’ll break up monopolies, cut regulation, and open the market to imports,” he said.

Bennett said that the advancement of artificial intelligence in the country would also be a priority.

His remarks came a day after he announced the formation of an advisory committee on AI aimed at advancing artificial intelligence.

“In the past, countries invested in weapons, energy, and defense. The next global race is AI. We need to be at the forefront of this revolution,” Bennett said.

Bennett aims to create shared national foundation through education

Bennett spoke on his education plans, which he said aim to create a shared national foundation, rather than continuing with the current system.

Under his proposal, all students would be required to spend 60% of their studies on a core curriculum that includes Hebrew, English, mathematics, civics, Torah studies, and Zionist heritage.

“Every child in Israel will have an opportunity to succeed in the 21st century, whether they grow up in Dimona, Jerusalem, Umm al-Amad, or Kiryat Shmona,” he said.

The remaining 40% of studies would be determined by individual communities and schools.

“They can teach Talmud, music, cyber, entrepreneurship, whatever they choose,” Bennett said.

He added that state funding would be contingent on teaching the shared curriculum.

“Only those who teach the shared Israeli foundation will receive our tax money.”

Bennett spoke on the government he and Yair Lapid had led between 2021 and 2022. 

“We took the country from a huge deficit to a surplus, lowered prices through competition, decreased crime by 30%, increased the number of students taking five-unit Bagrut exams, and a bunch of other achievements that everyone said were impossible,” he said.

He added that he had spent the past two years consulting experts and preparing a comprehensive plan for Israel’s future.

“On the first day of government, we won’t waste time. We’re going to hit the ground running.”

Lapid and Bennett announced they would run together in April, with Bennett in the lead.

Addressing his renewed partnership with Lapid, Bennett said that they had chosen to unite despite political differences, and that they had the shared goal of working together so that “Israel can once again become a light unto the nations.”

The planned talks between the United States and Iran will not take place as planned on Friday at Bürgenstock, the Swiss Foreign Ministry announced on Friday morning.

On Thursday, the White House said in a statement that US Vice President JD Vance will not travel to Switzerland for talks with Iranian negotiators over the weekend, citing logistical issues.

“The plans for the upcoming technical talks have not been finalized, and the US delegation has been prepared to depart at the first available opportunity,” said the statement from Washington regarding Vance’s cancellation.

“But the logistics of these negotiations have never been simple or predictable. As of now, the Vice President is not departing tonight,” it added. 

The announcement comes hours after Iran reportedly canceled its own delegation’s flight, citing continued attacks by Israel on Hezbollah in Lebanon, according to an early Friday morning Axios report, citing a US official.

Late Thursday evening, the Hezbollah-affiliated news outlet Al Mayadeen, citing a source familiar with the matter reported that Iran warned US mediators that the issue of Lebanon is central to its ability to hold, continue, or halt negotiations. 

Any Israeli attack more than 10 kilometers deep in Lebanon would constitute “a clear violation of the first article in the Memorandum of Understanding,” Al Mayadeen reported.

Agreement signed remotely

Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump announced that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which institutes a ceasefire between the US and Iran, would be signed in Switzerland on Friday, June 19.

Later, however, it was revealed that the deal had already been signed by Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in France on Thursday.

US Vice President JD Vance and Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf digitally signed the agreement, with Trump witnessing the signing, according to a US official.

Friday’s planned meeting was meant to kickstart negotiations, primarily nuclear-related, as outlined in the MoU. However, with the likely absence of both sets of negotiators, it is unclear to what extent progress in talks will be made.

Reuters contributed to this report.

I could have written the other column in 20 minutes: The deal is bad for Israel. We were kept out of the room, told to stand down in Lebanon, and lectured by the administration that called us its closest partner – an hour before it signed a deal with the regime that spent four months trying to kill us.

All true. After the spring we had, the air-raid sirens, the nights in the mamad (reinforced safe room), I feel it the way you do. And I was not alone. The fury ran wall to wall.

Bezalel Smotrich said the deal was “bad for Israel and for the entire free world.” Itamar Ben-Gvir said Israel “is not a banana republic.” Naftali Bennett called it “a historic failure.” Ehud Barak said the war left Iran “stronger” and Israel “weaker.” The Israel Democracy Institute found 57.5% of respondents expected the deal to leave us less safe.

Benjamin Netanyahu would not even defend it; he defended himself. When a finance minister and Ehud Barak agree about something, I get suspicious.

So, I asked what the betrayal story misses. Turn it over, and the dumping looks like a promotion we cannot recognize, one that came with no warm words.

For our whole lives, the Arabs and the Turks and the Iranians held a veto over any real partnership between Washington and the Jewish state. That veto is gone. I sat with senior officers this spring who called fighting beside the American military the thing they will tell their grandchildren, and they were not being sentimental; that alliance did not exist 18 months ago.

A man very close to this White House gave me the shorthand: Money in the bank; respect, the kind that outlasts a president.

