Opinion: Hamas commander’s death is an important achievement, but Israel’s security depends on dismantling the systems that keep producing new arch-terrorists Prof. Guy Hochman https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/05/15/H17rSWrkfx/H17rSWrkfx_0_0_850_479_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/sjmuahp1fg Fri, 22 May 2026 14:47:03 +03:00 The assassination of Izz al-Din al-Haddad, head of Hamas’ military wing in Gaza, is an important achievement. He was a bad man who took part in planning the murderous Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Removing someone like that from the battlefield has operational, moral and public value. It also sends an important message: Whoever harms us lives on borrowed time. But despite the significance of the achievement, it is probably too early to celebrate with baklava. Whenever news breaks of a targeted killing, there is a sense of satisfaction. Justice has been served. A person who symbolized evil, cruelty and danger is gone. That is entirely natural. Human beings need closure. We prefer action to waiting, immediate results to long processes and images of dead terrorists to tedious discussions about infrastructure, sovereignty, education and lines drawn in various colors. Behavioral economics calls this present bias. We tend to value small immediate gains more highly than larger future gains. A targeted killing is an immediate achievement. So is a bombing. They photograph well, generate headlines and create a sense of victory and momentum. Preventing organizational recovery or building an alternative governing structure, by contrast, are future achievements. They require complex processes: dismantling incentives, drying up sources of power, creating regional arrangements and strengthening local non-jihadist forces. None of that looks as good on television. And we consume targeted killings the way we consume news: a climax, a brief sense of satisfaction and then anticipation for the next episode. As if our security were a Netflix series that does not know when to end. The assumption that killing the head of the snake would lead to the collapse of the entire system may have been true in the last century. Today, organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and the Iranian regime are not a single person. They are systems. They have hierarchies, funding channels, propaganda, collective identities, external support and the ability to recover. The question, therefore, is not only which snake’s head we eliminated, but what happens to the system afterward. Since Oct. 7, Israel has killed a long list of senior figures in Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and among the Houthis: Saleh al-Arouri, Mohammed Deif, Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Sinwar, Hassan Nasrallah, Hashem Safieddine and Fuad Shukr, among others, and now Haddad. It is a list that reflects extraordinary intelligence and operational capabilities. Very few countries in the world are capable of operating this way over time and across several fronts simultaneously. No one disappeared But despite killing an average of roughly three “heads of the snake” in each organization, none of them disappeared. Not even the Houthis, whom many Israelis had barely heard of beforehand. Hamas has been severely weakened, but still maintains a grip on Gaza. Hezbollah has suffered heavy blows, but continues to make life miserable for residents of northern Israel and to attack soldiers. The Houthis remain an irritant in the regional arena. Iran has taken significant hits, but its ideology, system and strategic ambitions have not evaporated. We removed many heads. The question is whether we also struck hard enough at the body that keeps growing them back. Even Transportation Minister Miri Regev acknowledged this week in an interview that promises of “total victory” never truly meant eliminating the threat entirely. The debate, therefore, is not about the killings themselves. It is about what they are meant to achieve and what comes afterward. If this is the first stage of a strategy to strangle the organization from every direction — damaging command capabilities, preventing the crowning of successors and creating a reality in which the group struggles to recover — then there is a chance of reaching something closer to total victory. But if the killing itself is the objective, and afterward we simply wait for the name of the next target, then this is less an achievement than a remake of “Groundhog Day”: assassination, successor, assassination, successor. At least in the original film, Bill Murray realized he had to change something about himself before he could wake up to a new morning. Perhaps we, too, will escape the loop once we realize we are probably doing something wrong. Each time we win the battle and lose the war. Yes, there is also a moral problem Because unpleasant as it may be to say, there is also a moral issue here. Not because force should not be used against those who seek to destroy us. “The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance; he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.” Rather, because there is a difference between using the power and sophistication of our military to carve a few more notches into the rifle stock and eliminating the existential threat to Israel. A targeted killing, therefore, should be a moment of cautious satisfaction, not euphoria. It is good that there are fewer monsters walking the earth. And it is important that our enemies know in advance that anyone who tries to harm us seals his own fate. But instead of gambling on the name of the next target, perhaps we should remember this: The future may seem distant, but eventually it arrives. We should think about that, too. A targeted killing is sometimes a necessary beginning. But it cannot be the end of the story. Our security is not measured by the number of arch-terrorists eliminated, but by the number of organizations still capable of producing new ones. The writer is an expert in behavioral economics and decision-making and a faculty member at the Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology at Reichman University. message sk00a48s1gl Opinion: With hundreds of millions of supporters worldwide, Christian Zionists have shaped Israel’s modern history from early restorationist theology to political advocacy and remain a powerful force in global backing for the Jewish state Dr. Mike Evans https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2021/06/14/Sk6zmaNsO/Sk6zmaNsO_216_15_930_524_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/sk00a48s1gl Wed, 20 May 2026 18:52:17 +03:00 The power behind Israel’s global support Israel has utilized all of its resources to unite Jewish Zionists. But it is very important for Israel to place a higher priority on Christian Zionists. Over 700 million people globally are Christian Zionists. As shocking as it is to admit, the vast majority of Zionists in the world are not Jewish. Christian Zionists believe that the return of the Jewish people to Israel and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 was a fulfillment of prophecy. Christian Zionists may differ on their political views, but not on their biblical views. The one scripture that unites them all is Genesis 12:1–3, which ends with the promise to Abraham: “I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee.” For millions of Christians around the world, support for Israel is not merely political — it is deeply rooted in biblical conviction and historical faith. Netanyahu’s acknowledgment of Christian Zionism Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says it this way: “Christian Zionists made Jewish Zionism possible. It’s hard for me to conceive of the emergence of the Jewish state, the re-emergence of the Jewish state, without the support of Christian Zionists in the United States, also in Britain, but the main thrust was in the United States in the 19th century. So Christian Zionism facilitated the rise and success of Jewish Zionism, and it’s been an enormous partnership since then.” Netanyahu’s own family history reflects this partnership between Christian and Jewish Zionists. In his late father’s home growing up, he saw a silver cup that said, “Dedicated to my beloved godson Jonathan.” The cup was from John Henry Patterson, a Christian Zionist who led the first Jewish fighting force in 2,000 years called the Mule Brigade. Yes, Jonathan Netanyahu was named after a Christian Zionist, John Patterson. The forgotten origins of Christian Zionism Yet despite its enormous influence on modern Israel, the story of Christian Zionism remains largely unknown. In 1844, the ten Boom family in Holland began a prayer meeting based upon Psalm 122:6: “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee.” The prayer meeting lasted weekly for 100 years. It ended when the family was taken to concentration camps for saving 800 Jews in their clock shop. Long before political Zionism emerged, many Christians already believed the Jewish people would return to their ancient homeland. When the name George H. W. Bush or George W. Bush pops up in the news or in conversations, we immediately think of the 41st or 43rd President of the United States, but not an ancestor of the two presidents who was a Bible scholar and Presbyterian pastor who taught Hebrew and Oriental literature at New York University. Bush wrote The Valley of Vision; or, The Dry Bones of Israel in 1844, based on Ezekiel 37. Bush believed the Hebrew language would be revived, the Jewish people would return to the land of Israel, and the nation itself would one day be reborn. His book sold 1 million copies before the Civil War. Christian Zionists who helped shape Jewish statehood By the late 19th century, Christian Zionist advocacy had moved from theology into political action. In 1878, 12 years before Theodor Herzl initiated the Zionist movement, Laurence Oliphant began petitioning for a Jewish national homeland in Palestine. His secretary, Naftali Herz Imber, was a Jewish poet who published a collection of poems including “Our Hope.” He dedicated the book to his friend. Yes, “Our Hope” later became the national anthem of the State of Israel. Henry Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross and the first Nobel Peace Prize winner, was asked by Herzl to accompany him to the First World Zionist Congress. Herzl referred to him as a Christian Zionist, marking the first known use of the term. Dunant also helped found the YMCA and played a key role in the establishment of the Geneva Convention. William Eugene Blackstone established the Blackstone Memorial, gathering signatures from some of the most prominent leaders in America for the establishment of a Jewish state in 1891. Some of the 431 signers included John D. Rockefeller, Speaker of the House Thomas Brackett Reed, Cyrus McCormick, senators, Supreme Court justices and even President Benjamin Harrison. Blackstone later sent his Bible to Theodor Herzl with all the prophecies concerning the land of Israel marked because he heard Herzl was considering Uganda or Argentina as the homeland for the Jewish state. The legacy continues today When I built the Friends of Zion Heritage Center in Jerusalem, I realized that man’s ability to confront evil is determined by the inspiration he draws from his heroes and history. I have written 120 books attempting to educate people on history and heroes. That same partnership between Christian and Jewish Zionists continues today. The battle Israel is fighting is not being fought alone. Bible-believing Christians are on the front lines, speaking loudly. Dr. Mike Evans has written 120 books and is a #1 New York Times bestselling author. He is the founder of the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem, the ten Boom Museum in Holland and Churches United with Israel, the largest Christian Zionist network in America, with more than thirty million followers. message bj5yw3c1ml Opinion: Tehran has learned it can strike Gulf states, then rely on their fear of wider war to restrain Washington, turning ceasefire diplomacy into a tool for delay, recovery and leverage Amine Ayoub https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/05/13/SkeCuMf1fx/SkeCuMf1fx_0_0_850_479_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/bj5yw3c1ml Wed, 20 May 2026 14:44:15 +03:00 Something extraordinary happened on Monday that no analyst predicted and no diplomatic textbook describes. The leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, three countries whose territory Iran has been striking for weeks, picked up the phone and called Donald Trump to beg him not to bomb Tehran. They succeeded. The scheduled American military assault on Iran, set for Tuesday morning, was called off. Not by negotiations. Not by Iranian concessions. By the very nations bearing the brunt of Iranian aggression. This is not diplomacy. This is extortion at a civilizational scale, and Iran has perfected it. Trump said Monday evening he had planned a very major attack but put it off, for a little while, hopefully maybe forever, after receiving requests from Gulf leaders to give negotiations more time. He said the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan had each personally urged him to delay the planned strike, citing ongoing negotiations with Tehran and expressing confidence that a deal would be reached. Trump, framing the concession as deference to allies rather than weakness, agreed to stand down. The pause came loaded with warnings. Trump instructed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs Chairman General Daniel Caine, and the broader U.S. military to remain fully prepared for a full, large-scale assault on a moment's notice should negotiations collapse. But threats attached to pauses are still pauses, and Tehran's strategists understand exactly what they are looking at: another window, another delay, another cycle in which Iran does not pay for its violations. The violations are not in dispute. The United Arab Emirates, one of the three nations now lobbying for restraint, had recently accused Iran of launching drone and missile attacks despite the ceasefire. On Sunday, a drone strike sparked a fire on the edge of the UAE's sole nuclear power plant in what authorities called an unprovoked terrorist attack. The Barakah nuclear facility, the Arab world's first operational reactor, sits near Abu Dhabi. A drone struck an electrical generator on its perimeter. The IAEA confirmed the incident and noted that off-site power was restored only after emergency diesel generators were deployed. The UAE did not publicly name Iran. It did not need to. This is the paradox at the center of the current ceasefire. Iran attacks the Gulf states. The Gulf states then lobby Washington for restraint on Iran's behalf. Tehran fires at the hand that feeds the argument for its survival. And the hand, rather than withdrawing, extends further. The logic, from the Gulf's perspective, is not irrational. It is desperate. The Gulf governments have increasingly positioned themselves as intermediaries while also seeking to avoid a direct military confrontation between the U.S. and Iran that could threaten oil markets and shipping lanes across the Middle East. A second full-scale American assault on Iran, coming six weeks after the first, would not merely close the Strait of Hormuz for another month. It could close it indefinitely. It could ignite Iraqi Shia militias already active against American and Gulf targets. It could collapse the already-fragile security architecture that Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, and Doha depend on for their economic survival. So they beg. And Iran knows they will beg. And Iran keeps striking. The pattern continued Tuesday afternoon when explosions were heard on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz, near where air defenses had already been activated twice in the previous twenty-four hours. Pro-regime protesters in the area were filmed chanting "Death to Israel" and "Death to the United Arab Emirates." Iranian authorities attributed the sounds to the neutralization of unexploded munitions. The timing, hours after Trump announced his pause, was its own message. The negotiating positions remain far apart. Iran's demands include the release of Iranian assets frozen abroad, the lifting of long-standing sanctions, and reparations for the war. Iran's Fars news agency said Washington had presented a five-point plan that included a demand for Iran to keep only one nuclear site in operation and transfer its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to the United States. Tehran has rejected this framework while simultaneously signaling openness to talks. The gap between those two postures is not a negotiating tactic. It is a strategy designed to extend the ceasefire period indefinitely while Iran rebuilds, reconstitutes, and recalibrates. Iran's supreme leader was killed in the initial strikes on February 28, but the clerical state has proven resilient. The Revolutionary Guards have effectively absorbed the institutional shock of losing the top of the command chain. The IRGC spokesman declared this week that Iranian forces control the Strait of Hormuz and that the situation will not return to its previous state, a statement that functions simultaneously as a threat, a negotiating position, and a declaration of victory. Iran entered the war as a regional hegemon with a nuclear program and a proxy network. It has lost its supreme leader and much of its conventional capacity. Yet it is now dictating the tempo of American military planning through intermediaries who are its own victims. Trump is not wrong to want a deal. A second round of fighting, launched before the first round has produced a durable framework, risks all the gains of the February campaign without securing any of its strategic objectives. But the conditions for a deal that actually matters are not present. Iran is not negotiating out of weakness. It is negotiating out of patience, offering just enough flexibility to keep American bombs grounded while it recovers. The question now is whether Washington recognizes the difference between a pause that creates space for genuine diplomacy and a pause that simply rewards the next strike. History in this region does not favor optimism on that distinction. Iran has survived worse and learned more from every round than its adversaries expected. The explosions over Qeshm Island today were not a provocation. They were a reminder. Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. message h1jxpa5kmx Analysis: primary wins show Trump still controls the GOP base while AIPAC’s election machine keeps translating pro-Israel muscle into real power in Washington, even as anti-Israel voices gain traction in progressive circles Kobi Barda https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/05/18/SyI2BwukGx/SyI2BwukGx_0_0_850_479_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/h1jxpa5kmx Wed, 20 May 2026 10:09:42 +03:00 A major political victory was recorded overnight for AIPAC and U.S. President Donald Trump, once again demonstrating their shared ability to reshape the political map in Washington. Primaries have so far been held in 15 states, and the results point to a clear trend. At the center of the night’s victory was the defeat of Rep. Thomas Massie, who represented Kentucky’s 4th District for 14 years and was considered one of Israel’s fiercest critics in Congress. Trump had made Massie’s defeat a personal mission. He repeatedly attacked the Kentucky Republican, including calling him a “lowlife,” and backed challenger Ed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL. Trump’s endorsement, combined with heavy outside spending by pro-Israel and Trump-aligned groups, helped Gallrein turn what began as an uphill campaign into a major primary victory. Trump’s influence was also felt strongly elsewhere in the Republican Party, reinforcing the message that lawmakers who challenge him risk paying a heavy political price. Massie’s defeat follows earlier Trump-backed efforts against Republicans who defied him, including Liz Cheney in Wyoming, Tom Rice in South Carolina and Peter Meijer in Michigan. These victories show once again that the Republican Party is now firmly Trump’s party. Even at a time when national polling has shown political vulnerability for the president, his ability to mobilize voters in Republican primaries remains formidable. The other side of this alliance is AIPAC, which continues to prove it is one of the most powerful forces in congressional politics. The pro-Israel lobby has dramatically changed its approach in recent years, moving from behind-the-scenes political approval to direct electoral intervention through political action committees and outside spending. That shift has made AIPAC not only a defender of pro-Israel candidates, but an active force shaping the field. In crowded races, the lobby has learned how to use money, endorsements and tactical pressure to block anti-Israel candidates and elevate candidates it views as reliable supporters of the U.S.-Israel alliance. Still, the results were not uniform. In Pennsylvania’s 3rd District, state Rep. Chris Rabb, a progressive candidate backed by left-wing groups, remained a key example of the challenge pro-Israel forces face in deep-blue districts where criticism of Israel has become a central campaign issue. Rabb is the correct spelling of his name. From a geostrategic perspective, the main conclusion from the night is that AIPAC is succeeding in drawing a clear line between the online and media hostility it faces in radical circles, and the reality on the ground. In actual elections, a focused political alliance combining Trump’s command of the Republican base with AIPAC’s aggressive electoral machinery continues to translate influence into hard wins at the ballot box, helping secure pro-Israel representation in Washington. Dr. Kobi Barda is a lecturer at HIT and a senior researcher at the Jewish People Policy Institute message hjoxbdyjzg Opinion: Hamas' veto of the 20-point plan for rebuilding Gaza may challenge the US president, but it does not diminish his determination to implement his vision; this is how to understand his consent to the Israeli attack on Izz al-Din Haddad's hideout  Tzachi Hanegbi https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/05/16/B1yMo7SJzx/B1yMo7SJzx_574_47_2226_1253_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/hjoxbdyjzg Tue, 19 May 2026 09:12:52 +03:00 In September 2025, Trump’s envoys presented Israel with the U.S. president’s plan to end the war in Gaza. Its first stage required the release of all living hostages and the return of the bodies of those killed. In the frantic discussions between the countries that followed, Israel made clear that its latest intelligence indicated that the head of Hamas’ military wing in Gaza, Izz al-Din Haddad, intended to evade full implementation of this fundamental condition. The American response was unequivocal: “We understand your assessment. It may certainly be justified. Our request of you is simple: Do not read intelligence reports in the coming days. Our intelligence is more reliable. It is ‘human intelligence.’ These are the leaders of the mediating countries, Egypt and Qatar, and they are convinced that Hamas will not torpedo the agreement.” Given Washington’s confidence, Israel agreed to put Hamas to the test. It was a welcome move. In October, all the living hostages were indeed released, and the last body was returned to Israel at the end of January 2026. President Trump’s 20-point plan for rebuilding the Gaza Strip gave Haddad and his fellow leaders of the murderous terrorist organization an unexpected lifeline. After thousands of Hamas terrorists had already been eliminated, including its most senior leaders — Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya and Mohammed Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, Salah Arouri and many others — the message was clear: Israel would not allow those responsible for the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust to escape its reach, however long it took. Then came Article 6 of Trump’s plan, which paved a surprising new escape route for the terrorists. It stated: “After all hostages are released, Hamas members who commit to peaceful coexistence and to decommission their weapons will be granted amnesty. Hamas members who wish to leave Gaza will be provided safe passage to receiving countries.” But Haddad decided to gamble everything. His willingness to give up the hostage card in exchange for the parallel release of hundreds of Palestinian murderers, the resumption of massive humanitarian aid and a halt to the fighting turned out to be a one-time show of flexibility. In the months since, it became clear not only to Israel but also to the United States that Hamas remained determined to preserve its jihadist identity. This time, even the authentic “human intelligence” Trump received from the mediating countries left no room for doubt: Hamas was not even considering transforming itself, as the PLO once did, into a political movement. Its leaders, headed by Haddad, were clinging to the areas still under their control — about half the Strip — and focusing on deepening their grip over the population and rebuilding the military capabilities and formations severely damaged during the war. Fortunately, Trump’s ambitious vision succeeded in freeing the hostages. But it was not enough to free 2 million Gazans from the chains of Hamas tyranny. Once again, it became clear that fanatics willing to sacrifice their own lives for the goal of destroying Israel have no intention of considering the fate of the millions of miserable people in the Gaza Strip. The fact that many countries, including Muslim and Arab states, enlisted to help implement the American initiative for rebuilding Gaza changed nothing. Hamas dragged out the talks meant to reach understandings on disarming the Strip, effectively casting doubt on the ability of the “Peace Council,” launched by President Trump with great fanfare, to implement its groundbreaking vision. Long overdue Haddad should have been made to answer for his crimes long before October 7. The attacks he led over decades of unrestrained terrorist activity reflected his violent, fanatical and brutal nature. He carried out diverse missions skillfully and earned the esteem of Hamas leaders. Over time, Haddad was brought into the innermost circle of secrecy and, as documents found during the war showed, was a full partner in preparing the massacre. After October 7, Haddad regularly kept several hostages near his hiding places to make it harder for the IDF to kill him, and that is how he survived nearly two years of fighting. His successful elimination delivers justice for generations of Israeli victims. Where do we go from here? Trump’s “Gaza peace plan” is very dear to him. He believes its implementation will change the fate of this battered and tormented region for the better. Hamas’ veto challenges him, but does not diminish his determination to bring his vision to life. This is how his approval of the deadly Israeli strike on the hideout of Hamas Gaza’s No. 1 leader should be understood, even though the ceasefire Trump moved heaven and earth to advance remains in effect. It is an unequivocal American statement: We will continue implementing the 20-point plan, but we will change the order of operations. Since the plan’s central anchor, the disarmament of Hamas, cannot now be carried out, Gaza’s initial reconstruction will begin in areas under IDF control. This will be “the new Gaza.” Large areas will be cleared of ruins and infrastructure will be built for Gazans who move to live there, free from the terror of Hamas’ brutal regime. Israel will be given a free hand to renew its military activity in the territory still controlled by the terrorist organization, in coordination with the United States. In the first stage, intensified strikes against Hamas will likely be carried out from the air. Later, as IDF resources are shifted away from the Iran and Lebanon fronts, ground operations may also become possible. Of course, the way the confrontation with Iran ends will also affect Hamas’ ability to withstand pressure, though question marks remain over the steps the U.S. president will take. Still, the experience accumulated over long years of fighting requires avoiding overestimating the significance of eliminating Haddad. Over decades in which its senior figures were targeted, Hamas has proven its resilience. Preselected successors immediately stepped into the shoes of commanders and leaders who were eliminated, and the same happened during the Swords of Iron war. The conclusion is not to avoid eliminating mass murderers and their operatives, but to internalize that this action alone does not guarantee victory in the campaign. message b16jlwfkgg Opinion: Izz al-Din Haddad’s elimination, like those of his predecessors in Hamas leadership, disrupts the chain of command and weakens the group temporarily, but it does little to restore long-term stability or redefine Gaza’s strategic reality Avi Kalo https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/05/15/ryWSX11r1Mg/ryWSX11r1Mg_0_0_850_479_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/b16jlwfkgg Tue, 19 May 2026 07:39:37 +03:00 The killing of Izz al-Din Haddad, head of Hamas’ military wing and an architect of the Oct. 7 massacre, is a necessary and essential step in eroding what remains of the terrorist organization’s leadership. It was only a matter of time, intelligence capability and operational feasibility before the arch-terrorist was eliminated, a development that once again underscores the magnitude of the failure and flawed conception that preceded Oct. 7, when numerous proposals presented by the Israeli military and Shin Bet to target senior Hamas leaders were rejected by the political echelon. As in the other active theaters of conflict, the gap between tactical military achievements and the absence of a political-strategic horizon continues to widen. Haddad’s killing, like those of his predecessors in Hamas leadership, disrupts the chain of command, temporarily weakens the organization’s capabilities and creates localized deterrence. But in itself, it cannot restore long-term calm or redefine the strategic reality in Gaza. The central challenge remains unchanged: Who governs Gaza the day after the war, and through what mechanism can Hamas be removed from the strip? As of now, there is no coherent answer. The political leadership, constrained by its own limitations, has avoided deciding among the alternatives, renewed Palestinian governance, regional involvement, an international presence or some combination thereof, and instead continues to operate through risk management and avoidance of meaningful change to the existing reality. The international arena has also failed to provide a response. The U.N. Security Council has struggled to advance effective resolutions regarding Gaza, whether because of disagreements among major powers or gaps between humanitarian demands and security considerations. Likewise, the so-called “Peace Council” has struggled in its dialogue with Hamas, in allocating resources, setting priorities and establishing a more stable security reality in the strip. The result is prolonged paralysis and the absence of an orderly action plan — a pattern that characterizes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of all active conflict arenas. Within this vacuum, regional actors have been careful not to overextend themselves. Egypt has maintained its role as mediator while avoiding overly deep involvement. Gulf states, focused primarily on developments in the Persian Gulf, have expressed some interest in Gaza reconstruction efforts, but have conditioned involvement on stability and proper governance, conditions Netanyahu’s government, predictably, has avoided addressing. The Palestinian Authority, frequently mentioned as a possible option for returning to Gaza, suffers from a severe crisis of public trust and internal weakness that make it difficult for it to play a meaningful role. Not by targeted killings alone: Without a clear definition of a realistic and gradual political objective, military activity will remain largely reactive and continue to generate recurring cycles of armed confrontation. As a result, a growing sense has taken hold — heard perhaps most clearly from residents of the communities near the Gaza border, that the Gaza issue, with all its complexity and consequences, is merely being postponed. Instead of resolution, a pattern of strategic procrastination is becoming entrenched. In this sense, Gaza is gradually turning into yet another open file, another murky and chronic crisis that Netanyahu’s sixth government will leave to its successors. A sense of victory will not be measured by the ability to strike another high-value target, but by the ability to ensure that the green lawns of the kibbutzim near Gaza are once again filled with young families, and that returning home is no longer perceived as an act of courage, but as a natural Zionist step. After the terrible trauma, restoring a full sense of security to residents of the border communities will not happen by magic. It will only be achieved with a clear strategic compass guided by leadership driven by hope and change: creating a reality in which the Gaza Strip no longer generates cyclical threats, but instead becomes a managed and supervised space that prevents the renewed buildup of bloodthirsty jihadist terrorism. That is within our power. message byjidaojfe  Opinion: French probe into murder of Jamal Khashoggi renews scrutiny of Saudi crown prince, raising tough questions for Israel over normalization with Riyadh and its strategic bet on a royal who operates outside any legal or diplomatic boundary Amine Ayoub https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2019/06/25/9327209/9327209_0_124_3428_1929_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/byjidaojfe Mon, 18 May 2026 21:56:53 +03:00 For years, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) has operated under a simple assumption: that money, oil, and strategic utility would be enough to make the world forget. Forget the bone saw. Forget the consulate in Istanbul. Forget the journalist who walked in and never walked out. Last week, a Paris appeals court decided that the world would not forget. A French investigating judge has been assigned to examine the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, acting on complaints filed by Reporters Without Borders and the anti-impunity organization Trial International. For MBS, this is not the end. But it is the beginning of something he cannot simply buy his way out of. The facts of the Khashoggi killing have never seriously been in dispute. On October 2, 2018, Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist, entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain documents related to his upcoming marriage. Inside, a team of fifteen Saudi operatives was waiting for him. He was killed within minutes, his body dismembered. Turkish intelligence recorded the entire operation. The CIA subsequently concluded, with high confidence, that MBS personally ordered the assassination. Fifteen operatives, one journalist, one crown prince's command. What followed should have been a reckoning. Instead, it became a masterclass in how autocrats survive scandal by waiting out the news cycle. Saudi Arabia initially denied everything, then claimed Khashoggi had died in a fist fight, then acknowledged a killing but called it unauthorized. A Saudi court eventually handed down sentences that were subsequently commuted. No one of genuine seniority faced real punishment. MBS himself was never charged in any jurisdiction that could reach him. The rehabilitation proceeded with remarkable speed. By 2022, Emmanuel Macron was shaking MBS's hand in Jeddah. Joe Biden, who had promised to make Saudi Arabia a pariah, flew to Riyadh and offered a fist bump heard around the world. The Abraham Accords process, backed by Washington, placed Saudi normalization with Israel as the ultimate regional prize, with MBS rebranded as a visionary modernizer, the man who opened cinemas, let women drive, and promised a post-oil future. The murder of a journalist receded into the background noise of great-power pragmatism. The French complaint was filed in July 2022, timed deliberately to coincide with MBS's visit to Paris. The French prosecutor's office resisted opening an investigation for years, citing jurisdictional and procedural arguments that critics viewed as politically motivated. The appeals court last week overruled those objections. A judge specializing in crimes against humanity will now formally investigate. MBS will not be arrested. He will not appear in a Paris courtroom next Tuesday. But a file bearing his name now sits in the French judicial system, and it will not close quietly. What makes this legally significant is the doctrine of universal jurisdiction, which France applies to certain grave crimes regardless of where they occurred or the nationality of those involved. France has used this tool before, including against perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide. The Khashoggi case does not fit the genocide framework, but the complaints allege torture and forced disappearance, categories that French law treats with particular seriousness. The investigating judge now has the authority to issue international letters rogatory, seek testimony, request documents, and in principle issue an international arrest warrant, though the latter step would be diplomatically explosive. The deeper issue is what the French decision reveals about Israel's most consequential strategic bet. For Israel's security establishment, Saudi normalization is not primarily a diplomatic achievement. It is a force multiplier. A formal agreement with Riyadh closes the Arab world's last major front against Israeli legitimacy, unlocks intelligence-sharing frameworks that already exist informally, and anchors a Sunni coalition capable of sustaining pressure on Iran without requiring Israeli military action to carry the full weight alone. Every Israeli security planner understands that the Iran threat cannot be managed indefinitely by Israeli airpower alone. Saudi Arabia, with its financial depth, its regional influence, and its ability to strangle Iranian proxies at the funding source, is the partner that changes Israel's strategic equation in ways that no European ally can replicate. That deal, if it comes, will be signed with MBS. Not with a Saudi institution, not with a reformed future monarchy, but with this specific man, the one whose name now appears on a Paris judge's docket. Israeli officials have made the rational calculation that his cooperation on Iran, on Hamas financing, on regional stabilization, outweighs the discomfort of his domestic record. They are not wrong that the calculation is rational. They may be wrong that it is stable. A crown prince who governs by demonstrated impunity is also a crown prince who can reverse course without warning, who faces no institutional constraint on his decisions, and whose survival instinct has already shown it operates outside any legal or diplomatic boundary. The same ruthlessness that liquidated Khashoggi is the ruthlessness that could, under different pressures, decide that a public alignment with Israel has become a domestic liability. There is no Saudi parliament, no independent judiciary, no free press to resist that decision. The guarantee Israel is purchasing is only as durable as MBS's personal calculation on any given day. The French investigation does not resolve this. But it reintroduces into the public record a question that Israel's security planners prefer to keep private: what exactly is the foundation of the partnership being built? A normalization agreement grounded in shared strategic interests is one thing. A normalization agreement grounded in one man's unaccountable will is structurally different, and the Paris courtroom is now forcing that distinction into daylight. Khashoggi was not a revolutionary. He was a columnist, a former Saudi insider who had grown increasingly critical of the direction MBS was taking the kingdom. He was engaged to be married. He needed a piece of paper. The brutality of what was done to him inside a diplomatic facility, on the orders of a man who now attends G20 summits and hosts golf tournaments, is not a footnote. It is a data point about the kind of partner Israel is staking its strategic future on. MBS will continue to build his towers in the desert. The planes will keep landing in Riyadh. The deals will keep being signed. But somewhere in the Paris justice system, a judge is now reading a file that the crown prince spent years trying to ensure would never exist. Israel should read it too. Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. message rkjpfx00kzl Opinion: The holiday that marks the giving of the Torah and the first fruits offers Israel a timely reminder: A society can find extraordinary strength when it stands together, but history shows how hard that togetherness is to maintain Tamar Asraf https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2025/06/02/BkhgaUgIjMle/BkhgaUgIjMle_394_536_2607_1466_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/rkjpfx00kzl Mon, 18 May 2026 08:30:44 +03:00 Seven weeks passed between the Exodus from Egypt and the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. Shavuot, the holiday named for those weeks, is built around anticipation. Like any meaningful moment, it is counted toward, prepared for and awaited. Thousands of years have passed since the biblical scene at Sinai, but the counting that leads to Shavuot still accompanies us every year. Each time, it offers a new opportunity. The counting of the Omer is not only a calendar. It is meant to prepare the person who counts. Step by step, it invites an inner process, one that awakens the desire for change, openness to new things, a deeper view of reality, more compassion, less anger and more love. It begins with the individual, each person moving through an internal journey. But it does not end there. The process leads to a national moment, with the entire people standing together at the foot of the mountain. There, at the base of Sinai, humility is revealed. The heart opens. Despite all the differences between them, the people are able to stand together. That is the moment in which they receive the Torah. In the Book of Exodus, the Torah describes the people of Israel encamped opposite the mountain. The Hebrew wording is unusual, using a singular form. Rashi, the medieval commentator, reads this as a rare moment in which the entire people set their disputes aside and stood “as one person with one heart.” In other places, Rashi notes, the people are described in the plural, with complaint and conflict. That condition feels familiar to us to this day. Over the past two and a half years, Israelis have felt more than once a measure of that rare power of standing together. We have seen how much strength it contains, how much strength it gives and what a profound effect it can have. But history has also shown that it is difficult to hold on to that unity for long. The endless war, and especially the approaching elections, are roughly undoing what was woven here out of pain and hope. A holiday split in two Over the years, especially after the establishment of the State of Israel, Shavuot itself came to reflect one of the deeper divisions in Israeli society. The holiday that perhaps more than any other symbolizes the power of Jewish unity was split, in practice, into two holidays. For some, it is the holiday of the giving of the Torah. For others, it is the festival of the first fruits. Each group has emphasized the part closest to its heart. That split deepened over time and helped create a fracture that still accompanies us. There are those who look only toward heaven, while ignoring the fact that life in this land also requires fighting for it, plowing it, planting it, building an economy, industry and medicine. The Torah we received is a Torah of life. It connects land and heaven. It also expects each member of our people to stand up and defend the home. And there are those who have become so focused on working the land that they have forgotten to lift their eyes upward from time to time. They have forgotten to recognize that the fact we are here, in this flourishing land surrounded by deserts and enemies, is not incidental. We are not a nation like all other nations. We have a purpose that cannot be ignored. The strength of togetherness, the combination of the giving of the Torah and the festival of the first fruits, is what allowed this land of milk and honey to grow here. It will continue to be that, and even more, only if we are wise enough not to allow anyone to unravel or damage that shared bond. Standing again at the foot of the mountain The eve of Shavuot gives us a chance to choose, if only for a moment, to stand again at the foot of the mountain. It is a chance to look at one another with humility. To adopt a more compassionate gaze. To search for what connects us. To become a little more patient. To ask what role each of us plays in the division, and from there, what each of us must repair so that we can again be “as one person with one heart.” That is the deeper correction of Shavuot. message hypcytp1fx Analysis: a short strike will not break Tehran’s refusal; only a sustained US-Israeli campaign against Iran’s missile and drone capabilities can make the regime fear for its survival and reconsider Ron Ben-Yishai https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/05/13/SkeCuMf1fx/SkeCuMf1fx_0_0_850_479_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/hypcytp1fx Sun, 17 May 2026 21:38:52 +03:00 U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision on how to act against Iran will be fateful. The success or failure of an American move could determine whether Iran’s military nuclear project can be ended, or at least delayed for generations. To a large extent, the outcome could also determine the future of the ayatollahs’ regime. For Israel, the implications would be immediate. A successful or failed operation could bring an end to the war on at least four fronts where the IDF is still operating. Trump has learned that, much like himself, the Iranian regime is not only rigid but also volatile and unpredictable. The split at the top in Tehran means that those negotiating with mediators are Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his team, who represent the more moderate faction. On the other side are senior Revolutionary Guard commanders and conservative ayatollahs, who do not trust the Americans and, for ideological and emotional reasons, are unwilling to negotiate with them even through intermediaries. The result is that every understanding reached between the mediators and Araghchi reaches the sickbed of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei through envoys and envoys of envoys, for his approval. But the younger Khamenei is effectively captive to Revolutionary Guard officials and conservative ayatollahs, who protect him from assassination on one hand and prevent him from being exposed to the views of the moderates, who are more attentive to the distress of Iran’s citizens, on the other. Khamenei did meet with moderate President Masoud Pezeshkian, but as someone rooted by family background in the conservative-militant camp, he still prefers to rule according to those advocating a hard line of no surrender to the United States. The motivation of that faction is largely religious. Since the days of founder Ruhollah Khomeini, the regime in Tehran has viewed the restoration of Shiite Islam to what it sees as its rightful place in the Muslim world as a sacred mission. Its ambition, accordingly, is to export the revolution. What the United States is demanding is that Iran give up the main tool for carrying out that mission: its nuclear program, which is intended both to protect Iran and to provide a security umbrella for exporting the revolution and for Shiite proxies acting on its behalf across the Middle East. Beyond that, in the Shiite ethos, surrender is humiliation, and humiliation is worse than death. It projects weakness that endangers the regime’s survival. Another reason Trump is encountering difficulties is that the Iranian regime feels it has survived both the civil protests against it over the past winter and the military strikes by the United States and Israel, which damaged its nuclear program, military assets and symbols of power. During the war, Iran’s civilian national infrastructure — energy, electricity and transportation — was barely attacked. Damage to those systems could worsen the economic distress and spark another wave of protests that might threaten the regime. For that reason, experts and security officials in the United States and Israel believe the regime will be forced to soften its position only if it faces a combined campaign of siege, economic sanctions and destructive kinetic strikes on sensitive infrastructure such as electricity and oil. Such attacks would deepen the hardship already felt by Iranian citizens and make it harder for the regime to rebuild the country and its military capabilities. A blow of that kind could threaten the regime’s survival within a period of several months to two years, forcing even the hard-line factions in Tehran to recalculate. But that assumption is not necessarily justified. First, the regime’s senior figures act to a large extent out of religious motives and a sense of religious mission, and are not particularly sensitive to the suffering or economic distress of the people. Second, the regime has built powerful defense mechanisms, first and foremost the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij, which have already shown they have no problem killing thousands of civilians to suppress protests and unrest. Therefore, the regime may be able to absorb and survive even if national infrastructure such as bridges and power stations is destroyed. In addition, the Iranian regime, across all its factions, declares — and apparently believes — that it can withstand several more months of damage caused by the American economic siege. By contrast, Tehran appears to believe that Trump will be unable to withstand opposition to war in the United States, rising fuel and food prices, and the need to justify a global energy crisis that drives up oil and natural gas prices. The Iranians also believe that even in the event of a military blow, they can inflict heavy casualties and material damage on the Americans, Arab oil producers and Israel using the ballistic missiles, coastal missiles, naval mines and drones they can still operate. By all indications, Tehran believes that causing casualties and destruction could intensify opposition to the war in the United States, the Gulf states and Israel. All of this leads the Iranians to think, with considerable justification, that time is working in their favor. Given these forces above and below the surface, Trump must focus his efforts only on what can produce his desired result within a few weeks, while minimizing casualties and damage to the Gulf states, Israel, U.S. bases and American naval forces. In light of all this, it can be assessed that a short and powerful strike on essential infrastructure will not be what changes the position of the regime in Tehran. Rather, what may be required is an intensive and broad joint military operation by the U.S. military and the IDF, lasting one to two weeks and carried out across almost all of Iran while avoiding harm to civilians as much as possible. The goals of such an operation would likely be to deepen and expand the damage to what remains of Iran’s launch and production sites for ballistic missiles and attack drones. This would involve an air and naval attack, possibly also with a ground element, for example from the United Arab Emirates, broad in scope and sustained over time. It would strike most of the main facilities simultaneously, including along the coast of the Strait of Hormuz, Kharg Island and other islands. Such an operation would be effective if based on intelligence and lessons produced by U.S. Central Command and the IDF during the ceasefire, as well as on the munitions, logistics and deployments accumulated in recent weeks in both Israel and the Persian Gulf. If carried out at maximum strike tempo, such an operation could reduce Iran’s ability to hit Israel, Gulf states and oil tankers in the region to a minimum. More importantly, it could lead even the hard-liners in Tehran to conclude that Iran is defenseless and will remain exposed to Israeli or American attack if it tries to rebuild its strategic capabilities or suppress protest demonstrations, all while the economic siege and sanctions continue. Suffering losses without the ability to respond, combined with moderate and gradual damage to infrastructure, could push the regime to soften its positions out of fear for its survival and out of recognition that soon it may no longer be able to use its main weapon: closing the Strait of Hormuz. The right path, in this assessment, is not a short, fast and powerful military operation against infrastructure, but a focused campaign that would likely target Iran’s entire offensive missile and drone array — ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and attack drones — simultaneously and extensively, both in the Strait of Hormuz and across Iran. If, after a week of intense strikes, perhaps a little more, Tehran still refuses to show flexibility in negotiations, it may then be possible to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping with reduced risk and gradually move to attacks on civilian infrastructure targets until the deadlock is broken. That feeling — that Iran is exposed and suffering losses without the ability to respond — is what led Ayatollah Khomeini in 1988 to accept the UN ceasefire terms, which effectively amounted to surrender in the war against Iraq. There is a good chance the same could happen now. message sjsldzwjmg Opinion: In an era in which lies are treated as free speech, a dangerous article in one of the world’s top newspapers leaves a lasting impression: that the Jewish state is a monster; even an apology buried deep inside the paper cannot undo the damage Ben-Dror Yemini https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/05/15/Skm11vH4Nkfl/Skm11vH4Nkfl_0_150_3000_1689_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/sjsldzwjmg Sun, 17 May 2026 13:00:48 +03:00 It seems that the article published last week, “The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians,” which amounts to journalistic pornography, should mark a watershed moment for journalism, which has sunk to an unprecedented moral low. It is not as though this article was the first of its kind. For decades, the media has produced blood libels against Israel. But this time it was The New York Times. It was once considered a model for every serious newspaper and journalist. But for a very long time now, that newspaper has been somewhere else entirely. There is no other country in the world that faces front-page articles calling for its destruction. But that is exactly what happened in this newspaper. It found its court Jews, like Peter Beinart, who on the question of Israel’s right to exist holds a position similar to that of Iran’s mullah regime. Last week it was a column by Nicholas Kristof claiming that Palestinians were raped in prison by dogs trained by Israel. There is something infuriating in the very need to refute claims of this kind. What else will we have to refute? That IDF soldiers use the blood of Palestinian children to bake Passover matzah? That too will come. We are living in an era in which lies are treated as free speech. And even if tomorrow or the next day this newspaper publishes a correction or apology, it will not help. Most readers skip corrections, which are often buried at the bottom of Page 19. The initial impression sticks. And the impression is that the Jewish state is a monster. Yes, this newspaper has become an “enlightened” edition of Der Stürmer. This is precisely the way to justify those same articles, in that vile publication, denying Israel’s right to exist. This terrible newspaper, it should be recalled, published on its front page a photograph of a mother and her gaunt child as part of the campaign claiming Israel was using starvation as collective punishment against the miserable residents of the Gaza Strip. Other “serious” newspapers joined the celebration. And the truth? It never happened. The media organization Free Press published a serious and extensive investigation exposing the lie. All 12 children used by the newspapers for their front pages, led by The New York Times, suffered from preexisting illnesses. The newspaper published a correction. Wonderful? Not at all. Most of those whose eyes saw the original image never saw the correction. The impression was already fixed. How absurd was the “rape by dogs” investigation? Kristof noted that he relied on the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor. Had Kristof bothered to check, he would have found that it is an extension of Hamas. Its director is Ramy Abdu, who once posted about Israel’s “insatiable appetite for drinking the blood of Palestinian children,” and its chairman is Prof. Richard Falk, an outspoken supporter of the Khomeinist revolution who has made numerous antisemitic remarks, including that “Jewish people... have decided to bring down human civilization.” Falk, it should be noted, is Jewish. He heads the same organization used by Dr. Lee Mordechai in compiling his disgraceful genocide report. And yes, Mordechai is also Jewish. And as the Talmud says: “Not for nothing did the starling follow the raven, but because it is of its kind (Bava Kamma 92b).” This time, it must be admitted, things are somewhat different. Journalists — including non-Jews — from leading media outlets understood that The New York Times had published a modern blood libel, and serious investigators exposed more and more falsehoods in what masqueraded as an investigation. The protest indeed spread, including a demonstration by hundreds, perhaps thousands, outside the newspaper’s headquarters on Friday. Because we already know: Libels of this kind in the first act encourage anti-Israel jeers at Eurovision in the second act, which escalate into the murder of Jews in the third act. And we know that the next attack against Jews is only a matter of time. And The New York Times will not be able to wash its hands clean. It spilled this blood too. message bkuimniyfl Opinion: After eliminating Hamas commander Izz al-Din al-Haddad, army faces growing pressure on the Lebanese front, where Hezbollah’s advanced FPV drones are increasingly targeting IDF troops | Analysis Davidi Ben Zion https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/05/15/HJJ7xaVJzl/HJJ7xaVJzl_0_152_3000_1689_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/bkuimniyfl Sun, 17 May 2026 06:43:54 +03:00 Israel eliminated Hamas commander Izz al-Din al-Haddad in Gaza, one of the figures involved in planning the October 7 massacre. It was an important, justified and impressive assassination, and the IDF, the Shin Bet and everyone involved in the operation deserve significant praise. The State of Israel must continue pursuing those responsible for the worst massacre in its history. But while Israel marks achievements in Gaza, soldiers in the north are facing a dangerous and rapidly changing reality every day. In Lebanon, the main threat is no longer just anti-tank missiles or rocket fire. This is the age of FPV drones. More and more IDF soldiers are being wounded by fiber-optic drones operated by Hezbollah against Israeli forces. These drones are nearly impossible to jam using conventional systems because they are physically connected to the operator by a thin cable. There is no signal to block and no system that can simply shut them down. Hezbollah adopted the tactic from the war in Ukraine, where one lesson became painfully clear: long wars of attrition give the enemy time to study you, improve and make every additional day on the battlefield more dangerous. That is exactly why military theorist Carl von Clausewitz argued that wars should end with a swift and decisive outcome. Thousands of years earlier, Sun Tzu warned that no nation benefits from a prolonged war. When a stronger country hesitates, a smaller and more ruthless enemy learns to turn attrition itself into a weapon. Israel now finds itself at that moment. Everyone understands that Iran is the larger threat, and dramatic developments involving Tehran may unfold in the coming days. But that is exactly why the Lebanese front cannot be allowed to drift into another endless conflict without a clear resolution. IDF soldiers must not feel that leaders are hesitating to act decisively in the north simply because all eyes are on Iran. Trust is the foundation of military strength. Soldiers sent repeatedly into Lebanon must know there is a clear objective and determination to achieve it. Reservists cannot once again be asked to leave behind families, children, businesses and jobs without believing the state genuinely intends to change the reality on the ground rather than simply manage another round of fighting. That burden is already being felt across the military. After months of war, the IDF is stretched to its limits. There are manpower shortages, growing exhaustion in the reserve forces and only so much pressure the same people can continue carrying. What is needed now is a clear strategic decision: no more containment, no more limited responses and no more dragging things out. Israel must defeat Hezbollah, severely damage its rocket and drone capabilities, push it away from the border and create a new reality that allows residents of the north to return to lives of security and stability. The real question is no longer what the IDF can do, but what the political leadership is willing to decide. The capability exists. The soldiers’ courage exists. Public resolve exists as well. What is missing right now is clarity. In the Middle East, there is no vacuum. When Israel fails to act decisively, its enemies interpret it as weakness. And when a strong country projects hesitation, the enemy does not disappear — it grows stronger and moves closer. message rjgwbms1gx Opinion: Wars end with diplomatic agreements, otherwise all the bloodshed was for nothing; Trump failed to find the moment to stop shooting and start talking — now he is running into a wall Orly Azoulay https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2025/12/30/H1MvLyW4Zl/H1MvLyW4Zl_0_214_3000_1688_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/rjgwbms1gx Sat, 16 May 2026 02:24:18 +03:00 He is convinced that if he repeats the word “victory” in every possible variation, firmly and endlessly, the world will look at him in awe and admiration, just as he believes it should. The Revolutionary Guards, in his mind, will bow their heads and, in a ceremony of gratitude, hand over their stockpiles of enriched uranium for his safekeeping, because that is what he wants, and because their role is to please him and offer him tribute. It is safe to assume Donald Trump does not know who Karl Marx was. It is doubtful he has even heard of him. But he is applying his doctrine all the same, convinced that existence determines consciousness: he dreams of victory and believes that if he says it over and over again, without end, it will become reality. Trump is the commander-in-chief of the United States military, the greatest and most glorious army, better equipped than any other in the world and armed with the most advanced weapons imaginable. But winning a war requires more than an abundance of smart bombs. Above all, it requires wisdom. His partner in this increasingly complicated war in Iran, Israel’s prime minister, resembles him in his methods but differs from him in one crucial way: Benjamin Netanyahu does understand what is happening in the world. Yet with unmatched cynicism, Netanyahu maneuvers the American president into wars with no purpose, no feasibility and no defined goals, only fantasies for which all sides are paying a price. For Netanyahu, this is the real pillar of support. He built his entire political career on fear of Iran, on the existential threat it supposedly poses. When the people are afraid, they rally around the leader. Netanyahu the politician would not have survived for years without the Iranian threat he cultivated, inflated and turned into a monster that must be destroyed. Barack Obama, too, understood that Iran must not be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons. He said all options were on the table, but he never went to war with Iran. He secured the best agreement possible, and moved on. Trump cannot secure a better agreement with Iran than the one Obama achieved. He does not understand the world or the geopolitical currents moving beneath the surface. He was certain this would be a quick, one-and-done strike, after which he would stand atop the world like the sun king, an American president with the skulls of the ayatollahs hanging from his belt. That did not happen, and it will not happen. One Khamenei goes, another Khamenei comes. American intelligence reports reveal that Iran’s nuclear program was not significantly damaged. Iran still has 75% of its missile stockpiles and launchers operational, perhaps more. It has not moved a millimeter from its demands. Trump failed to bend it, certainly failed to subdue it, and the holy grail, the uranium stockpile, remains in its hands. The Strait of Hormuz was open before the lion roared and the lioness charged. Then the Iranians brought it into the story, like a goat dragged into the house, by closing it to ship traffic. Now they are demanding payment even to reopen it. Trump has now entered a new phase. He is calling the next operation against Iran, apparently coming soon, “heavy hammer,” while ignoring the fact that for now, the ax has fallen on Iranian civilians living in darkness and under bombardment, on Israelis living in pauses between runs to safe rooms, and on terrified Gulf residents as fire falls over their heads. Most Americans oppose this war, by margins even greater than the opposition once seen to the Vietnam War and the war in Iraq. The economic situation in the United States is at a low point: inflation has climbed sharply, and the cost of living weighs heavily on citizens who cannot make ends meet or fill their gas tanks. When Trump was asked about it before leaving for China, he replied with complete detachment: “I don’t care even a little.” It was reminiscent of Netanyahu’s remark years ago to a woman in Kiryat Shmona who complained about the situation: “You bore me.” Trump, who once owned casinos, is now behaving like a compulsive gambler: someone who has lost all his money, his home and his property at the blackjack table, but keeps gambling into the night under the illusion that just one more round will win back everything he lost, and more. Trump was certain he would set off this week for China as a victor, the leader of the superpower that freed the world from the threat of an Iranian nuclear bomb. He thought he would cash in politically with the Chinese president and make clear who still runs the world. In Beijing, Trump was welcomed with the cheers of a children’s choir, but behind closed doors his Chinese hosts made it clear that the celebration was over. He did not even dare raise the issue of human rights. He barely spoke about Taiwan, even though both issues are at the heart of American interests in dealing with China. Nor did he stand there like a bully and threaten China with massive tariffs. He arrived in Beijing with his tail between his legs. They served him roast duck at a festive dinner and tiramisu for dessert. He did not travel to China as the great Trump he likes to imagine himself to be, because he has not internalized that there are no happy wars. And the Chinese, who know very well how to identify a leader’s weaknesses, immediately understood that he now needs them more than they need him. How the wheel turns. Trump can say morning and night that he won, and praise his glorious victory, but sane people across the globe will never forgive him for cooperating with a bloody war filled with talk of victory, a fake victory in truth, and no decision, because there could never have been a decisive outcome. Wars end with diplomatic agreements. Otherwise, all the bloodshed was for nothing. Trump failed to identify the moment when he needed to cease fire and sit down to talk, mainly because he understood he would never be able to reach a better deal than the one Obama achieved. Now he is running headfirst into a wall. He won several battles and lost the war. Now is the time for aggressive diplomacy that also contains wisdom, or for a paved road to ruin. message hyu00okv1zl Opinion: The claim that Netanyahu dragged Trump into war with Iran recycles old antisemitic tropes of Jewish control, while the facts show Trump has repeatedly forced Netanyahu’s hand Ben-Dror Yemini https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/05/14/yk14770980/yk14770980_0_47_809_456_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/hyu00okv1zl Fri, 15 May 2026 15:21:18 +03:00 The myth that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu controls U.S. President Donald Trump is an extension of the antisemitic trope that Jews control the United States — and the media, academia, banks and the global economy. The control is supposedly so extensive that university campuses and the media have increasingly become propaganda arms of Hamas and Hezbollah. These are no longer just fringe extremists. Even former U.S. vice president Kamala Harris herself recently said Trump was dragged into war by Netanyahu. Is that so? Iran is the center of gravity of the axis of evil: a country with a glorious history and a deranged leadership. “From the first day of the Iranian Revolution,” Yigal Carmon, president of Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), told me, “Iran expanded its capabilities to enormous levels that threaten the United States. That includes the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to strike the eastern United States, and terrorist proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraqi militias and networks operating within the West under academic, social and religious cover. According to the Iranians themselves, they are developing weapons that threaten the United States.” Iran is a massive terror monster disguised as a state. Its anthem is “Death to America,” alongside “Death to Israel.” So Netanyahu dragged Trump into war? Power relations Let us set aside the myths and conspiracies. In practice, Trump exercises complete control over Netanyahu. Consider several examples: On Jan. 11, 2025, before Trump returned to the White House, his special envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Israel, forced Netanyahu to meet him on Shabbat and imposed the second hostage deal on him. By the 12th day of Operation Rising Lion, it was Trump who ordered Netanyahu to stop the war, including recalling Israeli Air Force planes already on their way to strike Iran. It was Trump who, in September 2025, forced Netanyahu to apologize to Qatar’s ruler following Israel’s failed assassination attempt of Hamas leaders in Doha. It was Trump who imposed the 20-point Gaza ceasefire plan on Netanyahu, including the establishment of a Palestinian state. It was Trump who imposed the October 2025 ceasefire and hostage-release agreement on Netanyahu. On Oct. 9, Witkoff and Jared Kushner even attended the Israeli Cabinet meeting to oversee approval of the deal. It was Trump, not Netanyahu, who declared during protests in Iran in January that “help is on its way” — before the supposedly decisive Feb. 11 meeting between the two leaders. Trump also forced Netanyahu into another ceasefire, both with Iran and Hezbollah, despite unfinished operations against both. Is that Israeli control over America? Netanyahu presented Trump with intelligence materials. That was his job. According to reports, Saudi Arabia also pressed Trump to eliminate the Iranian threat. But Trump made the decision to strike Iran based on American interests. These are the facts. Yet what Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens say in Act One, even Kamala Harris repeats in Act Three. It is somewhat sad that Netanyahu has lost his independence and that Trump controls him without challenge. But there are already enough myths about Jewish control of America. There is no need for another one. To be clear, Trump and Netanyahu do indeed have a “special relationship.” Netanyahu has met Trump more than any other world leader. But these are relations of subordination — complete Trump control over Netanyahu. And those relations have problematic strategic implications. Behind the pardon push Some may ask: How can Trump’s intense pressure on President Isaac Herzog to pardon Netanyahu be explained? It is an excellent question — and it proves the point. Trump knows there is only a slim chance the pressure will actually produce a pardon. So why apply it? Because the pressure is meant to deepen the “special relationship.” It makes Netanyahu far more obedient and subordinate. Can Netanyahu refuse any Trump demand when the U.S. president himself is intervening so aggressively in Israel’s legal system to secure a pardon? The result is submission, not a pardon. It is worth recalling Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s 1982 speech, when the United States threatened to cut aid to Israel over settlement construction in the West Bank. “Do not threaten us with cutting aid,” Begin said. “It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history ... We will stand by our principles, defend them, and if necessary die for them again — with or without your aid.” Does anyone seriously believe today’s Netanyahu would say even a tenth of what Begin said? The answer is obvious. It is the result of Trump’s complete control over Netanyahu. The world’s most hated The myth of Israeli influence over the United States is a direct continuation of the myth of Jewish control over the global media. In reality, Israel is among the world’s most vilified countries. For a moment, it is worth saying: It is unfortunate the claims about Jewish control are false. Because if there were even a grain of truth to them, Israel’s standing in the global media would look very different. In the BBC’s latest international survey, conducted in 27 countries among 28,000 respondents, Israel ranked last. Only 17% expressed a positive view of Israel, while 56% held a negative view. Iran was very close behind Israel, with 18% positive and 54% negative. Those are the facts. One libel too far And speaking of alleged Jewish control of the media, another line appears to have been crossed this week. Nicholas Kristof, one of the leading columnists at the increasingly declining New York Times, published what amounted to an investigative opinion piece alleging that Israel not only rapes Palestinian prisoners but also trains dogs to rape Palestinians. It is embarrassing to have to debunk this pornography masquerading as journalism. But there is no choice. Researcher Salo Eisenberg worked extensively on refuting the claims. He is not a public diplomacy operative. He is perhaps one of the most effective independent researchers exposing lie after lie from what the author describes as the “industry of lies” surrounding the Gaza war. This time, however, the backlash spread beyond pro-Israel circles. CNN commentator Scott Jennings sharply attacked the article, calling it “a journalistic atrocity.” Rachel O’Donoghue of The Wall Street Journal did the same. Across social media, readers posted cancellations of their New York Times subscriptions, saying: “Enough.” Meanwhile, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem embraced the allegations, in what the author described as “another moral low.” The story is not over. Facts will not confuse Israel’s critics. And those who barely understand what they are discussing — including Israelis and Jews — continue strengthening them with claims about Netanyahu controlling Trump. Ben-Dror Yemini is a journalist, researcher, jurist and author of the book Industry of Lies: Media, Academia, and the Israeli-Arab Conflict. message b1cj8eekme Opinion: Syria’s sudden return to global finance and energy markets marks a historic turn, but the West may be betting billions on Ahmed al-Sharaa’s reinvention before securing the guarantees it needs Amine Ayoub https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2025/11/10/HJ7C3eTyebl/HJ7C3eTyebl_0_0_1280_719_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/b1cj8eekme Fri, 15 May 2026 09:15:13 +03:00 Something remarkable happened in Damascus last week, and almost no one treated it as remarkable. Mastercard completed its technical integration with Syria's banking system on May 8, allowing local banks to reconnect with global payment networks for the first time in fifteen years. One day later, Syria's Central Bank announced that the connection was live. By May 10, Qatar National Bank had already launched card acceptance services on the ground. Meanwhile, the American energy giant Chevron signed a preliminary agreement with Syria's government and a Qatari partner to explore for oil and gas off the Syrian coast. Saudi Arabia confirmed a multi-billion-dollar investment package covering energy, aviation and telecommunications. The Dubai-based developer Eagle Hills is reportedly studying fifty billion dollars' worth of Syrian projects. In the span of a single week, Syria went from an international pariah to a frontier investment destination. The man who made it happen was Ahmed al-Sharaa, who until eighteen months ago led Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a militia that Washington had listed as a specially designated global terrorist organization and that traced its lineage directly to al-Qaeda in Iraq. This is either the fastest rehabilitation of a former jihadist in modern diplomatic history, or it is the most expensive bet the West has ever made on a personality pivot. The evidence from last week suggests it may be both. There is a version of the Sharaa story that is genuinely encouraging. He ousted Bashar Assad, ended five decades of a dynasty that murdered its own people by the hundreds of thousands, and has since invited international investment, restored credit card networks, arrested Assad-era war criminals and told Western audiences that Syria's diversity is a strength. He has made overtures toward normalizing ties with Israel, reportedly telling U.S. President Donald Trump that Syria would not contest Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. He stood in the White House as the first Syrian president ever to do so. He held a Saudi crown prince's ear long enough to unlock two billion dollars in committed investment. But there is another version of the story that the flood of investment announcements last week is conspicuously obscuring. Three weeks ago, Sharaa was filmed sitting stone-faced in a Damascus sports arena as dancers in leather outfits performed to Missy Elliott's "Work It," a song whose lyrics would not survive translation into any Friday sermon. The video went viral not because of the absurdity of the juxtaposition, though the absurdity was real, but because of what happened next. Sharaa did not laugh it off. He distanced himself. He told Syrian journalists that his attendance had been a last-minute decision, that he had not been aware of the program, and that future national events should be "linked to the customs and culture of Syria." His government has already attempted to ban alcohol sales in parts of Damascus and tried to enforce restrictions on beachwear at public beaches, walking both back only after significant backlash. These are not the reflexes of a secular modernizer. They are the reflexes of a leader managing an Islamist base while performing moderation for a foreign audience. The problem is not that Syria should remain in economic isolation forever. The Caesar Act sanctions were designed as pressure against Assad, and Assad is gone. The problem is the sequencing: the West and the Gulf have handed over reconstruction capital, energy deals, payment infrastructure and political legitimacy before Syria has demonstrated the conditions that were supposed to accompany them. The Caesar Act was repealed at the end of 2025 without conditions, despite congressional efforts to attach minority protection requirements. The United States handed over its last military bases in Syria to Sharaa's government in April without extracting binding security commitments for the Kurdish-led forces that fought alongside American troops for a decade against the Islamic State. Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have been cleared from Syrian territory, which is genuinely significant, but what has replaced them in the country's institutional fabric remains opaque. The investment deals announced last week are entering a country that the World Bank estimates will cost upwards of $400 billion to reconstruct and that currently has a GDP of roughly $20 billion. The Syrian Development Fund, which Sharaa's government launched in September 2025, had collected $41 million in donations by the end of March. The arithmetic does not work without the Gulf and the West, which is precisely why Sharaa holds his leverage and his foreign backers are discovering they hold less than they think. For Israel, the picture is more acute. The Israeli military has continued conducting raids in the Quneitra countryside and the Daraa buffer zone throughout May. Israeli forces shelled sites in southern Syria as recently as this week. The IDF has advanced into the Wadi al-Raqad area adjacent to the Golan. These operations are not the actions of a country that believes its northern frontier has been secured by Sharaa's diplomatic transformation. Whatever Sharaa told Trump about the Golan in Riyadh a year ago, there is no binding agreement, no security architecture, and no Israeli presence at the negotiating table for Syria's future. Israel is managing its exposure kinetically because there is no other mechanism available to it. The deeper issue is structural. The normalization of Sharaa's Syria is being driven by the Gulf states, Turkey and Washington, with the European Union trailing behind. Qatar is playing an outsized role in Syria's energy sector through its connections to the Chevron offshore deal. Turkey supplies Syria with natural gas through a pipeline into Aleppo. Saudi Arabia is funding a private airline. All of these actors have their own interests in Syria's trajectory, and those interests do not map neatly onto Western democratic standards or Israeli security concerns. Mastercard is back in Damascus. Chevron is exploring Syria's coastline. Eagle Hills is drawing blueprints. The man who organized all of this used to run a designated terrorist organization. That may still turn out to be an acceptable trade. But the time to attach conditions to that trade was before the money moved. The West signed the check first and is writing the terms later. In the Middle East, that order of operations has a well-documented track record. Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. message rkodijnkgx Opinion: Zaidy Mordecha did not give up on Shabbat when he immigrated to the US, even while living in poverty; The US president's declaration of this coming weekend as a 'national Shabbat' in a tribute to Judaism is his victory Shoshana Chen https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/05/02/S1gc7611QRbx/S1gc7611QRbx_0_155_3000_1688_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/rkodijnkgx Fri, 15 May 2026 03:32:50 +03:00 U.S. President Donald Trump’s declaration of this coming Saturday as “National Shabbat,” a gesture to the Jewish people ahead of America’s 250th Independence Day, stunned everyone — including Shabbat observers in Israel and the United States. Who would have believed a presidential recommendation for a special Sabbath meant “to recognize the sacred Jewish tradition of setting aside time for rest, reflection and gratitude to God”? A tribute to the unique gift the people of Israel gave the world. I only wish I could have basked in the reaction of my late Zaidy Mordechai, whom I never had the privilege of knowing. One of the forefathers of our family, he arrived in the United States in 1920 or 1921 with his pregnant wife, my late Bubbe Miriam. They were a young couple fleeing the harsh poverty of eastern Poland after World War I, joining my great-grandfather, who had managed to leave Poland for America before the war. But the “goldene medina” — the golden land, where immigrants of that era imagined gold coins could be picked up from the pavement — did not welcome them kindly. For years, my grandfather had to look for a new job almost every Monday. When he returned to work after Shabbat and Sunday, he would discover he had been fired again because he refused to desecrate Shabbat and come to work. Even when poverty cried out from the walls, as the home filled with children — five were born to him in America — he insisted on observing Shabbat. He welcomed it anew each week with love, trusting the Master of the Universe to provide his livelihood. Years later, he opened a sweater factory so he would not be dependent on others. The factory began to prosper precisely after he refused at any price to deliver merchandise on Shabbat to a buyer for a major department store chain who urgently needed it. “I saw your loyalty to the principles of your faith,” the chain’s representative told my grandfather when he returned on Monday, enlarged the order and became one of his most important clients. And more than Zaidy kept Shabbat, Shabbat kept him. More than 99% of his more than 500 descendants living today in the United States and Israel observe Shabbat. All four of his sons studied in yeshiva — a rare educational path and a target of ridicule in America in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s — as did the overwhelming majority of his descendants. More than 150 of Zaidy Mordechai’s male descendants in the fourth, fifth and sixth generations are today kollel scholars, lecturers, yeshiva students and cheder students in the United States and the Land of Israel, which he loved so deeply. Zaidy Mordechai was among the minority of Jewish immigrants who came to America before World War II and refused to sacrifice Shabbat on the altar of money. The vast majority of immigrants could not withstand the difficult test and gave up Shabbat for the sake of earning a living. In New York of those days, then as now the largest Jewish center in America, even those who ostensibly remembered the traditions of their fathers’ homes would finish the Musaf prayer on Shabbat morning and go out, their prayer shawls folded, to their workplaces in factories and shops. The law did not protect them. Only in 1964, when the U.S. Civil Rights Act was enacted and banned religious discrimination, was the interpretation of “religious accommodation in the workplace” born. U.S. courts and regulators then determined that in certain cases, employers must allow reasonable accommodations, such as not working on Shabbat. Until then, for decades, the overwhelming majority of immigrants had given up Shabbat for livelihood. In the test of time, the minority won. A minority of “guardians of the seal.” This Shabbat, official America salutes them and pays them a debt. It also atones for the terrible wrongs done to the Jewish people before and during World War II: closing its gates and refraining from bombing the death camps, foremost among them Auschwitz, in order to jam the machinery of slaughter. In a place of honor in our home are kept Zaidy Mordechai’s volumes of the Talmud. He died in old age after slipping on a wet step on a rainy Sukkot morning, on his way to the sukkah to study a page of Gemara. I have no doubt that if only he could meet them, Zaidy would tell his descendants how proud he is of them — those who embrace the Gemara with love and persist in studying it with all their hearts. If only he could rise and tell them and all of us, in his quiet and humble voice: Clinging to Shabbat observance and Torah study in every condition and every circumstance is not a matter of money. On the contrary. It demands devotion beyond money. And it creates the “guardians of the seal,” the guardians of the Jewish people’s continuity. And time will prove it. Gut Shabbos, America. Shabbat shalom, Israel. message r1m7jp7kme Opinion: Instead of leading an offensive line that shapes reality, Israel is stuck in the same failed concept that preceded October 7; the time has come to stop the exhausting defensive race against explosive drones and return the war to enemy territory Ayelet Shaked https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/04/30/BJgOFW411AZl/BJgOFW411AZl_145_393_440_248_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/r1m7jp7kme Thu, 14 May 2026 19:02:12 +03:00 Instead of dictating the strategic reality and creating deterrence that prevents the next threat, Israel once again appears to be dragged into managing a tactical, localized conflict that causes us to lose the ability to decide the campaign. Every day, sometimes several times a day, Hezbollah sends explosive drones to kill IDF soldiers — all while a “ceasefire” is supposedly in place. This week alone, Warrant Officer (res.) Alexander Glovanyov was killed, and another person was critically wounded on Thursday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened an emergency discussion on the issue, as did the IDF chief of staff. The drone is a tactical threat. It is a tactical threat that harms our soldiers, and therefore, a defensive solution must certainly be found. But it does not justify pushing an entire nation into a psychological defensive crouch. I am not arguing that protective solutions are unnecessary. Defense is an essential layer. But the urgency and panic that accompany every technological development by the enemy point to a loss of composure — and, more importantly, blur and ignore the far more significant problem. Israel has known about the danger posed by drones for several years, following the Russia-Ukraine war. Even before that, when I served in Netanyahu’s security cabinet in 2018, we held a discussion on the matter. It was only a matter of time before the terrorist organizations surrounding us began using them. Everyone knew it, everyone talked about it — and once again, as in previous cases, nothing was done. They sat and waited, perhaps because they were busy with other things. They sat and waited until the drones began exploding over the heads of our soldiers. The panicked race to find a solution to the drone threat — a threat that absolutely requires answers because it is costing lives, but is fundamentally tactical — will not help and will not solve the deeper problem, which demands long-term strategic planning. That deeper problem is policy. After fiber-optic drones, another threat will come, and then another. If we continue focusing only on the next defensive solution, we will eventually all find ourselves living inside an atomic bunker. When Qassam rockets began falling from Gaza, we developed Iron Dome. We thought we had found a solution and that quiet would return. Then came October 7. We are in an endless defensive chase in which we will always be one step behind, investing enormous resources in passive protection instead of fundamentally changing the rules of the game. The real solution must first and foremost be deterrence. The response to every attempt to harm us, large or small, should be simple and unequivocal: for every drone launched at us, the price must be the destruction of a building in Dahieh. Immediately, without hesitation and without delay. Only exacting a heavy strategic price for every tactical action will make clear to the other side that the equation has changed and that attacking us simply does not pay. In this context, it must be said that the fact that Hezbollah terrorists are killing our soldiers, while a “ceasefire” is in place, and that the political echelon is tying the IDF’s hands, is unacceptable. Full responsibility for this rests on the shoulders of the prime minister, who allowed and continues to allow this reality. This fixation on defense is the direct result of leadership that has learned nothing. This is what happens when, after October 7, the military investigates itself while the government is busy fleeing responsibility and blocking any possibility of an external inquiry. And so, instead of leading an offensive line that initiates and shapes reality, we remain stuck in the same failed “concept” that has proven itself disastrous time and again. The time has come to stop this exhausting defensive race and return the war to enemy territory. message bjtpjygkme Opinion: At a time of unprecedented closeness with the White House, calls are growing in the US and Israel to end American aid, backed by supporters with divergent and even opposing interests Avi Shilon https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2025/12/29/Hymf7ZLxEbe/Hymf7ZLxEbe_193_188_2655_1495_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/bjtpjygkme Thu, 14 May 2026 02:16:05 +03:00 One of the side effects of the recent wars concerns the question of the massive economic aid the United States provides Israel. At a time of unprecedented closeness with the White House, calls are growing, both there and here, to end the aid. What is interesting is that those who support such a move represent different, and even opposing, worldviews and interests. The current scope of the aid, under an agreement signed during President Barack Obama’s tenure, is $3.8 billion a year, of which $3.3 billion is provided directly to Israel and spent according to its needs, while $500 million is dedicated to joint development of missile defense systems. Needless to say, it is hard to overstate the importance of this economic and security assistance. But the fact that Israel has become a controversial issue on both the American left and right has, as noted, strengthened calls to cancel the aid among members of both U.S. parties. Yet while opponents of the aid seek to weaken Israel, or distance themselves from it, Netanyahu also supports ending it. He said as much in an interview this week with “60 Minutes.” The prime minister explained that Israel is already strong enough economically and therefore should not be in the position of needing assistance. He, of course, wants to preserve the special relationship, but within a framework in which Israel uses its own money to buy its security needs from America and signs cooperation agreements instead of asking for support. What Netanyahu, who throughout his years in office has clashed with various U.S. administrations, did not say openly is that his desire to give up the aid is also meant to free Israel from a dependent position, as is evident even in its good relations with Trump. Another interesting voice calling recently for the aid to be canceled is Rahm Emanuel, who may be the Democratic presidential candidate in the next election. Emanuel, a Jew with Israeli roots, is not seeking to prevent Israel from obtaining essential weapons. But he believes that if Israel buys them, rather than receives funding for them, opposition to Israel among Democrats would be blunted. Ending the aid, in his view, would also reduce hostility toward the United States among Israel’s opponents around the world. But Emanuel’s central consideration is different: After all, the aid is also meant to allow the United States to influence Israeli policy. And because in recent decades “Israel is not the same Israel,” as he put it — meaning a right-wing country that rejects the two-state solution Democrats seek — it would be better to give up the effort to shape Israel’s path through free money. And so, different trends are leading to a similar conclusion: It would be better to replace aid money with special relations based on deals and cooperation. Netanyahu has supported canceling the aid for many years. In his view, such a step would not harm Israel’s technological edge, and the United States would continue selling certain products only to Israel. But his position also raises questions: If Israel’s economy is so prosperous that it can give up $3.8 billion in free money every year, why are these surpluses not reflected in the budget, and why do we, the citizens, hear only that there is no money? Moreover, the aid is also a symbol of America’s commitment, which could erode if the relationship is conducted solely through transactions. And more than that: When one recalls that only because of the Americans did the war in Gaza end, while many in the government wanted to continue it, it becomes clear that dependence on Uncle Sam is sometimes actually an advantage. In any case, the question of ending the aid is a critical issue that could affect Israel’s future character. That is why it deserves far greater attention in the public debate, especially during the election campaign. message rkorpum1mg Opinion: Yom Yerushalayim is not only an Israeli celebration, it is a reminder to American Jews that Jewish memory, faith and peoplehood all point to the same place; a day that asks Jews everywhere whether Jerusalem still stands at the center of our Jewish identity. Stephen M. Flatow https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2025/05/25/S1xJvb0gfle/S1xJvb0gfle_0_0_1280_721_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/rkorpum1mg Thu, 14 May 2026 09:32:25 +03:00 Yom Yerushalayim, or Jerusalem Day, begins this year at sundown on Thursday, May 14, and continues through Friday, May 15. It is marked on the Hebrew calendar date of the 28th of Iyar, commemorating the reunification of Jerusalem and the restoration of Jewish access to the Old City during the Six-Day War in 1967. For Israelis, Yom Yerushalayim is a national day of thanksgiving, memory and celebration. For American Jews, it should be no less meaningful. It is not merely an Israeli holiday observed “over there.” It is a day that asks Jews everywhere, including those of us living comfortably in the United States, whether Jerusalem still stands at the center of our Jewish identity. For two thousand years, Jews did not treat Jerusalem as a metaphor. We prayed toward it. We mourned its destruction. We invoked it at weddings, at the Passover Seder and in daily prayer. “Next year in Jerusalem” was not a slogan. It was a declaration that exile had not erased memory, and that Jewish history had not ended with dispersion. That is why 1967 was not just a military victory. It was the moment when Jewish memory became Jewish sovereignty. After 19 years in which Jews were barred from the Western Wall and the holy places of the Old City, Israeli soldiers stood again in the heart of ancient Jerusalem. The Jewish people did not discover Jerusalem in 1967. We returned to it. That distinction matters, because much of today’s debate about Jerusalem is built on historical amnesia. Too often, the Jewish connection to the city is described as if it were recent, political or negotiable. But Jerusalem is not an Israeli talking point. It is the city of King David, the site of the Temples, the direction of Jewish prayer and the spiritual capital of the Jewish people. American Jews should be able to say that without apology. We can debate Israeli policies. Jews have always debated. We can disagree about governments, coalitions and political decisions. But Jerusalem itself should not be reduced to a partisan issue. It belongs not to one party, one denomination or one political camp. It belongs to the entire Jewish people. That is especially important in America, where Jewish life has been blessed with extraordinary freedom and opportunity. We have built synagogues, schools, charities, community centers and institutions of influence. We participate fully in American civic life. We are rightly grateful for the liberties this country has afforded us. But comfort has its risks. A Judaism that becomes only cultural memory, only social justice language, only holiday foods, only nostalgia, or only a private religious preference becomes detached from the full scope of Jewish peoplehood. Yom Yerushalayim reminds us that Judaism is not only a set of beliefs. It is a covenantal civilization rooted in Torah, land, language, people and memory. Jerusalem is where all those meet. That does not mean every American Jew must think the same way about Israel. It does mean that Jewish education in America must do a better job teaching why Jerusalem matters. Our children should know more than the headlines. They should know why Jews fast on Tisha B’Av, why we break a glass under the chuppah, why the words “Yerushalayim” and “Zion” appear so often in our prayers, and why generations of Jews who never saw the city still carried it in their hearts. They should know that there was a time, not long ago, when Jews could not freely approach the Western Wall. They should know that Jewish sovereignty in Jerusalem is not an abstraction but the practical guarantee that Jewish holy places remain open to Jews. They should also know that Jerusalem is not perfect. No living city is. It is complicated, crowded, holy, tense, beautiful, argued over and loved. But that too is part of its meaning. Jerusalem is not a museum exhibit preserved behind glass. It is a living Jewish city, the capital of the State of Israel and the beating heart of Jewish history. For American Jews, Yom Yerushalayim should be a day of recommitment. Synagogues should mark it. Schools should teach it. Jewish organizations should speak about it. Families should discuss it. Not as a political exercise, but as an act of Jewish continuity. The question is not whether American Jews may care about Jerusalem. The question is whether we can remain fully Jewish without caring about it. Our enemies understand the power of Jerusalem. That is why they attack the Jewish claim to it, deny Jewish history and seek to turn the city into a wedge between Israel and Diaspora Jews. We should not help them by growing indifferent. A people that remembers Jerusalem remembers who it is. A people that forgets Jerusalem risks forgetting itself. Yom Yerushalayim is the day we answer that risk with clarity. Jerusalem is not an optional attachment to Jewish identity. It is at the center of our prayers, our past and our future. And it should remain at the center of American Jewish life as well. Stephen M. Flatow is president of the Religious Zionists of America-Mizrachi. He is the author of 'A Father's Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terrorism' message bjdttj111ml Opinion: As Western media, academia and Qatar-funded influence campaigns demonize Israel, anti-Israel narratives are increasingly spilling into violence against Jews worldwide, while Israel remains unprepared for the battle over global public opinion Ben-Dror Yemini https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/05/07/yk14763347/yk14763347_0_138_1230_693_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/bjdttj111ml Wed, 13 May 2026 11:39:55 +03:00 “I’m afraid,” a Jewish friend from London told me two months ago. Outside her home in the Golders Green neighborhood, four ambulances belonging to the Hatzalah emergency service organization had been set on fire. It was just another incident in a long chain of attacks. On May 21 last year, two Israeli Embassy employees were murdered outside the Jewish Museum in Washington. In October 2025, two Jews were killed on Yom Kippur at a synagogue in Manchester. In December, a Hanukkah terror attack at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, left 15 people dead, most of them Jewish. In March 2026, there was a shooting attack at a synagogue in Michigan. A swift response by security guards prevented a mass killing. And last week, two Jews were stabbed, again in London’s Golders Green neighborhood. My friend wants to leave and move to Israel. It is not easy for her; there are issues of livelihood and family. But she knows the next attack is only a matter of time. We want to know why this is happening. Because confronting this phenomenon, which continues to worsen and of which terror attacks are only the tip of the iceberg, requires a deeper understanding of its causes. We do not know everything. We do know that for many years an enormous propaganda campaign funded by Qatar has been underway. That is no secret. Hundreds of billions have been invested, in universities, culture and sports, producing one result: hatred. It is not as though Qatar itself gained much from this. Quite the opposite. In the confrontation with Iran, those who were supposed to stand with Qatar instead sided with the progressive, anti-American camp that was effectively pro-Iranian. But the investment of vast sums over many years has indeed harmed Israel and Jews. Still, with all due disrespect to Qatar, much of this would be happening even without it. It is hard to remain indifferent to the vast sea of information operating like brainwashing. The average Western citizen is exposed to media outlets such as the BBC, The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde in France, Corriere della Sera in Italy and El País in Spain. And when they turn to Wikipedia, the world’s most popular knowledge platform, widely regarded as fair, it turns out that anti-Israel bias has penetrated there as well. The Anti-Defamation League is labeled an “unreliable source,” while Al Jazeera is granted the status of a “reliable source.” According to an ADL study, “a group of at least 30 editors circumvent Wikipedia policies in concert to insert antisemitic narratives, anti-Israel bias and misleading information.” No one needs to be born antisemitic. Exposure to information platforms considered trustworthy inevitably leads the average citizen toward deep hostility to Israel and growing sympathy for “resistance organizations,” including Hamas and Hezbollah, which fight Israel and are granted the status of “anti-colonialist” groups, even if they themselves may not have known they were supposedly such movements. A quick look at what they say about themselves is enough to understand that these are terror organizations seeking to impose a dark regime and that wherever they operate, they bring destruction, devastation and bloodshed. Yet somehow this escapes the attention of most journalists at the world’s leading media organizations. This Wednesday, precisely as these words were being written, I received a BBC push notification: “The channel traces 10 minutes of Israeli bombing that brought destruction to Lebanon.” Ten minutes destroyed Lebanon? I opened the BBC homepage. The lead story concerned progress toward an agreement between the United States and Iran. Fair enough. But two prominent adjacent headlines dealt with Lebanon. One, mentioned above, focused on the “destruction of Lebanon,” and the other, nearly identical, declared that a “massive wave of Israeli strikes brought chaos to Lebanon.” Both articles were written by journalist Nawal al-Maghafi. I searched in vain for reporting from the BBC favorite about the fact that most Lebanese actually want peace with Israel, or reports explaining that Hezbollah and Iran are responsible for Lebanon’s devastation and ruin. What lodges in the public consciousness? Israel bombs Lebanon. Without context. Without background. Certainly without justification. As British journalist James Delingpole wrote two decades ago during the Second Lebanon War: “Forming an opinion on the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel based on BBC reports from Beirut is like forming an opinion on World War II based on reports of the bombing of Dresden filmed in cooperation with Goebbels’ propaganda department.” It was true then. It is even more true today. Most people exposed to this toxic information — which turns reality upside down and turns Israel into the problem — do nothing with it. Perhaps they resent their governments for continuing to cooperate with Israel. A small percentage occasionally join anti-Israel demonstrations. And from among those few who develop a profound hatred of Israel, a handful decide to act. That, for example, was the story of Elias Rodriguez of Chicago, whose progressive views led him to murder Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim outside the Jewish Museum in Washington. And if that is true of Rodriguez, who carried out an ideological murder, it is certainly true of those who arrived in the West from Muslim countries, where Islamist incitement is added to the constant incitement spread by Western information platforms. “Wait,” some will now say. “It’s because of what Israel is doing.” But no. Absolutely not. It is because of what information platforms, led by the major media outlets, say about Israel — often with assistance from Israelis and Jews themselves. The allegations of starvation and genocide were, of course, central elements in this brainwashing campaign. The problem is that there was no genocide and no starvation. Those lies have already been disproved in the most credible way possible. Yet most of the media outlets mentioned above, like most leading university campuses, refuse to provide a platform for those refuting the accusations. Prof. Danny Orbach, hardly a right-wing figure but one of the authors of the thoroughly factual report rejecting the genocide claim, does not mince words about his academic colleagues: “In many academic circles around the world, there is a regime of terror and fear regarding Israel and Gaza. The blood libel of genocide has become a religious dogma that must not be questioned. Writers who believe it is a blood libel — including leading scholars — are afraid to speak out lest they be ostracized and confronted by unruly students. Legal experts, generals and historians who know it is a lie whisper it behind closed doors. Editors give writers ‘friendly advice’ to omit references to studies critical of the accusation so as not to be controversial.” This week Orbach arrived in The Hague for a conference where, he said, “scholars willing to tell the truth” were gathering. It is a rare event, held under unusually heavy security. “Under such conditions,” Orbach said, “there can be no talk of academic freedom or freedom of research. Only the accusers enjoy such freedom.” And this Bolshevik-style brainwashing has consequences. For the overwhelming majority, the result is only opinions. For a few, as noted, it leads to murderous acts. So it must be said clearly: You, the inciters in the media and academia, are responsible for the rise in antisemitism. You encourage hatred that leads to murder. You are neither enlightened nor progressive. You are reactionary people acting exactly like those who spread libels against Jews in the Middle Ages. You know, or certainly should know, that Israel is fighting jihadists, Sunni and Shiite alike, who openly declare that their goal is the destruction of Israel and often the destruction of Jews. You know they wave Nazi swastika flags. You know Israel does not harm innocent civilians any more than the Western coalition did during the war on terror — and in fact, far less. But you conceal the facts. So yes, you are responsible for the incitement whose results include the attacks that have already occurred and those still to come. And there is nothing like Israeli academics and journalists to raise the level of antisemitism. Mehdi Hasan, one of the most prominent anti-Israel propagandists on every possible platform, knows exactly what he is doing. He appeared alongside Gideon Levy at the prestigious Munk Debates club opposite Douglas Murray and the brilliant lawyer Natasha Hausdorff. The debate centered on the question: Is anti-Zionism antisemitism? It was a rare occasion in which those presenting what they viewed as the truth were given a hearing. In the audience vote, as is customary at the Munk Debates, Murray and Hausdorff won. It could have been a glimmer of hope: the truth prevailing. But the problem is that in most newspapers there is almost no trace of facts disproving the accusations. Hasan himself, of course, continued charging ahead. “You claim there is no genocide?” he asks. He has what he sees as a decisive answer: three Israeli professors — Omer Bartov, Amos Goldberg and Daniel Blatman. If they say “genocide,” why should anyone object? Before them there was Prof. Raz Segal, who on Oct. 13, less than a week after the Hamas massacre, published an article in Jewish Currents accusing Israel of genocide. And it is difficult to forget the newspaper that led the campaign, Haaretz, which gave legitimacy to other newspapers around the world to spread the accusation. If this is what Israeli academics say, if this is what an Israeli newspaper claims — who needs facts? It is also worth recalling that Zohran Mamdani did not need much time. Ten days after the Hamas massacre, he was already leading a violent protest accusing Israel of genocide. Israel is not perfect. Far from it. It is legitimate to criticize it. There are politicians in Israel, such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who are a tremendous asset to Israel’s enemies. Jews around the world who love Israel bang their heads against the wall after every one of their statements. And there is no doubt that the current government’s policies do not help the fight against murderous antisemitism. But it must also be acknowledged that hatred of Israel existed long before the current government and its wayward ministers. Polls conducted over recent decades — long before Oct. 7 and before the current government — revealed that in many European countries a large public, sometimes a majority, believes that “Israel behaves toward the Palestinians the way the Nazis behaved toward the Jews.” This is not over. Israel, together with Jewish organizations, should long ago have understood that we are in a state of emergency. The battle is not only against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. It is also a battle over public consciousness, which is generating waves of antisemitism that could reach new heights. They are already dangerous today. They could become far more dangerous. The Israeli government must wake up. message h10w8fwjfe Opinion: For Trump, negotiations with Iran have reached a stage where they are no longer just a question of agreement or war - but of American credibility with Tehran, its Gulf allies and other adversaries Eldad Shavit https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/05/02/S1gc7611QRbx/S1gc7611QRbx_0_160_3000_1688_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/h10w8fwjfe Wed, 13 May 2026 00:33:00 +03:00 The Iranian response to the American proposal was not merely negative. It was blunt, almost defiant. Tehran did not suffice with rejecting elements of the proposal, but tried to reverse the order of things: It is not Iran that is supposed to fold under American pressure, but Washington that must stop the campaign, remove the naval pressure and once again recognize Iran’s room for maneuver. In other words, Iran responded as a party that believes the other side also has no truly good option. For many long days, Trump waited for the Iranian answer in the hope that it would give him a way forward. He halted Operation Freedom in Hormuz, allowed mediators to work and signaled a willingness to examine a diplomatic path — not because he had changed his position, but because he was looking for a way to turn military pressure into a political achievement. A positive Iranian response, even a partial one, would have allowed him to argue that force had worked, that Iran had moved and that America had set the terms of the game. But when the response arrived from Tehran, Trump rejected it sharply, said the ceasefire was “on life support” and made clear that the Iranians had backed away from understandings that also related to removing enriched uranium. Instead of giving him an exit, Iran returned him to the dilemma he had sought to avoid. The Iranians, apparently, are reading Trump well. They see a president who does not want to appear weak, but is also not eager to return to a broader war. They understand his aversion to prolonged wars, his sensitivity to gas prices, the growing criticism at home, his attention to Saudi Arabia’s concerns, his eye on the midterm elections and his desire to arrive for a visit to China looking like someone who manages crises rather than someone dragged into them. Against the backdrop of the 2026 World Cup, a prolonged war in the Gulf and rising energy prices are not a comfortable setting for a president. His proposal to temporarily suspend the gas tax shows that the economic cost of the crisis is already part of his calculations. That does not mean Trump will not attack. That is precisely the danger. A president who feels his limits are being tested may choose escalation to regain control. Indeed, after rejecting the Iranian response, he signaled that he was considering resuming Operation Freedom in Hormuz and even hinted at a broader military move. But even if he attacks, it is not clear what the endgame would be, or what would be considered a victory image in the United States. Another strike could hurt Iran, but it could also deepen the crisis in Hormuz, drive up oil prices and turn the campaign into a prolonged struggle over American credibility. On the other hand, a partial arrangement, more talks or postponing the uranium question could be perceived as backing down. The longer the decision is delayed, the more it also creates a strategic cost: the possible erosion of American deterrence. If Iran becomes convinced that closing Hormuz, controlled escalation and maximalist demands force Washington to stop and seek a way out, it could conclude that its pressure is working. For Trump, this is no longer only a question of an agreement or war, but of American credibility toward Tehran, Gulf allies and other adversaries. This is also Israel’s trap. The more Netanyahu publicly emphasizes that the uranium must be removed from Iran, the more he strengthens Israel’s security logic, but also fuels the campaign against him in Washington, which argues that Israel is trying to push Trump back into war. At the same time, after Trump himself turned the removal of uranium into a public question of credibility and outcome, it is clear that the issue is no longer only an Israeli demand. Israel must therefore warn against a bad ending, not demand war. The message should be simple: An American exit that leaves the core of Iran’s nuclear capability in its hands will not end the crisis, but postpone it. Trump is looking for an exit that will look like a victory; Israel must ensure that it does not allow Iran to claim, shortly afterward, that it was the one that survived and won. Col. (ret.) Eldad Shavit is a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies. He previously held senior positions in the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate and the Mossad, where he served as head of the Research Division. message byxsx1z1zg Analysis: Trump hopes Xi can pressure Iran, but China’s cheap oil ties, Gulf interests and rivalry with Washington mean Beijing is unlikely to give him the breakthrough he wants Ron Ben-Yishai https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/05/11/BJoeIHk1zx/BJoeIHk1zx_0_0_850_479_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/byxsx1z1zg Tue, 12 May 2026 20:21:15 +03:00 U.S. President Donald Trump is placing great importance on his meeting Wednesday evening with Chinese President Xi Jinping. So is the president hosting him in Beijing. The two will discuss a wide range of issues requiring maintenance in the relationship between the world’s two leading global powers. Economic issues will be at the center of the agenda, but most experts and commentators in the United States and China say, based on briefings from the leaders’ offices, that Iran and the Middle East will also be a central topic of discussion. That is likely also why Trump is still delaying his decision on how to respond to the brazen messages in Iran’s response to the 14-point plan proposed by the United States, which was delivered, after many delays, only on Sunday. Trump will likely try to enlist China’s goodwill, and that of Xi, to soften the positions of the militant hawkish faction in Iran’s leadership, which is currently dictating the confrontational and combative line against the United States in negotiations being conducted through mediators. The main topic of discussion in Beijing will be extending the economic ceasefire in the tariff war Trump launched and then backed away from. Today, the United States and China are in a kind of frozen situation in which both countries refrain from imposing excessive tariffs on each other, and both have an interest in maintaining that status quo. Trump will demand that China buy more American agricultural products, mainly soybeans and meat, purchase Boeing passenger aircraft and increase exports of rare minerals needed by American industries, especially the chip industry. China, for its part, will demand that the United States end restrictions on exports of chips and advanced technology to China. There is no doubt that the future of Taiwan, which China has threatened to annex, will also be on the table. In the United States and East Asian countries, there is serious concern about a world war that could erupt if China carries out its threats. Unlike Taiwan, where China has an issue of national honor, historical claims and emotional baggage, China’s approach to Iran is driven mainly by economic motives. China is the main importer of crude oil smuggled from Iran despite American sanctions on Tehran, and China has a long-term, $400 billion, 25-year trade and infrastructure investment agreement with Iran. Even more important is that after the war ends, whether or not an agreement is signed with the United States that satisfies President Trump, China will likely be the main source of spare parts, raw materials and know-how that will enable Iran to rebuild not only the ruins of its economy but also its weapons industry. Recent reports have pointed to China sending Iran, during the war with Israel, chemical materials for the explosives and propellant industry used in Iran’s ballistic missiles, and also supplying Iran with many parts used in its extensive drone industry. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted at this in an interview with CBS, and China responded sharply, saying the claims were “accusations not based on facts.” It is also known that China continued — until the American blockade was imposed — to import smuggled oil from Iran. That led the United States to impose sanctions on Chinese refineries that bought especially cheap oil from Iran and paid the Iranians in Chinese yuan, forcing the Iranians to purchase goods only in China. Trump wants not only for China to pressure the regime in Tehran, but also for it to help the United States open the Strait of Hormuz, whose closure by the United States is hurting Iranian oil exports to China. Thirteen percent of China’s massive economy’s oil consumption comes from Iran. All this would appear to point to an interest on the part of Xi in responding to Trump’s request and applying massive pressure on Tehran to show flexibility in negotiations with the United States. But it is entirely likely that the Chinese will not rush to meet the American president’s request, and if they do use their influence in Tehran, they will do so weakly and without pressing too hard. The reason is that China has conflicting global and economic interests, especially when it comes to the Persian Gulf region. China has so far shown qualified support for Iran during the war, buying its oil and apparently also providing it with satellite intelligence, among other reasons because Beijing has an interest in preventing a pro-Western regime in Tehran with good relations with the United States. Still, its support did not go beyond that. China’s Belt and Road Initiative gained an important foothold in Iran as a result of the prolonged confrontation with the Americans since Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018. In return, China received an Iranian port in southern Iran, on the Indian Ocean coast. China, as well as Russia, Tehran’s other ally, held naval exercises with the Iranian navy until most of that navy was destroyed by the United States. In practice, Tehran is clearly part of the anti-American, anti-Western camp alongside China and Russia. That is why the Chinese are not currently interested in the agreement Trump wants, which would end the conflict between the United States and Iran and cause China to lose its solid foothold in the Persian Gulf region, home to most of the world’s proven oil reserves. China has an interest in cheap smuggled Iranian oil continuing to flow to it. If an agreement is signed between the United States and Iran that ends the hostile situation, Iran will be able to export that oil without restrictions, and China will have to pay market prices for a significant portion of its oil imports rather than receiving them cheaply and paying for them in Chinese currency rather than dollars. Some argue that the Chinese have an important interest in opening the Strait of Hormuz in order to free ships loaded with Iranian oil that currently cannot leave through the strait and sail to Chinese ports. Therefore, some experts argue, China will have an interest in helping Trump open the Strait of Hormuz. But according to reports by international information companies, China’s oil reserves are enormous and would be enough to power the Chinese economy for at least six months. So China is in no hurry to help the Americans open Hormuz, and especially not to bring about an agreement that would lead to reconciliation between Iran and the United States and the West in general, pushing China out of its grip on the Iranian economy. But that is not the whole picture. China also has important interests in the Persian Gulf that distance it from Iran and could perhaps lead Xi to help Trump end the war. The main interest is the total annual trade — exports and imports — between China and the Gulf states. Trade with the United Arab Emirates, now considered a bitter enemy of Iran, is estimated by international research institutes at $95 billion to $100 billion a year. China’s trade with Saudi Arabia, including oil, is worth $97 billion. By contrast, China’s estimated trade with Iran in 2023 was only $30 billion to $40 billion, including the value of oil smuggled from Iran to China through the shadow fleet. The official value of trade between Iran and China, despite the grandiose agreement between the two countries, is only about $15 billion a year, while the value of smuggled oil is between $20 billion and $25 billion, which China pays for in yuan. In other words, China’s interest in maintaining good relations with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia from an economic standpoint far outweighs its economic interest in Iran, which is unable to pay for Chinese investments on its soil. China makes no secret of its efforts to tighten its ties with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and therefore it will also be careful not to align itself unequivocally with Tehran. Given China’s conflicting interests in Iran, it is reasonable to assume that after the war, when Tehran tries to rebuild its military capabilities, Beijing will not send weapons such as missiles but will transfer, as it has until now, only spare parts and raw materials such as steel. The bottom line is that Trump will probably not get what he wants from China’s president, apart from promises by Xi to use his influence behind the scenes to end the deadlock over opening the Strait of Hormuz to shipping. So by the end of the visit, it is reasonable to assume that Trump will be free to make a decision on the next steps regarding Iran. It appears that Trump’s preferred path will be to renew Operation Freedom Project to open the Strait of Hormuz to ships not linked to Iran, with the U.S. Navy providing them protection as they sail along the southern route out of the strait, near the coast of Oman, while American ships and aircraft, including a nuclear submarine armed with Tomahawk missiles, cover them from near and far. If the Iranians act against the ships, it is reasonable to assume that the war will then expand to other areas of Iran, and it is very possible that Israel will also become involved. In any case, the breakthrough will not come from Beijing tomorrow. message rku1d2xyml Analysis: Netanyahu wants to delay elections and build momentum, but Shas chief Aryeh Deri could determine whether the Knesset dissolves early — and when Israelis return to the polls Moran Azulay https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/01/26/ByPLxIHUbx/ByPLxIHUbx_0_0_850_479_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/rku1d2xyml Tue, 12 May 2026 17:26:29 +03:00 Rabbi Dov Landau’s announcement, in which the spiritual leader of Degel HaTorah said the party no longer has confidence in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is willing to support dissolving the Knesset, has raised coalition tensions to a new high. The announcement creates a broad political window of opportunity, but also intensifies discussions over possible election dates. Netanyahu’s circle is trying to delay the process as much as possible and gather more military and diplomatic achievements that could help him in elections. Netanyahu has made clear more than once to his partners that he wants to complete the government’s term, but the draft law keeps shaking the coalition and raising the familiar questions. Usually, it is the coalition that dissolves itself, and Netanyahu’s associates say they believe they will be able to drag this out a little longer. The key to early elections lies with Shas. If Shas joins Degel HaTorah, it would accelerate the move toward early elections. But if it does not, the coalition will be able to delay it somewhat. As a result, Netanyahu is expected to put all his weight behind efforts to pressure Shas chairman Aryeh Deri. In unofficial discussions already held, two possible dates were raised in addition to the original date: Sept. 1 and Sept. 15, both dates Shas is interested in. Deri believes that because of the month of Elul and the Selichot prayers, more Shas voters would turn out to vote and the party’s electoral potential would be higher. But both Likud and Religious Zionism believe this would be a mistake and are urging restraint. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who recently passed the final state budget of the current term, is still facing the threat of the electoral threshold and is trying to push the election to Oct. 27. In the background, everyone understands that the possibility of a military strike still exists, which would naturally serve Netanyahu, who would not be able to dissolve the Knesset during June. Netanyahu will make major efforts on this issue in order to come to elections with such an achievement and control an agenda that is convenient for him. As for mid-September, it is a less convenient date for some of the coalition partners, as they have told Netanyahu, because in that case the election campaign would spill into the High Holidays and make it harder to count double envelopes, handle appeals and conduct additional checks, which would be delayed until after the holidays. Some factions believe such a situation could pose a risk to election integrity, which is why Likud currently opposes it as well. Either way, and as usually happens, Netanyahu will move to dissolve the Knesset only after the coalition partners agree on an election date. message sjybbdeyge Opinion: As Trump moves awkwardly through Tehran’s political minefield, Iran’s supreme leader appears far more agile, once again exposing how the absence of a clear 'day after' strategy leaves Israel at a disadvantage. Avi Kalo https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/05/05/BkcpgaD0bx/BkcpgaD0bx_0_136_575_324_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/sjybbdeyge Tue, 12 May 2026 11:37:16 +03:00 One step forward, two steps back. A delicate Viennese waltz on a Persian carpet laden with traps, to the sound and rhythm of the Ayatollah. A dance in which one side acts in a one-dimensional manner and the other side plays a multidimensional chess game in which the board is the Middle East and the tools are enriched uranium deposits, centrifuges and straits. Negotiations to end the war between the U.S and Iran are being conducted using the Persian Bazaar method. While the nuclear discourse is deliberately delayed, Tehran is taking advantage of the vacuum to establish facts on the ground. Alongside the resumption of military buildup, the regime's plan (which currently is rejected by the U.S) includes the elimination of the demand to remove Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium to 60%. In the absence of IAEA supervision, which has been out of the picture for a long time, there is concern about the disappearance of stockpiles in the endless expanses of the Persian Desert, the occurrence of which could pose a significant challenge to Western intelligence agencies. Under these disturbing circumstances, the world may wake up to a reality of "quiet breakout" – a situation in which Iran holds the capability to conduct a nuclear test. The use of Pakistan as an intermediary adds another layer of risk. This is a country that is itself a nuclear power with a convoluted system of power, which is not at the heart of the Israeli intelligence community's preoccupation. Islamabad has a complex relationship with Iran, which does not help to understand the dynamics between parties, and puts the West in a problematic place where Pakistan becomes the gatekeeper of the negotiations, which in any case suffers from chronic communication gaps. This is while the Strait of Hormuz has become the beginning of the axes for dialogue between the U.S and Iran. While the regime uses the global trade route as a noose and reminds the West at every moment that even without a bomb, it has the ability to paralyze the global economy. The American difficulty in understanding the Persian mentality is more pronounced than ever. Washington is trying to preserve the discourse, but the Trump Administration is dismantling all attempts to move forward. The president's volatile statements make any potential understanding temporary and of limited value (at best) in the eyes of the Iranians. Lack of professional perspectives in the American nuclear negotiation team, the lack of an international coalition that is involved in the process, and the volatility impositions - all prevent the presentation of a unified and sharp front against the ayatollahs. One way or another, the regime's willingness to freeze enrichment for 15 years is a positive basis for continuing the negotiations, that should further develop vis-a-vis the regime. The lack of clarity regarding the objectives of the campaign, the significant gap in planning the diplomatic effort in advance and reaching agreements on the boundaries of the operation, as well as the path to getting Iran there, remains evident even now As for Israel, the picture is not encouraging. As described at the beginning of the campaign above these lines, the lack of clarity in the objectives of the campaign, as well as the way to get Iran there, is still prominent: as is happening in Gaza and Lebanon, the lack of a "day after" strategy is once again conspicuous. Israel and its friends in the West (at least on the nuclear issue, such as Germany, Britain, and France) are being pushed into a corner, while President Trump is looking for some way out of the conflict even without an agreement, given his domestic growing constraints. Under these circumstances, the chances of inventing an "improved JCPOA agreement" are not high, and even if such an agreement is achieved, Iran will maintain its assets in its core positions (continued development of nuclear technologies, long-range ballistic missiles, and assistance to proxies). Despite the diminution of the regime's core capabilities, its ability to recover is rapid, as is its ability to adapt to a changing reality, from naval blockades to sanctions. The waltz with the Ayatollah is not expected to end anytime soon, but as the music stops, the West may find himself alone on the stage, with his partner on the dance floor cutting coupons and the Persian carpet unexpectedly falling under the players' feet. message syghrhacwg Opinion: Pedro Sanchez’s refusal to allow US aircraft to use Spanish bases exposed a deeper contradiction in Madrid’s policy: confronting Islamist extremism domestically while taking positions that undercut Israel and US strategy against Iran Amine Ayoub https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/04/14/HyOt9dihWl/HyOt9dihWl_0_0_3000_2000_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/syghrhacwg Sun, 10 May 2026 21:45:21 +03:00 When the United States needed its Spanish bases to prosecute the air war against Iran, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said no. Fifteen American aircraft, including refueling tankers critical to the operation, were relocated within hours. The country sitting on NATO's southern gateway had just handed Iran's strategic planners a gift they did not need to earn. What made that decision remarkable was not just its geopolitical recklessness. It was the backdrop against which it was made. Spain leads the European Union in jihadist arrests. Its courts convicted individuals in 82 percent of terrorism prosecutions over the past decade. In 2024 alone, Spanish authorities conducted 49 counter-terrorism operations and arrested 81 people on jihadist charges, surpassed only by the 94 detentions logged in the first ten months of 2025. No country in the European Union is fighting harder, at home, against the ecosystem that Iran has spent decades financing and weaponizing. And yet Sanchez chose Iran's comfort over America's operational needs. The domestic picture is worse than the headline numbers suggest. In 2024, Spanish authorities arrested 15 minors on jihadist terrorism charges, a figure that exceeded the total number of minors detained in the preceding seven years combined. The radicalization pipeline is getting younger, faster and more decentralized. Online propaganda has made Salafi-jihadist content accessible to teenagers with no prior connection to extremist networks, no travel history, no recruiter in their mosque. The ideology now arrives directly to the phone. Spain's preventive judicial model, which intervenes at early stages before plots materialize, is the most sophisticated in Europe. It is also, by the scale of its caseload, an implicit admission of how severe the underlying problem is. The geography of radicalization within Spain tells its own story. Catalonia accounts for nearly 30 percent of all jihadist convictions over the past decade. The North African enclave of Ceuta contributes another 22 percent despite its tiny population. In Ceuta's El Príncipe district, a poor and almost entirely Muslim neighborhood pressed against the Moroccan border, integration with mainstream Spanish society is described by researchers as virtually nonexistent. Radicalization there operates through intimate networks: in nearly 87 percent of analyzed cases, detainees were influenced by someone they knew personally, and in nearly 70 percent of cases, that person was a family member or childhood friend. The Muslim Brotherhood has operated inside Spain's official Islamic bodies since the 1980s. A pivotal 1984 summit in Madrid helped lay the foundations for the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe. Brotherhood-linked figures subsequently penetrated the Islamic Commission of Spain, the body through which Madrid formally interfaces with its Muslim population, projecting a distorted image of moderation while maintaining ideological continuity with an organization whose goals are incompatible with liberal democracy. In 2019, Operation WAMOR made the clandestine dimension visible: investigators uncovered a network rooted inside those same official institutions that had been channeling money to Al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria through the informal hawala transfer system. Qatar has separately funded mosque expansion programs across Barcelona, Zaragoza and other cities through preaching initiatives that disproportionately benefited Brotherhood-linked associations. Spain is not a passive victim of outside radicalization. It is one of the primary European theaters for it, both as a target and as a node of institutional penetration. And the Al-Andalus narrative gives Spain a symbolic weight in jihadist cosmology that no other Western European country matches. ISIS and Al-Qaeda propaganda frame the recovery of Muslim Iberia not as a historical grievance but as a live strategic objective. A pro-Al-Qaeda media outfit called the Voice of Al-Andalus disseminates Spanish-language propaganda encouraging local mobilization. When jihadist recruiters target young men in Barcelona or Ceuta, they are not operating in a symbolic vacuum. Against this backdrop, the Sanchez government's foreign policy choices become something more than diplomatic disagreement. Spain announced a 1.6 million euro funding increase for the ICC immediately after the Netanyahu arrest warrant was issued, with Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares declaring that Madrid had become one of the court's top ten financial backers. Spain's attorney general subsequently created a dedicated investigative team tasked with gathering evidence of alleged violations in Gaza and making it available to the ICC. A government whose own courts are prosecuting Brotherhood financing networks and teenage IS sympathizers by the dozen is simultaneously directing state resources toward the legal persecution of the country Iran has spent thirty years trying to destroy. The strategic cost of Spain's Iran refusal is visible in geography alone. Rubio publicly raised the question of whether the United States needs to reconsider its troop presence in Spain altogether. Washington moved quickly, signing a new military cooperation roadmap with Morocco, shifting strategic weight to the southern shore of the Strait of Gibraltar that Spain had made politically unreliable. Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. message hys4oppcwx Opinion: If Trump chooses to wait patiently for Iran’s rulers to awaken from their fanaticism, he may discover that patience was wasted; Europe’s history 81 years ago offers a harsh warning about regimes that keep fighting until defeat is imposed Sever Plocker https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/05/06/SypS00hO011l/SypS00hO011l_0_0_3000_1688_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/hys4oppcwx Sun, 10 May 2026 05:20:03 +03:00 According to experts, Iran’s leadership is divided and torn between statesmen and fanatics, between realists and Islamists. The latter, many of them commanders in the Revolutionary Guards and security police who have found themselves in senior leadership positions, are blocking any agreement or compromise with the United States. They increasingly display traits of zealous fanaticism reminiscent of the historic Nazi regime: detachment from reality, belief in miracles, indifference to the real economic and social condition of their country’s people and army, and the mass killing of regime opponents. They are willing to sacrifice Iran’s future and accept its destruction, just as Nazi leaders were willing, in March, April and early May 1945, to sacrifice Germany and accept its destruction. They persisted until Allied soldiers forcefully knocked on the doors of their headquarters. In the final 24 hours of April 1945, historian Volker Ullrich writes in his book Eight Days in May, hours before Hitler’s suicide in the fortified bunker in Berlin, American planes scattered propaganda leaflets over Munich calling on residents to take to the streets, overthrow Nazi rule and prevent bloodshed whose outcome was already known. In response, a small local liberal anti-Nazi underground group launched a rebellion and even managed to seize control of one radio station. But its pleas for the men and women of Munich to join the uprising went unanswered. No one rebelled. “The residents of Munich and the surrounding area preferred to wait,” Ullrich writes, “and the Nazi order was restored within a short time.” The rebels, those who failed to escape, were captured and brutally murdered by the SS. Nazi rule ended only when columns of the U.S. Army entered the city center without encountering any resistance. After they arrived, masses of white flags were hung from Munich’s balconies and windows. Suddenly, there were no Nazis left in the most Nazi city in Germany. Fanaticism and terror ruled Nazi Germany not only before Hitler killed himself on April 30, 1945, but also after, when he ordered the German people not to surrender and the army to fight to the last soldier. In his will, Hitler appointed Adm. Karl Dönitz, the navy commander and a Nazi loyalist to his core, as head of the German state, which was already almost entirely occupied. Dönitz formed a functioning and belligerent wartime government cabinet. “Even after Hitler’s death,” Ullrich recounts, “the fierce battles between the German Wehrmacht and the Allied armies continued with great intensity.” The lost war did not stop on its own. A large majority of Germans, Ullrich noted with sorrow, saw unconditional surrender “not as liberation but as defeat, a national tragedy.” The Germans did not overthrow Nazism by themselves, even though an overwhelming majority had lost faith in Hitler and did not mourn his death. They lost faith — and stayed silent. They lost faith — and did not rebel. On May 10, 1945, in a special radio broadcast from his exile in California, the great German writer Thomas Mann hurled the bitter truth at his people: “If only the Germans had freed themselves from Nazi rule in time, if they had rebelled even at the last moment, they could now celebrate their liberation, their return to humanity,” he said. But the Germans did not bring down Nazism themselves, despite the fact that a vast majority had lost their faith in Hitler and did not grieve his death. They lost faith and remained silent. They lost faith and did not rebel. “The Nazi Third Reich,” Ullrich concluded, “functioned until the very last second.” All that time, in towns and cities across Germany, life appeared to go on as usual. Despite shortages and danger, cafes, businesses and movie theaters remained open, and the streets were full of people. And back to the Middle East: In recent weeks, President Trump has offered the Iranian regime reasonable agreements to end the war. The rejectionists among the regime’s leaders have scornfully dismissed his proposals, despite the blows the Iranians have suffered and will continue to suffer in the war against the United States and Israel. If Trump nevertheless decides to wait patiently for them to wake up from their fanaticism and zealotry, he may discover that his patience was in vain. That is the hard lesson demanded by European history from 81 years ago. message sjoj3ytawl Opinion: Qatar’s balancing act collapses as the Iran war exposes the cost of its ties to Hamas, Tehran and Washington Amine Ayoub https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/03/26/rymko6MjZl/rymko6MjZl_0_0_850_479_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/sjoj3ytawl Sat, 09 May 2026 20:44:30 +03:00 For two decades, Qatar punched above its weight by making itself indispensable to every side simultaneously. It hosted the largest American military base in the Middle East while bankrolling Hamas. It mediated between Washington and Tehran while enabling the Muslim Brotherhood's transnational networks. It brokered ceasefires between Israel and the terrorist organization it funded. The model had a name in diplomatic circles: multi-alignment. It had another name in plain English: playing every side. In the spring of 2026, the Iran war collapsed that architecture in weeks, and Qatar, for the first time in a generation, has nothing to say and nowhere to stand. On March 24, Qatar announced it was not actively mediating between the United States and Iran, focusing instead on defending the country. For an emirate that had built its entire international identity on being the region's indispensable back channel, that statement was not a tactical pause. It was an obituary. The physical consequences arrived before the diplomatic ones. Missile and drone strikes in early March disrupted Qatar's core economic infrastructure. Attacks halted LNG production at Ras Laffan Industrial City, while a subsequent strike on March 18 caused extensive damage to the Pearl gas-to-liquids facility, with QatarEnergy warning that repairs could take up to five years. The two damaged production trains alone represent approximately 17% of Qatar's national production capacity. The emirate that spent years marketing itself as a stable island of pragmatism in a volatile sea was now on fire. None of this was accidental, and none of it was undeserved. Qatar's strategic model rested on a single premise: that it could purchase security through ambiguity. By hosting Al Udeid and its roughly 10,000 American troops, it secured an American umbrella. By maintaining warm relations with Tehran and sharing the North Field gas reservoir with Iran, it purchased a separate Iranian insurance policy. By sheltering Hamas's political leadership and financing Gaza while calling it humanitarian aid, it bought Islamist goodwill. The logic was that Qatar would never be anyone's enemy because it was everyone's partner. Qatar has hosted Hamas' political office since 2012, stating that the United States requested this to establish indirect lines of communication with Hamas. That is the self-exculpatory version. The fuller version, documented in Israeli military recovered documents, is that Hamas's late political chief Ismail Haniyeh reportedly told October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar in 2021 that Sheikh Tamim had discreetly provided $11 million for Hamas's leadership but did not want anyone in the world to know. Mediation is one word for that relationship. Patronage is another. The contradiction was always structural. You cannot be America's most critical military staging ground in the Middle East and a safe house for the organization that massacred American citizens on October 7. You cannot mediate between Israel and Hamas while covertly financing Hamas's leadership. You cannot promise Washington that your territory will not be used to strike Iran while telling Tehran that your relationship is fraternal. Sooner or later, the war everyone was pretending not to be in would begin in earnest, and Qatar's position in the middle would stop being an asset and start being a target. Qatar faced Iran's attack on its Al Udeid Air Base in June 2025. Israel also struck Hamas leaders in Doha in September 2025. Both strikes, from opposite directions, delivered the same message: multi-alignment is not immunity. In a real war, sitting in the middle means absorbing fire from both sides. The crisis has illuminated the crucial distinction between being a convenient hub and a truly indispensable actor. The attacks suggest that the utility of a convenient partner can be outweighed when another state's core security interests are perceived to be at stake. Iran didn't bomb Al Udeid because of a misunderstanding. It bombed Al Udeid because Qatar hosted the command center for America's war while simultaneously claiming no responsibility for what happened there. The deeper problem is what Qatar's disappearance reveals about the project of Islamist accommodation as foreign policy. Doha spent years cultivating the Muslim Brotherhood, sheltering Hamas, and providing Al Jazeera as a platform for anti-Western grievance, framing all of it as sophisticated diplomacy. The theory was that proximity to Islamist networks made Qatar indispensable. The reality is that it made Qatar complicit, made it a target, and ultimately made it irrelevant once the strategy it had enabled produced a war it could neither stop nor escape. Qatar is not a victim of the Iran war. It is a casualty of its own foreign policy. An emirate that spent two decades building leverage through deliberate ambiguity discovered that ambiguity has a price when the guns come out. Washington should take note: the partner that tried to be everything to everyone is now nothing to anyone, a country defending its airports from the same axis it spent years enabling. Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. message s1qwzjncbl Analysis: Likud frustration is rising as opposition parties explore alliances, Netanyahu seeks reserved slate spots and Gantz faces a collapse of support in his own camp Sima Kadmon https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/04/21/HydVBJraWe/HydVBJraWe_0_41_2152_1212_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/s1qwzjncbl Sat, 09 May 2026 15:09:01 +03:00 About six months before the election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s biggest problem may not be rival parties, but his own political home. While opposition parties are trying to form alliances, frustration is growing inside Likud. Party activists say that unless something dramatic happens — meaning at least one more war that ends in a clear victory — Likud’s position could be far worse than polls suggest. These are no longer just opposition figures or hostile media voices. They are people from within Likud who see a broader breakdown: rising crime, almost no police presence on the streets, the failure of the formal education system and, above all, deadlock on three fronts. The promise of “total victory” has turned into a longing for any victory at all. “If this is what Netanyahu brings to the election — three open fronts — he won’t get my vote,” one longtime Netanyahu supporter said this week. Whether that actually happens remains to be seen. Likud voters have torn up membership cards in front of cameras before elections, only to later admit they voted for the party. But even those who still support Netanyahu’s leadership acknowledge there is little excitement on the ground. There is no “wow,” one senior Likud figure said, though he insisted there is also no real criticism or frustration. Still, those arguing that Israel has not achieved a decisive outcome on any front have a point: Hamas still controls half of Gaza, Hezbollah continues to strike while Israel is constrained by the U.S. president, and Iran is celebrating what it sees as a complete victory. Operational fatigue is showing in the destruction of religious symbols and looting, settler violence in the West Bank, exhausted soldiers, the emerging draft-exemption law and a government that is not enforcing High Court rulings on denying economic benefits to the ultra-Orthodox. Two and a half years have passed since Netanyahu promised victory. There is still no victory. Judging by Trump’s recent contacts, Israel may not achieve even one of its goals. What achievements does Netanyahu plan to take into the election? “I don’t recognize phenomena like frustration or abandonment,” the senior Likud official said. “Naturally, people are under pressure because the Knesset slate is very crowded.” He was referring to the same slate in which Netanyahu wants to reserve 10 spots, while Likud members are tearing their hair out. While Gadi Eisenkot is bringing in the most popular political recruit of the season — former Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen — Netanyahu wants to shorten the required waiting period for Hadar Muchtar and allow her to run in Likud primaries. One of the leading opponents is Tally Gotliv, who accused Muchtar of lying during a previous Knesset run and said there is “no forgiveness” for that kind of lie. This comes from the same lawmaker who exposed the name of protest leader Shikma Bressler’s partner, a Shin Bet officer, and accused him of speaking with Yahya Sinwar before Oct. 7. In any case, the number of reserved spots will likely be decided in a compromise between Netanyahu and Haim Katz, the chairman of the Likud Central Committee. Katz has no interest in expanding the reservations too much because he is fighting for his own political survival. After Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid held a joint news conference, it was Avigdor Lieberman’s turn. Those who think Lieberman’s main goal is becoming prime minister are wrong. “First of all, replacing the government,” he says explicitly. What he does not say is that he would be willing to make personal concessions — another way of saying he would put his ego aside. Lieberman is discussing possible alliances with other parties and says he is in close contact with Eisenkot. “We will check whether a merger between us brings even one additional seat,” he said. And then what — who is No. 1? Lieberman cut the question off. “We know how to work things out with each other,” he said. “But you make such a move 50 days before an election, not 150 days before and wear it down.” He did not hide his criticism of the Bennett-Lapid move. “I didn’t understand the urgency,” he said. “Everyone must act according to a bloc strategy.” Was he included in it? “Yes,” he said, “two minutes after it was published.” “Even if the world turns upside down, I will not sit with Netanyahu,” Lieberman said at his news conference. But he also will not sit with the ultra-Orthodox parties. In a conversation, he called Bezalel Smotrich “crazy,” citing past comments that Hamas was an asset, that as a minister in the Defense Ministry he did not know before Oct. 7 what Nukhba was, and that he recently said a government with Mansour Abbas was far worse than the massacre, which he called “a terrible failure but a tactical failure.” “We need to prepare a booklet of Smotrich quotes,” Lieberman said. Eisenkot received another interesting appeal Thursday. At the annual conference of the Berl Katznelson Foundation, Yair Golan called on him to join the Bennett-Lapid alliance, or Golan’s Democrats party, and not split the bloc. “Victory in the election and saving the country,” Golan said, “depend on our ability to stand stronger.” The one not receiving such respect is Benny Gantz. This week, two more of the people closest to him left: Chili Tropper and Eitan Ginzburg. Together with Eisenkot, that makes three former protégés, people Gantz placed at the front of the stage. When he joined Netanyahu’s emergency government, he brought Eisenkot and Tropper in as ministers on his behalf. When the people closest to you leave, there is no comeback. The patient is dead, as people once said. Despite all the criticism of Gantz, it is sad to watch this total collapse, perhaps because Gantz is still considered a good man. Seeing him in politics remains immeasurably preferable to seeing figures such as Shlomo Karhi, Gotliv, Levin and Amir Ohana. There is also concern over what he may still do. Will he remain a stubborn candidate whose refusal to quit costs the entire camp, or will he come to his senses at the last moment and withdraw? Gantz is certain he will rise again, as he once did before. But what was tragedy the first time becomes farce the second. When one of the leaders of the change camp was asked what they would do, he said: “Leave it to me. I’ll take care of him.” That is another reason to worry. message rjtfvs3rzx Analysis: Europe, Gulf states and Asian partners are rethinking their reliance on Washington, while China and Russia look for openings in a shifting global order Reuters https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2025/08/18/rkoGIZ11Kgg/rkoGIZ11Kgg_0_125_3000_1689_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/rjtfvs3rzx Sat, 09 May 2026 08:27:56 +03:00 With his decision to pull some U.S. troops from Germany, his threats to draw down forces elsewhere in Europe and his downplaying of Iran’s recent attacks on an important Gulf partner, President Donald Trump's latest moves foreshadow what could be the war's enduring legacy: the fraying of ties with key allies. Even as the U.S. and Iran inch toward a potential off-ramp from their 10-week war, Trump’s words and deeds have revived fears among Washington's long-standing friends — from Europe to the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific — that the United States might be unreliable in a future crisis. In response, some traditional U.S. partners are starting to hedge their bets in ways that may bring long-lasting changes in relations with Washington, while adversaries such as China and Russia are looking to exploit strategic openings. It is not yet clear whether Trump's war with Iran will mark a permanent turning point in U.S. relations with the world. But most analysts believe his erratic conduct since returning to office, essentially upending the rules-based global order, will further erode U.S. alliances, especially with NATO continuing to feel his ire for largely resisting his wartime demands. “Trump’s recklessness with respect to Iran is resulting in some dramatic shifts,” said Brett Bruen, a former adviser in the Obama administration who now heads the Situation Room strategic consultancy. “U.S. credibility is at stake.” Tensions are especially high between Trump and the Europeans since he joined Israel in striking Iran on February 28, claiming without evidence that Tehran was close to developing a nuclear weapon. Iran’s retaliatory closure of the Strait of Hormuz unleashed an unprecedented global energy shock that has made European countries some of the biggest economic losers from a war they never asked for. Even before that, Trump had rattled allies by imposing sweeping tariffs, pushing to take over Greenland from Denmark and cutting military aid to Ukraine. The rift widened when Trump announced this week he was withdrawing 5,000 of the 36,400 troops the U.S. has stationed in Germany after Chancellor Friedrich Merz angered him by saying publicly that the Iranians were humiliating the U.S. The Pentagon then scrapped a planned deployment of Tomahawk cruise missiles to Germany. Trump — who has long questioned whether the U.S. should remain in the NATO alliance it helped create after World War Two — said he was also considering reducing U.S. forces in Italy and Spain, whose leaders have been at odds with him over the war. The move followed Trump’s accusations that allies have not been doing enough to back the U.S. in the war and his suggestions that this meant Washington might no longer need to honor the alliance’s Article 5 mutual defense clause. “President Trump has made his disappointment with NATO and other allies clear," White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said, noting that some requests to use military bases in Europe for the Iran war had been denied by host governments. While insisting that Trump had "restored America’s standing on the world stage and strengthened relationships abroad," she said he "will never allow the United States to be treated unfairly and taken advantage of by so-called ‘allies.’” Trump had earlier taken aim at British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, deriding him in March as "not Winston Churchill" and threatening to impose a "big tariff" on imports from the UK. And Trump's Pentagon has floated the prospect of punishing NATO allies it believes have failed to support U.S. operations against Iran, including suspending Spain as a member and reviewing U.S. recognition of Britain's claim to the Falkland Islands. European governments have responded by stepping up efforts to increase cooperation among themselves, shoulder more of their own defense burden and jointly develop weapons systems to reduce reliance on the U.S., while trying to convince Trump of the value of maintaining transatlantic allies. One European diplomat called Trump's threats a clear signal for Europe to invest more in its own security but said leaders were resigned to having to roll with the punches for now. As "middle powers," the Europeans have limited options, especially given their dependence on their superpower ally for strategic deterrence against any possible attack from Russia, and analysts say the transition to greater self-reliance will take years. In their efforts to mollify Trump, meanwhile, European officials have quietly stressed that many of their countries are allowing U.S. forces to use bases on their soil and their airspace during the Iran campaign. But European leaders, some of whom had used flattery with Trump to defuse earlier crises, are also becoming wise to his negotiating tactics and more emboldened in standing up to him, analysts say. Jeff Rathke, president of the American-German Institute at Johns Hopkins University, said that while Merz had seemed to charm Trump during earlier meetings, now he “is not trying to hide the critical assessment of what the United States has gotten itself into." But the Europeans are also mindful that Trump, barred by law from running again, could feel unrestrained "to do whatever he thinks" on the world stage before he leaves office in January 2029, the European diplomat said. As some European leaders sound the alarm about NATO's future, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told a conference in Warsaw there is no need to panic so long as Europe delivers on promised higher military spending, which Trump has long demanded. Even so, the strains on U.S. alliances extend well beyond Europe. When Iran this week launched missile and drone attacks against the United Arab Emirates, a close U.S. ally, Trump and his aides seemed to turn a blind eye, causing further unease among Gulf Arab states already hard hit by the war. Trump was quick to dismiss a strike on Monday as minor, though it set fire to the important Fujairah oil port and prompted the government to close schools, and even after further attacks later in the week he insisted that a month-old ceasefire was still holding. Trump went to war against the advice of some Gulf partners, and though they soon lined up in solidarity, some now worry he could strike a deal that leaves them facing a still-dangerous neighbor. The war has also stirred anxiety among Asian partners, many heavily dependent on oil that flowed freely through the strait before the conflict. Countries like Japan and South Korea have already been unsettled by Trump's high tariffs and disparagement of traditional alliances. Some may now wonder whether the vulnerability he has shown to economic pressure at home, including high gasoline prices, could mean Trump might hesitate when asked to help in a conflict with China, such as an invasion of Taiwan. "What worries us most is that trust in, respect for, and expectations toward the United States — the core partner in the alliance Japan values most — have been shrinking,” Takeshi Iwaya, who served as Japan's foreign minister at the start of Trump's second term, told Reuters. “It could cast a long shadow over the entire region.” Yasutoshi Nishimura, a former Japanese trade minister, said it has become increasingly important for Tokyo to respond to the shifting global power dynamic by forging closer ties with “like-minded middle powers” such as Britain, Canada, Australia and European nations. Since the start of the war, Russia and China, long-time allies of Iran, have mostly steered clear, but analysts say they are watching closely. Experts warn that Trump’s use of raw power in a war of choice against Iran, coming just weeks after a U.S. raid in Caracas that captured Venezuela's president, could embolden China and Russia to intensify coercive moves against their neighbors. Russia, a leading energy producer, has benefited from higher oil and natural gas prices driven up by the Iran war as well as the U.S. and Europe being distracted from the war in Ukraine. Though the Iran crisis has crimped China’s energy supplies, Beijing may have learned lessons seeing the U.S. having to shift military assets from the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East and how the world’s most powerful armed forces have at times been outmaneuvered by asymmetric tactics such as cheap drones, analysts say. China has also seized the opportunity to try to promote itself as a more reliable global partner than the unpredictable Trump, who is due to visit Beijing next week. But Victoria Coates, Trump's deputy national security adviser in his first term, said Beijing would have a difficult time using the U.S. war against Iran as "carte blanche to run around the world saying that we're a destabilizing force." "They haven't exactly been a strong partner to their ally Iran throughout all this," said Coates, now a vice president at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington. message b1h7xjnrzg Opinion: The end of the war will force Iran’s leadership to confront deepening domestic crises, with growing questions over whether the conflict accelerated the forces that could eventually drive political change Raz Zimmt https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/05/07/yk14763308/yk14763308_0_44_703_396_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/b1h7xjnrzg Sat, 09 May 2026 01:35:01 +03:00 Whether the talks between Iran and the United States lead to a permanent ceasefire and the end of the war or collapse into renewed fighting, it is clear that the Islamic Republic will not emerge from the current conflict unchanged. The war erupted at a time of profound internal upheaval in Iran, following the most significant wave of protests since the 1979 revolution. The regime faces a deep and ongoing legitimacy crisis stemming from a widening gap between the authorities and the public, particularly younger generations, alongside a worsening economic crisis and growing shortages of water and electricity. In recent days, officials in Israel’s security establishment told Army Radio that a protest in Tehran’s bazaar was further evidence of mounting economic pressure. Still, sporadic protests alone should not be taken as an indication of the future of Iran’s protest movement. Demonstrations are a constant feature of life in the country. A recent Stanford University study found that between 2009 and 2024, Tehran averaged one protest every three days. In any case, a genuine threat to the regime’s survival depends not only on millions of Iranians taking to the streets and forming a broad, organized social coalition, but also on a shift in the balance of power between the authorities — which still possess effective means of repression and loyal security forces — and their opponents, who have yet to translate public discontent into an organized and sustainable political alternative. Moreover, during the war, voices within Iran expressed reservations about the intentions of the United States and Israel. Continued strikes on national infrastructure and universities, President Donald Trump’s threats to “bomb Iran back to the Stone Age,” and reports of efforts to encourage subversive activity among ethnic and linguistic minorities, especially the Kurds, were perceived as attempts to dismantle the Iranian state. Those developments sparked strong reactions even among regime opponents, reflecting nationalist and patriotic sentiments. Iranian philosopher Bijan Abdolkarimi recently argued that while citizens seek better lives, many now believe, in the wake of the war, that preserving Iran’s political independence is a necessary condition for achieving that goal. In their view, efforts to dismantle the state threaten not only the Islamic Republic’s regime but also Iran’s independence. Nevertheless, it is clear that Iran’s leadership is acutely aware of the severity of the economic crisis and its potential to reignite protests. An Iranian sociologist recently warned of the continued erosion of the middle class under mounting economic pressure. According to him, society is becoming increasingly polarized between a small wealthy elite and a majority drawn from the lower classes. He said criticism of the economic situation has not yet fully surfaced because of the war, but if a ceasefire is reached, it is expected to return with greater intensity, and deeper crises — particularly economic ones — could erupt. Even if a future agreement between Iran and the United States leads to significant sanctions relief, that alone will not solve the deeper crisis. Iran’s struggling economy has long suffered from structural problems including corruption, mismanagement and excessive control by state or State-affiliated institutions. Lifting sanctions may help the regime cope with worsening hardships, but without major reforms, it is doubtful Iran will be able to escape the severe financial crisis in which it is mired. New leadership Facing these challenges is a new Iranian leadership that will be required to respond to public demands immediately after the war. The “Third Islamic Republic,” which replaced the “Second Islamic Republic” led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from 1989 until his death, is characterized by a transition from religious theocracy to authoritarian military rule centered on the growing dominance of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. For now, the leadership in Tehran is focused primarily on survival, preparing for the possibility of renewed war and efforts to bring the conflict to a definitive end. Once the war ends, however, it will have to direct most of its efforts toward rebuilding the country. Additional reports published in recent days point to the extensive damage Iran sustained during the war, repairs that are expected to take years. The governor’s office in Tehran said about 60,000 housing units in Tehran province alone were damaged. A senior official in Iran’s energy sector said at a conference that major damage was also inflicted on infrastructure and that it could take about two years to restore conditions to their prewar state. He warned that next winter would be difficult and challenging in terms of meeting energy demands for manufacturing, industry, agriculture and services, and said there would be no choice but to sharply reduce private-sector consumption by about 40%. The end of the conflict could also intensify internal divisions within Iran’s leadership, which has so far managed to maintain a high degree of cohesion, largely because of wartime conditions. Studies of authoritarian regimes dominated by armed forces have found they tend to be less resilient in the face of economic crises because their leaders are trained primarily to achieve military objectives rather than manage major civilian challenges. Such regimes are also more prone to internal splits and factionalism within the officer corps, especially during periods of crisis. Iran’s new leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, may also face growing criticism sooner than expected. It is still too early to determine whether he will be able to consolidate enough power to establish himself as supreme leader, especially given unresolved questions surrounding his health. It is possible that criticism — perhaps muted until now — will emerge after the war regarding his ability to succeed his father, particularly amid reports that his father himself allegedly opposed the prospect of hereditary succession. Such an appointment is viewed by many as a departure from the Islamic Republic’s founding principles regarding dynastic rule. What is clear is that the end of the war is unlikely to resolve the fundamental problems facing the Islamic Republic, which have intensified in recent months amid protests and conflict. Even if regime change does not currently appear likely, the end of the war could force Iran’s new leadership to confront the realities of daily life, and it remains doubtful whether it has solutions to the country’s deepening crises. In the coming months, it will likely become clear whether the war halted — even temporarily — the regime’s decline or accelerated internal processes that could ultimately lead to the long-awaited political change. Dr. Raz Zimmt is director of the Iran and the Shiite Axis Program at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). message bjnp09ocbg Opinion: we are copying Gaza in Lebanon: a legitimate operation, heroic troops, heavy destruction — and no clear strategy to stop Hezbollah from rebuilding Nahum Barnea https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/05/07/yk14763990/yk14763990_1_48_815_459_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/bjnp09ocbg Fri, 08 May 2026 20:44:27 +03:00 The IDF has reduced the size of its force in southern Lebanon from five divisions to three: two deployed for defense and one — the 36th Division — focused on offensive operations, according to the IDF. The effort by the troops on the ground is great, sometimes even heroic. The operation is legitimate: There are no good solutions in Lebanon. Is it useful? That is not certain. The IDF is now doing in southern Lebanon what looks like a copy-paste of what it did in Gaza. If the result is the same result — the renewed strengthening of a terrorist organization and futile stagnation and destruction in captured territory — the damage outweighs the benefit. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” Albert Einstein said, but what did Einstein understand about wars? It is easy, and justified, to pile on our Cabinet, a group of politicians who might not be elected to a building committee. But in the decision-making process in wartime, the chief of staff and the generals of the General Staff carry great weight and great responsibility. They cannot play small, certainly not opposite Cabinet ministers who do not know the difference between Nukhba and Nakba. The ground entry into southern Lebanon was planned in advance. The IDF did a lot to tempt Hezbollah to open fire. The terrorist organization, battered, humiliated and hated by its own people, was not looking for wars. It absorbed and absorbed until early March, when it could no longer restrain itself. Missiles were launched from Lebanon in large numbers, and the operation for Hezbollah’s final destruction opened with fanfare. Fine. It was important to distance the Radwan Force from the northern communities and strengthen deterrence. What was even finer was American support. The U.S. administration and the heads of its security branches had a blood account with Hezbollah. In previous wars in Lebanon, in 1982 and 2006, the Americans were a restraining factor. This time, as far as Hezbollah was concerned, they were a motivating factor. American support is a bonus, but it is far from the main thing. I visited the headquarters of one of the divisions at the start of the ground entry. The plan was to take control of an area reaching up to 6 kilometers north of the border. That would block anti-tank fire at the northern communities, which was then seen as the greatest threat. “If you block the anti-tank fire, you will get the same threat in rockets,” I told one of the officers. “If you block the underground, you will get it above ground, as happened around Gaza on Oct. 7. The ground entry will not solve the problem.” He agreed with me, and went back to doing what he had been ordered to do. As with Iran, so with Hezbollah: The decision-makers underestimated the enemy’s strength, resilience and fanaticism. Intelligence knows which window in every terrorist’s apartment in Dahiyeh leads to the bed he sleeps in, but it does not know how to understand the other side’s power, its survivability. Israel’s decision-makers sanctify targeted killings. The operational achievement is amazing: well done. Most of the leaders and commanders who were killed earned their deaths honestly. But experience teaches that apart from very temporary damage to the enemy’s command-and-control system, there is no proven benefit to assassination. The IDF functions as the human resources department of Iran and its proxies: The next leader is more fanatical than the previous one, and sometimes more effective. The framework is stronger than its leaders. Not the killing of Khamenei and the top of the Iranian regime created a turning point; not the killing of Nasrallah and his predecessor Abbas Musawi; not the killing of Sinwar and his brother; not even the killing of Sadat. I hesitate to write the next sentence, but it is the truth: Yes, the assassination of a leader created a real change in our situation. It happened only once — on Nov. 4, 1995. Back to Lebanon: In the IDF, they thought about anti-tank missiles but ignored drones, even though the issue of drones has occupied armies around the world for more than a decade. Israel’s defense industry has achieved enormous successes in developing sophisticated, precise, terribly expensive defense systems. We are a startup nation: We go for the best. Dealing with inferior, cheap toys — drones, for example — we left to others. That, too, is a subject that deserves to be investigated in depth one day. A solution will eventually be found for drones: The best minds are now working on the project 24/7. That will not help the soldiers and civilians who were killed and wounded, but the country will overcome it. I hope it will also overcome the rocket problem. But the Lebanon problem will not be solved at Elbit or Rafael. The 36th Division is now operating in the area overlooking Metula and Misgav Am, toward the Litani. The forces are eliminating cells, preparing routes and, mainly, destroying infrastructure Hezbollah left behind. “Why destroy every house?” I ask a military official. After all, when the million Lebanese who were forced to leave their homes — half from southern Lebanon, half from Dahiyeh — return and find ruins, they will return to supporting Hezbollah. The organization has been gaining renewed popularity in Lebanon in recent weeks. In effect, we are building Hezbollah. “That is what happens in fighting in built-up areas,” the military official said. “Take Qantara as an example: All the buildings in the village were bought by Hezbollah. We found weapons in every house. We located 2 kilometers of underground infrastructure there. I have to clean the area, create a security zone, so I have control, so a terrorist cannot return and harm our forces. There is not one righteous house there. “What is happening is a tragedy,” he concluded. Indeed, a tragedy. message hkyiiuyazl Opinion: For the umpteenth time in recent decades, our soldiers are wading through the Lebanese mud: The same gaze northward, the same endless nervous alertness, the same built-in frustration and only the weapons change. Ariela Ringel Hoffman https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/05/01/r1iN4MG011x/r1iN4MG011x_1_261_3000_1689_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/hkyiiuyazl Thu, 07 May 2026 03:44:04 +03:00 What haven’t we done there, and what haven’t we said? Maybe not for 78 years, but for at least 50. Quiet infiltrations and stormy incursions. Operations more brilliant and less successful. A sea of hopes and a string of frustrations. From Operation Spring of Youth in 1973 — wow, how spectacular it was, with Ehud Barak in a dress and a bullet between the eyes of senior PLO officials in their bedrooms, through Operation Litani in 1978, a ground incursion and “we pushed the threat away,” on to the First Lebanon War in 1982, all the way to Beirut. “There will be no more Terroristan on our northern border,” Menachem Begin promised, though I don’t remember whether that was before or after the promise that the land would be quiet for 40 years. We established the security zone. We were told we would leave a few dozen soldiers there to advise Saad Haddad’s army, which over time became the South Lebanon Army, and the dozens grew into thousands. We stayed there for 18 years and withdrew over the objections of IDF Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz and Northern Command chief Gabi Ashkenazi. We believed Barak, the man from Spring of Youth who became prime minister, when he promised a strategic change and said that “we are leaving Lebanon from a position of strength, not weakness.” That was in 2000, after the Four Mothers movement, but before that came Operation Accountability in 1993 and Operation Grapes of Wrath in 1996, with Shimon Peres in a battle jacket on the northern border. Six years later came the Second Lebanon War, led unsuccessfully by Ehud Olmert — “the reality in the north has changed fundamentally” — and DanHalutz — “we returned Lebanon to the Stone Age.” Or we will return it. Whichever comes first. Then came the campaign between the wars, until the Third Lebanon War within Swords of Iron, with Rising Lion, Roaring Lion and, on the way, other lion-themed names that have yet to make the list. And in the meantime came a return to past promises: Yoav Gallant’s “Stone Age” and Benjamin Netanyahu’s “they will miss the Second Lebanon War.” In between, the PLO was replaced by Amal, and Amal was replaced by Hezbollah, which is here to stay. And in between, according to unofficial figures, until the current war Israel lost about 1,500 soldiers and members of the security forces, and killed between 6,000 and 10,000 terrorists on the other side, depending on whom you ask. In other words: a clean and decisive operation that led to escalation, which led to war, which led to withdrawal or a ceasefire, which led to the other side’s buildup and to clashes, which led to an operation that was no longer quite so clean and decisive, which led to more escalation, more war and another agreement that led to an endless loop. One that brought our soldiers, for the umpteenth time, to take up positions on a rocky hilltop in an outpost that looks like the twin sister of one built a decade, two decades or three decades earlier. The same gaze northward, the same endless nervous alertness, the same built-in frustration. Only the weapons change. No longer ambushes, no longer roadside bombs, no longer anti-tank fire — or not only those. Now there are drones, too. Small, cheap, sometimes improvised, sometimes more sophisticated, forcing them to raise their heads to the sky again and again. Those who believe will look there for the source of their help. Those who do not will scan for those aircraft. A stubborn reality, an endless loop that repeats itself. Generation after generation. Each generation and its Lebanon. Not a war that ends, but a condition that refuses to end. Not an enemy that disappears, but an enemy that changes. Not a border line or separation, but a hostile space. Not a swift victory, but prolonged attrition. “Hit them hard,” a Republican man, a supporter of Israel, told me about a week and a half ago after I met him by chance at an art exhibition in Houston. “Don’t stop until you finish them off,” he said. “However long it takes.” An important message, I told him. I’ll pass it on to my grandchildren, who will pass it on to theirs. “This is not a 100-meter sprint,” Moshe Ya’alon once said of the Second Intifada. “It is a marathon.” A marathon in place, and hit them until it is over. And in the meantime, we are there again. So is Hezbollah, which is not going anywhere, does not give up and only changes form and style. And the total victory is still delayed. Until the next pause. message rjp6axfczx Commentary: Trump’s public optimism, threats and leaks about a possible Iran deal appear aimed at pressuring Tehran, calming energy and stock markets and preserving US leverage while negotiations remain unresolved and the blockade continues Ron Ben-Yishai https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/05/06/H1lPDdgF0bl/H1lPDdgF0bl_0_236_3000_1689_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/rjp6axfczx Wed, 06 May 2026 20:59:02 +03:00 As the public in Israel, and likely around the world, follows reports of a possible framework agreement that could halt the war between the United States, Israel and Iran, another aspect deserves attention: the White House’s communications strategy. More precisely, it is the new and creative negotiating tactic being used by the White House, apparently at the initiative of President Donald Trump and with his direct involvement. The first hint of a possible diplomatic development came from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said late Tuesday, Israel time, that “Operation Epic Fury is over” and that its goals had been achieved. About three hours later, Trump posted on his social media platform that “at the request of Pakistan and other countries,” and apparently Saudi Arabia as well, and because of what he described as the enormous military success achieved and significant progress toward a final agreement with Iranian representatives, the United States had agreed that while the blockade would continue, “Project Freedom” would be temporarily suspended. It was the first time Trump said there had been significant progress in the negotiations — enough to pause the operation aimed at forcibly reopening the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping. Tehran responded with mockery, describing the American decision to halt the Hormuz operation as a “U.S. failure” and saying Trump had retreated. That response suggested there had been, and still was, no coordination between Iran and the United States. Rubio’s and Trump’s announcements appeared to have been made solely at the American president’s discretion. Only Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed optimism. Several hours later, Axios published details, based on White House leaks — likely from Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner and others — of the emerging framework agreement. The report generated a wave of optimism in media coverage. Hours after that, Trump posted again. This