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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Likud’s Central Committee Chairman Haim Katz that he would leave the party if his demand for 10 reserved seats in the next election is not accepted, Likud sources told Maariv.

According to the sources, Katz believes that Netanyahu’s demand could “crush the Likud,” while Netanyahu argues that the current crisis could cause serious damage to the party.

The sources also said that the statements were conveyed indirectly and are part of the negotiations within the party to determine the framework of Likud’s primaries.

Additionally, the sources explained that a split within the Likud would only benefit the opposition, saying that “a lot of champagne will be spilled” in the headquarters of Gadi Eisenkot, Avigdor Lieberman, and Naftali Bennett if this were to happen.

According to a Tuesday report by Kan News, Netanyahu is looking into reserving spots on the Likud party list for Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and former Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon in the top ten slots.

Bitan warns against Netanyahu’s actions

Likud lawmaker David Bitan said on Monday in an interview with 103FM that Netanyahu’s handling of the party’s preparations for the coming elections was wrong, especially on the issue of reserved spots on the Likud slate.

“What I’m saying is that this method of the arrangement committee is not suitable for Likud,” he said.

“Likud has been based on democracy all these years. The whole foundation of Likud is the connection between the elected officials and the members of the central committee, and that gives the party life,” he added.

Bitan warned that Likud’s system can’t be changed a month before the primaries, explaining that even if Netanyahu would “like to be like the other parties,” that it is “not suitable for Likud.”

Bitan went on to recall Netanyahu’s own entry into Likud: “Thanks to the democratic process back then, Netanyhu entered Likud.” Asked whether Likud could disappear without a primary system, he said, “Within eight years, in my opinion, yes.”

Bitan believes Netanyahu won’t step down

Bitan ruled out the possibility of Netanyahu stepping down: “I don’t see such a situation; he is a fighter by nature. When we lost the elections and the Bennett-Lapid government came to power, Netanyahu stayed in the Knesset until he made a turnaround.”

He also lashed out at US President Donald Trump’s conduct: “Trump is doing harm to Likud, that is completely clear in terms of his conduct, but we will know how to deal with it,” he said. “It is harmful, there is nothing to do, first of all to the State of Israel, and after that to Likud.”

In addition, Bitan said he expects the war with Iran to recur repeatedly: “Once every year and a half or two years. We will always have to deal with their missile buildup; they threaten us with it all the time. It’s not that every day we will wake up with some missile, but once every two years, we will need to prevent the buildup; we will have no choice.”

Former Prime Minister and chairman of Together, Naftali Bennett, shared a comprehensive plan detailing the steps he’d take as prime minister to “build Israel from scratch” in a press conference on Tuesday.

Bennett described his plan, named the ‘New Covenant,’ as “a foundational plan to repair the state,” and said he would “fix every major area of life in Israel.”

“The agreement between the state and its citizens has been broken. The last government destroyed many state institutions, and they can no longer simply be repaired – they need to be dismantled and rebuilt,” Bennett said. 

According to Bennett, Israel’s next government should be “a founding government, a [David] Ben-Gurion-style government,” and said that he has spent the past two years working with professionals in various aspects to build plans addressing the core problems facing the country.

“The instruction I gave them was: How would you build an excellent state from scratch?” he said.

Bennett’s plan includes higher educational standards, crackdown on ‘ultra-Orthodox state’

Regarding education, Bennett called for a “public education at the level of a private school.

“Today, the state spends an average of about NIS 50,000 per child,” he stated. “That is the cost of a private school, without the quality of a private school.”

The education reform would completely dismantle and rebuild the Education Ministry, focusing on “shutting down unnecessary mechanisms, and direct the money to children, classrooms, and teachers.”

Bennett referred to the state’s current relationship with the haredi community as “a slow-motion suicide.”

“We will dismantle the ultra-Orthodox state within a state and build one Jewish, democratic, prosperous, and strong state.” he said.

Bennett noted that the haredi community teaches anti-Zionist ideology, and said the New Covenant would “turn off the funding tap for education that harms the state and provide an excellent alternative.”

Bennett vows to build new security cabinet, break up ‘food cartels’

“We will launch an all-out war against food cartels,” Bennett declared, referring primarily to the Chinese company Bright Food, which owns Tnuva and, according to Bennett, instructed its Israeli management to “raise prices, squeeze as much as possible until the public cries out, and then keep squeezing.

“Foreign interests have penetrated the food market, and they are succeeding because there is no competition. We will break them up and lower prices,” he said.

Bennett stated that politicians have lacked the courage to confront monopolies in Israel, but he would work to reform Israel’s economy as soon as he is in power.

“I say from here to the Chinese owners of Tnuva, to Shufersal, Unilever, Diplomat, and everyone else: On my first day in office, the party is over.”

Bennett stated that as leader, he’d work with the IDF, Shin Bet, and all law enforcement branches to build a new security cabinet, using the “Al Capone method” – which refers to taking down major criminals by pursuing them through smaller offences, such as tax evasion, rather than violent, harder-to-prove crimes – to fight organized crime.

“Protection rackets, shootings in the streets, and the takeover of entire areas are terrorism and a threat to national security, and I will officially declare them a national security threat, not merely a criminal one,” he said.

“We started this during the government I led, with great success, and we will soon continue the work and do it faster and more forcefully.”

Plans to ‘restore security’, devolve authority to local governments

Bennett stated he would recruit 20,000 additional soldiers to the IDF that are “so desperately needed in order to win,” and called to adopt a policy of zero tolerance regarding Israel’s enemies.

“We will restore security and move from rounds of escalation to decisive victory. Not a drone. Not a rocket. And certainly not force build-up.”

Bennett also said he would work to end Israel’s diplomatic isolation, working with regional allies to “shape the destiny” of the Middle East.

“In the realm of public perception, we will get rid of the TikTok ministers who are causing us damage and establish a national public diplomacy body. Just as we have the excellence of Unit 8200, there will be an 8300 that can compete with Qatar, Iran, and Israel’s enemies around the world.”

Finally, Bennett slammed the current government’s lack of accountability, saying he would manage the country the way he managed companies.

“Citizens will receive excellent service because we will run the government according to high-tech standards, with measurable KPIs, personal accountability, and transparency,” he said.

The plan would include closing seven government ministries, devolving authority to local governments, and making political appointments based on professional merit, not personal favors.

“Ministers will be accountable to you and work for you, not for party primaries.”

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett warned on Tuesday that Israel’s relationship with the United States had entered a precarious period, saying Jerusalem must rebuild its image in America and stop assuming that support from President Donald Trump alone can secure the alliance.

Speaking at the JNS International Policy Summit in Jerusalem, Bennett said Israel’s public standing in the US had deteriorated sharply, arguing that “Brand Israel” was now viewed negatively by many Americans for the first time since the state’s founding.

“That’s a disaster,” Bennett said, adding that the trend “totally distorts good and bad, right and wrong,” but must be treated as a strategic reality.

Bennett, who heads the Together list and is seeking to challenge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the upcoming election, said Trump remained a strong supporter of Israel. He cautioned, however, that Israeli policy could not rest on the personal sympathy of a single president.

“A nation cannot base its long-term strategy on a president who currently supports Israel,” Bennett said during a conversation with Jennifer Sutton, executive director of the Council for a Secure America.

Israel has neglected public diplomacy for too long, Bennett told the audience

His comments came amid growing Israeli concern over the direction of US policy in the region, including Washington’s handling of Iran, Lebanon and Hezbollah, and the wider shift in American public opinion toward Israel since the October 7 Hamas attacks and the wars that followed.

Bennett blamed part of the damage on the conduct of the current government, saying Israel needed ministers who understood the importance of responsible messaging abroad. He called for the creation of a serious national public diplomacy system that could push back against anti-Israel narratives in the US and elsewhere.

Israel, he said, had failed to treat public diplomacy as a strategic arena. Were the country a public relations firm, Bennett added, he would not hire it.

The former premier also pointed to Qatar as an example of a country that had invested heavily in influence operations and international messaging, saying Israel should learn from that model and use it for a positive purpose.

Bennett said rising antisemitism around the world had reached levels he had not expected to see, warning that hostility to Israel was feeding broader threats to Jewish communities.

To repair the situation, he said Israel needed a “big, broad, Zionist, bipartisan government,” adding that he hoped to lead one.

No more ‘terror empires’ along Israel’s borders

Bennett also addressed Israel’s security doctrine after October 7, saying the country could no longer allow large terrorist organizations to build military infrastructure on its borders.

“You have to prevent the monster from being built to begin with,” he said, referring to Hamas in Gaza. Israel, he argued, could not rely only on border guards or defensive barriers once terrorist armies had already been established.

“We can’t allow huge terror empires to be built in Lebanon, in Gaza or along any of our borders,” he said.

On Lebanon, Bennett criticized what he described as American restrictions on Israel’s freedom of action against Hezbollah. He said Israel valued its friendship with Washington, but rejected any arrangement in which Israeli soldiers were told they could not defend themselves.

“Israel is not a client state or a vassal state,” Bennett said. “Israel is a friend, an ally of the United States of America.”

He said Israel had both the right and the duty to act in Lebanon when Hezbollah threatened Israeli forces or communities.

Turning to Iran, Bennett said recent regional fighting had shown Arab states and Israel that Tehran remained the central destabilizing force in the Middle East. He described the Iranian regime as “rotten,” “old,” “disconnected” and “incompetent,” and predicted that it would eventually collapse.

Bennett said regional states should work together to accelerate that collapse, comparing the approach to the pressure applied by US president Ronald Reagan against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

He also said he had previously advanced an effort to help Iranian protesters access the internet through Starlink technology, but claimed that the current government had failed to follow through.

Bennett voiced strong support for the Abraham Accords, saying Israel and moderate Arab states had a shared interest in countering radical Islamist forces.

He also sought to frame his own politics as firmly right-wing while distancing himself from what he presented as ideological recklessness.

“I’m a right-wing guy, but I’m not a schmuck,” Bennett said. He said being right-wing means standing firmly for Israel’s national interests, opposing a Palestinian state, refusing to give up land and running an effective government focused on results.

Bennett said that, should he return to the Prime Minister’s Office, he expected to work well with Trump, describing both men as business-oriented leaders who value practical solutions.

Migrant workers in Israel generally followed Home Front Command instructions during the June 2025 war with Iran when they were able to do so, but access to shelters, clear information, and support was uneven, particularly among workers in agriculture, construction, and live-in care, a new report by the Center for International Migration and Integration (CIMI) found.

The report, based on a July 2025 survey of 1,502 migrant workers from seven countries of origin and seven employment sectors, examined physical safety, job security, and workers’ own sense of safety during the 12 Day War.

CIMI is an independent nonprofit established by JDC Israel in 1998. It works on migration policy and migrants’ rights and operates the Foreign Workers Information Center for the Population and Immigration Authority.

At the time of the escalation, the report said, around 150,000 migrant workers were in Israel, largely in construction, agriculture, caregiving, and hospitality – sectors in which many workers rely on employer-provided housing and are tied to a particular employer through their visa status.

The survey found that most workers reported access to a protected area at both home and work, but the figures varied sharply between groups. Among Thai agricultural workers, only 32% said they had full access to a protected space in both settings within the required warning time, while 9% said they had neither.

Data shows respondents generally entered shelter when it was made available

One agricultural worker wrote: “In our community, there is only a trench, no shelters nearby. More shelters need to be built.” Another said an employer kept workers in an open area “even when explosions could be heard.”

The report said that 99.2% of respondents who reported at least partial access to a protected space said they entered it during sirens, suggesting that the main gap was not workers’ willingness to follow instructions but whether the necessary conditions existed to do so.

Live-in caregivers faced a different problem. One respondent said, “I cannot leave the patient even during an alarm. She is 94 and has dementia.”

Overall, 87% of respondents said they received safety instructions during the escalation, although access to clear information differed substantially by country of origin. The report said this suggested that information often traveled through language and community networks rather than consistently through employers or sector-wide mechanisms.

Employment patterns were also divided by sector. Across the sample, 67% said they worked every day during the fighting, 18% worked only part of the time, and 13% stopped working, mostly temporarily. Agriculture, caregiving, and industry showed the highest continuity, with 92% to 97% reporting daily work.

But the report cautioned that continued employment did not necessarily mean workers felt secure. “The work goes on even when there are missiles,” one agricultural worker said. “The employer says, ‘It’s okay.’”

Construction workers reported more interruptions, while hotel workers reported the sharpest disruption. Among respondents who did not work every day, 60% said they had been told not to come in and 33% said their employer had temporarily stopped operating. A hotel worker described the immediate consequence: “The hotel was closed for two weeks. I did not receive pay. No work, no money.”

Report recommends better outreach in the future

The report’s central finding was that workers’ subjective sense of safety was more strongly associated with considering departure from Israel than physical or employment conditions alone. Half of respondents who reported a very low sense of safety said they were considering leaving, compared with 3% among those who reported a very high sense of safety.

Local support appeared to matter. Some 69% of all respondents said they had a person or organization to turn to in an emergency, but the level varied significantly between groups.

Workers who had such a contact reported higher levels of safety, while high concern among family members abroad was associated with lower safety scores.

CIMI recommended moving beyond translated emergency notices toward sector-specific instructions for workers in open fields, temporary housing, construction sites, and caregiving roles. It also called for stronger links between official information channels, employers, community groups, and aid organizations, as well as targeted outreach to groups less connected to existing networks.

The report stressed that its findings are not representative of all migrant workers in Israel. The voluntary survey was distributed online through digital worker groups. Those with limited internet access, those outside such groups, and those who had already left Israel were not included.

It also said that, because the survey measured respondents at one point in time, it could show associations between safety and considering departure, but could not establish that one caused the other.

Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of Today Show anchor Savannah Guthrie, died after her abduction at the end of January, according to investigators interviewed by CNN, citing a note sent to the media shortly after her abduction.

The note reportedly followed an initial ransom letter demanding millions of dollars in Bitcoin in exchange for Guthrie’s return. The second note explained that Nancy had died shortly after she was abducted, though not the kidnappers’ intent,  according to investigators interviewed by CNN.

On February 7, the Guthrie family responded to the abductors. 

“We received your message, and we understand,” they said in a statement 

Only CNN and a local news station in Tucson, Arizona, where she lived, were reported to have known about the second letter.

Guthrie’s remains have still not been recovered; however, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department told reporters that the investigation “remains active and ongoing.”

“The Pima County Sheriff’s Department continues to work closely with the FBI as investigators follow up on leads, review information, and pursue the facts surrounding this case,” a spokesperson for the sheriff’s department said. 

CBS reported that law enforcement asked media outlets to refrain from publishing details of the notes while officials investigated Guthrie’s disappearance.

When did Nancy Guthrie’s disappear?

Nancy Guthrie was reported missing in January, after she was dropped off by relatives on a Saturday and missed an online church service the next day.

The initial ransom letter, demanding millions of dollars in bitcoin, was sent to Nancy’s daughter, NBC’s Today Show anchor Savannah Guthrie.

Only now has it become public knowledge that a second note was sent to the family and media outlets in February apologizing for the unintended death of Nancy Guthrie, who was reportedly in poor health at the time.

Savannah Guthrie stepped away from the Today Show for two months, returning in late April, as the investigation into her mother’s abduction continued.

