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Meir Ben-Shabbat, a former National Security Council head, warned against complacency toward Syria and Turkey’s growing regional influence in an interview with Maariv published Tuesday.

According to Ben-Shabbat, who served as one of the architects of the Abraham Accords and currently leads the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, Israel should continue striving for peace agreements, but not at the cost of relinquishing security assets or relying on agreements that could ultimately prove reversible.

“We must not give up the aspiration for peace,” he said, “but we must not allow it to make us lose our judgment.”

Asked whether or not he believes Syria is attempting to “lull” Israel into complacency while rebuilding its military capabilities, he said that it should not be assumed that Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa “has abandoned his path.”

“I do not know how to read innermost thoughts and intentions,” Ben-Shabbat said. “But as someone who came from the heart of the jihadist darkness, sat in prison with the most extreme jihadist leaders, fought in its ranks for years while yearning for the realization of the vision of the Islamic State, and reached where he is on the shoulders of a jihadist base, with [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan’s encouragement and support, one should not be impressed by the change in his outward appearance and under no circumstances assume that he has abandoned his path.”

“In a long series of articles I have published since he came to power, I recommended assuming that the change is part of the tactic he is using in order to gain recognition for his rule, stabilize it and consolidate his position, and then turn to achieving his ideological goals.”

He added that two weeks ago, he’d said that Israel “must not give up its control of the territory or its freedom of security action for agreements that will not be worth the paper on which they are signed. This is true with regard to Lebanon, and no less so with regard to the jihadist in a suit who also serves as Erdogan’s proxy.”

“‘In any case, and above any arrangement that is formulated, the prophetic warning must hover, “‘Can a leopard change its spots?'”

Turkey taking advantage of regional power vacuum

Ben-Shabbat further stated that Turkey appears to be taking advantage of regional changes in order to establish itself as a leading regional power, and that these moves, alongside Erdogan’s “ambitions and his hostility toward Israel, increase the potential for confrontation” between the two countries.

“The first is Syria,” noted Ben-Shabbat. “Following the collapse of the Assad regime and the forced withdrawal of the Iranian military presence, Turkey has become the dominant player in Syria. Ankara is deepening its foothold through financing and training a ‘new Syrian army,’ establishing energy infrastructure, transportation infrastructure, and more.”

Another example is the newly signed Mecca Joint Defense Agreement (MJDA) between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, explained Ben-Shabbat, which “reflects the rise of a central Sunni axis.”

“This alliance is intended to provide mutual defense and regional stability without complete dependence on Washington, placing Turkey in a position of diplomatic and military leadership,” he said.

Turkey’s Blue Homeland doctrine (Mavi Vatan) is a third instance of this, Ben-Shabbat said, explaining that “Turkey’s maritime ambitions in the eastern Mediterranean directly clash with Israel’s geopolitical energy and gas alliances with Greece and Cyprus, IMEC, and its economic agreements, creating a permanent arena of maritime friction.”

A fourth example is Turkey’s continued support for Hamas and its leaders, said Ben-Shabbat.

“In addition to all of this, Turkey is currently conducting a comprehensive campaign to institutionalize accusations against Israel through a series of measures and legal proceedings,” Ben-Shabbat said. “This is intended to position Israel as an international offender whose actions violate basic norms and international law.”

Turkey, Iran are not the same

However, Ben-Shabbat said Turkey should not be equated with Iran.

“Each has its own characteristics and requires a different way of dealing with it,” he said.

To some extent, suspicion and caution on Israel’s part of regional agreements cannot hurt, Ben-Shabbat went on, but stressed that Israel “must not give up the aspiration for peace, but on the other hand, we must not allow that aspiration to make us lose our judgment.”

“We need to give everything its proper time, not rush into premature agreements, but at the same time not miss genuine opportunities. Most important, we must not place our security in the hands of any other party; we must preserve security margins, not exchange tangible assets for one piece of paper or another, and understand that an agreement can be reversible,” he said. “Even if we sign with a party that supports us and wants genuine peace, someone with a different position and different ambitions can always replace them.”

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Two Pakistanis and an Indonesian national were killed in a Houthi missile strike on a commercial ship in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the Saudi state-owned Al Hadath reported on Tuesday morning. 

Bab el-Mandeb is located between Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula, connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

This is a developing story.

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Two days after Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan signed their new joint defense agreement in Mecca on Friday, the Houthis claimed a drone attack against Saudi Aramco’s Jazan refinery. The fire was extinguished without reported casualties, but the timing brought into immediate focus the central question surrounding the new pact: If an attack against one member is considered an attack against all, what does that commitment actually require from the other two? 

Signed on August 7, the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement commits the three countries to regard an armed attack against one as an attack against all. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has compared its collective-defense provision, technically, to NATO’s Article 5, and officials from the three countries have insisted that the agreement is defensive and not directed against Iran, or any particular state. A permanent secretariat is expected to be established in Saudi Arabia, alongside regular coordination among the parties’ foreign and defense officials.

Yet describing Mecca simply as a new “Sunni NATO” risks obscuring what may be more important about it.

The pact brings together three countries with substantially different strategic priorities: Saudi Arabia, still deeply dependent on American defense systems and intelligence; Turkey, a NATO member pursuing increasingly autonomous regional policies; and nuclear-armed Pakistan, whose primary strategic competition remains with India.

It also emerged from discussions that predated the latest phase of the Iran conflict. Talks over a broader Saudi-Pakistani-Turkish framework had already advanced earlier in 2026, building on the bilateral Saudi-Pakistan Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement signed in September 2025. The continuing war involving Iran, however, appears to have accelerated the logic behind institutionalizing regional defense cooperation at a moment when missile attacks, maritime disruption and pressure on Gulf infrastructure have exposed the vulnerabilities of the existing security order.

Saudi leadership doubts US power of deterrence 

For Cyril Widdershoven, senior advisor at Blue Water Strategy, the agreement should not be understood as a clean break with Washington, but rather a “post-dependence insurance policy,“ reflecting a regional conclusion that while Washington may still possess the greatest military capabilities, “its willingness to use those capabilities, the conditions under which it will intervene and the identity of the threats against which it will provide protection have become uncertain,” Widdershoven told The Media Line.

“The Gulf leadership increasingly doubts that US power is able actually to prevent missile attacks, drone warfare, and maritime disruption,” he said. “It does not question the capabilities of the US to attack Iran, defend Israel, deploy carrier groups, reinforce bases, and sell billions of dollars of weapons.”

That distinction is central to understanding Riyadh’s position.

Saudi Arabia is not replacing Washington with Ankara and Islamabad. Its military relationship with the United States remains difficult to replicate, particularly in high-end weapons, intelligence, logistics and integrated air and missile defense. Rather, the kingdom appears to be increasing the number of security relationships it can activate simultaneously.

Widdershoven described this as an attempt to create “strategic redundancy.”

“From a Saudi viewpoint, there is only one main strategy: to build strategic redundancy by linking to the United States for high-end weapons and global deterrence, Pakistan for workforce, training, and possible strategic deterrence, and, right now, Turkey for operational experience, defense technology, and geopolitical reach,” he said.

“At the same time, Riyadh wants to have China for economic leverage and diplomatic balance, while using it also for a selective engagement with Iran to reduce the probability of war. This is not coherence. It is hedging under pressure,” he argued.

Abdulaziz Alshaabani, a Saudi political analyst, sees the same diversification but places greater emphasis on regional autonomy rather than declining confidence in Washington. “Saudi Arabia is building a more diverse and balanced network of security partners. While continuing to deepen cooperation with its traditional partners, it is also strengthening defense cooperation with important regional countries in order to enhance greater regional security, autonomy and stability,” Alshaabani told The Media Line.

Turkey comes with NATO experience, defense industry

For Turkey, the benefits are different. Ankara enters the pact with NATO experience, a large conventional military and an increasingly important domestic defense industry. Its companies have become significant exporters of drones, missiles, electronic warfare systems, armored platforms, and naval technology, giving Turkey both a military and a commercial incentive to deepen its access to Gulf defense markets.

But Turkish participation does not necessarily mean Ankara has accepted Saudi strategic leadership, nor that it would automatically enter every conflict involving Riyadh.

Barın Kayaoğlu, chair and assistant professor of American Studies at the Institute for Area Studies at the Social Sciences University of Ankara, cautioned against interpreting the agreement as a sectarian military bloc.

“It is no more a ‘Sunni NATO’ than it is a ‘Muslim NATO.’ So far, the three actors that have made the most noise about it are Israel, Iran, and the Houthis, none of which have contributed much to regional peace in a long time,” Kayaoğlu told The Media Line.

“This is a defensive pact that, over time, could come to resemble the OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe] more than NATO. It is also important to remember that even NATO’s Article 5 does not amount to an automatic declaration of war,” he said.

That qualification is important. Even though the agreement contains language resembling collective defense, the operational consequences remain less defined than the political commitment.

Kayaoğlu argued that collective-defense provisions should not be interpreted as automatically placing each signatory at war with every adversary of another member.

“The same principle applies here. Turkey and Pakistan will not suddenly find themselves at war with the Houthis, just as Turkey and Saudi Arabia would not automatically find themselves at war with the Taliban,” he said.

The comparison also highlights one of Mecca’s biggest unanswered questions: whether it evolves from a political commitment into an integrated security institution.

No publicly available evidence yet indicates the existence of a NATO-style integrated military command. How intelligence will be shared, which threats trigger collective action, what military contributions each state must provide, and how disagreements among the signatories will be resolved will determine whether Mecca becomes an operational alliance or remains primarily a mechanism for strategic coordination.

Alshaabani similarly cautioned against prematurely treating it as a conventional military alliance, noting that it currently functions more as a strategic coordination mechanism that could, over time, deepen into a broader security platform.

Pakistan’s inclusion raises questions on nuclear deterrence

Pakistan presents perhaps the most sensitive variable. Islamabad has decades of military relations with Riyadh and longstanding defense ties with Ankara. But its participation also introduces a nuclear-armed state into a Middle Eastern collective-defense framework, immediately raising questions about deterrence.

The agreement itself should not be equated with a Pakistani nuclear guarantee for Saudi Arabia. Publicly available details do not establish an automatic nuclear umbrella, and Pakistan’s strategic posture remains overwhelmingly structured around India.

For Widdershoven, the ambiguity itself may nevertheless have deterrent consequences.

“It is currently unclear whether the 2025 agreement also covers Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities. This ambiguity is important, as Pakistan does not need to transfer nuclear weapons or explicitly place Saudi Arabia under a formal nuclear umbrella to generate deterrent value,” he said.

“Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine, command structure and force posture are overwhelmingly designed around India. To redirect its strategic deterrent also to Iran or Israel could have severe consequences,” he added.

That India dimension is also one reason the consequences of Mecca may extend well beyond the Gulf.

The agreement links Saudi Arabia directly to Pakistan while strengthening Turkey, another close Pakistani defense partner. India, meanwhile, has developed a substantial defense-industrial relationship with Israel. Israel and India signed a memorandum in November 2025 to expand defense, industrial, and technological cooperation, while Israeli officials have continued to push for deeper strategic relations with New Delhi.

In the eastern Mediterranean, Israel, Greece and Cyprus already have their own increasingly institutionalized security relationship. The three signed a Joint Action Plan for military cooperation for 2026, adding to an established trilateral framework covering security, energy and regional coordination. Those relationships have fueled speculation that a more explicit Israel-India-Greece-Cyprus alignment could develop as Turkey and Pakistan consolidate their own position.

But that possibility should not yet be described as a counter-pact.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs has specifically rejected reports that New Delhi approached Israel seeking a new defense treaty in response to the Mecca agreement. What exists instead is a collection of deepening bilateral and trilateral relationships that could acquire greater strategic relevance if regional bloc-building accelerates.

Israeli officials had also discussed broader cooperation connecting Israel with India, Greece and Cyprus before the Mecca agreement was signed, meaning the emerging geometry cannot be explained solely as a reaction to the August pact.

This is where the consequences of the current war involving Iran may prove larger than the agreement itself.

The conflict has not simply pushed countries into two fixed camps. Instead, it is accelerating a regional system in which states maintain multiple, sometimes contradictory partnerships simultaneously.

Saudi Arabia can expand defense cooperation with Turkey and Pakistan while remaining strategically connected to Washington, economically linked to China and diplomatically engaged with Iran. Turkey can remain inside NATO while building autonomous security structures outside it. Pakistan can deepen Gulf involvement while keeping India at the center of its military planning. India can maintain major economic relations with Saudi Arabia while simultaneously strengthening defense cooperation with Israel.

Alshaabani argued that this increasingly autonomous approach is one of the agreement’s most significant features. “… Middle Eastern countries are becoming increasingly proactive in participating in regional security arrangements, rather than relying entirely on external powers to provide security. Saudi Arabia’s stronger defense cooperation with Turkey and Pakistan is one example of this trend,” he said.

He also rejected the automatic interpretation of the framework as an anti-Iranian or anti-Chinese alignment. “Overall, the agreement is not directed against any particular country. Rather, the three countries are seeking, through institutionalized cooperation, to strengthen their collective deterrence capabilities and improve strategic coordination in responding to future regional security challenges.”

Iran may nevertheless assess the pact through a different security lens.

Saudi Arabia views Iranian missile capabilities and Iran-aligned armed groups as threats to its infrastructure and territorial security. Tehran, conversely, could perceive tighter military coordination among a wealthy Gulf power, NATO’s second-largest military, and nuclear-armed Pakistan as an emerging containment structure, regardless of the signatories’ declared intentions.

Widdershoven described the resulting dynamic as a classic security dilemma. “Saudi Arabia sees Mecca as defensive insurance; Iran sees encirclement by a wealthy Arab monarchy, a major NATO military power, and a nuclear-armed Sunni neighbor,” he said. “Defensive measures on both sides begin to look offensive.”

That may ultimately be the more consequential legacy of the Mecca pact.

The agreement does not yet establish a Middle Eastern NATO, nor does it replace American military power. It does, however, formalize a trend accelerated by the Iran war: regional powers are increasingly building overlapping security networks of their own, even while retaining their older alliances.

And if one new arrangement incentivizes another—Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan on one side; deeper Israeli, Indian, Greek, and Cypriot coordination on the other; Iran turning further toward its own partners—the region may not be moving toward two stable, opposing blocs at all.

It may instead be entering a more complicated system of competing and overlapping alignments, in which countries hedge across several partnerships until a crisis forces those commitments to be tested.

As Widdershoven put it: “What we see emerging is not a replacement regional order, but an increasingly competitive network of overlapping security pacts, corridors, and transactional alignments. Still, this is not stability, but armed hedging,” he said. “Armed hedging, as history has shown, only works until the same crisis tests contradictory alliances.”

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An Iranian threat to assassinate US President Donald Trump prompted a secret security operation last month in which the president was flown from Turkey to the UK aboard an alternate military aircraft, while the White House publicly gave the impression that he was traveling on the older Air Force One, according to the Washington Post.