time, he sounded cautiously optimistic, while also adding a threat of strikes on Iran unlike anything it had seen before. The sequence of public statements makes clear that there is still no authorized Iranian agreement to the American proposal for a limited, time-bound framework deal that would stop the fighting for 30 days while negotiations take place. At most, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and possibly other moderates in Iran’s new-old regime, including President Masoud Pezeshkian, appear willing to view the American offer as an acceptable basis for negotiations. But they must now persuade the hard-line camp that currently leads the regime in Tehran — senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officials, headed by commander Ahmad Vahidi, the conservative hard-line ayatollahs and Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei — to agree. That is why Trump rushed to post that an agreement was taking shape based on an American proposal that included a gesture: the suspension of the U.S. operation to open Hormuz by force to commercial shipping. By doing so, Trump ensured that Iran’s hard-liners would be made aware of the generous American proposal directly and would not need to rely only on reports from Araghchi and his people, whom, according to Western intelligence reports, the hard-line camp does not trust. Trump also used the same channel to speak directly to the Iranian public. The American proposal, as presented, could end Iran’s economic distress and prevent devastating strikes on oil, gas and possibly transportation infrastructure — damage that could take many years to repair. In doing so, Trump is creating public pressure on the Tehran regime to accept the American proposal. If the regime rejects it, public anger inside Iran could intensify. Another message embedded in the posts and leaks about an imminent agreement was aimed at energy and stock markets. After Trump’s announcement, stock markets rose and oil prices fell sharply because of the optimism he created. That happened even though all Trump currently has in hand is an American proposal that moderates in Tehran view as a suitable basis for talks. Still, Trump has already achieved one objective by spreading optimism. He is now waiting, along with everyone else, to see the official answer from Tehran’s divided leadership. It remains to be seen whether this tactic — a mix of presidential statements, contradictory messaging and confusing moves — will throw Iran’s divided negotiating leadership off balance. In any case, Trump’s maneuver has given him broader legitimacy, even in the face of opposition on Capitol Hill, to resume bombing Iran if the proposal is rejected. message rkvzwydc11x Analysis: the quiet UAE-Israel alliance is gaining importance as Iran’s threats mount, Saudi-UAE tensions grow and Riyadh shows renewed signs of interest in rapprochement with Israel Smadar Perry https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/01/02/ryNvfwr4bl/ryNvfwr4bl_0_0_850_479_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/rkvzwydc11x Wed, 06 May 2026 02:39:48 +03:00 Behind the scenes, an increasing number of collaborations are taking place between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel, while Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is also beginning to show curiosity. The friction between the Gulf emirates and Riyadh, alongside the strong ties between Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi, is creating an opportunity for the Saudi door to reopen. When examining the relationship between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the ruler of the seven Gulf emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed, the age factor cannot be ignored. The former is just 40 and has effectively ruled for nine years, while his elderly father remains alive but largely distant and disengaged, still formally holding the royal title. By contrast, bin Zayed, 65, has ruled the emirates for only four years and for the past two years has maintained an open and particularly close relationship with Israel. It is also worth noting that the Emirati ruler has 18 brothers from different mothers, four of whom hold key positions: Sheikh Abdullah serves as foreign minister, Sheikh Tahnoun is national security adviser, Sheikh Mansour is deputy ruler of Dubai and Sheikh Hazza acts as deputy in managing the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. The relationship between Saudi Arabia and the UAE is shaped by the starkly different personalities of their leaders. The Saudi leader is extroverted, while the Emirati leader guards his privacy. The Saudi pursues massive projects, while the Emirati operates behind closed doors. One example is the purchase of a painting attributed to the Italian artist Salvator Mundi by bin Salman seven years ago. He announced his intention to present it as a special gift to the Emirati ruler. The price he paid, “only” $450 million, was not an issue. In the end, however, another dispute erupted and the valuable artwork was stored away on bin Salman’s private yacht. Likewise, the Neom project to build a massive Saudi city on the Red Sea, to which Saudi Arabia quietly sent Israeli visitors, is faltering. There is little interest, no investors and no meaningful American backing. The most recent public dispute between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi has centered on the UAE’s ties with Israel. According to a report by Axios, Israel transferred an Iron Dome defense system to the UAE to help intercept waves of missiles and drones, while Saudi Arabia continues to absorb attacks. To date, the emirates have sustained the largest number of launches from Iran: 2,919 missiles and 563 drones. Absorbing blows and counting the damage Residents of the UAE lack fortified shelters or protective infrastructure. They absorb the strikes, tally the damage, the dead and the wounded, grit their teeth and refrain from responding. Abu Dhabi attempted to establish a joint force against Tehran, but the Saudis made clear they would not retaliate for the attacks. Iran, seeking to further heighten tensions, announced it would target “only” American sites in the Gulf. In practice, strikes hit civilian targets in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait and especially the UAE, due to both proximity and its ties with Israel. The UAE’s withdrawal from the OPEC can be seen as an initial act of retaliation against Iran, one that could contribute to Tehran’s economic collapse. At the same time, the move delivers a sharp blow to bin Salman. Once UAE leaves OPEC, it can produce and export oil without limits or obligations. It is reasonable to assume the UAE will soon double production to four or even five million barrels per day. The key question is the shipping route and whether Saudi Arabia will cooperate. The ties between the UAE and Israel are far stronger than they appear, involving consultations and cooperation with both Israel and the United States. On Sunday, Crown Prince bin Salman set aside his pride and called the palace in Abu Dhabi, bringing an end to a period of estrangement. Riyadh declared full support for the emirates. On Monday, the UAE was hit by 16 ballistic missiles and four drones, and Saudi Arabia understands its turn may come soon. A significant blow from Iran could set both the UAE and Saudi Arabia back decades, wiping out infrastructure and economic gains and returning them to desert conditions. Already now, as usual, Saudi Arabia is actively involved behind the scenes in Lebanon against Iran, aiming to forge a unified position in negotiations with Israel. Even if Lebanon’s president avoids a White House meeting to sidestep shaking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hand, Saudi Arabia, like the UAE, is pressing Lebanese leadership to act against Hezbollah. The alliance between Abu Dhabi and Israel may be nameless and faceless, but those who need to know, know. Bin Salman is signaling growing curiosity and beginning to hint at rapprochement with Israel. It is no coincidence that Ron Dermer was involved. As tensions with Iran evolve into both security and economic threats, the Saudi door toward Israel is beginning to reopen. The normalization process may have stalled or frozen, but there are increasing signs of cooperation. message hjilwsvc11e Opinion: It may surprise many to learn that the vast majority of Zionists in the world are not Jewish; Israel’s right to the land has been hallowed by history, by sacrifice, by prayer and by an unbroken yearning for peace Dr. Mike Evans https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2021/06/14/Sk6zmaNsO/Sk6zmaNsO_1_0_1200_676_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/hjilwsvc11e Tue, 05 May 2026 13:57:40 +03:00 The Influence of Ideology Many in the younger generation today say, “I’m not an antisemite. I don’t have any problems with Jews, some of them are my friends. I’m just against Zionists.” What they are really saying is that they are against the Jewish state. They believe they have found truth. They believe they are enlightened. But the reality is far different. They have been sold a lie. In the name of enlightenment, they have embraced nothing more than critical race theory. They have been indoctrinated by propaganda funded by Gulf oil states, poured into American universities through hundreds of billions of dollars in grants. It is Marxism packaged in a social justice wrapper, defining Israel as the oppressor, dividing people through race and labeling Jews as colonizers in their own ancestral homeland. But this is not merely a political debate, it is, at its heart, a spiritual one. The Christian perspective on Israel Bible-believing Christians understand something far deeper. There is an ironclad bond between them and the nation of Israel, and that bond is a moral imperative. They support Israel’s right to the land, legally, historically and biblically. They believe that God judges nations based on how they treat Israel. Israel’s right to the land has been hallowed by history, by sacrifice, by prayer and by an unbroken yearning for peace. As the prophet Amos declared: “I will restore the fortunes of My people Israel, And they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them; They will plant vineyards and drink their wine, And make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant them on their land, And they will not again be uprooted from the land I have given them,” says the Lord your God. (Amos 9:14–15) To say that God is a Zionist may sound shocking, but not to Bible believers who understand that Israel is Bible land. I founded the Friends of Zion Heritage Center in Jerusalem to unite the 750 million Bible believers around the world who are, indeed, friends of Zion and Zionists. It may surprise many to learn that the vast majority of Zionists in the world are not Jewish. The meaning and significance of Zion in scripture In the Bible, Zion has several meanings. Geographically, Zion refers to the hills of Jerusalem where the City of David was built. It is also used as a synonym for Jerusalem and the land of Israel as a whole: “So that they may declare the name of the Lord in Zion, And His praise in Jerusalem.” (Psalm 102:21) “Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion!” (Psalm 147:12) For over two millennia before the rebirth of the Jewish state in 1948, Zion stood as a powerful symbol of the longing of the exiled Jewish people for their homeland: “By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down and wept, When we remembered Zion.” (Psalm 137:1) To say that God is a Zionist requires only that you read the Scriptures. “For the Lord has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His dwelling place.” (Psalm 132:13) “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering.” (Hebrews 12:22) “And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing…” (Isaiah 35:10) “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.” (Isaiah 49:16) “And the Lord said to him, ‘I have heard your prayer and your supplication that you have made before Me; I have consecrated this house…’” (1 Kings 9:3) Truth Under Attack This is not just theology. It is truth. And this truth is under attack. It is being used to undermine democracies like America, and it is being used to undermine Christianity itself. When you reject moral absolutes, and when you reject the promises God made to the Jewish people throughout Scripture, you are also rejecting the promises God has made to Christians. For those who believe the Word of God, this is not a controversial statement but a faithful one: God is a Zionist. Dr. Mike Evans has written 120 books and is a #1 New York Times bestselling author. He is the founder of the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem, the ten Boom Museum in Holland, and Churches United with Israel, the largest Christian Zionist network in America, with more than thirty million followers. message byv94rvczl Opinion: Iran’s regime is ideologically dangerous and incapable of reform; the only effective way to deal with it is through aggressive economic and strategic action aimed at weakening or toppling it Mike Evans https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/03/10/HyWU9CTYbe/HyWU9CTYbe_0_139_3000_1689_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/byv94rvczl Tue, 05 May 2026 14:44:50 +03:00 A prophecy and a warning On the 23rd of September, 1980, I was in the home of the founder of Israeli intelligence, Isser Harel, with the senior adviser to Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Reuben Hecht. I asked Harel if terrorism would ever come to America. He looked at me and said: “In America you kill a fly and rejoice. In the Middle East we kill one, and hundreds come to the funeral. The first terrorist attack will be in New York City at your tallest building.” Years before the towers fell, he saw what was coming. Then I asked him who would win the presidential election. At the time, Jimmy Carter was ahead in the polls. Harel said, “The Iranians will have something to say about that. When Ronald Reagan puts his hand on the Bible, the hostages will be released.” And that is exactly what happened. The moment Ronald Reagan put his hand on the Bible, I got a phone call from Reuben Hecht: “Harel is a prophet. Can you believe it?” Behind the scenes, Cyrus Vance was negotiating through the Algerians to buy back the hostages. The Iranians rejected one billion, two billion, and 3 billion. Then, on the morning of the inauguration, $7.9 billion was transferred from the Federal Reserve to the Bank of England to secure the release of the hostages. Iran: A cartel disguised as a country What is happening in Iran is organized crime. Call it what it is: the Islamic mafia. Corruption is everywhere. Over a quarter of a trillion dollars has been moved out of Iran through the mullahs, the ayatollahs, and the Revolutionary Guard while ordinary citizens struggle to survive. At the center of this regime is a dangerous apocalyptic theology. The Twelvers believe they can usher in the twelfth descendant of Muhammad through chaos and catastrophe, leading to a global caliphate where all nations bow before the Mahdi. This ideology is more dangerous than Nazism or communism because it glorifies death instead of life. It sanctifies destruction instead of peace. When leaders celebrate martyrdom, human suffering becomes policy. Much of the Middle East operates like family-owned corporations disguised as nations. Iran is no exception. It has become a cartel masquerading as a country. Trying to reform it through appeasement would be like asking Al Capone to become Mother Teresa. It is not going to happen. When the infamous president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to New York City to address the United Nations, I met with him for two hours at his hotel in New York, along with several clerics. Before our meeting, they lifted their hands and prayed to the Mahdi for supernatural power. Ahmadinejad told me that when he spoke at the UN, a green light filled the room and no one blinked for 26 to 28 minutes. He also claimed that Iranians die younger because Zionists poison rats, send them across the Persian Gulf, and contaminate crops. I asked him, “Is this a joke? How do they teach the rats to swim across the Persian Gulf?” He smiled and said, “I do not joke. You need to read the proposals of the Elder of Zion and you’ll understand.” The only solution The only solution to the Iranian Islamic cartel is to hit them with a baseball bat right between the eyes and do exactly what Donald Trump threatened to do: destroy the bridges and electrical grids, and take control of Kharg Island. The military war cannot be won unless the U.S. fights an economic war and devastates this family-owned corporation. The regime desperately needs money. It is all about money. The moment Iran is bankrupted, they will not have funds to pay the Revolutionary Guard and all those employed to oppress the Persian people. At that point, the civilian population will overthrow them. They are criminals, and they are corrupt. Their money that has been stashed across the globe must be immediately frozen and kept for the Persian people. The only way the regime can survive is if they can cut a deal to get their hands on some of that money. Presently, the Revolutionary Guard is running Iran with the blessing of the clerics. They are all on the payroll. The IRGC has consolidated control over the economy, the military, and politics. They now dominate the Supreme National Security Council, the judiciary, and parliament. They manage key industries, the nuclear project, and control over half of Iran’s economy. Like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the IRGC has created an income stream for its survival that must be destroyed. The parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, is perceived by America’s media to be a moderate. That is the farthest thing from the truth. He threw students from dormitory rooftops and bragged about it. He was involved in multiple corruption scandals as mayor, including channeling funds and properties to IRGC-linked companies. As parliament speaker, he pledged support for Palestinian Islamic Jihad and for Hamas. The corrupt corporation, the Islamic mafia in Iran, wants to play a waiting game, believing that time is on their side and that if they can drag this on for a few more months, it will so damage the U.S. and world economy that the U.S. will have to retreat. The only solution is to quickly bankrupt the country, and do it now. Dr. Mike Evans has written 120 books on Christian Zionism and is a #1 New York Times bestselling author. He is the founder of the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem, the ten Boom Museum in Holland, and Churches United with Israel, the largest Christian Zionist network in America, with more than thirty million followers. message hjdvuxd0bl Opinion: The US president saw it early, warned and threatened — and is now proving his simple equation: if allies do not act when asked, there is no reason to keep providing a full security umbrella Kobby Barda https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/05/04/rkKQ00uUAZx/rkKQ00uUAZx_1_916_2123_1196_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/hjdvuxd0bl Tue, 05 May 2026 12:32:53 +03:00 To understand the significance of Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw about 5,000 U.S. troops from the roughly 45,000 stationed in Germany, one must go back to 1944, to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s initiative and the Bretton Woods Conference. There, the foundations were laid not only for a new monetary system but for an entire world order shaped by the lessons of two devastating world wars. The organizing idea was clear: the United States would lead the creation of a more stable world through a combination of economic openness, collective security and limits on militarized nationalism. Within that vision, later termed globalization, Washington assumed broad responsibilities: rebuilding Germany and Japan, opening the American market to their exports with minimal tariffs, and shaping a constitutional order that restricted their ability to undertake military action while anchoring pacifism as a core principle. Against this backdrop, the current friction between Trump and U.S. allies is not incidental. It began early in the conflict with Iran, when Washington asked Germany and Japan to assist in operational activities in the Strait of Hormuz, including mine-clearing and securing shipping lanes. For the U.S. administration, this was a reasonable request within an alliance. For Berlin and Tokyo, it crossed constitutional and political red lines. Germany’s refusal was unusually public. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said, “This is not our war.” But it was Chancellor Friedrich Merz who escalated the confrontation, saying the United States was being “humiliated” by Iran. Trump responded sharply and directly, continuing to criticize the chancellor and writing on his Truth Social platform that he “should spend more time ending the Russia-Ukraine war.” He added: “He should spend more time fixing his broken country, and he should spend less time interfering with those who are getting rid of the Iranian nuclear threat.” The friction is no less acute in Asia. In March 2026, a political crisis erupted in Tokyo after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi refused Trump’s request to send naval forces and mine-sweeping vessels to the Strait of Hormuz. At a White House meeting on March 19, Takaichi made clear that Japan would assist where it could but would not exceed the limits imposed by its pacifist constitution. The refusal angered the White House and stirred domestic upheaval in Japan, where lawmakers from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party warned the move could jeopardize the American security umbrella and even trigger economic retaliation. Trump anticipated this. More than a decade ago, long before the current crisis, he pointed to the gap between U.S. commitments and what he saw as a lack of reciprocity from allies, saying: “You know about our military, everybody talks about our military budget, but they don’t understand we’re taking care of Germany, probably nobody even knows that. We’re taking care of Japan — you know, we have a defense treaty with Japan. If we’re attacked, Japan doesn’t have to help us, and if Japan is attacked, we’re in World War III. We have a war now. What kind of deal is that?” Meanwhile, Berlin is engaged in a dual and even contradictory process. On one hand, political hesitation and a reluctance to be drawn into a confrontation with Iran alongside the United States. On the other, an unprecedented acceleration in military preparedness. The term Zeitenwende — meaning “historic turning point” or “epochal shift” — describes Germany’s attempt to change strategic direction. Accordingly, Germany is investing billions in upgrading logistical infrastructure, including adapting ports such as Bremerhaven to handle heavy tank transport. At the same time, deals are being considered to convert civilian factories, such as Volkswagen facilities, to defense production, including cooperation with Israeli companies. Yet the gap between declarations and actual readiness remains wide. Germany faces significant challenges in building its military strength, chief among them manpower shortages, difficulties in recruitment and a lack of full preparedness for large-scale conflict scenarios. Discussions about reinstating conscription and improving operational readiness underscore how far the process is from completion. This is compounded by a quieter but potentially more significant shift. As of April 1, an amendment to German law took effect with little public attention, requiring millions of men of service age to obtain government approval to travel abroad for more than three months. The implications go far beyond a technical change. Viewed in context, the measure strengthens the state’s ability to control its manpower in an emergency, even if it is still framed in softened bureaucratic language. Here the paradox sharpens: Germany is preparing for a future confrontation with Russia and investing vast resources toward that end, yet hesitates to take part in the current confrontation alongside the United States. It is trying to build capabilities, change laws and prepare infrastructure, but is still not politically or operationally ready to enter real-time friction. Within this context comes Trump’s decision. The withdrawal of 5,000 troops may appear limited, but it is a clear signal. A full withdrawal would require congressional approval, but a significant reduction is within presidential authority. As such, this is likely only a first step. For Trump, the equation is simple: if allies do not act when asked, there is no reason to continue providing them with a full security umbrella. Germany and Japan are seen as benefiting from the system without sharing the burden. The implications extend far beyond troop deployments. This is a deep crack in the order established since Bretton Woods. But unlike past crises, this is not an external challenge — it is erosion from within. If Germany and Japan continue to benefit from the U.S. security umbrella while refusing to act when called upon, and if the United States itself begins to question the value of the system it created, then this is no longer a localized crisis but a change in the rules of the game. Trump’s drawdown in Germany may involve only 5,000 troops, but it is likely just an initial phase in a broader process. Its significance is far greater: it is an opening shot in a reassessment of the very U.S. commitment to the world order it built. In that vacuum, there are also beneficiaries. For Russian President Vladimir Putin, any rift between Washington and Berlin is a strategic gain, one that weakens NATO from within. In Asia, the widening gap between the United States and Japan offers Chinese President Xi Jinping a similar opportunity — to test how durable American alliances are at a moment of truth. If this is the direction, Europe and Japan may soon discover that the world they have relied on is no longer what it was, and that the era in which the United States served as a stable and unquestioned anchor is steadily eroding. Dr. Kobi Bardah, HIT Holon Institute of Technology (multidisciplinary school) and senior researcher at the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) message hkm2nlur11l Analysis: Iran strikes the UAE and Oman to protect its final bargaining chip, as a clash with US forces could endanger the regime — and Israel may be next Ron Ben-Yishai https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/05/04/SkgmpVrIA11x/SkgmpVrIA11x_0_0_1280_720_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/hkm2nlur11l Tue, 05 May 2026 00:52:49 +03:00 The Iranians, like a wounded animal, launched a missile and drone attack Monday evening on the United Arab Emirates and the Omani capital. Alongside attacks on ships and tankers in the Gulf, this appears to be only the beginning. Senior Revolutionary Guards officials may not be done, and Israel must prepare for the possibility that its home front could soon become a target. Against the backdrop of recent events, Tehran appears to have understood that if the U.S. succeeds in even partially reopening the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, Iran will lose not only its main and only bargaining chip in negotiations — its leverage over the global energy market — but also suffer a humiliation that could threaten the regime’s survival. Iran understands that Trump has declared “Project Freedom,” which began Monday after the U.S. used the ceasefire to build up a massive naval, air and ground force facing southern Iran and the Strait of Hormuz. That force gives U.S. Central Command decisive military superiority, including “soft” weapons, electronic warfare and cyber capabilities, in the strait and the Gulf of Oman. And not only military forces: During the ceasefire, the Americans also diligently gathered intelligence on the locations of naval mines laid by the Revolutionary Guards in the Strait of Hormuz and identified safe routes for commercial ships. U.S. Navy destroyers now stand between the Iranian coast and the vessels, ready to respond by all means to attacks against them. That includes missile-jamming systems, as well as U.S. Central Command reconnaissance aircraft and drones patrolling above the destroyers, detecting every launch and striking it. The same applies to speedboats, six of which the U.S. military says it has already sunk. In such a situation, the Iranians have no chance of succeeding in a confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz, which would almost certainly end with the destruction of Revolutionary Guards facilities and launchers along the nearby coasts and in southern Iran. That is why Tehran decided to strike the Gulf states, first and foremost the UAE, whose rulers openly encourage Trump to neutralize Iran’s nuclear and ballistic capabilities. The UAE leads opposition to Iran among the Gulf states, but Tehran has an almost unlimited ability to strike its oil facilities and ports, the source of its wealth. According to reports, the U.S. and Israel have recently worked to bolster the UAE’s missile and drone defenses, but its oil industry remains highly vulnerable to anything launched from nearby Iran. Given all this, it is reasonable to assume that the launches toward the UAE and Oman were only the beginning. Tehran understands that if it loses this campaign, and Trump’s economic siege on Iran continues, the regime’s survival will be in real danger in the foreseeable future. Iranian citizens will not remain indifferent to the combination of economic hardship and national humiliation, and sooner or later, they may take to the streets. message sjrelhsczg Opinion: Egypt is rapidly normalizing ties with Syria’s new leadership, despite its jihadist roots, as President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi prioritizes economic and strategic interests; it is a confession of strategic bankruptcy dressed up as statesmanship Amine Ayoub https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2014/11/05/5695485/5695485_1_0_640_360_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/sjrelhsczg Tue, 05 May 2026 03:30:57 +03:00 There is an irony buried inside the photographs of Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty sitting across from his Syrian counterpart Asaad al-Shaibani in Cairo this weekend so glaring that most regional commentary has carefully avoided naming it. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi built his entire political identity on a single foundational premise: that political Islam in power is an existential threat to the Arab state system. He came to power in 2013 by dismantling the Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohamed Morsi, designated that organization a terrorist entity, imprisoned or killed thousands of its members, and made counter-Islamism the organizing principle of every foreign policy decision he has taken since. Ahmed al-Sharaa, the man Sisi effectively endorsed when he exchanged warm pleasantries with him on the sidelines of a Cyprus summit last week, spent years leading Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an organization that grew directly from al-Qaida's Syrian franchise. Born in Riyadh in 1982, he founded Jabhat al-Nusra as an al-Qaida affiliate, formally broke with the organization in 2016, and rebranded through successive iterations until landing on HTS in 2017. He remained on the United Nations sanctions list until January 2025. Washington only removed his name from terrorism designations after his government was already a fait accompli on the ground. And yet here is Cairo, signing gas supply memoranda with Damascus, constituting a joint business council, and dispatching its foreign and industry ministers together to formalize the embrace. To call this pragmatism is too generous. What it actually represents is a test case for what scholars of political Islam are beginning to call "post-Islamism," the open question of whether movements rooted in jihadist ideology can genuinely transform into nationalist governing entities, or whether they adopt pragmatism tactically to reach and consolidate power before reverting. Sisi, of all people, has decided to bet on the former. Not from conviction. From fear of being left behind. Since Assad's government collapsed in December 2024, the competition to shape post-Assad Syria moved at a pace that left Cairo visibly and embarrassingly behind. Turkey, which backed the rebel factions that ultimately drove Assad out through deep intelligence coordination, arrived with existing relationships and leverage. Qatar brought financial firepower. The Gulf states moved quickly to stake economic claims. Cairo watched all of this while still processing its own anxieties about foreign fighters embedded within the new Syrian security structures, individuals whose networks extend toward Libya and Sinai. Reports indicate that secret security consultations between Cairo and Damascus preceded the ministerial meetings by weeks, an unusual sequencing that reveals Egypt conducting quiet due diligence before committing political capital. What Egypt wants from Syria is specific and material. It wants reconstruction contracts for Egyptian engineering companies that desperately need foreign markets as the domestic economy strains under debt and currency pressure. It wants the gas supply arrangement to function as regional infrastructure leverage. The joint business council announced simultaneously with Sunday's ministerial meeting, constituted on the Syrian side under Ghassan Karim and enabled by the gradual unwinding of Caesar Act sanctions, signals that Cairo insisted on economic substance alongside the diplomatic symbolism. What Egypt is offering Damascus in return is something more intangible but genuinely valuable: the legitimacy of the Arab world's most populous state, extended by a leader whose counter-Islamist credentials are unimpeachable. If Sisi can do business with al-Sharaa, the regional argument goes, then the jihadist question is settled. It is not settled. Assad's collapse simultaneously destroyed Iran's "Shia Crescent," severing Hezbollah's overland supply routes and leaving Tehran in its worst strategic crisis since the Iran-Iraq war. Al-Sharaa understands that any opening toward Iran ends his international legitimacy and invites Israeli military action. This structural reality is doing more to moderate Damascus than any genuine ideological conversion. Israel continues striking inside Syrian territory precisely because the new government cannot assert meaningful sovereignty over its own borders, a fact Cairo declines to name publicly while simultaneously condemning Israeli violations of Syrian sovereignty in its official statements. The economic incentives running through this relationship deserve sober scrutiny from Western capitals. The gas arrangements, the business council, the reconstruction contracts being discussed: all of these create material dependencies that will make it progressively harder for Egypt, the Gulf states, and eventually Europe to apply meaningful pressure on Damascus if al-Sharaa's government reverts toward repression or radicalism. Engagement is being structured in ways that reward the current performance of moderation without locking in its permanence. Al-Sharaa is being asked, in effect, to permanently kill the jihadist commander he once was in exchange for economic survival and international legitimacy. Whether that transaction is genuinely possible, whether the transformation is structural or theatrical, is the question on which Egypt's entire gamble rests. Sisi knows this better than anyone. He spent a decade building a career on the answer. He is betting the other way now anyway. And calling it diplomacy. Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. message sjvzfbucwe Analysis: Trump’s claim of victory over Iran is undercut as Tehran rejects key nuclear demands and talks stall; Hormuz risk rises, leaving US stuck between weak deal escalation or prolonged talks giving Iran time; Israel fears Iran retains nuclear capacity Eldad Shavit https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/03/22/HyLl0q6511x/HyLl0q6511x_0_120_1536_865_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/sjvzfbucwe Tue, 05 May 2026 04:58:36 +03:00 U.S. President Donald Trump has already tried to sell the world a narrative of victory over Iran. He has claimed Iran was defeated after its military power was destroyed, suggested Tehran understands it has no choice but to reach a deal and signaled that pressure has worked. But time and again, this narrative proves unsupported. Iran is not meeting Washington’s core demands on the nuclear issue, talks are not producing a breakthrough and the Strait of Hormuz has become a flashpoint where any incident could trigger broader escalation. This is Trump’s central problem: the longer the crisis drags on, the harder it becomes to present it as a clear success. If Iran was truly defeated, why is it not accepting U.S. nuclear terms? If it wants a deal, why is it refusing to give up elements of its capability that preserve a future nuclear breakout option? And if the U.S. is in control, why must it deal with stranded vessels, threats to freedom of navigation and the constant risk of maritime escalation? The nuclear issue is the core of the matter. From Trump’s perspective, any agreement that does not include a clear Iranian commitment not to develop nuclear weapons, effective limits on breakout capability and strict verification will not be sufficient. He may be able to declare a deal, but his critics would argue Iran has preserved most of its strategic assets and Washington has settled for managing the crisis rather than resolving it. From Iran’s perspective, giving up enrichment rights and key nuclear capabilities would be seen as surrender. It is therefore trying to buy time, preserve ambiguity and leave Trump caught between a partial deal and dangerous escalation. Here lies the Hormuz issue. The U.S. initiative to escort or guide vessels stranded in the strait is intended to signal control, responsibility and resolve. Trump aims to present it as a limited, perhaps even humanitarian step designed to free ships belonging to countries not directly part of the conflict. But in practice, it highlights how volatile the crisis is. A single incident, an Iranian warning that goes unanswered, damage to a vessel or a misinterpretation could turn a limited operation into a broader confrontation. Trump’s trap Trump does not want a wide escalation. A prolonged war with Iran, shocks to energy markets or a spiraling maritime conflict do not align with his pledge to avoid long wars. But withdrawal or a weak deal are also difficult options for him. After months of threats and victory claims, he cannot afford to appear as if Iran has stopped him. He therefore faces three bad options: 1. Accept a partial agreement that would look too weak. 2. Escalate militarily and risk a far more complex campaign. 