An ongoing nationwide survey revealed a significant improvement in mental health among Israeli young adults since the outbreak of war in 2023, although nearly a quarter of those surveyed reported severe impairment in daily functioning.

The survey, conducted by Clalit Health Services, Israel’s largest health organization, and Myers JDC Brookdale Institute (MJB), showed clinical levels of symptoms like depression, anxiety, and PTSD dropped from 51% to 34% over the last two years, although one in four surveyed reported “severe impairment in daily functioning.”

Throughout the study, young adults in Israel consistently reported worsening mental health and its impact on their daily ability to function. Some 20% of those aged 18-34 reported severe impairment in executing their day-to-day tasks.

The data suggested that while many young Israelis may be adapting psychologically to prolonged conflict, a substantial minority remains unable to fully return to normal life.

Clalit’s post-Oct.7 work is beginning to ‘show results’ says senior director

“The findings suggest that the extensive efforts undertaken by Israel’s healthcare system since October 7, including proactive and responsive mental health programs led by Clalit, are beginning to show results,” said Prof. Ran Balicer, deputy director-general and chief innovation officer at Clalit.

“Rates of significant symptoms are clearly declining, especially among younger adults. However, we must not be complacent. The years between 18 and 34 are when people build the foundations of adult life, including education, careers, relationships, and families.”

Hadar Samuel, a researcher at MJB, added that this study was especially groundbreaking for social sciences because it “looks beyond symptoms and examines their real-world consequences.”

“The connection between psychological distress and impaired functioning provides a deeper understanding of the war’s impact on the population.”

The researchers highlighted that although the decrease in symptoms among young Israelis was encouraging, the nearly one in four experiencing severe impairment to their daily functioning underscored the need for accessible age-specific mental health services.

Washington’s memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf represents a flawed strategy: at the moment when the Islamic Republic was militarily weakened and politically exposed, Washington appears to be granting the regime what it values most: time. This arrangement allows the IRGC power structure to move from crisis survival to post-strike consolidation.

The question is whether Washington understands the relationship between coercive pressure and a defined political end-state. The regime was weakened, struck, and forced into a defensive posture nearing collapse, yet Washington has hesitated to define what must replace it.

This is the recurring failure in Washington’s Iran policy. Washington treats factional variation inside the regime as a strategic opportunity, when in reality it is a regime preservation mechanism. The Islamic Republic has long used its manufactured factions to manage external pressure.

Time is the regime’s greatest asset

Ghalibaf is not a moderate, nor is he a figure with a national base inside Iran. The deal with Ghalibaf does not represent a transformation away from the regime. Ghalibaf’s function is precisely to offer Washington a “rational” interlocutor through whom the system can rebrand itself and demonstrate a facade of change.

He is the same IRGC official involved in torturing and murdering university students in July 1999, when the IRGC, Basij, and the police threw students off the rooftops in Tehran University dormitory. At the time, Ghalibaf was the commander of the IRGC’s air force. He later took pride in his involvement in suppressing the students in a 2013 speech.

The regime has correctly identified the center of gravity of Washington’s weakness: the absence of a declared political end-state during the war. Washington has applied pressure, but pressure without an end-state creates exploitable ambiguity. 

Ghalibaf’s maneuver must be read through that framework. Dealing with a securitized regime actor means the preservation of the same rogue regime that produced the crisis in the first place. The regime’s objective is survival until US President Donald Trump’s term ends.

Evolutionary adaptation: A harder regime

Credibility is not an abstract moral asset. It is a strategic capability. Allies calculate reliability through demonstrated consistency between declared objectives and operational behavior. Adversaries calculate risk through observed willingness to sustain pressure beyond the first phase of confrontation. 

If Washington signals support for regime change, applies force, and then negotiates a pathway that results in regime survival, every hostile state will learn a clear lesson: American escalation can be absorbed if one can survive long enough to exploit Washington’s search for an exit ramp.

The regime, in particular, would not just survive. Its near-death experience would turn into an evolutionary adaptation. A regime that endures sustained American and Israeli strikes but secures a political reprieve would study the experience, harden its institutions, decentralize political and military command nodes, refine internal repression, and immunize itself against future conflict. 

The next war would not face the same vulnerable adversary. It would face a regime that has absorbed the lessons of Washington’s hesitation.

It is also a significant risk in alienating Israel, the United States’s combat ally in this confrontation. Israel correctly understands the regime not as a negotiable irritant, but as a systemic and existential threat that cannot be incentivized to normal behavior. 

When Washington drifts toward accommodation with a securitized regime insider while Israel remains committed to dismantling the threat in its entirety, alliance cohesion and operational synergy suffer.

Trump’s original strategy was powerful

President Trump’s earlier posture toward Iran was strategically significant because it departed from Washington’s recurring pattern. He told the Iranian nation that help was on the way. He encouraged Iranians to take over their institutions and signaled Washington’s support for their uprising. 

Trump’s original strategy followed that declaratory policy: weapons were sent – even though they were stolen by Kurdish militia – and the regime was struck militarily at its highest levels. This signaled Washington’s political resolve: the regime must go.

Once the greatest military power publicly aligns itself with a nation in revolt and applies force against the regime suppressing that nation, credibility becomes inseparable from resolve. Reversing course at the regime’s weakest point – under the influence of advisors favoring de-escalation – is a blow to the image of the United States as the hegemon.

The only explanation that renders this MoU logical is if the Trump administration is pushing for managed surrender under the guise of negotiations. That would mean a strategy ending in regime collapse and transition, not preservation by a regime insider. 

Otherwise, if the substance of the arrangement is sanctions relief and the release of billions of dollars, its logic is not transformation but rescue; even the regime officials whom American and Israeli militaries took out would have accepted those terms enthusiastically.

A legacy defining decision

The silence of key administration figures such as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio is notable because it reflects the political sensitivity of the MoU. Their absence from the public defense of the MoU suggests, at minimum, an unwillingness to publicly own an arrangement that could preserve the regime after American firepower brought it to the edge of defeat.

US Vice President JD Vance, by contrast, appears to be driving this disastrous Iran policy. His approach is presented as de-escalation, but de-escalation is not the same as strategic discipline. Nor is this an America First policy. It is transactional isolationism – and only a caricature of it. 

Footage from Switzerland tells the tale, whereas Vance only received the isolation. An America-first policy should not rescue an anti-American regime at the moment of maximum vulnerability. And it should not pressure allies while granting survival space to adversaries. Trump should not allow his legacy to be overshadowed by that misjudgment.

Pahlavi: Legitimacy and governance

Iran is not Venezuela – a Delcy Rodríguez model does not work. Legitimacy cannot be bought with foreign support or diplomatic arrangements.

The correct policy is to support regime change under the leadership of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who has a demonstrated capacity to mobilize Iranians inside Iran and across the diaspora. Pahlavi provides what others cannot: legitimacy beyond the regime, a counterpart to Washington, and a complete framework for regime change that results in a stable transition and governance. 

A post-Islamic Republic Iran would become a durable American ally – and even enable the building of a permanent American military base in Iran.

The regime is at its weakest, politically and militarily. The Iranian nation is ready to overthrow the regime under Pahlavi’s leadership. The strategic opportunity exists. 

Trump must choose between allowing the regime to rebrand or victory through regime change. Anything but the latter is retreat.

The author holds a PhD in international relations from Queen’s University.

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq has found itself threatened by Iranian-backed militias and by Iran over the last months and years. Since February 28, there have been around 850 drone and missile attacks on the region. Over the years, there have also been numerous attacks on oil and energy facilities in the area.

Iraq has generally looked on at the attacks with bemusement. For Iraq, it doesn’t seem to matter whether the Kurdistan Region is attacked because then the region can’t sell oil or provide itself with gas for electricity.

Now, it appears the concerns from the Kurdistan Region are being listened to in Baghdad. This comes with the arrival of a new prime minister, Ali Al Zaidi, who has been in office for two months. He has sought closer ties with the US and has claimed he will try to disarm Iranian-backed militias in Iraq.

Drones cause blackouts by targeting oil fields, exports expected to increase

Zaidi’s drive to secure Iraq has meant that it now appears that the Kurdistan Region may receive some protection from drone and missile attacks. The Kurdish media outlet Rudaw noted on June 22 that “the joint security committee formed to assess the security situation of oil fields in the Kurdistan Region has completed its work and submitted its report to Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, marking a step toward protecting oil fields from missile and drone attacks.”

The drones have often targeted the Khor Mor gas field. This is a large gas field not far from Sulimaniyeh on the road toward Kirkuk. It is operated by the Pearl Consortium (led by UAE-based companies Dana Gas and Crescent Petroleum). It provides electricity to the Kurdistan Region. In the past year, the region has finally received electricity throughout the day.

Years ago, it was common for electricity to go off half the time; and people had generators.

Now, Rudaw notes, “According to officials, Baghdad has undertaken responsibility for guaranteeing the protection of the oil fields and the safety of workers, as international companies prepare to resume production at full capacity.” The report quotes Sipan Sherwani, a member of the Iraqi parliament’s oil and energy committee, who told Rudaw’s Ziyad Ismael on Monday that the process has reached its final stages.

“Yes, the reports are complete. They have been submitted. Zaidi has provided a guarantee in writing to the oil companies to resume their operations,” Sherwani said. “We anticipate that in the coming days, based on statements from the oil companies, oil exports from the Kurdistan Region will increase to over 205,000 barrels per day.”

The report goes on to quote Sabah al-Numan, spokesperson for the Commander-in-Chief of the Iraqi Armed Forces. He said that Baghdad is “moving ahead with defense contracts” but emphasized that “final decisions rest with the defense establishment.” He went on to say that “the Iraqi Ministry of Defense has contracts with major international companies to install an advanced air defense system… Ultimately, it is the vision of Iraq and the Ministry of Defense that determines the necessary type of defense system, its source, and the mechanism of the contract.”

Rudaw said that “Erbil and Baghdad have also agreed on a broader security arrangement in which, once air defense systems are installed near the oil fields, Peshmerga forces will remain deployed in these locations after receiving training. Their role would be to protect oil infrastructure from potential drone and missile attacks by outlaw groups.”

This is important for the region. Oil and gas in Iraq are now a key aspect of trade routes to Syria and Turkey. There are talks about a pipeline to Turkey’s Ceyhan, for instance. Iraq is also trucking oil to Baniyas in Syria. Now that the Strait of Hormuz is open, Iraqi oil will begin moving around the world again.

Iraqi production dropped by 3 m. barrels per day

Rudaw noted, “Oil companies resuming operations in the Kurdistan Region fall into three categories: those damaged by drone attacks needing up to a year to recover, undamaged firms restarting within weeks, and others outside the Baghdad-deal currently in talks with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).”

Iraq is producing 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd), compared to around 4.5 million before the Iran conflict.

Iraq wants more exports to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. “This would consist of 250,000 barrels from the Kurdistan Region, 250,000 barrels from Kirkuk, and another 250,000 barrels from fields in central and southern Iraq, which would be transported by tanker to Kirkuk and exported through the Kurdistan Region’s pipeline,” a source told Rudaw.

Preventing attacks on energy infrastructure is key to making the Kurdistan region secure, as well as enabling stability in Iraq.

As this happens, the Kurdistan region is also seeking to unify its Peshmerga armed forces. Iran is also providing tacit approval to Baghdad’s claims of disarming armed groups.

Iran’s ambassador to Iraq, Mohammad Kazem al-Sadeq, said to the Iraqi News Agency (INA) that Iraq’s decision to disarm groups is “an internal Iraqi matter.”

The Islamic Republic claims to “respect any decision the Iraqi government makes in this regard.” Iran likely thinks Iraq is bluffing in terms of actually disarming the Iranian-backed militias.
 
 

The commander of the IDF Home Front Command‘s Northern Division Brig.-Gen. Alon Friedman told members of the emergency response squads in northern Israel that standby teams would be heavily reduced starting Sunday, an IDF document said on Monday.

This comes in light of the ceasefire with Hezbollah and a resumption of talks between Israeli and Lebanese delegations in Washington.

However, a Northern Command source noted that while the squads will be ending their continuous reserve duty, they will be placed “in readiness in case of escalation or a heightened incident.”

A member of Moshav Goren’s emergency response squad denounced the decision by saying that it is “a spit in the face of everyone who has protected the area over the last three years.”

“The ink on the ceasefire agreements has not yet dried, the silence here is a false and tense silence, and the first decision taken is to dismantle the last line of defense of our settlements? The people who left everything, who did not sleep at night, and who were the first to jump and the last to leave,” he added.

“To release the squads immediately, without a transition period, without proven security [infrastructure] on the ground – this is not a return to routine. This is abandonment,” he said.

Netanyahu handing northern communities to Iran, Qatar

“After selling the residents of the Gaza border communities to Qatari interests, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is doing it again, and handing over the future of the northern communities to Iran and Qatar,” a member of Kibbutz Kfar Giladi’s emergency response squad said.

“This is no longer abandonment. It is harmful to the security interests of residents of the North, and all of Israel,” he added.

According to him, this decision is a strategic disaster that may lead to mass abandonment of residents.

Home Front Command eases security guideline restrictions on Lebanon border communities

The announcement follows HFC’s announcement that defensive guidelines in areas near Lebanon will be restored to a level of “full activity ” on Monday.

Due to the long-standing conflict with the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, and the threat of rockets and drones faced by the communities closest to the border, many communities have been restricted for much of the last two and a half years.
 
A ceasefire in Lebanon is included in the US-Iranian Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which was signed last week by both parties. Despite this, fighting was reported in southern Lebanon after the adoption of the ceasefire, which could threaten the stability of the MoU.

BARY, an Israeli AI company founded in Tel Aviv, was sold to the French media and technology group Netgem, as part of another Israeli exit in the artificial intelligence sector. Netgem, which is traded on the Euronext exchange, said it is acquiring the French-Israeli startup BARY, which developed TheSubtil.ai, an AI-based system for translating, subtitling, and dubbing films and series. Under the deal, Netgem will acquire the company’s technology assets and its research and development unit in Israel.

The company, founded by Matthias Cohen-Skalli, Eli Zarbiv, and Sasha Rebo, developed the system over 18 months of research and development in Israel. Its aim is to solve one of the main problems facing the global streaming and entertainment industry, the high costs and long timelines required to translate and adapt content linguistically for international markets.

According to the company, the technology it developed reduces content localization costs by about 50% and significantly shortens turnaround times. While the cost of subtitles and linguistic adaptation has until now stood at about 18 euros per minute of content, the system can reduce the cost to about 9 euros.

“Our main advantage is the combination of an advanced AI engine with strict human oversight,” said Matthias Cohen-Skalli, one of BARY’s founders. “The human element is essential to preserve cultural nuances, humor, and local expressions that technology alone cannot always convey.”

Since its launch, TheSubtil.ai has translated thousands of films, series, and television programs in more than 25 languages. Among other things, the system has seen strong demand in regional European languages, including Catalan.

Even before the acquisition, the company had demonstrated its capabilities through cooperation with the M6 Group, one of France’s largest media and television groups, which supported the product’s development and helped adapt it to market needs. The technology was also used on thousands of works shown at leading international film events, including the Cannes Film Festival and the Venice Biennale.