The covert mission, which had not previously been reported, was carried out without the knowledge of journalists and even some White House staff members, who believed they were traveling on the same aircraft as the president.

The report was based on materials reviewed by the Washington Post, as well as interviews with a US official familiar with the operation and another person familiar with the president’s travel arrangements. Both spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

The administration said Trump left Turkey on July 8 aboard the older Air Force One. Trump also announced on social media that he would use the “former Air Force One,” rather than the newer aircraft on which he had arrived in Turkey, a Boeing 747-8 given to the US as a gift from Qatar.

According to the report, however, Trump did not remain aboard the aircraft he was seen boarding in front of cameras.

Trump boarded Air Force One, then was secretly transferred

Trump was in Ankara for a NATO summit attended by leaders from around the world when the incident occured. The operation took place the night after US forces resumed military strikes against Iran on the president’s orders, following the collapse of negotiations between Washington and Tehran.

That evening, Trump boarded the older blue and white Air Force One in front of television cameras and waved goodbye. Several minutes later, according to a US official and materials reviewed by the Washington Post, he was secretly transferred to a smaller US Air Force C-32A aircraft.

The transfer was carried out using a catering truck, typically used to load food and supplies onto aircraft. The truck was raised by a hydraulic system to a door on the opposite side of Air Force One from the entrance used by Trump and the journalists.

Trump and several of his aides entered the truck, which then moved away from Air Force One and drove toward the nearby C-32A.

According to the US official, the older aircraft effectively served as a “decoy.” Journalists and several White House staff members remained aboard, believing Trump was traveling with them, while the president flew to the UK on the other aircraft.

The arrangement concealed Trump’s actual location for several hours, not only from the American public but also from many senior administration officials.

Iranian threat prompted the switch

The New York Times and CBS News also reported last month that intelligence officials had identified a specific threat against the president or his aircraft, leading authorities to implement additional security measures.

The US government has for years been concerned about Iranian plots targeting senior American officials, including Trump. Those concerns intensified following Washington’s involvement in the killings of senior Iranian military and political officials.

Turkey, which hosted the NATO summit and from which Trump departed, is a US ally and NATO member, but it also shares a border with Iran.

The operation took place only days after Trump began using the Boeing 747-8 received by the US from Qatar. The aircraft underwent upgrades costing hundreds of millions of dollars and entered Air Force service in July, but according to reports, it lacks some of the defensive capabilities found on the older Air Force One aircraft.

Trump initially said he had decided to fly from Turkey on the older aircraft “for old times’ sake,” while the aircraft received from Qatar would fly to the UK and be displayed to US troops stationed there.

According to the Washington Post, that was not what happened.

The new Air Force One received from Qatar departed Turkey first on the evening of July 8. Trump then boarded the older Air Force One in front of cameras.

Minutes later, he was secretly transferred by catering truck to the C-32A.

Photographs and videos taken at the airport in Turkey show stairs positioned on one side of Air Force One and a catering truck on the other, with its container raised to the height of the aircraft.

After members of the White House press pool boarded the older aircraft, White House staff instructed them to close the window shades.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth separately boarded the C-32A using external stairs. According to the US official, the move was intended to make the flight appear routine. Hegseth then flew with Trump to the UK aboard the same aircraft.

The C-32A is a modified Boeing 757 used to transport senior US government officials and can also carry the president or vice president.

When the president is aboard, its call sign is supposed to be “Air Force One,” since the term refers not to a particular aircraft but to any US Air Force aircraft carrying the president.

On this flight, however, the generic call sign “Reach 18,” or “RCH18,” was used, according to a person involved in the mission and additional materials reviewed by the Washington Post.

The aviation tracking outlet Thenewarea51 identified the C-32A arriving in the UK under the same designation and reported that systems allowing the aircraft to be easily tracked while in flight had been turned off.

Meanwhile, the older aircraft carrying White House staff and journalists appeared on radar en route to the UK. Although Trump was not aboard, it used the Air Force One call sign “AF1” during the flight.

According to flight tracking data, the aircraft received from Qatar landed at RAF Mildenhall in the UK at 6:26 p.m., using the call sign “SAM 33.”

Videos posted online showed that the C-32A, which according to the report was carrying Trump, landed several hours later, at around 10:20 p.m. The older Air Force One landed around nine minutes later, at approximately 10:29 p.m.

It remains unclear exactly how Trump was transferred from the C-32A back to the older aircraft after landing.

Shortly afterward, however, the president appeared in front of television cameras descending the stairs of the older Air Force One at around 10:56 p.m., creating the impression that he had arrived in the UK aboard the same aircraft he had been seen boarding in Turkey.

The White House also published a post that night stating that Trump had landed at the British base “aboard the former Air Force One,” accompanied by a photograph of the aircraft.

After greeting US service members, Trump boarded the new Air Force One received from Qatar at around 11:01 p.m. for the flight back to Washington. White House staff and members of the press then transferred to the aircraft from the older plane.

White House: “We use every tool at our disposal”

The Washington Post presented the White House with details of its investigation and a series of questions.

In response, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung issued a statement defending the aircraft received from Qatar.

“The new Air Force One is a state-of-the-art aircraft equipped with high-level security protocols that ensure the safety of the president and his staff,” Cheung said. “As the president recently said, there are many enemies of America who have set their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal to address those threats.”

A Pentagon spokesperson referred questions to the White House, while the Secret Service did not respond to a request for comment.

The White House also released a statement from the Air Force regarding the safety of the new aircraft: “The aircraft is safe, secure and equipped with the most advanced technologies necessary to meet the requirements of the presidential mission.”

The statement added: “No risks were taken with security, safety or mission communications, but the joint team made tradeoffs on some of the less frequently used mission systems that Boeing must provide to support the next 40 years.”

The controversy surrounding the Qatari aircraft intensified after the New York Times reported that it lacks defensive capabilities available on the older presidential aircraft.

Following the report, the Trump administration took the unusual step of issuing subpoenas to several journalists in an effort to identify confidential sources.

Administration officials said the move was part of an investigation into a national security breach, while the New York Times accused the administration of attempting to undermine transparency and intimidate journalists and sources.

The administration later withdrew the subpoena and acknowledged that mistakes had been made in its handling of the matter.

Maariv contributed to this report.

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Israel is experiencing a deep erosion of support in the United States among both Democrats and Republicans, Prof. Yossi Shain, an expert on international relations, warned in an interview with 103FM on Monday.

Speaking about the changing attitude toward Israel in the American political arena, Shain, who formerly served as a Yisrael Beytenu MK, said that “Being anti-Israel in the US today is a hot commodity; it is worthwhile and rewarding, and not just anti-Israel, but anti-AIPAC.”

“The entire idea around the world that Israel projects strength and that the Israeli lobby projects strength, and that it is not worth messing with it, is an idea that has collapsed in the US. Today, people are running for the Senate on hostility toward Israel, and that is what wins votes and victory,” Shain argued.

Shain later addressed Israel’s relationship with the Democratic Party and the standing of the Jewish community in the United States. “We are in a long process of collapse,” he explained. “David Hess, who headed the American Jewish Committee, recently said that US Jewry and Israel’s standing are like a building in Florida that collapsed on its residents.

“We can begin arguing about what causes what and how, but there is no doubt that two important points must be mentioned regarding Israel’s contribution. The State of Israel and the Israeli government simply betrayed the Democratic Party. Biden saved us, from their perspective, and we all went in the direction of Trump,” he said.

US-Iran agreement will not happen, expert says

There will be no agreement between the US and Iran, Shain also stated.

“Israel would be praying for an agreement. At present, there will be no agreement, and future administrations will also not be bound by an agreement as they were in previous years, partly because of the issue of power. Therefore, there was no international political dialogue because we relied on Trump to do the work for us, after he pledged to ‘pull the chestnuts out of the fire,'” he said.

Addressing the handling of Iran and the expectation that the United States would complete the process, Shain said that “The situation with Iran was that it had to be done within days. He asked us after we convinced him that we would bring down the regime and everything would collapse. Unfortunately, after our phenomenal victory with the Americans, we thought we would take another step forward, and America did not complete it.”

“When America did not complete it, we kept chipping away more and more at its standing in the system and at its willingness,” he noted. “On the Republican side, there is no willingness, from their perspective, for Israel to drag the US into another war,” he said.

According to Shain, the erosion of support for Israel is no longer limited to the Democratic camp. “Unfortunately, Israel has become a toxic brand. This is no longer only a question of politics right now, although it is also connected to it. We have also become toxic among Republicans. People forget what this means, and it is not only with Tucker Carlson and others, you can see it spreading. I speak with the offices of senators who are supporters of Israel, and they are worried about this. The perception that Trump is not delivering is also filtering down to voters.”

Israel ‘genocide’ campaign spreads to US education system

Shain also addressed the political considerations surrounding Trump and the changing attitudes among his supporters. “If in the past they said Trump wanted to reach the midterm elections, and therefore did not want to escalate because it did not win him points, right now there is concern that the lack of a decision is also costing him points among his supporters,” he explained.

“On the one hand, there is the campaign that began immediately after the war in Gaza, about genocide, which has penetrated very deeply both intellectually and politically. On the other hand, it has penetrated to the point that even in the American education system, when you examine how the issue of genocide is taught, it is identified as an Israeli genocide,” he added.

In conclusion, Shain warned of a continued deterioration in Israel’s standing in Washington. “If Israel does not replace its leadership with one perceived in America as sane, Israel does not have supporters even in the White House today,” he said. “It is impossible to understand the scale of the fiasco. We are telling stories because we are in an election campaign, but this is something deep,” he stated.

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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji, is expected to travel to Syria and Lebanon next month, protected by police officers assigned to her taxpayer-funded New York Police Department (NYPD) security detail, The New York Post reported on Monday evening, citing a source familiar with the details.

Both countries are on the United States’ “Level 4: Do not Travel” list for citizens. Lebanon’s Level 4 status was issued on June 5, while Syria’s was issued on July 8. 

According to the source, Duwaji requested the NYPD security detail after traveling abroad in July with no police protection.

Mamdani’s office later confirmed the trip and the police security detail, The New York Post reported, but did not provide any additional detail.

“Upon the strong recommendation of the NYPD, the First Lady’s security detail will be joining her when she travels to visit family in Syria and Lebanon,” said mayoral spokesperson Dora Pekec, per The New York Post.

The source familiar with the trip told The New York Post that the trip is not official business and that “it’s not doing anything for the city.”

Trip puts NYPD officers in danger

Pro-Israel Jewish advocate Dov Hikind, founder of Americans Against Antisemitism and a former Brooklyn Assemblyman, opposed sending NYPD officers to the Middle East on X/Twitter, following the report’s publication.

“We’re putting the police officers in danger,” Hikind wrote. “They will be viewed as the bad guys. These are war zones.”

“Duwaji doesn’t need security. She will get a hero’s welcome and be protected by Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis.”

“Duwaji will be fine,” he said.

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Tucker Carlson, one of the most prominent and provocative voices on the American right, and Hunter Biden, the son of former Democratic president Joe Biden, who for years was himself one of the right’s favorite targets, bonded over a common enemy in an interview Carlson conducted with Biden on Tuesday: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and to a large extent Israel as well.

Biden is continuing an unusual round of media interviews. Last Friday, in an interview with the BBC, he spoke about his father’s condition and said that the cancer affecting the former president had spread to his bones.

In the interview with Carlson, however, the discussion focused at length on the controversies surrounding Hunter himself, his drug addiction, the laptop that became a political weapon against the Biden family, and, at one point, Israel.

During the conversation, Carlson claimed that at the time of the Hunter Biden laptop affair, Israeli figures or figures with ties to Israel were the ones who pushed claims to him that material showing the abuse of minors had been found on the computer. It is important to emphasize that Carlson did not present public evidence for this claim during the segment, but described it based on what was referred to as his personal experience.

“The claim that there was material involving the abuse of minors on the computer came from the Israelis,” he said. “I’m just telling you that they came to me with it, and that’s how I know it.”

Carlson rejects Russian involvement in Hunter Biden laptop 

Carlson went on to claim that at the time, he sent one of his producers to meet with a person who, he said, had ties to Netanyahu. According to Carlson, this particularly angered him when former senior US intelligence officials instead pointed to Russia in connection with the affair.

“They were behind it,” Carlson claimed. “I felt like everybody in Washington knew it, but there was so much pressure not to criticize Israel in any way that they just said, ‘It’s the Russians, it’s the Russians.'”

Carlson also acknowledged that while he was working at Fox News, he did not say this publicly. “I admit it. I didn’t say it. I was part of the problem too, but I knew.”

It was precisely at this point that a symbiotic connection emerged between the two participants in the interview. Hunter Biden, who explained how deeply the serious allegations against him had affected him, moved on to discuss the criticism now directed at Carlson himself and rejected claims that Carlson is antisemitic.

“I’m supposed to hate Tucker Carlson because he’s antisemitic and all of that stuff,” Biden said to Carlson, adding, “I know you’re not. You’re not antisemitic. I know 100 percent you’re not antisemitic.”

From there, Biden launched his harshest attack on the prime minister. “If it is antisemitic to say that [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is evil incarnate, then you know what? I don’t know what to tell people anymore,” he said. “All you have to do is open your eyes. Literally, open your eyes, open your heart for one second and understand.”

Carlson responded that, in his view, the claim that such criticism is antisemitic is “such an obvious lie,” and effectively asked who else feels threatened by such an accusation.

Criticism of Israel spreading across US party lines

In doing so, two people who for years belonged to almost entirely opposing political camps found themselves agreeing on an issue that in recent years has become one of the deepest fault lines in American politics: attitudes toward Israel and Netanyahu.

Harsh criticism of Israel no longer comes only from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, but has also gained a foothold in parts of the populist right and the “America First” movement, in which Carlson is one of the most influential figures. Biden and Carlson are not political partners, and their agreement does not turn the two camps into one.

But the moment in which the son of a former Democratic president and a star of the American right agree that Netanyahu is a legitimate target for the harshest criticism, and jointly reject the claim that such criticism is necessarily antisemitic, once again illustrates the extent to which negative attitudes toward Israel today cross the old dividing lines of American politics.

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After months of war, strikes, threats, and negotiations that have so far failed to end the ongoing conflict, US President Donald Trump is returning to one of the oldest tools in the United States’ arsenal against Iran: choking it economically.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, Trump has for now adopted a “wait and see” strategy, giving financial sanctions and the US naval blockade of Iranian ports more time to deepen the damage to the Islamic Republic’s economy instead of launching another broad round of strikes.

According to the report, the shift followed persuasion efforts within the administration. Trump’s aides presented him with data intended to show the extent to which existing sanctions have already hurt Iran.

Senior administration and White House officials have recommended tightening the current sanctions further and imposing new ones, based on the assessment that economic pressure could be the most effective way to force the Iranian regime to back down. Trump, at least for now, was persuaded and told his advisers that he would prefer not to order additional strikes.