Be honest about the love we are mourning. The presidents who loved us the loudest were the ones who slow-walked our weapons for years, pressed us to carve a Palestinian state out of our land, and split Jerusalem. We were adored, and we were managed, often in the same sentence.

That style is dying. The old evangelical music that treated our return to Zion as a chapter in somebody else’s Bible is leaving Washington. Donald Trump can still tell a room: “Without me, there would be no Israel.” That is how a patron talks about a dependent.

US-Israel relationship belongs to Vance and Rubio, not Trump

Here is the part almost nobody here will say out loud. Look past this deal, and past Trump himself, because the relationship will not be his to define for much longer. It belongs to the two men he keeps calling his dream team: JD Vance and Marco Rubio, who will shape it for the next decade, probably from the same ticket.

We tell ourselves Rubio loves Israel, and he does. But Rubio is the last of his kind, not the first of a new one. Vance is the template now: respect; none of the old devotion; the register the party is settling into.

The detail that should keep you up is smaller: Rubio’s own counselor at the State Department, Mike Needham, reads as pure Vance – the same flat indifference to whether we are loved. When the warmth has drained even from the pro-Israel camp’s back office, it is not coming back.

The same cold front took the lectures with it. This generation feels nothing for the Palestinian cause either: no plan; no map with our name halved.

The week 99 of our Knesset MKs voted down a Palestinian state, the future of the Republican Party had already lost interest in building one. There is a real fight over whether the wing that slides into open contempt for Jews stays or goes, and the people pushing it out might lose. None of them hate us. They are indifferent with a type of indifference you can work with once you stop expecting to be loved.

The hawks have an answer, and I had it myself. What promotion? Khamenei’s regime is still standing. The uranium is buried, not gone. Hezbollah is hurt and breathing. Iranian state TV is calling it a victory. Some promotion.

It is all true, and it misses the point. We were never going to bring that regime down from the air, and the people who told us we would were selling something. The honest ceiling of this war was a humiliated Iran, its leadership decapitated, its proxies gutted, its program knocked back, with a superpower now treating us as a partner instead of a chore.

We hit that ceiling. The gap between that and what we were promised is a bill addressed to the men who oversold the war, not to Washington.

Iran deal is an American election move from Trump

Understand what the deal was. It was an American election. Trump has a midterm in five months, the Democrats are up, and the Iranians stretched the war out to squeeze the American consumer until a president scared for the House needed it to be over. The Strait of Hormuz opens, oil moves, gasoline prices drop, the incumbent exhales.

When Vance sold it on television, he did not call it a good day for Israel. He called it “a great day for the American people.” There is our new status in one line: The deal we read as a referendum on our survival was, in the rooms that matter, a referendum on the price of gas in Pennsylvania.

The man who told me to bank it is more optimistic than I am, and this is where we part. On Megyn Kelly’s show this week, she played Vance a clip of John Podhoretz, one of the most pro-Israel conservatives in America, objecting to the deal. Vance did not blink. He said Podhoretz was “giving away the game” by caring more about Israel than about American gas prices.

Handed the hawk’s recorded objection, on the air, the man most likely to be the next president reached for the gas pump. Respect counts the votes. It does not show up at 3 a.m. when a rocket lands in Kiryat Shmona, and there is nothing in it for Ohio.

So, here is a bet you can hold me to. The respect lasts. The protection that used to come with it does not, and it gets tested before the year is out, probably in Lebanon, inside the 60-day clock that runs out around the time we vote. The morning it is tested, Washington weighs us against its own politics, and some mornings we lose.

Between now and then, the job is not to grieve and not to gloat. It is to turn respect into the one currency that ignores everyone’s mood: weapons we build ourselves, the odd new map from Somaliland to Kazakhstan, a country that has quit organizing its survival around being loved.

None of this helps the morning the rocket lands, and Washington says nothing. But the quiet this week is the sound of a small country handed the keys by people who will never adore it and be taken seriously anyway. That is what growing up sounds like. We are overdue. It will cost us, but is it still the better deal?

Jonathan David’s hat trick paved the way for Canada‘s first-ever win in a World Cup, a 6-0 rout of nine-man Qatar on Thursday in Vancouver in the second Group B match for both countries.

Canada (1-1-0, 4 points) entered the day with a 0-6-1 record in seven previous World Cup matches after a 1-1 draw against Bosnia and Herzegovina on June 12. But in front of a vibrant crowd at BC Place, the tournament co-hosts left little doubt during a historic afternoon.

With Canada already up 1-0, David scored his first goal in the 29th minute. The Juventus striker pounced on a deflection of Tajon Buchanan’s shot from about 20 yards out and powered it past Qatar goalkeeper Mahmoud Abunada to make it 2-0.

In the third minute of first-half stoppage time, David completed his double. Cyle Larin’s header off an Alistair Johnston pass forced a point-blank save from Abunada, but a lunging David knocked the resulting rebound across the line to make it 3-0.

David later completed his hat trick in the second minute of second-half stoppage time, capping the scoring with Canada’s sixth goal of the afternoon. He’s the second player from the CONCACAF region to have a three-goal game in the World Cup, joining Bert Patenaude of the United States in 1930.