TheSubtil.ai to form part of Enclair

Following the acquisition, Eclair, part of the Netgem Group and one of the oldest companies in the film services sector, founded in 1907, will fully integrate TheSubtil.ai and make it a central component of its localization activities in France and other international markets.

At BARY, the company is already looking ahead. It is investing in the development of the next generation of accessibility solutions, led by subtitling systems for the hard of hearing and deaf (SDH), a field that in recent years has become a significant regulatory and commercial requirement for streaming giants around the world.

At the company, the deal with Netgem is seen as further proof of the Israeli high-tech industry’s ability to produce technologies with global impact and attract significant international investment, even against the backdrop of the region’s complex geopolitical reality.

The acquisition marks BARY’s transition from the development stage to the industrial stage, with the technology developed in Israel now expected to reach some of Europe’s largest studios, broadcasters, and streaming platforms.

Trained to avoid rushing to judgment, we historians know there will be far more to learn about Monday’s Montreal bloodbath, wherein a terrorist killed one police officer and one civilian.

The police claim the terrorist was not antisemitic and that the resulting murder of a beloved Jew in the Jewish neighborhood attacked is coincidental.

Assuming that conclusion holds, Canadians and their leaders must admit that even if antisemitism didn’t trigger this crime, the lynch-mob mentality against Jews, Zionism, and Israel drove it as well as other acts of political violence.

The same argument holds when terrorists attack areas with no Jews at all. It’s essential to recognize that by tolerating so much antisemitism and “Zionophobia” – hostility toward Zionists – many Canadians helped foster an atmosphere of political totalitarianism breeding extremism, zealotry, and violence.

Silence often speaks volumes. Those who keep quiet while others harass Jews, Israelis, and Zionists broaden the zone of tolerance for all forms of brutality. In healthy democracies, there are no innocent bystanders; when fellow citizens are besieged, silence is complicity.

Lack of public reaction to antisemitism

Jesse Brown opens his March 2026 Atlantic essay, “Canada’s Polite Pogrom,” with a devastating line. Describing how the University of British Columbia’s Ed Rosenberg quit teaching geriatric medicine after 30 years, Brown explains that the antisemitic bile students and colleagues at the University of British Columbia posted after October 7 was bad enough. Nevertheless: “He did not resign because of the messages…; he resigned because the university wouldn’t do anything about them.”

Antisemites around him could be dismissed – it’s hard to feel betrayed by twisted people who celebrated such perversions. But Rosenberg and so many others have felt betrayed by so-called “innocent bystanders” and supposedly responsible administrators who did nothing. 

The insult is compounded by a cancel culture and DEI bureaucracy exaggerating the slightest slips into massive grievances – when it comes to other groups.

Selective silence is equally painful, double-crossing the targeted – and emboldening aggressors. On June 1, Prime Minister Mark Carney modeled the kind of political cherry-picking that justifies using the cliché “doing more harm than good.”

Carney’s 2600-word speech about antisemitism never used the Z-word, Zionism, and only mentioned Israel once. That’s like denouncing Southern racism without defining it as an obsessive bigotry against blacks.

Linking anti-Zionism with antisemitism is not some Jewish delusion; it’s a conscious stance wired deeply into the Palestinian national movement’s DNA. Palestinians and their enablers yell “Death to the Jews” and target Jewish schools, synagogues and individuals when they’re enraged by Israel.

Palestinians and their enablers recycle old Jewish stereotypes and dip their anti-Zionism in the toxic reservoir of anti-Semitic slurs. And it’s Palestinians and their enablers who have fed a spike of Jew-hatred since October 7, because the antisemitic anti-Zionism of Hamas and other Gazans on that bloody day inspired them.

Carney’s omission was particularly glaring because he o so earnestly, speaking in French, invoked the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor to explain Canada’s “celebration of differences.” 

That acceptance reflects Taylor’s notion of “recognition,” Carney explained, which “is more than mere tolerance…. To be recognised is to be received as who you are.”

How ironic that in this speech Canada’s prime minister refused to recognize or receive how Zionists are – or admit how much they have been pursued.

These full and partial silences help amplify today’s shouters, who continue to believe they run the conversation.

They dominate the airwaves, the headlines, and social media. Today’s loud, often foul-mouthed, hotheads view everything through a partisan lens – which paves the road to totalitarianism.

Reducing our complex world to a series of all-or-nothing political propositions oversimplifies and inflames discourse simultaneously.

Extremists thrive in this highly charged atmosphere. They make politics tribal – us versus them. And they escalate identity into zealotry.

Belonging is no longer enough. Bullying the other becomes expected, fundamental – first, most easily, in Tweets, then in words to strangers, then in breakups over politics with friends and relatives.

Once that happens, once you’ve demonized and objectified the other, it’s easy for unstable maniacs to turn violent. After all, everyone else has convinced them that if you dare disagree with me – you’re an existential threat to me and our democracy.

Canada’s turn from Canada the decent and delightfully boring, to Canada the indecent and menacing, reflects this evil logic’s spellbinding power. Of course, not every terrorist or partisan firebrand is a Jew-hater or an anti-Zionist. But Jew-hating and Israel-bashing green-lighted a culture of political fervor and abuse.

We now live in a world – in democracies – where healthy functioning adults – not just lunatics – act crazy. They shun colleagues and friends, harass shopkeepers or customers, hit little kids, shoot their schools, and assault their places of worship, proudly, while earning high-fives in return.

For decades we’ve known in theory – it starts with the Jews, but never ends with the Jews. The words were mouthed – and are mouthed whenever Jews are targeted. We need more than words.

The twin evil genies of Jew-hatred and political violence, which have long been intertwined, have been unleashed, and Jews aren’t responsible for returning either foul force into its bottle. 

Jews should focus on defending themselves just enough to feel free to double down on being Zionist, doing Jewish, and celebrating Israel.

It’s the much larger non-Jewish world that must remember two long-lasting lessons. Jew-hatred is the disease of the non-Jew, not the Jew.

And citizens in healthy democracies must defeat the totalitarian, conspiratorial, violence-breeding evil of antisemitism, doing it, not for the Jews’ sake, but for the sake of their own societies, and their own souls.

The writer is an American presidential historian and a senior fellow in Zionist thought at the Jewish People Policy Institute in Jerusalem. Last year he published To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream and The Essential Guide to Zionism, Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism and Jew-hatred, available on the JPPI website. Next month, he will publish The Essential Guide to the U.S-Israel Partnership, the 250th Edition.

The gravestone of Behnam Layqpour, a 37-year-old tattoo artist murdered by the Islamic regime’s security forces during the 2022 Women, Life, Freedom protests, was vandalized in Iran’s Rasht cemetery, according to the Iranian legal network DadBaan.

Human rights groups claim that Layqpour’s body was returned to his family after four days on the condition that they declare his cause of death a heart attack. Members of his family told the citizen journalism site IranWire that he was shot at close range when he happened upon a protest while enjoying the company of friends.

Layqpour’s sister told the legal network that each blow struck on her brother’s grave landed on her mother’s heart.

“If only you knew that every blow you struck upon it landed on the heart of a mother who still breathes with his memory… landed on the soul of a sister who still waits in hope to see him… landed on the shoulders of a brother who carries the pain of his absence with him every day… and landed on the hearts of all those who would never trade their love for Behnam for anything,” she said. “This act of yours is nothing but a display of disrespect and a fall from humanity, of which no trace remains!”

This is not the first time that Layqpour’s grave has been vandalized, according to his sister, who shared that paint has been thrown over her brother’s resting place in previous incidents.

Islamic Republic vandalized, paves over thousands of graves

In the video, which claims to have been taken on June 19, members of Layqpour’s family can be heard stating that, even “after three years and nine months, they still won’t leave this poor deceased person alone… We will not be defeated. We will rebuild it even more beautifully than before.

“No matter how much you destroy it, may you never find peace. Nothing is diminished from Behnam’s worth and values. Whoever did this to Behnam, may a curse be upon everything you have and everything you don’t have.”

The Islamic Republic has frequently vandalized the graves of its victims. In 2020, it destroyed the resting site of the executed champion wrestler Navid Afkari. Last year, it paved over the thousands of graves of individuals killed during the 1979 Islamic Revolution to construct a parking lot at the Behesht-e Zahra.

In 2024, the United Nations’ special rapporteur described the state’s attempts to destroy the graveyard as an effort to “conceal or erase data that could serve as potential evidence to avoid legal accountability” regarding its actions.

In April, Iran International reported that the regime had begun destroying the gravesites of some of the thousands of protesters murdered by security forces during the January protests.

At Tehran’s Behesht Zahra, some of the graves were reportedly leveled and covered with cement, according to the diaspora site. In other cases, inscriptions were reportedly changed.

The public war of words between US President Donald Trump and the Iranian negotiating team about when and to what extent IAEA nuclear inspectors will be allowed to visit the regime’s nuclear sites is missing a central point.

Those who demand that the IAEA inspectors get to return to their “full” access from 2021 – when Iran started to partially limit their access – or to receiving fuller access as compared to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal are ignoring that what will be inspected now is not the same.

From 2015-June 2025, Iran had three major nuclear enrichment facilities with large numbers of centrifuges or other machinery and materials at Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow.

There were dozens of other smaller nuclear sites, some of which the IAEA also had access to, such as Karaj, but Iran’s around 20,000 centrifuges, especially its advanced ones, were at the top three sites.

Monitoring enrichment and the installations of the new centrifuges at these sites was the main mission of the IAEA inspectors.

Inspection would revolve mainly around future capabilities

Why will any current mission be radically different?

Because all of these sites have been bombed.

There are either zero or close to zero centrifuges to monitor.

This means that most of the monitoring is not about an existing nuclear program, but about listing what pieces of that program still function, and ensuring that they are not rejuvenated, or that new facilities are not established.

Among the listing of what portions of the program can still be used, possibly the most central initial mission of the IAEA will be retrieving and either removing or monitoring the dilution of over 400 kilograms Iran’s high-level 60% enriched uranium, which has been buried deep under the rubble of the three main nuclear sites for around a year since the sites were struck in June 2025.

Although discussed much less, it will also be critical for the IAEA inspectors to ensure disposal or dilution of the regime’s 20% enriched uranium.

Iran giving up or diluting the 60% enriched uranium is the central concession it has made to make the current deal possible.

It will probably take weeks if not months of using special engineering machines as well as special protective suits to retrieve and dispose of the 60% enriched uranium.

This will be a highly complex task that the IAEA may not have done before, but once it is over, it will not be a continuous task.

It is unclear how long it will take to locate and dispose of the less discussed 20% enriched uranium, but that task also would seem to be time limited by weeks or months.

In other words, within months of Iran allowing access to retrieve the uranium, many of the IAEA inspectors may be able to leave Iran because they may have little to do.

IAEA inspectors could utilize intel from agencies such as Mossad, CIA in the future

It might be important for some IAEA inspectors to regularly check these old sites, but there is significant evidence that the Islamic regime may have decided to largely abandon the sites because the destruction there was so extensive, that building newer sites made more sense.

In that sense, after the initial uranium is disposed of, the longer and second stage of the inspections will need to focus on new facilities and preventing the building of unknown new facilities, something which Iran has an extensive history of doing.

It is unclear that the IAEA is equipped for such a role.

Rather, the IAEA will need to have some number of teams on the ground in Iran waiting for new situations in case, and when the Mossad, CIA, or other western intelligence service – interestingly enough Dutch intelligence has played some important roles at times – provide them with surveillance of new suspected facilities.

Jumping out and having immediate access to such new suspicious facilities will be the core role of the IAEA inspections for most of the life of the deal.

This is assuming that the deal prevents Iran from enriching uranium for 15-20 years, or some period of time followed by some time when it can enrich only at the 3.67% lower level, which was used under the 2015 nuclear deal.

When there is no enrichment, the IAEA inspectors will only be there to perform crack inspections, but otherwise will have little to do.

If and when the new deal allows Iran to enrich at a low level, then the IAEA inspection team would go back to its 2015 monitoring role of the centrifuges.

Regarding new nuclear sites, the most important one for the IAEA inspectors to gain access to is Pickaxe Mountain.

Iran has been building this facility since 2021, but to date it has not yet been viewed as operational.

This, and concerns that no US or Israeli bombs can penetrate the facility, which is even deeper under a mountain than the Fordow underground facility, are the reasons it has not been attacked to date.

But it will be critical for the inspectors to establish that it is not operational or is not being used for anything nuclear weapons related, since it is unclear whether such activities could be bombed.

All of these changes could give both sides some victories in the latest public dispute about inspections.

Anywhere there is 60% or 20% enriched uranium, the IAEA inspectors must have access as they must ensure all of the uranium is disposed of.

But in other sites where there was no such uranium or fully built centrifuges or weapons group dedicated experiments, the inspectors may not need access or may be able to be given temporary access just to ensure that there really is nothing dangerous concealed.

This could allow both sides to declare victory.

The US can get extensive access to the sites which really matter, and snap inspections even to such sites, whereas Iran could say it gave only very limited access to other sites which are less important or were completely destroyed.

However, the sides negotiate this issue, it is critical that the public understand that the inspection game now is completely different than it was before the June 2025 war and the early 2026 war, because most key Iran nuclear program components have been bombed and the name of the game is less monitoring a living program, than it is ensuring that the plug is pulled on what is left of the “on life-support” nuclear program, and making sure no new programs are built.   

Former US congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene followed far-right political commentator Tucker Carlson in breaking ties and rebuking the Republican Party in a X/Twitter post on Monday.

“Tucker is not the only one who is done supporting the Republican Party. There is A LOT of us that are absolutely fed up and will not support a party that betrays its voters and country,” Greene announced.

“That does not mean we are turning into Democrats either. But we are DONE with the America LAST Republican Party.”

Greene’s comments came after Tucker Carlson stated in a podcast that “there’s no chance I would support the Republican Party” in reference to the upcoming midterm elections in November.

Both pointed out that breaking with the GOP didn’t mean they were supporting the Democratic Party.

Since the US went to war with Iran, a segment of the GOP has been increasingly critical of Trump

Both Greene and Carlson have been vocal critics of the Trump administration’s handling of the economy, the so-called Epstein Library, and the Iran War during his second term.

After the US-Israeli strikes on Iran at the end of February, Carlson publicly apologized to his almost 18 million followers on X for encouraging them to vote for Trump in the 2024 Presidential elections. With that, he dismissed the candidate and party he had supported for over a decade. 

In the same podcast episode of Can’t Be Censored, Carlson elaborated on why he would not endorse the GOP.

“How could I or any American voter support a political party that’s not loyal to the United States. That puts the interests of a foreign country above those of its own citizens.”

Carlson has characterized Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign as funded largely by people “loyal to Israel” and that the pro-Israel lobby is forcing him to pursue policies that are harmful to the US and its citizens. 

“What we know for certain is that the United States went to war with Iran, a war we are losing, that we’ve effectively lost already, because of pressure from the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu,” Carlson asserted.

Trump has repeatedly dismissed any claims that he has been manipulated by Prime Minister Netanyahu or any other foreign actors.

“I call the shots. I call all the shots… [Netanyahu] doesn’t call the shots,” Trump said in a March interview with the Financial Times.