Trump publicly announced the return to this approach on Monday, telling reporters that Iran has “no money,” adding, “Iran is broke, completely broke.”

Iranian economy in ‘free fall’

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last month that the administration’s economic policy had sent the Iranian currency into “free fall” and pushed inflation into triple-digit rates.

The decision to pursue the economic sanctions route comes as Trump currently has reservations about the two other options available to him. He is reluctant to return to an all-out war, but he is also wary of another round of negotiations with Tehran.

In recent days, talks surrounding the Strait of Hormuz have once again become complicated after Iran presented far-reaching demands in exchange for fully reopening the shipping route, including billions of dollars in US payments, the lifting of the blockade, and the withdrawal of US forces from the region.

From the White House’s perspective, the sanctions strategy offers another advantage: It allows Washington to maintain heavy pressure on Tehran without immediately entering a new military round that could drive up energy prices and trigger an Iranian response against infrastructure in the Gulf.

Risk of economic pressure

Former senior officials described this as the “optimal space” for the US, provided that increasing amounts of oil can continue to reach the market despite the threats. According to one, a bad agreement could effectively subsidize Iran’s reconstruction, while a major military escalation could shock the oil market if the regime survives the strikes and retaliates against energy infrastructure in the Gulf.

Economic pressure, however, also comes with risks. Experts who served in previous US administrations warned that an American blockade could further worsen Iran’s already difficult economic situation, and that this could make a response from Tehran more likely, as “no one should expect Iran to simply sit idly by while this is happening.”

That is also the main vulnerability of the renewed strategy. It rests on the assumption that economic pain will force Tehran to yield before it chooses to escalate militarily.

US officials stressed that Trump could still change his mind, particularly in the event of a severe Iranian response. For now, however, the president is choosing to give time, sanctions, and the blockade a chance to do the work instead of aircraft and bombs.

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Artificial intelligence is going to bring about a new era, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the launch of Israel’s National AI Program on Sunday.

The program has been under development for several months and was launched in a joint ceremony by Netanyahu and the Head of the National AI Directorate, Brig.-Gen. (res.) Erez Eskel.

“AI is not just another technology; it is going to change the world,” Netanyahu stated. “It is going to change the lives of each and every one of us, of our children, and of generations to come. Quite a change is taking place, much like the Industrial Revolution.”

He also warned that those who were not able to keep up with the developing technologies would be “left behind.”

The two goals of the program, Netanyahu said, were to ensure that Israel would be a “global superpower” in the field of AI, and to promote Israel’s economic success.

“This is important. Not only did we do this in cyber, but we also did it in agriculture, medicine, medical devices, and many other fields that you know, and we will do it here too, in artificial intelligence.”

National AI Program is first step forward

The program is only the first step forward, Eskel said during the ceremony.

“We are launching this program, which takes into account the distinct advantages of the State of Israel in the fields of cyber, physical AI, and solving life’s problems with AI, while providing infrastructure for the needs of the country and the economy, whether that is Compute infrastructure, powerhouse computing capabilities that almost no countries currently possess, a national quantum computer, and addressing the central and most important issue, the human capital in the State of Israel, which is our true engine.”

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FIFA would be making a “terrible mistake” by replacing President Gianni Infantino, US President Donald Trump said in a Monday post on Truth Social.

“He is fantastic, having just presided over the most successful World Cup, by four times, ever presented. If he is gone, it will never be as successful or profitable again!” Trump added.

Infantino has been under fire since FIFA proposed to sell stakes to external investors in a subsidiary that will run the global governing body’s tournaments.

Last month, the world soccer governing body said it plans to create a $20 billion subsidiary to run the World Cup and its other events and will offer stakes of up to 20% in it to external investors, causing a backlash from the influential European and South American soccer confederations.

However, Swiss-born Infantino has developed a close relationship with Trump as they worked together to organize this year’s World Cup, in which the United States was one of the host countries.

Trump has said that he believes that everyone in the world respects Infantino and understands that “he has a special ability to bring people together.” Last month, The New York Post reported that he wants the FIFA president to replace António Guterres, the current United Nations secretary-general, who is retiring at the end of the year.

Trump asks Infantino to reverse foul on US player during World Cup

Trump also asked Infantino to review a red-card foul against USA striker Folarin Balogun during the World Cup, saying that he did not think the foul called by the “horrible” referee was fair.

FIFA proceeded to reverse the foul, prompting European soccer body UEFA to say that the “unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable decision” crossed a “red line.”

Additionally, in December, Infantino awarded Trump the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize.

Corinne Baum, Eitan Elias, and Reuters contributed to this report.

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A man who returned to Israel from the Democratic Republic of Congo has been placed in isolation at Soroka Medical Center, Beersheba, while being tested for Ebola after reporting a fever, the Health Ministry announced on Tuesday. 

This is a developing story. 

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Three Israeli civilians who crossed into Syria from the Mount Hermon area overnight were returned to Israel by the IDF, the military announced in a Tuesday morning statement.

It noted that upon return, all three were transferred to Israel Police for questioning.

The military condemned the civilians’ behavior, explaining that such incidents not only disturb IDF activity in the area, but are considered to be criminal offenses.

The incident follows a rising trend of Israeli civilians and activists breaching the Israel-Syria border over the past few weeks.

In late July, the IDF detained two Israelis who had crossed the border, while Syrian media separately reported that troops had arrested a Syrian citizen during an overnight raid in the Quneitra area.

According to the military, troops dispatched to Mount Hermon located the two, returned them to Israeli territory, and transferred them to police.

IDF detains three settler activists who breached Syrian border

Two days later, the IDF said it had detained three Israeli settler activists from the “HaBashan Pioneers” settler movement after they breached the Syrian border in the Mount Hermon area.

However, an earlier report from Army Radio said the activists were only in Syrian territory for several hours on Wednesday morning before being located by the IDF.

The activists were returned to Israeli territory and handed over to police, the IDF said, noting that the military “strongly condemns” such incidents as they disrupt operations and create a dangerous situation for all involved.

Sarah Ben-Nun and Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.

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Michigan rabbis and other Jewish figures delivered a petition to the head of the state’s Democratic Party Monday urging him to “ensure the safety” of all Jewish delegates at the state party’s upcoming convention, underscoring anxieties about growing antisemitism in the state’s blue coalition.

The petition, whose total signatories numbered around 200, comes days after Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is Jewish, announced she would not be attending the Aug. 29 convention out of fear of being targeted for harassment. 

“We believe you need to make it clear, publicly, that anyone who chases, screams at, or otherwise harasses Jews at your convention will be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” reads the petition, delivered to Curtis Hertel, Jr., the state party chair. 

Citing Nessel’s comments, the letter continues, “If Jews — including the highest-ranking Jewish state official in Michigan — are intimidated into staying away from your convention, it will not stop there.”

El-Sayed not mentioned by name in the letter

Among the clergy who signed the letter at press time are five rabbis who actively lead congregations in the state, representing Reform, Conservative and Humanistic denominations.

Those include Amy Bigman of Congregation Shaarey Zedek in East Lansing; Aaron Starr of Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield, a Detroit suburb; Nadav Caine of Beth Israel Congregation in Ann Arbor; Natalie Shribman of Temple Kol Ami in West Bloomfield; and Jeffrey Falick of the Congregation for Humanistic Judaism of Metro Detroit, in Farmington Hills.

The vast majority of signatories hailed from outside the state, including Rafael Medoff, director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, who organized and delivered the petition to Hertel; Rabbi Etan Tokayer, president of the Rabbinical Council of America, an Orthodox rabbinical network; Jewish historian and Zionist commentator Gil Troy; and several other rabbis and Jewish academics across the country.

The letter did not mention Abdul El-Sayed, the party’s newly minted US Senate nominee in Michigan. But the state’s Jewish Democrats have been on edge with El-Sayed’s rhetoric on both Israel and local matters of Jewish safety, including what they believe was his equivocal response to the Temple Israel attack in March in West Bloomfield.

No rabbis affiliated with Temple Israel had signed the Hertel petition as of press time.

El-Sayed, a former county health official, appeared to acknowledge the concerns in his victory speech last week. “My commitment to Jewish safety is the same commitment that I have to the safety of my own daughters,” he said.

A number of Jewish Democratic leaders are not yet convinced, and many believe the threat of antisemitism within the party has become more acute with his rise. 

“Acceptance or tolerance of antisemitism in Democratic spaces must also come to an end, and this requires clear action, not just words, on the part of El-Sayed,” Halie Soifer, chair of the Jewish Democratic Council of America and a Michigan native, wrote in a JDCA statement Friday. 

Soifer called on El-Sayed to “stand with and defend Nessel and other Jewish Democrats,” noting that JDCA would focus its campaign season on helping elect “Democrats who share our values.” She added, “The Jewish vote is a critical component of a winning Democratic coalition, including in Michigan, and it’s not something that can be taken for granted.”

Last Democratic convention saw controversial picks, including pro-Hezbollah nominee

More than 100,000 Jews live in Michigan, a swing state, and two thirds identify as Democrats, according to a 2020 Brandeis University population survey.

The Michigan Jewish Democratic Caucus, too, recently said El-Sayed’s campaign “must commit to … rejecting rhetoric that demonizes the Jewish civic identity.” 

An El-Sayed campaign spokesperson did not immediately respond to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency request for comment on Nessel and antisemitism. Nessel has been targeted by pro-Palestinian activists in the state, who rallied against her ultimately unsuccessful efforts to prosecute encampment protesters at the University of Michigan.

The state’s last Democratic convention, in April, was marred by what many of its Jewish attendees said was a toxic environment that included nominating an attorney with a social media history of praising Hezbollah and far-right conspiracist Candace Owens to the ballot for the University of Michigan board of regents.

Attendees also booed US Rep. Haley Stevens, El-Sayed’s pro-Israel primary rival; a third candidate, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, alleged that some attendees directed antisemitic remarks at her Jewish husband.

In her recent statement, Soifer said El-Sayed’s supporters had “created a hostile environment” at that convention. The candidate has said he directed his supporters not to boo anyone in April.

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A crowded field of candidates will compete in South Carolina’s special primary this Tuesday, with hopes of securing the Republican nomination for a US Senate seat long held by the late Lindsey Graham, one of Israel’s strongest allies on Capitol Hill and an advocate for military action against Iran.

There is little doubt that the winner will be supportive of Israel, but it remains to be seen just how high the Jewish state will rank among the candidate’s priorities. Matching Graham’s level of foreign policy experience and focus on the Middle East, a region he often visited, would be difficult.

“If other people are quite that hawkish, then they just don’t have the platform and power to say it. Whereas, he did,” Scott Huffmon, a professor of political science at South Carolina’s Winthrop University, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 

Graham died suddenly on July 11 from an aortic dissection, at 71 years old, after serving 23 years in the Senate and eight in the US House. He was a longstanding member of the Senate’s Armed Services and Budget committees and had traveled to Israel about a dozen times since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel. 

Having grown up in the Cold War era, Graham was an anti-Soviet and then anti-Russia conservative who was always solidly pro-Israel, said Huffmon, who also directs Winthrop’s Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research. 

“He viewed peace in the Middle East through the lens of a protected Israel,” Huffmon said, noting that Graham made Israel a priority issue. “It would be really tough for a new person to have the traction to do that, even if they believe just as strongly as the late Senator Graham.”

Darline Graham quickly earned Trump’s endorsement

Just a few days after his death, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, appointed the late senator’s younger sister, Darline Graham, to complete the rest of his term. Despite having limited policy experience, including previously serving on the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, she quickly earned President Trump’s endorsement and announced she would be running in Tuesday’s special primary.

Graham will be up against nine fellow Republicans, with her biggest challengers including Ralph Norman and Russell Fry, who are both currently serving in Congress, as well as Mark Sanford and Mark Lynch. 

A recent Emerson College poll showed Graham and Norman vying for the lead, with 19% and 22% support, respectively, while Fry had 12%. Sanford is a former congressman and South Carolina governor, while Lynch is a businessman. 

Among Norman’s top priorities is the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE America Act), a bill he co-sponsored in the US House that would require voters to provide identification at the polls – and a top priority for Trump. He also has pledged to reduce spending, secure the US borders, fund law enforcement, protect gun ownership rights, restrict women’s sports to assigned females at birth, support veterans and strengthen the military.

“We should be slow to send America’s sons and daughters into harm’s way, but when we do, they deserve every advantage to accomplish the mission and return home safely,” the campaign stated.

Darline Graham revealed her platforms less than a week ago on Fox News, noting that the SAVE America Act is her first co-sponsored bill in the US Senate. Her other policies were similar to those on Norman’s list, though she also expressed specific support for the right to life. She slams diversity, equity and inclusion, and two bugbears of the left: progressive leader Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Anthony Fauci, the former top federal health official Republicans say bungled the COVID pandemic. Graham earned the backing of the Republican Jewish Coalition shortly after announcing her candidacy. 

Fry’s campaign also promotes the Trump-branded “America First” agenda, focusing on securing borders, ending the fentanyl crisis, lowering costs, advocating for farmers and rural communities, honoring veterans, confronting China’s communist party and advancing US oil, gas and nuclear energy development.

Sanford’s top priority, as highlighted in bold and red on his website, is the “nation’s debt and the spending that drives it.” His campaign focuses on reversing the “financial tipping point” that has threatened the country’s “ability to sustain the American Dream.” Sanford, whose governorship was plagued with scandals, briefly ran against Trump in the 2020 presidential primaries.

Lynch’s focuses are fairly similar to those of Norman, Graham and Fry, with stronger language on foreign policy that demands a “lethal military focused on defending the homeland,” an end to “American involvement in open-ended foreign conflicts” and formal congressional authorization for new military engagements. 

Israel has not been an active issue in the campaign. 

Although Graham earned Trump’s endorsement, Huffmon said that supporters of Norman and Fry also see them as candidates who “will help push Trump’s agenda.” Norman has a strong track record and statewide recognition as a fiscal conservative, while Fry has “solid conservative bona fides” but less notability, according to Huffmon. 

In his own past polls of South Carolina Republicans, Huffmon said he found that the most conservative voters tended to have high approval ratings for Trump, McMaster and former governor Nikki Haley, but they saw Lindsey Graham as “too moderate.”

“The people who want the Trump agenda to succeed the most were not always Graham’s biggest fan,” he added. “So they might not automatically say, ‘Well, Graham’s sister is the natural candidate.’”

Christopher Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University,  predicted that “she will be fairly close to her brother on most issues,” noting that this is in some ways “her feature as a candidate.” But like Huffmon, he stressed that “Lindsey Graham was not that popular,” even if he was expected to win reelection.

South Carolina still a conservative, Trump-supporting state

That said, Huffmon stressed that South Carolina “is still a conservative, Trump-supporting state” and that “his endorsement still matters a lot.”

Cooper agreed. “I think you’d rather have it than not have it, but it’s no longer a guarantee for victory,” he said.