“Obviously, we know that what we’ve done today is historical for the country, our first one in the World Cup, and to do it in that fashion is really amazing,” David said. “And, obviously, one more game to go (in the group stage).”

Larin (16th minute) and Nathan Saliba (64th minute) also scored for Canada. Goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau did not need to make a save as he faced zero shots on goal.

Qatar (0-1-1, 1 point) also conceded an own goal through Mohamed Manai in the 75th minute. Abunada made four saves against 10 shots on goal.

Ismael Kone suffers lower leg injury

The match took a scary turn for Canada in the 51st minute as midfielder Ismael Kone suffered an apparent lower left leg injury and was stretchered off.

“I think it was already a great game even before he got hurt,” David said. “But I think after he got hurt, it was tough to focus on the game, to think of, you know, even finishing the game, I think. I wouldn’t say eager, but we just wanted the game to end, you know, so we could all be together.”

Assim Madibo was shown a red card for the challenge, Qatar’s second of the day after defender Homam Ahmed received his own marching orders in the first half.

Both teams wrap up Group B play on Wednesday. Canada faces Switzerland in Vancouver while Qatar faces Bosnia and Herzegovina in Seattle.

Content warning: This article discusses sensitive topics such as sexual assault. 

Former Gaza hostage Guy Gilboa-Dalal shared his experiences of sexual abuse during his time in Hamas captivity with First Lady Michal Herzog in a candid interview on Thursday. 

The interview was held a day before the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict. 

Herzog mentioned her outrage over Israel being included in the UN’s blacklist of countries and organizations that use sexual violence in conflict. 

UN fails to verify allegations

“What really outraged me,” she said, “was that the description of the situation in Israel began by noting that the Israeli hostages who returned from captivity in Gaza made allegations of sexual abuse they had experienced, and that the UN could not verify those allegations.” 

“This is why we’re here,” she told Gilboa-Dalal. “So that you can say what you went through.” 

Gilboa-Dalal recounted a moment in which one of his captors covered his eyes and told him to take his clothes off.

“He started touching my entire body. I froze. I couldn’t do anything. He held a knife to my throat and said, ‘Don’t tell anyone about this,” Gilboa-Dalal said.

The former hostage also spoke of a similar but separate incident. 

“The second time he came into our room,” he recalled. “He told me to turn toward the wall. He covered my eyes and said, ‘Now stay like this, don’t move.’”

He said that the Hamas terrorists threw him and fellow hostage Omer Wenkert and started beating, punching, and kicking them.

“We were crying and begging him to stop,” he said. 

“After he finished, he took me to the shower. He grabbed me by the hand, threw me onto the couch, stood behind me, and began rubbing his genitalia against me. In moments like that, my mind simply disconnected. Every second felt like a lifetime. I didn’t know what to do. I just wanted it to be over. I couldn’t do anything, even if I wanted to. I was so weak.”

Gilboa-Dalal is one of the few male hostages to recount instances of sexual assault during captivity. Among others with similar experiences are released hostages Rom Braslavski and Keith Siegel. 

Siegel and his wife Aviva testified before the UN Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) in Geneva in late 2025. Siegel, at the time, had urged the committee to listen to the facts presented by the Israeli delegation and remain free from political bias. 

When asked what prompted him to speak openly and reveal the severe abuse he endured, Gilboa-Dalal replied that he feels that he has a mission to use his voice to strengthen and empower survivors of sexual assault. 

‘I want them to know they are not alone’

“I know that many people who experience sexual assault choose not to speak about it with others, and I want them to know they are not alone. It is never the victim’s fault.”

“I want to use my voice to spread the truth about what happened in Gaza,” he told Herzog. 

The first lady commended Gilboa-Dala for sharing his experiences. “These are difficult and harrowing experiences for a young person, especially in a place and situation where you feel completely helpless,” she said. 

“It takes tremendous courage to share them, and I believe it is our duty to bring our painful and shocking truth before the world. I thank you for your willingness and courage to do so.”

Watch the full conversation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XD8l8oZ4nM

US President Donald Trump‘s interim deal to end the Iran war met scorching public criticism from some of his fellow Republicans as copies of the signed agreement circulated on Capitol Hill on Thursday.

One Republican senator called the framework pact announced this week the “worst foreign policy blunder in decades,” another said some reported provisions seemed “ill-advised,” and some pro-Republican commentators also broke with Trump over the agreement.

The criticism was a rare rebuke from members of the Republican Party who have mostly offered full loyalty to the president, but are increasingly restive as the economic effects of the Iran conflict have hurt their prospects ahead of midterm elections in November that will decide control of Congress. Democrats, who are seeking to regain control of one or both of the legislative chambers, have also been critical of the agreement.

The White House sent the text of the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to members of Congress on Thursday, a day after Trump signed the preliminary deal to end the war. The document, seen by Reuters, matched what had been read out by a US official on Wednesday.

Lawmakers from both parties have said they want more information from the White House.