Like Carlson, Greene is a former Trump supporter who served as representative for Georgia’s 14th district. She resigned from office after splitting with Trump over his handling of Jeffrey Epstein’s case. Since leaving office, she has been vocal in her criticism of Trump and his allies.

Her announcement to leave the Republican Party comes as the latest fracture in a formerly solidly pro-Trump part of the GOP.

Pro-Israel evangelical activist Laurie Cardoza-Moore urged the Texas State Board of Education on Tuesday to reject what she described as attempts by the Council on American-Islamic Relations to influence the state’s social studies standards, warning that decisions made in Texas could shape textbooks and classroom instruction across the United States.

Cardoza-Moore, founder and president of Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, spoke as the board considered proposed revisions to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, known as TEKS, the state standards that determine what public school students are expected to learn.

The standards are used in evaluating instructional materials and influence how publishers, districts, and teachers present subjects including world history, religion, terrorism, Israel, and the Middle East.

“We cannot allow Texas textbooks to be written by Hamas,” Cardoza-Moore said in a statement ahead of her testimony, accusing CAIR of trying to shape how Islam and the Middle East are taught in American classrooms.

CAIR has publicly acknowledged taking part in the Texas standards process. CAIR-Texas said earlier this year that its representatives had testified before the board to urge that Muslims be “accurately represented” in world, US, and Texas history curricula.

CAIR has extensive ties to Muslims Brotherhood, previously banned terror-funding orgs. says Cardoza-Moore

In April, the organization called on the board to reject proposed social studies revisions, saying they unfairly targeted Muslims and tied Islam and Muslim historical figures disproportionately to terrorism while omitting Muslim contributions to world history and civilization.

CAIR describes itself as a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization and has repeatedly denied allegations that it is affiliated with Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, or any foreign terrorist organization.

Cardoza-Moore, a longtime conservative Christian activist on textbook issues, argued that CAIR’s involvement should alarm parents and education officials.

“CAIR is the US arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist anti-American organization bent on using the political system to destroy it from within,” she said. “They were labeled an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorist fundraising operation in US history in 2007. Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood in the Holy Land. We cannot allow Texas textbooks to be written by Hamas.”

Federal prosecutors listed CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator in filings connected to the Holy Land Foundation case, a landmark Dallas terrorism-financing prosecution involving support for Hamas. CAIR was not charged with a crime in the case. The Holy Land Foundation and five of its leaders were convicted in 2008 of providing material support to Hamas.

The Texas curriculum debate has become part of a wider political fight over Islam, Christianity, Israel, and minority history in American public education. The State Board of Education gave preliminary approval to the social studies overhaul in April after a contentious debate over the portrayal of Islam, Black history, Hispanic history, Christianity, and terrorism.

‘Not just making decisions for Texas’

Texas officials are now considering the standards for second reading and final adoption. The proposal covers elementary, middle school, high school, and other social studies courses. Public comment on the proposal ran from May 15 to June 15, and the Texas Education Agency said the board would take registered oral and written comments during the June meeting.

Cardoza-Moore said Texas carries influence beyond its own classrooms because it is one of the largest textbook markets in the country.

“Texas is not just making decisions for Texas,” she said. “What happens in Texas rarely stays in Texas. Because Texas is one of the largest textbook markets in the nation, its curriculum standards often influence educational content adopted by more than twenty other states. The decisions made today could shape what millions of students learn for the next decade.”

In remarks prepared for the board, Cardoza-Moore invoked the historical bond between Tennessee and Texas, citing Tennesseans who fought at the Alamo, including Davy Crockett.

“Today, PJTN comes to Austin in that same spirit, not with weapons, but with a commitment to truth, education, and the defense of our shared Judeo-Christian values,” she said. “The battlefields may have changed, but the stakes remain high.”

Cardoza-Moore has served on Tennessee’s Textbook and Instructional Materials Quality Commission and has been active for years in state-level textbook debates. She drew national attention in 2012 after objecting to content in a Tennessee human geography textbook that she said appeared to justify the 2001 Hamas suicide bombing of the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem, where 15 people were killed.

The dispute over CAIR’s role in Texas comes months after Gov. Greg Abbott designated CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organizations and transnational criminal organizations under Texas authority. CAIR and affiliated legal groups sued Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton days later, calling the designation unconstitutional and defamatory. CAIR has maintained that it operates lawfully as an American civil rights organization.

Cardoza-Moore said the board should focus on historical accuracy and resist pressure from activist groups.

“Students deserve historical accuracy, not political indoctrination,” she said. “They deserve to learn the truth about America’s Judeo-Christian heritage, the role of the Jewish people in our nation’s founding, the history of Israel, and the forces that threaten freedom and our Republic.”

For Cardoza-Moore, the Texas debate is a national test case.

“Just as Tennesseans stood with Texas in one of its defining moments,” she said, “we stand with Texas today as it considers educational standards that will influence classrooms not only across the Lone Star State, but throughout America.”

Imagine what would happen if a known antisemite like New York mayor Zohran Mamdani, Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, Louis Farrakhan, or David Duke mocked Israel’s right to self-defense when attacked.

There would undoubtedly be a legitimate uproar.

Imagine if the vicious criticism vilifying the Jewish state was uttered with a smirk during a war of defense that began with the most Jews murdered in one day since the Holocaust.

There would certainly be a well-deserved public outcry.

And imagine that the nasty condemnation of America’s most dependable ally was said to a media outlet known for besmirching Israel exuberantly.

It would of course have ruffled some feathers.

But that uproar, that outcry, and that feather ruffling have been conspicuously absent since one of the most antisemitic and outrageous comments ever made was uttered on Thursday.

Perhaps because they happened to have been said by the man who is unfortunately the vice president of the United States, JD Vance?

I understand why Jewish organizations would be reluctant to challenge such a powerful man, who could become our commander in chief in a heartbeat, if our 80-year-old president does what a lot of 80-year-olds do every day.

Vance’s comments about Israel

But listen to what Vance told The New York Times when asked how he would respond to Israeli cabinet ministers who oppose the memorandum of understanding he reached with Iran.

“I guess my response to them would be: What is your exact proposal?” Vance said. “You’re a country of nine million people. You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have.”

Excuse me? That is pure antisemitism. We are not killers.

The world’s greatest experts on urban warfare have concluded that Israel has done more to avoid civilian deaths among its enemies than any army in the history of mankind on this earth.

We want peace more than anyone. But to achieve it, we are not willing to lay down our arms, surrender, drop dead, and disappear without a fight.

Our low numbers are not a coincidence, and they should never be ridiculed. We have endured pogroms, plagues, a Holocaust, and an October 7 massacre that our enemies have pledged to repeat again and again with the support of their sponsors whom you met at a summit in a Swiss castle.

This was not the only outrageous statement Vance said ahead of the summit.

“If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world,” he said during a White House news briefing.

That is not true. Israel maintains many alliances with many countries, especially the many countries threatened by the prospects of a nuclear Iran.

“The other thing that I would say is that over the last three months, two-thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected your homeland have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars,” he said, forgetting the strong cooperation between the Israeli and American allies in Iran during Operation Epic Fury.

So where is the ADL? Where is the National Jewish Democratic Council? Too busy celebrating Juneteenth and repeating their mistakes that led to American Jews not being ready for the aftermath of October 7.

The only one who responded to Vance’s vicious attack was one of the Israeli cabinet ministers who had called him out.

“This is the proposal, @JDVance,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote to him on X/Twitter. “To deal with the Nazis of the 21st century, just as the United States dealt with the Nazis of the 20th century.”

The Culture for Peace Institute that I head seeks nothing more than a just peace. But the vice president’s memo does not and will not promote or advance peace.

What Vance said should still be slammed by every Jewish organization, or he will believe he could get away with his antisemitism.

After October 7, Vance’s initials became “Jews’ Demonizer.”

The writer is chairman of the Religious Zionists of America and president of the Culture for Peace Institute. He was appointed by former US president Donald Trump and serves as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. The views expressed are his own. Martinoliner@gmail.com

Like most born and raised New Yorkers, I believed my home was the center of the universe. Since I’ve moved to Israel, I’ve watched how New York congressional candidates have made my new home their epicenter rather than their future districts. 

Between June 20 and June 21, 2026, MS NOW aired no fewer than four interviews with New York congressional candidates and a campaign strategist on its panel show “The Weekend: Primetime”. In every interview, either the guests themselves or panelist Ayman Mohyeldin raised the subject of the “genocide” in Gaza.  

In doing so, the network’s panelists demonstrated a dangerous trend in modern journalism: media personalities acting as judge and jury, flattening strict international law into a political talking point. 

The only candidate MS NOW interviewed who refused to label Israel’s war in Gaza a “genocide” was Jack Schlossberg, running in New York’s 12th congressional district.  

It was hard to ignore Mohyeldin’s dismay after Schlossberg refused to capitulate to this narrative, even after the anchor pushed back twice.  

Yet Mohyeldin’s passionate advocacy for the label ironically revealed how little he, or his co-panelists Elise Jordan and Catherine Rampell, understand about what the word actually means. Genocide is not a colloquialism, a feeling, or a matter of opinion; it is a legal charge with a stringent threshold. Under the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, the crime requires a specifically proven “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” 

The burden of proof in the newsroom

In the newsroom of MS NOW, however, the burden of legal proof appears entirely optional. 

For instance, when Mohyeldin attempted to corner Schlossberg, he pulled up a recent social media post by Israeli Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir calling to “burn” Lebanon. Mohyeldin triumphantly asked if this rhetoric was genocidal. While this rhetoric is undeniably incendiary, using a quote about Lebanon to prove a legal charge of genocide in Gaza reveals a profound misunderstanding of how specific evidentiary standards work. The legal definition of genocide requires the intent to destroy a distinct, specified group; a post about a completely different country is legally irrelevant to the charge at hand.  

Furthermore, Israel’s prime minister quickly and explicitly refuted Ben-Gvir’s statement. By weaponizing selective, irrelevant details, Mohyeldin demonstrated both his ignorance of the evidentiary standard and a clear agenda to malign Israel regardless of the facts. 

The panel’s legal illiteracy was compounded when Schlossberg himself stumbled, incorrectly stating that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found it “plausible” that Israel was committing genocide. Strikingly, none of the panelists corrected him. Had they done their journalistic homework, they would know the ICJ issued a narrow ruling in January 2024 on the “right to be protected,” not on the merits of the genocide charge itself. Former ICJ president Joan Donoghue explicitly corrected this widespread media error on the BBC in April, stating: “The court did not decide… that the claim of genocide was plausible.” 

The nadir of the interview arrived when Jordan challenged Schlossberg. Acknowledging his Juris Doctor from Harvard, she asked him what he “sees” as a situation that “qualifies as genocide.” Jordan fundamentally misunderstood that a legal definition is a fact, not a matter of personal opinion.  

In a very clear double standard, the MS NOW panelists abandoned this rigorous cross-examination when interviewing other guests over the last weekend – such as candidates for NY-7 Antonio Reynoso and Claire Valdez, and strategist Morris Katz. When they casually dropped the phrase “genocide in Gaza,” the panelists never asked them to justify their accusation.  

Consider Valdez, who claimed to stand up for the dignity and security of “people everywhere.” The hypocrisy of her interviewers was obvious when they failed to ask if that dignity and security extended to Israelis. They gave her a complete pass, ignoring both her admission to protesting Israel just after the October 7 Hamas massacre and her pledge to block Iron Dome funding, a policy that endangers Israeli lives. 

Likewise, when Katz decried “taking money from AIPAC” and “sending taxpayer dollars to fund more of Netanyahu’s wars” as signs of corruption, the panel simply nodded along.  They failed to question his hyper-fixation on an American lobbying group lawfully advocating for pro-Israel policies, while ignoring hostile foreign governments like Russia, Iran, and China that attempt to sway US elections. The MS NOW panelists only sought to scrutinize the one candidate who insisted on maintaining a fact-based, legally accurate argument. 

Genocide is a legal term, and whether a state committed it must be proved in court, not in the newsroom. The architects of the post-World War II order envisioned international law as the bedrock of a liberal democratic world, empowering courts to pursue justice against perpetrators of the ultimate evil based on rigorous evidence. 

When media personalities bypass this process, deciding Israel’s guilt in a studio rather than a courtroom, they set a dangerous precedent. They cease to act as journalists and instead mimic the outlets run by authoritarian regimes, where guilt is presumed before innocence and verdicts are decided by political narratives rather than evidence. 

New Yorkers who value democracy and the liberal world order should consider what kind of world they seek to live in and remember this when they watch complex, legal realities co-opted into colloquial political smears. 

The writer is a US media researcher at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) in Israel. She was previously a Breaking News Desk Manager at The Jerusalem Post. She grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

On June 22, Israel’s Ministry of Defense posted about “deepening ties Eastward.” The reference was about the ministry’s director general leading an official defense delegation to India. Meanwhile, the IDF posted a photo of a June 21 meeting between the Hellenic Navy Chief of General Staff, Vice Admiral Dimitrios-Eleftherios Kataras, and the Commander of Israel’s navy, Vice Admiral Eyal Harel.

The Defense Ministry’s Director General Amir Baram noted, “India is a key strategic partner of the State of Israel. This important visit, the result of a lengthy bilateral preparation process, reflects the great importance that India and Israel attach to expanding their growing defense and industrial alliance – but no less so, the depth of the bond between our two nations.”

Baram called it “a bond rooted in shared values, deep cultural appreciation, and mutual trust that goes well beyond mere interests. That is what makes this partnership unique, and the joint projects we are advancing together all the more meaningful.”

The two meetings are important. They illustrate the important defense and security ties that Israel has with India and Greece. When one considers the more expanded bloc of countries with which Israel has positive relations, such as Cyprus, as well as Bahrain and the UAE, this forms a long line that connects the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean.

The two meetings are important. They illustrate the important defense and security ties that Israel has with India and Greece. When one considers the more expanded bloc of countries that Israel has positive relations with, such as Cyprus, as well as Bahrain and the UAE, this forms a long line that connects the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean.

Region’s instability can be tied to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, meant to stall peace initiatives

This is a key example of the role that Israel and its friends can play in the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). The corridor has been discussed over the past several years. It is part of a growing list of connections formed in the region linking Europe and Asia.

The Middle East Institute in June 2026 defined IMEC as “a proposed multinational infrastructure initiative aimed at upgrading connectivity between the three regions through integrated trade, energy, and digital networks. Announced at the Group of 20 (G20) Summit in New Delhi in September 2023, IMEC is envisioned partially as a counterweight to China’s international infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).”

The institute’s article notes that the “multinational initiative consists of two main segments: an Eastern Corridor linking India to the Persian Gulf and a Northern Corridor connecting the Gulf to Europe via the Levant and Mediterranean. Its multimodal infrastructure, including railways, deep-water seaports, electricity grids, and high-speed data cables, could potentially reduce shipping costs by billions and shipping times by up to 40% compared to traditional routes. At present, however, the corridor in its original form is effectively on hold due to regional instability.”

The instability is related to the conflicts in the region, particularly the Israel-Hamas War and its aftermath. Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, at least in part, to sabotage Israel’s growing ties in the wake of the 2020 Abraham Accords.

New initiatives have seen rejuvenation after Gaza ceasefire

The fact that initiatives such as the Abraham Accords appear to have stalled – in terms of major public meetings and new members – illustrates the challenge for Israel.