The Emerson poll — which included about 500 GOP primary voters — also asked respondents what issues the next senator of South Carolina should prioritize. Just 3.5% chose foreign policy, while 59.5% picked the economy, 18.7% immigration, 8.3% healthcare and 10% “something else.” On the other hand, 56.1% said they “strongly support” US military action in Iran, with only 14.6% voicing strong opposition. 

Huffmon said that when a poll asks for a voter’s top priority, the respondent’s second most important issue could be “millimeters behind,” but they can only name one. Voters right now might feel like a strong foreign policy approach “is necessary but not sufficient,” he said.

Huffmon characterized Israel as “a threshold issue,” meaning that voters would view anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian sentiments as disqualifying factors, but the issue is not as high priority in comparison to other concerns, like the economy. 

Cooper agreed. “GOP voters are going to be fairly hawkish, but if you ask any group of people right now, what’s your most important issue, it’s going to be the economy,” he said.

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Nothing breeds public cynicism about leaders more quickly than a gap between their words and their actions; when they say one thing and do another.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would do well to keep this in mind when discussing Israel’s response to the Board of Peace’s 15-point road map for Gaza.

At Sunday’s weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu took the unusual step of publicly breaking with US President Donald Trump, who hailed the road map – and Hamas’s acceptance of it two weeks ago – as historic. Netanyahu declared that Israel rejected the plan.

A strong argument can be made for doing precisely that: rejecting the plan because its sequence is ambiguous and because Israel may ultimately be pressured to withdraw from Gaza before Hamas is fully disarmed of everything from missiles and tunnels to Kalashnikovs.

Despite assurances from the Board of Peace’s high representative for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, that Israel would withdraw only sector by sector, after weapons in each area had been collected and rendered unusable under international supervision, Israel has ample grounds for skepticism.

In short, a credible case can be made for Netanyahu’s rejection of the plan.

Netanyahu’s rejection of the plan while still implementing it is difficult to justify

What is more difficult to justify, however, is categorically rejecting the plan in public while taking steps on the ground consistent with several of its central provisions.

For instance, Israel has sharply scaled back its attacks in Gaza since Trump announced Hamas’s acceptance of the road map, and the IDF stopped carrying out targeted assassinations, limiting its military actions to immediate threats.

In addition, even before Trump announced Hamas’s acceptance of the document, the security cabinet approved the entry into Gaza of an initial contingent of up to 200 members of the International Stabilization Force. That force is a central component of the broader plan for Gaza and is intended to support Hamas’s disarmament, stabilize areas from which Israel withdraws, and help prepare the ground for a new Palestinian administration.

Then there is the question of reconstruction. Netanyahu loudly proclaims that there will be no rehabilitation of Gaza until Hamas is completely disarmed. Nevertheless, Israel has reportedly approved infrastructure work for an Emirati-backed pilot project in eastern Rafah that would provide temporary housing in an area free of Hamas control.

This is not yet broad reconstruction, and temporary housing is not the same as permanent rehabilitation. But water, sewage, electricity, and housing infrastructure are initial elements essential to the rebuilding of Gaza.

Governments often accept some elements of a proposal while rejecting others. There is nothing inherently contradictory about that. But what breeds confusion – and cynicism – is Netanyahu’s categorical declaration that Israel rejects the document even as his government advances significant elements of the framework, without leveling with the public about what it is actually prepared to implement.

So why is he doing this? The answer is simple: politics.

Netanyahu does not want to alienate his current or potential future coalition partners – the Religious Zionist Party and Otzma Yehudit – or hard-right Likud voters who are adamantly opposed to the plan. At the same time, he cannot afford to antagonize Trump, for whom the road map is, as the president himself has said, a major achievement.

How does Netanyahu square that circle? By saying one thing and doing another.

Netanyahu’s tactics appear to be working

Incredibly, the tactic appears to be working. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich issued a statement praising Netanyahu for unequivocally rejecting the road map, even though he, too, knows what is happening on the ground.

And Trump, despite Netanyahu’s rejection of the president’s own plan, has – at least through Monday afternoon – remained silent.

That silence suggests either that Washington anticipated Netanyahu’s declaration or that it does not regard his words as the definitive rupture they would seem to imply.

It may even indicate that the maneuver was thought through and coordinated in advance: Netanyahu would be allowed to say what he needed to say for domestic political purposes, while Israel would continue taking measures compatible with the broader framework.

There may be a certain political logic in trying to appease both the Israeli Right and Trump. But what the public sees is a prime minister categorically rejecting a plan while quietly carrying out parts of it.

That does Netanyahu no credit. Worse, it fuels the political cynicism that this country already has in abundance – and needs less of, not more.

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The head of military intelligence for eastern Libya’s Libyan National Army was killed on Monday when an explosive device detonated in his car outside his home in the Hawari area of Benghazi, two security sources told Reuters.

Brigadier Fowzi Mansouri was killed in the evening blast, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity. They did not say who was responsible for the attack or provide further details on the device.

The killing highlights continuing security challenges in Libya, where rival administrations and armed groups have retained influence despite a 2020 ceasefire that halted major warfare. Libya split in 2014 between rival eastern and western factions after a 2011 NATO-backed uprising toppled longtime autocrat Muammar Gaddafi.

The Libyan National Army, led by military commander Khalifa Haftar, controls much of eastern and southern Libya. It is aligned with authorities based in Benghazi, while the internationally recognized Government of National Unity is based in the capital Tripoli and controls much of the west.

Libya’s central bank governor submits resignation, documents show

The governor of Libya’s Central Bank (CBL), Naji Issa, has submitted his resignation to the country’s rival legislative chambers, according to two documents seen by Reuters on Monday.

In the documents, whose authenticity was confirmed by Issa, he said he could not continue in his post, but did not explain why, citing the sensitivity of the reasons.

Issa said in the documents addressed to the heads of the two rival chambers that he could not continue in his post.

“I apologize for not being able to continue in my duties as Governor of the Central Bank of Libya, without stating the reasons, due to their sensitivity,” the two documents read.

Issa confirmed the authenticity of the letters in a message to Reuters, declining to reveal more about the reasons behind his decision.

The two documents are dated August 9.

The two legislative chambers are the eastern-based House of Representatives that was elected in 2014 and the High Council of State in the west, which was formed as part of a 2015 political ​agreement and whose members were drawn from a parliament elected in 2012.

Libya has been divided since 2014 into rival authorities in the west and east that emerged from the chaos following the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.

The two chambers have not yet responded to Issa’s request.

Issa took up the post in 2024 when the two legislative chambers agreed his appointment as a way to end a standoff over control of the CBL that led to the ousting of former governor Sadiq al-Kabir.

The standoff was triggered when western factions moved in August 2024 to oust Kabir and replace him with a rival board, leading eastern factions to shut down all oil production. The move sharply reduced Libya’s oil output and exports during the crisis.

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This city in the autumn of 1935 was a small fishing port of corrugated-iron houses battered by high winds, cod trawlers idling in the harbor, and geothermal steam curling up from hot springs that would one day heat the whole city. Fewer than 30,000 people lived there. There was no concert hall, no real orchestra, and no conservatory worth the name.

Onto this isolated island, in late 1935, stepped a 22-year-old pianist from Berlin named Robert Abraham. He carried almost nothing with him and hoped no one would ask too many questions about why he had left Germany.

He wasn’t the only one. Three years later, a Viennese conductor named Victor Urbancic disembarked with his Jewish wife, Melitta, after years of trying and failing to find a safe harbor elsewhere in Europe. And somewhere in between came Heinz Edelstein, a cellist and teacher from the German town of Freiburg, who arrived with his wife and two sons.

None chose Iceland as safe haven

None of them had chosen Iceland. For a classically trained European musician fleeing the Nazis, an island near the Arctic Circle with no symphony orchestra and a government hostile to Jewish immigration was about as far from a dream destination as it got. Yet Urbancic, Abraham, and Edelstein went on to build the institutions that still define Icelandic classical music today.

Iceland is a nation that has always known how to keep its stories alive, from the medieval sagas to the living oral traditions that shaped its literature and language. But its more recent history of Jewish exile has gone largely untold for nearly a century until now — as scholars have worked both to recover the music that Nazi persecution scattered across the globe and reconstruct an Icelandic musical history that offers a painful reminder of the country’s Holocaust history.

The musicians’ story is the subject of a newly translated book, “Music at World’s End: Three Refugee Musicians from Nazi Germany and Their Contribution to Iceland’s Music Life,” by Icelandic musicologist Árni Heimir Ingólfsson. It was published in English this year by SUNY Press following the Icelandic edition in 2024.

The book reconstructs the three refugees’ individual pathways to Iceland. Urbancic was born in Vienna in 1903 and trained as a pianist, composer, and conductor at the Vienna Conservatory, working his way through theaters in Mainz and Graz. He was raised Catholic, but his wife, Melitta, came from a Jewish family, and under the Nazis, that was enough to end his career. After doors closed on him in Switzerland and the United States, an old classmate helped him find a foothold in Iceland in 1938.

Abraham’s path was more solitary. Born in Berlin in 1912, the son of musicologist Otto Abraham, he trained at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik before fleeing Germany in 1934, at age 22. Denmark turned him down. In late 1935, he sailed for Iceland alone and was advised to settle first in the fishing town of Akureyri, in the north.

Edelstein’s journey looked different from the start, a father bringing his family into exile rather than a young man traveling light.

“Today, there are as many as 100 descendants of these three men living in Iceland,” Ingólfsson said in an interview.

Their arrival was never guaranteed. At least four other Jewish musicians, including composer Viktor Ullmann, who would later die in Auschwitz, applied for Icelandic work permits around the same time and were turned away under a government that had largely closed the door to Jewish immigration. At the time, Icelandic immigration policies were very restrictive, similar to Denmark’s policies before and during the war. Iceland was a poor country with economic hardship, and antisemitism also played a role.

Xenophobia grew easily

“Iceland is small and isolated, and in a place like that, xenophobia takes root easily,” Ingólfsson said. “The country was struggling economically, which fed suspicion of foreigners, and there was a prime minister who, on his own authority, closed the country to Jews entirely.”

Yet that same isolation created a practical need for what these three men could offer. “Iceland was pushing toward full independence from Denmark, and we felt we needed our own institutions to be taken seriously as a nation,” Ingólfsson said. “Musically, we still had a long way to go. … These three musicians arrived at exactly the right moment, despite the antisemitism.”

One more factor may have eased their acceptance, Ingólfsson said: By the time they reached Iceland, none of the three was a practicing Jew.

Abraham had been raised Protestant by his Jewish parents; he was no longer religious, according to Ingólfsson. Urbancic’s wife was Jewish, but he was not. And Edelstein had become an atheist.

“That made them easier for Icelanders to accept,” Ingólfsson said.

The three were admitted based on luck, timing, and getting their cases in front of the right people.

“In a way, it happened in a very Icelandic way,” said Ingólfsson. “They were lucky; instead of an automatic no, their applications were forwarded on based on people who knew people.”

Tina Frühauf of the CUNY Graduate Center, who studies Jewish music in the modern era, noted that Jewish identity across pre-Holocaust Europe was far from monolithic, meaning that many emigres had biographies like the Iceland refugees’.

“Before the Holocaust, Germany had an incredibly diverse Jewish religious landscape, and that diversity carried over into the migration itself,” she said.

What happened next still seems improbable. Urbancic became chief conductor of the Reykjavík Orchestra, the ensemble that, by 1950, had grown into the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, and led the country’s first performances of Bach’s “St. John Passion” and Mozart’s “Requiem,” and, in 1951, its first staged opera, Verdi’s “Rigoletto.” He also taught piano and theory at the Reykjavík School of Music and played the organ in the city’s only Catholic church.

Abraham became a central figure in Icelandic choral music. He conducted the Iceland Symphony Orchestra’s first-ever concert in 1950, founded the Philharmonia Choral Society in 1959, and earned a doctorate in musicology, eventually serving as director of music for the Church of Iceland — a long way from the young man who had arrived in Akureyri with one suitcase and instructions to keep a low profile. Edelstein, meanwhile, helped build the music schools and teaching pipelines that a country with no conservatory tradition simply didn’t have.

“They essentially created it,” Ingólfsson said of Iceland’s classical music scene. “People often ask why a country this small punches so far above its weight musically. Part of it is training, but just as important is a willingness to do the work. These three men set their egos aside. They were multi-talented and willing to take on any role — training orchestras, building choirs, teaching children — not just performing or conducting.”

That willingness, Ingólfsson argued, wasn’t incidental. A country with no infrastructure needed people willing to do five jobs at once, for little money and less glory. Urbancic, Edelstein, and Abraham fit that need because their old lives had already been upended. They weren’t protecting professional reputations; they were starting over.

Despite its impact, the story sat largely untold for decades, even in Iceland. Ingólfsson stumbled into it by chance. “It came to me by accident — about 25 years ago, an editor in Iceland approached me with the idea,” he said. “I was in graduate school at Harvard, so I researched and wrote much of it during my summer break.”

He published three newspaper profiles of the men in 2001, then set the project aside for two decades before finally turning it into a full book — work that meant tracking down archives, and just as often, tracking down people.

“I got in touch with the musicians’ families and met each of their children,” he said. “It’s a small world, and one connection led to another. Having that access early on made all the difference.”

One connection led somewhere unexpected and miraculous. While researching Abraham, Ingólfsson learned that the young musician had once been engaged to a non-Jewish woman who stayed behind in Berlin when he fled, and that he sent her care packages for years. Ingólfsson tracked down her daughter and wrote to her cold. “I’m writing a biography of your mother’s ex-boyfriend,” he told her. “She was overjoyed,” he recalled. “I met her in Hamburg, and she handed me a box of letters. That daughter became a second grandmother to me.”

So why did the story take so long to surface? “There’s still a tendency to tell the stories of our own,” Ingólfsson said. “Yes, these men did extraordinary work, but they were foreigners. Musicology is also a fairly new field in Iceland; there are only three or four musicologists in the whole country.”

Recognition is arriving now: Weeks ago, the Exile Museum in Berlin launched a series with foreign embassies, each spotlighting a refugee story tied to their country, and Iceland was chosen to go first.

Set against the wider history of Jewish musical exile, Iceland is an extreme case of an ordinary pattern. Musicians fleeing Nazi Europe scattered unevenly across the globe, and what happened to them next often depended on little more than where an immigration officer happened to say yes.

“Exile happened in very different ways,” Frühauf said. “Some musicians were actively forced out, threatened with internment, and some were even interned before being released. Others left earlier, and where they ended up varied enormously — America, Singapore, all over the world.”

The German musicologist Albrecht Dümling, meanwhile, saw his research take him to Australia, where nearly 100 German-Jewish refugee musicians landed, some of whom, after fleeing the Nazis, were deported there by the British, who considered them “enemy aliens.”

“They were horrified, as they had come as Jewish refugees to Britain and had hoped to be in a safe country,” he said of men sent aboard the prison ship Dunera in 1940. “They could not believe that in England they had been interned, and this was continued in Australia as well. Some were very depressed. But others saw their internment as a challenge to write songs that made clear their opposition to Hitler’s Germany.”