By Thursday, congressional aides said there had been no briefings for Congress on the deal or the administration’s plans, and there had been no announcement that any were scheduled.

Some of the sharpest criticism of the MOU has involved reports that the Trump administration has agreed to release frozen Iranian assets, allow the creation of a $300 billion private wealth fund to trigger investment in Iran, and ease sanctions.

“Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future,” Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana wrote in a post on X/Twitter. 

He noted that before the war, the strait – one of the world’s most important oil shipping routes – was open and Iran faced steep sanctions. “Now, 13 Americans are dead, families have paid billions at the pump, sanctions will be lifted, and the bombing has stopped. This is the worst foreign policy blunder in decades,” Cassidy wrote.

MoU ‘negotiates away’ military successes

Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the Republican chairman of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, said he worried that the MoU “negotiates away” US military successes.

Wicker also said it would be a mistake to force Israel to stand down against Hezbollah in Lebanon and opposed lifting any sanctions on Iran or unfreezing Iranian funds, “in exchange for Iran’s mere agreement to negotiate for another 60 days.”

Trump blasted his critics in a post on social media. “These fools, who think I haven’t been tough enough on Iran, when the Stock Market Just Hit A RECORD HIGH, and Oil prices are “tumbling” down, are either jealous, bad people, or stupid. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!! President DJT” he wrote.

The agreement to end the conflict and open the economically vital Strait of Hormuz is in some ways a positive for Trump, who has needed a way out of a conflict that has driven up energy prices and sapped US military resources. And the final agreement, still to be negotiated, could provide additional gains for the US

But critics argue that the interim deal offers Iran significant benefits in return for giving the United States two things it had before: an open strait and a promise from Iran to not develop a nuclear weapon.

Ben Shapiro, a conservative pundit and podcaster who had previously cheered the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, blasted the memorandum of understanding as a “disaster,” but placed the blame on Vice President JD Vance. Shapiro said Vance had failed Trump by backing the deal.

MoU a ‘disaster’

“This MoU appears to be, just from the text, a disaster that does not achieve any of the actual signal goals that were set by the administration,” Shapiro told Fox News on Wednesday.

Mark Levin, one of Trump’s most outspoken supporters, has also broken with him over the deal. On Thursday, the conservative Fox News commentator took aim at Republican Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas for suggesting Iran should be allowed to retain ballistic missiles for defensive purposes.

“This man should never be elected dogcatcher,” Levin said of Marshall in a Thursday post on X, calling the administration’s decision not to include ballistic missiles in the agreement an “outrage.”

“To downplay the damage these missiles do (ask the Arab countries what they think about ballistic missiles) and the significance of not including them in any deal is utterly irresponsible,” Levin wrote. “Iran is a terrorist regime that has killed our people. How many more times do we need to be reminded of this?”

Still, many Republicans praised the agreement.

On KCMO Radio, Marshall praised Trump for choosing “a path to lasting peace – not another forever war” and said there would be controls on how Iran spends the money it receives and that it would not come from US taxpayers.

Lawmakers may eventually review a deal. Under the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA), passed after Democratic President Barack Obama’s international Iran nuclear pact, any agreement involving Iran’s nuclear program and the easing of sanctions must be reviewed by Congress.

The Trump administration has given mixed signals about whether he planned to do so, but several lawmakers, including Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a close ally of the administration, have said it must be sent to Capitol Hill.

The US issued new sanctions against two Hezbollah-aligned Lebanese officials and other members of a Hezbollah business network overseen by a previously designated individual, the US State Department announced on Thursday.

The two officials, named Sleiman Antoine Frangie and Mahmoud Qamati, were added to the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control’s (OFAC) Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list. 

Both were sanctioned under the authority of Executive Order 13224, which allows the White House to target groups and individuals associated with designated terrorist groups.

Frangie is the leader of Lebanon’s Marada Movement, and has previously served in several Lebanese governments. Moreover, he initially stood as a Hezbollah-favored candidate in the Lebanese presidential election until his withdrawal in 2024.

The other individual sanctioned, Qamati, has been a longtime senior member of Hezbollah. In early 2026, he called for the Lebanese government’s overthrow and compared the government to Vichy France in an interview with Al Jazeera.

Sanctioned officials worked to ‘undermine’ Lebanese gov.

American individuals and businesses are forbidden from working with SDN-listed individuals or groups, and those listed have their US-based assets frozen.

“These officials have used their influence to deliberately and systematically undermine the authority of the Lebanese state,” wrote US State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott.

“By aligning themselves with Hezballah, a terrorist organization, they have prevented the Lebanese government from exercising full control over its territories and over its future. These activities obstruct efforts to restore a sovereign, independent Lebanon, instead entrenching a system of parallel power that keeps Lebanon weak and divided, at the expense of the entire Middle East.”

Another Lebanese national, Wael Constateen, was also listed as a SDN for carrying a close connection to previously sanctioned Alaa Hassan Hamieh, the leader of an international Hezbollah-supporting network encompassing Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Oman. 