3. Continue pressure and negotiations and allow Iran to buy time. Hormuz makes the dilemma more dangerous because it shifts the crisis from the diplomatic table to a theater where any mistake could force Trump into a decision he does not want to make. The key near-term risk follows from this. Even if Trump does not want a broad war, he may conclude that without additional military action he cannot break the deadlock. A U.S. strike against remaining elements of Iran’s nuclear program, infrastructure or maritime leverage could be seen in Washington as an attempt to restore deterrence, regain initiative and force Iranian flexibility in negotiations. But there is no guarantee such a move would achieve its goals. It could instead widen the conflict and give Iran an incentive to escalate in areas where it still retains response capability. And here begins Israel’s problem Trump’s dilemma directly affects Israel’s vital interests, even if they are not necessarily his focus. He is looking for a way to emerge from the crisis with a narrative of victory. Israel is primarily focused on two questions: whether Iran will retain enriched uranium and nuclear recovery capability, and what will happen in Lebanon while Washington seeks to prevent regional escalation. From Israel’s perspective, an arrangement that leaves Iran with significant enriched uranium, even under monitoring or restrictive language, could undermine a central objective of the campaign. The goal was not only to bring Iran back to the negotiating table but to deny it the ability to preserve a military nuclear option and recover quickly afterward. What may appear in Washington as a sufficient political achievement for Trump could be viewed in Jerusalem as strategically inadequate. This is compounded by Lebanon. As the U.S. administration focuses on stabilizing the Iran crisis, preventing escalation in Hormuz and achieving a diplomatic track it can present as a success, it may also pressure Israel to show restraint in the north. As a result, Israel could find itself constrained over time in addressing the Hezbollah threat precisely because Washington is trying to prevent another front. Ultimately, the crisis exposes a possible gap between U.S. “victory” and Israeli security. Trump has already declared victory. Now he must ensure reality does not unravel it without leaving Israel with a situation in which Iran retains its nuclear assets and Hezbollah benefits from Washington’s need to calm the region. Eldad Shavit is a senior researcher in the U.S. program at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), former head of the Mossad Research Department and assistant for assessment to the head of IDF Military Intelligence message rjd0qhhazl Opinion: Iran’s economic lifeline, not just its nuclear program, should be the focus, with Kharg Island and frozen assets at the center of the fight over the regime’s survival Mike Evans https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/04/24/r17JFNK6Zx/r17JFNK6Zx_0_142_3000_1689_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/rjd0qhhazl Mon, 04 May 2026 10:33:57 +03:00 “Follow the money” originated as a line from the 1976 film All the President’s Men. It was spoken by the character Deep Throat to Bob Woodward as a guide to solving the Watergate scandal. The principle remains true today. Everyone is focused on Iranian enrichment, and rightly so. But attention must also be placed on the money. The new wars of the 21st century The 9th President of Israel, the late His Excellency Shimon Peres, told me in the last century that the new wars of the 21st century would be economic wars, media wars, ideological wars, and proxy wars. America is fighting an economic war with Iran right now. The United States has done a trillion dollars’ worth of damage to Iran, but Iran has done two trillion dollars’ worth of damage to the U.S. economy, and likely ten to fifteen trillion dollars to the global economy. You can be sure Iran is watching the poll numbers for the midterm elections in November like a hawk, along with the impact the oil embargo is having on the world economy. Lessons from the hostage crisis Isser Harel, the founder of Mossad, Israeli intelligence, told me in his home on September 23, 1980, with senior advisor to Prime Minister Begin, Reuben Hecht, in the room, that when Ronald Reagan put his hand on the Bible, the hostages would be released. Jimmy Carter was actually ahead in the polls at the time, but Harel was predicting something astonishing. The moment Reagan put his hand on the Bible, my phone rang. It was Reuben Hecht saying, “Harel is a prophet.” What we did not know was what Harel knew. He knew Cyrus Vance was negotiating through the Algerians to buy back the hostages, offering one billion, two billion, then five billion. But on the morning of the inauguration, at 4:21 a.m., Jimmy Carter wire transferred 7.9 billion dollars from the Federal Reserve to the Bank of England to buy back the hostages. Iran has been playing this game for a very long time. Kharg Island: the regime’s lifeline The goose that laid the golden egg is Kharg Island, because Iran’s economy is totally tied to the billion barrels of oil it exports annually. Once Kharg Island is blockaded, the money will stop and the terror network will be bankrupt. The persecutors of the Iranian population, many of them, will quickly defect when they no longer get paid. The only way they can save themselves will be to join the protesters and oppose the regime. If the government is unable to pay the wages and bonuses of its security forces, its power will implode. The battle over frozen assets One of the major issues in the negotiations over the ceasefire has to do with Tehran’s frozen assets, which total more than 100 billion dollars. Sanctions have been imposed since 1979. On April 10, before the first round of ceasefire talks began in Pakistan, the Speaker of Iran’s Parliament, Mohammad Ghalibaf, said that Iranian revenues frozen in foreign banks must be released before any negotiations could begin. These assets have been frozen all over the globe. Japan is holding about 1.5 billion dollars, Iraq 6 billion, China 20 billion, India 7 billion, while countries like Luxembourg hold about 1.6 billion and Qatar about 6 billion. What would releasing the 100 billion dollars in assets achieve? It would throw a lifeline to the regime and undermine the hopes of the Iranian people to overthrow it. A final decision Iran’s economy is crumbling. Prices have risen 40 percent since the war began, and authorities are worried about making payroll. Donald Trump needs to deliver a death blow to Iran by blocking Kharg Island. There is no possibility that the United States can negotiate in good faith with these devils. Dr. Mike Evans has written 120 books and is a #1 New York Times bestselling author. He is the founder of the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem, the ten Boom Museum in Holland, and Churches United with Israel, the largest Christian Zionist network in America, with more than thirty million followers. message sjzfkjbrwx Analysis: Israel’s bid to rein in medical cannabis marks a sharp reversal after years of rapid growth, but politics, patients and a powerful market could make reform difficult Adrian Pilot, Calcalist https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2020/02/19/9794867/9794867_0_0_4288_2414_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/sjzfkjbrwx Mon, 04 May 2026 07:47:05 +03:00 A decade after Israel opened the door to medical cannabis with the stated goal of easing patients’ suffering and integrating it as a therapeutic tool, the country finds itself in a very different place: one of the world’s most active and expansive cannabis markets, with features that resemble a loosely regulated consumer market more than a health care system. The Health Ministry identified the developments in real time and decided to act. The recommendations of the committee examining trends in cannabis treatment, headed by Dr. Gilad Bodenheimer, head of the ministry’s mental health division, were submitted to Director General Moshe Bar Siman-Tov. At their center is a phased ban on smokable cannabis within three years. This is not a technical update. It is a fundamental change in approach and an explicit attempt to “hit the brakes” on a worsening trend. The recommendations touch on a wide range of areas, but the central message is clear: The medicalization process launched in 2016, and still viewed skeptically by senior ministry officials, has lost direction. The numbers make that clear. According to New Frontier Data’s 2025 global report, more than a quarter of Israelis ages 15 and older, 27%, reported using cannabis with a high THC concentration. THC is the main psychoactive compound in cannabis. That is the highest rate in the world, above Canada, the United States and Jamaica. At the same time, the number of medical cannabis licenses jumped from about 33,000 when the medicalization reform was launched to about 140,000 in 2024 — a fourfold increase in about a decade. Usage patterns point to conduct that is not necessarily therapeutic: About 62% of patients consume more than 30 grams a month; about 88% of licenses are for high-THC products; about 87% of patients consume cannabis by smoking; and about 98% of licenses involve that form of use — precisely the form that worries the Health Ministry. The data also show that about 85% of consumption is through licenses, rather than prescriptions, mainly for pain, post-traumatic stress disorder and “other” indications. Consumption skews male and is especially prominent among people under 45. A normalization process that moved too fast Alongside the surge in consumption, a broad industry has also been built. According to the same report, Israel’s medical cannabis market was estimated at about $159 million, with a forecast of about $327 million by 2025. Total spending on cannabis, legal and illegal, was estimated at about $7.4 billion. From 2020 to 2025, Israel was among the world’s largest cannabis importers, alternating with Germany. The report described Israel as the most developed medical cannabis market outside North America, with a penetration rate of about 1% — 10 times that of leading European countries such as Germany and Luxembourg. At the Health Ministry, officials fear that a psychoactive substance underwent a normalization process too quickly, without the health care system building treatment protocols, training systems or oversight mechanisms around it. Policy also played a role: In Israel, medical cannabis costs less than cannabis on the black market, turning the license into an economic and cultural channel, not only a therapeutic one. The prescription reform of April 2024, which eased purchase routes, together with price gaps, accelerated demand. According to ministry officials, the trigger for tightening policy was the impact of the war: an expected sharp increase in the number of patients with PTSD and pain. Without intervention, ministry officials estimated, consumption could have doubled within several years — a scenario with significant health implications. The most dramatic recommendation is a phased ban on smokable cannabis within three years. There is no medicine in the medical world that is administered by smoking, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved any smoked product as medicine. In Canada, Germany and Australia, medical treatment forms include extracts, oils or inhalers. That is why the Health Ministry stresses, rightly, that Israel is a global anomaly. The committee recommends a full shift to other forms, with only a grace period for patients over 75 and terminally ill patients. The second recommendation, no less critical, is to transfer all medical treatment to the responsibility of Israel’s health maintenance organizations — a move that would turn cannabis into a drug “for real.” Diagnosis, approval, dispensing and follow-up would be concentrated within the patient’s insurer, without bypass routes, within one year. The third recommendation, and the most controversial, concerns PTSD. The committee recommends “extra caution” in approving cannabis for PTSD, in line with the positions of the FDA and Israel’s National Council for Post-Trauma. The document says the “long-term harm is proven, while the benefit has not been sufficiently proven.” Ultimately, the committee was driven by a medical consideration: Smoking is not a medical practice, and the accumulating evidence of health risks cannot be ignored. “It must not be forgotten that to this day there is no evidence of medical benefits,” a senior Health Ministry official said. Still, the ministry says patients will be able to receive cannabis for PTSD only “in severe states of distress involving lack of sleep, significant agitation and flashbacks,” and alongside proven treatment such as psychotherapy. The indication will not be canceled, but access to it will be significantly tightened. In a country emerging from a long war, that is a position requiring considerable professional courage. The fourth recommendation is systemic: Renewing prescriptions beyond six months would require an in-person follow-up with the recommending doctor and approval from an authorizing doctor. The goal is twofold — to stop doctor shopping and return clinical judgment to the center. The fifth recommendation includes a questionnaire to identify addiction risk at the start of any treatment, a “red flags” protocol and a protocol for ending treatment — because it turns out that patients who begin treatment almost never end it. Such tools are standard in treatments with addiction potential, but until now have been absent from Israel’s cannabis track. Finally, the committee recommends reducing dosages, lowering THC concentrations, providing financial incentives for safer products and training doctors at all levels in the field. It also proposes establishing an indications committee that would convene at least once every two years for systematic monitoring. Ultimately, this is a move by a health care system that understood an entire market had been built beside it over the past decade, without the institutional tools needed to supervise it. The 2016 reform was a reform of “relief,” born of a desire to help patients but also under public, political and economic pressure. The 2026 reform is a reform of “restraint,” the product of medical and factual pressure. The public did not demand it. The data and the regulator did. The logic of the recommendations is clear: Medicalization is not being canceled, but it is being significantly narrowed. Those who need treatment will receive it, but under a far stricter protocol. “Treatment will not be taken from those who need it, but it will be ensured that this treatment is given in the correct and safest way,” Health Ministry officials say. The principles of the reform — or “counter-reform” — are already clear, and Bar Siman-Tov is expected to approve the recommendations. But the real challenge is political approval and implementation. The health, social and economic drama also has a significant political dimension: Elections will be held in less than six months. More than 100,000 medical cannabis license holders constitute an electoral mass of their own, alongside their families, additional consumers and politicians who know how to identify a pool of votes. An announcement of a phased ban on smoking comes at an especially sensitive time, when coalitions tend to avoid steps that provoke public opposition. Add to that the tightening of indications for PTSD in a society still dealing with the effects of war, and the sensitivity only increases. That is why the Health Ministry’s move is bold, and why it will need political approval. Implementation itself is also complicated. Three years to stop marketing smokable cannabis is an aggressive timetable for a market in which 98% of sales are in flower form. Hundreds of thousands of patients, growers, pharmacies and regulators will be required to change patterns in an environment that has grown accustomed to almost unrestricted cannabis. When political and economic interests are added, the challenge becomes even greater. Still, if the recommendations are translated into actual implementation and are not eroded in prolonged discussions, Israel could carry out one of the sharpest transitions in the world — from a relatively soft market to a tightly supervised one, using the tools of the health care system. There is also what the document does not say. Two central issues are absent from the 46-page report. The first is leakage of cannabis from the medical market outside the therapeutic framework. When a patient buys 30 grams a month and medical cannabis is cheaper than the gray market, clear arbitrage is created. Some of the flower does not reach the registered patient, but moves to relatives, friends or a secondary market. The document does not estimate the scope of the phenomenon and does not offer a new oversight mechanism to prevent it. The second issue, even more troubling, is the 27% figure itself, which refers to people ages 15 and older. That means the world’s highest usage rate also includes teenagers. Exposure to THC at a young age does not align with medical use, and the neurological effect on the developing brain is well documented, especially up to age 25. These two issues — leakage and young age — are linked: The larger the medical market becomes, the larger the pool from which material leaks to populations that should not be exposed to it. The committee document focuses on the doctor, the patient and the prescription. It does not address the broader ecosystem that has formed around them, especially minors. That will be the next challenge. message byx00zmh0ze Analysis: Hamas is willing to discuss phased limits on heavy weapons but refuses full disarmament, leaving Trump’s Gaza plan stalled and Israel weighing renewed military action Ron Ben-Yishai https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2025/02/01/ByE8ISsOke/ByE8ISsOke_0_312_3000_1689_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/byx00zmh0ze Sun, 03 May 2026 22:36:50 +03:00 On the surface, the fighting in the Gaza Strip is stuck, much like the other war fronts where the United States and Israel are working together. In all of them, the Trump administration is trying, so far without success, to reach arrangements that would end the fighting. Israel has been forced to adjust its military and diplomatic moves to directives from Washington, largely because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying not to anger President Donald Trump and risk losing U.S. military and diplomatic support on the Iran front. But Gaza also poses problems of its own: the government is politically unable to make the decisions needed to close the file, and the IDF faces a serious shortage of combat manpower that limits its ability to meet war goals in Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank and Syria. A recent development on Gaza prompted plans for a Cabinet meeting, though Netanyahu has since canceled it. The issue appears to be the demand that Hamas and Islamic Jihad disarm, the main obstacle now blocking efforts to end the war and implement Trump’s 21-point plan. The development follows contacts in Cairo between Nikolay Mladenov, the commissioner of the “The Board of Peace,” U.S. envoy Rabbi Aryeh Lightstone and a Hamas delegation that arrived in Egypt in mid-April. According to Mladenov, the talks produced preliminary understandings that need urgent follow-up “so as not to lose momentum.” Officials familiar with the talks said Hamas is willing in principle to discuss partial, phased disarmament involving heavy weapons, such as missiles, rockets, medium and heavy mortars, anti-tank missiles, heavy machine guns, drones and possibly large explosive devices. But Hamas refuses to give up light weapons, including pistols, rifles, light machine guns, RPG launchers and grenades. According to the officials, each stage of heavy-weapons disarmament would require a parallel Israeli step, such as an IDF withdrawal or eased movement of goods and people into Gaza, so Hamas would not lose its leverage. Hamas says it refuses to fully disarm because its members and their families would be vulnerable to clan militias already acting against them with encouragement and assistance from the Shin Bet and IDF, as well as to revenge attacks by civilians who suffered under Hamas rule. It remains unclear where Hamas stands on Israel’s demand that it and Islamic Jihad hand over maps of their tunnel networks so they can be destroyed. The IDF has already destroyed many major combat tunnels, especially east of the “yellow line,” but hundreds of kilometers of tunnels are believed to remain in Hamas-held areas of central Gaza. It is also unclear whether Hamas would agree to hand over weapons-production equipment and explosives, or to exile its commanders from Gaza. Israel says Hamas’ maximum offer on disarmament remains far from Israel’s minimum demands. Other parts of Trump’s 21-point plan are also stalled. The multinational stabilization force has not been established, and the billions needed to fund, equip and deploy it have not been secured. Countries in Trump’s Peace Council have been slow to transfer promised funds, and money that has arrived is only partial. The Palestinian technocratic committee meant to manage Gaza is also not functioning. Three of the neutral Palestinian technocrats selected by Mladenov have already submitted resignations, saying they have not been allowed to work. Mladenov rejected the resignations, but Palestinian sources say the members are frustrated. The international stabilization force is also not moving forward. Indonesia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Turkey and others have agreed in principle to send troops, but Israel opposes Turkish participation. Other countries, led by Indonesia, are waiting for agreement on Hamas disarmament and funding. There are two developments Israel may view as positive. In municipal elections in Deir al-Balah, in Hamas-controlled territory, only 23% of eligible voters cast ballots, but Fatah won a decisive majority of seats. Polling by Khalil Shikaki also shows support for Hamas in Gaza falling from 70% after Oct. 7, 2023, to below 40% now, though support in the West Bank remains around 60%. For now, as long as Hamas is unwilling to meaningfully disarm and as long as international funding and backing remain insufficient, Trump’s plan remains on paper. Senior IDF officials say Israel must act. The October 2025 ceasefire halted the IDF maneuver under Operation Gideon’s Chariots B and left about 43% of Gaza under Hamas control. Hamas has used the situation to strengthen its rule over more than 2 million residents, most of them living in near-inhuman conditions in shelters in central Gaza. Hamas is willing for the “national committee” to take over civilian rule and handle health care, commerce, education and sewage. But it wants to remain, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the main armed force controlling Gaza from behind the scenes. The IDF does not intend to allow that. Two divisions and six brigade combat teams have recently been pushing the “yellow line” westward and increasingly targeting Hamas and Islamic Jihad officials, as well as terrorists who took part in the Oct. 7 massacre. But senior military officials say that is not enough. They argue Israel should use the fact that there are no longer Israeli hostages in Gaza to act with full force, through firepower and maneuver, to disarm Hamas and collapse its rule, even if it operates behind the scenes. Those officials also say that because the fighting in Lebanon is limited, forces are now available to operate in Gaza and finish the job quickly. But they acknowledge that any such move must take into account the exhaustion of reservists, without whom a major Gaza operation is impossible, while also maintaining readiness for Lebanon and a possible flare-up in the West Bank — not to mention the need for approval from the redhead in the White House. message sjl100krrzx Opinion: Iran believes time is on its side, using Hormuz and economic pressure as bargaining chips while Washington bets sanctions and military pressure will force a deal Dr. Haim Golovenzits https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/04/29/ryZmTYCJ0Ze/ryZmTYCJ0Ze_0_46_3000_1689_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/sjl100krrzx Sun, 03 May 2026 20:54:40 +03:00 The failure so far in talks between the United States and Iran is no surprise. Statements by both sides throughout the negotiations point to gaps that appear almost impossible to bridge, stemming from the cards each side believes it holds. Another violent round now appears nearly inevitable in light of Iran’s latest 14-point proposal, which again reflects its uncompromising positions. For Iran, the clock runs differently. Tehran believes its surprise move to close the straits has shaken the world and left the United States without a solution. After rounds of talks in Pakistan, Iran believes it holds significant cards that could lead to a U.S. strategic failure, despite the tactical successes scored by the United States and Israel. The Strait of Hormuz, which began as a bargaining chip, has become a strategic force multiplier equal in importance to the nuclear issue. The consequences of the closure are not limited to immediate damage to the economies of U.S.-allied Gulf states and to Iran itself. They extend to the global economy, especially Europe and Asia, which could face a severe aviation fuel shortage within weeks, with dramatic effects on aviation, air cargo, logistics and tourism. The natural gas sector is also expected to suffer major damage. Despite the U.S. naval blockade intended to punish Iran and collapse its economy, the straits are almost completely closed in all directions, with daily traffic averaging about 5% of prewar levels. Iran still holds another card: closing Bab el-Mandeb in the event of a U.S. ground attack on its territory. Iran’s staying power comes from long and active land borders, an active shadow fleet backed by Russia and China, dozens of tankers that appear to have breached the naval blockade, land routes allocated by Pakistan and plans to move oil to China by train. Just as important is the privilege reserved for dictatorships: violently suppressing any internal criticism over the dire economic situation. Iran is also well aware of the political timetable in the United States, the intense pressure on President Donald Trump to end the war, the domestic debate over the War Powers Resolution of 1973 and the administration’s request to increase the defense budget by $1.45 trillion. The United States, for its part, believes the economic shock will eventually bring Iran to its knees. Washington points to Iran’s oil storage problem, which could cause irreversible damage to oil fields, a daily economic loss of $500 million, severe damage to the steel and petrochemical industries, soaring inflation and unemployment, and war damage estimated at $250 billion. In Trump’s view, all of this will lead to the surrender agreement he seeks without forcing him to do what he should have done earlier: a limited ground invasion in goals and time. And so, while the United States believes time is on its side, Iran appears to believe the opposite. Another theory that will soon be tested is whether a split within Iran’s leadership is preventing a political agreement. In Washington, President Masoud Pezeshkian, Abbas Araghchi and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf are seen as members of the moderate camp. Opposite them are the hard-line “men of yesterday” associated with Mojtaba Khamenei and Ahmad Vahidi. The United States is convinced that eliminating the hard-liners would open the way to an agreement that includes Iran backing down on the nuclear issue and Hormuz. Given the constraints facing Trump, it is reasonable to assume that if Iran continues its defiance, he will choose a middle path: not carrying out threats to destroy energy facilities but further tightening the naval siege, alongside targeted killings of hard-line leaders and destruction of Iran’s “mosquito” fleet enforcing the closure of Hormuz. This concept is highly doubtful. The public rift in Iran’s leadership appears to be part of its negotiation tactics, meant to create confusion and uncertainty on the U.S. side and buy a few more weeks. In any case, even if there is a real split, the hand that signs a surrender agreement with Trump on the nuclear issue and Hormuz would quickly be cut off. Time is running out for the United States and Israel. Iran, though battered militarily, could still turn its military failure into a diplomatic achievement. Trump, as leader of the free world, must complete what he should have done long ago: a powerful ground operation to seize Kharg Island and force open the Strait of Hormuz. Once that is done successfully, Iran will crawl to Islamabad and hand Trump the buried uranium itself. Dr. Haim Golovenzits is a Middle East scholar and commentator message r1sor1sr11x Analysis: Bank of Israel faces a high-stakes choice: boost growth with a bold rate cut or avoid risking a weaker shekel and renewed inflation Gad Lior https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2025/11/24/B100SACZWbe/B100SACZWbe_0_0_850_479_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/r1sor1sr11x Sun, 03 May 2026 18:14:59 +03:00 The pre-election period is approaching quickly, and attention this month is expected to focus on one decisive move: the Bank of Israel’s interest rate decision, which could shape economic activity during the election campaign. When the Bank of Israel’s Monetary Committee convenes in the coming days ahead of its decision later this month, its members will face a significant question: whether to cut the interest rate on the 25th, not only by a quarter-point but possibly by half a point, in a show of determination aimed at giving the economy a positive shock after 31 months of war. After several months in which the interest rate has remained unchanged at 4.0%, calls are growing for Gov. Amir Yaron to “loosen the rope” and make a significant half-point cut. But the concern is clear: Inflation could flare up again after the holidays, when price increases often resume more strongly. Supporters of a cut say the base rate should fall to 3.5%, bringing the prime rate to 5.0%. They argue that small and midsize businesses have been hit hard by the prolonged war and high interest rates, with many struggling to survive and repay debts. A sharp rate cut would reduce financing costs and encourage investment needed for real growth. A rate cut could also help the housing sector by making it easier for contractors to restart stalled projects, increasing supply over the long term. Recent inflation figures show inflation within the target range, at 1.9% to 2.2%. When inflation is restrained, keeping rates high becomes an unnecessary burden, with a high real interest rate choking economic activity. Still, there are arguments against a cut. Lowering rates could weaken the shekel by making it less attractive to foreign investors. A depreciation against the dollar and euro would quickly raise the price of imported goods and could reignite inflation. Geopolitical instability also remains a major risk. Despite relative calm, the economy is still operating under a high risk premium, and any sudden security development could shake the markets. The government deficit is another concern. It remains relatively high, near 5%, and is expected to grow because of the continuing war in Lebanon. A successful move would ease mortgage payments for millions of households and breathe life into a business sector struggling under the weight of high interest rates and a war with no clear end. If it fails, however, the economy could face a renewed price spiral that would force more painful rate hikes later. That is the dilemma. Yaron must decide whether he prefers to be the defender of the shekel or the engine of the economy. A surprise half-point cut by the conservative governor would send a dramatic signal of confidence by the central bank in the economy’s strength, despite government inaction. message s1va6anaze Analysis: It's difficult to see a way out of deadlock in negotiations between the US and Iran: each side is confident that it can outlast the other, steps to escalation are already ready, and the leadership in Tehran refuses to reach agreements on the nuclear issue Dr. Raz Zimmt https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/05/02/yk14757320/yk14757320_0_97_1618_911_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/s1va6anaze Sun, 03 May 2026 18:47:09 +03:00 About nine weeks after the start of the Roaring Lion war, and about three weeks after the declaration of a ceasefire and the failure of negotiations between the U.S. vice president and the speaker of the Iranian parliament in Pakistan, the deadlock in contacts between the two countries continues, and it is hard to see whether and how a way out can be found. At this stage, it appears that neither side is prepared to give up its main bargaining chip: Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. naval blockade. Tehran’s control of the strait allows it not only to influence the global energy market, but also to exploit the war as an opportunity to turn its control there into a significant political and economic asset. Majles (Iranian parliament) member Mohammad-Taqi Naqdali expressed this view when he declared that the Strait of Hormuz is a key component of Iran’s bargaining power and that its importance even exceeds that of a nuclear bomb. From Washington’s perspective, the naval blockade allows it to continue exerting heavy pressure on Tehran without returning to military moves whose effectiveness, after weeks of fighting, is doubtful. Both countries still believe their capacity to endure exceeds that of the other side. U.S. President Donald Trump declared last week that Iran’s oil reserves are “going to explode soon,” but expert assessments indicate that Iran’s oil storage capacity is not expected in the short term to reach a level that endangers facilities, and even then it is doubtful whether the damage would be irreversible. Iran, meanwhile, can take encouragement from rising oil prices and reports of global difficulties in coping with the growing shortage of oil, fuel and other products such as fertilizers, aluminum and helium. At the same time, both sides believe additional escalation rungs are available to them. Trump has threatened renewed fighting and strikes on infrastructure and power plants, while Iran is threatening to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait through the Houthis and attack strategic targets in Gulf states. Even if a way is found to return to the negotiating table, it is doubtful whether a solution can be reached on the nuclear issue. Iran is currently refusing to discuss it, and has proposed opening the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for easing the naval blockade and ending the war, while postponing discussion of the nuclear issue to later stages. The proposal was rejected by Trump, who insists on resolving the nuclear issue as a condition for ending the war, including zero enrichment and removing highly enriched uranium from Iran. A unified rejectionist position Meanwhile, the new leadership in Tehran is stabilizing, despite contradictory reports about the health of leader Mojtaba Khamenei. Reports have recently increased about disagreements at the top of Iran’s leadership between more radical circles, including Revolutionary Guards commander Ahmad Vahidi, and more pragmatic circles such as parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and President Masoud Pezeshkian. Disagreements also characterized the Iranian political system under the elder Khamenei, but it can be assumed that Mojtaba Khamenei’s limited ability to exercise governing authority makes effective decision-making more difficult. Even if disagreements have emerged over negotiation policy, senior Iranian officials are presenting a unified rejectionist position in their public statements despite the continued deterioration of the economic situation. The Iranian currency this week reached a historic low of more than 1.8 million rials to the dollar, and the government is considering expanded aid, including electronic food vouchers and aid packages for businesses hurt by the ongoing internet restrictions. Nevertheless, for now there is no evidence of willingness by the leadership in Tehran to soften its positions, although it is clear that the economic crisis may at some point lead to renewed protests. Moreover, even if they resume, it is doubtful whether the security forces have lost their ability