What separated musicians who thrived from those who vanished, Dümling said, often had less to do with talent than paperwork: Refugees in Iceland typically weren’t permitted to resume their old careers, a fate Urbancic, Edelstein, and Abraham avoided only because Iceland’s need for musicians overrode the usual restrictions.

Obscurity instructive rather than incidental

Frühauf sees Iceland’s relative obscurity as instructive rather than incidental. “Smaller countries of exile are exactly where you find figures who’ve been overlooked,” she said. “Because exiles were so widely dispersed, many remain unknown simply due to geography.”

All three scholars described a sense of urgency, with the window for hearing these stories firsthand closing fast. “As eyewitnesses to the Nazi era pass away, hopes are pinned on the second generation,” Dümling said, “but the publication of personal memoirs, letters, and diaries written by these eyewitnesses is also taking on greater significance.”

That urgency comes with an ethical balancing act, Frühauf said. Recover the work too cautiously, and the story behind the music stays lost; recover it carelessly, and real artists risk being seen merely as symbols of suffering. “We have to avoid reducing these artists to simply victims or survivors, and instead make sure their music is valued on its own artistic merit,” she said. “The goal isn’t only to recover lost works, it’s to bring these musicians back into the canon.”

For Ingólfsson, the project has become something closer to a rescue than a research assignment, a chance to explain to the country that has been hearing this music for so many years where so much of it actually came from.

“What strikes me most is the sheer randomness of it, how much depended on one person knowing another, often in events far outside Iceland,” he said. “These men were growing desperate in the 1930s, trying everything to get out. For a classical musician, Iceland was hardly a dream destination. And yet they turned something depressing and unfortunate into something extraordinary. It’s a very Icelandic story.”

This post was originally published on here. 

The Syrian city of Kobani, also known as Ayn al-Arab, was placed under curfew Monday night, the country’s Internal Security Department announced after Kurdish protesters attacked several government-affiliated locations. 

Aleppo’s Media Directorate said that internal security forces had been deployed, according to Sky News Arabia.

The curfew was announced “out of concern for the safety of citizens and to preserve security and stability” after unrest continued Monday night in a number of Kurdish areas. 

Kurds in the Syrian city of Kobani reportedly burned a Syrian flag in front of a government office in Aleppo, i24NEWS reported on Monday.

Multiple cities saw attacks against government symbols

According to the Hasakah Media Directorate, groups attacked internal security headquarters in the cities of Al-Hasakah and Al-Qamishli, both of which contain a large number of Kurds.

“In the city of Al-Hasakah, those groups removed the flag of the Syrian Arab Republic from one of the internal security headquarters and assaulted it,” said the directorate in a post on X/Twitter on Tuesday morning.

مجموعات خارجة عن القانون تعتدي على مقار الأمن الداخلي وتثير التوتر في الحسكة والقامشلي

أقدمت مجموعات خارجة عن القانون، اليوم، على تنفيذ اعتداءات طالت عددًا من مقار الأمن الداخلي في مدينتي الحسكة والقامشلي، على خلفية الأحداث التي شهدتها مدينة رأس العين.

وفي مدينة الحسكة، أقدمت… pic.twitter.com/T5pN1A1WuU

— مديرية إعلام الحسكة (@McHasakah) August 10, 2026

“Other groups attacked security personnel stationed at one of the headquarters in Al-Qamishli, causing damage to several internal security vehicles,” it added.

As a result,” it said, “internal security forces reinforced their presence at several points in the two cities, aiming to contain the tension, control the security situation, and preserve the safety of citizens while protecting public and private property.”

Kurds have a complicated relationship with Syria’s new leadership following Bashar al-Assad’s loss of power in December 2024. Within months of President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s takeover, the new Syrian government effectively took control of the the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North-East Syria. 

Since then, sectarian tensions have become more heated, and serious attacks on national and ethnic minorities have occured.

This post was originally published on here. 

Former Ukrainian detainees and Ukrainian officials accused Russia on Monday of systematically torturing prisoners of war and civilian detainees, holding captives incommunicado and subjecting them to beatings, electric shocks and sexual abuse, with thousands still in captivity.

Russia rejected the allegations made at an informal UN Security Council meeting, with its Deputy UN Representative Maria Zabolotskaya calling it “a disinformation campaign” and alleging that Russian prisoners in Ukraine were subjected to “torture and degradation and moral and physical abuse.”

Khuan Alberto Levya Garsiya, still an active member of the Ukrainian military, said his Russian captors subjected him to every imaginable form of torture during 1,183 days in captivity.

“Yes … I was tortured,” he told reporters after the UN meeting. “Anything you can think of that can be done hurtful, humiliating to a man, unwillingly. Anything that comes to your mind, not only verbal, physical abuse, daily beatings, electrocution, excessive, excessive exercises in freezing cold when it’s minus degrees … sexual abuse. Everything that can be applied to a person into making a person break mentally. It was all applied to me and most of my comrades.”

Garsiya said he was lucky to survive but two of his friends were beaten to death in detention centers in the Donetsk region. Prisoners were held in “overcrowded barracks without adequate conditions,” where “almost all POWs were ill with dysentery” and many were starving, he told the UN meeting.

Thousands of Ukrainians have been returned in prisoner exchanges

A Ukrainian with a Cuban father, he said guards targeted him particularly because of his Latino name, accusing him of being “a mercenary and an American spy.”

Crimean Tatar activist Leniie Umerova, released in a prisoner exchange in 2024, said she was detained while trying to visit her seriously ill father in Crimea.

She described being moved through “seven detention facilities” in what she called “a carousel of repression” and accused Russia of using torture against Ukrainians in captivity.

Oleg Gushin of the Ukrainian government’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said Ukrainian prisoners were “killed and tortured” in detention.

He said Kyiv had identified “more than 300 places of detention” in Russia and occupied Ukrainian territory and that while more than 9,000 Ukrainians had been returned through exchanges, “thousands” remained in Russian captivity.

Ukraine’s Chargé d’Affaires Volodymyr Pavlichenko called for greater international pressure and accountability for Russia’s treatment of prisoners.

UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Claudia Fuentes Julio said UN monitoring showed that “widespread and systematic torture and ill-treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilian detainees by the Russian Federation authorities continues,” including sexual violence.

Since February 2022, the UN Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights had documented the execution of 129 Ukrainian prisoners of war at the beginning of their captivity and the deaths of 48 in custody, resulting from torture, denial of medical care, or other inhumane conditions of detention, she said.

She said more than 95% of Ukrainian prisoners of war interviewed reported experiencing torture or ill-treatment.

She said more than half also reported sexual violence, including “rape, gang rape, beating while nude, beatings to the genitals, electric shocks to the genitals and nipples, and degrading treatment of a sexualized nature.”

She said the UN had received “consistent accounts of severe beatings with objects such as batons, heavy belts, and wood, electric shocks, dog attacks, mock executions, and other forms of torture.”

Fuentes Julio said the OHCHR had also documented torture and ill-treatment of Russian and third-country national prisoners of war held by Ukraine, but “on a fundamentally different scale.”

She said about half of Russian and third-country prisoners interviewed reported abuse during initial stages of captivity.

This post was originally published on here. 

The Toto Cup preseason tournament group stage came to an end, with the semifinals now set as Maccabi Netanya hosts Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ironi Kiryat Shmona welcomes Hapoel Tel Aviv this coming Sunday night.

In group play, Hapoel Jerusalem defeated Hapoel Petah Tikva 3-1 as Israel Dappa scored a late brace to help the capital city Reds to the Toto Cup victory. After 75 minutes of goalless play, the floodgates opened as Dappa headed home an Ohad Almagor ball to give the hosts, who are playing their home games in Rehovot, a 1-0 lead.

However, Avishay Cohen equalized at 1-1 in the 84th minute, but Andrew Idoko scored immediately afterward to help Jerusalem retake the lead. Dappa then finished off the win with his second of the game in the 89th minute to give the fans a thrilling end to the Toto Cup group stage.

Hapoel Jerusalem finishes group stage with victory

Petah Tikva will face Bnei Sakhnin, while Jerusalem will play Maccabi Haifa in Toto Cup placement games next weekend.

Jerusalem Head Coach Lior Zada spoke about the win: “I felt the exhaustion of the players in the second half, but the final quarter hour was great, and the guys did what they needed to do to win the game. I’m happy that Israel Dappa was able to score, although he had a rough time when he first came in, but he did what he needed to. We have one more game against Maccabi Haifa at Sammy Ofer Stadium, which will be a good test for us ahead of the season.”

Petah Tikva Head Coach Omer Peretz discussed the defeat: “This wasn’t a good game, and it’s our second one in a row that we had trouble creating chances and that we conceded as well. We have a good base here, but we need to improve, and we have to make sure that we score when we have the chance to. We have a bit of time until the season starts, but we need to strengthen the squad before the league begins.”

Vitalie Damascan looked back at the win: “It was a good game against a tough opponent. Petah Tikva knows how to keep the ball, and I’m happy with how we handled it and that we were able to eventually win. It’s not my first time in Israel, so I’m used to playing, and the club has done everything to make me feel comfortable since I’ve arrived.”

Up north, Maccabi Haifa blanked Bnei Sakhnin 1-0 as Silva Kani put the ball in off Cedric Don’s shot, which had hit the post, to give the Greens the Toto Cup victory.

Haifa will play Hapoel Jerusalem, while Sakhnin will host Hapoel Petah Tikva in placement games next week.

“This was a better game. It wasn’t great, but it was definitely one that was more aggressive,” Haifa Head Coach Barak Bachar began after the win. “We didn’t concede, and they didn’t create chances as easily as they have in recent games. We’re working and putting the pieces together. We’re trying to establish a core of players who can play together, and we’re working and will continue to work. I saw improvement, and I expect to see further improvement going forward.”

Yossi Abukasis summed up the loss: “We’re playing without a natural striker at all; everyone is a midfielder. The only striker in the squad is suspended after receiving a red card, and we’re waiting for a foreign striker to arrive. Our attacking play isn’t good because we don’t have a natural striker. We haven’t been worse than our opponents in these games.”

Kiryat Shmona clinches Toto Cup semifinal berth

Elsewhere, Kiryat Shmona defeated Hapoel Haifa 3-1 as the northerners turned around an early deficit with a trio of second-half goals to finish atop Group A in Toto Cup play with four wins and a spot in the semifinals, where they will play Hapoel Tel Aviv.

Liran Rotman gave the Carmel Reds a lead off a poor clearance by goalkeeper Daniel Tennebaum, but from that point on, it was all Shai Barda’s squad.

Adrian Ugarriza drew Kiryat Shmona even from the penalty spot in the 64th minute, while two minutes later, Ariel Sheratzky sent a left-footed scorcher into the top corner of the goal to snatch a 2-1 lead. Shai Sabag polished off the victory during second-half injury time as he scored into a wide-open goal to secure the win and a place in the semifinals.

Goal scorer Ariel Sheratzky spoke about the match: “We really wanted to reach the semifinals. We wanted it badly, and we appreciate the situation we’re in. We need to continue working hard so that we can be even more prepared for the league, because that’s the real money time. We’ll try to be as prepared as possible and win the next game, but for now, the entire team looks good and is giving everything, so I’m happy about that.”

Hapoel Haifa Head Coach Haim Silvas summed up the loss.

“First of all, credit goes to Kiryat Shmona, who reached the semifinals after recording four wins. We had an excellent first half, and we gave Kiryat Shmona no chances. But the second half is something that has characterized us somewhat so far. Our response to the penalty wasn’t good enough, and we’ll have to learn from that; it’s an excellent lesson. The fact that we conceded a goal immediately after the penalty is something I don’t like. We got ourselves into trouble with the ball in the second half.”

Maccabi Petah Tikva closes group stage with win

Also, Maccabi Petah Tikva slipped by Hapoel Ramat Gan 2-1 in the final game of the Toto Cup group stage. After a goalless first half, Samuel Owusu scored a screamer off the bar to give Petah Tikva the lead, while Liran Hazan doubled the advantage when he headed home the ball in the 74th minute.

Amit scored soon thereafter to cut the lead, but that’s as close as Ramat Gan would get as Ziv Arie’s team wrapped up the win. Petah Tikva will now visit Ironi Tiberias, while Ramat Gan will host Beitar Jerusalem in placement games next week.

See more Israeli sports coverage at www.sportsrabbi.com/en

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The next round of Israel-Lebanon talks is set to be held at the beginning of September, a US official told Saudi state-owned Al-Arabiya English Tuesday morning.

Hezbollah is still seeking to disrupt the peace process between the countries, said the official, adding that Washington remains optimistic about the talks.

The discussions between the countries have included talks on a third country demining certain areas, the official reportedly said.

This is a developing story.

This post was originally published on here. 

A Channel 12 News poll published Monday evening showed a shift at the top of Israel’s political landscape, with Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party moving into first place with 24 Knesset seats, one up from a previous poll. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party fell to 22 seats, placing it second.

Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad party came in third with 15 seats. The Democrats, led by Yair Golan, also gained support, rising to 11 seats, while Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu climbed to 10. Otzma Yehudit, led by Itamar Ben Gvir, also strengthened, receiving eight seats.

There was no significant change among the ultra-Orthodox parties. United Torah Judaism remained at eight seats, while Shas held steady at seven after declining in the previous poll. Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionist Party also remained unchanged at five seats.

The two Arab parties each received five seats, with Hadash-Ta’al and Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am both projected to enter the Knesset.

Tropper, Hendel’s The Zionist Home – The Reservists below threshold

Several other parties seeking to establish themselves as alternatives in Israel’s political landscape remained below the electoral threshold. The Zionist Home – The Reservists, led by Hili Tropper and Yoaz Hendel, which had crossed the threshold in recent polls, fell to 2.7%.

Balad, led by Sami Abu Shehadeh, received 1.6%, while Gilad Erdan’s Yamin party received 1.3%. Benny Gantz’s Blue and White received just 0.8%. All four parties remained below Israel’s 3.25% electoral threshold.

The overall balance between the political blocs remained similar to the previous poll. Parties opposed to Netanyahu received a combined 70 seats, including 60 for the Zionist opposition parties and 10 for the Arab parties. The parties currently making up the governing coalition, meanwhile, received a combined 50 seats.

Poll examined united Arab parties, other scenarios

The poll also scrutinized how voters would react to a scenario in which Hadash, Ta’al, and Balad united to run as a joint list, and former Yesh Atid MK Yoav Segalovitz runs on Ra’am’s list, as he has reportedly been planning on doing.

In this scenario, Yashar would fall by one seat to 23, as would the Democrats, to 10. Ra’am, however, would rise to six seats, and the joint Arab list would rise to six. 

This scenario would see the anti-Netanyahu bloc remain at 70 seats, but with Arab parties holding 12 of them.