Hamieh’s organization “raise[s] funds, execute[s] contracts, and operate[s] front companies to generate revenue for [Hezbollah] terrorists,” according to Pigott’s statement.

Hezbollah needs to disarm for regional peace, statement says

Additionally, five companies said to be a part of Hamieh’s network were included in the sanctions package.

“[Hezbollah] is a terrorist organization that puts Iran, not Lebanon, first,” the statement continued. It “is the single biggest obstacle to Lebanon’s recovery and future, and holds the state hostage to a permanent state of conflict.”

“Those who continue to provide political cover and material support to [Hezbollah] will suffer the consequences of their choices. 

“For the sake of lasting peace in the region and Lebanese stability and prosperity,” the statement adds, “[Hezbollah] must disarm, its infrastructure must be dismantled, and the Lebanese state must regain its control of Lebanon’s future.” 

“The United States will continue to target [Hezbollah’s] finances and those who help the group undermine the state of Lebanon.”

These sanctions come as the US and Iran agreed on a deal to, among other things, end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, as well as a push from the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah.

A Jaffa resident in his 30s was arrested on Thursday over his suspected involvement in a shooting that took place earlier this week on Shmuel ben Adiya Street and lightly injured three.

The suspect was discovered hiding out in central Israel. Police are expected to request an extension to his detention from Tel Aviv’s Magistrate Court.

However, despite their success in the Shmuel ben Adiya shooting, detectives are still attempting to decipher one of the week’s most difficult cases.

Rajed Abd al-Hadi, a 22-year-old influencer from Jaljulya, was shot while livestreaming on TikTok at a hookah lounge in Jaffa in front of thousands of live viewers.

Despite CCTV footage, livestream. police struggling to find perpetrator

The initial investigation showed a masked man arriving at the scene on a motorcycle, approaching al-Hadi before shooting her at close range. The suspect immediately fled the scene while the young woman collapsed in front of the audience.

Al-Hadi was taken to the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon to recieve urgent medical treatment, where she remains hospitalized.

Israel Police are currently attempting to get a clear picture of the event, using security footage, the live stream, and findings from the scene, but no suspects have yet been arrested.

The two shooting attacks, which occurred in Jaffa just hours apart, continue to occupy the minds of the city’s residents.

Investigators are trying to trace the identity of the shooter or shooters, find out if they acted alone or as part of a cell, and most importantly, understand what was behind the attempted assassination of the 22-year-old woman and who sought to harm her.

IDF withdrawal beyond the yellow line in Lebanon would amount to a failure, Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli said in an interview with 103FM on Wednesday.

Chikli also warned Iran against attacking Israel after Tehran threatened to strike if the IDF continued operating in Lebanon, and criticized US President Donald Trump’s envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff.

“If we withdraw from the yellow line, I will be the first to say that we failed. I say that clearly, without hesitation,” Chikli said firmly. “If we retreat back to the blue line, that will be a failure in my eyes.”

According to the minister, “Our forces are deep inside the territory. I am not saying we need to hold every area we are currently in. We are in the Tebnin area, on the outskirts of Nabatieh, but we need to make sure we are positioned at those strategic points within Lebanese territory.”

“One thing is clear and simple, as is happening in the Gaza Strip,” he said. “We must not again defend Metula from an outpost that is inside Metula.”

“Israel’s condition, militarily and strategically, is incomparably stronger than Iran’s. Our achievements have not been erased, even if there is eventually an agreement,” he added.

Chikli: Trump moving towards bad deal for Israel has made things difficult

Regarding the negotiations with Tehran led by the Trump administration, Chikli expressed deep concern about the involvement of regional countries. 

“The emerging agreement is troubling,” he said. “Less troubling to me than the rebuilding of Iran’s economy is the axis that drafted the agreement: Qatar, Turkey, and Pakistan. What we are seeing before our eyes is the rise of a new axis, a dangerous, radical Sunni axis of evil like no other.”

When questioned about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s relations with the US president and asked where Israel stood when this axis was taking shape, Chikli said that the matter should be looked at from a “broad historical perspective.”

“The fact that Trump is now moving toward a deal that is bad for the State of Israel does not erase the lifting of the embargo that made things difficult for us, the embassy in Jerusalem, and the Abraham Accords,” Chikli said, “However, Trump is being captivated by the strong influence Qatar and Turkey have. He has a blind spot when it comes to what drives Erdogan.”

Chikli criticizes Witkoff, Kushner

When the discussion turned to Trump’s associates, Witkoff and Kushner, and the harsh criticism leveled at them by Israeli media figures, Chikli chose to distance himself from the tone. 

“These nicknames are unnecessary, but there is room for criticism of them,” he explained. “At the heart of this blind spot, those two are key players. There is confusion between interests that may be American economic interests and other interests, and the ability to put on ideological glasses and understand the scale of the danger posed by the Muslim Brotherhood movement.”

Attorney Avi Halevy, the Likud party’s legal adviser, announced his immediate resignation in a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday night.

“After much thought, I am honored to inform you that, effective June 19, 2026, I will end my term as Legal Council of the Likud Party,” Halevy wrote in his letter. 