Other initiatives, such as I2U2, the Negev Forum, and the Atlantic Council’s N7 Initiative, all appear to be in a kind of limbo.

Now there is potential movement. With the wars winding down and the US and UN-backed peace deal in Gaza, as well as the US-Iran talks in Switzerland, there is an opportunity for a brave new world to emerge.

How might this happen? Military and trade ties are important. Countries such as Pakistan are playing a key role in the Iran talks. India, a friend of Israel’s, has generally been a rival of Pakistan.

Qatar is also playing a role. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan are also working together increasingly on regional policy. For some in Jerusalem, this represents a potential challenge.

While many public meetings have been on a kind of hiatus in terms of the Abraham Accords, India, Israel, Greece, and Cyprus have continued to hold key engagements.

The recent meetings with the Greek navy are an important example. The IDF noted that “the visit reflects the depth of the security relationship between Israel and Greece and the shared commitment to further strengthen strategic and operational cooperation between the two countries.”

Meanwhile, in India, the director general of the Israel Ministry of Defense (IMOD), Maj.-Gen. (Res.) Amir Baram held a series of high-level meetings with India’s defense minister, defense secretary, chief of defense, chief of staff, and other senior officials from India’s Defense Ministry.

Both sides discussed avenues for deepening bilateral defense and industrial cooperation,” Israel’s Defense Ministry.

The ministry went on to say, “This visit reflects the defense minister and the Defense Ministry’s strategy to expand defense exports as a tool for strengthening the IDF’s force build-up, shaping foreign policy, and bolstering the Israeli defense industry and economy. It is part of a broader effort to widen Israel’s circle of strategic partnerships, with an eastward focus and deepen cooperation with key nations in the region.”

The European Union’s decision to host Taliban officials in Brussels on Tuesday has drawn widespread criticism from human rights activists, who note that members of the group were granted visas despite its documented crackdown on women’s rights since returning to power in 2021.

The discussions are planned to go ahead as part of Europe’s plan to deport failed Afghan asylum seekers. According to data published by the union, member states received around a million asylum applications from Afghans between 2013 and 2024, with roughly half approved.

The five Taliban representatives are permitted to spend only one day in Belgium, exclusively, per their visa conditions announced on Monday.

“Member states are looking into ways to return persons who have committed serious crimes and who are possibly a security threat. So this is the initiative that the [European] Commission is now following up on,” European Commission spokesman Markus Lammert told the EU’s daily press briefing on Monday.

Since its return to power in Afghanistan, the Taliban has steadily rolled back women’s rights, banning girls aged 13 and up from attending school and legalizing domestic violence and child marriage from as young as nine.

Taliban fired at modesty-law protestors

More recently, the organization has begun abducting women whom it claims have violated its hijab policy and opening fire against those demonstrating against their detention.

Afghan journalist Mursal Sayas told The Jerusalem Post that she wanted to see the global community pressure the Taliban into respecting human rights and that part of that pressure campaign would see the EU cancel the visas.

Additionally, she urged Germany to sever relations with the Taliban and remove its consul from the country.

“Countless individuals have been tortured and abused in prisons,” Sayas told the Post. “This ongoing situation represents a severe escalation, with children and women being beaten in the streets and kidnapped over the issue of hijab. Reports also indicate that the authorities are demanding money from families for the release of these girls and women.”

Fereshta Abbasi, an Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch, also asserted that “Any engagement with the Taliban needs to prioritize protecting human rights and accountability – not deporting people to danger there.”

Eve Geddie, director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office, commented, “The desperate scenes of people – including EU staff – fleeing Afghanistan are a recent memory. It is unconscionable that the EU would now try and deport people to Afghanistan, which has only become more dangerous in the meantime.”

Socialist Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Juan Fernando López Aguilar, according to The Guardian, also said he was “appalled” by the EU’s decision to host members of the Taliban, given the ongoing human rights violations.

“It’s absolutely an outrage and a total loss of faith and the credibility of the European Union that it can hold such a double standard,” he said.

MEP Hannah Neumann, of the European Free Alliance, along with 27 other MEPs, wrote to the EU’s leadership to complain that the talks violated terms agreed upon in 2021 and reaffirmed only months ago, which clearly stated there would be no normalization or implicit legitimization of the Taliban.

Outside of the Taliban’s repressive policies, Afghanistan is currently mired in a deep humanitarian crisis. According to the UN World Food Programme, more than 17 million Afghans are “food insecure.”

The International Rescue Committee also reports that hunger affects around 40% of the population.
 

Iran alone will decide how to use assets that are unfrozen under a deal with the United States, an Iranian envoy said on Tuesday, denying Washington would have any control over the funds or that they must be used to buy US commodities.

The US waived sanctions on Iran for 60 days from Monday after the talks in Switzerland on turning an interim deal into a lasting peace agreement. Frozen Iranian assets worth about $12 billion are expected to be released under the initial accord.

Vice President JD Vance said on Monday that the US and Qatar would have control over the funds when they are unfrozen, and that the money ⁠could be ​spent on US corn, soy, and wheat.

Ali Bahreini, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, said on Tuesday the two sides had held “very good talks” but challenged Vance’s statement on the use of the assets.

“Iran is the only country to decide what to do with its assets, which are going to be defrozen, and so I reject any claim about that if there would be any role for any other country to have an influence on those decisions or on those processes,” Bahreini told reporters in Geneva.

Frozen assets largely consist of oil revenues and CB reserves trapped overseas

He said two working groups would be established in the coming days to discuss the removal of sanctions against Iran and issues related to Iranian nuclear activities.

Iran’s frozen assets largely consist of oil revenues and central bank reserves trapped overseas, built up over years of sanctions.

Bahreini said there would be some technical arrangements made by Washington and Doha, because the assets were frozen by the US, and some are in Qatar.

“Certainly Iran does not allow them to have further influence on the other processes, which have been related to buying the commodities and importing them. That is something that Iran, and only Iran, will decide,” he said.

Lebanon ‘red lines’

Bahreini said the lifting of sanctions on the sale of Iranian oil and chemical products was a test which could be extended to other items and that Iran sought the complete removal of sanctions.

Bahreini also underlined the importance to the US-Iranian deal of fighting ending in Lebanon, where US ally Israel has been battling Iran-aligned Hezbollah militants.

“Iran’s ‘red line’ is any more attack against Lebanon,” he said, urging Washington to “use all its leverage” on Israel to halt the violence.

A ceasefire has largely held in southern Lebanon since Sunday, but Lebanon’s Civil Defence and state media said Israeli gunfire had killed two people there on Tuesday. Hezbollah said the incident violated the ceasefire.

The Israeli military said it had “struck armed terrorists who posed an immediate threat” to soldiers in southern Lebanon, but it was not clear if this was the same incident.

Morocco, Albania, and Greece will join the International Stabilization Force (ISF) in Gaza, which will handle peacekeeping operations during the Trump administration’s Phase II of the ceasefire, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

There is still no specific information on the timing of deployments to the three new countries, but by mid-January, reports indicated that Morocco would team up with Indonesia as the two largest peacekeeping forces.

A small number of Moroccan planning officers have already arrived to take part in discussions on the future International Stabilization Force for Gaza (ISF), which could mark an early operational step toward the long-delayed multinational force, the Post has learned.

The officers are involved in planning work and are not being deployed into Gaza at this stage, officials familiar with the matter stressed. The number of officers is understood to be in the single digits.

Still, the move is significant because Morocco had already been named as one of the countries expected to participate in the ISF, and the arrival of planning officers suggests that at least part of that commitment is beginning to move from public pledges to operational preparation.

Indonesia first country to join ISF mission, contributing 8,000 soldiers to Gaza

The development comes months after the Post reported that Morocco and Albania were expected to join the ISF, which is intended to handle aspects of peacekeeping in Gaza during Phase II of the Trump administration’s ceasefire plan between Israel and Hamas.
KAN News also reported at the time that Greece was expected to join the force.

Those developments followed the announcement that Indonesia would be the first country to join the ISF mission. The Associated Press reported at the time that Indonesia’s contribution was expected to begin with 1,000 soldiers in April and reach around 8,000 by June, although questions remained over whether conditions in Gaza would allow such a deployment to go ahead.

In February, ISF commander, US Army Maj.-Gen. Jasper Jeffers, said that Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, and Albania had committed troops to the force. Egypt and Jordan, he said, had committed to training Palestinian police forces.

The long-term plan, according to Jeffers, was for the ISF to reach 20,000 troops and to train 12,000 police officers. The force was expected to begin in Rafah and expand sector by sector.

Morocco’s role is especially sensitive and important. The country normalized relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords in 2020 and has maintained special defense ties with Israel since then.

A Moroccan role in Gaza’s postwar security arrangements would carry diplomatic weight, particularly among Arab and Muslim-majority states still weighing whether to take part in the US-backed plan.

In December 2025, the Post reported that the US-led Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) was already working with Israel and international partners on Gaza rebuilding plans and preparations for the ISF.

That planning included how the force would move between Israel and Gaza, how materials would be transferred through Israel for stabilization work, and what rules of engagement the force would eventually operate under.

At the time, defense sources said there had been extensive discussion about the force but no real progress in getting it off the ground. 

The IDF has also been involved in talks with the CMCC regarding the ISF’s mission parameters. Israel has pushed for the force to have clear goals for disarming Hamas and to avoid becoming what Israeli officials have described as a “UNIFIL 2,” a reference to years of Israeli criticism that the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon failed to prevent Hezbollah’s military buildup.

Israeli officials have previously expressed concern that an international force in Gaza could be asked to supervise ceasefire lines without directly confronting Hamas or disarming the terrorist organization.

ISF to supervise ceasefire, not expected to confront Hamas militarily

Previous Post reporting also indicated that the ISF and participating countries, including Indonesia, were not expected to seek direct confrontation with Hamas at the initial stage.

Instead, the force has been expected to supervise current ceasefire lines and possibly handle other border-related issues.

No final timetable has been set for a broader Moroccan deployment, and it remains unclear whether Rabat will ultimately send combat troops, police personnel, or a smaller support contingent.

For now, Morocco’s involvement appears limited to planning.

But in the context of Gaza’s stalled postwar security arrangements, even a small Moroccan presence may be an early sign that the ISF is beginning to take shape.

Belong, a private aliyah-promotion initiative, issued a challenge to US President Donald Trump on Tuesday: “If you think the agreement with Iran is a good one, call on your daughter and son-in-law to make aliyah to Israel.”

As part of their campaign, Belong shared a satirical, AI-generated video showing the president arriving at Ben-Gurion Airport and saying he’s in Israel to “visit his grandchildren,” who, of course, live in Ramat Trump.

At customs, when asked if he has anything to declare, he announces, “Jews of the world, Israel needs you! Come and take what’s yours!”

Trump then meets Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, and the three drive off together toward Ramat Trump, with a narrator asking if the two will move to Israel, and whether the president will celebrate his 81st birthday in the Holy Land.

The message of the video is clear: Will Trump be willing to put his money where his mouth is, and is the agreement with Iran still worth it when it’s his own family’s safety on the line?

“Belong believes every Jew has a place in Israel’s story. We encourage Jews around the world to take an active role in shaping the future of Israeli society,” Eilon Gilad, CEO of Belong, told The Jerusalem Post.

“The Trump video is the first in a series of short AI-generated clips inviting Jews everywhere to claim what is theirs: the opportunity to help build a thriving, democratic, and flourishing Israel,” Gilad said.

According to Trump, MoU is Iran’s ‘unconditional surrender’

The video came after Trump repeatedly praised the agreement with Iran, including in a recent interview with Axios.

Trump told the outlet that there were no limits to his power and that he believed the Memorandum of Understanding between Washington and Tehran constituted Iran’s unconditional surrender, which Iran has, naturally, contested.

Trump appears to be the only one calling the deal a victory, as a recent survey conducted by the Agam Institute and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem found that the majority of Israelis view the MoU as a win for Tehran and a loss for Israel’s long-term security.

Hibbat Zion was a movement; it was an idea, it was a proto-Zionist vision and cause probably initiated by Dr. Leo Pinsker. His ideas predated Theodor Herzl. In fact, many of Pinsker’s fundamental concepts found their way into the works of Herzl, the acknowledged father of Zionism. The movement, which began in the early 1880’s, held its first conference in Katowice in 1884.

Hovevei Zion were clubs and groups of people who followed the idea of Hibbat Zion. They were lovers of Zion.

The movement was one of the founding forces that led to Zionism and, 70 years later, in 1948, the founding of the State of Israel. More than a mere movement, Hibbat Zion was a revolution – a revolution based on the premise that Jews should reclaim their destiny in their ancestral homeland.

Today, many Lovers of Israel have been thrown into a world of worry by US President Donald Trump and his commitment to get Iran to sign an agreement. Lovers of Israel, both Jewish and non-Jewish in the United States, are anxious and befuddled – not a comfortable position to be in – because of the little bits of information doled out on the Iranian deal.

Until now they were certain that Trump “had Israel’s back.” Trump himself used that very expression countless times.

Making sense of how this president of the United States acts and what he really thinks deep down has never been easy. The easiest response is to interpret Trump as endangering Israel and empowering Iran.

Trump is driven by a mix of self-interest, a highly sophisticated instinct for deal-making, and the fear of getting trapped in a protracted conflict. I am convinced that he does not believe that Iran has changed and that they will either gleefully or compliantly fulfill the deal they profess to accept.

If anything, he probably already knows Iran will not play by the rules and adhere to the game plan. Actually, he may even expect and silently hope that the Persian Regime goes back on the deal.

Trump is looking for a temporary pause. The pause is essential. It jump-started the markets, and it got the price of crude oil down and got it down fast. The president cum deal maker takes this as clear evidence that his plan is working, particularly – and this is important – in the short term.

Lashing out at allies, especially Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and calling on Vice President JD Vance to act as a foil to poke at Israeli leadership is a set-up for his future negotiations.

US, Israel relationship still strong

There has not been a breakdown or a breakup between Israel and the United States. Their relationship is still strong. They can and will disagree. Trump wants a deal, and Bibi wants security – and the two are not exclusive of each other. Trump likes to posture.

Trump gets frustrated with those who disagree with him. Especially if they disagree in public. Even more so if they disagree and get national and world coverage. He knows the power of the media and the impressions they create.

One of the most important outcomes of his public spat with Israel is that the Arab and Muslim world sees that Trump does not automatically side with Israel. This spat builds Trump’s credibility. And then he switches things up. He uses Vance as the attack dog, thereby allowing for a good cop/bad cop scenario. Vance attacks Israel, and Trump compliments Netanyahu.

For Lovers of Zion, it feels like a betrayal and even a catastrophic capitulation to Iran. But much as Iran does not play by the rules, Trump does not play by the rules. They make up the rules as they go along.

Trump’s issue with the Israeli prime minister with regard to Lebanon is not about policy. It is not about security. It is a question of timing and leverage. Israel wants to exert maximum leverage now. Trump wants a signed deal with Iran. And to get that, Israel must halt their military activity in Lebanon. Trump is hoping to create a system of incremental progress with Iran, not an all-or-nothing game.