In another scenario, namely the the unification of Blue and White, The Zionist Home-The Reservists, and Gilad Erdan’s Yamin party as a “third bloc,” the joint list mentioned would receive six seats. Yashar would fall to 22, Likud to 19, and B’Yachad to 14.

This would mean that the opposition bloc would fall to 67 seats as a whole while the opposition would stand at 47 seats and the third bloc at six.

Respondents of the poll chose Eisenkot as more suitable than Netanyahu for the prime minister’s post by a margin of 5%, and Bennett over Netanyahu by 2%.

63% of respondents said US President Donald Trump undermines Israel’s security more than Netanyahu, at a margin of 63% to 25%. Voters also trust Netanyahu to deal with Trump more than other party leaders. 

At 44%, a plurality of voters said Israel shouldn’t go against Trump if he declares the war with Iran over, but 36% said Israel should strike Iran by itself in that scenario.

Despite this, 64% of the public said Israel should continue to attack Hamas targets in Gaza amid Trump administration officials’ plans to end hostilities in the area.

This post was originally published on here. 

Aner Shapiro, the Jerusalem artist and musician who was killed while saving others during the October 7 massacre, will be honored at this year’s Israel Festival with an unusual event this week aimed not simply at celebrating creativity, but at putting it to work.

The “Creators of Impact” hackathon, to be held Wednesday as part of the festival’s two-day VERSE program, will bring together 10 artists working in different disciplines and 10 nonprofit organizations to develop new artistic projects designed to address social problems.

The event is being organized by the Israel Festival, the Aner Shapiro Association (also known as the Aner Foundation), and JDC-Israel.

Aner Shapiro’s legacy of art and healing

VERSE, taking place August 11-12 at the Jerusalem Campus of the Arts, is conceived as a meeting point between artistic creation and social activism. The festival describes it as art driven by “radical compassion,” bringing together artists and activists who see creativity as a way to listen to different voices, connect communities, and encourage change.

That philosophy reflects Shapiro’s own life. A multitalented Jerusalem artist, composer, writer, and singer, he believed in the ability of music and art to unite and heal. On October 7, 2023, he was at the Nova music festival and took shelter with others in a roadside shelter near Re’im. 

When Hamas terrorists repeatedly threw grenades inside, Shapiro threw them back out until he was killed at the age of 22. His actions saved the lives of others sheltering there. The association established in his name seeks to continue his belief in using art as a means of repairing the world.

Artists and nonprofits unite for ‘Creators of Impact’

The invitation-only hackathon begins at 12:30 p.m. on August 12. Artists and representatives from the participating organizations will work together on social challenges. Their goal is to develop artwork ideas that can tell stories, stimulate discussion, and inspire action. A jury will select one proposed work to receive funding for its realization.

The organizations reflect an unusually broad range of issues in Israeli society. They include Otot, which supports at-risk youth; I-School, which provides online educational opportunities for students from disadvantaged areas and those affected by the war; ASSAF, which assists refugees and asylum seekers; and Blendar, which promotes Jewish-Arab connections through Arabic language and cultural education.

Among the others are a Sakhnin organization providing care for people with disabilities and special needs; Kanfey Dror, which combats bullying and social exclusion; Home Base, which works with homeless people through sports and community rehabilitation; Machshava Tova, which seeks to reduce social disparities through access to technology; the Council of Youth Movements in Israel; and Ruach Oz, which helps wounded IDF soldiers navigate recognition and rehabilitation.

The 10 artists were chosen in part because of their previous engagement with socially oriented art and their experience taking projects from conception through public presentation. They represent disciplines including visual art, poetry, choreography, theater, music, street art, performance, sound, and film.

Among them are multidisciplinary artist Shani Avivi, whose work explores memory, home, community, and personal archives; poet and choreographer Efrat Nachma; theater creator and actress Ofri Fuchs; participatory artist and designer Shmulik Twig; musician and rapper Yitzhak Vodaj; multidisciplinary performer Uri Duvdevani; performance artist Mohammed Abu Sarah; street artist Lior Ben Tov (Pesh); performance and sound artist Rotem Volk; and filmmaker Liav Kovalchuk, a Sam Spiegel Film School student whose work deals with identity, trauma, memory, and relationships.

VERSE brings art and social activism together

The VERSE program extends the same idea of art as a vehicle for connection throughout its two days, with music, film, exhibitions, participatory art, and discussions. Performers include Ninet Tayeb with Berry Sakharof, Ehud Banai, Pele Ozen with Hasan MC, and Orit Tashoma.

Also on August 12, a special edition of Jerusalem Story will be held, the storytelling project and podcast devoted to highlighting the city’s diverse communities. Six Jerusalemites will tell personal stories representing different backgrounds, neighborhoods, religions, and traditions in an evening hosted by Mishy Harman and featuring music by Rona Kenan.

Taken together, the events make VERSE less a conventional tribute to Shapiro than an attempt to continue his legacy and life. He was motivated by the wish both to help and inspire others through his creativity and his belief that art can do more than reflect the society around it, that it can also help change it.

This post was originally published on here. 

“We achieved the unimaginable together. Our joint achievement is historic,” US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Adm. Brad Cooper told senior IDF commanders on Monday in remarks obtained exclusively by The Jerusalem Post.

“You are a nation of warriors, and the people sitting here are the leaders of those warriors,” Cooper told the officers. “I am proud to serve shoulder to shoulder with you.”

Cooper also delivered a direct message about the future of the US-Israel military relationship.

CENTCOM chief stresses enduring US commitment to Israel

“We have a high and enduring commitment to you,” he said.

According to a source familiar with the closed forum, Cooper said that many countries speak about allies fighting “shoulder to shoulder,” but that in the case of the US and Israel, the phrase described an operational reality.

The source described Cooper’s appearance as historic, saying it was highly unusual for a CENTCOM commander to address an IDF operational forum of this kind.

The gathering, led by IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, included senior IDF officers and operational commanders from the rank of lieutenant-colonel and above, among them battalion commanders and squadron commanders who had taken part in the war.

The commanders received a multi-front operational and intelligence briefing, including a review of developments during the war and Israel’s achievements against Iran. Zamir also delivered an extensive assessment of the current strategic situation.

US-Israel military partnership deepens amid war

Cooper’s closed-door comments were stronger and more personal than the remarks included in the IDF’s official statement on the meeting.

The IDF said Cooper reviewed the deepening strategic partnership between the US and Israeli militaries, saying that cooperation between the two had repeatedly proven itself throughout the campaign.

According to the military, Cooper stressed that the partnership was based on trust, commitment and close cooperation, and had become an important element in strengthening regional security and stability.

Zamir thanked Cooper for the close cooperation between the militaries and presented him with a gift. He described cooperation with the US military as “unprecedented” and called it a “strategic anchor.”

Zamir: Israel at a ‘strategic crossroads’

“We are in a significant period and at a strategic crossroads,” Zamir told the forum.

“The IDF is a fighting military, and we are engaged in a large, prolonged, multi-front campaign. Our mission is to influence reality and not be dragged behind it, through tactical and systemic initiative.”

Zamir said diplomatic negotiations were currently taking place in several of Israel’s main theaters and linked those talks directly to the IDF’s military achievements.

“All of these are the result of the IDF’s historic achievements,” he said. “We must ensure that we fully realize the achievements of the campaign and maximize them.”

“We are well prepared on defense, alongside immediate readiness and alertness for a return to high-intensity fighting.”

Zamir told commanders that the IDF was carrying out what he described as a systematic and structured plan for victory.

“Since October 7, the IDF has proven itself as a victorious military, with a spirit of strength, an offensive and initiating military,” he said.

“The achievements we have made on all fronts are first and foremost your achievements,” Zamir told the commanders, referring to troops and personnel across the ground forces, navy, air force, intelligence, communications, logistics and administration.

“Together, you led the IDF to significant achievements and changed the security reality.”

Zamir said the military was now in an interim period and warned commanders against allowing forces to lose their readiness.

“Alongside the desire to allow forces to refresh, we must not lose vigilance,” he said.

“We are required to maintain high readiness, be prepared for a rapid return to high-intensity fighting, respond quickly to every development and continue protecting our citizens.”

“The challenge now is to continue shaping reality, build the force and ensure that the IDF is prepared for every scenario,” Zamir said.

This post was originally published on here. 

Dozens of ultra-Orthodox protesters denounced the expansion of the light rail in the Bar-Ilan Street area of ​​Jerusalem, Israel Police confirmed on Monday night. 

Israel Police and Border Police officers are currently working to restore public order and have instructed the rioters to clear the roadway after officially declaring the protest a public disturbance, police said.

“The rioters are disrupting daily life in the area while attempting to intermittently block traffic routes and cause damage at the light rail construction site,” police added.

This is a developing story.

This post was originally published on here. 

The US State Department said on Monday it has revoked more than 175,000 visas from foreign nationals under President Donald Trump’s administration, as it continues a sweeping immigration crackdown that has stripped travel and immigration privileges from tens of thousands more people.

The department said in a statement the revocations targeted foreigners who “violated the terms of their visas, committed crimes, called for violence against US citizens, defrauded Americans, abused our immigration system, or endangered national security.”

Most visas were revoked following “law enforcement encounters,” with assault, driving under the influence, theft and drug crimes the leading causes, the department said.

Specific cases cited by the department include a person charged with felony rape and sexual battery, another charged with kidnapping and human trafficking, and a person facing more than a dozen counts of possessing child sexual abuse material. A US embassy in North Africa revoked more than 100 visas from “birth tourist” parents who allegedly came to the US primarily to give birth so their children would receive US citizenship, it said.

State Department revokes visas of those who ‘celebrated’ Charlie Kirk assassination

The department also said it had revoked the visas of multiple foreigners who “celebrated” the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, including one who said he “died too late.”

In January, the department said it had revoked more than 100,000 visas, a record at the time.

The extent of the revocations reflects the broad immigration crackdown initiated when Trump returned to the White House last year, deporting an unprecedented number of migrants including some who held valid visas. The administration has also adopted a stricter policy on granting visas, with tightened social media vetting and expanded screening.

Rights advocates and human rights experts have condemned the Trump administration’s social media screening efforts, which they say threaten free speech and are akin to surveillance and singling out of immigrants.

This post was originally published on here. 

An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.4 shook Colombia’s coastal Choco province at 7:34 a.m. local time on Monday, killing at least 111 people and trapping an unknown number of people underneath rubble.

According to the geological service, the quake struck at a depth of 79 km, with its epicenter near San José del Palmar.

Shortly after the initial tremor, the geological service reported an additional magnitude 4.8 seismic incident in the same region.

#SismosColombiaSGC Evento Sísmico – Boletín Actualizado 2, 2026-08-10, 07:34 hora local Magnitud 7.4, profundidad 96 km, San José del Palmar – Chocó, Colombia ¿Sintió este sismo? repórtelo https://t.co/pgC7OC2O7j https://t.co/63pt8nVsSe #NoticiaEnDesarrollo pic.twitter.com/8LQZs0nsfF

— Servicio Geológico Colombiano (@sgcol) August 10, 2026

Choco province Governor Nubia Carolina Córdoba-Curi stated that many injuries have been reported and there was severe damage to buildings. Córdoba-Curi added that damage assessments are underway. 

Videos posted on social media showed parts of Manizales city’s Metropolitan Cathedral Basilica, the tallest cathedral in Colombia, crumbling after the tremor.

#SISMO. Tras el fuerte temblor de magnitud 6.6 con epicentro en San José del Palmar, Chocó, sacudió a varias regiones de Colombia, dejando a Manizales como una de las ciudades más afectadas, donde la cúpula de la Catedral Basílica Metropolitana colapsó tras el movimiento telúrico pic.twitter.com/5XDOW76y55

— Colombia Oscura (@ColombiaOscura) August 10, 2026

Santiago de Cali City Mayor Alejandro Eder stated that at least 20 structures have collapsed, trapping people underneath rubble as emergency services work to get the situation under control. 

Colombia’s National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD) stated that there is no tsunami threat.

The Colombian Geological Service initially reported that the earthquake had a magnitude of 6.6, before revising the official measure to 7.4. Other initial reports also varied in magnitude between 6.6 and 7.4.

Colombian president calls emergency meeting, Israel offers assistance

Colombian President Abelardo De La Espriella convened an emergency meeting with UNGRD to evaluate the damage, review incoming reports, and coordinate emergency response in affected areas, according to a statement released by Espriella’s office.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar shared his concerns over the earthquake in a statement on X/Twitter and offered his Colombian counterpart any assistance that Israel could contribute in the aftermath of the quake. 

אנו עוקבים בדאגה אחר הדיווחים על רעידת האדמה שפקדה את קולומביה.

הצעתי לעמיתי שר החוץ של קולומביה @omarbula, כל סיוע שישראל תוכל להעניק. ישראל ערוכה לסייע לקולומביה ככל שיידרש.

מחשבותי ותפילותי עם העם הקולומביאני בשעה קשה זו. 🇮🇱🇨🇴

— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) August 10, 2026

“Israel is prepared to assist Colombia as much as required,” Saar stated, adding that his “thoughts and prayers are with the Colombian people during this difficult time.”

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Likud announced on Monday that entrepreneur and businessman Oren Dobronsky, a co-founder of the tech company Hotbar who spent years working in Silicon Valley, would receive Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s first reserved slot on the party’s Knesset list ahead of the elections.

In its announcement, the Likud said Dobronsky, whom the party described as right-wing, would be part of the “Likud team” and was expected after the elections to lead the development of artificial intelligence in the economy, education, medicine, and other sectors.

Shortly after the announcement of his reserved slot, it emerged that Dobronsky had previously attacked US President Donald Trump, calling him “a morally corrupt person” in a post on X/Twitter.

Set aside for a moment whether the agreement with Iran is good or bad, in what world is it normal NOT TO INVITE YOUR SHOULDER-TO-SHOULDER WAR ALLY to the negotiating table?

Do you understand that not only did Trump not invite Israel to the negotiating table, but he DIDN’T SHARE…

— Oren Dobronsky (@ODobronsky) June 17, 2026

“Put aside for a moment the question of whether the agreement with Iran is good or bad,” Dobronsky wrote in the post. “In what world is it normal not to invite to the negotiating table the ally that fought shoulder to shoulder with you?” He added, “Not only did Trump not invite Israel to the negotiating table, he didn’t even share the text of the agreement itself with it? What kind of morally corrupt person treats an ally like that?”

However, on Monday, Dobronsky walked back his statement writing on Facebook that “President Trump is the greatest friend that Israel ever had in the Whitehouse [sic]. I posted in his favor countless times. On one occasion, not knowing all the facts, I lost my temper and posted something I regret. My apologies to President Trump whom I admire deerly [sic].”

Dobronsky is well known in the Israeli and American tech industries. He was a co-founder of a company that developed a toolbar for Internet browsers and later completed a significant exit. He subsequently continued working as an entrepreneur and investing in start-ups.