Further, he thanked Netanyahu for the trust placed in him during his years in office.

“It was a privilege I was given to serve the Likud Party for many years under your leadership and contribute toward its advancement,” Halevy said. 

Halevy’s move follows a growing trend of MKs and other government-affiliated officials resigning from their positions. 

Likud MK Galit Distel-Atbaryan says she will not run in party primaries

In late May, Likud MK Galit Distel-Atbaryan announced that she will not run in the upcoming primaries for her party and will not be in the next Knesset elections.

Distel-Atbaryan’s announcement came after several weeks of working to advance Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi’s controversial media reform bill.

Speaking at the Communications Committee, Distel-Atbaryan praised Karhi, saying, “I say this from my humble place as someone leaving the political world – Likud members, this man should be in the top five.”

Shir Perets contributed to this report.

Israel must prepare for repeated rounds of fighting with Iran, former Navy commander Maj. Gen. (res.) Eliezer Marom warned in an interview with 103FM on Monday.

According to Marom, the Middle East has entered a new phase in which diplomatic agreements do not necessarily create stability, and may even lead to escalation.

Marom opened with a direct reference to the Iranian threat and the implications of emerging agreements. 

“We are in a long war with Iran, and Israel needs to prepare every few months for an operation or war with Iran that will last several days or weeks. If the agreement is signed, we need to understand that and prepare for it,” the former senior officer warned. 

During the interview, he analyzed the emerging ceasefire agreement and its regional significance for Israel, and sharply criticized the conduct of Israel’s political leadership.

“The inner circle around the prime minister does not exist. One person is making decisions, and here even Ron Dermer, who understands America and did good things with this administration, simply left and went,” he said. “He should be called up for reserve duty.”

Marom also addressed diplomatic moves surrounding Lebanon, saying Israel should move diplomatically and do so quickly.

“President Trump, in what he signed last night, is approving Iran’s conquest of Lebanon. Do you understand that? He is now signing an agreement with the Iranians about Lebanon. The president of Lebanon should be offended by this, and all the leaders in the Middle East who are listening to this, Sisi, Erdogan, and bin Salman, should understand that this is a bad agreement.”

He later added that he sees a preferable diplomatic alternative. “The IDF recommended doing this earlier; let’s move quickly toward an agreement on Lebanon, and along the way thwart Iran’s taking over Lebanon. The only thing that can be done diplomatically right now is to close an agreement with the Lebanese and say that once the Lebanese Army is strong enough, we will give southern Lebanon back to it. President Aoun accepts this, and we need to move along this path,” Marom said. 

“It is impossible that we are going to talk in Washington with two brigadier generals.”

When asked about the possibility of escalation, he answered firmly: “And what will happen if Iran responds to every Israeli action on Lebanese soil?” “Then let there be missiles, please. This agreement is bad for us in any case. If they want to return to fighting? I hate to say it, but from Israel’s perspective, this is a preferable alternative,” Marom said.

‘No reason to believe the Iranians’

Later in the interview, Marom also addressed the progress of Iran’s nuclear program and expressed deep skepticism about the reliability of international understandings. 

“There is no reason to believe the Iranians. They have enriched uranium in Iran, and the oversight is not entirely clear; that is the cornerstone of any agreement on the nuclear issue. How do they suddenly have uranium enriched to 60%? Isn’t that a violation? It is a complete violation,” he said. 

“They are highly motivated to obtain nuclear weapons, because despite all their bravado, they understand that Israel made a mockery of their air defenses.”

Marom concluded with a call for Israel to preserve freedom of security action even without American backing. “Israel is not alone, we do not need the Americans, we did it excellently in the 12-day war,” the reserve major general said. He said he is not worried that independent Israeli action in the region would harm relations with the United States. “Beyond values, there are interests, and the American interest is that Israel be here in the Middle East; there is nothing like Israel, and they know that very well,” he argued.

“Beyond that, the political system, even with all the bad polls, when you ask an American, he will tell you that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and that he will not let it fall. There may be brakes, but that’s fine.”

The Israel Tennis & Education Centers have awarded NIS 200,000 in Anna and Michael Kahan Scholarships to four of Israel’s leading tennis players, marking a decade of one of the most significant scholarship programs in Israeli tennis.

The scholarships were awarded to senior player Maayan Laron, the Israeli national champion who trains at the Israel Tennis & Education Center in Haifa; Amit Vales, the Israeli national runner-up who trains at the Israel Tennis & Education Center in Ramat Hasharon; junior player Bar Shporen, who trains in Haifa; and junior player Re’em Elkayam, who trains at the Israel Tennis & Education Center in Ashkelon.

The funding will help the four recipients gain international experience through participation in tournaments abroad, training programs, professional equipment purchases, and a comprehensive support system that includes mental coaching, fitness training, and additional professional services.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Kahan Scholarship Program, which has been supporting outstanding Israeli tennis players since 2016. The program is widely regarded as one of the largest and most meaningful scholarship initiatives in Israeli tennis, enabling talented athletes to compete internationally, gain valuable experience, and advance along the elite performance pathway.