Lovers of Zion must learn to understand Donald Trump. He does not and will never see his plan of action as a mistake. He does not offer apologies. His priorities shift. While Israel’s security is still important to the White House, other things have temporarily slipped into higher priority. And then they will shift back.

The asymmetry in the Iran agreement and meetings is impossible to ignore, and that’s intentional. It is part of Trump’s strategy. Trump has real leverage in the asymmetry; Iran has some and Netanyahu has none. To Trump, the deal is clear – no nukes, no endless war. Netanyahu knows that, and that is why, as of this writing, the prime minister has not publicly criticized the president.

Israel has not lost their friend in the White House. Trump is trying something new in order to break a years-long cycle and, he hopes, change the paradigm. There are still many opportunities to torpedo this deal. Before too long, this deal will be blown out of the water, and it will begin with the Strait of Hormuz.

The writer is a columnist and a social and political commentator. Watch his TV show Thinking Out Loud on JBS.

Anduril Industries cofounder Palmer Luckey is in talks to appoint former Israel Air Force Commander Gen. (res.) Amikam Norkin as head of the company’s operations in Israel Defense & Tech by The Jerusalem Post has confirmed. 

Norkin is currently managing partner of the Ace Capital Partners investment fund, a partnership between Key1 Capital and Aerospace Spirit – alongside Brig.-Gen. (res.) Shimon Tsentsiper, Amit Pilowsky, Danny Ackerman, and Sarel Eldor.

The fund invests in Israeli and global early‑stage companies from seed to Series A, developing dual‑use, aerospace, and defense technologies. It is currently backing four start-ups working on optical sensors for satellites, advanced robotics for ground forces, hybrid engines for vertical take-off and landing aircraft (VTOL), and a deployable VTOL platform in a box for border security and police.

Anduril is eager to copy the business model in Israel of US defense giants like Lockheed Martin and Boeing and set up similar operations. The difference is that Anduril’s ambitions in Israel appear to be broader than those of the US giants, which only integrate Israeli companies into their production chains.

“Defense tech is important for collaboration,” Norkin told D&T in a recent interview. And the timing is ideal. “Three or four years ago, investors didn’t want to deal with defense. Now it’s changed, and there is an opportunity for many VCs.”

In addition, with the tensions around the world sky-high, governments are no longer willing to rely solely on legacy defense contractors. “Governments want more private, more agile companies to be involved in defense, in order to answer battlefield questions. Small companies have unique capabilities and a quick turnaround.”

Anduril is interested in establishing its own factory in Israel, in addition to taking advantage of local R&D. Land acquisition processes have not yet begun, but this major aim reflects Luckey’s conclusions from a series of meetings held in Israel prior to the outbreak of the war with Iran in March, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of Defense Israel Katz, Defense Ministry director general Maj. Gen. (Res.) Amir Baram, Defense Ministry head of the Budget Department Brig. Gen. Nir Weingold, and other senior officials.

Interested in acquiring the startup Kela

The entry into Israel of the world’s hottest defense company will provide a major boost to Israel’s already flourishing defense industry. As previously reported by “Globes,” during his recent visit to Israel, Luckey was interested in acquiring the Israeli defense-tech startup Kela, but its founders refused the possibility of a sale at this time. 

Anduril’s international strategy is based on collaborations with local defense companies, in order to quickly adapt to new markets. This partnership includes working with both large and small companies, from diverse fields of activity. For example, Anduril has a strategic partnership with German giant Rheinmetall, to expand its activities throughout Europe.

This partnership deals with two main areas: Barracuda series cruise missiles and Fury unmanned combat aerial vehicles. Barracuda is a series of missiles that Anduril declared from the moment they were launched that they would be about 30% cheaper than the market price. The series includes three missiles: the Barracuda-100, the smallest, is designed for a range of about 157 kilometers, and carries a warhead weighing about 15 kilograms. It can be launched from a ground and air platform. The Barracuda-250, the medium-range version, is designed for targets at a distance of 370 kilometers and can carry a 45 kilogram warhead. This version is also designed for air and ground platforms. The third, the largest version, the Barracuda-500, is designed for air launch only and carries a warhead of more than 45 kilograms for a range of about 926 kilometers.

Fury is an unmanned combat aerial vehicle developed by Anduril, which costs $25-30 million — significantly less than a F-35 fighter jet. The fifth-generation F-35 aircraft, in its version in service with the Israeli Air Force, for example, costs about $80 million — compared with other versions that are priced at $100 million, or even more.

Washington plans for the stealth drone, which has a speed of Mach 0.95 (about 1,160 km/h), is about half the size of an F-16, and is designed to have exceptional autonomous capabilities, to become operational in the ranks of the US Air Force by 2029.

A possible entry by Norkin into Anduril’s operations in Israel may reflect Luckey’s desire to sell aerial weapons and aircraft to Israel. In terms of sales, Israel itself is a small market — even negligible compared with the huge sums that are growing elsewhere.

However, Israel’s ‘combat proven’ reputation, with military weapons proving themselves on the battlefield, and not just in laboratories or in trials, attracts any defense company that wants to improve its sales.

A country where Anduril has already opened a local branch and set up diverse strategic partnerships is South Korea. The US company came to Seoul for a joint venture with national airline Korea Air, to develop autonomous defense systems and shared aircraft.

The aircraft sector is just one of many in which Anduril operates. For the maritime sector, both on and beneath the sea, the US company has joined forces with Hyundai Shipyards to develop UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) and UAVs (unmanned underwater vehicles).

A subsidiary in Australia and representative office in Japan

For the growing Asia-Pacific arena, Anduril opened the Anduril Australia subsidiary in March 2022, and it is clear that the company’s headquarters in California is carefully examining other growing markets in the world.

This was illustrated last December with the opening of a representative office in Tokyo in the wake of Japan’s growing defense budget. These have already led to a huge $1.2 billion deal for the sale of the unmanned submarine “Ghost Shark”, which is produced in collaboration with the Australians.

There are even more sophisticated plans. About a year ago, Anduril entered into a tripartite agreement with Singapore and US company Shield AI, which deals with autonomous AI systems, for joint development in the world of AI. As part of the project, Singapore chose to integrate its Defense Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) and air force.

Developing a commercial aircraft for Abu Dhabi

Anduril’s Israeli branch will not be the US company’s first major foothold in the Middle East. It teamed with US company Archer, in December 2024 to develop a hybrid VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft that will serve Abu Dhabi in commercial areas.

Anduril’s huge fundraisings — on an unprecedented scale — reflect confidence in the company’s future. The company, founded in 2017, is engaged, among other things, in the development of autonomous weapons systems, aircraft, missiles and AI systems. In May, the company broke another world record in defense tech, when it completed a $5 billion fundraising round at a valuation of $61 billion.

In Anduril’s previous fundraising round, in June 2025, the company had a valuation of just over $30 billion. The funding completed this year is the largest in defense tech in 2026. Among Anduril’s prominent investors are Josh Kushner, the brother of Jared — son-in-law and close confidant of US President Donald Trump. Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital, together with prominent venture capital fund Andreessen Horowitz, led the recent round, which almost doubled the company’s valuation.

The company’s cofounder and CEO, Brian Schimpf, has said that Anduril doubled its revenue to $2.2 billion in 2025, almost doubled its workforce and moved more systems from the development stage to production than ever before.

Three years into its longest and most complex war, the IDF is accelerating the deployment of unmanned ground robots across multiple fronts as battlefield threats intensify. As troops encounter more areas saturated with improvised explosive devices and explosive drones, units are requesting faster, more autonomous platforms capable of operating in dense urban terrain, under fire.

Defense & Tech by The Jerusalem Post visited an IDF base in the center of the country that works with civilian defense companies and MAFAT – the Defense Ministry’s Directorate of Defense Research and Development-to design, test, and deliver platforms at unprecedented speed.

“Every robotic system established during the war starts here,” said Maj. A, who oversees the development hub responsible for turning urgent operational needs into fielded systems. “We understand the look and feel of the system before going to the battlefield.”

Rapid development under fire

Requests from the field shift constantly as units encounter new threats. 

“Days are intense, but we need to deploy as fast as we can,” he said. “We need to save lives. Time to market is important so we are constantly thinking, developing, testing and deploying for the troops.”

When a request arrives, engineers gather to find a solution – manufacturing parts, procuring components or bringing in outside companies. They then run full safety and usability tests to ensure troops can operate the systems under pressure.

“Some work fine in a civilian environment but don’t work on the battlefield,” Maj. A said, explaining that while some defense-tech companies have been able to prove themselves, others have not been able to make the switch from fully civilian to a dual-use or defense platform.

Occasionally, units arrive with their own ideas. “One unit came to us with a problem and a solution. It doesn’t happen a lot,” he said. “They told us, ‘I know it works, now just integrate it.’”

The team also works to reduce the complexity of platforms, making them more intuitive for troops and reservists.

“We have soldiers who are 18 – they know robots,” he said. “They grew up with them, so when they meet these robots for the first time they know how to use them. Many reservists can learn how to use them too. AI and autonomy help them in complicated and complex situations to successfully carry out the mission.”

The IDF’s expanding robotic fleet

The IDF fields a growing array of unmanned platforms, many of which have been adapted repeatedly during the past three years of war-from Gaza, Lebanon and, according to some reports, even far from Israel’s borders.

The D9 Panda, a fully robotic and autonomous bulldozer, has been operational since 2022 and heavily used throughout the past three years of fighting. Defense & Tech understands that it was recently modified to allow operators to control it from tens of kilometers away, instead of the previous 3-5 km.

The Iron Beast- a modified M113 armored personnel carrier- has become one of the most requested platforms.

Before the war that broke out on October 7, thousands of these antiquated Vietnam-era platforms were set to be sold for scrap, but the military understood that the small, slow, and vulnerable platforms could be upgraded and used to perform logistical support missions for frontlines forces.

“We didn’t know what to do with them,” Maj. A said. “Now we took the garbage and made them gold.”

Fitted with “new accessories,” these Iron Beasts can be remotely operated by troops, and according to some reports, the IDF even used the platforms as explosive devices to destroy threats in Gaza.

One of the biggest challenges, the commander said, was the surge in demand for the Iron Beast as troops faced widespread IED threats

“Troops were out in the open,” he said. “They needed protection. Instead of sending soldiers, they are sending robotic platforms. They don’t have mothers opening doors to hear that their son was killed.”

The army has several hundred in service and thousands still waiting to be upgraded to autonomous platforms – a process that takes several weeks to complete. Yet scaling production remains a constant struggle. “We face this issue every day,” Maj. A said. “The time to market is critical.”

The Ronnie RT‑20 (MTGR), a small robot used for observation and explosive‑ordnance disposal, has been deployed widely, though several have been destroyed by hostile fire. 

A number of offensive robotic platforms produced by Roboteam are also in use by battalions, alongside systems designed to detect and destroy threats – from RF and electro‑optical sensors to improvised solutions involving soccer and fishing nets.

The IDF has also been using the “Rooster” robotic drone during the war in Gaza. Developed by the defense-tech company Robotican, it’s reportedly used by commando units and special forces for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions and tactical combat.

According to the company, Rooster is a robotic hybrid drone with a “combination of ground robot and airborne drone capabilities” that can transition between flying in the air and rolling on the ground. The platform has up to 15 minutes of flying time, 40 minutes of rolling time, and an average working time of up to 90 minutes.

These platforms join other IDF ground robots already known to be in service. Together, they form the backbone of a rapidly expanding robotic ground corps.

 “These are the necessities of our reality,” Maj. A said.

The next phase: robotic swarms and autonomous teaming

As the IDF expands its ground robotics fleet, defense officials and industry engineers are increasingly focused on multi‑robot teaming, the ability for several unmanned platforms to operate together, share data and divide tasks.

Golan Malca, VP Sales and Business Development at the Israeli defense-tech company TSG, says that the company is working closely with the IDF, MAFAT as well as the three large Israeli defense companies- IAI, Elbit and Rafael- to provide mature components and systems to support modern battlefield operations. 

“The modern battlefield contains a lot of robotic platforms,” Malca said. “We provide the brain to help complete the mission. It detects the threats and provides different priorities to different threats that the robot has to handle.”

TSG provides mature components and systems, with the main product being command and control. According to Malca, who previously worked at MAFAT as the Head of the Dual-Use Division, the company is in talks with several successful companies to provide their command and control system to be integrated into ground robotic platforms.

“The modern battlefield is leading us to use robots for different types of scenarios, and the swarm situation is the next generation that will be relevant for the modern battlefield,” he said. “There is a growing trend of using robotic platforms instead of soldiers to complete the mission and even provide Battlefield Damage Assessment (BDA) reports.

Ground robotic swarms are expected to support missions such as route clearance, tunnel detection, perimeter defense, logistics resupply and close‑range reconnaissance.

The IDF has already tested coordinated operations between small EOD robots, unmanned bulldozers and sensor‑laden platforms, allowing them to map areas, identify threats and relay information to troops before they enter.

The concept mirrors the IDF’s growing use of aerial drone swarms, but adapted for the slower, more complex terrain of urban combat. Engineers say the combination of autonomy, AI‑assisted navigation and human oversight will allow multiple robots to operate in areas too dangerous for soldiers.

Despite increasing autonomy, Maj. A emphasized that the IDF maintains strict human control. “We always have a human operator in the loop, especially when pulling the trigger,” he said.

Innotal Conference

In addition to the robotic platforms replacing troops on the front lines, the military is also working to improve conditions across the IDF. Last week the second Innotal Innovation Conference took place in Tel Aviv, showcasing new technologies being incorporated into the IDF to improve conditions for troops and enhance decision-making using advanced AI tools

The conference was led by the IDF’s Technology and Logistics Directorate (ATAL), the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Directorate of Defense Research and Development (MAFAT) and the Israel Innovation Institute. Senior officials from MAFAT and the IDF took part, including MAFAT head  Brig.-Gen. Dr.Danny Gold, Financial Advisor to the Chief of Staff and head of the Budget Department Brig.-Gen. Nir Weingold and others.

The Innotal program is in the midst of its second cohort of civilian projects, developed in cooperation with the IDF, quickly and able to handle the ongoing operational challenges faced by troops. Hundreds of candidates; 11 projects were chosen to move forward with the program. The projects-which handled issues in the field of medicine, robotics, energy, and others – included one that originated in Taiwan. The emphasis of this cohort was on AI development that would make the scaling of processes within the military more effective in addressing challenges in the field.

A new technique to identify ancient fires has pushed the known timeline of early human fire use and interaction back to about 1.8 million years ago, according to a new study.

The study builds on the previous discovery, published in a 2012 study in the scientific journal PNAS, which revealed traces of early humans using fire at Wonderwerk Cave in the Kalahari Desert of South Africa as early as one million years ago.

Here, however, researchers using a new method of identifying traces of ancient fires based on the light-emitting properties of burned bone succeeded in pushing back the timeline to 1.07 and 1.79 million years ago.

Researchers explained that when bones exposed to high heat are illuminated with specific wavelengths of light, they light up with a distinctive glow.

Combining this technique with certain chemical analyses, researchers were able to identify burned animal bones with a “high degree of confidence.”

“Evidence of fire from such ancient sites is often subtle and difficult to detect,” explained Prof. Kolska Horwitz of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “Our study provides new tools for identifying traces of ancient burning and reveals that fire was repeatedly present deep inside Wonderwerk Cave.”