Dobronsky later moved to Silicon Valley, where he became a well-known figure in the Israeli community and the technology industry. Among other ventures, he founded Oren’s Hummus in Palo Alto, a hummus restaurant that became a popular meeting place for tech industry figures in the area, including senior employees of major technology companies.

Dobronsky also appeared on the television program Shark Tank, where he served as an investor alongside Israeli businesspeople and entrepreneurs. Over the years, he invested in start-ups and was involved in initiatives aimed at strengthening ties between Israel’s tech industry and Silicon Valley.

Likud stated that Dobronsky would lead efforts on artificial intelligence in the economy, education, medicine, finance, and “across all sectors of the country.”

“The Likud movement welcomes Oren Dubronsky as the party’s first reserved candidate,” the party stated.

“Oren is a successful businessman, one of the pioneers of Israel’s high-tech industry, and a right-wing figure,” Likud added.

Netanyahu stated that he was “really very excited” about Oren joining because “I think we’re getting an addition here, you could say additional strength, but also additional initiative, additional understanding, additional experience.”

Tel Aviv District Court rejects Likud decision over party’s district slots

Earlier on Monday, the Tel Aviv District Court rejected petitions filed against a Likud tribunal decision concerning candidates running in the party’s district slots. The court’s decision upheld the cancellation of a vote that had sought to allow incumbent MKs, ministers, and deputy ministers to run for the slots reserved for the districts.

The party tribunal’s decision was made last week following petitions against the provision, which had been approved by a margin of just five votes, against the backdrop of the discovery that five voting envelopes had gone missing, exactly the same number as the margin of victory.

The tribunal overturned the vote, and efforts by party officials to reverse the decision in the civil courts ultimately failed on Monday. The immediate result is that the district slots will remain open only to new candidates, without incumbent elected officials competing for them.

Dobronsky’s reserved slot is part of Netanyahu’s efforts to shape the party and its messaging ahead of the coming period. In recent weeks, the prime minister has held a series of conversations and meetings with a specific group of ministers and MKs, aiming the identify the Likud figures who will spearhead the party’s public messaging in television studios and the media.

Those selected for this group include Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth, coalition chairman Ofir Katz, Education Minister Yoav Kisch, and Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli.

Party officials said Netanyahu was seeking to create a front made up of figures with a statesmanlike profile and media experience who would be capable of appealing to audiences beyond the party’s natural support base and leading its messaging on a range of security and political issues.

Likud has for years prided itself on conducting primaries in which over 100,000 of its registered members are eligible to vote for the Knesset list. Netanyahu has pushed to change the system in recent weeks ahead of the primaries, which were set for August 17.

The changes to the party’s primaries have led to fierce internal tensions, with some party members in favor and others strongly against.

The primaries determine the Likud’s Knesset slate, with the party chairman placed first. Registered members then vote for candidates on the national list, while members from geographic districts vote for candidates from their respective districts.

Candidates chosen on the national list are combined with district representatives and places that guarantee representation for groups including women, immigrants, young members, and minorities. The regulations also reserve certain positions for candidates chosen by the party chairman.

In the 2022 primaries, for example, the first group of positions after the party chairman was largely filled by nationally elected candidates, while district positions and guaranteed-representation slots were inserted farther down the slate. Netanyahu was also given several reserved positions.

The precise locations of those different categories are determined before each election through the party’s temporary election regulations. That is why the current fight has centered not only on whether primaries will take place, but on how much of the resulting slate the members will actually control.

Netanyahu reportedly has held several meetings with senior Likud figure Haim Katz, seeking to bridge disagreements over the primary system.

The first vote on the primaries had been postponed multiple times, prompting reports that Netanyahu was working to secure internal support for changing the system.

There were also reports that Netanyahu has threatened to leave Likud if the proposed changes were not advanced.

Some of the reserved slots could also reportedly go to figures such as Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and former finance minister Moshe Kahlon.

Those within the party who oppose changing the primaries have argued that it will cause those who would otherwise score highly in the primaries to fall further down the list.

A fierce critic of changing the system has been MK Tally Gotliv, who is viewed as a candidate who would receive broad support from registered party members.

Parties are not required to hold primaries in Israel, and only a few do so.

The Likud primaries are expected to be highly competitive. Likud currently has around 40 ministers and MKs serving in the government and Knesset, but recent polls project the party winning only about 25 seats, leaving many at risk of losing their places on the party’s Knesset list.

The debate on how to hold the Likud primaries comes ahead of the general elections, which are set to take place on October 27.

The addition of Orden to the list also came after the Tel Aviv District Court on Monday rejected Likud MK Afif Abed’s attempt to restore a narrowly approved change allowing current and former MKs, ministers and deputy ministers to run in the party’s district primaries, leaving the restrictions in place ahead of the August 17 vote.

Judge Yaakov Shaked nevertheless sided with Abed on a central issue in the dispute, ruling that the Likud’s top internal court had exceeded its authority when it found that allowing incumbent politicians to compete in district races violated the party’s principle of equality.

Avi Solomon and Sarah Ben-Nun contributed to this report.

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Jewish families across Ukraine are struggling through a summer marked by intensified missile and drone attacks, economic hardship and limited opportunities to escape the country for a vacation, community leaders said.

The recent escalation in Russian aerial attacks has left civilians across much of the country facing repeated air-raid alerts, forcing Jewish communities to find ways to give children some sense of a normal summer while continuing to provide humanitarian assistance to families in need.

“The children have to be able to disconnect from the sirens,” one community rabbi said.

Ukrainian Jewish families struggle to escape war for summer

For many Ukrainian families, leaving the country for a summer break is either financially impossible or complicated by wartime restrictions. Men of military age generally face restrictions on leaving Ukraine, meaning families may have to choose between remaining together at home or having women and children travel without them.

Some Ukrainian women and children who can afford to travel have sought temporary respite in the Carpathian Mountains or in areas considered relatively quieter. For many Jewish families, however, local communities have become the main source of recreation, assistance and stability.

Synagogues and Jewish community centers across the country have organized activities intended to give children time away from the pressures of wartime life.

Even routine visits to a synagogue or community center can provide families with an opportunity to leave their homes and spend time with others.

The summer months have also created additional financial pressure for households already struggling with higher living costs and years of war.

Jewish organizations provide food amid growing hardship

The Jewish Relief Network Ukraine, known as JRNU and affiliated with Chabad communities across the country, has been working with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews to distribute food and humanitarian assistance throughout the summer.

The organizations said they were delivering thousands of kosher food packages to elderly residents, people with illnesses and low-income families, including those living in relatively isolated communities.

“We don’t really have the ability to go on vacation, and these food deliveries are a lifeline,” said a mother in Kyiv who is a member of the city’s Jewish community. “We are living in a state of day-to-day survival.”

Rabbi Simcha Levenharz of JRNU said the end of winter had brought little relief for families coping with the war.

“The long winter ended and summer brought the heat, but the reality on the ground has only become more difficult with the latest missile barrages,” Levenharz said. “Prices have risen, and people are struggling for their most basic needs.”

He said Jewish communal institutions had continued operating throughout the summer despite the traditional vacation period.

“While other institutions have gone on vacation, our kitchens are working nonstop, every day,” he said.

“When the assistance and food reach families, there is tremendous relief simply from knowing that they are not alone, that someone is thinking about them and supporting them through this exhausting routine that all of us here are experiencing.”

Communities seek to preserve normalcy for children

For Jewish community leaders, the challenge extends beyond meeting immediate material needs. After years of war and displacement, they are also attempting to preserve community life and provide children with periods of normalcy despite the continuing threat from the air.

For many families, that has made the local Jewish community one of the few places where a summer break, even for several hours, remains possible.

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A national state of emergency, a special task force, and an annual budget of NIS 1 billion are at the center of a plan unveiled Monday by the Democrats Party leader, Yair Golan, to combat organized crime in Arab society.

Golan presented the plan, which he described as a “root treatment,” at a press conference in Nazareth.

Under the proposal, Golan pledged that within the first week after the formation of a government led by him or including his party, a national state of emergency would be declared and a dedicated task force would be established to bring together the country’s law enforcement agencies.

Golan outlined several key elements of the plan, including shortening judicial proceedings with the goal of moving from arrest to imprisonment within nine months, establishing dedicated courts for serious crimes, and launching a broad economic campaign to cut off criminal organizations’ sources of funding and bar companies linked to them from public tenders.

Golan also announced the establishment of “Team 49,” an interministerial body that would bring together the education, welfare, law enforcement, and rehabilitation systems to identify and rescue at-risk youth from the grip of criminal organizations. The body is named for the 49 children and minors who have been murdered in recent years.

Golan speaks to Israel’s Arab citizens

During the press conference, held alongside a display of weapons seized in the field, including rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), automatic rifles, and handguns, Golan directly addressed Arab citizens and bereaved families and asked for their forgiveness.

“Sorry that the government abandoned you and gave up on its most basic duty, to protect the lives of its citizens,” he said. “Instead of fighting the criminal organizations, it allowed them to grow stronger and become the de facto rulers of entire streets.”

Golan also sharply criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, stressing that the rise in crime was neither inevitable nor a cultural issue.

“This is an ongoing failure of the government. A country that knows how to reach every terrorist organization in the world and expose nuclear facilities in Iran knows how to reach every criminal organization and locate illegal weapons anywhere in Israel. When there is a decision and a will, there is also the ability.”

Golan said crime in Arab society should not be viewed as a problem affecting only one sector, but as a threat to Israeli society as a whole.

“When a criminal organization takes control of an Arab locality, it does not stay there, it reaches the roads, the cities, businesses, and all of our lives. No one will be safe until all of us are safe,” 

Golan concluded, pledging: “Our first demand will be to receive the National Security Ministry portfolio. We have one test, the test of results.”

MK Naama Lazimi presented a firm position on the role of Arab society in Israel’s political and social future.

Drawing on childhood memories from the Migdal HaEmek, Yafia, and Nazareth area, Lazimi described how the shared life she once took for granted had eroded as a result of what she described as discriminatory government policies.

Lazimi stressed that “democracy is measured not only by the inclusion of the minority but by the treatment of it,” and said Arab society must be an integral part of rebuilding a cohesive and democratic Israel.

She sharply criticized the current government, saying that approximately 700 citizens had been murdered since it took office and describing the failure to provide security as abandonment rather than governance.

Lazimi also addressed potential partners in a future coalition, calling on them to abandon cynical political calculations and stop rejecting partnership out of fear.

She made clear that “those who ignore the existing situation give power to the elements seeking to destroy shared life in this country.”

MK Gilad Kariv accused Netanyahu’s governments of abandoning Arab society for years, which he said had contributed to the spread of weapons and deadly crime.

Kariv argued that Netanyahu and his political partners had turned Arab citizens into enemies for political reasons. He stressed that combating crime requires Jewish-Arab partnership.

According to Kariv, his party would not be drawn into Netanyahu’s “disqualification campaign” and would work to ensure that Arab citizens are included as equal partners.

Parents of crime victims speak out

Parents whose children had been murdered also addressed the conference. Among them was Dr. Ashraf Sapia, a well-known and respected dentist and the father of 15-year-old Nabil, a gifted student who was shot dead while walking on a street in Kafr Yasif.

“For those who don’t know, I am Nabil’s father. A gifted child who studied all day for his biology exam, and with permission from his father and mother, went out for a walk after a full day of studies. At seven thirty, after the visit from his father and mother, at eight o’clock he came back in a coffin. Now, Nabil, like every boy, every girl… We in Arab society have been abandoned. For 70 years we lived in this country; there were no people killed. We were young, we were children, we were little, and we didn’t have this. 75,000 weapons circulating.”

“My duty is to protect my son, teach him, and educate him. But who guarantees me… Now my youngest son, two groups in Kafr Yasif want him for soccer, I work at a hospital, work at my clinic… Who guarantees me that he finishes soccer practice in Kafr Yasif and that from the game he will come home and no one will come near him? No one can guarantee that. And the one who deals with this is the top of the pyramid and downward. Whoever abandoned us, then he has to move himself aside and bring us people who will look us in the eyes.”

“I thank you very much, and with God’s help I see light at the end of the tunnel. I really see light. We will succeed because God does not accept this chaos. There needs to be order. I fulfill my obligations, and the entire sector fulfills its obligations, but we are asking the leadership to protect us. Simple. That’s all.”

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US President Donald Trump demanded that Iran compensate the families of all US citizens injured or killed in attacks orchestrated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in a post on Truth Social on Monday.

Trump also asserted that compensation should be given to the families of anti-IRGC protestors who have been killed by regime forces over the last 50 years.

pic.twitter.com/iELIb2fFnP

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 10, 2026

He stated that he has instructed US officials to require that compensation be included in any future deals or agreements negotiated between Washington and Tehran.

This is a developing story.

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Colombia has recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, the country’s Foreign Ministry announced on Monday.

In a statement released on X/Twitter, the ministry stated that it recognizes Israeli control over the area as “an essential component of its national defense and its ability to protect and safeguard its citizens.”

The recognition resulted from a commitment made by both Israel and Colombia on Saturday, the ministry said.

In its declaration, Bogota became only the second UN member state to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the territory captured from Syria in 1967 and effectively annexed by Israel in 1981, after the United States recognized Israeli sovereignty in 2019 during US President Donald Trump’s first term in office.

Gideon Sa’ar: Colombia demonstrated ‘commitment to Israel’ in declaration

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar thanked Colombian President Álvaro de la Espriella for the move and Colombian Foreign Minister Omar Bola Escobar for his cooperation on the matter. 

אני מודה לקולומביה ולחברי הטוב נשיא קולומביה אבלרדו דה לה אספרייה @ABDELAESPRIELLA על החלטתו ההסטורית להכיר בריבונות ישראל ברמת הגולן.
זאת, בעקבות פגישתנו בבראנקייה, קולומביה, ביום חמישי שעבר.

בכך הוכיח נשיא קולומביה, באחת מהחלטותיו הראשונות בתפקיד, את מנהיגותו, את ערכיו… https://t.co/wisVitfs8J

— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) August 10, 2026

“Israel is a small country without strategic depth. Defensible borders are essential to ensure the continued existence of the Jewish people in their historic homeland,” the foreign minister wrote on his social media accounts.

“I will continue working to see more countries join the United States, under President Trump’s leadership, and Colombia, under President de la Espriella’s leadership, in recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan, to which Israeli law was extended 45 years ago.”

Sa’ar also praised the recognition as a show of the newly-elected Espriella’s leadership, values, and commitment to Israel, coming in the wake of the foreign minister’s recent visit to South America.

Tal Spungin contributed to this report.

This is a developing story.

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“It reminded me of Israel with the sirens and the bombs,” Israeli resident Fernando Chaim Bisker told The Jerusalem Post from Bogotá, Colombia.

An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.4 shook Colombia’s coastal Choco province at 7:34 a.m. local time on Monday, killing at least 21 people and trapping an unknown number of people underneath rubble. According to the geological service, the quake struck at a depth of 79 km, with its epicenter near San José del Palmar.