and determination to brutally suppress demonstrators, as they did at the height of the protests in January 2026. Iran is approaching the moment of decision, when, as in 1988, its leadership will have to choose whether to “drink the poisoned chalice” and agree to far-reaching compromises. Back then, Khomeini decided in favor of a ceasefire with Iraq after eight years of war under the influence of politicians who warned that the economy was on the verge of collapse, despite opposition from the Revolutionary Guards. Today, when many of those who served as commanders in the Revolutionary Guards in the late 1980s play a central role in the leadership, it is doubtful whether Ghalibaf and Pezeshkian are strong enough to exert similar pressure, and it is not clear whether the current leader is capable of such a decision. Meanwhile, Iran continues to hold significant nuclear capabilities. Its refusal to discuss the nuclear issue may strengthen the assessment that its current leadership views preserving these capabilities as a vital means of obtaining nuclear weapons. The war appears to have strengthened the strategic logic of such a move, whether as a guarantee of the regime’s survival or as a deterrent against future attacks. Therefore, if no solution is found that leads to the removal of critical nuclear components from the country or their destruction, the regime, no longer committed to the concept of a nuclear threshold state, may try to break out to nuclear weapons despite the risks involved. Iranian commentator Mostafa Najafi, considered close to regime circles, stressed in this context that true nuclear deterrence requires actually possessing such weapons. At the same time, Iran renewed its efforts to rebuild its missile array, and IDF assessments indicate that without an arrangement, it could once again accumulate thousands of missiles within a few years. Some in Israel believe the current status quo is the preferred solution, since economic pressure may soften Iran’s positions, while an agreement would involve sanctions relief that would give it a lifeline. But this assessment ignores two main factors: First, there is serious doubt whether the current situation can continue for long, given the danger of escalation and the growing economic cost to all sides. Second, the current situation means Iran continues to preserve its nuclear capabilities and rebuild its missile array, thereby increasing the risk of a breakout to nuclear weapons and a renewal of fighting under more difficult conditions in the future. Dr. Raz Zimmt is director of the Iran and Shiite Axis Program at the Institute for National Security Studies message ryhnmv4a11x Opinion: A direct line connects the Strait of Malacca, Abu Dhabi’s presidential palace and Anthropic’s headquarters; three events in the past week show how a new world order is taking shape before our eyes Jonathan Adiri https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/04/30/yk14754159/yk14754159_0_194_638_359_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/ryhnmv4a11x Sun, 03 May 2026 05:59:36 +03:00 Every day, the headlines announce breakthroughs on the scale of historic turning points that have brought broad geopolitical changes in their wake. History punishes those who follow the beaten path and those who fail to identify change in time. For us Israelis, in the eye of the storm and at the bleeding spearhead of change, it is hard to connect the dots. Fear of the next siren, the national trauma of the seven-front war and preparations for the approaching elections dull our senses and prevent us from seeing the big picture. Three events that took place last week illustrate the depth of the change. AI giant Anthropic refused to release its most advanced model, named Mythos, to the public. The reason: It was too good. The model demonstrated autonomous offensive cyber capabilities and even showed an ability to “lie” to its testers in order to evade control mechanisms. Company engineers locked it behind digital bars and invited technology partners to use it defensively in a secure framework. The dramatic decision echoed on Wall Street, in Washington and in Beijing. Imagine that a company owned by the Chinese Communist Party had achieved such a breakthrough. Would it, too, have informed the world of the dangers and invited the best minds to think together? COVID has already answered that question. In recent months, the U.S. administration has released a series of position papers — the White House national security strategy, “Artificial Intelligence and the Great Split,” written by the president’s economic advisory team, and a Pentagon document that moved the AI division into “war mode” — treating the turning point as a real arms race. The six American tech giants are expected to invest more than $600 billion this year in AI infrastructure. Until now, every technological revolution in human history began its impact with blue-collar workers and climbed up the skills ladder. The steam engine, electricity, the tractor, the robot — the blue collar always came first. This revolution is the first to reverse the order: It begins with the bright white collar, for now spares the blue collar and even creates a relative advantage and wage growth for it. Drops of tens of percent in market value The impact of the new models on Israeli cloud companies is dramatic. Major employers in the economy — Fiverr, Lemonade, Wix, Monday — are suffering drops of tens of percent in market value. Cyber companies are on the same path. The strengthening of the shekel intensifies the risk. Are these the first signals of an exciting reinvention of Israeli high tech? The Abraham Accords opened the door to a regional coalition between Israel and the “moderate Sunni axis.” The crowning achievement was the normalization being formed with Saudi Arabia even before October 7. The Iranian attack on the Gulf states, the apparent failure of the Saudi crown prince to establish his Vision 2030 and the knife in the back of Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed signal that Saudi Arabia is not moderate at all and is not fit to serve as the eastern axis of Israel’s regional strategy. This week, Axios reported that at the beginning of the current campaign with Iran, Netanyahu and the Emirati president held a conversation that led to the first-ever shipment of Iron Dome batteries to defend the skies of an Arab country. It can be assumed that Israeli teams flew to train their counterparts and connect the batteries to the detection systems of the Israeli Air Force and U.S. Central Command. Bin Zayed understands that he is at a formative moment for the nation he leads. Since the ceasefire, he has withdrawn from the OPEC oil cartel, of which Iran is also a member; announced a plan to adapt 50% of government services to AI agents; invested $2.3 billion in rail infrastructure in Jordan; and locked in a 30-year ownership contract for the Port of Aqaba. At the same time, Abu Dhabi cut off a multibillion-dollar credit line to Pakistan, and the Emirati president’s national security adviser declared that “Iran has proven it is an enemy.” The absence of Emirati-Saudi reconciliation after the fighting subsided points to the essential difference between Abu Dhabi and Qatar, Saudi Arabia and all the rest. The alliance between India, the Emirates and Israel — the Indo-Abraham alliance — is expected to deepen. ‘China’s great dilemma’ Former Chinese President Hu Jintao called the Strait of Malacca “China’s great dilemma.” He knew that if his country did not control the vital strait, it would be exposed to extortion. Twenty years later, the strait through which about 30% of global seaborne oil trade, 40% of total maritime trade and 90% of China’s seaborne oil imports flow is undergoing dramatic change under the influence of developments in the Strait of Hormuz. As soon as the Iranian blockade began, Singapore’s active foreign minister — whose country operates the most advanced port in the Malacca area — voiced strong opposition to any surrender to Iran. He understood that the collection of transit fees by the two giants surrounding it — Indonesia and Malaysia — would severely damage Singapore’s economic future. On April 7, China and Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution on protecting commercial shipping in Hormuz. The Americans identified an opportunity and moved to complete years of negotiations on a defense agreement with the world’s largest Muslim country, which controls the Strait of Malacca — Indonesia. On April 13, the U.S. secretary of war signed a “principal defense partnership” with his Indonesian counterpart. The agreement includes joint development of “advanced asymmetric capabilities,” autonomous maritime and underwater systems, special forces training and joint military maintenance. The critical clause: unlimited air transit rights for the U.S. Air Force in Indonesian skies. This will dramatically shorten American response times in the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the Indian Ocean, and allow it to enforce freedom of maritime trade from the air. Add Japan to the picture. New Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who won a sweeping majority in the elections, is working to fulfill her promise to amend Article 9 of the constitution, which imposes a pacifist position on Japan. Japan’s defense budget jumped this year to a historic high of $58 billion. This week, Takaichi authorized local companies to export advanced military technologies, based on her declaration that “a Chinese blockade of Taiwan threatens Japan’s existence.” Tokyo has also begun deploying long-range missiles capable of striking targets on Chinese soil, and after the prime minister’s visit to the White House, it was agreed to deepen the joint forces headquarters around the U.S. Seventh Fleet, which includes about 60,000 American troops at 120 facilities on Japanese soil. The symmetry is clear: Hormuz is fortified from the west. Malacca is fortified from the east. The first island chain — the Kuril Islands, Japan, Okinawa, Taiwan and the Philippines — is now under effective American control. It appears that the influential strategist in the administration and the Pentagon, Elbridge Colby, is getting to implement the organizing idea for another century of American supremacy that he outlined in his book 'The Strategy of Denial', preventing Chinese supremacy. message sykyeqzawl Opinion: AI was meant to reduce workload and free time, but evidence suggests the opposite; faster tools raise expectations, boost communication, and cut deep focus; not every tool that increases output actually improves quality of life Judith Katz‏ https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2025/08/28/BkuiWTaYgg/BkuiWTaYgg_0_0_1000_563_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/sykyeqzawl Fri, 01 May 2026 18:27:10 +03:00 AI was supposed to save us time. That was the promise: less manual work, fewer emails, fewer drafts, less time wasted on small tasks that consume the day. Finally, we would be able to work less, think more, be more creative and maybe even, forgive the strange phrase, rest. But it is worth remembering: this is not the first time technology has promised we would work less. Email was also supposed to save us time. Instead of letters, faxes and messages that never arrived, we got a remarkable tool that lets us send a message to anyone in the world in three seconds. And it did save time. But then something strange happened. The time we saved was not used to rest instead of waiting by the fax machine or going to the post office to collect mail. We started sending more messages, expecting faster replies and being more available. A tool designed to improve communication became a place where people spend half their lives inside an endless inbox. The smartphone was also supposed to free us. Everything in your pocket: maps, calendar, bank, camera, messages, work. What a life. And it did make us more efficient. It also made us permanently available. The AI era Now comes AI with the same old promise in a new form: this time we will really save time. For a long time, the biggest fear was that AI would replace us. Then came the idea that it would not replace us, but people who use AI would replace those who do not. That may be true. But perhaps the more immediate story is different: AI will not replace us tomorrow morning. It will simply raise the bar for what is expected of us by tomorrow afternoon. A friend told me something that made me laugh and then feel slightly uneasy: “I am now training AI at work to do my job.” That sentence captures the entire moment. On one hand, it is wonderful: a tool that helps turn personal knowledge into systems, reduce manual work, replicate skills and work smarter. On the other hand, what exactly is happening here? Am I teaching the tool to do what I do so I can do less, or so that from tomorrow I will be expected to do three times as much? But emerging data suggests the promise is not so simple. A report by the State of the Workplace 2026 from ActivTrak, an American company that analyzes digital work patterns in organizations, examined actual work activity of more than 163,000 employees across 1,111 organizations over more than 443 million working hours. The picture that emerged is almost the opposite of the promise: after adopting AI tools, people did not spend less time communicating, they spent more. Email time more than doubled, chat and messaging time jumped by nearly 2.5 times, and focused daily work time dropped by 23 minutes for AI users. It also found that continuous focus periods at work now average just 13 minutes and 7 seconds. 13 minutes That is roughly the time it takes to make coffee, open a document, remember why we opened it and then receive a message: “Can you also look at this?” Here lies the paradox. AI can indeed help us do things faster. But that does not mean we work less. If a report once took 10 days and now takes two thanks to AI, what happens to the eight days that were freed up? In a perfect world, we would be told: great, take eight days to think, rest, be with your children, go to the sea, read a book or simply stare at the ceiling like human beings who need a moment. But in the real world of work, that is usually not what happens. More often, we are told: great, now produce four more reports. The paradox of productivity We talk about “saving time,” but in practice the time saved does not always return to us. Often it returns to the system. It becomes more output, more demands, more standards, more tasks, more “while you are at it, can you also prepare a slide deck, an executive summary, a LinkedIn post, a client version and an English translation?” In other words, technology does not necessarily reduce work. It increases expectations. It does not always replace the human. Sometimes it simply teaches everyone to expect more from them. And to be honest, I am not writing this from the outside. I am using AI to write this article. It helped me shorten the time, correct errors, refine phrasing and remove unnecessary examples. A few years ago, this would have taken me twice as long. And that is truly amazing. But here is the question: because I finished faster, am I now going to rest? Probably not. I will likely move on to the next thing, answer more messages, prepare another lecture, squeeze something else into a day that was already full. And that is exactly the point. AI is not lying when it promises to save us time. It really does. The question is not whether time is saved. The question is where it goes afterward. What is it even worth getting done? There is almost a law of modern work: when we focus only on productivity, how to do more, faster and more efficiently, we almost always get more work, not more rest. Productivity asks: how much can we get done? But effectiveness asks a different question entirely: what is actually worth doing? Productivity asks how we finish it faster. Effectiveness asks whether it should be done at all. Productivity celebrates deleting 20 tasks from a list. Effectiveness quietly asks: why were those 20 tasks there in the first place? This is the difference that can save us in the AI era. If we use AI only to accelerate what we already do, we will get faster lives, not necessarily better ones. We will get more outputs, more versions, more emails, more meetings. We will get denser workdays with no breathing room, minds with no time to process, humans who become more efficient and more exhausted. And there is another issue: AI does not only shorten tasks. It also shortens the small gaps between them. Once, searching for a file took a moment. Formatting a document took a moment. Rewriting something took a moment. Waiting for a reply took a moment. Transferring something from one format to another took a moment. We did not call it rest, but the brain did get a gear shift. Now even those moments are disappearing. On one hand, it is amazing. On the other hand, if every freed second immediately turns into more work, we do not become freer. We become more machine-like. There is a solution So what is the solution? Not to stop using AI. These are extraordinary tools and they will only improve. The question is not whether to use them, but for what. The solution is to stop measuring success only by “how much time did I save?” and start asking: what am I doing with the time I saved? Does it become more work or recovery time? Does it get absorbed into more tasks or allow me to think better? Does it expand my to-do list or help me remove things that are not truly important? We all need to think carefully not only about how to adopt AI but also about how to protect ourselves from the acceleration it creates. Not everything that can be done faster should become the new standard. Not every freed-up minute needs to be filled. And not every tool that increases output actually improves quality of life. We will need to learn to use AI not only to get more done but to choose better. Because AI can help us write faster, summarize faster, plan faster and respond faster. But it cannot decide for us that our lives are not meant to be an endless race for more and more and more. That is still something we have to solve ourselves. And the important question of the coming years is not only whether AI will save us time. It is: when AI saves us time, who gets it? Judith Katz is an author, coach and lecturer specializing in positive psychology and practical, research-based psychology. She hosts the podcast “Thinking Well” and is the author of Thinking Well: Dare to Live the Life That Fits You. message syx11f9babl Opinion: Zionism was never inevitable but a product of debate and choice; as Israel faces divisions over conscription, religion and democracy, historical perspective shows multiple paths once existed, raising enduring questions about the state’s identity and future Guy Miron https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/02/15/HygZrIJOWx/HygZrIJOWx_0_180_800_451_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/syx11f9babl Fri, 01 May 2026 17:07:33 +03:00 Zionism never had a straight path. It did not emerge as a single, agreed-upon and clear idea but developed through disputes, compromises and competing possibilities that sought to offer solutions to the “Jewish question.” Precisely at this current Israeli moment, between the military draft crisis, political divisions and a public debate already turning toward the next elections, it is worth remembering that the realization of the Zionist idea was never inevitable but the result of choice. This discussion is not merely a historical exercise. It speaks directly to Israel in 2026. Israeli society is debating today not only policy but the very meaning and character of its shared project: the status of Judaism in the state, the nature of civic partnership and what binds together Judaism, sovereignty and democracy. The issue of military conscription reveals that the disagreement in Israel is not only about security but about the character of the state and the nature of Zionism itself. This is where historical research makes an important contribution. It reminds us that Zionism was not “the only solution” to the Jewish question and not the only path available to Jews at the end of the 19th century. Alongside the idea of establishing a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, other alternatives also existed: Jewish autonomy within existing states, Jewish nationalism in the diaspora, territorial solutions outside the Land of Israel and approaches that advocated full integration into the societies in which Jews lived. Even among those who supported the establishment of a state, different views developed regarding its character and purpose. Each of these options was seriously considered and each could have been realistic in its time. Zionism itself emerged from a turbulent and multi-directional Jewish reality. In the 19th century, processes of modernization, urbanization, mass migration and the disintegration of traditional communal structures shook the Jewish world and gave rise to the “Jewish question,” not only in terms of how Jewish life would look but how Jews could integrate into the modern world without losing their identity. Zionism was one answer to this question but not the first or the only one. Alongside it and before it came the movements of the Enlightenment, Reform Judaism, modern Orthodoxy and Jewish socialism, all of which sought to offer Jews a new path forward. Even the Land of Israel itself was not initially viewed as the exclusive destination. Zionism did not “invent” the Jewish connection to the land Looking further back, one can see that even before the organized Zionist movement there were settlement initiatives in the Land of Israel, early waves of immigration, Sephardic and Ashkenazi communities and local economic activity. Zionism therefore did not “invent” the Jewish connection to the land but reshaped it in national and political terms. The First Aliyah, later described as a pioneering revolution, is also presented as part of a broader continuum of Jewish migration rather than a definitive starting point. Within the Zionist movement itself, there was no consensus. Theodor Herzl saw Zionism as a clear political solution, while Ahad Ha’am sought a spiritual and cultural center that would serve most Jews who would continue living around the world rather than necessarily forming a state. The Uganda debate (refers to a significant 1903–1905 controversy within the Zionist movement over a British proposal—the British Uganda Programme—to offer a portion of East Africa as a safe haven for Jewish people fleeing persecution) demonstrated how contested the question of destination was, not only the path. The fact that the route that led to the State of Israel was ultimately chosen and succeeded does not make it the only possible one. This may be the most important lesson for Israel today. Even in the past, in moments of fear, division and uncertainty, it seemed as though there was no alternative. History teaches otherwise. Zionism has always been a framework of debate, not uniformity, of decision, not necessity. Precisely for this reason, even today it is legitimate and perhaps necessary to ask again not only how to defend the state but what kind of state we seek to defend. Prof. Guy Miron is a co-author of "Zionism - a New History: The Beginnings of Jewish Nationalism", published by the Open University’s Lamda Press, and an expert in modern Jewish history and the study of antisemitism at the Open University of Israel. message hyweuymcze Analysis: The emergence of FPV drones is reshaping the northern battlefield and could spread to other fronts, yet years of inaction have left Israel exposed — and now military leaders warn: defense alone is not enough, the rules must change Yossi Yehoshua https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/04/30/yk14756397/yk14756397_0_184_659_371_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/hyweuymcze Fri, 01 May 2026 12:02:35 +03:00 Consider a scenario that is not far-fetched: a Hamas terrorist cell from Ramallah receives a shipment of explosive FPV (first-person-view) drones through the porous border with Jordan, launches them and drops them on strategic sites in Jerusalem. Now multiply that scenario — from Tulkarem toward Bat Hefer, from Jenin toward farming communities in the region, and of course from Gaza toward Israeli communities near the border. These drones can be ordered online and easily fitted with explosives. Anyone who believes this is imaginary would be wise to wake up quickly. At present, there is no Iron Dome equivalent for drones — not from Rafael Advanced Defense Systems nor from any other entity worldwide — that provides protection comparable to that against rockets. As a result, alongside preparations for a renewed confrontation with Iran, Israeli defense officials are working to find a response to a growing threat that could reshape the battlefield. A country surrounded by hostile actors must now contend with a new reality: barriers and deployed forces can be bypassed, and at relatively low cost, swarms of drones can be launched deep into its territory. Explosive FPV drones guided via fiber-optic cables have recently emerged as one of the most prominent threats to Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, requiring rapid adjustments in operational and defensive tactics. These drones are controlled through a thin fiber-optic cable that transmits commands and video without using radio waves, making them immune to electronic warfare jamming. Their primary advantage is “electronic silence,” with no radio signature, significantly complicating early detection and interception. They can also operate at ranges of up to about 15 kilometers (9 miles) and carry explosive payloads, making them a precise, accessible and relatively inexpensive strike capability. In recent weeks, several incidents have been recorded in which Israeli forces were hit by such drones, including direct strikes on combat troops and evacuation teams. One such attack killed Golani Brigade soldier Liem Ben Hamo on Thursday. These incidents underscore a shift on the battlefield — from indirect fire threats to precise drone-based attacks. The Israeli military describes the threat as “complex and elusive” and is examining a range of possible responses, including optical detection systems, light radar and field alert mechanisms, alongside the development of advanced technological solutions. The emergence of fiber-optic drones, inspired by battlefields such as Ukraine, is changing the rules of engagement on the northern front and highlights a broader shift: relatively simple, low-cost tools can now challenge advanced military systems. This threat, notably, should not have come as a surprise. It was observed in the war in Ukraine, and its appearance here was widely anticipated. The only surprise is that it did not emerge earlier, during Operation Northern Arrows in 2024. In a meeting with the commander of the Galilee Division, Brig. Gen. Yuval Gaz, in early 2025, the primary threat presented — after Hezbollah’s Radwan force was pushed away from the border — was drones. Yet a solution has not been found. The more serious issue is a longstanding gap within the defense establishment, as this problem has not received sufficient attention over the years. Responsibility for that gap lies, in part, with outgoing Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar, who is set to step down at the end of the week. He will be replaced Tuesday by Maj. Gen. Omer Tishler, who received his rank only a day earlier. The Air Force has demonstrated an ability to operate deep inside Iran and Lebanon, carrying out complex campaigns and significantly damaging Hezbollah’s leadership and capabilities. However, its response to the drone threat has been less effective, despite notable improvement over the past two and a half years. In contrast, the failure to address the threat of drones operating within enemy territory is considered severe. Here, primary responsibility rests with the Ground Forces, where efforts to develop solutions are only now being significantly accelerated. Amid rising tensions along the northern border, senior Israeli military officials say restrictions on Israeli operations should be lifted and that forceful action should be taken against Hezbollah targets north of the Litani River. They argue that the supply chain of explosive FPV drones should also be targeted, alongside other Hezbollah assets, to create a “price tag” that will deter future launches. Within the military’s senior leadership, there is growing recognition that the response cannot rely solely on defense or point interception. Current assessments indicate that existing measures do not provide a complete solution, particularly given the difficulty of detecting and intercepting such threats in real time. “The current situation plays into Hezbollah’s hands — the rules must be changed,” officials said. While the Air Force has demonstrated impressive capabilities in long-range operations in Iran and Lebanon, its handling of the drone threat has been less effective. In contrast, the failure to address drones operating within enemy territory is seen as a serious shortcoming, with primary responsibility lying with the Ground Forces. message rk8noh11rbl Opinion: Shame, not sanctions, may be the decisive weapon against Tehran’s leadership; a cultural fault line, personal over personal pride, driving chaos at the top; from battlefield pressure to psychological warfare, a path toward internal collapse Rami Simani https://ynet-pic1.yit.co.il/picserver6/crop_images/2026/03/29/rytvppIsZg/rytvppIsZg_0_0_850_479_0_small.jpg https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/rk8noh11rbl Fri, 01 May 2026 08:50:08 +03:00 Who would have imagined that a concept once used by thoughtful voices on both sides of the political spectrum could accelerate—no less than—the fall of Iran’s brutal clerical regime. Since the beginning of the war, and contrary to many of my fellow commentators, I argue that Trump is not erratic at all, but rather coherent and consistent in his goal: the fall of the Iranian regime. And the ayatollahs themselves are providing the rope with which they will hang themselves. They do not disappoint. Their conduct in negotiations and in managing the war shows there is no pit they are unwilling to fall into. They fail to anticipate the next move by the United States and make the same mistakes over and over again. Meanwhile, on the path toward toppling the regime, Trump continues to emerge as a diplomatic meteor. He has managed to distance China, the United States’ number one rival and Iran’s ally, from the confrontation, while simultaneously leaving the Iranians, masters of deception, exposed and stripped bare. How does Trump manage to strip Iran of every economic and diplomatic advantage it once had? It seems he has developed a new approach within game theory, identifying the most critical cultural element in Iranian society. To the average Western ear, Trump sounds unpredictable and aggressive. But that is not the case. In game theory dialectics, if I may suggest, he is applying a tactic of “polite brutal unpredictability”, a mix of Eastern-style commercial cunning wrapped in Western elegance. Trump is destabilizing the Iranians and throwing them off balance. He is striking at the very core of their identity. Quite simply, he is shaming them. The Iranians, who developed an aggressive and threatening negotiation doctrine that worked so effectively against Presidents Obama and Biden, continue, foolishly, to use the same strategy against him: “Hold us back,” they tell the American delegation, “before we pull out our ace card that will destroy the world.” But Trump responds, time and again: “Go ahead. Pull it.” And after being battered militarily by the most powerful forces in the world, the United States and Israel, they have no card left to play. Completely exposed. The advantage of stripping an enemy like the Iranian ayatollahs bare is that everyone can now see them. They are ashamed, and it drives them out of their minds. The political events around us blur what may be the greatest achievement of this war: the ayatollahs are at their most significant psychological breaking point. They are ashamed. And therefore, they are not functioning. Even those who wish them well, the Turks and the Qataris, who seek to preserve the axis, understand that this is the beginning of the end of the Iranian regime. They are begging them to come to negotiations, to save them from themselves. But even that, the ayatollahs are no longer capable of doing. They fail to show up to talks in Islamabad because, in their own eyes, they are naked. None of them can bear the shame. It is no coincidence that they cannot even agree on who should attend negotiations, or that they send proposals that make them look ridiculous even in the eyes of mediators. The chaos in Iran is complete. I would like to propose an out-of-the-box strategy to ensure that this cruel regime ultimately ties the noose around its own neck. The ayatollahs will never break from sanctions or economic pressure, no matter how severe. As far as they are concerned, the population can starve. They are focused on personal survival. Let Iran burn, as long as they survive, they will restart the jihad we have stopped. The only thing that will break them mentally and lead to violent internal conflict is damage to their personal honor. Not national pride, but personal honor. This is what the West does not understand. National honor does not interest them. When speaking about Iranian honor, one speaks only about personal honor. Military pressure and bombardment will likely resume soon. The United States already has four aircraft carriers in the region, and Israel has replenished its stockpiles. Based on the facts, it appears the gates of hell may soon open on the ayatollahs. But this time, to bring about the final collapse of the regime, military pressure must be combined with psychological shock and fear, messages of humiliation and shame directed at the Iranian leadership. A large-scale campaign aimed at shaming the fragile new leadership of the Revolutionary Guards will further undermine their already shaken confidence, intensify internal conflict, and lead quickly to violent internal conflict, and from there, to the collapse of the regime. This is exactly the direction the Israeli Mossad understood from the very beginning of the war. Let us explain. Iranian culture is a “shame culture.” It revolves around the question: “What will others say about me?” This stands in contrast to Western-Jewish culture, which revolves around “How do I feel after I made a mistake?” and how one corrects it. In Western-Jewish culture, if you make a mistake, correction is immediate. It is between you and God, and between you and the person you harmed. Your conscience troubles you. You apologize, you fix what you did, and you move on. It is contained and personal. In Iranian culture, similar to Japanese kamikaze culture, everything is exposed. If you make a mistake, you stand alone before the entire world. There are no boundaries. Everyone sees you. The first to identify this phenomenon was American anthropologist Ruth Benedict, who studied it, especially in Japan, at the request of U.S. intelligence during World War II. She introduced the concept of “shame culture” to the world. In a shame-based society, conscience does not torment a person, only personal honor does. How one appears to others. If a person loses honor because of a mistake, there is no redemption. Shame consumes them. This is why the ayatollahs do not care about Iranian casualties. What matters to them is how they appear externally. There is no conscience—only public shame. It is overwhelming and inescapable. This is exactly where the ayatollahs are now. They have failed in every scenario. Their boasts about the strength of the revolution and their supposed superiority over the “barbaric” Americans and Israelis have shattered. They are completely humiliated. This is the root of the deep internal disputes among them. They are beginning to unravel. A campaign of shame will work because Iranian society has strict codes of honor unlike anything in the West. We cannot fully understand it—but it works on them. Central to this are concepts like ABRU and SHARAF, both tied to personal honor in the most extreme sense. The harshest insult an Iranian can deliver is BI-SHARAF, meaning “without honor.” Take away a person’s ABRU, and they have no reason to live. Even these concepts fall short of the peak of Iranian honor culture: TAHAROF. TAHAROF is a complex and often surreal system of social etiquette, combining a strong desire for something with repeated declarations that one does not want it, while the other side must persist in offering it again and again. All of this serves one purpose: to avoid shame. It sounds absurd. In reality, it is even more extreme. A widespread and strategic use of Iran’s “shame culture” can push its leadership into making repeated mistakes that weaken the regime’s grip. It is not enough on its own, but it is a powerful additional tool that should be used at scale. Take one example that also answers critics of Israel’s Mossad: the agency fully exploited this “shame culture” dynamic. This is how Khamenei was brought down. They shamed him. They shattered his ABRU. During the operation, Iran’s leader spent his time hiding in a bunker. At the end of the operation, mocking nicknames spread rapidly online, calling him “Ali the mouse.” These posts reached millions. His honor was publicly humiliated. Driven mad by shame, Khamenei decided to prove he was not a mouse, but a lion. He refused to continue hiding. He would show Trump. Restored in his sense of honor, he chose to remain in the presidential compound and forced Iran’s senior leadership to gather there with him. That exceeded expectations of the Mossad. That is where they were all eliminated. Lions, reduced to a pile of bones. message