The new method is groundbreaking for several reasons: it is non-invasive, portable, and can be used on large collections of fossils without causing damage.

Studying fossilized bones left behind by owls

Using this method, researchers analyzed traces of burning on hundreds of tiny, fossilized bones left behind by owls that had once roosted in the cave. 

“Because these remains accumulated naturally on the cave floor,” the study noted, “they provide an independent, non-anthropogenic record of ancient events.”

From the bones, the researchers have discovered clear evidence of fire in an archaeological layer where artifacts believed to be associated with Homo erectus have previously been found.

The location of the remains is also significant. Found approximately 30 meters inside the cave, hidden away from the reach of wildfires and lacking guano remains, indicating that naturally occurring fires – likely those sparked by lightning or wildfires – may have been brought inside to be used until they died out.

Further, the study suggested that the early humans may have used owl pellets as fuel, resulting in the hundreds of tiny burnt rodent bones that researchers studied.

“Nevertheless, bringing fire into a cave and maintaining it represents a significant behavioral achievement,” the study affirmed.

“These discoveries show that early humans were not simply passive observers of natural fires,” Horwitz explained. “They were actively engaging with fire and incorporating it into their lives.”

The study, titled “New evidence for Early Pleistocene use of fire at Wonderwerk Cave (South Africa),” was published in the journal PLOS One in June 2026 by an international team made up of Hebrew University of Jerusalem researchers, as well as those from Spain, Argentina, Canada, USA, South Africa, Portugal, and Israel. 

The Islamic Republic has received a license to produce, deliver, and sell crude oil for the next 60 days, the US Treasury Department announced on Monday.

The authorization will allow the United States to import Iranian crude oil and petroleum products until August 21, 2026, though transactions involving North Korea, Cuba, and Russian-occupied Ukraine remain subject to sanctions.

“In line with the ongoing productive talks in Switzerland, Iran has committed to free and open transit in the Strait of Hormuz and to permit International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors into their country,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced on X. “As part of the framework, Treasury has issued a temporary 60-day general license authorizing the production, delivery, and sale of Iranian oil.”

The impact was almost immediate in the global market as oil prices fell dramatically on Tuesday. Brent crude futures were down 44 cents, or 0.6%, to $77.46 a barrel and US West Texas Intermediate was down 30 cents, or 0.4%, to $73.56 a barrel at 0813 GMT.

On Monday, government data showed US crude stocks in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve fell to 331.2 million barrels last week, the lowest since June 1983, as supplies tightened as a result of the Strait of Hormuz’s three-month-long closure.

1.5 million barrels of oil daily before Hormuz closure

The Islamic Republic was able to export more than 1.5 million barrels of oil daily before the closure of the Hormuz, which declined to 209,000- 260,000 after the blockade. The maritime intelligence firm TankerTrackers first reported that Iran has exported approximately 36 million barrels of crude oil since June 15.

On Friday, the firm said the Islamic Republic had exported $1.44 billion in crude oil that week alone.

Shahar Golomb, a lecturer in economics and finance from Afeka Academic College of Engineering, told The Jerusalem Post that it was too early to assess the full implications of the two-month reprieve, but asserted that “there is a real risk that the Iranian regime will use part of these funds to rebuild or strengthen its military and regional capabilities.”

“The US administration appears to have made a cold cost-benefit calculation: allowing a temporary reprieve may be less costly than prolonging a conflict that could destabilize energy markets, push oil prices sharply higher, and create broader risks for the global economy,” he commented. “In other words, this is not necessarily a vote of confidence in Iran, but rather a pragmatic attempt to reduce the immediate economic and geopolitical damage.”

Reuters contributed to this report.

A 67-year-old man was shot dead Tuesday morning on Route 70 near Kabul Junction in the western Galilee, in what police described as a criminal-background shooting, amid reports that he was the father of a state witness in a major organized crime corruption case.

The killing, on one of the main roads in the area, as the man was reportedly on his way to work, has renewed concern over the ability of law enforcement authorities to protect not only witnesses who cooperate with police, but also their families.

Magen David Adom said it received the report at 6:28 a.m. and found the man unconscious, without a pulse or breathing, suffering from penetrating wounds. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene.

Police said they opened an investigation and began searching for suspects. They described the background as criminal.

Later Tuesday, the Acre Magistrate’s Court issued a 30-day gag order on the investigation. The order bars publication of all details from the investigation, including the victim’s identity. The victim is therefore not named in this report.

Media reports specified him as the father of a state witness connected to a large corruption and organized crime case in northern Israel. Police had not publicly confirmed that the reported family connection was the motive for the shooting.

The reported link has particular significance because the state witness’s family had already faced a series of alleged threats and attacks after he began cooperating with investigators.

KAN reported that, in January, a suspect was arrested on suspicion of breaking into the witness’s home and delivering a threatening message to his family. A vehicle belonging to the family was later set on fire, according to the report, while the witness was confronting suspects in the investigation. An explosive device then detonated at the witness’s home.

Similar instance occured in Nazareth earlier this year

In April, a 61-year-old man who was a relative of another key prosecution witness in the same case was shot dead outside his home in Nazareth. Police said at the time that the background to that shooting was criminal and that the circumstances were under investigation.

The state witness has been publicly linked to a high-profile investigation into alleged corruption involving a northern municipality and an organized crime group. The case led earlier this year to indictments against former municipal officials and alleged crime-group figures. Those proceedings remain pending, and the defendants are presumed innocent.

The Abraham Initiatives, a nonprofit organization that tracks crime- and violence-related killings in the Arab sector, said Tuesday’s shooting raised difficult questions about the protection provided to state witnesses and their relatives.

State witnesses essential tool to dismantle crime groups, Arab-Israeli crime watchdog says

The group said state witnesses are an essential tool in efforts to dismantle crime groups, but that cooperation with law enforcement may become far harder to secure if witnesses and their families fear retaliation.

The organization said 135 Arab citizens and residents had been killed in crime- and violence-related circumstances since the start of 2026. Of those, it said, 120 were shot dead. The total compares with 124 victims during the equivalent period last year, according to the group’s data.

The video recording of two former Syndey nurses saying they would kill Israeli patients has been thrown out by the presiding judge, and can no longer be used as evidence agaisnt them in the upcoming trial.

Judge Michael McHugh ruled Tuesday that evidence obtained improperly or in contravention of an Australian law cannot be admitted.

“Ultimately, I have come to the firm view that all the video evidence must be excluded from each of the trials of the applicants,” the judge said.

Nurses argued video was taken without consent

This comes after the nurses argued that the recording – taken by Israeli content creator Max Veifer during a conversation – was obtained without their consent, thus breaching NSW laws.

Both former nurses have pleaded not guilty, and will be facing trial in August.

The only Jewish Board member of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR), Mark Berlin, has resigned, citing unwilling to be associated with the upcoming “Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present.”

Berlin, a legal scholar and expert on human rights, was appointed to CMHR’s Board of Trustees in 2018. He is also a professor at McGill University’s International Development Institute with a background in human rights law.

He resigned from his post at CMHR on Monday, stating that he could not be associated with the Museum if it proceeded with its planned exhibit, “Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present.”

‘A one-sided perspective’ 

“Telling the story with a one-sided perspective chosen by the museum serves to deepen division and contributes to further hostility toward Jews in Canada,” Berlin wrote in his letter.

“Presenting the Palestinian displacement of 1948 without its proper historical and political context offers a narrow, one-sided argument of history that can only deepen the distrust and animosity that currently exists between Jews and Muslims in this country.”

“The museum has a statutory and moral obligation to tell the full truth, not to sacrifice it at the altar of politics. By their actions, the Museum’s mandate is thereby compromised along with the public’s confidence in its integrity.”

He added that it is difficult to understand how telling the story of Palestinian displacement in 1948 while omitting the simultaneous expulsion of 850,000 Jews from the Arab states can be viewed as “anything other than politically motivated.”

The letter, addressed to the Hon. Marc Miller, Canada’s Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, also raised serious concerns about CMHR’s governance and its ability to fulfill its obligations pursuant to the Museums Act.

“Because the museum chooses to proceed with this exhibit in its present form despite repeated concerns raised by myself and members of the mainstream Jewish community, I can no longer, in good conscience, continue to serve as a Trustee,” he concluded.

B’nai Brith Canada speaks out on the Nakba exhibit

B’nai Brith Canada said Berlin’s letter validates B’nai Brith Canada’s objections to CMHR’s plans for the Nakba exhibit.

“Mr. Berlin is a respected scholar and someone who has worked on the ground to promote peace and human rights in Israel and Palestine,” said Simon Wolle, B’nai Brith Canada’s Chief Executive Officer.

“His letter must serve as a wake-up call not only to the CMHR’s remaining trustees but to Minister [Marc] Miller.”

Wolle said the Government has sought to “shirk” its responsibility to intervene, despite significant concern that the Nakba exhibit will undermine the Museum’s reputation and cause harm to Canadian society.

“With this new information, B’nai Brith hopes and expects that the finger-pointing will stop; that the government will hold itself and its stakeholders accountable, and that the repeated failures to take responsibility where it matters will once and for all be corrected.

On June 18, B’nai Brith Canada issued a set of clearly articulated expectations to the CMHR. Following Berlin’s resignation, B’nai Brith is escalating the matter with both the CMHR and the Federal Government.

Noah Shack, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), said: “The resignation of the museum’s only Jewish board member is a clear indictment against the Museum’s handling of the controversial ‘Nakba’ exhibit.”

“The lack of transparency in the exhibit’s development, including the prominent role played by political activists—one of whom has described our community’s identity as “a disease to be destroyed”—has severely undermined confidence in a publicly funded institution and ultimately left its sole Jewish board representative feeling compelled to resign.”

Shack called on the Minister of Canadian Heritage to hold the museum’s leadership accountable and ensure that national institutions are “not weaponized against Canadians to serve a one-sided political agenda.”

CMHR has come out in support of its exhibit, despite Berlin’s exit.

On Tuesday, it published a statement saying the exhibit focuses on the lived experiences of Palestinian Canadians and the human rights impacts of forced displacement.

CMHR said that this exhibit falls “squarely within our mandate” and “focusing this one exhibit on the human rights violations faced by Palestinian Canadians does not negate the human rights violations faced by Jewish people.”

CMHR said it remains committed to fighting antisemitism and is in communication with Jewish organizations.

The exhibit is set to open June 27, 2026.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned on Tuesday to the defense of his relationship with businessman Arnon Milchan, as his testimony in the corruption trial entered what is expected to be its final stage.

Netanyahu appeared at the Tel Aviv District Court for continued re-examination by his attorney, Amit Hadad, after the prosecution completed its cross-examination last week.

Re-examination is a limited stage of testimony, intended to clarify issues raised during cross-examination rather than reopen the evidence more broadly. Throughout Tuesday’s hearing, the judges blocked several of Hadad’s questions on the grounds that Netanyahu had already answered them during his cross-examination.

Hadad focused on Case 1000, the so-called gifts affair, in which Netanyahu is charged with fraud and breach of trust. The indictment alleges that he received expensive gifts, including cigars and champagne, worth hundreds of thousands of shekels from Milchan and Australian businessman James Packer, while acting in matters connected to Milchan’s interests.

Netanyahu maintains it was a genuine friendship

The defense has maintained that the relationship was one of genuine friendship rather than an improper exchange between a public official and a benefactor.

To reinforce that argument, Hadad showed Netanyahu photographs from social and family gatherings with Milchan that predated Netanyahu’s return to national politics. Netanyahu described the images as evidence of a close relationship between the two families, including during periods when he said he did not expect to return to public life.

“They eulogized me at the time and saw me as a political corpse,” Netanyahu said of the period after his first term as prime minister. “And I saw myself that way too.”

Hadad sought to use the photographs to counter the prosecution’s suggestion that Netanyahu had always expected to return to political power, and that Milchan’s access to him remained valuable even when Netanyahu was temporarily out of office.

The judges also considered Hadad’s attempts to revisit questions concerning Milchan’s alleged access to Netanyahu during meetings and matters involving Milchan’s US visa. Prosecutors objected that Netanyahu had already provided clear answers, and the bench largely accepted that position.

At one point, Hadad complained that the court was preventing the defense from exposing what he called a misleading picture created during cross-examination.

Presiding Judge Rivka Friedman-Feldman responded that Netanyahu had ultimately answered the questions put to him and that the defense’s objections had been recorded during the proceedings.

Netanyahu then departed from a question concerning the merger of television networks Keshet and Reshet to deliver a broader attack on the investigation.

Netanyahu: ‘I dedicate my life to the State of Israel’

“I dedicate my life to the State of Israel,” Netanyahu said. He added that when he was questioned by police about a decade ago, he had believed in and defended the legal system, but had not imagined that investigators would “brazenly lie to a prime minister.”

Netanyahu accused investigators of attempting to construct a “fictitious reality” in order to remove him from office. The judges repeatedly sought to steer him back to the specific question before him.

Likud MK Tally Gotliv and Otzma Yehudit MK Almog Cohen attended part of the hearing.

The session took place as Netanyahu is also navigating an internal Likud dispute over the party’s next Knesset list. Per reports, while Likud primaries are expected to go ahead, Netanyahu is seeking to secure several personally reserved places on the slate for candidates of his choosing.

Once Hadad completes the re-examination in Cases 1000 and 4000, Netanyahu’s own testimony is expected to conclude, though the wider trial will continue with the remaining defense case.

Back in May, Italy, the UK, France and Germany informed Israel that it needed to put an end to “settlement activity.”

Their joint statement called the areas in which this settlement activity was taking place the “occupied territories, including the E1 area project” east of Jerusalem that, as they stated, “would effectively cut off the West Bank from East Jerusalem.”

They were also perturbed that “the situation in the West Bank has deteriorated significantly,” with “Settler violence is at unprecedented levels.” The “entrenchment of Israeli control” is “undermining stability and prospects for a two-state solution.”

Furthermore, they demand Israel “respect the Hashemite custodianship over Jerusalem’s Holy Sites and the historic status quo arrangements.” The clincher in their diplomatic anger is that “International law is clear: Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal.”

As Professor Sharon Pardo of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev suggested at the independent media Euroactive site on June 12, Europe is obsessed with Israel. The “EU should ask why Israel occupies so much space in its diplomatic imagination and whether that hyper focus reflects balanced diplomacy or an entrenched double standard.”

I would add to his observation that France and its settlement presence in New Caledonia should attract more attention, and if the EU were more involved in Turkey’s occupation and settlement of Northern Cyprus, a resurgent Neo-Ottoman Empire might be prevented from arising.

A top agenda item for today’s Left – be they socialists, Marxists, progressives or just plain liberals – is “Jewish settlement in the occupied territories.”

In this post-colonial period, “settling” has been framed as an illegal action, usually perpetrated by Europeans on black and brown peoples, which is part of colonizing. However, even the very much quoted Geneva 49 Article does not include the term of settling.

There is, though, another international law document that does. It is the Mandate for Palestine, adopted by the League of Nations in 1922. The decision to reconstitute the Jewish national home was made unopposed by some 50 nations after the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference set the matter in motion and after it was confirmed at the San Remo Conference in 1920.