Bisker, his wife Chaya, and their two children were on holiday in Cali until yesterday, when they flew to the capital.

Bisker said they are safe as the building is new and is built to be protected in case of an earthquake.

Nevertheless, the earthquake was frightening.

“I was having my breakfast after Shacharit [morning prayers], and then we noticed it was shaking stronger and stronger. And I always saw it in the movies, not in my life. And we went down to the street, and we needed to hold on to the walls because we could not walk; it was shaking so much.”

Down in the street, he said he could see all the buildings shaking.

Something ‘beautiful’ happened on the street in Colombia

“It’s not an easy feeling.”

While standing in the street in his pajamas holding his two children, Bisker said something “beautiful” happened.

“I went to the street with kippah – I’m a religious Jew. And the people there in the street started saying, ‘Viva Israel’ and ‘bless us.’ That was very touching to see the people in the street ask me to bless them.”

“Usually people think that there is so much hate, but there is so much love toward the Jewish people.”

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Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei on Monday issued decrees appointing six military and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officials to leadership positions after the preceding holders were killed in Israeli-US strikes during operations Roaring Lion and Epic Fury.

Ali Abdollahi was appointed as chief of staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, with Kioumars Heydari named as his deputy.

Additionally, Ahmad Vahidi was named as head of the IRGC, with Mostafa Izadi named as his deputy.

Further, Ali Ozmaei was named as head of the IRGC Navy, and Hossein Taeb was named as commander of the IRGC’s Basij paramilitary.

Notably, Vahidi and Ozmaei had already been operating as respective IRGC and IRGC Navy heads, but without any official published appointment from the Supreme Leader’s Office.

Khamenei appoints two foundational IRGC leaders to senior political positions

These appointments follow Sunday’s statement attributed to Khamenei naming two figures who played key roles in the formation of the IRGC to senior political positions.

Mohsen Rezaee, who commanded the IRGC from 1981 until 1997, was appointed as Khamenei’s representative on the Supreme National Security Council.

Additionally, Mohammed Bagher Zolghadr, who held several senior positions across the IRGC since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, including being deputy chief from 1997 until 2006, was appointed as Khamenei’s political advisor.

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Israel is unlikely to make security concessions as part of any new peace agreement with regional countries, making it difficult for those seeking to lull Israel into a false sense of security before launching an attack to succeed, Prof. Eytan Gilboa told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

Gilboa is an expert on diplomacy at Bar-Ilan University and Reichman University and a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

Gilboa spoke with the Post after KAN reported that officials from a regional country advised another to agree with Israel to “lull it to sleep” before an attack.

Though the countries involved in the alleged plan were unnamed by KAN, as were the foreign sources who informed the Israeli public broadcaster of the alleged scheme, Gilboa had little doubt that such a tactic would fail.

“That’s the problem with October 7. The trauma is so significant and will last for so long that I don’t think signing peace agreements in the future that require substantial security compromises,” he said. “I don’t think that would be possible.”

Doubting that any countries Israel currently has any kind of agreement with would risk offering such advice, Gilboa noted that several countries and armed groups are currently in a state of negotiation with Israel or are being pushed by Washington to begin such talks.

A possible agreement with Damascus has been widely discussed since the fall of the Assad regime, despite interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa’s terrorist history as the leader of the Islamist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and his own history of anti-Israel commentary.

Peace agreement requiring concession of Golan Heights ‘isn’t in the cards,’ Gilboa says

With a peace agreement likely requiring Israel to hand over the strategically vital Golan Heights, something that Gilboa said “isn’t in the cards” for Jerusalem, US President Donald Trump has pushed to see a security agreement between the countries that would not require such a concession.

Gilboa said the rough idea would see Israel withdraw from areas in Syria beyond the 1974 separation line, agreed upon by the Disengagement Agreement, for Damascus to “commit to some kind of non-belligerence agreement, pledging not to attack Israel.”

Regardless of what Trump may want, Gilboa said he couldn’t see such an agreement materializing because neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor whoever is in power following the upcoming election is likely to withdraw from the territories in exchange for “f commitments that you never know whether the other side will implement or respect.”

On the Lebanon front, where there are discussions and processes in play to perhaps see an Israeli withdrawal, Gilboa said Lebanon had a genuine desire to end the war, even if Hezbollah was focused on creating more instability.

“If Hezbollah were to disarm, I think there’s a good chance for Israel to take a chance on peace with Lebanon,” he said, adding such a gamble would only be made if the Lebanese Armed Forces can demonstrate its capable of policing Hezbollah in the pilot zones.

Israeli experts say BoP 15-point plan is insufficient 

There are also discussions to see Hamas disarmed and the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza take over the Palestinian territory. Though Israeli experts have made clear that the Board of Peace’s 15-point plan to see the transfer of weapons and power as insufficient, and Israel has already rejected the agreement, Gilboa said there was a faint chance of a reformed Palestinian Authority eventually being allowed to take control.

The BoP “think that Hamas’s disarmament could be carried out gradually, that Hamas is serious about doing it, and that an international stabilization force, with soldiers from Morocco, the UAE and other countries, would be able to take over. But Hamas has not changed its goal of destroying Israel. Given that reality, I believe the chances of meaningful peace negotiations and agreements in the next decade are slim,” he said.

Outside the question of which actor is believed capable of lulling Israel into a false sense of security with an agreement, Gilboa said October 7 marked a significant change in Israel’s calculus. While before the massacre it had focused on which groups were capable of doing harm, it now also looked at which actors have bad intentions.

“Since then, Israel would not judge the positions of any potential enemy based on intentions. You can sign a peace agreement with the intention of maintaining peace, but that would not guide Israeli national security. The main guideline would be capabilities. Are you developing military capabilities that could threaten Israel’s survival? That is the main issue.

“I believe that even if, somehow, through American mediation, another peace agreement were signed in the next decade with any country in the region, the agreement would be judged based on capabilities,” he concluded. “Therefore, the probability of a country signing a peace agreement with Israel while accumulating military power designed to attack Israel would be very low.”

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The income of UK charity Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has increased more than fivefold since the October 7 massacre, financial filings show.

The Jerusalem Post began exploring the finances of PSC after The Sunday Times published an article named ‘The well-funded activists driving your council’s Gaza obsession.’

PSC is incorporated as a private company limited by guarantee, rather than a company with shareholders. It describes its main purpose as building a mass solidarity movement in support of the Palestinian people, their right to self-determination, and the end of “Israeli occupation.”

PSC income surges following October 7 massacre

Before October 7, 2023, PSC registered yearly incomes of around £600,000 to £700,000.

According to its incoming statement for the year ending 31 August 2023, it had a yearly income of £773,886. It listed the direct costs of campaigning at £789,528, putting it in a deficit. The year before, 2022, PSC listed an income of £691,736.

However, for the financial year ending 31 August 2024, PSC registered an income of £3,675,576 with a total cost of campaigning of £1,941,615. This represents a 375% increase in just one year.

This increased again for the 2025 financial year, with a registered income of £3,838,259 and a registered campaigning cost total of £2,386,923.

According to an internal report cited by The Times, PSC outlined its strategy as “maximizing pressure on MPs and holding them accountable” through online actions, lobbying, leafleting and protests at MPs’ constituency offices.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s influence on UK local councils

PSC has in fact had significant influence over local councils in the UK.

It claims that it has successfully pressured at least 34 councils into proposing motions to divest from Israeli-linked companies since June 2024.

Additionally, PSC reports that a total of 1468 councilors have signed its pledge to take all appropriate steps to uphold the rights of the Palestinian people, stand up to Israel for its crimes of genocide and apartheid, and ensure their councils are not complicit, including through divestment of pension funds from complicit companies.

Its lobbying has had a tangible impact on local government policy.

For example, Hackney’s recent decision to de-twin with Haifa in Israel and its move to divest its pension fund from companies “complicit in territorial human rights violations” came after significant lobbying from the PSC.

There are also other ways that PSC and its ideology influence local government. Kamel Hawwash, who in May 2026 became the first councillor of Palestinian origin in Birmingham, formerly served as PSC director.

Sheila Guhadasan, who was appointed as director on 24 February 2024, stood as a local candidate for the Arise political movement representing the Marlborough ward in the London Borough of Harrow during the May 2026 elections.

Lewisham’s new mayor is Liam Shrivastava, who previously spoke at a PSC rally pledging “Palestine is firmly on the ballot this Thursday.”

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Police announced in a statement on Monday that they have concluded an investigation involving a fragmentation grenade thrown at a Japanika restaurant branch in Kiryat Ono last month. 

An 18-year-old resident of Bat Yam was reportedly arrested about two days after the incident. Later that week, police apprehended a second suspect, a 22-year-old who also lives in Bat Yam.

Searches were conducted at the homes of both suspects, where investigators seized evidence and clothing items linking them to the incident.

The investigation revealed that the two suspects arrived at the scene around 2:00 a.m. on July 13 on a two-wheeled vehicle. They threw the fragmentation grenade toward the entrance of the business before fleeing the scene.

According to the police statement, a prosecutor has filed charges against both suspects.

A wave of organized gang crime

In the statement, police also clarified that the incident is linked to conflicts among criminal gangs.

On the same day as the grenade attack, eight other branches of the food chain were damaged as part of a dispute between the Jarushi and Mosli crime organizations, according to a KAN News report. 

Most of the affected branches are operated as franchises by the Jarushi family, which manages the franchises under the chain’s owner, businessman and Beitar Jerusalem owner Barak Abramov.

However, according to sources familiar with the matter, Abramov himself is not currently a suspect in the case.

Shlomi Gabai contributed to this report.

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Activist Einav Zangauker, the mother of former hostage Matan Zangauker, said on Monday that Democrats Party leader Yair Golan had promised her a spot near the top of the party’s Knesset slate but later backed out of the agreement.

The left-wing Democrats Party finalized its Knesset slate last month after more than 97,000 of its registered members voted in internal primaries to determine which candidates would be on the party’s list ahead of the upcoming elections.

Zangauker stated that in February she had met with Golan and was guaranteed by him a spot near the top of the list, immediately after the incumbent Knesset members.

‘The commitment was reaffirmed directly by Yair himself’

“From that moment on, I was asked to keep it secret. Golan’s associates maintained contact with me throughout, and on several occasions during this period, the commitment was reaffirmed directly by Yair himself,” she wrote in an X/Twitter post.

”Each time, I was told that a word is a word, that our agreement remained in effect, and that after the list of candidates in the primaries had been chosen, my guaranteed placement at the top of the list would be announced.”

She also noted that as part of the agreement, she was asked to keep a low media profile during the period leading up to the announcement.

“Of course, I honored my commitment and kept our agreement confidential. I kept a low profile and did not explore other options, such as running in the primaries, nor did I pursue other opportunities. I held up my end of the agreement.”

Zangauer also called on the current government to be replaced, so that it would “not succeed in its plot to erase and make people forget the [October 7 Hamas] massacre, the abandonment, and the utter failure for which it bears responsibility on every front.”

Golan responded to Zangauker’s Monday statement, acknowledging that he had decided not to place her on the party’s list.

“I know that my decision disappointed you, and I am deeply sorry for that. It was my decision, and I take full responsibility for it and for the pain it caused you,” he stated, directly addressing Zangauker.

Golan added that he had decided not to reserve a spot on the party list, “out of respect for the decision of the 113,000 members of the Democrats and out of confidence in the excellent list they chose.”

“This was a decision I made regarding the list as a whole, and other candidates who were considered for reserved spots received the same message from me: there will be no reserved spots.”

“I offered you a significant role in the campaign and to continue working with us after the election. That offer still stands. I see you as an important partner on this journey, and I hope you will choose to accept it and that we will accomplish much more together,” Golan continued.

Golan remained in first place throughout Democrats’ primaries

During the Democrats’ primaries, Golan remained in first place. Current Democrats MK Naama Lazimi secured the second slot on the list. She was followed by fellow Democrats MKs Gilad Kariv in third place and MK Efrat Rayten in fourth.

The fifth through 10th slots went to social and political activist Yaya Fink, former Meretz MK Gaby Lasky, social activist and reservist Omri Ronen, former Meretz MK Michal Rozin, judicial reform protest leader Moshe Radman, and Arab Israeli activist Soumaya Bashir.

The voting reached an 86% turnout, the party said, after the primaries were held. The large group of 112,000 of its registered members was eligible to cast votes virtually for candidates throughout the day.

The candidates included 17 leaders involved in protest movements and public activism, 12 former IDF officers, 11 candidates with backgrounds in the civil service, 19 women, nine candidates under the age of 45, eight former Knesset members, four candidates from the Arab community, three from the Druze community, and two members of the LGBTQ community.

The Democrats have stated that more than 114,000 people have joined the party in total.

This post was originally published on here. 

Data released by the Israeli security establishment on Monday revealed a significant 63% increase in nationalist crime in the West Bank during the first half of 2026 compared to the same period in the previous year, Israel’s public broadcaster, KAN News, reported.

In total, some 660 incidents were recorded in the first half of 2026, up from 405 in the second half of 2025 and 440 in the first half of 2025.

The report also indicated that the number of deliberate attacks against security forces rose significantly, with 45 incidents reported in the first half of 2026, compared to 30 in the second half of 2025, marking a 50% increase in violence directed at security personnel.

The rise in violence was also reflected in the number of Palestinian casualties. During the first half of the year, 140 Palestinians were wounded, and six were killed, compared with 82 wounded and no fatalities during the previous six months.

The figures mentioned do not account for incidents recorded in July. According to data from the security establishment, around 100 additional incidents of nationalist crime were reported in July alone, indicating that the upward trend persisted into the second half of 2026.

IDF increased deployment to combat violence

The data was released amid increasing public and international concern about the rise in violence in the West Bank.
Last month, the IDF increased its deployment across the West Bank to 26 battalions, adding two battalions amid the sharp escalation in Palestinian terrorist attacks and attacks from settlers.

The reinforcement followed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s order to increase troop deployments, additional checkpoints, and expanded counterterrorism operations following Security forces arrested more than 70 terror suspects across the West Bank the day following the deadly shooting near Gilad Farm.

Rabbi Brander speaks out against West Bank violence

Rabbi Dr. Kenneth Brander from Ohr Torah Stone commented on the recent uptick in West Bank violence on Monday following the Israel security establishment report’s release.

“This violence committed by Jewish extremists is deeply disturbing and demands a clear moral response from Jewish and Israeli leadership. There is no justification, religious or otherwise, for attacking innocent people because of their identity,” he stated.

“Such acts violate the most fundamental principles of Jewish law and undermine the values that should guide our society and democracy,” he added.

“Jewish leaders, educators and rabbis have a responsibility to speak clearly and without hesitation. Condemning this violence is not about weakening Israel or ignoring the very real threats facing our country.

It is about reaffirming the Jewish values of justice, human dignity and responsibility that must remain at the heart of the society we are building,” he continued.

Jerusalem Post Staff and Sarah Ben-Nun contributed to this report.

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