The scholarships are made possible through the generous legacy of Anna and Michael Kahan. Michael Kahan, a Holocaust survivor who immigrated to New York after World War II together with his wife Anna, also a Holocaust survivor, developed a deep love for tennis after his grandchildren began playing at colleges in the United States.

Scholarship brings excellence all around – Israel Tennis CEO

Motivated by a desire to contribute to Israel’s future, he believed Israeli tennis players could serve as ambassadors for the country around the world and established a foundation to support the next generation of Israeli tennis talent. His vision was clear: to promote excellence, create equal opportunities, and help develop future Israeli champions.

The scholarship program provides recipients with a significant opportunity to compete at the highest levels of the sport, gain valuable international experience, and continue their development toward professional careers while benefiting from extensive professional support.

“It is a day of celebration for us,” said Eyal Taoz, Global CEO of the Israel Tennis & Education Centers. “This scholarship is far more than financial assistance – it is a greenhouse for excellence, breaking boundaries, and realizing dreams in Israeli tennis.”

Yoni Erlich, professional director of the Israel Tennis & Education Centers, said the scholarship recipients represent the future of the sport in Israel.

“These are the moments when we meet the next generation of Israeli tennis,” Erlich said. “It gives players the best tools on the long and challenging road of becoming professional athletes.”

Danny Perekalsky, CEO of the Israel Tennis Association, praised the initiative and its impact on the sport.
“Initiatives such as the Kahan Scholarships are a true blessing for the entire tennis community,” he said. “For Israeli players, the road to the top of world tennis is especially challenging, and support like this can make all the difference.”

Speaking on behalf of the scholarship recipients, Amit Vales expressed gratitude for the support.

“On behalf of all the winners, I would like to thank the Kahan family for their generous support,” he said. “Scholarships like these allow us to keep dreaming big and should never be taken for granted. We greatly appreciate the trust placed in us and are committed to continuing to work hard to justify it.”

Michael Tilson Thomas was widely recognized as one of the most influential conductors, pianists, and educators of the contemporary era.

His passing in April warrants a closer look at a musical legacy that encompasses not only his extensive podium career and discography, but also his compositions.

Throughout his life, Tilson Thomas dedicated his rare moments of downtime to composing. Much like historical conductor-composers such as Gustav Mahler, his oeuvre was relatively modest, yet these were the works of a master musician with a distinct, well-defined compositional identity.

As a composer, Thomas revealed himself as a clear descendant of Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, yet his music shed a new and important light on the American canon.

This is largely because Tilson Thomas opened and expanded the range of possibilities in his music, spanning from rigorous modernism and gamelan music to jazz and rock, complete with electric guitars, drums, and saxophones.

He achieved this vast, eclectic mix without compromising the integrity of the piece, demonstrating, as James M. Keller wrote, “A refreshing openness and freedom of style.”

From Yiddish theater to a modern master

As the grandson of Ukrainian immigrants to New York, Tilson Thomas came from a family of artists; the Thomashefskys pioneered Yiddish theater in the city, and it was from his grandmother, Bessie, that he inherited his love for the stage.

However, as Tilson Thomas noted in Where Now Is, the 2020 documentary on his life, his stylistic fluidity was traced back to his father, who frequently improvised on the piano in a wide variety of styles at home, and from whom he inherited his profound love for music.

Tilson Thomas was a child prodigy who demonstrated remarkable musical talents from an early age. As a student, he had the privilege of working with some of the great artists who fled Nazi-occupied Europe for America, including violinist Jascha Heifetz and cellist Gregor Piatigorsky.

He went on to study composition with the German émigré composer Ingolf Dahl, who was a great influence on him, as well as with such seminal figures as Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio, John Cage, and Lou Harrison.

Ultimately, however, his close professional association and personal alignment with Copland and Bernstein proved most definitive to his compositional voice.

In 1988, Tilson Thomas made his official debut as a composer with “Grace,” a piece written for Bernstein’s 70th birthday, setting his own text to capture his impressions of their initial meeting.

Composed in the same year, “Street Song” (scored for brass quintet or symphonic brass) has remained one of his most frequently recorded pieces.

A three-part work, it was deeply influenced by Copland’s ballets, evoking the Great Plains and the endless Western horizon through the open intervals of church-like chorales and a clear emphasis on syncopated rhythms rooted in jazz, Latin music, and folk traditions.

In “Street Song,” Tilson Thomas drew a musical document that captured the multiculturalism and diverse auditory spaces interlaced within American heritage, offering a brilliant contribution not only to brass literature but to the broader American canon.

While much of his oeuvre was deeply indebted to his American identity, several works explicitly engaged with his Jewish heritage.

A seminal example is his compelling 1990 composition, “From the Diary of Anne Frank” for narrator and orchestra.
Dedicated to Audrey Hepburn, who narrated the world premiere, the work received widespread critical acclaim for its integration of verbatim excerpts from Frank’s diary.