Its Article 6 reads: “The Administration of Palestine…ensuring that the rights…of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall…encourage…close settlement by Jews on the land…” Jews, then, possess a guaranteed internationally recognized right to settle in its historic homeland.

Zionism was not the establishment of a “spiritual center”, a hovering “light to the nations” or an improved socialist paradise that would outdo the Soviet Union. It was foremost the realization of the idea of the Return to Zion.

Settling the land not only was a vision, not only was it a mitzvah – a religious commandment – not only was it a simple necessity to create a place for Jews to live, but it was, and continues to be, the essence of Jewish national identity.

Settling the land, or, more properly, resettling the Land of Israel, is the natural right of Jews, who have been living on this land for over 3,000 years, a land incorporated into its national psyche and performance in religious and cultural rituals and customs, its literature, its language, and its value as being the homeland where Jews can be free and develop according to its own decisions, with all that entails.

We should recall that on the evening of April 11, 1948, members of the Zionist Actions Committee discussed in Tel Aviv the end of the Mandate framework and a future independent state.

At that meeting, Zalman Shazar employed the phrase, “the nation will claim its inheritance…as its natural right.” Indeed, Israel’s Declaration of the Establishment of the State begins, “Eretz-Yisrael was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped.”

While contemporary youth, their college professors and the “influencers” on social media seem to find a sense of joy in their anti-Zionist antics, even pillorying a real estate promotion clip for apartments in Herzliya starring Gwyneth Paltrow, we know they are simply disguising their antisemitism.

Zionism is not European colonialism, and it wasn’t created at the end of the 19th century.

Zionism existed the moment Avram left his father’s house to go to the Land of Moriah. It existed when the Children of Israel left Egypt to return to the Land of Israel, when the exiles of Babylon returned to Zion.

Zionism is Jewish national identity

Zionism is not at all modern. It is a definition of the Jews’ national identity from our beginnings. Without the Land, almost half the commandments would not exist.

Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people’s religion and culture, its national soul, cannot be complete without a national territory and is some 4,000 years old.

A “Zionist Movement” was created in 1897 with Theodor Herzl in a long line of organizational attempts to regather the Jews in their national territory.

This included when the Bilu immigrants banded together in 1881. It existed in 1860 when Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer and the Jewish Company for the Settlement of the Holy Land initiated their efforts.

It existed when the pupils of the Vilna Gaon arrived in 1810, in1777 when some 300 hassidim came from Russia, as well as when, in 1561, Joseph Nasi obtained from the Sultan permission for Jews to settle in Tiberias.

It was alive when Nachmanides settled in Acre in 1267 and when Rav Zeira returned to the Land of Israel from Babylonia in the 4th century CE, three hundred years before Arab invaders appeared in Judea.

For over 3,000 years, continuously, Jews return to their land and resettle it. It is what Jews do.

The writer is a researcher, analyst, and commentator on political, cultural, and media issues.

Back in May, Italy, the UK, France and Germany informed Israel that it needed to put an end to “settlement activity.”

Their joint statement called the areas in which this settlement activity was taking place the “occupied territories, including the E1 area project” east of Jerusalem that, as they stated, “would effectively cut off the West Bank from East Jerusalem.”

They were also perturbed that “the situation in the West Bank has deteriorated significantly,” with “Settler violence is at unprecedented levels.” The “entrenchment of Israeli control” is “undermining stability and prospects for a two-state solution.”

Furthermore, they demand Israel “respect the Hashemite custodianship over Jerusalem’s Holy Sites and the historic status quo arrangements.” The clincher in their diplomatic anger is that “International law is clear: Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal.”

As Professor Sharon Pardo of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev suggested at the independent media Euroactive site on June 12, Europe is obsessed with Israel. The “EU should ask why Israel occupies so much space in its diplomatic imagination and whether that hyper focus reflects balanced diplomacy or an entrenched double standard.”

I would add to his observation that France and its settlement presence in New Caledonia should attract more attention, and if the EU were more involved in Turkey’s occupation and settlement of Northern Cyprus, a resurgent Neo-Ottoman Empire might be prevented from arising.

A top agenda item for today’s Left – be they socialists, Marxists, progressives or just plain liberals – is “Jewish settlement in the occupied territories.”

In this post-colonial period, “settling” has been framed as an illegal action, usually perpetrated by Europeans on black and brown peoples, which is part of colonizing. However, even the very much quoted Geneva 49 Article does not include the term of settling.

There is, though, another international law document that does. It is the Mandate for Palestine, adopted by the League of Nations in 1922. The decision to reconstitute the Jewish national home was made unopposed by some 50 nations after the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference set the matter in motion and after it was confirmed at the San Remo Conference in 1920.

Its Article 6 reads: “The Administration of Palestine…ensuring that the rights…of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall…encourage…close settlement by Jews on the land…” Jews, then, possess a guaranteed internationally recognized right to settle in its historic homeland.

Zionism was not the establishment of a “spiritual center”, a hovering “light to the nations” or an improved socialist paradise that would outdo the Soviet Union. It was foremost the realization of the idea of the Return to Zion.

Settling the land not only was a vision, not only was it a mitzvah – a religious commandment – not only was it a simple necessity to create a place for Jews to live, but it was, and continues to be, the essence of Jewish national identity.

Settling the land, or, more properly, resettling the Land of Israel, is the natural right of Jews, who have been living on this land for over 3,000 years, a land incorporated into its national psyche and performance in religious and cultural rituals and customs, its literature, its language, and its value as being the homeland where Jews can be free and develop according to its own decisions, with all that entails.

We should recall that on the evening of April 11, 1948, members of the Zionist Actions Committee discussed in Tel Aviv the end of the Mandate framework and a future independent state.

At that meeting, Zalman Shazar employed the phrase, “the nation will claim its inheritance…as its natural right.” Indeed, Israel’s Declaration of the Establishment of the State begins, “Eretz-Yisrael was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped.”

While contemporary youth, their college professors and the “influencers” on social media seem to find a sense of joy in their anti-Zionist antics, even pillorying a real estate promotion clip for apartments in Herzliya starring Gwyneth Paltrow, we know they are simply disguising their antisemitism.

Zionism is not European colonialism, and it wasn’t created at the end of the 19th century.

Zionism existed the moment Avram left his father’s house to go to the Land of Moriah. It existed when the Children of Israel left Egypt to return to the Land of Israel, when the exiles of Babylon returned to Zion.

Zionism is Jewish national identity

Zionism is not at all modern. It is a definition of the Jews’ national identity from our beginnings. Without the Land, almost half the commandments would not exist.

Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people’s religion and culture, its national soul, cannot be complete without a national territory and is some 4,000 years old.

A “Zionist Movement” was created in 1897 with Theodor Herzl in a long line of organizational attempts to regather the Jews in their national territory.

This included when the Bilu immigrants banded together in 1881. It existed in 1860 when Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer and the Jewish Company for the Settlement of the Holy Land initiated their efforts.

It existed when the pupils of the Vilna Gaon arrived in 1810, in1777 when some 300 hassidim came from Russia, as well as when, in 1561, Joseph Nasi obtained from the Sultan permission for Jews to settle in Tiberias.

It was alive when Nachmanides settled in Acre in 1267 and when Rav Zeira returned to the Land of Israel from Babylonia in the 4th century CE, three hundred years before Arab invaders appeared in Judea.

For over 3,000 years, continuously, Jews return to their land and resettle it. It is what Jews do.

The writer is a researcher, analyst, and commentator on political, cultural, and media issues.

A US fighter jet pilot who was shot down over Iran in April during the height of Operation Epic Fury claims he saw a formation of Iranian drones flying in a shape resembling a jellyfish, four sources familiar with the matter told CNN on Tuesday.

The F-15 pilot told intelligence officials that he observed the “multiple Iranian drones, moving as one” during a debriefing following their rescue by US Special Forces.

“Multiple drones interconnected and moving as one with smaller drones below the bigger drones like legs… real alien s***,” one of the sources familiar with the pilot’s account told CNN.

Another source stated that the pilot described it as a “minefield of drones.”

CNN noted that it is unclear if the second member of the jet’s crew saw the drones.

What occured during the crash in April?

The cause of the F-15’s downing is still under investigation over two months after the incident. However, initial reports assess that the drone formation may have enabled Iran to shoot down the jet, two sources told CNN.

An F-15 holds a two-person crew, usually consisting of a pilot and a navigator, or weapons system officer. The downing of the jet in April was the first time that Iran had downed a US fighter jet.

The pilot was rescued several hours later after ejecting from the aircraft, while the weapons system officer hid in the mountains to evade Iranian capture for over a day before being rescued.

Questions also arise within the US Intelligence community as to how to interpret what the pilot saw.

One such concern is that the pilot was concussed during the crash, CNN noted.

Further, it was the second time that he had been shot out of the sky during Operation Epic Fury as he was part of the flight crew, which was downed in a friendly fire incident by the Kuwaiti military, two sources told CNN.

The report cited a source who said one official asked the pilot, “Are you sure you saw what you are saying you saw?”

US Intelligence concerned Iranian drone formation could signal greater capabilities, threats

Intelligence officials are concerned because several drones moving in unison within a formation would represent an alarming advance in Iranian drone capabilities, CNN noted.

One drone warfare expert told CNN that the US military would “spend huge, huge dollars, like a lot of blood and treasure, protecting ourselves from something that can coordinate like that.”

“If it can coordinate itself into a recognizable shape and maintain that shape, and if it’s got explosives on board, and if it is holding resources in reserve to attack whatever the first volley didn’t destroy – that’s a very capable approach,” they added.

Jewish groups have condemned a Boston school principal for an email he sent apologizing to Arab, Muslim, Palestinian, and Lebanese students who were offended by a mandatory Holocaust lesson.

In the email, William Diamond Middle School Principal Johnny Cole said he was “sorry” for the impact the Holocaust lesson had on some students.

“Some of you felt unseen. Some of you felt that your own history, identity, or community was left out or erased. Some of you left that session feeling less safe, not more,” Cole wrote.

While he acknowledged that hard conversations and topics are part of the school’s framework, he apologized for “missing the mark” with this class.

“Every one of you deserves to walk into this school and feel that who you are matters – Arab students, Jewish students, Lebanese students, Muslim students, Palestinian students.”

He said the teachers and working with families in the community to “build something better that “includes all of our histories.”

The Holocaust requires an apology?

Stop Antisemitism condemned the email, saying, “Since when is teaching historical fact something that requires an apology? And why is a school principal validating outrage over Holocaust education instead of defending it? Since when is teaching historical fact something that requires an apology? And why is a school principal validating outrage over Holocaust education instead of defending it?”

This is not the first time the school and its principal have made headlines over the last week.

Just days ago, one school pupil, Teaghan Murtagh, wrote a letter to the Lexington Observer about Cole’s order for her not to wear a T-shirt with the words “Save the bees. Plant more trees. Clean the seas. Punch Nazis.”

Murtagh had been wearing to school regularly for nearly two years. Her great-grandmother was a Holocaust survivor, having spent the war in a concentration camp at the same age Murtagh is now.”Dr. Cole told me not to wear the shirt to school again because he ‘had received some student complaints’ from students who ‘felt threatened’. I was floored. I wanted to ask how anyone (other than a Nazi or someone with a bee-related anaphylactic allergy) could feel threatened by the shirt. I had a feeling it didn’t have to do with the bees,” she wrote.

“When my grandmother was growing up, she knew when she needed to keep her mouth shut for survival. Over 6.5 million Jewish people were killed in the Holocaust. Against that horrific backdrop, it is a miracle that I exist. I know when I need to open my mouth and speak up. I do this through shirts, typically. My closet is full of snarky shirts, since it’s how I express myself and share my thoughts with the world. From reading books to fighting patriarchy, my closet covers it all.”

She noted that, in December 2025, students at the school drew neo-Nazi symbols on the bathroom walls in December and the “only schoolwide response was a statement on the announcements telling us to be kind.”

Cole shared with parents and students on December 17 that the graffiti included an antisemitic neo-nazi symbol and a racist anti-Black epithet.

“We live in a world that is incredibly scary right now, particularly for people who hold identities that are targeted by events like this or the events that are happening outside of Lexington. We want students to understand that they have contributed to that fear,” he said in a statement. “We want them to do the opposite of this — we want them to build a culture of unity and togetherness in this space, and suspensions and traditional disciplinary methods don’t typically do that.”

Spain’s Jewish organizations have come out in defense of renowned journalist and writer Pilar Rahola after the Barcelona Hate Crimes Prosecutor’s Office opened preliminary proceedings following a complaint filed by two activists who threw paint at her during a conference in 2024.

In October 2024, activists from the Socialist Youth Organization of Catalonia (OJS) interrupted one of Rahola’s talks and threw red paint at her in what they said was a protest against support for Israel’s actions in Gaza.

The same two activists have now filed a complaint alleging that some of Rahola’s public statements, articles, speeches, and social media posts could constitute hate speech against Palestinians or amount to incitement related to alleged crimes in Gaza. Specifically, the OJS activists accuse her of “acting as a paid collaborator of the Zionist regime and being directly involved in the commission of genocide by the State of Israel against the Palestinian population.”

They also said Rahola “consciously promotes a hate discourse that dehumanizes the victims and whitewashes the perpetrators of genocide, contributing to the creation of a climate of hostility against the Palestinian population.”

The OJS cites Rahola’s article in El Nacional in which she accepted the quote by the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy when he said that, in reality, “if Israel had wanted to carry out a genocide it would have taken three days and not three years” to commit it, and her accusations against the UN special rapporteur forthe occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, as examples of her ‘genocide complicity.’

The activists argue that Rahola’s actions contravene articles 510 and 607 of the Penal Code of “incitement to hatred and complicity with genocide”.

As a result, the Barcelona Hate Crimes Prosecutor’s Office opened preliminary proceedings, which means it is examining the complaint to decide whether it has any legal merit.

Jewish Communities of Spain say attack on Rahola is ideological persecution

The Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE) said it rejects any attempt to turn political debate into an instrument of ideological persecution.

“We respect the work of the Prosecutor’s Office, but we remind everyone that freedom of expression is a non-negotiable pillar of democracy.”

The European Jewish Congress echoed the concerns expressed by the FCJE, saying, “While we respect the independence of judicial authorities, political disagreements must be addressed through debate and argument, not through harassment, intimidation or efforts to silence individuals for expressing their views.”

Both FCJE and EJC expressed particular concern regarding the OJS’s references to an alleged “international Zionist conspiracy,” a narrative they said is “rooted in classic antisemitic tropes that have long been used to stigmatize Jews.”

Since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, Rahola has been a prominent voice in Spain and Latin America defending Israel. She has consistently challenged accusations of genocide leveled against Israel.

The Jewish Community of Barcelona praised her “firm commitment to freedom, democracy, and coexistence.”

Israel’s Representative in Spain, Dana Erlich, expressed the embassy’s “full support to Rahola in the face of those trying to intimidate and silence her.”

Rahola herself said, “If the aim of this persecution is to silence my critical spirit, I warn you that it will not succeed.”

“If they wanted to scare me, they do not scare me. If they thought I would self-censor, I will not. If they think they will make me shut up, they will not succeed. Nor will they prevent me from thinking for myself. And if they believed I would end up following the herd, they are badly mistaken. My freedom of thought is non-negotiable. It defines my human condition.”