Tilson Thomas said that the piece was structurally cast in five variations built entirely on themes derived from traditional Jewish music – most notably the kaddish, the hymn to life and mourning.

The musical narrative develops linearly alongside the tragic circumstances of Frank’s short life, advancing in progression with her growing distress.

As the diary entries chronicle an increasing sense of isolation, the orchestral texture mirrors this psychological shift, becoming desperate and lonely.

For instance, as Anne wrote, “I can’t tell you how oppressive it is… we have to whisper, and tread lightly otherwise someone might hear us,” the orchestration descended into a quiet, menacing atmosphere.

Later, when she asked, “Dear Kitty, I expect you would be interested to hear what it feels like to disappear,” the music dissipated into a fragile, thin texture, pitting a solitary, lonely violin against a threatening brass section.

Yet the work was not merely a somber lament for a clever young life cut short. In key sections, the music surged with immense pride, self-conviction, and force.

It was here that Tilson Thomas effectively injected himself into Frank’s words, using the power of the orchestra to comment on the text and answer her fear with musical courage and strength.

The vocal masterworks: Whitman and Dickinson

Between 1999 and 2002, Tilson Thomas completed two major song cycles for voice and orchestra based on the poetry of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson.

These art songs demonstrated a sophisticated command of text-setting, characterized by intricate orchestral shading, distinct timbres, rich harmonic language, and an idiomatic understanding of vocal flexibility – qualities realized in premier performances by vocalists Thomas Hampson and Renée Fleming.

Tilson Thomas noted that his initial exposure to Whitman’s poetry during his 20s was formative, fundamentally shaping his artistic identity. His song cycle, “Whitman Songs,” composed in the mid-90s, reflected this influence.

The opening movement, “Who Goes There?” (set to text from “Song of Myself”), employed syncopation and jagged melodic contours aligning the music with the distinct American idiom of Whitman’s verse.

The second song, “At Ship’s Helm” (from “Sea Drift”), served as a lyrical interlude in which the orchestration text-paints the movement of the sea.

As the piece concluded on Whitman’s text, “Ship of the body, ship of the soul, voyaging,” the orchestra sustained a static, organum-like texture while solo horn and violin lines attenuated, suggesting a distant horizon.

Parallel to this was “Poems of Emily Dickinson” (completed in 2002), which was inspired by and dedicated to Renée Fleming. The cycle showcased Tilson Thomas’s ability to musically capture Dickinson’s wry humor and sharp cynicism.

In “Fame is a Fickle Food,” where Dickinson remarked that men eat of fame “and die,” the music dramatically halted on the word “die” with a sharp pizzicato in the double basses, punctuated by Fleming’s impassioned performance.

Crafting these pieces with fearless integrity, Tilson Thomas masterfully captured Dickinson’s sardonic, cutting observations through a shimmering orchestral palette.

In “Urban Legend” (2001), Tilson Thomas offered another fascinating composition, written for a unique ensemble of saxophone, strings, percussion, electric bass, and piano.

Here, modern dissonant harmonies and syncopated rhythms are seamlessly intertwined with jazz and Latin music, achieving a high level of artistic merit. His versatility is further apparent in “Island Music” (2003) for four marimbas and percussion.

Written following his travels to Bali, the piece’s musical language was deeply influenced by gamelan music, drifting exotically between the sonic landscapes of the Indonesian islands and the Caribbean.

Tilson Thomas’s unapologetic eclecticism culminated in “Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind” (2016), a decades-in-the-making spectacle based on a 1920 Carl Sandburg poem.

The piece featured a chamber orchestra that periodically morphed into a raucous bar band, complete with electric guitars, saxophones, synthesizers, and drums.

Exploring an array of 20th-century vernaculars – from 1950s rockabilly to punk and funk – the work served as a high-energy, post-apocalyptic commentary on human vanity and the fall of empires, echoing the grand, defiant scale of Bernstein’s “Mass.”

A final testament

One of his final major compositions, “Meditations on Rilke” (2019) for voice and orchestra, was a deeply personal, introspective work.

In the score’s foreword, Tilson Thomas reflected on his father’s cultural fluidity and versatile musicianship – a stylistic pluralism that directly informed the composition.

For instance, the opening song, “Herbsttag,” began with distinct swing and jazz motifs before shifting into a late post-Romantic idiom, disclosing the clear influence of Gustav Mahler’s late works, such as “Das Lied von der Erde.”

However, the perspective remained undeniably Tilson Thomas’s own, firmly rooted in 20th-century Western traditions.

It was masterfully crafted in terms of both composition and orchestration.

Addressing this later work, Tilson Thomas wrote: “My greatest concern has always been about what remains with the listener when the music ends. It is my hope that these musical reflections of many years may stick with you.”

Indeed, it seems certain that these compositions will endure as a vital pillar of his legacy.

For listeners wishing to explore this side of his artistry, the definitive collection of his creative output is captured in Grace: The Music of Michael Tilson Thomas, a comprehensive four-disc box set released by Pentatone.

More information on his compositions can be found at michaeltilsonthomas.com